You can see by the story, that the London Company had set for Captain Newport a very great task when they commanded him to do what so many people had failed in before him.
And now out of that story of the lost colony, as Master Hunt told Nathaniel and me, grows another which also concerns us in this new land of Virginia.
You will remember I have said that Master Ralph Lane was the governor of the first company of people who went to Roanoke Island, and, afterward, getting discouraged, returned to England. Now this Master Lane, and the other men who were with him, learned from the Indians to smoke the weed called tobacco, and carried quite a large amount of it home with them.
Not only Sir Walter Raleigh, who knew Master Lane very well, but many other people in England also learned to smoke, and therefore it was that when we of Jamestown began to raise tobacco, it found a more ready sale in London than any other thing we could send over. Once this was known, our people gave the greater portion of their time to cultivating the Indian weed.
THE CROWNING OF POWHATAN
Very nearly the first thing which my master did after having been made President of the Council, was to obey the orders of the London Company, by going with Captain Newport to Powhatan's village in order to crown him like a king.
This was not at all to the pleasure of the savage, who failed of understanding what my master and Captain Newport meant, when they wanted him to kneel down so they might put the crown upon his head. If all the stories which I have heard regarding the matter are true, they must have had quite a scrimmage before succeeding in getting him into what they believed was a proper position to receive the gifts of the London Company.
Our people, so Master Hunt told me, were obliged to take him by the shoulders and force him to his knees, after which they clapped the crown on his head, and threw the red robe around his shoulders in a mighty hurry lest he show fight and overcome them.
It was some time before Captain Smith could make him understand that it was a great honor which was being done him, but when he did get it through his head, he took off his old moccasins and brought from the hut his raccoon skin coat, with orders that my master and Captain Newport send them all to King James in London, as a present from the great Powhatan of Virginia.