It was a century or more after the events narrated in the last chapter before any attempt was made to establish a colony in America, or before civilization got any permanent foothold.
In 1606 a certain “London company” got out a patent on Virginia, and the next year sent over a ship-load of old bachelors to settle its claim. They landed at Jamestown in the month of May, and here the wretched outcasts went into lodgings for single gentlemen.
The whole country was a howling wilderness, overrun with Indians, wild beasts and Jersey mosquitoes.
These hardy pioneers had come to an unexplored region with a vague, general idea that they were to dig gold, trade with the Indians, get enormously rich and return home. So sanguine were they of speedy success that they planted nothing that year. The few sandwiches they had brought with them were soon consumed, the gold did not “pan out,” the Indians drove very hard bargains, offering a ready market for hair, but giving little or nothing in return.
A BUSINESS TRANSACTION.
To make matters worse, the Fevernager, a terrible disease of the period, got among them, and by fall only a handful of the colonists remained, and these were a very shaky lot indeed, with not clothing enough among them to wad a shot-gun.
Among this seedy band was one John Smith, who, being out of funds himself, and a public spirited person withal, saw that unless provisions could be obtained shortly, the scheme of colonizing America would be a failure.
