CHAPTER IV
GLOOM IN VIRGINIA
(1608-1617)
When Newport arrived with the "Second Supply," September 29, 1608, he brought little relief. His seventy passengers, added to the number that survived the summer, raised the population at Jamestown to about one hundred and twenty. Among the new-comers were Richard Waldo, Peter Wynne (both added to the council), Francis West, a brother of Lord Delaware; eight Poles and Germans, sent over to begin the making of pitch and soap ashes; a gentlewoman, Mrs. Forrest, and her maid, Anne Burras, who were the first of their sex to settle at Jamestown. About two months later there was a marriage in the church at Jamestown between John Laydon and Anne Burras,[1 ] and a year later was born Virginia Laydon, the first white child in the colony.[2 ]
The instructions brought by Newport expressed the dissatisfaction of the council with the paltry returns made to the company for their outlay, and required President Smith to aid Newport to do three things[3]—viz., crown Powhatan; discover a gold-mine and a passage to the South Sea; and find Raleigh's lost colony. Smith tells us that he was wholly opposed to all these projects, but submitted as best he might.
The coronation of Powhatan was a formality borrowed from Sir Walter Raleigh's peerage for Manteo, and duly took place at Werowocomoco. Powhatan was presented with a basin, ewer, bed, bed-cover, and a scarlet cloak, but showed great unwillingness to kneel to receive the crown. At last three of the party, by bearing hard upon his shoulders, got him to stoop a little, and while he was in that position they clapped it upon his head. Powhatan innocently turned the whole proceeding into ridicule by taking his old shoes and cloak of raccoon skin and giving them to Newport.
To seek gold-mines and the South Sea, Newport, taking all the strong and healthy men at the fort, visited the country of the Monacans beyond the falls of the James. In this march they discovered the vein of gold that runs through the present counties of Louisa, Goochland, Fluvanna, and Buckingham; but as the ore was not easily extracted from the quartz they returned to Jamestown tired and disheartened. The search for Raleigh's lost colony was undertaken with much less expense—several small parties were sent southward but learned nothing important.
In December, 1608, Newport returned to England, taking with him a cargo of pitch, tar, iron ore, and other articles provided at great labor by the overworked colonists. Smith availed himself of the opportunity to send by Newport an account of his summer explorations, a map of Chesapeake Bay and tributary rivers, and a letter in answer to the complaints signified to him in the instructions of the home council. Smith's reply was querulous and insubordinate, and spiteful enough against Ratcliffe, Archer, and Newport, but contained many sound truths. He ridiculed the policy of the company, and told them that "it were better to give £500 a ton for pitch, tar, and the like in the settled countries of Russia, Sweden, and Denmark than send for them hither till more necessary things be provided"; "for," said he, "in overtaxing our weake and unskillful bodies, to satisfie this desire of present profit, we can scarce ever recover ourselves from one supply to another." Ratcliffe returned to England with Newport, after whose departure Smith was assisted for a short time by a council consisting of Matthew Scrivener, Richard Waldo, and Peter Wynne. The two former were drowned during January, 1609, and the last died not long after. Smith was left sole ruler, and, contrary to the intention of the king, he made no attempt to fill the council.[4 ]
The "Second Supply" had brought provisions, which lasted only two months,[5 ] and most of Smith's time during the winter 1608-1609 was occupied in trading for corn with the Indians on York River. In the spring much useful work was done by the colonists under Smith's directions. They dug a well for water, which till then had been obtained from the river, erected some twenty cabins, shingled the church, cleared and planted forty acres of land with Indian-corn, built a house for the Poles to make glass in, and erected two block-houses.
Smith started to build a fort "for a retreat" on Gray's Creek, opposite to Jamestown (the place is still called "Smith's Fort"), but a remarkable circumstance, not at all creditable to Smith's vigilance or circumspection, stopped the work and put the colonists at their wits' end to escape starvation. On an examination of the casks in which their corn was stored it was found that the rats had devoured most of the contents, and that the remainder was too rotten to eat.[6 ]