SHEWING WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THE ALTERATION OF THE GOVERNMENT FROM AN ELECTIVE PRESIDENT TO A COMMISSIONATED GOVERNOR, UNTIL THE DISSOLUTION OF THE COMPANY.
§ 20. In the meanwhile the treasurer, council and company of Virginia adventurers in London, not finding that return and profit from the adventurers they expected, and rightly judging that this disappointment, as well as the idle quarrels in the colony, proceeded from a mismanage of government, petitioned his majesty, and got a new patent with leave to appoint a governor.
Upon this new grant they sent out nine ships, and plentiful supplies of men and provisions, and made three joint commissioners or governors in equal power, viz: Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Summers, and Captain Newport. They agreed to go all together in one ship.
This ship, on board of which the three governors had embarked, being separated from the rest, was put to great distress in a severe storm; and after three days and nights constant bailing and pumping, was at last cast ashore at Bermudas, and there staved, but by good providence the company was preserved.
Notwithstanding this shipwreck, and extremity they were put to, yet could not this common misfortune make them agree. The best of it was, they found plenty of provisions in that island, and no Indians to annoy them. But still they quarrelled amongst themselves, and none more than the two Knights; who made their parties, built each of them a cedar vessel, one called the Patience, the other the Deliverance, and used what they gathered of the furniture of the old ship for rigging; and fish-oil, and hog's-grease, mixed with lime and ashes, instead of pitch and tar: for they found great plenty of Spanish hogs in this island, which are supposed to have swam ashore from some wrecks, and there afterwards increased.
§. 21. While these things were acting in Bermuda, Capt. Smith being very much burnt by the accidental firing of some gun-powder, as he was upon a discovery in his boat, was forced for his cure sake, and the benefit of a surgeon, to take his passage for England, in a ship that was then upon the point of sailing.
Several of the nine ships that came out with the three governors arrived, with many of the passengers; some of which, in their humors, would not submit to the government there, pretending the new commission destroyed the old one; that governors were appointed instead of a president, and that they themselves were to be of the council, and so would assume an independent power, inspiring the people with disobedience; by which means they became frequently exposed in great parties to the cruelty of the Indians; all sorts of discipline was laid aside, and their necessary defence neglected; so that the Indians taking advantage of those divisions, formed a stratagem to destroy them root and branch; and, indeed, they did cut many of them off, by massacreing whole companies at a time; so that all the out-settlements were deserted, and the people that were not destroyed, took refuge in Jamestown, except the small settlement at Kiquotan, where they had built themselves a little fort, and called it Algernoon fort. And yet, for all this, they continued their disorders, wasting their old provisions, and neglecting to gather others; so that they who remained alive, were all near famished, having brought themselves to that pass, that they durst not stir from their own doors to gather the fruits of the earth, or the crabs and muscles from the water-side: much less to hunt or catch wild beasts, fish or fowl, which were found in great abundance there. They continued in these scanty circumstances, till they were at last reduced to such extremity, as to eat the very hides of their horses, and the bodies of the Indians they had killed; and sometimes also upon a pinch they would not disdain to dig them up again, to make a homely meal, after they had been buried.
Thus, a few months indiscreet management brought such an infamy upon the country, that to this day it cannot be wiped away. And the sicknesses occasioned by this bad diet, or rather want of diet, are unjustly remembered to the disadvantage of the country, as a fault in the climate; which was only the foolishness and indiscretion of those who assumed the power of governing. I call it assumed, because the new commission mentioned, by which they pretended to be of the council, was not in all this time arrived, but remained in Bermuda with the new governors.
Here, I cannot but admire the care, labor, courage and understanding, that Capt. John Smith showed in the time of his administration; who not only founded, but also preserved all these settlements in good order, while he was amongst them; and, without him, they had certainly all been destroyed, either by famine, or the enemy long before; though the country naturally afforded subsistence enough, even without any other labor than that of gathering and preserving its spontaneous provisions.