And now a new disaster awaited our unhappy colonists. I like the temperate, homely words of the old writers,—Anas Todkill, William Phetiplace, and others—and I shall again borrow them. "Wee returned to the Fort where this new supply being lodged with the rest, accidentally fired the quarters; and so the Towne, which being but thatched with Reeds, the fire was so fierce as it burnt our Pallizadoes, though ten or twelve yards distant, with all our Arms, Bedding, Apparell, and much private provision. Good Master Hunt, our Preacher, lost all his Librarie, and all that hee had (but the clothes on his backe), yet none ever saw him repine at his losse. Upon any alarme he would be as readie for defence as any; and till he could speake he never ceased to his utmost to animate us constantly to persist: whose soule questionlesse is with God."
Newport remained fourteen weeks at Jamestown. He should have left in fourteen days. Thus his crew again consumed supplies which had been provided for the colony. But a "small stream of water issuing from a bank near Jamestown was found to deposit in its channel a glittering sediment which resembled golden ore. The depositation of this yellow stuff was supposed to indicate the presence of a gold mine," and presto! all the little world except Captain Smith "went crazy!" The axe was left in the tree, the spade in the corn-hill. There was no more thought of tilling or planting or building. "There was no talke, no hope, no worke, but digge Gold, wash Gold, refine Gold, load Gold; such a bruit of Gold as one mad fellow desired to bee buried in the sand least they should by their Art make Gold of his bones. Little neede there was and lesse reason the shippe should staye, their wages run on, our victuall consumed,"[41] &c. Purchas, whose quaint marginal notes bring back our "Pilgrim's Progress" days (he antedated Bunyan, however), says in the note opposite this page, "Certaine shining yellow sand (I saw it!) with great promises of gold, like the promises yeelding sandy performances."
Captain Smith set his face like a flint against this gold-fever, which seemed likely to rival Frobisher's experiments and failures in 1577, and declared he was not enamoured of the golden promise, nor could he bear to "see necessary business neglected to fraught such a drunken ship with so much gilded dirt." "Till then," continue our historians (Anas Todkill et al.), "we never accounted Captaine Newport a refiner, who being fit to set saile for England, and we not having any use for Parliaments, Playes, Petitions, Admirals, Recorders, Interpreters, Chronologers, Courts of Plea, nor Justices of Peace, sent Master Wingfield and Captaine Archer with him for England, to seeke some place of better imployment."
Newport carried with him twenty turkeys, a present from Powhatan, who received in return twenty swords, the beginning of his acquisition of the arms he so coveted. Newport could hardly have done a more unwise thing. His foolish prodigality prevented all profitable traffic with the Indians thereafter, and he put into their hands the weapons destined to reach the hearts of his own countrymen.
CHAPTER XIII
The church that was burned in the Jamestown fire of January 17, 1608, was the wretched affair of logs, sedge, and dirt, built by the colonists to take the place of the awning between two trees under which they first worshipped. In a map of the Virginia settlement sent by Zuñiga to Philip the Third in September, 1608, the site of a church is indicated enclosed within the fort. Captain Newport employed his mariners in rebuilding this church, "all which works they finished cheerfully and in short time." The time, it appears, was short indeed. Anas Todkill and his collaborators assert that it was "little need they should stay and consume victuall for fourteene days, that the Mariners might say they built such a golden Church, that we can say the raine washed neere to nothing in fourteene days."
Our "docteur of Divinitie" duly records that when Newport departed "Captain Smith and Master Scrivener divided betwixt them the rebuilding Jamestown, the repairing our Pallizadoes, the cutting down trees, preparing our fields for planting our Corne and rebuilding our Church." This, at best only a flimsy affair, was the second Church (we suppose the mariners' work was mended, not destroyed), and the good preacher, Master Hunt, was still alive. The day of his death is not known. He was certainly living in December, 1608, for somebody—and doubtless in the church—then married John Laydon to Ann Burras; and we know of no minister who came over until 1610. In the interval between his death and the arrival of Mr. Bucke, daily prayers, and homilies on Sunday, were said in the church, although there was no minister. We are aware that it behooves us to be pretty careful in this matter of churches, now that the shovels and picks of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities are busy with the foundations of the Jamestown churches. They will never find the foundation of the first one, nor of the second, for the very good reason that they had none.
The 20th of April all hands were at work hewing down trees and planting corn, when an alarum from the guard caused every man to drop axe and hoe and take up arms, each one expecting an assault from the savages. But presently a trumpet blast reached the ear, and a ship was seen sailing up the James with the red cross of St. George flying from the masthead. This was the Phœnix, a marine phœnix, rising from the sea after "many perrills of extreame storms and tempests." This happy arrival of Captain Nelson, "having been three months missing after Captain Newport's arrivall, being to all our expectations lost, having been long crossed with tempestuous weather and contrary winds, did so ravish us with exceeding joy that now wee thought ourselves as well fitted as our harts could wish both with a competent number of men as also for all other needful provisions till a further supply could come to us." Captain Francis Nelson, "an honest man and expert mariner," turned his back on the "fantastical gold," and freighted his ship for her return voyage with cedar; and when he sailed for home he took with him the gold-hunting Captain Martin, and Smith's "True Relation of Virginia,"—the first book written by an Englishman in America,—which was printed at the Greyhound in Paul's Churchyard in London.
