Now that the Phœnix had left food enough to sustain the colony all summer, Captain Smith had leisure to heed the restless stirrings of his adventurous spirit. He had long wished to explore the great bay, and he now accompanied the Phœnix as far as the capes. As the ship "bore up the helm," and entered her long path on the great sea, he turned the prow of his little barge northward to the mysterious unexplored waters of the Chesapeake. Relying upon Indian information, he had sent, by Captain Newton, almost a pledge that he would find the outlet to the South Sea through the northern waters, rather than the James or Chickahominy rivers.
Personally, he had nothing to gain, the crown would be sure to claim everything; but it behooved him to satisfy the London Company. Christians and patriots had swelled his sails with pæans and prayers when he left England, but he had reason to fear that the existence of the colony did not depend upon the Christian who thought of nothing but the coming of God's Kingdom on earth; nor upon the patriot who sought only the honour of old England; but upon a king and company seeking the present gold, and a path whereby gold-bearing regions might be reached in future.
The colonists had always been reluctant to cultivate food products, and were by consequence always starving. This was, in part, because they were not allowed to plant on their own account, except upon condition of contributing part of their crops and one month's service annually for the benefit of the London Company. Neither could they leave the country without special permission. Private letters from England were constantly intercepted. It is narrated that a passport from the King for the return of one of the colonists was sewed in a garter to ensure its delivery. The settlers were, as a matter of fact, slaves and prisoners, chained hand and foot to a life of privation and peril. Their true position was concealed for a while from the English people, but the secret was kept for a short time only. Banishment to Virginia was worse than death. Scott makes his profligate apprentice consider the alternative of suicide or life in Virginia. "I may save the hangman a labour or go the voyage to Virginia," said "Jin Vincent." Three thieves, under sentence of death, were offered pardon and transportation to Virginia. One of the three preferred hanging. The other two were sent to the long-suffering colonists. "The first country in America," says Stith, "is under the unjust scandal of being another Siberia, fit only for the vilest of people."
Captain Smith's voyage, made in an open barge, was full of adventure. He explored every river, every inlet. He visited the site of the future city of Baltimore, and rowed close under the hill known to-day as Mt. Vernon. He was sometimes assailed by the arrows of the Indian, and sometimes adored by him as a god. His adventures were peculiar and thrilling, and it is my readers' loss that I cannot relate them all in this modest volume. Perhaps no one of them is more dramatic than the picture he draws of the dusky crowd that once gathered around him; when, according to his daily custom, he offered a prayer for God's protection and guidance, and joined with his comrades in a psalm of praise. All at once the savages turned their faces eastward, and raising their hands with passionate gestures, "began a fearful song," and ended by embracing Captain Smith. Poor fellows! They too had a god! They recognized in the strange white man a brother!
In these two voyages (for the explorers returned for food once) Smith sailed about three thousand miles. They returned to Jamestown early in September (1608), having encountered a terrible hurricane near the peaceful spot they had named Point Comfort when they first passed between the capes. Smith made haste to draw his wonderfully accurate map of Virginia. This map was the recognized authority for many years, and indeed survives in the maps of to-day. All subsequent researches have only expanded and illustrated Smith's original view.[44]
He had not found the passage to the South Sea, nor the gold mine that Powhatan's people had led him to expect. The rainbow still spanned the continent, and the pot of gold was still at the end of the rainbow, and there, sure enough, it was found, more than two hundred years afterward!
While this expedition was in progress, the golden dreams of the colonists were finally dispelled. They awaked to all the miseries of the preceding summer, sickness, scarcity, disappointment, and discontent. Smith returned to reanimate their drooping spirits, and refresh their physical wants by provisions he collected on his voyage.
The chronicles written by one of our trusty "first planters" sums up the situation at Jamestown, "The silly President (Ratcliffe) had notoriously consumed the stores, and to fulfill his follies about building a house for his pleasure in the woods, had brought them all to that misery that had we not arrived they had as strangely tormented him with revenge." We are left to imagine the grim inventions of the mutineers. The "strange torment," however, was prevented by Smith, who strove to be a peacemaker; but the colonists were inexorable. Again was their President deposed, or allowed to resign; and John Smith, by a popular election, became President of Virginia.
And now in October an unexpected ship appears on the broad bosom of the James. The London Company has hurriedly fitted out the Mary & Margaret, and sent Newport back to hasten Smith's discovery of the northward passage to the South Sea. As the ship approaches, the keen eyes of the crowd on shore discern something besides the red cross of St. George fluttering in the autumn breeze. What means this white pennon like a flag of truce? The amazed watchers rub their eyes and gaze again. "It looks like—but no, that cannot be—it certainly looks like—yes, it is—an APRON!"
Sure enough, on the forward deck a small slip of a maiden stands beside a matron in ruff and farthingale, and the little maid's apron signals a greeting to the shore. This is little fourteen-year-old Ann Burras. Her brother, "John Burras, Tradesman," is on board. She is going to be a famous woman very soon, young as she is. She is going to marry John Laydon, and hers will be the first marriage, and her little daughter will be the first English child born in Virginia, and the London Company will be proud of her and look to her dower; and so she and her John will found the genuine "first family" in Virginia. She is very unconscious of all this as she stands in her ruff and short petticoat, beside her mistress, Madame Forrest, who is brave in a farthingale, long, pointed bodice, lace ruff, and broad-banded hat. Her husband, "Thomas Forrest, Gentleman," is on board, but the "Gentleman" and his Madam signify very little beside the rosy English maiden who serves them.