Captain Smith rarely indulged in the courtly luxury of profane swearing, and was not inclined to grant privileges to others he did not allow himself. He resolved to have none of it in his Majesty's colony. As for himself he did not need it. He could command vigorous English without it; and so he set about the reformation of the "Gallants and proper Gentlemen" lately come from the English court. He adopted, as a remedial agent, a novel punishment. "He had every man's Oathes numbered, and at night for every Oath a Kan of water was powered down his Sleeve, with which every Offender was so washed (himselfe and all) that a man should scarce heare an Oath in a Weeke." And so, we gather, the Captain was after all sometimes overtaken, as well as other people.
The narrator of this incident, Richard Pots, wishes us to make no mistake. "By this," he continues, "let no man thinke the President or these Gentlemen spent their times as common Wood-hackers at felling Trees or such like labours: or that they were pressed to anything as hirelings or common slaves; for what they did (beeing but once a little inured) it seemed they conceited it only a pleasure and a recreation. Yet thirty or forty of such Gentlemen would doe more in a day than one hundred of the rest that must be prest by compulsion."
This was doubtless due to their President's excellent humour and judgment. Had he played the martinet with his volunteers, he might have had their axes about his ears. Doubtless he was highly pleased with his "Gallants and proper Gentlemen," but he afterwards confessed that "twentie good wor men had been better than them all."
The haze of the Indian summer (when "the sun looks back with regret") was hanging over river and forest, and softening the outlines of the hills. Smoke from many fires in the woods mingled with the purple haze. These fires were under the kettles of the Dutchmen who were making potash by evaporating the lye obtained from leaching wood ashes. Alkalis were in great demand in England, hence the quantity of soap ashes with which the early ships were freighted. Soap itself was a forbidden article of domestic use. There was a severe penalty against throwing soap suds in the open street. The dreadful Oriental plague had appeared in London, and it was thought then that "not only soap-boilers and vendors of soap, but all the washerwomen and all they whose business it was to use soap—nay they who only wore shirts washed with soap—presently died of the Plague."[49]
All hands were called from the forest and the kettles early in December to attend the first English marriage in Virginia. Of course pretty Ann Burras found many admirers in a colony of two hundred men, and equally, of course, she could accept but one. Her bridegroom, John Laydon, Carpenter, was twenty-seven. They were all young men. Captain Smith and George Percy were not yet thirty, and they were among the elders.
The ceremony was performed, doubtless, in the church, and by good Master Hunt, who was soon to be called to the reward of a noble Christian life. It is altogether probable that Pocahontas was present. "She came as freely to the fort as to her father's house, bringing corn and game and whatever she could get for Captain Smith." She was known by all as the "Deare & Darling Pocahontas," and when a wedding was to the fore we may be sure she was apprised of it.
Little Ann Burras brought good fortune to her honest carpenter. More than once they were given land in Virginia, at one time as much as five hundred acres. She bore many children. There was a Catharine, an Alice, and a Margaret; but the first child was named "Virginia." The family lived long, and survived all the hard times—the starvation, the sickness, and the great massacre of 1622. How different was the fate of Ellinor Dare, and her hapless little Virginia!
One is tempted to linger in the sweet Indian summer time, and listen to the wedding bells and cheery talk of the woodsmen in the forest—for these were the last "good times" these hapless colonists were to know for many a long day. Just at the moment they were happily unconscious that war, pestilence, and famine stood hand in hand at their door.
Autumn lingers long on the banks of the lower James. There, near Jamestown, I have gathered roses on Christmas Day. One peculiarity of the climate is that summer can depart in an hour,—the sun hidden in darkness and the face of the earth thickly blanketed under snow. This had not yet happened, however, and the newcomers rejoiced in the belief that they had fallen upon a heavenly climate. Captain Smith, George Percy, and the survivors of the first winter knew better.
They were dependent upon the Indians for corn, as usual, but Powhatan had evinced no friendship since he perceived that the colony was regularly reënforced from abroad. Indeed, his attitude was distinctly hostile.