We can but sympathize with this King Lear of the western world, betrayed in his old age by his "dearest jewell, his darling daughter." Well might he exclaim with the ancient Briton:—
"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!"
Of course it is not for us to blame Pocahontas for her humane treason. She, too, had her instincts. The man she adored was about to be murdered in her father's house. It is useless to affect that the devotion she constantly expressed was for the colony. She never set foot in Jamestown after Captain Smith left it! She never brought corn in that terrible time, the winter after he sailed away. It was for his sake, I am constrained to believe, that she hid Wyffin, and rescued Henry Spelman.
Smith's next attempt was to wrest his supplies from Opechancanough, and here he succeeded by seizing the chief by his scalp-lock, and with a pistol pressed to his bosom, held him thus until the corn was forthcoming.
So in the end his "plan" was not wholly unsuccessful, while that of the subtle savage seemed to fail utterly. He too was partially successful, however. He availed himself of the perfidy of Adam and Francis, two of the house-building Dutchmen, and sent them quickly overland to the fort, to say that the interview had ended happily, but that Captain Smith, having need of all the arms he could get, had sent for a supply from the fort. These two men, Adam and Francis, had confederates there, and savages waited outside to carry the arms away. A great number of swords, pikes, pieces, etc., were stolen and sent to Powhatan. Another consort, "Samuel," who had remained with the emperor, had also acquired three hundred hatchets, fifty swords, and eight pikes. These Dutchmen persuaded Powhatan that he was not safe at Werowocomoco, and advised him to leave the building of his house and move to Orapakes, one of his interior seats. Before Captain Smith could reach home, a bearer of bad news sought him at Werowocomoco. Scrivener, Antony Gosnell, and eight others had been drowned near Hog Island. The messenger Wyffin perceived such "preparation for warre at Werowocomoco that he did assure himselfe [the President not being there] that some mischief was intended. Pocahontas hid him for a time, and sent them who pursued him the cleane contrary way to seeke him, and by her meanes and extraordinary bribes and much trouble in three days travell" at length he found the President with Opechancanough, "in the middest of turmoyles."
"And so," continues our historian (Wyffin, or Abbot, or Phettiplace, or Todkill, we know not which, for all sign it), "the President finding his intent frustrated and that there was nothing now to be had and an unfit time to revenge abuses, sent Master Michael Phettiplace to Jamestown, whither we sayled with all the speed we could; wee having in this journey kept 46 men six weeks, and for 40 lbs. of Iron and Beads, and 25 lbs. of Copper, we got neere 200 lbs. of deere suet [which was used as butter] and delivered to the Cape Merchant 479 Bushels of Corne." They arrived at Jamestown February 8, 1609.
CHAPTER XVI
While Captain Smith was engaged in the life-and-death struggle for food with the Indian Emperor, Newport was arriving in England and unloading, along with his clapboards and soap-ashes, a large budget of news adverse to the President of the Virginia colony. Wingfield, Archer, Martin, Nelson, Ratcliffe, and Newport were willing contributors.
The "Governors and Councillors established for the Plantation of Virginia" were apprised of sundry errors which it was necessary to rectify, besides "outrages and follies" committed by the President of the Council of Virginia. The managers of the enterprise, "perceivinge that the plantation went backwards rather than forwards," held special meetings at the Earl of Exeter's house and elsewhere in London, and after consultation with Hakluyt, Hariot, and others, "of all the inconveniences in the three supplies (1606, 1607, 1608), and finding them to arise out of two rootes—the forme of government, and length and danger of the passage by the southerly course of the Indys, they determined to petition the King for a special charter,"[54] etc.
Accordingly a new charter was drawn up by Sir Edwin Sandys, then leader of the independent party in Parliament. The twenty-first article of this charter was, in view of future events, most significant. It inserted these words in italics: "and every of their children which shall happen to be born within any of their Limits ... shall have and enjoy all Liberties, Franchises and Immunities of free Denizens and natural subjects with any of our other Dominions, to all intents and purposes as if they had been abiding and born within this Realm of England or any other of our Dominions." To this chartered right—"the unalienable rights of freeborn Englishmen," our forefathers appealed when they protested against the royal form of government in America.