The Birth of the Nation, Jamestown, 1607

by Sara Agnes Rice Pryor

In May, 1607, the Englishmen had landed in what they termed "a Paradise." Over the moss-green earth "bespred with faire flowers" the branches of the stately trees threw lacelike shadows. Flowering vines hung from their boughs, brilliant birds darted among them, or swooped down to dip their blue and crimson wings in the clear rivulets. All was happiness, activity, and hope.

Now, in May, 1610, the earth was trampled bare of all verdure, ragged stumps of the felled trees were rotting in the ground, noisome vapours rose from the neglected, filthy yards of a pestilence-smitten town. Men, women, and children, gaunt and wild-eyed from famine, perishing by inches slowly but surely, lay about the town, moaning and despairing. The last agony was near. They knew that without help they could not survive many hours. Long ago they had ceased to expect it.

We can imagine the frantic joy when two vessels appeared on the river! These were the cedar ships we left Admiral Somers and Sir Thomas Gates building at Bermuda: the Deliverance and the Patience! The Admiral and Sir Thomas cast anchor and at once went on shore. The scene that ensued baffles description. The two mariners looked upon wretchedness and desolation indescribable. The shipwrecked on sea looked into the eyes of the shipwrecked on land. Jamestown was in ruins, the town encumbered with filth. The torn-down palisades, the gates swinging to and fro on rusty hinges, the church ruined and unfrequented, the dismantled houses, the emaciated faces, the hollow hungry eyes, and voices hardly able to articulate the prayer to be "taken home to die,"—these were the piteous sights and sounds which greeted the commanders as they landed from their cedar ships. All hope of Virginia was over forever! Even the stout hearts that had borne storm and wreck in the Sea Venture were appalled by the spectacle.

Gates and Somers had heard at Algernoune Fort of the sad condition of the colony. Captain Percy had happened to be in the fort directing the preparations for its abandonment. "From hence," says Strachey, "in two days (only by the help of Tydes no wind stirring) we plyed it sadly up the River; and the three and twentieth of May we cast Anchor before Jamestowne where we landed, and our much grieved Governour first visiting the church caused the Bell to be rung, at which all such as were able to come out of their houses repayred to the church where our Maister Bucke made a zealous and sorrowful Prayer, finding all things so contrary to our expectation, so full of misery and misgovernment. After service our Governour caused me to read his commission, and Captain Percy delivered up to him his commission, the old Patent and the Councell Seale."

There was another witness to this scene besides the actors therein. Namontack, Powhatan's man, had returned to England with Newport before the sailing thence of the fleet, and with him Machumps, the brother of the king's favourite, wife Winganuskie. These[66] two Indians were on the Sea Venture when she was wrecked at Bermuda. There, in a lonely spot, the two had quarrelled and fought, and Machumps killed Namontack, buried him, and kept the secret from his own people. He revealed it, however, to his English friends, and told how he had buried Namontack—the whole of him—for, finding he could dig only a small grave, he had taken the trouble to cut off his legs and very neatly lay them in order beside him! Machumps was much esteemed by the colonists. He aided the first explorers of the James River, and they had named a creek "Machump's Creek," in his honour. He lived a year or more at Jamestown with Kemps, a former prisoner, who had also become a friend. The two were more intimate in their relations to the Englishmen than any other Indians except Pocahontas and Chanco.

John Rolfe, "an honest gentleman and of good behaviour," was also a passenger in one of the cedar ships. The little "Bermuda" had died, perhaps on the voyage, and his wife died soon after, so he was left free for the romance, a few years later, of his marriage with Pocahontas.

Upon reckoning up the stores brought in the tiny cedar ships, the Admiral and Gates perceived there were only enough to last sixteen days, allowing two cakes a day to each person. They accordingly, to the joy of the colonists, concluded to abandon Jamestown and sail for England via Newfoundland, where English fishing vessels were supposed to be in condition to victual the company for England. The wretched remnant of the colony was overjoyed at this decision. The fort was dismantled and the cannon buried at the gate. There was little else to take away. Some of the unhappy sufferers wished to set fire to the houses where they had endured so much, but the commanders elected otherwise; and to prevent the destruction of the houses, church, and palisades, Sir Thomas Gates remained on shore with a party to preserve order, and was the last man to step into the boat. On June 7, every man, woman, and child, at the beating of the drum, repaired aboard the Discovery, the Deliverance, the Patience, and the Virginia, and at noon a salvo of small arms announced to the listening echoes that all was over—all the hope, expectation, struggle, and despair!

That night they fell down the tide to Hogg Island, and bright and early next morning set sail again with glad hearts, the tide bringing them to Mulberry Island.