"All the pews and pulpit were of cedar, with fair, broad windows, also of cedar, to shut and open as the weather should occasion. The font was hewn hollow like a canoe, and there were two bells in the steeple at the west end. The church was so cast as to be very light within, and the Lord Governor caused it to be kept passing sweet, trimmed up with divers flowers."
There was a sexton in charge of the church, and every morning the bell rang for prayers at ten and again at four in the afternoon.
There was also a sermon every Thursday, and two on Sunday. "Every Sunday when the Lord Governour went to church, he was accompanied with all the councillors, captains, other officers, and all the gentlemen, and with a guard of fifty halberdiers—all in his Lordship's livery, in fair red cloaks." His Lordship sat in the choir in a green velvet chair, and the council, captains, and officers on each side of him.
We have the two pictures,—a starved, ragged handful, prostrate before the altar, responding in feeble accents, "Good Lord, deliver us"; and the light and colour, the corps de garde in crimson, the Lord Governor kneeling on his green velvet cushion, the bright flowers filling the chancel. They are all gone now! "Whose souls questionless," whether proud or humble, "are with God." Jamestown Island is a graveyard. After Lord Delaware landed with his accessions to the colony, 900 persons had been sent from England to Virginia, of whom 700 had perished.[69] In 1619 it was estimated that 2540 immigrants had landed at Jamestown, of whom 1640 had died.
The total mortality in less than one score years was 6040, out of 7280. Around the church thousands are buried, the victims of the first season of starvation and those of the last: good Master Hunt, hardy adventurers, knights and ladies, paupers and "gentlemen," gentle and simple; and on the island also Kemps, the Indian; the poor victim of military execution; and Opechancanough, the savage instigator of three massacres,—friend and foe they lie together. The kind mother earth covers them all! In winter they lie beneath the pure snows from heaven, and the summer daisies look up to God from their ashes: and so they all sleep together "untill the generall day."
CHAPTER XIX
Lord Delaware followed his prayer at the gate of Jamestown with his own earnest efforts to bring about its fulfilment. He was a wise ruler and generous friend to the colony. The terrible old gentleman with the "sour look" silently observed him, and made no demonstration, friendly or otherwise, for a few months. He had heard of Captain Smith's death with mingled feelings of relief and admiration. Machumps had, without doubt, told him of the pomp and ceremony attending Lord Delaware, who held his court on board his own ship, disdaining the humble huts of his inferiors. Robed in crimson and gold, this was altogether a different person from the rough soldier, John Smith. The Dutchmen, relieved of their fear of Captain Smith, now proposed to return to Jamestown and ingratiate themselves with the new administration. They had built a house for Powhatan, with an immense Dutch chimney, which stood like a giant sentinel until it was blown down a few years ago. They now came forward and requested the emperor to send them as ambassadors to Lord Delaware with gifts and proposals of peace, but Powhatan received their overtures with scorn and replied sternly, "You that would have betrayed Captaine Smith to mee, will certainly betray me to this great Lord for your own peace," and so "caused his men to beat out their braines."
[70]Lord Delaware soon found it impossible to live in the unhealthy climate of Jamestown, and returned home, leaving Percy once more in charge of the colony, until a Governor should arrive from England. The number of colonists was now about two hundred; the stock of provisions sufficient for ten months, and the Indians, after two or three sallies and as many sharp rebukes, apparently peaceable and friendly.
We have noted Strachey's account of the wreck of the Sea Venture, which it is said by some inspired Shakespeare's "Tempest." He wrote another book, "The Historie of Travail into Virginia Britannia," covering the years 1610-1611 and 1612. Of this book he made two copies in his own handwriting, one of which, dedicated to Sir Francis Bacon, was deposited in the British Museum; the other, dedicated to Sir Allen Apsley, lieutenant of the Tower, and father of Lucy Hutchinson, was preserved among the Ashmolean Manuscripts. There these two priceless manuscripts slept unnoticed more than two hundred years! They were finally unearthed in 1849 by R. H. Major of the British Museum, and printed for the Hakluyt Society.