Powhatan arrived the next day. Cold weather had come and famine began to stare the colonists in the face. The president set out for the country of the Nansemond Indians. These people refused not only to provide the four hundred bushels of corn which they had promised in their treaty with the colonists on their previous visit, but they refused to trade at all. Their excuse was that they had used up the most that they had, and that they were under commands from Powhatan neither to trade with the English nor to allow them to enter their river. The English had recourse to force, and the Indians fled at the first volley of musketry without shooting a single arrow. The first cabin the white men discovered they set on fire. The Indians immediately desired peace, and promised the English half that they had. Before night all the boats were loaded with corn, and the English sailed some four miles down the river. Here they camped out for the night in the open woods on frozen ground covered with snow.
The manner in which these adventurers of nearly three hundred years ago made themselves comfortable is interesting. They would dig away the snow and build a great fire, which would serve to dry and warm the ground. They would then scrape away the fire, spread a mat on the place where it had been, and here they would sleep with another mat hung up as a shield against the wind. In the night, as the wind shifted, they would change their hanging mat, and when the ground grew cold they would again remove their fire and take its place. Their story says that many "a cold winter night" did the adventurers sleep thus; and yet those who went on these expeditions "were always in health, lusty and fat."
Finding that the old Indian chief had determined to starve the colony out of existence by a refusal to trade with the white men, Captain Smith, appreciating the desperate extremity, resolved to take, as usual, the boldest plan out of the difficulty. He meditated a plan for surprising and entrapping Powhatan into his power. Smith saw no other chance to procure food, and starving men do not stop to debate whether a course is right or wrong.
About this time Powhatan sent a message to Smith inviting him to visit him, and saying that if he would but build him a house, give him a grindstone, fifty swords, some firearms, a hen and rooster, and much beads and copper, he would fill the ship with corn. Captain Smith made haste to accept this offer. He sent some of the Dutchmen and some Englishmen ahead to begin the building of Powhatan's house.
On the twelfth of January the English neared Werowocomoco. The ice extended nearly half a mile from shore in the York River. Captain Smith pushed as near the shore as he could in the barge, by breaking the ice. Impatient of remaining in an open boat in the freezing cold, he jumped into the half-frozen marsh, and waded ashore. His example was followed by eighteen of his men.
The English quartered at the first cabins they reached, and announced their arrival in a message to Powhatan, requesting provision. The chief sent them plenty of bread, venison and turkeys, and feasted them according to his custom. The following day, however, he desired to know when they "would be gone," pretending that he had not sent for the English. He made the astonishing statement that he himself had no corn, and his people had much less; but that he would furnish them forty baskets of this grain for as many swords. Captain Smith quickly confronted him with the men who had brought Powhatan's message to Jamestown, and asked the chief "how it chanced he became so forgetful." Powhatan answered with "a merry laughter," and invited the English to show their commodities. But the crafty chief was not suited with anything, unless it were guns or swords.
"Powhatan," said Captain Smith, "believing your promises to supply my wants, I neglected all to satisfy your desire, and to testify my love I sent you my men for your building, neglecting mine own. As for swords and guns, I told you long ago I had none to spare, and you must know those I have can keep me from want. Yet steal or wrong you I will not, nor dissolve that friendship we have mutually promised, except you constrain me by your bad usage."
Powhatan listened attentively to this speech, and promised that he would spare them what he could, which he would deliver to them in two days.
"Yet, Captain Smith," said the chief, "I have some doubt of your coming hither that makes me not so kindly seek to relieve you as I would, for many do inform me your coming hither is not for trade, but to invade my people and possess my country, who dare not bring you corn, seeing you thus armed with your men. To free us of this fear, leave aboard your weapons, for here they are needless, we being all friends."
But Captain Smith was not to be cajoled into a council without weapons. That night was spent at Werowocomoco, and the following day the building of Powhatan's house went forward.