Captain Froade soon after left the vessel, and went up to a storehouse at Tuckhoe, and the first mate to Kent island, whilst the second mate and boatswain kept the ship; in the mean time our hero was employed in loading the vessel, and doing all manner of drudgery. Galled with a heavy yoke and narrowly watched, he began to lose all hopes of escape; his spirits now began to fail him, and he almost gave himself up to despair, little thinking his deliverance so near at hand, as he found it soon to be.
One day, as he was employed in his usual drudgery, reflecting within himself upon his unhappy condition, he unexpectedly saw his good friends, Captains Hervey and Hopkins, two of the
Biddeford captains, who, as has been before related, had offered to redeem him from the prison at New Town; he was overjoyed at the sight of them, not that he expected any deliverance from them, but only as they were friends he had been so much obliged to.
The captains came up and inquired very kindly how it fared with him, and how he bore the drudgery they saw him employed in; adding, that he had better have accepted the offer they made him at New Town. Our hero gallantly replied, that however severe the hardships he underwent, and were they still more so, he would rather choose to suffer them, than purchase liberty at their cost. The captains, charmed with his magnanimity, were resolved to make one attempt more to get him his liberty. They soon after sounded the boatswain and mate; and finding them not greatly averse to give him an opportunity to escape, they took him aside, and thus addressed him:—Friend Carew, the offer we made you at New Town may convince you of the regard we have for you; we therefore cannot think of leaving the country before we have, by some means or other, procured your liberty; we have already sounded the boatswain and mate, and find we can bring them to wink at your escape; but the greatest obstacle is, that there is forty pounds penalty and half a year’s imprisonment, for any one that takes off your iron collar, so that you must be obliged to travel with it, till you come among the friendly Indians, many miles distant from hence, who will assist you to take it off, for they are great friends with the English, and trade with us for lattens, kettles,
frying-pans, gunpowder and shot; giving us in exchange buffalo and deer skins, with other sorts of furs. But there are other sorts of Indians, one of which are distinguished by a very flat forehead, who use cross-bows in fighting; the other of a very small stature, who are great enemies, and very cruel to the whites; these you must endeavour by all means to avoid, for if you fall into their hands, they will certainly murder you.
And here the reader will, we make no doubt, be pleased to see some account of the Indians, among whom our hero was treated with so much kindness and civility, as we shall relate in its proper place.
At the first settling of Maryland, there were several nations of them governed by petty kings. Mr. Calvert, Lord Baltimore’s brother having been sent by him to make the first settlement in Maryland, landed at Potowmac town; during the infancy of Werowance, Archibau, his uncle, who governed his territories in his minority, received the English in a friendly manner. From Potowmac the governor proceeded to Piscataqua, about 20 leagues higher, where he found many Indians assembled, and among them an Englishman, Captain Henry Fleet, who had lived there several years in great esteem with the natives. Captain Fleet brought the prince on board the governor’s pinnace to treat with him. Mr. Calvert asked him, whether he was agreeable that he and his people should settle in his country. The prince replied, I will not bid you go, neither will I bid you stay, but you may use your own discretion. The Indians, finding their prince stay longer on board than they expected,
crowded down to the water-side to look after him, fearing the English had killed him, and they were not satisfied till he showed himself to them, to please them. The natives, who fled from St. Clement’s isle, when they saw the English come as friends, returned to their habitations; and the governor, not thinking it advisable to settle so high up the river in the infancy of the colony, sent his pinnaces down the river, and went with Captain Fleet to a river on the north side of the Potowmac, within four or five leagues, in his long-boat, and came to the town of Yoamaco, from which the Indians of that neighbourhood are called Yoamacoes. The governor landed, and treating with the prince there, acquainted him with the occasion of his coming, to whom the Indian said little, but invited him to his house, entertained him kindly, and gave him his own bed to lie on. The next day he showed him the country, and the governor determining to make the first settlement there, ordered all his ships and pinnaces to come thither to him.
To make his entry the more safe and peaceable, he presented the Werowance and Wilsos, and principal men of the place, with some English cloth, axes, hoes and knives, which they accepted very kindly, and freely consented that he and his company should dwell in one part of the town, and reserving the other for themselves. Those Indians who inhabited that part which was assigned to the English, readily abandoned their houses to them; and Mr. Calvert immediately set hands to work to plant corn. The natives agreed further to leave the whole town to the English as soon as their
harvest was in; which they did accordingly, and both English and Indians promised to live friendly together. If any injury was done on either part, the nation offending was to make satisfaction. Thus, on the 27th March, 1634, the governor took possession of the town, and named it St. Mary’s.