ble with the natives for food, not betraying their purpose of settling lest they should be refused supplies. The writer of the instructions was evidently familiar with the adventures of the Spaniards, and knew the full value of firearms, and the superstitious awe with which the natives regarded them. The settlers were enjoined never to suffer the natives to carry their muskets. None but picked marksmen were to practice in the sight of the Indians, lest the terror which surrounded their weapons should be dispelled. So, too, the settlers were not to shake the faith of the Indians in the superior race as invulnerable and immortal. "Above all things do not advertise the killing of any of your men, that the country people may know it: if they perceive that they are but common men, and that with loss of many of theirs they may diminish any part of yours, they will make many adventures upon you. If the country be populous, you shall also do well not to let them see or know of your sick men (if you have any), which may also encourage them to any enterprises." Newport is instructed to bring home "a perfect relation of all that is done." No one is to leave the colony without a passport from the President and Council, or to send home any letter that may discourage others. The instructions end with an exhortation which bore little fruit. "Lastly and chiefly, the way to prosper and achieve good success is to make yourselves all of one mind, for the good of your country and your own, and to serve and fear God, the Giver of all goodness: for every plantation which your heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted out."

On the New Year's Day of 1607, the little fleet sailed from the Downs. Drayton was the laureate of the expedition, and Captain the spirited lines in which he bade the voyagers John Smith.

Cheerfully at sea

Success you still entice

To get the pearl and gold,

And ours to hold

Virginia, earth's only Paradise,'

showed that the rock on which Frobisher and Lane had made shipwreck was still not without its dangers. The voyage was a tedious one. At the outset contrary winds delayed the fleet so long that it stayed for six weeks within sight of England. Then,

1 Drayton's works, ed. 1748, p. 421.

Smith, p. 41. Percy in Purchas, iv. 1685.

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH.

115

instead of going to Virginia by the direct course which Gosnold had taken, the emigrants stopped in the West Indies to collect seeds and roots. A long sea voyage is no unfruitful parent of strife, and the party already had within it elements of discord. Among the emigrants was one who played so important a part in Virginian history that he deserves more than a passing notice. Captain John Smith, like more than one of the characters with whom we shall meet, carried the versatile capacity and activity of the sixteenth century into a less congenial age. Even during his lifetime his doings passed from the domain of the historian into that of the romance writer. If contemporary accounts be true, his adventures in America, dramatic as they seem to us, were but the prosaic sequel to a far more marvelous career in the Old World. His tale, as told by himself and his admirers, is familiar to every student of colonial history. The son of a Lincolnshire gentleman, he had learned the art of war on the battle-ground of Europe, the Low Countries. Thence his restless temper drove him to embark at Marseilles in quest of adventures in the East. Thrown into the sea by French pilgrims as a Huguenot Jonah, he had been saved by a pirate, and retrieved his fortunes by a successful voyage in the Mediterranean. In Hungary he had fought in single combat with a Turkish champion, and had borne off his enemy's head in the sight of the whole Christian army. He had been left for dead on the field of Rothenthurm, and sold into slavery. Rescued by a Turkish beauty, he was again enslaved by a jealous pasha, and after beating out his rival's brain with a club, had fled in disguise through the wilds of Circassia. His travels had led him through every civilized country in Europe, and to the court of Morocco. It is not strange that such a story should have excited the incredulity of his contemporaries. But, even if we mistrust some of the more romantic episodes, it would be unfair to set down the hero as a mere braggart, a Munchausen or a miles gloriosus. That he had his full share of boastfulness and vanity is likely enough, and there is reason to think that the hack writers of his own age availed themselves of his weakness and traded on his reputation. But whatever may be the truth as to details, there is confirmatory evidence of his military career in Eastern Europe, while his doings in America, for which there is ample authority, and that not always friendly, show him to have

Newport, in Arch. Am.

2 The original authority for all this is Smith himself. I have given elsewhere my reasons for believing his story, at least in part.

been brave, able, and public-spirited. No doubt he was in mod. ern language an adventurer, but he has nothing in common with greedy, unscrupulous self-seekers, like Stukeley, nor does his character, as handed down to us, show any trace of the knavish, profligate, swaggering soldier of fortune who is a stock character of the Elizabethan stage. He seems to have been a thoroughly representative Englishman, active, self-reliant, untiring, humane though unsympathetic, faithful to his employers, but somewhat inclined to overrate his own services and to regard himself as an injured man, though without desiring any revenge beyond the liberty of grumbling. It was hardly wonderful that such a man should come into conflict with those set over him, and before the fleet reached Virginia Smith found himself under arrest. What was his precise offense it is impossible to say, but we may at least assume that if, as some writers tell us, he had been guilty of mutiny, in any sense at least beyond a technical one, he never could have held the positions of trust in which we afterwards find him. Be the cause what it might, Smith was cast into irons, and it was an evil omen for the young colony, that when the emigrants landed, the ablest man among them was a prisoner.

Landing of the settlers.'

After leaving the West Indies the fleet took a north west course. Newport seems to have erred in his reckoning, and land was not reached till three days after the due time. If the story be true that the settlers thereupon lost heart, and would fain have returned to England, it says but little for the spirit in which they entered on their task. Such an idea, however, if entertained, was set at rest by the discovery of land. On the 16th of April the voyagers sighted a point, which, in honor of the Prince of Wales, they named Cape Henry, and which proved to be the southernmost extremity of Chesapeake Bay. A party landed, and in a skirmish with the natives which followed, two were wounded. A fortnight more was spent in exploring the bay, and seeking for a place of settlement. On the 13th of May they fixed on a spot, choosing for security a peninsula, and named their new settlement Jamestown. The orders and the list of the Council were now opened. Smith was among those nominated on the Council, but for the present he was not allowed to take his seat. That he was neither kept under arrest, nor debarred

Smith, p. 42. Purchas, iv. 1686.

Smith attributes this purpose to Ratcliffe.

* Smith, p. 42.

PROCEEDINGS ON LANDING.

117

from active service, is shown by the fact that he accompanied Newport immediately afterwards on an exploring expedition.1 The council then proceeded to elect a President. This choice fell on Edward Maria Wingfield. Our information about him is for the most part derived from unfriendly sources, and it may be that his failure as President was as much due to the character of those under his rule as to his own failings. That he was a brave soldier and a just and honest governor appears certain, but he seems to have lacked any other qualifications for his post. His own writings present him to us as a pompous, formal man, with a strong sense of his own dignity, and with very little capacity for complying with the rough exigencies of colonial life.3

explora

A week later Newport set forth with a party of twenty-three men to explore the river. He followed the stream upwards for Newport's three days, halting at various Indian villages, at all of tion.4 which the English were hospitably received. Newport seems to have been exceptionally mild and conciliatory in all his dealings with the natives. One occasion, when informed by the guide of some slight act of discourtesy on the part of one of the Indians, Newport, misunderstanding the nature of the dispute, punished one of his own men, whereupon the Indian chief, not to be outdone, stayed the punishment and chastised the real culprit. Newport also seems on this occasion to have shown the same lavish temper in his presents to the Indians which at a later period offended Smith. The skirmish with the savages near Cape Henry now proved of service to the English, who, finding that their enemies were also hostile to the natives of James River told their new friends of the affair, and showed their recent wounds in confirmation of the tale. The principal chief in this neighborhood was a namesake, probably a son, of Powhatan, the great king of that country. His friendly feeling towards the English, and his authority over the natives, were shown not only in the above-mentioned instance, but by the summary manner in which he insisted on the restitution of some ammunition which

1 Arch. Am., iv. 40.

The best authority for Wingfield's proceedings is his own paper called A Discourse of Virginia, relating the events of his presidency, and justifying himself against the charges of Smith and others. This paper is preserved among the Lambeth MSS. and has been published in the Arch. Am., vol. iv.

3 His own words (p. 102) are, "I have learnt to despise the verdict of the vulgar," a dan. gerous doctrine for the leader of a rough gang of colonists.

This account and that of the following hostilities with the Indians is taken from Newport's own report.

had been stolen by his subjects. On the third day of their journey the explorers reached the falls, where Richmond city now stands. Newport would fain have explored the river farther, but was deterred by Powhatan's account of the difficulties, and, after fixing a cross with the royal arms on one of the islets, the party returned to Jamestown.

with the

Indians.

Those who stayed behind had been less fortunate in their dealings with the natives. Newport's party had their suspicions exTroubles cited by the conduct of their guide, who, shortly before reaching Jamestown, refused to accompany them farther. Anticipating some evil, Newport pushed on, and found on his arrival that the settlement had been attacked by a band of two hundred savages. The assailants were beaten off, but one Englishman was killed and eleven wounded, among them four Councilors. Wingfield especially distinguished himself by his courage, and though unhurt, had a narrow escape, as an arrow passed through his beard. During the next fortnight the savages continued to harrass the English with petty attacks, and one settler, Eustace Clovell, who was rash enough to wander beyond the fort, was mortally wounded. On the 14th of June, two of the natives with whom Newport had made friends during his voyage up the river came to the fort: they explained to the English that all the attacks proceeded from certain hostile tribes, and that they themselves, and the other Indians along the river, would either join the settlers in an alliance, or endeavor to make peace between them and their enemies. Before departing they advised the English to cut down the long grass and weeds about the fort. That such advice should have been needed speaks somewhat ill for the military skill with which the defense was conducted. Seemingly the intercession of these new allies was successful, for we hear of no more attacks upon the fort.

On the 22d of June Newport sailed for England with a cargo. of clap-board, the first fruits of the new colony. Before his departure he asked Wingfield whether he thought himself settled in the government. Wingfield answered that the only men from whom danger could come were Gosnold and Archer, both Councilors, of whom the former had the power, the latter the will, to give trouble. The evil which had appeared the most threatening now seemed set at rest. Owing, as it would seem, to the

1 Arch. Am., p. 77. All that follows is taken from Wingfield, Percy, and Smith's True Relation.