The London company were profoundly dissatisfied with the results ofthe Virginia colony. The South Sea was not discovered, no gold hadturned up, there were no valuable products from the new land, and thepromoters received no profits on their ventures. With theirexpectations, it is not to be wondered at that they were stillfurther annoyed by the quarreling amongst the colonists themselves,and wished to begin over again.
A new charter, dated May 23, 1609, with enlarged powers, was got fromKing James. Hundreds of corporators were named, and even thousandswere included in the various London trades and guilds that werejoined in the enterprise. Among the names we find that of CaptainJohn Smith. But he was out of the Council, nor was he given then orever afterward any place or employment in Virginia, or in themanagement of its affairs. The grant included all the American coasttwo hundred miles north and two hundred miles south of Point Comfort,and all the territory from the coast up into the land throughout fromsea to sea, west and northwest. A leading object of the projectstill being (as we have seen it was with Smith's precious crew atJamestown) the conversion and reduction of the natives to the truereligion, no one was permitted in the colony who had not taken theoath of supremacy.
Under this charter the Council gave a commission to Sir Thomas West,Lord Delaware, Captain-General of Virginia; Sir Thomas Gates,Lieutenant-General; Sir George Somers, Admiral; Captain Newport,Vice-Admiral; Sir Thomas Dale, High Marshal; Sir Frederick Wainman,General of the Horse, and many other officers for life.
With so many wealthy corporators money flowed into the treasury, anda great expedition was readily fitted out. Towards the end of May,1609, there sailed from England nine ships and five hundred people,under the command of Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, and CaptainNewport. Each of these commanders had a commission, and the one whoarrived first was to call in the old commission; as they could notagree, they all sailed in one ship, the Sea Venture.
This brave expedition was involved in a contest with a hurricane; onevessel was sunk, and the Sea Venture, with the three commanders, onehundred and fifty men, the new commissioners, bills of lading, allsorts of instructions, and much provision, was wrecked on theBermudas. With this company was William Strachey, of whom we shallhear more hereafter. Seven vessels reached Jamestown, and brought,among other annoyances, Smith's old enemy, Captain Ratcliffe, aliasSicklemore, in command of a ship. Among the company were alsoCaptains Martin, Archer, Wood, Webbe, Moore, King, Davis, and severalgentlemen of good means, and a crowd of the riff-raff of London.
Some of these Captains whom Smith had sent home, now returned withnew pretensions, and had on the voyage prejudiced the company againsthim. When the fleet was first espied, the President thought it wasSpaniards, and prepared to defend himself, the Indians promptlycoming to his assistance.
This hurricane tossed about another expedition still more famous,that of Henry Hudson, who had sailed from England on his third voyagetoward Nova Zembla March 25th, and in July and August was beatingdown the Atlantic coast. On the 18th of August he entered the Capesof Virginia, and sailed a little way up the Bay. He knew he was atthe mouth of the James River, "where our Englishmen are," as he says.
The next day a gale from the northeast made him fear being drivenaground in the shallows, and he put to sea. The storm continued forseveral days. On the 21st "a sea broke over the fore-course andsplit it;" and that night something more ominous occurred: "thatnight [the chronicle records] our cat ran crying from one side of theship to the other, looking overboard, which made us to wonder, but wesaw nothing." On the 26th they were again off the bank of Virginia,and in the very bay and in sight of the islands they had seen on the18th. It appeared to Hudson "a great bay with rivers," but tooshallow to explore without a small boat. After lingering till the29th, without any suggestion of ascending the James, he sailednorthward and made the lucky stroke of river exploration whichimmortalized him.
It seems strange that he did not search for the English colony, butthe adventurers of that day were independent actors, and did not careto share with each other the glories of discovery.
The first of the scattered fleet of Gates and Somers came in on the11th, and the rest straggled along during the three or four daysfollowing. It was a narrow chance that Hudson missed them all, andone may imagine that the fate of the Virginia colony and of the NewYork settlement would have been different if the explorer of theHudson had gone up the James.
No sooner had the newcomers landed than trouble began. They wouldhave deposed Smith on report of the new commission, but they couldshow no warrant. Smith professed himself willing to retire toEngland, but, seeing the new commission did not arrive, held on tohis authority, and began to enforce it to save the whole colony fromanarchy. He depicts the situation in a paragraph: "To a thousandmischiefs these lewd Captains led this lewd company, wherein weremany unruly gallants, packed thither by their friends to escape illdestinies, and those would dispose and determine of the government,sometimes to one, the next day to another; today the old commissionmust rule, tomorrow the new, the next day neither; in fine, theywould rule all or ruin all; yet in charity we must endure them thusto destroy us, or by correcting their follies, have brought theworld's censure upon us to be guilty of their blouds. Happie had webeene had they never arrived, and we forever abandoned, as we wereleft to our fortunes; for on earth for their number was never moreconfusion or misery than their factions occasioned." In this companycame a boy, named Henry Spelman, whose subsequent career possessesconsiderable interest.
The President proceeded with his usual vigor: he "laid by the heels"the chief mischief-makers till he should get leisure to punish them;sent Mr. West with one hundred and twenty good men to the Falls tomake a settlement; and despatched Martin with near as many and theirproportion of provisions to Nansemond, on the river of that nameemptying into the James, obliquely opposite Point Comfort.
Lieutenant Percy was sick and had leave to depart for England when hechose. The President's year being about expired, in accordance withthe charter, he resigned, and Captain Martin was elected President.
But knowing his inability, he, after holding it three hours, resignedit to Smith, and went down to Nansemond. The tribe used him kindly,but he was so frightened with their noisy demonstration of mirth thathe surprised and captured the poor naked King with his houses, andbegan fortifying his position, showing so much fear that the savageswere emboldened to attack him, kill some of his men, release theirKing, and carry off a thousand bushels of corn which had beenpurchased, Martin not offering to intercept them. The frightenedCaptain sent to Smith for aid, who despatched to him thirty goodshot. Martin, too chicken-hearted to use them, came back with themto Jamestown, leaving his company to their fortunes. In thisadventure the President commends the courage of one George Forrest,who, with seventeen arrows sticking into him and one shot throughhim, lived six or seven days.
Meantime Smith, going up to the Falls to look after Captain West, metthat hero on his way to Jamestown. He turned him back, and foundthat he had planted his colony on an unfavorable flat, subject notonly to the overflowing of the river, but to more intolerableinconveniences. To place him more advantageously the President sentto Powhatan, offering to buy the place called Powhatan, promising todefend him against the Monacans, to pay him in copper, and make ageneral alliance of trade and friendship.
But "those furies," as Smith calls West and his associates, refusedto move to Powhatan or to accept these conditions. They contemnedhis authority, expecting all the time the new commission, and,regarding all the Monacans' country as full of gold, determined thatno one should interfere with them in the possession of it. Smith,however, was not intimidated from landing and attempting to quelltheir mutiny. In his "General Historie" it is written "I doe morethan wonder to think how onely with five men he either durst or wouldadventure as he did (knowing how greedy they were of his bloud) tocome amongst them." He landed and ordered the arrest of the chiefdisturbers, but the crowd hustled him off. He seized one of theirboats and escaped to the ship which contained the provision.
Fortunately the sailors were friendly and saved his life, and aconsiderable number of the better sort, seeing the malice ofRatcliffe and Archer, took Smith's part.
Out of the occurrences at this new settlement grew many of thecharges which were preferred against Smith. According to the"General Historie" the company of Ratcliffe and Archer was adisorderly rabble, constantly tormenting the Indians, stealing theircorn, robbing their gardens, beating them, and breaking into theirhouses and taking them prisoners. The Indians daily complained tothe President that these "protectors" he had given them were worseenemies than the Monacans, and desired his pardon if they defendedthemselves, since he could not punish their tormentors. They evenproposed to fight for him against them. Smith says that afterspending nine days in trying to restrain them, and showing them howthey deceived themselves with "great guilded hopes of the South SeaMines," he abandoned them to their folly and set sail for Jamestown.
No sooner was he under way than the savages attacked the fort, slewmany of the whites who were outside, rescued their friends who wereprisoners, and thoroughly terrified the garrison. Smith's shiphappening to go aground half a league below, they sent off to him,and were glad to submit on any terms to his mercy. He "put by theheels" six or seven of the chief offenders, and transferred thecolony to Powhatan, where were a fort capable of defense against allthe savages in Virginia, dry houses for lodging, and two hundredacres of ground ready to be planted. This place, so strong anddelightful in situation, they called Non-such. The savages appearedand exchanged captives, and all became friends again.
At this moment, unfortunately, Captain West returned. All thevictuals and munitions having been put ashore, the old factiousprojects were revived. The soft-hearted West was made to believethat the rebellion had been solely on his account. Smith, seeingthem bent on their own way, took the row-boat for Jamestown. Thecolony abandoned the pleasant Non-such and returned to the open airat West's Fort. On his way down, Smith met with the accident thatsuddenly terminated his career in Virginia.
While he was sleeping in his boat his powder-bag was accidentallyfired; the explosion tore the flesh from his body and thighs, nine orten inches square, in the most frightful manner. To quench thetormenting fire, frying him in his clothes, he leaped into the deepriver, where, ere they could recover him, he was nearly drowned. Inthis pitiable condition, without either surgeon or surgery, he was togo nearly a hundred miles.
It is now time for the appearance upon the scene of the boy HenrySpelman, with his brief narration, which touches this period ofSmith's life. Henry Spelman was the third son of the distinguishedantiquarian, Sir Henry Spelman, of Coughan, Norfolk, who was marriedin 1581. It is reasonably conjectured that he could not have beenover twenty-one when in May, 1609, he joined the company going toVirginia. Henry was evidently a scapegrace, whose friends werewilling to be rid of him. Such being his character, it is more thanprobable that he was shipped bound as an apprentice, and of coursewith the conditions of apprenticeship in like expeditions of thatperiod--to be sold or bound out at the end of the voyage to pay forhis passage. He remained for several years in Virginia, living mostof the time among the Indians, and a sort of indifferent go betweenof the savages and the settlers. According to his own story it wason October 20, 1609, that he was taken up the river to Powhatan byCaptain Smith, and it was in April, 1613, that he was rescued fromhis easy-setting captivity on the Potomac by Captain Argall. Duringhis sojourn in Virginia, or more probably shortly after his return toEngland, he wrote a brief and bungling narration of his experiencesin the colony, and a description of Indian life. The MS. was notprinted in his time, but mislaid or forgotten. By a strange seriesof chances it turned up in our day, and was identified and preparedfor the press in 1861. Before the proof was read, the type wasaccidentally broken up and the MS. again mislaid. Lost sight of forseveral years, it was recovered and a small number of copies of itwere printed at London in 1872, edited by Mr. James F. Hunnewell.
Spelman's narration would be very important if we could trust it. Heappeared to have set down what he saw, and his story has a certainsimplicity that gains for it some credit. But he was a reckless boy,unaccustomed to weigh evidence, and quite likely to write as factsthe rumors that he heard. He took very readily to the ways of Indianlife. Some years after, Spelman returned to Virginia with the titleof Captain, and in 1617 we find this reference to him in the "GeneralHistorie": "Here, as at many other times, we are beholden to Capt.
Henry Spilman, an interpreter, a gentleman that lived long time inthis country, and sometimes a prisoner among the Salvages, and donemuch good service though but badly rewarded." Smith would probablynot have left this on record had he been aware of the contents of theMS. that Spelman had left for after-times.
Spelman begins his Relation, from which I shall quote substantially,without following the spelling or noting all the interlineations,with the reason for his emigration, which was, "being in displeasureof my friends, and desirous to see other countries." After a briefaccount of the voyage and the joyful arrival at Jamestown, theRelation continues:
"Having here unloaded our goods and bestowed some se............