The colonists experience hard times and a touch of starvation—Fever seizes the settlement and one-half the settlers die—The entire charge of affairs devolves upon Captain Smith—President Wingfield is deposed and Ratcliffe appointed in his place—Smith leads an expedition in search of corn—Returns to find trouble at Jamestown—The blacksmith to be hanged for treason—At the foot of the gallows he divulges a Spanish plot—Captain Kendall, a Councilman, is involved—His guilt is established—He seizes the pinnace and attempts to sail away—Smith trains a cannon upon the boat and forces the traitor to land—He is hanged.

Just before the departure of Captain Newport with the two larger ships—the pinnace, Discovery, was left for the use of the colonists—Mr. Hunt had administered the communion to the company in the hope that the joint participation in the holy sacrament might create a bond of amity between them. On that occasion Captain Smith had modestly addressed the assembled settlers, urging them to forget past disagreement, as he was ready to do, and address themselves energetically to the important business of the community.

“You that of your own accord have hazarded your lives and estates in this adventure, having your country’s profit and renown at heart,” he said with earnestness, “banish from among you cowardice, covetousness, jealousies, and idleness. These be enemies to the raising your honors and fortunes and put in danger your very lives, for if dissension prevail among us, surely we shall become too weak to withstand the Indians. For myself, I ever intend my actions shall be upright and regulated by justice. It hath been and ever shall be my care to give every man his due.”

The plain, frank speech moved his hearers, but in the evil times that quickly fell upon them good counsel was forgotten and strife and ill-nature resumed their sway.

The colonists had arrived too late in the year to plant and they soon began to experience a shortage of provisions. The grain which had lain six months in the holds of leaky vessels was wormy and sodden, unfit for horses and scarcely eatable by men. Nevertheless, for weeks after Newport left, a small allowance of this formed the principal diet of the unfortunate settlers. The woods abounded in game, it is true, but they were yet unskilled in hunting and dared not venture far from their palisades, whilst the unaccustomed sounds of axe and hammer had driven every beast and most of the birds from the neighborhood. They must have starved but for the sturgeon that they secured from the river. On these they dined with so little variation that their stomachs at last rebelled at the very sight of them. One of this miserable company, describing their condition, says with melancholy humor: “Our drink was water; our lodgings castles in the air.”

But lack of food was only one of the hardships which befell the poor wretches. There were but few dwellings yet constructed, and being forced to lie upon the low damp ground, malarial fever and typhoid broke out among them and spread with such fearful rapidity that not one of them escaped sickness. Hardly a day passed but one at least of their number found a happy release from his sufferings in death. Fifty in all—just half of them—died between June and September. The unaccustomed heat aided in prostrating them, so that at one time there were scarce ten men able to stand upon their feet. And all this time the Indians kept up a desultory warfare and only refrained from a determined attack upon the settlement for fear of the firearms. Had they assaulted the stockade, instead of contenting themselves with shooting arrows into it from a distance, the colonists could have made no effective defence against them.

Shortly, the whole weight of authority and the entire charge of the safety of the settlement fell upon Captain Smith. He was sick like the rest, but kept his feet by sheer strength of will, knowing that otherwise they would all fall victims to the savages in short order. Gosnold was under the sod. Wingfield, Martin and Ratcliffe were on the verge of death. Kendall was sick and, moreover, had been deposed from his place in the Council. In fact, all the chief men of the colony were incapacitated, “the rest being in such despair that they would rather starve and rot with idleness than be persuaded to do anything for their own relief without constraint.” In this strait the courage and resolution of one man saved them as happened repeatedly afterward. He nursed the sick, distributed the stores, stood guard day and night, coaxed and threatened the least weak into exerting themselves, cunningly hid their real condition from the Indians, and, by the exercise of every available resource, tided over the terrible months of July and August.

Early in September, Wingfield was deposed from the presidency. His manifest incompetency had long been the occasion of discontent which was fanned to fever heat when the starving settlers discovered that the leader, who was too fine a gentleman to eat from the common kettle, had been diverting the best of the supplies from the public store to his private larder. The climax which brought about his downfall, however, was reached when it transpired that the President had made arrangements to steal away in the pinnace and return to England, leaving the settlement in the lurch. Ratcliffe was elected to fill his place. He was a man of no greater capacity than his predecessor, but it happened that conditions improved at about this time and the undiscerning colonists were willing to give him credit for the change.

Early fall brings ripening fruit and vegetables in the South. The Indians, who fortunately had no idea of the extremity to which the colony had been reduced, began to carry corn and other truck to the fort, glad to trade for beads, little iron chisels or other trifles. Wild fowl came into the river in large numbers and, with these welcome additions to their hitherto scanty diet, the sick soon began to recover health and strength. Smith, so soon as he could muster a boat’s crew, made an excursion up the river and returned with some thirty bushels of corn to famine-stricken Jamestown. Having secured ample supplies for immediate needs, our hero, who was by this time generally recognized as the actual leader of the colony, put as many men as possible to work building houses and succeeded so far as to provide a comfortable dwelling for every one but himself.

Our adventurers, convalescent for the most part, now experienced a Virginia autumn in all its glory. The days were cloudless and cool. The foliage took on magic hues and presented patterns marvellously beautiful as an oriental fabric. The air, stimulating as strong wine, drove the ague from the system and cleared the brain. The fruits of the field stood ripe and inviting whilst nuts hung in profusion from the boughs of trees amongst which fat squirrels and opossums sported. Turkeys with their numerous broods wandered through the woods whilst partridges and quail abounded in the undergrowth. Where starvation had stared them in the face the colonists now saw plenty on every hand and, with the appetites of men turning their backs upon fever-beds, ate to repletion. With the removal of their sufferings, they dismissed the experience from their minds and gave no heed to the latent lesson in it. Not so Captain Smith, however. He realized the necessity of providing a store of food against the approach of winter, without relying upon the return of Newport with a supply ship.

The Council readily agreed to the proposed expedition in search of provisions, but it was not in their mind to give the command to Captain Smith. Far from being grateful to the man who had saved the settlement in the time of its dire distress and helplessness, they were more than ever jealous of his growing influence with the colonists. None of them was willing to brave the dangers and hardships of the expedition himself nor did they dare, in the face of Smith’s popularity, to appoint another to the command. In this difficulty they pretended a desire to be fair to the other gentlemen adventurers by putting a number of their names into a lottery from which the commander should be drawn. The hope was that by this means some other might be set up as a sort of competitor to Smith. There were those among the gentlemen who penetrated this design and had sufficient sense to circumvent it. George Percy, a brother of the Earl of Northumberland, and Scrivener, were among our hero’s staunch adherents. Percy contrived that he should draw the lot from the hat that contained the names. The first paper that he drew bore upon it the words: “The Honorable George Percy.” Without a moment’s hesitation he showed it to Scrivener, as though for confirmation, and crumpling it in his hand, cried:

“Captain John Smith draws the command,” and the announcement was received with a shout of approval.

“Thou hast foregone an honor and the prospect of more,” said Scrivener, as they walked away together.

“Good Master Scrivener,” replied the young nobleman, with a quizzical smile, “one needs must have a head to carry honors gracefully and I am fain to confess that I deem this poor caput of mine safer in the keeping of our doughty captain than in mine own.”

It was early in November when Smith, taking the barge and seven men, started up the Chickahominy. The warriors were absent from the first village he visited and the women and children fled at the approach of his party. Here he found the store-houses filled with corn, but there was no one to trade and, as he says, he had neither inclination nor commission to loot, and so he turned his back upon the place and came away empty-handed. Now, if we consider the impression that must have been made upon those Indians by this incident, we must the more keenly regret that so few others were moved by similar principles of wisdom and honesty in their dealings with the savages. In his treatment of the Indian down to the present day the white man appears in a very poor light, and most of the troubles between the two races have been due to the greed and injustice of the latter. John Smith set an example to later colonists which, had they followed it, would have saved them much bloodshed and difficulty.

Proceeding along the narrow river, the expedition arrived at other villages where the conditions better favored their purpose. The Indians seem to have gained some inkling of the impoverished state of the Jamestown store, for at first they tendered but paltry quantities of grain for the trinkets which Smith offered to exchange. But they had to deal with one who was no less shrewd than themselves. The Captain promptly turned on his heel and marched off towards his boat. This independent action brought the redskins crowding after him with all the corn that they could carry and ready to trade on any terms. In order to allay their suspicions as to his need, Smith declined to accept more than a moderate quantity from any one band, but by visiting many, contrived without difficulty to fill the barge and, as he says, might have loaded the pinnace besides if it had been with him.

We will now leave Captain Smith and his party bringing their boat down the river towards home and see what is going on at Jamestown in the meanwhile. We shall find throughout our story that the master spirit of the colony never leaves the settlement but that some trouble breaks out in his absence. This occasion was no exception to the rule. One day, shortly before the return of the expedition, Ratcliffe, the President, fell into an altercation with the blacksmith, and in the heat of passion struck the man. The blow was returned, as one thinks it should have been, but in those days the distinction between classes was much more marked than in these and the unfortunate artisan was immediately clapped in jail.

To have struck a gentleman was bad enough, but the hot-headed north-country blacksmith had raised his hand against the representative of the sacred majesty of the King and that constituted high treason. A jury of his fellows found him guilty and he was sentenced to be hanged without delay. A gallows was quickly erected and the brawny blacksmith, after receiving the ministrations of Mr. Hunt, was bidden to mount. But the condemned man craved the usual privilege of making a dying speech, and the request was granted. To the consternation of the assembled colonists he declared that he was in possession of a plot to betray the settlement to the Spaniards, and offered to divulge the details on condition that his life should be spared. This was granted. Indeed, it is difficult to understand how the colonists could have entertained the design to hang almost the most useful man among them.

In order to appreciate the blacksmith’s revelation, we should understand that although Spain had some years previously entered into a treaty of peace with England, she remained keenly jealous of the growing power of the latter nation and never ceased to employ underhand methods to check it. Spanish spies were numerous in England and were to be found among all classes, for some of the Catholic nobility were not above allowing their religious zeal to outrun their sense of patriotism. In particular was Spain concerned about the new ardor for American colonization, of which one of the earliest manifestations was the settlement at Jamestown, and it is more than probable that she had sent several of her secret agents out with the expedition from England. However that may be, Captain Kendall, erstwhile member of Council, was the only one accused by the reprieved man. A search of the traitor’s quarters disclosed papers that left no doubt as to his guilt.

The searching party had just returned to the Council room with the incriminating documents when Captain Smith landed his party and entered the fort to find the settlement in the greatest state of excitement. He at once joined the Council and was in deliberation with the other members when a man burst in upon them shouting:

“Captain Kendall hath seized the pinnace and is about sailing away in her.”

The Councilmen rushed from the chamber without ceremony and made towards the shore. There, sure enough, was the pinnace in mid-stream and Captain Kendall hoisting her sail to catch a stiff breeze which was blowing out of the river. The spectators stood open-mouthed in speechless dismay, or bewailed the escape that they seemed to consider accomplished. That was not the view of Captain Smith. He took in the situation at a glance and as quickly decided upon counteraction. Running back to the fort he had a gun trained on the pinnace in a trice and shouted to its occupant to come ashore or stay and sink and to make his decision instanter. One look at the determined face peering over the touch-hole of the cannon sufficed the spy. He brought the boat ashore and within the hour was shot.