At country and seeking gold. They ascended no further than the present village of Williamstown, when a flight of arrows from the wooded shore revealed the enmity of the natives. Lane hastened back to Roanoke, and summoned Wingina, the most powerful of the chiefs, to an audience. The sachem and his followers appeared. Their secret plans for the destruction of the English were suspected, indeed, quite certainly known, and the white men were on the alert. With apparent friendliness Wingina appeared at the council. a given signal the English fell upon the chief and his handful of warriors, and put them to death. The calumet was now buried forever; the hatchet was brightened and made sharp by intensest hatred. The English felt the danger of their situation, and were desponding, when the fleet of Sir Francis Drake anchored outside of Roanoke Inlet. He came from the West Indies to visit the domain of Raleigh, and generously offered to furnish the colony with means to pursue their discoveries; but fear gained the mastery of their avaricious desires, and the colonists sailed with Drake for England. a A few days after their departure a ship arrived, laden with stores for the colony; and, within a fortnight, Grenville also arrived with three well-furnished ships. The commander sought in vain for the colony, and, leaving fifteen men on the Island of Roanoke to maintain English dominion, he returned to England with the sad intelligence for Raleigh.' a June 19, 1586. Raleigh, undismayed by misfortunes, fitted out another expedition. He changed his policy, and sent a colony of men, women, and children to establish an agricultural state. John White was appointed their governor. They sailed on the 26th of April, 1587, and arrived on the coast of North Carolina in July. When they reached Roanoke, they found no vestige of the fifteen men left by Grenville, except a few scattered bones. The Indians had slain them all. Wild deers were in the untenanted habitations, and rank grass covered their gardens. They proceeded to lay the foundation of "the city of Raleigh," pursuant to the instructions of the proprietor, but it was an idle show." White endeavored to make treaties of amity with the natives, but failed, though aided by the friendly Manteo, who accompanied Amidas and Barlow to England. The neighboring tribes exhibited implacable hatred and jealousy. Winter approached, and the vessel which brought them was prepared for departure for England. White was urged strongly to go with it, and use his endeavors to send them immediate relief, for they had neither planted nor reaped, and to England alone they looked for supply. He was unwilling to appear as a deserter of his colony, and refused. He had another tie. His daughter, Eleanor Dare, had given birth to a child, the first offspring of English parents in the New World. Little Virginia Dare twined the tendrils of affection close around the heart of her grand-parent, and he lingered.* He at length consented to go, leaving his daughter and child as pledges that he would return. Very long the poor colonists waited for relief. Three years passed away before White returned, and then he found the settlement a desolation. There was evidence upon the bark of a tree that the people had departed for Croatan,' the residence of Manteo ; but It is believed that these returning colonists first carried the tobacco plant to England, as prepared by the natives for smoking. Raleigh first used it privately. It is related that when his servant entered his room with a tankard of ale, and for the first time saw the smoke issuing from his master's mouth and nostrils, he cast the liquor in his face. Terribly frightened, he alarmed the household with the intelligence that Sir Walter was on fire. * The Island of Roanoke is now uninhabited, except by a few wreckers and pilots. Slight traces of Lane's fort may be seen near the north end. 3 By command of Raleigh, Manteo was baptized, and invested by White with the rank of feudal Baron, as the Lord of Koanoke. It was the first creation of an American peer of the realm. It is a coincidence worth noticing, that White was the name of the progenitors of the first two children born of English parents in America. One on the Island of Roanoke, in August, 1587; the other in the May Flower, in Plymouth harbor, more than thirty-three years afterward. 5 It was agreed, on the departure of White, that if the colony should go to Croatan, they would signify the fact by inscribing the letters C R O upon the bark of a tree. This inscription, and also the full name of Croatan, was found. White has been censured for heartlessness in not prosecuting his search with more perseverance, particularly as his own relatives were among the settlers. The colony was composed of eighty-nine men, seventeen women, and two children. What was their fate is left to conjecture. Lawson, in his Travels among the Indians, with a Description of North Carolina, published in 1700, hazards the Loss of a Colony. Other Expeditions. London and Plymouth Companies. Death of Raleigh. Newport. the season was far advanced, and search was abandoned. White put to sea without intelligence of the fate of his daughter and child, and returned to England. Five several times Raleigh sent a vessel with trusty men to search for his colony, when hope fading, his fortune almost exhausted, and his health and heart broken by domestic griefs, he abandoned all ideas of settlement in America, and assigned his proprietary rights to a company. Virginia, then including in its indefinite boundaries all of North Carolina, remained untouched by the English for twenty years, except by an occasional adventurer who voluntarily searched for Raleigh's colony. These attempts at settlement on the coasts of our Middle States, form a wonderful chapter of adventure and moral heroism in the history of the world. a 1606. b April 10, 1606. We will now consider the modern settlement of Virginia. The efforts of Raleigh awakened intense interest in the public mind. Other expeditions were fitted out, but all failed to make permanent settlements. Gosnold, Weymouth, Pring, Smith, and others, who visited America, gave such glowing accounts of the country, that men of rank, capital, and influence were induced to embark in colonizing schemes. They were made acquainted with the general character of a fertile region, extending over eleven degrees of latitude, from Cape Fear to Halifax, all in the temperate climates, diversified with noble rivers and harbors, and displaying the most luxuriant vegetation. An association was formed,a of men eminent as merchants, and wealthy titled commoners, of London and Bristol. King James encouraged the scheme, and gave them a charter. They formed two companies, the men of London for colonizing the south portion of the territory, and called the London Company; those of Bristol for settling the more northern region, and called the Plymouth Company. A line of three degrees between both was allowed, upon which settlements in common might be made, it being stipulated that whenever one should first become permanently seated, the other should settle at least one hundred miles distant. Each of the colonies was to be governed by a council of thirteen persons. The companies were to have full property in all lands, fisheries, &c., except a fifth of the gold, and a fifteenth of the copper ore that might be found, which was to be paid to the king. James, with his usual pedantry, prepared a code of laws for them, written with his own hand. The colonists and their posterity were declared English subjects, but were vested with no political rights, not even trial by jury, unless in capital charges. Minor offenses were punished arbitrarily by the council. That body was to be appointed by the home government, the former choosing its own president. The property of the colonists was to continue in joint stock for five years. The English Church was exclusively established, and strict injunctions were given for the mild and just treatment of the natives.' Three small vessels, whose joint tonnage amounted to only one hundred and sixty, under the command of Captain Christopher Newport, with a colony of one hundred and five men, sailed for Virginia on the 19th of December, 1606. The king had placed the names of the future council of Virginia in a sealed box, which was not to be opened until their arrival in opinion that the colonists intermarried with the Hatteras Indians, and cites the physical character of that tribe in support of his hypothesis. Such, too, was the tradition of the Indians at a late day. 1 Sir Walter Raleigh experienced the folly of "putting his trust in princes." For years after abandoning his schemes for colonization, he served his country nobly against its enemies. He also was sent by Queen Elizabeth on an expedition in search of gold, up the Oronoco, in South America. Once, because he married without the queen's consent, she committed him to the Tower for a brief season. Finally, on the death of his royal mistress in 1602, and the accession of James I., he became the victim of a conspiracy. He was tried, and condemned for treason; and for fifteen years he remained in the Tower a prisoner, first under sentence of death, afterward under the merciful provision of a reprieve. During that long imprisonment he wrote his History of the World. On being released, he went on another expedition to Guiana; but it being unsuccessful, he was cast into prison on his return, and the royal scoundrel who occupied the throne of England allowed the decrepit old man, who had given more true luster to the crown than any living mortal, to be beheaded. He was then in the sixty-sixth year of his age. 2 Among these were Sir Thomas Gates; Sir George Summers; Sir John Popham, lord chief justice of England; Edward Maria Wingfield, a wealthy, sordid, and unprincipled merchant; Richard Hakluyt, one of the assignees of Raleigh, who wrote an interesting collection of voyages, in three volumes; Robert Hunt, a clergyman; and Captain John Smith. 3 Chalmers, pages 15, 16. Captain John Smith. Founding of Jamestown. Visit to Powhatan. Energy of Smith. Bartholomew Gosnold America. Only twelve laborers and a few mechanics were among the voyagers; the remainder of the one hundred and five persons were adventurers, with hands unused to labor. Dissensions arose on the voyage, and, as there was no acknowledged head, in consequence of the folly of the king, much confusion ensued. Captain Smith possessed more genius than any man among them, and, consequently, great jealousy of him was felt. Under the absurd accusation of an intention to murder the council, and make himself King of Virginia, he was put in confinement. After a voyage of four months, the expedition entered the April 26, Chesapeake, a having been driven by a storm northward of their point of destina1607. tion. The capes of the noble bay they named in honor of the two sons of the king, Henry and Charles. They landed upon Cape Henry, made peace with the natives, opened the sealed paper of the king, discovered the names of the council, and chose the unscrupulous and narrow-minded Wingfield to be president. Smith was named one of the council, but was excluded from that body. His accusers thought it prudent, however, to withdraw their charges, and he was released from confinement. A few days after their arrival in the Chesapeake, the little fleet entered the mouth of the noble River Powhatan, which they named James, in honor of their sovereign. Up its broad channel they sailed about fifty miles, and there, upon a charming peninsula, an island at high tide, they determined to build a town and plant a permanent settlement. The natives received them kindly; and in the beautiful month of May, 1607, the first sound of an ax was heard, the first tree was felled, and the first rafter was laid in Virginia. A village was planned, and, in honor of the king, was called Jamestown. While the carpen ters and laborers were rearing the city, Smith and Newport, with twenty others, ascended the river to the Falls, and at his imperial residence of twelve wigwams, just below Richmond, they visited Powhatan, the "Emperor of the Country." The events connected with that visit have been noticed on page 226. Newport returned to England with his vessels in June, leaving one hundred men, and a pinnace with stores, at Jamestown. The colonists, wanting habits of industry, soon perceived the helplessness of their situation. Many of them were of dissolute habits; and before autumn, the dampness of the climate, and the malaria arising from the decay of luxu riant vegetation, produced diseases which swept away fifty of their number, among whom was Bartholomew Gosnold,' the eminent navigator and projector of the settlement. The survivors relied chiefly upon sturgeons and crabs, and scanty supplies of maize, for their subsistence, while Wingfield and a part of his council were appropriating the stores to their own use. Wingfield, and Kendall (one of the council), were detected in a conspiracy to abandon the colony, and escape with the pinnace and stores to the West Indies. They were deposed, and Ratcliffe, an irresolute and indolent man, was appointed president. Fortunately for the colony, he was quite willing to bear the empty honors of his office without exercising its functions, and he allowed Captain Smith, by far the ablest man among them, to have the principal management of affairs. The colony at once assumed a new and better aspect under the direction of Smith. As far as possible, he infused his own energetic spirit into his companions; but they were generally too indolent and dissolute to profit much by his example. Smith quelled the spirit of anarchy and rebellion; restored order in the midst of confusion; visited the chiefs of the neighboring tribes, and inspired them with respect for the English; and, by his consummate skill, he procured from the natives an ample stock of corn and wild fowl when winter approached. We are now at a point in the history of the New World full of the most romantic interest, and the pen is tempted from its present line of duty by a thousand seductive influences. The exploits of Smith-his exploring voyages his discoveries his indomitable perseverance 1 Gosnold crossed the Atlantic in 1602, and, after a voyage of six weeks, saw land at the northern extremity of Massachusetts Bay. He sailed southward, and landed upon a promontory, which he called Cape Cod, on account of the great quantity of cod fish which abounded there. Pursuing his voyage along the coast, he discovered and named Elizabeth Islands, thirteen in number, Martha's Vineyard, and others in the neighborhood of Buzzard's Bay. After an absence of only four months, Gosnold returned to England Progress of Jamestown Colony. Smith's Voyage up the Chickahominy. His Capture. His Adventures in Europe. and courage his hardships, sufferings, escapes, and forbearance with his ungrateful companions, all plead eloquently for the services of pen and pencil. These must be briefly sketched in faint outline, for it is foreign to my plan to detail colonial history, except so much as is necessary to illustrate the main subject of these volumes-The War for Independence. The Jamestown colony was placed beyond the effects of want in the autumn of 1607, and Smith, with a few companions, set out to explore the country. He went up the Chickahominy, in an open boat, fifty miles from its mouth.' There he left his boat, the water being shallow, and, with two companions and two Indian guides, pushed into the interior. He ordered those in the boat not to leave it. Disobeying his instructions, they wandered on shore and were slain. Smith was surprised by a party of Indians, under Opechancanough, the "King of Pamunkee;" his two companions were killed, and he, after slaying several Indians, was made a prisoner. His life was spared, and he was conducted in triumph through the several Indian villages, from the Chickahominy to the banks of the Rappahannock and Potomac, and was finally brought back to the seat of Opechancanough, at Pamunkee, on the York River. There, for three days, the priests performed incantations to discover the character of their prisoner, and CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 1 Among the positive instructions of the London Company, was an injunction for the colonists to endeavor to find a passage to the South Sea, or, in other words, to the East Indies, by a northwest passage, the object of the polar expeditions of the present day. For this purpose, they were instructed to explore every considerable stream that came from the northward; and hence we find Smith (who did not share in the geographical ignorance of his employers, but was willing to engage in discoveries) exploring the James, Chickahominy, York, and Potomac Rivers. The wily Indian mentioned on page 243 as having invented the wonderful story of a gold region at the head of the Roanoke, informed Lane that the source of that river was among high rocks so near the ocean on the west, that the salt water would sometimes dash over into the clear fountains of the stream! John Smith was born at Willoughby, in Lincolnshire, England, in 1559. He was early distinguished for his daring spirit and love of adventure. At the age of thirteen, he sold his school-books and satchel to procure money to pay his way to the sea-board, for the purpose of going to sea. He was prevented, and was apprenticed to a merchant. He left home when he was fifteen years old, and went to France and the Low Countries. For two years he studied military tactics; and, at the age of seventeen, having procured a portion of an estate left by his father, went abroad seeking adventures. On a voyage from Marseilles to Naples, a storm arose, and the Roman Catholic crew believing the heretic, as they called Smith, to be a Jonah, they cast him into the sea to quiet the waters. He was a good swimmer, and reached the shore of a small island in the Mediterranean, called St. Mary's. From St. Mary's he went in a French vessel to Alexandria, in Egypt. He soon went from thence to Italy, and then to Austria, where he entered the imperial army, and, by his daring exploits at the siege of Olympach, was rewarded by the command of a troop of horse. These obtained the name of the "Fiery Dragoons," in the war against the Turks. At the siege of Regall, a Turkish officer, the Lord Turbishaw, "to amuse the ladies," offered to engage in single combat with any Christian soldier. The lot fell upon Smith; and, in the sight of both armies, he cut off the head of Turbishaw, and carried it in triumph to the Austrian camp. He fought two other champions, Grualgo and Mulgro, with the same result. In a subsequent battle Smith was wounded, captured, and sold to a pacha. This dignitary sent him to Constantinople, as a present to a damsel whom he loved. She, in turn, loved Smith, and to place him in safety, sent him to her brother. There, however, Smith was cruelly treated. He beat out the brains of the tyrant, and escaped to Muscovy, and finally reached Austria. He went with a French captain to Morocco and the Canaries, encountered a sea-fight with the Spaniards, and returned to his native country. His restless spirit made him yearn for adventures in the New World. Here, after many great exploits, and the endurance of many hardships, he planted the Vir ginia colony on a firm basis, and returned to England. He died in London in 1631, at the age of 72. The Indians outwitted by Smith. His Trial and Sentence. Pocahontas-her Marriage, Death, and Descendants. They the most expedient disposition of him, for they considered him a superior being.' finally carried him to Werowocomoco,' the lower seat of Powhatan, and referred the decision to that powerful chief. Seated upon a raised platform, the trunk and branches of the towering pine for a palace, POCAHONTAS.3 the lordly Powhatan, with his two favorite daughters "How trembled then the maid, as rose His fearless spirit still would spurn. His footsteps free advance, as still Where stood the savage sent to kill." W. GILLMORE SIMMS 1 Smith showed them a pocket compass, and explained its properties, and the shape of the earth; how "the sun, and the moon, and the stars chased each other." They were astonished, and regarded him with awe. They made him offers of "life, liberty, land, and women," if he would tell them how to obtain possession of Jamestown. They also obtained some of his powder. Smith made them waste it (for they had been made acquainted with its use) by letting them sow it as seed and raise a crop for themselves. In various ways he outwitted them, and so perfectly retained his self-possession that they regarded him with great respect. 2 Werowocomoco, the scene of Smith's salvation by Pocahontas, was upon the north side of the York River, in Gloucester county, about twenty-five miles below the junction of the Pamunkey and Mattapony Rivers, which form the broad and navigable York. According to Charles Campbell, Esq., of Petersburg, Virginia, who has carefully examined the matter, Shelly, the seat of Mrs. Mann Page, nearly opposite the mouth of Queen's Creek, is the site of Werowocomoco. Carter's Creek, emptying into the York at Shelly, afforded a safe harbor for canoes. Such was also the opinion of Governor Page, whose plantation (Roseweli) adjoined that of Shelly. The enormous beds of oyster shells (on account of which Governor Page named the place Shelly) at this point indicate that it was once a place of great resort by the natives. 3 Pocahontas was a girl "of ten or twelve" years of age when she saved the life of Captain Smith. Two years afterward, when not over fourteen years old, she went from her father's camp, on a dark and stormy night, to Jamestown, and informed Smith of a conspiracy among the Indians to destroy the settlers. This timely interposition saved them. While Smith remained in the colony, she was a welcome visitor at Jamestown, and often bore messages between the white men and her kindred. In 1612, after Smith had returned to England, she was treacherously betrayed, for the bribe of a copper kettle, into the hands of Captain Argall, and by him kept as a prisoner, in order to secure advantageous terms of peace with Powhatan. The Indian king offered five hundred bushels of corn for her ransom; but, before her release was effected, a mutual attachment had sprung up between her and John Rolfe, a young Englishman of good family. With the consent of her father she received Christian baptism, and was married to Rolfe. The former ceremony is the subject of a beautiful painting by John G. Chapman, Esq., which graces one of the panels of the Rotunda of the Capitol at Washington. Pocahontas accompanied her husband to England in 1616, where she was received at court with the distinction of a princess. The bigoted King James was highly indignant because one of his subjects had dared to marry into a royal family, and absurdly apprehended that, because Rolfe had married an Indian princess, he might lay claim to the crown of Virginia! It is said that Pocahontas was much afflicted because Smith, fearing the royal displeasure, would not allow a king's daughter to call him father, her usual endearing name when addressing him. She remained in England about a year; and when on the point of returning to America, with her husband, in 1617, she sickened and died at Gravesend. The Lady Rebecca (for so she was called in England) had many and sincere mourners. She left one son, Thomas Rolfe, who afterward became a distinguished man in Virginia. He left an only daughter, and from her some of the leading families of Virginia trace their descent. Among these were the Bollings, Hemmings, Murrays, Guys |