Energy and Wisdom of Captain Smith

The emperor yielded to the maid, and consented to spare the life of the captive that he might make hatchets for his majesty, and bells and rattles, beads and copper ornaments for his daughter, his favorite child. He did more; he released Captain Smith, sent him with an escort of a dozen men to Jamestown, and he and his people promised to be fast friends of the English. But for the energy and wisdom of Captain Smith and the tender compassion of an Indian maiden, the settlers at Jamestown would have all been murdered or dispersed. They had been reduced to forty persons, and when Smith returned he found the stronger ones on the point of abandoning the place and escaping in the pinnace. By his personal courage and moral force he compelled them to desist, and so, again, he saved the budding colony from ruin. These men, conscious of the purity of Captain Smith and of their own wickedness, now hated him with an intensity of feeling that impelled them to seek his destruction.

During Smith's absence among the Indians, the church at Jamestown had been burned, and the Rev. Mr. Hunt was laboring earnestly for the good of souls under the shadow of great trees. Of that first church edifice, Captain Smith has left us an interesting account. "When I first went to Virginia," he says, "I well remember we did hang an awning (which was an old sail) to three or four trees, to shadow us from the sun; our walls were rails of wood, our seats unhewed trees, till we cut planks; our pulpit a bar of wood nailed to two neighboring trees; in foul weather we shifted into an old rotten tent, for we had few better, and thus came by way of adventure for new. This was our church till we built a homely thing like a barn, set upon crotchetts, covered with rafts, sedge, and earth, so was also the walls. The best of our houses were of the like curiosity, but the most part far worse workmanship, that could neither well defend wind nor rain, yet we had daily Common Prayer, morning and evening, every Sunday two sermons, and every three months the Holy Communion till our minister died."

On his return, Smith found the settlers engaged in building a house for the President of the Council. When he was installed into that office not long afterward, he ordered the church edifice to be rebuilt. "Now the building of the palace was stayed as a thing needless," he said, "and the church was repaired;" and he assisted the minister in all ways in his power to make the people better.

When Newport returned to England he found the Council there increased in numbers and power, and he was employed to return immediately with new emigrants and supplies. He arrived at Jamestown early in 1608 with two vessels, and was received with joy. But he brought no better materials for a colony than before. Instead of needed mechanics and farmers with families, he brought chiefly idle "gentlemen," some of them vicious, whose friends, Smith said, had sent them away to "escape ill destinies at home"--the prison or something worse. There were one hundred and twenty of them, and there was scarcely a really useful man among them. There were several unskilled goldsmiths, whose ignorance caused a most destructive gold-fever to prevail in Virginia. They pronounced some glittering yellow earth near Jamestown to be a deposit of the precious metal, and in spite of the earnest remonstrances of Smith, the whole population turned gold-seekers. For awhile there was "no talk, no hope, no work, but dig gold, refine gold, load gold." On the recommendation of the goldsmiths, Newport loaded his vessel with the worthless earth, and returned to England with the impression that he was an immensely rich man. He was soon undeceived by a scientific test.

Captain Smith implored the settlers to plant and sow that they might have plenty and be happy, without the aid of the Indians, who, chiefly through the exertions of Pocahontas, were sending them supplies. But they would not listen to the wise man, and at length, in the early summer of that year, he turned from Jamestown in disgust, and with a few of the more sensible men he went in an open boat to explore the Chesapeake Bay and its numerous tributaries. In the space of three months, he made two voyages. During the first he went up the Potomac River to the Falls near George-town, and up the Rappahannock to the Falls near Fredericksburg, and then returned to Jamestown. During the second voyage he went up the Patapsco to the site of Baltimore and up the narrower part of Chesapeake Bay into the Susquehanna River, a short distance above Havre-de-Grace, where he heard of the powerful Iroquois Confederacy in the present State of New York. In these two voyages, Smith not only explored the shores of great waters, but penetrated into the country, made friendly alliances with several chiefs, and smoothed the way for the future planting of settlements on the borders of the noble Chesapeake. He had voyaged about three thousand miles in an open boat and made a map of the region explored, remarkable for its accuracy, which is preserved in London.