John Smith and the Jamestown Colony: West Indies and Powhatan
After Newport's departure, Ratcliffe, the president, lived in ease, peculating on the public store. The spring now approaching, Smith and Scrivener undertook to rebuild Jamestown, repair the palisades, fell trees, prepare the fields, plant, and erect another church. While thus engaged they were joyfully surprised by the arrival of the Phoenix, commanded by Captain Nelson, who had left England with Newport about the end of the year 1607, and, after coming within sight of Cape Henry, had been driven off to the West Indies. He brought with him the remainder of the first supply, which comprised one hundred and twenty settlers. Having found provisions in the West Indies, and having economically husbanded his own, he imparted them generously to the colony, so that now there was accumulated a store sufficient for half a year.
Powhatan, having effected so advantageous an exchange with Newport, afterwards sent Smith twenty turkeys, but, receiving no swords in return, he was highly offended, and ordered his people to take them by fraud or force, and they accordingly attempted to seize them at the gates of Jamestown. The president and Martin, who now ruled, remained inactive, under pretence of orders from England not to offend the natives; but some of them happening to meddle with Smith, he handled them so roughly, by whipping and imprisonment, as to repress their insolence.
Pocahontas, in beauty of feature, expression, and form, far surpassed any of the natives, and in intelligence and spirit "was the nonpareil of her country." Powhatan, hearing that some of his people were kept prisoners at Jamestown, sent her, with Rawhunt (who was as remarkable for his personal deformity, but shrewd and crafty), with presents of a deer and some bread, to sue for their ransom. Smith released the prisoners, and Pocahontas was dismissed with presents. Thus the scheme of Powhatan to destroy the English with their own swords was happily frustrated.
The Phoenix was freighted with a cargo of cedar, and the unserviceable, gold-hunting Captain Martin concluded to return with her to England. Of the one hundred and twenty settlers brought by Newport and Nelson, there were thirty-three gentlemen, twenty-one laborers (some of them only footmen), six tailors, two apothecaries, two jewellers, two gold-refiners, two goldsmiths, a gunsmith, a perfumer, a surgeon, a cooper, a tobacco-pipe maker, and a blacksmith.
On the 2d of June, 1608, Smith left Jamestown with the purpose of exploring Chesapeake Bay. During this journey he discovered the Potomac and sailed up it to the head of navigation. He continued his explorations, and during the summer, "with a few men, in a small barge, in his several voyages of discovery he traversed a distance of not less than three thousand miles." In September, 1608, he accepted the office of president, which he had formerly declined.
Smith, the president, now set the colonists to work; some to make glass, others to prepare tar, pitch, and soap-ashes; while he, in person, conducted thirty of them five miles below the fort to cut down trees and saw plank. Two of this lumber party happened to be young gentlemen who had arrived in the last supply. Smith sharing labor and hardship in common with the rest, these woodmen, at first, became apparently reconciled to the novel task, and seemed to listen with pleasure to the crashing thunder of the falling trees; but when the axes began to blister their unaccustomed hands, they grew profane, and their frequent loud oaths echoed in the woods. Smith, taking measures to have the oaths of each one numbered, in the evening, for each offence, poured a can of water down the offender's sleeve; and this curious discipline, or water-cure, was so effectual that after it was administered an oath would scarcely be heard in a week. Smith found that thirty or forty gentlemen who volunteered to work could do more in a day than one hundred that worked by compulsion; but he adds that twenty good workmen would have been better than the whole of them put together.
Further troubles with the Indians succeeded, and only the energy of the governor defeated the murderous schemes of Opechancanough.
Returning [from his visit to this chief], he descended the York as far as Werowocomoco, intending to surprise Powhatan there, and thus secure a further supply of corn; but Powhatan had abandoned his new house, and had carried away all his corn and provisions; and Smith, with his party, returned to Jamestown. In this expedition, with twenty-five pounds of copper and fifty pounds of iron, and some beads, he procured, in exchange, two hundred pounds of deer suet, and delivered to the Cape merchant four hundred and seventy-nine bushels of corn.