It would not entertain the reader to follow Smith in all the small
adventures of the exploration, during which he says he went about 3,000
miles (three thousand miles in three or four weeks in a rowboat is
nothing in Smith's memory), “with such watery diet in these great
waters and barbarous countries.” Much hardship he endured, alternately
skirmishing and feasting with the Indians; many were the tribes he
struck an alliance with, and many valuable details he added to the
geographical knowledge of the region. In all this exploration Smith
showed himself skillful as he was vigorous and adventurous.
He returned to James River September 7th. Many had died, some were
sick, Ratcliffe, the late President, was a prisoner for mutiny,
Master Scrivener had diligently gathered the harvest, but much of the
provisions had been spoiled by rain. Thus the summer was consumed, and
nothing had been accomplished except Smith's discovery.
XI. SMITH'S PRESIDENCY AND PROWESS
On the 10th of September, by the election of the Council and the request
of the company, Captain Smith received the letters-patent, and became
President. He stopped the building of Ratcliffe's “palace,” repaired
the church and the storehouse, got ready the buildings for the supply
expected from England, reduced the fort to a “five square form,” set and
trained the watch and exercised the company every Saturday on a plain
called Smithfield, to the amazement of the on-looking Indians.
Captain Newport arrived with a new supply of seventy persons. Among
them were Captain Francis West, brother to Lord Delaware, Captain Peter
Winne, and Captain Peter Waldo, appointed on the Council, eight Dutchmen
and Poles, and Mistress Forest and Anne Burrows her maid, the first
white women in the colony.
Smith did not relish the arrival of Captain Newport nor the instructions
under which he returned. He came back commanded to discover the country
of Monacan (above the Falls) and to perform the ceremony of coronation
on the Emperor Powhatan.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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