What befell Jamestown after Captain John Smith left it--A score of rival leaders create disorder and encourage license--The Indians overcome the white men and put them to flight--Ratcliffe falls into a trap and with his men is massacred--Winter finds them sick and starving--“Now we all felt the want of Captain Smith”--Reinforcements arrive but it is determined to abandon the colony--The appearance of Lord Delaware frustrates the move--Jamestown is restored and prospers for a spell--The tobacco craze and what it led to--Opechancanough directs a great massacre--The Colony of Virginia is at last firmly planted. It is a dismal tale, the recital of what befell the five hundred colonists of Virginia after the departure of Captain John Smith, but no more striking vindication of his management of affairs could be found than in the rapid wreck of the colony when his guiding hand was removed from the helm. Almost at once a condition of anarchy set in. Percy was honest and not unwise but he lacked the iron will and indomitable energy of Smith, and nothing less was needed to cope with the situation. There were soon, in the words of an eye-witness, “twenty presidents,” each with his particular followers, forming a faction at variance with all the others. Strife and dissension pervaded the settlement. Idleness and waste prevailed. The Indians were treated as though the chief aim of the settlers had been to create their enmity. The more prudent of the older colonists sought to divert their fellows from the destruction upon which they were plainly heading, but without avail. Percy, depressed by anxiety, fell ill of a fever which confined him to his bed, and, with the last vestige of authority removed, the colonists gave themselves up unrestrainedly to riot and feasting.