Smith's management were false, and desiring an investigation. These petitioners were members of a faction which desired to break up the Virginia Company. In the Relation of the Assembly, Smith is charged with all the cruelties to the Colonists which are mentioned in this "Brief Declaration"; torturing and starving to death being the punishments for minor offences; and asserting their confidence in the truth of these statements by concluding it with these words: "And rather to be reduced to live under the like government we desire his Ma^{ties} commissioners may be sent over w^{th} authoritie to hange us." This is signed by thirty members of the General Assembly, including among the names, those of George Sandys, the poet, traveller and Secretary of the Colony, and Raph Hamor, the chronicler--See Neill, pp. 407-411. There is another reference to this starving time (as it is called) and its accompanying horror, which should not be allowed to pass without notice. As above stated, the worst state of affairs was reported to have existed in 1609, and in the next year a pamphlet with the following title was issued, "A true declaration of the estate of the Colonie of Virginia, with a refutation of such scandalous reports as haue tended to the disgrace of so worthy an enterprise. Published by aduise and direction of the Councell of Virginia. London, 1610." The writer of which, after referring to the slanders which had been circulated in regard to Sir Thos. Smith's government, and especially of the story of the wife-eater, says, "Sir Thomas Gates thus relateth the tragedie," and then follows a long passage to the effect that "one of the companie mortally hated his wife," and having killed her and secreted her body after cutting it into peices; when it was found out he said she died and he had hid her to satiafie his hunger, and had fed daily upon her, but upon searching his house they found a large quantity of provisions.--See Force's tracts, Vol. III. The writers of the "Brief Declaration," and the "True Declaration," must have seen this statement published ten or twelve years before they wrote, and it is a little remarkable that they should have persisted in repeating a story which was far from being well authentitcated, especially as the true statement did not need this addition to increase the odium incurred by the mismanagement of Sir Thos. Smith, the evidences of which are herein set forth. Stith reports the stories of the Indian "that had been slain and buried" being taken up and eaten, and "so did several others, one another that died," and also that of the man who "killed his wife and powdered her up, and eat the greater portion before it was discovered;" and adds, for many years after it was "remembered by the name of the _starving time_," p. 116-117. For many particulars nowhere else given, see Neill's History, pp. 407-411. STATE PAPER OFFICE. } COLONIAL. } _Volume 3, No. 21, I._ }