The hands of the executioners were stayed, and Pocahontas, turning to her father, pleaded so eloquently for the life of Smith, that her prayer was granted. He was restored to liberty, and sent back to Jamestown under an escort of twelve savages, arriving there after an absence of about four weeks, to find the colony again in a state of destitution and anarchy. The immediate wants of the unlucky emigrants were, however, supplied by Pocahontas, who seems to have determined not to lose sight of the hero she had saved, and to have come constantly to Jamestown with supplies of corn for him and his people. A little later, her kindly aid was supplemented by the return to Jamestown of Newport, with one hundred and twenty men, provisions, implements, and seeds. The brief revival of prosperity was, however, to a great extent neutralized by an unfortunate discovery near Jamestown of a quantity of yellow mica, which was mistaken for gold. Newport and his men threw up for its sake the tilling of the ground and trading for furs with the Indians――which would really have produced a golden harvest――and finally set sail for Europe, with a cargo, to quote Smith’s own expression, of the useless dirt. With Newport departed Smith’s rivals, Wingfield, Archer, and Martin, leaving him the chief person in the colony; and so soon as his movements were unhampered, he set to work exploring the neighborhood, quickly gaining a very thorough knowledge of Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, which he embodied in a map still extant. On one trip he penetrated far into the present state of Ohio, and heard from the natives something of the doings of the French, who were by this time rapidly gaining ground in Canada. On his return to Jamestown in September, 1608, Smith was formally elected, what he had long been in reality, president of the colonial council; and a little later, Newport again appeared on the scene with fresh emigrants, including two women, Mistress Forrest and Ann Burras, her maid, and supplies of provisions. Newport was also the bearer of instructions from the London Council “to bring home a lump of gold,” instead of the worthless stuff sent last time, “to discover the passage to the South Sea, to find the survivors of the Roanoake colony, and to crown the Emperor Powhatan.” Instead of the lump of gold, Smith sent back a cargo of timber, and specimens of tar, pitch, and potash; instead of the discovery of the passage to the South Sea, he reported the existence of a richly-watered land, which would repay tillage a hundredfold; and of the message relating to the survivors of Roanoake he took no notice whatever. The only part of the strange orders received literally carried out was that relating to the crowning of Powhatan, who, convinced of his own importance by the fuss made about him, declared he was not coming to Jamestown, but must be waited on at home.