United States -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775
[Footnote 27: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, I., 175.]
[Footnote 28: Wingfield, _Discourse_, in Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.),
lxxxvii.]
[Footnote 29: _Breife Declaration_.]
[Footnote 30: Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 104.]
[Footnote 31: _Breife Declaration_.]
[Footnote 32: Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 109-120.]
CHAPTER IV
GLOOM IN VIRGINIA
(1608-1617)
When Newport arrived with the "Second Supply," September 29, 1608, he
brought little relief. His seventy passengers, added to the number
that survived the summer, raised the population at Jamestown to about
one hundred and twenty. Among the new-comers were Richard Waldo, Peter
Wynne (both added to the council), Francis West, a brother of Lord
Delaware; eight Poles and Germans, sent over to begin the making of
pitch and soap ashes; a gentlewoman, Mrs. Forrest, and her maid, Anne
Burras, who were the first of their sex to settle at Jamestown. About
two months later there was a marriage in the church at Jamestown
between John Laydon and Anne Burras,[1] and a year later was born
Virginia Laydon, the first white child in the colony.[2]
The instructions brought by Newport expressed the dissatisfaction of
the council with the paltry returns made to the company for their
outlay, and required President Smith to aid Newport to do three
things[3]--viz., crown Powhatan; discover a gold-mine and a passage to
the South Sea; and find Raleigh's lost colony. Smith tells us that he
was wholly opposed to all these projects, but submitted as best he
might.
The coronation of Powhatan was a formality borrowed from Sir Walter
Raleigh's peerage for Manteo, and duly took place at Werowocomoco.
Powhatan was presented with a basin, ewer, bed, bed-cover, and a
scarlet cloak, but showed great unwillingness to kneel to receive the
crown. At last three of the party, by bearing hard upon his shoulders,
got him to stoop a little, and while he was in that position they
clapped it upon his head. Powhatan innocently turned the whole
proceeding into ridicule by taking his old shoes and cloak of raccoon
skin and giving them to Newport.
To seek gold-mines and the South Sea, Newport, taking all the strong
and healthy men at the fort, visited the country of the Monacans
beyond the falls of the James. In this march they discovered the vein
of gold that runs through the present counties of Louisa, Goochland,
Fluvanna, and Buckingham; but as the ore was not easily extracted from
the quartz they returned to Jamestown tired and disheartened. The
search for Raleigh's lost colony was undertaken with much less
expense--several small parties were sent southward but learned nothing
important.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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