History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of VirginiaCampbell, Charles
History
History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia
Campbell, Charles
Virginia -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775; Virginia -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783
Smith, the president, now set the colonists to work; some to make glass,
others to prepare tar, pitch, and soap-ashes; while he, in person,
conducted thirty of them five miles below the fort to cut down trees and
saw plank. Two of this lumber-party happened to be young gentlemen, who
had arrived in the last supply. Smith sharing labor and hardship in
common with the rest, these woodmen, at first, became apparently
reconciled to the novel task, and seemed to listen with pleasure to the
crashing thunder of the falling trees; but when the axes began to
blister their unaccustomed hands, they grew profane, and their frequent
loud oaths echoed in the woods. Smith taking measures to have the oaths
of each one numbered, in the evening, for each offence, poured a can of
water down the offender's sleeve; and this curious discipline, or
water-cure, was so effectual, that after it was administered, an oath
would scarcely be heard in a week. Smith found that thirty or forty
gentlemen who volunteered to work, could do more in a day than one
hundred that worked by compulsion; but, he adds, that twenty good
workmen would have been better than the whole of them put together.
Smith finding so much time wasted, and no provisions obtained, and
Newport's vessel lying idle at heavy charge, embarked in the discovery
barge, taking with him eighteen men and another boat, and leaving orders
for Lieutenant Percy to follow after him, went up the Chickahominy.
Being overtaken by Percy, he procured a supply of corn. Upon his return
to Jamestown, Newport and Ratcliffe, instigated by jealousy, attempted
to depose Smith from the presidency, but he defeated their schemes. The
colony suffered much loss at this time by an illicit trade carried on
between the sailors of Newport's vessel, dishonest settlers, and the
Indians. Smith threatened to send away the vessel and to oblige Newport
to remain a year in the colony, so that he might learn to judge of
affairs by his own experience, but Newport submitting, and acknowledging
himself in the wrong, the threat was not executed. Scrivener visiting
Werowocomoco, by the said of Namontack procured another supply of corn
and some puccoons, a root which it was supposed would make an excellent
dye, as the Indians used its red juice to stain their faces.
Newport at last sailed for England, leaving at Jamestown two hundred
souls, carrying a cargo of such pitch, tar, glass, and soap-ashes as the
colonists had been able to get ready. Ratcliffe, whose real name was
discovered to be Sicklemore, was sent back at the same time. Smith in
his letter to the council in England, exhibited, in caustic terms, the
preposterous folly of expecting a present profitable return from
Virginia. He sent them also his map of the country, drawn with so much
accuracy, that it has been taken as the groundwork of all succeeding
maps of Virginia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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