2. The first offshoot of the English race destined to take root in America, sailed from England in the third year of James I.'s reign. After a tedious voyage the expedition entered Chesapeake Bay too late in the season for the seed they had brought with them to be sown that year (1607). Ascending a stream which they called the James River, they chose for the site of their settlement a peninsula about forty miles from its mouth, where they built a village of rude huts to which they gave the name of Jamestown, and which proved the first permanent settlement of the English in the New World. 3. It cannot be said that these emigrants deserved to succeed any better than those who preceded them. We can only wonder, after the sad experience already bought at such a heavy cost, that men of the same stamp should still be sent over as colonists. Most of the present company were mere idle adventurers and worthless fellows who had never done an honest day's work at home. The new colony, consequently, was soon in danger of extinction. In six months half of the settlers were swept away by disease, wretched food, and other hardships. The remnant owed its escape to the resource and energy of one of their number, John Smith, who is entitled to the honour of being the first to plant the English race within the borders of what is now the United States. 4. Smith was a true Briton in many things besides the name, a man who would "stand no nonsense," who on being chosen leader soon made it plain that no drones should live in the hive. He soon proved himself the head and heart of the whole colony. Having provided a plenteous store of deer's flesh, wild-fowl, and maize-bread for the winter--"for he was more wakeful to gather provisions than the covetous to find gold"--he left the camp to explore the country round. Whilst thus engaged, Smith had the misfortune to fall into the hands of Indians. 5. "I was brought," he says, "to the village where the great chief Powhatan has his spacious wigwam. There they performed a war-dance around me, every one in the ring brandishing his weapons. One of my captors having been wounded, I cried out that at Jamestown I had some medicine to cure him. They would not let me fetch it; but I was permitted to send a letter, in which I asked my friends to put what I wanted under a great rock outside the town. To the astonishment of the Indian messengers who delivered my letter, the things I had promised were found by them the next day at the appointed place. On their return every one was full of wonder because of the 'talking-leaf.'"