Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 3 (of 8): English Explorations and Settlements in North America 1497-1689
History
Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 3 (of 8): English Explorations and Settlements in North America 1497-1689
America -- Discovery and exploration; America -- History; United States -- History
of May, the day before the return of the explorers to Jamestown, the
unfinished fort (not completed until the 15th of June) was attacked by
the savages, who were repulsed by the colonists under the command of
Wingfield. The colonists had one boy killed and eleven men wounded,
one of whom died. Communion was administered by the chaplain, the Rev.
Robert Hunt, on Sunday, the 21st of June, and on the next day Newport
sailed for England in the “Susan Constant,” laden with specimens of the
forest and with mineral productions. A bark or pinnace, with provisions
sufficient to sustain the colonists for three months, was left with
them. The prospect of the men thus cast upon their own resources, was
not promising. Disturbed by the fatuous hope of discovering gold,
divided by faction, unused to the labor and hardships to which they
were now subjected, and in daily peril from the hostility of the
savages, the difficulties of success were enhanced by the insalubrity
of their ill-chosen settlement. By September fifty of them, including
the intrepid Gosnold, had died, and the store of damaged provisions
upon which they mainly depended was nearly exhausted. Violent
dissension ensued, which resulted, on the 10th of the month, in the
displacement of Wingfield by Ratcliffe in the office of president,
and the deposing, imprisonment, and finally the execution of Kendall;
by which the Council, never more than seven in number (including
Newport), and in which no vacancies had been filled, was reduced to
three only,—Ratcliffe, Smith, and Martin. Reprehensible as the conduct
of the colonists at this period may have been, they yet held religious
observances in regard. Their piety and reverence are instanced both
by Smith and Wingfield. In Bagnall’s narrative in the _Historie_ of
the first, it is noted that “order was daily to haue Prayer, with a
Psalme;”[230] and Wingfield states that when their store of liquors was
reduced to two gallons each of “sack” and “aqua-vitæ,” the first was
“reserued for the communion table.”[231]
[Illustration: JAMESTOWN.
This cut follows a sketch made about 1857 by a travelling Englishwoman,
Miss Catherine C. Hopley, and shows the condition of the ruined church
at that time.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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