In Virginia the mariners not only entered into direct negotiations with the natives, by swapping goods over the side of a ship with savages in canoes or by stealing ashore for a dangerous rendezvous, but they carried on barter through colonists who secretly assumed the roles of factors in return for favors from the home-bound mariners. One mariner, according to Captain Smith, confessed to having obtained enough pelts in this manner on one voyage to net him thirty pounds sterling at home. That was a tidy sum for an ordinary sailor to acquire in those days, legitimately or otherwise. It was bad enough that the colonists abetted the sailors’ enterprise. Inflation invariably resulted when the settlers traded individually with the natives. But worst of all, in most cases the supplies being bartered had been pilfered by the sailors from company stores aboard ship. Smith railed against this “damnable and private trade,” when the colony was in such desperate need for food, and even for the very articles sold to the Indians. He recognized the profits to be made from the fur trade, as he well proved both in Virginia and later in New England. In this particular instance it was just that corn came first. John Smith’s tenure in Virginia ended in the fall of 1609 when he was seriously wounded by an accidental gunpowder explosion. He was invalided home to England. But not before his enemies had taken advantage of his agonized prostration to plot his murder. This treachery was thwarted by Smith’s usual fortune in such crises, the plot being discovered and exposed in the nick of time to save his life. In the meantime, however, the thoroughly aroused merchants in London had reorganized the company, taking a more realistic approach to the problems of colonization as John Smith suggested, and had appointed an influential governor with fuller authority to rule their plantation. The new governor’s advance representatives had already been dispatched to depose the outspoken young president who was so critical of the company’s policies. But Captain Smith’s task in Virginia was completed. Through his efforts, almost singlehanded, the English at last had a beachhead on the American continent. Settlers came now in great numbers--traders, merchants and farmers. The communalistic plan under which the colony had been governed by the company was abandoned, and a venturer to Virginia was given an opportunity to share in the profits of his labor. He could acquire land of his own, through bondage if necessary, something he had little chance of ever doing in England. And he could establish a family; many women now immigrated to reinforce further the first two brave females who arrived in 1608. Meanwhile, as John Smith’s historic beachhead was expanded, the fur trade continued to set the usual pattern of exploration, trade and settlement.