The people sent over in the first years were for the most part utterly unfit. Of the first hundred, four were carpenters, there was a blacksmith, a tailor, a barber, a bricklayer, a mason, a drummer. There were fifty-five who ranked as gentlemen, and four were boys, while there were but twelve so-called laborers, including footmen, "that never did know what a day's work was." The company is described by one of its members as composed of poor gentlemen, tradesmen, serving men, libertines, and such like. "A hundred good workmen were better than a thousand such gallants," says Captain Smith. Of the moral character of the first emigrants no better account is given. It was perhaps with these men in view that Bacon declared it "a shameful and unblessed thing" to settle a colony with "the scum of the people." IV. [Sidenote: The arrival.] [Sidenote: A. D. 1607.] [Sidenote: Percy, in Purchas, p. 1689.] The ships sailed round by the Canaries, after the fashion of that time, doubling the distance to Virginia. They loitered in the West Indies to "refresh themselves" and quarrel, and they did not reach their destination until seedtime had well-nigh passed. They arrived on the 6th of May, according to our style. Driven into Hampton Roads by a storm, they sailed up the wide mouth of a river which they called the James, in honor of the king. At that season of the year the banks must have shown masses of the white flowers of the dogwood, mingled with the pink-purple blossoms of the redbud against the dark primeval forest. Wherever they went ashore the newcomers found "all the ground bespread with many sweet and delicate flowers of divers colors and kinds." The sea-weary voyagers concluded that "heaven and earth had never agreed better to frame a place for man's habitation." [Sidenote: The first meetings with Indians.] [Sidenote: Percy, in Purchas iv, pp. 1685, 1686.] They were like people in an enchanted land--all was so new and strange. On the first landing of a small party they had a taste of savage warfare. "At night, when wee were going aboard, there came the savages creeping from the Hills like Beares, with their Bowes in their Mouthes, charged us very desperately, hurt Captain Gabrill Archer in both hands, and a Sayler in two places of the body very dangerous. After they had spent their arrowes, and felt the sharpness of our shot, they retired into the Woods with a great noise and so left us." [Illustration: James River.] [Sidenote: A. D. 1607.]