This Country of OursMarshall, H. E. (Henrietta Elizabeth)
History
This Country of Ours
Marshall, H. E. (Henrietta Elizabeth)
United States -- History
At length there seemed good hope that the colony would prosper.
But now another misfortune befell it. For it was found that rats
had got into the granaries and eaten nearly all the store of corn.
So once again expeditions set forth to visit the Indians and gather
more from them. But their supply, too, was running short; harvest
was still a long way off, and all the colonists could collect
was not enough to keep them from starvation. So seeing this Smith
divided his men into companies, sending some down the river to
fish, and others into the woods to gather roots and wild berries.
But the lazy ones liked this little. They would have bartered
away their tools and firearms to the savages for a few handfuls of
meal rather than work so hard. They indeed became so mutinous that
Smith hardly knew what to do with them. But at length he discovered
the ringleader of these "gluttonous loiterers." Him he "worthily
punished," and calling the others together, he told them very
plainly that any man among them who did not do his share should
be banished from the fort as a drone, till he mended his ways or
starved.
To the idlers Smith seemed a cruel task-master; still they obeyed
him. So the colony was held together, although in misery and hunger
and without hope for the future.
At length one day to the men on the river there came a joyful sight.
They saw a ship slowly sailing towards them. They could hardly
believe their eyes, for no ship was expected; but they greeted it
with all the more joy. It was a ship under Captain Samuel Argall,
come, it is true, not to bring supplies, but to trade. Finding,
however, that there was no hope of trade Captain Argall shared what
food he had with the famished colonists, and so for a time rescued
them from starvation. He also brought the news that more ships were
setting out from home bringing both food and men.
In June, 1609, this fleet of nine ships really did set out. But
one ship was wrecked on the way, another, the Sea Venture, was cast
ashore on the Bermudas; only seven arrived at length at Jamestown,
bringing many new colonists. Unfortunately among these new arrivals
there were few likely to make good colonists. They were indeed for
the most part wild, bad men whose friends had packed them off to
that distant land in the hope of being rid of them forever. "They
were," said one of the old colonists who wrote of them, "ten times
more fit to spoil a Commonwealth than either to begin one or but
help to maintain one."
Now with all these "unruly gallants" poured into his little commonwealth
Smith found his position of President even more difficult than
before. Still, for a time, if he could not keep them altogether in
order he at least kept them in check.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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