A kind Providence had thus preserved the soldier, but he was to remain with Powhatan to make "bells, beads, and copper," for Pocahontas. It was a very curious fate for the hardy campaigner of the Turkish wars, to be buried in the Virginia woods, the fashioner of toys for an Indian girl.

Pocahontas was the favorite daughter of the Emperor, and Smith describes her as the most attractive of the Indian maids; "for features, countenance, and expression, she much exceeded any of the rest." Her figure was probably slight. "Of so great a spirit, however her stature," was the description of her afterwards, when she had grown up and visited London. Her dress was a robe of doeskin lined with down from the breast of the wood pigeon, and she wore coral bracelets on wrists and ankles, and a white plume in her hair, the badge of royal blood. It must have been a very interesting woodland picture the soldier, with tauned face and sweeping mustache, shaping trinkets for the small slip of Virginia royalty in her plumes and bracelets. A few words of the chronicle give us a glimpse of it, and the curtain falls.

The soldier remained with Powhatan until early in the next January (1608). They had sworn eternal friendship, and the Emperor offered to adopt him and give him the "country of Capahowsick" for a duke

It is probable that Smith received this proposal with enthusiasm, but he expressed a strong desire to pay a visit to Jamestown, and the Emperor finally permitted him to depart. He traveled with an escort and reached Jamestown in safety. His Indian guard were supplied with presents for Powhatan and his family, a cannon shot was fired into the ice-laden trees for their

gratification, and overwhelmed with fright, they fled into the woods.

The soldier had not spent a very merry Christmas on the banks of the York, and was not going to enjoy a happy New Year at Jamestown. The place was "in combustion," and the little colony seemed going to destruction. The new President, Ratcliffe, had revived the project of seizing the Pinnace. This was the only vessel, and he meant to escape in it to England — in other words to desert his comrades and leave them to their fate. As long as they had the Pinnace they might save themselves by abandoning the country. Now Ratcliffe and his fellow conspirators intended to take away this last hope.

Smith reached Jamestown on the very day (January 8, 1608) when the conspirators were about to sail. They had gone on board the Pinnace and were raising anchor when Smith's heavy hand fell on them. "With the hazard of his life, with sakre falcon and musketshot" he compelled them "now the third time to stay or sink." With that harsh thunder dogging them, Ratcliffe and his companions surrendered, in the midst of wild commotion. But their party was powerful and a curious blow was struck at Smith. He was formally charged "under the Levitical law" with the death of the men slain by the Indians on the Chickahominy. The punishment was death; but the "lawyers," as he calls them, were dealing with a resolute foe. Smith suddenly arrested his intended judges, and sent them under guard on board the Pinnace, where Ratcliffe and his accomplice Wingfield awaited his further pleasure in momentary fear of death.

All this turmoil and "combustion" had arisen from

sheer starvation. The English were without food, and the fearful summer of 1607 seemed about to be repeated. Suddenly Providence came to their rescue. A band of Indians bending down under baskets of corn and venison made their appearance from the direction of York River and entered the fort. At the head of the "wild train" was Pocahontas: the Indian girl of her own good heart had brought succor to the perishing colony; and she afterwards traversed the woods between the York and Jamestown "ever once in four or five days" bringing food, which "saved many of their lives that else, for all this, had starved for hunger." We are informed that the colonists were profoundly touched by this "love of Pocahontas," and their name for her thereafter was "the dear and blessed Pocahontas." Long afterwards Smith recalled these days to memory, and wrote in his letter to the Queen, "During the time of two or three years she, next under God, was still the instrument to preserve this colony from death, famine and utter confusion, which, if in those days had once been dissolved, Virginia might have lain as it was at our first arrival to this day."

These incidents paint the picture of the colony in the winter of 1607. Nearly a year after the settlement it had not taken root, and as far as any one could see it was not going to do so. The elements of disintegration seemed too strong for it. The men were gloomy and discouraged; "but for some few that were gentlemen by birth, industry and discretion," wrote Smith, "we could not possibly have subsisted." The loss of life by the summer epidemic had been terrible indeed, but what was worse was the loss of hope. The little society was nearly disorganized. Rival factions bat

tled for the mastery. Conspiracies were formed to desert the country; and a general discontent and loss of energy seemed to foretell the sure fate of the whole enterprise.

What was the explanation of this impatience, insubordination, and discouragement? These "gentlemen, laborers, carpenters" and others, were fair representatives of their classes in England; and in England they had been industrious, and respectable members of the community. Many persons of low character were afterwards sent to Virginia by James I., but the first "supplies" were composed of excellent material. Smith, Percy, and many more were men of very high character, and the wars with the savages clearly showed that the settlers generally could be counted on for courage and endurance. Why, then, was the Virginia colony going to destruction?

The reply is easy. Their rulers were worthless, and above all, the unhappy adventurers had no home ties. They were adrift in the wilderness without wives or children, and had little or no incentive to perform honest work. The result duly followed: they became idle and difficult to rule. It was bad enough to have over them such men as Wingfield and Ratcliffe, but the absence of the civilizing element, wives and children, was fatal. Later settlers in other parts of the country, brought their families, and each had his home and hearthstone. These first Americans had neither. When they came home at night or to the hut which they called home-no smiles welcomed them. When they worked it was under compulsion; why should they labor? The "common kettle" from which they took their dreary meals would be supplied by others. So the idlers grew

ever idler; the days passed in crimination and angry discussion one with another. The Virginia adventurers were steadily losing all hope of bringing the enterprise to a successful issue, and were looking with longing eyes back toward England as the place of refuge from all their woes.

This

Such was the state of things behind the palisades of Jamestown at the beginning of 1608. The original hundred men had dwindled to thirty or forty. remnant was torn by faction. There was no food for the morrow. Without Pocahontas and her corn-bearers it seemed certain that the Virginia plantation would miserably end. At this last moment succor came. A white sail was seen in James River, and whether Spaniard or English, friend or foe, they would be supplied with bread. The new-comers were friends. The London Company had sent out two ships under Captain Newport, with men and provisions, and this was one of them. For the time the plantation was saved,

VIII.

A YEAR OF INCIDENTS.

WITH the opening spring (1608) cheerfulness returned. The sun was shining after the dreary winter; the English ship had brought supplies; and the new colonists, fresh from home, gave them home news and revived their spirits. For a time, therefore, the growlers and croakers were silenced; bustle followed the sombre quiet; and a new spirit of life seemed to be infused into the colony.

The year which followed was full of movement, and