port and himself came to daggers draw. For the moment, however, their differences were smoothed over, and Newport proceeded to carry out another of his orders, to crown Powhatan. Smith was sent to invite the Emperor to come to Jamestown for that purpose, and finding him absent dispatched a messenger to summon him. A curious scene preceded his arrival. The party of English were seated in a field by a fire when they heard singing, and turning their heads they saw a number of Indian girls emerge from the woods. They were nearly nude and stained with puccoon, and the leader of the band was Pocahontas, who wore a girdle of otter skin, and carried in her hand a bow and arrows, and behind her shoulders a quiver. Above her forehead she wore "antlers of the deer," and led the masqueraders, who after elaborate dancing conducted the English to a neighboring wigwam, where supper was supplied them and they were treated with the utmost kindness. The ceremonies wound up with a grand torch-light procession, in honor of the Englishmen. They were escorted to their lodgings when the maids retired to their own, and the picturesque proceedings came to an end.

Powhatan appeared on the next morning, but positively declined to go to Jamestown. "I also am a king," he said, "and this is my land. Your father is to come to me, not I to him nor yet to your fort; neither will I bite at such a bait." This response was delivered" with complimental courtesy," but was plainly final. He did not propose to visit Jamestown; and finding his resolution fixed Smith returned to Newport. The result was that Newport went to Werowocomoco and performed the ceremony there. The scene was

It

comic, but indicated the regal pride of Powhatan. was plain that he welcomed the bed, basin, and pitcher brought as presents, and he cheerfully submitted to investment with a scarlet cloak. But there his submission ended. He positively refused to kneel and have the crown placed on his head. When they forced him to do so, and a volley was fired in honor of the occasion, he rose suddenly to his feet, expecting an attack. Finding that none was intended, he regained his "complimental courtesy;" consented thenceforth to be Powhatan I., under-king, subject to England; and sent his brother James I. his old moccasins and robe of raccoon skin, in return for the scarlet cloak and the crown.

This was the only order of the Company carried out by Newport. He marched to the Monacan country toward the upper waters of James River to discover gold or the South Sea; found neither in that region, and returned foot-sore to Jamestown, where he and Smith came to open quarrel. But the men were unequally matched; the brusque soldier was too much for the courtier. Smith threatened, if there was more trouble, to send home the ship and keep Newport a prisoner, whereat the man of the world gave way, "cried peccavi,” and sailed for England. He took with him, doubtless against his will, Smith's "Map of Virginia and Description of the Country," and also a letter styled his "Rude Answer" to the reprimand sent him by the authorities. This curious production must be read in the original chronicle. The writer is a soldier, and forgets to approach the dignitaries with distinguished consideration. The machine of his eloquence is not oiled, and goes creaking harshly, but the sound attracts attention if it grates on the nerves of the Honorables. "The sailors

say," he writes, "that Newport hath a hundred pounds. a year for carrying news. Captain Ratcliffe is a poor counterfeit impostor, I have sent you him home lest the company should cut his throat." It is probable that if Captain Newport had suspected the character of this "Rude Answer" he would have dropped it into the Atlantic. But he duly took it to England, and the Right Honorables no doubt gasped at its truculence.

Such is a glimpse of these old feuds. The actors in the scenes are now mere shadows, - Smith the soldier, Newport the courtier, Ratcliffe the agitator, and all the rest; but these minutia of the chronicles bring back the actual figures. It is only by stopping to look at them that we are able to obtain some idea of the real drama, of the daily worries, the spites and personal antagonisms of the men who played their parts during these first years of American history.

IX.

THE STRONG HAND AT LAST.

THE snow had begun to fall with the approach of winter (1608), and again the unlucky adventurers were reduced to dire extremity. Once more they were in want of food, and, huddled together behind their palisade, were "affrighted" at the thought of famine.

To this at the end of nearly two years had the Virginia enterprise come. A company of two hundred men were in the wilderness without resources. It is true they had the immense boon of a gracious charter securing their rights, granting them trial by jury, establishing the English Church, liberally authorizing them

to hold their lands by free tenure as in England; and here they were, a wretched handful wasting away with famine, who had much ado to hold their lands by any tenure whatever against the savages.

In their extremity there was but one man to look to. The old rulers had disappeared. Of the original Council, Gosnold was dead of the fever of 1607; Newport had retired; Wingfield and Ratcliffe had been deposed; Martin had gone off in disgust; and Kendall had been shot. Smith only remained, the man whom all this bad set had opposed from the first, arrested for treason, tried for murder, and attempted in every manner to destroy. In the dark hour now, this man was the stay of the colony. Three other councilors had come out with Newport, Captains Waldo and Wynne and Master Matthew Scrivener, all men of excellent character; but the colonists looked to Smith as the true ruler.

With the snow-fall came the question of food. Newport, it seems, had left them little. The supply was nearly exhausted, and the only resource was to apply to the Indians. But it was found that times had changed. The tribes of Powhatan were not going to furnish any; they had received orders to that effect from their Emperor. The application was made, refused, and what followed was a decisive trial of strength between the English and the savages, a series of scenes in which we have the old life of the first adventurers summed up and wrought into a picture full of dramatic interest.

Smith resolved to strike at the central authority. "No persuasion," we are told, "could persuade him to starve," and what he meant now to do was to go to Powhatan and procure supplies by fair means or force. The old Emperor gave him a pretext for visiting Wero

Wocomoco. He sent inviting Smith to come and bring some men who could build him a house. Some "Dutchmen" were sent at once, and at the end of December (1608) Smith followed. His force was about fifty men, and they went by the water route in the Pinnace and two barges. Among them were George Percy, now an old settler," and a man who could be implicitly relied upon; Francis West, of Lord Delaware's family; and many other" gentlemen." The enterprise was going to be a decisive affair. These fifty men led by a soldier like Smith were a dangerous engine.

The voyagers went down James River in the cold winter season, and stopped here and there to enjoy the hospitality of the tribes. They thus coasted along, past Hampton, Old Point, and the present Yorktown, and about the middle of January (1609) sailed up the York, and came in sight of Werowocomoco. On the way they had received a warning. The king of Warrasqueake had said to Smith, " Captain Smith, you shall find Powhatan to use you kindly, but trust him not; and be sure he have no opportunity to seize on your arms, for he hath sent for you only to cut your throats." The soldier "thanked him for his good counsel," but probably did not need it. He was not confiding and meant to guard himself; for the rest this intimation of the friendly Warrasqueaker no doubt gratified him. He was going to make war on the host who had invited a visit; it was satisfactory to know that the host designed cutting

his throat.

When the Englishmen came opposite the "Chief Place of Council," they found the river frozen nearly half a mile from the shore. The vessels, however, broke the ice, and when near the shore Smith leaped into the water