Also two barrels of stones, and such as I take to be good.Iron ore at the least; so divided, as by their notes you may see in what places I found them.The souldiers say many of your officers maintaine their families out of that you sent us, and that Newport hath an hundred pounds a year for carrying newes.For every master you have yet sent can find the way as well as he, so that an hundred pounds might be spared, which is more than we have all, that helps to pay him wages.Cap.Ratliffe is now called Sicklemore, a poore counterfeited Imposture.I have sent you him home least the Company should cut his throat.What he is, now every one can tell you: if he and Archer returne againe, they are sufficient to keep us always in factions.When you send againe I entreat you rather send but thirty carpenters, husbandmen, gardiners, fishermen, blacksmiths, masons, and diggers up of trees roots, well provided, then a thousand of such as we have; for except wee be able both to lodge them, and feed them, the most will consume with want of necessaries before they can be made good for anything.Thus if you please to consider this account, and the unnecessary wages to Captaine Newport, or his ships so long lingering and staying here (for notwithstanding his boasting to leave us victuals for 12 months, though we had 89 by this discovery lame and sicke, and but a pinte of corne a day for a man, we were constrained to give him three hogsheads of that to victuall him homeward), or yet to send into Germany or Poleland for glassemen and the rest, till we be able to sustaine ourselves, and releeve them when they come.It were better to give five hundred pound a ton for those grosse Commodities in Denmarke, then send for them hither, till more necessary things be provided.For in over-toyling our weake and unskilfull bodies, to satisfy this desire of present profit, we can scarce ever recover ourselves from one supply to another.And Ihumbly intreat you hereafter, let us have what we should receive, and not stand to the Saylers courtesie to leave us what they please, els you may charge us what you will, but we not you with anything.These are the causes that have kept us in Virginia from laying such a foundation that ere this might have given much better content and satisfaction, but as yet you must not look for any profitable returning.So I humbly rest.
After the departure of Newport, Smith, with his accustomed resolution, set to work to gather supplies for the winter.Corn had to be extorted from the Indians by force.In one expedition to Nansemond, when the Indians refused to trade, Smith fired upon them, and then landed and burned one of their houses; whereupon they submitted and loaded his three boats with corn.The ground was covered with ice and snow, and the nights were bitterly cold.The device for sleeping warm in the open air was to sweep the snow away from the ground and build a fire; the fire was then raked off from the heated earth and a mat spread, upon which the whites lay warm, sheltered by a mat hung up on the windward side, until the ground got cold, when they builded a fire on another place.Many a cold winter night did the explorers endure this hardship, yet grew fat and lusty under it.
About this time was solemnized the marriage of John Laydon and Anne Burrows, the first in Virginia.Anne was the maid of Mistress Forrest, who had just come out to grow up with the country, and John was a laborer who came with the first colony in 1607.This was actually the "First Family of Virginia," about which so much has been eloquently said.
Provisions were still wanting.Mr.Scrivener and Mr.Percy returned from an expedition with nothing.Smith proposed to surprise Powhatan, and seize his store of corn, but he says he was hindered in this project by Captain Winne and Mr.Scrivener (who had heretofore been considered one of Smith's friends), whom he now suspected of plotting his ruin in England.
Powhatan on his part sent word to Smith to visit him, to send him men to build a house, give him a grindstone, fifty swords, some big guns, a cock and a hen, much copper and beads, in return for which he would load his ship with corn.Without any confidence in the crafty savage, Smith humored him by sending several workmen, including four Dutchmen, to build him a house.Meantime with two barges and the pinnace and forty-six men, including Lieutenant Percy, Captain Wirt, and Captain William Phittiplace, on the 29th of December he set out on a journey to the Pamaunky, or York, River.
The first night was spent at " Warraskogack," the king of which warned Smith that while Powhatan would receive him kindly he was only seeking an opportunity to cut their throats and seize their arms.
Christmas was kept with extreme winds, rain, frost and snow among the savages at Kecoughton, where before roaring fires they made merry with plenty of oysters, fish, flesh, wild fowls and good bread.The President and two others went gunning for birds, and brought down one hundred and forty-eight fowls with three shots.
Ascending the river, on the 12th of January they reached Werowocomoco.The river was frozen half a mile from the shore, and when the barge could not come to land by reason of the ice and muddy shallows, they effected a landing by wading.Powhatan at their request sent them venison, turkeys, and bread; the next day he feasted them, and then inquired when they were going, ignoring his invitation to them to come.Hereupon followed a long game of fence between Powhatan and Captain Smith, each trying to overreach the other, and each indulging profusely in lies and pledges.Each professed the utmost love for the other.