Books: Richard of Jamestown

J >> James Otis >> Richard of Jamestown

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From that hour did it seem as if all the men in Jamestown, save
only half a dozen, among whom were Captain Smith, Master Hunt and
Master Percy, strove their best to wreck the settlement.

Because Lord De la Warr, the new governor, had not arrived, many of
the new comers refused to obey my master, and they were so strong
in numbers that it was not possible for him to force them to his
will.

Each man strove for himself, regardless of the sick, or of the
women and children. Some banded themselves together in companies,
falling upon such Indian villages as they could easily overcome,
and murdered and robbed until all the brown men of Virginia stood
ready to shed the blood of every white man who crossed their path.

Then came that which plunged Nathaniel and me into deepest grief.

THE ACCIDENT

Captain Smith had gone up the bay in the hope of soothing the trouble
among the savages, and, failing in this effort, was returning,
having got within four and twenty hours' journey of Jamestown, when
the pinnace was anchored for the night.

The boat's company lay down to sleep, and then came that accident,
if accident it may be called, the cause of which no man has ever
been able to explain to the satisfaction of Master Hunt or myself.

Captain Smith was asleep, with his powder bag by his side, when
in some manner it was set on fire, and the powder, exploding, tore
the flesh from his body and thighs for the space of nine or ten
inches square, even down to the bones.

In his agony, and being thus horribly aroused from sleep, hardly
knowing what he did, he plunged overboard as the quickest way to
soothe the pain. There he was like to have drowned but for Samuel
White, who came near to losing his own life in saving him.

He was brought back to the town on the day before the ships of the
fleet, which had brought so many quarrelsome people, were to sail
for England. With no surgeon to dress his wounds, what could he do
but depart in one of these ships with the poor hope of living in
agony until he arrived on the other side of the ocean.

Nathaniel and I would have gone with him, willing, because of
his friendship for us, to have served him so long as we lived. He
refused to listen to our prayers, insisting that we were lads well
fitted to live in a new land like Virginia, and that if we would
but remain with Master Hunt, working out our time of apprenticeship,
which would be but five years longer, then might we find ourselves
men of importance in the colony. He doubted not, so he said, but
that we would continue, after he had gone, as we had while he was
with us.

What could we lads do other than obey, when his commands were laid
upon us, even though our hearts were so sore that it seemed as if
it would no longer be possible to live when he had departed?

Even amid his suffering, when one might well have believed that
he could give no heed to anything save his own plight, he spoke to
us of what we should do for the bettering of our own condition. He
promised that as soon as he was come to London, and able to walk
around, if so be God permitted him to live, he would seek out
Nathaniel's parents to tell them that the lad who had run away
from his home was rapidly making a man of himself in Virginia, and
would one day come back to gladden their hearts.

CAPTAIN SMITH'S DEPARTURE

It is not well for me to dwell upon our parting with the master
whom we had served more than two years, and who had ever been the
most friendly friend and the most manly man one could ask to meet.

Our hearts were sore, when, after having done what little we might
toward carrying him on board the ship, we came back to his house,
which he had said in the presence of witnesses should be ours, and
there took up our lives with Master Hunt.

But for that good man's prayers, on this first night we would have
abandoned ourselves entirely to grief; but he devoted his time to
soothing us, showing why we had no right to do other than continue
in the course on which we had been started by the man who was gone
from us, until it was, to my mind at least, as if I should be doing
some grievous wrong to my master, if I failed to carry on the work
while he was away, as it would have been done had I known we were
to see him again within the week.

With Captain Smith gone, perhaps to his death; with half a dozen
men who claimed the right to stand at the head of the government
until Lord De la Warr should come; and with the savages menacing
us on every hand, sore indeed was our plight.

With so many in the town, for there were now four hundred and ninety
persons, and while the savages, because of having been so sorely
wronged, were in arms against us, it was no longer possible to go
abroad for food, and as the winter came on we were put to it even
in that land of plenty, for enough to keep ourselves alive.

THE "STARVING TIME"

We came to know what starvation meant during that winter, and were
I to set down here all of the suffering, of the hunger weakness,
and of the selfishness we saw during the six months after Captain
Smith sailed for home, there would not be days enough left in my
life to complete the tale.

As I look back on it now, it seems more like some wonderful dream
than a reality, wherein men strove with women and children for food
to keep life in their own worthless bodies.

It is enough if I say that of the four hundred and ninety persons
whom Captain Smith left behind him, there were, in the month of
May of the year 1610, but fifty-eight left alive. That God should
have spared among those, Nathaniel Peacock and myself, is something
which passeth understanding, for verily there were scores of better
than we whose lives would have advantaged Jamestown more than ours
ever can, who died and were buried as best they could be by the
few who had sufficient strength remaining to dig the graves.

I set it down in all truth that, through God's mercy, our lives
were saved by Master Hunt, for he counseled us wisely as to the
care we should take of our bodies when our stomachs were crying
out for food, and it was he who showed us how we might prepare this
herb or the bark from that tree for the sustaining of life, when
we had nothing else to put into our mouths.

We had forgotten that Lord De la Warr was the new governor; we had
heard nothing of the ship in which it was said Sir Thomas Gates
and Sir George Somers had sailed. We were come to that pass where
we cared neither for governor nor nobleman. We strove only to keep
within our bodies the life which had become painful.

Then it was, when the few of us who yet lived, feared each moment
lest the savages would put an end to us, that we saw sailing up
into the bay two small ships, and I doubt if there was any among
us who did not fall upon his knees and give thanks aloud to God
for the help which had come at the very moment when it had seemed
that we were past all aid.

OUR COURAGE GIVES OUT

But our time of rejoicing was short. Although these two ships were
brought by Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers, having in them
not less than one hundred and fifty men, they did not have among
them food sufficient to provide for the wants of our company until
another harvest should come.

The vessel in which these new comers had sailed was, as I have
said, wrecked in a hurricane near the Bermuda Isles, where, after
much labor, they had contrived to build these two small ships.

It needed not that we, who of all our people in Jamestown remained
alive, should tell the story of what we had suffered, for that
could be read on our faces.

Neither was it required that these new comers should study long in
order to decide upon the course to be pursued, for the answer to
all their speculations could be found in the empty storehouse, and
in the numberless graves 'twixt there and the river bank.

Of provisions, they had so much as might serve for a voyage
to England, if peradventure the winds were favorable; and ere the
ships had been at anchor four and twenty hours, it was resolved
that we should abandon this town of James, which we had hoped might
one day grow into a city fair to look upon.

An attempt to build up a nation in this new land of Virginia, of
which ours was the third, had cost of money and of blood more than
man could well set down, and now, after all this brave effort on
the part of such men as Captain Smith, Master Hunt and Master Percy,
it was to go for naught.

Once more were the savages to hold undisputed possession of the
land which they claimed as their own.

ABANDONING JAMESTOWN

Now even though Nathaniel Peacock and I had known more of suffering
and of sorrow, than of pleasure, in Jamestown, our hearts were sore
at leaving it.

It seemed to me as if we were running contrary to that which my
master would have commanded, and there were tears in my eyes, of
which I was not ashamed, when Nathaniel and I, hand in hand, followed
Master Hunt out of the house we had helped to build.

Those who had come from the shipwreck amid the Bermudas, were
rejoicing because they had failed to arrive in time to share with
us the starvation and the sickness, therefore to them this turning
back upon the enterprise was but a piece of good fortune. Yet were
they silent and sad, understanding our sorrow.

It was the eighth day of June, in the year 1610, when we set sail
from Jamestown, believing we were done with the new world forever,
and yet within less than three hours was all our grief changed to
rejoicing, all our sorrow to thankfulness.

LORD DE LA WARR'S ARRIVAL

At the mouth of the river, sailing toward us bravely as if having
come from some glorious victory, were three ships laden with men,
and, as we afterward came to know, an ample store of provisions.

It was Lord De la Warr who had come to take up his governorship,
and verily he was arrived in the very point of time, for had he
been delayed four and twenty hours, we would have been on the ocean,
where was little likelihood of seeing him.

It needs not I should say that our ships were turned back, and
before nightfall Master Hunt was sitting in Captain Smith's house,
with Nathaniel Peacock and me cooking for him such a dinner as we
three had not known these six months past.

I have finished my story of Jamestown, having set myself to tell
only of what was done there while we were with Captain John Smith.

And it is well I should bring this story to an end here, for if
I make any attempt at telling what came to Nathaniel Peacock and
myself after that, then am I like to keep on until he who has begun
to read will lay down the story because of weariness.

For the satisfaction of myself, and the better pleasing of Nathaniel
Peacock, however, I will add, concerning our two selves, that we
remained in the land of Virginia until our time of apprenticeship
was ended, and then it was, that Master Hunt did for us as Captain
Smith had promised to do.

THE YOUNG PLANTERS

We found ourselves, in the year 1614, the owners of an hundred
acres of land which Nathaniel and I had chosen some distance back
from the river, so that we might stand in no danger of the shaking
sickness, and built ourselves a house like unto the one we had
helped make for Captain Smith.

With the coming of Lord De la Warr all things were changed.
The governing of the people was done as my old master, who never
saw Virginia again, I grieve to say, would have had it. We became
a law abiding people, save when a few hotheads stirred up trouble
and got the worst of it.

When Nathaniel Peacock and I settled down as planters on our own
account, there were eleven villages in the land of Virginia, and,
living in them, more than four thousand men, women, and children.

It was no longer a country over which the savages ruled without
check, though sad to relate, the brown men of the land shed the
blood of white men like water, ere they were driven out from among
us.

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