1613

bore up until his provisions were almost exhausted; spring was at hand, and the day of escape had already arrived, when the treacherous crew broke out in mutiny. They seized Hudson and his only son, with seven other faithful sailors, threw them into an open shallop, and cast them off among the icebergs. The fate of the illustrious mariner has never been ascertained.

In the summer of 1610 the Half Moon was liberated at Dartmouth, and returned to Amsterdam. In the same year several ships owned by Dutch merchants sailed to the banks of the Hudson River and engaged in the fur-trade. The traffic was very lucrative, and in the two following years other vessels made frequent and profitable voyages. Early in 1614 an act was passed by the States-General of Holland giving to certain merchants of Amsterdam the exclusive right to trade and establish settlements within the limits of the country explored by Hudson. Under this commission a fleet of five small trading-vessels arrived in the summer of the same year at Manhattan Island. Here some rude huts had already been built by former traders, but now a fort for the defence of the place was erected, and the settlement named New Amsterdam. In the course of the autumn Adrian Block, who commanded one of the ships, sailed through East River into Long Island Sound, made explorations along the coast as far as the mouth of the Connecticut, thence to Narraganset Bay, and even to Cape Cod. Almost at the same time Christianson, another Dutch commander, in the same fleet, sailed up the river from Manhattan to Castle Island, a short distance below the site of Albany, and erected a block-house, which was named Fort Nassau, for a long time the northern outpost of the settlers on the Hudson. Meanwhile, Cornelius May, the captain of a small vessel called the Fortune, sailed from New Amsterdam and explored the Jersey coast as far south as the Bay of Delaware. Upon these two voyages, one north and the other south from Manhattan Island where the actual settlement was made, Holland set up a feeble claim to the country which was now named NEW NETHERLANDS, extending from Cape Henlopen to Cape Cod-a claim which Great Britain and France treated with derision and contempt. Such were the feeble and inauspicious beginnings of the Dutch colonies in New York and Jersey.

PART III.

COLONIAL HISTORY.

A. D. 1607-1775.

PARENT COLONIES.

Jamestown

See p86-87ANY circumstances impeded the progress of the oldest Virginia

1607 May 13

colony. The first settlers at Jamestown were idle, improvident, dissolute. Of the one hundred and five men who came with Newport in the spring of 1607, only twelve were common laborers. There were four carpenters in the company, and six or eight masons and blacksmiths, but the lack of mechanics was compensated by a long list of forty-eight gentlemen. If necessity had not soon driven these to the honorable vocations of toil, the colony must have perished. The few married men who joined the expedition had left their families in England. The prospect of planting an American State on the banks of James River was not at all encouraging.

From the first the affairs of the colony were badly managed. King James made out instructions for the organization of the new State, and then, with his usual stupidity, sealed up the parchment in a box which was not to be opened until the arrival of the emigrants in America. The names of the governor and members of the council were thus unknown during the voyage; there was no legitimate authority on shipboard; insubordination and anarchy prevailed among the riotous company. In this state of turbulence and misrule, an absurd suspicion was blown out against Captain John Smith, the best and truest man in the colony. He was accused of making a plot to murder the council, of which he was supposed to be a member, and to make himself monarch of Virginia. An arrest followed, and confinement until the end of the voyage. When at last the colonists reached the site of their future settlement, the king's instructions were unsealed and the names of the seven members of the

95

Inferior Council made known. Then a meeting of that body was held
and Edward Wingfield duly elected first governor of Virginia. Smith,
who had been set at liberty, was now charged with sedition and excluded
from his seat in the council. He demanded to be tried; and when it was
found that his jealous enemies could bring nothing but their own suspi-
cions against him, he was acquitted, and finally, through the good offices
of Robert Hunt, restored to his place as a member of the corporation.
As soon as the settlement was well begun and the affairs of the colony

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH.

came into a better
condition, the rest-
less Smith, accom-
panied by New-
port and twenty
others, ascended
and explored-
James River for
forty-five miles.
This was the first
of those marvelous
expeditions which
were undertaken
and carried out by
Smith's enterprise
and daring. Just
below the falls of
the river, at the
present site of
Richmond, the
English explorers
came upon the-
capital of Pow-

hatan, the Indian king. Smith was not greatly impressed with the magnificence of an empire whose chief city was a squalid village of twelve wigwams. The native monarch received the foreigners with formal courtesy and used his authority to moderate the dislike which his subjects manifested at the intrusion. About the last of May the company 1907 returned to Jamestown, and fifteen days later Newport embarked for England.

The colonists now for the first time began to realize their situation. They were alone amid the solitudes of the New World. The beauties of the Virginia wilderness were around them, but the terrors of the

approaching winter were already present to their imagination. In the 1907 latter part of August dreadful diseases broke out in the settlement, and the colony was brought to the verge of ruin. The fort which had been built for the defence of the plantation was filled with the sick and dying. At one time no more than five men were able to go on duty as sentinels. Bartholomew Gosnold, the projector of the colony and one of the best. men in the council, died, and before the middle of September one-half 1907 of the whole number had been swept off by the terrible malady. If the frosts of autumn had not come to check the ravages of disease, no soul would have been left to tell the story.

Civil dissension was added to the other calamities of the settlement. President Wingfield, an unprincipled man, and his confederate, George Kendall, a member of the council, were detected in embezzling the stores of the colony. Attempting to escape in the company's vessel, they were arrested, impeached and removed from office. Only three councilmen now remained, Ratcliffe, Martin and Smith; the first was chosen president. He was a man who possessed neither ability nor courage, and the affairs of the settlers grew worse and worse. After a few weeks of vacillation and incompetency, he, like his predecessor, was caught in an attempt to abandon the colony, and willingly gave up an office which he could not fill. Only Martin and Smith now remained; the former elected the latter president of Virginia! It was a forlorn piece of business, but very necessary for the public good. In their distress and bitterness there had come to pass among the colonists a remarkable unanimity as to Smith's merits and abilities. The new administration entered upon the discharge of its duties without a particle of opposition.

The new president, though not yet thirty years of age, was a veteran in every kind of valuable human experience. Born an Englishman; trained as a soldier in the wars of Holland; a traveler in France, Italy and Egypt; again a soldier in Hungary; captured by the Turks and sold as a slave; sent from Constantinople to a prison in the Crimea ; killing a taskmaster who beat him, and then escaping through the woods of Russia to Western Europe; going with an army of adventurers against Morocco; finally returning to England and joining the London Company, he was now called upon by the very enemies who had persecuted and ill-treated him to rescue them and their colony from destruction. A strange and wonderful career! John Smith was altogether the most noted man in the early history of America.

Under the new administration the Jamestown settlement soon began to show signs of vitality and progress. Smith's first care, after the settlers were in a measure restored to health, was to improve the buildings

1907-8

1908

of the plantation. The fortifications of the place were strengthened, dwellings were repaired, a storehouse erected, and everything made ready for the coming winter. The next measure was to secure a supply of provisions from the surrounding country. A plentiful harvest among the Indians had compensated in some degree for the mismanagement and rascality of the former officers of the colony, but to procure corn from the natives was not an easy task. Although ignorant of the Indian language, Smith undertook the hazardous enterprise. Descending James River as far as Hampton Roads, he landed with his five companions, went boldly among the natives, and began to offer them hatchets and copper coins in exchange for corn. The Indians only laughed at the proposal, and then `mocked the half-starved foreigners by offering to barter a piece of bread for Smith's sword and musket. Finding that good treatment was only thrown away, the English captain formed the desperate resolution of fighting. He and his men fired a volley among the affrighted savages, who ran yelling into the woods. Going straight to their wigwams, he found an abundant store of corn, but forbade his men to take a grain until the Indians should return to attack them. Sixty or seventy painted warriors, headed by a priest who carried an idol in his arms, soon came out of the forest and made a violent onset. The English not only stood their ground, but made a rush, wounded several of the natives and captured their idol. A parley now ensued; the terrified priest came and humbly begged for his fallen deity, but Smith stood grimly with his musket across the prostrate idol, and would grant no terms until six unarmed Indians had loaded his boat with corn. Then the image was given up, beads and hatchets were liberally distributed among the warriors who ratified the peace by performing a dance of friendship, while Smith and his men rowed up the river with a boat-load of supplies.

There were other causes of rejoicing at Jamestown. The neighboring Indians, made liberal by their own abundance, began to come into the fort with voluntary contributions. The fear of famine passed away. The woods were full of wild turkeys and other game, inviting to the chase as many as delighted in such excitement. Good discipline was maintained in the settlement and friendly relations established with several of the native tribes. Seeing the end of their distresses, the colonists revived in spirit; cheerfulness and hope took the place of melancholy and despair.

As soon as the setting in of winter had made an abandonment of the colony impossible, the president, to whose ardor winter and summer were alike, gave himself freely to the work of exploring the country. With a company of six Englishmen and two Indian guides he began the ascent of the Chickahominy River. It was generally believed by the