to seek some better
place of employment." Mr. Wingfield never returned. Captain Archer
returned in 1609, with the expedition of Gates and Somers, as master of
one of the ships.

Newport had arrived with the first supply on the 8th of January, 1608.
The day before, according to Wingfield, a fire occurred which destroyed
nearly all the town, with the clothing and provisions. According to
Smith, who is probably correct in this, the fire did not occur till five
or six days after the arrival of the ship. The date is uncertain, and
some doubt is also thrown upon the date of the arrival of the ship.
It was on the day of Smith's return from captivity: and that captivity
lasted about four weeks if the return was January 8th, for he started on
the expedition December 10th. Smith subsequently speaks of his captivity
lasting six or seven weeks.

In his "General Historie" Smith says the fire happened after the return
of the expedition of Newport, Smith, and Scrivener to the Pamunkey:
"Good Master Hunt, our Preacher, lost all his library, and all he had
but the clothes on his back; yet none ever heard him repine at his
loss." This excellent and devoted man is the only one of these first
pioneers of whom everybody speaks well, and he deserved all affection
and respect.

One of the first labors of Newport was to erect a suitable church.
Services had been held under many disadvantages, which Smith depicts in
his "Advertisements for Unexperienced Planters," published in London in
1631:

"When I first went to Virginia, I well remember, we did hang an awning
(which is an old saile) to three or foure trees to shadow us from the
Sunne, our walls were rales of wood, our seats unhewed trees, till we
cut plankes, our Pulpit a bar of wood nailed to two neighboring trees,
in foule weather we shifted into an old rotten tent, for we had few
better, and this came by the way of adventure for me; this was our
Church, till we built a homely thing like a barne, set upon Cratchets,
covered with rafts, sedge and earth, so was also the walls: the best
of our houses of the like curiosity, but the most part farre much worse
workmanship, that could neither well defend wind nor raine, yet we had
daily Common Prayer morning and evening, every day two Sermons, and
every three moneths the holy Communion, till our Minister died, [Robert
Hunt] but our Prayers daily, with an Homily on Sundaies."

It is due to Mr. Wingfield, who is about to disappear from Virgi