iers; nets for fishing; tools of all kinds to work; apparel to
supply our wants; six mules and a horse; five or six hundred swine; as
many hens and chickens; some goats; some sheep; what was brought or bred
there remained." Jamestown was also strongly palisaded and contained
some fifty or sixty houses; besides there were five or six other forts
and plantations, "not so sumptuous as our succerers expected, they were
better than they provided any for us."

These expectations might well be disappointed if they were founded upon
the pictures of forts and fortifications in Virginia and in the Somers
Islands, which appeared in De Bry and in the "General Historie," where
they appear as massive stone structures with all the finish and elegance
of the European military science of the day.

Notwithstanding these ample provisions for the colony, Smith had small
expectation that it would thrive without him. "They regarding nothing,"
he says, "but from hand to mouth, did consume what we had, took care for
nothing but to perfect some colorable complaint against Captain Smith."

Nor was the composition of the colony such as to beget high hopes of it.
There was but one carpenter, and three others that desired to learn, two
blacksmiths, ten sailors; those called laborers were for the most part
footmen, brought over to wait upon the adventurers, who did not know
what a day's work was--all the real laborers were the Dutchmen and Poles
and some dozen others. "For all the rest were poor gentlemen, tradesmen,
serving men, libertines, and such like, ten times more fit to spoil a
commonwealth than either begin one or help to maintain one. For when
neither the fear of God, nor the law, nor shame, nor displeasure of
their friends could rule them here, there is small hope ever to bring
one in twenty of them to be good there." Some of them proved more
industrious than was expected; "but ten good workmen would have done
more substantial work in a day than ten of them in a week."

The disreputable character of the majority of these colonists is
abundantly proved by other contemporary testimony. In the letter of the
Governor and Council of Virginia to the London Company, dated Jamestown,
July 7, 1610, signed by Lord De La Ware, Thomas Gates, George Percy,
Ferd. Wenman, and William Strachey, and probably composed by Strachey,
after speaking of the bountiful capacity of the country, the writer
exclaims: "Only let me truly acknowledge there are not on