. But, after
this period, the duty was to be taken for the king, who also preserved
a control over both the councils established for the government of the
colony,--the one in England itself, and the other in Virginia; a
control inconsistent with those liberties which the colonists
subsequently asserted and secured.

[Sidenote: Hardships of the Virginia Colony.]

The London Company promptly applied themselves to the settlement of
their territories; and, on the 19th of December, 1606, a squadron of
three small vessels set sail for the new world; and, on May 13, 1607,
a company of one hundred and five men, without families, disembarked
at Jamestown. This was the first permanent settlement in America by
the English. But great misfortunes afflicted them. Before September,
one half of the colonists had perished, and the other half were
suffering from famine, dissension, and fear. The president, Wingfield,
attempted to embezzle the public stores, and escape to the West
Indies. He was supplanted in his command by Ratcliffe, a man without
capacity. But a deliverer was raised up in the person of Captain John
Smith, who extricated the suffering and discontented band from the
evils which impended. He had been a traveller and a warrior; had
visited France, Italy, and Egypt; fought in Holland and Hungary; was
taken a prisoner of war in Wallachia, and sent as a slave to
Constantinople. Removed to a fortress in the Crimea, and subjected to
the hardest tasks, he yet contrived to escape, and, after many perils,
reached his native country. But greater hardships and dangers awaited
him in the new world, to which he was impelled by his adventurous
curiosity. He was surprised and taken by a party of hostile Indians,
when on a tour of exploration, and would have been murdered, had it
not been for his remarkable presence of mind and singular sagacity,
united with the intercession of the famous Pocahontas, daughter of a
great Indian chief, from whom some of the best families in Virginia
are descended. It would be pleasant to detail the romantic incidents
of this brief captivity; but our limits forbid. Smith, when he
returned to Jamestown, found his company reduced to forty men, and
they were discouraged and disheartened. Moreover, they were a
different class of men from those who colonized New England. They were
gentlemen adventurers connected with aristocratic families, were
greedy for gold, and had neither the fortitude nor the habits
requ