mself. The governor made a review of all the
settlements, and suffered new ones to be made, even as far as Potomac
river. This ought to be observed of the Eastern Shore Indians, that they
never gave the English any trouble, but courted and befriended them from
first to last. Perhaps the English, by the time they came to settle
those parts, had considered how to rectify their former mismanagement,
and learned better methods of regulating their trade with the Indians,
and of treating them more kindly than at first.

Sec. 45. Anno 1622, inferior courts were first appointed by the general
assembly, under the name of county courts, for trial of minute causes;
the governor and council still remaining judges of the supreme court of
the colony. In the meantime, by the great increase of people, and the
long quiet they had enjoyed among the Indians, since the marriage of
Pocahontas, and the accession of Oppechancanough to the imperial crown,
all men were lulled into a fatal security, and became everywhere
familiar with the Indians, eating, drinking, and sleeping amongst them;
by which means they became perfectly acquainted with all our English
strength, and the use of our arms--knowing at all times, when and where
to find our people; whether at home, or in the woods; in bodies, or
disperst; in condition of defence, or indefensible. This exposing of
their weakness gave them occasion to think more contemptibly of them,
than otherwise, perhaps, they would have done; for which reason they
became more peevish, and more hardy to attempt anything against them.

Sec. 46. Thus upon the loss of one of their leading men, (a war captain,
as they call him,) who was likewise supposed to be justly killed,
Oppechancanough took affront, and in revenge laid the plot of a general
massacre of the English, to be executed on the 22d of March, 1622, a
little before noon, at a time when our men were all at work abroad in
their plantations, disperst and unarmed. This hellish contrivance was to
take effect upon all the several settlements at one and the same
instant, except on the Eastern Shore, whither this plot did not reach.
The Indians had been made so familiar with the English, as to borrow
their boats and canoes to cross the river in, when they went to consult
with their neighboring Indians upon this execrable conspiracy. And to
color their design the better, they brought presents of deer, turkies,
fish and fruits to the English the evening before.