ckahominy.
Being overtaken by Percy, he procured a supply of corn. Upon his return
to Jamestown, Newport and Ratcliffe, instigated by jealousy, attempted
to depose Smith from the presidency, but he defeated their schemes. The
colony suffered much loss at this time by an illicit trade carried on
between the sailors of Newport's vessel, dishonest settlers, and the
Indians. Smith threatened to send away the vessel and to oblige Newport
to remain a year in the colony, so that he might learn to judge of
affairs by his own experience, but Newport submitting, and acknowledging
himself in the wrong, the threat was not executed. Scrivener visiting
Werowocomoco, by the said of Namontack procured another supply of corn
and some puccoons, a root which it was supposed would make an excellent
dye, as the Indians used its red juice to stain their faces.
Newport at last sailed for England, leaving at Jamestown two hundred
souls, carrying a cargo of such pitch, tar, glass, and soap-ashes as the
colonists had been able to get ready. Ratcliffe, whose real name was
discovered to be Sicklemore, was sent back at the same time. Smith in
his letter to the council in England, exhibited, in caustic terms, the
preposterous folly of expecting a present profitable return from
Virginia. He sent them also his map of the country, drawn with so much
accuracy, that it has been taken as the groundwork of all succeeding
maps of Virginia.
Not long after Newport's departure, Anne Burras was married at Jamestown
to John Laydon, the first marriage in Virginia. Smith finding the
provisions running low, made a voyage to Nansemond, and afterwards went
up the James, and discovered the river and people of Appomattock, who
gave part of their scanty store of corn in exchange for copper and toys.
About this time Powhatan sent an invitation to Smith to visit him, and a
request that he would send men to build him a house, and give him a
grindstone, fifty swords, some guns, a cock and hen, with much copper,
and many beads, in return for which he promised to load his vessel with
corn. Having dispatched by land a party of Englishmen and four Dutchmen
to build the house, Smith, accompanied by the brave Waldo, set out for
Werowocomoco on the twenty-ninth of December, with the pinnace and two
barges manned with forty-six men. Smith went in a barge with six
gentlemen and as many soldiers, while in the pinnace were Lieutenant
Percy and Francis West, with a number of gentl
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