ir return, the Indians first gave occasion for distrust
at Weyanoke, within twenty miles of Jamestown. Arriving there on the
next day, June the twentieth, they found that a boy had been killed, and
seventeen men, including the greater part of the council, had been
wounded by the savages; that during the assault a cross-bar shot from
one of the vessels had struck down a bough of a tree among them and made
them retire, but for which all the settlers there would probably have
been massacred, as they were at the time of the attack planting corn in
security, and without arms. Wingfield now consented that the fort should
be palisaded, cannon mounted, and the men armed and exercised. The
attacks and ambuscades of the natives were frequent, and the English, by
their careless straggling, were often wounded, while the fleet-footed
savages easily escaped.

Thus the colonists endured continual hardships, guarding the workmen by
day and keeping watch by night. Six weeks being passed in this way,
Newport was now about to return to England. Ever since their departure
from the Canaries, save for a while in the West Indies, Smith had been
in a sort of duress upon the false and scandalous charges of some of the
principal men in the expedition, who, envying his superiority, gave out
that he intended to usurp the command, murder the council, and make
himself king; that his confederates were distributed in the three
vessels; and that divers of them, who had revealed it, would confirm it.
Upon these accusations Smith had been arrested, and had now lain for
several months under the cloud of these suspicions. Upon the eve of
Newport's departure, Smith's accusers affecting through pity to refer
his case to the council in England, rather than overwhelm him on the
spot by an exposure of his criminal designs, he defied their malice,
defeated their base machinations, and so bore himself throughout the
whole affair, that all saw his innocence and the malignity of his
enemies. The very witnesses suborned to accuse him charged his enemies
with subornation of perjury. Kendall, the ringleader of them, was
adjudged to pay him two hundred pounds in damages, which Smith
contributed to the common stock of the colony. During these disputes
Hunt, the chaplain, used his exertions to reconcile the parties, and at
his instance Smith was admitted into the council on the twentieth day of
June, and on the next day they all received the communion. The Indians
now su