he first under commande of Captaine
Francis West to feat at the head of the River; a second under commande
of Captaine John Smith, then President, at James Towne, & the other,
with Capt. John Martin, in the River at Nansamun, which divisions gave
occasions to the Indiens treacherously to cutt off divers of our men &
boates, and forced the rest at the end of sixe weekes, havinge spent
those small provisions they had with them, to retire to James Town &
that in the depth of winter, when by reason of the colde, it was not
possible for us to endure to wade in the water (as formerly) to gather
oysters to satisfie our hungry stomacks, but constrained to digge in the
grounde for unwholesome rootes whereof we were not able to get so many
as would suffice us, in respect of the frost at that season & our
poverty & weakness, so that famine compelled us wholly to devoure those
Hogges, Dogges & horses that weare then in the Collony, together with
rates, mice, snakes, or what vermin or carryon soever we could light on,
as alsoe Toadstooles, Jewes eares, or what els we founde growing upon
the grounde that would fill either mouth or belly; and weare driven
through unsufferable hunger unnaturallie to eat those thinges which
nature most abhorred, the flesh and excrements of man, as well of our
owne nation as of an Indian, digged by some out of his grave after he
had laien buried three daies & wholly devoured him; others, envyinge the
better state of boddie of any whom hunger had not yet so much wasted as
there owne, lay waight and threatened to kill and eat them; one amonge
the rest slue his wife as she slept in his bosome, cutt her in peeces,
powdered her & fedd uppon her till he had clean devoured all partes
saveinge her heade, & was for soe barbarouse a fact and cruelty justly
executed. Some adventuringe to seeke releife in the woods, dyed as they
fought it, & weare eaten by others who found them dead. Many putt
themselves into the Indians' handes, though our enemies, and were by
them slaine. In this extremitye of famine continued the Collony till the
twenteth of Maye, when unexpected, yet happely, arrived Sir Thomas Gates
& Sir George Somers in two small Barques[FF] which they had built in the
Sommer Islands after the wreake of the Sea adventure wherin they sett
forth from Englande, with them one hundred persons barely provided of
vittel for themselves. They founde the Collony consistinge then of but
sixty persons most famished and at