ation
from the Great Spirit that the life of Captain Smith was to be spared,
and they set their prisoner at liberty, who, being thus miraculously
rescued, returned to Jamestown.

By his wisdom Captain Smith preserved for some time friendly relations
with the Indians, and the colony rapidly increased, until there were
five hundred Europeans assembled at Jamestown. Capt. Smith being
severely wounded by an accidental explosion of gunpowder, returned to
England for surgical aid. The colony, thus divested of his vigorous
sway, speedily lapsed into anarchy. The bitter hostility of the Indians
was aroused, and, within a few months, the colony dwindled away beneath
the ravages of sickness, famine, and the arrows of the Indians, to but
sixty men. Despair reigned in all hearts, and this starving remnant of
Europeans was preparing to abandon the colony and return to the Old
World, when Lord Delaware arrived with several ships loaded with
provisions and with a reinforcement of hardy laborers. Most of the idle
and profligate young men who had brought such calamity upon the colony,
had died. Those who remained took fresh courage, and affairs began to be
more prosperous.

The organization of the colony had thus far been effected with very
little regard to the wants of human nature. There were no women there.
Without the honored wife there cannot be the happy home; and without the
home there can be no contentment. To herd together five hundred men upon
the banks of a foreign stream, three thousand miles from their native
land, without women and children, and to expect them to lay the
foundation of a happy and prosperous colony, seems almost unpardonable
folly.

Emigrants began to arrive with their families, and in the year 1620, one
hundred and fifty poor, but virtuous young women, were induced to join
the Company. Each young man who came received one hundred acres of land.
Eagerly these young planters, in short courtship, selected wives from
such of these women as they could induce to listen to them. Each man
paid one hundred and fifty pounds of tobacco to defray the expenses of
his wife's voyage. But the wickedness of man will everywhere, and under
all circumstances, make fearful development of its power. Many
desperadoes joined the colony. The poor Indians with no weapons of war
but arrows, clubs and stone tomahawks, were quite at the mercy of the
English with their keen swords, and death-dealing muskets. Fifteen
Europeans could