eliberate
falsehood, and the stern demands of his circumstances often rendered
inevitable acts which would otherwise have been ungrateful to his soul.

When the council was constituted, Edward Maria Wingfield was elected
president--a man who always proved an inveterate enemy to Smith, and who
speedily attracted the hatred even of his accomplices by his rapacity,
his cowardice, and his selfish extravagance. Smith demanded a trial, but
the council feared to trust their wretched charge to an impartial jury,
and pretended, in mercy to him, to keep him under suspension. But their
own incompetence soon brought his talents into demand. He accompanied
Newport upon an exploring voyage up the river, and ascended to the
residence of King Powhatan, a few miles below the falls, and not far from
the spot now occupied by the city of Richmond. The royal seat consisted
of twelve small houses, pleasantly placed on the north bank of the river,
and immediately in front of three verdant islets. His Indian majesty
received them with becoming hospitality, though his profound
dissimulation corresponded but too well with the treacherous designs of
his followers. He had long ruled with sovereign sway among the most
powerful tribes of Virginia, who had been successively subdued by his
arms, and he now regarded with distrust the event of men whom his
experience taught him to fear and his injuries to detest.

On their return to Jamestown they found that, during their absence, the
Indians had made an attack upon the settlement, had slain one boy, and
wounded seventeen men. The coward spirit of Wingfield had caused this
disaster. Fearful of mutiny he refused to permit the fort to be palisaded
or guns to be mounted within. The assault of the savages might have been
more fatal, but happily a gun from the ships carried a crossbar-shot
among the boughs of a tree above them, and, shaking them down upon their
heads, produced great consternation. The frightened wretches fled in
dismay from an attack too mysterious to be solved, yet too terrible to be
withstood.

After this disaster the fears of Wingfield were overruled--the fort was
defended by palisades, and armed with heavy ordnance, the men were
exercised, and every precaution was used to guard against a sudden attack
or a treacherous ambuscade.

Smith had indignantly rejected every offer held out to him by the
artifices of the council. He now again demanded a trial in a manner that
could not be resi