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the insolent Indians, knowing their want, would not supply. Perceiving
that it was Powhatan's policy to starve them (as if it was the business
of the Indians to support all the European vagabonds and adventurers who
came to dispossess them of their country), Smith gave out that he came
not so much for corn as to revenge his imprisonment and the death of his
men murdered by the Indians, and proceeded to make war. This high-handed
treatment made the savages sue for peace, and furnish, although they
complained of want themselves, owing to a bad harvest, a hundred bushels
of corn.

This supply contented the company, who feared nothing so much as
starving, and yet, says Smith, so envied him that they would rather
hazard starving than have him get reputation by his vigorous conduct.
There is no contemporary account of that period except this which Smith
indited. He says that Newport and Ratcliffe conspired not only to depose
him but to keep him out of the fort; since being President they could
not control his movements, but that their horns were much too short to
effect it.

At this time in the "old Taverne," as Smith calls the fort, everybody
who had money or goods made all he could by trade; soldiers, sailors,
and savages were agreed to barter, and there was more care to maintain
their damnable and private trade than to provide the things necessary
for the colony. In a few weeks the whites had bartered away nearly all
the axes, chisels, hoes, and picks, and what powder, shot, and pikeheads
they could steal, in exchange for furs, baskets, young beasts and such
like commodities. Though the supply of furs was scanty in Virginia, one
master confessed he had got in one voyage by this private trade what he
sold in England for thirty pounds. "These are the Saint-seeming
Worthies of Virginia," indignantly exclaims the President, "that have,
notwithstanding all this, meate, drinke, and wages." But now they began
to get weary of the country, their trade being prevented. "The loss,
scorn, and misery was the poor officers, gentlemen and careless
governors, who were bought and sold." The adventurers were cheated, and
all their actions overthrown by false information and unwise directions.

Master Scrivener was sent with the barges and pinnace to Werowocomoco,
where by the aid of Namontuck he procured a little corn, though the
savages were more ready to fight than to trade. At length Newport's
ship was loaded with clapboards, pitc