ver recover ourselves from one supply to another. And I humbly
intreat you hereafter, let us have what we should receive, and not
stand to the Saylers courtesie to leave us what they please, els you
may charge us what you will, but we not you with anything. These are the
causes that have kept us in Virginia from laying such a foundation that
ere this might have given much better content and satisfaction, but as
yet you must not look for any profitable returning. So I humbly rest.

After the departure of Newport, Smith, with his accustomed resolution,
set to work to gather supplies for the winter. Corn had to be extorted
from the Indians by force. In one expedition to Nansemond, when the
Indians refused to trade, Smith fired upon them, and then landed and
burned one of their houses; whereupon they submitted and loaded his
three boats with corn. The ground was covered with ice and snow, and the
nights were bitterly cold. The device for sleeping warm in the open air
was to sweep the snow away from the ground and build a fire; the fire
was then raked off from the heated earth and a mat spread, upon which
the whites lay warm, sheltered by a mat hung up on the windward side,
until the ground got cold, when they builded a fire on another place.
Many a cold winter night did the explorers endure this hardship, yet
grew fat and lusty under it.

About this time was solemnized the marriage of John Laydon and Anne
Burrows, the first in Virginia. Anne was the maid of Mistress Forrest,
who had just come out to grow up with the country, and John was a
laborer who came with the first colony in 1607. This was actually the
"First Family of Virginia," about which so much has been eloquently
said.

Provisions were still wanting. Mr. Scrivener and Mr. Percy returned from
an expedition with nothing. Smith proposed to surprise Powhatan, and
seize his store of corn, but he says he was hindered in this project by
Captain Winne and Mr. Scrivener (who had heretofore been considered
one of Smith's friends), whom he now suspected of plotting his ruin in
England.

Powhatan on his part sent word to Smith to visit him, to send him men
to build a house, give him a grindstone, fifty swords, some big guns, a
cock and a hen, much copper and beads, in return for which he would load
his ship with corn. Without any confidence in the crafty savage, Smith
humored him by sending several workmen, including four Dutchmen,
to build him a house. Meantime with tw