during the period to which it relates, confirms all that Smith said
as to the character of the colonists, especially the new supply which
landed in the eight vessels with Ratcliffe and Archer. "Every
man overvalueing his own strength would be a commander; every man
underprizing another's value, denied to be commanded." They were
negligent and improvident. "Every man sharked for his present bootie,
but was altogether careless of succeeding penurie." To idleness and
faction was joined treason. About thirty "unhallowed creatures," in the
winter of 1610, some five months before the arrival of Captain Gates,
seized upon the ship Swallow, which had been prepared to trade with the
Indians, and having obtained corn conspired together and made a league
to become pirates, dreaming of mountains of gold and happy robberies. By
this desertion they weakened the colony, which waited for their return
with the provisions, and they made implacable enemies of the Indians by
their violence. "These are that scum of men," which, after roving the
seas and failing in their piracy, joined themselves to other pirates
they found on the sea, or returned to England, bound by a mutual oath to
discredit the land, and swore they were drawn away by famine. "These are
they that roared at the tragicall historie of the man eating up his dead
wife in Virginia"--"scandalous reports of a viperous generation."

If further evidence were wanting, we have it in "The New Life of
Virginia," published by authority of the Council, London, 1612. This is
the second part of the "Nova Britannia," published in London, 1609. Both
are prefaced by an epistle to Sir Thomas Smith, one of the Council and
treasurer, signed "R. I." Neither document contains any allusion to
Captain John Smith, or the part he played in Virginia. The "New Life of
Virginia," after speaking of the tempest which drove Sir Thomas Gates
on Bermuda, and the landing of the eight ships at Jamestown, says:
"By which means the body of the plantation was now augmented with such
numbers of irregular persons that it soon became as so many members
without a head, who as they were bad and evil affected for the most part
before they went hence; so now being landed and wanting restraint, they
displayed their condition in all kinds of looseness, those chief and
wisest guides among them (whereof there were not many) did nothing but
bitterly contend who should be first to command the rest, the common
sort, as is ever