ing land
assignments "because we have never a surveyour in the lande." He added
too that "the undertakers at Martins Hundred would thinke themselves
muche wronged, if any other should be sett on worke to divide their
groundes." He commented, too, that a proper division might be better
since he had heard that the Society "intende ... to buy out the Indians
of Chischiack [on the York River]."

Martin's Hundred suffered severely in the massacre of 1622. The
slaughter took a total of seventy-eight persons including the commander.
Among those killed were a score of women and children showing that
family life was well developed here. The loss was so great that the
settlement was temporarily abandoned along with a great many others in
Virginia. The abandonment was of short duration, it seems, for new
references soon appear such as that naming Captain Ralph Hamor "to have
absolute power, and comand in all matters of war over all the people of
Martins Hundred." In any case "the replantinge" was left to the Society
which had originally established it. Although the Company deemed it,
along with others which had been deserted, "of absolute necessitie," it
was too busy with its own projects to aid materially.

The Society "set forth a verie chargeable supply of people" in October,
1622. When William Harwood was mentioned for the Council, Martin's
Hundred asked that he not be named since they needed his services full
time. Reverend Robert Paulett was named instead. In April, 1623 it was a
going concern although life was dark in the eyes of Richard Frethorne
who wrote of the danger, hunger, and the heavy work. He related "ther is
indeed some foule [fowle], but wee are not allowed to goe, and get it,
but must worke hard both earlie, and late for a messe of water gruell,
and a mouthfull of bread, and beife." He stated that of twenty who came
the last year but three were left. In all, he said, "wee are but
thirty-two." The Indians he feared; "the nighest helpe that Wee have is
ten miles of us." Here "wee lye even in their teeth." The break in the
monotony, it seems, was an occasional trip to Jamestown "that is ten
miles of us, there be all the ships that come to the land, and there
must deliver their goodes." The trip up took from noon till night on the
tide. The return was the same.

Nothing came, at this time, of the proposal for "runninge a pale from
Martin's Hundred to Cheskacke," between the York and the James rivers.
The stockad