emies in
Canada. Few events, in American history, therefore, have had such great
consequences as Champlain's unprovoked attacks upon the Iroquois.

CHAPTER 5

VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND

[Sidenote: New conditions of living in England.]

[Sidenote: The Virginia Company.]

31. The Virginia Company, 1606.--English people were now beginning
to think in earnest of founding colonies. It was getting harder and
harder to earn one's living in England, and it was very difficult to
invest one's money in any useful way. It followed, from this, that there
were many men who were glad to become colonists, and many persons who
were glad to provide money to pay for founding colonies. In 1606 the
Virginia Company was formed and colonization began on a large scale.

[Sidenote: The Virginia colonists at Jamestown, 1607. _Higginson_,
52, 110-117; _Eggleston_, 19-28; _Explorers_ 231-269.]

[Sidenote: Sickness and death.]

32. Founding of Jamestown, 1607. The first colonists sailed for
Virginia in December, 1606. They were months on the way and suffered
terrible hardships. At last they reached Chesapeake Bay and James River
and settled on a peninsula on the James, about thirty miles from its
mouth. Across the little isthmus which connected this peninsula with the
mainland they built a strong fence, or stockade, to keep the Indians
away from their huts. Their settlement they named Jamestown. The early
colonists of Virginia were not very well fitted for such a work. Some of
them were gentlemen who had never labored with their hands; others were
poor, idle fellows whose only wish was to do nothing whatever. There
were a few energetic men among them as Ratcliffe, Archer, and Smith. But
these spent most of their time in exploring the bay and the rivers, in
hunting for gold, and in quarreling with one another. With the summer
came fevers, and soon fifty of the one hundred and five original
colonists were dead. Then followed a cold, hard winter, and many of
those who had not died of fever in the summer, now died of cold. The
colonists brought little food with them, they were too lazy to plant
much corn, and they were able to get only small supplies from the
Indians. Indeed, the early history of Virginia is given mainly to
accounts of "starving times." Of the first thousand colonists not one
hundred lived to tell the tale of those early days.

[Sidenote: Sir Thomas Dale.]

[Sidenote: His wise action.]

33. Sir Thomas Dale and Good Or