thers. The savages
at the same time made an attempt upon the house of a planter named
Harrison, (near Baldwin's,) where were Thomas Hamor with some men, and a
number of women and children. The Indians tried to inveigle Hamor out of
the house, by pretending that Opechancanough was hunting in the
neighboring woods and desired to have his company; but he not coming
out, they set fire to a tobacco-house; the men ran toward the fire, and
were pursued by the Indians, who pierced them with arrows and beat out
their brains. Hamor having finished a letter that he was writing, and
suspecting no treachery, went out to see what was the matter, when,
being wounded in the back with an arrow, he returned to the house and
barricaded it. Meanwhile Harrison's boy, finding his master's gun
loaded, fired it at random, and the Indians fled. Baldwin still
continuing to discharge his gun, Hamor, with twenty-two others, withdrew
to his house, leaving their own in flames. Hamor next retired to a new
house that he was building, and there defending himself with spades,
axes, and brickbats, escaped the fury of the savages. The master of a
vessel lying in the James River sent a file of musqueteers ashore, who
recaptured from the enemy the Merchant's store-house. In the
neighborhood of Martin's Hundred seventy-three persons were butchered;
yet a small family there escaped, and heard nothing of the massacre
until two days after.

Thus fell in so short a space of time one-twelfth part of the colonists
of Virginia, including six members of the council. The destruction might
have been universal but for the disclosure of a converted Indian, named
Chanco, who, during the night preceding the massacre, revealed the plot
to one Richard Pace, with whom he lived. Pace, upon receiving this
intelligence, after fortifying his own house, repaired before day to
Jamestown, and gave the alarm to Sir Francis Wyat, the Governor; his
vigilance saved a large part of the colony from destruction.[163:A]
Eleven were killed at Berkley, fifty at Edward Bonit's plantation, two
at Westover, five at Macocks, four on Appomattox River, six at
Flower-de-Hundred, twenty-one of Sir George Yeardley's people at
Weyanoke, and seventy-three at Martin's Hundred, seven miles from
Jamestown.

The horrors of famine threatened to follow in the train of massacre, and
the consternation of the survivors was such that twenty or thirty days
elapsed before any plan of defence was concerted. Many