the river, sailing toward us bravely as if having come
from some glorious victory, were three ships laden with men, and, as we
afterward came to know, an ample store of provisions.

It was Lord De la Warr who had come to take up his governorship, and
verily he was arrived in the very point of time, for had he been delayed
four and twenty hours, we would have been on the ocean, where was little
likelihood of seeing him.

It needs not I should say that our ships were turned back, and before
nightfall Master Hunt was sitting in Captain Smith's house, with
Nathaniel Peacock and me cooking for him such a dinner as we three had
not known these six months past.

I have finished my story of Jamestown, having set myself to tell only of
what was done there while we were with Captain John Smith.

And it is well I should bring this story to an end here, for if I make
any attempt at telling what came to Nathaniel Peacock and myself after
that, then am I like to keep on until he who has begun to read will lay
down the story because of weariness.

For the satisfaction of myself, and the better pleasing of Nathaniel
Peacock, however, I will add, concerning our two selves, that we
remained in the land of Virginia until our time of apprenticeship was
ended, and then it was, that Master Hunt did for us as Captain Smith had
promised to do.

THE YOUNG PLANTERS

We found ourselves, in the year 1614, the owners of an hundred acres of
land which Nathaniel and I had chosen some distance back from the river,
so that we might stand in no danger of the shaking sickness, and built
ourselves a house like unto the one we had helped make for Captain
Smith.

With the coming of Lord De la Warr all things were changed. The
governing of the people was done as my old master, who never saw
Virginia again, I grieve to say, would have had it. We became a law
abiding people, save when a few hotheads stirred up trouble and got the
worst of it.

When Nathaniel Peacock and I settled down as planters on our own
account, there were eleven villages in the land of Virginia, and, living
in them, more than four thousand men, women, and children.

It was no longer a country over which the savages ruled without check,
though sad to relate, the brown men of the land shed the blood of white
men like water, ere they were driven out from among us.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Richard of Jamestown, by James Otis

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