answer the charge of Jehu [John?] Robinson
that he had with Robinson and others intended to run away with the
pinnace to Newfoundland; and the charge by Mr. Smith that he had
accused Smith of intending mutiny. To the first accuser the jury
awarded one hundred pounds, and to the other two hundred pounds
damages, for slander. "Seeing their law so speedy and cheap," Mr.
Wingfield thought he would try to recover a copper kettle he had lent
Mr. Crofts, worth half its weight in gold. But Crofts swore that
Wingfield had given it to him, and he lost his kettle: "I told Mr.
President I had not known the like law, and prayed they would be more
sparing of law till we had more witt or wealthe." Another day they
obtained from Wingfield the key to his coffers, and took all his
accounts, note-books, and "owne proper goods," which he could never
recover. Thus was I made good prize on all sides.

During one of Smith's absences on the river President Ratcliffe did
beat James Read, the blacksmith. Wingfield says the Council were
continually beating the men for their own pleasure. Read struck
back.

For this he was condemned to be hanged; but "before he turned of the
lather," he desired to speak privately with the President, and
thereupon accused Mr. Kendall--who had been released from the pinnace
when Wingfield was sent aboard--of mutiny. Read escaped. Kendall
was convicted of mutiny and shot to death. In arrest of judgment he
objected that the President had no authority to pronounce judgment
because his name was Sicklemore and not Ratcliffe. This was true,
and Mr. Martin pronounced the sentence. In his "True Relation,"
Smith agrees with this statement of the death of Kendall, and says
that he was tried by a jury. It illustrates the general looseness of
the "General Historie," written and compiled many years afterwards,
that this transaction there appears as follows: "Wingfield and
Kendall being in disgrace, seeing all things at random in the absence
of Smith, the company's dislike of their President's weakness, and
their small love to Martin's never-mending sickness, strengthened
themselves with the sailors and other confederates to regain their
power, control, and authority, or at least such meanes aboard the
pinnace (being fitted to sail as Smith had appointed for trade) to
alter her course and to goe for England. Smith unexpectedly
returning had the plot discovered to him, much trouble he had to
prevent it, till with store of sakr