the Council whose character and authority seem to have been
generally respected, the only one who could restore any sort of
harmony and curb the factious humors of the other leaders. Smith
should have all credit for his energy in procuring supplies, for his
sagacity in dealing with the Indians, for better sense than most of
the other colonists exhibited, and for more fidelity to the objects
of the plantation than most of them; but where ability to rule is
claimed for him, at this juncture we can but contrast the deference
shown by all to Newport with the want of it given to Smith.
Newport's presence at once quelled all the uneasy spirits.

Newport's arrival, says Wingfield, "saved Mr Smith's life and mine."
Smith's account of the episode is substantially the same. In his
"True Relation" he says on his return to the fort "each man with
truest signs of joy they could express welcomed me, except Mr.
Archer, and some two or three of his, who was then in my absence
sworn councilor, though not with the consent of Captain Martin; great
blame and imputation was laid upon me by them for the loss of our two
men which the Indians slew: insomuch that they purposed to depose me,
but in the midst of my miseries, it pleased God to send Captain
Newport, who arriving there the same night, so tripled our joy, as
for a while those plots against me were deferred, though with much
malice against me, which Captain Newport in short time did plainly
see." In his "Map of Virginia," the Oxford tract of 1612, Smith does
not allude to this; but in the "General Historie" it had assumed a
different aspect in his mind, for at the time of writing that he was
the irresistible hero, and remembered himself as always nearly
omnipotent in Virginia. Therefore, instead of expressions of
gratitude to Newport we read this: "Now in Jamestown they were all in
combustion, the strongest preparing once more to run away with the
pinnace; which with the hazard of his life, with Sakre, falcon and
musket shot, Smith forced now the third time to stay or sink. Some
no better than they should be, had plotted to put him to death by the
Levitical law, for the lives of Robinson and Emry, pretending that
the fault was his, that led them to their ends; but he quickly took
such order with such Lawyers, that he laid them by the heels till he
sent some of them prisoners to England."

Clearly Captain Smith had no authority to send anybody prisoner to
England. When Newport return