ed, April 10th, Wingfield and Archer
went with him. Wingfield no doubt desired to return. Archer was so
insolent, seditious, and libelous that he only escaped the halter by
the interposition of Newport. The colony was willing to spare both
these men, and probably Newport it was who decided they should go.
As one of the Council, Smith would undoubtedly favor their going. He
says in the "General Historie": "We not having any use of
parliaments, plaises, petitions, admirals, recorders, interpreters,
chronologers, courts of plea, or justices of peace, sent Master
Wingfield and Captain Archer home with him, that had engrossed all
those titles, to seek some better place of employment." Mr.
Wingfield never returned. Captain Archer returned in 1609, with the
expedition of Gates and Somers, as master of one of the ships.

Newport had arrived with the first supply on the 8th of January,
1608. The day before, according to Wingfield, a fire occurred which
destroyed nearly all the town, with the clothing and provisions.
According to Smith, who is probably correct in this, the fire did not
occur till five or six days after the arrival of the ship. The date
is uncertain, and some doubt is also thrown upon the date of the
arrival of the ship. It was on the day of Smith's return from
captivity: and that captivity lasted about four weeks if the return
was January 8th, for he started on the expedition December 10th.
Smith subsequently speaks of his captivity lasting six or seven
weeks.

In his "General Historie" Smith says the fire happened after the
return of the expedition of Newport, Smith, and Scrivener to the
Pamunkey: "Good Master Hunt, our Preacher, lost all his library, and
all he had but the clothes on his back; yet none ever heard him
repine at his loss." This excellent and devoted man is the only one
of these first pioneers of whom everybody speaks well, and he
deserved all affection and respect.

One of the first labors of Newport was to erect a suitable church.
Services had been held under many disadvantages, which Smith depicts
in his "Advertisements for Unexperienced Planters," published in
London in 1631:

"When I first went to Virginia, I well remember, we did hang an
awning (which is an old saile) to three or foure trees to shadow us
from the Sunne, our walls were rales of wood, our seats unhewed
trees, till we cut plankes, our Pulpit a bar of wood nailed to two
neighboring trees, in foule weather we shifted into a