knowledge of the region. In all this exploration
Smith showed himself skillful as he was vigorous and adventurous.

He returned to James River September 7th. Many had died, some were
sick, Ratcliffe, the late President, was a prisoner for mutiny,
Master Scrivener had diligently gathered the harvest, but much of the
provisions had been spoiled by rain. Thus the summer was consumed,
and nothing had been accomplished except Smith's discovery.

XI

SMITH'S PRESIDENCY AND PROWESS

On the 10th of September, by the election of the Council and the
request of the company, Captain Smith received the letters-patent,
and became President. He stopped the building of Ratcliffe's
"palace," repaired the church and the storehouse, got ready the
buildings for the supply expected from England, reduced the fort to a
"five square form," set and trained the watch and exercised the
company every Saturday on a plain called Smithfield, to the amazement
of the on-looking Indians.

Captain Newport arrived with a new supply of seventy persons. Among
them were Captain Francis West, brother to Lord Delaware, Captain
Peter Winne, and Captain Peter Waldo, appointed on the Council, eight
Dutchmen and Poles, and Mistress Forest and Anne Burrows her maid,
the first white women in the colony.

Smith did not relish the arrival of Captain Newport nor the
instructions under which he returned. He came back commanded to
discover the country of Monacan (above the Falls) and to perform the
ceremony of coronation on the Emperor Powhatan.

How Newport got this private commission when he had returned to
England without a lump of gold, nor any certainty of the South Sea,
or one of the lost company sent out by Raleigh; and why he brought a
"fine peeced barge" which must be carried over unknown mountains
before it reached the South Sea, he could not understand. "As for
the coronation of Powhatan and his presents of basin and ewer, bed,
bedding, clothes, and such costly novelties, they had been much
better well spared than so ill spent, for we had his favor and better
for a plain piece of copper, till this stately kind of soliciting
made him so much overvalue himself that he respected us as much as
nothing at all." Smith evidently understood the situation much
better than the promoters in England; and we can quite excuse him in
his rage over the foolishness and greed of most of his companions.
There was little nonsense about Smith in action, though he ne