George Bancroft, History of the Colonization of the United States, Vol. 1, 17th edition.

[126] The imperial residence was a village of twelve wig-

Chap. IV.} 1607.

warns! The savages murmured at the intrusion of strangers into the country; but Powhatan disguised his fear, and would only say, ‘They hurt you not; they take but a little waste land.’¹

About the middle of June, Newport set sail for England. What condition could be more pitiable, than that of the English whom he had left in Virginia? The proud hopes which the beauty of the country had excited, soon vanished; and as the delusion passed away, they awoke and beheld that they were in the wilderness. Weak in numbers, and still weaker from want of habits of industry, they were surrounded by natives whose hostility and distrust had already been displayed; the summer heats were intolerable to their laborers; the moisture of the climate generated disease; and the fertility of the soil, covered with a rank luxuriance of forest, increased the toil of culture. Their scanty provisions had become spoiled on the long voyage. ‘Our drink,’ say they, ‘was unwholesome water; our lodgings, castles in the air: had we been as free from all sins as from gluttony and drunkenness, we might have been canonized for saints.’ Despair of mind ensued; so that, in less than a fortnight after the departure of the fleet, ‘hardly ten of them were able to stand;’ the labor of completing some simple fortifications was exhausting; and no regular crops could be planted. During the summer, there were not, on any occasion, five able men to guard the bulwarks; the fort was filled in every corner with the groans of the sick, whose outcries, night and day, for six weeks, rent the hearts of those who could minister no relief. Many times, three or four died in