George Percy's "Trewe Relacyon": A Primary Source for the Jamestown Settlement

A worlde of miseries ensewed as the Sequell will expresse unto yow, in so mutche thatt some to satisfye their hunger have Robbed the store for the w[hi]ch I Caused them to be executed. Then haveinge fedd up[on] our horses and other beastes as longe as they Lasted, we weare gladd to make shifte w[i]th vermin as doggs Catts Ratts and myce all was fishe thatt Came to Nett to satisfye Crewell hunger, as to eate Bootes shoes or any other leather some Colde come by and those beinge Spente and devoured some weare inforced to searche the woodes and to feede upon Serpentts and snakes and to digge the earthe for wylde and unknowne Rootes, where many of our men weare Cutt of and slayne by the Salvages. And now famin beginneinge to Looke gastely and pale in every face, thatt notheinge was Spared to mainteyne Lyfe and to doe those things w[hi]ch seame incredible, as to digge upp deade corpes outt of graves and to eate them. And some have Licked upp the Bloode w[hi]ch hathe fallen from their weake fellowes.1

George Percy's "Trewe Relacyon" is perhaps the most important documentary source for three crucial years in the very early history of the Jamestown settlement, England's first successful and enduring colony in the New World. Beginning in 1609, the work chronicles the deprivations and miseries that beset the colony under the brief presidency of Percy himself, and his immediate successors, concluding with Percy's arduous voyage home to England in 1612, after five and a half years in America. The account focuses on a period dismissed briskly on by Percy's great antagonist, Capt. John Smith, in his better-known histories of the subject. Through this document, printed below, we glimpse the grim foundation of the colony through the eyes of one of the few other early participants to leave a firsthand account.

Percy was the eighth and youngest son of Henry, eighth earl of Northumberland and his countess, Katherine Neville, co-heiress of the last Lord Latimer.2 He was born at Petworth House, Sussex, on 4 September 1580, and was educated at Eton College from 1591 to 1593;3 at Gloucester Hall, Oxford;4 and at the Middle Temple, where he was admitted with his brother Allan on 12 May 1597.5 Percy was, it seems, a sickly child, troubled in his youth by a form of epilepsy and by other ailments. A petition to his elder brother Henry, the ninth earl, undated but probably from the late 1590s, refers to the boy's "greivous and tedious sicknesse." Certainly he was on one occasion struck down by an epidemic that swept through the earl's household.6

Among Percy's siblings ill health was not necessarily a disadvantage. Unlike his two elder brothers, Charles and Josceline, there is no hint of any early military career, or of any misguided support for Northumberland's brother-in-law Robert Devereux, second earl of Essex, during the latter's disastrous rebellion in February 1601. Rather, it seems as though Percy enjoyed a quieter and decidedly more comfortable life. At the end of that year and early in 1602 he resided with Northumberland's household at Syon House, Middlesex, keeping the grooms and minor household officers company while the earl "laye at London."7 The quiet days were numbered only by his search for a cure, because current medical thinking held that those who suffered from fits might expect to prosper in warmer climates. Accordingly, Percy embarked in August 1602 on a sea voyage to the West Indies, the earl paying for many of his "necessaries."8 Virtually nothing is known about this adventure, but he was home within the year. In the summer of 1603 Percy visited another brother, Richard, who was then serving as an army officer in southern Ireland. This was his second such visit, following a trip to Ireland in either 1600 or 1601. Percy was still on his travels during January 1604,9 but it is clear from household accounts that he was living in London later that year.10

Early experience of an Atlantic crossing must surely help explain why this younger son of a prominent nobleman was found, four years later, among the band of settlers who established an English colony on the James River, in what is today Virginia. There was, however, another reason. After the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot in November 1605, the ninth earl of Northumberland was arrested upon suspicion of complicity in the treason.11 Circumstantial evidence told heavily against him. Following an ore tenus trial in the Star Chamber, at which he confessed various "contempts" and was sentenced to an enormous fine and imprisonment at the king's pleasure, the earl remained in the Tower of London for some fifteen years. His downfall came as a grievous blow to the fortunes of his entire family.12 For a well-traveled younger brother, the prospect in those inauspicious days of new and distant horizons must have been welcome indeed. Percy was almost certainly encouraged in his plans by the earl himself, who collected an impressive geographical library while in the Tower, and who displayed an abiding interest in cartography and exploration. Certainly the support and active participation of an earl's brother, even the brother of an earl imprisoned and disgraced, would have been welcomed by the Virginia adventurers.

Preparations for the voyage took months and proved expensive. In April 1606 Percy sent to Edmund Powton, one of Northumberland's household officers, a bond committing himself to pay Emanuel Clatworthy or Clotworthy, a London merchant tailor, the sum of seven pounds. The bond was endorsed by Percy with a somewhat plaintive, and yet curiously insistent request for settlement of the bill, written as though the earl had already agreed to provide support: "I pray you Good Mr Polton pay this bill of seven poundes to this berer for Mr Clotworthie his use, for that I have bine very kindly used by him many times." Powton duly obliged, and promptly, for Clatworthy's acquittance is dated 1 June.13

The earl's ready financial support in this matter amounted to a statement of intent. A year later, when the First Supply voyage was in preparation, more than nine pounds was spent on a chest containing clothing and provisions for Percy's Virginia adventure. These garments ranged from the essential "jerkin and hose" to two dozen "silke points" and two pairs of "sweete gloves," concessions to style and fashion rather than imperatives for survival. Percy's clothes were taken to the Tower, where they were presumably inspected by the earl. Thence, in "a littell Chest with lock and key," they were carried to "Capten Newportes lodging."14 Throughout Percy's adventures in Virginia, the earl made great efforts to ensure that he was supplied with all the necessities, and some of the luxuries, of life. Northumberland sent out by supply ships apparel, books, paper, ink, wax, lights, "blew beades and read copper" for trading, chests, boxes and casks, as well as "a fetherbedde bolster 2 blanketts and a Covering of tapestrye."15 Tobacco and pipes also feature prominently in these lists. George had taken up smoking by 1603, and it seems to have been a habit that he never lost.16 Although it is difficult now to establish the full extent of Northumberland's financial support, this was clearly considerable.17 In his letter to the earl dated 17 August 1611, Percy admitted as much, while presuming further on his brother's generosity in his efforts to maintain a style appropriate to the "governour" of Jamestown, obliged to keep a "continuall and dayly table for Gentlemen of fashion."18

Was support of this kind above and beyond the level of maintenance that any younger brother of a wealthy earl might reasonably expect? The evidence is slightly ambiguous, and perhaps incomplete, but it looks as if Northumberland understood the hardships that Percy faced and inclined toward generosity. Under the terms of a family settlement drawn up in 1592, Percy enjoyed a small, regular annuity. Between 1607 and 1612, however, the earl agreed to take this income in return for settling rather more substantial debts that Percy had incurred with London merchants, quietly subsidizing the adventure in piecemeal fashion. Although this approach was convenient at the time, Northumberland was subsequently plagued by merchants, both honest and opportunistic, who came to him seeking payment for debts allegedly run up long before. Nicholas Rowland, a surgeon, petitioned the earl in 1613, knowing him to be the source of Percy's entire "meanes and state," and threatening legal action if the "certaine somes" Rowland claimed as his due were not forthcoming.19 In the face of these demands, Northumberland's patience eventually wore thin. "This," he wrote at the foot of one such petition, "I granted not, for I have to many of this nature brought me every day."20

As with so many well-born but landless younger sons in the early seventeenth century, George's later years are thinly documented. Little, for example, is known of the circles in which he moved, though one or two clues hint at a small group of close, erudite friends. Dudley Carleton told John Chamberlain in August 1607 that Percy had written from Virginia to William Warner the mathematician, a pensioner of the ninth earl: "Mr Warner hath a letter from Mr George Percie who names their towne Jamesfort, which we like best of all the rest because it comes neere to Chemesford."21 William Strachey, secretary to the Virginia colony and author of The Historie of Travell into Virginia Britania, seems to have been a friend in the 1610s. Dedicating this book to Northumberland, Strachey gracefully acknowledged the earl's "noble brother (from whose Commentaries and observations, I must freely confesse, I have collected these passadges and knowledges) [and who] out of his free and honorable love to me hath made me presume to offer unto your Lordship."22

In 1615-or thereabouts, for this date has been added as a contemporary endorsement to his letter seeking support from the earl-Percy considered joining one Captain Bud on a voyage to the Amazon delta, not least because, as he put it, "my fitts here in England are more often, more longe, and more greevous, then I have felt them in other partes neerer the lyne [the equator]." The letter is signed in a shaky hand, perhaps a manifestation of sickness.23 There is, unfortunately, no evidence from the earl's accounts or papers to suggest that the voyage was ever made.24 Four years later Percy again emerged from the shadows, this time to assume the role of his family's champion when a certain Richard Plumleigh slandered the earl's recently deceased countess. Percy called the unchivalrous Plumleigh to account, apparently challenging him to a duel. Honor was, of course, at stake, but the Privy Council took a predictably sober view, seeing only a threat to public order. At the council's direction Sir Henry Thynne and Captain Leake stepped in to resolve the quarrel during August 1619.25

Thereafter, Percy's life is particularly obscure. The records give little away, beyond a clue or two as to his financial arrangements.26 The 1592 family settlement had assigned Percy an annuity out of rents from his mother's dower estates. Percy was just sixteen at the Countess Katherine's death in 1596, and for the rest of his life he depended on his brother's estate officials for payment of his dues. At first, it is possible to note exactly which property paid for which brother: Percy received £40 from the cornage rents in Cumberland, and another £20 out of former Latimer lands in the manor of Nunmonkton, Yorkshire.27 However, many of these contributory estates, which in the cases of some brothers were distinctly peripheral to the main concentrations of Percy lands in Yorkshire, Northumberland, and Cumberland, were sold off during the 1600s and 1610s, essentially, it seems, for the sake of administrative convenience. When such sales occurred, the earl invariably guaranteed the sibling affected an equivalent income, and certainly by 1620 the pensions to Northumberland's younger brothers had become to all intents and purposes household payments, no longer linked to particular properties. It has been observed that the earl paid Percy's expenses in Virginia, while withholding his annuity. After Percy's return from the New World, that annuity was restored and increased to £80, and in 1617 it was further increased to £100. At that level it remained, paid regularly and, so far as one can tell, promptly, until his death.28

One hundred pounds a year was by no means riches, but a well-connected single man might live comfortably on this level of unearned income. Nevertheless, it is interesting that the earl twice had to redeem Percys cloak-evidently a pawnable treasure-and that he spent forty shillings recovering Percy's "sute of Apperell" in 1616.29 It is also worth noting that Sir Josceline Percy, another bachelor brother two years George's senior, received £200 a year from 1618.30 Perhaps lingering American debts explain this differential. Perhaps Percy lived with the earl's household and so took advantage of free commons while Josceline, as the records show, maintained his own house in London. Or perhaps, even with all the clues preserved in the Northumberland accounts, some vital piece of evidence is still missing.

No one now knows what George Percy did with his money, or indeed with his time, over the last dozen years of his life. One family tradition insists that he commanded a company when war broke out again in the Low Countries in 1627, but even by the standards of such traditions this is pretty tenuous, unsubstantiated by any documentary evidence, either in the family archives at Alnwick Castle or elsewhere. The story may have arisen from subsequent interpretation of the fine portrait of George now at Syon House: the middle finger of his left hand appears to be missing, and, so the tale goes, it was shot away in an engagement during these campaigns in Flanders.31 Such notions, though, pay scant attention to chronology; the Syon portrait is dated 1615! From the indirect evidence available, Percy was living when the ninth earl died in November 1632, but he passed away during the following winter, probably in March 1633.32 Certainly he still occupied a chamber at Petworth when an inventory of his brother's estate was compiled for probate that winter.33 Percy's funeral charges appear on the general account for 1633, and it is there recorded also that the tenth earl, Algernon Percy, the dedicatee of the "Trewe Relacyon," paid his uncle's outstanding debts, which amounted to eleven pounds.34

These payments, and the absence of any will, suggest that George died a bachelor. Over that point, though, an element of doubt still lingers. Another enduring family story maintains that Percy married one "Anne Ffloyd" during his stay in Jamestown,35 and though some seventeenth-century pedigrees preserved at Alnwick show no such marriage, others certainly do. One particularly detailed pedigree compiled around 1673 notes categorically that Percy died a single man, confirms that he "left noe estate" and points out that "severall of his debts" had been "paid by his brother," suggesting that these details might be proved through the testimony of three men who had known him in their youth.36 Unfortunately, this evidence is by no means free from bias; most Alnwick pedigrees from the 1670s were drawn up to refute a claim then being made by one James Percy, who, the earldom having fallen into abeyance for want of a male heir, rather enterprisingly maintained that he was the son, grandson, or great-grandson of one or other of the ninth earl's brothers, the precise claim varying over the years. There seems to have been no Floyd or Lloyd among the Jamestown settlers, but the name is hardly uncommon and the mystery perhaps insoluble. When the industrious genealogist T. C. Banks visited America in the early 1800s, he met two brothers Percy-landowners in Virginia-who claimed descent from George. Speculating enthusiastically, Banks declared that, if these men were telling the truth, they must be "the right male heirs of the earldom of Northumberland of the de novo creation." Their claim, such as it was, seems never to have been pursued.37

It is clear that George Percy kept some form of journal in America. The initial impetus may have been, as Philip Barbour once suggested, sheer boredom while at sea, but the effort was nevertheless sustained.38 Although the original "diary" has been lost, extracts were published by Samuel Purchas in 1625, apparently from a manuscript among Richard Hakluyt's papers, under the title "Observations gathered out of a Discourse of the Plantation of the Southerne Colonie in Virginia by the English, 1606."39 As it comes down to us, this account breaks off in 1608.40 Why then does the author of the "Trewe Relacyon" choose to take up his pen once more, either enlarging upon a diary or continuing his story? What is he trying to say, and what are the self-imposed parameters within which he writes?

The "Trewe Relacyon," of course, contains an explicit raison d'etre. Percy says that he wrote to counter John Smith's version of events between 1609 and 1612 as laid out in Smith's self-congratulatory Generall Historie of Virginia, published toward the end of 1624. Smith, claimed Percy, had "stuffed his Relacyons w[i]th so many falseties and malicyous detractyons nott onely of this p[ar]te and Tyme w[hi]ch I have selected to Treate of, Butt of former ocurrentts also."41 Just as crucially, he felt that Smith had failed in his pledge to "give every man . . . their due."42 Ostensibly, then, the "Trewe Relacyon" was intended as broadly revisionist work, born out of a sense of injustice, nourished maybe by a taste of the literary limelight following his inclusion in Purchas. But at this point it might be wise to exercise a little caution. Authors are not always completely candid as to their motives, and it is not necessarily safe to take Percy's explanation entirely at face value.

There is no point in denying the undeniable; Percy's animus toward Smith is beyond dispute. Cautiously, and somewhat ambiguously, he had sided against Smith in the factional struggles that engulfed the colony from 1607 and ended Smith's presidency. Smith's Generall Historié clearly touched a raw nerve, and in his response Percy, with aristocratic hauteur, dismissed the captain as a vain, ambitious, double-dealing upstart. Personal calumny apart, however, Percy's counterattack seems at best half-hearted.43 There are several curiosities here. First, Smith's earlier works, the Map of Virginia and the Proceedings of the English Colonie in Virginia (both 1612), had put forward similar charges. Yet there is no evidence to suggest that Percy made any attempt to counter these accusations. Secondly, although Percy sets out specifically to correct Smith's "many untrewthes," and although he early on includes a detailed "correction" based on personal observation of the Generall Histories description of Capt. John Martin's operations at Nansemond, he quickly focuses quite deliberately, as Barbour long ago pointed out, on a period about which Smith has relatively little to say.44 Barbour suggested that this is because Percy could not, when confronted with specifics, identify any serious falsehoods, try as he might.45 It may be added, though, that Percy did not in fact try very hard.

Why should this be? Perhaps, his own declaration of intent notwithstanding, Percy decided to concentrate specifically on protecting his own reputation, so producing a work that is more defensive than offensive, more concerned with exonerating George Percy than with advancing any sustained and painstaking critique of John Smith, or of the many other authors and authorities that Smith plundered when compiling his narratives. Smith's substantial body of "witnesses," his ability to spread responsibility for statements in the Generall Historie, always made that particular task very difficult. The "Trewe Relacyon" soon abandons any meaningful rejection of Smith's work in a rather desperate effort to ensure that the author himself, despite so much telling evidence, receives his due. And at the point in his narrative when that impetus fades, with the arrival in Virginia of senior officials ready to bear the burdens of command, the driving force behind Percy's "Trewe Relacyon" seems to weaken, the tone becomes more relaxed, a joke or two creeps in, and the author appears in a hurry to bring his tale to a conclusion. Percy's effort at self-justification concentrates on one particular argument, that it was unreasonable to expect any governor, new or experienced, to come up with an instant solution to the difficulties faced by colonists in the winter of 1609-10. He puts before the reader an account of struggle in the face of manifold adversities, natural and man-made, providential and selfinflicted. To be sure, part of the blame is still laid at Smith's door. Percy dwells a while on what he saw as the imprudent courting of popularity at the expense of long-term security.46 But Smith and his failings are soon forgotten, even tacitly excused. Pioneers in any alien environment, Percy suggests, must expect trouble and setbacks. "Many other woes & miseries," he writes very early in his "Relacyon," "have hapned unto our Collonie in Virginia bothe before and since thatt Tyme w[hi]ch now I doe intende to Treate of."47 His relentless catalog of woe and misery deliberately underscores a thoroughly defensive argument.

Percy may have realized that he was not Smith's principal target. Smith preserved-just about-the deference due a scion of the high aristocracy, offering some excuses for deplorable failings. At times the Generall Historie actually tones down earlier published criticism of Percy. One might compare the passage in the Proceedings of 1612, "20 [men were sent] with leiftenant Percie to trie for fishing at Point-Comfort, but in 6 weekes, they would not agree once to cast out their net," with an equivalent passage in the Generall Historie, which adds by way of explanation that Percy was at that time "sicke and burnt sore with Gunpouder."48 Such restraint, however, only emphasizes the power of Smith's broader charges. If he subjected Percy to little specific criticism, he certainly condemned the man's fitness for command in general terms. There can be no question that Smith sought to emphasize how, after his own departure for England, the colony had in effect collapsed through a complete lack of leadership. "Yet had wee beene even in Paradice it selfe," runs the Generall Historie, "with these Governours, it would not have beene much better with us."4y This was cutting stuff, especially with the subsequent, explicit contrast to Smith's own prudence, and Percy felt the force of the argument. The dissemination of these charges in so popular a work surely prompted him to set pen to paper.

There are, however, other reasons why the "Trewe Relacyon" came to be written. Consideration should be given to the differences between the "Trewe Relacyon" and Percy's "Observations" as printed in Purchas, for some of these differences themselves hint at one such motive. The "Observations" are essentially extracts, considerably edited for both style and content by Purchas; so much so, indeed, that the extent, and the very nature of Percy's original work must remain open to debate.50 In their surviving form, they provide our most detailed account of the voyage of the Susan Constant and her small fleet through the Caribbean in March and April 1607, and of the very first landings in the Chesapeake Bay that spring, recording the author's day-to-day responses to a profoundly new environment. At first, after an arduous voyage, Percy was evidently thrilled by the exciting novelty of his surroundings. The land appeared fertile, from the oysters and mussels lying "thicke as stones" on the beach to the fields "full of flowers of divers kinds and colours," the "goodly trees," and the "ground full of fine and beautifull Strawberries, foure times bigger and better than ours in England."51 Moreover, the Virginia Indians initially seemed friendly. From the "Observations" we learn a good deal about the Indians and their environment, albeit through the eyes of one for whom the marvelous took precedence over the commonplace.

Percy's dream rapidly turned sour, however. Even in his "Observations" this becomes apparent, once the experienced Newport sails for home and the colony falls prey to destructive contests for authority, intrigues, disease, and the threat posed by neighboring Indian tribes. In the miserable summer of 1607, Percy's diary degenerated into a bleak necrology: a poignant roll call of those who reach the pages of history only in untimely death.52

The "Trewe Relacyon" goes further. Much further. Following a theme, telling a story, eschewing diversions, it concentrates almost compulsively on a particularly dreadful time in the early history of Virginia, a time when men and women starved in their beds, went mad, resorted to cannibalism, and made mortal enemies of the Indian tribes. In short, it makes exceptionally grim reading. Sentiment of any kind intrudes only seldom, and in the most guarded way, but that does not take away the sense of obligation clearly at work here, the need to tell a story so improbable, and so horrible. If Barbour suggested that the tone is one of "ennui coupled with sickness more than any other emotion," it is only proper to observe that emotion was at no point the object of the exercise: the facts, the horrific facts are marshaled to speak for themselves, and Percy's account is indeed all the stronger for this restraint.53

Barbour is substantially right, just the same; here is ennui, perhaps, illness, certainly. Percy refers more than once to his "sickness" in the winter of 1609-10, believing that incapacity should serve as an excuse for various manifestations of weakness. To be fair, perhaps it does. The new president was without doubt unwell, and his indisposition left a power vacuum.54 At this point in the "Trewe Relacyon," one senses an act of atonement: Percy only took the job on after assurances from Captains Archer, Martin, and Ratcliffe that they would "undergoe the Chefeste offices and Burthen of govermentt" until such time as he recovered, and although an impartial reader might censure him for accepting office on these terms, it is surely understandable that he did accept.55 Having accepted, however, the text strongly suggests that, fifteen years after the events described, the author was still haunted by a sense of bodily, and moral, failure, and by some pressing obligation to set the details, suitably glossed, on the record.

Readers of the "Trewe Relacyon" are confronted with the catastrophic consequences of bad luck and weak command structures. Bereft of leadership, the settlers fell out among themselves, supply ships failed to appear, dis ease and starvation took hold. Hunger was perhaps the worst of all their misfortunes; certainly it brought out the worst in those afflicted. Percy summed up the sheer wretchedness of the 1609-10 winter, the second so-called "starving time" experienced by the colonists, in a resonant line or two.56 "A worlde of miseries ensewed . . . ," he wrote, "famin beginneinge to Looke gastely and pale in every face."57 When a party went out searching for food in 1609, only to be ambushed by Indians, Percy deplored the disaster, but almost conceded the justice of the Indians' actions when they contemptuously stuffed the mouths of English corpses with food, a gesture redolent of the "violent application of irony" which, as Frederic Gleach noted, so characterized Algonkian warfare.58 The bonds of common humanity fall away. Percy even seems resentful that any among the foraging party survived as a burden to other colonists: "And all the reste," he wrote, "of Sicklemors Company w[hi]ch weare liveinge Retourned to us to James towne to feede upon the poore store we had lefte us."59 Yet Percy also makes the interesting point, often overlooked, that the miseries of Jamestown were not shared by the garrison at "Algernon's Fort," twenty miles down river at Old Point Comfort.60 Only, it seems, when Percy was "reasonable well recovered" from his sickness did he visit the satellite colony to check on affairs there. No one else had thought to do so. Percy had not thought to order such a reconnaissance, and even his belated journey was motivated, at least in part, by a desire to avenge an Indian attack. This timeframe, and this mindset, are in themselves telling.

Starvation and its enduring legacies of lethargy, illness, and despair sharpened that siege mentality so prevalent in early Jamestown. Treacherous acts on both sides blighted relations with the Native Americans, and a series of horrific slaughters ensued. Gleach pointed to an Indian strategy-not unexpected, but for a time most effective-of stalking and attacking the English "wherever they found them in small groups."61 The English responded with resolute force where it could be mustered and with quite uncompromising savagery. At one point Percy writes movingly of his attempts to spare the lives of an Indian "queen" and, less wholeheartedly, her children in the face of his men's implacable determination that all should be put to the sword. His compassion had distinct limits, for Percy had, by his own admission, already ordered the summary execution of another prisoner, an adult male, and had even "taxed" his lieutenant for bringing the woman and her children to him alive in the first place. The bare facts having been reported in the Generall Historie,62 there is again a clear hint of catharsis in this passage, a suggestion that the author is ashamed of what happened, for queen and children alike were eventually slaughtered by the English. Of course even this wretched episode must be set in the context of interracial attitudes then prevailing. After the early, fleeting cordiality born of novelty, trust between Englishman and Indian never did develop again in Percy's time. The depths of suspicion are repeatedly revealed in Percy's unselfconscious remarks: "Dyv[e]rs Indyans used to come to our foarte att James Towne bringeinge victewalls w[i]th them Butt indede did Rather come as Spyes then any good affectyon they did beare unto us. Some of them S[i]r Tho[mas] Gates Cawsed to be apprehended and executed for a Terrour to the Reste, to cawse them to desiste from their Subtell practyses."63 It may be that Percy dwelt on massacre in response to news of the Indian assaults of the early 1620s that all but brought the colony to its knees. Then again, he was probably only reporting events as he remembered them.

At times, the English behaved in a scarcely less terrible manner toward their own. Percy reports in matter-of-fact detail the way in which he dealt with a man accused of killing and eating his wife. He sentenced the wretch to death, having first extracted a confession by hanging his prisoner "by the Thumbes w[i]th weightes att his feete a quarter of an howere before he wolde Confesse the same."64 Here there is no hint of regret or apology with the passage of time, and the absence is significant. Routine torture may have had no part to play in the established procedures of English common law, but out on the edge of the known world the niceties were routinely ignored. Indeed, this punishment paled in comparison to the torments inflicted by that terrifying disciplinarian Sir Thomas Dale. Following his arrival as acting governor, Dale took a characteristically abrupt line with those "idell" colonists who preferred sloth or desertion to any form of hard work. This rigor was again apparent when he ventured upriver as "Marshall" to found a new settlement, which he named Henrico after the king's eldest son Prince Henry. Deep in enemy territory, and desperately vulnerable to Indian attack, Dale took a tough line with recaptured deserters. Many of these Sir Thomas "in a moste severe mannor cawsed to be executed. Some he apointed to be hanged some burned some to be broken upon wheles others to be Staked and some to be shott to deathe, all theis extreme and crewell tortures he used and inflicted upon them To terrefy the reste for attempteinge the Lyke, And some w[hi]ch Robbed the store he cawsed them to be bownd faste unto Trees and so sterved them to deathe."65 Perhaps such tactics were indeed "the only way to ensure that enough work was accomplished to keep the colonists alive."66 There is no doubt that Dale's actions had their apologists,67 but even Percy, inured to brutality after five years in Virginia, found all this excessive. Surely he is resorting to irony when he writes, in the next paragraph, of leaving Sir Thomas "busely inployed in finisheinge the Foarte and settleinge their habitacyons."68

The "Trewe Relacyon" has little else to say on the subject of construction. Like any other chronicler, Percy had his own notions of what is and what is not worthy of inclusion. Relations with the Indians and the perfidies of those same Indians, crimes and punishments, curiosities in the performance of executions, personal privations and the arrivals and departures of all-important supply ships; all these are highlighted in his "Relacyon." By contrast, he makes few significant comments on the physical nature of the settlements, the forms, structures, and workings of government, the chains of command, and he offers little in the way of perceptive character analysis, even when considerations of that kind might well have helped him in his self-imposed task. Most of his fellow colonists, at least those who can lay no claim to gentility, are held in aristocratic contempt. Percy had, for example, a low opinion of their fighting capacity, expecting them to run away rather than "abyde the Brunte," and on this point, indeed, his scorn may well have been justified.69 When he expresses religious sentiments, they are conventional, even predictable. Blasphemers like the unfortunate Hugh Price suffer unmistakable signs of God's "Indignacyon,"70 whereas imperilled mariners during their journey home to England are rescued through the Lord's favor. There is also very little of that wonderful detail on the Indians and their way of life that so characterizes the "Observations." Knowing what Percy is capable of, it is obvious that ethnographic elaboration is not-decidedly not-the purpose of this particular exercise.

Here, of course, we begin to touch on Percy's other principal reason for setting pen to paper. In a family of eight brothers, only the earl produced a male heir; his father and his numerous uncles all saw in Algernon, Lord Percy, the future tenth earl of Northumberland, the one hope of restoring their family's shattered fortunes. Percy's writing is consciously shaped to the interests and studies of the dedicatee-the "Trewe Relacyon" carries a dedication more visceral than most. Perhaps that dedication even serves as a key to the whole. A full evaluation of the work as a piece of didactic literature is beyond the scope of this introduction, and indeed any case must be subjective and cautious; the recipient was after all no child, but a politically experienced young man in his twenties.71 Just the same, anyone considering Percy's narrative as a historical source must bear certain considerations in mind. For all that the "Trewe Relacyon" is written with a self-exculpatory agenda, it is yet cast as an open, honest account with more than a touch of counsel and guidance spread among the gruesome traveler's tales. Religion and Percy's sense of morality moreover run together in a manner entirely appropriate to a narrative fashioned by an older generation for the instruction-and improvement-of the young.

Consideration of the dedication, indeed, requires a qualification of the purposes served by self-justification. The reader is left in little doubt that this process of selection and omission is deliberate, and deeply personal, and that it may go some way to clarify the strengths and flaws in Percy's character. Superficially at least this is a man's tale, told to a man, and full of the common puff of the soldier: "cutt of" is a favourite phrase, appearing some ten times in the "Trewe Relacyon." Percy-wishes to be seen as the uncomplicated man of action. Up to a point he was just that; like his eldest brother, there was little of the politic statesman in his soul. Besides the compulsive honesty that permeates so much of the "Trewe Relacyon," there is apparent candor, also, in some of Percy's personal remarks, his admission, to take one example, that he was not an "easie footeman."72

And yet the bluff soldier's tale is not all that it seems, because Percy himself is not so straightforward a character as he would have us believe. The resilient adventurer was, at the same time, the sickly young man, the "baby" of the family. Alongside the frankness there is caution, manifested first and foremost in the use of common form, and predictable sentiment. Here is a tale told within a family, but even at the family level there is an element of this reserve, born perhaps of respect and deference, for while the nephew cannot match his uncle's experience, he will as heir apparent to the earldom of Northumberland one day be a greater figure in the world than Percy, the eighth and yongest son, can ever aspire to be. It is a great pity that we have no means of assessing Algernon's reaction to the work. Did he ever read it, and if he did, what did he make of it?

Though clearly well educated, knowledgeable, and able to access the collections of a good library, as the occasional excursion into the history of exploration displays all too well-it is tempting to suppose that the library in question was that built up by his eldest brother73-Percy explicitly played down any personal literary ambition. In his own words, he proposed to "delyver the Trewthe briefly and plainely the w[hi]ch I dowtt nott butt will rather Lyke then Loathe the Reader, nor doe I purpose to use any elloquentt style or phrase, The w[hi]ch indede in me is wanteinge."74 Barbour, drawing a contrast to the ever-practical Smith, saw him as something of a dreamy, unworldly "knight errant," obsessed with his "Table for Gentlemen of fashion" amid the primitive horrors of an alien world, but here as elsewhere Barbour's Percy is delineated too simply. Certainly there is nothing in the "Trewe Relacyon" to suggest a back resolutely turned upon practical reality.75

The dedication demands a reconsideration of one curiosity in Percy's tale, his repeated references to "Algernon's Fort" at Old Point Comfort, while all but ignoring the "other severall Forts and Plantations" established by the colonists.76 The name, so openly flattering, appears only in Percy's own account and may well have existed only in Percy's imagination. These references add weight to the possibility that Percy's "Trewe Relacyon" was never intended for publication. There is no suggestion anywhere that the manuscript was at any stage prepared for the press. Rather, it lay buried among the collections of its dedicatee for three centuries, overlooked and all but forgotten by those investigating the early history of English settlement in America. Perhaps it was only one in a sequence of private self-justifications, countering Smith's successive publications. Or perhaps the neglect of the manuscript emphasizes the paramount significance of the dedication, as the true impetus behind composition. Who, at this remove, can say?

There is still one more motive to be considered. Amid the misery there were moments that gave Percy a sense of pride and self-importance, and pride alone can spur on autobiography. His presidency in 1609-10, for all that he was a compromise figurehead, and despite the circumstances in which it began and continued, was an obvious high point, at least in retrospect, seen from the comfort of London. Despite incapacitating sickness, he had accepted the challenge and had no doubt done his best. What is more, Percy took charge of the colony again, for just over one month in the spring of 1611, as an interim governor when Lord De La Warr departed for England, and De La Warr in his official Relation (1611) publicly praised him as a "Gentleman of honour and resolution."77 Again, though, there is here some sense of a story but half told. As in 1609 there were few alternative candidates. Furthermore, according to Ralph Hamor's True Discourse (1615) the acting governor, Sir Thomas Dale, found worrying signs that Percy's government was again proving weak, the colonists "being so improvident as not to put Corne in the ground for their bread." Instead, they had "trusted to the store, then furnished but with three monthes provision." On his arrival at Jamestown, Dale met "most of the companie . . . at their daily and usuall works, bowling in the streets."78 If the assessment is fair, one can look at this in two lights: although no governor should be judged on the performance of a bare six weeks, here is just the pattern of general sloth and haphazard laziness that beset the colony in 1609-10. The case, as in 1609-10, tends toward a charitable verdict of "not proven," but the defense advances its argument rather hesitantly, aware that it lacks the persuasiveness born of real conviction.

It was another year before Percy decided to return home, setting sail for England in April 1612. He had endured and survived where so many others had fallen by the wayside. Even Smith admitted in his Generall Historie that Percy was "of as bold resolute spirits as could possibly be found."79 His years in Virginia were years of desperate survival. Only after his departure do contemporary accounts begin to speak of churches, and civic buildings, of administrative divisions, and law courts, and an emerging, if still precarious prosperity-that was not a Virginia that George Percy ever knew. The passage of thirteen years or more between his return and the writing of his "Trewe Relacyon" left memories of that anguished, haunted time as vivid as ever, but they also instilled a note of philosophical resignation, apparent from the very start of his narrative. "If," he writes, "we Trewly Consider the diversely of miseries, mutenies, and famishmentts w[hi]ch have attended upon discoveries and plantacyons in theis our moderne Tymes, we shall nott fynde our plantacyon in Virginia to have Suffered aloane."80

Percy's manuscript is now Americana MS 106 in the Elkins Collection of the Free Library of Philadelphia. Eighty-three years ago, while still among the papers of Lord Leconfield at Petworth House, West Sussex, it was printed for the first time, without scholarly apparatus and from a modern copy obtained by Lyon G. Tyler for the Virginia State Library, in volume three of Tyler's Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine?1 When many manuscripts from Petworth were sold at Sotheby's in April 1928, the Percy MS, Lot 115, was bought by A. S. W. Rosenbach, acting as agent for the American collector William McIntire Elkins.82 It was subsequently bequeathed to the Free Library upon Elkins's death in 1947.

The undated manuscript in the Free Library is a neat copy in a regular script of the early seventeenth century. This is almost certainly not George Percy's hand; the commissioning of a clean copy from an amanuensis is far more likely. Surviving letters from Percy have also been written by a clerk, for the rather casual, ill-formed signatures stand in complete contrast to the well-presented secretary hands that go before. The only known specimen of Percy's handwriting is the hasty note at the foot of the Clatworthy bond dated 1606, mentioned on page 215, and this-even allowing for the fact that the compositions differ in both nature and purpose-contrasts markedly with the well-written "Trewe Relacyon" manuscript.83 As Percy himself makes clear, the original was written in response to John Smith's Generall Historié, first published in 1624, but the work as we have it was composed after March 1625, perhaps to coincide with the publication of his "Observations" by Samuel Purchas and the appearance of Strachey's True Repertory that same year: there is a reference to King Charles I on page 20 of the manuscript. This seems to be the only contemporary copy extant. Bound in limp tooled vellum, the manuscript of George Percy's "Trewe Relacyon" measures some 185 by 140 mm, and runs to forty-two pages, varying from twenty-four to twenty-seven lines to a page, with catch-words throughout. It is paginated in a contemporary hand, possibly the same hand responsible for the text. Single margins are ruled all round.

I have preserved the original spelling throughout, expanding contractions and suspensions in square brackets as appropriate. It is my belief that the scribe used a loop termination for "s" rather than "es." I have standardized usage of the interchangeable letter forms "i" and "j", and also "u" and "v." The use of capital letter forms in the manuscript is extremely inconsistent, with capital forms used where the clear intention is for lower case, and vice versa. As the scribe intended one particular form of the letter "a" to represent either upper or lower case, I have chosen the form most appropriate to the particular point in the text. The scribe showed a tendency to capitalize first words on lines, perhaps for the sake of appearance, though again there is no hint of consistency in this. I have not followed his efforts, only partly successful, to render names in an italic hand throughout.

Punctuation in the manuscript is likewise highly erratic, with obliques and dots regularly being deployed as all-purpose commas or periods. I have done my best to detect any subtleties in the scribe's approach, and have punctuated accordingly; obliques have usually been represented by periods. The page numbers in bold square brackets indicate the top of that page in the original document.

To the right honorable the Lorde Percy84

My Lorde

This Relacyon I have here sente your Lordshipp is for Towe respectts. The one to Sheowe howe mutche I honnor yow, and desyre to doe yow service. The other in Regard thatt many untrewthes concerneinge Theis p[ro]cedeings have bene formerly published, wherein The author hathe nott Spared to apropriate many desertts to him selfe w[hi]ch he never p[er]formed and stuffed his Relacyons w[i]th so many falseties and malicyous detractyons nott onely of this p[ar]te and Tyme w[hi]ch I have selected to Treate of, Butt of former ocurrentts also: So thatt I coulde nott conteine my selfe butt expresse the Trewthe unto your Lordshipp concerninge Theis affayers. And all w[hi]ch I ayme att is to manyfeste my selfe in all my actyons bothe now and alwayes To be,

Your Lordshipps humble and faithfull Servante.

G. P. [1]

A Trewe Relacyon of the p[ro]cedeings and ocurrentes of Momente w[hi]ch have hapned in Virginia from the Tyme S[i]r Thomas Gates85 was Shippwrackte uppon the Bermudes An[n]o 1609 untill my dep[ar]ture owtt of the Cowntry w[hi]ch was in An[n]o D[omi]ni 1612

If we Trewly Consider the diversely of miseries mutenies and famishmentts w[hi]ch have attended upon discoveries and plantacyons in theis our moderne Tymes, we shall nott fynde our plantacyon in Virginia to have Suffered aloane.86

La doniere had his share thereof in Florida nextt neighbour unto Virginia where his sowldiers did fall into mutenies, and in the ende weare allmoste all Starved for wante of foode.87

The Spanyards plantacyon in the River of Plate and the streightes of Magelane Suffered also in so mutche thatt haveinge eaten upp all their horses to susteine themselves w[i]thal, Mutenies did aryse and growe amongste them, for the w[hi]ch the generall Diego Mendosa cawsed some of them to be executed, Extremely of hunger inforceinge others secrettly in the night to Cutt downe [2] Their deade fellowes from of the gallowes and to bury them in their hungry Bowelles.88

The plantacyon in Carthagena was also Lamentable thatt wante of wholesome foode wherew[i]th for to mainteyne Lyfe, weare info reed to eate Toades Snakes and sutche lyke venemous wormes sutche is the sharpnes of hunger.

To this purpose many other examples mighte be recyted butt the Relacyon itt selfe beinge briefe I have noe intente to be Tedyous butt to delyver the Trewthe briefly and plainely the w[hi]ch I dowtt nott butt will rather Lyke then Loathe the Reader, nor doe I purpose to use any elloquentt style or phrase, The w[hi]ch indede in me is wanteinge, Butt to delyver thatt trewly w[hi]ch my selfe and many others have had bitter experyence of: Many other woes & miseries have hapned unto our Collonie in Virginia bothe before and since thatt Tyme w[hi]ch now I doe intende to Treate of, Haveinge selected this p[ar]te from the reste for towe Respectts, firste in regard I was moste frequente and acquaynted w[i]th theis p[ro]cedeings beinge moste parte of the tyme presydentt and governour, nextt in respectt the leaste p[ar]te hereof hathe nott bene formerly published. [3]

In the yere of our Lorde 1609 S[i]r Tho[mas] Gates and S[i]r George Somers89 acompanyed w[i]th dyvers gentlemen Sowldiers and seamen in nyne good Shippes did begine their voyage for Virginia the towe knightes beinge in the Admirall whereof Christopher Newport was Captayne and haveinge sayled w[i]th p[ro]sperous wyndes many Leauges, att Lenghte did fall upon the Bermudas where meteinge w[i]th a vyoelentt storme the Admirall wherein the towe knightes were inbarqued ["was" crossed out] Suffred wracke.90 neverthelesse hoyseinge outt their boate Safely Landed the 2 knightes and the Reste of thatt Company upon the Bermudes, of whome I will forbeare to Treate of further untill their arryvall in Virginia.

The other 8 shippes shorttly after aryved in Virginia91 where the passengers beinge noe soener well Landed butt presenttly a discencyon did growe betwine them and Capt[eyn]e Smithe92 then presydentt butt after some debate all was quyeted and pacifyed. Yett Capt[eyn]e Smithe feareinge the worste and thatt the seamen and thatt factyon mighte growe too stronge and be a meanes to depose him of his govermentt So Jugled w[i]th them by the way of feasteinges [4] Expense of mutche powder and other unnecessary Tryumphes, Thatt mutche was Spente to noe other purpose butt to Insinewate w[i]th his Reconcyled enemyes and for his owne vayne glory for the w[hi]ch we all after Suffred And thatt w[hi]ch was intollerabe did geve leave unto the Seamen to Carry away whatt victewalls and other necessaryes they wolde doeinge the same more safly in Regard the Contentts thereof was in the Admirall w[hi]ch was Caste away.93

Nott Longe after Capt[eyn]e Smithe sentt Capt[eyne] Martin94 and my selfe w[i]th threskore people to goe for Nansemunde,95 Capt[eyn]e Martin's Lefetenantt leadinge moste of the men overland and we towe w[i]th the Reste followed them by water, where being aryved we inquyred of the Indyans of our men butt they acordinge to their Subtelltyes wold nott acquaynte us therew[i]th. Whereupon I requested Capt[eyn]e Martin thatt I mightt goe a shoare to discover the trewthe to the w[hi]ch he wolde nott Condiscende. Neverthelesse the nighte beinge Stormy and wette, I wente on Lande w[i]th my Company where I fownde our men by goode fyers in saffety whereof I advertyzed Capt[eyn]e [5] Martin the nextt morneinge who presently w[i]th his company did Come ashoare unto us. Where after some Consultacyon helde we sentte 2 messengers to the kinge of Nancemonde To Barter w[i]th him for an Island righte opposite ["upon"(?) crossed out] ageinste the mayne we weare uppon for Copp[er] hatches and other Comodeties. Butt our messengers stayeinge Longer then we expected we feared thatt w[hi]ch after hapned. So Capt[eyn]e Martin did apointe me w[i]th halfe of our men to take the Island p[er]force and beinge upon the waye we espyed a Canoe wherein we weare p[er]swaded our messengers to be, butt they p[er]ceaveinge us Retourned backe from whense they came and we never sett eye upon our messengers after, Butt understood from the Indyans themselves thatt they weare sacrifysed and thatt their Braynes weare Cutt and skraped outt of their heades w[i]th Mussell [V crossed out] shelles. beinge Landed and acquaynted w[i]th their trechery we Beate the Salvages outt of the Island burned their howses ransaked their Temples, Tooke downe the Corpes of their deade kings from of their Toambes, and Caryed away their pearles Copp[er] and braceletts wherew[i]th they doe decore their kings funeralles.96

In the meane Tyme the Salvages upon the mayne did fall into discencyon w[i]th Capt[eyn]e Martin who [6] Seised the Kings sonne and ["one" inserted] other Indyand and broughte them bownde unto the Island where I was, where a shipp Boye takeinge upp a Pistoll accidentyallie nott meaneinge any harme The pistoll suddenly fyered and shotte the salvage prisoner into the Breste. And thereupon whatt w[i]th his passyon and feare he broake the Cordes asunder wherew[i]th he was Tyed and did Swimme over unto the mayne, w[i]th his wownd bleedinge. And there beinge greate store of maize upon the mayne I cowncelled Captyne Martin to take possesyon thereof the w[hi]ch he Refused pretendinge thatt he wolde nott putt his men into hassard and danger.97 So haveinge scene Capt[eyn]e Martin well settled I Retourned w[i]th Capt[eyn]e Nellson98 to James Towne ageine acoringe to apoyntementte.99

Shorttly after Capt[eyn]e Smithe sente Capteyne Francis West100 w[i]th one hundrethe and fortye men upp to the falles w[i]th sixe monthes victewells to inhabitt there. Where beinge Reasonable well settled dyv[e]rs of his men stragled from their foarte, some of them Comeinge hoame wownded, others never retourned to bringe any Tydeings butt weare Cutt of and slayne by the Salvages. So thatt in small p[ro]cesse of Tyme [7] Capt[eyn]e Smithe did take his jorney upp to the falles to understand how things weare there ordered, when presenttly after his comeinge thether, a greate devisyon did growe amongstc them. Capt[eyn]e Smithe p[er]ceaveinge bothe his authorety and p[er]son neglected, incensed and animated the Salvages ageinste Capt[eyn]e West and his company, Reporteinge unto them thatt our men had noe more powder lefte them then wolde serve for one volley of shott.101 And so Capt[eyn]e Smithe Retourninge to James Towne ageine fownd to have too mutche powder aboutt him, The w[hi]ch beinge in his pockett where the sparke of a matche Lighted, very shreawdly burned him.102 And comeinge in thatt case to James towne Capt[eyn]e[s] Rattliefe,103 Archer,104 and Martin practysed ageinste him and deposed him of his govermentt Smithe beinge an ambityous unworthy and vayneglorious fellowe, attempteinge to take all mens authoreties from them. For bothe Ratliefe Archer and Martin beinge formerly of the Cowncell Smithe wolde Rule all and ingrose all authorety into his owne hands, althoughe indede there was noe other certeine apointed govermentt then S[i]r Tho[mas] Gates had comissyon for who was then in the Bermudes, onely a yerely presidenttshipp to governe by the advyse of the [8] Cowncell. Butt Smithe aymeinge att a sovereigne Rule w[i]thoutt the assistance of the cowncell was justely depryved of all.

The place of govermentt beinge voyde the thre busy instrumentts in the plantacyon105 p[ro]fered the same unto me, the w[hi]ch att firste I refused in Regard of my sicknes.106 Butt by their importunetie p[ro]miseinge to undergoe the Chefeste offices and Burthen of govermentt for me untill I weare Recovered, att lenghte I accepted thereof and then was Smithe presenttly sentt for England.107

After I had bene presydentt some fowertene dayes I sentt Capt[eyn]e Rattliefe to pointe Comforte108 for to Buylde a foarte there. The w[hi]ch I did for towe Respects. The one for the plenty of the place for fisheinge The other for the Comodious discovery of any Shippeinge w[hi]ch sholde come uppon the Coaste. And for the honnor of your Lordshipps name and howse I named the same Algernowns Foarte.109

Nott Longe after Capt[eyn]e Martin whome I lefte att the Island did come to James towne pretendinge some occassions of busynes butt indede his owne Saffety moved him thereunto, feareinge to be Surprysed by the Indyans, who had ["m"(?) crossed out] made dyver[s] excursions ageinste him, so thatt haveinge lefte [9] Lieftenantt Sicklemore110 to Camawnd in his absence, amongste whose company shorttly after did growe a dangerous mutenie in so mutche Thatt dyv[e]rs of his men to the number of seaventene did take away a Boate from him p[er]force and wente therein to Kekowhaton111 pretendinge they wolde trade there for victwelles Butt they were served acordinge to their desertts for nott any of them weare heard of after and in all lykelyhood weare Cutt of and slayne by the Salvages And w[i]thin fewe dayes after Lieftenantt Sickelmore and dyv[e]rs others weare fownd also slayne w[i]th their mowthes stopped full of Breade, beinge donn as itt seamethe in Contempte and skorne, thatt others mighte expectt the Lyke when they shold come to seeke for breade and reliefe amongste them.112

Baldivia a Spanishe generall beinge served somewhatt answerable hereunto in Chily in the Weste Indies who beinge Surprised by the Indyans inforced him to drincke upp a certeine quantety of melted gowlde useinge theis words unto him now glutt thy selfe w[i]th gowlde, Baldivia haveinge there sowghte for gowlde as Sickelmore did here for foode.113 And all the reste [10] of Sickelmors Company w[hi]ch weare liveinge Retourned to us to James towne to feede upon the poore store we had lefte us.

Also w[i]thin a shorte Tyme after Capt[eyn]e Weste did ["did" crossed out] Come downe to us from the Falles haveinge loste eleaven men and a Boate at Arsetocke [?]114 besydes those men he loste att the Falles so our number at James towne increaseinge and our store decreaseinge for in Charety we cold nott deny them to participate w[i]th us. Whereupon I apointed Capt[eyn]e Tucker115 to Calculate and caste upp our store. The w[hi]ch att a poore alowanse of halfe a Cann of meale for a man a day, amownted unto thre monthes p[ro]vissyon. Yett Capt[eyn]e Tucker by his industry and Care caused the same to howlde outt fowere monthes. Butt haveinge noe expectacyon of Reliefe to Come in so shorte a Tyme I sentt Capteyne Ratliefe to Powhatan116 to p[ro]cure victewalls and corne by the way of comerce and trade the w[hi]ch the Subtell owlde foxe117 att firste made good semblanse of althoughe his intente was otherwayes onely wayteinge a fitteinge tyme for their destruction as after plainely appered. The w[hi]ch was p[ar]tly ocasyoned by Capt[eyn]e Ratliefes Creduletie for [11] Haveinge Powhatans sonne and dowghter aboard his pinesse freely suffred them to dep[ar]te ageine on shoare, whome if he had deteyned mighte have bene a Sufficyentt pledge for his saffety. And after, nott kepeinge a p[ro]per and fitteinge Courte of guarde, butt Suffreinge his men by towe and thre and small numbers in a Company to straggle into the Salvages howses when the slye owlde kinge espyed a fitteinge Tyme Cutt them all of, onely Surprysed Capt[eyn]e Ratliefe alyve who he caused to be bownd unto a tree naked w[i]th a fyer before, and by woemen his fleshe was skraped from his bones w[i]th Mussell shelles and before his face throwne into the fyer. And so for wantt of Circumspection miserably p[er]ished.118

In the meane Tyme Capt[eyn]e William Phetiplace119 Remayned in the pinnesse w[i]th some fewe men and was dyv[e]rs tymes assawlted by the Indyans butt after dyv[e]rs Conflictts w[i]th them w[i]th the losse of some of his men hardly escaped, and att lenghte aryved att James Towne, onely w[i]th sixtene men the Remaynder of fifty Capt[eyn]e Ratliefe hathe Chardge of att his goeinge forthe [12] And so he related unto us the Tragaedie of Capt[eyn]e Ratlife nott bringeinge any Reliefe w[i]th them either for them selves or us.

Upon w[hi]ch defeate I sentt Capt[eyn]e James Davis120 to Algernowe foarte to Comawnd there in Capt[eyn]e Ratliefes place and Capt[eyn]e Weste I sentt To Potoamack121 w[i]th aboutt thirty sixe men to trade for maize and grayne, where he in shorte tyme Loaded his pinesse Sufficyently yett used some harshe and Crewell dealinge by Cutteinge of towe of ["the" inserted] Salvages heads and other extremetyes. And Comeinge by Algernowns foarte Capteine Davis did Call unto them acquainteinge them w[i]th our greate wantts exhortinge them to make all the Spede they cowlde to Releve us upon w[hi]ch reporte Capt[eyn]e Weste by the p[er]swasion or rather by the inforcement of his company hoysed upp Sayles and shaped their Course directtly for England and lefte us in thatt extreme misery and wantte.122

Now all of us att James Towne beginneinge to feele the sharpe pricke of hunger w[hi]ch noe man123 trewly descrybe butt he w[hi]ch hathe Tasted the bitternesse thereof. [13] A wo ride of miseries ensewed as the Sequell will expresse unto yow, in so mutche thatt some to satisfye their hunger have Robbed the store for the w[hi]ch I Caused them to be executed. Then haveinge fedd upour124 horses and other beastes as longe as they Lasted, we weare gladd to make shifte w[i]th vermin as doggs Catts Ratts and myce all was fishe thatt Came to Nett to satisfye Crewell hunger, as to eate Bootes shoes or any other leather some Colde come by and those beinge Spente and devoured some weare inforced to searche the woodes and to feede upon Serpentts and snakes and to digge the earthe for wylde and unknowne Rootes, where many of our men weare Cutt of and slayne by the Salvages. And now famin beginneinge to Looke gastely and pale in every face, thatt notheinge was Spared to mainteyne Lyfe and to doe those things w[hi]ch seame incredible, as to digge upp deade corpes outt of graves and to eate them.125 And some have Licked upp the Bloode w[hi]ch hathe fallen from their weake fellowes. And amongste the reste this was moste lamentable. Thatt one of our Colline murdered his wyfe Ripped the Childe outt of her woambe and threwe itt into the River and after Chopped the [14] Mother in pieces and sallted her for his foode, The same not beinge discovered before he had eaten p[ar]te thereof. For the w[hi]ch Crewell and unhumane factt I adjudged him to be executed the acknowledgm[en]t of the dede beinge info reed from him by torture haveinge hunge by the Thumbes w[i]th weightes att his feete a quarter of an howere before he wolde Confesse the same.126

Upon theis Calameties haveinge one boate and a Canoe Lefte us, our Boate did accidentyally breake Loose and did dryve fewer myles downe the River before she was espyed. Whereupon Capt[eyn]e Martin apointeinge some to follow her the w[hi]ch beinge neglected and acquaynteinge me therew[i]th I stepped outt of my howse w[i]th my Sworde drawne and what w[i]th my Threates and their feares happy was he Colde shipp himselfe into the Canoe firste And so our Boate thatt nighte was ageine Recovered Yett wanteinge more Boates for fisheinge and other nedfull ocassions Capt[eyn]e Daniell Tucker by his greate industry and paines buylded a Large Boate w[i]th his owne hands The w[hi]ch ["was" inserted] some helpe and a little Reliefe unto us and did kepe us from killeinge one of an other To eate. [15] Many of our men this starveinge Tyme did Runn away unto the Salvages whome we never heard of after.

By this Tyme beinge Reasonable well recovered of my Sicknes I did undertake a Jorney unto Algernowns foarte bothe to understand how things weare there ordered as also to have bene Revenged of the Salvages att Kekowhatan who had trecheously Slayne dyv[e]rs of our men. Our people I fownd in good case and well lykeinge haveinge concealed their plenty from us above att James Towne, Beinge so well stored thatt the Crabb fishes wherew[i]th they had fedd their hoggs wold have bene a greate relefe unto us and saved many of our Lyves. Butt their intente was for to have keptt some of the better sorte alyve and w[i]th their towe pinnesses to have Retourned for England nott Regardinge our miseries and wantts att all. Wherew[i]th I taxed Capt[eyn]e Davis and tolde him thatt I had a full intente to bringe halfe of our men from James Towne to be there Releved and after to Retourne them backe ageine and bringe the reste to bee Susteyned there also. And if all this wolde nott serve to save our mens Lyves I purposed to bringe them all unto [16] Algernowns foarte Telleinge Capt[eyn]e Davis thatt another towne or foarte mighte be erected and Buylded butt mens lyves onse Loste colde never be recovered.127

Our miseries now beinge att the hygheste and intendinge as I formerly Related unto yow to Remove some of our men to Algernowns foarte the very nextt Tyde, we espyed towe pinnesses Comeinge into the Baye nott knoweinge as yett whatt they weare, butt kepinge a Courte of guard and watche all thatt nighte. The nextt morneinge we espyed a Boate Comeinge of from one of the pinnesses So standeinge upon our guard we haled them and understood thatt S[i]r Tho[mas] Gates and S[i]r George: Somers weare Come in these pinnesses w[hi]ch by their greate industry they had buylded in the Burmudes, w[i]th the remaynder of their wracktt shipp and other woode they fownde in the Cowntry.128 Upon w[hi]ch newes we Receved noe small joye, Requesteinge them in the Boate to Come ashoare the w[hi]ch they refused, and Retourned aboard ageine for S[i]r Tho[mas] Gates haveinge noe knowledge of any foarte to be Builded there, was dowtfull whether we weare frends or noe129 butt beinge possesed of the trewthe [17] he and S[i]r George Somers w[i]th dyvers others did Come ashoare at Algernownes foarte and the nextt Tyde wente upp to James Towne where they mighte Reade a lecture of miserie in our peoples faces and p[er]ceve the skarsety of victewalles and understande the mallice of the Salvages, who knoweinge our weaknes had dyv[e]rs Tymes assawlted us w[i]thoutt the foarte. Fyndeinge of fyve hundrethe men we had onely Lefte aboutt sixty, The reste beinge either sterved throwe famin or Cutt of by the salvages.130 And those w[hi]ch weare Liveinge weare so maugre and Leane thatt itt was Lamentable to behowlde them, for many throwe extreme hunger have Runne outt of their naked bedds beinge so Leane thatt they Looked lyke anotannes,131 Cryeinge owtt we are starved. We are starved, others goeinge to bedd as we imagined in healthe weare fownd deade the nextt morneinge and amongste the Reste one thinge hapned w[hi]ch was very Remarkable wherein god sheowd his juste Judgem[en]t. For one Hughe Pryse132 beinge pinched w[i]th extreme famin, In a furious distracted moode did Come openly into the markett place Blaspheameinge exclameinge and Cryeinge outt thatt there was noe god, alledgeinge thatt if there were a god he wolde nott Suffer his Creatures whome he had made and framed to indure those miseries [18] and to p[er]ishe for wante of foode and Sustenance Butt itt appeared the same day thatt the Almighty was displeased w[i]th him, for goeinge thatt afternoene w[i]th a Butcher a Corpulentt fatt man into the woods to seke for some Reliefe, bothe of them weare slaine by the Salvages. And after beinge fownde gods Indignacyon was sheowed upon Pryses Corpes w[hi]ch was Rente in pieces w[i]th wolves or other wylde Beastes and his Bowles Torne outt of his boddy beinge a Leane spare man. And the fatt Butcher nott lyeinge above sixe yardes from him was fownd altogether untoutched onely by the salvages arrowes whereby he Receaved his deathe.

Theis miseries Considered itt was Resolved uppon By S [i] r Tho [mas] Gates and the whole Collonie w[i]th all Spede to Retourne for England, where-upon moste of our men weare sett to worke some to make pitche and Tar for Trimmeinge of our shoppes133 others to Bake breade and fewe or noene nott imployed in one occasyon or another. So thatt in a small Space of Tyme fowere pinnesses weare fitted and made Reddy all prepareinge to goe aboarde. And if S[i]r Tho [mas] Gates had nott Laboured w[i]th our men they had sett the Towne on fyer, useinge theis or the lyke words unto them. My masters lett the towne [19] Stande we knowe nott butt thatt as honeste men as our selves may come and inhabitt here. Then all of us enbarqueinge our selves, S[i]r Tho [mas] Gates in the Deliveranse w[i]th his company S[i]r George Somers in the patience my selfe in the discoverie and Capt[eyn]e Davis in the Virginia, all of us sayleinge downe the River w[i]th a full intente to have p[ro]ceded upon our voyadge for England, when Suddenlye we espyed a boate makeinge towards us. wherein we fownde to be Capt[eyn]e Bruster134 sentt from my Lorde La Ware, who was come unto us w[i]th many gentlemen of quallety and thre hundrethe men besydes greate store of victewles municyon and other p[ro]vissyon. Whereupon we all Retourned to James Towne ageine where my Lorde shorttly after Landed and sett all things in good order selecteinge a Cowncell and makeinge Capteines over fifty men apiece.135

Then S[i]r Tho[mas] Gates beinge desyreous for to be Revendged upon the Indyans att Kekowhatan did goe thither by water w[i]th a certeine number of men, and amongste the reste a Taborer136 w[i]th him. beinge Landed he cawsed the Taborer to play and dawnse thereby to allure the Indyans to come unto him the w[hi]ch prevayled. And then espyeinge [20] a fitteinge oportunety fell in upon them putt fyve to the sworde wownded many others some of them beinge after fownde in the woods w[i]th sutche extreordinary Lardge and mortall wownds thatt itt seamed strange they cold flye so fur. The reste of the Salvages he putt to flighte. And so posseseinge himselfe of the Towne and the fertill grownd thereunto adjacentt haveinge well ordered all things he lefte his liefetenantt Earely to comawnd his company and then Retourned to James Towne ageine and Shorttly after did take his voyadge for England.137

My Lord generall aboutt this Tyme sentt Capt[ein]e Howldcrofte138 to buylde a foarte in the woods, neare unto Kekowhatan. The w[hi]ch beinge finished my Lord named the same Charles foarte in honnor of our kings ma[jes]tie thatt now is.139

Also my Lorde sentt S[i]r George Somers and Capt[eyn]e Argoll140 in towe shippes into the Bermudes to make p[ro]vissyon of hoggs and fishe for us.141 Sir George aryved there, where shorttly after he dyed, his men makeinge good p[ro]fitt of amber griese and other comodeties Retourned for England. Butt Capt[eyn]e Argoll fayleinge of the place fell to the northward where he hapned upon some fishe the w[hi]ch haveinge [21] Sallted and dryed Retourned therew[i]th to us to James Towne ageine.

S[i]r Ferdinando Wayman142 aboutt this Tyme dyed whose deathe was mutche Lamented beinge bothe an honeste and valyantt gentleman.

My Lord generall nott forgetteing oulde Powhatans Subtell Trecherie sentt a messenger unto him to demawnde Certeine armes and dyv[e]rs men w[hi]ch we supposed mighte be liveinge in his country Butt he Retourned noe other then prowde and Disdaynefull answers.143

Whereupon my Lord beinge mutche incensed Cawsed a comission to be drawne, wherein he apointed me Chiefe Comawnder over seaventie men and sentt me to take Revendge upon the Paspaheans144 and Chiconamians145 and so shippeinge my selfe and my Sowldiers in towe boates I dep[ar]ted from James Towne the 9th of August 1610146 and the same nighte Landed w[i]thin thre myles of paspahas towne. Then draweinge my sowldiers into Battalio placeinge a Capteyne or Leftenante att every fyle, we marched towards the Towne haveinge an Indyan guyde w[i]th me named Kempes147 whome the p[ro]voste marshall ledd in a hande locke This Subtill salvage was Leadinge us outt of the [22] Way the w[hi]ch I misdowteinge Bastinaded him w[i]th my Truncheon and threatned to Cutt of his heade whereupon the slave alltered his Cowrse and browghte us the righte way neare unto the towne So thatt then I comawnded every Leader to drawe away his fyle before me to besett the salvages howses thatt noene mighte escape, w[i]th a Chardge nott to geve the allarume untill I weare come upp unto them w[i]th the Cullers. Att my comeinge I apointed Capt[eyn]e William Weste148 to geve the allarume, the w[hi]ch he P[er]formed by shooteinge of a pistoll. And then we fell in upon them putt some fiftene or sixtene to the Sworde and almoste all the reste to flyghte. Whereupon I cawsed my drume to beate and drewe all my sowldiers to the Cullers, my Lieftenantt bringeinge w[i]th him the Quene and her Children and one Indyann prisoners149 for the w[hi]ch I taxed him becawse he had Spared them, his answer was, thatt haveinge them now in my Custodie I mighte doe w[i]th them whatt I pleased. Upon the same I cawsed the Indians heade to be Cutt of, and then disp[er]sed my fyles apointeinge my Sowldiers to burne their howses and to Cutt downe their Corne groweing aboutt the Towne. And after we marched w[i]th the quene [23] and her Children to our Boates ageine. Where beinge noe soener well shipped my sowldiers did begin to murmer becawse the quene and her Children weare spared. So upon the same a Cowncell beinge called itt was agreed upon to putt the children to deathe the w[hi]ch was effected by Throweinge them overboard and shoteinge owtt their Braynes in the water. Yett for all this Crewellty the Sowldiers weare nott well pleased and I had mutche to doe To save the quenes lyfe for thatt Tyme.

Then sayleinge some towe myles downe the River I sentt Capt[eyn]e Davis ashoare w[i]th ["my sow-" erased] moste of my Sowldiers150 my selfe beinge wearyed before and for my owne p[ar]te butt an easie footeman Capt[eyn]e Davis att his landeinge was affronted151 by some Indyans who spared nott to send their arrowes amongste our men butt w[i]thin a shorte Tyme he putt them to flighte and landed w[i]thout further opposityon marcheinge aboutt fowrtene myles into the Cowntry Cutt downe their Corne burned their howses Temples and Idolles. and amongste the reste a Spacyous Temple Cleane and neattly keptt, a thinge strange and seldome sene amongste the Indyans in those p[ar]tes152 [24] So haveinge p[er]formed all the spoyle he cowlde, Retourned aboarde to me ageine and then we sayled downe the River to James Towne.

My Lord generall nott beinge well did lye a Shippboard. to whome we Rowed, he beinge joyfull of our safe Retourne yett seamed to be Discontente becawse the quene was Spared as Capteyne Davis towlde me, and thatt itt was my Lords pleasure thatt we sholde see her dispatched The way he thowghte beste to Burne her. To the firste I replyed thatt haveinge scene so mutche Blood shedd thatt day, now in my Cowld bloode I desyred to see noe more, and for to Burne her I did nott howlde itt fitteinge butt either by shott or Sworde to geve her a quicker dispatche. So Turninge my selfe from Capt[eyn]e Davis he did take the quene w[i]th towe sowldiers a shoare and in the woods putt her to the Sworde and althoughe Capt[eyn]e Davis towlde me itt was my Lords direction yett I ame p[er]swaded to the Contrary.153

Nott longe after our Retourne to James Towne ["was se-" erased] Capt[eyn]e Argoll was sentt w[i]th the lyke Comission ageinste the Wariscoyans.154 The salvages beinge warned by their neighbours harmes [25] weare very vigilante and Carefull and all of them fledd and escaped. So thatt Capt[eyn]e Argoll Cowlde have [no] other Revendge then by Cutteinge downe ther Corne burneinge their howses and Sutche lyke. The w[hi]ch beinge p[er]formed he Retourned to James Towne ageine.

The Salvages still Contineweinge their mallice ageinste us sentt some as Spyes to our foarte who beinge apprehended my Lord Cawsed one to have his hande Cutt of, and so sentte unto his fellowes to geve them warneinge for attemptinge the lyke.155

Aboutt this Tyme there was a Conspiracy plotteinge amongste some of our men w[hi]ch wroughtt in Iron mynes, To Runn away w[i]th a barkque. The same beinge discovered my Lord for an example adjudged one of them by marshall lawe to be executed. The execution p[ro]veinge strange and seldome heard of I thowghtt nott to omit, for the p[ar]ty beinge throwen of the Lather whatt w[i]th the Swindge and weigh te of his body the Roape did breake and he fell upon the grownde and in Regard of the accidentt my Lord p[ar]doned him althowghe itt nothinge avayled him haveinge Receved his deathe w[i]th the gerde of the Roape and extremely of the fall so thatt w [i] thin 2 dayes after he dyed.

[26] My Lord intendeinge to searche for mineralls and to make further p[roo]fe of the Iron mynes sentt dyv[e]rs men in a barkque upp to the falles and goeinge by Apoamatake [?]156 they weare Called ashoare by the Salvages and beinge to fill their Baricoes157 w[i]th water weare easely thereunto induced and after intysed by the Salvages upp to their howses pretendeinge to feaste them, butt our men forgetteinge their Subtellties lyke greedy fooles accepted thereof more esteameinge of a Little foode then their owne lyves and saffety for when the Indyans had them in their howses and fownd a fitteinge Tyme, when they Leaste dreaded any dawnger did fall upon them Slewe dyv[e]rs and wownded all the reste who w[i]thin towe dayes after also dyed onely [?] Dowse158 the Taborer who flyeinge to their boate was hardly pursewed. butt gayneinge the same he made a vertewe of necessety useinge the Rudder in steade of a Targett to kepe their arrowes outt of his body, and so skulleinge of by little and little gott outt of their Reache and freed himselfe. The Salvages be nott soe Simple as many Imagin who be not acquaynted w[i]th their Subtellties for they had nott forgotten how their neighbours att Kekowhatan were alured [27] and defeated by S[i]r Tho[mas] Gates when he had the Same Taborer w[i]th him.

Presenttly after Capt[eyn]e Bruster159 was sentte upp to the falles w[i]th a Certeine number of men To attende there for my Lords Comeinge who purposed to p[ro]cede in the Searche of mineralles In his jorney he had dyv[e]rs encownters & skirmishes w[i]th the Indyans, att Lenthe aryveinge att the Falles, where my Lord did shorttly after Come unto him Leaveinge the Chardge and Comawnd of James Towne w[i]th me.

Now my Lorde beinge att the Falles and winter Comeinge on, he Cawsed a foarte to be buylded there, bothe for their defence and shellter and named the same Lawares foarte Intendinge to have Reposed himselfe there all the winter and to have p[ro]ceded upon the discovery of mineralls the nextt Springe where for aTyme we will Leave him and Retourne to our p[ro]cedeings att James Towne ageine.160

The govermentt whereof beinge lefte to me Paspahe161 w[i]th a small Troope of Indyans in sheowe did Come unto our Blockhowse thinkeinge by some pollecy either to have Surprysed the same or some of our men. The w[hi]ch Comeinge to my hearinge [28] I presenttly sentt Capt[eyn]e Powell162 then my antyentt163 w[i]th a Certeine number of men to surprise Paspahe allyve if possible they cowlde for the same wolde have bene to good purpose if itt Cowld have bene effected. Whereupon our men draweinge neare unto him where he stoode upon the ende of a Banke, when presenttly Mr John Waller164 stepped unto him and Cawghtt howlde of him and gave the watche worde for the Reste to Come to assiste him The w[hi]ch the Salvages p[er]ceveinge dyv[e]rs of them appeared w[hi]ch before weare nott seene, sendeinge their arrowes frely amongste our men. The w[hi]ch Capt[eyn]e Powell seeinge did apprehend thatt their was small hope to bringe in Paspahe alyve for he Strugled maynely. Whereupon he Thruste him ["twyse" inserted]165 throwghe the boddy w[i]th his Sworde and for all thatt the stowte Indyan Lived and was Caryed away upon Rafters by the Salvages. And liefetenantt Puttocke166 encowntringe w[i]th one of the Salvages hande to fiste grapled w[i]th him and stabbed him to deathe w[i]th his ponnyard.167

My Lord generall all this Tyme Remayneinge att the Falles where nether sicknes nor skarsety was wanteinge had dyv[e]rs encownters w[i]th the Indyans some of his men beinge slayne amonge the Reste his [29] Kinsman Capt[eyn]e William Weste and Capteine Bruster narrowly escaped.168

And now my Lorde groweinge very Sicke he was inforced to aliter his former determinacyon and to retourne to James towne ageine where his Sicknes nothinge abated butt rather increased So thatt for the Recovery of his heal the he did Take his voyadge for the bathe att Mevis in the Weste Indies.169 Butt the wyndes nott favoreinge them they weare inforced to shape their Cowrse directtly for England,170 my Lorde haveinge lefte and apointed me deputy governour in his absence, To execute marshall lawe or any other power and authorety as absolute as himselfe.171

After my Lords dep[ar]ture the Indyans did fall to their wonted practyses ageine, Comeinge one eaveninge Late, and Called att our blocke howse. The w[hi]ch when I understood I presently sentt to Lieftenantt Puttocke who Comawnded there thatt he sholde by noe meanes Stur owtt of the Blocke howse, butt to kepe an excedinge Carefull guarde and watche, and to strenghten him I sentt him more men to double his guard ageine expresly geveinge him Chardge thatt he shold nott goe outt of the blockhowse upon [30] anyTearmes whattsoever p[ro]misseinge him thatt the nextt morneinge I wolde send him a Convenyentt number of men to discover whatt they weare and of whatt strenght w[hi]ch had soe Called them.

Butt Liefetenantt Puttocke beinge Called ageine early the nextt morneinge, before our watche was dischardged in the foarte, Contrary to my Comawnde and moste unadvysedly did goe outt of the Blockehowse w[i]th the small number of men he had Sheowinge more vallour then witt, more fury then Judgementt. And some fewe Indyans beinge in Sheowe he followed them w[i]thoutt apprehensyon of thatt w[hi]ch ensewed. For the Salvages still Retyreinge he followed them untill they broughte him into their ambuskado, where beinge fyve or sixe hundrethe of Salvages lett flye their arrowes as thicke as hayle amongste our handfull of men and defeated and Cutt them all of in a moment The arrowes w[hi]ch they had shott beinge so many in Number thatt the grownd theraboutts was allmoste Covered w[i]th them.172 Upon w[hi]ch defeate the Salvages did so aclamate Showte and hallowe in Tryumphe of their gayned victory thatt the Ecchoe thereof made bothe the ayere and woods to Ringe. The w[hi]ch filleinge our eares in the [31] Foarte presenttly w[i]th all spede I sentt lieftenantt Abbott173 w[i]th fifty men to assiste Puttocke nott knoweinge derecttly whatt had befallen them althoughe we feared thatt w[hi]ch had alereddy hapned. Neverthelesse lieften[ant]t Abbott encowntred w[i]th the salvages,They then Changeinge their noate Cryeinge Paspahe. Paspahe. Thereby importeinge as mutche as thatt they had Revendged his wrongs. Att lenghtt Abbott putt the Indyans to flight Recouered the deade bodyes of our men whome he broughte to our foarte where they weare Buryed.

Upon this disaster I sentt a messenger unto Algernowns foarte Supposeinge my Lorde, Laware had bene noe further on his voydge to have informed him hereof butt the messenger Loste his Labour my Lord beinge before dep[ar]ted In shorte Tyme after Capt[eyn]e Addames174 did come into our Bay in a shipped called the blessinge w[i]th freshe Supply bothe of men and victewells geveinge us notice thatt S[i]rTho[mas] Dale175 was to come shorttly after w[i]th a greater supply the w[hi]ch p[ro]ved Trewe for w[i]thin towe monthes after he aryved in Virginia and browghtt w[i]th him thre hundrethe men besydes greatt store of armour, [32] municyon victewalls and other p[ro]vissyon. And beinge Landed he ordeyned newe Lawes sett downe good articles w[hi]ch weare well observed.176 All our men beinge setto worcke some to plante some to sowe Corne and others to buyld boates and howses moste men inployed in one thinge or an other all things in Tyme beinge well settled and ordered S[i]r Thomas Dale made preperacyon and wentt ageinste the Nancemondies177 w[i]th a hundrethe men in armour where he had dyv[e]rs encownters and skirmishes w[i]th the Salvages bothe by Lande and water, dyv[e]rs of his company beinge wownded. Amongste the Reste Capt[eyn]e Francis Weste was shott into the Thyghe and Capteine Martin into the arme. S[i]r Tho[mas] Dale himselfe narrowly eskapeinge for an arrow lightt juste upon the edge or Brimme of his heade piece The w[hi]ch if itt had fallen a thowghtt Lower mightt have shott him into the Braynes and indangered his Lyfe. In theis Conflictts many Indyans beinge also slayne and wownded, and nott beinge acquainted nor acustomed to encownter w[i]th men in armour mutche wondered thereatt especyally thatt they did nott see any of our men fall as they had donne in other Conflictts. Whereupon they did fall into their exorcismes Conjuracyons and Charmes throweinge fyer upp into the skyes Runneinge up and downe w[i]th Rattles and makeinge many dyabolicall gestures w[i]th [33] Many nigramantcke Spelles and incantacions Imagein[in]ge thereby to cawse Raine to fall from the Clowdes to extinguishe and putt outt our mens matches and to wett and Spoyle their powder.178 Butt nether the dievell whome they adore nor all their Sorceries did any thinge avayle them for our men Cutt downe their Corne Burned their howses and besydes those w[hi]ch they had slayne broughtt some of them prissoners to our foarte.

S[i]r Tho[mas] Dale makeinge more invasyons & excursions upon the Salvages had many Conflictts w[i]th them and one thinge amongste the reste was very remarkable The w[hi]ch may be Supposed to have bene ocasyoned by the salvages Sorceries and Charmes, for [?] S[i]r Thomas Dale w[i]th some of the better sorte sitteinge in an Indyans howse a fantasy possesed them, thatt they imagined the Salvages were sett upon them cache man Takeinge one an other for an Indyan and so did fall pell mell one upon an other beateinge one an other Downe and breakeinge one of an others heades, thatt mutche mischiefe mighte have bene donn butt thatt itt pleased god the fantasy was taken away whereby they had bene deluded and every man understood his errour.179

Aboutt this tyme180 a Spanishe Caravell aryved upon the Coaste and did Come into the Bay w[i]thowtt comaund [34] Of Shotte. Thre principall of the Spanyards comeinge a shoare in their Boate nott furr of Algernowns foarte. The w[hi]ch Capt[eyn]e Davis espyeinge layd in ambushe for them they nott knoweinge of any foarte to be theare and so Surprysed them the chefeste of them beinge one Diego Malinos181 a comawnder of some foarte or houlde in the Weste Indies the other Antonio Pereos182 his companyon. The thirde a pylott who wentt under the name and habbitt of a Spanyard butt was after fownde and discovered to be Inglishe man his name beinge Limbrecke183 haveinge lived many yeres amongste the Spanyards and Reputed to be a goode Pylott After the surpryseinge of theis thre the boate wherein they did Come putt from the shoare the men ["que-" crossed out] therein being questyoned pretended to seke for one of the Kinge of Spaynes shippes loaden w[i]th municyon bownd for the Weste Indies Requesteinge Capt[eyn]e Davis to lett them have a pylott to bringe their shipp into the harbour the w[hi]ch was grawnted Butt haveinge the pylott noe soener aboard hoysed upp their Sayles and Caryed the pylott quyte away w[i]th them.184 Leaveinge the thre w[hi]ch weare Surprysed in his steade behynd them who weare thereupon broughtt to James Towne and sentt as prissoners [35] aboard severall Shippes. And shorttly after S[i]r Thofmas] Dale sentt my selfe Capt[eyn]e Newport and Mr Stracy secretary to the Collonie to examin them and so acuseinge them to have Come for Spyes they utterly denyed the same, butt still urgeinge them therewith Anto[nio] Pereos answered thatt we had noe Cawse att all to feare any thinge this yere butt whatt mightt happen the nextt he coulde nott tell and as itt after appeared their intente was as eavell as we imagined, for the Spannishe ambassadeur shorttly after gayned a Comissyon from the Kings Ma[jes]tie Kinge James Thatt we sholde send the princypall Diego Malinos into England the w[hi]ch w[i]th all spede was effected Capt[eyn]e Martin beinge his conductt. Don Diego stayed nott longe in England, Butt was sentt hoame where he was made generall of sixe tall Shippes in all lykeliehoode and as we weare after Certenly informed sett outt of purpose to Supplantt us. Butt haveinge bene att Sea aboutt a monthe a mutenie did growe amongste them in so mutche thatt one of Diegoes company stabbed him to Deathe whereupon their Course was alltered and their former determinacyon Ceased. Antonio Pereos he dyed before in Virginia, and S[i]r Tho[mas] Dale att his goeinge for England did take our hispanyolated Inglisheman [36] Limbrecke w[i]th him, and acordinge to some pryvate Comissyon when he did Come w[i]thin sighte of the Inglishe Shoare he cawsed him to be hanged upp att the yardes arme as afterwards itt was trewly reported.

Before S[i]r Tho[mas] Dales dep[ar]ture Capt[eyn]e Davis att Algernowns foarte espyed nyne shippes upon the coaste Supposeinge them to be Spanishe. And sendeinge notice thereof to S[i]r Tho[mas] Dale he presenttly sentt Capt[eyn]e Bruster and Lieftenantt Abbott w[i]th forty men to discover whatt they weare and they nott Retourneinge acordinge to S[i]r Thomas expectacyon he feared thatt they weare either Surprysed or defeated. Whereupon he drewe all his forces into forme and order reddy for encownter Calleinge a Cowncell to Resolve whether itt weare beste to mete w[i]th them aboard our shippes or for to maynteine the foarte. My opinyon I delyvered to S[i]r Thofmas] Dale and the Reste, Thatt is was185 dowttfull whether our men wolde stande unto itt ashoare and abyde the Brunte, butt a shippboard of necessety they muste for there was noe runneinge away. So makeinge preperacyon to goe aboard. Capt[eyne] Bruster and lieftenantt Abbott retourned and broughte us certeine newes thatt itt was S[i]r Tho[mas] Gates flete who was come now to be governour And [?] aryved there thatt eave[n]inge w[i]th a freshe Supply bothe of men [37] and p[ro]vissyon186 haveinge unladen the shippes & ["other" crossed out] ordered other necessary ocassyons S[i]r Tho[mas] Gates apointed S[i]r Tho[mas] Dale then marshall of the collonie as itt was agreed upon in England to passe upp into the Gown try neare unto the Falles w[i]th aboutt towe hundrethe men to inhabitt there Capt[eyn]e Bruster Leadeinge moste of his men overland and himselfe and a small company goeinge by water Capteyne Bruster in his martche was dyv[e]rs tymes assawlted and encowntered by the salvages beinge sentt from Powhatan haveinge for their Leader one Munetute187 Comonly called amongste us Jacke of the feathers By Reason thatt he used to come into the felde all Covered over w[i]th feathers and Swans wings fastened unto his showlders as thowghe he meante to flye. Capt[eyne] Bruster comeinge to the place apointed where S[i]r Tho[mas] Dale did also mete w[i]th him. And after dyv[e]rs encownter and skirmishes w[i]th the Salvages gayned a convenyentt place for fortificatyon where presenttly they did begin to buylde a foarte and S[i]r Tho[mas] Dale named the same Henericus foarte in honnor of prinse Henry.188 The Salvages weare nott Idle all this Tyme butt hindred their designes as muche as they colde shoteinge arrowes into the foarte wherew[i]th dyv[e]rs of our men weare wownded & others indangered and some haveinge inploymentt w[i]thoutt [38] The foarte did Come shorte hoame and weare slayne by the Salvages.

S[i]r Tho[mas] Dale haveinge allmoste finished the foarte and settled a plantacyon in thatt p[ar]te, dyv[e]rs of his men beinge Idell and nott willeinge to take paynes did Runne away unto the Indyans many of them beinge taken ageine S[i]r Thomas in a moste severe mannor cawsed to be executed. Some he apointed to be hanged some burned some to be broken upon wheles others to be Staked and some to be shott to deathe all theis extreme and crewell tortures he used and inflicted upon them To terrefy the reste for attempteinge the Lyke, And some w[hi]ch Robbed the store he cawsed them to be bownd faste unto Trees and so sterved them to deathe.

So leaveinge S [i] r Thomas busely inployed in finisheinge the Foarte and settleinge their habitacyons lett us Retourne to James Towne ageine where our governour S [i] r Tho [mas] Gates was resydentt. Onely by the waye Toutche a little att Algernownes foarte the w[hi]ch was accidentally burned downe to the grownd exceptt Capt[eyn]e Davis howse and the store howse, whereupon Capt[eyn]e Davis feareinge to Receve some displeasure and to be Removed from thense the same beinge the moste plentifulleste place for food, he used sutche expedityon [39] In the Rebuyldeinge of the same ageine thatt itt is allmoste incredible.

Dyv[e]rs Indyans used to come to our foarte att James Towne bringeinge victewalls w[i]th them Butt indede did Rather come as Spyes then any good affectyon they did beare unto us. Some of them S[i]r Tho [mas] Gates Cawsed to be apprehended and executed for a Terrour to the Reste to cawse them to desiste from their Subtell practyses.

Thus haveinge Related unto your Lordshipp the Trewe p[ro] cedeings in Virginia from S[i]r Tho [mas] Gates Shippwracke upon the Bermudes untill my dep[ar]ture outt of the Cowntry w[hi]ch was the 22th Aprell 1612, The w[hi]ch day I sett sayle in a shipp named the Tryall189 and haveinge by computacyon sayled aboutt 200 leauges w[i]th a Reasonable good wynde and fayere weather, upon a Sudden a greate storme did aryse In so mutche thatt the misson maste did Springe w[i]th the vyolence of the wyndes and lyeinge in the greate Cabbin where the misson stoode I was thereby muche indawngered and in perrill of my Lyfe, for the same w[i]th greate force did grate upon my Cabbin and narrowly missed me and a barrell full w[i]th bere [40] Beinge ["in" inserted] the Cabbin the misson Strucke the same to pieces thatt all the here did Runne abowtt the Cabbin.

The Storme Ceaseinge and our misson amended we Recovered flores Corves ["nott" crossed out] and St Michells190 nott towcheing att any of theis Islands, Butt shaped our Course Northewarde, where falleinge becallmed our dawnger was greater then the former for feare of famin and wante of foode haveinge butt a poore small quantetie of freshe water and thatt was so stencheous191 thatt onely washeinge my hands therew[i]th I cold nott endure the sentt thereof. Our greateste store of foode was pease, and those weare so Corrupted mowldie Rotten and worme eaten thatt there was noe Substance lefte in them butt beinge stirred wolde Crumbell into Duste, so thatt for wante of foode ["we" inserted] weare lyke to p[er]ishe.192 Butt god lookeinge mercyfully upon us when we leaste expected to see our native Cowntry ageine, we happely mett w[i]th a shipp of London bownde for newe fownd lande one Baker beinge master thereof who Releved us w[i]th Befe fishe Breade here and Tobaco w[hi]ch greattly comforted us and saved our lyves for itt was above Thirty dayes after before we made lande [4l] W[hi]ch was Ireland So after a longe and dangereous voyage we did fall w[i]th the Lande and putt into Crooke Haven, where we Remayned some fowretene dayes, in w[hi]ch Tyme we Refreshed our selves and Revicteweled our ship, and then sett sayle ageine and w[i]thin eightt dayes after aryved in England and anchored in Dover Roade where we did mete w[i]th S[i]r Samuell Argall bownde for newe England To displante the Frenche collonie there. The w[hi]ch as I after hearde he valliantly p[er]formed.193 Butt how juste the Cawse was I refer the same to a Judityous Censure.194 So stayeinge some fewe dayes att Dover to acompany S[i]r Samuell I toake poaste horse and from thense Roade to London.

Finis

Mark Nicholls is a fellow, tutor, and librarian of St. Johns College, Cambridge.

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