The shrewd and redoubtable
Captain John Smith, now president in the colony, opposed the vain
explorings, and sent the council in London a characteristic "rude letter."
The ship, said he, kept nearly all the victuals for its crew, while the
settlers, "the one halfe sicke, the other little better," had as their diet
"a little meale and water, and not sufficient of that." The foreign experts
had been set at their assigned labors; but "it were better to give five
hundred pound a tun for those grosse commodities in Denmarke than send for
them hither till more necessary things be provided. For in over-toyling our
weake and unskilfull bodies to satisfie this desire of present profit we
can scarce ever recover ourselves from one supply to another.... As yet you
must not looke for any profitable returnes."[2]
[Footnote 1: Alexander Brown, _The First Republic in America_ (Boston,
1898), p. 68.]
[Footnote 2: Capt. John Smith, _Works_, Arber ed. (Birmingham, 1884), pp.
442-445. Smith's book, it should be said, is the sole source for this
letter.]
This unwelcome advice while daunting all mercenary promoters gave spur to
strong-hearted patriots. The prospect of profits was gone; the hope of
an overseas empire survived.
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