"There was a little city and few men within it, and there came a great king against it.... Now there was a poor man and he delivered the city--yet no man remembered that poor man."
Now that the _Ph[oe]nix_ had left food enough to sustain the colony all summer, Captain Smith had leisure to heed the restless stirrings of his adventurous spirit. He had long wished to explore the great bay, and he now accompanied the _Ph[oe]nix_ as far as the capes. As the ship "bore up the helm," and entered her long path on the great sea, he turned the prow of his little barge northward to the mysterious unexplored waters of the Chesapeake. Relying upon Indian information, he had sent, by Captain Newton, almost a pledge that he would find the outlet to the South Sea through the northern waters, rather than the James or Chickahominy rivers.
Personally, he had nothing to gain, the crown would be sure to claim everything; but it behooved him to satisfy the London Company. Christians and patriots had swelled his sails with pæans and prayers when he left England, but he had reason to fear that the existence of the colony did not depend upon the Christian who thought of nothing but the coming of God's Kingdom on earth; nor upon the patriot who sought only the honour of old England; but upon a king and company seeking the present gold, and a path whereby gold-bearing regions might be reached in future.
The colonists had always been reluctant to cultivate food products, and were by consequence always starving. This was, in part, because they were not allowed to plant on their own account, except upon condition of contributing part of their crops and one month's service annually for the benefit of the London Company. Neither could they leave the country without special permission. Private letters from England were constantly intercepted. It is narrated that a passport from the King for the return of one of the colonists was sewed in a garter to ensure its delivery. The settlers were, as a matter of fact, slaves and prisoners, chained hand and foot to a life of privation and peril. Their true position was concealed for a while from the English people, but the secret was kept for a short time only. Banishment to Virginia was worse than death. Scott makes his profligate apprentice consider the alternative of suicide or life in Virginia. "I may save the hangman a labour or go the voyage to Virginia," said "Jin Vincent." Three thieves, under sentence of death, were offered pardon and transportation to Virginia. One of the three preferred hanging. The other two were sent to the long-suffering colonists. "The first country in America," says Stith, "is under the unjust scandal of being another Siberia, fit only for the vilest of people."