Richard of Jamestown : a Story of the Virginia Colony by James Otis
page 36 of 121 (29%)
page 36 of 121 (29%)
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This served us as a living place for many days, or until my master
was come into his own, as he did before the fort was finished, when, on one certain morning, he demanded of the other members of the Council that they put him on trial to learn whether the charges could be proven or not, and this was done on the day before Captain Newport was to take the ships back to England. There is little need for me to say that Captain Kendall's stories of the plot, in which he said my master was concerned, came to naught. There were none to prove that he had ever spoken of such a matter, and the result of the trial was that they gave him his rightful place at the head of the company. Before many months were passed, all came to know that but for him the white people in Jamestown would have come to their deaths. WE WHO WERE LEFT BEHIND It was on the fifteenth day of June when the ships sailed out of the Chesapeake Bay, leaving on the banks of the river we called the James, a hundred men and boys, all told, to hold their lives and their liberty against thousands upon thousands of naked savages, who had already shown that they desired to be enemies rather than friends. Even in the eyes of a boy, it was an odd company to battle with the savages and the wilderness, for the greater number were those who called themselves gentlemen, and who believed it beneath their station to do any labor whatsoever, therefore did it seem to me that this new town would be burdened sorely with so many drones. |
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