plundering parties of savage neighbours, and one day often robbed them of
the dear-bought fruits of their whole year's toil.

[Sidenote] Its domestic troubles and hardships.

It is no easy matter to describe the dreadful extremities to which these
poor settlers were sometimes reduced. During the government of Sir John
Yeamans a civil disturbance broke out among the colonists, which
threatened the ruin of the settlement. At such a distance it was very
difficult for the proprietors to furnish their colony with regular
supplies; and the spots of sandy and barren land they had cleared poorly
rewarded their toil. Small was the skill of the planter, and European
grain, which they had been accustomed to sow, proved suitable to neither
soil nor climate. The emigrants being now, from sad experience, sensible
of difficulties inseparable from their circumstances, began to murmur
against the proprietors, and to curse the day they left their native
land, to starve in a wilderness. While they gathered oysters for
subsistence with one hand, they were obliged to carry their muskets for
self-defence in the other. A great gun had been given to Florence
O'Sullivan, which he placed on an island situate at the mouth of the
harbour, to alarm the town in cases of invasion from the Spaniards.
O'Sullivan deserted his island, being ready to perish with hunger, and
joined the discontented party in the town. The people became seditious
and ungovernable, and threatened to compel the governor to relinquish the
settlement: even Mr. Culpepper the surveyor-general, joined them in their
complaints and murmurs. The greatest prudence and courage were requisite
to prevent tumults, and animate the colonists to perseverance. Florence
O'Sullivan was taken up by the marshal on a charge of sedition, and
compelled to find security for his future good behaviour. One sloop,
commanded by Joseph Harris, was despatched to Virginia, another to