CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH 167 jewellers, perfumers, and gold refiners, and "gentlemen" held prominence in numbers and influence. The officers outnumbered the privates. The little fleet was hardly out of the offing when the struggle for power began. The voyage was not half accomplished when John Smith was charged with complicity in a discovered mutiny. He had intended, it was alleged, to murder his superiors, seize the fleet, and make himself king of Virginia. The " General History of Virginia " .tells how serious an aspect the affair wore : " Such factions here we had, as commonly attend such voyages, that a paire of gallowes was made, but Captain Smith, for whom they were intended, could not be persuaded to use them" He was still under suspicion and arrest when the fleet anchored (May 13, 1607) in the broad river, Powhatan, to which the English explorers gave the name of their king. Their first tents were pitched and first cabins built upon a low peninsula flanked by extensive marshes. The settlement received the name of Jamestown, in further demonstration of loyalty. When the king's sealed orders were opened, the name of John Smith ap- peared second upon the roll of seven councillors appointed to govern the infant C9lony. Next to him Gosnold was fittest for the responsible position assigned to them. His death within three months after the landing, left Smith the object of the envious distrust of Wingfield, who had been elected president, and vir- tually alone in the honest desire to found a permanent settlement in Virginia for ends he thus sets forth : " Erecting towns, peopling countries, informing the ignorant, reforming things unjust, teaching virtue and gain to our native Mother Country." There is a prophetic ring in this remarkable utterance of one whom his con- temporaries persisted in regarding as a reckless adventurer, ambitious and un- scrupulous. His frank denunciation of the feeble measures of Wingfield and the selfish villainy of Ratcliffe, another colleague, had earned the ill-will of the president and the relentless hatred of Ratcliffe. Smith, being under arrest, was not allowed to take his place among the councillors. He bided the day of jus- tice with patience learned from adversity. When the supreme opportunity came he grasped it. An attack from hostile Indians proved Wingfield's unfitness for the military command, and the alarmed colonists turned instinctively to the bravest of their number. Wingfield anticipated the uprising by reiterating his intention of sending Smith to England for trial, for the double crime of mutiny and treason. " The restive soldier suddenly flamed out. He would be tried in Virginia as was his right there was the charter ! and the trial took place. The result was a ruinous commentary on the characters of Wingfield and the council The testi- mony of their own witnesses convicted them of subornation of perjury to de- stroy Smith. He was acquitted by the jury of all the charges against him, and Kendall, who had conducted the prosecution, was condemned to pay him .200 damages. This sum was presented by Smith to the colony for the general use, and then the foes partook of the commission, and the soldier was admitted to his seat in the council." (Cooke's " History of Virginia.")
