University of Virginia Library

THE STARVING TIME.

At the time Smith left Jamestown, there were four hundred and
ninety-three persons in the colony, all well sheltered and supplied; but
the master spirit was gone, and soon anarchy ruled supreme. Such was
the inactivity, profligacy, recklessness and insubordination, that by the
approach of early winter they were confronted with starvation. In
addition, the Indians determined upon the utter extinction of the colony,
and hung upon the outskirts of the settlements, burning houses
and murdering all who were so unfortunate as to fall into their hands.
Then a pestilence broke out, and the fatality was so great that by the
return of the spring of 1610, there remained but sixty persons alive in

ROBERT BOLLING,

The husband of Jane Rolfe, the grand-daughter of
Pocahontas.

From the original in the possession of the Bolling family.

the colony, and they must have perished had not assistance reached
them. But just as the last ray of hope was yielding to despair, Sir
Thomas Gates and his crew, who had been wrecked in the West Indies,
arrived at Jamestown; but what must have been their feelings, when,
instead of finding the colony in a happy and prosperous condition, they
met only a few famished wretches begging for bread! Gates supplied
their wants from his store-ship and assumed the government.