Thus we lived for the space of five months in this
miserable distress, but having five able men to man
our bulwarks upon any occasion. If it had not
pleased God to put a terrour in the savage hearts,
we had all perished by those wild and cruel Pagans,
being in that weak state as we were : our men night
and day groaning in every corner of the fort, most
pitiful to hear. If there were any conscience in
men, it would make their hearts to bleed to hear
the pitiful murmurings and outcries of our sick
men, without relief, every night and day, for the
space of six weeks : some departing out of the
world ; many times three or four in a night ; in the
morning their bodies trailed out of their cabins, like
dogs, to be buried. In this sort did I see the mor-
tality of divers of our people."

A severe loss to the colony was the death on the
2 2d of August of Capt. Bartholomew Gosnold, one of
the Council, a brave and adventurous mariner, and,
says Wingfield, a " worthy and religious gentleman."
He was honorably buried, "having all the ordnance
in the fort shot off with many volleys of small shot."
If the Indians had known that those volleys signified
the mortality of their comrades, the colony would
no doubt have been cut off entirely. It is a melan-
choly picture, this disheartened and half-famished
band of men quarreling among themselves ; the
occupation of the half-dozen able men was nursing
the sick and digging graves. We anticipate here
by saying, on the authority of a contemporary
manuscript in the State Paper office, that when
Capt. Newport arrived with the first supply in
Jan., 1608, "he found the colony consisting of no



78 CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH, [iEt. 28

more than forty persons ; of those, ten only able



men."



After the death of Gosnold, Capt. Kendall was
deposed from the Council and put in prison for sow-
ing discord between the President and Council,
says Wingfield ; for heinous matters which were
proved against him, says Percy ; for " divers rea-
sons," says Smith, who sympathized with his dislike
of Wingfield. 