7. "STARVING TIME"

AT Jamestown the settlers now had crude houses, a church, and a palisaded fort. Here there was hope in its season, and then distress. Smith was injured in a gunpowder explosion and in the fall of 1609 returned to England. In the absence of his capable hand, in the winter of 1609—10, hunger and disease almost strangled this the first permanent English settlement in America. Affairs in Virginia reached the lowest ebb. This period, during which nine-tenths of the colonists perished, came to be called the "Starving Time."

Now all of us att James Towne beginneinge to feele that sharp pricke of hunger which noe man trewly descrybe butt he which hath Tasted the bitternesse thereof A worlde of miseries ensewed as the Sequell will expresse unto you in so mutche thatt some to satisfye their hunger have robbed the store for the which I caused them to be executed. Then haveinge fedd uponn horses and other beastes as long as they Lasted we weare gladd to make shifte with vermine as doggs Catts Ratts and myce All was fishe thatt came to Nett to satisfye Crewell hunger as to eate Bootes shoes or any other leather some colde [could] Come by And those being Spente and devoured some weare inforced to searche the woodes and to feede upon Serpents and snakes and to digge the earthe for wylde and unknowne Rootes where many of our men weare Cutt off of and slayne by the Salvages.

And now famin begineinge to Looke gastely and pale in every face thatt notheinge was spared to mainteyne Lyfe and to doe those things wch seame incredible . . .

To eate many [of] our men this starveing Tyme did Runn Away unto the Salvages whome we never heard of after.

A Trewe Relacyon BY GEORGE PERCY.

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