With Sir Walter Raleigh the history of the English colonies in America begins. He was a prime favourite with Queen Elizabeth, and she knew how to exalt and abase, to create and destroy. To Raleigh she gave viceregal powers over any and all of England's prospective colonies, with no limit to his control over territories, of which he could bestow grants according to his pleasure. He sent out an exploring expedition to the islands near North Carolina. The adventurers returned with glowing accounts of the country. The season was summer—seas were tranquil, skies clear; no storms ever gathered on those peaceful shores; all was repose. The gentle inhabitants were in harmony with the scene; flowers and fruit abounded, grapes were clustered close to the coast and cooled by the spray of a quiet sea; there was no winter, no cold. A hundred islands clustered along the shores, inhabited by "people the most gentle, loving, and faithful, void of all guile and treason, and such as lived after the manner of the golden age." No wonder a new expedition of one hundred and eight colonists was soon organized. Seven vessels were equipped, and sailed under the happiest auspices. But, alas! the "gentle people" living after the manner of the golden age proved thievish and deceitful; disasters, many and varied, followed; the adventurers forsook the "paradise of the world," and the enterprise came to naught.
Queen Elizabeth.
From an engraving after the painting by Zucchero.
History has preserved no stranger, more mysterious story than the next experiment of Sir Walter Raleigh. To insure the permanence of his second colony, he decided to send families, women and children, to the fruitful Islands of Roanoke, to make a permanent home, and found "the City of Raleigh." A fleet of transport ships carried eighty-nine men, seventeen women, and eleven little children, with every appliance for comfort, and ample provision of implements of husbandry. The colony arrived in August, after a five months' voyage, and were dismayed to find the island strewn with human bones. They had "expected sundry decent dwelling-houses"; they found the ruins of the houses and forts their predecessors had erected. The men who had been left behind by the first governor had been murdered by the loving, gentle, and faithful people.
There was nothing to do but make the best of it. But the charm was broken. The colonists were alarmed and disheartened. The Indians were not friends—that became evident at once. Realizing their danger, weakness, and utter dependence upon England, the heartsick immigrants looked with dismay upon the departure of the ships, and they implored their Governor to return and represent their true condition to Elizabeth, "the Godmother of Virginia," and to the powerful Raleigh, her servant.
On the 18th of August, according to the ancient author's report, "Ellinor, the Governour's daughter, and wife to Ananias Dare, was delivered of a daughter in Roanoke, which being the first Christian there borne, was called 'Virginia.'" The Governor was loth to leave his colony, his daughter, and grandchild, but they "thought none would so truly procure theire supplyes as he, which though he did what he could to excuse it, yet their importunitie would not cease till he undertooke it; and had it under all their hands how unwilling he was but that necessity and reason did doubly constraine him."
Of course, the Governor promised to hasten his return. The story is a strange one—of feeble effort, cupidity, indifference.
The Governor did not reach England until November. Raleigh at once fitted out two small vessels which sailed the following April, but the crew,[3] "being more intent on a gainful voyage than the relief of a colony, ran in chase of prizes, were themselves overcome and rifled." In this maimed, ransacked, and ragged condition, they returned to England, and, the writer adds, "their patron was greatly displeased." After this, for a whole year no relief was sent. Raleigh had now spent forty thousand pounds on his colonies with no return, and he turned them over to Sir Thomas Smith. When White sailed again with three ships, history was repeated. He "buccaneered among the Spaniards, until three years elapsed before he actually arrived at Roanoke."
Nothing was to be seen of the settlers there! The Governor seems to have taken things with admirable coolness! His own account is an amazing bit of narrative, when we remember the one hundred and fifteen men, women, and little children, his own Ellinor, and Virginia Dare! He tells first of his troublesome voyage. The sea was rough and his "provisions were much wet"; the boat when they attempted to land tossed up and down, and some of his sailors were drowned, so it was late when he arrived. The Governor was romantic. He and his company sang old familiar English songs, but no chorus came in response from the silent shore. "Seeing a fire through the woods we then sounded a trumpet, but no answer could we heare. The next morning we went to it, but could see nothing but the grasse and some rotten trees burning. We went up and downe the Ile and at last found three faire Romane Letters carved: C. R. O., which presently we knew to signifie the place where I should find them, according to a secret note betweene them and me: which was to write the name of the place they would be upon some tree, dore, or post: and if they had beene in any distresse, to signifie it by making a crosse above it. But we found no sign of distress" (doubtless the writer had been tomahawked before he finished his signal), "then we went to a place where there were sundry houses, and on one of the chief posts, carved in fayre capitall Letters, C. R. O. A. T. A. N., without any signe of distresse." Lead and iron and shot were scattered about overgrown with weeds, and some "chists were found which had been hidden and digged up againe, which when I saw I knew three to be my owne, but books, pictures, and all things els were spoyled. Though it much grieved me, yet it did comfort me to know they were at Croatan."
But the Governor never went in search of them at the Indian village indicated! He weighed anchor to that end, but cables broke, etc. Considering they had but one anchor and their "provision neare spent," they determined to go to Trinidad or some other island "to refresh ourselves and seeke for purchase that winter, and the next spring come againe to seeke our countrymen." But they met in the meantime with "many of the Queene's ships and divers others," and "left seeking our colony, that was never any of them found nor seene to this day 1622. And this was the conclusion of this plantation after so much time, labour, and charge consumed. Whereby we see," continues the Governor, who was poetic as well as romantic:—
A most philosophic Governor, truly! Even to this day we feel more emotion at the possible fate of these hapless Englishmen. Had they perished from famine? Had they fallen before the Indian tomahawk? Had the women and children been spared and given to the chiefs according to savage custom? Alas for Virginia Dare! Three years they had looked for succour, and been basely forsaken by their countrymen. They were not forgotten altogether. Part of the errand of every ship thereafter, and part of every order sent out to the colony, was to "seek for Raleigh's men." But they had disappeared utterly—as silently and surely as the morning dew before the sun. Twenty years later friendly Indians told a story of doubtful value to William Strachey and others; but the secret is still a secret, and this disappearance of more than a hundred human beings is one of the strangest events in history.
When Lord Bacon was informed that his great Queen Elizabeth had died just before daybreak, he exclaimed, "A fine morning before sun-rising,"—the rising of King James the First. Far more appropriate would have been the words, "The sun has set before the night."
James the First shambles across the pages of history a grotesque figure enough,—tottering on weak legs which seem incapable of supporting his padded dirk-proof doublet, with pockets further distended by the unread petitions ("sifflications" as he termed them) of his unhappy subjects. From his mother, so conspicuous for grace and beauty, he seems to have inherited nothing, unless we may credit the painters, who have given him beautiful hands. His broad Scotch was rendered more uncouth by a thick tongue which filled to overflowing his coarse mouth. His lips never closed over his teeth. This body was a fitting casket for a depraved mind and heart. In vain may the elder D'Israeli and others modify, apologize, and cunningly seek out redeeming traits! His was a low, base nature, proven by every action—and never disproven by the brave words and pious formula with which he adorned his speech.
Only three years before the Virginia colonists set forth upon their momentous enterprise, Sir Charles Percy and Thomas Somerset had posted down to Scotland to hail James Stuart King of England. As King James of Scotland he had led rather a hard life—and although his mother's beautiful head had but lately fallen under an English axe, and although he had vowed eternal vengeance upon her murderers, he accepted the crown with childish eagerness.
His first request was peremptory: he must have money forthwith for his journey to London, and the crown jewels of England must be immediately forwarded for the use of his homely wife. The Council ventured to ignore the latter. They thought he would hurry to London to attend the funeral of Elizabeth—seeing she had herself named him as her successor. "Give not my crown to a rascal!" she had said with her dying breath; "My cousin of Scotland is a king!" It was not to be supposed, however, that he would hasten his movements to honour "the defunct Queen," as he called her (seeing she had cut off his mother's head), so he dawdled on the way, hunting, feasting, and discovering the charms of "Theobald's" in Hertfordshire, where he afterwards spent so much of his royal time. All the way, in season and out of season, he would indulge in the oft-repeated words, "I am the King," as if to reassure himself of the fact and recall his powers and privileges. Casting about for opportunities to use them, his eye fell upon a petty thief, a cut-purse who had stolen some trifling coin from a courtier, had confessed his guilt, and begged for mercy. James had the man hanged without legal trial, and when some cringing follower suggested that this procedure was irregular, had exclaimed, "God's wounds! I make what likes me law and gospel." (His oath—and each one of England's sovereigns had his own favourite profanity—was a little milder than Elizabeth's "God's death" and stronger than previous kings' "God's blood," "God's eyes," etc.) "God's wounds," stammered King James, "I make what likes me law and gospel!"
He also made what liked him knights and lords. Shutting his eyes, which could never endure the sight of a naked blade (and good reason!), he laid the knight-conferring sword on shoulders which might well tingle under the accolade, seeing how narrowly eyes escaped being put out, and ears cut off. He bestowed this distinction upon nearly every person he met during his journey. By the time he set foot in his palace of Whitehall, he had knighted two hundred individuals, without respect to distinction of merit or station. Before he had been three months a king, he had bestowed the hitherto highly esteemed honour of knighthood upon seven hundred. It seemed to be a relief to his feelings, immediately after a tedious oration or ceremony, to create twenty or more knights.
Nor was he chary even of the honour of the English peerage, which Elizabeth had held at so high a value. He presently added sixty-two names to the list of peers. By that same token those of us who hunger for noble descent are very shy of the strawberry leaves that grew in James the First's time, and diligently seek for those that flourished under the smiles of earlier potentates.
King James I.
This was the grotesque figure before which England's great noblemen kneeled down and did their homage: Lord Bacon, Cecil, the Earl of Northumberland, Lord Grey, and hosts of others. To Northumberland Lord Bacon had written: "Your Lordship shall find a prince the furthest from vain-glory that may be, and rather like a prince of the ancient form than of the latter time. His speech is swift and cursory, and in the full dialect of his nation, in speech of business short, in speech of discourse large," etc. Other persons, however, were less indulgent than Bacon. They marked his "legs too weak to carry his body, his tongue too large for his mouth, his goggle eyes, rolling and yet vacant, his apparel neglected and dirty, his unmanly fears and ridiculous precautions," and expressed their consequent astonishment and disgust. As time went on, these personal defects paled in importance compared with the low tastes and principles he developed. It matters not that he was learned in the Latin tongue, and an obstinate supporter, in word at least, of the Protestant faith. All history of poor human nature proves that taste, beauty, learning may coexist with diabolical wickedness. It is hard to believe it, although we see it every day. It was abundantly proven in King James's reign.
Of course we may imagine the society led by such a court. Never was there more injustice, outrageous favouritism, disregard of the rights of birth and property, more vice in high places, more extravagance, drunkenness, and debauchery. It was unsafe to walk in the streets of London after nightfall. A portion of the city was set apart as a refuge for murderers and lawbreakers, whence the law had no power to drag them. Life was held cheap in King James's time. Heads fell on the block as a matter of course. Great ladies drove in their coaches to see Mrs. Turner executed. "Saw three men hanged and so to breakfast," said Samuel Pepys a little later.
The common people were wretchedly poor. They slept on straw and lived on barley. Only the servants of the rich could eat rye bread. Vagrants and beggars swarmed over the kingdom. In a pamphlet entitled "Grievous Groans of the Poor," the writer complains that "The country is pitifully pestered with those who beg, filch, and steal for their maintenance, and travel the highway of hell until the law bring them to fearful hanging." What to do with these swarming "rogues," in case they could not be hanged, was a tough question with Lord Coke,[4] conveniently answered later by imposing them upon the starving colonists.
The picturesque beggar was not a very costly luxury. A curious pamphlet entitled "Stanley's Remedy, or the Way to Reform Wandering Beggars, Thieves, Highway Robbers, and Pickpockets," was published in 1646, in which the cost of the diet and maintenance of every thievish, idle, drunken person in the kingdom was estimated at threepence a day at least.
Of course it was unsafe for "true men" to travel except in numbers and well armed, and whoever was about to take a journey had to wait until a tolerably strong caravan had mustered for the same route. Among the chief places of danger was Gadshill in Kent, where Falstaff achieved the glory of killing the already dead Percy.
Thieves are always more interesting in a story than noblemen, but the Virginia colony was more intimate with the latter than the former; at least until the King graciously reënforced their numbers with a cargo of outlaws. The company that undertook to support the colony was a London Company, and the adventurers were mainly citizens of London. Those who held the title of "gentlemen" may reasonably be supposed to have known something of the luxuries they were now exchanging for the hardships of colonial life. Some idea of the extravagance of the time may be gleaned from old diaries and letters.
A very curious letter has been preserved, which reveals the domestic economy of a family of distinction during the reign of James the First. It is from the daughter of Sir John Spenser and wife of the Earl of Northampton to her lord soon after their marriage. It is an amusing list of the necessities of a lady of rank: "My sweet life, now I have declared to you my mind for the settling of your estate, I suppose it were best for me to bethink and consider within myself what allowance were meet for me," and she proceeds to ask the sum of £2600, to be paid quarterly. In addition to this, she must have £600 quarterly for sundries not to be accounted for. In addition, the lady feels that she needs "three horses that none shall dare lend or borrow," two gentlewomen and a horse for each; six or eight mounted gentlemen, two coaches lined with velvet, four horses to each; a coach for each of her women with gold lace, scarlet cloth; four horses, and two coachmen for each coach; carriages for six laundresses and other serving women; a gentleman usher on horseback; two footmen; all of which to be maintained by her husband. For apparel she needs twenty gowns, £6000 to buy jewels, £4000 to buy a pearl chain, in all $76,000. For her house she wishes him to furnish beds, stools, chairs, cushions, carpets; silver warming-pans; fair hangings, and cupboards of plate, "all things fine and delicate." And in addition to all these she thinks it would save trouble to have £2000 in case of emergency. The letter concludes, "It is my desire that you lend no money, as you love God, to my Lord Chamberlain, who would have all, perhaps your life, from you." And then, on second thoughts, she asks that when her husband becomes an earl £2000 more be allowed her and double attendance.[5] A note to the letter adds, "Her husband went out of his wits."
We cannot begin to describe the Elizabethan magnificence in dress. The artificial taste for dainty and costly living was also abundantly evident in the epicurism of the time. The court that allotted a scanty diet of cereal, oil, and vinegar to the men it sent out to subdue a wilderness, could partake of no simple food or drink. The cookery was complicated and consisted mainly of "villanous compounds" of great cost. Butter, cream, marrow, ambergris, lemons, spices, dried fruits, oranges, the scarce sugar—all of these entered largely in the composition of dishes. We read, among the simple dishes, of an artificial hen made of paste, sitting upon eggs in each of which, enclosed in paste, was a fat nightingale seasoned with ambergris, then the most costly of flavours. There were snails stewed or fried in oil, vinegar, and spices; frogs dressed into fricassees. There was a wonderful receipt for cooking herring. "In hell they'll roast thee like a herring," was the warning to Tam O'Shanter, but herrings were not roasted in King James's time, Scotchman although he was. Here is a receipt for salted herring[6] or "herring-pie," a little bit of which might serve as an appetizer: "Take salt herrings being watered (soaked), wash them between your hands and you shall loose the fish from the skin; take off the skin whole, and lay them in a dish; then have a pound of almond paste ready; mince the herrings and stamp them with the almond paste; two milts or roes; five or six dates, some grated manchet, sugar, sack, rose-water and saffron; make the composition somewhat stiff and fill the skins; put butter in the bottom of your pie, lay on the herring, and on them dates, gooseberries, currants, barberries, and butter; close it up and bake it; being baked, liquor it with butter, verjuice, and sugar."
There was once a gathering of marquises, lords, knights, and squires at Newcastle to celebrate a great anniversary, and each guest was required to bring a dish. The specimen of Sir George Goring was reckoned a masterpiece. It consisted of four huge, brawny pigs, piping hot, bitted and harnessed with ropes of sausages all tied to a monstrous bag-pudding.[7] The narrator explains that "on some occasions a coarse and clownish dish was a pleasing variety."
We can imagine George Percy, John Smith, Gosnold, Newport (all of whom were doubtless received in court circles), dining on this costly fare, and drinking healths on their knees when the King was toasted. So much of the drinking was attributed to Danish influence that it was a common saying that "The Danes had again conquered England."
Before we join our colonists in their perilous enterprise we briefly sketch some of the peculiarities of the life whence they came. This will help to account for some things that follow. Of the political and literary aspects of the times, we must be allowed a short notice, in order that the ensuing story may be better understood.
A great convulsion, incident upon the Reformation, had passed over the world. It raged on the Continent, and then extended to England and Scotland, where it lasted until the death of Queen Elizabeth and the accession to the throne of James the First, when Protestantism was firmly established. The Roman Catholics were in high disfavour. The dreadful Gunpowder Plot had aggravated the bitterness against them. England, all the corruption at court notwithstanding, was full of religious enthusiasts. With them the experiment in Virginia was only the beginning of the conversion of a great multitude of savages. The first charter expressed[8] a pious longing that "so noble a work may by the providence of God hereafter tend to the glory of His Divine Majesty in the propagating of the Christian religion to such people as sit in darkness and miserable ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God." "This is the work we first intended," says a writer of the time, "and have published to the world to be chief in our thoughts; to bring the infidel people from the worship of Devils to the service of God." "The end of this voyage is the destruction of the Devil's Kingdom," said the good clergyman who preached to the adventurers on the eve of their embarkation.
A more restless, inconsistent age cannot possibly be imagined. In literature a race of giants appeared whose works were the expression of the times. The epoch flowered in the great names which have made the age of Elizabeth so illustrious. Bacon had published his "Advancement of Learning," Spenser his "Faerie Queene," Shakespeare was at the head of a great group of literary giants. A fine stage was set for the monarch, just three years on his throne. He might have been the central jewel of a splendid setting! He might have been the inspiration of a noble era. All the material was at his hand. As it was, it is marvellous he did not plunge the country into ruin. Old England owes much to her House of Commons: "A troublesome body," said James, "but how can I get rid of it? I found it here!"
When Bartholomew Gosnold, Richard Hakluyt, Robert Hunt, John Smith, and others succeeded in obtaining a royal charter from the King, he busied himself in drawing up the instrument for the government of the colony.[9] "Everything began and ended with the King." A council of thirteen in London, appointed by himself, was to govern, controlling a subordinate council in Virginia. Trial by jury was allowed to criminals. The Christian religion was to be preached to the Indians. In other respects, the colony would have no rights other than those which King James the First chose to allow it. There were to be two colonies, one hundred miles to intervene between the boundaries of the two. The boundaries of the southern colony were enlarged and exactly defined in 1609. It was to embrace the territory two hundred miles north and two hundred miles south of the mouth of James River, and "to reach up into the land from sea to sea."
This vast territory was coolly claimed by the King of England, without the slightest regard to the present sojourners on the soil. Had they been wandering tribes never remaining long in one place, had the area of country been a debatable land, the claim might have been reasonable, but it soon appeared that the kingdom of Powhatan had descended to him from generation to generation, or been acquired by conquest. The land was accurately measured and "staked out," and was owned by his captains, who knew and respected their boundaries.
All these things combined, we can better understand the disasters and sufferings which ensued upon the landing of our adventurers.
The most momentous hour in the history of this country was when three small ships "fell down the Thames from London," freighted with one hundred and five Englishmen on their way to plant England's first colony.
"This was the event," said a great American, "which decided our own fate; which guided our destiny before we were born, and settled the conditions in which we should pass that portion of our existence which God allows to men on earth."
The story of the company which was organized in London for this expedition, of the charter granted by James the First, of the means adopted to insure its success, and the mistakes we can now so easily perceive—all this has been told in many histories. It is a long story; also one involving side issues not within the scope of this writing. It is sufficient to say that the emigrants were subjected[10] to the ordinances of a commercial corporation of which they could not be members; to the dominion of a domestic council in the appointing of which they had no voice; to the control of a superior council in England which had no sympathy with their rights; and finally to the arbitrary legislation of the sovereign.
Of the names of the three little ships which fell down the Thames, we can be quite sure of two, the Discovery and the Goodspeed. The other—the flagship—is quoted sometimes as Sarah Constant, again as Susan Constant. They were small ships, one only a "pinnasse"; and were under the command of another Christopher—Christopher Newport. Christopher Columbus discovered us, Christopher Newport colonized us. He was an "experienced navigator"; but his career in Virginia abundantly illustrated the fact that England's great hero was not the only admiral who could do some very foolish things on land. However, he brought our colony safely, and through many sea perils, to Virginia.
We happen to know something of his men, and everything of his cargo. Of the latter, we have a careful list. Each man had one suit of "apparrell, three paire of Irish stockings, four paire of shooes," and canvas to make a bed. Of arms and tools he had no stint, also iron utensils for cooking and wooden spoons and platters. The ration for each man was twelve bushels of cereal (oatmeal or peas), one gallon of aqua vitæ, two gallons of vinegar, one of oil. This for a whole year! Some of the grain was to be carefully "kept for sowing." For meat the immigrant must rely on his gun, and the rivers would yield him food.
The admiral was provided with a goodly cargo of small mirrors, bells, and glass beads with which to purchase the friendship of "the naturells," and also substantial articles of food. The Virginia real estate was not to be purchased. King James had a simpler method of acquiring it. The tiny ships afforded small space for furniture, bedding, or other household articles.
The officers of the colony, Governor, Council, etc., were not yet known, and could therefore claim no privileges. The eccentric King had ordered their names to be placed in a sealed box, to be opened when they landed. Some private packages were, however, allowed. The clergyman, Master Robert Hunt, carried "a goodly number of books." Master Wingfield had also, as he tells us, "sorted many books in my house to be sent up to mee in a truncke at my goeing to Virginia with divers fruits, conserves and preserves, which I did sett at Master Croft's house at Ratcliff. I understand that my truncke was thear broken up, much lost, my sweetmeates eaten at his table, some of my bookes seene in his hands, and whether amongst them my Bible was there ymbeasiled I knowe not." That his divers conserves and preserves should have been given precedence over his Bible and books was not without reason. Books and Bibles could be bought or borrowed, but very little sugar was imported into England at that time, and sweetmeats were a rare and costly luxury. The Englishman had no marmalade for his breakfast until the Queen of Scots introduced it.
There were, as we have said, one hundred and five men who went forth to subdue the wilderness. These men were to make the reign of James the First memorable as the commencement of the English colonies in America—"colonies," says Hume, "established on the noblest footing that has been known in any age or nation." They were destined for more than this—more than the historian's fancy could have foreseen in its wildest flight into the regions of romance.
Most of the company were "gentlemen," unused to labour, who probably had never handled an axe or suffered a physical privation. There were forty-eight "Gentlemen" and twelve "labourers,"—"a halfpenny-worth of bread to an intolerable deal of sack,"—one surgeon, one blacksmith, two bricklayers (for a country where there were no bricks), a drummer, and some boys. They were going to a wilderness in which not a house was standing and there were only four carpenters! In the next supply jewellers and perfumers were sent out to help subdue the American wilderness.
Their recognized guide and leader, during the voyage, was their captain, Christopher Newport. To his care was committed the sealed box of instructions which was to remain unopened until the adventurers reached Virginia. The box, they knew, contained the names of their future rulers, and they felt great solicitude on this subject. Every prominent man was scanned and measured, and strong party feeling grew up immediately among them. It was not possible, they well knew, that any choice of their own would decide the matter. Of the two "experienced navigators" whose services had already been acknowledged by the King—Gosnold and Newport—one only would be eligible. Captain Newport was to take the ships back to England, but Gosnold might be their Governor. One who was preëminently conspicuous was Captain John Smith, who had commenced life as a poor orphan, and was already famous at twenty-seven. It was possible he might be their ruler despite his years. He was old in experience, in suffering, and in those elements which lie at the foundation of greatness. Then there was the son of the great Earl of Northumberland, George Percy, of the same age as John Smith, but in striking contrast to him in every respect,—fresh from the cloisters of the Middle Temple; quiet, thoughtful; of the ancient powerful family of Percy and yet taking his place modestly with the rest. Wingfield was on board, also Master Crofts, and Gabriel Archer, Thomas Studley, John Martin, and Anas Todkill, all to be heard from again in the colony of which they were to become the historians. These and others were "gentlemen" and possible rulers. A certain John Laydon appears among the "labourers," destined to win the first English maiden who set foot on the soil of Jamestown, and to become the father of the first child born in the established colony of Virginia.
Without doubt, Smith, Gosnold, Newton, and some others were possessed with the prevailing spirit of adventure, the incentive of rivalry, and a high ambition for the glory and honour of England. Not so, alas, George Percy, to whom England had been a stern mother indeed; not so Robert Hunt, whose heart burned with the spirit of the Christian missionary, and (if need be) of the Christian martyr as well; not so the spendthrift "gentlemen" who sought the "pearle and gold" promised by the poet; nor the boy who frankly confessed that he had run away "being in displeasure of my friends." The company seems to have been gathered at haphazard—not at all with regard to its fitness, but simply by accepting the few who were willing to brave the dangers of life among the savages.