These were really dark days for Virginia, and Gondomar, the Spanish minister, wrote to Philip III. that “here in London this colony Virginia is in such bad repute that not a human being can be found to go there in any way whatever."[42] Some spies of King Philip were captured in Virginia, and Dale was much concerned lest the Spaniards would attack the settlement, but the Spanish king and his council thought that it would die of its own weakness, and took no hostile measure.[43] In England the company was so discouraged that many withdrew their subscriptions, and in 1615 a lottery was tried as a last resort to raise money.[44]

When Dale left Virginia (May, 1616) the people were very glad to get rid of him, and not more than three hundred and fifty-one persons—­men, women, and children—­survived altogether.[45] Within a very short time the cabins which he erected were ready to fall and the palisades could not keep out hogs.  A tract of land called the “company’s garden” yielded the company L300 annually, but this was a meagre return for the enormous suffering and sacrifice of life.[46] Dale took Pocahontas with him to England, and Lady Delaware presented her at court, and her portrait engraved by the distinguished artist Simon de Passe was a popular curiosity.[47] While in England she met Captain John Smith, and when Smith saluted her as a princess Pocahontas insisted on calling him father and having him call her his child.[48]

It was at this juncture that in the cultivation of tobacco, called “the weed” by King James, a new hope for Virginia was found.  Hamor says that John Rolfe began to plant tobacco in 1612 and his example was soon followed generally.  Dale frowned upon the new occupation, and in 1616 commanded that no farmer should plant tobacco until he had put down two acres of his three-acre farm in corn.[49] After Dale’s departure Captain George Yardley, who acted as deputy governor for a year, was not so exacting.  At Jamestown, in the spring of 1617, the market-place and even the narrow margin of the streets were set with tobacco.  It was hard, indeed, to suppress a plant which brought per pound in the London market sometimes as much as $12 in present money.  Yardley’s government lasted one year, and the colony “lived in peace and best plentye that ever it had till that time."[50]

[Footnote 1:  Smith, Works (Arber’s ed.), 114, 130.]

[Footnote 2:  Hotten, Emigrants to America, 245; Brown, First Republic, 114.]

[Footnote 3:  Smith, Works (Arber’s ed.), 121.]

[Footnote 4:  Smith, Works (Arber’s ed.), 23, 125, 442, 449, 460.]

[Footnote 5:  Breife Declaration.]

[Footnote 6:  Smith, Works (Arber’s ed.), 133-147, 154.]

[Footnote 7:  Breife Declaration.]

[Footnote 8:  Smith, Works (Arber’s ed.), 159; Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 343.]

[Footnote 9:  Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 250-321.]