While Powhatan’s two children were adding to the well-filled larder of Werowocomoco, there was real dearth of food at Jamestown.  The stores, many of them musty and almost inedible after the long voyage, were growing daily scarcer.  There was fish in the river, but the colonists grew weary of keeping what they called “a Lenten diet,” and in their dreams munched juicy sirloins of fat English beef.  At first their nearby Indian neighbors had been glad to trade maize and venison for wonderful objects, dazzling and strange; but now, whether owing to word sent by Powhatan or for other reasons, they came no more with provisions to barter.  John Smith, seeing that supplies were the first necessity of the colony, had gone forth on several expeditions up the different rivers in search of them.  By bargaining, by cajolery, by force, he had managed each time to renew the storehouse.  Yet again it was almost empty and starvation threatened.

Something must be done at once, and the Council sat in debate upon the serious matter.  Captain John Smith waited until the others had had their say, and nothing practical had been suggested, then he rose and began: 

“Gentlemen of the Council, there is but one thing to do.  Since our larder will not fill itself, needs must someone go forth again to seek for food.  Give me two men and one of the ship’s boats and I will set off to the northward, up that river the Indians call the Chickahominy and, God helping me, I will bring back provisions for us all and make some permanent treaty with the savages to supply us till our crops be grown.”

President Wingfield agreed to Smith’s demand.  The barge was got ready with a supply of beads and other glittering articles from Cheapside booths, and Smith set off with the good wishes of the wan-faced colonists.

After they had reached what seemed to Smith a likely spot for trading, he took two men, Robinson and Emery, and two friendly natives in a canoe and set off to explore the river further, bidding the others to wait for him where he left them and on no account to venture nearer shore.

He was glad to be away from the noise of complaining men at Jamestown, many of whom were ill and fretful from lack of proper nourishment and some, who because they were gentlemen, would not labor yet repined that they could not live as gentlefolk at home.  On this expedition he was with friends, even though he knew not what enemies might be lurking on the shore; and he realized that the natives were growing less friendly as time went on and they began to lose their first awe of the white men.  But he had no fear for himself; he had faced too many dangers in his adventurous life to conjure up those to come.

As they paddled up the Chickahominy the men began to talk of old days in England before they had dreamed of trying their fortunes in a new world, but Smith bade them be silent so that he could listen for the slightest sound to indicate the vicinity of a human habitation.