In speaking of the exploration of the James River as far as the Falls
by Newport, Smith, and Percy, we have followed the statements of
Percy and the writer of Newport's discovery that they saw the great
Powhatan. There is much doubt of this. Smith in his "True Relation"
does not say so; in his voyage up the Chickahominy he seems to have
seen Powhatan for the first time; and Wingfield speaks of Powhatan,
on Smith's return from that voyage, as one "of whom before we had no
knowledge." It is conjectured that the one seen at Powhatan's seat
near the Falls was a son of the "Emperor." It was partly the
exaggeration of the times to magnify discoveries, and partly English
love of high titles, that attributed such titles as princes,
emperors, and kings to the half-naked barbarians and petty chiefs of
Virginia.
In all the accounts of the colony at this period, no mention is made
of women, and it is not probable that any went over with the first
colonists. The character of the men was not high. Many of them were
"gentlemen" adventurers, turbulent spirits, who would not work, who
were much better fitted for piratical maraudings than the labor of
founding a state.
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