Such was the effect of this speech that of the two hundred only seven
died in this pinching time, except those who were drowned; no man
died of want. Captain Winne and Master Leigh had died before this
famine occurred. Many of the men were billeted among the savages,
who used them well, and stood in such awe of the power at the fort
that they dared not wrong the whites out of a pin. The Indians
caught Smith's humor, and some of the men who ran away to seek Kemps
and Tussore were mocked and ridiculed, and had applied to them
--Smith's law of "who cannot work must not eat;" they were almost
starved and beaten nearly to death. After amusing himself with them,
Kemps returned the fugitives, whom Smith punished until they were
content to labor at home, rather than adventure to live idly among
the savages, "of whom," says our shrewd chronicler, "there was more
hope to make better christians and good subjects than the one half of
them that counterfeited themselves both." The Indians were in such
subjection that any who were punished at the fort would beg the
President not to tell their chief, for they would be again punished
at home and sent back for another round.
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