Each day I sat with my fellows in the church,
facing the Governor in his great velvet chair, the Council on either
hand, and listened to the droning of old Twine, the clerk, like the
droning of the bees without the window; to the chant of the
sergeant-at-arms; to long and windy discourses from men who
planted better than they spoke; to remarks by the Secretary, witty,
crammed with Latin and traveled talk; to the Governor's slow,
weighty words. At Weyanoke we had had trouble with the Indians.
I was one who loved them not and had fought them well, for which
reason the hundred chose me its representative. In the Assembly it
was my part to urge a greater severity toward those our natural
enemies, a greater watchfulness on our part, the need for palisades
and sentinels, the danger that lay in their acquisition of firearms,
which, in defiance of the law, men gave them in exchange for
worthless Indian commodities. This Indian business was the chief
matter before the Assembly. I spoke when I thought speech was
needed, and spoke strongly; for my heart foreboded that which was
to come upon us too soon and too surely. The Governor listened
gravely, nodding his head; Master Pory, too, the Cape Merchant,
and West were of my mind; but the remainder were besotted by
their own conceit, esteeming the very name of Englishman sentinel
and palisade enough, or trusting in the smooth words and vows of
brotherhood poured forth so plentifully by that red Apollyon,
Opechancanough.
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