hungry, the passengers tore into the colony’s small store of corn “and in three
days, at the most, wholly devoured it.” Their own leaders had been either
drowned or delayed, and they would not accept Smith’s tyrannical rule.
They did not have to accept it, since Smith was partly incapacitated
when gunpowder he was carrying in his pocket caught fire and badly
burned him. Without his determined, hands-on leadership during the win-
ter of 1609–10, the colonists collapsed into despair, sunk in the “the
extreme beastly idleness of our nation...[who] will rather die and starve
than be brought to any labor or industry to maintain themselves.” That
winter became known as the “starving time.”
As George Percy remembered it:
That sharpe pricke of hunger wch noe man trewly descrybe butt he wch
hath Tasted the bitternesse thereof...having fedd uponn horses and
other beastes as long as they Lasted we weare gladd to make shifte wthEarly Days in the Colonies 109