Kieran Doherty Quote

Strachey, no doubt hungry for firsthand information about the colony, would have passed the bookseller a few coins, snapped up a copy of Smith’s brief report, and hurried home to read it voraciously as he searched for clues about what he could expect in Virginia. He would have learned of the Indian attacks that started soon after the English landed on the banks of the Chesapeake. He would have read of such famin and sicknes, that the living were scarce able to bury the dead, a time when settlers died one or sometimes two or even three at a time until more in the colony were dead than were alive.4 He would have read of all the struggles to survive in the colony’s early days. What he read would naturally enough have made him think carefully about his decision to leave the safety of London for the dangers of Virginia. After all, debtors’ prison in London, though terrible, was better than death in Virginia.