Note Note 5, page 83 — BOOK I. RISE OF THE FIRST ENGLISH COLONY. (continued 2)

It had been found that the savages eagerly received glass beads in exchange for corn and peltries. Glass-making. Nothing more was required to prove the profitableness of glass-making. Some Germans were sent to the colony in 1608, and glass works were established. Note 5. For some reason no proper materials were available at first, and it became necessary to request that sand might be sent from England to make Virginia glass of at the glass works in the woods near Jamestown. The German glass blowers were prone to run away to the Indians, among whom work was lighter and food more abundant. The tribesmen encouraged these desertions by providing dusky wives for the men whose skill with tools and weapons they valued highly. In 1621 the glass business was revived, and this time it was intrusted to Italian workmen. Iron works. About the same time iron works were established at Falling Creek, with "forty skilled workmen from Sussex to carry them forward." Note 6. Twenty-five ship carpenters were sent to ply their trade on the James River, and it was also arranged that oil was to be distilled from walnuts by the "apothecaries." George Sandys was sent over in July, 1621, to have entire control of all schemes for staple commodities. There was a certain fitness in intrusting these creatures of the imagination to a poet. Pineapples, plantains, and other fruits were to be started forthwith. There was once again great hope from the "rich commodity of silk," an endowed school for Indians was founded, and the little Virginia pool became iridescent with many frail bubbles. Result of the massacre. The sudden and frightful massacre by the savages in March, 1622, obliterated instantly all vain and premature projects. This calamity did not cause the failure of these foredoomed schemes; it only saved them from a painful and lingering death, and provided their friends with a decent epitaph for them. The people who survived the massacre were decimated by an epidemic in the following year. What strength they could spare from frequent battles with the savages they spent in growing corn and tobacco, which last, of all the things tried, proved to be the only commodity profitable for export.