They even went so far, some of those who thought it more the part
of a man to wear silks than build himself a house, as to steal
matchlocks, pistols, and weapons of any kind, standing ready to
teach the savages how to use these things, if thereby they were
given so much additional in the way of food.
As our numbers increased, by reason of the companies which were
brought over by Captain Newport and Captain Nelson, so did the
thievery become the more serious until on one day I heard Master
Hunt tell my master, that of forty axes which had been brought
ashore from the Phoenix and left outside the storehouse during the
night, but eight were remaining when morning came.
WHAT THE THIEVING LED TO
Now there was more of mischief to this than the crime of stealing,
or of indolence. The savages came to understand they could drive
hard bargains, and so increased the price of their corn that Captain
Smith set it down in his report to the London Company, that the
same amount of copper, or of beads, which had, one year before,
paid for five bushels of wheat, would, within a week after Captain
Newport came in search of the lost colony, pay for no more than
one peck.
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