Those who kept healthy thought it too uncomfortable to toil when the hot sun was overhead, and as twilight and night drew near, the day was too far gone to make it worth while to labour. They would not be roused early enough in the day to do anything of account, though most of them did make a pretense of hoeing the corn, of which several acres were growing. Wingfield, the president, set the example of indolence, and instead of being moderate in eating, acted as if there never could come an end to the food that had been brought across the sea, and which was already nearly exhausted. What the colony needed above everything else was a stern, rigorous, wise head, and it is no reproach to Captain Smith that he said to himself: “_I_ am the only man for the time; but they have tied my hands, though they shall not be tied long.”