Primary source Jamestown
My most humble duty remembered to you, hoping you're in good health, as I myself am struggling. This is to let you understand that I am in a most heavy case by reason of the country, [which] is such that it causes much sickness, [such] as the scurvy and the bloody flux and diverse other diseases, which makes the body very poor and weak. And when we are sick there is nothing to comfort us; for since I got here the I never ate anything but peas, and loblollie (that is, water gruel which is an thin oatmeal-like paste). As for deer or venison I never saw any since I here to this land. There is indeed some fowl, but we are not allowed to go and get it. We must work hard both early and late for a mess of water gruel and a mouthful of bread and beef. A mouthful of bread for a penny loaf must feed four men which is most pitiful. [You would be upset] if you did know as much as I [do], when people cry out day and night, that they were in England and would cut off any limb to be in England again, yea, though they beg from their neighbors. For we live in fear of the enemy (natives) every hour, yet we fought with them...and we captured two alive and made slaves of them. But it was by policy, for we are in great danger; for our plantation is very weak by reason of the death and sickness of our company. For we came but twenty for the merchants, and they are half dead just; and we look every hour when two more should go. Yet four other men came to live with us, of which there is only one still alive; and our Lieutenant is dead, and [also] his father and his brother. And there was some five or six of the last year's twenty that came, and there is but three left, so that we are fain to get other men to plant with us; and yet we are but 32 people to fight against 3000 natives if they should come. And the closest help that we have is ten mile from us, and when the rogues took over this place [the] last [time] they killed 80 people. How then shall we do, for we lie even in their teeth?
And I have nothing to comfort me, nor is there nothing to be gotten here but sickness and death, except [in the event] that one had money to sell some things for profit. But I have nothing at all, not a shirt on my back, only two rags (2), nor clothes just one poor suit, only one pair of shoes, one pair of stockings, one cap, [and] two [collars]. My coat was stolen by one of my fellows, and even as he died[he] would not tell me what he did with it; but some of my fellows saw him get butter and beef out of a ship, which I figure my coat paid for. So that I have not a penny, nor a penny worth, to help me too either spice or sugar or strong waters, without those one cannot live here. For as strong drink in England does fatten and strengthen you, water here washes and weakens those here [and] only keeps [their] life and soul together. But I am not an eighth as strong as I was in England, and all is for want of food; for I do protest unto you that I have eaten more in [one] day at home than I have had over here in a week. You have given more than I get in one day, to a beggar at the door.