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THE HERO OF JAMESTOWN. 
 
 Bronze statue of Captain John Sniith, by William Couper, of New York, 
 
 unveiled at Jamestown Island, September, 1907, by the Society 
 
 for the Preservation of Virginia antiquities. 
 
Boys' Life 
 
 Captain John Smith 
 
 ELEANOR H. JOHNSON 
 
 t 
 
 l^eto Sorft 
 THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
.372-(. 
 
 LIBRARY of COMQRESst 
 Two Cooles RcoJved ' 
 
 AUG 19 t90; 
 
 CoPVrt4rht Entr\' 
 iO,/ ^ <> 7 
 >4 ;^Xc., No, 
 
 
 COPY d. 
 
 Copyright, 1907, 
 By Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. 
 
/ 
 
 To all American Boys ivho are interested 
 in the Beginnings of their Country 
 
^^Wliat so truly suits with honor and 
 honesty as the discovering things unknown? 
 erecting towns, peopling countries, inform- 
 ing the ignorant, reforming things unjust, 
 teaching virtue; and gain to our native 
 mother-country a kingdom to attend herV^ 
 
 John Smith. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Dear Boys: 
 
 In telling over for you the life of this 
 brave man, I have followed as nearly as 
 possible his own words. If I have empha- 
 sized his virtues and said little about his 
 faults, it is because I feel sure that we 
 understand people best when we look for 
 their good points. This does not mean 
 that we must refuse to see their weak- 
 nesses, but that after all the virtues are 
 more important. 
 
 Some writers do not believe that much 
 John Smith has said of himself is true. All 
 that we, who do believe him, can say is 
 that so far as we know, it has never been 
 disproved ; and though his words are often 
 boastful and full of exaggerations, that 
 sort of autobiography was very much the 
 custom of his time. Modesty was not so 
 much the fashion then as it is now. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 I have added to this life of John Smith 
 some of his letters, and hope that when you 
 have finished the book you will be enough 
 interested in him to read those, too. One 
 of his soldiers said of him when he was in 
 Virginia that he loved actions not words. 
 I think when we have read his life through 
 we shall rather say that he loved action 
 first and words next. And because he did 
 love to write about his deeds and his opin- 
 ions, we must read some of these brave 
 and straightforward words the better to 
 understand his brave and straightforward 
 character. 
 
 E. H. J. 
 
 April, 1907. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Boyhood of John Smith, and How He Learned 
 
 to be a Soldier 9 
 
 II. He Goes to Fight the Turks ... 22 
 
 III. The Siege of Ober Limbach, and Other Battles 33 
 
 IV. Taken Prisoner, He Escapes and Finally 
 
 Reaches England 49 
 
 V. The Journey to America 64 
 
 VI. The Trip up the James .... 83 
 
 VII. Captain Newport's Departure, and Distress 
 
 in the Colony 97 
 
 VIII. Discoveries on the Chickahominy, and Cap- 
 ture of Smith 114 
 
 IX. The Story of Pocahontas 133 
 
 X. A Second Visit to Powhatan . . .148 
 
 XI. Troubles with the Indians . . . .164 
 
 XII. The Discovery of Chesapeake Bay . . 179 
 
 XIII. President John Smith of Virginia . . .199 
 
 XIV. The Final Victory over the Savages, and 
 
 Captain Smith's Departure . . . 222 
 XV. John Smith, Admiral of New England . . 243 
 XVI. The Death of Captain John Smith and of His 
 
 Indian Friends 259 
 
 Appendix • 278 
 
Boyhood of John Smith, and How He 
 Learned to be a Soldier. 
 
 When Columbus discovered America in 
 the year 1492, he opened a sort of training 
 school for heroes,— himself the greatest 
 hero of them all. For following his splen- 
 did example, men everywhere began enthu- 
 siastically to sail the seas in little ships, 
 which we should think hardly large enough 
 to use on lakes or rivers, searching for 
 lands to conquer for their king, for savages 
 to convert to their religion, and for honor 
 and riches and sometimes knowledge for 
 themselves. And from this time on for 
 the next hundred years and more, the his- 
 tory of Europe is more interesting than the 
 most exciting tale of adventures, if we 
 
 9 
 
10 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 think of it not as plain history but as a 
 collection of stories of the lives of great 
 men. 
 
 Spain and England were ahead in all 
 this sailing and fighting, and being ahead 
 they were great rivals, hating each other 
 bitterly and always at war. Many English 
 lords became famous in these days, either 
 because of victories in the battles with 
 Spain or through their long and perilous 
 journeys to unknown lands, — and they of 
 course were admired and reverenced by 
 every schoolboy who learned of their 
 heroic deeds. Sir Francis Drake and Sir 
 Walter Ealeigh and many more like them 
 became the types of courage and chivalry; 
 and to fight for his country or to gain 
 more land and wealth for her beyond the 
 seas, was the true knight's ambition. 
 
 In the midst of these thrilling times, in 
 the year 1579, a boy named John Smith 
 was born in the town of Willoughby in 
 Lincolnshire, England. His father, George 
 Smith, was a farmer and held his lands 
 
BOYHOOD OF JOHN SMITH. 11 
 
 under Lord Willoughby, part of whose 
 estate the little town was. This brave 
 English nobleman had already become fa- 
 mous, for a ballad had been written about 
 him, beginning: 
 
 "The fifteenth day of July, 
 
 With glistering spear and shield, 
 A famous fight in Flanders, 
 
 Was foughten in the field. 
 The most courageous officers 
 
 Were English captains three, 
 But the bravest man in battel 
 
 Was the brave Lord Willoughbie." 
 
 Though George Smith finally became 
 owner of most of his lands he always felt 
 that he owed service and loyalty to his 
 former landlord; and his children were 
 brought up to regard that " generous Lord 
 Willoughby and famous soldier," as John 
 calls him, as their gracious friend and 
 noble hero. 
 
 The little town of Willoughby was within 
 easy walking distance of the sea, and while 
 there were many farms in the region, much 
 of the talk the boys were likely to hear was 
 
12 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 of the sea and sailors. George Smith was 
 of a good family, many of his ancestors 
 having been men who fought and died 
 bravely for their country ; and although he 
 owned much land and was interested in 
 farming it properly, John, the oldest boy, 
 inherited the fighting spirit and grew up 
 with a great desire to go on adventures 
 of some kind. 
 
 There were two other children in the 
 family, a younger boy and a little girl, 
 and their life was much like the life of 
 country children now. There were many 
 out-door games and these with the chores 
 and the lessons kept the days busy. John 's 
 mother died when he was quite young; 
 when he was old enough he was sent to 
 school in a town near by and probably 
 worked on the farm after school, for later 
 in his life he remembered this work in a 
 way that proved very useful to the people 
 who followed and depended on him— as 
 you shall see. But he liked neither school 
 nor farming, and when he was thirteen 
 
BOYHOOD OF JOHN SMITH. 13 
 
 years old decided to run away to sea. The 
 only way in which he could get money for 
 his trip to the nearest port was by selling 
 his books and the bag he carried them in, 
 and this he was very willing to do. 
 
 But just as John was starting out on 
 his secret adventure, his father was taken 
 very sick. John was not fond of study 
 and he did want to have his own way and 
 to see and to do new things, but he was 
 not a bad boy and loved his father dearly. 
 So he stayed at home forgetting his won- 
 derful plans in his sorrow over his father ^s 
 illness. At last George Smith died leaving 
 to his oldest son some money and a good 
 piece of land; and all of this legacy, as 
 John was so young, was put into the hands 
 of guardians. 
 
 The other children were probably taken 
 charge of by relatives, but John stayed 
 around the farm for two years more. His 
 guardians were more interested in the land 
 than they were in the boy who owned it, 
 and there was no one to find out what he 
 
14 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 was best fitted for. He had given up his 
 plan of running away to sea, sobered for 
 the present by his father's death, and we 
 can imagine him growing more restless and 
 unhappy until finally his idleness was 
 noticed and he was bound out as an appren- 
 tice to a well-known merchant of a sea-port 
 near by. Boys were often made appren- 
 tices in those days, living with their mas- 
 ters, learning the trade, and giving all their 
 time in return for food and lodging and the 
 good start in business. John was bound 
 out for a term of eight years, and as the 
 merchant, Thomas Sendall, had many ships 
 which sailed to all parts of the world, the 
 boy was very willing to work on the chance 
 of being sent to sea. 
 
 When a year of work for master Sendall 
 had passed and still no promise of being 
 a sailor, John's stock of patience, small 
 enough at best, quite gave out and he ran 
 away again, this time in good earnest. I 
 am afraid he had not been a very useful 
 boy to his master, as the punishment 
 
BOYHOOD OF JOHN SMITH. 15 
 
 for a run-away apprentice was very severe, 
 and the merchant had full power to inflict 
 this whipping and imprisonment or to de- 
 mand a sum of money from his guardians ; 
 yet we hear of no effort on the part of any- 
 body to get John to go hack. Instead of 
 being caught and punished, he like Dick 
 Whittington, started to tramp to London, 
 for this is the place where all ambitious 
 run-aways wished to go; and on his way 
 he fell in with young Peregrine Bertie, son 
 of his first hero. Lord Willoughby, and 
 probably an early playmate. 
 
 This was finding a friend indeed, and 
 John was the more delighted when he 
 learned that Peregrine was on his way to 
 France to join his older brother, and would 
 take his old friend with him as one of his 
 attendants. On their way through London 
 they found John's guardians who, as John 
 tells us, *^ liberally gave him out of his own 
 estate 10 shillings to be rid of him. ' ' Ten 
 shillings in that day equalled about $12 of 
 our money and was a much larger sum 
 
16 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 than it seems to us now. John's needs 
 were not great, a nobleman always paid the 
 expenses of his attendants, and, at any rate, 
 John was a happy boy for here was his 
 chance to see the world. 
 
 But when they presently reached the 
 town of Orleans in France and met the 
 older brother, Robert, the arrangement was 
 found not to be a good one. Lord Wil- 
 ioughby had lost much money during the 
 wars and the expense of an extra attendant 
 was more than he could afford ; besides his 
 two sons were there to study and John was 
 looking for adventures. He did not yet 
 know, being only sixteen and very wilful, 
 that it takes as much study to be a good 
 soldier or sailor as to learn any other kind 
 of trade. So after a month or two it was 
 thought best to send him back to London, 
 giving him money for the journey. 
 
 But John still wanted to see the world, 
 and with all the world before him to choose 
 from, he did not at all intend to go back 
 to London. Instead he turned his steps 
 
BOYHOOD OF JOHN SMITH. 17 
 
 toward Paris and there met a worthy 
 Scotchman, one David Hume. The two 
 foreigners in Paris stood by each other, 
 John sharing his very humble fortune with 
 Hume, while the latter gave him letters 
 of recommendation to people in Scotland, 
 where the Hume family was a well-known 
 one. These letters did prove of some value 
 to him as we shall see later. 
 
 Paris was then, as it is now, full of gay- 
 ety and excitement. But in the days of 
 Henry of Navarre it was also the centre of 
 intrigue and conspiracy and many were the 
 fierce quarrels between men of different 
 political and religious parties. All nation- 
 alities were gathered there and nowhere 
 was our hero more likely to meet with 
 adventures of some sort. But he tells us 
 nothing of what happened. English and 
 Scotch boys were apt to be well-built, 
 sturdy lads, and John and David in any 
 encounter they may have had with French 
 or Italian boys of their own age were pretty 
 sure to come out victorious. 
 
18 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 Whatever they did they used up all 
 John's money, and when he finally decided 
 to leave Paris and turned his face toward 
 England he found on getting only as far 
 as Kouen that he was almost penniless. 
 The wars in France were just over and the 
 country was full of soldiers of fortune who 
 were looking for some other land where 
 their services might be needed. All this 
 appealed very much to John's love of ad- 
 venture and he determined to join some of 
 these men; besides it might be a way of 
 making his fortune. So he went to Havre, 
 the nearest sea-port, joined the troops 
 under Captain Joseph Duxbury, one of 
 these professional fighters, and there first 
 began to learn the life of a soldier. 
 
 At this time there was war in Holland, 
 for the brave little country was fighting 
 hard against Spain, and Captain Duxbury 
 gladly led his company there to enlist under 
 some Dutch general. John fought against 
 the Spaniards, who were as well the foes of 
 England, for three or four years, and when 
 
BOYHOOD OF JOHN SMITH. 19 
 
 the war was over and Holland was free 
 from the tyranny of Spain, John remem- 
 bered his letters to Hume 's Scotch friends. 
 As a common soldier and a very young one 
 at that, he had gained no fame but much 
 experience and a real interest in his profes- 
 sion, and perhaps thought of entering the 
 service of King James of Scotland. But 
 nothing went well ; he was shipwrecked on 
 an island on his way and was sick there for 
 some time; and though he finally reached 
 Scotland and was received with great kind- 
 ness, the money he had gained in the wars 
 was all gone and there was nothing for it 
 but to go home. He might not have been 
 able even to do that if it had not been for 
 the generosity of Hume's friends. They 
 fitted him out and would have sent him to 
 the king, but on further consideration he 
 decided that the life of a courtier was not 
 to his mind, and besides he had no money. 
 So to Willoughby he went though still 
 wishing above all things to be a soldier, 
 as we shall soon see. For, tiring of the 
 
20 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 life in the little country town and caring 
 no more for the farm than he did at first, 
 he built him a hut of boughs out in the 
 woods and there lived, studjang books on 
 war and practising with his horse and lance 
 till he grew to be a most skilful rider and 
 very sure of aim. You see he was older 
 now and had learned that even to be a good 
 soldier and adventurer, study was neces- 
 sary. 
 
 It must have been a good deal like camp- 
 ing out and very pleasant for a while; for 
 food he could shoot plenty of deer and his 
 servant brought him things from the village. 
 But such a life could not last long for a 
 youth of twenty who still wanted to see 
 the world and besides his friends began to 
 worry about him. They did not think it 
 the right sort of life for a young man to 
 lead, and no doubt hoped to interest him in 
 some valuable employment befitting his 
 condition. Perhaps they wished him to be 
 a merchant or a lawyer. As they had no 
 influence on him themselves they sent some 
 
BOYHOOD OF JOHN SMITH. 21 
 
 one whom he would be sure to listen to, an 
 Italian of good birth who was keeper of the 
 horse for the Earl of Lincoln and who had 
 traveled much himself and knew a great 
 deal about horses and the practice of arms. 
 He took John to stay with him at the Earl's 
 country place near by, where there was 
 opportunity to learn all about the things 
 in which Smith delighted, and also to see 
 something of people it would be valuable 
 for him to know. But, as he says, ''long 
 these pleasures could not content him,'' 
 and taking more of the money his father 
 left him he went back to Holland in search 
 of real fighting. 
 
II. 
 
 He Goes to Fight the Turks. 
 
 During these early years of Jolm Smith's 
 life, most of the known world was engaged 
 in religious wars of some sort. England 
 had changed from a Catholic to a Prot- 
 estant nation and Spain, as the great Catho- 
 lic country, was her deadly enemy. France 
 was divided — at one time under a Catholic 
 prince, at another under a Protestant, and 
 the different parties were constantly at war. 
 Holland was the stronghold of Protestants 
 and in bitter war with Spain which was 
 trying to conquer it. Smith, as we have 
 seen, began his soldiering in France where 
 his leader was probably a Protestant or 
 Huguenot, as they were called there. Then 
 when things became more peaceful there, 
 
 22 
 
HE GOES TO FIGHT THE TURKS. 23 
 
 he went with this same leader to Holland 
 to fight against Spain ; and now finding on 
 this, his second visit, that things were 
 quieter in Holland, and, as he says, "both 
 lamenting and repenting to have seen so 
 many Christians slaughter one another'* 
 he longed to go and fight the Turks, who 
 were the deadly foes of Catholic and Prot- 
 estant alike, and always at war with them 
 somewhere. Holland having been so lately 
 at war there were soldiers from all coun- 
 tries gathered there, and John hoped that 
 among them he might find a leader who 
 would take him to try his fortunes against 
 these heathen enemies of the Christians. 
 
 And now began those wonderful adven- 
 tures which some historians have refused 
 wholly to believe in. I am going to set 
 them down as nearly in John Smith's own 
 words as possible, and then we must choose 
 for ourselves. However we choose, I am 
 sure we cannot fail to believe that we are 
 reading about a brave and honorable man 
 who loved the life of a soldier but loved 
 
24 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 kindness and fair dealing as well, especially 
 as he grew older. 
 
 Chance threw onr hero then, while in 
 Holland, into the company of four gallant 
 Frenchmen who pretended that they were 
 a great lord and his three gentlemen and 
 all devoted friends. They persuaded Smith 
 to go with them to France where they said 
 they knew the wife of a noble Frenchman, 
 the Due de Mercceur or Duke Mercury, as 
 Smith always called him, who had gone into 
 Hungary to fight on the side of the Em- 
 peror of Germany against the Turks. The 
 Duchess of Mercury, they assured him, 
 would give them money and letters to her 
 husband, and then they would join him on 
 the field, and so John's purpose would be 
 accomplished. He gladly set out with them 
 in a little ship, though it was winter and 
 they were likely to be hindered by storms. 
 But when they neared the coast of France 
 and came by night into a shallow bay to 
 seek protection from the bad gales, this 
 pretended French lord and his companions 
 
HE GOES TO FIGHT THE TURKS. 25 
 
 turned out to be rogues and villiains. See- 
 ing that Smith had better clothes than they 
 had and more of them, they plotted with 
 the captain of the ship to send them and 
 their trunks ashore taking Smith's along 
 with them, while Smith was to wait until 
 the boat should come back for him, which 
 it did not do before evening of the next 
 day. We wonder that he should have been 
 so easily taken in by any such plot, for it 
 seems that the other passengers all knew 
 what sort of men these were, and were so 
 angry with the captain they almost took 
 his ship away from him and threw him 
 overboard. 
 
 Instead of that fitting punishment for 
 the captain, Smith himself was set on shore 
 with only the clothes he had on and one 
 penny in his pocket, having been obliged 
 to sell his cloak in order to pay his passage. 
 He had, however, gained the friendship of 
 one man, Curzanvere, a soldier and an out- 
 law, as it afterwards appeared. He said 
 that he knew the thieving Frenchmen and 
 
26 LIFE OF Cx\PTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 would take Smith to where he could find 
 them, in the meantime sharing his purse 
 with him. 
 
 So they traveled through that part of 
 France, Smith seeing much that was of 
 interest historically and always adding to 
 his knowledge of the way men make war. 
 When they finally reached the little town 
 of Mortagne where both Curzanvere and 
 the pretended lord lived. Smith's friend 
 and benefactor was afraid to show his face 
 for fear of the authorities ; and though his 
 relatives were kind and hospitable, they 
 also seemed to be afraid of the law and 
 poor John was in no better case than when 
 he left the ship. In fact he seems to have 
 fallen into a nest of outlaws. 
 
 As he did not care to accept their hos- 
 pitality when he could do nothing to re- 
 turn it, and saw that he would gain nothing 
 by staying longer, he left the town and 
 wandered on from port to port hoping that 
 he could find some great soldier wliom he 
 could follow to the wars. Finally having 
 
HE GOES TO FIGHT THE TURKS. 27 
 
 spent all the money Curzanvere had so 
 generously given him, he wandered on 
 ashamed to beg, and was found at last by 
 a rich farmer under a tree, nearly dead 
 from grief and cold. This kind peasant 
 warmed and fed him and helped him on his 
 way; and not many days later in a wood 
 he suddenly came on one of the treacher- 
 ous Frenchmen who had stolen his clothes 
 and who was in a worse plight than him- 
 self. 
 
 Smith did not stop to question but drew 
 his sword and rushed at the man furiously, 
 and the two began to fight. Some country- 
 men looking on from a ruined tower near 
 by saw the fight and came to the assistance 
 of the Frenchman just in time to hear him 
 confess, after Smith had wounded him, that 
 he and his companions had stolen Smith's 
 trunk and were going to divide the booty 
 between them but that he was cheated out 
 of his share. 
 
 So John gave up his revenge and left 
 the thief to the care of these men. He 
 
28 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 himself started out to seek the Earl of 
 Ployer, a French lord who had been edu- 
 cated in England and who he had been told 
 was glad to befriend Englishmen who were 
 in trouble. Sure enough the Earl received 
 him gladly, and after showing the en- 
 thusiastic young traveler the sights of that 
 part of France where he lived, lent him 
 money enough to enable him to journey 
 through the South of France visiting the 
 principal cities and inspecting their forti- 
 fications. With all his love of travel and 
 sightseeing. Smith never forgot his inter- 
 est in war and was always eager to learn 
 the best ways of carrying it on. 
 
 At Marseilles he took ship for Italy, but 
 it seems as if he never started on a journey 
 without immediately getting into trouble. 
 The weather was bad and when it began to 
 storm heavily, the passengers, many of 
 whom were going on pilgrimages to Eome, 
 became very much alarmed ; and though the 
 ship put toward shore where the sea was 
 shallow and quieter, they were still fright- 
 
HE GOES TO FIGHT THE TURKS. 29 
 
 ened and superstitious. Finally they swore 
 that it was all because of John Smith ; that 
 he was not only a heretic but that all Eng- 
 lishmen were pirates ; and so railing against 
 Queen Elizabeth, then ruler of England, 
 and saying they never should have fair 
 weather while John was on the ship, they 
 threw him overboard. 
 
 This would seem to have been the worst 
 misfortune of them all, yet, as he tells us, 
 ^^God brought him to a little Isle where 
 there were no inhabitants, only a few cat- 
 tle and goats, ' ' and next morning he spied 
 and hailed two ships riding by, also driven 
 in by the storm. Captain La Roche was 
 master of these two small vessels and knew 
 the Earl of Floyer. So when they had 
 taken Smith on board and he had told 
 them of his friendship with the Earl, the 
 captain and his officers received him with 
 such kindness that he tells us, ^^he was 
 well content to try the rest of his fortune 
 with them." 
 
30 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 In that day many merchantmen carried 
 guns and besides trade, carried on what 
 we should consider piracy. Every ship 
 belonging to another country, particularly 
 one that had ever been hostile, was lawful 
 prey, and we may be sure that Captain 
 La Eoche was keeping his eyes open for 
 prizes and booty. So the two little mer- 
 chantmen with their guns sailed around 
 the south of Spain toward Italy, stopping 
 at various points for cargo. At last they 
 came across two Venetian ships laden with 
 rich freight and someone fired a shot kill- 
 ing one man. The ship Smith was on im- 
 mediately responded and a desperate fight 
 followed in which the brave Frenchmen 
 were successful. They boarded the Vene- 
 tian craft, took as much booty as they 
 wished and set them free, leaving behind 
 as much good merchandise as would have 
 freighted another French boat ; and so kept 
 on their way. 
 
 Smith's share of the booty was about 
 
HE GOES TO FIGHT THE TURKS. 31 
 
 $1,000 and a valuable little box, and this 
 made him for the time a very rich man. 
 He asked to be put ashore in the south of 
 Italy, hoping to do more of the sightseeing 
 which he so loved, and at the same time to 
 carry on his search for a chance to go to 
 war. On his way up to Rome he found his 
 two old friends, Robert and Peregrine Ber- 
 tie, '^cruelly wounded in a desperate fray 
 yet to their exceeding great honor,'' and we 
 hope he was able to do something to repay 
 them for their former kindness to him, but 
 that he does not tell us. He does describe 
 many of the interesting things he saw in 
 a way that shows how much he was enjoy- 
 ing this chance to travel and how he was 
 adding all the time to his education and 
 experience. Besides seeing many things 
 of great interest he met many people, 
 among them an old friend, Lord Ebers- 
 baugh, and now it seems as if at last 
 Smith's great desire was to be realized. 
 For the Earl recommended the young wan- 
 
32 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 derer to a worthy Colonel, the Earl of Mel- 
 dritch, who was going to Vienna where 
 there was war against the Turks, and whose 
 regiment Smith could join. 
 
m. 
 
 The Siege of Ober Limbach, and Other 
 Battles. 
 
 The Turks had been fighting in Austria 
 and Hungary for some time and had won 
 several battles, and were now besieging 
 Olumpagh, as Smith always calls the town 
 of Ober Limbach. When the regiment 
 Smith belonged to reached Vienna, it was 
 at once assigned to the forces under Baron 
 Kisell, and this general and his army were 
 ordered to go to the relief of the besieged 
 town. On his way John learned that his 
 old friend, Lord Ebersbaugh, was governor 
 of this town and was imprisoned there^ 
 having arrived just before the siege. As 
 Baron Kisell had only 10,000 men and the 
 Turks numbered twice as many, it was very 
 
 33 
 
34 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 important that at once there should be some 
 communication between the town and the 
 army which had come to help it. When 
 Smith met Lord Ebersbaugh in Italy, they 
 had talked over together certain signals 
 made by waving lights, and the young sol- 
 dier immediately thought that such a 
 scheme might be useful at this critical 
 time, if indeed his friend remembered their 
 conversation. All through Smith's life we 
 shall find that he was brave and resource- 
 ful in times of grave emergency and never 
 failed those who trusted and relied on him. 
 He asked his general therefore to give him 
 men and torches that he might go to a hill 
 near by and signal the town, and the Baron 
 was glad to let him try his experiment. 
 
 Smith set up three torches on the top of 
 the hill, and pretty soon out shone three 
 torches from the town, showing that the 
 besieged general saw and remembered. 
 Then Smith spelled out this message,— 
 waving the torch a certain number of times 
 for each letter, Ebersbaugh repeating each 
 
THE SIEGE OF OBER LIMBACII. 35 
 
 time to show that he understood: *^0n 
 Thursday at night I will charge on the 
 East, at the alarm do you start out. ' ' This 
 was a very slow and clumsy way of doing 
 what we do so quickly now by the process 
 called wigwagging, but it seemed very won- 
 derful then, and certainly accomplished its 
 purpose. 
 
 In the mean time spies sent out by the 
 general had come back saying that the 
 enemy's forces were divided into two parts 
 by a river. This made Smith think of 
 another scheme, that they should fasten 
 two or three thousand bits of fuse to lines 
 stretched out on the other side of the city 
 from the one where Baron Kisell would 
 make his attack; and the general agreed 
 to this also. They lighted these pieces of 
 fuse just before the attack was made, and 
 the Turks, thinking it was a line of soldiers 
 firing their muskets,— for guns in that day 
 were set off by putting a lighted match to 
 the touch-hole, started to attack that line. 
 This took them away from the side the 
 
36 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 Baron was planning to charge, and in a 
 moment they were attacked on their unpro- 
 tected flank by the troops from both inside 
 and out of the city, and were thrown into 
 confusion ; and those who were not drowned 
 or shot, fled. The general was so delighted 
 with the success of our hero's experiments, 
 that he gave him a command of 250 horse- 
 men, and Smith became Captain John 
 Smith, and as such he is imown to this day. 
 Though a general peace was now pro- 
 claimed because of this great victory, the 
 Turks had no intention of stopping their 
 fighting, but instead they at once began to 
 enlarge their armies. Whereupon the Ger- 
 man Emperor, with the assistance of other 
 Christian nations, placed three armies in 
 the field, one of which was commanded by 
 the French prince, whose wife has already 
 been spoken of, Duke Mercury. It was 
 under this general that Captain John 
 Smith, still in the Earl of Meldritch's regi- 
 ment, was to fight. This army was 30,000 
 strong, of which number nearly 10,000 
 
THE SIEGE OF OBER LIMBACH. 37 
 
 were French, and with it Duke Mercury 
 set out to besiege the town of Alba Rega- 
 lis, a place so strong by art and nature, 
 Smith tells us, that it was thought to be 
 impregnable. At the approach of the army 
 the Turks made a sally by night and at- 
 tacking the German quarter slew nearly 
 500 and returned before it was known 
 that they were there. The next night they 
 did almost as much damage to the Hun- 
 garians and others near them,— the army 
 seems to have been divided according to 
 nationalities,— but when they tried the 
 French they were surprised in their turn 
 and lost eight or nine hundred men. 
 
 At last, being tired of these sorties and 
 surprises, Earl Meldritch found out from 
 refugees where there were the largest 
 gatherings of people in the city, and then 
 ordered Captain John Smith to make use 
 of another device which he had learned 
 on his travels, called the fiery dragons. 
 These were made of round earthern pots 
 filled with gunpowder covered with a mix- 
 
38 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 ture of pitch, brimstone and turpentine. 
 Into this mixture were stuck many musket 
 balls, partly cut into four pieces, and all 
 this deadly compound was covered with 
 cloth made into a sort of fuse. These terri- 
 ble dragons were fitted into slings and shot 
 over the city as near to the crowded places 
 of assembly as they could calculate. Cap- 
 tain Smith thus describes the result: ^^It 
 was a fearful sight to see the short flaming 
 course of their flight in the air, but pres- 
 ently after their fall the lamentable noise 
 of the miserable slaughtered Turks was 
 most wonderful to hear. ' ' In the midst of 
 the general alarm different suburbs of the 
 city were set on fire by the besiegers ; 
 and finally, stormed on all sides, the city 
 fell into the hands of the French Duke and 
 the Turkish ruler, or Bashaw, was taken 
 prisoner in his own palace by Colonel Mel- 
 dritch. The Duke was very proud of this 
 prisoner and of the captured city, so long 
 a stronghold of the Turks, and set about 
 repairing it. The Turks with an army of 
 
THE SIEGE OF OBER LIMBACH. 39 
 
 60,000 made efforts in several battles to 
 retake the city but were repulsed eaeli 
 time, tliough with great loss to the Em- 
 peror's troops; in one of these fights Cap- 
 tain Smith's horse was killed under him 
 and he himself was sore wounded. 
 
 Then came a time of inaction because 
 of the serious defeats which the Turks had 
 undergone; and the Duke, after dividing 
 his army into three parts and giving them 
 all different commissions, returned to Vi- 
 enna where he received great honor for 
 all he had accomplished, but where to the 
 sorrow of all, he suddenly died. 
 
 In the division of his army Duke Mer- 
 cury had sent the troops under the Earl 
 of Meldritch, Smith's commander, to Tran- 
 sylvania. Here they found a mixed up 
 state of things. Much of the beautiful and 
 fertile little country was in the hands of 
 the Turks, some was ruled over by a native 
 prince, '^who had the hearts of both coun- 
 try and people," and the German Em- 
 peror was eager to get possession of the 
 
40 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 whole. And on the frontier, amongst the 
 almost impassable mountains, were camps 
 and garrisons, some for the Emperor, 
 some for the Prince, and some in the hands 
 of the hostile Turks. 
 
 Now Colonel Meldritch had been sent by 
 the Duke, his general, to fight for the Em- 
 peror; but being a native Transylvanian 
 himself, he was in sympathy with the 
 native prince, whose name was Sigismund, 
 and easily persuaded his soldiers to fight 
 for him against the Turks, instead of for 
 the Emperor against the Prince, as ordered. 
 Prince Sigismund was delighted to have 
 as brave an officer as the Earl and so many 
 and experienced soldiers in his army. He 
 showed this by making Meldritch camp- 
 master of the whole army and giving him 
 permission to plunder the Turks at will. 
 The journey into the mountains had been 
 made in the cold of a terrible winter and 
 Smith gives us a little idea of how much 
 the troops suffered from it by saying that 
 the other army sent into the field had lost 
 
THE SIEGE OF OBER LIMBACH. 41 
 
 three or four hundred men by freezing in 
 a single night. So we can imagine these 
 soldiers were most grateful for the kind 
 reception given them by Prince Sigismund 
 and were very willing to do battle for him ; 
 and we see Smith still able to fulfil his boy- 
 ish wish, made when he left Holland, to 
 fight the Turks rather than the Christians. 
 Then came sallies into the mountain 
 fastnesses where were many Turks as well 
 as bandits and outlaws. The city, Regall, 
 which Meldritch wished to capture lay in 
 the plain beyond and could be reached only 
 through a narrow valley which the enemy 
 held. This he gained possession of by 
 means of a clever stratagem. He sent a 
 small body of men through the valley driv- 
 ing before them a herd of cattle, and when 
 the enemy saw how few soldiers were with 
 the cattle they rushed out to capture them 
 and were attacked in their turn by Mel- 
 dritch and his men who were in hiding near 
 by, and were all made prisoners. When 
 by this means Meldritch reached the city 
 
42 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 of Eegall and decided to storm it, he 
 found that they must wait about six days 
 in order to bring their cannon over the 
 rough roads through the hills. In the mean 
 time his army lay inactive while the Turks 
 made their city still stronger. Then they 
 attacked the besiegers in their tents, 
 and though the Turks were driven back 
 to the gates, the loss on both sides was 
 about 1500. 
 
 Finally the Transylvanian general ap- 
 peared to reinforce Meldritch, with his 
 army of 9000, and they all spent a month 
 putting up entrenchments as a protection 
 against the guns on the city walls. The 
 Turks made great fun of all this seeming 
 inactivity, said they were growing fat for 
 lack of exercise, and at last sent this chal- 
 lenge to the Christians: ^^That to delight 
 the ladies who did long to see some court- 
 like pastime, the Lord Turbashaw (a Turk- 
 ish officer) did defy any officer who had 
 command of a company, who durst com- 
 bat with him for his head. ' ' The challenge 
 
THE SIEGE OF OBER LIMBACII. 43 
 
 was discussed in the Christian army and 
 finally accepted, but there were so many 
 captains eager to fight that they had to 
 draw lots and the choice fell on Captain 
 John Smith. 
 
 This was the age of tilt and trial by 
 sword, and all both noble and low-born 
 loved the sight of single combat. Truce 
 was therefore declared for a time, the ram- 
 parts were covered with knights and fair 
 ladies, and at the sound of music the Lord 
 Turbashaw entered the field. He was very 
 splendidly armed and accoutred and was 
 attended by three soldiers. The onlookers 
 had not long to wait before Smith appeared 
 in much simpler array, attended only by 
 one page carrying his lance. But when 
 the trumpet sounded he made the charge 
 with such effect that at his first blow he 
 ran the Turk through the head and face 
 with his lance so that he fell to the ground 
 dead. Smith alighted, cut off his oppo- 
 nent's head, gave the body back to his 
 friends, and returned without any hurt at 
 
44 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 all. He was welcomed with joy by the 
 whole army and presented the captured 
 head to the general who graciously ac- 
 cepted it. 
 
 But the Turks were filled with rage, and 
 one Grualgo, the friend of Lord Turba- 
 shaw, sent a particular challenge to the 
 victor to meet him on the field in single 
 combat the next day : determined to regain 
 his friend's head or to lose his own, with 
 his horse and armor besides. This chal- 
 lenge was accepted and the meeting took 
 place, and at the first shock the Turk was 
 nearly unhorsed. Then came pistols and 
 at the second shot the Turk was wounded 
 in the left arm and fell to the ground, 
 helpless. There Smith cut off his head 
 and taking possession of that with the 
 horse and armor, sent back his unlucky 
 opponent's body in its rich clothing to the 
 town. From that time on many light 
 skirmishes took place, but as the soldiers 
 were still working on the entrenchments 
 and were not ready for a general battle, 
 
to y 
 
 ^ e 
 
 o c 
 
 Lu n, 
 
 2 fm 
 
THE SIEGE OF OBER LIMBACII. 45 
 
 Captain Smith in his turn sent a challenge 
 to the besieged town. He said he wished 
 the ladies to know that he was not so eager 
 to keep the heads of their admirers, and 
 that if any one came to redeem them he 
 should have his too if he could get it. 
 
 It seems strange that the Turks were 
 not discouraged by this time, but on the 
 contrary the challenge was at once accepted 
 by a man Smith calls Bonny Mulgro. The 
 fight this time was begun with pistols and 
 as no hurt was done, battle axes followed, 
 and with these the fight waxed fast and 
 furious. Both soldiers were nearly un- 
 horsed and Smith lost his axe, whereupon 
 a great shout went up from the city walls. 
 But they rejoined too soon, for though 
 Bonny Mulgro prosecuted his advantage 
 to the uttermost of his power, yet his op- 
 ponent,— as he himself so graphically de- 
 scribes it— ^^by the readiness of his horse, 
 and his judgment and dexterity beyond all 
 men's expectation, by God's assistance, 
 not only avoided the Turk's violence, but 
 
46 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 having drawn his sword, pierced the Turk 
 through his body that he fell from his 
 horse and lost his head as the rest had 
 done." Here we see the value of all that 
 practising with horse and lance which took 
 place in the wood near Willoughby. This 
 success gave great encouragement to the 
 whole army and Captain Smith was con- 
 ducted to the general's presence by a guard 
 of 6000, the three Turks' heads being car- 
 ried on lances before three riderless horses. 
 The general received him with much kind- 
 ness and gave him a richly saddled horse 
 and a very costly sword and belt; and his 
 commander, Earl Meldritch, made him 
 Major of his regiment. 
 
 By now the ramparts were finished and 
 all was ready for the attack on Regall. 
 The Turks were gallant defenders, but 
 their walls were broken down by the can- 
 non which from the new fortifications now 
 commanded the town, and the breaches thus 
 made were stormed by the Christians and 
 the besieged people driven back into the 
 
THE SIEGE OF OBER LIMBACH. 47 
 
 castle. There they asked for a truce, but 
 Earl Meldritch too well remembered their 
 cruelty when they first took the place from 
 the inhabitants of the country. So, storm- 
 ing the castle, he put all able to bear arms 
 to death and took the women and children 
 prisoners. The loss to the Christian army 
 had also been very severe and in revenge 
 the general sacked other towns, so taking 
 to Prince Sigismund at last about 3000 
 prisoners and 36 ensigns. The Prince was 
 also told the services which Captain Smith 
 had rendered through his devices with 
 torches and fire-works, and finally about 
 his contests single-handed with three 
 Turks. Thereupon the Prince gave him a 
 coat of arms, the proof of nobility, with 
 three Turks' heads upon it and also 300 
 ducats, a goodly sum of money, yearly as 
 a pension. This last, I am sorry to say, 
 so far as we know, Smith never received. 
 
 The Emperor by now had become im- 
 patient to possess this country he had so 
 set his heart on but which from being one 
 
48 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 of the most fruitful in Europe, had become 
 the **very spectacle of desolation— their 
 fruits and fields overgrown with weeds, 
 their churches and battered palaces and 
 best buildings as for fear hid with moss 
 and ivy.'* Indeed it is hard to see why 
 he was so eager to own it ; but he was, and 
 sent a large army under General Busca 
 to take possession. Prince Sigismund, see- 
 ing he was not nearly strong enough to 
 stand against this force, surrendered and 
 gave up his country to the Emperor of Ger- 
 many, he himself being settled under very 
 honorable conditions at Prague. 
 
IV. 
 
 Taken Pkisonek, He Escapes and Finally 
 Reaches England. 
 
 This change of front on the part of 
 Prince Sigismnnd left the Earl of Mel- 
 dritch and the foreign troops under him 
 with nothing to do. But in the mean time 
 the Emperor had learned that there was 
 trouble in Wallachia, another small coun- 
 try near by; and that the Turks had sent 
 a prince there to rule the country, against 
 whom the inhabitants were rebelling. It 
 seemed to the Emperor then, a good time 
 to annex that country also, so he ordered 
 General Busca to proceed there from 
 Transylvania, and with him went Earl Mel- 
 dritch and his men. 
 
 They found the enemy strongly en- 
 
 49 
 
50 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 camped and settled down near them, killing 
 what scouts they could and at the same 
 time losing many of their own camp-fol- 
 lowers. At last, not knowing how else to 
 induce the Turks to fight, Busca drew off 
 his men slowly, burning and plundering 
 as they went. This enraged the encamped 
 Turks and also encouraged them, for they 
 thought the German force was retreating 
 because of the rumor that a large Turkish 
 army was coming as a reinforcement. 
 They therefore urged their commander to 
 lead them out in pursuit of the retreating 
 army. After two days of this pursuit, 
 which was of course what the German army 
 wanted in order that they might choose 
 their ground, they turned furiously upon 
 their pursuers and a tremendous battle 
 ensued in which the Christians were vic- 
 torious and 25,000 men were left dead on 
 the field. In this battle as in all the others, 
 Earl Meldritch showed great personal 
 bravery, and we may be sure he was ably 
 seconded by his captain, John Smith. 
 
TAKEN PRISONER, HE ESCAPES. 51 
 
 This won the country for the Emperor; 
 but there was no rest for the soldiers, for 
 news came that bands of Turks were for- 
 aging in another part of the country, and 
 Meldritch with 13,000 men was sent in pur- 
 suit of these marauders. It was not long 
 before he learned that he was setting out 
 against an army of 30,000 men, and that 
 Jeremie, the former Turkish ruler of Wal- 
 lachia., was coming with 15,000 more. Mel- 
 dritch immediately fell back towards the 
 town of Rottenton, but soon found that he 
 was nearly surrounded by these over- 
 whelming forces of the enemy. From 
 scouts and prisoners he learned the posi- 
 tion of the Turkish army, and that his only 
 way of retreat lay through a valley in 
 Jeremie 's possession. Then Captain Smith 
 again came to the rescue with another 
 stratagem which Meldritch immediately put 
 into execution. He caused the soldiers to 
 attach to the tips of their lances pieces of 
 wood on which something he calls wild 
 fire (perhaps phosphorus) had been 
 
52 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 rubbed. Then holding these before them 
 the soldiers rushed in the night through 
 the lines of the enemy. The rapid mo- 
 tion made the pieces of wood blaze forth 
 such flames and sparkles that it frightened 
 both horses and men ; and the horses in the 
 front ranks turned tail with such fury that 
 by their violence they overthrew and tram- 
 pled on their own comrades, without any 
 loss at all to speak of to Meldritch. In this 
 way the Christian army succeeded in get- 
 ting nearly to Eottenton, but within three 
 leagues of the town the enemy with 40,000 
 men so beset them that they must either 
 fight or be cut in pieces flying. 
 
 We may be sure it did not take the 
 brave Meldritch long to decide, though he 
 knew the fight to be hopeless. He arranged 
 his men in the best manner he could, but 
 after a desperate and brave struggle, 
 almost the entire army was destroyed and 
 the Earl barely escaped with his life. In 
 this dismal battle many brave gentlemen 
 and soldiers were slain, only a few getting 
 
TAKEN PRISONER, HE ESCAPES. 53 
 
 off alive, even as prisoners. Captain Smith 
 was left for dead, and lay groaning among 
 the slaughtered bodies until he was found 
 by the pillagers who saw that he was still 
 living. They felt sure because of the rich- 
 ness of his arms and clothes that his ran- 
 som would be of more value to them than 
 his death, and so took him prisoner with 
 several others. He was used well by his 
 captors until his wounds were healed, and 
 then was sold for a slave in the open mar- 
 ket, where men were thought of and treated 
 almost as animals. He was bought by a 
 Turkish prince and was sent by him as a 
 gift to his lady love in Constantinople, 
 hoping in this way to gain her favor. By 
 twenty and twenty chained by the necks, 
 the slaves were marched to the great city 
 and there Smith was delivered to his future 
 mistress, the Princess Tragabigzanda, for 
 whose kindness he was grateful to the end 
 of his life. 
 
 This Princess did not return the affec- 
 tion of her Turkish admirer and soon be- 
 
54 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 came greatly interested in her new slave. 
 She tried to discover his nationality and 
 what had been his life before he was sent 
 to her. Wlien she learned through inter- 
 preters that he was an Englishman, and 
 of his many and brave adventures, she de- 
 termined that he should be taught her lan- 
 guage and educated as a Turk. Then lest 
 her mother should sell him to some one 
 else, she sent him to her brother in Gam- 
 bia with many directions as to kind treat- 
 ment. The journey was long and interest- 
 ing, and Smith noticed many curious facts 
 about the countries then in the power 
 of the Turks, and the customs of this brave 
 and warlike but cruel people. He never 
 went to a new place without seeing and 
 remembering its peculiar characteristics, 
 and so he was constantly increasing his 
 knowledge and experience. 
 
 In spite of all the kind princess ' instruc- 
 tions, when Captain Smith reached the 
 great stone tower where her brother lived 
 he was treated with the greatest cruelty. 
 
TAKEN PRISONER, HE ESCAPES. 55 
 
 Perhaps this man, who was a Turkish 
 official, thought his sister was taking too 
 much interest in a Christian slave and that 
 she, maybe, hoped some day to set him free 
 and marry him. Whatever he thought, he 
 ordered that the new slave should be 
 stripped of his clothes and a rough hair 
 coat put on him. His head and beard were 
 shaved— a mark of shame— and an iron 
 ring was put about his neck. There were 
 many more Christian slaves Smith tells us, 
 and also Turks and Moors, and he was 
 slave of slaves to them all. ^' Among these 
 slavish fortunes there was no great choice, 
 for the best was so bad a dog could hardly 
 have lived to endure, and yet for all their 
 pains and labors they were no more re- 
 garded than a beasf In fact they were 
 used for work as we use beasts. 
 
 The only hope Smith had of escaping 
 from this terrible imprisonment was the 
 affection he was sure the Princess Traga- 
 bigzanda had for him; yet he knew she 
 was ignorant of the way he was now being 
 
56 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 treated. Althougli he and some other 
 Christian prisoners had often talked over 
 ways of escape, there seemed to be none, 
 ^^but God beyond man's imagination help- 
 eth his servants when they least think of 
 help,'' and at last a chance came. They 
 made Smith a thresher on one of the cniel 
 ruler's farms which the Turk often visited, 
 using the slaves at work there with great 
 cruelty if anything annoyed him. On this 
 particular occasion the Turk became angry 
 at Smith and so beat and reviled him 
 that the slave, forgetting all reason, beat 
 out his wicked master's brains with his 
 rough threshing bat, for they had no flails. 
 Then he put on the Turk's clothes as a 
 disguise, hid the body under the straw, 
 filled his knapsack with corn, shut the doors, 
 mounted the Turk's horse, and so fled into 
 the desert. 
 
 Two or three days he wandered, not know- 
 ing whither. At last he came to a high 
 road on which at intervals there were sign- 
 posts painted in curious devices, repre- 
 

 
TAKEN PRISONER, HE ESCAPES. 57 
 
 senting the countries to which the cross- 
 roads led. He chose the sign of the cross 
 which marked the road leading to Russia, 
 and travelled for sixteen days, fearful of 
 meeting anyone lest he should be captured 
 and returned to his terrible slavery. On 
 the last of these days which seemed to him 
 endless, he came to Ecopolis, a town of the 
 Russians, where he at once found friends. 
 For the governor of the place, hearing 
 his story, took oif his iron collar and so 
 kindly used him he thought himself new 
 risen from death, and the governor's lady 
 largely supplied all his wants. Then giv- 
 ing him friendly letters to other governors, 
 they sent him on from province to prov- 
 ince, and he everywhere received the kind- 
 est treatment, till at last he came to Tran- 
 sylvania again. ^^In all his life,'' he tells 
 us, *^he seldom met with more respect, 
 mirth, content, and entertainment" than 
 during this long journey, and ^^not any 
 governor to whom he came but gave him 
 
58 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 some present, besides treating him as an 
 honored guest.'' 
 
 All this kindness, Smith was sure, was 
 because the same evil chance might very 
 likely befall any one of them. For these 
 little countries through which he had come 
 were constantly being warred against by 
 one great power or another, and this in 
 spite of the fact that, as Smith says, *Hhey 
 are countries rather to be pitied than en- 
 vied and it is a wonder any should make 
 wars for them." It was impossible to trav- 
 el through them except in the company of 
 caravans because of marauders and bandits. 
 The villages were scattered and consisted 
 of only a few houses made of fir trees laid 
 one above the other, and made fast by 
 notches and by wooden pins. *^In ten 
 villages you would scarce find ten iron nails 
 unless it be in some extraordinary man's 
 house." All the towns were fortified by 
 having deep ditches dug around them and 
 by palisades of fir trees, and some had 
 small cannon; but the weapons of the 
 
TAKEN PRISONER, HE ESCAPES. 59 
 
 soldiers mostly consisted of bows and 
 arrows. 
 
 In Transylvania Smith found so many 
 good friends, that if he had not longed to 
 see England again, he could not have made 
 up his mind to leave them. However he 
 soon started on his journey towards home, 
 first coming to where his Colonel was with 
 Prince Sigismund. They gave him his 
 papers of discharge and passports, to- 
 gether with 1500 ducats (about $2500) to 
 repair his losses. 
 
 In spite of his hurry to see England, Cap- 
 tain Smith was too enthusiastic a traveler 
 to leave any countries unvisited on his way, 
 and as he now had plenty of money he 
 stopped in many towns and cities, and 
 finally went down into Spain. There he 
 heard of the wars in Barbary, a country in 
 Africa, and he seems to have had a desire 
 to fight the Turk once more. So born sol- 
 dier and adventurer that he was, he took 
 ship at Gibraltar for Morocco and Tan- 
 giers. Here he had many curious adven- 
 
60 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 tures and heard many strange stories which 
 he tells as they were told to him. One 
 man, Henry Archer, whom he met there, 
 told him that he had once made a pet of 
 a lion cub which slejDt on his bed and was 
 as tame as a puppydog. As he had to re- 
 turn to England, he gave the lion, now 
 grown as large as a mastiff, away. The 
 animal was finally taken to England, and 
 presented to King James, and lived in the 
 Tower seven years. One day a servant of 
 this same Master Archer went to the tower 
 to see the lions, not knowing his master's 
 former pet was there. * ' Yet this rare beast 
 smelled him before he saw him,'' and 
 showed by so many signs that he knew him 
 that the keepers opened the door and let the 
 man into the cage. There the lion fawned 
 on him as would any dog, licking his hands 
 and face and tumbling to and fro to the 
 wonder of all the beholders. And finally 
 when the man went, the lion expressed his 
 sorrow by bellowing and roaring, and for 
 four days refused to eat. 
 
TAKEN PRISONER, HE ESCAPES. 61 
 
 This and other lion stories made a great 
 impression on our traveler, as also did his 
 first sight of elephants. He says of these : 
 *^ Though some report they cannot kneel 
 nor lie down, they can do both and have 
 their joints, as other creatures, for use; 
 with their four feet they will leap upon 
 (push against) trees to pull down the 
 boughs, and are of that strength they will 
 shake a great cocar tree for the nuts, and 
 pull down a good tree with their tusks to 
 get the leaves to eat, as well as sedge and 
 long grass, cocar nuts and berries, etc., 
 which with their trunk they put in their 
 mouth and chew it with their smaller 
 teeth. '^ 
 
 When Smith had visited all this coast 
 of Africa and found that the wars in Bar- 
 bary consisted rather of perfidious, treach- 
 erous, and bloody murders, than the fight- 
 ing he cared to take part in, he began again 
 to plan for home. At the port of Safi, he 
 made the acquaintance of a Captain Mer- 
 ham, commander of a man-of-war lying 
 
62 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 in the harbor, and accepted his invitation 
 to go aboard with his companions and in- 
 spect the ship. Talking and entertainment 
 kept them there until it was too late to go 
 on shore that evening. At midnight such 
 a storm arose they were obliged to put to 
 sea to escape being dashed on shore, and 
 were driven before the wind as far as the 
 Canary Islands. Here they lay trying to 
 make the best of the trip they had not plan- 
 ned for, and looking for what fortune they 
 could find. We should say they turned pi- 
 rates for they captured a small bark laden 
 with wine and stopped two other boats. 
 These however, returned evil with good, for 
 they warned Captain Merham that there 
 were two men-of-war near by. He attempt- 
 ed to get away without being discovered by 
 these larger craft, but was hailed, chased, 
 and finally fired upon by two Spanish ships 
 which came down upon him from some un- 
 seen harbor. Thereupon a terrific sea- 
 fight took place. The French ship was 
 boarded and both French and Spanish suf- 
 
TAKEN PRISONER, HE ESCAPES. 63 
 
 fered severe loss. It is hard to see from 
 Captain Smith's description how the 
 smaller boat possibly escaped, attacked as 
 it was by two fierce sea-fighters, one on one 
 side and one on the other, until because of 
 the cannon shots there was little light but 
 only fire and smoke. The fight lasted two 
 afternoons and half the night, the time be- 
 tween being spent by the French boat in 
 trying to get away. Twice was she boarded 
 and once she was badly on fire, but in all 
 that time she was brave and defiant and 
 refused to surrender or to promise tribute 
 to Spain. 
 
 At last, with twenty-seven men killed 
 and sixteen wounded, and with 140 great 
 shot imbedded or leaving marks in her 
 keel, she managed to steal away from her 
 assailants and came again to the port her 
 captain had so unexpectedly left. This 
 fully satisfied all our hero's desire for ad- 
 venture for the present anyway, and he 
 made all speed to England. 
 
V. 
 
 The Journey to America. 
 
 Captain Smith returned to England in 
 the year 1604, when he was 25 years old. 
 He found all the country interested in 
 schemes for colonies, as England has been 
 ever since. But at that time the wonder- 
 land of America lay before them, a field 
 for all sorts of adventure. Ever since the 
 amazing voyage of Columbus, Spain had 
 been sending expedition after expedition 
 to the new world. Cortez had conquered 
 Mexico and sent back untold wealth to his 
 king, besides all the plunder he and his 
 soldiers enjoyed. Various explorations 
 had been made by brave men farther north 
 — in Florida and along the Gulf — with 
 varying success, and England was begin- 
 
 64 
 
THE JOURNEY TO AMERICA. 65 
 
 ning to realize that her rival was outstrip- 
 ping her in the search for land and gold. 
 All the English adventurers who had come 
 home from foreign wars were impatient 
 to see this western land where precious 
 metals could be picked up in lumps and 
 fountains of youth gushed from the ground. 
 Marvellous accounts were given of treas- 
 ures beyond human imagination to be had 
 almost for the asking, and men grew more 
 and more credulous of stories which sound 
 to us now no better than fairy tales. Only 
 leaders were needed, and more money to 
 fit out expeditions; and these were soon 
 supplied. 
 
 Sir Walter Raleigh, whose imagination 
 had been fired by some of these wonderful 
 tales, and who loved adventure for its own 
 sake, had sent out several ships whose cap- 
 tains were more or less successful. In 
 1584, before Smith was born, two of these 
 vessels sailed along the coast of the Caro- 
 linas, and landing in a small bay took pos- 
 session of all the country around in the 
 
66 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 name of the Qneen. and called it Virginia, 
 They did not attempt to settle, it was easier 
 to give a conntry a name than to prove its 
 right to it by establishing a colony; they 
 were waiting for Captain Smith to do that. 
 The next year, and many times in the 
 years immediately following nnsnccessful 
 e:fiLorts were made to colonize Virginia imtil 
 even brave Sir Walter was disconraged, 
 his money gone, and he himself sent to 
 prison by jealous King James who had snc- 
 ceeded Elizabeth. 
 
 Finally in 16()2, just two years before 
 Smith came home, a Captain Gosnold sailed 
 across the Atlantic and bronght back a load 
 of sassafras and more descriptions of Vir- 
 ginia. This roused fresh interest and ships 
 were again sent, and thongh no permanent 
 settlements were made there were no ship- 
 wrecks, and men slowly became familiar 
 with the long dangerous trip and recovered 
 from the discouragement they had been 
 feeling. 
 
 Then came this brave adventurous vouth 
 
THE JOURNEY TO AMERICA. 67 
 
 of 25, fresh from his wonderful escape 
 from the Turks and full of horror for the 
 sort of war he had found in Africa. The 
 idea of building up a town instead of tear- 
 ing and burning one down, of helping 
 people to live instead of killing them, 
 appealed to him strongly; and he joined 
 Gosnold and some others in an attempt to 
 fit up a colonizing expedition. At first 
 they succeeded in obtaining only a patent 
 or permission from the king. This granted 
 to the petitioners the territory from what 
 is now the border of Maryland to the 
 boundary line between Vermont and Can- 
 ada, to be settled by two colonies. The 
 southern part of this grant belonged to the 
 first colony of which Smith was a part. 
 
 By the end of two years the petitioners 
 had secured from noblemen and merchants 
 interested in the possible wealth to be 
 gained from the scheme, money enough to 
 equip three vessels. These were the /S^/.^a ^z- 
 Constant, under Captain Christopher New- 
 port who was in command of the expedition, 
 
68 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 the Godspeed, under Captain Bartholomew 
 Gosnold, and the Discovery under John 
 Eatcliffe. All these men we shall hear of 
 later. 
 
 The company which was to sail in 
 these ships was too mixed to be harmonious 
 and had no appointed head. The king 
 wished to settle all important questions for 
 them, and very stupidly had given them 
 their instructions for the government of 
 the colony and the names of the future 
 officers in a sealed box to be opened when 
 they should reach Virginia. Smith gives 
 us a list of the men with whom he sailed: 
 **48 gentlemen, 12 laborers, 4 carpenters, 
 1 bricklayer, 1 tailor, 1 mason, 1 barber, 1 
 drummer, 1 sailor, 2 surgeons, and 4 
 boys.*' The *^ gentlemen" were most of 
 them adventurers, unwilling to work, very 
 ready to quarrel, and only eager for 
 wealth for themselves, not for the good of 
 the colony. There was one clergyman 
 among them, the Rev. Mr. Hunt, who in 
 spite of great feebleness on the voyage did 
 
THE JOURNEY TO AMERICA. 69 
 
 his best to keep the peace, and things really 
 were better because he was with them. 
 Another important man was Edward Maria 
 Wingfield who was associated with Smith 
 and Gosnold in getting up the expedition. 
 
 The three little ships, one of only 20 tons' 
 burden, set sail on the 19th of December, 
 1606, but were detained by bad weather 
 until it was fully ^six weeks before they 
 were fairly out of sight of England. On 
 the way there were many alarms for the 
 superstitious. The 12th of February they 
 saw a blazing star ; and then came a storm, 
 caused they thought by the star ; and partly 
 to break the perilous journey, partly to take 
 on fresh water and provisions, they steered 
 their course for the Canaries. 
 
 But this unfriendly company had been 
 quarreling all the way, and when the 
 Islands were sighted, bad feeling had 
 reached such a height that some one had 
 to suffer. Why this should have been John 
 Smith we do not know; but to judge from 
 some accounts of the trip there was much 
 
70 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 angry feeling against him. He had had 
 more experience than any other member 
 of the company, and perhaps in the lack 
 of a president tried to take command. He 
 had always wanted his own way and had 
 not lost his old wilfulness. Then he was 
 certainly the one best fitted to be leader 
 and that only made the others jealous. 
 There was much trouble, a mutiny was 
 threatened — evidently some of the party 
 took Captain Smith's side — and if it had 
 not been for the peace-maker, Mr. Hunt, 
 the ships might all have turned back. They 
 contented themselves, however, with put- 
 ting Smith in chains, and he remained a 
 prisoner till long after they reached Vir- 
 ginia. 
 
 After the party left the Canaries they 
 stopped at the little Island of Nevis in the 
 "West Indies, and finding it a fertile and 
 beautiful spot stayed there about a week 
 to rest and refresh the men. There they 
 threatened to hang their prisoner, but, as 
 he says, he could not be persuaded to use 
 
THE JOURNEY TO AMERICA. 71 
 
 the gallows which they had put up for the 
 purpose, and perhaps the beauty of the 
 place and the good hunting they found 
 quieted their feeling a little. At any rate 
 they gave up their dreadful plan and con- 
 tinued exploring this and the neighboring 
 islands. They found many things that sur- 
 jjrised them. On Nevis was a warm pool— 
 what we should call a hot spring— the like 
 of which the English had never seen. In 
 this the men much enjoyed bathing, and in 
 another, very much hotter, they succeeded 
 in boiling a piece of pork. In one place 
 they took from the bushes with their hands 
 about two hogsheads full of birds in two 
 or three hours ; the wild things had not yet 
 learned to be afraid of hunters. In another 
 l^lace they came upon a horrid beast like 
 a crocodile ; and tortoises, pelicans, parrots 
 and strange fishes abounded. All through 
 the West Indies canoes full of Indians— 
 salvages the English called them — came out 
 to greet them, and the company was greatly 
 amazed at their strange customs. They 
 
72 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 brought out to the ships all sorts of fruit, 
 such as pineapples and bananas, with sweet 
 potatoes and tobacco. They also had a 
 sort of cloth which they exchanged for 
 beads, knives, and hatchets. ^^They paint 
 their bodies red, ' ' says one of the company, 
 *4o keep off the mosquitoes; their hair is 
 a yard long and braided in three plaits; 
 they also tattoo their skin. They are 
 always at war and will eat their enemies 
 when they take them, and they poison their 
 arrow-heads which are made of fish-bone.'* 
 Surely a strange people and different in 
 some ways from the Indians the travelers 
 are to meet farther north. And although 
 whenever the English landed they kept a 
 very strict watch, they never saw the slight- 
 est attempt at hostility on the part of 
 these salvages, only a great curiosity, and 
 a willingness to trade. 
 
 After leaving the islands, the ships lost 
 their way; land did not appear where 
 they expected to find it, and poor fright- 
 ened Captain Eatcliffe was so discouraged 
 
THE JOURNEY TO AMERICA. 73 
 
 that he wanted to turn back. But in the 
 nick of time a storm from the south seized 
 them and proving to be their best friend, 
 drove them northward during two days 
 of terror and despair toward exactly the 
 harbor they needed. The first point of land 
 they saw, they hailed with joy and named 
 Cape Henry in honor of the Prince of 
 Wales. Then another appeared beyond 
 this, and there between lay Chesapeake 
 Bay, the beauty of which surprised and 
 delighted the despondent and tired out 
 travellers. 
 
 On the morning of April 26, 1607, Cap- 
 tain Newport, Captain Gosnold, and twenty 
 or thirty others landed and began to explore 
 the shores of Cape Henry. They found 
 there * ^faire meadows and goodly tall trees, 
 with fresh waters running through the 
 woods. ' ' They also found in a later search 
 large and delicate oysters in which occa- 
 sional pearls were seen, also strawberries, 
 fully four times bigger and finer than those 
 in England. Altogether it seemed a goodly 
 
74 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 land with but one drawback. Around a 
 slope of a nearby hill came four or five 
 savages creeping on all fours like bears 
 and carrying their bows in their mouths. 
 ^' These charged the English very desper- 
 erately in the faces," wounded one of the 
 adventurers in both his hands and a sailor 
 in two places in his body very dangerously. 
 The English returned fire but the savages 
 escaped unhurt — truly not a cordial wel- 
 come to the new world. 
 
 But they could not be discouraged now, 
 and before going back to the boats, the 
 little company opened the sealed box in 
 which were their instructions. Here they 
 found the names for a council of seven: 
 Captain Gosnold, Edward Wingfield, Cap- 
 tain Newport, John Smith, John Ratclitfe, 
 John Martin, and George Kendall. The 
 instructions read that a president was to 
 be elected from this council and all mat- 
 ters of importance were to be determined 
 by it, after being examined into by a jury. 
 
 From this time until the 13th of May, 
 
THE JOURNEY TO AMERICA. 75 
 
 the men made trips of discovery to all parts 
 of the bay, looking for the best location 
 for the city they were going to build and 
 the best land for farming. They built a 
 small boat for cruising in these quiet waters 
 and began to search out the rivers. Eu- 
 ropeans still had hopes of discovering a 
 channel through to the Pacific and in that 
 way a shorter route to China and the East ; 
 and all colonists were instructed, as these 
 had been, to seek for navigable rivers and 
 then to explore them ^ ^ especially that which 
 bendeth most toward the North West, for 
 that way you shall soonest find the other 
 sea.'' It was to take many men many ter- 
 rible journeys before Europe should find 
 out the great size of the land they were 
 attempting to colonize. 
 
 After sounding several channels and 
 finding to their disappointment only shal- 
 low waters, streams whose banks were 
 covered with flowers of many kinds and 
 colors, and with cedar, cypress, and differ- 
 ent kinds of trees, the explorers rowed to 
 
76 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 a point of land where at last they found 
 a deep channel which promised much. 
 ^'This put us in good comfort,'' writes one 
 of the number, *' Therefore we named the 
 point of land Cape Comfort." It keeps 
 the name to this day and we know the very, 
 spot as Old Point Comfort. 
 
 A few days later the ships were brought 
 to this cape and then all on board saw sav- 
 ages running about on the shore who at 
 first seemed very timid but later responded 
 to friendly gestures and invited the strange 
 white men to come on shore and visit their 
 towns. This was done, and during the 
 next several days Captain Newport and 
 some of the adventurers visited three or 
 four Indian villages, received by the differ- 
 ent chiefs with much kindness and cere- 
 mony. The English were impressed by 
 the great gravity and dignity of these 
 rulers and by the many entertainments 
 given for the amusement of the travellers. 
 Mats were brought out for them to sit on, 
 they wer^ served with all the best food the 
 
THE JOURNEY TO AMERICA. 77 
 
 savages could provide, and in one place 
 there was a strange dance performed in 
 this manner: '^One of the savages stand- 
 ing in the midst singing, beating one hand 
 against the other ; all the rest dancing about 
 him, shouting, howling, and stamping 
 against the ground, with many antic tricks 
 and faces, making noises like so many 
 wolves or devils/' 
 
 At last, after these various wanderings 
 and explorations, the place for a settlement 
 was chosen and named Jamestown in honor 
 of the King of England. We can picture 
 the discovery of this spot by the eager 
 colonists. Sailing from Cape Comfort up 
 the broad and beautiful river they had 
 found, scanning the shore first on one side 
 then on the other to find the best point at 
 which to land, they went about thirty miles 
 before they saw what they were looking 
 for. Jutting out into the river was a sort 
 of peninsula connected with the shore by a 
 narrow strip of land, and very easy for 
 this reason to defend. At the water's edge 
 
78 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 grew tall reeds and the whole point was 
 thickly wooded. The English had had just 
 enough experience with the strange people 
 they had come among to know that defense 
 was a most important consideration, and 
 though the spot was not ideal in other ways 
 — for one thing, it was too low — its natural 
 advantages as a fort made them choose it 
 immediately. Then the water was very 
 deep all around it so that the ships could 
 sail close to the banks and be moored by 
 fastening them to some tall trees grow- 
 ing there. It was, according to Captain 
 Smith, ^^a very fair place for the erecting 
 of a great city.'^ As soon as they could 
 make a landing, all the provisions were 
 taken ashore, and with as much speed as 
 might be, they went about the fortification. 
 At the same time the council met and Mas- 
 ter Wingfield was elected president. Cap- 
 tain Smith was not allowed to serve on the 
 council for the present, being still a pris- 
 oner and held for trial. Wingfield seems 
 not to have been a wise choice as he was 
 
THE JOURNEY TO AMERICA. 79 
 
 hot-tempered and jealous, and instead of 
 uniting the colonists was likely to get into 
 trouble himself. 
 
 *^Now falleth every man to work," writes 
 one of the gentlemen adventurers, ''the 
 council contrive (plan) the fort, the rest 
 cut down trees to make a place to pitch their 
 tents, some provide clapboards to reload 
 the ships (they must send something back 
 to England as a proof that the scheme was 
 worth while) some make gardens, some 
 nets, etc." It must have been a busy place 
 and we may be sure even the ' ' gentlemen ' ' 
 worked— perhaps for the only time in their 
 lives. At the very beginning of the settle- 
 ment a dispute arose; Mr. Wingfield did 
 not think it was necessary to spend much 
 time in barricading the fort, except for 
 boughs of trees laid one on top of the other ; 
 and because of his great jealousy would 
 allow of no exercise of arms, thus showing 
 his shortsightedness. For they must ex- 
 pect other than friendly visits from the 
 natives. Indeed about midnight of this 
 
80 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 first night several Indians came prowling 
 around the tents. An alarm was soon given 
 and they all ran away. Next time they 
 would not be so easily frightened off. 
 
 Then a few days later came two savages 
 looking like chiefs, so gayly were they 
 dressed; but they said they were mes- 
 sengers from the great chief whose village 
 the white men had visited and who wished 
 to return the visit. Before very long, to 
 be sure, came the chief himself, guarded 
 by one hundred Indians who were armed 
 with bows and arrows. The chief begged 
 the strangers to lay aside their arms, which 
 had been quickly seized on the approach 
 of the Indians, but these hardy sailors were 
 too wise and refused to trust the savages 
 to that extent. A friendly talk began in 
 which the great chief made signs that he 
 would give the white men as much land as 
 they wished for their buildings. Probably 
 he was eager to get in exchange some of the 
 curious things which he saw scattered about 
 in the tents of the strangers. But while 
 
THE JOURNEY TO AMERICA. 81 
 
 the heads of the two parties conferred in 
 this seemingly peaceable manner, one of 
 the crowd of Indians who were examining 
 the inside of the fort, stole a hatchet. Its 
 owner saw the theft and forcibly took back 
 his property, at the same time striking the 
 savage on the arm. Another savage, see- 
 ing this, came fiercely at the Englishman 
 with a wooden sword to beat out his brains 
 and there would have been an immediate 
 battle, had not the chief realized that now 
 while the white men were fully armed was 
 no time for a conflict. The Indian has 
 always preferred to surprise his foe when 
 unarmed and to shoot at him from behind a 
 tree, and not in the open as they were then. 
 So the visitors departed suddenly and in 
 great anger. This occurrence and several 
 others like it soon showed the English they 
 must be constantly on guard against these 
 treacherous forest foes. 
 
 The Virginia colonists were the em- 
 ployees of a company in England, and 
 were ordered to explore and make maps 
 
82 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 of the country and to find out all the re- 
 sources of the new possessions. So a few 
 days later Captain Newport and Captain 
 Smith with about twenty others, were 
 appointed to explore the James River on 
 the banks of which their settlement was 
 located,— one of them calls it *Hhe famous- 
 est river ever found by any Christian/' 
 Captain Newport was in command and 
 determined not to return without finding 
 the head of the river, the other sea, or the 
 mountains where, it was rumored, the In- 
 dians procured their great stores of copper 
 —you see they had about given up the gold. 
 We shall see how successful he was in this 
 endeavor. 
 
VI. 
 
 The Trip up the James. 
 
 Captain Smithes appointment for this 
 journey must have been a great surprise 
 to him as he had been a prisoner since the 
 landing and not allowed to take part in 
 the councils and the visits to the Indians. 
 Some people think that President Wing- 
 field in his jealousy was glad to get him 
 out of the colony, and even hoped that in 
 possible troubles with the Indians he might 
 be injured. But we may just as easily be- 
 lieve that they all saw how specially fitted 
 this brave, resourceful, energetic man was 
 by character and experience for such a 
 journey. At any rate he and Captain New- 
 port and their men started out on the 22nd 
 of May, taking with them provisions and 
 
 83 
 
84 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 all necessaries belonging to a discovery; 
 also many trinkets to give the Indians. 
 Before they started there had been some 
 trouble with the natives, such as skulking 
 visits paid to the fort and some petty 
 thefts, and the two leaders of the exploring 
 trip knew that their first care must be to 
 keep on good terms with these uncertain 
 savages. 
 
 George Percy, one of the colonists, gives 
 us an interesting description of the great 
 river showing how its beauties impressed 
 the travellers. 
 
 ^ ^ The river ebbs and flows a hundred and 
 four score miles where ships of great bur- 
 den may harbor in safety'' (but we must 
 remember that a ship of great burden to 
 them was of a hundred tons or so). 
 ** Wheresoever we landed upon this river, 
 we saw the goodliest woods as beech, oke, 
 cedar, cypres'se, walnuts, sassafras, and 
 vines in great abundance which hang in 
 great clusters on many trees, and other 
 trees unknown; and all the grounds be- 
 
THE TRIP UP THE JAMES. 85 
 
 spred with many sweet and delicate flowers 
 of divers colors and kinds. There are also 
 many fruits as strawberries, mulberries, 
 raspberries and fruits unknown. There 
 are many branches of this river which run 
 flowing through the woods with great plenty 
 of fish of all kinds ; as for sturgeon, all the 
 world cannot be compared to it. In this 
 country I have seen many great and large 
 meadows having excellent good pasture 
 for many cattle. There is also great store 
 of deer, both red and fallow. There are 
 bears, foxes, otters, beavers, muskrats, and 
 wild beasts unknown.^' England had been 
 so long a civilized land that the wild beauty 
 of the primeval forest was a source of won- 
 der and delight to the colonists. Captain 
 Smith speaks of the great breadth of the 
 river and its high banks and the many fresh 
 springs of clear water. 
 
 To these banks all through their journey, 
 came the Indians offering them, as they 
 sailed by, the large fine strawberries they 
 had already noticed, little sweet nuts like 
 
86 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 acorns, and many other fruits, with 
 bread, fish and other provisions. Indeed 
 there was much kindness and friendly feel- 
 ing shown by the natives and Captain New- 
 port and Captain Smith met it with kind- 
 ness and fair dealing. For whatever the 
 Indians gave them, they gave in exchange, 
 *^Bels, pinnes, needles beades or Glasses, 
 which so contented them (the Indians) that 
 his liberality made them follow us from 
 place to place and ever kindly to respect 
 us.'' 
 
 On the second morning the shallop, as 
 the little sail-boat was called, stopped at a 
 small island to get water and rest the crew, 
 and there they saw a canoe with eight 
 Indians going by. Hailing them kindly, 
 the English persuaded them to come ashore, 
 hoping to find out something from them 
 about the journey. It was hard at first of 
 course to get into communication with the 
 natives, but by means of signs and with 
 much patience the English managed to 
 make them understand what was wanted. 
 
THE TRIP UP THE JAMES. 87 
 
 Then one Indian made signs that he would 
 describe the country to them, and taking 
 the pen and paper handed to him, drew a 
 rough map of the whole river from the bay 
 to the farthest navigable point, locating 
 all islands and shoals. And in every test 
 the English made of this map it was found 
 to be correct. All along the journey, the 
 same Indians met them with food and 
 provisions which they eagerly traded for 
 trinkets. All the way were the strange 
 and beautiful sights Mr. Percy so well de- 
 scribed,— turkeys and wild- fowl quite new 
 to the white strangers, bright flowers and 
 fine trees. The curious customs of the sav- 
 ages amused them and everything seemed 
 propitious. 
 
 Soon the little body of explorers came to 
 an Indian village called Arsatecke, where 
 the king, whom they supposed to be the 
 chief ruler in his tribe, received them with 
 much kindness. He gave them as a guide 
 the same Indian who some miles back had 
 drawn the map for them, and who was now 
 
88 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 to take them up as far as Powhatan, their 
 principal town, from which place the 
 famous king Powhatan, ruler of the tribe, 
 took his name. Before they went they were 
 feasted and entertained with dances, and 
 the king even took off his crown of deer's 
 hair, dyed red, and placed it on Captain 
 Newport 's head. Leaving there they rowed 
 ten miles further, passing little groups of 
 Indians gathered on the banks to greet them 
 as they went by, and finally came to Pow- 
 hatan's Tower, as they named the place. 
 Here they were conducted up the hill to the 
 great king, and found with him the king of 
 Arsatecke whom they had just left. They 
 were received by the two chiefs with much 
 ceremony, and after many signs of good- 
 will, a league of friendship was entered 
 into between the English and King Pow- 
 hatan. We shall see how loyally this was 
 kept. 
 
 Leaving the camp and accompanied by 
 several of the Indians the little band of 
 explorers rowed on up the stream, but were 
 
THE TRIP UP THE JAMES. 89 
 
 soon stopped by impassable falls and 
 rapids. There were many shallows and the 
 water fell with great violence over huge 
 craggy rocks. This was a disappointment 
 indeed, and after ^'having viewed this 
 place between content and grief/' as one 
 of them says, ^^we left it for the night, 
 determining the next day to fit ourselves 
 for a march by land.'' Smith says the 
 reason they did not go straight on that 
 same day was because the guides whom 
 Powhatan sent with them refused to go 
 beyond the falls, and that they trifled about 
 there all the afternoon admiring the wild 
 beauty of the place. I suppose one reason 
 why the hills impressed Captain Smith as 
 much as they did was because Willoughby 
 where he was born was in such a flat and 
 marshy region. 
 
 Spending the night on board their little 
 boat, they went back to the town next day 
 to get provisions for their trip to the coun- 
 try above the falls where, they had been 
 led to believe by the guide who drew the 
 
90 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 map for them, they should find gold-bearing 
 mountains and the salt sea. Reaching the 
 town they found that two of their bags con- 
 taining bullets and various toys for trading 
 purposes had been stolen. Captain Newport 
 immediately informed the king, who caused 
 everything instantly to be restored, show- 
 ing that he knew well who the thieves were 
 and had let them go unpunished,— a curi- 
 ous kind of friendship ! Nevertheless, the 
 Captain thanked the king and rewarded the 
 thieves with the same toys they had stolen, 
 carefully keeping the ammunition; but at 
 the same time he told them that such of- 
 fenses were punishable by death in Eng- 
 land. At dinner, to which the English 
 invited King Powhatan and his chiefs, 
 Captain Newport tried to induce the king 
 to tell him how far it was to where the cop- 
 per was procured and where the country of 
 the high mountains lay, and asked that they 
 might have guides for the intended march. 
 The king showed great unwillingness to do 
 all this and finally told the would-be ex- 
 
THE TRIP UP THE JAMES. 91 
 
 plorers he could meet them at the falls and 
 explain his hesitation. There at a final 
 conference he told them of the hardships in 
 their way, the dilBficuity they would find in 
 getting provisions, and the hostility of the 
 Indians in those parts : that their chiefs 
 came down at the fall of the leaf and in- 
 vaded the country of Powhatan. 
 
 With great reluctance but with much 
 wisdom the longer trip was given up and 
 the journey back begun, the leaders think- 
 ing it more valuable to keep their treaty 
 with Powhatan than to make the discov- 
 eries they had hoped for. The faithful 
 guide was rewarded with a gown and a 
 hatchet, and many pledges of friendship 
 were exchanged. Then upon one of the 
 little islands at the foot of the falls 
 they set up a cross with the inscription 
 upon it. Jacobus Rex, 1607, and the name 
 of Christopher Newport below. And pray- 
 ing for the king and the success of the 
 colony, they proclaimed the English king 
 with a great shout. The few Indians who 
 
92 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 were present wondered greatly at this, 
 but the captain told them that the cross 
 with its two arms signified the league 
 between himself and Powhatan and the 
 shout was the reverence he paid to Pow- 
 hatan. This deception cheered the Indians 
 not a little, especially as the English had 
 promised to help the king against his ene- 
 mies. But such deceptions are never of 
 any lasting good and already the Indians 
 began to foresee the future greed of the 
 English and to murmur at their planting 
 or settling there; though their great chief 
 had said to them: ^'Why should you be 
 offended with them as long as they hurt 
 you not, nor take anything away by force. 
 They take but a little waste ground, which 
 doth you nor any of us any good.'^ 
 
 Going on down the river to Arsatecke, 
 the English stayed there all the next day, 
 feasting with the king and examining the 
 Indian houses and the gardens planted 
 with corn and tobacco. The king and his 
 chiefs were eager to see on their part all 
 
THE TRIP UP THE JAMES. 93 
 
 the wonders the white strangers brought 
 to them, and Captain Newport caused one 
 of his men to fire off a musket for the 
 amusement of the Indians. At the strange 
 noise the king started, stopped his ears, and 
 expressed much fear, as did all the other 
 savages. Some of them who were on board 
 the shallop looking at this new kind of boat 
 even jumped overboard at the explosion. 
 They were all reassured when Captain 
 Newport told them this thunder was used 
 only against the enemies of the English and 
 to help their friends. So with many signs of 
 love, including the gift of a red waistcoat to 
 the delighted king, the explorers departed. 
 The next day they stopped at the village 
 of the queen Agamatack, who received 
 them with even more majesty than king 
 Powhatan showed. She is described as a 
 fat manly woman with much copper about 
 her neck and a crown of copper on her 
 head, and with long black hair which hung 
 loose down her back. Her people seemed 
 pleased with the visitors and treated them 
 
94 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 liberally. From thence they sailed to an- 
 other place whose name Captain Smith 
 does not remember but where he says the 
 people showed the English their manner 
 of diving for mussels in which they often 
 found pearls. Near here they also met for 
 the first time the king Opechancanough, 
 who made great professions of friendship 
 but whose hostility and treachery they were 
 to suffer from later on. 
 
 Passing the village of Weanocke where 
 the voyagers had been well used on the way 
 up the river, they noticed more signs of 
 suspicion on the part of the natives, and 
 their kind guide who had served them so 
 faithfully all this time refused to go with 
 them the rest of the way. This made the 
 little company fear that some danger 
 might threaten those at the fort, so they 
 gave up revisiting the villages nearer the 
 river's mouth and resolved to return to the 
 settlement with all speed. Eeaching there 
 they found their fears to be realized. In 
 their absence the fort had been attacked by 
 
CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 From the picture in his " History of Virginia.' 
 
THE TRIP UP THE JAMES. 95 
 
 about four hundred Indians, and had it not 
 been for the ships anchored near by which 
 fired on the savages with their cannon and 
 scattered them, the whole settlement might 
 have been wiped out of existence as others 
 had been before them. For all the men in 
 the fort were taken quite unaware as they 
 were busy in planting; their arms, many of 
 them, being laid aside or in process of 
 repair. As it was most of the council were 
 hurt, one boy was killed outright, and the 
 president. Master Wingfield (who showed 
 himself a valiant gentleman), had one shot 
 clean through his beard and yet escaped 
 unhurt. 
 
 The colonists immediately set about mak- 
 ing the fort more of a real protection, 
 Wingfield by this time seeing his error. As 
 one of the colonists puts it: ''Hereupon 
 the President was contented the Fort 
 should be pallisadoed, the ordnance 
 mounted, his men armed and exercised: 
 for many were the assaults and ambus- 
 cadoes of the salvages; and our men by 
 
96 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 their disorderly stragling were often hurt 
 when the salvages by the nimbleness of 
 their heels well escaped. ' ' For six or seven 
 days as the chronicler says, there were 
 alarms and skirmishes, more or less severe, 
 with the treacherous enemy, and four or 
 five English were caught outside the fort 
 and badly wounded; the Indians' loss could 
 not be learned, but the report was three 
 slain and several hurt. They seemed to be 
 tremendously afraid of the firing from the 
 ships and looked on all guns with great 
 awe. 
 
 On June 16th the fort was finished. It 
 was shaped like a triangle with bulwarks at 
 the three corners and four or five pieces of 
 artillery mounted in them. It was sur- 
 rounded by a strong palisade and within 
 this was room for houses and tents. Thus 
 the colonists thought themselves sufficiently 
 strong for the savages, and so they were if 
 they stayed within the fort. But the In- 
 dians were not the only foes they were to 
 contend against. 
 
VII. 
 
 Captain Newport's Departure and Dis- 
 tress IN THE Colony. 
 
 Captain Christopher Newport, whose 
 wisdom and foresight were shown all 
 through those first trying weeks, was now 
 ready to sail back to England, taking his 
 ships with him. He was not a member of 
 the original colonizing expedition but had 
 been engaged to conduct the little band of 
 explorers across the western ocean. Before 
 he went much dissatisfaction was expressed 
 with Wingfield's administration of affairs 
 and it was felt by some that the imprison- 
 ment of Captain Smith was a mistake and 
 a misfortune. All the accused man says in 
 his first account about the trial, which now 
 took place, is very brief: ^^ Captain New- 
 
 97 
 
98 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 port having set things in order, set sail for 
 England/' But in his later account and in 
 that of another of the colonists we learn 
 the facts. That ever since the departure 
 from the Canaries Captain Smith was held 
 prisoner because of the lying reports about 
 him circulated by some of the leaders of 
 the expedition. That they said he intend- 
 ed to make himself king and to murder the 
 council, and that there were accomplices of 
 his in all three ships. That some of these 
 men would be witnesses against him. 
 
 These were very severe accusations, and 
 no wonder that a man suspected of such 
 treachery should be left out of the council. 
 But on their trip up the James River Cap- 
 tain Newport had seen his real devotion 
 to the affairs of the colonists, his wisdom 
 in dealing with the Indians and in making 
 and carrying out energetic plans for dis- 
 covery and settlement. So he decided to 
 bring the whole thing up before a jury 
 and put an end to such unfortunate sus- 
 picions. Mr. Wingfield and others of the 
 
CAPTAIN NEWPORT'S DEPARTURE. 99 
 
 council had determined to tell these stories 
 about Smith to the company in England 
 and ask that they censure him publicly, 
 so giving him no chance to defend himself ; 
 but Captain Newport insisted on giving 
 Smith a fair chance and was helped in his 
 plan of justice and reconciliation by the 
 good minister, Mr. Hunt. 
 
 When the trial came off those who, it was 
 expected, would testify against Smith, 
 spoke for him ; and his honesty was so com- 
 pletely proved that he was immediately 
 admitted to the council and later in the 
 year President Wingfield was ordered to 
 pay him about $1,000 because of the slan- 
 ders he had spoken. This took about all 
 the property Wingfield had in Virginia, 
 but Captain Smith turned it all into the 
 common store, so increasing the company's 
 faith in him. Captain Newport in this way 
 showed his true interest in the colonists by 
 trying to stop all quarrels. He was wise 
 enough to know they could not succeed un- 
 less they stood by each other. *^The next 
 
 I. or C, 
 
100 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 day," one of them says, "we confirmed a 
 faithful love to each other and in our hearts 
 subscribed an obedience to our superiors 
 this day." Mr. Hunt preached to them 
 about peace and friendship, and all together 
 they received the communion. On the day 
 following the Indians voluntarily asked for 
 a treaty of peace ; and Captain Newport left 
 Virginia for England on the 2nd of June, 
 1607, leaving the colonists at peace with the 
 Indians and what was even more important, 
 in harmony with one another. This request 
 for peace however came from King Ope- 
 chancanough who lived very near the settle- 
 ment, and sent his messengers with expres- 
 sions of goodwill. He was a crafty chief 
 and watched the strangers keenly, ready to 
 pounce upon them in any time of weakness. 
 And now comes the most trying time of 
 all to the colonists, and the saddest part of 
 my story. The peace so wisely established 
 by Captain Newport and Mr. Hunt did not 
 last very long and the English became dis- 
 contented with Wingfield's management 
 
CAPTAIN NEWPORT'S DEPARTURE. 101 
 
 and with the bad food given them. Before 
 the ships left they had to some extent been 
 able to use the sailors ' provisions, exchang- 
 ing minerals found on explorations for 
 ship 's biscuits. Now there was nothing left 
 to eat but some mouldy meal with which to 
 vary a diet of fish. Many soon fell sick, 
 famine and plague set in, and Captain 
 Smith says that the living were scarcely 
 able to bury the dead, so weak and starving 
 they were. Each man had half a pint of 
 wheat and barley boiled in water a day, and 
 they lived from May to September on stur- 
 geon and sea-crabs. During that time about 
 fifty died, among them Captain Gosnold. 
 He died on the 22nd of August and was a 
 great loss to the colony. As you remem- 
 ber, he was one of the original members of 
 the company, really the one who suggested 
 the plan to Smith and to one or two others, 
 and had been an important member of the 
 council. *^He w^s honorably buried, hav- 
 ing all the ordnance in the fort shot off 
 with many vo>'lies of small shot.^' The 
 
102 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 Indians probably thought all this firing was 
 some military practice, for if they had 
 known how weak and helpless most of the 
 English were they surely would have at- 
 tacked them. Then, too, the colonists be- 
 gan quarreling again, and a few days 
 after the death of Gosnold Captain Ken- 
 dall was deposed from the council, accused 
 of starting a rebellion against the presi- 
 dent, and was imprisoned on board the pin- 
 nace. 
 
 When things seemed most hopeless, some 
 friendly Indians appeared at the fort with 
 corn which though half ripe the starving 
 colonists accepted gladly. Mr. Percy de- 
 scribes this sad time in a despairing way : 
 ^^ There were never Englishmen left in a 
 foreign country in such misery as we were 
 in this newly disco veered Virginia. We 
 watched every three nights lying on the 
 bare cold ground, what weather soever 
 came; . . . which brought our men to be 
 most feeble wretches. Our food was but a 
 small can of barley sod (cooked) in water, 
 
CAPTAIN NEWPORT'S DEPARTURE. 103 
 
 to five men a day. Our drink, cold water 
 taken out of the river ; which was at a flood, 
 very salt, at a low tide, full of slime and 
 filth : which was the destruction of many of 
 our men. . . . Thus we lived for the space 
 of five months in this miserable distress 
 not having five able men to man our bul- 
 warks upon any occasion. '^ 
 
 The lack of proper leadership was shown 
 by these facts. They had been living in 
 rotten tents and even in trees when there 
 should have been houses from the first. 
 They had been starving for the right kind 
 of food in the midst of a fertile country, 
 full of game of all sorts. Then too, another 
 reason for the hard times was that they had 
 stayed at sea five months instead of two, as 
 they expected to do, so using up most of 
 their provisions and landing too late in the 
 spring to take advantage of the best plant- 
 ing time. One of them says very wisely, 
 ''Nothing is so difficult as to establish a 
 commonwealth so far removed from men 
 and means and where men^s minds are so 
 
104 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 untoward as neither to do well themselves 
 or suffer others.'' 
 
 At last so many of the company insisted 
 on the unfitness of Mr. Wingfield to be 
 president that he was deposed and Captain 
 Eatcliffe elected in his place. Many rea- 
 sons were given for this action against 
 Wingfield. Captain Smith says he had so 
 ordered things as to be generally hated in 
 the colony. He and Gosnold, before the lat- 
 ter 's death, had grown to dislike each other 
 cordially. One man says Wingfield had 
 planned to escape in the little boat to Eng- 
 land, taking one or two of the abler men 
 with him so deserting the colonists in their 
 need. Several accuse him of keeping the 
 best of the food during the starving time 
 for his own use and refusing to divide with 
 the others. Wingfield defended himself 
 against all these charges in a letter he sent 
 to England, but whether he was guilty or 
 not he had not been able to govern the 
 unruly adventurers as Captain Newport 
 had been, or to make plans for comfort and 
 
CAPTAIN NEWPORT'S DEPARTURE. 105 
 
 health and permanence of the settlement as 
 Captain Smith did later. He saw this him- 
 self and willingly gave up his office and 
 became a sort of prisoner on the boat where 
 Kendall had been sent. Kendall was set 
 at liberty but recognized as a dangerous 
 person and forbidden to carry arms. 
 
 The Council did not choose wisely the 
 second time. Captain Ratcliffe had shown 
 himself to be faint-hearted on the voyage, 
 and now proved that he could plan for the 
 future no better than Wingfield. The sup- 
 plies the Indians brought were soon ex- 
 hausted and another time of famine would 
 have set in had not the Indians again come 
 to their rescue bringing great store of corn 
 and bread. At the same time, it being early 
 in September, many wild fowl came to the 
 river and soon most of those weakened by 
 lack of food were made well and strong 
 again. But the leaders had not learned 
 from hard experience and none of this 
 abundant provision was stored away nor 
 
106 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 any preparation made for the hard times 
 ahead. 
 
 Captain Martin, President Eatcliffe's 
 chief counsellor, being taken sick Smith 
 was appointed a sort of head of outdoor 
 affairs,— cape merchant, he calls himself. 
 He was given power to plan for building 
 and trading, and from that moment both 
 those activities went briskly on. By his 
 own example and cheerful encouragement 
 he started the colonists to work, — to mow, 
 to make thatch, to build and roof houses. 
 Through all the time of trouble and sick- 
 ness, though at one time very sick himself, 
 he never lost heart and when at last this 
 time came for him to take the lead, he really 
 accomplished something and made the most 
 of the poor material at hand. Tie says the 
 men were constantly complaining and mut- 
 tering and could with great difficulty be 
 persuaded to do anything for their own 
 relief. 
 
 "What Smith was doing now ought to 
 have been done at the very beginning of 
 
CAPTAIN NEWPORT'S DEPxiRTURE. 107 
 
 the settlement; but the large majority of 
 the expedition were explorers and fortune- 
 hunters, instead of wise, persistent, ener- 
 getic colonists, determined to make the best 
 home possible there in the forest. They 
 had not even selected a good place for their 
 encampment as far as health went, for it 
 was on the edge of swampy lands and this 
 accounted partly for all the sickness. Then 
 they had been unfortunate in their leaders. 
 Captain Newport had been wonderfully 
 successful with the Indians and in pacify- 
 ing the quarrelsome adventurers, and in all 
 the records so far we find not one word 
 against him. But he was not one of the 
 company and only with them occasionally. 
 Then Captain Gosnold was much interested 
 in the permanence of the colony and his 
 death came at an unlucky time. He would 
 probably have been a good leader and coun- 
 cilor and is spoken of as a worthy and 
 religious gentleman on whose life depended 
 a good part of the success of the colony. 
 All the others were quarrelsome and more 
 
108 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 or less useless in important matters, with 
 the exception of the man who now comes 
 into power and is the real founder of the 
 colony. 
 
 After Captain Smith was put in charge 
 of these outside affairs and had started the 
 building and planting, he took the little 
 boat and sailed up and down among the 
 Indian villages near by, trading for corn. 
 Even Wingfield testified that in this way 
 he relieved the company well. Although he 
 did not know the language and lacked the 
 proper number of sailors to manage the 
 boat and also guns and necessary clothing 
 for his men, still he was not discouraged 
 and started cheerfully on his experiments. 
 First he visited the small town of Kecough- 
 ' tan, now Hampton. ** where at first they 
 scorned him as a half-starved man, yet he 
 so dealt with them that the next day they 
 loaded his boat with corn.'' This dealing 
 consisted in meeting scorn with scorn and 
 refusing to trade for the poor bits of 
 food the savages first offered, asking the 
 
CAPTAIN NEWPORT'S DEPARTURE. 109 
 
 English for their coats and hatchets in 
 exchange! At the same time that he re- 
 fused to trade Smith gave to the children 
 and to some kindly natives the trifles they 
 so admired— beads, little pocket-knives, &c. 
 Then next day he came back to the shore 
 and being met in a somewhat unfriendly 
 manner by the Indians, fired a few shot 
 at them and pulling the boat on shore fol- 
 lowed the fleeing natives to the town. 
 When they reached the houses the sav- 
 ages had entirely disappeared and Smithes 
 men were eager to seize the heaps of corn 
 they saw on every side. But their leader 
 knew better and ordered them to be ready 
 for the attack which would soon come. 
 Sure enough in a very few moments a 
 cro^ d of savages appeared from the woods 
 making a hideous noise. There were sixty 
 or seventy of them painted in different 
 colors, black, white and red. They came 
 on in the form of a square, singing and 
 dancing and carrying before them their 
 idol or okee, which was made of skins 
 
110 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 stuffed with moss and all painted and hung 
 with chains of shells and copper. They 
 charged the English with clubs, bows, and 
 arrows, but were, as Smith says, so kindly 
 received with musket shot that several fell 
 to the ground, the rest fled, and the idol 
 was captured. 
 
 This was a terrible blow to the super- 
 stitious savages and very soon some of the 
 principal Indians came back to treat for 
 peace and beg that their okee be restored. 
 Smith said that if six of them would come 
 unarmed and load his boat, he would be 
 their friend, give them back the idol and 
 also beads, copper, and hatchets. They 
 immediately agreed to this and brought 
 him venison, wild-fowl, turkeys, and 
 bread. Smith on his part faithfully per- 
 formed his side of the bargain, and when 
 they left the savages were singing and 
 dancing in sign of friendship. 
 
 On the way back they met two canoes full 
 of Indians who came aboard the shallop 
 eager to trade. As they had only their 
 
CAPTAIN NEWPORT'S DEPARTURE. Ill 
 
 hunting provisions with them they urged 
 the English to visit their village, Weras- 
 koyack, and there Smith succeeded in ob- 
 taining more corn. In this way he returned 
 to Jamestown with thirty bushels ^^ which 
 gave great comfort to our despairing com- 
 pany. ' ' 
 
 While Smith was away affairs at the 
 settlement had gone from bad to worse. 
 He found when he came back that the 
 beads, knives, and hatchets, the objects he 
 had so carefully kept for trading at the 
 same time trying to impress the Indians 
 with their value, had been carelessly given 
 away. Then too, for the next few weeks, 
 the English went on living from hand to 
 mouth, making no plans and working only 
 when forced to. For these reasons it 
 seemed wise to Smith to plan for a longer 
 trading trip in order to lay in supplies for 
 the winter. So he asked that the pinnace 
 be carefully repaired, and while this was 
 being done he went oif again to see if he 
 could find corn in some of the other small 
 
112 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 villages, there being provision for only 
 fourteen days left in the storehouse. 
 
 Starting out with six or seven men he 
 found the natives either timid or churlish. 
 In one place there were only women to be 
 seen ; the braves were probably off on some 
 hunting expedition. These women ran 
 away into the woods, and though there was 
 much corn about. Captain Smith felt that 
 he had no commission to rob them, so came 
 away empty-handed. In the next town the 
 Indians traded very unwillingly and when- 
 ever they could would try to steal from 
 the English, even their coats and swords. 
 Then, when they were repulsed, they 
 would threaten an attack with their bows 
 and arrows. So, constantly on the defen- 
 sive and warding off such attacks, Captain 
 Smith came back to the fort with only 
 about ten bushels of corn. 
 
 The English had always to be on guard 
 against the savages' readiness to steal. 
 Smith soon learned that the ^^ people 
 steal anything that comes near them; yea, 
 
CAPTAIN NEWPORT'S DEPARTURE. 113 
 
 are so practiced in this art, that looking in 
 our face, they would with their feet between 
 their toes, convey a chisel, knife, percer, 
 or any indifferent light thing, which having 
 once conveyed, they hold it an injury to 
 take the same from them. They are nat- 
 urally given to treachery.'' 
 
 The small result of these two trips and 
 the fact that whatever Captain Smith pro- 
 vided the rest carelessly spent, made the 
 longer journey he was planning for, quite 
 necessary. How he succeeded and what 
 he suffered we shall learn in the next 
 chapter. 
 
VIII. 
 
 DiSCOVEKIES ON THE ChICKAHOMINY^ AND 
 
 Capture of Smith. 
 
 On the 9th of November Captain Smith 
 set out on his voyage of discovery up the 
 Ghickahominy River, where it was reported 
 he could find large stores of corn, and near 
 whose banks the real Powhatan lived. 
 For it seemed that the great chief on the 
 James river who had entertained them and 
 with whom they had made a treaty was 
 only a son of the very great Powhatan. 
 
 Smith took with him eight men in the 
 barge, leaving the pinnace to follow with 
 five sailors and two men who should help 
 in caring for the great quantity of provi- 
 sions he hoped to bring back. That same 
 night they came to Paspahegh where they 
 
 114 
 
DISCOVERY ON CHICKAHOMINY. 115 
 
 had traded before and where they were 
 again received with kind greetings. There, 
 Smith says, he showed them what copper 
 and hatchets he would give in exchange for 
 corn and each family sought to satisfy him. 
 As much as he wanted he could buy and at 
 last with his usual sagacity he left them to 
 go further up stream, lest these generous 
 natives should see how much he really 
 needed supplies and so demand more 
 hatchets in exchange. 
 
 At the next stopping place the English 
 found a town of about forty houses and 
 further on more towns, in all of which they 
 were kindly used and could have loaded a 
 ship with corn, so great was the abundance 
 and so willing were the natives to trade. 
 Then they returned to Paspahegh and 
 thinking of the great need of corn at the 
 fort. Smith hurried back, reaching there 
 at midnight. Next morning he unloaded 
 seven hogsheads into the storehouse. In 
 the same way he made two more short trips 
 to the little towns near the river's mouth 
 
116 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 where he always found the same desire on 
 the part of the Indians to trade. He also 
 found and shot much wildfowl, terrifying 
 the Indians greatly with his gunfire. But 
 each time he went back to the fort, thinking 
 it wiser just then to supply their immediate 
 needs than to undertake a longer journey. 
 
 In these different returns to the fort 
 Smith found affairs always in an upset 
 state, and that conspiracies and ^^disgust- 
 ful brawls'' had constantly occurred in his 
 absence. The pinnace had not followed 
 him as he ordered, but became the subject 
 of several plots. First, President Bat- 
 cliife and Captain Martin, who had recov- 
 ered from his long illness, decided to go 
 to England in it for supplies,— a crazy 
 scheme which Smith finally made them 
 give up. For if they were to get stores 
 for the winter and find out much about 
 the surrounding country they needed a 
 sailboat above everything. Besides, they 
 could not afford to lose any men. 
 
 Then Wingfield and Kendall, both in dis- 
 
DISCOVERY ON CIIICKAHOMINY. 117 
 
 grace, had plotted to steal the boat and 
 escape in her and had even succeeded in 
 winning over some of the sailors — so great 
 was everybody's hatred of Katcliffe — when 
 Smith again returned in the nick of time. 
 He found that this plot was a far-reaching 
 one. Captain Ratcliife had had a quarrel 
 with the blacksmith— a most undignified 
 fight— in which he, the president, struck 
 the smith who attempted to strike back 
 with one of his tools. For this rebellious 
 act the man was sentenced to be hanged 
 and on the scaffold confessed to a mutiny 
 of which Captain Kendall was the head. 
 This accusation brought Kendall to trial. 
 He was found guilty and shot. All these 
 things Smith calls disgustful hraivls, and 
 certainly we must agree with him. 
 
 But in spite of all their quarrels, some 
 of the conditions were certainly improving. 
 The men now, thanks to Smith's activity, 
 had houses to live in ; there was plenty of 
 corn in store and the river was full of 
 swans, geese, ducks, and cranes ; while the 
 
118 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 men daily feasted on good bread, Virginia 
 pease, and pumpkins, fish, fowl and dif- 
 ferent kinds of wild beasts, ^^fat as we 
 could eat them.'' This plenty put an end 
 to most of the complaints and also to the 
 plans to go back to England, and the coun- 
 cil urged Captain Smith to go further in 
 the voyages he had started, and discover 
 the sources of the Chickahominy and per- 
 haps a passage to the Western ocean. 
 
 He started again therefore on the ex- 
 plorations which he says he had neglected 
 because of the immediate need for pro- 
 visions at the fort, and found the first forty 
 miles up the river easy sailing. The 
 stream he reported to be about a quarter 
 of a mile broad with at first many marshy 
 places, then fertile corn-lands, many peo- 
 l^le, and great abundance of game. At iho 
 end of the forty miles there were numerous 
 islands, then the river grew narrower, and 
 ten miles further up he found a great tree 
 growing amidstreams which he had to cut 
 in two before he could get by. Soon the 
 
DISCOVERY ON CIIICKAHOMINY. 119 
 
 stream grew so swift and narrow it became 
 dangerous to take a large boat further, and 
 talking it over with his men, Smith resolved 
 to leave the barge at a town they had just 
 passed and hire a canoe. He wished if 
 possible to discover the source of the river 
 and also to make it impossible for his 
 enemies at the fort to say he did not dare 
 to go on. It was a good deal of an adven- 
 ture for the whole country from this point 
 on seemed to be a vast wild desert with only 
 this one little town for headquarters. 
 
 Next day the canoe was hired, and taking 
 with him two Indians to guide and paddle 
 and two of his own men. Smith left the 
 barge and the other seven men at the town 
 and set forth into the wilderness. It seemed 
 a great risk to take to trust himself entirely 
 to these Indians, especially since the Eng- 
 lish had come to know so well their treach- 
 ery. But Captain Smith in his dealings with 
 them had always kept his word and had 
 always succeeded in finally making them 
 do what he wished. The guides he chose 
 
120 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 were very friendly, and then he desired 
 above everything else to make some dis- 
 coveries which should interest people in 
 England and make them think that the 
 colony in Virginia was worth while sup- 
 porting. He hoped to find a lake, the salt 
 sea, or mountains with copper in them. 
 Instead of these he found our favorite 
 Indian princess, Pocahontas. And this is 
 how he found her. 
 
 For the next twenty miles the river kept 
 its breadth and depth but was full of trees, 
 so that a passage through them was made 
 with great difficulty. At the end of this 
 distance, the land still wild and deserted 
 in appearance, they went ashore to rest. 
 "While a meal was being prepared. Smith 
 walked away from the river for some dis- 
 tance to examine the nature of the country 
 and to search for food, taking one Indian 
 with him as guide. He ordered the two 
 men he had left with the canoe to fire off a 
 gun if an Indian was anywhere seen. 
 
 After they had been walking in the for- 
 
DISCOVERY ON CHICKAHOMINY. 121 
 
 est for some time, Smith suddenly heard 
 behind him a loud cry and Indians shout- 
 ing. Supposing that his two companions 
 had been betrayed by the other guide and 
 surprised by a band of Indians, he seized 
 the Indian with him and fastened the 
 man's wrist to his own with a garter, 
 meaning to use him as a protection if at- 
 tacked. But the guide seemed entirely ig- 
 norant of any plot and advised Smith to 
 escape. While they talked an arrow struck 
 Smith on the right thigh but did no harm. 
 Then he saw two savages at a little dis- 
 tance drawing their bows, and shot and 
 killed one of them before they could fire. 
 Others soon appeared and many arrows 
 were shot, but so greatly did the savages 
 fear Smith's gun they did not dare come 
 near enough to make their arrows effective 
 and they all fell short. At the same time 
 Smith protected himself with the guide 
 who stood by him manfully and made no 
 effort to get away. 
 At last our hero found himself sur- 
 
122 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 rounded by about two hundred men led by 
 that treacherous and cruel chief, Opechan- 
 canough. They all drew their bows but did 
 not fire, for they seemed eager to take 
 Smith alive and begged him to put down 
 his arms. The guide acted as interpreter 
 in discussing conditions of peace. He said 
 Smith was a great captain and wished to 
 go back to his boat. The Indians on their 
 side demanded his arms and said the other 
 English were killed. Smith was all this 
 time drawing away from the Indians and 
 hoped to be able to escape— for he saw in 
 how great terror they were of his gun, when 
 suddenly he stepped into a bog pulling his 
 guide after him, and there he stuck fast. 
 There seemed nothing to do then but trust 
 to the mercy of the Indians; so he threw 
 down his arms and gave himself up to his 
 captors who led him in triumph to their 
 king. Smith presented this proud mon- 
 arch with a pocket compass which so 
 amazed and delighted him that he allowed 
 his prisoner to tell him about the round- 
 
DISCOVERY ON CHICKAHOMINY. 123 
 
 ness of the earth and the movements of 
 the heavenly bodies. The Indians believed 
 the earth to be round and flat, with them- 
 selves in the middle and were much in- 
 terested in this queer new idea. 
 
 After this oration the savages tied him 
 to a tree and tested his courage by pretend- 
 ing to prepare to kill him ; but he stood the 
 test stoically. Then using him kindly, they 
 led him back to his canoe where one of his 
 companions lay dead with about forty ar- 
 rows in his body. All through the woods 
 there were campfires, which proved to 
 Smith that a party hunting deer had cap- 
 tured him, and not braves on the war-path. 
 That may have been one reason why they 
 treated him with kindness. At the town 
 only six miles distant, the women and chil- 
 dren came out to meet them, for they had 
 heard in some way of the capture of a fa- 
 mous chief. It was a great feat among the 
 Indians to take a chief prisoner and they 
 believed Smith to be the great chief of the 
 white men, as indeed he was. 
 
124 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 The town they came to seemed a sort of 
 encampment, for the houses were made like 
 arbors hung with mats and could be taken 
 down easily when they wished to go further. 
 The triumphal procession entered the vil- 
 lage with great ceremony. First came 
 King Opechancanough well guarded by 
 twenty bowmen, after him two men with 
 swords, then the prisoner between two bow- 
 men, and then all the braves following in 
 good order. When they reached the midst 
 of the village there was a dance, — the In- 
 dians had dances to celebrate all occasions, 
 — and then each hunter went to his own 
 house. 
 
 In this dance, whether it was a regular 
 hunting ceremony or one of triumph we 
 do not know, the braves formed a circle 
 and danced around shouting and singing, 
 then yelling and screeching. Each man 
 had his quiver of arrows and at his back 
 a club, on his arm a fox or otter skin, 
 and on his head the skin of a bird with 
 wings outspread, and tied to this a piece of 
 
DISCOVERY ON CHICKAHOMINY. 125 
 
 copper, a white shell, a long feather, or a 
 snake's rattle. Their heads and shoulders 
 were painted red, ** which scarlet color 
 made an exceeding handsome show.'' All 
 this while Smith and the king stood in the 
 midst guarded as before; and after three 
 dances they all departed. Smith they ^ ^ con- 
 ducted to a long house where thirty or forty 
 tall fellows did guard him; and ere long 
 bread and venison was brought him that 
 would have served twenty men." But he 
 says he did not feel much like eating, every- 
 thing was too strange and uncertain. 
 
 Next morning came three women, bring- 
 ing again more than he could possibly eat, 
 so that he began to suspect that they were 
 fattening him in order to eat him. But 
 they gave him back his clothing and what- 
 ever had been taken from him, and he tells 
 us, did ^*what they could devise to content 
 me, and still our longer acquaintance in- 
 creased our better affection." 
 
 A day or two later came the first threat. 
 
 A savage came to Smith's lodging and 
 
126 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 tried to kill him but was prevented by the 
 guards. It was reported to the king who 
 said that this was the father of one of the 
 hunters whom Smith had killed, and he 
 wished to avenge his son's death. At the 
 request of the captive they led him to the 
 wigwam where the young man lay dying, 
 and in answer to their prayers to him to 
 save his victim's life. Smith said it was not 
 possible there, but that he had at James- 
 town a medicine which would accomplish 
 the cure if they would allow him to go and 
 fetch it. The Indians were too crafty 
 themselves to be caught in any such way, 
 but offered to send and get for him such 
 things as he should need. At the same 
 time they made great preparations to 
 storm Jamestown, begging their prisoner 
 for advice on the subject, and promising 
 him life and liberty if he would betray his 
 countrymen. They also wished to adopt 
 him into the tribe and offered him many 
 inducements to join them. He refused 
 their offers courteously enough, and for 
 
DISCOVERY ON CHICKAHOMINY. 127 
 advice told them that the English had 
 many and great guns and engines that 
 killed numbers of men at once. His vivid 
 descriptions so terrified them that they 
 gave up their plans for the time being, and 
 in spite of the bitter winter weather, made 
 ready to carry Smith's messages to the 
 fort. 
 
 He therefore wrote to those at the settle- 
 ment the plans of the Indians and bade 
 them be on their guard. At the same 
 time he asked that certain things be sent 
 him by the messengers. The Indians went 
 accordingly to the fort, but in great fear ; 
 and soon to their fear was added wonder 
 when after delivering this bit of paper they 
 found an answer just as Smith said they 
 would. Neither they nor their chiefs at 
 the village could decide whether Smith was 
 a magician and could foretell the future, or 
 whether he had made the paper talk. 
 Moreover the English did as Smith ad- 
 vised in the message, and made a show 
 of their arms and ammunition, and the sav- 
 
128 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 ages came back to impress upon their tribe 
 the supernatural powers of the white men. 
 The day after the message was sent to 
 Jamestown, the hunting party took down 
 its village of mats and the prisoner was 
 led about from town to town; and in each 
 one he heard more rumors of the power of 
 the great Powhatan whom he still believed 
 to be at the Falls of the James. One of 
 the towns where they stopped for a few 
 days had been visited before by white men. 
 A ship once entered the river on the banks 
 of which the town stood, and the sailors 
 were kindly entertained by the chief and 
 his people. This kindness was not returned 
 by the English, for they slew the king and 
 robbed the town, then sailed away. The 
 Indians of that town therefore, when they 
 heard of Captain John Smith, thought he 
 might be the very white man who had 
 treated them so basely, and wished to see 
 him in order to find out. Happily they 
 were satisfied that he was not the same 
 Captain, or this story might never have 
 
DISCOVERY ON CHICKAHOMINY. 129 
 
 been written. About this time the mes- 
 sengers came back and the savages, more 
 convinced than ever that Smith had magical 
 powers, began to ''entertain him with most 
 strange and fearful conjurations." I am 
 going to give an account of one curious 
 ceremony exactly as Smith wrote it down 
 in his History of Virginia. 
 
 ''Early in the morning a great fire was 
 made in a long house, and a mat spread on 
 the one side, as on the other; on the one 
 they caused him to sit and all the guard 
 went out of the house, and presently came 
 skipping in a great grim fellow all painted 
 over with coal mingled with oil ; and many 
 snakes and weasels skins stuffed with moss, 
 and all their tails tied together so that they 
 met on the crown of his head in a tassel ; 
 and round about the tassel was as a coronet 
 of feathers, the skins hanging round about 
 his head, back, and shoulders, and in a man- 
 ner covered his face; with a hellish voice 
 and a rattle in his hand. With most 
 strange gestures, he began his invocation 
 
130 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 and environed the fire with a circle of meal, 
 which done three more such like devils 
 came rushing with the like . . . tricks, 
 painted half black, half red; but all their 
 eyes were painted white, and some red 
 strokes along their cheeks ; round about him 
 those fiends danced a pretty while, and 
 then came in three more as ugly as the rest, 
 with red eyes and white streaks over their 
 faces ; at last they all sat down right against 
 him ; three of them on the one hand of the 
 chief priest, three on the other. Then all 
 with their rattles began a song, which 
 ended, the chief priest . . . began a short 
 oration; at the conclusion they all gave a 
 short groan, then laid down three grains 
 more. After that, began the song again, 
 and then another oration ever laying down 
 so many corns as before till they had twice 
 encircled the fire; that done, they took a 
 bunch of little sticks prepared for that pur- 
 pose, continuing still their devotion, and 
 at the end of every song and oration, they 
 laid down a stick between the divisions 
 
DISCOVERY ON CIIICKAHOMINY. 131 
 
 of corn. Till night neither he nor they did 
 eat or drink ; and then they feasted merrily 
 with the best provisions they could make. 
 Three days they used this ceremony; the 
 meaning whereof they told him, was to 
 know if he intended them well or no. The 
 circle of meal signified their country, the 
 circles of corn the bounds of the sea, and 
 the sticks his country.'' 
 
 After this an amusing thing happened: 
 the savages brought a treasure to show to 
 their prisoner. It was a bag of gunpowder 
 which they had stolen at some time and 
 they told him they were saving it till the 
 spring in order to plant it as they did 
 corn, and see what kind of seed it was. 
 They also brought him a pistol and asked 
 him to show them how to shoot at a mark, 
 but Smith broke it as if by accident. He 
 knew that just as soon as the Indians 
 learned the use of fire-arms much of the 
 power of the English over them would be 
 lost. 
 
 Two days later, about January 5th, 1608, 
 
132 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 they reached the town of Werowocomoco 
 where lodged the great emperor and where 
 Smith met with the most exciting adven- 
 ture of his life. And of this and of Poca- 
 hontas I shall tell you in the next chapter. 
 
IX. 
 
 The Story of Pocahontas. 
 
 When Smith and his captors reached 
 this famous town they were received with 
 much pomp and ceremony. They found 
 the emperor sitting or rather lying in state 
 upon a great bedstead-like structure about 
 one foot high on ten or twelve mats. There 
 were many chains of pearls around his 
 neck and his robe was of raccoon skins. 
 About him were grouped his chief coun- 
 sellors and attendants, making quite an ar- 
 ray, and all gazed at Smith as if he were 
 some strange monster. 
 
 Powhatan was an old man about seventy 
 and had a grave and majestic countenance 
 which filled Smith with admiration. He 
 welcomed the famous prisoner with kindly 
 
 133 
 
134 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 words, and assured him that he possessed 
 the great chief's friendship and would in 
 a few days regain his liberty. After a great 
 platter of food had been offered Captain 
 Smith and one of the women had brought 
 water to wash his hands and a bunch of 
 feathers instead of a towel to dry them, 
 the king began to talk to him about many 
 things. He seemed to be much impressed 
 with what the captive had told the chief 
 Opechancanough about his compass and 
 wished to hear all that again. The only 
 emotion which the Indians were not 
 ashamed to show was curiosity ; and in the 
 dealings of the English with them they 
 were as curious as children about all the 
 strange articles, useful or otherwise, which 
 the strangers brought with them. 
 
 Then Powhatan asked the question most 
 important to them all— why did he come? 
 What did this powerful white people from 
 beyond the seas wish with the Indians' 
 land! You remember that the Indians on 
 the James River had murmured at the 
 
THE STORY OF POCAHONTAS. 135 
 
 planting and that their chief had tried to 
 quiet them. Now Powhatan expresses the 
 suspicions of his followers as well as his 
 own curiosity by this question. And here, 
 Smith drew upon his imagination and told 
 an ingenious tale. He said that they had 
 had a fight on the sea with their enemy, the 
 Spaniard, and had been overpowered. A 
 storm had driven them to this shore of Vir- 
 ginia and there the Indians had in one 
 place shot at them, in another treated them 
 with kindness; but finally when they had 
 asked where they could get fresh water, 
 they had been told to sail up the river for 
 there it was all fresh. At Paspahegh they 
 had been forced to leave the pinnace which 
 had become leaky; they stopped there to 
 mend her until Captain Newport, their 
 father, should come to lead them away. 
 
 But Powhatan was not satisfied ; why did 
 Captain Smith come further up the river 
 in a small boat? He answered that they 
 had heard of another salt sea beyond, and 
 wished to find it; also that a boy of Cap- 
 
136 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 tain Newport's had been killed and they 
 wished to find the ones who had done this 
 wrong and take vengeance. 
 
 After some thought Powhatan began to 
 describe to his prisoner all the country 
 beyond them as far as he knew it. He said 
 that above the falls the river was some- 
 times brackish where it dashed among the 
 rocks, especially after a storm. This may 
 have made some travelers think that it was 
 connected with some body of salt water; 
 Smith himself continued to believe that 
 they should find a passage to the western 
 ocean if they journeyed a little farther. 
 Then the emperor went on to say that at 
 the head of the bay lived a cruel tribe who 
 had killed the white man 's brother, and his 
 death Powhatan himself would avenge. 
 Near this tribe lived another, very warlike, 
 who ate men. Many other tribes and re- 
 gions he described, evidently very proud 
 of the fact that they were all part of his 
 domain, and also plainly unwilling that the 
 white men should go any further. 
 
THE STORY OF POCAHONTAS. 137 
 
 Smith in reply described to the wonder- 
 ing chief all the territories which were sub- 
 ject to the king of England, the noise of 
 his trumpets, and the terrible manner of 
 fighting under Captain Newport whom 
 Smith called his father and the ^^king of 
 all the waters/' He had evidently caught 
 the poetic Indian fashion of nicknames. 
 At this story of greatness, Powhatan 
 *' admired and not a little feared, '^ and 
 begged Smith to persuade the English to 
 abandon Jamestown and come to live with 
 him upon his river. He promised to give 
 them corn, venison, and whatever they liked 
 to eat. They in return should make him 
 hatchets and copper and none should dis- 
 turb them. And Smith promised to do 
 what he could to bring this about. 
 
 But in spite of all this friendly talk and 
 the many professions of confidence, the 
 Indian Braves were preparing quite a dif- 
 ferent sort of entertainment. After a long 
 consultation, two huge stones were set 
 down in front of Powhatan. Then as 
 
138 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 many as could laid hands on the prisoner, 
 dragged him to the stones, and laid his 
 head upon them. They then stood ready 
 with their clubs to beat out his brains— a 
 rather common method of execution. But 
 at that moment the king's daughter, Poca- 
 hontas, being at this time about thirteen 
 years old, rushed out from the women's 
 quarters, and in spite of all attempts to 
 stop her, took the captive's head in both 
 her arms and laid her own down upon it. 
 This effectually stopped the execution, for 
 the savages standing near by would not 
 touch her to take her away as she was the 
 king's daughter, and the king experienced a 
 change of heart. We are sure he was glad 
 to give in to her entreaty for he must have 
 been touched by the bravery as he was in- 
 terested in the wisdom of the white cap- 
 tain. He accordingly ordered the savages 
 to put down their clubs, and he himself 
 renewed his invitation to Captain Smith to 
 come to their camp and make hatchets for 
 him and bells and beads for his daughter. 
 
THE STORY OF POCAHONTAS. 139 
 
 Nor did he mean to make a servant of his 
 captive; for Smith says, ^^the king himself 
 will make his own robes, shoes, bows, ar- 
 rows, pots; plant, hunt, or do anything so 
 well as the rest.'' 
 
 This is the last we hear of Pocahontas 
 for some time ; what went before and after 
 this single incident of Captain Smith's cap- 
 tivity we can only imagine. Like all truly 
 brave men, John Smith was kind and 
 chivalrous to women and children and j^rob- 
 ably had won the young Indian girl's heart 
 by his gentleness when talking to her and 
 showing her his trinkets. For all the 
 women were very curious about the strange 
 prisoner and no doubt came often to peer 
 at him in his lodging, Pocahontas among 
 them. She is spoken of later as Pow- 
 hatan's dearest daughter, so we are not 
 surprised that her influence with her father 
 prevailed to save Smith's life. 
 
 It was an Indian custom— Cooper speaks 
 of it in some of his novels— to adopt brave 
 men into a tribe at the request of any mem- 
 
140 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 ber. Powhatan had twice shown his eager- 
 ness to count Smith as one of his subjects, 
 and now two days after the attempted 
 execution, perhaps at the request of his 
 daughter, went through a strange ceremony 
 which meant more than a mere treaty of 
 friendship. He caused Captain Smith to 
 be taken to a house in the woods and there 
 left alone on a mat by the fire. Not long 
 after from behind another mat which 
 divided the house into two parts, came the 
 most doleful noise he had ever heard ; then 
 Powhatan, disguised in a most fearful 
 manner, more like a devil than a man— and 
 with some two hundred more as black as 
 himself, came out and told Smith that now 
 they were friends and that when he should 
 go to Jamestown he should send back two 
 great guns and a grindstone. In exchange 
 for these gifts the king would give him the 
 country of Capahowosick and forever es- 
 teem him as his son, Nantaquod. This new 
 name was a proof that the adoption was 
 complete. 
 
THE STORY OF POCAHONTAS. 141 
 
 The next day he was freed from his cap- 
 tivity and set out for Jamestown. In one 
 place Smith tells us he had four guides to 
 take him back to the fort, in another he 
 says he had twelve. But few or many, they 
 were so convinced of the deadly nature of 
 the English arms that they could not be 
 persuaded to approach the fort that day; 
 and as the journey through the woods was 
 only twelve miles long, they trifled away 
 the rest of the afternoon, and insisted on 
 spending the night in some old hunting 
 lodges near the village of Paspahegh. 
 There Smith expected every hour to be put 
 to death, as he had expected it all through 
 his imprisonment, but without doubt Pow- 
 hatan's orders to the guides had been very 
 strict— to deliver his adopted son in safety 
 to his friends. 
 
 Next morning before dawn they started 
 again and in an hour were at the fort 
 where Smith, who had been given up for 
 lost, was welcomed with truest signs of 
 joy. It seems that after he had left the 
 
142 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 barge with the seven men in it and had 
 gone further up the river, the men had dis- 
 obeyed his orders about going on shore and 
 being watchful and had been surprised by 
 some unfriendly Indians and one, George 
 Cassen, had been killed. The others had 
 without doubt escaped to the fort and told 
 their tale, and few expected to see the gal- 
 lant explorer again. 
 
 There was one who did not join in the 
 welcome and that was a Master Archer 
 who had been a troublesome member of 
 the colony from the beginning, conspiring 
 now with this one now with that, and al- 
 ways involved in some quarrel. When Cap- 
 tain Newport left the settlement on his first 
 return to England, he had asked President 
 Wingfield if he feared any disturbance in 
 the colony. Wingfield replied that one 
 might come through Captain Archer, for 
 he was troubled with an ambitious spirit 
 and would make a disturbance if he could. 
 When plans were made to take the pinnace 
 to England he w^as one of the first to plot 
 
THE STORY OF POCAHONTAS. 143 
 
 to go in her and desert the colony, and was 
 loud in all his complaints. 
 
 While Smith was away, President Rat- 
 cliffe had made Archer one of the council, 
 though he had promised the others he 
 would not, and Archer hegan immediately 
 to plot against Captain Smith's life. He 
 succeeded in getting others to listen to the 
 charges he brought against the brave cap- 
 tain, silly though they were. So in the 
 midst of the enthusiastic welcome he was 
 receiving, Smith found that he was on trial 
 for his life, accused of being the cause of 
 the death of the two men he had left in the 
 canoe when he went ashore at Werowoco- 
 moco. 
 
 In the mean time the Indian guides had 
 been kindly received, and that Smith might 
 not seem to break his promise to Powhatan, 
 he otfered to one of them two small can- 
 non and a millstone, all together weighing 
 over 10,000 pounds. While the guides 
 were wondering at the weight of these, 
 Smith caused one cannon to be loaded with 
 
144 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 stones and discharged into the trees, which 
 at that time were covered with ice and 
 snow. At the shot both ice and branches 
 came tumbling down and the great crash 
 so terrified the poor savages that they ran 
 away into the woods half dead with fear. 
 This proved to them as Smith wished it 
 to, that it would be impossible to carry 
 such strange engines through the forest to 
 Powhatan. At last, recovering from their 
 terror, the Indians consented to come back 
 for a conference when the English ^^gave 
 them such toys and sent to Powhatan, his 
 women and children, such presents as gave 
 them in general full content, '' and were a 
 much wiser gift than the one Powhatan had 
 asked for. 
 
 Then Captain Smith turned his attention 
 to his enemies within the fort. He found 
 that he was to be put to death the next day 
 under what they called the Levitical Law, 
 on a trumped-up charge that he was respon- 
 sible for the lives of the men on the expe- 
 dition with him. As I have said before the 
 
THE STORY OF POCAHONTAS. 145 
 
 whole thing was devised by Archer in order 
 to get rid of him. He also found that there 
 had been another plan among some of them, 
 probably Ratclitfe and Archer, to escape 
 in the pinnace to England. Altogether 
 '^they were all in combustion '' as the 
 chronicle has it, when their hearts were 
 cheered and all lives saved by the arrival 
 of Captain Newport from England in his 
 good ship, with men and supplies. This 
 was called the arrival of the First Supply 
 in Virginia, and makes a second chapter 
 in the history of the colony. 
 
 Newport we can well imagine found 
 plenty to do and went to work without 
 delay. First he released Wingfield from 
 the boat where he had been all this time 
 a prisoner and saved his life, Wingfield is 
 sure, by allowing him to live in the town. 
 Then he deposed Archer from the council 
 and put on Master Scrivener, ^'a very wise, 
 understanding gentleman,'' who had come 
 with him from England and was to be a 
 valuable member of the colony. Then hav- 
 
146 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 ing landed and refreshed his men, he 
 employed some of them in building a good 
 storehouse of the right size, others in set- 
 ting up a stove, and most of the sailors in 
 building a church ; up to this time they had 
 had only a pulpit made of boards nailed to 
 a tree. All of these works they finished 
 cheerfully and in short time. 
 
 It is interesting to see how much influ- 
 ence this sturdy sailor had over the quar- 
 relsome colonists. He was not one of their 
 number, so there was no reason why they 
 should be jealous of him; he was a good 
 sea-captain and knew how to make men 
 obey him, and he seemed in every way to 
 be just the sort of umpire they needed. He 
 succeeded where Smith failed in dealing 
 with unruly Englishmen, but he was never 
 so wise as Smith in dealing with the crafty 
 savage. 
 
 Then came a very real blow to the settle- 
 ment. About the 17th of January, it was 
 almost entirely burned down with all the 
 men's clothing, arms, and provisions. The 
 
THE STORY OF POCAHONTAS. 147 
 
 houses were built partly of reeds and 
 burned fiercely, and even part of the pali- 
 sade was destroyed. This happened in a 
 time of extreme frost and many perished 
 for want of a sufficient lodging. One of the 
 saddest things was the loss of good Master 
 Hunt's library and he was left with only 
 the clothes on his back ; yet the record says 
 none ever heard him repine at his loss. 
 Again Captain Newport came to their 
 rescue and saved them from starving with 
 the provisions he brought with him. He 
 also set the men, both sailors and colonists, 
 to work rebuilding. He knew that to keep 
 busy was the best cure for discouragement. 
 
X. 
 
 A Second Visit to Powhatan. 
 
 All this time Powhatan had been sending 
 presents to his adopted son, sometimes as 
 often as every two 'days. With the mes- 
 sengers came Pocahontas bringing deer, 
 turkeys, squirrels, fish, bread and raccoon 
 skins, half for Captain Smith and half for 
 his father. Captain Newport, whom the 
 Indians much desired to see. At the same 
 time they brought urgent requests that 
 Smith would come to fetch the corn that 
 belonged to him and take possession of the 
 country Powhatan had presented to him. 
 The impression of wisdom which Captain 
 Smith had made on the savages by his dis- 
 course on the roundness of the earth and 
 the movements of the heavenly bodies 
 
 148 
 
POCAHONTAS. 
 After a contemporary print. 
 
A SECOND VISIT TO POWHATAN. 149 
 
 seemed to be undiminished, and now Cap- 
 tain Newport's arrival so soon after Smith 
 had said he would come made the super- 
 stitious savages believe him to be an ora- 
 cle. And they followed his word in every- 
 thing, allowing him to fix the price of what- 
 ever they brought to trade. 
 
 But again the jealousy of the others did 
 harm. The president and the council so 
 envied Smith his reputation among the 
 savages— though they all shared the good 
 which came from it— that they tried to 
 assure the Indians, by giving them about 
 four times in trade what Smith had allowed, 
 that they were as much more powerful than 
 he as they were more generous. Then the 
 council had been so overjoyed at the arrival 
 of the ship that they had given the sailors 
 liberty to trade how and when they pleased. 
 And these newcomers were so eager for 
 some of the things the Indians brought that 
 they did not keep at all to the rate Captain 
 Smith had set. It naturally came about 
 therefore that one pound of copper would 
 
150 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 hardly buy what one ounce had been 
 enough for before, and trade was greatly 
 injured. 
 
 On the other hand this generous trading 
 and the presents sent to Powhatan made 
 the old chief believe more than ever in the 
 greatness of Captain Newport, of which 
 Smith had said so much. Soon the invita- 
 tions to the white father to come and visit 
 him became so urgent and so much fuss 
 was made about it, that early in February 
 he, Captain Smith, and the new councilor. 
 Master Scrivener, set out to find the head- 
 quarters of the tribe. When Captain Smith 
 had come back from Powhatan's village 
 after his captivity he had been led through 
 the woods— a much shorter distance. Now 
 they wished to go all the way by water and 
 find out the nature of the river on the banks 
 of which Werowocomoco lay. 
 
 This river was called the Pamunkey and 
 flowed into the bay not far above the mouth 
 of the James. The explorers found to 
 their great joy that the water of the river 
 
A SECOND VISIT TO POWHATAN. 151 
 
 was salt all the way to the village, which 
 was as far from its mouth as Jamestown 
 was from the mouth of the James River. 
 This made Captain Newport think that 
 now at last they had found the entrance to 
 the other ocean. 
 
 When they reached the place, Captain 
 Smith, always on his guard, determined to 
 land first with about twenty men and find 
 out what temper Powhatan was in and if 
 he had any treacherous motive in wishing 
 to see Captain Newport. Marching to the 
 town which lay a mile and a half from the 
 river, they had to cross some marshes and 
 little creeks, and in many places the bridges 
 looked so frail that Smith again suspected 
 some trap. He therefore mingled his men 
 with the chiefs who had been sent to meet 
 him so if anything happened to the bridge 
 it should have upon it both Indians and 
 white men. Some of the Indians seeing his 
 suspicion came up in their canoes and took 
 Smith and a few others to the bank with 
 them. There Smith formed his few 
 
152 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 men into a guard until the others should 
 come safely across, and so never for one 
 moment relaxed his vigilance. He believed 
 that most of the Indian bravery began 
 when they saw weakness in their opponents. 
 
 Then, two by two, the white men marched 
 to Powhatan's house and Smith, entering 
 alone, was received with loud signs of joy. 
 He found Powhatan, **this proud salvage,'* 
 on a throne probably made of mats, and 
 showing such majesty as Smith declares he 
 has not often seen in either a Pagan or a 
 Christian. And when we remember Smith's 
 numberless opportunities of seeing royalty 
 in all the countries he had visited before 
 coming to Virginia it gives us some idea 
 of the stateliness of this Indian chief. 
 
 With a kind countenance Powhatan bade 
 him welcome, and made a place for the 
 white man to sit beside him. Then Smith 
 gave him the presents they had brought, a 
 suit of red cloth, a white greyhound, and a 
 hat, which were received with a long speech 
 of thanks and the public confirmation of a 
 
A SECOND VISIT TO POWHATAN. 153 
 
 lasting league of friendship. After a feast 
 a remarkable conversation took place, for 
 Smith had learned by now enough of the 
 Indian dialect to talk to his host, and be- 
 sides signs were a great part of the Indian 
 language. 
 
 Powhatan began by saying, ^'Your kind 
 visitation doth much content me, but where 
 is your father whom I much desire to see 
 (meaning Newport), is he not with you?'' 
 Smith told him that Captain Newport 
 had stayed on board the boat but would 
 come to visit the chief the next day. 
 
 Then with signs of amusement Powhatan 
 asked his guest where were the fire-arms 
 and the grindstone which he had promised 
 to send him when he went back to James- 
 town. 
 
 Smith answered that according to his 
 promise he had offered two cannon to the 
 guide who had refused to take them. At 
 this the old king laughed aloud and asked 
 that he might have some which weighed 
 less ; he had evidently heard the story from 
 
154 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 his guides and thought no less of Smith 
 for his successful scheming. 
 
 Then Powhatan asked to see the men who 
 had come with him and Smith ordered them 
 to come in, two by two, and stand on guard. 
 At the same time he asked Powhatan for 
 the land which had been promised to him. 
 The king said he should have it but that he 
 expected all these men to lay down their 
 arms at his feet as did his subjects. 
 
 Smith answered that this was a ceremony 
 their enemies desired but never their 
 friends, that next day his father Newport 
 would give a son of his own to the great 
 chief in sign of affection, and that they 
 would subdue Powhatan ^s enemies in the 
 land at the head of the bay, the country of 
 the Monacans, whenever he wished and 
 deliver the land to him. At this the old 
 king seemed much delighted and proclaimed 
 Smith a werowance or subordinate chief of 
 Powhatan, with the same privileges in the 
 land as the Indians themselves. 
 
 Thus with many signs of thanks, Captain 
 
A SECOND VISIT TO POWHATAN. 155 
 
 Smith took his leave expecting to spend the 
 night on the boat with Newport and the 
 others. But on reaching the river he found 
 that contrary to his advice the boat had 
 been allowed to drift down with the tide 
 and could not be found ; and as a storm was 
 gathering the king ordered that the new 
 chief should be conducted to a house nearby 
 and carefully guarded, sending him at the 
 same time a quarter of venison to stay his 
 stomach. During the evening there was 
 another long conversation with Powhatan 
 and all this time, when because of the ab- 
 sence of the boat there was ample oppor- 
 tunity for treachery on the part of the 
 Indians, Smith was never oif his guard and 
 never went alone or unarmed to any point. 
 This is a good example of Captain New- 
 port's stupidity among the Indians, and 
 from now on he seems to understand less 
 and less how to deal with them. 
 
 Next morning, the king conducted his 
 guest to the river and showed him with 
 pride all his canoes, describing how he sent 
 
156 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 them over the bay for tribute, and how 
 many countries paid him tribute in beads, 
 copper, and skins. While they were talking 
 there Captain Newport and Master Scrive- 
 ner came ashore from the boat, which had 
 come back with the tide, leading with them 
 young Thomas Savage, a boy of thirteen, 
 who was to live with the Indians for some 
 time and become very useful as a messen- 
 ger and interpreter. They marched with 
 much ceremony to the king and he received 
 them with the same kindliness he had 
 shown Smith. When the boy was presented 
 to him to be his son he was especially de- 
 lighted, and gave them each one in return 
 a huge basket of beans; Smith explains 
 that, ^^ Victuals you must know is all their 
 wealth and the greatest kindness they could 
 show us.'' Then they spent all day in 
 feasting and speeches,— the Indians' great- 
 est delight, — and the trading was put off 
 till next day. 
 
 After a night on the boat all came ashore 
 again fully armed and bringing the trin- 
 
A SECOND VISIT TO POWHATAN. 157 
 
 kets — hatchets, copper, beads, etc., for bar- 
 ter. Again Powhatan asked why they came 
 armed like enemies, and though Captain 
 Smith satisfied him by sajdng it was the 
 custom. Captain Newport to content the 
 chief sent thirty of the men back to the 
 river. This was so entirely contrary to 
 Smith's way of dealing with this crafty 
 people that he refused to be cut off from 
 these men and from the boat ; either he or 
 Scrivener stayed always near it and all 
 Powhatan's contrivings could not make 
 him give up this plan. 
 
 In the same way he and Newport 
 differed about the trading. Powhatan in 
 a little speech pretended to scorn trade. 
 He said, '^ Captain Newport it is not agree- 
 able with my greatness in this peddling 
 manner to trade for trifles; and I esteem 
 you a great werowance. Therefore lay me 
 down all your commodities together, what 
 I like I will take; and in recompense give 
 you what I think fitting their value. " Now 
 this was an old trick which Smith had 
 
158 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 learned some time ago and he replied 
 scornfully that he would rather know how 
 much Powhatan would give for one hatchet, 
 and told Captain Newport he only wanted 
 to cheat them. But Captain Newport was 
 much impressed with the evident generosity 
 of the great chief and displayed twelve cop- 
 pers to see what he would receive ; whereat 
 Powhatan gave them only as much corn as 
 Smith had obtained on the Chickahominy 
 for the price of one copper. This natu- 
 rally made Smith very indignant ; and wish- 
 ing to bring about a better state of things 
 for the English, he carelessly displayed 
 some trifles, among them some blue beads 
 which he seemed to regard with such pride 
 that the king immediately wanted them 
 more than anything he had yet seen. But 
 Smith told him that they were made of a 
 most rare substance of the color of the 
 skies and that only the greatest kings wore 
 them. This of course made Powhatan 
 desire them all the more, until finally Smith 
 succeeded in buying with a pound or two 
 
A SECOND VISIT TO POWHATAN. 159 
 
 of them about three hundred bushels of 
 corn. Yet, the record says, they parted 
 good friends. 
 
 Several times during their stay Powhatan 
 tried to outwit the English and to get them 
 to give up their arms, but Smith was always 
 ready and more than a match for him, and 
 only Captain Newport was blundering and 
 credulous. In the conversation about the 
 expedition of the English against the 
 Monacans in their country above the falls, 
 Powhatan said he would add a hundred In- 
 dians to the white men's company; then 
 when they had reached the falls the Eng- 
 lish could build boats to go further. This 
 plan impressed Newport greatly as he be- 
 lieved that once above the falls they could 
 find a route to the other ocean; he acted 
 on this belief later and very foolishly, as 
 we shall see. But Smith had no confidence 
 in Powhatan or in the presence of the 
 ocean, and said as much. 
 
 Yet in spite of his well-grounded sus- 
 picions the Indians once or twice showed 
 
160 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 their real affection for the white captain 
 in quite surprising ways. For instance, 
 once when he and Scrivener were caught in 
 the mud in a canoe they had taken to get 
 out to their boat and stuck there, the In- 
 dians plunged into the water and carried 
 them ashore, showing them every atten- 
 tion; so that Smith said ^^this kindness I 
 found when I little expected less than a 
 mischief.'' 
 
 Wliile they were trading and feasting 
 with Powhatan, their neighbor. King Ope- 
 chancanough, sent many messengers, one 
 after another, urging that the white chiefs 
 come to visit him. Powhatan was reluctant 
 to have them leave and Smith suspected 
 plots, so they repeatedly refused, saying 
 that Opechancanough must come to them 
 at Powhatan's Town. Finally the persist- 
 ent chief sent his daughter who said that 
 her father had hurt his leg and could not 
 come, and so the English were at last per- 
 suaded to make the short journey. Smith 
 says that the wily savage came to meet him 
 
A SECOND VISIT TO POWHATAN. 161 
 
 with a natural, kind affection and seemed 
 to rejoice to see him. There also the rare 
 blue beads were very valuable and more 
 corn and venison was obtained, while fine 
 bread and game enough for thirty were 
 given the three leaders, for Scrivener was 
 with them. They then returned to Wero- 
 wocomoco to take leave of Powhatan. The 
 king as a return for the boy, Thomas, pre- 
 sented Captain Newport with a trusty 
 Indian to be his servant and go with him to 
 England; Smith is sure this was that he 
 might learn the strength and condition of 
 the White Man's country. It is interesting 
 to think that old Powhatan planned some 
 day to send an expedition to conquer 
 the lands across the ocean. 
 
 On the 9th of March the little band re- 
 turned to the fort with 250 bushels of corn, 
 and a welcome sight it was to the improvi- 
 dent colonists. They found the president 
 disabled, having shot and fearfully mangled 
 his hand. They also found that the sailors 
 were fast eating up the provisions they had 
 
162 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 brought over on purpose for the colonists, 
 and were selling what was left to them at 
 much more than the food's real value. But 
 worst of all some one had discovered what 
 he thought to be a gold mine and all the 
 talk was of gold. ^^ There was no talk, no 
 hope, nor work but dig gold, wash gold, 
 refine gold, load gold.'' Captain Newport 
 lost his head with the rest of them, and 
 kept the ship there when she should have 
 been on her way back to England while he 
 started a refinery and worked over this 
 gold which was no gold at all. Captain 
 Smith remonstrated with him and told 
 Captain Martin, who could think of nothing 
 else, that unless he could show him a better 
 proof than any they had he. Smith, cared 
 not at all for their ^^ dirty skill." At last to 
 the great content of Smith and one or two 
 of the more able of the colonists the ship 
 took leave, and with her sailed Master 
 Wingfield and Captain Archer ^Ho seek 
 some place of better employment." We 
 are sure Captain Smith breathed a sigh of 
 
A SECOND VISIT TO POWHATAN. 163 
 
 relief when he saw them go, and there is no 
 doubt this wise and far-sighted leader knew 
 that if Ratcliffe and Martin could have 
 gone too, the colony would have been 
 spared much trouble and suffering. 
 
XI. 
 
 Troubles with the Indians. 
 
 Captain Smith with the good help of 
 Master Scrivener now set to work to repair 
 the settlement. Little had been done since 
 the disastrous fire of the January before, 
 for men's minds had been too much taken 
 up with all the gold they hoped to carry 
 back with them to England to think of 
 such prosaic things as housebuilding. The 
 chronicle tells us that these two energetic 
 men divided between them ^*the repairing 
 our pallisadoes, the cutting down trees, 
 preparing our fields, planting our corn and 
 to rebuild our church and recover our store- 
 house.'' 
 
 164 
 
TROUBLES WITH THE INDIANS. 165 
 
 The Indians had become very trouble- 
 some again because of their thieving habits, 
 and no one seemed to have had the energy 
 to put a stop to the constant raids, but ^*he 
 that stole today durst come again the next 
 day.'' Captain Smith took this in hand 
 also and resolved that when an Indian stole 
 he should not dare come anywhere near the 
 fort the next day. So when he found out 
 that one particular savage had the day 
 before stolen two swords he obtained per- 
 mission from the council to punish him; 
 and when he shortly appeared again with 
 three companions, evidently intending to 
 carry off the first thing they could get pos- 
 session of, Smith bade them be off. The 
 thief answered by threatening Smith with 
 his club whereupon he received a sounding 
 blow, and before the others could revenge 
 their leader they were met with such 
 spirited resistance that all turned and fled. 
 Captain Smith, the better to impress them 
 with this lesson, chased them some distance 
 from the settlement, ordering his men to 
 
166 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 fire several shots after them ; and they were 
 a thoroughly scared band of robbers. 
 
 This determined opposition to their thiev- 
 ery was a great surprise to the Indians. 
 Those friendly natives who were helping 
 the English in their repairs redoubled their 
 energies, while the would-be thieves came 
 back in a few days trembling and begging 
 to be friends. The news even travelled as 
 far as the last town the English had visited, 
 thirty miles away, and the king of the place 
 sent back a hatchet which had been stolen 
 while they were with him. As was his cus- 
 tom Smith rewarded the messenger and 
 sent him away well content. 
 
 The 20th of April, while they were plant- 
 ing their corn, an alarm was given and all 
 seized their arms, supposing it to be an- 
 other attack by Indians. To their great joy 
 a ship had been seen, and great was their 
 surprise to welcome Captain Nelson and 
 his good ship Phoenix. He had started out 
 from London with Captain Newport, but 
 had been beaten back by storms and obliged 
 
TROUBLES WITH THE INDIANS. 167 
 
 to seek shelter in the West Indies. All had 
 supposed him lost, but good captain and 
 wise manager that he was, he stayed in 
 the Islands until his ship was well repaired, 
 and while there persuaded the savages 
 to bring him provisions enough for all on 
 board, so that when his ship finally reached 
 Virginia his sailors had not touched the 
 supplies sent over for the settlement. The 
 enthusiasm with which he was welcomed 
 and the admiration for his management — 
 so different from that of the boat which 
 had just left them— was well expressed by 
 one of the settlers : *^He had not anything, 
 but he freely imparted it; which honest 
 dealing (being a mariner) caused us to 
 admire him; we would not have wished 
 more than he did for us." The colonists 
 who arrived with Captain Nelson were a 
 great help, for they brought new life and 
 enthusiasm and took the places of those 
 who were sick or discouraged. 
 
 In order to send back the Phoenix with 
 valuable reports and freight the president 
 
168 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 appointed Captain Smith and Scrivener to 
 lead an exploring expedition of seventy 
 men above the falls into the country of the 
 Monacans where Powhatan was so unwill- 
 ing that they should go. Captain Smith 
 did not think this a very wise plan, yet he 
 was ready to obey the majority of the 
 council and spent six or seven days in 
 training his men,— for there was every 
 chance of meeting hostile Indians. At the 
 end of the week they could march, fight, 
 and skirmish in the woods and were not 
 afraid to encounter the whole of Pow- 
 hatan's force. 
 
 But now that they were almost ready 
 to start came disputes. Captain Nel- 
 son thought the company should pay the 
 hire of his soldiers if they were to be used 
 in exploring, Captain Martin wished to use 
 the fool 's gold as freight for his ship, and 
 the old jealousy of Smith revived and the 
 fear that the fame of all discoveries should 
 belong to him; yet neither Ratcliffe nor 
 Martin dared to go. Captain Smith had all 
 
TROUBLES WITH THE INDIANS. 169 
 
 along thought it the wisest plan to load the 
 ship with cedar as of certain value rather 
 than with dirt, as he called the supposed 
 gold, or the report of this uncertain dis- 
 covery. 
 
 While they were discussing these ques- 
 tions and wasting time in wrangling the 
 Indians began to get troublesome once 
 more. They were like naughty children 
 and did not remember the last punishment. 
 When Captain Newport had taken leave of 
 Powhatan the chief presented him with 
 twenty turkeys asking in return twenty 
 swords which Newport very foolishly sent 
 him. He then gave Captain Smith a sim- 
 ilar present asking the same gift in return, 
 but Captain Smith was too wise to furnish 
 the Indians with arms and put him off with 
 one pretext or another. The desire of the 
 Indians to get these weapons by fair means 
 or foul started the thieving again. 
 
 The orders from England had been strict 
 not to offend the natives, for they were too 
 valuable as traders and guides to be made 
 
170 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 enemies of, but Smith knew that nothing 
 but well-directed force would stop the open 
 and impudent robbery of hatchets, swords 
 and utensils of different kinds. So at his 
 first opportunity he took some of the 
 thieves prisoners. This chance came sev- 
 eral times, for there were many savages 
 skulking around the fort, and some of them 
 behaved in a hostile way even toward Cap- 
 tain Smith. The council at last saw that 
 this was a time for action and ordered 
 about ten of the thieves to be shut up in the 
 fort and securely bound. The Indians 
 finally understanding that the English 
 were determined to be rid once for all of 
 such annoyances, sent messengers to treat 
 for the release of these captives. 
 
 But their repentance was not genuine; 
 for when Captain Smith told them they 
 should bring back what spades, shovels, 
 swords, or tools they had stolen or else the 
 prisoners should hang, they were very 
 angry and planned revenge. Next day two 
 Englishmen hunting near the fort were 
 

TROUBLES WITH THE INDIANS. 171 
 
 seized by the savages and threatened with 
 hanging. This put an end to what little 
 patience Smith had left and he persuaded 
 the council to take severe measures. So 
 that night the barge was manned and going 
 to the nearest village Captain Smith and 
 his men set fire to some huts and destroyed 
 what they could. 
 
 That was language the Indians could 
 understand and next morning they brought 
 back the two Englishmen they had cap- 
 tured. In return one Indian prisoner was 
 released, but the rest were taken bound to 
 morning and evening services each day 
 where they saw all the white men together 
 and armed. Up to this time they had been 
 inclined to scoff and s'ay theiir captors 
 would not injure them, but at the sight of 
 this goodly array of men armed with the 
 guns they so dreaded, their jests turned 
 to trembling. Then Smith tried threats of 
 torture until finally one terrified savage 
 confessed to a great plot among all the 
 chiefs Smith and Newport had visited, even 
 
172 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 old Powhatan himself. This was to obtain 
 possession of all the weapons they could, 
 and then when Captain Newport had re- 
 turned with the Indian who had gone to 
 England with him, to surprise the English, 
 after inviting them to a great feast, and 
 cut all their throats. 
 
 This seemed the more probable, for Pow- 
 hatan had been acting in a suspicious man- 
 ner lately and a few days before had sent 
 the boy, Thomas Savage, to the fort with 
 presents for Smith and the message that 
 he, Powhatan, had heard shooting and 
 feared his country was to be invaded. **We 
 sent him word," says Smith, *^we intended 
 no such thing, but only to seek stones to 
 make hatchets, except his men shot at us; 
 ... if they did shoot but one arrow we 
 would destroy them." The boy was sent 
 back with this message, asking also that one 
 of Powhatan's subjects might be sent to 
 the fort as a guide. In answer to this an 
 Indian called Weanock came to the settle- 
 ment and back with him came Thomas 
 
TROUBLES WITH THE INDIANS. 173 
 
 again, for he had become suspicious of the 
 Indians* plots and they feared to have him 
 spying on them. 
 
 Finally to make sure that this talk of a 
 plot was true, Captain Smith examined 
 several of the prisoners separately and 
 found that there was undoubtedly such a 
 conspiracy. He ordered the soldiers to fire 
 several volleys of shot during his question- 
 ing of the separate captives ; each one, well 
 frightened, thought his companions were 
 being put to death and his own fate would 
 soon follow, so he told what he knew with 
 the greater eagerness. 
 
 Some days later Powhatan sent to the 
 fort the one person he had good reason to 
 suppose would be able to influence Captain 
 Smith, his dearest daughter, Pocahontas, 
 *^the only nonpareil of Virginia," who 
 Smith says, was superior to all in the land 
 not only in beauty of face and figure, but 
 in wit and spirit. The child had been care- 
 fully instructed by her father not to beg for 
 the release of the prisoners but to feign the 
 
174 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 same indifference that an Indian cliief 
 would show, and to give to the white 
 chief some presents, assure him of Pow- 
 hatan's good will, and beg that the boy 
 Thomas be sent back for ^^they loved 
 him exceedingly. ' ^ At the same time Ope- 
 chancanough sent asking that two of the 
 prisoners who were his friends might be 
 released, and many friends and relatives of 
 other captives appeared begging for their 
 freedom. The Indians had learned their 
 lesson that unfriendly behavior only put 
 the English on their guard and made them 
 angry, and they now returned to their old 
 friendly and trustful behavior which 
 brought in return friendly treatment from 
 the English. 
 
 But all the pleaders and messengers 
 except Pocahontas, were sent off unsatisfied 
 and in the afternoon the prisoners were led 
 as usual to the church and after prayers 
 were delivered to her as a sign that her 
 intercession had obtained their release. 
 They were well-fed, as they had been all 
 
TROUBLES WITH THE INDIANS. 175 
 
 through their imprisonment, their bows 
 and arrows returned to them, many trifles 
 such as she liked were given Pocahontas, 
 and all departed well content and with a 
 still stronger friendship, we may well 
 believe, between Captain Smith and the In- 
 dian princess. 
 
 Only one more attempt at perfidy was 
 made at that time by the Indians. A sav- 
 age from Paspahegh came bringing a glit- 
 tering stone, which he said he found in a 
 mine nearby and that he would lead Cap- 
 tain Smith to the place. Smith with one or 
 two others started out, but the Captain's 
 watchfulness detected something suspi- 
 cious in the Indian's manner and story, and 
 at last he refused to go farther. Instead he 
 showed the guide, who was now evidently 
 plotting to betray them, the copper he 
 would have had as a reward if he had done 
 as he promised. Giving him, instead, twen- 
 ty lashes with a rope he gave him back his 
 bows and arrows, which had been taken 
 away from him ; then bidding him shoot if 
 
176 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 he dared, he let him go. Compared with 
 the warfare of the times this was humane 
 treatment on the part of Captain Smith, 
 and tlie charges made against him later of 
 cruelty towards the natives are all the time 
 being disproved. 
 
 It was now the 2nd of June and the men 
 were all in good health, so it was thought 
 well to load the Phcenix with cedar, a valu- 
 able cargo, and send her back to England. 
 Captain Martin, who had been sick and of 
 little use to the colony ever since his com- 
 ing, and was no doubt tired of the hard- 
 ships it was necessary to endure, wished to 
 carry the news of his supposed gold mine 
 back to London, and was most willingly 
 allowed to return. 
 
 The most valuable article in the ship's 
 cargo was Captain Smith 's tirst book which 
 he gave Captain Nelson to deliver to the 
 Virginia Company in London. This had 
 a very long and imposing title, but is usual- 
 ly called ''The True Kelation,'' or ''News 
 from Virginia. '^ Without it we should 
 
TROUBLES WITH THE INDIANS. 177 
 
 not have known many of these facts which 
 are of such real interest now as we learn 
 about the beginnings of our beloved coun- 
 try. In the closing paragraph the brave 
 and energetic writer sums up the state of 
 things in the colony when the Phoenix 
 sailed, and I want to quote his words as 
 he wrote them. 
 
 ^^Wee now remaining being in good 
 health, all our men wel contented, free from 
 mutinies, in love with one another, and as 
 we hope in a continual peace with the In- 
 dians; where we doubt not but by God's 
 gracious assistance, and the adventurers 
 willing minds, and speedie furtherance to 
 so honourable an action, in after times to 
 see our Nation to enjoy a Country, not 
 onely exceeding pleasant for habitation, 
 but also very profitable for comerce in 
 generall; no doubt pleasing to almighty 
 God, honorable to our gracious Soveraigne, 
 and commodious generally to the whole 
 Kingdome. ' ' 
 
 And if all this was true at the beginning 
 
178 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 of that second summer in the year 1608, 
 certainly Captain John Smith was the man 
 who had done most to make it so. 
 
XII. 
 
 The Discovery of Chesapeake Bay. 
 
 When the Phoenix sailed from James- 
 town, Captain Smith and fourteen men, one 
 of whom was a physician, Dr. Eussell, went 
 with it as far as the mouth of the James 
 River. Then in their open barge of three 
 tons' burden, the little company started to 
 explore the great bay they had seen only 
 the mouth of. The fort was left under the 
 rule of Ratcliffe who was masterful and 
 selfish in his methods and used more of the 
 provisions for himself than he had any 
 right to. 
 
 This trip was very much like the others 
 that Smith had taken for discovery or to 
 obtain provisions. Almost immediately 
 after they parted from the Phoenix the ex- 
 plorers, found themselves sailing among 
 
 179 
 
180 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 some little islands whicli they named Smith 
 Isles, and as such they are known to this 
 day. Passing Cape Charles they saw two 
 savages, ^'grim and stout," holding long 
 spear-like poles with bone points. These 
 demanded who the travellers were and what 
 they wished, and finally became very 
 friendly and invited them to visit their 
 village, Accomack. 
 
 The company of white men consented to 
 land and were well received and kindly 
 treated, and found the chief of this tribe to 
 be "the comeliest proper civil savage '^ they 
 had yet encountered. They found here, we 
 are told, good harbors for small boats but 
 not for ships. For in all these excursions 
 about Virginia we find John Smith de- 
 scribing the country with the same care 
 and exactness with which he wrote of the 
 strange lands of the Turks. Now his 
 purpose is to show the company of mer- 
 chants in London how valuable a colony 
 this new land might be made. 
 
 From Accomack they sailed along the 
 
DISCOVERY OF CHESAPEAKE BAY. 181 
 
 coast, noting every bay and headland and 
 all the islands scattered abont to see which 
 ones were fit for harbors and habitations. 
 At one time a storm drove them to the land, 
 and in a search for fresh water they went 
 to another Indian village where the natives 
 at first appeared hostile but under Smith's 
 wise treatment became very friendly. But 
 there was no good water there and the 
 adventurers became* nearly desperate in 
 their need; they would have given its size 
 in gold for a little puddle they had scorned 
 in the last village. At last they came to a 
 high point where was a large fresh-water 
 pond and Smith in his joy named it Point 
 Ployer, for it rescued him in his distress 
 as the noble Earl of Ployer had done years 
 before in France. 
 
 It was a rough voyage for such a small 
 open boat; again they met a storm and 
 were blown about among the islands and 
 forced to patch the torn sails with their 
 shirts. The food was wet and much of it 
 spoiled and altogether the discomfort was 
 
182 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 very: great. When they were most uncom- 
 fortable came another assault by Indians, 
 and these were so hostile it was necessary 
 to disperse them by firing the guns. They 
 of course fled at once at the noise and when 
 the English followed them to their village 
 they found no one there. As their custom 
 was they left a few beads and other trinkets 
 in token of good will, and returned to the 
 boat. In the morning, probably as a result 
 of this generosity, came four savages in a 
 canoe and begged the white strangers to 
 stay. Crowds of women and children see- 
 ing no harm came to the four braves, fol- 
 lowed, and much trading was done. All 
 this took some time, and while Smith was 
 with these Indians he heard them talk 
 about the Massawomeks, a mighty nation, 
 which all the savages praised and feared. 
 This greatly aroused his interest and with 
 no thought of fear he started out to find 
 the new tribe. Thirty leagues to the north 
 they sailed in this search but saw no in- 
 habitants. Captain Smith taking notes con- 
 
DISCOVERY OF CHESAPEAKE BAY. 183 
 
 stantly for his map which he was to send 
 back to London. 
 
 The voyage had now lasted about twelve 
 days and some of the gentlemen adven- 
 turers who had said many boastful things 
 at the start of their own desire for explor- 
 ing and their fear that Captain Smith 
 would turn back before they were ready, 
 began to weaken. They were tired of 
 rowing, — the bread was wet, and they did 
 not want to eat it, — they were more than 
 ready to turn back. The sturdy captain 
 stood their complaints as long as he could 
 and then made them a little speech which 
 showed them their weakness and lack of 
 courage, and shamed them into continuing 
 the journey. 
 
 ** Gentlemen," he said, ^^you remember 
 the history of Sir Ralph Lane and how his 
 company begged him to go on in a certain 
 voyage of discovery, saying they had still 
 a dog which being boiled in sassafras 
 leaves would be enough food till they 
 returned; then what a shame it would 
 
184 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 be for you to force me to return with as 
 much provisions as we have, when we are 
 scarce able to say where we have been, nor 
 yet heard of that we were sent to seek! 
 You cannot say but I have shared with you 
 in the worst that is past ; and for what is to 
 come of lodging, diet, or whatsoever, I am 
 contented you allot the worst part to my- 
 self. As for your fears that I will lose 
 myself in these unknown large waters, or 
 be swallowed up in some storm; abandon 
 these childish fears, for worse than is past 
 is not likely to happen; and there is as 
 much danger to return as to proceed. Re- 
 gain therefore your old spirits, for return 
 I will not (if God please) till I have seen 
 the Massawomeks, found Patawomek, or 
 the head of this water you believe to be 
 endless.'^ 
 
 Thus the courage and good sense of their 
 leader aroused fresh enthusiasm and they 
 went on up the bay for two days more. 
 Then turning back they explored two small 
 rivers where they met many savages, 
 
DISCOVERY OF CHESAPEAKE BAY. 185 
 
 painted and disguised, yelling and dancing 
 and ready for war. But the sound of the 
 white men's guns always quieted these 
 war-like sounds, and trading and exchange 
 of friendly signs followed. In one place 
 they were led to a mine which seemed to 
 contain silver, but the ore and dust which 
 the explorers carried away proved to be 
 of no value. The little company had also 
 been instructed to look for furs and found 
 some of different kinds, beaver, otter, and 
 mink. In one place there were so many 
 fish that the sailors attempted to catch them 
 in a frying pan. But the fish in spite of 
 their number could not be caught— perhaps 
 they guessed what the frying pan was used 
 for— at any rate the men found it a poor 
 instrument to catch fish with. ''Neither 
 better fish, more plenty, nor more variety 
 for small fish had any of us ever seen in 
 any place so swimming in the water, but 
 they were not to be caught with frying 
 pans.*' 
 
 In another place where the fish were 
 
186 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 very numerous, Captain Smith devised a 
 more successful way of catching them by 
 piercing them with his sword. The others 
 followed his example and in that fashion 
 they took more in one hour than they could 
 eat in a day. But while they were doing 
 this an accident happened which might 
 have become a tragedy and put an end to 
 our story. One of the fish which Captain 
 Smith caught on his sword had a long 
 forked tail and was extremely poisonous. 
 The captain did not know this and in tak- 
 ing it off the sword the creature stung him 
 in the wrist. His hand and arm swelled 
 so and the pain became so great that all 
 thought he must die, and they even began 
 at his own direction to dig his grave. 
 
 But Dr. Russell came to the rescue. With 
 some ointment he happily had with him he 
 quieted the pain to such an extent that by 
 supper time our hero was ready to eat 
 this fish which had stung him so severely; 
 thus giving, as one of his companions 
 writes, '^no less joy and content to us than 
 
DISCOVERY OF CHESAPEAKE BAY. 187 
 
 ease to himself.'' They named the island 
 where they were about to dig the grave, 
 Stingray Isle, after the name of this fish, 
 and then as the doctor had no other medi- 
 cines with him and the captain was still 
 suffering from the effects of the poison, 
 it seemed best to set sail for Jamestown. 
 The little company had passed through 
 many perils of storms and hostile natives, 
 but thanks to the seamanship and wisdom 
 of their leader had come safely out of them 
 all. The chronicle sums it all up in 
 these words which give a good descrip- 
 tion of Smith's way of dealing with the 
 natives, *^To express all our quarrels and 
 encounters amongst those savages would 
 be too tedious, but in brief at all times 
 we so met them and curbed their inso- 
 lence that they concluded with presents 
 to purchase peace ; yet we lost not a man ; 
 at our first meeting our Captain ever 
 observed this Order, to demand their 
 bows and arrows, swords, mantles, and 
 furs, with some child or two for hostage 
 
188 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 whereby we could quickly perceive when 
 they intended any villainy." 
 
 They not only lost no man, but all, 
 except the captain, were in good health 
 and spirits. On their way to the fort they 
 stopped at Kecoughtan, the Indian town 
 where they had been so often before. Their 
 savage acquaintances greeted them with 
 amazement, believing because of the Cap- 
 tain's hurt and the amount of furs, bows 
 and arrows, etc., they had on board, that 
 they had been at war ; and they begged to 
 know against which tribes. When the 
 English saw that their story of a peaceful 
 journey would not be believed, they told 
 the credulous natives that they had met 
 and conquered the Massawomeks — whom 
 they had not even seen ; and the Indians be- 
 came more convinced than ever that tliG 
 great white chief was superhuman. 
 
 Then they trimmed up their barge with 
 flags and streamers to make the settlers 
 believe it was a Spanish ship, sailed into 
 Jamestown on the 21st of July, and found 
 
DISCOVERY OF CHESAPEAKE BAY. 189 
 
 things as usual in a sad plight. The men 
 who had come in the Phoenix were all sick ; 
 and no one could do anything but complain 
 of the pride and cruelty of the foolish Rat- 
 cliffe, who had used up the stores for him- 
 self and set the men to work for his own 
 pleasure and not for the settlement. Had 
 not Smith arrived at that moment with 
 news of his discoveries and the hope that 
 this great and beautiful Chesapeake Bay 
 stretched up to the other sea for which 
 they were so constantly searching, it would 
 have gone hard with the worthless Presi- 
 dent. 
 
 The settlers were finally persuaded by 
 Smith to give up their ideas of revenge on 
 the condition, which they made, that he 
 would himself become president of Vir- 
 ginia. To quiet them. Smith consented; 
 but he wished to complete the work he had 
 undertaken and succeeded in substituting 
 in his place Master Scrivener, who was an 
 honest man and his good friend. He 
 himself divided among all equally the 
 
190 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 stores Ratcliffe had taken possession of, 
 and appointed able men to assist Scrivener 
 in governing the young colony. Then 
 he left the settlers to recover their health 
 and to rest from work because of the sum- 
 mer heat and, three days after his landing, 
 sailed off in the little barge with twelve 
 picked men to finish his discovery. They 
 stopped again at Kecoughtan and told the 
 natives they were going to find the Massa- 
 womeks and take vengeance for the former 
 attack. They then set off a few sky-rockets, 
 which so terrified the poor savages they 
 supposed nothing impossible for these won- 
 derful strangers and begged to assist them 
 in their wars. 
 
 In two days' time the barge reached the 
 point where the bay divides, and while ex- 
 ploring these branches the English came 
 upon seven or eight canoes full of Massa- 
 womeks — the people they had been looking 
 for. From now on the trip is one succes- 
 sion of encounters with strange tribes, and 
 of wise stratagems or vigorous and sue- 
 
DTROOVERY OF niMSArKAKM HAY. IIM 
 
 eessful atincks on Ihe |>;irl of llic Kii^^lisli. 
 In iliis (irsi eiicoiiiilcr ;ill Ihc l*]ri;^lisli Iml, 
 fiv(» were loo sick lo H^IjI. ; Iml i\\r ollici-s 
 insicnd of^^ivin^- iip in (l(^si)aii-, laid lli<' in 
 valids in llic holioni oi' llic hoal, uiKlcr a 
 iarj)aulin and jud, llicir lials ii|) on slicks 
 alon^^ llic sides, so llial, llic hoal, sci'nicd Tidl 
 of li^lilin^^ men. This si^hi was loo nnicji 
 Tor IJKi hi-av(> Massawoincks who hniricd 
 to IIk' shoic and slaycd IIktc iijj llie har^(^ 
 Jiad sailed hy, nor conld Ihey he persuaded 
 to approach it. 
 
 At last two of the hraves consented lo 
 K<> <»'d to the har^c in a canoe, the r<'st 
 Hlowly following" to see that they i-eceived 
 no hurt. 1'lie Mn/^lish won th(;ii- heails 
 injniediat(!ly hy presentin^^- Iheni vvilh 
 beads, hc^lls, an<l other tiinkels; and 
 learned hy si^ns that these Indians lia<l 
 just relnrne<| IVoni li;;htin^ anol Ix't- warlike 
 trihe, tli(; 'rockwo;j;lis. The Massawotneks 
 loid them how savage Iliis Irihe was, hnt 
 that only niad(^ ()a|)tain Smith IIh' mor(^ 
 eager lo lind them, and tin; next day tli(5 
 
192 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 English boat sailed up the river leading to 
 their towns. Almost immediately it was 
 surrounded by a number of canoes filled 
 with these armed and fierce warriors. 
 Fighting would certainly have followed 
 had not the English found one Tockwogh 
 brave who could speak the language of 
 Powhatan. They told him that they had 
 just come from a victory over the Massa- 
 womeks, and were then of course received 
 as allies with great rejoicing, and conducted 
 to the various villages. 
 
 Among the houses of the Tockwoghs the 
 white men, interested in all they saw, found 
 pieces of iron and brass which they were 
 told had been taken in war from the Sus- 
 quehannas, who lived two days' journey 
 beyond where the English boat could go. 
 They were eager to see this tribe also and a 
 message was sent from the Tockwoghs 
 asking the Susquehannas to come and 
 meet the white visitors. After three or 
 four days about sixty of them, giant- 
 like people, came bringing presents of veni- 
 
DISCOVERY OF CHESAPEAKE BAY. 193 
 
 son, tobacco pipes three feet in length, 
 baskets, and other articles. 
 
 One of the visitors was a giant indeed 
 and Captain Smith thus describes him: 
 ''The calf of his leg was three-quarters of 
 a yard about; and all the rest of his limbs 
 so answerable to that proportion that he 
 seemed the goodliest man that ever we be- 
 held. His hair on one side was long, the 
 other shore close, with a ridge over his 
 crown like a cockscomb. His arrows were 
 a yard and a quarter long.'' ** These were 
 the most strange people of all those coun- 
 tries, both in language and attire''; for 
 their voices matched their proportions and 
 sounded like an echo from a deep cave. 
 They wore the skins of bears and wolves, 
 often putting their own heads through the 
 animal's neck so that its head hung down 
 in front or behind. Sometimes their to- 
 bacco pipes had prettily carved heads in 
 the form of a bird, bear, or deer, and were 
 heavy enough to beat out the brains of a 
 man. 
 
194 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 Every day the English were accustomed 
 to have a prayer and a psalm read from 
 their prayer-book, as they always did at 
 the fort, and this practice much amazed all 
 the savages. One day after the service 
 was ended the Susquehannas consulted 
 among themselves and then began their 
 own religious ceremony. First they held 
 up their hands to the sun,- singing a *^most 
 fearful song," then turning to Captain 
 Smith began to embrace him and pray to 
 him though he rebuked and tried to stop 
 them. They then covered him with a great 
 bear's skin, hung a chain of huge white 
 beads about his neck, and laid a great 
 mantle of furs and various other offerings 
 at his feet, begging him at the same time 
 to stay with them and rule them and help 
 them against the Massawomeks. ^^But we 
 left them at Tockwogh, ' ' says the chronicle, 
 *^ sorrowing for our departure, yet we 
 promised the next year again to visit 
 them." 
 
 Going on from there, the English gave 
 
DISCOVERY OF CHESAPEAKE BAY. 195 
 
 names to all the capes, islands and head- 
 lands which they passed, and two again 
 remind us of John Smith's early life,— 
 Peregrine's Mount and Willoughhy River, 
 in honor of the town he was born in and 
 the family of Lord Willoughhy, ^^his most 
 honoured good friend/' At the farthest 
 points of the rivers they sailed up they cut 
 crosses in the trees and left in holes in the 
 trees letters and little crosses made of 
 brass, to show anyone who might come that 
 Englishmen had been that way before. 
 
 On the Eapahannock Eiver they met a 
 savage named Mosco, whom they had 
 known before and who warned them 
 against the tribe of the Rapahannocks. 
 But Captain Smith was not to be turned 
 back and for the first time the English ran 
 into a really dangerous ambuscade. The 
 shields the Massawomeks had given them 
 now became very useful, for they hung 
 them all around the sides of the boat mak- 
 ing a sort of breastwork, and though nearly 
 a thousand arrows were shot the English 
 
196 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 escaped without any hurt. They even cap- 
 tured from their foes, who greatly out- 
 numbered them, many canoes which they 
 presented to Alosco who had been of the 
 greatest assistance in the skirmish. 
 
 A day or two later while sailing up 
 another river, they were surprised at see- 
 ing an arrow fall into the boat, though no 
 savage was visible. In a few minutes, how- 
 ever, they made out about a hundred nimble 
 savages skipping from tree to tree and a 
 fight followed lasting half an hour; then 
 the Indians as suddenly vanished. One of 
 them happily was taken prisoner, and the 
 English questioned him as to the nature 
 of this country and the number of tribes. 
 When they asked him why his people came 
 in that manner to betray those who came 
 in peace, he answered they had heard that 
 the English were a people come from under 
 the world to take their world from them. 
 When asked how many worlds he knew, he 
 replied he knew only that under the skies 
 which covered him, which was inhabited 
 
DISCOVERY OF CHESAPEAKE BAY. 197 
 
 by the Powhatans, the Monacans, and the 
 Massawomeks ; and that beyond the moun- 
 tains was the sun. Further than the moun- 
 tains the Indians could not go because the 
 ** woods were not burnt.'* • 
 
 Two other meetings the English had with 
 the hostile savages before they reached 
 Jamestown; but in both cases a complete 
 victory was gained by this little boatload 
 of white men, and best of all in every case 
 they left the Indians their friends, suc- 
 ceeded in trading with them, and in mak- 
 ing them give satisfaction for any injury 
 they had inflicted on the English. And 
 always the Indians gave them valuable 
 presents and begged them to come back 
 soon again. 
 
 At last after experiencing these danger- 
 ous ambuscades and fierce storms of wind, 
 thunder, and lightning, they reached James- 
 town on the 7th of September, well and in 
 good spirits. There they found things in a 
 better state than formerly. Master Scrive- 
 ner, who had been dangerously sick, was 
 
198 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 entirely recovered as were most of the 
 other invalids they had left. Some how- 
 ever had died and some were sick ; but the 
 late President Eatcliffe was a prisoner for 
 mutiny and by the honest diligence of 
 Master Scrivener the harvest had been 
 gathered, though the provision in the store- 
 house had been much injured by the rain. 
 
xni. 
 
 President John Smith op Virginia. 
 
 On September 10th, 1608, by the election 
 of the council and the request of the com- 
 pany, Captain Smith was made President 
 of Virginia, and though he had often 
 before refused this honor, now consented to 
 serve. With his usual energy he began 
 right away to make many needed repairs 
 and reforms in the settlement. He stopped 
 the useless building of a large house for 
 Eatcliffe, repaired the church and the 
 storehouse, made provision for the sup- 
 plies they expected from England, strength- 
 ened and enlarged the fort, and started a 
 scheme of military drill for the men. They 
 marked out a training-ground and named 
 it Smithfield, and there the Indians used 
 
 199 
 
200 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 to stand around in amazement while the 
 soldiers shot at marks and had guard drill 
 under the direction of their leader. As 
 provisions were always needed the boat 
 was overhauled and fitted out for trade and 
 sent out on a little trip under Lieutenant 
 Percy. But before it had gone far it met 
 Captain Newport on his way back to James- 
 town with the second supply from the Lon- 
 don company. 
 
 Captain Newport seems to have lost his 
 head on his arrival in London, for he re- 
 turned from there with strange and foolish 
 instructions to the poor colonists who were 
 only just beginning under the wise guid- 
 ance of their new president to establish 
 themselves in the country. These instruc- 
 tions, which must have been suggested by 
 Captain Newport, were to explore the 
 country of the Monacans— where you re- 
 member he was sure they should find an 
 entrance to the other ocean— and not to 
 come back till they had found one of the 
 lost colony sent over some years before by 
 
PRESIDENT SMITH OF VIRGINIA. 201 
 
 Sir Walter Ealeigli, a lump of gold, or this 
 same southern sea. They brought a barge 
 in ^ve iDieces which was to be carried over 
 the mountains and used to sail on this 
 ocean in.* 
 
 But most foolish of all, they were to 
 crown Powhatan Emperor of the Indians, 
 and take him some costly presents, a ewer 
 and basin, a bed, bedstead, and some fine 
 clothes, for which he had no use. This idea 
 seemed to Captain Smith very silly indeed 
 and he wisely declared that these presents 
 would have been much better well spared 
 than so ill-spent, ''for we had his favor 
 better only for a plain piece of copper till 
 this stately kind of soliciting made him so 
 overvalue himself that he respected us as 
 much as nothing at all. ' ^ 
 
 About seventy men had come over with 
 Captain Newport in this second supply, 
 and with them were Mistress Forest and 
 her maid, Anne Burras, the first women of 
 the colo ny. Among these seventy, instead 
 
 ♦See Appendix, p. 279. 
 
202 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 of good mechanics, carpenters, and work- 
 men for the settlement. Captain Newport 
 had brought with him some Poles and 
 Dutchmen who were to make pitch, tar, 
 glass, and other things to send back to 
 England. This would have been well 
 enough if the colony had been in existence 
 for several years, but now it was only so 
 much work wasted and more mouths to 
 feed. When they should all have been 
 busied in tilling the ground, cutting down 
 trees and building houses, and gathering 
 in provisions for the winter, they were 
 obliged to engage in useless labors, go on 
 a useless voyage of discovery, and a worse 
 than useless visit to Powhatan. 
 
 But Smithes advice and entreaty could 
 not stop Captain Newport, for he had the 
 majority of the council on his side, and a 
 hundred and twenty men were appointed 
 to go with him on his journey to the land 
 of the Monacans. It is hard to see why 
 Newport, formerly so wise and helpful, 
 had changed in this way, unless it is 
 
PRESIDENT SMITH OF VIRGINIA. 203 
 
 because his gold had all turned out to be 
 mica and the London company had made 
 so much fun of him that it made him bitter. 
 Perhaps he felt he must get even with some 
 one because of his own folly, and so tried 
 to lay the blame on Captain Smith. In 
 reply to some of Smith's objections he 
 promised to bring back the pinnace laden 
 with corn, and to load her again when he 
 went to crown Powhatan. For the rest he 
 sneered at the President's warnings and 
 said that Smith wanted to make all the 
 discoveries himself, and if he had not been 
 so cruel in his treatment of the Indians 
 things would have gone more smoothly. 
 To this Captain Smith answered that he 
 would go to Powhatan with four men, 
 where Newport dared not go with fewer 
 than one hundred and twenty; and would 
 ask the king to come to Jamestown to be 
 crowned and get his joresents, and so save 
 the time and strength of the colonists. 
 We can well imagine his impatience and 
 indignation at this foolish charge. 
 
204 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 Starting on this vain errand the five 
 men went the short way through the woods, 
 crossed the river in a canoe, and came to 
 the village while Powhatan was away. 
 "While they were waiting for him to come 
 back they were entertained by Pocahontas 
 and other Indian girls who performed a 
 curious sort of masquerade dance in the 
 woods, and with the usual feast. When 
 the old king arrived the next day Smith 
 told him about the presents, gave him back 
 Namontack, the Indian who had gone to 
 England with Captain Newport, and asked 
 him to come to the fort to be crowned and 
 to help them plan the expedition against 
 the Monacans. 
 
 Powhatan's reply was dignified^ and 
 most reasonable, ^^If your king hath sent 
 me presents, I also am a king and this 
 is my land; eight days will I stay to 
 receive them. Your father (Newport) is 
 to come to me, not I to him, nor yet to your 
 fort; neither will I bite at such a bait; as 
 for the Monacans, I can avenge my own 
 
PRESIDENT SMITH OP VIRGINIA. 205 
 
 injuries, but for any salt water beyond the 
 mountains the relations you have had from 
 my people are false." There seemed to be 
 nothing more to say— no doubt Captain 
 Smith agreed with the old chief— so he 
 returned to the fort with this reply and 
 the council was forced to be content. 
 
 They sent all the presents by water 
 therefore, and the two captains, with fifty 
 men, went to Werowocomoco by land. 
 When they had all met there the very 
 interesting and entirely ridiculous cere- 
 mony of the coronation took place. Pow- 
 hatan did not know quite what they 
 wanted to do nor why, but he endured it 
 all with the usual Indian stoicism. First 
 the presents were given him, and he 
 showed a little hesitation about putting on 
 the clothes and the scarlet cloak until 
 Namontack explained that they would do 
 him no harm. But when it came to kneel- 
 ing to receive the crown all his stoicism 
 gave way and he absolutely refused to take 
 the strange attitude. Finally several of 
 
206 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 the English by leaning hard on his shoul- 
 ders made him stoop a little, then three 
 more placed the crown on his head, and at 
 a signal a volley of shot was fired from the 
 boat. This took the king so by surprise 
 that he started up in horrible fear; but 
 seeing that all was well he remembered his 
 dignity, and to reward their kindness gave 
 his old shoes and his mantle to Captain 
 Newport and about eight bushels of corn. 
 But he absolutely refused to lend them men 
 or guides for the Monacan trip. With that 
 small result of this elaborate journey, the 
 English returned to the fort. 
 
 A few days later with the promised one 
 hundred and twenty men Captain Newport 
 started for the Monacan country, leaving 
 about eighty men, among them the Poles 
 and Dutchmen, in the fort with Captain 
 Smith. It turned out to be a discouraging 
 trip. Nothing of importance was discovered 
 and soon they came back to Jamestown half 
 sick, all complaining, and tired out with 
 the labor and famine, — for they could not 
 
PRESIDENT SMITH OF VIRGINIA. 207 
 
 even find corn, much less gold or the South 
 Sea. When they returned, Captain Smith 
 set them all to work and thirty of the gen- 
 tlemen he took some five miles down the 
 river to chop down trees for lumber to load 
 the ship and supply the settlement. 
 
 In this task Smith set the example, and 
 soon the adventurers found themselves 
 working as they never had before and 
 liking it too. There was only one draw- 
 back, the axes blistered their hands, un- 
 used to such labor, and the men got into 
 the habit of swearing at the pain. Their 
 leader did not approve of this habit of 
 profanity, so he devised a way to break 
 it up. Through the day each man's oaths 
 were counted and at night the same num- 
 ber of cans of water was poured down his 
 sleeves. This proved to be such a good 
 cure that at last scarcely one oath a week 
 was heard. These gentlemen soon became 
 expert woodsmen, far better than the labor- 
 ers whom they had been obliged to drive to 
 
208 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 work in the first days of the colony, yet as 
 Smith says, ^^ Twenty good workmen had 
 been worth them all." 
 
 All this time having been consumed in 
 discovery and in getting together freight 
 for the ship, there was no provision made 
 for the coming winter. So Smith, leaving 
 Scrivener in charge at the fort, set sail in 
 the barge for the land of the Chickahominies 
 to trade for corn. But the temper of the 
 savages had strangely changed; they had 
 no corn, or they wanted it themselves, and 
 their manner was insolent and hostile in- 
 stead of friendly and affectionate. Smith 
 soon learned that in some way Powhatan, 
 made bold by the absurdly ceremonious 
 treatment of the English, had influenced 
 the neighboring tribes to try and starve out 
 the unwelcome strangers. Wliereupon he 
 changed his own manner and told the inhos- 
 pitable natives that he had come to avenge 
 the death of his two men, and so immedi- 
 ately began to make ready to attack them. 
 The startled Indians fled and sent messen- 
 
PRESIDENT SMITH OF VIRGINIA. 209 
 
 gers with provisions of different kinds to 
 make the peace. As a result of this vig- 
 orous action Captain Smith went back to 
 the fort with a hundred bushels of com, 
 followed by Lieutenant Percy with as much 
 more. 
 
 There he found that bad feeling had 
 begun again in the settlement. Newport 
 and Ratcliffe especially showed their 
 jealousy of Captain Smith's success and 
 accused him of leaving the settlement when 
 he had no right to, being its president. 
 They did not then stop to think that if he 
 had not gone they might all have starved. 
 But Captain Smith's popularity with the 
 colonists was now too great for these dis- 
 contented ones to be able to do him any 
 harm. They could only hinder and make 
 it hard and disagreeable in many ways, and 
 this they did not fail to do. 
 
 Trading was in a bad state too. The 
 colonists had been for some time taking 
 articles from the public store and using 
 them for private trading both with the In- 
 
210 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 dians and with the sailors, so getting furs 
 and baskets as well as food from the ship 
 for themselves when they should have been 
 procuring necessaries for the colony. At 
 last Smith threatened to hold the ship by 
 force and let Captain Newport see what 
 a year in Virginia really was like, and this 
 fairly frightened him into leaving with his 
 freight of pitch, tar, glass and the other ex- 
 periments, and a really valuable cargo of 
 wood. With him went a letter* from Cap- 
 tain Smith to the Virginia Company in 
 London which is so straightforward and 
 wise it is well worth reading. It shows 
 very clearly all the colony had had to suf- 
 fer needlessly because of the stupidity of 
 the people in England who should have 
 been helping instead of hindering them. 
 
 When Captain Newport went back to 
 England he left two hundred people in the 
 settlement with no provision for the winter, 
 the time having been used up in these 
 senseless experiments. Captain Smith sent 
 
 ♦See Appendix, p. 278. 
 
PRESIDENT SMITH OF VIRGINIA. 211 
 
 men on different trading expeditions but 
 the Indians had all turned sulky; his was 
 the only successful trip and that only 
 partially so. He therefore determined to 
 surprise Powhatan and take by force or 
 strategy what the old conspirator was in- 
 fluencing the Indians not to barter. In the 
 midst of these plans and unsuccessful 
 efforts to find food the first wedding took 
 place in Jamestown and Anne Burras was 
 married to John Laydon, a laborer who 
 came over with the first company of adven- 
 turers. We wish now that some one had 
 written down a description of this wedding 
 for we may be sure it was a very joyful 
 one. 
 
 Two of the council, Scrivener and a new 
 member, Captain Winne, were opposed to 
 Smith's plan to beard Powhatan in his 
 den, but the old chief himself brought mat- 
 ters to a head by sending for Smith to 
 come to visit him. He also sent word that 
 if the white chief would bring to Powhatan 
 a grindstone, fifty swords, some pieces 
 
212 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 (guns), a cock and hen, with copper dnd 
 beads and men to build him a house, he 
 would load his ship with corn. This modest 
 request did not at all deceive the Presi- 
 dent; still he sent to Werowocomoco three 
 Dutchmen to build the house, for it made 
 fewer to feed at the fort. He then planned 
 with Captain Waldo, another new coun- 
 cilor, to go to Powhatan 's town with forty- 
 six men — only those who volunteered — 
 leaving Scrivener in charge at the fort. 
 
 On the 29th of December the courageous 
 band set out in the pinnace and two barges, 
 and stopping on their way for provisions, 
 were warned by friendly Indians that Pow- 
 hatan had sent for them only to cut their 
 throats. Bad weather kept them a week 
 among their old friends at Kecoughtan and 
 there they kept Christmas merrily, feasting 
 on oysters, fish, and game in plenty. From 
 there to Werowocomoco they suffered 
 many hardships and were often obliged to 
 spend the night on the frozen ground with- 
 out shelter of any kind. However, on 
 
PRESIDENT SMITH OF VIRGINIA. 213 
 
 they went, neither terrified nor disheart- 
 ened, and when at last they reached their 
 destination they found the creeks so frozen 
 it was impossible to get the boats to the 
 shore. 
 
 Still undaunted, Captain Smith took 
 with him a few men and they broke through 
 the ice, and gained the land by walking up 
 to their waists in the muddy water. Pow- 
 hatan received them in the old affectionate 
 way but after the usual feast, asked them 
 when they expected to go; for he said he 
 did not send for them and had no corn, — 
 yet in return for forty swords would find 
 for them forty bushels. Smith accused the 
 chief of forgetting his messages and said 
 besides that he had no swords nor guns to 
 spare. He had sent men to build Pow- 
 hatan's house, why did the Indian break his 
 word and betray the friendship they had 
 pledged. Smith would not injure him in 
 any way unless he himself was first 
 harmed. 
 
 The chief seemed touched by these words, 
 
214 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN milTH. 
 
 and with more frankness than perhaps he 
 intended, explained the whole situation. 
 * ^ Captain Smith some doubt I have of your 
 coming hither that makes me not so kindly 
 seek to relieve you as I would; for many do 
 inform me your coming is not for trade but 
 to invade my people and possess my coun- 
 try; they dare not come to bring you corn 
 seeing you thus armed with your men. To 
 clear us of this fear, leave your weapons 
 on board; for here they are needless, we 
 being all friends and forever Powhatans." 
 At the same time he said he would get corn 
 for them within the next two days. 
 
 When Smith first came, the Dutchmen 
 he had sent on ahead, thinking to gain ad- 
 vantage for themselves, had betrayed to 
 Powhatan the starving state of the Eng- 
 lish; and from that moment till Smith's 
 departure the wily chief did not leave off 
 begging his visitor to disarm his men. He 
 used many arguments and finally said there 
 was no Werowance among the Powhatans 
 whom their king had treated so kindly as 
 
PRESIDENT SMITH OF VIRGINIA. 215 
 
 lie had Captain Smith, yet they all obeyed 
 him and Smith refused to do this one thing 
 his king asked,— order his men to lay down 
 their arms. Captain Smith answered with 
 much dignity that he was not Powhatan's 
 subject but a loyal follower of the king of 
 England; yet to show the love he bore his 
 Indian friend, the next day he would leave 
 his arms on the boat and trust to Pow- 
 hatan's promise. 
 
 But Smith, as well as Powhatan, was now 
 only trying to gain time. He expected all 
 his men to land on the next day, when the 
 Indians, who stood enough in awe of the 
 white man to obey his orders, should have 
 broken the ice that the boat might come 
 to the shore. There were only eight men 
 now with him and he needed the rest to act 
 as guard and help carry away some ten 
 bushels of corn he had secured in exchange 
 for a copper kettle. 
 
 Next morning when Powhatan realized 
 that Smith was to be reinforced he fled 
 secretly with his household, leaving his In- 
 
216 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 dians to surround the place where Smith 
 was and capture him. The braves all 
 gathered around this house but the hardy 
 Captain was not to be surprised in this 
 way, and breaking through the crowd 
 which dispersed at sight of his sword and 
 pistol, he gained the shore with his small 
 guard, all of them unhurt. Powhatan 
 learning that he had escaped and that the 
 boat had nearly reached the shore, sent 
 a present to the English with excuses for 
 his hasty departure, and begged that they 
 would take their corn on board and then 
 come back without their arms. 
 
 While they were conferring the barge 
 was carried out by the tide again, and the 
 English were obliged to come back to the 
 house Powhatan had assigned them for 
 their quarters. During the evening the 
 Indians were making merry and giving 
 signs of friendship but all the time they 
 were devising a plan to murder Captain 
 Smith and his men while they were at sup- 
 per. But again Pocahontas saved his life. 
 
PRESIDENT SMITH OF VIRGINIA. 217 
 
 For after it was dark the little Princess 
 came secretly through the woods and 
 warned her white friend that some of the 
 Indians before long would bring them a 
 great feast and would try to kill them while 
 they were engaged in eating it. If these 
 were not successful Powhatan himself with 
 a great force would come later and accom- 
 plish it. '^ Therefore if we would live she 
 wished us presently to be gone. Such 
 things as she delighted in he (Captain 
 Smith) would have given her, but with the 
 tears running down her cheeks she said she 
 durst not be seen to have any, for if Pow- 
 hatan should know it she were but dead, 
 and so she ran away by herself as she 
 came.'' Thanks to this warning the night 
 was spent in unceasing watchfulness, and 
 the Indians not being able to take the Eng- 
 lish off their guard did not dare to carry 
 out their plans. 
 
 Next morning they all departed to the 
 Pamunkey to try to trade with Opechanca- 
 nough and his people. Captain Smith left 
 
218 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 the treacherous Dutchmen to finish the 
 house and one Englishman to shoot game 
 for the Indian King, with orders to keep 
 on as friendly terms with the natives as 
 possible so that when the company re- 
 turned there should be more chance to 
 get the food they intended to take back to 
 the Fort. They had no sooner left than 
 Powhatan returned and sent two of the 
 Dutch traitors to the fort to say that Cap- 
 tain Smith sent word that all was well with 
 him but that he and his company all needed 
 more arms. The people at the fort never 
 thought of distrusting this message, and in 
 this way the traitors obtained for the In- 
 dians a great many swords and guns with 
 powder and shot, and returned unsuspect- 
 ed; for they believed they could live with 
 Powhatan more comfortably and be free 
 from all the miseries that afflicted the 
 colony. 
 
 Meantime the English were having an 
 exciting visit with Chief Opechancanough. 
 They were received with the usual cheer, 
 
PRESIDENT SMITH OF VIRGINIA. 219 
 
 but when Smith and fifteen of his men 
 went up to the Chief's house to trade every- 
 thing seemed deserted. Soon the Chief 
 arrived and many of his people, all armed 
 but iiot bringing with them the promised 
 food to sell. Captain Smith therefore ac- 
 cused the Indian of deceit, and of desiring 
 to see the English starve, and reminded 
 him that *'it is fit for kings to keep their 
 promises.'* This was all so true that the 
 king consented to sell them some food that 
 day, and promised that next day there 
 should be more. 
 
 Next morning after Smith and the same 
 fifteen men had come up from the boats to 
 the chief's house and were beginning to 
 trade, Dr. Eussell came suddenly in and 
 said to Smith that they were betrayed, for 
 the house was surrounded by about seven 
 hundred well-armed braves. The English 
 were naturally much terrified but thoir 
 leader quieted them by reminding them 
 that firing their guns only would frighten 
 away the savages. Before they resorted to 
 
220 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 violence however he wanted to try another 
 plan, for if they killed the Indians they 
 could get no food. He then turned to the 
 crafty old chief, who saw that Smith under- 
 stood the situation, and challenged him to 
 single combat on an island nearby, saying 
 that he who won should be lord and master 
 over all the men and take all the corn and 
 the copper. The Indians were not as fond 
 of duels as were the Turks, and though the 
 king seemed, to accept this plan, yet guard- 
 ed by sixty of his warriors, he asked Smith 
 to come outside the door to receive a pres- 
 ent they had made ready for him. 
 
 When John Smith acted it was with 
 startling rapidity; so perceiving that 
 armed Indians were behind the trees ready 
 to shoot him if he ventured outside the 
 house, he suddenly seized Opechancanough 
 by his long scalplock, and holding his pistol 
 against the chief's breast, led him out be- 
 fore all his people. They, overwhelmed 
 with amazement that anyone should dare 
 to treat their king so, cast down their arms 
 
PEESIDENT SMITH OP VIRGINIA. 221 
 
 and were ready to trade. Captain Smith 
 followed up his advantage by telling them 
 that if they shed one drop of English blood 
 he would not cease revenge till their tribe 
 was wiped out. And if they did not load 
 his ship with corn as they had promised, 
 he would load it with their dead bodies. 
 Yet if they would come and trade like 
 friends he promised not to trouble them. 
 It must have been his boldness and au- 
 dacity that saved his followers, for they 
 were only a handful of white men in the 
 midst of all these savages. But the brave 
 Englishman never faltered, and the chron- 
 icle tells us that ^^the rest of the day was 
 spent with much kindness, the company (of 
 Indians) again renewing their presents of 
 their best provisions. And whatever we 
 gave them they seemed well contented with 
 it." 
 
XIV. 
 
 The Final Victoey Over the Savages, and 
 Captain Smith's Departure. 
 
 While Captain Smith was using all his 
 wits to procure food for the settlement, 
 Scrivener at the fort was betraying the 
 trust committed to him. He had evidently 
 been made unfriendly by his ambitions, 
 and instead of obeying the president's 
 orders and staying by the fort, he took the 
 skiff and with eighteen others— much too 
 heavy a load for the little boat— started 
 off on an expedition of his own. They were 
 overtaken by a storm, the skiff was over- 
 turned, and all were drowned,— a terrible 
 loss to the little colony. Their bodies were 
 found by some Indians ; and as every acci- 
 dent to the English was grateful to these 
 
 222 
 
FINAL VICTORY OVER SAVAGES. 223 
 
 unfriendly natives, they were the more 
 encouraged to carry out their plots. 
 
 It was hard to find anyone at the fort 
 who would carry the bad news to the presi- 
 dent, but at last one of the gentlemen, 
 Eichard Wiffin, volunteered. He suffered 
 many hardships by the way and during the 
 one night he spent with Powhatan was 
 much impressed with the preparations for 
 war— probably against the English— which 
 he saw going on in the Indian village. At 
 last after three days' travel he found Cap- 
 tain Smith and his men about to leave the 
 Pamunkey. Smith, much saddened by the 
 bad news, made the messenger promise to 
 keep it a secret from the rest of the com- 
 pany and especially from the Indians, and 
 they all got safely aboard the boat. 
 
 In fact the whole country was now full of 
 conspiracies against Captain Smith's life 
 and the only things that saved him were his 
 unfailing watchfulness, the wholesome 
 fear the Indians had for his guns, and a 
 certain awe for his person,— they still be- 
 
224 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 lieved him to be superhuman. Then too, 
 they probably realized that the English 
 would take a terrible revenge if anything 
 should happen to their leader. In the final 
 trading with Opechancanough a well- 
 planned plot against himself and his com- 
 pany was discovered by Smith and only 
 thwarted by an equally clever ambuscade 
 on the part of the English. Then one of 
 the tribe tried to poison him, but this was 
 unsuccessful, and they all finally got off 
 with a good load of corn and no hurt to 
 any man. 
 
 But great was their disappointment on 
 reaching Werowocomoco to find that the 
 Dutchmen had warned Powhatan of the 
 plan of the English to seize his provisions 
 and the wily chief had left the village for 
 one of his other camps, taking with him all 
 the corn there was. One of the main rea- 
 sons for keeping friends with the other 
 Indians had been not to alarm Powhatan, 
 and the disappointment was for this reason 
 all the greater. One of the soldiers in his 
 
FINAL VICTORY OVER SAVAGES. 225 
 
 account of the expedition states the policy 
 of the company in an interesting way: 
 ^^Many may think it strange there should 
 be this stir for a little corn ; but had it been 
 gold, with more ease we might have got it ; 
 and had it wanted (been lacking) the whole 
 colony had starved. We may be thought 
 very patient to endure all those injuries. 
 Yet only with fearing them (meaning the 
 Indians) we got all what they had, where- 
 as if we had taken revenge, then by their 
 loss we should have lost ourselves.'' 
 
 The President, seeing that he could ac- 
 complish nothing by staying longer near 
 this village, and that revenge for the broken 
 promises would be worse than useless, kept 
 on his way to Jamestown and reached there 
 early in February, having been gone six 
 weeks. In spite of all the trouble and dan- 
 ger he had secured enough food to keep 
 forty men from hunger during the journey, 
 besides delivering to the keeper of the 
 storehouse on his arrival 279 bushels of 
 corn. 
 
226 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 Having provided their food he began to 
 plan for the better management of the col- 
 ony. The council was dissolved by the 
 death of most of its members and there 
 was no one now to dispute the President's 
 authority. He divided the colonists into 
 companies of tens and fifteens and four 
 hours each day was spent in work, the rest 
 in games and exercise. But not all worked 
 willingly ; there was discontent and evident 
 treachery, for some of the tools and even 
 the arms had disappeared. Captain Smith 
 on this account called a general assembly 
 of the colonists and made them a speech, 
 which put heart into the discouraged and 
 made the lazy and cowardly much ashamed 
 of themselves and determined to do better, 
 — for a while. 
 
 After praising those who had done well, 
 the President said, '^The greater part must 
 be more industrious or starve. . . . Now 
 the authority resteth wholly in myself you 
 must obey this for a law, that he that will 
 not work shall not eat, except by sickness 
 
FINAL VICTORY OVER SAVAGES. 227 
 
 lie be disabled. For tlie labors of thirty or 
 forty honest men shall not be consumed to 
 maintain one hundred and fifty idle var- 
 lets. . . . He that offendeth, let him as- 
 suredly expect his due punishment." A 
 notice board also was put up on which was 
 kept a record of every man's achievements, 
 and this and the punishments which were 
 strictly inflicted, kept even the most hope- 
 lessly lazy at their work. 
 
 But all this time the Dutchmen were 
 plotting with the Indians, and Powhatan 
 and his chiefs were making plans to cap- 
 ture or kill Captain Smith. Ambuscades 
 were planned and one of these was nearly 
 successful. It resulted however in a single 
 combat between Smith and the king of Pas- 
 pahegh, a *'most strong and stout savage," 
 in which they fell struggling together into 
 the river and were rescued by some men 
 from the fort, and the Indian taken pri- 
 soner. This capture caused great excite- 
 ment among the tribes and when the chief 
 escaped, as he finally did, skirmishes be- 
 
228 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 tween the Indians and the English became 
 very frequent. 
 
 At last Captain Smith determined once 
 more to act with vigor and attack some of 
 the Indian villages. On his first expedition 
 of revenge six or seven savages were killed 
 and as many taken prisoner. He burnt 
 their houses, took their boats and fishing 
 utensils for his own use, and ^^now resolved 
 not to cease till he had revenged himself 
 upon all that had injured him.'' 
 
 This decision was soon evident to the 
 tribes and when he came to the villages of 
 the Chickahominies they all threw down 
 their arms and desired peace. Captain 
 Smith promised not to attack them until 
 they should do the English an injury, and 
 on the further condition that they furnish 
 him with provisions. This bargain they 
 accepted and parted good friends, which 
 friendship continued about one week, until 
 the English reached Jamestown again. 
 
 There Captain Smith was told that 
 though the Chickahominies were trading, 
 
FINAL VICTORY OVER SAVAGES. 229 
 
 at the same time they were thieves,— for a 
 pistol had been stolen and two young In- 
 dian brothers, members of this tribe and 
 accomplices of the thief, had been taken 
 prisoners. One of the Indians was sent 
 to find his accomplice and get the pistol 
 and was told if he did not return with it in 
 twelve hours his brother, who was in 
 prison, would be hanged. Captain Smith 
 taking pity on the poor anxious captive 
 sent him food and some charcoal for a fire. 
 Before midnight the messenger returned 
 with the pistol but the savage in the dun- 
 geon, not knowing the danger of charcoal, 
 was suffocated by the fumes and also badly 
 burned. The returning Indian mourned 
 and bewailed his brother's death and the 
 President to quiet him told him that if 
 they would never steal again he would 
 bring the dead man to life. So the English 
 rubbed him and gave him restoratives, and 
 though they hardly dared hope it, he did 
 regain sensibility, but seemed to have lost 
 his wits and talked in a most distracted 
 
230 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 way. This grieved the crazed raan's 
 brother as much as his apparent death had 
 done but the President promised the cap- 
 tive's complete recovery on condition of 
 their good behaviour ever after; and then 
 simply by seeing to it that the Indian had 
 a good night's sleep returned him to his 
 sorrowing brother entirely restored. Then 
 they dressed the savage's burns and sent 
 them both away with a few pieces of cop- 
 per, well-content and spreading the news 
 everywhere that the great white chief could 
 raise the dead to life. 
 
 This supposed miracle and the complete 
 surrender of the tribes on the Chicka- 
 hominy frightened Powhatan and at last 
 brought him too to seek for peace. He even 
 sent back stolen articles quite forgotten 
 about by the English, and a new state of 
 things began. Treachery and ambuscades 
 ceased, thieves were sent to Jamestown to 
 be punished, and all the country was free 
 from strife. 
 
 But now a harder problem than Indian 
 
FINAL VICTORY OVER SAVAGES. 231 
 
 quarrels had to be solved. In three months 
 much had been done, an excellent well of 
 fresh water had been dug in the fort, the 
 first successful glass was made, some twen- 
 ty new houses built and old ones repaired. 
 A block-house was put up on the neck of 
 land connecting the settlement with the 
 mainland, and strict rules made that a 
 watch should be kept and no one allowed 
 to go by without the President's permis- 
 sion. Thirty or forty acres of land were 
 tilled and planted, and places made for the 
 sixty pigs and one hundred and fifty chick- 
 ens,— so much had the live-stock increased 
 in three years. 
 
 But in looking over the stores they found 
 much of the corn rotten and the rest nearly 
 consumed by rats. This made it necessary 
 to stop work and plan for food. It was 
 easier for them to live at this season if 
 they were not all gathered in one little 
 settlement, so the President sent a company 
 of eighty down the river to live on oysters, 
 and twenty more went to Point Comfort to 
 
232 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 fish. A few went up to the Falls— where 
 the city of Eichmond now stands— but 
 these could find nothing but berries and 
 acorns. And the old trouble again arose, 
 that a few were industrious and the rest 
 remained idle and expected food to be 
 found for them. There was plenty to eat 
 all about them but the President had to 
 watch constantly lest the lazy ones, rather 
 than work, should sell to the savages all 
 the articles they could find, even their own 
 guns and swords, for the native fruits 
 these brought to the settlement. 
 
 Finally he found out the leader of these 
 mutinous idlers and punished him; then 
 said to the others: **The sick shall not 
 starve but equally share in all our labors, 
 and every one that gathereth not every day 
 as much as I do, the next day shall be set 
 beyond the river and forever be banished 
 from the fort and live there or starve.'' 
 
 The guilty ones murmured at what they 
 called the cruelty of this order yet so be- 
 stirred themselves that out of two hundred 
 
FINAL VICTORY OVER SAVAGES. 233 
 
 men only seven or eight died in nine 
 months' time. The Indians seemed com- 
 pletely won over and showed in so many 
 ways their affection for Smith that one of 
 the soldiers said there was more hope to 
 make good Christians and subjects of them 
 than of half the English who were sup- 
 posed to be both. One old chief who lived 
 near by, though he was zealous in wor- 
 shipping his false gods, yet often sent the 
 President presents, begging that he would 
 pray to his God for rain. The savage be- 
 lieved He was as much greater than the 
 gods of the Indians as the English guns 
 were greater than the Indian bows and 
 arrows. 
 
 And now the conspiracy so long planned 
 by the Dutchmen was first discovered, for 
 they chose this time to try to betray the 
 English to Powhatan. But the chief had 
 learned at last who was the head of the 
 English and preferred to keep his friend- 
 ship with Captain Smith. He therefore re- 
 fused to shelter the traitors when they 
 
234 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 came to take refuge with him, and several 
 efforts were made to capture them and put 
 them to death. For one reason or another 
 the Dutchmen continued to escape punish- 
 ment, unless the fact that from this time 
 on they were outcasts, both from the fort 
 and from Powhatan's village can be con- 
 sidered sufficient punishment for such 
 treachery as theirs. In the midst of this 
 time of hunger and of search for the trait- 
 ors. Captain Argall came from England to 
 fish in the river and his ship furnished the 
 colonists with biscuits, a welcome change 
 from fish and berries. 
 
 But a worse foe than hunger or even the 
 Dutch traitors was in store for the hard 
 working and devoted president. Slander- 
 ous tongues had been at work in London 
 —probably Ratcliffe, Archer, and other 
 malcontents,— and a new commission was 
 appointed to govern Virginia. The officers 
 were instructed to look into the reasons 
 why the new colony had not repaid the 
 company better, and into the charges 
 
FINAL VICTORY OVER SAVAGES. 235 
 
 against Captain Smith of cruelty towards 
 the Indians. The expedition which left 
 England in May was a large one, nine 
 ships holding five hundred people ; but one 
 ship was lost on the way and another con- 
 taining the three leaders of the commission 
 was shipwrecked in the Bermudas. With 
 the seven remaining ships came Eatcliffe, 
 Archer, and Martin. They began to be 
 troublesome and to plot while they were 
 still at sea, and turned the minds of the 
 other soldiers and colonists against Cap- 
 tain Smith before they had even seen him. 
 When the fleet was sighted the lookout 
 at the settlement thought them to be Span- 
 ish ships, for the English were always ex- 
 pecting the Spaniards to swoop down on 
 them to destroy the young colony. Cap- 
 tain Smith for that very reason had caused 
 a block-house to be built near the mouth 
 of the harbor, and he now stationed guards 
 and planned the defense so skilfully that 
 the English rather looked forward to the 
 fight. But those who actually arrived were 
 
236 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 not so easy to deal with. The commission 
 was without a leader and quarrel after 
 quarrel arose, plot after plot was hatched, 
 and once or twice even the President's 
 life was in danger. 
 
 There were entirely too many colonists 
 now to live in the little settlement, and all 
 was confusion. Finally Captain Smith 
 brought some sort of order out of the chaos ; 
 he sent Master West, who had come over 
 with the second supply, to the Falls with one 
 hundred and twenty men to start a settle- 
 ment there and Captain Martin to Nandse- 
 mund, near the mouth of the river, with as 
 many more. At the end of his year Cap- 
 tain Smith handed over the presidency to 
 Captain Martin whq held it just three 
 hours, then knowing his incompetency, 
 handed it back again. It looked as if these 
 men were always ready to grumble, but 
 when it came to taking actual responsibility 
 and doing something they quickly gave out. 
 
 The companies Smith had sent out soon 
 got into trouble. The one at Nandsemund 
 
FINAL VICTORY OVER SAVAGES. 237 
 
 quarrelled stupidly with the Indians, who 
 were at peace with the whites, and quite 
 unnecessary skirmishes followed. The 
 one at the Falls was in a very inconvenient 
 and unhealthful location, an unwise choice 
 of Master West, and Captain Smith had to 
 go up in his ship to adjust matters. He 
 offered to settle the discontented company 
 on the site of Powhatan's old village which 
 the Indian chief was willing to sell to the 
 English. But they refused and turned 
 against Smith who escaped from their 
 anger with difficulty to his ship. It seems 
 that they were excited by the thought of 
 the gold they might find above the Falls 
 and feared interference. 
 
 But worst of all was their breaking faith 
 with the savages. These had kept their 
 promises and brought regularly their con- 
 tribution of corn to the English; but the 
 company at the Falls so harassed and tor- 
 mented them that they complained to 
 Smith, saying he had sent them as pro- 
 tectors against the Monacans worse foes 
 
238 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 than the Monacans themselves. Nine days 
 did the President stay at the Falls trying 
 to convince those foolish people that their 
 hopes of gold were vain and their best for- 
 tune was to cultivate the land and keep 
 peace with the Indians. But words did no 
 good and no sooner had he left for James- 
 town than the savages rose in their wrath 
 and scattered the settlement, killing many 
 and completely terrifying the rest. Hap- 
 pily the ship had grounded and so was not 
 far on its way, and the fleeing settlers 
 begged Smith's aid again. This time he 
 settled them at Powhatan's town where a 
 fort had been built and named Nonsuch. 
 Everything would then have gone smoothly 
 had not the attraction of possible gold and 
 the persuasions of those who were con- 
 stantly discontented proved too strong for 
 them, and the President was hardly out of 
 sight when they all rushed back to the 
 Falls and to the entrance to the Monacan 
 country. 
 
 On his way back to Jamestown a terrible 
 
FINAL VICTORY OVER SAVAGES. 239 
 
 thing happened to the President. While 
 he was sleeping in the small boat, a pow- 
 der bag near him was accidentally set fire 
 to and exploded, wounding him frightfully. 
 Crazed by the pain he jumped into the 
 water and was rescued with difficulty. 
 There was no physician to attend him, and 
 in constant torment, he was taken the dis- 
 tance of nearly one hundred miles to James- 
 town. Though weak and in misery he tried 
 to attend to the affairs of the colony and 
 deal with the mutineers as he should and 
 had planned to do. They, Ratcliife, Ar- 
 cher, and the rest, seeing him sick and 
 wretched, plotted to have hito murdered as 
 he lay helpless, but no one could be found 
 who would undertake the deed. Then they 
 joined together to seize the government, 
 and the President learning of this and 
 knowing that when the new commission 
 came his office would be taken from him 
 and he would be falsely accused of many 
 things, gave up the weary fight — perhaps 
 his pain was so great he gave up all hope 
 
240 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 of recovery — and took passage on a ship 
 which was going back to England the next 
 day. The presidency he handed over to 
 Master Percy, one of the best of the colo- 
 nists; for the rest he told them their con- 
 fusion was at hand and never would he 
 give up his office to such as they. Then 
 sick and disappointed he, their only wise 
 leader, left the colony he had so loved and 
 worked for. 
 
 Two of his most loyal soldiers have paid 
 him the following tribute in their account 
 of what happened. 
 
 ^'What shall I say but thus we lost him, 
 that in all his proceedings made justice his 
 first guide, and experience his second, even 
 hating baseness, sloth, pride, and indignity 
 worse than any dangers; that never al- 
 lowed more for himself than for his sol- 
 diers with him ; that upon no danger would 
 send them where he would not lead them 
 himself; that would never see us want what 
 he either had or could by any means get 
 us; that would rather want than borrow, 
 
FINAL VICTORY OVER SAVAGES. 241 
 
 or starve than not pay; that loved action 
 more than words, and hated falsehood and 
 covetousness worse than death; whose ad- 
 ventures were our lives and whose loss our 
 deaths." Wliat better praise could a lead- 
 er have from his followers than these brave 
 words? Those who were faithful to him 
 remained so through all his troubles, and 
 honestly mourned his loss. 
 
 When John Smith went back to England, 
 Jamestown, thanks to his persistence, was 
 strongly fortified and contained fifty or 
 sixty houses. Besides this there were sev- 
 eral other forts and plantations nearby, all 
 in good condition. Then a peace had been 
 established with the Indians which might 
 easily have been kept up had Smith's suc- 
 cessors been as wise as he in dealing with 
 the uncertain natives. Different industries 
 such as glass and tar-making had been 
 started and were well under way, and the 
 colony seemed at last fairly established. 
 The best proof of Smith's value and wis- 
 dom in leadership is shown by what hap- 
 
242 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 pened in the colony the year after he left 
 it, when it was without his devoted care 
 and guidance. 
 
XV. 
 
 John Smith, Admiral of New England. 
 
 For the next few 3^ears we hear no word 
 of this brave man. Without doubt his 
 wound kept him inactive for some time, 
 then we imagine there were visits to Wil- 
 loughby and to old friends in England. He 
 spent much time in writing, chiefly accounts 
 of his travels, and in 1612 his map of Vir- 
 ginia was published. The Map itself is a 
 most remarkable thing, both curious and 
 surprisingly accurate ; and we see in it the 
 result of the voyages of discovery which 
 he took up and down the rivers and around 
 Chesapeake Bay. 
 
 To the Map is added *^A Description of 
 the Country, the Commodities, People, 
 Government, and Religion.^' This con- 
 tains many accounts of the Indians and 
 
 243 
 
244 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 their interesting customs and is well worth 
 reading. 
 
 Smith's interest in the new continent 
 never grew less, and in the year 1614, eager 
 to see another part of the wonderful coun- 
 try, he sailed on the 3rd of March with 
 two ships for the coast of New England,— 
 little explored as yet. This he says was 
 an expedition to take whales, and to in- 
 vestigate a mine of gold and copper one 
 of the sailing masters had told him of. 
 There had been an attempt in 1607 on the 
 part of some merchants to found a colony 
 on the northern coast of New England, but 
 it was given up within a year and the coun- 
 try pronounced '^a cold, barren, mountain- 
 ous, rocky desert. '' Later on some ships 
 ]iad gone to fish near Cape Cod, and Smith 
 hearing of these attempts and because he 
 had so loved Virginia, desired to see this 
 country also and so made arrangements 
 with three merchants to take command of 
 this expedition for whales, minerals, fish 
 and furs. 
 
ADMIRAL OF NEW ENGLAND. 245 
 
 In April they arrived at the Island of 
 Monhegan but the whales were a disap- 
 pointment. Though they saw many and 
 spent much time in chasing them, they 
 caught very few and then found them to 
 be not the kind which yields oil, and so 
 useless. For the gold, it was a sea-cap- 
 tain's dream, and they had spent so much 
 time in whale-chasing that the season for 
 getting the best cargo of fish and fur had 
 passed. Captain Smith with eight others 
 in a small boat scoured the coast looking 
 for furs while the sailors were fishing, and 
 by their united efforts the ships returned 
 after an absence of six months with a fair 
 cargo of both those articles. But the most 
 remarkable achievement again was Cap- 
 tain Smith's, for he brought back with him 
 notes for a map of the coast and a descrip- 
 tion of the country ; and he gave it a name, 
 New England, which has clung to it to 
 this day. 
 
 On his way back to London Smith's ship 
 touched at Plymouth, England, and there 
 
246 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 he was offered command of a fleet to sail 
 for this same coast the following summer, 
 which offer he gladly accepted. In Lon- 
 don the merchants considered this voyage 
 a great success though Smith spoke of it 
 as a failure. They fitted up four ships al- 
 most immediately and offered the com- 
 mand of them to Smith ; but he had already 
 promised the Plymouth merchants and con- 
 sidered that a better port from which to 
 sail, so angering the London company not 
 a little. 
 
 But when he and six other gentlemen 
 — probably some of his old companions 
 in Virginia who had remained his friends 
 — all well provided with money, present- 
 ed themselves to the Plymouth mer- 
 chants, they found that these worthies had 
 changed their minds. A short time before 
 a Plymouth ship had returned from an un- 
 successful search for a gold mine which 
 had been promised its owners by a cap- 
 tive Indian. When this ship had neared 
 the American coast, the Indian who was 
 
ADMIRAL OF NEW ENGLAND. 247 
 
 acting as guide leapt overboard and swam 
 ashore and no more was heard of him or 
 his mine. This disappointment dampened 
 the enthusiasm of the Plymouth Company 
 and they gave up all their plans including 
 the fleet they had promised to Smith, so 
 he lost both that and the London oppor- 
 tunity. He resolved therefore to spend no 
 more time in discovery or in fishing, but to 
 direct all his efforts toward founding an- 
 other colony. ^*The good of my country 
 is that I seek,'' he writes, ^^and there is 
 more than enough (land and food) for all 
 if they could be contented.'' 
 
 But Virginia was destined to be Captain 
 Smith's only colony. In June of the year 
 1615, with *^a labyrinth of trouble" he suc- 
 ceedeth in obtaining in Plymouth two small 
 ships for himself and the same six gentle- 
 men, and off they sailed for New England. 
 Before the ship which Smith was on board 
 of had sailed many miles a storm seized 
 her and he was forced to return to Ply- 
 mouth or sink. There he transferred his 
 
248 LIFE OP CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 men and provisions to a smaller boat and 
 they started again only to fall this time into 
 the hands of pirates. The captain of the 
 first ship they were chased by was an Eng- 
 lishman and though his was a larger and 
 better equipped vessel, Smith succeeded in 
 making terms with him, for if his terms 
 were not accepted he said he would sink 
 his own ship, so depriving the free-booters 
 of any spoil whatever. On board the pi- 
 rate ship were some adventurers who had 
 known Captain Smith and probably fought 
 under him in the wars against the Turks, 
 perhaps in Transylvania. They still re- 
 membered his courage and skill in leader- 
 ship and begged him to take command of 
 them, and promised that with their help he 
 could take the ship wherever he wanted to. 
 Not wishing to turn pirate and still full of 
 his scheme for a colony, he refused their 
 offer; besides if they were willing to mu- 
 tiny against their present captain he could 
 hardly trust their continued faithfulness 
 to any one commander. 
 
ADMIRAL OF NEW ENGLAND. 240 
 
 Having fairly escaped that peril, a little 
 farther on— for Smith seems to have taken 
 the old route through the Canaries,— they 
 met two French pirates and all on board 
 wished to surrender at once, for they 
 were frightened at thought of the un- 
 equal fight. But Smith, mindful perhaps 
 of that former fight near the Azores with 
 the big Spanish ships, refused to yield till 
 all the powder was gone — he would blow 
 up his ship first ; and by skilful sailing the 
 little vessel managed to get away. 
 
 A little farther on they met four French 
 men-of-war. The captain was not partic- 
 ularly alarmed at this, for there was peace 
 between France and England, and as the 
 custom was he went on board the admiral's 
 ship to show his papers and prove his right 
 to his ship. There to his amazement he 
 was kept a prisoner, his boat rifled, and 
 his crew distributed among the French 
 fleet which was shortly reinforced by sev- 
 eral other ships. 
 
250 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 This was a great blow to the would-be 
 colonists who still looked forward to New 
 England ; but when at last Smith 's ship was 
 restored to him the sailors on board mu- 
 tinied and insisted on going back to Ply- 
 mouth. The excitement had been too much 
 for them ; they were superstitious and prob- 
 ably believed bad luck had come to stay. 
 The rest of the company were willing to 
 stand by their leader and the sailors, fear- 
 ing perhaps that he would prevail, as he 
 so often did, and force them to continue 
 the dangerous journey, hatched a success- 
 ful plot. They told the commanders of 
 the fleet that Smith was only waiting to 
 get to America to revenge himself for this 
 injury on all the French he should meet 
 near Newfoundland, where the fishing was 
 very valuable to their nation. The French 
 took alarm at this, for any interruption to 
 their fisheries meant great loss of money. 
 They persuaded Smith by some means or 
 other to come aboard the Admiral's ship 
 again, and then it started off in chase of 
 
ADMIRAL OF NEW ENGLAND. 251 
 
 a fancied prize while Smith's own ship set 
 sail with all haste for Plymouth. 
 
 This was the last straw. Though the 
 French commander regarded it as an ac- 
 cident and promised to set him ashore at 
 the next convenient point of the Azores, 
 among which islands they were now sail- 
 ing and where he would soon be picked 
 up by some passing English vessel, the val- 
 iant captain seems to have lost heart. 
 The French fleet cruised about the islands 
 looking for prizes, and fighting both friends 
 and enemies; there was often little to 
 choose between war ships and pirates in 
 those days. Smith tells us how he stayed 
 a prisoner in the cabin during the first of 
 the many fights the fleet engaged in, and 
 kept himself from despair by writing down 
 his Description of New England. He must 
 have done this largely from memory, and 
 the accuracy with which he notes all the 
 capes, bays, and islands is quite wonderful. 
 
 In this book which was published a year 
 or so later, he describes in a vivid way all 
 
252 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 the coast from Penobscot to Cape Cod, and 
 some of the statements are very interest- 
 ing. The northern part of the coast, now 
 Maine, consists of such high craggy cliffs 
 and stony isles that he wondered how such 
 great trees could grow on these hard foun- 
 dations. ''It is a country rather to af- 
 fright than to delight one.'' Surely parts 
 of the New England coast never were better 
 described. All along the coast he called 
 the capes and islands by their Indian names 
 with a few exceptions, two of which are of 
 great interest: Cape Tragahigzanda, later 
 named Cape Anne by the Prince of Wales, 
 and the Three Turks Isles, 
 
 The more southern part of the coast, 
 nearer Cape Cod, Smith was much charmed 
 with and thus describes it: ''And surely 
 by reason of those sandy gardens and corn 
 fields, and so well inhabited with a goodly, 
 strong, and well-proportioned people, be- 
 sides the greatness of the timber growing 
 on them, the greatness of the fish, and the 
 moderate temper of the air ... . who can 
 
ADMIRAL OF NEW ENGLAND. 253 
 
 but approve this a most excellent place, 
 both for health and fertility? And of all 
 the four parts of the world that I have yet 
 seen not inhabited, could I have but means 
 to transport a colony, I would rather live 
 here than anywhere ; and if it did not main- 
 tain itself, were we but once indifferently 
 well fitted, let us starve." 
 
 Then he goes on to praise the fishing 
 and to advise those who wish wealth to de- 
 vote themselves to that even if it does seem 
 stupid and prosaic, and not go off on a use- 
 less and silly search for gold. The natural 
 riches of the land, he says, are great and 
 may be had by anyone who is industrious 
 and persevering. And the truth of his 
 preaching has been proved from that day 
 to this. 
 
 But Captain Smith was not to be allowed 
 to spend all his time writing in the cabin. 
 The Frenchmen had heard of his skill as 
 a fighter and commander and were not un- 
 willing to take advantage of their pris- 
 oner 's ability. So he tells of directing the 
 
254 LIFE OP CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 encounters of the fleet with Spanish and 
 Dutch vessels, though when they fought 
 and captured English boats, as they did 
 several times, he stayed in the cabin as a 
 prisoner. Finally, instead of being landed 
 on the Azores, he was put on board one of 
 the prizes they had taken and was sent to 
 France. When they had nearly reached 
 the French coast, instead of their promises 
 of freedom and a share in the booty, he was 
 accused of having taken part in the de- 
 struction of a French colony in America— 
 which took place after he left Virginia. 
 This charge, which of course they had in- 
 vented, they said they would declare if he 
 accused his captors before the French 
 court of imprisoning him falsely or of keep- 
 ing from him the booty they had promised. 
 This was a hard problem, for Smith knew 
 his innocence of the charge would not be be- 
 lieved and yet he knew that his loss of time 
 and of money should be made good by the 
 Frenchmen. So he took what seemed the 
 only way out of his difficulty, but one which 
 
ADMIRAL OF NEW ENGLAND. 255 
 
 would have occurred only to the bravest 
 man ; and in a storm which kept his captors 
 below decks and wrecked many ships dur- 
 ing the night, he escaped in an open boat 
 and was driven out to sea. He kept him- 
 self afloat by continuous bailing; then by a 
 fortunate change in the wind he was driven 
 ashore on a muddy island and was found 
 there by hunters, half dead from cold and 
 hunger. 
 
 He sold his boat to his rescuers and so 
 got money enough to get to the city of 
 Rochelle where he stated his case before 
 the French court of Admiralty; and hap- 
 pily he found there some sailors from the 
 same fleet who had been shipwrecked in 
 this storm and who would swear to the 
 truth of his statement. He was promised 
 restitution,— which he never got; then go- 
 ing to find the English ambassador, who 
 had gone to Bordeaux to be present at the 
 marriage of the king to a Spanish princess, 
 he met friends who were willing to help 
 him. Among these was another great lady. 
 
256 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 Madame Chanoyes, who ^^bountifully as- 
 sisted him,'' as he wrote later in describ- 
 ing his troubles. Who she was we do not 
 know, but she proved a friend in need and 
 helped him to go back to Plymouth— for he 
 was almost utterly destitute. 
 
 In Plymouth, which he reached in Decem- 
 ber, 1615, he found some of the mutineers, 
 his old sailors who had left him with the 
 French, and saw to it that they were prop- 
 erly punished. All the next year the en- 
 thusiastic leader spent in trying to prevail 
 on the merchants in Plymouth to send out 
 a colony, and all through the summer he 
 journeyed up and down the West coast of 
 England distributing his maps and de- 
 scriptions of Virginia and New England 
 to prepare and excite men's minds. This 
 unselfish and devoted labor was so far suc- 
 cessful that a company was formed, twenty 
 ships were promised Captain Smith for 
 the next year, and he was appointed Ad- 
 miral of New England for life. You see 
 the name he gave this part of the country 
 
ADMIRAL OF NEW ENGLAND. 257 
 
 had already been adopted and now we 
 should not know what to do without it. 
 
 But promises were all that came of the 
 large plans. Each year a few ships were 
 sent for fish by different merchants and 
 many returned with good cargoes. But 
 the opportunity for the colony never came. 
 Probably when it came to the point not 
 men enough could be found who were will- 
 ing to risk the necessary amount of money. 
 The age of adventure was past and now 
 when colonists were sent out, it was to be 
 for some other purpose than the sheer love 
 of exploring and settling a new country. 
 
 Captain Smith's suggestions to the dif- 
 ferent companies about founding a colony 
 were both sensible and far-seeing. He very 
 much disapproved of the slave trade ; said 
 the unlimited production of tobacco would 
 be an injury both to men and land, which 
 we know now is perfectly true ; and always 
 made fun of the excited searchers for gold. 
 He said a colony to be successful should 
 be founded by men of good character, not 
 
258 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 renegades and scamps whose friends in 
 England wished to be rid of them. The 
 differences in the experiences in Virginia 
 and in Massachusetts— where the colonists 
 were God-fearing and industrious men and 
 where there were no such quarrels and con- 
 spiracies as those which took place in Vir- 
 ginia—proved the truth of this. And he 
 was always emphasizing the great value to 
 England of a foothold on the new conti- 
 nent, where the Spanish and French were 
 already successfully located. 
 
 When the Pilgrims set out from Ply- 
 mouth in 1620, he offered his services to 
 them, but they either could not pay what 
 he asked or they did not want his leader- 
 ship, for his motives for going were so 
 different from theirs. He afterwards de- 
 scribed their experiences and praised their 
 patience and courage, though he declared 
 they suffered from their own ignorance in 
 ways in which he might have been of help 
 to them. And this also was no doubt true. 
 
XVI. 
 
 The Death of Captain John Smith and 
 OF His Indian Friends. 
 
 In the mean time things had been going 
 very ill with the colony of Virginia. The 
 peace with the Indians was soon over, 
 ambuscades and skirmishes were frequent, 
 and the thieving which Smith had so com- 
 pletely stopped was constantly going on. 
 A month after he left them there were 
 twenty leaders when there should have 
 been one, and no one among them knew 
 how to get provisions or to deal with the 
 savages. Ratcliife, now called Sicklemore, 
 went to trade with Powhatan, taking 
 twenty men with him ; and all of them rely- 
 ing on the Indians' promises, as Smith 
 never had thought of doing, were slain by 
 the treacherous natives with the exception 
 
 259 
 
260 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 of one boy. He was saved by Pocahontas 
 and lived with the Indians for many years. 
 
 Finally, the chronicle says, instead of 
 corn and provisions they had nothing from 
 the Indians but mortal wounds with clubs 
 and arrows. Their live-stock was eaten 
 little by little by the starving settlers, even 
 to the horses ; and by the next March, only 
 six months after Captain Smith's depart- 
 ure, there were only sixty people left in the 
 colony. These had become most miserable 
 and poor creatures who lived on roots, 
 herbs, and acorns, and some even became 
 cannibals and ate the savages when they 
 could capture one. Until this day this 
 time of horror is called the starving time, 
 
 Jamestown was in ruins, the inhabitants 
 dying, and the colony would have been 
 completely destroyed had it not been for 
 the arrival of the chief ship of the last 
 expedition, which had been wrecked in the 
 Bermudas, as we read in a previous chap- 
 ter. Those on board, one hundred and fifty 
 in all, had been most wonderfully pre- 
 
DEATH OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 261 
 
 served. While they were in those islands 
 they built a ship, for theirs had been com- 
 pletely wrecked, and reached Virginia in 
 time to save the few colonists who were 
 left. 
 
 When Sir Thomas Gates, the head of the 
 commission, saw the miserable condition 
 of the few remaining settlers and the deso- 
 lation of the settlement, he yielded to the 
 persuasions of Eatcliffe and Martin, who 
 had been the principal causers of this 
 desolation, and gave orders to abandon the 
 colony. On the 7th of June they all set sail 
 for England, leaving, they supposed for- 
 ever, this foothold on the new continent 
 John Smith and the few who were faithful 
 to him had spent so much strength to gain. 
 
 But his work was not destined to be lost. 
 The ship had hardly left the bay before 
 it met a fleet of three ships commanded by 
 Lord Delaware, who had been appointed 
 Governor of Virginia, and they all sailed 
 back to Jamestown. Under the wise guid- 
 
262 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 ance of the new governor, who continued 
 in many ways the policy of Captain Smith, 
 the colony grew stronger each year. In 
 1618 Smith's old friend Powhatan died, 
 foreseeing without doubt, wise old savage 
 that he was, the final possession of his 
 beloved lands by these white strangers. 
 Powhatan was over seventy when he died. 
 He is described as a tall thin man with a 
 stern face, very strong and able to endure 
 great hardships. He had kept faith with 
 the English pretty well considering his 
 suspicions of their purpose in coming to 
 his country, and will always be one of the 
 most interesting figures in our early his- 
 tory. 
 
 The peace originally made with Ope- 
 chancanough was renewed by the new gov- 
 ernor, but in 1622 a terrible massacre of 
 the English took place, led by this old sav- 
 age. There was much talk of this in Eng- 
 land and Smith wrote to the heads of the 
 company in London to tell them his plan 
 for subduing the Indians and to offer his 
 
DEATH OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 263 
 
 services for the purpose. He asked for one 
 hundred soldiers and thirty sailors, not a 
 great number with which to overcome a 
 whole nation, but the company replied that 
 the colony was not paying them well and 
 they could not afford the outlay. Smith's 
 plan shows that he thoroughly understood 
 Indian warfare and was about the only 
 man of that time who did. There is no 
 doubt but that he had a genius for fighting, 
 and the pity is that it could not have been 
 more useful to England as he so greatly 
 desired it to be. 
 
 At several other times in the history of 
 the Virginia colony he made suggestions 
 to the company or offered to take charge 
 of expeditions, but though his advice was 
 occasionally asked and followed, there 
 never seemed to be just the place there for 
 him. We suspect this was for two reasons ; 
 Captain Smith was naturally a leader and 
 an imperious one at that ; he did not work 
 well with others but did his best work when 
 he alone was responsible for the results 
 
264 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITPI. 
 
 and there was no one to dispute him. Then 
 he was not of noble birth and at that time 
 in England the positions which he wished 
 and was best fitted for were as a rule only 
 granted to noblemen. He was in several 
 ways in advance of his times, and if he had 
 lived some years later when the colonies 
 were beginning to assert their independ- 
 ence, his services to America would have 
 been better appreciated. 
 
 There is another of John Smith's Indian 
 friends whom we must not leave without 
 some account of her remarkable life. In 
 many ways Pocahontas continued to be- 
 friend the English after Captain Smith's 
 departure, though she was never seen at 
 Jamestown. In 1614, Captain Argall, who 
 had visited the colony once before when 
 Smith was president, went to trade with 
 the Indians on the Eiver Potawomek. 
 Learning from an Indian whom he knew 
 well that Pocahontas was visiting in the 
 neighborhood, and thinking that if he could 
 take her prisoner the power of the English 
 
DEATH OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 265 
 
 over Powhatan would be unlimited, Captain 
 Argall bribed this Indian by the promise 
 of a copper kettle to entice the Princess 
 on board his ship. This was done with 
 ease, the Indian girl suspecting no evil ; as 
 indeed why should she who had always 
 been a friend to the English? But once 
 on the ship she was told that she must stay, 
 and the Indian betrayer and his wife, who 
 was in the plot, were sent merrily back to 
 their home with the copper kettle. 
 
 When the ship reached Jamestown, word 
 was sent to Powhatan that his daughter 
 could be ransomed only by his returning 
 all the English prisoners he had taken and 
 the tools and arms he had so treacherously 
 stolen. *'This unwelcome news troubled 
 Powhatan because he loved both his daugh- 
 ter and our commodities well, yet it was 
 three months before he returned any an- 
 swer.*' Then he sent back seven English 
 prisoners and a few old guns, saying that 
 when his daughter was returned he would 
 send the other things together with five 
 
266 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 hundred bushels of corn. But the English 
 had learned their lesson and knew better 
 than to trust him, so sent back word that 
 his daughter would be well-used but kept 
 at Jamestown till all stolen articles had 
 been received. Another effort was made 
 later by the English to effect an exchange, 
 but Powhatan could not be found and the 
 impression was that he was satisfied with 
 the kind treatment his daughter was re- 
 ceiving and preferred the English guns ! 
 
 In the mean time an Englishman, John 
 Rolfe, ^^an honest gentleman and of good 
 behaviour,'' had fallen in love with the 
 Indian girl and she with him. Their mar- 
 riage was consented to by the governor. Sir 
 Thomas Dale, and word was sent to Pow- 
 hatan and his permission asked. Though 
 no direct word was received from the 
 Indian chief the marriage was evidently 
 acceptable to him also, for an old uncle of 
 Pocahontas was present at the wedding as 
 well as two of her brothers, and many gifts 
 were sent. The chronicle goes on to say. 
 
DEATH OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 267 
 
 *^And ever since we have had friendly 
 trade and commerce as well with Powhatan 
 himself as all his subjects." 
 
 From a letter written by Sir Thomas 
 Dale we learn how carefully her husband 
 instructed the gentle Pocahontas in Chris- 
 tianity which she seemed eager to learn 
 about, and that she openly renounced the 
 Indian idolatry and strange customs. Also 
 that she had for her husband a true affec- 
 tion and had no desire to return to her 
 own nation, greatly preferring the society 
 of the English. She had been told that 
 Captain Smith was dead, why we do not 
 know, unless it was because she had always 
 called him her father and in her affection 
 and loyalty to him would not consent to 
 this marriage with Rolfe without first ob- 
 taining his permission. Some writers think 
 that she was in love with the man she had 
 saved, but there is no real reason to think 
 so. He was much older than the little 
 Princess and had always regarded her as 
 a child. There is no doubt that his gentle 
 
268 LIFE OP CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 kindness won her heart and that she felt 
 for him a great affection, but it was more 
 as a father or elder brother than as a lover. 
 
 The 12th of June, 1616, Master Rolfe 
 and his Indian wife reached England and 
 while they were there their son Thomas 
 was born. Pocahontas had been taught 
 English and was now called the Lady 
 Rebecca. Every one was much interested 
 in her and the treasurer of the Virginia 
 company was ordered to set aside money 
 as a sort of allowance for herself and her 
 child. Some even believed that Rolfe, an 
 untitled Englishman, should not have been 
 permitted to wed a king's daughter, show- 
 ing to what extent the feeling for royalty 
 was carried at that time. When Captain 
 Smithheard of her arrival he wrote a letter* 
 to Queen Anne about her, telling her of the 
 coming of Powhatan's daughter and of all 
 she had done for the Jamestown colony. 
 
 Lady Rebecca was received with much 
 kindness by persons of high rank, and 
 
 ♦See Appendix, p. 283. 
 
DEATH OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 269 
 
 many entertainments were given for her. 
 But the fogs of London were bad for her 
 health, accustomed as she was to the clear 
 air and out-door life in the Virginia for- 
 ests, and her husband took her to Brent- 
 ford, a Devonshire town, in the hope that 
 she would grow strong again. There Cap- 
 tain Smith found her as he was on his way 
 to Plymouth to join the expedition to New 
 England he had planned for. Pocahontas 
 was evidently deeply grieved at the decep- 
 tion which had been practised on her, for 
 after the first greeting she refused to talk 
 to her old friend but turned away her face. 
 After a few hours, during which the 
 honest captain was feeling somewhat un- 
 comfortable and *^ repenting himself to 
 have writ she could speak English,'^ she 
 began to talk, reminding Smith of all she 
 had done for him in the Jamestown days. 
 Smith had called Powhatan, father, she 
 said, so she should call Captain Smith 
 father. And though he refused the title, 
 feeling that he, a commoner, had no right 
 
270 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 to the name from a king's daughter, yet 
 she insisted; saying, with what gentleness 
 and sweetness we can well imagine: ^'You 
 were not afraid to come into my father's 
 country and caused fear in him and all his 
 people — but me; and fear you here I 
 should call you father; I tell you then I 
 will, and you shall call me child, and so I 
 will be forever and ever your countryman. 
 They did tell me always you were dead, 
 and I knew nothing different till I came 
 to Plymouth, yet Powhatan did command 
 Uttamatomakkin (an Indian who had come 
 to England with her) to seek and know the 
 truth; because your countrymen will lie 
 much. ' ' 
 
 There is an amusing story about this 
 same Uttamatomakkin. He was one of 
 Powhatan's council, and had been ordered 
 by his chief to number the Englishmen and 
 to report on the condition of the country. 
 "When he reached Plymouth he got a long 
 stick and tried to keep tally of all the men 
 he met, but was quickly weary of the task 
 
DEATH OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 271 
 
 and reported to his master that they were 
 as the sands of the sea. When Smith met 
 him in London he asked the white man 
 many questions and wished to see his God, 
 and his king, queen, and prince. Smith 
 told him about God as well as he could and 
 then said that he had seen the king, as 
 indeed he had when he first reached Lon- 
 don. At first the Indian would not believe 
 him, but when he was satisfied that it really 
 was the king he said sadly, ''You gave 
 Powhatan a white dog, which Powhatan 
 fed as himself; but your king gave me 
 nothing, and I am better than your white 
 dog.- 
 
 While Pocahontas was in London Cap- 
 tain Smith went several times to see her 
 and says that ''it pleased both the King's 
 and Queen's majesties honourably to esteem 
 her.'' And she would have received and 
 deserved more honors if she had lived to 
 arrive in Virginia. But the next year, 
 embarking for America on the good ship 
 George, with her husband, it "pleased God 
 
272 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 to take the Lady Pocahontas to his mercy.'' 
 She died very suddenly before the ship was 
 fairly under way, and was buried at Grave- 
 send. Her little son was left in charge of 
 a noble gentleman in Plymouth who wished 
 to bring him up. Later he went to Vir- 
 ginia and several well-known Americans 
 claim their descent from him. 
 
 It is hard to believe that active life is 
 over for our hero. If he had been willing 
 to go on trading voyages or had tried to 
 get men interested in the search for wealth, 
 he could probably have taken out many 
 ships. But his heart was set on establish- 
 ing another colony and for that only would 
 he work. He realized this state of things 
 himself, for he writes: ''Had my designs 
 been to have persuaded men to a mine of 
 gold, as I know many have done who know 
 no such matter (though few so conceive 
 either the charge or pains in refining it or 
 the power or care to defend it) ; or some 
 new invention to pass to the South Sea, or 
 some strange plot to invade some strange 
 
DEATH OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 273 
 
 monastery, or some chargeable fleet to take 
 some rich carracks (merchant ships) ; or 
 letters of marque to rob some poor mer- 
 chant or honest fisherman,— what multi- 
 tudes of both people and money would 
 contend to be first employed/' 
 
 And from now on we only know of him 
 through his writings. His experiences 
 were enough to take the heart out of most 
 men, but John Smith was not embittered 
 and only says of all the distresses that he 
 had passed through, ^^If you but truly con- 
 sider how many strange accidents have 
 befallen these plantations (meaning Vir- 
 ginia) and myself, you cannot but conceive 
 God's infinite mercies both to them and to 
 me. Having been a slave to the Turks, 
 prisoner among the most barbarous sav- 
 ages, . . . and yet to have lived near 
 thirty-seven years in the midst of wars, 
 pestilences, and famine, by which many a 
 hundred thousand have died about me, and 
 scarce five living of them that went with 
 me to Virginia . . . though I have but my 
 
274 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 labor for my pains, have I not much reason 
 publicly and privately to acknowledge it 
 and give good thanks T' 
 
 When some hinted that he could not 
 secure a fleet to lead to New England be- 
 cause he was unlucky,— and certainly when 
 we think of his last attempt, the pirates and 
 the French Men-of-War, there seems some 
 reason for such a belief,— he replied to 
 them at some length and with scorn. If 
 these fortune-tellers, as he called them, had 
 spent their time as he had, they would con- 
 sider that life is ruled over by God and not 
 by chance; and if they considered all that 
 he had done and that he had finally left 
 Virginia in such good shape after its long 
 struggle, they would not call him unlucky; 
 but studying into the causes of the troubles 
 in that colony would see that there is 
 reason in all things. 
 
 In 1824 he wrote a ^* Brief Relation to 
 his Majestic 's Commissioners for the 
 Reformation of Virginia, concerning some 
 aspersions against it.*' In this Relation he 
 
DEATH OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 275 
 
 stated plainly all the reasons for the hard 
 struggle in the colony, and what he sug- 
 gested as the best remedy for existing con- 
 ditions. One of John Smith's most notable 
 characteristics was his fearless independ- 
 ence of thought and speech. He was afraid 
 of no man, be he one of Powhatan's war- 
 riors or a royal commissioner. This letter 
 of his was so wise and straightforward that 
 the commissioners sent him several ques- 
 tions to answer which he did with the same 
 honesty and sagacity, and so was of help 
 to the colony even though he could not be 
 there in person. 
 
 From this year until his death he con- 
 tinued to write descriptions of his travels, 
 and words of advice to seamen, colonists, 
 and soldiers. Many of these showed opin- 
 ions far in advance of his time, and proved 
 him a thinker as well as a doer. Just be- 
 fore his death he showed his love for every- 
 thing connected with salt water by begin- 
 ning a History of the Sea, but this was 
 
276 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 never finished nor can any of the manu- 
 script be found. 
 
 He died in London on the 21st of June, 
 1631, in the house of Sir John Saltonstall, 
 one of his warm friends. He was only fifty- 
 one, not an old man by any means, but 
 without question all the hardships he had 
 been through had sapped his vitality. In 
 his will, made the day before his death, we 
 see that he had not used up all his property 
 in his adventures but had enough to pay his 
 debts and his funeral expenses, and then 
 to distribute some in legacies. He was 
 buried in St. Sepulchre's Church in Lon- 
 don and there is now an elaborate epitaph 
 above his tomb, beginning, 
 
 ''Here lies one conquered who hath con- 
 qiiered kings/'* 
 
 But his best epitaph is his own signature 
 to the dedication of one of his books, 
 
 ''To Christ and my Country a true Sol- 
 dier, and faith full Servant/' 
 
 It is a great pity that so much attention 
 
 ♦See Appendix, p. 287. 
 
DEATH OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 277 
 
 has been paid to Captain Smith's experi- 
 ence with Pocahontas, for that is not the 
 most important thing in his life, though 
 perhaps it is the most picturesque. Eather 
 we should remember him for his real 
 patriotism, his honesty and devotion to 
 duty, his unselfish leadership of the strug- 
 gling little Jamestown settlement. No one 
 pioneer has done more for the establish- 
 ment of the English in this country, yet how 
 little we really know of him and how un- 
 fairly we have judged him,— for we have 
 always thought of him simply as the man 
 who was saved by Pocahontas. 
 
 Opinionated and self-willed he probably 
 was, and too eager for praise and for places 
 of command; yet when he was in* authority 
 his wisdom and patience were unfailing, 
 and his kindness to the weak and dependent 
 was as sure as was his stern justice toward 
 the guilty. In spite of his exaggerations 
 and frequent boasting we must surely reck- 
 on him to be one of our greatest colonists. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 The letter sent to the Treasurer of the 
 Virginia Company in London by Captain 
 Smith when he was President of Virginia 
 in the year 1608. 
 
 Right Honorable, etc. 
 
 I received your letter wherein you write that 
 our minds are so set upon faction and idle con- 
 ceits in dividing the country without your con- 
 sents; and that we feed you but with ifs and 
 ands, hopes and some few proofs ; as if we would 
 keep the mystery of the business to ourselves: 
 and that we must expressly follow your instruc- 
 tions sent by Captain Newport, the charge of 
 whose voyage amounts to near two thousand 
 pounds; the which if we cannot defray by the 
 ship 's return, we are like to remain as banished 
 men. To these particulars I humbly entreat 
 your pardons if I offend you with my rude 
 answer. 
 
 278 
 
APPENDIX. 279 
 
 For our factions, unless you would have me 
 run away and leave the country, I cannot pre- 
 vent them: because I do make many stay that 
 would else fly anywhere. For the idle letter sent 
 to my Lord of Salisbury by the President (Rat- 
 cliffe) and his confederates for dividing the 
 country, etc. What it was I know not for you 
 saw no hand of mine to it; nor ever dream 't I 
 of any such matter. That we feed you with 
 
 hopes, etc I have not concealed from 
 
 you anything I know; but I fear some cause 
 you to believe much more than is true. 
 
 Expressly to follow your directions by Cap- 
 tain Newport, though they be performed I was 
 directly against it; but according to our com- 
 mission I was content to be overruled by the 
 major part of the council, I fear to the hazard 
 of us all ; which now is generally confessed when 
 it is too late. ..... 
 
 For the charge of this voyage of two or three 
 thousand pounds, we have not received the value 
 of a hundred pounds. And for the boat to be 
 borne by the soldiers over the Falls, Newport 
 had 120 of the best men he could choose. If 
 he had burnt her to ashes one might have car- 
 ried her in a bag ; but as she is five hundred can- 
 
280 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 not, to a navigable place above the Falls. And 
 for him to find at that time in the South Sea, 
 a mine of gold, or any of them sent by Sir 
 Walter Raleigh ; at our consultation I told them 
 was as likely as the rest. But during this great 
 
 discovery of thirty miles they had the 
 
 pinnace and all the boats with them, but one 
 
 that remained with me to serve the Fort 
 
 For the coronation of Powhatan, by whose 
 advice you sent him such presents I know not; 
 but this give me leave to tell you, I fear they 
 will be the confusion of us all ere we hear from 
 you again. At your ship's arrival, the Salvages' 
 harvest was newly gathered, and we going to 
 buy it ; our own being not half sufficient for so 
 great a number. As for the two ships' loading 
 of corn Newport promised to provide us from 
 Powhatan, he brought us but fourteen bushels; 
 and from the Monacans, nothing, but the most 
 of the men sick and near famished. And from 
 your ship we had not provision in victuals 
 worth twenty pound, and we are more than two 
 hundred to live upon this; the one half sick, 
 the other little better. For the sailors (I con- 
 fess) they daily make good cheer, but our diet 
 is a little meal and water and not sufficient of 
 
APPENDIX. 281 
 
 that. Though there be fish in the sea, fowls 
 in the air, and beasts in the wood, their bounds 
 are so large, they so wild, and we so weak and 
 ignorant, we cannot much trouble them. Cap- 
 tain Newport we much suspect to be the author 
 of those inventions. 
 
 Now that you should know, I have made you 
 as great a discovery as he, for less charge than 
 he spendeth you every meal; I have sent you 
 this Map of the Bay and Rivers, with an an- 
 nexed Relation of the Countries and Nations 
 that inhabit them (see page 176). .. . Also two 
 barrels of stones, and such as I take to be good 
 iron ore at the least, so divided as you may see 
 
 by their notes in what places I found them 
 
 Captain Ratcliffe is now called Sicklemore, a 
 poor counterfeited imposture. I have sent you 
 him home, lest the company should cut his 
 throat. What he is, now everyone can tell you ; 
 if he and Archer return again, they are sufficient 
 to keep us always in factions. 
 
 When you send again, I entreat you rather 
 send but thirty carpenters, husbandmen, gar- 
 deners, fishermen, blacksmiths, masons, and dig- 
 gers up of trees and roots, well-provided, than 
 a thousand of such as we have; for except we 
 
282 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 be able both to lodge them and feed them, the 
 most will consume with want of necessaries, be- 
 fore they can be made good for anything. 
 
 Thus if you please to consider this account 
 and of the unnecessary wages to Captain New- 
 port, or his ships so long lingering and staying 
 here, .... or yet to send into Germany or 
 Poland for glass-men and the rest, till we be 
 able to sustain ourselves, and relieve them when 
 
 they come For in overtoiling our weak and 
 
 unskilful bodies to satisfy this desire of present 
 profit, we can scarce ever recover ourselves from 
 one supply to another. 
 
 And I humbly entreat you hereafter, let us 
 know what we should receive, and not stand 
 to the sailors' courtesy to leave us what they 
 please; else you may charge us with what you 
 will, but we not you with anything. 
 
 These are the causes that have kept us in Vir- 
 ginia from laying such a foundation that ere 
 this might have given much better content and 
 satisfaction; but as yet you must not look for 
 any profitable returns : so I humbly rest. 
 
APPENDIX. 283 
 
 Letter written by Captain Smith to the 
 Queen, when Pocahontas came to London 
 with her husband in the year 1616. 
 
 To the most high and virtuous Princess, 
 Queen Anne of Great Britain. 
 
 Most admired Queen, 
 
 The love I bear my God, my King, and Coun- 
 try, hath so oft emboldened me in the worst of 
 extreme dangers, that now honesty doth con- 
 strain me to presume thus far beyond my self, 
 to present your Majesty this short discourse: 
 if ingratitude be a deadly poison to all honest 
 virtues, I must be guilty of that crime if I 
 should omit any means to be thankful. 
 So it is, 
 
 That some ten years ago being in Virginia, 
 and taken prisoner by the power of Powhatan, 
 their chief king, I received from this great Salv- 
 age exceeding great courtesy, especially from his 
 son, Nantaquaus, the most manliest, comeliest, 
 boldest spirit, I ever saw in a Salvage, and his 
 sister, Pocahontas, the king's most dear and 
 well-beloved daughter, being but a child of 
 twelve or thirteen years of age, whose compas- 
 sionate pitiful heart, of my desperate estate gave 
 
284 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 me much cause to respect her: I being the first 
 Christian this proud king and his grim attend- 
 ants ever saw : and thus enthralled in their bar- 
 barous power, I cannot say I felt the least oc- 
 casion of want that was in the power of those, 
 my mortal foes, to prevent, notwithstanding all 
 their threats. After some six weeks, fatting 
 among those Salvage courtiers, at the minute of 
 my execution, she hazarded the beating out of 
 her own brains to save mine ; and not only that 
 but so prevailed with her father, that I was 
 safely conducted to Jamestown: where I found 
 about eight and thirty miserable, poor, and sick 
 creatures to keep possession of all those large 
 territories of Virginia; such was the weakness 
 of this poor Commonwealth, as had the Savages 
 not fed us, we directly had starved. And this 
 relief, most gracious Queen, was commonly 
 brought us by this Lady Pocahontas. 
 
 Notwithstanding all these passages, when in- 
 constant Fortune turned our peace to war, this 
 tender virgin would still not spare to dare to 
 visit us, and by her our jars have oft been ap- 
 peased and our wants still supplied ; were it the 
 policy of her father thus to employ her, or the 
 ordinance of God thus to make her His instru- 
 
APPENDIX. 285 
 
 ment, or her extraordinary affection to our na- 
 tion, I know not: but of this I am sure; when 
 her father with the utmost of his policy and 
 power, sought to surprise me (see page 216) 
 having but eighteen with me, the dark night 
 could not affright her from coming through the 
 irksome woods, and with watered eyes gave me 
 intelligence, with her best advice to escape his 
 fury; which had he known, he had surely slain 
 her. 
 
 Jamestown, with her wild train, she as freely 
 frequented as her father's habitation; and dur- 
 ing the time of two or three years (1608-9) she 
 next under God, was still the instrument to 
 preserve this Colony from death, famine, and 
 utter confusion 
 
 About two years after (April 1613) she her- 
 self was taken prisoner ; being so detained near 
 two years longer, the Colony by that means was 
 relieved, peace concluded; and at last rejecting 
 her barbarous condition, she was married (in 
 1614) to an English gentleman with whom at 
 this present she is in England ; the first Christian 
 ever of that nation, the first Virginian ever spake 
 English 
 
 Thus, most gracious lady, I have related to 
 
286 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 your Majesty what at your best leisure our ap- 
 proved histories will account you at large, and 
 done in the time of your Majesty's life; and 
 however this might be presented you from a 
 more worthy pen it cannot from a more honest 
 heart; and it is my want of ability and her 
 exceeding desert, your birth, means, and author- 
 ity, her birth, virtue, want, and simplicity 
 does make me thus bold humbly to beseech your 
 Majesty to take this knowledge of her, though 
 it be from one so unworthy to be the reporter as 
 myself, her husband's estate not being able to 
 
 make her fit to attend your Majesty 
 
 If she should not be well received, seeing this 
 kingdom may rightly have a kingdom by her 
 means; her present love to us and Christianity 
 might turn to such scorn and fury, as to divert 
 all this good to the worst of evil ; whereas, find- 
 ing so great a Queen should do her some honor 
 
 more than she can imagine would so 
 
 ravish her with content, as endear her dearest 
 blood (make it her greatest desire) to effect that 
 which your Majesty and all the King's honest 
 subjects most earnestly desire. 
 
 And so I humbly kiss your gracious hands. 
 
APPENDIX. 287 
 
 Epitaph to Captain John Smith in St. 
 Sepulcher's Church in London. 
 
 To the Living Memory of his deceased Friend, 
 
 Captain JOHN SMITH, who departed this 
 
 mortall life on the 21 day of June, 1631. 
 
 With his Armes, and this Motto, 
 Accordamus. Vincere est vivere. 
 
 Here lies one conquered that hath conquered 
 Kings, 
 Subdu'd large Territories, and done things 
 Which to the World impossible would seem, 
 But that the truth is held in more esteem. 
 
 Shall I report his former service done 
 In honour of his God and Christendome ; 
 How that he did divide from Pagans three, 
 Their Heads, and Lives, Types of his Chivalrie : 
 For which great service in that Climate done, 
 Brave Sigismundus (King of Hungarion) 
 Did give him as a Coat of Armes to wear, 
 Those conquered heads, got by his Sword and 
 Spear ? 
 
 Or shall I tell of his adventures since, 
 Done in Virginia, that large Continence: 
 How that he subdu'd Kings unto his yoke, 
 
288 LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 And made those Heathen flie as wind does 
 
 smoke ; 
 And made their Land, being of so large a sta- 
 tion, 
 A habitation for our Christian Nation: 
 Where God is glorified, their wants supplied, 
 Which else for necessaries might have died? 
 
 But what avails his Conquest, now he lies 
 Inter 'd in earth, a prey for Wormes and Flies T 
 may his soul in sweet Elizium sleep, 
 Untill the Keeper that all soules doth keepe, 
 Return to Judgement, and that after thence, 
 With Angels he may have his recompence. 
 
 Captain John Smith, sometime Govemour 
 
 of Virginia, and Admirall of 
 
 New England. 
 
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