The history of the world furnishes few lives so romantic and replete with stirring incident as that of John Smith, the founder of the first English colony in America—that settlement at Jamestown in Virginia, of which the United States of today is the outgrowth.

John Smith began life in the year 1580, in the glorious reign of Good Queen Bess. It was a world of turmoil into which our hero came, but a most fitting field for so adventurous a spirit. In France, the gallant Henry of Navarre was fighting for a kingdom and his faith against the Catholic League. In the Low Countries, the sturdy Dutchmen, under Maurice of Orange, were defending their homes from the invasion of the arrogant and bigoted Spaniard, who deemed it his duty to punish every Protestant people. In the east of Europe, the Ottomans—Asiatics from Turkestan and other countries—maintained an incessant and savage warfare against the subjects of the Emperor of Germany.

There was but one peaceful spot in all Christendom, and that the “right little, tight little island” of our forefathers. There were, however, thousands of Englishmen who, like John Smith, had no stomach for a life of ease and they were to be found in every army on the continent, fighting for gain or religion, and often for sheer love of the life of action. Moreover Cabot, the first on the coast of America, had started that movement which was to create the greatest colonial empire in the history of the world, and Raleigh had already made his first futile attempt to settle Virginia, where John Smith was destined to play a master part.

On the seas, vessels of each nation preyed upon those of every other, for a tacit condition of enmity prevailed among them regardless of the status of their several countries. Navies were composed mainly of the merchant marine, for every ocean-going ship carried cannon and small arms. Commonly their captains were furnished with letters of marque, commissions issued by their sovereigns authorizing the holders to attack the sails of other countries hostile to their own and to take prizes and prisoners. The possession of letters of marque saved a captain and his crew from the disgrace and the penalty of piracy, but it was often no more than a cloak for the practice. Two ships flying different flags hardly ever met, but the stronger attacked the other and, if victorious, plundered her, and that without any consideration for the friendly relations that might at the time exist between their respective countries. The age of the robber barons had passed away, to be succeeded by a somewhat less immoral state of society in which the powerful refrained from preying upon their countrymen but recognized no law of justice in dealing with foreigners. Judged by our standards, Dampier and Drake were pirates; Pizzaro and Cortes, bandits.

Smith, with a less acute sense of honor and a lower regard for right, might have amassed a ready fortune in the days when such qualities as his ensured wealth to the unscrupulous adventurers on land and sea, whose predatory careers were countenanced and abetted by monarchs and men in high places. In his latter years, when embittered by his failure to secure money for legitimate exploration, he writes:[1] “Had I set myself to persuade men that I knew of a mine of gold, as I know many to have done in sheer deception; or had I advanced some wild scheme for a passage to the South Sea; or some plot to loot a foreign monastery; or the equipment of a fleet to make prizes of rich East Indiamen; or letters of marque to rob some poor merchant or honest fisherman, multitudes with their money would have contended to be first employed.”

Queen Elizabeth, the wisest and the most humane sovereign of her time, had ample excuse for the license which she extended to her sea captains in the matter of attacking the Spanish possessions and ships. It was a measure of self-defence, designed for the protection of the liberties and religion of her subjects against the aggressive power of Spain, which, after the discovery of America, bid fair, unless checked, to make her the mistress of the world. Smith was in his ninth year when our dauntless ancestors, by shattering the great Armada, scotched the pride of Philip and halted his ambition. This was of all naval battles, perhaps, the most momentous to the Anglo-Saxon race and certainly of vital consequence to America, for had Philip’s fleet gained a victory on that occasion, we, as a nation, had never been. It is more than probable that the old religion would have been re-established in England, with a stop to the march of liberty and independence, and certain that Spain would have found no obstacle to the acquisition of the entire American continent. The immediate effect of England’s victory was to set her on the highway to the naval supremacy of the world, and the generation to which John Smith belonged maintained a constant struggle for the command of the seas. Later generations of Englishmen carried on the contest with Holland and afterwards with France.

We have seen that John Smith lived in a period of the world that afforded the adventurer ample and varied scope for the exercise of talents and energy, but in any other age than his own a man of Smith’s extraordinary parts must have taken a prominent place among his contemporaries. In the period following the decline of the Roman power, when the nations of Europe were in the formative stage, such a man would surely have been one of the great dukes (duces), or leaders who founded dynasties of kings. At the present day he might be an explorer, a captain of industry, or a statesman—for Smith had the qualities that ensure success in any walk of life.

It is a wonderful and inspiring story, that of the stripling who, without money or friends, boldly left his native land and, abandoning himself to the chance currents of a strange world, at the age when the modern schoolboy is seeking distinction on the football field, was learning the art of arms in the practical school of war. Dame Fortune surely smiled upon the errant boy and, whilst she led him into constant adventure and danger, as frequently saw him safely out of them.

During his checkered career as a soldier of fortune his lot is often cast in hard places and his life is constantly endangered. He is shipwrecked and narrowly escapes drowning. Robbed and landed upon a foreign shore with empty purse, he is forced to sell his cloak in order to meet his needs. Like Jonah of old, he is thrown overboard by a superstitious crew, but contrives to swim to an uninhabited island. He is sorely wounded in battle and captured by the Turks, who sell him into slavery.

The life was always arduous, for in those days mere travel was beset by dangers and difficulty, but as we follow the lad in his adventures we are cheered by many a bright spot and many a fine success. For John Smith was never the kind to be depressed or defeated by adversity. Indeed, he reminds one of those toys, called “bottle imps,” that may be rolled over in any direction but cannot be made to lie down. Hardly has he met with a reverse than he sets about repairing it and always with success. To-day he is cold, hungry, and half clad, his purse as flat as a flounder, but soon afterwards we see him going gayly on his way with a pocket full of sequins, his share in a prize which he had helped to capture. He wins his spurs in the Low Countries and in the war against the Turks is granted a coat of arms for the exploit of defeating three of the enemy’s champions in single combat. His military services earn for him the title of captain and the command of a regiment of horse.

All these things, and many more equally remarkable, befall John Smith before he has reached the age of twenty-four. He has now spent eight years abroad, except for a brief return to England, and all this time he is fighting on land and at sea, or roaming through foreign countries in search of experience and adventure. Keenly observant always, he extracts from each occasion—as the bee gathers honey from every flower—some knowledge to be turned to useful account in later life.

Smith has no other purpose during this early period of his life than to learn what he can of the world and the practice of arms—in short to qualify himself for a life of action in an age when brawn is no less essential to success than brain. It is a stern school in which he acquires his training but an effective one, and he makes the most of his opportunities. We see the expansion of his mind keeping pace with the development of his muscle, until the Captain John Smith who joins the colonists bound for Virginia appears as a man of perfect physique and mature judgment. It is not improbable that the hardships and exposure of his life may have sown the seeds of disease but, if so, he has not contributed to such a condition by his habits. In that day the soldiers of all nations were addicted to brawling, drinking, pillaging, and gambling. But these practices had no attraction for Smith. His sword never lagged in the scabbard on good occasion for its use, but he was no swashbuckler seeking unnecessary trouble; he drank wine sparingly but found no pleasure in gluttony; he paid for what he took, even in an enemy’s country and counted it a disgrace to rob a defenceless man; in the matter of money, as in everything else, he was the most generous of mortals and had rather hand a man his purse than to win that of the other by dicing. Withal he did not set himself up to be better than his fellows and we have the testimony of two of his countrymen, who followed him through the wars in Transylvania, that he was respected and beloved by his comrades and the soldiers under his command.

Hitherto Smith has been associated with men whose experience was greater than his own. They have been his masters, both in the sense of teachers and commanders. As a subordinate he has performed his duties so well as to call forth the praise and admiration of his superiors. Now we find him going out to a land which is equally strange to him and to his companions. No man of them enjoys the advantage of knowing more than the others about those distant parts and their people. Rank and money will count for little in the new life. Each man’s worth will be measured by his character and his actions. Under such conditions, a man of Smith’s extraordinary ability must sooner or later become the leader, even among others much older than himself.

The foundation of Virginia and, as I have said, that of the United States was laid by Captain John Smith in spite of tremendous difficulties. Some of these were such as would naturally attend the settlement of a strange land among hostile inhabitants, but it is not too much to say that the greater part of them were due to the incompetence of the colonists and their constant quarrels among themselves. More than once they brought affairs to such a pass that nothing but the prompt and energetic action of Smith saved the colony from total destruction.

These differences broke out before they had reached the shores of America, and we see Captain John Smith landed in chains, a prisoner under absurd charges trumped up by pettifoggers who are envious of his evident fitness for command and accuse him of a design to usurp it. They scheme to send him back to England, but at the very outset they learn that they cannot dispense with the services of this, the ablest man among them. It is he who shows them how to fortify the settlement. He repels the attacks of the Indians. He and he only, dares lead exploring expeditions into unknown regions. Captured by the most powerful chief of that part of the country, Smith converts him into an ally. He makes treaties with the surrounding tribes and secures their friendship for the settlers. Time and again, when improvidence has brought famine upon the colonists, he saves them from starvation by procuring supplies at the risk of his life. In short he continually preserves this mixed company of malcontents and incompetents from the worst consequences of their folly and controls them with the firmness and tact of a master. In his dealings with the Indians, he carefully avoids unnecessary bloodshed or harshness, frequently sacrificing prudence at the dictate of humanity. Yet he gained the respect of the savages by his courage, steadfastness, honesty and—when occasion demanded—by the weight of his strong arm, for Captain John Smith was no less stern than just.

In the days when news traveled slowly and was often delivered by word of mouth, the truth of distant events was hard to ascertain, and great men were frequently the victims of malice and envy. Smith, like many another, failed to receive at the hands of his countrymen the honor and recognition which he deserved. They had been misled by extravagant fables of the wealth of America and were disappointed that Smith did not send home cargoes of gold, spices, and other things which the country did not produce. False tales of his tyranny over the colonists and his cruelty to the savages had preceded his return to England, and he found himself in disfavor. He made two voyages to New England, as he called the region which still bears that name, but little came of them. This was mainly on account of the determination of the promoters to search for gold lodes where none existed. Smith with rare foresight strove to persuade his contemporaries that they had better develop commerce in the products of the sea and the field. Few would listen to him, however, whilst the rich argosies of Spain, freighted with ore from South America, inflamed their minds with visions of similar treasures in the north. The spirit of speculation had taken possession of the country. Smith could obtain money for none but wild or dishonest ventures and in such he would not engage. His generous soul disdained the pursuit of mere wealth, and we see him, after having “lived near thirty-seven years in the midst of wars, pestilence, and famine, by which many a hundred thousand died” about him, passing his last days in the comparative poverty which had been his condition through life. Captain John Smith had not yet reached the prime of life—indeed, he was hardly more than forty years of age—when he was compelled to retire from active life. Despairing of honorable employment, he settled down to write the many books that issued from his pen. It would be difficult to surmise what valuable services he might, with better opportunity, have performed for his country, during this last decade of his life. The time was well spent, however, that he occupied in the composition of his life and historical works. He is a clear and terse writer. We are seldom at a loss to fully understand him, and the only complaint that we feel disposed to make against Captain John Smith as a writer is that he too often fails to give an account of his own part in the stirring events which he records. In fact he combined with the modesty usually associated with true greatness, the self-confidence of the man whose ultimate reliance is upon an all-powerful Providence. “If you but truly consider,” he writes in the history of Virginia, “how many strange accidents have befallen these plantations and myself, you cannot but conceive God’s infinite mercy both to them and to me.... Though I have but my labor for my pains, have I not much reason publicly and privately to acknowledge it and to give good thanks?”

Few men have compassed in fifty years of life so much of noble action and inspiring example as did John Smith. He died, as he had lived, a God-fearing, honorable gentleman, rich in the consciousness of a life well spent and in the respect of all who knew him. He was a connecting link between the old world and the new, and we, no less than England, should keep his memory green.

THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE

John Smith
Gentleman Adventurer