John Smith becomes interested in American colonization—Devotes his money and his services to the Virginia venture—Sails with an expedition to the New World composed of an ill-assorted company of adventurers—They fall into dissensions at the outset—Each is jealous of others and all of John Smith—He is placed under arrest and a gallows erected for his accommodation—The emigrants grow weary of the adventure—When almost within sight of the continent they plan to put about and return to England—A storm decides the matter by sweeping them into Chesapeake Bay—A party is landed and has an early conflict with the Indians.

The life of John Smith naturally divides itself into two parts, each covering about twenty-five years. We have followed him through the former period with its exciting episodes and varying scenes. During this term he is the soldier of fortune, seeking to satisfy his love of adventure and to gain knowledge and experience. Beyond these motives he has no definite purpose in view. He is ready to enlist in any cause that offers opportunity for honorable employment. This early stage of his activity has developed his mind and body and strengthened that stability of character for which he was distinguished. He returns to England, bronzed and bearded, somewhat disgusted with the horrors of war and dissatisfied at the futility of the life of the mere adventurer. His energy is in no degree abated but he longs to find some purposeful direction for his enterprise. Fortunately for him, for his country, and for us, the opportunity awaited the man.

Up to this time, all the efforts of Englishmen to plant colonies in America had resulted in failure. The movement began with the voyages and discoveries of the Cabots in the reign of Henry the Seventh and for a century was pursued with difficulty in the face of the superior naval strength of Spain, which nation claimed exclusive right to the entire continent. The defeat of the “invincible Armada” afforded freedom of the seas to English navigators and marked the beginning of a new era in American exploration and settlement. The majority of the men who engaged in this field of enterprise were actuated by no better motive than the desire to gain wealth or satisfy a love of adventure. There were, however, not a few who entered into the movement with patriotic motives and of these the gallant and ill-fated Raleigh is the most conspicuous. He devoted his fortune to exploration of the Western Hemisphere and spent in this endeavor more than a million dollars. In 1584 his vessels under Amidas and Barlow made a landing in the Carolinas, took possession in the name of Queen Elizabeth, and called the country “Virginia.” In the following year a colony of one hundred and eight men was sent out under Sir Ralph Lane. A settlement was made upon the island of Roanoke but the enterprise was soon abandoned and the colonists returned to England. In 1586, Sir Richard Grenville left fifty men at the deserted settlement, only to be massacred by the Indians. But Raleigh persisted in his efforts. Another party of emigrants was sent out and this time it was sought to encourage home-making in the new land by including women in the colonists. The fate of these pioneers who are commonly referred to as the “Lost Colony” is a blank. A later expedition found the site of the settlement deserted and no trace of its former occupants could ever be discovered.

The unfortunate results of these efforts dampened the ardor for American colonization and for twelve years there was a cessation of the attempts to people Virginia. Raleigh had exhausted his means and his later explorations were made with borrowed money and directed to the discovery of gold mines in Guiana. In 1602, Bartholomew Gosnold made a successful voyage to Virginia, returning with a cargo of sassafras. Several other expeditions followed which, although they made no settlements, revived public interest in the American possession and made the route a comparatively familiar one. When John Smith returned to his native land he found the colonization of Virginia occupying a prominent place in the minds of his countrymen. It was a project precisely fitted to satisfy the nobler ambition which now fired him to devote his talents and energies to his country’s service. It promised to combine with a useful career a sufficient element of novelty and adventure, and he lost no time in allying himself with the chief promoters of the movement.

The territory of Virginia had been granted to Sir Walter Raleigh by Queen Elizabeth. The latter died in 1603, the year before Smith’s return to England, and her successor, James the First, imprisoned Raleigh on a charge of high treason and confiscated his possessions. In 1606, the King issued a charter for the colonization of Virginia to a company, which Smith joined with five hundred pounds of his own money. But previous to this he had been one of the most diligent workers in the promotion of the scheme, inducing merchants and noblemen to support the project with capital and persuading desirable men to volunteer as colonists. Neither object was easy of attainment and the latter was the more difficult. Numerous broken-down gentlemen of indifferent character were eager to embrace the chance of retrieving their fortunes in a new land, and hundreds of dissolute soldiers out of employment offered their services to the promoters. But the need was for farmers, mechanics, and laborers, and few of these could be induced to leave their homes in the prosperous state of the country at that time. Consequently the organizers of the expedition had to content themselves with a poor assortment of colonists who, but for the presence of Captain John Smith among them, would assuredly have added one more to the list of failures connected with North American colonization. It was due to him mainly, and almost solely, that the settlement at Jamestown survived and became the root from which branched the United States of America.

The expedition, when at length it was organized, consisted of three vessels carrying, aside from their crews, one hundred and five colonists. The largest of the ships, named the Susan Constant, was barely one hundred tons burden, the second, named the Godspeed, was somewhat smaller, and the third, the Discovery, no more than twenty tons. Their commanders were Captain Christopher Newport, Captain Bartholomew Gosnold and John Ratcliffe respectively. Other important members of the expedition were Edward Wingfield, a man with little but his aristocratic connections to recommend him; Robert Hunt, a clergyman, whose name should be linked with that of John Smith as one of the saviours of the colony, and a few whose introduction we may defer until circumstances bring them prominently upon the scene. For the rest, forty-eight were gentlemen of little account, about thirty were men of lower estate, but no greater usefulness, and only a score belonged to the artisan and mechanic class. Smith had engaged and fitted out a few men with whose quality he had some acquaintance, including Carlton and Robinson, the only two Englishmen of his own command who had escaped from the disaster in the Valley of Veristhorne.

In the last days of the year 1606, this ill-assorted company sailed out of the Thames under conditions calculated to create dissensions from the outset. King James, one of the most feeble monarchs who ever occupied the English throne, had reserved to himself the right to select the Council by which the colony should be governed, allowing to that body the privilege of electing its President. But for some reason, which it is impossible to surmise, the choice of the monarch was kept secret and names of the Council enclosed in a box which was to be opened only when the party reached its destination. Thus they started upon the voyage without a commander or any recognized authority among them, and each man of prominence, feeling satisfied that the King could not have overlooked his superior claims to a place in the Council, assumed the tone and bearing of an accepted leader whilst resenting similar action on the part of others.

The need of acknowledged authority was felt from the outset. Newport, Gosnold, and Ratcliffe, were, for the nonce, merely sailing masters and had as much as they could well do to fulfill their duties in that capacity. The expedition emerged from the Thames to encounter contrary winds and stormy weather, so that it was forced to beat about off the coast of England for weeks without making any progress. The emigrants began to quarrel, and among the principal men of the party there broke out a spirit of jealousy which was never allayed. This was directed chiefly against Captain Smith. His companions were forced to admit to themselves that this self-possessed and confident young man was their superior in all those qualities that would be of most account in the strange land for which they were destined, and they had sufficient discernment to realize that no matter who might become the nominal President of the colony, John Smith would be its master spirit and actual leader. This was made manifest in these first few weeks of trying delay. Did one of the ship-captains need assistance? John Smith was a practical navigator and could both handle a vessel and read the charts. In the dispositions for defence in case of attack, he had to be relied upon as the best gunner and leader of fighting men among them. When the voyagers became troublesome none but John Smith could effectually quiet them. A few words in his calm firm tones would quickly quell a disturbance. Some of these men had served under him and had learned to respect his character. The others instinctively felt that he was a man of sense and strength—one of those rare creatures who rise to every emergency and lift their subordinates with them.

Men of broad and generous minds would have rejoiced to think that they had among them one who was capable of steering them through all their difficulties and whose experience would help them to avoid many a pitfall and disaster. There were a few among the gentlemen, such as George Percy, Parson Hunt and Scrivener, who took this sensible view of the situation. On the other hand, Wingfield, Kendall, Ratcliffe, Archer and several more, conscious of their own inferiority, became possessed by an insane jealousy of our hero. This grew with the progress of the voyage and constant discussion of their silly suspicions, until at length they had fully persuaded themselves that Captain John Smith was a dark conspirator who entertained designs against themselves and contemplated treason against his King and country. They believed, or professed to believe, that he had distributed creatures of his own throughout the three vessels with the intention of seizing the expedition and proclaiming himself king of the new country as soon as they should arrive at it. With this excuse they made him a close prisoner when the vessels were in mid-Atlantic.

When the party charged with this disgraceful office approached him on the deck of the Susan Constant, Smith handed to them his sword without a word and went below smiling grimly. He had long since fathomed the weakness and the incompetence of these self-constituted leaders. He knew that the time would come when his services would be indispensable to them and he was content to abide it in patience. They should have realized that, if their suspicions were just, he had but to raise his voice and the vessels would be instantly in mutiny. But they had not sufficient intelligence to perceive that if John Smith was the dangerous character they assumed him to be their best course was to propitiate him rather than to arouse his enmity. Instead of being impressed by the self-confident manner in which he yielded to confinement in the hold they gained courage from the incident and actually thought that they might go to any extreme without resistance on his part. So, when the vessels made land at the West Indies, these masterful gentry erected a gallows for the purpose of hanging our hero, or, perhaps, of frightening him. Now we know that they could not have undertaken a more difficult task than that of attempting to strike fear into the heart of John Smith, and as to actual hanging, whilst he had a considerable sense of humor, it did not carry him so far as taking part in a performance of that sort. When they brought him on deck and solemnly informed him that the gallows awaited him, he laughed in their faces and told them that it was a shame to waste good timber, for he had not the remotest thought of using the contrivance. In fact, he took the matter with such careless assurance that they wisely concluded to abandon the project and sailing away, left their useless gallows standing.

Steering for that portion of the mainland where the former ill-fated colonies had been planted, the vessels were soon out of their reckoning and beat about for several days without sight of land. They had been already four months upon a voyage that should have occupied no more than two and had made serious inroads into the stock of provisions which was calculated to furnish the store of the settlers. They began to grow fearful and discontented. Many wished to put about and sail homeward, and even Ratcliffe, the captain of the Discovery, favored such a course. Whilst they were debating the proposition, a violent storm arose and luckily drove them to their destination. On the twenty-sixth day of April, 1607, they entered the Bay of Chesapeake.

Eager to see the new land of promise, a party of the colonists went ashore that day. They wandered through forest and glade, cheered by the genial warmth of the southern clime and delighted with the beautiful scenery and luxuriant vegetation. But before they returned to the ships they were reminded that this natural paradise was in possession of a savage people who could hardly be expected to respect King James’s gift of their land to strangers. As the exploring party made their way back to the shore they fell into an ambush—the first of many which they were destined to experience. They had not seen a human being since landing, and the shower of arrows that proclaimed the presence of the Indians came as a complete surprise. Neither redman nor paleface was quite prepared for intimate acquaintance at this time, and the sound of the muskets sent the former scurrying to the hills whilst the latter hurried to the shelter of the ships, carrying two men who had been severely wounded.

Thus the Jamestown colonists came to America. How little they were qualified for the work before them we have already seen. As we progress with our story we shall see how often they brought misfortune upon themselves and how the wisdom and energy of one man saved the undertaking from utter failure.