(1579-1631)
[Illustration: Captain John Smith.]
Of the antecedents of John Smith, Esquire, Captain and Knight, little is
recorded beyond the facts that he was of gentle blood and honorable
lineage, and that he was born in Lancashire, England, in 1579.
He was still under age when he enlisted as a private soldier and fought
with "our army" in Flanders. Sigismund Bathor, Duke of Transylvania, was
warring with the Turks, and young Smith, athirst for adventure, next
took service under him. Before the Transylvanian town of Regall, he
killed three Turkish officers in single combat, for which doughty deed
he was knighted. The certificate of Sigismund's patent empowering the
Englishman to quarter three Turks' heads upon the family coat-of-arms is
in the Herald's Office in London.
The tables were turned by his subsequent capture by the Turks. He was
sent to Tartary as a slave, not a prisoner of war, and compelled to
perform the most ignoble tasks, until, escaping by killing his brutal
master, he made his way by his wits to his native country in 1604. He
was now twenty-five years of age, and emphatically a soldier of fortune.
The tale of his prowess and adventures had preceded him, and he was
eagerly welcomed in London by kindred spirits who were preparing to
emigrate to America to form the colony of Virginia under the grant and
direct patronage of James I. By the time the enterprise was ripe for
execution, Smith had made himself so useful in counsel and preparation
that the king named him as one of the councillors of the prospective
colony.
The boundary lines of the royal grant were two hundred miles north, and
the same distance south, of the mouth of the James River, and east and
west "from sea to sea."
On December 19, 1606, the band of adventurers, 100 in number, embarked
at Gravesend in three small vessels. Christopher Newport was in command,
but Smith, and his close allies, Bartholomew Gosnold and George Percy, a
younger brother of the Duke of Northumberland, were the ruling spirits
of the voyagers. Carpenters and laborers were oddly jumbled upon the
list of emigrants with jewellers, perfumers, and gold refiners, and
"gentlemen" held prominence in numbers and influence. The officers
outnumbered the privates. The little fleet was hardly out of the offing
when the struggle for power began. The voyage was not half accomplished
when John Smith was charged with complicity in a discovered mutiny. He
had intended, it was alleged, to murder his superiors, seize the fleet,
and make himself king of Virginia. The "General History of Virginia"
tells how serious an aspect the affair wore:
"Such factions here we had, as commonly attend such voyages, that a
paire of gallowes was made, but Captain Smith, for whom they were
intended, _could not be persuaded to use them_."
He was still under suspicion and arrest when the fleet anchored (May 13,
1607) in the broad river, Powhatan, to which the English explorers gave
the name of their king. Their first tents were pitched and first cabins
built upon a low peninsula flanked by extensive marshes. The settlement
received the name of Jamestown, in further demonstration of loyalty.
When the king's sealed orders were opened, the name of John Smith
appeared second upon the roll of seven councillors appointed to govern
the infant colony. Next to him Gosnold was fittest for the responsible
position assigned to them. His death within three months after the
landing, left Smith the object of the envious distrust of Wingfield, who
had been elected president, and virtually alone in the honest desire to
found a permanent settlement in Virginia for ends he thus sets forth:
"Erecting towns, peopling countries, informing the ignorant, reforming
things unjust, teaching virtue and gain to our native Mother Country."
There is a prophetic ring in this remarkable utterance of one whom his
contemporaries persisted in regarding as a reckless adventurer,
ambitious and unscrupulous. His frank denunciation of the feeble
measures of Wingfield and the selfish villainy of Ratcliffe, another
colleague, had earned the ill-will of the president and the relentless
hatred of Ratcliffe. Smith, being under arrest, was not allowed to take
his place among the councillors. He bided the day of justice with
patience learned from adversity. When the supreme opportunity came he
grasped it. An attack from hostile Indians proved Wingfield's unfitness
for the military command, and the alarmed colonists turned instinctively
to the bravest of their number. Wingfield anticipated the uprising by
reiterating his intention of sending Smith to England for trial, for the
double crime of mutiny and treason.
"The restive soldier suddenly flamed out. He would be tried in Virginia
as was his right--there was the charter! and the trial took place. The
result was a ruinous commentary on the characters of Wingfield and the
council. The testimony of their own witnesses convicted them of
subornation of perjury to destroy Smith. He was acquitted by the jury of
all the charges against him, and Kendall, who had conducted the
prosecution, was condemned to pay him £200 damages. This sum was
presented by Smith to the colony for the general use, and then the foes
partook of the commission, and the soldier was admitted to his seat in
the council." (Cooke's "History of Virginia.")
By autumn the settlement was fearfully reduced in numbers and spirits.
Fever, engendered by marshland malaria and famine, threatened utter
extinction.
"From May to September, those who escaped lived upon sturgeon and
sea-crabs; 50 in this time were buried," writes one of the sufferers.
"The rest, seeing the president's projects to escape these miseries in
our pinnace by flight (who all this time had neither felt want or
sickness), so moved our dead spirits as we deposed him and established
Ratcliffe in his place."
It was an exchange of inefficiency for deliberate wickedness, and in the
excess of continued misery the more reasonable of the victims arose as a
man and put Smith at the head of affairs.
The "terrible summer" left hardly ten men who could wield axe or hoe.
Smith himself was ill with malarial fever, yet nursed the sick, prayed
with the dying, and kept up the hearts of all by brave words and braver
action. He bought corn and meat of the Indians when they would sell, and
when they refused, secured supplies by intimidation. Yet we find him, as
soon as the immediate peril was over, again the subordinate of envious
leaders, and volunteering to satisfy malcontents in America and in
England, by heading a party in mid-December to attempt the discovery of
the great "South Sea," for so long the _ignis fatuus_ of Western
adventurers.
The explorers sailed up the James, diverging here and there into the
tortuous creeks of the Chickahominy. When stopped by shallows, Smith
procured a canoe and Indian guides and pushed on with but two other
white men (Robinson and Emry) into the unknown wilderness, teeming with
spies jealous of the foreign intruders. Attempting to land at
"Powhatan," one of "the emperor's" residences, he and his guide sank
into the morass and were fired upon from the shore.
"The salvages ... followed him with 300 bowmen, led by the king of
Pamunkee, who, searching the turnings of the river, found Robinson and
Emry by the fire-side. These they shot full of arrowes and slew."
Smith bound the Indian guide to his arm and used him as a shield, thus
saving his own life. He was, however, captured, lashed to a tree, and
would have been killed, but for his address in presenting the King
Opecancanough with "a round ivory double compass Dyall"--his own pocket
compass--directing the attention of the "salvages" to the movement of
the needle, and describing the uses of the instrument.
"A month those Babarians kept him prisoner; many strange triumphes and
conjurations they made of him, yet he so demeaned himself among them as
he not only diverted them from surprising the Fort, but procured his own
libertie, and got himself and his company such estimation among them
that these Salvages admired him as a demi-god."
From the pen of a contemporary we have the account of what led to his
"libertie." He had killed two of the attacking party, and was condemned
by Powhatan to die for the offence.
[Illustration: Captain Smith saved by Pocahontas.]
"Having feasted him after their best barbarous manner they could, a long
consultation was held; but the conclusion was, two great stones were
brought before Powhatan, then, as many as could lay hands on him,
dragged him to them, and thereon laid his head, and being ready with
their clubs to beate out his brains, Pocahontas, the king's dearest
daughter, when no entreaty could prevaile, got his head in her armes,
and laid her owne upon his to save him from death; whereat the emperor
was contented he should live to make him hatchets, and her bells, beads,
and copper."
From other pages we get the stage-setting for this, the most dramatic
incident in colonial history.
The emperor had heard the evidence with a "sour look," sitting in state
upon a rude dais, covered with mats, his body wrapped in a cloak of
raccoon skins. His dusky harem was grouped about him, watchful and
interested. When the trial was over he bade one wife to bring water to
wash the captive's hands, another a bunch of feathers to dry them upon.
This was preliminary to the feast.
"So fat they fed Mee," says "A True Relation of Virginia," published by
Smith in 1608, "that I much doubted they intended to have sacrificed mee
to the Quioughquosiche, which is a superiour power they worship."
The appointment to the position of armorer in the royal household, and
trinket-maker to the princess, was one of honor. Smith enjoyed it for a
month only, but to his residence at Powhatan and intimacy with
Pocahontas, he was indebted for the familiarity with Indian language and
customs which was afterward of incalculable benefit to the Virginians.
He describes Pocahontas in respectful admiration:
"For features, countenance, and expression she much exceeded the rest."
Her gala attire was a doeskin mantle lined with down from the breasts of
wood-pigeons; bangles of coral bound her brown ankles and wrists, and in
her hair was a white heron's feather in token of her royal blood. At the
time of her rescue of Smith she was about thirteen years old.
In January, 1608, the emperor offered Smith a forest principality if he
would remain with the tribe, but he petitioned to be allowed to return
to Jamestown. The request was reluctantly granted, and an escort sent
with him to the "Fort." This returned, bearing gifts for Powhatan and
his wives, with marvellous stories of the cannon-shot fired into the
sleety forest at Smith's command. We cannot but wonder what toy or
ornament went to the petted child whom he had served in glad gratitude
while a member of her father's household.
He had no time for sentimental musings. Upon the very day of his
unlooked for return (January 8, 1608), Ratcliffe repeated Wingfield's
attempt to escape to England in the only vessel left at Jamestown. The
anchor was actually raised when Smith hastily collected a force and
hurried to the landing. "With the hazzard of his life, with sakre,
falcon, and musket shot, Smith forced" (them) "now the third time to
stay or sinke."
In their sullen rage the foiled conspirators plotted and nearly executed
a fiendish revenge. Once more we copy from the "General History,"
written by Smith and his friends.
"Some no better than they should be, had plotted with the president"
(Ratcliffe) "the next day to have put him" (Smith) "to death by the
Leviticall law for the lives of Robinson and Emry, pretending the fault
was his that had led them to their ends; but he quickly took such order
with such lawyers that he layd them by the heeles till he sent some of
them prisoners to England."
The colony was almost destitute of food, and the memories of the famine
of last year terrified the imaginations of those who had lived through
it. "Gentlemen" having again predominated in reinforcements sent from
England, the crops planted and gathered in Smith's absence had been
meagre, while rats brought over in one of the vessels had wrought havoc
with stored grain. Like an angel of mercy was the apparition of
Pocahontas, at the head of a "wild train" of Indians laden with corn and
game, approaching the fort. "Ever once in four or five days during the
time of two or three years," the young princess, thus attended, visited
the fort and succored the needy settlers. Smith declares that "next
under God she preserved the colony from death, famine, and utter
confusion." He might have subjoined that, but for himself, not even
Pocahontas's bounty could have saved the settlement from the
consequences of misconduct and misrule.
His was the only voice lifted to condemn the mad folly of loading a
homeward-bound vessel with the glittering mud of a neighboring creek.
That he was "not enamored of their dirty skill to freight such a drunken
ship with so much gilded dirt"--was one of the mildest of his phrases,
as, "breathing out these and many other passions," he harangued those
who had "no thought, no discourse, no hope, and no work but to dig gold,
wash gold, refine gold, and load gold."
Before the English assayers confirmed his judgment as to the value of
this cargo, the intrepid adventurer had sailed, with fourteen others, up
the Chesapeake into new and wonderful regions. Never losing heart, even
when he believed himself to be dying from the sting of a poisonous fish,
he discovered and entered the Potomac, the Rappahannock, and tributary
creeks, fighting his way when not allowed to proceed peaceably. In July
(1608) he led another party to the spot now occupied by the city of
Baltimore, and made friends with a tribe called Susquehannocks, believed
to be sun-worshippers. Returning from these voyages of three thousand
miles in all, he drew in masterly style a chart of the countries
explored, and sent it to England.
Jamestown was still in a state of what he calls "combustion," under the
tyranny of Ratcliffe. Emboldened by Smith's return, the colonists
deposed the hated governor, and formally elected Smith Governor of
Virginia. The winter closed in upon an "affrighted" population.
Storehouses were nearly empty, agriculture having been neglected in the
gold fever. As Smith could not be "persuaded to use" the gallows, so he
now announced that "no persuasion could persuade _him_ to starve." In
company with George Percy and fifty others, he visited his old ally
Powhatan, and tried to buy food. A change had come to the emperor's
heart. He addressed his quondam armorer as a "rash youth;" protested
that he was afraid of him, and would not treat with the English unless
they came to him unarmed. Warned by Pocahontas, who stole through the
woods after dark to apprise Smith that treachery was intended, the
party lay on their arms all night, and the force sent to surprise them
retreated. Next day, Powhatan loaded the boats with corn, and Smith
sailed up the York upon a similar errand to Opecancanough, Powhatan's
brother. While in audience with him, the Englishmen were surrounded by a
band of seven hundred armed savages. Seizing the wily chieftain by the
scalp-lock, Smith held a pistol to his breast, and demanded a cargo of
corn and safe-conduct for his party to Jamestown. The fifty men, without
loss of a single life, took back enough food to victual the town.
Early in the spring of 1609, the president thus made known his policy to
his constituents:
"Countrymen! You see now that power resteth wholly in myself. You must
obey this now for a law--_he that will not work shall not eat_. And
though you presume that authority here is but a shadow and that I dare
not touch the lives of any, but my own must answer for it, yet he that
offendeth, let him assuredly expect his due punishment.
"I protest by that God that made me, since necessity hath no power to
force you to gather for yourselves, you shall not only gather for
yourselves, but for those that are sick. _They_ shall not starve."
Fields were tilled, the fort was repaired, wise Powhatan treated the
pale-faces kindly for Smith's sake, and the emigrants felt for the first
time firm ground beneath their feet. They had twenty-four pieces of
ordnance, and three hundred stand of small-arms; three ships, seven
boats, a store of more than two months' provisions, six hundred hogs,
with goats, fowls, and sheep, and an established trading-station with
the natives.
Like an aërolite from the summer sky came news from England that a fleet
was to be sent out with a new colony, a new charter, and new officers;
Smith's old enemy, Christopher Newport, was in command of the
expedition. Smith had been complained of at home as "dealing harshly
with the natives and not returning the ships full-freighted." His day
was over. The king so willed it.
Smith's last official act was the establishment of a colony at Powhatan,
renamed "Nonsuch," opposite where the city of Richmond was laid out over
a century later. On his way back to Jamestown, he was cruelly wounded by
the explosion of a bag of gunpowder. There was no good surgeon in the
colony. To return forthwith to England was but anticipating by a few
weeks what must be when the fleet arrived.
He returned to London at the age of thirty. "He had broke the ice and
beat the path, but had not there" (in Virginia) "one foot of ground, nor
the very house he builded, nor the ground he digged with his own hands."
In 1614 he returned to America, but now to the northern region assigned
to the Plymouth Company. He gave name to Boston; explored and made a
survey of the New England coast. On a second voyage he had a fight with
a French squadron, was captured, and taken to Rochelle. While there he
wrote a "Description of New England," for which service James I.
appointed him "Admiral of New England." He died in London, in 1631, at
the age of fifty-two, never having revisited Virginia. Upon his tomb, in
the Church of St. Sepulchre's, London, may be still traced the outlines
of the Three Turks' Heads and the inscription, beginning:
"_Here lies one conquered that hath conquered kings._"
Any sketch of his life, however brief, would be incomplete that
contained no reference to the letter written by him to Queen Anne (the
consort of James I.), in 1616, recommending the Lady Rebecca Rolfe to
the royal favor.
He would "be guilty of the deadly poison of ingratitude," he wrote, if
he failed to narrate what he and the colony at Jamestown owed to
Pocahontas. He besought the queen's kindly consideration for the
stranger just landed upon her shores, as due to Pocahontas's "great
spirit, her desert, birth, want, and simplicity." His one call upon the
wife of John Rolfe, Gentleman, was marked by profound respect on his
part to one whom he accosted as "Lady Rebecca;" by profound emotion on
hers.
John Smith's biography and epitaph are best summed up by one of his
brothers-in-arms:
"What shall I saye, but thus we lost him that in all his
proceedings made justice his first guide and experience his
second, ever hating basenesse, sloth, pride, and indignitie more
than any dangers; that never allowed more for himself than for
his soldiers with him; that upon no danger would send them where
he would not lead them himselfe; that would never see us want
what he either had or could by any means get us; that would
rather want than borrow, or starve than not pay; that loved
action more than wordes, and hated falsehood and covetousnesse
worse than death; whose adventures were our lives and whose losse
our deaths."
[Signature: Marion Harland.]