Captain John Smith returned to England in the autumn of 1609, wounded
in body and loaded with accusations of misconduct, concocted by his
factious companions in Virginia. There is no record that these
charges were ever considered by the London Company. Indeed, we
cannot find that the company in those days ever took any action on
the charges made against any of its servants in Virginia. Men came
home in disgrace and appeared to receive neither vindication nor
condemnation. Some sunk into private life, and others more pushing
and brazen, like Ratcliffe, the enemy of Smith, got employment again
after a time. The affairs of the company seem to have been conducted
with little order or justice.
Whatever may have been the justice of the charges against Smith, he
had evidently forfeited the good opinion of the company as a
desirable man to employ. They might esteem his energy and profit by
his advice and experience, but they did not want his services. And
in time he came to be considered an enemy of the company.
Unfortunately for biographical purposes, Smith's life is pretty much
a blank from 1609 to 1614. When he ceases to write about himself he
passes out of sight. There are scarcely any contemporary allusions
to his existence at this time. We may assume, however, from our
knowledge of his restlessness, ambition, and love of adventure, that
he was not idle. We may assume that he besieged the company with his
plans for the proper conduct of the settlement of Virginia; that he
talked at large in all companies of his discoveries, his exploits,
which grew by the relating, and of the prospective greatness of the
new Britain beyond the Atlantic. That he wearied the Council by his
importunity and his acquaintances by his hobby, we can also surmise.
No doubt also he was considered a fanatic by those who failed to
comprehend the greatness of his schemes, and to realize, as he did,
the importance of securing the new empire to the English before it
was occupied by the Spanish and the French. His conceit, his
boasting, and his overbearing manner, which no doubt was one of the
causes why he was unable to act in harmony with the other adventurers
of that day, all told against him. He was that most uncomfortable
person, a man conscious of his own importance, and out of favor and
out of money.
Yet Smith had friends, and followers, and men who believed in him.
This is shown by the remarkable eulogies in verse from many pens,
which he prefixes to the various editions of his many works. They
seem to have been written after reading the manuscripts, and prepared
to accompany the printed volumes and tracts. They all allude to the
envy and detraction to which he was subject, and which must have
amounted to a storm of abuse and perhaps ridicule; and they all tax
the English vocabulary to extol Smith, his deeds, and his works. In
putting forward these tributes of admiration and affection, as well
as in his constant allusion to the ill requital of his services, we
see a man fighting for his reputation, and conscious of the necessity
of doing so. He is ever turning back, in whatever he writes, to
rehearse his exploits and to defend his motives.
The London to which Smith returned was the London of Shakespeare's
day; a city dirty, with ill-paved streets unlighted at night, no
sidewalks, foul gutters, wooden houses, gable ends to the street, set
thickly with small windows from which slops and refuse were at any
moment of the day or night liable to be emptied upon the heads of the
passers by; petty little shops in which were beginning to be
displayed the silks and luxuries of the continent; a city crowded and
growing rapidly, subject to pestilences and liable to sweeping
conflagrations. The Thames had no bridges, and hundreds of boats
plied between London side and Southwark, where were most of the
theatres, the bull-baitings, the bear-fighting, the public gardens,
the residences of the hussies, and other amusements that Bankside,
the resort of all classes bent on pleasure, furnished high or low.
At no time before or since was there such fantastical fashion in
dress, both in cut and gay colors, nor more sumptuousness in costume
or luxury in display among the upper classes, and such squalor in low
life. The press teemed with tracts and pamphlets, written in
language "as plain as a pikestaff," against the immoralities of the
theatres, those "seminaries of vice," and calling down the judgment
of God upon the cost and the monstrosities of the dress of both men
and women; while the town roared on its way, warned by sermons, and
instructed in its chosen path by such plays and masques as Ben
Jonson's "Pleasure reconciled to Virtue."
The town swarmed with idlers, and with gallants who wanted
advancement but were unwilling to adventure their ease to obtain it.
There was much lounging in apothecaries' shops to smoke tobacco,
gossip, and hear the news. We may be sure that Smith found many
auditors for his adventures and his complaints. There was a good
deal of interest in the New World, but mainly still as a place where
gold and other wealth might be got without much labor, and as a
possible short cut to the South Sea and Cathay. The vast number of
Londoners whose names appear in the second Virginia charter shows the
readiness of traders to seek profit in adventure. The stir for wider
freedom in religion and government increased with the activity of
exploration and colonization, and one reason why James finally
annulled the Virginia, charter was because he regarded the meetings
of the London Company as opportunities of sedition.
Smith is altogether silent about his existence at this time. We do
not hear of him till 1612, when his "Map of Virginia" with his
description of the country was published at Oxford. The map had been
published before: it was sent home with at least a portion of the
description of Virginia. In an appendix appeared (as has been said)
a series of narrations of Smith's exploits, covering the rime he was
in Virginia, written by his companions, edited by his friend Dr.
Symonds, and carefully overlooked by himself.
Failing to obtain employment by the Virginia company, Smith turned
his attention to New England, but neither did the Plymouth company
avail themselves of his service. At last in 1614 he persuaded some
London merchants to fit him out for a private trading adventure to
the coast of New England. Accordingly with two ships, at the charge
of Captain Marmaduke Roydon, Captain George Langam, Mr. John Buley,
and William Skelton, merchants, he sailed from the Downs on the 3d of
March, 1614, and in the latter part of April "chanced to arrive in
New England, a part of America at the Isle of Monahiggan in 43 1/2 of
Northerly latitude." This was within the territory appropriated to
the second (the Plymouth) colony by the patent of 1606, which gave
leave of settlement between the 38th and 44th parallels.
Smith's connection with New England is very slight, and mainly that
of an author, one who labored for many years to excite interest in it
by his writings. He named several points, and made a map of such
portion of the coast as he saw, which was changed from time to time
by other observations. He had a remarkable eye for topography, as is
especially evident by his map of Virginia. This New England coast is
roughly indicated in Venazzani's Plot Of 1524, and better on
Mercator's of a few years later, and in Ortelius's "Theatrum Orbis
Terarum " of 1570; but in Smith's map we have for the first time a
fair approach to the real contour.
Of Smith's English predecessors on this coast there is no room here
to speak. Gosnold had described Elizabeth's Isles, explorations and
settlements had been made on the coast of Maine by Popham and
Weymouth, but Smith claims the credit of not only drawing the first
fair map of the coast, but of giving the name " New England " to what
had passed under the general names of Virginia, Canada, Norumbaga,
etc.
Smith published his description of New England June 18, 1616, and it
is in that we must follow his career. It is dedicated to the "high,
hopeful Charles, Prince of Great Britain," and is prefaced by an
address to the King's Council for all the plantations, and another to
all the adventurers into New England. The addresses, as usual, call
attention to his own merits. "Little honey [he writes] hath that
hive, where there are more drones than bees; and miserable is that
land where more are idle than are well employed. If the endeavors of
these vermin be acceptable, I hope mine may be excusable: though I
confess it were more proper for me to be doing what I say than
writing what I know. Had I returned rich I could not have erred; now
having only such food as came to my net, I must be taxed. But, I
would my taxers were as ready to adventure their purses as I, purse,
life, and all I have; or as diligent to permit the charge, as I know
they are vigilant to reap the fruits of my labors." The value of the
fisheries he had demonstrated by his catch; and he says, looking, as
usual, to large results, "but because I speak so much of fishing, if
any mistake me for such a devote fisher, as I dream of nought else,
they mistake me. I know a ring of gold from a grain of barley as well
as a goldsmith; and nothing is there to be had which fishing doth
hinder, but further us to obtain."
John Smith first appears on the New England coast as a whale fisher.
The only reference to his being in America in Josselyn's
"Chronological Observations of America " is under the wrong year,
1608: "Capt. John Smith fished now for whales at Monhiggen." He
says: "Our plot there was to take whales, and made tryall of a Myne
of gold and copper;" these failing they were to get fish and furs.
Of gold there had been little expectation, and (he goes on) "we found
this whale fishing a costly conclusion; we saw many, and spent much
time in chasing them; but could not kill any; they being a kind of
Jubartes, and not the whale that yeeldes finnes and oyle as we
expected." They then turned their attention to smaller fish, but
owing to their late arrival and "long lingering about the whale"--
chasing a whale that they could not kill because it was not the right
kind--the best season for fishing was passed. Nevertheless, they
secured some 40,000 cod--the figure is naturally raised to 6o,ooo
when Smith retells the story fifteen years afterwards.
But our hero was a born explorer, and could not be content with not
examining the strange coast upon which he found himself. Leaving his
sailors to catch cod, he took eight or nine men in a small boat, and
cruised along the coast, trading wherever he could for furs, of which
he obtained above a thousand beaver skins; but his chance to trade
was limited by the French settlements in the east, by the presence of
one of Popham's ships opposite Monhegan, on the main, and by a couple
of French vessels to the westward. Having examined the coast from
Penobscot to Cape Cod, and gathered a profitable harvest from the
sea, Smith returned in his vessel, reaching the Downs within six
months after his departure. This was his whole experience in New
England, which ever afterwards he regarded as particularly his
discovery, and spoke of as one of his children, Virginia being the
other.
With the other vessel Smith had trouble. He accuses its master,
Thomas Hunt, of attempting to rob him of his plots and observations,
and to leave him "alone on a desolate isle, to the fury of famine,
And all other extremities." After Smith's departure the rascally
Hunt decoyed twenty-seven unsuspecting savages on board his ship and
carried them off to Spain, where he sold them as slaves. Hunt sold
his furs at a great profit. Smith's cargo also paid well: in his
letter to Lord Bacon in 1618 he says that with forty-five men he had
cleared L 1,500 in less than three months on a cargo of dried fish
and beaver skins--a pound at that date had five times the purchasing
power of a pound now.
The explorer first landed on Monhegan, a small island in sight of
which in the war of 1812 occurred the lively little seafight of the
American Wasp and the British Frolic, in which the Wasp was the
victor, but directly after, with her prize, fell into the hands of an
English seventy-four.
He made certainly a most remarkable voyage in his open boat. Between
Penobscot and Cape Cod (which he called Cape James) he says he saw
forty several habitations, and sounded about twenty-five excellent
harbors. Although Smith accepted the geographical notion of his
time, and thought that Florida adjoined India, he declared that
Virginia was not an island, but part of a great continent, and he
comprehended something of the vastness of the country he was coasting
along, "dominions which stretch themselves into the main, God doth
know how many thousand miles, of which one could no more guess the
extent and products than a stranger sailing betwixt England and
France could tell what was in Spain, Italy, Germany, Bohemia,
Hungary, and the rest." And he had the prophetic vision, which he
more than once refers to, of one of the greatest empires of the world
that would one day arise here. Contrary to the opinion that
prevailed then and for years after, he declared also that New England
was not an island.
Smith describes with considerable particularity the coast, giving the
names of the Indian tribes, and cataloguing the native productions,
vegetable and animal. He bestows his favorite names liberally upon
points and islands--few of which were accepted. Cape Ann he called
from his charming Turkish benefactor, "Cape Tragabigzanda"; the three
islands in front of it, the "Three Turks' Heads"; and the Isles of
Shoals he simply describes: "Smyth's Isles are a heape together, none
neare them, against Acconimticus." Cape Cod, which appears upon all
the maps before Smith's visit as "Sandy" cape, he says "is only a
headland of high hills of sand, overgrown with shrubbie pines, hurts
[whorts, whortleberries] and such trash; but an excellent harbor for
all weathers. This Cape is made by the maine Sea on the one side,
and a great bay on the other in the form of a sickle."
A large portion of this treatise on New England is devoted to an
argument to induce the English to found a permanent colony there, of
which Smith shows that he would be the proper leader. The main
staple for the present would be fish, and he shows how Holland has
become powerful by her fisheries and the training of hardy sailors.
The fishery would support a colony until it had obtained a good
foothold, and control of these fisheries would bring more profit to
England than any other occupation. There are other reasons than gain
that should induce in England the large ambition of founding a great
state, reasons of religion and humanity, erecting towns, peopling
countries, informing the ignorant, reforming things unjust, teaching
virtue, finding employment for the idle, and giving to the mother
country a kingdom to attend her. But he does not expect the English
to indulge in such noble ambitions unless he can show a profit in
them.
"I have not [he says] been so ill bred but I have tasted of plenty
and pleasure, as well as want and misery; nor doth a necessity yet,
nor occasion of discontent, force me to these endeavors; nor am I
ignorant that small thank I shall have for my pains; or that many
would have the world imagine them to be of great judgment, that can
but blemish these my designs, by their witty objections and
detractions; yet (I hope) my reasons and my deeds will so prevail
with some, that I shall not want employment in these affairs to make
the most blind see his own senselessness and incredulity; hoping that
gain will make them affect that which religion, charity and the
common good cannot.... For I am not so simple to think that ever any
other motive than wealth will ever erect there a Commonwealth; or
draw company from their ease and humours at home, to stay in New
England to effect any purpose."
But lest the toils of the new settlement should affright his readers,
our author draws an idyllic picture of the simple pleasures which
nature and liberty afford here freely, but which cost so dearly in
England. Those who seek vain pleasure in England take more pains to
enjoy it than they would spend in New England to gain wealth, and yet
have not half such sweet content. What pleasure can be more, he
exclaims, when men are tired of planting vines and fruits and
ordering gardens, orchards and building to their mind, than "to
recreate themselves before their owne doore, in their owne boates
upon the Sea, where man, woman and child, with a small hooke and
line, by angling, may take divers sorts of excellent fish at their
pleasures? And is it not pretty sport, to pull up two pence, six
pence, and twelve pence as fast as you can hale and veere a line?...
And what sport doth yield more pleasing content, and less hurt or
charge than angling with a hooke, and crossing the sweet ayre from
Isle to Isle, over the silent streams of a calme Sea? wherein the
most curious may finde pleasure, profit and content."
Smith made a most attractive picture of the fertility of the soil and
the fruitfulness of the country. Nothing was too trivial to be
mentioned. "There are certain red berries called Alkermes which is
worth ten shillings a pound, but of these hath been sold for thirty
or forty shillings the pound, may yearly be gathered a good
quantity." John Josselyn, who was much of the time in New England
from 1638 to 1671 and saw more marvels there than anybody else ever
imagined, says, "I have sought for this berry he speaks of, as a man
should for a needle in a bottle of hay, but could never light upon
it; unless that kind of Solomon's seal called by the English treacle-
berry should be it."
Towards the last of August, 1614, Smith was back at Plymouth. He had
now a project of a colony which he imparted to his friend Sir
Ferdinand Gorges. It is difficult from Smith's various accounts to
say exactly what happened to him next. It would appear that he
declined to go with an expedition of four ship which the Virginia
company despatched in 1615, and incurred their ill-will by refusing,
but he considered himself attached to the western or Plymouth
company. Still he experienced many delays from them: they promised
four ships to be ready at Plymouth; on his arrival "he found no such
matter," and at last he embarked in a private expedition, to found a
colony at the expense of Gorges, Dr. Sutliffe, Bishop o Exeter, and a
few gentlemen in London. In January 1615, he sailed from Plymouth
with a ship Of 20 tons, and another of 50. His intention was, after
the fishing was over, to remain in New England with only fifteen men
and begin a colony.
These hopes were frustrated. When only one hundred and twenty
leagues out all the masts of his vessels were carried away in a
storm, and it was only by diligent pumping that he was able to keep
his craft afloat and put back to Plymouth. Thence on the 24th of
June he made another start in a vessel of sixty tons with thirty men.
But ill-luck still attended him. He had a queer adventure with
pirates. Lest the envious world should not believe his own story,
Smith had Baker, his steward, and several of his crew examined before
a magistrate at Plymouth, December 8, 1615, who support his story by
their testimony up to a certain point.
It appears that he was chased two days by one Fry, an English pirate,
in a greatly superior vessel, heavily armed and manned. By reason of
the foul weather the pirate could not board Smith, and his master,
mate, and pilot, Chambers, Minter, and Digby, importuned him to
surrender, and that he should send a boat to the pirate, as Fry had
no boat. This singular proposal Smith accepted on condition Fry
would not take anything that would cripple his voyage, or send more
men aboard (Smith furnishing the boat) than he allowed. Baker
confessed that the quartermaster and Chambers received gold of the
pirates, for what purpose it does not appear. They came on board,
but Smith would not come out of his cabin to entertain them,
"although a great many of them had been his sailors, and for his love
would have wafted us to the Isle of Flowers."
Having got rid of the pirate Fry by this singular manner of receiving
gold from him, Smith's vessel was next chased by two French pirates
at Fayal. Chambers, Minter, and Digby again desired Smith to yield,
but he threatened to blow up his ship if they did not stand to the
defense; and so they got clear of the French pirates. But more were
to come.
At "Flowers" they were chased by four French men-of-war. Again
Chambers, Minter, and Digby importuned Smith to yield, and upon the
consideration that he could speak French, and that they were
Protestants of Rochelle and had the King's commission to take
Spaniards, Portuguese, and pirates, Smith, with some of his company,
went on board one of the French ships. The next day the French
plundered Smith's vessel and distributed his crew among their ships,
and for a week employed his boat in chasing all the ships that came
in sight. At the end of this bout they surrendered her again to her
crew, with victuals but no weapons. Smith exhorted his officers to
proceed on their voyage for fish, either to New England or
Newfoundland. This the officers declined to do at first, but the
soldiers on board compelled them, and thereupon Captain Smith busied
himself in collecting from the French fleet and sending on board his
bark various commodities that belonged to her--powder, match, books,
instruments, his sword and dagger, bedding, aquavite, his commission,
apparel, and many other things. These articles Chambers and the
others divided among themselves, leaving Smith, who was still on
board the Frenchman, only his waistcoat and breeches. The next day,
the weather being foul, they ran so near the Frenchman as to endanger
their yards, and Chambers called to Captain Smith to come aboard or
he would leave him. Smith ordered him to send a boat; Chambers
replied that his boat was split, which was a lie, and told him to
come off in the Frenchman's boat. Smith said he could not command
that, and so they parted. The English bark returned to Plymouth, and
Smith was left on board the French man-of-war.
Smith himself says that Chambers had persuaded the French admiral
that if Smith was let to go on his boat he would revenge himself on
the French fisheries on the Banks.
For over two months, according to his narration, Smith was kept on
board the Frenchman, cruising about for prizes, "to manage their
fight against the Spaniards, and be in a prison when they took any
English." One of their prizes was a sugar caraval from Brazil;
another was a West Indian worth two hundred thousand crowns, which
had on board fourteen coffers of wedges of silver, eight thousand
royals of eight, and six coffers of the King of Spain's treasure,
besides the pillage and rich coffers of many rich passengers. The
French captain, breaking his promise to put Smith ashore at Fayal, at
length sent him towards France on the sugar caravel. When near the
coast, in a night of terrible storm, Smith seized a boat and escaped.
It was a tempest that wrecked all the vessels on the coast, and for
twelve hours Smith was drifting about in his open boat, in momentary
expectation of sinking, until he was cast upon the oozy isle of
"Charowne," where the fowlers picked him up half dead with water,
cold, and hunger, and he got to Rochelle, where he made complaint to
the Judge of Admiralty. Here he learned that the rich prize had been
wrecked in the storm and the captain and half the crew drowned. But
from the wreck of this great prize thirty-six thousand crowns' worth
of jewels came ashore. For his share in this Smith put in his claim
with the English ambassador at Bordeaux. The Captain was hospitably
treated by the Frenchmen. He met there his old friend Master
Crampton, and he says: "I was more beholden to the Frenchmen that
escaped drowning in the man-of-war, Madam Chanoyes of Rotchell, and
the lawyers of Burdeaux, than all the rest of my countrymen I met in
France." While he was waiting there to get justice, he saw the
"arrival of the King's great marriage brought from Spain." This is
all his reference to the arrival of Anne of Austria, eldest daughter
of Philip III., who had been betrothed to Louis XIII. in 1612, one of
the double Spanish marriages which made such a commotion in France.
Leaving his business in France unsettled (forever), Smith returned to
Plymouth, to find his reputation covered with infamy and his clothes,
books, and arms divided among the mutineers of his boat. The
chiefest of these he "laid by the heels," as usual, and the others
confessed and told the singular tale we have outlined. It needs no
comment, except that Smith had a facility for unlucky adventures
unequaled among the uneasy spirits of his age. Yet he was as buoyant
as a cork, and emerged from every disaster with more enthusiasm for
himself and for new ventures. Among the many glowing tributes to
himself in verse that Smith prints with this description is one
signed by a soldier, Edw. Robinson, which begins:
Oft thou hast led, when I brought up the Rere,
In bloody wars where thousands have been slaine."
This common soldier, who cannot help breaking out in poetry when he
thinks of Smith, is made to say that Smith was his captain "in the
fierce wars of Transylvania," and he apostrophizes him:
Thou that to passe the worlds foure parts dost deeme
No more, than ewere to goe to bed or drinke,
And all thou yet hast done thou dost esteeme
As nothing.
For mee: I not commend but much admire
Thy England yet unknown to passers by-her,
For it will praise itselfe in spight of me:
Thou, it, it, thou, to all posteritie."