Fortunate is the hero who links his name romantically with that of a
woman. A tender interest in his fame is assured. Still more fortunate
is he if he is able to record his own achievements and give to them
that form and color and importance which they assume in his own gallant
consciousness. Captain John Smith, the first of an honored name, had
this double good fortune.
We are indebted to him for the glowing picture of a knight-errant of the
sixteenth century, moving with the port of a swash-buckler across the
field of vision, wherever cities were to be taken and heads cracked in
Europe, Asia, and Africa, and, in the language of one of his laureates--
“To see bright honor sparkled all in gore.”
But we are specially his debtor for adventures on our own continent,
narrated with naivete and vigor by a pen as direct and clear-cutting as
the sword with which he shaved off the heads of the Turks, and for one
of the few romances that illumine our early history.
Captain John Smith understood his good fortune in being the recorder of
his own deeds, and he preceded Lord Beaconsfield (in “Endymion”) in his
appreciation of the value of the influence of women upon the career of a
hero. In the dedication of his “General Historie” to Frances, Duchess of
Richmond, he says:
“I have deeply hazarded myself in doing and suffering, and why should I
sticke to hazard my reputation in recording? He that acteth two parts is
the more borne withall if he come short, or fayle in one of them. Where
shall we looke to finde a Julius Caesar whose atchievments shine as
cleare in his owne Commentaries, as they did in the field? I confesse,
my hand though able to wield a weapon among the Barbarous, yet well may
tremble in handling a Pen among so many judicious; especially when I am
so bold as to call so piercing and so glorious an Eye, as your Grace,
to view these poore ragged lines. Yet my comfort is that heretofore
honorable and vertuous Ladies, and comparable but amongst themselves,
have offered me rescue and protection in my greatest dangers: even in
forraine parts, I have felt reliefe from that sex. The beauteous Lady
Tragabigzanda, when I was a slave to the Turks, did all she could to
secure me. When I overcame the Bashaw of Nalbrits in Tartaria, the
charitable Lady Callamata supplyed my necessities. In the utmost of
my extremities, that blessed Pokahontas, the great King's daughter of
Virginia, oft saved my life. When I escaped the cruelties of Pirats
and most furious stormes, a long time alone in a small Boat at Sea, and
driven ashore in France, the good Lady Chanoyes bountifully assisted
me.”
It is stated in his “True Travels” that John Smith was born in
Willoughby, in Lincolnshire. The year of his birth is not given, but
it was probably in 1579, as it appears by the portrait prefixed to that
work that he was aged 37 years in 1616. We are able to add also that the
rector of the Willoughby Rectory, Alford, finds in the register an entry
of the baptism of John, son of George Smith, under date of Jan. 9, 1579.
His biographers, following his account, represent him as of ancient
lineage: “His father actually descended from the ancient Smiths of
Crudley in Lancashire, his mother from the Rickands at great Heck in
Yorkshire;” but the circumstances of his boyhood would indicate that
like many other men who have made themselves a name, his origin was
humble. If it had been otherwise he would scarcely have been bound as an
apprentice, nor had so much difficulty in his advancement. But the
boy was born with a merry disposition, and in his earliest years was
impatient for adventure. The desire to rove was doubtless increased by
the nature of his native shire, which offered every inducement to the
lad of spirit to leave it.
Lincolnshire is the most uninteresting part of all England. It is
frequently water-logged till late in the summer: invisible a part of
the year, when it emerges it is mostly a dreary flat. Willoughby is a
considerable village in this shire, situated about three miles and a
half southeastward from Alford. It stands just on the edge of the
chalk hills whose drives gently slope down to the German Ocean, and the
scenery around offers an unvarying expanse of flats. All the villages in
this part of Lincolnshire exhibit the same character. The name ends in
by, the Danish word for hamlet or small village, and we can measure the
progress of the Danish invasion of England by the number of towns
which have the terminal by, distinguished from the Saxon thorpe, which
generally ends the name of villages in Yorkshire. The population may be
said to be Danish light-haired and blue-eyed. Such was John Smith. The
sea was the natural element of his neighbors, and John when a boy must
have heard many stories of the sea and enticing adventures told by the
sturdy mariners who were recruited from the neighborhood of Willoughby,
and whose oars had often cloven the Baltic Sea.
Willoughby boasts some antiquity. Its church is a spacious structure,
with a nave, north and south aisles, and a chancel, and a tower at the
west end. In the floor is a stone with a Latin inscription, in black
letter, round the verge, to the memory of one Gilbert West, who died in
1404. The church is dedicated to St. Helen. In the village the Wesleyan
Methodists also have a place of worship. According to the parliamentary
returns of 1825, the parish including the hamlet of Sloothby contained
108 houses and 514 inhabitants. All the churches in Lincolnshire
indicate the existence of a much larger population who were in the habit
of attending service than exists at present. Many of these now empty
are of size sufficient to accommodate the entire population of several
villages. Such a one is Willoughby, which unites in its church the
adjacent village of Sloothby.
The stories of the sailors and the contiguity of the salt water had more
influence on the boy's mind than the free, schools of Alford and Louth
which he attended, and when he was about thirteen he sold his books and
satchel and intended to run away to sea: but the death of his father
stayed him. Both his parents being now dead, he was left with, he
says, competent means; but his guardians regarding his estate more than
himself, gave him full liberty and no money, so that he was forced to
stay at home.
At the age of fifteen he was bound apprentice to Mr. Thomas S. Tendall
of Lynn. The articles, however, did not bind him very fast, for as his
master refused to send him to sea, John took leave of his master and did
not see him again for eight years. These details exhibit in the boy the
headstrong independence of the man.
At length he found means to attach himself to a young son of the great
soldier, Lord Willoughby, who was going into France. The narrative is
not clear, but it appears that upon reaching Orleans, in a month or so
the services of John were found to be of no value, and he was sent back
to his friends, who on his return generously gave him ten shillings (out
of his own estate) to be rid of him. He is next heard of enjoying his
liberty at Paris and making the acquaintance of a Scotchman named
David Hume, who used his purse--ten shillings went a long ways in those
days--and in return gave him letters of commendation to prefer him to
King James. But the boy had a disinclination to go where he was sent.
Reaching Rouen, and being nearly out of money, he dropped down the river
to Havre de Grace, and began to learn to be a soldier.
Smith says not a word of the great war of the Leaguers and Henry IV.,
nor on which side he fought, nor is it probable that he cared. But
he was doubtless on the side of Henry, as Havre was at this time in
possession of that soldier. Our adventurer not only makes no reference
to the great religious war, nor to the League, nor to Henry, but he does
not tell who held Paris when he visited it. Apparently state affairs did
not interest him. His reference to a “peace” helps us to fix the date
of his first adventure in France. Henry published the Edict of Nantes
at Paris, April 13, 1598, and on the 2d of May following, concluded the
treaty of France with Philip II. at Vervins, which closed the Spanish
pretensions in France. The Duc de Mercoeur (of whom we shall hear later
as Smith's “Duke of Mercury” in Hungary), Duke of Lorraine, was allied
with the Guises in the League, and had the design of holding Bretagne
under Spanish protection. However, fortune was against him and he
submitted to Henry in February, 1598, with no good grace. Looking about
for an opportunity to distinguish himself, he offered his services to
the Emperor Rudolph to fight the Turks, and it is said led an army of
his French followers, numbering 15,000, in 1601, to Hungary, to raise
the siege of Coniza, which was beleaguered by Ibrahim Pasha with 60,000
men.
Chance of fighting and pay failing in France by reason of the peace,
he enrolled himself under the banner of one of the roving and fighting
captains of the time, who sold their swords in the best market, and
went over into the Low Countries, where he hacked and hewed away at his
fellow-men, all in the way of business, for three or four years. At
the end of that time he bethought himself that he had not delivered his
letters to Scotland. He embarked at Aucusan for Leith, and seems to
have been shipwrecked, and detained by illness in the “holy isle” in
Northumberland, near Barwick. On his recovery he delivered his letters,
and received kind treatment from the Scots; but as he had no money,
which was needed to make his way as a courtier, he returned to
Willoughby.
The family of Smith is so “ancient” that the historians of the county
of Lincoln do not allude to it, and only devote a brief paragraph to the
great John himself. Willoughby must have been a dull place to him after
his adventures, but he says he was glutted with company, and retired
into a woody pasture, surrounded by forests, a good ways from any town,
and there built himself a pavilion of boughs--less substantial than the
cabin of Thoreau at Walden Pond--and there he heroically slept in his
clothes, studied Machiavelli's “Art of War,” read “Marcus Aurelius,” and
exercised on his horse with lance and ring. This solitary conduct got
him the name of a hermit, whose food was thought to be more of
venison than anything else, but in fact his men kept him supplied with
provisions. When John had indulged in this ostentatious seclusion for a
time, he allowed himself to be drawn out of it by the charming discourse
of a noble Italian named Theodore Palaloga, who just then was Rider to
Henry, Earl of Lincoln, and went to stay with him at Tattershall. This
was an ancient town, with a castle, which belonged to the Earls of
Lincoln, and was situated on the River Bane, only fourteen miles from
Boston, a name that at once establishes a connection between Smith's
native county and our own country, for it is nearly as certain that St.
Botolph founded a monastery at Boston, Lincoln, in the year 654, as it
is that he founded a club afterwards in Boston, Massachusetts.
Whatever were the pleasures of Tattershall, they could not long content
the restless Smith, who soon set out again for the Netherlands in search
of adventures.
The life of Smith, as it is related by himself, reads like that of a
belligerent tramp, but it was not uncommon in his day, nor is it in
ours, whenever America produces soldiers of fortune who are ready, for
a compensation, to take up the quarrels of Egyptians or Chinese, or go
wherever there is fighting and booty. Smith could now handle arms and
ride a horse, and longed to go against the Turks, whose anti-Christian
contests filled his soul with lamentations; and besides he was tired of
seeing Christians slaughter each other. Like most heroes, he had a vivid
imagination that made him credulous, and in the Netherlands he fell into
the toils of three French gallants, one of whom pretended to be a great
lord, attended by his gentlemen, who persuaded him to accompany them to
the “Duchess of Mercury,” whose lord was then a general of Rodolphus
of Hungary, whose favor they could command. Embarking with these arrant
cheats, the vessel reached the coast of Picardy, where his comrades
contrived to take ashore their own baggage and Smith's trunk, containing
his money and goodly apparel, leaving him on board. When the captain,
who was in the plot, was enabled to land Smith the next day, the noble
lords had disappeared with the luggage, and Smith, who had only a single
piece of gold in his pocket, was obliged to sell his cloak to pay his
passage.
Thus stripped, he roamed about Normandy in a forlorn condition,
occasionally entertained by honorable persons who had heard of his
misfortunes, and seeking always means of continuing his travels,
wandering from port to port on the chance of embarking on a man-of-war.
Once he was found in a forest near dead with grief and cold, and rescued
by a rich farmer; shortly afterwards, in a grove in Brittany, he chanced
upon one of the gallants who had robbed him, and the two out swords and
fell to cutting. Smith had the satisfaction of wounding the rascal, and
the inhabitants of a ruined tower near by, who witnessed the combat,
were quite satisfied with the event.
Our hero then sought out the Earl of Ployer, who had been brought up in
England during the French wars, by whom he was refurnished better than
ever. After this streak of luck, he roamed about France, viewing the
castles and strongholds, and at length embarked at Marseilles on a ship
for Italy. Rough weather coming on, the vessel anchored under the lee of
the little isle St. Mary, off Nice, in Savoy.
The passengers on board, among whom were many pilgrims bound for Rome,
regarded Smith as a Jonah, cursed him for a Huguenot, swore that his
nation were all pirates, railed against Queen Elizabeth, and declared
that they never should have fair weather so long as he was on board. To
end the dispute, they threw him into the sea. But God got him ashore on
the little island, whose only inhabitants were goats and a few kine. The
next day a couple of trading vessels anchored near, and he was taken
off and so kindly used that he decided to cast in his fortune with them.
Smith's discourse of his adventures so entertained the master of one
of the vessels, who is described as “this noble Britaine, his neighbor,
Captaine la Roche, of Saint Malo,” that the much-tossed wanderer was
accepted as a friend. They sailed to the Gulf of Turin, to Alessandria,
where they discharged freight, then up to Scanderoon, and coasting
for some time among the Grecian islands, evidently in search of more
freight, they at length came round to Cephalonia, and lay to for
some days betwixt the isle of Corfu and the Cape of Otranto. Here it
presently appeared what sort of freight the noble Britaine, Captain la
Roche, was looking for.
An argosy of Venice hove in sight, and Captaine la Roche desired
to speak to her. The reply was so “untoward” that a man was slain,
whereupon the Britaine gave the argosy a broadside, and then his stem,
and then other broadsides. A lively fight ensued, in which the Britaine
lost fifteen men, and the argosy twenty, and then surrendered to save
herself from sinking. The noble Britaine and John Smith then proceeded
to rifle her. He says that “the Silkes, Velvets, Cloth of Gold, and
Tissue, Pyasters, Chiqueenes, and Suitanies, which is gold and silver,
they unloaded in four-and-twenty hours was wonderful, whereof having
sufficient, and tired with toils, they cast her off with her company,
with as much good merchandise as would have freighted another Britaine,
that was but two hundred Tunnes, she four or five hundred.” Smith's
share of this booty was modest. When the ship returned he was set
ashore at “the Road of Antibo in Piamon,” “with five hundred chiqueenes
[sequins] and a little box God sent him worth neere as much more.” He
always devoutly acknowledged his dependence upon divine Providence, and
took willingly what God sent him.