Qass. 
 
Captain JOHN SMITH 
 
 AND HIS CRITICS. 
 
 A Lecture before the Society for 
 
 Geographical a^° Historical Study 
 
 of Richmond College, 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES POINDEXTER, 
 
 Acting Librarian of the Virginia State Library, 
 
 RICHMOND. 
 
 1893. 
 
 3U^ 
 

 PRESSES CF 
 HILL PaiNTING COMPANY, 
 RICHMOND, VA. 
 
(.'' 
 
 To 
 
 The Society for Geographical and Historical Study 
 
 of Richmond College, 
 
 before whom this Lecture was delivered, 
 
 and by whose request it 
 
 is printed. 
 
'Those old credulities, to nature dear. 
 Shall they no longer bloom upon the stock 
 Of history, stript naked as a rock 
 
 'Mid a dry desert ? 
 
 If Truth, who veiled her face 
 With those bright beams yet hid it not, must steer 
 Henceforth a humbler course, perplexed and slow; 
 One solace yet remains for us who came 
 Into this world in daj'-s when story lacked 
 Severe research, that in our hearts we know 
 How, for exciting youth's heroic flame, 
 Assent is power, belief the soul of fact." 
 
CflPTflIN JOHN SMITH 
 
 AND HIS CRITICS. 
 
 " Fellow, either thou art the cunningest liar that ever 
 earned a halter, or else thou hast done a deed the like 
 of which never man ventured." — Charles Kingsley. 
 
 It is a trite comment, often verified, that 
 the results of an historical crisis generally 
 disappoint the predictions as to its probable 
 hero, who will stamp on its history the indel- 
 ible impress of his personality, linking his 
 name and fame with its memory. Seldom 
 has this comment been more signally illus- 
 trated than in the history of the man and 
 events to which we propose some consid- 
 eration; for, when Capt. John Smith sailed 
 from England with his fellow-colonists, he 
 was distinguished by very little of the fame 
 which now makes him illustrious, and when 
 they arrived in Virginia John Smith was 
 actually under arrest, and in such disfavor 
 with some of his comrades that he was 
 denied his rightful rank and position as a 
 
6 
 
 member of the Council; which denial was 
 the result of differences and feuds during 
 the long and perilous voyage across the At- 
 lantic. 
 
 It looks like the irony of fate, that of that 
 band of Englishmen, men of all sorts, who 
 entered our capes on that April day of 1607, 
 and then proceeded to organize under instruc- 
 tions of the company who sent them over — 
 of all that band of men the name of John 
 Smith, then in such disgrace as rivalry or 
 enmity could put upon him, is yet to-day 
 the one name known and remembered; the 
 others forgotten or unknown, except to those 
 curious in historic details, and recalled or 
 referred to mainly, or only, to illustrate 
 Smith's history. 
 
 A most striking fact to be noted is this 
 immense force of Smith's strength of char- 
 acter and his personality, which has so pro- 
 jected itself over our early history that the 
 common idea seems to credit him with 
 planning the colony, bringing it over, and 
 settling it. As a matter of fact, he was only 
 one of a number of volunteers sent over by 
 a trading colonial company, was in Virginia 
 only about two and a half years, and became 
 governor (so called) only in the last months 
 of his stav. 
 
But how his name and fame did and does 
 survive ! with such living force that his deeds 
 and character are discussed to-day, when he 
 is dead two hundred and fifty years, with a 
 zeal and energy not often evoked for a living 
 personage. 
 
 The limits of this occasion forbid any elab- 
 orate introduction of the subject, and allow 
 but brief and scant notice of Smith's early 
 history, or of the character and spirit of 
 the age in which he lived and acted his 
 part — knowledge and note of which latter is 
 essentially necessary for any proper under- 
 standing of him and his life. Lacking time 
 for the setting of this historic back-ground, 
 I can only refer you to histories of the period 
 and to the numerous works on and studies 
 of that age in which our recent literature is 
 particularly rich. 
 
 In Charles Kingsley's "Westward, Ho!" 
 that great romance of war and adventure, 
 Avhose scenes are laid in England just before 
 John Smith's time, you may remember that 
 marvellous narrative of Salvation Yeo's ad- 
 ventures on the Spanish Main, which he 
 recounts w^hile subjected to examination by 
 Sir Richard Grenville and Amyas Leigh; 
 you may remember that, on reaching the 
 climax of his story, he is interrupted by Sir 
 
8 
 
 Eichard's exclamation : " Fellow, either thou 
 art the cimningest liar that ever earned a 
 halter, or else thou hast done a deed the 
 like of which never man ventured." You 
 may remember, further, that being checked 
 all along by reference to facts well known 
 to his hearers. Salvation Yeo vindicates his 
 character and truthfulness before the stern 
 questioning of so rugged a critic as Sir 
 Richard Grenville. 
 
 Your attention is invited to some facts and 
 considerations bearing on charges made 
 affecting the veracity and character of the 
 hero of an adventure in real life — the most 
 romantic in American annals — and from 
 these facts we shall try to prove that the 
 father of Virginia history, in both the actual 
 and literary sense, the hero and chronicler 
 of this adventure, was not a liar, cunning 
 or uncunning. 
 
 It was an age of great and, when occasion 
 called for them, of daring deeds, in w^hich 
 John Smith was born and lived his life as 
 depicted in his works and known to us; a 
 life, the natural product of his age and char- 
 acteristic of the temper and thoughts of 
 thousands of men of his time — 
 
 " The spacious times of great Elizabeth," 
 
9 "' 
 
 as the poet of our day calls them. How 
 spacious and how great, we learn better to 
 understand as we know more of the charac- 
 ter and deeds of the men who made the age 
 renowned. It was an age of great thoughts 
 and of great men, some of whom have 
 stamped the impress of their genius on the 
 world for all time; an age of great enter- 
 prises and beginnings of yet greater ones, 
 whose developement has made English and 
 American history of the last three centuries, 
 and changed the destiny and aspects of the 
 whole world. 
 
 Among the heroes of that age John Smith 
 has been deemed not unworthy of an honor- 
 able fame — a distinction generally conceded 
 to him by his contemporaries and by succeed- 
 ing generations, but questioned and denied 
 by the criticism and opinion of some in these 
 later modern days. Denied by criticism 
 and OPINION, we say; for the adverse judg- 
 ment that denounces John Smith as a lying 
 braggart cannot be said to be founded on 
 any discovery of new facts unknown to pre- 
 vious generations, but is an assumption 
 based on statements attributed to Smith 
 himself, as to matters of fact that have long 
 been accepted as familiar trijths of history. 
 
 For any proper understanding of him and 
 
10 
 
 the questions involved, a brief statement of 
 the leading facts of Smith's life is necessary, 
 premising, as always essential, a reference to 
 the character and spirit of his time as a 
 background to the picture of his life and 
 exploits. 
 
 Perhaps the character of the age is best 
 indicated in brief by noting that when Smith 
 was born, Queen Elizabeth was forty-six 
 years old, Sir Walter Raleigh twenty-seven. 
 Lord Bacon eighteen, Shakspeare fifteen, and 
 Ben Jonson -^ve years old ; and that when 
 Howard, Drake, and Hawkins fought and 
 beat the Spanish armada, John Smith was a 
 boy of nine years. 
 
 In this England of Elizabeth, in the year 
 1579, John Smith was born of honest, plain 
 parents, who probably made an excellent 
 living on their Lincolnshire farm. His father 
 was a yeoman farmer, able to give his chil- 
 dren such education as the neighborhood 
 schools afforded, and to leave them some 
 property at his death, which occurred when 
 John was thirteen years old. About all we 
 know of his early years is summed up in the 
 introductory paragraphs of his own account 
 of himself, in which he tells us that he was 
 ^' scholar in the two free schools of Louth " 
 " and Alford. His parents dying when he " 
 
11 
 
 " was about thirteen, left him a competent " 
 " means, which he, not being capable to " 
 " manage, little regarded. His mind even " 
 ^' then being set upon brave adventures, he " 
 " sold his satchel and books and all he had,'' 
 " intending secretly to get to sea, but that " 
 " his father's death stayed him. About the " 
 " age of fifteen he was bound apprentice to " 
 " the greatest merchant in all those parts, " 
 " but because he would not presently send " 
 " him to sea he never saw his master in " 
 " eight years after." In other words, he 
 took his fate in his own hands and started 
 off on a course of adventure in France and 
 the Low countries, where he spent the next 
 four or five years learning his business of 
 soldiering. From the same chapter of his 
 memoirs, here is a picture of himself on a 
 visit, after this long absence, to his old home 
 at Willoughby : '^ Where, after a short time, " 
 "being glutted with too much company," 
 " wherein he took small delight, he retired " 
 '^himself into a little woody pasture, a" 
 " good way from any town. Here by a fair " 
 "brook he built himself a pavilion of" 
 "boughs, where only in his clothes he lay. " 
 "His STUDY was Machiavelli's Art of War" 
 "and Marcus Aurelius; his exercise a" 
 "good horse with his lance and ring." 
 
12 
 
 Here was an adventurer quite clifFerent from 
 the common run of them, whose leisure is 
 generally given to fast living and hard drink- 
 ing. Fancy him, if you can, this youth of 
 twenty, in his Arden-like retreat, studying 
 Machiavelli and Marcus Aurelius; and this 
 no dilettant, mere literary perusal of those 
 classics, but the serious study of a manly 
 youth with four years of rough soldiering 
 behind him to illustrate and improve the 
 wisdom of the lessons learned from those 
 great masters, whose teachings stood him 
 well in after years, informing and training 
 his natural sense, and helping to develope 
 qualities that made him a born leader of men. 
 Pity that they did not also improve his lit- 
 erary style, which is rough to a degree that 
 makes him hard reading till we find under 
 it the masterly sense and charm of a real 
 man. However, he was not training for 
 scholarship, and his thoughts were probably 
 not much about the graces of literature. 
 Quite otherwise, as he proved, when at first 
 chance he betook himself again to campaign- 
 ing, this time against the Turks, lamenting, 
 as he says, to have seen so many Christians 
 slaughter one another. The next four years 
 were spent in that career of fighting and 
 adventure described in his memoirs, the 
 
13 
 
 account of which will not seem marvellous or 
 extravagant when compared with other an- 
 nals of that time, though sometimes in our 
 day sneered at by closet critics as fantastical. 
 His adventures in foreign countries w^ere 
 merely the experiences of a soldier learning 
 and practicing his profession abroad, because 
 of no occasion for its exercise at home. ^N'or 
 was his career that of a Swashbuckler, as a 
 recent biographer asserts. Men still wore 
 armor, and the soldier's sword was not yet 
 the almost superfluous appendage it has now 
 become. Personal combat, such as he de- 
 scribes, was not unusual, and an adventurous 
 blade like Smith could find constant use for 
 his wits and steel. 
 
 Of the wars in which he was engaged, 
 the history is as obscure as that of any 
 other contest of semi-barbarians, or of the 
 bickerings and fightings nowadays of the 
 sam^ regions of southeast Europe, about 
 which we care nothing, as w^e read of them 
 in the daily papers. Their history has almost 
 no possible interest for us, except for the fact 
 that this one man was engaged in them. 
 What little ever was written about them — 
 happily little — is long ago forgotten, swept 
 into oblivion, but where it can be traced it 
 
14 ^... 
 
 vindicates the truth of Smith's narrative by 
 establishing his dates and locations. 
 : During these campaigns occurred the cele- 
 brated combat with the three Turks, effigies 
 of whose heads appeared on Smith's crest 
 when afterwards he found it useful to adopt 
 a coat of arms. The story of the three Turks 
 has been the subject of some derision on the 
 part of incredulous critics ; as also, the ac- 
 count of his captivity and sale into slavery, 
 and the charming episode of that Eastern 
 woman, with unpronouncable name, whose 
 intercession was intended to relieve the bonds 
 of his slavery, but, as happens in such cases, 
 resulted in consigning him to a harsher mas- 
 ter and more rigorous treatment. From this 
 captivity he released himself by knocking 
 out his master's brains and escaping on his 
 horse. 
 
 Smith's narrative of his life and adven- 
 tures at that time has been impugned as 
 the account of a braggart and boaster. On 
 merely literary grounds, the criticism might 
 have some validity; for, in the direct, rough 
 way of a man ignorant or careless of lite- 
 rary style, his narrative does often verge on 
 the bombastic, with an egotism that would 
 have been avoided by a more polished and 
 
15 
 
 skillful writer. That is a matter of opin- 
 ion, and only mentioned as in one way 
 touching the question of his veracity in 
 dealing with facts. It is probable, indeed, 
 that his narrative of those early adventures 
 is often an understatement rather than ex- 
 aggeration of facts of common experience 
 in a life of adventure and daring. Many ot 
 us in our day, survivors, or acquainted with 
 the survivors, of a war, know men who tell 
 sober truth about adventures that it would 
 be difficult to make appear credible if writ- 
 ten out in plain prose. It is one of the most 
 difficult of arts to describe credibly such 
 an experience, especially when writing so 
 much about one's self, as Smith necessarily 
 did. Nobody makes any claims for him as 
 a literary artist. As he says in the preface 
 to his History : "Where shall we look to find 
 a Julius Csesar whose achievements shine as 
 clear in his own commentaries as they did 
 in the field?" 
 
 After some ten years of this life of adven- 
 ture and wandering, which, if you know 
 how to read him, despite the rudeness of his 
 style, may prove interesting as any romance, 
 he returned to England in 1604, the year 
 after Elizabeth's death. He was then twen- 
 ty-five years old, with character developed 
 
16 
 
 and mind trained by long experience in war 
 and association with men of all sorts and 
 conditions, and with knowledge of lands and 
 peoples gained by travel in most of the then 
 known world. Young, brave, handsome, in 
 these years of war and adventure, he had 
 won his way from plain John Smith, private 
 in the ranks, to the rank of captain, a title 
 representing much higher rank than the 
 same grade now. The title, however, car- 
 ried not much weight at home among Eng- 
 lishmen, who knew little and cared less for 
 any distinction or rank gained in foreign 
 countries. John Smith was probably less 
 well known than some other captains who 
 joined the expedition to Virginia. Once 
 again in England, he found that the dire 
 threats and dangers of Spanish armadas and 
 popish conquest were no longer objects of 
 apprehension, and that Protestant England 
 was eagerly discussing and preparing for the 
 great plans and enterprises opening for An- 
 glo-Saxon genius, now ready to try its hand, 
 among other things, at American coloniza- 
 tion. Such a scheme would at once natu- 
 rally attract the attention and enlist the 
 energy of a man like Smith, doubly qualified 
 for undertaking it by the inclination which 
 prompted him to adventure and the training 
 
17 
 
 that had developed qualities needed for such 
 enterprise. Having gone through and expe- 
 rienced nearly all that the known world 
 could offer, why not try his fortunes in that 
 unknown world beyond the great waters, 
 waiting for English hands and English minds 
 to come and develop its boundless possibili- 
 ties ? Spain and Spaniards, whom English- 
 men hated as Satan incarnate, had reaped 
 there boundless wealth which had supplied 
 means for efforts that almost conquered Eng- 
 land. "Why not compete with them for the 
 new world and a share of its riches ? Here 
 was field for adventure and an opening for 
 his talents. At first he made arrangements 
 to join an expedition to South America, 
 which failed. Disappointed in this, he joined 
 his fortunes to those of the London Virginia 
 Company, then planning what proved to be 
 the first successful English effort at perma- 
 nent colonization in E'orth America. 
 
 It is unnecessary to explain the organiza- 
 tion of the Virginia Company, more than to 
 say that the expedition for the colony was 
 organized on commercial lines. It teas not, 
 as it is sometimes assumed, a government 
 undertaking, sent out by the Crown, but a 
 private enterprise, organized under charter. 
 For have we time to dwell on the incidents 
 
18 
 
 of the voyage, of which the records are 
 scant. It was a voyage longer and greater, 
 relatively, than one now around the world, 
 and more uncertain than a present trip to 
 Central Africa. Meagre as are the details 
 of the voyage, we yet know that before it 
 was over dissensions arose and cliques were 
 formed, as was natural among men so sit- 
 uated, without recognized head or chief. 
 For it was one of the faults of the expedition 
 that it was sent with sealed instructions, and 
 that the designated officers were not known 
 till these instructions were opened after land- 
 ing in Virginia. Newport, the captain of 
 the. fleet, had no official authority over the 
 colonists, but was only the ship captain, 
 chartered to bring them over as passengers. 
 The officers being not yet known, there was 
 no official head or co;itrol ; no discipline but 
 that of the captain of the ship, who, with 
 a sailor's contempt for landsmen at sea, kept 
 such order as he could with so motley a gang 
 of passengers. Here were one hundred and 
 fifty men cooped up for four months on three 
 ships, of which the largest was smaller than 
 the coal schooners of to-day. ITothing else, 
 not even camp life, so develops character- 
 istics, or makes people acquainted with each 
 other so quickly, as an ocean voyage. They 
 
19 
 
 soon know, or fancy that they know, every- 
 body and everything about everybody else 
 on board. If such be true of passengers on 
 a roomy ship, with every appliance for com- 
 fort, how much more so of men crowded and 
 huddled in little vessels with scant room 
 and with roughest of fare and accommoda- 
 tions. And this crowd — of such men as 
 these were — of all sorts, from the gentlemen 
 captains, and the captains who were not 
 gentlemen, through all grades, down to the 
 anonymous vagabonds classified generically 
 as so many Dutchmen. Most of them, 
 of course, were rough men, such as were 
 needed for the rough work before them. It 
 was just such a crowd as would be drummed 
 together now for an expedition of unknown 
 adventure and peril. Thus jumbled together, 
 all the human nature in them was developed. 
 Everybody got to know everybody else and 
 to find out what was in, and, what is more, 
 not in his neighbors and companions, with 
 the inevitable result of little cliques and par- 
 ties. In such circumstances, so shrewd an 
 observer as John Smith, part of whose pro- 
 fessional training and business it was to 
 judge human character, had doubtless before 
 long measured up and taken the calibre, 
 physical and mental, of every man on board. 
 
20 
 
 Of course, bickerings and quarrels arose, as 
 seems inevitable when men are thus thrown 
 together and cut off from the rest of the 
 world. A notable instance of this, in our 
 times, is the recent Stanley expedition, pro- 
 vided with every appliance and officered be- 
 forehand with picked men. Yet, read their 
 accounts since their return, and on them try 
 to decide which officer least deserves hang- 
 ing. In these differences and disputes the 
 personality of Smith doubtless asserted itself, 
 and drew to him the following — clique it 
 you choose — that will always be attached to 
 a strong, masterful character. Long before 
 the voyage was over, envy or jealousy, or 
 what not, had created a combination against 
 Smith, charging him with mutiny, and even 
 accusing him of intent to make himself king 
 of the new country to which they were 
 bound. This went so far that there was 
 some talk of hanging when they stopped on 
 the way at one of the West India islands. 
 Smith, however, evidently felt himself strong 
 enough in his following to defy and treat 
 with contempt the threatened danger, which 
 he met in characteristic way; as, writing 
 about it afterwards, he says: "A pair of 
 gallows was made, but Captain Smith, for 
 whom they were intended^ could not bo 
 
21 
 
 persuaded to use them." The combination 
 against him was, however, strong enough to 
 put him under arrest and keep him out of 
 his rightful place and rank as a member of 
 the Council after landing in Virginia. 
 
 At length, after four months' tossing on the 
 wintry Atlantic, instead of a five or six weeks' 
 voyage as expected on leaving England, the 
 colonists arrived inside the Capes, astonished 
 and delighted with the beauty of the coun- 
 try before their eyes. In this sylvan and 
 watered paradise, so enchanting after their 
 long and weary voyage, they probably ex- 
 pected to find a population gentle and semi- 
 civilized, such as the Spaniards had encoun- 
 tered in more southern regions, among 
 whom they could peaceably settle and estab- 
 lish commercial relations. 
 
 But— and mark this as a key to the whole 
 subsequent situation— they had scarce put 
 foot on shore when they found that they had 
 to deal with the original Virginia Indian, 
 contesting his native soil, who made a sav- 
 age attack on them, wounding two of the 
 party, and only driven back by the ship's 
 cannon; an attack that proved conclusively, 
 to anybody with sense for conclusions, that 
 the first, most peremptory of all questions, 
 and immediately before them, was one not 
 
22 
 
 commercial, but purely military , demanding a 
 soldier's head and hand. Commercial mat- 
 ters must perforce be postponed. Yet, on 
 opening their sealed orders, as required to 
 do on making land, they found provisions 
 for a president and thirteen councillors, and 
 an admirable set of commercial instructions, 
 with injunction of peace policy toward the 
 natives, and with special directions to find 
 a route to the South sea — as the Pacific 
 ocean was then called — which was supposed 
 to be but a short distance across the country. 
 How far distant it might be they knew not — 
 the art of reckoniog longitude being yet 
 unknown — though they knew they were in 
 about the latitude reached some years before 
 by Drake in the Pacific. 
 
 Under their organization Captain Wing- 
 field was appointed President, and the desig- 
 nated councillors were duly sworn in, except 
 John Smith, who was under arrest ! the man 
 of all others who, some of us think, should 
 have been in absolute supreme command to 
 promote the speedier settlement of the coun- 
 try and the earlier development of civiliza- 
 tion in this Commonwealth. Thus a com- 
 mercial and colonizing expedition found that 
 the first thing before them was to effect a 
 lodgement in the country in the face of a 
 
23 
 
 native force, of whose strength they were 
 ignorant, but of whose hostile and deter- 
 mined character the first experience had 
 given decisive example and proof. This, of 
 course, was a purely military problem. The 
 very place of settlement was determined by 
 military reasons that compelled them, in 
 selecting a site for the colony, to disobey their 
 instructions; which were to settle on high 
 ground as far up a river as they could go. 
 Instead of selecting such a location they 
 stopped at Jamestown, because its peninsula, 
 as it then was, was more easily protected 
 from attack, and the surrounding water 
 afforded means of defence by ships; at 
 Jamestown, on the verge of an almost tropi- 
 cal forest, and surrounded with marsh and 
 swamp reeking with malaria and miasma; 
 on James river low-grounds, where, after 
 near three centuries cultivation and clearing, 
 the unacclimated stranger is even yet not 
 safe from chills and ague without a liberal 
 supply of quinine and whiskey. 
 
 Though under arrest at the time of land- 
 ing at Jamestown — at any rate not yet admit- 
 ted to the Council, to which the instructions 
 appointed him — Smith accompanied ]^ew- 
 port on that first trip up the river, exploring 
 as far as the present site of Richmond. ITew- 
 
24 
 
 port doubtless saw the value of such a man 
 in the fighting business probably before them, 
 and took him along, arrest or no arrest. 
 On return from the trip up the river they 
 learned that another proof of the character of 
 the situation had been given the day before, 
 when four hundred Indians surprised and 
 assaulted the fort, and were only beaten ofiT 
 by the guns of the ships. This attack was a 
 complete surprise, while the colonists were 
 planting corn, unarmed and unguarded. In 
 the battle one man was killed ; most of the 
 Council and thirteen others were wounded. 
 Almost daily attacks after this but empha- 
 sized the fact that the only and essential 
 question before them was one of self-preser- 
 vation against the attacks of a determined 
 and hostile population. 
 
 Newport sailed on his return to England 
 June 22d, leaving one hundred and five colo- 
 nists, with thirteen weeks' supply of provi- 
 sions, such as they were, and the smallest of 
 the ships that had brought them over. Be- 
 fore his sailing. Smith was sworn in as a 
 member of the Council, June 10th, and it is 
 significant that on the next day " articles 
 and orders for gentlemen and soldiers were 
 upon the court of guard"; that is, military \ 
 discipline was established, and recognition ' 
 
25 
 
 taken of the stern facts of the situation, in 
 face of the lurkino^ Indians, who were only 
 watching for any chance to attack and ex- 
 terminate the colony. Soon after ITew- 
 port's departure, under the growing heat of 
 summer, the baleful effects of climate and 
 river low-grounds and swamps, began to 
 develop. "What with insufficient and bad 
 provisions, brackish water, and swamp ma- 
 laria, the result was that in three months 
 half of their number were dead, and the sur- 
 vivors were an almost helpless lot of misera- 
 ble creatures, shaking with fever, ague, and 
 dysentery. It was a frightful, almost des- 
 perate condition, in which the Indians were 
 kept off only by dread of the white man's 
 fire-arms. Dismal as was the prospect before 
 the colonists, there was, besides, the omi- 
 nous memory of the fate of their countrymen 
 at Roanoke, only some twenty years before, 
 whose dark tragedy remains to-day one of 
 the mysteries of history. The only hope of 
 safety seemed to be in the promised return 
 of the ships from England. 
 
 Smith charges Wingfield, the president, 
 with incompetence, and says he was gene- 
 rally hated by all, which seems probable 
 and well established from the fact that he 
 was soon deposed by his fellow-colonists, 
 
26 
 
 Eatcliffe being elected in his stead. From 
 the accounts that survive, it seems that all 
 the exploring and trading with Indians 
 for corn was done by Smith; and without 
 derogating from or disparaging others, it 
 seems abundantly proved that he was lit- 
 erally the life of the colony. Without 
 his untiring enterprise, supported by daunt- 
 less courage, in finding and procuring sup- 
 plies from the Indians, impending starvation 
 and pestilence would have wrought their 
 fatal effects on the colonists, or else reduced 
 them to such helpless extremity as would 
 render their extermination practicable and 
 easy at the hands of the ever hostile Indians. 
 
 Such, imperfectly sketched, was the man, 
 and such his circumstances at the end of that 
 year of the first settlement on our shores. 
 We come now to the matter that is our main 
 point of interest, both for itself and as involv- 
 ing the question of Smith's character and 
 veracity. 
 
 On the 10th of December, Smith started 
 on the memorable Chickahominy trip, which 
 was undertaken mainly for the purpose of 
 finding and securing supplies, while also ex- 
 ploring and getting what knowledge he could 
 of the utterly unknown region to which the 
 river might lead. For this trip he took with 
 
27 
 
 Mm ten or twelve men, which was, of course, 
 allowed hy the President and Council; for it 
 is to be remembered that at this time Smith 
 was not President or Governor, but only a 
 member of Council. Entering the mouth of 
 the Chickahominy river ten or fifteen miles 
 above Jamestown, he there left the barge, 
 with seven men, under orders not to go ashore, 
 but to watch for Indians. With two other 
 men and an Indian guide he continued the 
 ascent of the river in a canoe. Ascending 
 as far as practicable in his boat, he went 
 ashore, left his two companions with the 
 boat, himself with the Indian advancing up 
 the river bank or into the forest. Suddenly 
 he was attacked by a band of Indians, and 
 was captured. Caj^tured! a prisoner in the 
 hands of the original red American Indian, 
 and not tomahawked on the spot ! because, 
 from all we know of Indian character and 
 methods— on??/ because— reserved for torture 
 or other solemn execution. Captured! and 
 not slain on the spot ! but carried around for 
 four or five weeks through difiterent tribes and 
 villages, and then, without ransom or ex- 
 change, voluntarily released and sent back to 
 . Jamestown aUve! which is the main fact, and 
 the most marvellous and improbable— but for 
 its indisputable truth— in his whole career ; a 
 
28 
 
 fact more marvellous than any story of res- 
 cue by Pocahontas, or by any other means ; 
 and, we may say, a fact inexph cable and im- 
 possible without some such means of deliv- 
 erance from Indian vengeance, whose laws 
 are well known to us. 
 
 Of three other men captured at the same 
 time, two were slain on the spot; the other 
 was tortured and burned after the usual In- 
 dian fashion. I emphasize this fact of return 
 alive, because, aside from and more than any 
 story, true or false, of means of deliverance, 
 it is the marvellous feature of the whole 
 story, not questioned or disputed by any- 
 body. 
 
 So far, including the safe return to James- 
 town, the facts are undisputed. The world 
 for generations has known the story of that 
 rescue and deliverance ; how, when Smith 
 was taking, as he thought, his last look at 
 this world, that Indian maid, with swift feet 
 and beating heart, rushed amid the throng 
 of dusky warriors, stayed the clubs upraised 
 to beat out his brains, and at the risk of her 
 own life saved his. 
 
 That story is told in Smith's own words, 
 in his own authentic book, published by him- 
 self. But now come the cavils of critics, who, 
 in denying the Pocahontas rescue, dispute a 
 
29 
 
 simple, probably only possible, explanation 
 of the main fact, infinitely more marvellous 
 and improbable, and tell ns that the Poca- 
 hontas story is a fiction, invented sixteen 
 years after the event; thereby raising the 
 question and making the charge that Smith 
 is a gasconading braggart and liar — for that 
 is what the cavils mean and amount to. The 
 charge has been so often repeated of late 
 years, and on such seemingly respectable 
 authority, that many of us have had misgiv- 
 ings and fears that it might prove to be well 
 founded, and result in waking us from a 
 fool's dream of heroism and devotion, with 
 which we had decorated our history ; into 
 belief of which we and the generations be- 
 fore us had been beguiled by a braggart's 
 vanity. The grave seriousness, to say nothing 
 of the occasional sportive wit, with which 
 the charge was and is made, the learning by 
 which it is supported, seemed to justify the 
 apprehension that '' the legend must go," as 
 expressed in one of the latest utterances con- 
 cerning it. 
 
 We may be glad to find some reasons en- 
 titling us to have our opinion and retain our 
 belief about a matter of some interest to us, 
 and of some value in our history. 
 
 The charge is founded on statements in 
 
30 
 
 a book attributed to and bearing Smith's 
 name, which was, we may almost say, dis- 
 covered not many years ago; brought to 
 light by the zeal that of late years has so 
 diligently ransacked ancient records and 
 books for everything bearing on our earlier 
 American history. This little book, the so- 
 called *' Relation of Virginia," is the ear- 
 liest known published work relating to the 
 settlement at Jamestown, having been printed 
 in London in 1608 — the year of the captivity. 
 Among other things, it contains a version 
 of Smith's captivity so different from the 
 account published some years later in his 
 History as to cast the gravest suspicion on 
 one of the two narratives, which are utterly 
 inconsistent — in effect contradictory. If one 
 is true, the other is false. 
 
 The critics insist that the account in the 
 earlier " Relation " must be accepted as the 
 true and credible story, because written just 
 after the captivity, when the events were re- 
 cent and fresh in mind ; and charge that the 
 story of rescue by Pocahontas as told in the 
 History, so familiar to us and generally re- 
 ceived, is an invention — " embellishment," 
 they call it — prompted by vanity and by 
 Smith's fondness for making a hero of him- 
 self. Let us look into the credibility of the 
 
31 
 
 "Eelation," and see what is Smith's respon- 
 sibility. 
 
 There are three books on Virginia bearing 
 Smith's name : The " Relation," published 
 1608; the "Map with Descriptions," &c., 
 published 1612, and the '^ History of Vir- 
 ginia," published 1624. With only the first 
 and the last named — the " Relation " and the 
 " History " — we have now to do as relating to 
 the Smith captivity, and bearing on the ques- 
 tion of his credibility and veracity. 
 
 The so-called " Relation " is a small pam- 
 phlet, of less than forty pages, so rare and 
 obscure, so lost in oblivion, that it may be 
 said to have been practically unknown till 
 unearthed and brought to light in recent 
 years. In 1866 it was reprinted in Boston 
 with elaborate introduction and notes by Mr. 
 Charles Deane, a I^ew England scholar and 
 writer. In his notes to this edition Mr. 
 Deane discovers the discrepancies between 
 the narratives of the "Relation" and the 
 " History," and grounds the charges against 
 Smith's veracity. 
 
 This " Relation " was originally, in 1608, 
 edited and published in London, by one J. 
 H., whoever he was; for nobody knows. It 
 purported to be, and probably is, a version 
 of a letter from Virginia by Smith to a friend 
 
32 
 
 in England, though the question of author- 
 ship might be contested. The unknown 
 editor, J. H., fortunately wrote a preface to 
 his publication, from which we know that, 
 as printed by him, it is certainly not the letter 
 as originally written. In this preface it is an- 
 nounced that, " Somewhat more was by him 
 the author written, which being as I thought 
 fit to be private, I would not adventure to 
 make public." The case as against Smith 
 might be rested just here, on the reasonable 
 ground that the omitted or suppressed parts 
 of the letter, if really his, may have been 
 statements that would make the narrative 
 entirely or substantially consistent with the 
 account published by him in later years, for 
 which he is responsible. For you cannot 
 hold a man responsible for statements attri- 
 buted to him in a publication acknowledged 
 to be garbled, as against his own genuine 
 and authentic, but different, statement about 
 the same transaction ; and certainly not 
 when the first statement or publication was 
 utterly unauthorized, and never acknowl- 
 edged by him, as we shall see is the case 
 here. Unless, indeed, he is proven to be so 
 unreliable that his authentic statements can- 
 not be accepted, or that they are inconsistent 
 with well-known facts; but we do not now 
 
33 
 
 insist ou this view of the case, especially as 
 the first edition of the letter was printed 
 without the preface referred to, published 
 without any explanation, and without any 
 name of author on the title-page. It must be 
 borne in mind that the letter, if Smith's, was 
 printed without his knowledge or consent, 
 he being at the time in Virginia, three thou- 
 sand miles away, and that the editor and 
 publisher of it acknowledges an unauthorized 
 and even surreptitious possession and hand- 
 ling of a private letter, when he says, in his 
 preface : " Happening upon this relation by 
 chance, as I take it, at second or third hand, 
 I thought good to publish it." 
 
 The preface, as a whole, is a curious exam- 
 ple of the worst style of its day, a mixture of 
 the then fashionable conceits preval ent among 
 euphuistic wits and witlings. From its open- 
 ing sentences of poor stage-player illustrations 
 to its closing words of affected piety and zeal 
 for religion, it is tainted with affectations that 
 arouse suspicion of the genuineness of the 
 work it heralds to the world of courtly sin- 
 ners and puritan saints, who might be inter- 
 ested, or induced to become interested, in 
 the novel enterprise described and advocated 
 in its pages. 
 
 So much, in brief, for the character of the 
 
34 
 
 preface. As to the *' Relation " itself, it be- 
 gins abruptly with statements about making 
 land and the arrival at Jamestown, nomina- 
 ting the Council, and electing the President ; 
 all of which is disposed of in less that twenty 
 lines. Then follows, with some detail, an 
 account of the exploring trip up the river as 
 far as the present site of Richmond. With 
 the rest of the narrative, describing the con- 
 dition of things at Jamestown during that 
 summer, and Smith's expeditions for sup- 
 plies, we have not now to do, till it comes to 
 the account of his capture by the Indians. 
 So far the " Relation " agrees mainly with 
 Smith's narrative in his later " History." 
 The point of interest to us now is its version 
 of the captivity as being so much at variance 
 with Smith's account of that experience, pub- 
 lished in his " History " sixteen years later. 
 This variation in the two books is the ground 
 of the critics' charge that the later narrative — 
 describing the rescue by Pocahontas — is fic- 
 tion and romance, invented by Smith to 
 embellish his story and magnify his exploits. 
 This requires some brief recital of the " Rela- 
 tion's" narrative. 
 
 After describing the trip up the Chicka- 
 hominy river, the surprise and capture by the 
 Indians, the "Relation" proceeds with the 
 
35 
 
 statement that the Indians "requited him 
 with abundant food and kindly speeches," 
 and that, while he momentarily expected exe- 
 cution, they yet " used him with all the kind- 
 ness they could devise to content him and 
 disarm his fears." It goes on to tell how 
 they fed him every day with more venison 
 than ten men could eat, and how "their 
 longer acquaintance but increased their bet- 
 ter afiection;" and how he amused and en- 
 tertained his captors by descriptions of every- 
 thing he could make them understand about 
 civilized ways and beliefs. It then proceeds 
 with an account of their carrying him around 
 through the villages, and of his reception by 
 Powhatan, who welcomed him with kindly 
 words and abundance of savage hospitality, 
 assuring him of his friendship, and of release 
 within four days. With this assurance of 
 friendship, Powhatan invited him to forsake 
 Jamestown and come to live with him, prom- 
 ising " to give me corn, venison, or what I 
 wanted to feed us ; we should make hatchets 
 and copper for him, and none should disturb 
 us. This request I promised to perform; 
 and thus having, with all the kindness he 
 could devise, sought to content me, he sent 
 me home." 
 
 Such, substantially, is this " Kelation's " 
 
36 
 
 account of a white man's experience as a 
 prisoner in the hands of the original Vir- 
 ginia Indians, who had shown most deter- 
 mined and deadly hostility against the Eng- 
 lish from the first day of their landing on the 
 shore of Chesapeake bay. After the fight 
 and capture, there is hardl}^ any suggestion 
 of mortal peril, and almost the only intima- 
 tion of danger and fear is when carried to 
 to the spot where Robinson, one of his com- 
 panions, lay slain, it says : " I expected 
 when they would execute me " ; and again 
 at Powhatan's village : " So fat they fed me 
 that I much doubted they intended to sac- 
 rifice me." 
 
 There is not one word about beinsc draoco:ed 
 out for execution, or about any rescue by 
 Pocahontas, whose name is not even men- 
 tioned. On the contrary, it is a narrative of 
 a pic-nic trip among friendly natives of the 
 country, a winter idyl of Indian life. And 
 what is the reason or consideration for this 
 exceptional, this unparalleled, clemency of 
 these Indians to their prisoner ? Why, after 
 killing his captured companions, did they 
 spare his life and send him home to their ene- 
 mies unharmed and without ransom or con- 
 sideration? Why such friendly conduct to 
 the man whom they probably considered the 
 
37 
 
 head-devil of the white-faced intruders, come 
 to occupy their lands and drive them from 
 their homes ? To these questions, naturally 
 arising after reading such a narrative, we 
 seek in vain for answer. 
 
 This '' Relation " gives absolutely not one 
 word of such reason or explanation ; nor does 
 it attempt any solution of the enigma pre- 
 sented by its version of an unparalleled expe- 
 rience, but leaves the undoubted fact of 
 Smith's returning alive involved in a mystery 
 without any hint or suggestion of explana- 
 tion. 
 
 It needs not the wisdom of editors and 
 critics to tell us that if this thing be true — if 
 this "Relation" be an authentic and credible 
 account of Smith's release from captivity — 
 then, necessarily, the story of the intended 
 execution and the rescue by Pocahontas, as 
 told in the later " History," is mere fiction 
 and invention. 
 
 But doesn't anybody who ever read a 
 chapter of American Indian history know 
 that this account in this " Relation " is not 
 true; that it is palpably false, contradicted 
 by all the circumstances of the case, and con- 
 tradicted by all our knowledge of Indian 
 character and methods, derived from three 
 centuries experience with them ? Just think 
 
38 
 
 of it! Captured red-handed in desperate 
 fight, after slaying three of the enemy before 
 he threw away his arms and surrendered 
 himself; a helpless prisoner in the hands of a 
 deadly foe, whose first law is revenge, and 
 whose religion it is to kill his enemy; and 
 who, disdaining as weakness any sentiment 
 of pity or mercy, either tomahawks and 
 scalps on the spot, or else reserves his pris- 
 oner for torture at the stake, with every de- 
 vice of savage cruelty. Yet we are told that 
 the aboriginal Indian takes this prisoner, his 
 deadly enemy, invading his country and 
 rights, carries him on a four weeks' jaunt 
 through his villages, gives him friendly en- 
 tertainment, and sends him home unran- 
 somed and with scalp untouched; and all this 
 without any reason or explanation assigned 
 for such an astonishing statement. Such a 
 falsehood carries its own refutation in its very 
 absurdity, and is a hundred fold more incred- 
 ible than any story of rescue by Pocahontas. 
 As the narrative stands in that " Relation " 
 it could not be believed on John Smith's own 
 authority. But no jot of responsibility can 
 attach to Smith for it or its publication, as 
 will be readily shown by recital of known 
 facts about the book. 
 
 So much for the contents of the book. 
 
39 
 
 "What"' is its history? A brief review will 
 show that it is as suspicious in character as 
 its account of that captivity is improbable 
 and false. There were at least three editions 
 of the little pamphlet. As said before, the 
 original editor and publisher fortunately 
 wrote a preface to one of the editions, in 
 which, among other things more or less curi- 
 ous and suspicious, he undertakes to explain 
 and apologize for matters that certainly need 
 explanation even more than he has given. 
 The three or more editions were successively 
 issued with three different title-pages, with 
 three various ascriptions of authorship. The 
 first — most probably the first — ascribes the 
 book to *'A gentleman of the Colony " — no 
 name being given. The second title-page 
 ascribes it to " Thomas Watson, gentleman 
 of the Colony " ; while in the third title it is 
 ascribed to '' Capt. John Smith, Coronel of 
 the Colony." The first two editions were 
 issued without any preface. To the third 
 edition, ascribed to Smith, the skulking edi- 
 tor and peddler of another man's private let- 
 ter — hiding his own name under initials 
 
 Note.— This title "Coronel" is suspicious, and 
 should discredit the book. There was no such office. 
 Smith was known and designated only as "Captain," 
 and was only member of Council. 
 
40 
 
 probably false — prints the preface, explain- 
 ing and excusing, among other things, that 
 " the chief error was that (in previous issues) 
 "• for want of knowledge of the writer some 
 " were printed under the name of Watson, 
 " by whose occasion he knows not, unless it 
 " were the overrashness or mistaking of the 
 " workmen (printers)." As if, in that day 
 of strictly licensed presses, when the printer's 
 ears might be the penalty for such a blunder, 
 he would yet dare to put on the title-page a 
 name not given him by the responsible au- 
 thor or editor for whom he was printing. 
 
 After this apology or explanation of the 
 Watson name on the title-page of previous 
 issues, the editor goes on to say that he has 
 since learned that the said discourse, the 
 '' Relation," was written by " Captain Smith, 
 one of the Council in Virginia," and then 
 adds the fact that he had taken the liberty 
 to suppress parts of the letter. On the state- 
 ments of the editor himself, we might contest 
 the question of authorship, and deny in toto 
 any responsibility of Smith for any part of 
 the performance. Such is the ground taken 
 by J. Paine Collier, a high authority in Eng- 
 lish bibliography, who believes that Watson 
 was the author of the tract. It is probable, 
 however, that the "Relation" is mainly 
 
41 
 
 I Smith's letter perverted and distorted by 
 this editor, J. H., for a purpose, of which 
 we may fairly conjecture. 
 
 It is not incumbent on us to explain the 
 genesis or motive of this fraudulent little 
 pamphlet, which, as to its account of Smith's 
 captivity, needs no further refutation than 
 shown by its intrinsic falsehood. But, 
 doesn't it look like a stock-jobbing trick to 
 boom the Virginia Company's shares ? Look 
 at the time of its issue, just after the second 
 return of the ships from Virginia without the 
 expected gold and silver, or anything else 
 that promised immediate profit to stockhold- 
 ers. Despite the Company's orders against 
 letters bearing unfavorable news or reports 
 from the Colony, ugly rumors were probably 
 afloat about the hostility of the natives and 
 the precarious state of the colonists. Unless 
 something can be done to counteract these 
 reports and put a better phase on the matter, 
 the stock represents a bad speculation, and 
 there will be small chance of inducing fur- 
 ther emigration to a county where a man 
 risks being scalped if he ventures outside the 
 palisades of Jamestown. To contradict this 
 impression, and to show that the country 
 was not necessarily so unsafe for a white man, 
 this unknown editor, the initialed J. H., 
 
42 
 
 takes a private letter of Smith's, or some- 
 body else, which somehow or other had got- 
 ten in his hands, and by suppressions, and 
 perhaps some forgeries not worse than sup- 
 pressions, by omission of anything suggest- 
 ing mortal risk or danger — by such means 
 as these, not yet forgotten by skillful mani- 
 pulators of stock markets, the clever fellow 
 pictures a state of things very different, we 
 may be sure, from the original account of 
 the letter itself, and represents the American 
 Indian as disposed to be friendly and amiable 
 to the foreign stranger, even when captured 
 in desperate fight. 
 
 Such a version, seemingly authentic, from 
 " a gentleman of the Colony," or, better yet, 
 as in the last edition, trom " Capt. John 
 Smith, Coronel of the Colony," might easily 
 gain credit in England, ignorant at that time 
 of Indian character, where it was designed 
 to afiect public opinion. At any rate, it 
 would take at least &ve or six months for 
 authentic contradiction or comment to come 
 from Smith, or anybody else, on the other 
 side of the Atlantic ; while ^yq or six weeks, 
 or less, was all the time needed if the scheme 
 proved successful, as it probably did, in keep- 
 ing up the value of the Company's stock and 
 enabling the successful operator to unload. 
 
43 
 
 The stock market had its tricks then as 
 well as to-day, and some of the cleverest men 
 in England were in the business. This stock- 
 jobbing suggestion is only a theory, but it 
 fits the case, and may do till better explana- 
 tion appears. At any rate, it may explain 
 why, having served its purpose, the " Rela- 
 tion " was lost in oblivion, only to reappear in 
 our day, when rarities, however worthless in- 
 trinsically, are eagerly sought and so valued 
 by bibliomaniacs and collectors. Deane, its 
 modern editor, speaks of it as one of the rarest 
 of early Americana, as it is. 
 
 To sum up the matter, this " Eelation's " 
 " account of Smith's captivity is false on the 
 face of it, contradicted by all known facts of 
 Indian character and methods, and utterly 
 inconsistent with all the circumstances of the 
 case. And it is a fraud, virtually confessed 
 in its preface, which admits suppressions— 
 that is, garbling — of a private letter. 
 
 The critics may pin their faith to it, but 
 they cannot fasten to Smith any responsi- 
 bility for somebody else's perversions and 
 falsehoods. He utterly ignored it when com- 
 piling his "History," in which are incor- 
 porated his own previous writings and the 
 writings of others on Virginia. When on 
 such authority as this " Relation " they chal- 
 
44 
 
 lenge our belief and ask us to discredit 
 Smith's authentic statement as to the inci- 
 dents of that captivity, we reply in words 
 that his great contemporary puts in the 
 mouth of his Hamlet : 'f I'll take the ghost's 
 word for a thousand pounds.'^ 
 
 If the Pocahontas rescue is not true, then 
 the question arises, how in the world did 
 Smith escape death, of which no other expla- 
 nation is yet oflered ; and next, how account 
 for Pocahontas' frequent and familiar visits 
 to Jamestown, and her repeated services, 
 even at risk of her life, for the safety of the 
 colonists, until Smith's return to England. 
 Why the cessation of her visits after Smith's 
 departure for England, and why a dozen 
 other undisputed facts, easily and naturally 
 explained by the rescue, but utterly incohe- 
 rent, not to say impossible, on denial of that 
 tact, which is the explanation and solution of 
 so many others. 
 
 Let us turn for a moment to Smith's own 
 account of the rescue, which supplies an ex- 
 planation of his escape from death at once 
 sufficient and natural, though extraordinary. 
 His story of rescue is so consistent with, and 
 explanatory of, subsequent well-known, un- 
 disputed facts, that its denial makes these 
 facts simply unintelligible and absurd, and 
 
45 
 
 destroys the coherency of our early history, 
 leaving gaps utterly inexplicable. 
 
 We followed him, in the " Relation's " ac- 
 count, up the Chickahominy river to the 
 moment of his landing and capture. The 
 narrative of the " History " proceeds with 
 an account of the sudden surprise at the 
 flight of Indian arrows that wounded him, 
 and tells how he met the attack, staying the 
 savage onset as he bound to his arm the In- 
 dian guide, using him as a shield between 
 himself and the lurking foe ; of the desperate 
 fight, as long as fighting was possible, in which 
 he killed three of the enemy. Wounded, 
 and retreating with face to the foe, making 
 his way backwards, he sank in the Chicka- 
 hominy marsh; the dread of his fire-arms 
 keeping them at bay, till near dead with the 
 midwinter cold of that icy mud-bath, he 
 threw away his arms and surrendered, trust- 
 ing, perhaps, to hopes of mercy, but more to 
 the wit and address that had brought him 
 safe through so many dangers; surrendered, 
 but expecting the next instant to feel an In- 
 dian tomahawk crashing through his brain. 
 Think of the man's dauntless courage and 
 marvellous address, who, when he found to 
 his surprise that he was not to be killed on 
 the spot, despite his scant knowledge of the 
 
46 
 
 savage language, yet succeeded in beguiling 
 his enemy into an interest that at least de- 
 ferred his fate, and through the simple means 
 of arousing the savage curiosity, amused 
 them with the play of the compass needle 
 and such discourse as he could make them 
 understand. The ordinary man would at 
 once have given up in despair, and awaited, 
 with what stolid pride he could summon, the 
 seemingly inevitable fate, or else excited the 
 savage contempt by idle appeals for mercy ; 
 but this heroic soul asserted itself when Smith 
 demanded to be carried to their chief, as 
 claiming equality with their best, and thereby 
 implying threat of royal revenge for harm 
 inflicted on such an equal. 
 
 If John Smith were the braggart, as al- 
 leged, he might well boast of the daring and 
 successful ingenuity by which he cheated the 
 Indian out of instant vengeance and saved 
 his scalp untouched ; but of the arts he used, 
 of the cunning beguiling by which he won 
 mastery of their savage minds, he says little, 
 and his narrative is mainly occupied, not 
 with what he said and did, but with notices 
 of Indian habits and ways, and observations 
 on the country, and how they carried him 
 round from village to village, till, arriving 
 at Powhatan's habitation, that council was 
 
47 
 
 held which delivered the sentence for which — 
 and only for ivhich — his life had been spared 
 from the first hour of capture. 
 
 1^0 high-wrought rhetoric could equal 
 Smith's description of that scene, when in 
 simple and graphic words he says: "But 
 " the conclusion was, two great stones were " 
 " brought before Powhatan ; then as many " 
 *' as could laid hand on him, dragged him to " 
 " them, and thereon laid his head, and " 
 " being ready with their clubs to beat out " 
 " his brains, Pocahontas, the King's dear- " 
 " est daughter, when no entreaty could pre- " 
 " vail, got his head in her arms, and laid " 
 " her own upon his to save him from death." 
 
 And nothing else could have saved him ; and 
 that, and that only, is how and why John 
 Smith returned alive to Jamestown. A 
 woman's pity ! Was it a savage girl's love ? 
 "We do not say, but if so, it was a love not 
 dishonoring to her and not dishonored by 
 him. She had never before seen such a 
 man, of Godlike power, armed with the thun- 
 der and lightning of heaven, as the Indians 
 believed, and of prowess and bearing that 
 more than realized the barbarian ideal of 
 heroism. 
 
 A clever writer of the day, whose life of 
 Smith is a piece of work done to order to 
 

 48 
 
 supply a facetious treatment of the subject, 
 opens his first chapter with a half-sneering 
 remark about the good fortune of a hero 
 who links his name romantically with that 
 of a woman. Other and baser pens have in- 
 dulged in slurs against Pocahontas' good 
 name, foundhig their inuendos on words 
 used by one of the old chroniclers, which 
 have now their ancient meaning no more 
 than Smith's talk about the " mountains " 
 which he found in Eastern Viro-inia. 
 
 We can only remark in passing that no ) 
 woman's reputation has suffered from asso- 
 ; ciation in his writings with Smith's name. ^ 
 He always speaks of the women whose names 
 occur in his works, with the loyalty and court- i 
 esy of a gentleman. J 
 
 The argument of the critics, founded on 
 the silence of the "Relation" as to the Poca- 
 hontas rescue, seems to be fortified by the 
 fact that no contemporaneous letter or writ- 
 ing from the colony refers to the rescue. 
 This looks suspicious, but a careful review 
 of the situation at Jamestown suggests sev- 
 eral reasons why a prudent man, who had to 
 think for others as well as himself, should be 
 reticent about the details of that adventure. 
 For these reasons, it is indeed very doubtful 
 whether on his return he told the details of 
 
49 
 
 that rescue, except, perhaps, to the very few 
 in whom he could trust, and on whose dis- 
 cretion he could rely. Remember the well- 
 known fact of the desperate condition of 
 affairs at Jamestown, where demoralization 
 was so utter that some of the leaders were 
 planning escape on the one small ship left 
 there by N"ewport; landsmen as they were, 
 unskilled in navigation, they were willing to 
 risk the fearful dangers of an Atlantic voy- 
 age to escape the seemingly impending fate. 
 In such desperate straits, all discipline and 
 control evanished, cowardice and treason 
 assert their sway in baser natures, prompting 
 them to embrace any means of escape for 
 themselves. Smith knew, as well as we 
 know now, that there were men at James- 
 town who would desert to the Indians on 
 any expectation or hope of making terms 
 with the warriors and finding favor with 
 Indian women. Why should he encourage 
 any such expectation and hope by proclaim- 
 ing that he owed his escape to the favor of 
 an Indian woman? The announcement of 
 such a fact would have encouraged the hope 
 in would-be deserters that they might find 
 like favor for themselves, while exchanging 
 the miseries of what looked like a desperate 
 situation at Jamestown for the plenty and 
 
60 
 
 ease of the Indian villages, only ten or twelve 
 miles away across the Peninsula. The effect 
 of the announcement would have been tan- 
 tamount to putting a premium on desertion 
 at a time when every man was needed for 
 defense against an Indian attack that might 
 come any day. If this sounds like a harsh 
 stricture against some of our first settlers, it 
 must be remembered that there were all 
 sorts of men in that expedition, some of them 
 reckless adventurers, and that, in the absence 
 of proper discipline, it looked very much like 
 a case of every man for himself. As a mat- 
 ter of fact, some of them did soon after 
 desert to the Indians, and abetted their plots 
 against the whites. 
 
 Another reason, equally potent for silence, 
 was the fact that the charge had been made, 
 and was repeatedly urged, that Smith was 
 seeking to conciliate the Indians and plotting 
 to confirm his influence over them with a 
 view of making himself king of the country. 
 This accusation went so far as to charge him 
 with intent to murder the Council as one step 
 in furthering his ambitious designs. The 
 zeal of factious enemies would have inter- 
 preted his rescue from death by an Indian 
 princess as proof confirmatory of that charge, 
 and proclaimed it as evidence of an intended 
 
61 
 
 alliance with the king of the country, or as 
 opening the way for such alliance by mar- 
 riage with his daughter; which charge was 
 afterwards actually made. "Why should he 
 put into the hand of an en emy such a club 
 to be used against himself? Or again, and 
 more than these reasons, would the story 
 have been credited at the time and under 
 circumstances of such flagrant hostility as 
 was familiar to every man at Jamestown? 
 The marvellous fact was that Smith had 
 escaped death. Any explanation attribu- 
 ting that escape to a woman's pity or favor 
 might have been received with incredulous 
 jeers at a braggart's romancing, unless sub- 
 stantiated by undoubted evidence of wit- 
 nesses of the fact. 
 
 When that story was publicly told, there 
 was and had been abundant opportunity for 
 such evidence to support it — ^yea, even from 
 Pocahontas herself. 
 
 We cannot here follow the history of Poca- 
 hontas, meagre as are the details known to 
 us, but it is certain that six years after the 
 rescue she married the Englishman John 
 Rolfe. It is equally certain that two years 
 later, in 1616, she was in England with her 
 husband and child; on which occasion Smith 
 addressed a letter to the Queen, commending 
 
52 
 
 Pocahontas to Her Majesty's consideration 
 on the ground, among other things, that she 
 had hazarded the beating out her own brains 
 to save his, with other instances of risking 
 her life on behalf of the colonists. 
 
 To vindicate Smith's veracity and credi- 
 bility, it is necessary to trace the publication 
 of the story of rescue by Pocahontas. It is 
 found that the story was published in its 
 appropriate time and appropriate place, and 
 could hardly have been earlier detailed in 
 any formal announcement unless Smith 
 meant to go out of his way to proclaim and 
 brag about the adventure. We have seen 
 that, as to the "Eelation," with its omis- 
 sions and garblings, no jot of responsibility 
 can attach to him for that publication, for 
 what it contains or does not contain. 
 
 His first published work is the so-called 
 " Map and Description," issued in 1612, three 
 years after his return from Virginia. This 
 work is, as its title indicates, a description of 
 the country and inhabitants, with the map, 
 and is not a personal narrative. E'ext in 
 order of publication were three books, mere 
 pamphlets, on New England, published re- 
 spectively, 1616, 1620, 1622. In one of 
 these tracts is the first explicit statement — 
 not a description — of the rescue by Pocahon- 
 
63 
 
 tas. This statement is made in a passage 
 discussing the mode of treatment and deal- 
 ing with Indians, which he illustrates by 
 his own experience with them. The state- 
 ment is made naturally and without parade, 
 and as reference to a fact well known to 
 everybody acquainted with the history of 
 Virginia affairs. Its importance for us in 
 this discussion is that it is immediately pre- 
 ceded by a paragraph that a man dealing in 
 fiction — that is, lying — would never have 
 dared to pen ; for in the paragraph preceding 
 the statement, Smith refers to four men by 
 name, one of whom, George Percy, had been 
 Governor in Virginia, and to others not 
 named, to whom he appeals as witnesses and 
 authority for his statement. It may be added 
 that Percy was, or afterwards became, hos- 
 tile to Smith, and that he, as well as others, 
 would have been quick to denounce any state- 
 ment not true of such an adventure. 
 
 The next publication, two years later, in 
 1624, is the " History of Virginia," which 
 contains the narrative and details of the res- 
 cue, so familiar to us. The " History " is 
 mainly a compilation of writings and nar- 
 ratives of other men, edited by Smith, his 
 own individual contribution being compara- 
 tively but a small part of the book. Hence 
 
54 
 
 many of the strictures aimed against Smith 
 are criticisms of others, whose statements he 
 has adopted. ' If he took this mode of pub- 
 lishing in distrust of his own literary skill or 
 ability to treat the subject at large, it yet 
 secured the advantage of fortifying his views 
 by the statements of other and independent 
 witnesses. In editing and publishing under 
 his own name he of course made himself re- 
 sponsible for the whole, in which he weaves 
 together the difierent narratives to make a 
 consistent and continuous history. The in- 
 terest and value of the book is not in its 
 literary style, which is rugged and uncouth, 
 often repellant to the merely literary reader. 
 It may be said that the book was written 
 before style, in the modern sense, was in- 
 vented. It is the unpolished utterance of a 
 man, or rather of men, not necessarily rude 
 themselves, giving expression to what they 
 knew and thought of a very serious piece of 
 work in which they had been engaged; a 
 piece of work of transcendent interest and 
 importance, as we now know — namely, the 
 founding of this Commonwealth of Virginia. 
 The first comment on the *' History " to 
 be made in this connection is to repeat, that 
 if it had dealt in fiction — that is, lied — about 
 this matter of the rescue, there were plenty of 
 
55 
 
 men then living in England who knew as to 
 its truth or falsity. Of these men, some had 
 been in Virginia with Smith, or after him ; 
 others had known and conversed with Poca- 
 hontas in England. And of them some 
 were his enemies, willing and eager enough 
 to discredit him by denouncing any fictitious 
 embellishments about that or any other 
 matter in his book. An invention such 
 as the Pocahontas story might have been 
 risked in an obscure book, not liable to criti- 
 cism and hostile scrutiny; but Smith's "His- 
 tory of Virginia" was never obscure. From 
 the first day of publication, it has been an 
 illustrious book, whether from interest in its 
 subject or in its author. It was brought out 
 under auspices that at once gave it fame, and 
 made its author's reputation a thing talked 
 of by all men, and criticized by enemies, 
 when criticism was possible. It was pub- 
 lished at the very zenith of the most splendid 
 development of English literature, when 
 Shakspeare had been dead only eight years, 
 and Ben Jonson was yet at the head of Eng- 
 lish letters and criticism. It was written un- 
 der the auspices of, and dedicated to, one of 
 the most brilliant and celebrated women of 
 her day, at a time when dedications were 
 
56 
 
 significant, implying consent and patronage 
 in the true sense of that word. 
 
 It would be curious to know the history of 
 Smith's acquaintance with this Duchess of 
 Richmond, his patroness; this superb wo- 
 man, whose ambition soared so high that she 
 is said to have set her cap for the King him- 
 self. Her husband had held high position 
 in James' court, and she had doubtless 
 known Pocahontas on the occasion of her 
 visit to London and presentation at court. 
 It is not improbable that her interest in 
 Smith was first excited by hearing from Po- 
 cahontas herself the story of the rescue. 
 However that may be, it was through the 
 influence of the Duchess, and at her request, 
 that Smith compiled his " History," and to 
 her he dedicated it in a preface that is a mas- 
 terpiece of courtesy and compliment, that 
 must have touched the pride of even so proud 
 a woman as she. 
 
 Of course she knew all about the incidents 
 of Pocahontas' visit to England and presen- 
 tation to the Queen, only eight years before ; 
 of course, as being familiar with the court, 
 she knew about Smith's letter bespeaking the 
 Queen's consideration for Pocahontas on the 
 ground of having saved his life, of which 
 
57 
 
 mention has been made. And yet we are 
 asked to believe that Smith not only invented 
 the story of the rescue, but had the daring 
 impudence to bolster up that story by forging 
 and printing in his ^' History " a purported 
 letter to the Queen ; not only that, but also 
 had the reckless folly to refer explicitly to 
 the rescue in a preface dedicating his book 
 to the cleverest and most powerful woman 
 in England, who most probably had personal 
 information from Pocahontas herself about 
 the incidents of Smith's experience in Vir- 
 ginia. The Duchess of Richmond would 
 have made her lackies cudgel any man who 
 would dare to put in a book dedicated to 
 her, fantastic lies about an Indian princess 
 whom she had probably known. 
 
 As already said, there were plenty of men, 
 then living, willing enough to discredit Smith 
 on this or any other matter, if such stricture 
 were possible. Of these would-be critics, 
 some were members of the London Com- 
 pany, men of wealth and position, upon whom 
 the comments of the book tended to throw 
 contempt, while sometimes excusing their 
 blunders on the half-pitying ground of igno- 
 rance. These men, embittered by heavy 
 losses in their Virginia enterprise, would 
 have been prompted by the average human 
 
58 
 
 nature to vindicate their consistency. For 
 fifteen years they had discredited Smith, 
 rejecting all his plans and offers, and refusing 
 him employment in their Virginia enterprise. 
 The publication of his book, with its stric- 
 tures on their policies and plans, did not, 
 we may be sure, lessen their feeling against 
 its author — this upstart captain, as they 
 probably regarded him, with his title and 
 dubious coat of arms from some half-bar- 
 barous prince of Southeastern Europe. They 
 had kicked him out of their service, but he 
 had ingratiated himself into the favor of the 
 proudest woman in England and her asso- 
 ciates, and now, under such splendid aus- 
 pices, he showed the world his side of the 
 question, illustrated and emphasized by the 
 fact that their policy had resulted in utter 
 and ruinous bankruptcy. With the enmity 
 natural under such circumstances, they would 
 have been quick to denounce the author 
 for any manufactured item about the most 
 striking incident of the whole book. The 
 exposure of any such falsehood as the Poca- 
 hontas rescue — and most certainly it would 
 have been exposed, if false — would at once 
 have overwhelmed book and author with 
 merited contempt. 
 
 Contrast the history of this book with that 
 
59 
 
 of the so-called '' Relation/' on which the 
 modern criticism bases its attacks on Smith's 
 veracity; which, after serving its purpose, 
 whatever that was, passed into such dusty 
 oblivion. The "History " has always ranked 
 among the first and highest authorities on its 
 subject. Its statements of matters of fact 
 have never been successfully combated, and 
 on points of controversy its author has been 
 vindicated by the experience of succeeding 
 generations, who found the wisdom of adopt- 
 ing policies substantially in conformity with 
 his plans and ideas. 
 
 And now, having stated the character of 
 the "History," and indicated Smith's stand- 
 ing and relations at the time of its publi- 
 cation, when his work was, if not a refu- 
 tation then certainly a challenge to his ene- 
 mies and critics, we may cite a brief pas- 
 sage from its closing words, in which he 
 refers to that relation with contempt that 
 must have made some galled jade wince. In 
 describing the "Relation," it was said that 
 Smith utterly ignored it when compiling his 
 "History." But on the last page of his 
 work he refers to it and his critics in such 
 words as these : 
 
 " Thus far have I travelled in this wilder- " 
 " ness of Virginia, not being ignorant that " 
 
60 
 
 "for all my pains this discourse will be" 
 " wrested, tossed, and turned as many ways " 
 " as there are leaves ; that I have writ too " 
 " much of some, too little of others, and " 
 "many such objections. To such I must" 
 " answer — if any have concealed their " 
 "approved experiences from my knowl-" 
 " edge — they must excuse me. As for " 
 " every fatherless or stolen relation" — wasn't 
 it fatherless, and doesn't its initialed edi- 
 tor, J. H., admit in his preface that it was 
 practically stolen? — "as for every father-" 
 "less or stolen relation, or whole volumes" 
 " of sophisticated rehearsals, I leave them " 
 " to the charge of them that desire them. " 
 " I thank God I never undertook anything " 
 " yet wherein any could tax me with care- " 
 " lessness or dishonesty, and what is he to " 
 " whom I am troublesome or indebted ?" 
 
 Verily, as old Dibden says of him, " Smith 
 was the very dragon of his breed. Nil actum 
 credens, si quid superesset agendum,^' which is 
 the Latin way of saying he never thought a 
 job done until it was finished. 
 
 It may be said that no book stufied with 
 bragging and lies could have such long and 
 illustrious esteem as has been given to 
 Smith's " History," or could have been im- 
 posed without detection on his own and 
 
61 
 
 subsequent generations. In Virginia, Smith's 
 "History" has been standard reading for 
 two hundred and fifty years, acknowledged 
 and practically unquestioned, unless by some 
 in these later days. We may be a simple 
 and uncritical folk, but when our belief and 
 judgment as to a historical character are 
 challenged, and we are told that our admira- 
 tion has been wasted on a charlatan, whose 
 boasting has deceived us, then may we raise 
 a question as to the amount of wisdom behind 
 the critic's utterance, and oppose to his opin- 
 ion the judgment of men acknowledged as 
 authority on any matter of history or charac- 
 ter to which their minds have been turned. 
 We could cite such j udgments about Smith by 
 the score, but will be content with only two, 
 .those of Mr. JefiTerson and Judge Marshall. 
 As unlike Smith in disposition and habits 
 of life as a man could be, yet so critical a 
 scholar as Mr. Jefferson wrote of him that 
 /^"to his efforts principally may be ascribed 
 the support of the colony against the oppo- 
 sition of the natives; that he was honest, sen- 
 sible, and well-informed, though his style is 
 barbarous and uncouth.'J And Judge Mar- 
 shall, in his "History of the Colonies," 
 adopts without question Smith's narrative of 
 the Pocahontas rescue, and speaks of him in 
 
62 
 
 language that shows his admiration for his 
 *^ judgment, courage, and presence of mind," 
 with highest appreciation of his talents and 
 character. 
 
 It does seem preposterous that a literary 
 and personal charlatan could deceive the 
 judgment of Jefferson and Marshall, and 
 remain to be detected by the criticisms of the 
 Deanes, ISTeills, Adams, and Warners. Criti- 
 cism ! we need and welcome criticism, intel- 
 ligently applied to our early history, based 
 on a solid foundation of truth and facts, and 
 enlightened with some insight into human 
 nature. But much of this criticism of Smith 
 is of the school that denounces Christopher 
 Columbus as a piratical knave who blun- 
 dered into the discovery of America; and 
 one of whose latest utterances is that George 
 Washington " was an illiterate Virginia colo- 
 nel, who spelt worse than a common soldier." 
 
 And yet they tell us, " the legend must 
 go"; but when it goes — if you will pardon 
 the quotation of the Professor's slang — it will 
 be time for this people to be gone; to be 
 driven from this fair portion of God's earth, 
 made sacred by that brave man's heroism, 
 and by the gentle pity of that Indian maid, 
 savage though she was. 
 
 This lecture has been confined to an in- 
 
63 
 
 qulry as to the truth ot the Pocahontas res- 
 cue, wanting time for more than reference 
 to, and brief touches on, such other points 
 as seemed necessary for the discussion. In 
 examining the charge of the critics against 
 Smith's veracity, founded on the variation 
 between the earlier " Relation " and his own 
 account in his " History," the proof seems 
 conclusive against the authority of that 
 fatherless pamphlet, as any ground whereon 
 to impeach the truth of the later and authen- 
 tic narrative of his "History." 
 
 What has been said in vindication of his 
 truthfulness may also suggest the character 
 of the man as shown in his deeds. How- 
 ever we may judge these deeds, or the man 
 generally, yet our common experience and 
 the testimony of history is to the effect that 
 men like Smith do not lie. They may have 
 a streak of vanity, or what looks like it, and 
 may be so headstrong in convictions as to 
 incur the charge of being conceited, but they 
 do not lie. 
 
 The captivity and rescue were in the win- 
 ter of 1607-'08. We cannot now recite the 
 history of Smith's subsequent life in Vir- 
 ginia, but must note that most remarkable 
 feat of surveying ever done on this conti-^ 
 nent, the survey of Chesapeake bay and the 
 
64 
 
 map of the country. This work was accom- 
 plished in an open boat, with rude instru- 
 ments, and with a half mutinous crew grum- 
 bling at the exposure and hardships of the 
 trip. In spite of all disadvantages, Smith 
 made a map that is a marvel of skill and 
 accuracy, and the foundation of all Virginia 
 cartography. 
 
 His life in Virginia covered a period of 
 only two and a half years, his stay here 
 being terminated by severe wounding from 
 an accidental explosion of gunpowder, which 
 compelled him to return to England for 
 medical treatment. There is some report 
 of his being sent home to answer charges 
 preferred against him. What they were, if 
 any, we do not know ; but there were doubt- 
 less complaints against a man who had not 
 much patience with idleness and vice, and 
 who could be very disagreeble to sluggards 
 and cowards in forcing them to take their 
 share of labor and danger which he did not 
 shirk himself. Short as was his stay here, 
 is there another example of a like influence 
 being stamped in such brief period on the 
 history of a great commonwealth ? 
 
 Elected Governor in 1608, his skill and 
 energy were employed in putting the affairs 
 of the colony on as good footing as prac- 
 
(15 
 
 ticable under difHciilt circumstances, and 
 attempting to realize the expectations and 
 demands of the home Company; which being 
 impossible of attainment, as Smith well 
 knew, he was persistent in urging on them 
 a policy which kept him in controversy 
 with, and opposition to, the London patrons. 
 On behalf of the London Company, we 
 must remember that they had sent the col- 
 ony as a commercial enterprise, and, as busi- 
 ness men, they were disappointed and dis- 
 gusted that no return tor their venture was 
 visible; but what chance was there for 
 profitable trade with savage Indians ? And 
 we know now that no gold is to be found in 
 Tidewater Virginia, and that the South sea, 
 or Pacific ocean, one object of the expedi- 
 tion, is three thousand miles overland from 
 Jamestown. This stricture on the unreason- 
 able demands of the Company, as we now 
 know them to have been, represents very 
 nearly the views and idea of the situation 
 taken by Smith at the time. Li response to 
 their complaints about the poor prospect be- 
 fore them, coupled with threats to leave the 
 colonists to themselves unless the next ship 
 brought gold or news of the route to the 
 South sea. Smith sent a letter creditable to 
 his wisdom and manly independence, but at 
 
fi6 
 
 the same time evidence of* bow lacking such 
 a character may be in mere worldly sense 
 and policy. Tbink of a company's agent — 
 for such only was the President or Gover- 
 nor — writing to his official board in language 
 that criticises their plans, and the expecta- 
 tions founded on them, as foolish and delu- 
 sive, ridicules some of their schemes, and 
 asks them to send thirty carpenters, black- 
 smiths, and such workmen, rather than a 
 thousand of such as had been sent, and con- 
 cludes by telling them that they cannot yet 
 look for any profitable returns. 
 
 It is small wonder that such a president, 
 or agent, was involved in controversy, and 
 that his employers in England failed to ap- 
 preciate a wisdom tliat was a reflection on, 
 and contradiction of, their ideas of manage- 
 ment. Controversy ! Yes, the man's life 
 was a controversy for the next twenty years 
 that has sometimes brought on him the re 
 proach of having quarrelled with everybody. 
 But we think it could be shown that it was 
 the controversy of a man who saw and knew 
 and urged the right thing to be done, and 
 whose every word of controversy was not 
 only a protest against fatal and costly errors 
 of judgment, but also that it carried and 
 urged advice, which, if followed, might have 
 
07 
 
 saved the London Company from the utter 
 bankruptcy in which it collapsed in less than 
 twenty years. His was the controversy of 
 the man with some foresight of the vast future 
 possibilities of what we are now proud to call 
 American civilization, whose history had no 
 chance to begin till methods ^vere adopted 
 in consonance with what Smith had advised 
 and urged. " Pardon me," he writes after 
 the massacre in 1622, '' pardon me, though 
 it passionate me beyond the bounds of mod- 
 esty to have been sufficiently able to foresee 
 these miseries and had neither power nor 
 means to prevent it." (A. 770). 
 
 But what could one man, unskilled in arts 
 of controversy, whose soldier nature dis- 
 dained cunning and devious w^ays of policy ; 
 what could one man, without fortune or ex- 
 traneous influence, do as against the views 
 and designs of a board of managers three 
 thousand miles away, armed though he was 
 with the knowledge and experience essential 
 for the successful prosecution of the enter- 
 prise in hand. What has ever accomplished 
 anything against British obstinacy and fatu- 
 ousness in American aiFairs, unless it were 
 a N'athaniel Bacon, some fifty years after 
 Smith, with an armed colony at his back, or 
 
C8 
 
 George Wiislnngton, a century after Bacon, 
 at the head of a Revolutionarj^ arm3^ 
 
 To state very briefly Smith's side of the 
 controversy, the policy proposed by him 
 looked, in the first place, to control of the 
 Indians, whose subjugation was the first re- 
 quisite for peaceful living in the country. If 
 white men were to live here at all, there was 
 choice of only two alternatives; either to 
 assimilate with and civilize the natives, or 
 to conquer and control them. Englishmen 
 might try to civilize Indians, but they never 
 would assimilate, nor could they make In- 
 dians assimilate with them ; hence the only 
 practical plan, as proved by all subsequent 
 history, was to conquer and control them. 
 But the colonists found themselves restrained 
 and hampered from the first by the London 
 Company's orders for a peace policy toward 
 the natives. However well intended, all ex- 
 perience has shown that such policy is utterly 
 futile; for it takes two parties to keep peace, 
 and the American Indian has never yet 
 reconciled himself to it on his side. The 
 later establishment of Rangers on our fron- 
 tiers, and the subsequent establishment and 
 use of the United States army, whose almost 
 sole reason for existence has been to control 
 
69 
 
 Indians, were but the adoption of plans 
 and policy urojed from the first by Smith. 
 After the neglect of his advice had been ex- 
 emplified and its penalt}- so fearfully paid by 
 the massacre of 1622, he again renewed the 
 offers repeatedly urged before. He proposed 
 that the London Company should give him 
 a hundred soldiers and thirty sailors, with 
 whom he would force the savages to leave 
 the country or bring them into such fear and 
 subjection as to ensure peace and security 
 for the settlers. These soldiers he would 
 employ in ranging the country and con- 
 trolling the savages, while he would estab- 
 lish forts and garrisons, ready always for 
 defense of the country, and as posts of mil- 
 itary instruction for the colonists; which 
 plan is almost exactly the Indian policy 
 subsequently adopted by these United States, 
 and the only one that has ever been effec- 
 tive in dealing with savages. Fearing that 
 it might entail more than the small ex- 
 pense necessary in Smith's judgment, the 
 offer was declined ; and so matters drifted 
 on till the trouble again became acute in 
 Bacon's time, who is dubbed the Rebel for 
 daring to take arms and incite his fellow- 
 colonists to band themselves for self-defense 
 against the common danger; and so on 
 
70 
 
 through generations, until the protests 
 against the narrow views of hoards and par- 
 liaments three thousand miles away, culmi- 
 nated in a Revolutionary Avar and these inde- 
 pendent United States; which result was 
 but the logical outcome, after long course of 
 time, of the protest and controversy first 
 stated and urged by this plain soldier, Cap- 
 tain John Smith. 
 
 Again — gold, silver, and a route to the 
 South sea, were the reiterated demands of the 
 Company. We must remember that this was 
 in the early seventeenth century, when Eng- 
 lish colonization was in its infancy. There 
 was no previous experience to guide them ; 
 no precedents but what they knew of Spanish 
 conquests and settlements, which had yielded 
 immense treasures of gold and silver to that 
 country ; while the Pacific, or South sea, had 
 opened to them the route to the boundless 
 wealth of the Indies. Therefore it was not 
 an unnatural expectation of the Company in 
 England that some such success should crown 
 this expedition to Virginia, of which country 
 they were more ignorant than we now are 
 of Central Africa. Their disappointment 
 vented itself in criticisms and complaints of 
 the management here, and so exasperated 
 were they at the failure to realize their ex- 
 
n 
 
 pectations, that, as in the letter referred to 
 awhile ago, they threatened to leave the 
 colonists to their fate unless the next ships 
 brought gold or news of the route to the 
 South sea. We have seen how Smith an- 
 swered that letter, but we cannot now go 
 into the grounds and reasons of his telling 
 the Company that they could not yet expect 
 returns for their investment; nor state his 
 arguments against this futile and insane thirst 
 for gold. It must suffice now to say that the 
 controversy was warm and protracted, and 
 that after Smith's return to England the 
 Compan}^ refused him further employment. 
 
 The verdict of history has been pronounced 
 on the results of that controversy, and the 
 defenders of Captain John Smitli think that 
 the verdict has vindicated him and his policy. 
 In twenty years the Company had gone into- 
 bankruptcy, and its charter was annulled. 
 
 Was Smith a great man ? Or rather, what 
 is the measure of his greatness? As the 
 world generally answers that question ac- 
 cording to the degree of success achieved in 
 lile, it might be said that his life was not a 
 success, inasmuch as he failed to achieve the 
 objects for which he was striving. Com- 
 pelled by the accident of a wound to leave 
 Virginia, after a stay of two and a half years. 
 
72 
 
 he never returued, buL bpeut the best days 
 of his life in seemingl}^ futile efforts to im- 
 press on others his plans and convictions as 
 to the policy requisite for prosperity in this 
 and other colonies. This want of success 
 was probably due to a lack of personal ad- 
 dress and politic art in dealing with men 
 whose modes of thought and ways of looking 
 at the question at issue were very different 
 from those of a man of his training and habits 
 of mind. Probably the very qualities that 
 made him pre-eminent as a leader of men in 
 emergencies demanding prompt and resolute 
 action, unfitted him for the role of the advo- 
 cate and pleader which was needed to con- 
 vince the London merchants and patrons of 
 the futility of their management, and to per- 
 suade them of the .wisdom of his views, 
 founded as these views were, on practical 
 knowledge of the situation, derived from his 
 personal experience. At any rate, he failed 
 to convince them or to find means to carry 
 out his plans. This failure must have brought 
 him days and years of the bitterness of disap- 
 pointed hopes and plans, of which, however, 
 but little is reflected in his books. 
 
 But, despite the fact of his brief stay here, 
 and despite the seeming failure of his after 
 life, how almost marvellous is the influence 
 
73 
 
 of his name and fame, and how it has sur- 
 vived and permeated Virginia and American 
 history. And this fame cannot be said to 
 be literary, for few men read Smith's " His- 
 tory " ; but it has established itself as a tradi- 
 tion in the popular mind more lasting and 
 potent than any written page or printed 
 book. 
 
 What is the secret of this supremacy, and 
 the homage paid his memory through all 
 these generations? It may be questioned 
 whether it is due only to the hero of the ad- 
 venture through which his name is most 
 familiarly known. Is it not also an uncon- 
 scious tribute to the man who first sounded 
 the keynote of Virginia history, to which it 
 has remained true in all subsequent chapters? 
 Virginia history is almost written in the lives 
 of five or six men, whose life-periods nearly 
 lap ; and the keynote of this history is the 
 protest against ''prerogative,'' and the asser- 
 tion of the rights of self-government. The 
 lives of Washington and Lee, the last of our 
 great protagonists, embody the struggles of a 
 mature and well-organized commonwealth 
 in defense of the principles and rights asserted 
 in the infant state of the same community 
 by Smith and Bacon. For though not formu- 
 lated as in later times, when the mature con- 
 
74 
 
 sciousness of a well-developed communit}^ 
 could express itself, and stamp upon the page 
 of history the definite assertion of their 
 rights, yet the inspiration and motive of 
 Smith and Bacon were essentially the same 
 as those of their later and logical successors. 
 Their earlier deeds laid the foundation on 
 which later generations huilded ; their asser- 
 tions of rights marked the path and blazed 
 the way along which our subsequent history 
 has moved. 
 
 This fact makes the consistency and essen- 
 tial unity of Virginia history, and has kept 
 the character of Virginia civilization much 
 the same through all chances and changes ; 
 and perhaps it explains the lasting interest 
 in, and pervasive influence of, the first of 
 our great heroes, and gives to John Smith 
 the honored title of Father of Virginia. 
 
 LBA'g'09 
 

 Captain John Smith 
 and his Critics. 
 
 Chas. PoIN'DEXTER, 
 
 Acting Librarian Virginia State Library, 
 
 1893. 
 
 Compliments of 
 
4.>