Volume 1

Travels and works of Captain John Smith, President of Virginia, and Admiral of New England / edited by Edward Arber.

  • John Smith
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Travels and works of Captain John Smith, President of Virginia, and Admiral of New England / edited by Edward Arber. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    found them ; so now, the times having changed to peace, he gave himself to Colonization : and that having missed going to South America, and Virginia being the next Attempt that offered, he went to Virginia. The James town Settlement did not convert him to the Colonizing Effort to which he henceforth gave his entire energies ; but was his second endeavour in that new life which was now opening to him B. Virginia. 1605-1612 a.d. IV. It is not a work for every one to plant a Colony ; but when a house is built, it is no hard matter to dwell in it. This requireth all the best parts of Art, J udgement, Courage, Honesty, Constancy, Diligence, and Experience, to do but near[ly] well: and there is a great difference between Saying and Doing. J. Smith, 1620,/. 244. There was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it. Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city ; yet no man remembered that same poor man. Ecclesiastes ix. 14, 15. Hen Captain Smith went to Virginia, the most adventurous part of his life had passed away. He was often, while there, in most im¬ minent danger ; but nothing that he faced or endured in America, came up in peril and dread, to that which he had already undergone in Eastern Europe and Tartary. By this time, he was a hardened soldier; a wary, foreseeing, and energetic Officer : so that he already possessed more experience of savage and semi-savage life than any other man in the Virginia expedition of 1606-7. Indeed, in his exceeding wariness, he seems to have over-estimated the military skill of the Virginian Indians, by making those forts of which he thus writes in 1629. The Forts Captaine Smith left a building, [are] so ruined, there is scarce mention where they were. p. 888. Yet had he to find out for himself a way to manage the Virginian Indians, respecting which others wrote, in 1612. Though the many miserable yet generous and worthy adven¬ tures he had long and oft indured as wel in some parts of Africa and America, as in the most partes of Europe and Asia, by land or sea, had taught him much: yet, in this case, he was againe to learne his Lecture by experience; which with thus much a doe having obtained, it was his ill chance to end when hee had but onlie learned how to begin, pp. 159,160. In October 1622, he wrote himself— For Virginia, I kept that country with 38, and had not to eate but what we had from the sauages. When I had ten men able to go abroad, our common wealth was very strong: with such a number I ranged that vnknown country 14 weekes; I had but 18 to subdue them all, with which great army I stayed six weekes
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