Captain John Smith

more fortunate is he if he is able to record his own achievements and give to them that form and color and importance which

ing with the port of a swash-buckler across the field of vision, wherever cities were to be tak

honor sparkle

te and vigor by a pen as direct and clear-cutting as the sword with which he shaved off

Lord Beaconsfield (in "Endymion") in his appreciation of the value of the influence of women upon the

ng a Pen among so many judicious; especially when I am so bold as to call so piercing and so glorious an Eye, as your Grace, to view these poore ragged lines. Yet my comfort is that heretofore honorable and vertuous Ladies, and comparable but amongst themselves, have offered me rescue and protection in my greatest dangers: even in forraine parts, I have felt reliefe from that sex. The beauteous Lady Tragabigzanda, when I was a slave to the T

George Smith, under date of Jan. 9, 1579. His biographers, following his account, represent him as of ancient lineage: "His father actually descended from the ancient Smiths of Crudley in Lancashire, his mother from the Rickands at great Heck in Yorkshire;" but the circumstances of his boyhood would indicate that like many other men who have made themselves a name, his origin

German Ocean, and the scenery around offers an unvarying expanse of flats. All the villages in this part of Lincolnshire exhibit the same character. The name ends in by, the Danish word for hamlet or small village, and we can measure the progress of the Danish invasion of England by the number of towns which have the terminal by, distinguished from the Saxon thorpe, which generally end

e church is dedicated to St. Helen. In the village the Wesleyan Methodists also have a place of worship. According to the parliamentary returns of 1825, the parish including the hamlet of Sloothby contained 108 houses and 514 inhabitants. All the churches in Lincolnshire indicate the exist

hen he was about thirteen he sold his books and satchel and intended to run away to sea: but the death of his father stayed him. Both his parents being now dead, he was

not bind him very fast, for as his master refused to send him to sea, John took leave of his master and did

nt back to his friends, who on his return generously gave him ten shillings (out of his own estate) to be rid of him. He is next heard of enjoying his liberty at Paris and making the acquaintance of a Scotchman named David Hume, who used his purse-ten shillings went a long wa

erence to a "peace" helps us to fix the date of his first adventure in France. Henry published the Edict of Nantes at Paris, April 13, 1598, and on the 2d of May following, concluded the treaty of France with Philip II. at Vervins, which closed the Spanish pretensions in France. The Duc de Mercoeur (of whom we shall hear later as Smith's "Duke of Mercury" in Hungary), Duke of Lorraine, was allied with the Guises in the League, and had the desi

and hewed away at his fellow-men, all in the way of business, for three or four years. At the end of that time he bethought himself that he had not delivered his letters to Scotland. He embarked at Aucusan for Leith, and seems to have been shipwrecked, and

n his clothes, studied Machiavelli's "Art of War," read "Marcus Aurelius," and exercised on his horse with lance and ring. This solitary conduct got him the name of a hermit, whose food was thought to be more of venison than anything else, but in fact his men kept him supplied with provisions. When John had indulged in this ostentatious seclusion for a time, he allowed himself to be drawn out of it by the charming discourse of a noble Italian named Theodore Palaloga, who just then was

d not long content the restless Smith, who soon set o

mentations; and besides he was tired of seeing Christians slaughter each other. Like most heroes, he had a vivid imagination that made him credulous, and in the Netherlands he fell into the toils of three French gallants, one of whom pretended to be a great lord, attended by his gentlemen, who persuaded him to accompany them to the "Duchess of Mercury," whose lord was then a general of Rodolphus of Hungary, whose favor they could command. Embarking

rt on the chance of embarking on a man-of-war. Once he was found in a forest near dead with grief and cold, and rescued by a rich farmer; shortly afterwards, in a grove in Brittany, he chanced upon one of the gallants who

ter than ever. After this streak of luck, he roamed about France, viewing the castles and strongholds, and at length embarked at Marse

s and a few kine. The next day a couple of trading vessels anchored near, and he was taken off and so kindly used that he decided to cast in his fortune with them. Smith's discourse of his adventures so entertained the master of one of the vessels, who is described as "this noble Britaine, his neighbor, Captaine la Roche, of Saint Malo," that the much-tossed wanderer was accepted as a friend. They sail

ine and John Smith then proceeded to rifle her. He says that "the Silkes, Velvets, Cloth of Gold, and Tissue, Pyasters, Chiqueenes, and Suitanies, which is gold and silver, they unloaded in four-and-twenty hours was wonderful, whereof having sufficient, and tired with toils, they cast her off with her company, with as much good merchandise as would have freighted another Britaine