Winston Smith

“ He had been the ruling spirit and the preserver of the Virginia colony. In fact, he has often and justly been called the "Father of Virginia." His strong hand had also opened wide the door of New England.
We must think of Captain John Smith as the hero of the first struggle of English civilization with the wilderness of America. Wherever he was, his genius and resolute will had made him a leader. There was never a braver man. After a life full of romantic adventures and daring exploits, he died in London in 1631 at the age of fifty-two. ”

“ Very few had the least fitness for pioneer work. When the box was opened in which King James had sealed the names of the first seven Councillors, all but two of those selected proved grossly unfit. These two were Bartholomew Gosnold and John Smith. Gosnold soon died, and Smith had not been freed from arrest on the charge of plotting against the colony. Edward Maria Wingfield was chosen first president, but he was lazy, self-indulgent, and seemed to be able to think of nothing except Smith and his plots for placing himself at the head of affairs. ”

“ We are left to imagine the grim inventions of the mutineers. The "strange torment," however, was prevented by Smith, who strove to be a peacemaker; but the colonists were inexorable. Again was their President deposed, or allowed to resign; and John Smith, by a popular election, became President of Virginia.
And now in October an unexpected ship appears on the broad bosom of the James. The London Company has hurriedly fitted out the Mary & Margaret, and sent Newport back to hasten Smith's discovery of the northward passage to the South Sea. ”

“ The parents of two children who had died were moved by some phantasy to revisit their dead carcasses, “whose benumbed bodies reflected to the eyes of the beholders such delightful countenances as though they had regained their vital spirits.” This miracle drew a great part of the King's people to behold them, nearly all of whom died shortly afterward. These people spoke the language of Powhatan. Smith explored the bays, isles, and islets, searching for harbors and places of habitation. He was a born explorer and geographer, as his remarkable map of Virginia sufficiently testifies. ”

“ No man of them enjoys the advantage of knowing more than the others about those distant parts and their people. Rank and money will count for little in the new life. Each man’s worth will be measured by his character and his actions. Under such conditions, a man of Smith’s extraordinary ability must sooner or later become the leader, even among others much older than himself.
The foundation of Virginia and, as I have said, that of the United States was laid by Captain John Smith in spite of tremendous difficulties. ”

“ He was now twenty-five years of age, and emphatically a soldier of fortune. The tale of his prowess and adventures had preceded him, and he was eagerly welcomed in London by kindred spirits who were preparing to emigrate to America to form the colony of Virginia under the grant and direct patronage of James I. By the time the enterprise was ripe for execution, Smith had made himself so useful in counsel and preparation that the king named him as one of the councillors of the prospective colony. ”

“ Hardship and disappointment made our hero prematurely old, but could not conquer his indomitable spirit. The disastrous voyage of June, 1615, when he fell into the hands of the French, is spoken of by the Council for New England in 1622 as “the ruin of that poor gentleman, Captain Smith, who was detained prisoner by them, and forced to suffer many extremities before he got free of his troubles;” but he did not know that he was ruined, and did not for a moment relax his efforts to promote colonization and obtain a command, nor relinquish his superintendence of the Western Continent. ”

“ Smith has no other purpose during this early period of his life than to learn what he can of the world and the practice of arms—in short to qualify himself for a life of action in an age when brawn is no less essential to success than brain. It is a stern school in which he acquires his training but an effective one, and he makes the most of his opportunities. We see the expansion of his mind keeping pace with the development of his muscle, until the Captain John Smith who joins the colonists bound for Virginia appears as a man of perfect physique and mature judgment. ”

“ From Smith's "General History of Virginia." Edward Arbor has contended that, had not John Smith "strove, fought and endured as he did the present United States of America might never have come into existence." Spaniards and French alike had failed in their attempts at colonization and so had the repeated expeditions sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh. Smith carried the Jamestown settlement through its difficulties.—Smith, the "self-denying, energetic, so full of resources, and so trained in dealing with the savage races." ”

“ However, moderate men must allow Captain Smith to have been very instrumental in settling the plantation in Virginia, whereof he was governor, as also Admiral of New England.”
“He led his old age in London, where his having a prince's mind imprisoned in a poor man's purse, rendered him to the contempt of such as were not ingenuous. ”

“ The only men in office who had not in some degree succumbed to the miseries of the situation were Gosnold, a man of really superior ability, and Smith himself, the latter having now attained to supreme control by common consent. Smith compelled his people to labor,—"he that will not work shall not eat," was his dictum,—maintained trade with the Indians, among whom he became popular, drilled the little garrison, kept up the fortifications, explored and mapped the country and the coast, wrote appeals for assistance to London, and was the life and soul of the colony for two years. ”

“ Captain John Smith was a brave and wise man who came from England and settled in Virginia. One day some of his men disobeyed orders and got into a quarrel with the Indians. John Smith was taken prisoner and led into their camp. He showed them his compass, and told them how the needle always turned to the north, which so amused the Indians that, instead of killing him, they took him to their chief, Powhatan, who said, “The white man must die.” ”

“ Whether or not there is good reason to think that Smith was doubtful as to the existence of a sea at a comparatively near point in the west, [54] he was certainly frank and emphatic in his condemnation of the search for it at the expense of the welfare of the Colony at that time. He held the very just opinion that the attention of all should be exclusively directed to the establishment of the Jamestown settlement on a permanently safe footing before an expedition should be dispatched to penetrate the wilderness in the west. ”

“ One of the most marked proofs of the ability of Captain John Smith was that during his brief stay in Virginia he had been able to pick up enough knowledge of the Powhatan tongue to make himself fairly well understood, being helped thereto by his gestures, of which he was master. There had been Indian visitors from the first at Jamestown. All were treated so well that several spent much of their time at the settlement, studying the white men and their ways with never-ending interest. ”

“ The valiant Captain had come by this time to regard himself as the inventor and discoverer of Virginia and New England, which were explored and settled at the cost of his private pocket, and which he is not ashamed to say cannot fare well in his absence. Smith, with all his good opinion of himself, could not have imagined how delicious his character would be to readers in after-times. As he goes on he warms up: “Thus you may see plainly the yearly success from New England by Virginia, which hath been so costly to this kingdom and so dear to me. ”

“ I spent several hours a day working up my arithmetic, making out imaginary invoices against every imaginable person, and generally preparing myself for office work. And the rest of my time I spent in cogitation and speculation as to my future destiny, and the merits and demerits of those enviable mortals, Doubleday, Wallop, and Crow, of the Export Department of Messrs Merrett, Barnacle, and Company.
On Tuesday morning two letters came for me with the London postmark, one in Jack Smith’s well-remembered handwriting, the other with the awful initials, “M., B., and Company,” on the seal. ”

“ The clamors became so loud that Smith punished the ringleader, one Dyer, a crafty fellow, and his ancient maligner, and then made one of his conciliatory addresses. Having shown them how impossible it was to get corn, and reminded them of his own exertions, and that he had always shared with them anything he had, he told them that he should stand their nonsense no longer; he should force the idle to work, and punish them if they railed; if any attempted to escape to Newfoundland in the pinnace they would arrive at the gallows; the sick should not starve ”

“ Smith—who, as we have seen in our account of his work in Virginia was a clear-headed and far-sighted man—turned his time to better account than did his comrade, and embodied the results of a careful survey of Maine and the neighboring islands in a map, which he took to England and submitted to Charles I., urging him to inaugurate a company for the colonization of a country so rich in resources, and to give to that country the name of New England. ”

“ We have seen how often "wives" were offered to John Smith, and Powhatan eagerly hastened his daughter's marriage to John Rolfe. Her engagement [270] was no sooner announced than her old uncle appeared at Jamestown to witness the marriage ceremony.
Captain Smith never returned to Virginia, but after the massacre of 1622 he offered his services as commander of a company to drive the Indians out of the country. ”

“ Before the Revolutionary war Smith was a farmer in Monroe, New York, and being prosperous enough to feel the king's taxes no burden, to say nothing of his jealousy of the advantage that an independent government would be to the hopes of his poorer neighbors, he declared for the king. ”

“ Persecution drove numbers of Nonconformists to America, and the story of Captain John Smith shows how hardly society then pressed on the race of adventurers, even where the bitterness of the struggle did not produce religious enthusiasm.
Smith lived a generation too late. Born in 1579, he was a child of nine when the Armada perished, and only sixteen when Drake and Hawkins died at sea. ”

“ Few men have compassed in fifty years of life so much of noble action and inspiring example as did John Smith. He died, as he had lived, a God-fearing, honorable gentleman, rich in the consciousness of a life well spent and in the respect of all who knew him. He was a connecting link between the old world and the new, and we, no less than England, should keep his memory green. ”

“ The important sealed-box was opened, and the names of Wingfield, Newport, Gosnold, Smith, and three others, were found nominated to the council. But the dissensions and jealousies which had broken out on the voyage here assumed a more determined aspect. Smith, almost the only man amongst them of superior character and powers of mind, had become an object of jealousy to his fellows, and the council having elected Wingfield as their president, proceeded to exclude Smith from their council, under pretence of his harbouring a design to murder the council, and establish himself as king of Virginia. ”

“ We anticipate here by saying, on the authority of a contemporary manuscript in the State Paper office, that when Captain Newport arrived with the first supply in January, 1608, “he found the colony consisting of no more than forty persons; of those, ten only able men.”
After the death of Gosnold, Captain Kendall was deposed from the Council and put in prison for sowing discord between the President and Council, says Wingfield; for heinous matters which were proved against him, says Percy; for “divers reasons,” says Smith, who sympathized with his dislike of Wingfield. ”

“ Yet he gained the respect of the savages by his courage, steadfastness, honesty and—when occasion demanded—by the weight of his strong arm, for Captain John Smith was no less stern than just.
In the days when news traveled slowly and was often delivered by word of mouth, the truth of distant events was hard to ascertain, and great men were frequently the victims of malice and envy. Smith, like many another, failed to receive at the hands of his countrymen the honor and recognition which he deserved. ”

“ It was with feelings of curiosity and interest on either side that Captain John Smith, the leader of the colonists, and Opechancanough, the chief of the Pamaunkes, confronted each other. Both men of noble bearing and fearless character, they must have been mutually impressed at the first encounter. The chief’s erect and well-knit frame towered above the forms of his attendant warriors and, together with the dignity and intelligence of his countenance, marked him as a superior being. ”

“ The ubiquity of the Smiths never became a personal thing to me until we moved to Banning. Never a week goes by that a car doesn't drive up in a flurry of gravel and belch forth a person who rings the bell and inquires, "Have you a party staying here by the name of Smith?" ”