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SELECTIONS FROM

EARLY AMERICAN WRITERS

1607-1800

CALIFORNIA

JOHN SMITH

[Captain John Smith was born in Willoughby, Lincolnshire, in 1580 (1579, O.S.). He was apprenticed to a merchant, but, finding a life of trade too tame, he ran away at the age of fifteen and became a soldier of fortune. During the next ten or eleven years he visited, if we may trust his own account, most parts of Europe where adventures might be found, and fought

"As wel in Christendom as in hethenesse."

In 1605 he was again in England, and a year and a half later he went out with the colonists who finally landed at Jamestown. Here he appears, both in his own accounts and in those of his fellow-colonists, as a rough-andready, energetic man, always in trouble, but probably the most practical and capable manager in the new settlement. He remained in Virginia until 1609, when he returned to England. In 1614 he made a voyage of exploration to the coast of New England; and the next year he started for that region with a colonizing party, but was captured and imprisoned by the French. After his release he lived quietly in England until his death in 1631.

While he was in Virginia Captain Smith wrote only two works of importance. The first was very likely begun soon after the colonists landed in 1607, and was sent to England early in 1608. It was published the same year under the title of "A True Relation of such occurrences and accidents of noate as hath hapned in Virginia since the first planting of that Collony, which is now resident in the South part thereof, till the last returne from thence." The second work, "A Map of Virginia, with a Description of the Countrey the Commodities, People, Government and Religion," was probably sent to England a few months later than the "True Relation" but was not published until 1612. At the same time with the "Map of Virginia," Captain Smith sent an interesting and outspoken letter in reply to the demands of the proprietors for money from the colony. After his return to England he wrote a number of works, among the more important of which were "A Description of New England" (1616), “New Englands Trials" (1620-22), "The General Historie of Virginia" (1624), “The True Travels, Adventures, and Observations of Captaine John Smith" (1630). In strictness only the "True Relation" and the "Map of Virginia" have a place in a collection of American writings, but brief selections from "A Description of New England" and the "True Travels" are given in the following pages for the sake of comparison.

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