eople is impossible, and no wise man would throw himself into
such society, that intends honestly, and knows what he understands, for
there is no country to pillage, as the Romans found; all you expect from
thence must be by labour."

Smith was no friend to tobacco, and although he favored the production
to a certain limit as a means of profit, it is interesting to note his
true prophecy that it would ultimately be a demoralizing product. He
often proposes the restriction of its cultivation, and speaks with
contempt of "our men rooting in the ground about tobacco like swine."
The colony would have been much better off "had they not so much doated
on their tobacco, on whose furnish foundation there is small stability."

So long as he lived, Smith kept himself informed of the progress of
adventure and settlement in the New World, reading all relations and
eagerly questioning all voyagers, and transferring their accounts to his
own History, which became a confused patchwork of other men's exploits
and his own reminiscences and reflections. He always regards the new
plantations as somehow his own, and made in the light of his advice;
and their mischances are usually due to the neglect of his counsel. He
relates in this volume the story of the Pilgrims in 1620 and the years
following, and of the settlement of the Somers Isles, making himself
appear as a kind of Providence over the New World.

Out of his various and repetitious writings might be compiled quite
a hand-book of maxims and wise saws. Yet all had in steady view one
purpose--to excite interest in his favorite projects, to shame the
laggards of England out of their idleness, and to give himself honorable
employment and authority in the building up of a new empire. "Who can
desire," he exclaims, "more content that hath small means, or but only
his merit to advance his fortunes, than to tread and plant that ground
he hath purchased by the hazard of his life; if he have but the taste
of virtue and magnanimity, what to such a mind can be more pleasant than
planting and building a foundation for his posterity, got from the rude
earth by God's blessing and his own industry without prejudice to any;
if he have any grace of faith or zeal in Religion, what can be more
healthful to any or more agreeable to God than to convert those poor
salvages to know Christ and humanity, whose labours and discretion will
triply requite any charge and pain."

"Then who would live at home