why not English as
well as they? Therefore use all commers with that respect, courtesie,
and liberty is fitting, which will in a short time much increase your
trade and shipping to fetch it from you, for as yet it were not good to
adventure any more abroad with factors till you bee better provided; now
there is nothing more enricheth a Common-wealth than much trade, nor
no meanes better to increase than small custome, as Holland, Genua,
Ligorne, as divers other places can well tell you, and doth most beggar
those places where they take most custome, as Turkie, the Archipelegan
Iles, Cicilia, the Spanish ports, but that their officers will connive
to enrich themselves, though undo the state."

It may perhaps be admitted that he knew better than the London or the
Plymouth company what ought to be done in the New World, but it is
absurd to suppose that his success or his ability forfeited him the
confidence of both companies, and shut him out of employment. The simple
truth seems to be that his arrogance and conceit and importunity made
him unpopular, and that his proverbial ill luck was set off against his
ability.

Although he was fully charged with the piety of his age, and kept
in mind his humble dependence on divine grace when he was plundering
Venetian argosies or lying to the Indians, or fighting anywhere simply
for excitement or booty, and was always as devout as a modern Sicilian
or Greek robber; he had a humorous appreciation of the value of the
religions current in his day. He saw through the hypocrisy of the London
Company, "making religion their color, when all their aim was nothing
but present profit." There was great talk about Christianizing
the Indians; but the colonists in Virginia taught them chiefly the
corruptions of civilized life, and those who were despatched to England
soon became debauched by London vices. "Much they blamed us [he writes]
for not converting the Salvages, when those they sent us were little
better, if not worse, nor did they all convert any of those we sent them
to England for that purpose."

Captain John Smith died unmarried, nor is there any record that he ever
had wife or children. This disposes of the claim of subsequent John
Smiths to be descended from him. He was the last of that race;
the others are imitations. He was wedded to glory. That he was not
insensible to the charms of female beauty, and to the heavenly pity
in their hearts, which is their chief grace, his writi