Secretary of the colony 1609 to 1612. First printed for the Hakluyt
Society, London, 1849.

"Newport's Relatyon," 1607. Am. Ant. Soc., Vol. 4.

"Wingfield's Discourse," etc., 1607. Am. Ant. Soc., Vol. 4.

"Purchas his Pilgrimage," London, 1613.

"Purchas his Pilgrimes," London, 1625-6.

"Ralph Hamor's True Discourse," etc., London, 1615.

"Relation of Virginia," by Henry Spelman, 1609. First printed by J. F.
Hunnewell, London, 1872.

"History of the Virginia Company in London," by Edward D. Neill, Albany,
1869.

"William Stith's History of Virginia," 1753, has been consulted for the
charters and letters-patent. The Pocahontas discussion has been followed
in many magazine papers. I am greatly indebted to the scholarly labors
of Charles Deane, LL.D., the accomplished editor of the "True Relation,"
and other Virginia monographs. I wish also to acknowledge the courtesy
of the librarians of the Astor, the Lenox, the New York Historical,
Yale, and Cornell libraries, and of Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull, the
custodian of the Brinley collection, and the kindness of Mr. S. L. M.
Barlow of New York, who is ever ready to give students access to his
rich "Americana."

C. D. W. HARTFORD, June, 1881

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH

I. BIRTH AND TRAINING

Fortunate is the hero who links his name romantically with that of a
woman. A tender interest in his fame is assured. Still more fortunate
is he if he is able to record his own achievements and give to them
that form and color and importance which they assume in his own gallant
consciousness. Captain John Smith, the first of an honored name, had
this double good fortune.

We are indebted to him for the glowing picture of a knight-errant of the
sixteenth century, moving with the port of a swash-buckler across the
field of vision, wherever cities were to be taken and heads cracked in
Europe, Asia, and Africa, and, in the language of one of his laureates--

"To see bright honor sparkled all in gore."

But we are specially his debtor for adventures on our own continent,
narrated with naivete and vigor by a pen as direct and clear-cutting as
the sword with which he shaved off the heads of the Turks, and for one
of the few romances that illumine our early history.

Captain John Smith understood his good fortune in being the recorder of
his own deeds, and he preceded Lord Beaconsfield (in "Endymion") in his
appreciation of the value of the influence of women upon the ca