University of Virginia Library

INTRODUCTION

The genesis of the Generall Historie can be conjectured with a fair degree of
plausibility. Baffled in his attempts to return to Virginia, Smith had taken
up the pen and produced the two parts of the Map of Virginia in 1612. Two
years later he made a successful voyage to New England, then largely unexplored,
only to run out of luck on a second voyage in 1615. Back in
England by December, he published his Description of New England on June 18,
1616 (for details, see the Introduction to that work in Vol. I), while still
grasping in vain for a sword or a tiller. Again thwarted, he appears to have
begun in earnest to promote English colonies in America sometime during
1617.

The following year, inspired by the appointment of Sir Francis Bacon
as lord chancellor on January 4, 1618, Smith drafted a pamphlet, "New
Englands Trials." Shortly after Bacon was created Baron Verulam in July, he
sent a manuscript copy of it to him, with a personal note containing a vague
appeal for backing -- a matter of another New England voyage, with "wealth
and honor" for King James and employment for John Smith (see Vol. I).
Although Smith's prospects seemed bright, for Bacon had been an adventurer
in the Virginia Company since 1609 and a patentee of the Newfoundland
Company as of April 27, 1610, New Englands Trials appeared in print in 1620
without reference to the lord chancellor.

Meanwhile, a young gentleman named William Strachey had emerged
from gentlemanly obscurity in Saffron Walden (15 miles S of Cambridge) to
become a friend of Ben Jonson, John Donne, and other members of the
"Mermaid Club," which met in Bread Street. In time, with added family
influence, Strachey was appointed secretary to King James's first ambassador
to Sultan Ahmet I in Constantinople. Nevertheless, despite a promising
future, Strachey got involved in diplomatic and personal squabbles and was
back in London, penniless, within two years. Looking about for some way to
repair his fortunes, he learned of a secretarial post in the infant colony at
Jamestown, possibly through John Donne, who had an eye on it for himself.

Donne remained in London, but Strachey sailed from Plymouth with Sir
Thomas Gates on June 2, 1609, as a minor shareholder and personal adventurer.
Wrecked on the Bermuda reefs, Strachey helped build the pinnaces
that took the castaways to Virginia, and there in 1610 he was appointed to the
post Donne had wanted. John Smith had left Jamestown eight months before.

Some sort of difficulty arose once more, and Strachey was back in
London late in 1611, working on a treatise of broad scope, "The Historie of
Travaile into Virginia Britannia" (the spelling varies in the surviving copies).
With its title obviously drawn from Richard Willes's The History of Travayle in
the West and East Indies (London, 1577), this never-finished manuscript was
heavily indebted to Richard Hakluyt, John Brereton, James Rosier, James
Davies, and John Smith, among others. Strachey presented one copy to
Henry Percy, ninth earl of Northumberland, not later than November 6,
1612, apparently at the suggestion of the earl's brother George. Shortly
thereafter he gave another copy to Sir Allen Apsley, then victualler to the
navy. And in 1618 he sent or delivered a slightly revised, third copy to Bacon,
with a veiled appeal similar to Smith's. The lord chancellor paid no attention.

There the subject of an account or history of Virginia rested until early
1621, when King James abolished the state lotteries that had been supporting
the colony in Virginia. After surveying the bleak prospects, a modest but
active member of the Virginia Company, Master John Smyth of Nibley in
Gloucestershire, persuaded by "some of his fellowes of the Generallity,"
presented a motion at the meeting held April 12, 1621, "to have a faire and
perspicuous history, compiled" of Virginia.

But nothing happened.
Captain John Smith presented a petition for some sort of indemnity for
services rendered in Virginia. This was heard on May 2, and referred to
committee. A few weeks later, on June 21, it was noted in the registers of the
parish church of St. Giles, Camberwell, that William Strachey was buried.
In the rebuilt church of 1844 there is no trace of where.

Meanwhile, we may be sure that Captain John Smith had heard about
Master John Smyth's proposal for a history of Virginia, quite possibly through
the Reverend Samuel Purchas, whose closeness to the Virginia Company has
been as tacitly accepted as it is unattested. By August 1621, Purchas's
publisher, Henry Fetherstone, was already at work on parts of the Pilgrimes,

and before long Smith would be supplying Purchas with information about
his travels and the wars in the Levant. In return, we may soundly surmise,
Purchas helped Smith in such ways as supplying him with "The Generall
Historie of Virginia" as a title for the book proposed at the meeting of the
Virginia Company. In addition, it is not unlikely that Purchas also made
known to Smith the Atheomastix of Martin Fotherby, bishop of Sarum, on
which Smith drew for many an appropriate quotation, and John Minsheu's
polyglot Guide into Tongues, which had been published by subscription and
may have given Smith the idea of circulating a broadside, or prospectus, to
finance his Generall Historie. Moreover, the elaborately engraved title page of
Purchas's Pilgrimes, originally dated 1624, may have given Smith the notion
to follow suit. In short, in the editor's opinion, Purchas's influence on Smith
at this time was both opportune and felicitous.

But events that were to affect the Generall Historie were racing on.
Although factionalism had been endemic in the general body of the Virginia
Company from the outset and reorganization had been unavoidable, it was
not until Sir Edwin Sandys replaced Sir Thomas Smythe as treasurer in 1619
that a true internal war rumbled into being. Sir Thomas was too powerful to
be brushed entirely out of the undertaking he had sponsored, but Sir Edwin,
more of a statesman than a practical businessman, was so unpopular with
King James that he had to be replaced in short order, by the earl of Southampton.
Nevertheless, he continued to "manage" the company's affairs, with
disastrous results, until the Indian massacre of 1622 showed the administration's
failure more pointedly than the sum total of its errors of judgment up to
that time. Thus when the Virginia winter of 1622-1623 proved even more
deadly to the colonists than the Indian attack, an appeal to the king for a
thorough investigation of the company's affairs was inevitable. This was
presented early in April 1623 by Alderman Robert Johnson, representing Sir
Thomas Smythe and the earl of Warwick. (Warwick's primary interest was
in the Bermuda Company, closely affiliated with that of Virginia.)

The king's reaction was prompt. On April 17 a royal commission was
named, and on May 9, 1623, the Privy Council issued its official approval.
Following this, the Court of King's Bench decreed the Virginia Company
dissolved on May 24, 1624. With its privileges now assumed by the king, the
company held its last court on June 7.

Although there is highly questionable internal evidence that most of
Book I was written by September 23, 1622, it is evident that John Smith
whipped his Generall Historie into shape during the period of receivership
(May 9, 1623-May 24, 1624). This involved finding two engravers, John
Barra and Robert Vaughan; a publisher, Michael Sparkes; a surveyor from
Bermuda, Richard Norwood; and through Sparkes two printers, John
Dawson and John Haviland. Then, with documents and letters coming in
almost until the presses were stopped, Smith assembled his material and
prepared and published his broadside, or prospectus. Sometime before
February 16, 1624, he obtained the financial support of Frances, duchess of
Richmond and Lennox (the duke died on that date), and on July 12 the
volume was entered for publication.

The Generall Historie is not well organized. Smith himself admitted that
he had "writ too much of some [persons or actions], too little of others." But
Smith was essentially a man of action, not an accomplished armchair editor
like Hakluyt, or a compiler like Purchas. He was careless with figures, prone
to exaggeration, and too self-centered to regard events objectively, yet
patently sincere, and passionately dedicated to "his" colonies, Virginia and
New England. In fact, the book came into being almost in spite of John
Smith. Small wonder that he predicted that it would be "wrested, tossed and
turned as many waies as there is leaves." Nevertheless, he typically prayed
his "accusers [anybody who did not agree with him] to change cases and
places" with him; then "it may be they would judge more charitably of [his]
imperfections."

Summary of the Six Books

As noted in the Contents, the Generall Historie is divided into six books.
Since it is a compilation, almost an anthology, of writings of all kinds dealing
with early Virginia, Bermuda, and New England, it lacks consistency of
style; and due to Smith's own shortcomings it also lacks both literary and
historical balance. Reasonable chronological sequences of narrative alternate
with mere lists of names; vivid descriptions of events collide with irrelevant
sidelights on Greek or Roman heroes; and all too frequently Smith's highly
subjective asides obscure the meaning of the source he has drawn upon. In
short, it is not the consistent account we of today might have wished for, yet
it remains the one contemporary record of the beginnings of permanent
English colonization. Regardless of scattered sources found elsewhere, the
Generall Historie is still indispensable.

Book I consists of extracts from the writings of "ancient authors"
dealing with the discovery, exploration, and history of what has been called
British America. Here, in twenty folio pages, Smith drew largely on Richard
Hakluyt's Principal Navigations,

bringing the account down to 1605 with the
aid of Purchas's Pilgrimes, then in the press, and itself largely derived from
Hakluyt's still unprinted collections.

Book II is little more than a reprint of Smith's Map of Virginia (see Vol. I).
The occasional digressions in the Generall Historie are indicated in appropriate
notes.

Book III is again a reprint, this time of the Proceedings (Vol. I). But here
Smith made extensive alterations, mostly in the form of additions. Among

these additions is the "Copy of a Letter sent to the Treasurer and Councell of
Virginia," which, whatever its original wording, would have been so ill-timed
in 1612, when the colony was just recovering from near extinction,
that even Smith would probably have doubted the wisdom of printing it.
(After the 1622 "massacre" many of Smith's accusations were hurled at the
administration by others.) The famous Pocahontas episode is probably
another example of Smith's politic suppression in 1612 of a hair-raising tale
of the rescue of an Englishman from a frightful death. (In 1612 the company
was redoubling its efforts to persuade people to emigrate; in 1624 the
Pocahontas who "saved" Smith had become a legend of sorts.) And there
are other, less notable, episodes related at some length in the Generall Historie
that were more or less ignored before. To attempt to get at the truth of all
these details is perhaps idle. But whether this added material had been held
back or cut from the Proceedings, or truly engrafted in the Generall Historie to
influence English policy with regard to Virginia and her Indians (and the
company's with regard to Smith), the result for the reader is a far clearer
picture of the colony's problems than is afforded in the Proceedings.

Note that up to the end of Book III, Smith's manuscript was printed by
John Dawson; but to hasten the work, the rest, starting with sig. P, had been
given to John Haviland. Since Dawson ran out of copy in sig. N, Smith told
him to use five commendatory verses from his Description of New England to fill
up space, and sheet O was left blank. Hence there is no sig. O, and no pagination
from 97 to 104. For the details, see Sabin, Dictionary, XX, 233-234.

Book IV, the longest of the six, is also the most disorganized and least
readable. Yet the reason is not far to seek. Smith was attempting to put
together a history of Virginia during a period when he was not there
(although he wanted to be), when his colonial impulse was divided between
Virginia and New England, and when the Virginia Company itself was
disintegrating. Thus, although he got off to a fairly good start, he soon began
to flounder in a sea of reports and rumors, and came up with only himself as a
lifesaver, both for Virginia and the text he was trying to compose. Jumbled as
it is, Book IV is held together almost entirely by Smith's self-appreciation.
Nevertheless, the first third of it contains some material not available elsewhere,
as does the last third. What is between is largely hodgepodge. Is it
possible that Smith neglected Book IV while supervising the publication of
the first three books by the first printer? Or did the events of the receivership
and dissolution of the Virginia Company move too fast for Smith? Certainly,
he had planned Book IV reasonably soundly. But whatever the cause, the
end product is disappointing.

Book V is the only section of the Generall Historie devoted to a region never
visited by Smith, Bermuda. He was thus obliged to use what sources were

available to him, and these he put together admirably well. Chiefly, he
drew on "The Historye of the Bermudaes or Summer Islands," written by a
former governor, Nathaniel Butler, and on Richard Norwood's "Insularum
de la Bermuda Detectio," both in manuscript. Butler's account was first
printed by the Hakluyt Society in 1882 and incorrectly attributed to Smith
by the editor, Sir John Henry Lefroy. Norwood's account did not appear in
print until 1918, in Champlin Burrage's John Pory's Lost Description of
Plymouth. (Had these two manuscripts not survived, Smith would have been
our sole source for the material they contain.) Beyond these, Smith drew from
Silvester Jourdain's Plaine Description of the Barmudas, published in 1613, in
addition to small bits from elsewhere.

For Book VI Smith drew primarily from his own works again: the
Description of New England and New Englands Trials (1622 ed.). The principal
alteration is in his account of his capture by French "pirates," but there are
other, minor, changes, and a few other sources were drawn on. All in all,
Book VI betrays considerable use of scissors and paste, yet provides an
understandable account of what happened in New England until early
1624.