University of Virginia Library

INTRODUCTION

John Smith's only outright autobiographical work, the True Travels, presents
unusual difficulties for readers and editors alike. Beginning with a first
chapter that is a masterpiece of disorganized writing, it runs through twenty
chapters of apparent bombast that celebrate Smith's valorous deeds, only to
come to an abrupt end, to which an appendix to his Generall Historie is irrelevantly
annexed. These internal weaknesses detract so much from its historical
credibility that casual readers tend to regard it as a mere tall tale, while
editors find it exasperating. Hence it has long been called Smith's most "controversial"
work. Yet as literature it contains much of Smith's finest writing,
and historically it presents some of the most vivid glimpses of petty, vindictive
warfare and human misery in the English language.

Indeed, from the point of view of content, the catchall adjective "controversial"
could have been done without had Smith's editors and commentators
of the past hundred-odd years been better informed about the history
of the Mediterranean world generally, and southeastern Europe specifically,
and had they troubled to make inquiries in such places as Venice, Vienna,
and Budapest. But sweeping denunciations of Smith's book have been more
the custom than investigation into recorded history, and in consequence
Smith's Elizabethan exuberance was too easily taken for sheer prevarication.
In addition, historians and literary critics more recently, who are somewhat
better informed, have not known, or remembered, that English autobiographies
were extremely rare in Smith's day. There was literally no model for
Smith to follow, even had he looked for one.

Composition and Character of the True Travels

The True Travels may be divided into two parts: the True Travels proper,
which makes up the first two-thirds of the book, and the "Continuation of
the Generall Historie," beginning on page 41, which constitutes the last third
of the work. Looking at the former first, aside from the confusion in chapter 1,
careful reading will separate the historical facts from Smith's subjective tales
of what he did and will also make it possible to distinguish what Smith saw
objectively in the countryside from what he subjectively encountered on the
battlefield. Throughout the work it is peculiarly necessary to distinguish
between Smith's statements of fact and his presentation of illustrative material.

The second part of the True Travels is a supplement to the Generall
Historie and can be dismissed briefly. It contains extracts from various sources
dealing with post-1624 events in America. Although these chapters contain
only secondhand information, they have some historical importance. To
these is appended a typically Smithian conclusion: a final chapter on the
barely relevant subject of the pirates who infested the seas during the late
sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

Participation with Smith in his adventures is fortunately aided by the
chance existence of two versions of the text, the book under discussion and
the "Travels and Adventures" edited by Samuel Purchas and printed in his
Pilgrimes in 1625.

In contrast to the Purchas version, the True Travels,
entered for publication in 1629, was prepared for the press by Smith himself,
but without noticeable benefit of any kind of editing.

The autobiographical first part obviously was the raison d'être of the
book as a whole. In this work, Smith himself is the central theme, and in that
respect the True Travels was one of the first two or three secular autobiographies
to appear in England.

Even then, it did not spring full-blown from
Smith's aging head. Occasional references to his youth appeared in his writings
almost from the beginning: in the Map of Virginia's dedication to
Edward Seymour, the earl of Hertford; in the Proceedings, 30; in the Descrip-
tion of New England, on various pages, particularly in Richard Gunnell's
commendatory verses; and, last and most important, in a reference printed
below as Fragment I, and in the first printing of the bulk of the True Travels
in Samuel Purchas's Pilgrimes, reprinted in this edition as Fragment J.

Pertaining to the True Travels primarily, as distinguished from "the
Purchas version" (as it may conveniently be called), the editorial commentary
provided here, other than the usual annotation, consists of the following:
in chapter 1, two lengthy passages have been reconstructed in the footnotes,
to clarify an obviously incoherent text; in the same vein, but rather to substantiate
Smith's account, special local studies bearing on chapters 4–8 are
discussed in this introduction under the heading "The Duke of Mercoeur's
Campaign in Hungary" (also treated below is the vexed question of Smith's
coat of arms); and finally, material pertinent to chapters 9–11, too considerable
for a footnote, has been taken up in "General Giorgio Basta's
Campaign in Transylvania," also below.

The Grant of Arms

In the True Travels (top of p. 15, misprinted as "13"), the story of Zsigmond
Báthory's gift of a shield of "three Turkes heads" is repeated verbatim from
the Purchas version (Pilgrimes, II, 1366) only to the end of the sentence, after
which Smith inserted the complete Latin text of the grant, accompanied by
an engraving of the shield and followed by Sir William Segar's Latin confirmation
of the act of recording it, along with an English translation of both
(pp. 15–18). As to the authenticity of this transaction from the English standpoint,
the York Herald of Arms, Dr. Conrad Swan, wrote the following to
the editor: "One might say that the Arms of Captain John Smith, granted
by Báthory were officially recorded in the Records of the College of Arms by
means of a full transcription of the Letters Patent, issued by Báthory, including
a drawing of the Armorial Bearings and Seal which depended from the
Patent."

The drawing of the shield may be ascribed to Robert Vaughan
(see the Biographical Directory), who included a small version of it in the
"map of Ould Virginia" commissioned for the Generall Historie as soon as
Frances Howard, the duchess of Richmond and Lennox, responded to John
Smith's broadside of 1623 (see Volume II). Thus it would appear that Smith
was "legitimizing" his grant of arms by c. July 1624, when the Generall
Historie was licensed for publication. Vaughan's original drawing is preserved
in the College of Arms. It was officially copied for the editor some
years ago and is reproduced in the front matter of Volume I of this edition.

All the same, and still from the English standpoint, three pertinent
observations should be made that have to do with heraldic records of Smith's
day. First, inaccuracies are known to have existed, including a "concocted"
list of peers.

Second, as to Segar's trustworthiness, one heraldic pursuivant
has expressed the opinion, "If one may sum Segar up, he was not, I think,
a knave, but it cannot be denied that he could show himself gullible." On
the other hand, a third consideration tends to restore our confidence. Augustine
Vincent, Windsor Herald from 1624 to 1626, compiled "Collectanea"
among which we find comments on and corrections of Segar's recording of
Smith's grant, but no question about its authenticity. This is significant
because of "the high opinion entertained of his professional talent, ... and
profound research, by those who are acquainted with the solid foundations
which support his fame."

From the Transylvanian and Hungarian viewpoint, however, many
details must be mistaken. Of these divergences from bald fact, the following

may be noted here: Zsigmond Báthory was Princeps, not Dux; "Vandalorum"
in the Latin text was corrected by Segar to "Moldavia" in English; Zsigmond's
titles as Comes (count) are not elsewhere recorded; Henricus Volda
seems to the editor suspicious as a name, as do the three countships of Meldri,
Salmariae, and Peldoiae; and Cambia (or Cambria) is not known as a name
for any part of Tatary. In addition, while the three tusks on the seal (see
below, 16) are characteristic for Zsigmond, both his title and the inscription
around the seal are erroneous. And finally, Segar's translation is inaccurate
in spots. These and other "slips" are more fully explained in appropriate
footnotes.

For all that, it must be remembered that the printed version of these
documents was derived from the recorded copy, for John Smith willed the
original "Coate of Armes" to Thomas Packer (see the original testament
transcribed in the Fragments), and it has since been lost. Corruptions may
have crept in to the document in the course of transcription. At least one
such document of similar import has survived (preserved in the Österreichisches
Staatsarchiv, Vienna) and has been inspected by the editor. This
grant was inscribed on an oblong sheet about 19 ½ by 32 ½ centimeters (7 ½ by
12 ½ inches) in size, which was folded lengthwise twice and crosswise twice
and sealed in the middle. It is at least an odd coincidence that this paper
shows illegible words, due to damage in folding, at the same relative positions
in the text as the erroneous or suspicious names in the recorded copy of
Smith's grant in the College of Arms.

Smith's memory, then, or the imagination of Sir William Segar, may
be suspected of having provided the fantaisistes titles, and Sir William alone
seems to have been the cause of the long-standing controversy about the
location of Smith's three duels — the controversialists having failed to read
the Latin original. That there were castles or fortified towns along the road to
the "royal city" (ad urbem regalem, i.e., Alba Iulia) is a historical fact. Which
of these was the scene of the duels, no one can tell today. To close the matter,
it need only be said that to regard Smith's grant and its registration by the
College of Arms as chicanery requires far more casuistry than to credit it as
truth (see the inter-Hungarian altercation between Lewis L. Kropf and
Laura Polanyi Striker).

The Duke of Mercoeur's Campaign in Hungary

It is to be hoped that the long debate about the location of "Olumpagh" has
been ended, as far as John Smith's career is concerned, by the recent publication

of a monograph on the fall of Nagykanizsa, which includes a map of
the Turkish movements along with Mercoeur's and an exhaustive lexicon
of Slovenian place-names, and by the personal inspection of the suggested
sites by the editor. There were, and are, two towns formerly known in German
as Limbach: Upper and Lower, with Hungarian equivalents. Both
were objects of Turkish raids. Upper Limbach, in the hills to the north, has
been ruled out as the site of "Olumpagh" since it has no sizable river nearby
and no heights from which signals could be seen at any distance. Lower
Limbach (modern Lendava, Yugoslavia), on the other hand, fits Smith's
description perfectly, and a record exists of a raid there in 1601.

Regarding the later "liberation" of Szekesfehervar (Smith's "Stowllewesenburg";
German, Stuhlweissenburg) by Philippe-Emmanuel de Lorraine,
the duke of Mercoeur, there are detailed accounts in German, and the
subject is treated at some length in the editor's Three Worlds of Captain John
Smith.

General Giorgio Basta's Campaign in Transylvania

In the discussion of Basta's campaign in the Three Worlds,

the editor had
overlooked that Basta had previously been chief of staff for Ferrante Gonzaga,
governor of High Hungary and a cousin of Vincenzo Gonzaga, the
duke of Mantua. More was to be found in Italian sources, especially in the
Venetian documents long since printed in Baron Hurmuzaki's Documente.
The following summary is the result of further consideration.

Due to the long Turco-Venetian border stretching from the Dalmatian
coast around to the Aegean Sea, Venice was understandably interested in
the "Long War." To play any official part in that war would have run
counter to what had been Venetian policy for many years, yet it was vital to
obtain firsthand information. Through the participation of various young
and youngish latter-day condottiere, most of them apparently of good or
even noble birth, this was accomplished. One of the more useful of these for
our present-day purposes was Count Tommaso Cavriolo, otherwise practically
unknown. Cavriolo went to collect information, and Basta gave him
command of thirteen companies of infantry and 1,000 horse. In this way,

thanks to the intelligence needs of the Republic of Venice and the desire of
young John Smith to become a "gentleman," two complementary accounts
of thwarted Tatar booty raids into Transylvania have survived. Smith had
already encountered Turks in Hungary; Cavriolo was new on the scene. But
in Transylvania both of them had to deal with a tower of Babel and a remarkable
ethnic miscellany, including renegades of all sorts, mercenaries of all
breeds, and myriads of Tatars.

The "intelligencer" (here, military spy) for Venice arrived at Basta's
peripatetic headquarters in March/April 1602. On May 27 he was reporting
to the Venetian ambassador (in Prague, probably) on the lack of discipline
in the troops, the affairs of Zsigmond Báthory, and potential difficulties with
the newly "recognized" voivode of Walachia, Radul Şerban. (It appears
that Radul could have been persona grata to both the emperor and the sultan,
but failed to see it.) Then in July, when Cavriolo was for some reason
"remaining" somewhere else, word came that 140,000 Tatars were on their
way, but on September 2, back in Medias, he wrote that he was about to
take off, with 10,000 troops all told, in the opposite direction; Lippa (Lipova)
was his target, 200-odd kilometers west. A week later, however, 2,000 Tatars
attacked Radul's camp south of Brasov, 100-odd kilometers east of Medias,
defeating Radul's 8,000 and killing 2,000. They also took 800 prisoners.
Basta had already sent 3,000 Szekler infantry and 1,000 Transylvanian
horse, but now posthaste Radul dispatched "two principal gentlemen" to
Basta, asking for more troops and the personal support of Cavriolo. Cavriolo
disclaimed any knowledge of how to run an army, but went anyway (undoubtedly
the better to inform Venice). In the skirmishes of September
23–24 he apparently saved the day.

In short, on the Transylvanian side late in 1602 there was considerable
activity. Cavriolo led his men to Brasov, 100-odd kilometers east by south
and an unspecified distance beyond. There he encamped. Learning that
Radul had dug in some 40 Italian miles (c. 60 kilometers) to the south, he
next joined him there. The Tatar cavalry, then estimated on the spot at
40,000, was 60–70 Italian miles (89–103 kilometers) away. When the two
armies met, Radul's forces, augmented twice in a fortnight, faced decidedly
superior manpower. The clash took place somewhere inside Walachia, probably
between Sinaia and Campulung.

Basta's report of September 18 to the Venetian ambassador implies that
his army was sent to more than one part of Walachia "at the foot of the
mountains." We have seen where Cavriolo went. John Smith, on the other
hand, wrote that his contingent "marched along by the river Altus" (Olt
River, today) to Rebrinke (modern Ramnicu-Valcea), about 120 kilometers
south of Medias. From this point on the Olt they moved east and soon were
skirmishing with Jeremia Movila's motley soldatesca "in the plaines of

Peteske" (Pitesti), near "Argish" (Curtea-de-Arges), which is about 40
kilometers southwest of Campulung.

There were at least two engagements in the Arges area with Turkish
troops, Smith thought. But straggling Tatars "were forraging those parts
towards Moldavia," east of Campulung. Smith's commander wisely beat a
hasty retreat "towards Rottenton," which is also called by its Hungarian
name, Verestorony, in the True Travels. It was in the skirmishes during their
retreat that Smith and his companions were nearly cut to pieces, and Smith
was captured — not by the Turks, but by the Tatars. The Tatars cured his
wounds and took him to the slave market at "Axiopolis," which is now called
Cernavoda, although Smith may have been mistaken (as he often was) about
the location. Cernavoda is just down the Danube from Silistra, and Cavriolo
wrote that the Tatars he encountered were thought to be going in that
direction. It is certain, in any case, that Smith did not hear the name
"Axiopolis" from any Tatar. He found it on a map years later.

Considering the terrain, the disarray of the straggling Tatars, and the
niggardly reinforcements in men and matériel sent by Basta, there is no
reason to doubt Smith's participation in these engagements more than
Cavriolo's. Cavriolo apparently did not know Basta's basic tactics; Smith
knew nothing, though he disapproved of what he saw in the way of results.
Yet in this instance, Basta was right. He wrote to the Venetian ambassador
that he judged "this fury of Tatars will not last long." Indeed, the Tatars
quickly moved on toward their winter quarters near Belgrade, leaving Smith
and many others groaning on the battlefield.

The African Detour

The differences between the True Travels and the earlier Purchas version
have been mentioned, particularly the noteworthy addition to the text of the
Báthory grant of arms. Smith returns to the early version in chapter 9,
expands it, and continues it through chapter 17. Comments on this part of
Smith's story are therefore made as needed in Fragment J. A major digression
begins with chapter 18, however, and continues to the end of chapter 20.
Comment on these three chapters is needed here.

Chapter 18 is headed: "The observations of Captaine Smith; Master
Henrie Archer and others in Barbarie." In the Purchas version, the final
paragraph begins: "Then understanding that the Warres of Mully Shash
and Mully Sedan ... (to which hee was animated by some friends) were
concluded in peace, he imbarked himselfe for England with one thousand
Duckets in his Purse."

As stated in the footnotes, however (see p. 34n,
below), the wars did not break out until after August 14, 1603 (about the
time Smith escaped from Tatary), and cannot be said to have concluded
even after Mālāi Zīdān won out in 1608. The account in the True Travels
may consequently be assumed to have been based on Smith's presence in
some parts of Morocco at the time. Yet the truth would seem to be that
Smith found no opportunity there to enlist as a mercenary and thus filled up
his narrative with more or less idle tales gathered on the spot, rounding it all
off with an account of a "piratical" skirmish.

Supplementary Note
on Smith's Rumored Visit to Ireland

A direct accusation made in Jamestown in 1607 claimed that Smith had
been in Ireland before he came to Virginia. If so, it must have been late in
1604 on his way back to England from Morocco or sometime in 1605 as a
side excursion from England. By the summer of that year, Smith seems to
have been in England and to some extent involved in the plans for the
establishment of the Jamestown colony.

However it was, the uncertain
passages that point to an Irish detour are these.

In September or October 1607, Edward Maria Wingfield, deposed
president of the council in Virginia, said of Smith that "it was proved to his
face, that he begged in Ireland like a rogue, without lycence."

Wingfield
had been in Ireland himself, but it may have been one Francis Magnel who
made the charge (Magnel was an Irish mariner who sailed with Capt.
Christopher Newport on the first Jamestown voyage, 1606–1607). In any
event, there was bad blood between Smith and Wingfield, to the general
detriment of the colony.

Although Smith himself refers to Irish mantles,

Irish rugs, and so on,
this does not prove that he was ever in Ireland. Many people (in addition to
Smith) drew comparisons between the Irish and the North American
Indians, or between Ireland and Virginia. William Strachey, who had never
been in Ireland, compared Indian mantles with Irish "falinges" and Indian
"stockings" with Irish "trouses"; George Percy, who had been in Ireland,
likened an Indian trail to an Irish "pace," or path. On the basis of such
conflicting evidence, we cannot say that Smith's references to things Irish
prove that he had seen them in Ireland. The matter must remain open.

Brief Notes on the
Continuation of the Generall Historie

Perhaps the best and the most that can be said of chapters 21 through 27 is
that they show John Smith's continuing interest in English overseas colonization.
In this section, he ventures to give, in turn, such bits of new information
as he had about Virginia, Bermuda, and New England in North
America, and he shows renewed interest in Guiana and an Amazonian
project in South America, as well as in three budding West Indian colonies.
But the overseas empire was growing too rapidly, in too many directions, for
Smith to maintain easy contacts with all of the venturers, and he was getting
old. He assembled and passed on what he collected, possibly on the insistence
of his publisher, Thomas Slater, or at the appeal of John Haviland, his loyal
printer. Yet the story is humdrum, the writing apathetic. Then, apparently
all of a sudden, an idea came to Smith: the miserable pirates that infest the
seas. In a final burst of eloquence, John Smith found a subject fit for his pen
and appropriate for a prayer to his God and a salute to his king.

Special Bibliographical Note

By far the most enlightened and readable background study for the autobiographical
chapters of the True Travels is Fernand Braudel's great work on
the Mediterranean.

This masterly work summarizes and analyzes all known
developments, events, and struggles of the Mediterranean world. Not one
of the comparatively lilliputian adventures recounted in the True Travels
fails to fall into place in the bewildering kaleidoscope of international activity
revealed in Braudel's narrative: the Dutch struggle for independence; the
French religious upheaval and war with Spain; French (and other) trade
and piracy in the Levant; the Italy of Pope Clement VIII; the "Long War"
between the Holy Roman emperor and the Turkish sultan in which Smith
and Zsigmond Bathory took part; the exploits of the Turkish raiders
(akinci); the timars (from one of which Smith escaped); and the origins of
the Moroccan civil strife, in which Smith took no part at all. Anyone who
reads Braudel's Mediterranean World will soon admit that the truth of what
happened is far stranger than any fiction Smith is reputed to have woven
into the True Travels.

Brief Apologia as Envoy

It is the prerogative of professional critics to find fault. Smith's True Travels
has long provided an opportunity for the exercise of that prerogative. While

there were fabrications in other works by Smith, they said, the True Travels
was pure prevarication. To these critics, the editor would pose a number of
questions, among them the following:

If Smith never set foot in eastern Europe, where was he from 1600 to
1605? Where did he learn how to handle men on trips such as his explorations
of Chesapeake Bay? If he had had no experience, why was Smith
chosen in London for the local council in Virginia? Where did Smith learn
rare Italian military terms? Where did he meet an obscure French count?
Who gave Smith the Russian phrase do Zvyahel (Smith's "Duzihell")? Where
did he learn about signposts in the "Wilderness" (Dikoye Polye) of the southern
Ukraine? Where did he learn about the extraordinary discipline imposed on
those being trained for the Ottoman civil service? Where did he read about
a sea battle in the Mediterranean or the nearby Atlantic?

As Edward Arber wrote regarding a single incident, so it could be said
of the whole True Travels: "To deny the truth of the Pocahontas incident is
to create more difficulties than are involved in its acceptance."