 | THE TRUE
TRAVELS,
ADVENTURES,
AND OBSERVATIONS
Of Captaine John Smith,
in Europe, Asia, Africke, and America:
beginning about the yeere 1593, and
continued to this present 1629. |  |
THE TRUE
TRAVELS,
ADVENTURES,
AND OBSERVATIONS
Of Captaine John Smith,
in Europe, Asia, Africke, and America:
beginning about the yeere 1593, and
continued to this present 1629.
Chapter I.
His Birth; Apprentiship; Going into France;
His beginning with ten shillings and three pence;
His Service in Netherlands; His bad passage
into Scotland; His returne to Willoughby; And how
he lived in the Woods.
HE was borne in Willoughby in Lincolne-shire,
and a Scholler in the two Free-schooles
of Alford and Louth. His father
anciently descended from the ancient
Smiths of Crudley in Lancashire; his
mother from the Rickards at great Heck
in York-shire.
His parents dying
when he wasabout thirteene yeeres of age, left him a
competent meanes, which hee not being
capable to manage, little regarded; his minde being even then set
intending secretly to ∥ get to Sea, but that his fathers death stayed
him. But now the Guardians of his estate more regarding it than
him, he had libertie enough, though no meanes, to get beyond the
Sea. About the age of fifteene yeeres hee was bound an Apprentice
to Master Thomas Sendall of Linne, the greatest Merchant of all
those parts; but because hee would not presently send him to Sea, he
never saw his master in eight yeeres after.
At last he found meanes
to attend Master Perigrine Bartygenerous Lord Willoughby, and famous Souldier; where comming
to his brother Robert, then at Orleans, now Earle of Linsey, and
Lord great Chamberlaine of England; being then but little youths
under Tutorage: his service being needlesse, within a monethor six
weekes they sent him backe againe to his friends; who when he came
from London they liberally gave him (but out of his owne estate) ten
shillings to be rid of him; such oft is the share of fatherlesse children:
but those two Honourable Brethren gave him sufficient to returne
for England. But it was the least thought of his determination, for
now being freely at libertie in Paris, growing acquainted with one
Master David Hume, who making some use of his purse, gave him
Letters to his friends in Scotland to preferre him to King James.
Arriving at Roane, he better bethinkes himselfe, seeing his money
neere spent, downe the River he went to Haver de grace, where he
first began to learne the life of a souldier: Peace being concluded in
France, he went with Captaine Joseph Duxbury into the Low-countries,
under whose Colours having served three or foure yeeres,
he tooke his journey for Scotland, to deliver his Letters.
At Ancusan
he imbarked himselfe for Lethe, but as muchdanger, as shipwracke and sicknesse could endure, hee had at the
holy Ile in Northumberland neere Barwicke: (being recovered) into
Scotland he went to deliver his Letters.
After much kinde usage amongst those honest Scots at Ripweth
and Broxmoth,
Courtier, he returned to Willoughby in Lincolne-shire; where within
a short time being glutted with too much company, wherein he took
small delight, he retired himselfe into a little wooddie pasture, a good
way from any towne, invironed with many hundred Acres of other
only in his cloaths he lay. His studie was Machiavills Art of warre,
and Marcus Aurelius; his exercise a good horse, with his lance and
Ring; his food was thought to be more of venison than any thing
else; what he wanted his man brought him. The countrey wondering
at such an Hermite; His friends perswaded one Seignior Theadora
Polaloga, Rider to Henry Earle of Lincolne, an excellent
Horse-man, and a noble Italian Gentleman, to insinuate into his
wooddish acquaintances, whose Languages and good discourse, and
exercise of riding drew him to stay with him at Tattersall. Long
these pleasures could not content him, but hee returned againe to
the Low-Countreyes.
Chapter II.
The notable villany of foure French Gallants;
and his revenge; Smith throwne over-board;
Captaine La Roche of Saint Malo releeves him.
THUS when France and Netherlands had taught him to ride a
Horse and use his Armes, with such rudiments of warre, as his
tender yeeres in those martiall Schooles could attaine unto; he was
Turkes, both lamenting and repenting to have seene so many Christians
slaughter one another. Opportunitie casting him into the company
of foure French Gallants well attended, faining to him the one
to be a great Lord, the rest his Gentlemen, and that they were all
devoted that way; over-perswaded him to goe with them into France,
to the Dutchesse of Mercury, from whom they should not only have
meanes, but also Letters of favour to her noble Duke, then Generall
for the Emperour Rodolphus in Hungary; which he did, with such
ill weather as winter affordeth, in the darke night they arrived in the
broad shallow In-let of Saint Valleries sur Some in Picardie; his
French Lord knowing he had good apparell, and better furnished
with money than themselves, so plotted with the Master of the ship
to set his and their owne trunckes a shore leaving Smith aboard till
the boat could returne, which was the next day after towards evening;
the reason hee alleaged was the sea went so high hee could come
no sooner, and that his Lord was gone to Amiens where they would
stay his comming; which treacherous villany, when divers other
souldiers, and passengers understood, they had like to have slaine the
Master, and had they knowne how, would have runne away with
the ship.
Comming on shore hee had but one Carralue,
was forced toCurzianvere, compassionating his injury, assured him this great
Lord Depreau was only the sonne of a Lawyer of Mortaigne in base
Britany, and his Attendants Cursell, La Nelie, and Monferrat, three
young citizens, as arrant cheats as himselfe; but if he would accompany
him, he would bring him to their friends, but in the interim
supplied his wants: thus travelling by Deepe, Codebeck, Humphla,
Pount-demer in Normandie, they came to Cane in base Normandie;
where both this noble Curzianvere, and the great Prior of
the great Abbey of Saint Steven (where is the ruinous Tombe of
William the Conquerour,) and many other of his friends kindly welcomed
him, and brought him to Mortaigne, where hee found
Depreau and the rest, but to small purpose; for Master Curzianvere
was a banished man, and durst not be seene, but to his friends: yet
the bruit of their cosenage occasioned the Lady Collumber, the Baron
Larshan, the Lord Shasghe, and divers other honourable persons,
to supply his wants, and with them to recreate himselfe so long as
hee would: but such pleasant pleasures suited little with his poore
estate, and his restlesse spirit, that could never finde content, to
receive such noble favours, as he could neither deserve nor re- ∥ quite:
but wandring from Port to Port to finde some man of war, spent
that he had, and in a Forest, neere dead with griefe and cold, a rich
Farmer found him by a faire Fountaine under a tree: This kinde
Pesant releeved him againe to his content, to follow his intent. Not
long after, as he passed thorowa great grove of trees, betweene
Pounterson and Dina in Britaine, it was his chance to meet Cursell,
more miserable than himselfe: His piercing injuries had so small
patience, as without any word they both drew, and in a short time
Cursell fell to the ground, where from an old ruinated Tower the
inhabitants seeing them, were satisfied, when they heard Cursell
confesse what had formerly passed; and that how in the dividing
that they had stolne from him, they fell by the ears amongst themselves,
that were actors in it; but for his part, he excused himselfe to
be innocent as well of the one, as of the other. In regard of his hurt,
Smith was glad to be so rid of him, directing his course to an honourable
Lord, the Earle of Ployer, who during the warre in France,
had beene brought up in England; by him he was better refurnished
than ever. When they had shewed him Saint Malo, Mount Saint
Michael, Lambal, Simbreack, Lanion, and their owne faire Castle
of Tuncadeck, Gingan, and divers other places in Britanny, (and
their Brittish Cornwaile) taking his leave, he tooke his way to
Raynes, the Britaines chiefe Citie, and so to Nantes, Poyters, Rochell,
and Burdeaux. The rumour of the strength of Bayon in Biskay,
caused him to see it; and from thence tooke his way from Leskar in
Biearne, and Paw in the kingdom of Navar to Tolouza in Gascoigne,
Bezers and Carcassone, Narbone, Montpellier, Nimes in Languedock,
and thorowthe Country of Avignion, by Arles to Marcellos in
Province, there imbarking himselfe for Italy, the ship was enforced
to Tolonne, and putting againe to sea, ill weather so grew upon them,
they anchored close aboard the shore, under the little Isle of S. Mary,
against Neice in Savoy. Here the inhumane Provincialls, with a
rabble of Pilgrimes of divers Nations going to Rome, hourely cursing
him, not only for a Hugonoit, but his Nation they swore were all
Pyrats, and so vildly railed on his dread Soveraigne Queene Elizabeth,
and that they never should have faire weather so long as hee
was aboard them; their disputations grew to that passion, that they
threw him over-board, yet God brought him to that little Isle, where
was no inhabitants, but a few kine and goats. The next morning he
espied two ships more riding by them, put in by the storme, that
fetched him aboard, well refreshed him, and so kindly used him, that
he was well contented to trie the rest of his fortune with them. After
he had related unto them his former discourse, what for pitie, and
the love of the Honourable Earle of Ployer, this noble Britaine his
neighbour, Captaine la Roche of Saint Malo, regarded and entertained
him for his well respected friend. With the next faire wind
they sailed along by the Coast of Corsica and Sardinia, and crossing
leaving the coast of Barbary till they came at Cape Rosata, and so
along the African shore, for Alexandria in Ægypt. There delivering
their fraught, they went to Scandaroone; rather to view what ships
was in the Roade, than any thing else: keeping their ∥ course by
Cypres and the coast of Asia, sayling by Rhodes, the Archipellagans,
Candia, and the coast of Grecia, and the Isle of Zaffalonia. They lay
to and againe a few dayes betwixt the Isle of Corfue and the Cape
of Otranto in the Kingdome of Naples, in the Entrance of the
Adriatike sea.
Chapter III.
A desperate Sea-fight in the Straights;
His passage to Rome, Naples, and the view of Italy.
betwixt the two Capes they meet with an Argosie
of Venice, itseemed the Captaine desired to speake with them, whose untoward
answer was such, as slew them a man; whereupon the
Britaine presently gave them the broad-side, then his Sterne, and
his other broad-side also, and continued the chase, with his chase
peeces, till he gave them so many broad-sides one after another, that
the Argosies sayles and tackling was so torne, she stood to her defence,
and made shot for shot; twice in one houre and a halfe the Britaine
boarded her, yet they cleared themselves, but clapping her aboard
againe, the Argosie fired him, which with much danger to them both
was presently quenched. This rather augmented the Britaines rage,
than abated his courage; for having reaccommodated himselfe
sinke, then they yeelded; the Britaine lost fifteene men, she twentie,
besides divers were hurt, the rest went to worke on all hands; some
to stop the leakes, others to guard the prisoners that were chained,
the rest to rifle her. The Silkes, Velvets, Cloth of gold, and Tissue,
Pyasters, Chicqueenes and Sultanies, which is gold and silver, they
unloaded in foure and twentie houres, was wonderfull, whereof
having sufficient, and tired with toile, they cast her off with her company,
with as much good merchandize as would have fraughted such
another Britaine, that was but two hundred Tunnes, she foure or
five hundred.
To repaire his defects, hee stood for the coast of Calabria, but
hearing there was six or seven Galleyes
thence for Malta, but the wind comming faire, he kept his course
along the coast of the Kingdome of Sicilia by Sardinia and Corsica,
till he came to the Road of Antibo in Peamon, where he set Smith
on shore with five hundred chicqueenes, and a little box God sent
him worth neere as much more. Here he left this noble Britaine, and
embarked himselfe for Lygorne, being glad to have such opportunitie
and meanes to better his experience by the view of Italy; and
having passed Tuskany, and the Countrey of Sieana, where hee
found his deare friends, the two Honourable Brethren, the Lord
Willoughby and his Brother cruelly wounded, in a desperate fray,
yet to their exceeding great honour. Then to Viterbo and many
other Cities he came to Rome, where it was his chance to see Pope
Clement the eight, with many Cardinalls, creepe up the holy Stayres,
which they say are those our Saviour Christ went up to Pontius
Pilate, where bloud falling from his head, being pricked with his
them none dare goe but in that manner, saying so many Ave-Maries
and Pater-nosters, as is their devotion, and to kisse the nailes of steele:
But on each side is a paire of such like staires, up which you may goe,
stand, or kneele, but divided from the holy Staires by two walls:
right against them is a Chappell, where hangs a great silver Lampe,
which burneth continually, yet they say the oyle neither increaseth
nor diminisheth. A little distant is the ancient Church of Saint John
de Laterane, where he saw him say Masse, which commonly he doth
upon some Friday once a moneth. Having saluted Father Parsons,
that famous English Jesuite, and satisfied himselfe with the rarities
of Rome, he went downe the River of Tiber to Civita Vechia, where
he embarked himselfe to satisfie his eye with the faire Citie of Naples,
and her Kingdomes nobilitie; returning by Capua, Rome and Seana,
he passed by that admired Citie of Florence, the Cities and Countries
of Bolonia, Ferrara, Mantua, Padua and Venice, whose Gulfe he
passed from Malamoco and the Adriatike Sea for Ragouza, spending
some time to see that barren broken coast of Albania and Dalmatia,
to Capo de Istria, travelling the maine of poore Slavonia by
Lubbiano, till he came to Grates in Steria, the Seat of Ferdinando
Arch-duke of Austria, now Emperour of Almania: where he met an
English man, and an Irish Jesuite, who acquainted him with many
brave Gentlemen of good qualitie, especially with the Lord Ebersbaught,
with whom trying such conclusions, as he projected to
undertake, preferred him to Baron Kisell, Generall of the Artillery,
and he to a worthy Collonell, the Earle of Meldritch, with whom
going to Vienne in Austria, under whose Regiment, in what service,
and how he spent his time, this ensuing Discourse will declare.
Staires brought
from Jerusalem,
whereon (they
say) Christ
went up to
Pontius Pilate.
Chapter IV.
The Siege of Olumpagh; An excellent Stratagem
by Smith; Another not much worse.
AFTER the losse of Caniza,
the Turkes with twentie thousand besiegedthe strong Towne of Olumpagh so straightly, as they were
cut off from all intelligence and hope of succour; till John Smith, this
English Gentleman, acquainted Baron Kisell, Generall of the Arch-dukes
Artillery, he had taught the Governour, his worthy friend,
such a Rule, that he would undertake to make him know any thing
he intended, and have his answer, would they bring him but to some
place where he might make the flame of a Torch seene to the Towne;
Kisell inflamed with this strange invention; Smith made it so plaine,
that forthwith hee gave him guides, who in the darke night brought
him to a mountaine, where he shewed three Torches equidistant
from other, which plainly appearing to the Towne, the Governour
presently apprehended, and answered againe with three other fires
in like manner; each knowing the others being and intent; Smith,
though distant seven miles, signified to him these words: On Thursday
at night I will charge on the East, at the ∥ Alarum, salley you;
Ebersbaught answered he would, and thus it was done: First he writ
his message as briefe, you see, as could be, then divided the Alphabet
in two parts thus;
- A. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. k. l.
- 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1.
- m. n. o. p. q. r. s. t. v. w. x. y. z.
- 2. 2. 2. 2. 2. 2. 2. 2. 2. 2. 2. 2. 2.
The first part from A. to L. is signified by shewing and hiding
one linke, so oft as there is letters from A. to that letter you meane;
the other part from M. to Z. is mentioned by two lights in like manner.
The end of a word is signified by shewing of three lights, ever
staying your light at that letter you meane, till the other may write
it in a paper, and answer by his signall, which is one light, it is done,
beginning to count the letters by the lights, every time from A. to
M. by this meanes also the other returned his answer, whereby each
did understand other. The Guides all this time having well viewed
the Campe, returned to Kisell, who, doubting of his power being but
ten thousand,
divided by the River in two parts, they could not easily second each
other. To which Smith added this conclusion; that two or three
thousand pieces of match fastened to divers small lines of an hundred
fathome in length being armed with powder, might all be fired and
stretched at an instant before the Alarum, upon the Plaine of
Hysnaburg, supported by two staves, at each lines end, in that manner
would seeme like so many Musketteers; which was put in practice;
and being discovered by the Turkes, they prepared to encounter
these false fires, thinking there had beene some great Armie: whilest
Kisell with his ten thousand being entred the Turks quarter, who
ranne up and downe as men amazed. It was not long ereEbersbaught
was pell-mell with them in their Trenches; in which distracted confusion,
a third part of the Turkes, that besieged that side towards
Knousbruck, were slaine; many of the rest drowned, but all fled.
The other part of the Armie was so busied to resist the false fires, that
Kisell before the morning put two thousand good souldiers in the
Towne, and with small losse was retired; the Garrison was well releeved
with that they found in the Turkes quarter, which caused the
Turkes to raise their siege and returne to Caniza: and Kisell with
a good reward and preferment, to be Captaine of two hundred and
fiftie Horse-men, under the Conduct of Colonell Voldo, Earle of
Meldritch.
Chapter V.
The siege of Stowlle-wesenburg; The effects of
Smiths Fire-workes; A worthy exploit of
Earle Rosworme; Earle Meldritch takes the
Bashaw prisoner.
A GENERALL rumour of a generall peace, now spred it selfe over
all the face of those tormented Countries: but the Turke intended
no such matter, but levied souldiers from all parts he could. The
Emperour also, by the assistance of the Christian Princes, provided
three Armies, the one led by the Arch-duke Mathias, the Emperours
brother, and his Lieutenant Duke Mercury
the second, by Ferdinando the Arch-duke of Steria, and the Duke of
Mantua his Lieutenant to regaine Caniza; the third by Gonzago,
Governour of High Hungary, to joyne with Georgio Busca, to make
an absolute conquest of Transilvania.
Duke Mercury with an Armie of thirtie thousand,
whereofneere ten thousand were French, besieged Stowlle-wesenburg, otherwise
called Alba Regalis, a place so strong by Art and Nature, that
it was thought impregnable. At his first comming, the Turkes sallied
upon the Germane quarter, slew neere five hundred, and returned
before they were thought on. The next night in like manner they did
neere as much to the Bemers, and Hungarians; of which fortune
eight or nine hundred of them were cut in pieces and taken
prisoners. In this encounter Monsieur Grandvile, a brave French
Colonell, received seven or eight cruell wounds, yet followed the
Enemie to the Ports; he came off alive, but within three or foure
dayes died.
Earle Meldritch, by the information of three or foure Christians,
(escaped out of the Towne) upon every Alarum, where there was
greatest assemblies and throng of people, caused Captaine Smith to
put in practice his fiery Dragons,
and the Earle Von Sulch at Comora, which hee thus performed:
Having prepared fortie or fiftie round-bellied earthen pots, and
filled them with hand Gunpowder, then covered them with Pitch,
mingled with Brimstone and Turpentine; and quartering as many
Musket-bullets, that hung together but only at the Center of the
division, stucke them round in the mixture about the pots, and
covered them againe with the same mixture, over that a strong Sear-cloth,
then over all a good thicknesse of Towze-match well tempered
with oyle of Lin-seed, Campheer, and powder of Brimstone, these he
fitly placed in Slings, graduated so neere as they could to the places
of these Assemblies. At midnight upon the Alarum, it was a fearfull
sight to see the short flaming course of their flight in the aire, but
presently after their fall, the lamentable noise of the miserable
slaughtered Turkes was most wonderfull to heare: Besides, they had
fired that Suburbe at the Port of Buda in two or three places, which
so troubled the Turkes to quench, that had there beene any meanes
to have assaulted ∥ them, they could hardly have resisted the fire,
and their enemies. The Earle Rosworme, contrary to the opinion of
all men, would needs undertake to finde meanes to surprize the
Segeth and Suburbe of the Citie, strongly defended by a muddie
Lake, which was thought unpassable.
The Duke having planted his Ordnance, battered the other side,
whilest Rosworme, in the darke night, with every man a bundle of
sedge and bavins still throwne before them, so laded up the Lake, as
they surprized that unregarded Suburbe before they were discovered:
upon which unexpected Alarum, the Turkes fled into the
Citie, and the other Suburbe not knowing the matter, got into the
Citie also, leaving their Suburbe for the Duke, who, with no great
resistance, tooke it, with many peeces of Ordnance; the Citie, being
of no such strength as the Suburbs, with their owne Ordnance was so
battered, that it was taken perforce, with such a mercilesse execution,
as was most pitifull to behold. The Bashaw
together a partie of five hundred before his owne Pallace, where he
intended to die; but seeing most of his men slaine before him, by the
valiant Captaine Earle Meldritch, who tooke him prisoner with his
owne hands; and with the hazard of himselfe saved him from the
fury of other troopes, that did pull downe his Pallace, and would have
rent him in peeces, had he not beene thus preserved. The Duke
thought his victory much honoured with such a Prisoner; tooke order
hee should bee used like a Prince, and with all expedition gave charge
presently to repaire the breaches, and the ruines of this famous Citie,
that had beene in the possession of the Turkes neere threescore
yeares.
Chapter VI.
A brave encounter of the Turkes Armie with the
Christians; Duke Mercury overthroweth Assan Bashaw;
Hee divides the Christian Armie; His noblenesse
and death.
MAHOMET, the great Turke, during the siege, had raised an
Armie of sixtie thousand men to have releeved it; but hearing
it was lost, he sent Assan Bashaw,
Duke understanding there could be no great experience in such a
new levied Armie as Assan had; having put a strong Garrison into
it: and with the brave Colonell Rosworme, Culnits, Meldritch, the
Rhine-Grave, Vahan and many others; with twenty thousand good
souldiers, set forward to meet the Turke in the Plaines of Girke.
Those two Armies encountred as they marched, where began a hot
and bloudy Skirmish betwixt them, Regiment against Regiment, as
they came in order, till the night parted them: Here Earle Meldritch
was so invironed amongst those halfe circuler Regiments of Turkes,
they supposed him their Prisoner, and his Regiment lost; but his two
most couragious friends, Vahan and Culnits, ∥ made such a passage
amongst them, that it was a terror to see how horse and man lay
sprawling and tumbling, some one way, some another on the ground.
The Earle there at that time made his valour shine more bright than
his armour, which seemed then painted with Turkish bloud, he slew
the brave Zanzack Bugola, and made his passage to his friends, but
neere halfe his Regiment was slaine. Captain Smith had his horse
slaine under him, and himselfe sore wounded; but he was not long
unmounted, for there was choice enough of horses, that wanted
masters. The Turke thinking the victory sure against the Duke, whose
Armie, by the Siege and the Garrison, he had left behind him, was
much weakned, would not be content with one, but he would have
all; and lest the Duke should returne to Alba Regalis, he sent that
night twenty thousand to besiege the Citie, assuring them he would
keepe the Duke or any other from releeving them. Two or three
dayes they lay each by other, entrenching themselves; the Turkes
daring the Duke daily to a sett battell, who at length drew out his
Army, led by the Rhine-Grave, Culnits and Meldritch, who upon
their first encounter, charged with that resolute and valiant courage,
as disordered not only the formost squadrons of the Turkes, but
enforced all the whole Armie to retire to the Campe, with the losse
of five or six thousand, with the Bashaw of Buda, and foure or five
Zanzacks, with divers other great Commanders, two hundred
Prisoners, and nine peeces of Ordnance. At that instant appeared,
that caused the Duke at that time to be contented, and to retire to
his Trenches; which gave time to Assan to reorder his disordered
squadrons: Here they lay nine or ten dayes, and more supplies repaired
to them, expecting to try the event in a sett battell; but the
souldiers on both parties, by reason of their great wants and approach
of winter, grew so discontented, that they were ready of themselves
to breake up the Leager; the Bashaw retiring himselfe to Buda, had
some of the Reare Troopes cut off. Amaroz Bashaw hearing of this,
found such bad welcome at Alba Regalis, and the Towne so strongly
repaired, with so brave a Garrison, raised his siege, and retired to
Zigetum.
The Duke
understanding that the Arch-duke Ferdinando hadso resolutely besieged Caniza, as what by the losse of Alba Regalis,
and the Turks retreat to Buda, being void of hope of any reliefe,
doubted not but it would become againe the Christians. To the
furtherance whereof, the Duke divided his Armie into three parts.
The Earle of Rosworme went with seven thousand to Caniza; the
Earle of Meldritch with six thousand he sent to assist Georgio Busca
against the Transilvanians, the rest went with himselfe to the Garrisons
of Strigonium and Komara; having thus worthily behaved
himselfe, he arrived at Vienne; where the Arch-dukes and the
Nobilitie with as much honour received him, as if he had conquered
all Hungaria; his very Picture they esteemed would make them fortunate,
which thousands kept as curiously as a precious relique. To
requite this honour, preparing himselfe to returne into France, to
raise new Forces against the next yeare, with the two Arch-dukes,
Mathias and Maximilian, and divers others of the Nobilitie, was
with great magnificence ∥ conducted to Nurenburg, there by them
royally feasted; (how it chanced is not knowne;) but the next morning
he was found dead, and his brother in law died two dayes after;
whose hearts, after this great triumph, with much sorrow were
carried into France.
Chapter VII.
The unhappie Siege of Caniza; Earle Meldritch
serveth Prince Sigismundus; Prince Moyses
besiegeth Regall; Smiths three single combats;
His Patent from Sigismundus, and reward.
THE worthy Lord Rosworme had not a worse journey to the
miserable Seige of Caniza, (where by the extremitie of an extraordinary
continuing tempest of haile, wind, frost and snow, in so
much that the Christians were forced to leave their Tents and Artillery,
and what they had; it being so cold that three or foure hundred
of them were frozen to death in a night, and two or three thousand
lost in that miserable flight in the snowie tempest, though they did
know no enemie at all to follow them:) than the noble Earle of Meldritch
had to Transilvania, where hearing of the death of Michael
and the brave Duke Mercury, and knowing the policie of Busca, and
the Prince his Roialtie, being now beyond all beleefe of men, in
possession of the best part of Transilvania, perswaded his troopes, in
so honest a cause, to assist the Prince against the Turke, rather than
Busca against the Prince.
The souldiers
being worne out with those hard payes andtravells, upon hope to have free libertie to make bootie upon what
they could get possession of from the Turkes, was easily perswaded
to follow him whithersoever. Now this noble Earle was a Transilvanian
borne, and his fathers Countrey yet inhabited by the Turkes;
for Transilvania was yet in three divisions, though the Prince had the
hearts both of Country and people; yet the Frontiers had a Garrison
amongst the unpassable mountaines, some for the Emperour, some
for the Prince, and some for the Turke: to regaine which small estate,
hee desired leave of the Prince to trie his fortunes, and to make use
of that experience, the time of twentie yeares had taught him in the
Emperours service, promising to spend the rest of his dayes for his
brave a Commander, and so many expert and ancient souldiers,
made him Campe-master of his Armie, gave him all necessary releefe
for his troopes and what freedome they desired to plunder the Turkes.
The Earle
having made many incursions into the Land ofZarkam among those rockie mountains, where were some Turks,
some Tartars, but most Bandittoes, Rennegadoes, and such like,
which sometimes hee forced into the Plaines of Regall, where is a
Citie not only of men and fortifications, strong of it selfe, but so
environed with mountaines, that made the passages so difficult, that
in all these warres no attempt had beene made upon it to any purpose:
Having satisfied himselfe with the Situa- ∥ tion, and the most
convenient passages to bring his Armie unto it: The earth no sooner
put on her greene habit, than the Earle overspread her with his
armed troopes. To possesse himselfe first of the most convenient passage,
which was a narrow valley betwixt two high mountaines; he
sent Colonell Veltus with his Regiment, dispersed in companies to
lye in Ambuscado, as he had directed them, and in the morning to
drive all the cattell they could finde before a Fort in that passage,
whom he supposed would sally, seeing but some small partie, to
recover their prey; which tooke such good successe, that the Garrison
was cut off by the Ambuscado, and Veltus seized on the Skonces,
which was abandoned. Meldritch glad of so fortunate a beginning,
it was six dayes erehe could with six thousand Pioners make passage
for his Ordnance: The Turkes having such warning, strengthned the
Towne so with men and provision, that they made a scorne of so
small a number as Meldritch brought with him before the Citie,
which was but eight thousand. Before they had pitched their Tents,
the Turkes sallied in such abundance, as for an houre they had rather
a bloudy battell than a skirmish, but with the losse of neere fifteene
hundred on both sides. The Turkes were chased till the Cities
Ordnance caused the Earle to retire. The next day Zachel Moyses,
Generall of the Armie, pitched also his tents with nine thousand
regard of the situation of this strong Fortresse, they did neither feare
them nor hurt them, being upon the point of a faire promontory,
environed on the one side within halfe a mile with an un-usefull
mountaine, and on the other side with a faire Plaine, where the
Christians encamped, but so commanded by their Ordnance, they
spent neere a month in entrenching themselves, and raising their
mounts to plant their batteries; which slow proceedings the Turkes
oft derided, that their Ordnance were at pawne, and how they grew
fat for want of exercise, and fearing lest they should depart erethey
could assault their Citie, sent this Challenge to any Captaine in the
Armie.
That to delight the Ladies, who did long to see some court-like
pastime, the Lord Turbashaw
command of a Company, who durst combate with him for his head:
The matter being discussed, it was accepted, but so many questions
grew for the undertaking, it was decided by lots, which fell upon
Captaine Smith, before spoken of.
Truce being made for that time, the Rampiers all beset with
faire Dames, and men in Armes, the Christians in Battalio;
with a noise of Howboyes entred the field well mounted and
armed; on his shoulders were fixed a paire of great wings, compacted
of Eagles feathers within a ridge of silver, richly garnished with gold
and precious stones, a Janizary before him, bearing his Lance, on
each side another leading his horse; where long hee stayed not, ere
Smith with a noise of Trumpets, only a Page bearing his Lance, passing
by him with a courteous salute, tooke his ground with such good
successe, that at the sound of the charge, he passed the Turke thorow
the sight of his Beaver, face, head and all, that he fell dead to the
ground, where alighting and unbra- ∥ cing his Helmet, cut off his
head, and the Turkes tooke his body; and so returned without any
hurt at all. The head hee presented to the Lord Moses, the Generall,
who kindly accepted it, and with joy to the whole armie he was
generally welcomed.
The death of this Captaine so swelled in the heart of one Grualgo,
his vowed friend, as rather inraged with madnesse than choller,
he directed a particular challenge to the Conquerour, to regaine his
friends head, or lose his owne, with his horse and Armour for advantage,
which according to his desire, was the next day undertaken: as
before upon the sound of the Trumpets, their Lances flew in peeces
upon a cleare passage, but the Turke was neere unhorsed. Their
Pistolls was the next, which marked Smith upon the placard; but
the next shot the Turke was so wounded in the left arme, that being
not able to rule his horse, and defend himselfe, he was throwne to the
ground, and so bruised with the fall, that he lost his head, as his
friend before him; with his horse and Armour; but his body and his
rich apparell was sent backe to the Towne.
Every day the Turkes made some sallies, but few skirmishes
would they endure to any purpose. Our workes and approaches
being not yet advanced to that height and effect which was of necessitie
to be performed; to delude time, Smith with so many incontradictable
perswading reasons, obtained leave that the Ladies might
know he was not so much enamoured of their servants heads, but if
any Turke of their ranke would come to the place of combate to
redeeme them, should have his also upon the like conditions, if he
could winne it.
The challenge presently was accepted by Bonny Mulgro. The
next day both the Champions entring the field as before, each discharging
their Pistoll, having no Lances, but such martiall weapons
as the defendant appointed, no hurt was done; their Battle-axes was
the next, whose piercing bils
other to have scarce sense to keepe their saddles, specially the Christian
received such a blow that he lost his Battle-axe, and failed not
much to have fallen after it, wherat the supposing conquering Turk,
had a great shout from the Rampiers. The Turk prosecuted his advantage
to the uttermost of his power; yet the other, what by the
businesse, beyond all mens expectation, by Gods assistance, not
onely avoided the Turkes violence, but having drawne his Faulchion,
pierced the Turke so under the Culets thorowbacke and body, that
although he alighted from his horse, he stood not long erehee lost
his head, as the rest had done
Chapter VIII.
Georgio Busca an Albane his ingratitude to
Prince Sigismundus; Prince Moyses his Lieutenant,
is overthrowne by Busca, Generall for the
Emperour Rodolphus; Sigismundus yeeldeth his
Countrey to Rodolphus; Busca assisteth
Prince Rodoll in Wallachia.
THIS good successe gave such great encouragement to the whole
Armie, that with a guard of six thousand, three spare horses,
before each a Turkes head upon a Lance, he was conducted to the
Generalls Pavillion with his Presents. Moyses received both him and
them with as much respect as the occasion deserved, embracing him
in his armes; gave him a faire Horse richly furnished, a Semitere
and belt worth three hundred ducats; and Meldritch made him
Sergeant major of his Regiment. But now to the siege, having
mounted six and twenty peeces of Ordnance fifty or sixty foot above
the Plaine, made them so plainly tell his meaning, that within fifteene
dayes two breaches were made, which the Turkes as valiantly defended
as men could; that day was made a darksome night, but by
the light that proceeded from the murdering Muskets, and peace-making
Canon, whilest their slothfull Governour lay in a Castle on
the top of a high mountaine, and like a valiant Prince asketh what's
the matter, when horrour and death stood amazed each at other, to
see who should prevaile to make him victorious: Moyses commanding
a generall assault upon the sloping front of the high Promontory,
where the Barons of Budendorfe and Oberwin lost neere halfe their
Regiments, by logs, bags of powder, and such like, tumbling downe
the hill, they were to mount erethey could come to the breach; notwithstanding
with an incredible courage they advanced to the push
till the Earle Meldritch, Becklefield and Zarvana, with their fresh
Regiments seconded them with that fury, that the Turks retired and
fled into the Castle, from whence by a flag of truce they desired composition.
The Earle remembring his fathers death, battered it with
all the Ordnance in the Towne, and the next day tooke it; all he
found could beare Armes he put to the sword, and set their heads
upon stakes round about the walles, in the same manner they had
used the Christians, when they tooke it. Moyses having repaired the
Rampiers, and throwne downe the worke in his Campe, he put in
it a strong Garrison, though the pillage he had gotten in the Towne
was much, having beene for a long time an impregnable den of
theeves; yet the losse of the Armie so intermingled the sowre with the
sweet, as forced Moyses to seek a further revenge, that he sacked
Veratio, Solmos, and Kupronka, and with two thousand prisoners,
most women and children, came to Esenberg, not farre from the
Princes Palace, where he there Encamped.
Sigismundus comming to view his Armie, was presented with
the Pri- ∥ soners, and six and thirtie Ensignes; where celebrating
thankes to Almightie God in triumph of those victories, hee was
made acquainted with the service Smith had done at Olumpagh,
Stowle-Wesenburg and Regall, for which with great honour hee gave
him three Turkes heads in a Shield for his Armes, by Patent, under
his hand and Seale, with an Oath ever to weare them in his Colours,
his Picture in Gould, and three hundred Ducats,
Pension.
SIGISMUNDUS BATHORI,
Dei gratia Dux
Transilvaniæ, Wallachiæ,
et Vandalorum; Comes
Anchard, Salford, Growenda;
Cunctis his literis
significamus qui eas lecturi
aut audituri sunt concessam
licentiam aut facultatem
Iohanni Smith, natione
Anglo Generoso, 250. mili-
tum Capitaneo sub Illustrissimi
et Gravissimi Henrici
Volda,
Salmariæ, et Peldoiæ
primario, ex 1000. equitibus
et 1500. peditibus bello Ungarico
conductione in Provincias
suprascriptas sub Authoritate nostra: cui servituti omni laude perpetuaque,
memoria dignum præbuit sese erga nos, ut virum strenuum pugnantem pro aris
et focis decet. Quare è favore nostro militario ipsum ordine condonavimus, et
in Sigillum illius tria Turcica Capita designare et deprimer concessimus,
quæ ipse gladio suo ad Urbem Regalem in singulari prælio vicit, mactavit,
atque; decollavit in Transilvaniæ Provincia: Sed fortuna cum variabilis
ancepsque; sit idem forte fortuito in Wallachia Provincia Anno Domini
1602. die Mensis Novembris 18. cum multis aliis etiam Nobilibus et aliis
quibusdam militibus captus est à Domino Bascha electo ex Cambia regionis
Tartariæ, cujus severitate adductus salutem quantam potuit quæsivit, tantumque
effecit, Deo omnipotente adjuvante, ut deliberavit se, et ad suos Commilitones
revertit; ex quibus ipsum liberavimus, et hæcnobis testimonia habuit
ut majori licentia frueretur qua dignus esset, jam tendet in patriam suam
dulcissiman: Rogamus ergo omnes nostros charissimos, confinitimos, Duces,
Principes, Comites, Barones, Gubernatores ∥ Urbium et Navium in eadem
Regione et cæterarum Provinciarum in quibus ille residere conatus fuerit ut
pergraium nobis feceritis. Signatum Lesprizia in Misnia die Mensis
Decembris 9. Anno Domini 1603.
UNIVERSIS, et singulis, cujuscunque loci, status, gradus, ordinis, ac conditionis
ad quos hoc præsens scriptum pervenerit, Guilielmus Segar
Eques auratus aliás dictus Garterus Principalis Rex Armorum Anglicorum,
Salutem. Sciatis, quod Ego prædictus Garterus, notum, testatumque facio,
quod Patentem suprascriptum, cum manu propria prædicti Ducis Transilvaniæ
subsignatum, et Sigillo suo affixum, Vidi: et Copiam veram ejusdem
(in perpetuam rei memoriam) transcripsi, et recordavi in Archivis, et Registris
Officii Armorum. Datum Londini 19. die Augusti, Anno Domini 1625.
Annoque Regni Domini nostri Caroli Dei gratia Magnæ Britanniæ,
Franciæ, et Hiberniæ Regis, Fidei Defensoris, etc. Primo.
Sigismundus Bathor, by the Grace of God, Duke of Transilvania,
Wallachia, and Moldavia,
have given leave and licence to John Smith an English Gentleman,
Captaine of 250. Souldiers, under the most Generous and Honourable
Henry ∥ Volda, Earle of Meldritch, Salmaria, and Peldoia,
Colonell of a thousand horse, and fifteene hundred foot, in the warres
of Hungary, and in the Provinces aforesaid under our authority;
whose service doth deserve all praise and perpetuall memory towards
us, as a man that did for God and his Country overcome his
enemies: Wherefore out of Our love and favour, according to the
law of Armes, We have ordained and given him in his shield of
Armes, the figure and description of three Turks heads, which with
his sword before the towne of Regall, in single combat he did overcome,
kill, and cut off, in the Province of Transilvania. But fortune,
as she is very variable, so it chanced and happened to him in the
Province of Wallachia, in the yeare of our Lord, 1602. the 18. day of
November, with many others, as well Noble men, as also divers other
Souldiers, were taken prisoners by the Lord Bashaw of Cambia, a
Country of Tartaria; whose cruelty brought him such good fortune,
by the helpe and power of Almighty God, that hee delivered himselfe,
and returned againe to his company and fellow souldiers, of
whom We doe discharge him, and this hee hathin witnesse thereof,
being much more worthy of a better reward; and now intends to
returne to his owne sweet Country. We desire therefore all our loving
and kinde kinsmen, Dukes, Princes, Earles, Barons, Governours of
Townes, Cities, or Ships, in this Kingdome, or any other Provinces
he shall come in, that you freely let passe this the aforesaid Captaine,
without any hinderance or molestation, and this doing, with all kindnesse
we are alwayes ready to doe the like for you. Sealed at Lipswick
in Misenland, the ninth of December, in the yeare of our Lord, 1603.
of his Majestie.
To all and singular, in what place, state, degree, order, or condition
whatsoever, to whom this present writing shall come: I, William
Segar, Knight, otherwise Garter, and principall King of Armes of
England, wish health.
sealed, under the proper hand ∥ and Seale Manual of the said Duke
of Transilvania, and a true coppy of the same, as a thing for perpetuall
memory, I have subscribed and recorded in the Register and
office of the Heralds of Armes. Dated at London the nineteenth day
of August, in the yeare of our Lord, 1625. and in the first yeare of our
Soveraigne Lord Charles by the grace of God, King of great Britaine,
France, and Ireland; Defender of the faith, etc.
Chapter IX.
Sigismundus sends Ambassadours unto the Emperour;
the conditions re-assured; He yeeldeth up all
to Busca, and returneth to Prague.
BUSCA having all this time beene raising new forces, was commanded
from the Emperour againe to invade Transilvania,
which being one of the fruitfullest and strongest Countries in those
parts, was now rather a desart, or the very spectacle of desolation;
their fruits and fields overgrowne with weeds, their Churches and
battered Palaces and best buildings, as for feare, hid with Mosse and
Ivy; being the very Bulwarke and Rampire of a great part of Europe,
most fit by all Christians to have beene supplyed and maintained,
was thus brought to ruine by them it most concerned to support it.
But alas, what is it, when the power of Majestie pampered in all
delights of pleasant vanity, neither knowing nor considering the
labour of the Ploughman, the hazard of the Merchant, the oppression
of Statesmen; nor feeling the piercing torments of broken limbes, and
inveterated
hungry diet, and the extreme misery that Souldiers endure to secure
all those estates, and yet by the spight of malicious detraction, starves
for want of their reward and recompences; whilest the politique
Courtier, that commonly aimes more at his owne honors and ends,
than his Countries good, or his Princes glory, honour, or security, as
this worthy Prince too well could testifie. But the Emperor being
with a great Army, to trie his fortune once more in Transilvania. The
Prince considering how his Country and subjects were consumed, the
small means he had any longer to defend his estate, both against the
cruelty of the Turke, and the power of the Emperor, and the small
care the Polanders had in supplying him, as they had promised, sent
to Busca to have truce, till messengers might be sent to the Emperour
for some better agreement, wherewith Busca was contented. The
Ambassadours so prevailed, that the Emperour re-assured unto
them the conditions he had promised the Prince at their confederacie
for the lands in Silesia, with 60000. ducats presently in hand, and
50000. ducats yearely as a pension. When this conclusion was
∥ knowne to Moyses, his Lieftenant then in the field with the Army,
that would doe any thing rather than come in subjection to the
Germans, he encouraged his Souldiers, and without any more adoe
marched to encounter Busca, whom he found much better provided
than he expected; so that betwixt them in six or seven houres, more
than five or six thousand on both sides lay dead in the field. Moyses
thus overthrowne, fled to the Turks at Temesware, and his scattered
troopes some one way, some another.
The Prince understanding of this so sudden and unexpected
accident, onely accompanied with an hundred of his Gentry and
Nobility, went into the campe to Busca, to let him know, how ignorant
he was of his Lieftenants errour, that had done it without his
direction or knowledge, freely offering to performe what was concluded
by his Ambassadours with the Emperour; and so causing all
his Garrisons to come out of their strong holds, he delivered all to
Busca for the Emperour, and so went to Prague, where he was
Majestie had promised. Busca assembling all the Nobility,
tooke their oaths of allegeance and fidelity, and thus their Prince
being gone, Transilvania became againe subject to the Emperour.
Now after the death of Michael, Vavoyd
of Wallachia, theTurke sent one Jeremie to be their Vavoyd or Prince; whose insulting
tyranny caused the people to take Armes against him, so that he
was forced to flie into the confines of Moldavia; and Busca in the
behalfe of the Emperour, proclaimed the Lord Rodoll in his stead.
But Jeremy having assembled an Army of forty thousand Turks,
Tartars, and Moldavians, returned into Wallachia. Rodoll not yet
able to raise such a power, fled into Transilvania to Busca, his ancient
friend; who considering well of the matter, and how good it would
be for his owne security to have Wallachia subject to the Emperour,
or at least such an employment for the remainders of the old Regiments
of Sigismundus, (of whose greatnesse and true affection hee
was very suspitious,) sent them with Rodoll to recover Wallachia,
conducted by the valiant Captaines, the Earle Meldritch, Earle
Veltus, Earle Nederspolt, Earle Zarvana, the Lord Bechlefield, the
Lord Budendorfe, with their Regiments, and divers others of great
ranke and quality, the greatest friends and alliances the Prince had;
who with thirty thousand, marched along by the river Altus, to the
streights of Rebrinke, where they entred Wallachia, encamping at
Raza; Jeremie lying at Argish, drew his Army into his old campe,
in the plaines of Peteske, and with his best diligence fortified it, intending
to defend himselfe till more power came to him from the
Crym-Tartar. Many small parties that came to his campe, Rodoll
and downe before the trenches. Seven of their Porters were taken,
whom Jeremie commanded to be flayed quicke, and after hung their
skinnes upon poles, and their carkasses and heads on stakes by them.
Chapter X.
The battell of Rotenton; a pretty stratagem of
fire-workes by Smith.
RODOLL not knowing how to draw the enemie to battell, raised
his Armie, burning and spoyling all where he came, and returned
againe towards Rebrinke in the night, as if he had fled upon
the generall rumour of the Crym-Tartars comming, which so inflamed
the Turkes of a happy victory, they urged Jeremy against his
will to follow them. Rodoll seeing his plot fell out as he desired, so
ordered the matter, that having regained the streights, he put his
Army in order, that had beene neere two dayes pursued, with continuall
skirmishes in his Reare, which now making head against the
twixt Rodoll enemie, that followed with their whole Armie in the best manner
they could, was furiously charged with six thousand Hydukes,
and Moldavians, led by three Colonells, Oversall, Dubras,
and Calab, to entertaine the time till the rest came up; Veltus and
Nederspolt with their Regiments, entertained them with the like
courage, till the Zanzacke Hamesbeg, with six thousand more, came
with a fresh charge, which Meldritch and Budendorfe, rather like
enraged lions, than men, so bravely encountred, as if in them only
had consisted the victory; Meldritchs horse being slaine under him,
the Turks pressed what they could to have taken him prisoner, but
being remounted, it was thought with his owne hand he slew the
valiant Zanzacke, whereupon his troopes retyring, the two proud
Bashawes, Aladin, and Zizimmus, brought up the front of the body
their troopes with Becklefield and Zarvana, with such an incredible
courage charged the left flancke of Zizimmus, as put them all in disorder,
where Zizimmus the Bashaw was taken prisoner, but died
presently upon his wounds. Jeremie seeing now the maine battell of
Rodoll advance, being thus constrained, like a valiant Prince in his
front of the Vantgard, by his example so bravely encouraged his
souldiers, that Rodoll found no great assurance of the victorie. Thus
being joyned in this bloudy massacre, that there was scarce ground
to stand upon, but upon the dead carkasses, which in lesse than an
hower were so mingled, as if each Regiment had singled out other.
The admired Aladin that day did leave behinde him a glorious name
for his valour, whose death many of his enemies did lament after the
victory, which at that instant fell to Rodoll. It was reported Jeremie
was also slaine, but it was not so, but fled with the remainder of his
Armie to Moldavia, leaving five and twenty thousand dead in the
field, of both Armies. And thus Rodoll was seated againe in his
Soveraignty, and Wallachia became subject to the Emperour.
But long he rested not to settle his new estate, but there came
newes, that certaine Regiments of stragling Tartars,
those parts towards Moldavia. Meldritch with thirteene thousand
men was sent against them, but when they heard it was the Crym-Tartar
and his two ∥ sonnes, with an Armie of thirty thousand; and
Jeremie, that had escaped with fourteene or fifteene thousand, lay in
ambush for them about Langanaw, he retired towards Rottenton,
a strong garrison for Rodoll; but they were so invironed with these
hellish numbers, they could make no great haste for skirmishing with
their scouts, forragers, and small parties that still encountred them.
But one night amongst the rest, having made a passage through a
wood, with an incredible expedition, cutting trees thwart each
other to hinder their passage, in a thicke fogge early in the morning,
unexpectedly they met two thousand loaded with pillage, and two
or three hundred horse and cattell; the most of them were slaine and
taken prisoners, who told them where Jeremie lay in the passage,
expecting the Crym-Tartar that was not farre from him. Meldritch
intending to make his passage perforce, was advised of a pretty stratagem
by the English Smith, which presently he thus accomplished;
for having accommodated two or three hundred truncks with wilde
gave fire to the truncks, which blazed forth such flames and sparkles,
that it so amazed not onely their horses, but their foot also; that by
the meanes of this flaming encounter, their owne horses turned tailes
with such fury, as by their violence overthrew Jeremy and his Army,
without any losse at all to speake of to Meldritch. But of this victory
long they triumphed not; for being within three leagues of Rottenton,
the Tartar with neere forty thousand so beset them, that
they must either fight, or be cut in peeces flying. Here Busca and the
Emperour had their desire; for the Sunne no sooner displayed his
beames, than the Tartar his colours; where at midday he stayed a
while, to see the passage of a tyrannicall and treacherous imposture,
till the earth did blush with the bloud of honesty, that the Sunne for
shame did hide himselfe, from so monstrous sight of a cowardly
calamity. It was a most brave sight to see the banners and ensignes
streaming in the aire, the glittering of Armour, the variety of colours,
the motion of plumes, the forrests of lances, and the thicknesse of
shorter weapons, till the silent expedition of the bloudy blast from
the murdering Ordnance, whose roaring voice is not so soone heard,
as felt by the aymed at object, which made among them a most
lamentable slaughter.
Chapter XI.
The names of the English that were slaine in the
battell of Rottenton; and how Captaine Smith
is taken prisoner; and sold for a slave.
IN the valley of Veristhorne,
betwixt the river of Altus, and themountaine of Rottenton, was this bloudy encounter, where the
most of the dearest friends of the noble Prince Sigismundus perished.
Meldritch having ordered his eleven thousand in the best manner he
could, at the foot of the mountaine upon his flancks, and before his
front, he had pit- ∥ ched sharpe stakes, their heads hardned in the
fire, and bent against the enemie, as three battalion of Pikes, amongst
the which also there was digged many small holes. Amongst those
there was occasion. The Tartar having ordered his 40000. for his best
advantage, appointed Mustapha Bashaw to beginne the battell, with
a generall shout, all their Ensignes displaying, Drummes beating,
Trumpets and Howboyes sounding. Nederspolt and Mavazo with
their Regiments of horse most valiantly encountred, and forced them
to retire; the Tartar Begolgi with his Squadrons, darkening the skies
with their flights of numberles arrowes, who was as bravely encountred
by Veltus and Oberwin, which bloudie slaughter continued
more than an houre, till the matchlesse multitude of the Tartars so
increased, that they retired within their Squadrons of stakes, as was
directed. The bloudy Tartar, as scorning he should stay so long for
the victorie, with his massie troopes prosecuted the charge: but it
was a wonder to see how horse and man came to the ground among
the stakes, whose disordered troopes were there so mangled, that the
Christians with a loud shout cryed Victoria; and with five or six field
peeces, planted upon the rising of the mountaine, did much hurt to
the enemy that still continued the battell with that furie, that Meldritch
seeing there was no possibilitie long to prevaile, joyned his
small troopes in one body, resolved directly to make his passage or
die in the conclusion; and thus in grosse gave a generall charge, and
for more than halfe an houre made his way plaine before him, till the
maine battel of the Crym-Tartar with two Regiments of Turkes and
Janizaries so overmatched them, that they were overthrowen. The
night approaching, the Earle with some thirteene or fourteene
hundred horse, swamme the River, some were drowned, all the rest
slaine or taken prisoners: And thus in this bloudy field, neere 30000.
lay, some headlesse, armelesse and leglesse, all cut and mangled;
where breathing their last, they gave this knowledge to the world,
that for the lives of so few, the Crym-Tartar never paid dearer. But
now the Countreyes of Transilvania and Wallachia, (subjected to
the Emperour) and Sigismundus that brave Prince his Subject and
Pensioner, the most of his Nobilitie, brave Captaines and Souldiers,
became a prey to the cruell devouring Turke: where had the Emperor
been as ready to have assisted him, and those three Armies led
by three such worthy Captaines, as Michael, Busca, and Himselfe,
and had those three Armies joyned together against the Turke, let all
men judge, how happie it might have beene for all Christendome:
and have either regained Bulgaria, or at least have beat him out of
Hungaria, where hee hathtaken much more from the Emperour,
than haththe Emperour from Transilvania.
of a Booke intituled,
The
warres of Hungaria,
Wallachia,
and
Moldavia,
written by
Francisco Ferneza,
a learned
Italian, the
Princes Secretarie,
and
translated by
Master Purchas.
In this dismal battell, where Nederspolt, Veltus, Zarvana,
Mavazo, Bavell, and many other Earles, Barons, Colonels, Captaines,
brave Gentlemen, and Souldiers were slaine. Give mee leave
to remember the names of our owne Country-men with him in those
exploits, that as resolutely as the best in the defence of Christ and his
Gospell, ended their dayes, as Baskerfield, Hardwicke, Thomas
Milemer, Robert Mullineux, ∥ Thomas Bishop, Francis Compton,
George Davison, Nicholas Williams, and one John a Scot, did what
men could doe, and when they could doe no more, left there their
bodies in testimonie of their mindes; only Ensigne Carleton and
Sergeant Robinson
bodies, and many a gasping soule, with toile and wounds lay groaning
among the rest, till being found by the Pillagers hee was able to
live, and perceiving by his armor and habit, his ransome might be
better to them, than his death, they led him prisoner with many
others; well they used him till his wounds were cured, and at
Axopolis they were all sold for slaves, like beasts in a market-place,
where everie Merchant, viewing their limbs and wounds, caused
other slaves to struggle with them, to trie their strength, hee fell to
the share of Bashaw Bogall, who sent him forthwith to Adrinopolis,
so for Constantinople to his faire Mistresse for a slave. By twentie and
twentie chained by the neckes, they marched in file to this great
Citie, where they were delivered to their severall Masters, and he to
the young Charatza Tragabigzanda.
Chapter XII.
How Captaine Smith was sent prisoner thorowthe
Blacke and Dissabacca Sea in Tartaria;
the description of those Seas, and his usage.
THIS Noble Gentlewoman tooke sometime occasion to shew him
to some friends, or rather to speake with him, because shee could
speake Italian, would feigne her selfe sick when she should goe to the
Banians, or weepe over the graves,
prisoner; and if he were as the Bashaw writ to her, a Bohemian Lord
conquered by his hand, as hee had many others, which erelong hee
would present her, whose ransomes should adorne her with the glorie
of his conquests.
But when she heard him protest he knew no such matter, nor
ever saw Bogall till he bought him at Axopolis, and that hee was an
English-man, onely by his adventures made a Captaine in those
Countreyes. To trie the truth, shee found meanes to finde out many
could speake English, French, Dutch, and Italian, to whom relating
most part of these former passages he thought necessarie, which they
so honestly reported to her, she tooke (as it seemed) much compassion
on him; but having no use for him, lest her mother should sell him,
she sent him to her brother, the Tymor Bashaw of Nalbrits, in the
Countrey of Cambia, a Province in Tartaria.
Here now let us remember his passing in this speculative course
from Constantinople by Sander, Screwe, Panassa, Musa, Lastilla, to
Varna, an ancient Citie upon the Blacke Sea. In all which journey,
having little more libertie, than his eyes judgement
he might see the Townes with their short Towers, and a most
plaine, fertile, and de- ∥ licate Countrey, especially that most admired
nothing but the Blacke Sea water, till he came to the two Capes of
Taur and Pergilos, where hee passed the Straight of Niger, which
(as he conjectured) is some ten leagues long, and three broad, betwixt
two low lands, the Channell is deepe, but at the entrance of the
Sea Dissabacca, their are many great Osie-shoulds, and many great
blacke rockes, which the Turkes said were trees, weeds, and mud,
throwen from the in-land Countryes, by the inundations and violence
of the Current, and cast there by the Eddy. They sayled by
many low Iles, and saw many more of those muddy rockes, and nothing
else, but salt water, till they came betwixt Susax and Curuske,
only two white townes at the entrance of the river Bruapo appeared:
In six or seven dayes saile, he saw foure or five seeming strong castles
of stone, with flat tops and battlements about them, but arriving at
Cambia, he was (according to their custome) well used. The river
was there more than halfe a mile broad. The Castle was of a large
circumference, fourteene or fifteene foot thicke, in the foundation
some six foot from the wall, is a Pallizado, and then a Ditch of about
fortie foot broad full of water. On the west side of it, is a Towne all
of low flat houses, which as he conceived could bee of no great
strength, yet it keepes all them barbarous Countreyes about it in
admiration and subjection. After he had stayed there three dayes; it
was two dayes more before his guides brought him to Nalbrits, where
the Tymor then was resident, in a great vast stonie Castle with many
great Courts about it, invironed with high stone wals, where was
quartered their Armes, when they first subjected those Countreyes,
which only live to labour for those tyrannicall Turkes.
To her unkinde brother, this kinde Ladie writ so much for his
good usage, that hee halfe suspected, as much as she intended; for
shee told him, he should there but sojourne to learne the language,
and what it was to be a Turke, till time made her Master of her
selfe.
man to strip him naked, and shave his head and beard so bare as his
hand, a great ring of iron, with a long stalke bowed like a sickle,
rivetted about his necke, and a coat made of Ulgries haire, guarded
about with a peece of an undrest skinne. There were many more
Christian slaves, and neere an hundred Forsades of Turkes and
Moores, and he being the last, was slave of slaves to them all. Among
these slavish fortunes there was no great choice; for the best was so
bad, a dog could hardly have lived to endure, and yet for all their
paines and labours no more regarded than a beast.
Chapter XIII.
The Turkes diet; the Slaves diet; the attire of
the Tartars; and manner of Warres and
Religions, etc.
THE Tymor and his friends fed upon Pillaw, which is boiled Rice
and Garnances, with little bits of mutton or Buckones,
rosted ∥ peeces of Horse, Bull, Ulgrie, or any beasts. Samboyses and
Muselbits are great dainties, and yet but round pies, full of all sorts
of flesh they can get chopped with varietie of herbs. Their best drinke
is Coffa, of a graine they call Coava, boiled with water; and Sherbecke,
which is only honey and water; Mares milke, or the milke of any
beast, they hold restorative: but all the Comminaltie drinke pure
water. Their bread is made of this Coava, which is a kinde of blacke
common victuall, the entrailes of Horse and Ulgries; of this cut in
small peeces, they will fill a great Cauldron, and being boiled with
Cuskus, and put in great bowles in the forme of chaffing-dishes, they
sit round about it on the ground, after they have raked it thorowso
oft as they please with their foule fists, the remainder was for the
Christian slaves. Some of this broth they would temper with Cuskus
pounded, and putting the fire off from the hearth, powre there a
bowle full, then cover it with coales till it be baked, which stewed
with the remainder of the broth, and some small peeces of flesh, was
an extraordinarie daintie.
The better sort are attired like Turkes,
but the plaine Tartarhatha blacke sheepe skinne over his backe, and two of the legs tied
about his necke; the other two about his middle, with another over
his belly, and the legs tied in the like manner behinde him: then two
more made like a paire of bases, serveth him for breeches; with a
little close cap to his skull of blacke felt, and they use exceeding much
of this felt, for carpets, for bedding, for Coats, and Idols. Their houses
are much worse than your Irish, but the In-land Countreyes have
none but Carts and Tents, which they ever remove from Countrey
to Countrey, as they see occasion, driving with them infinite troopes
of blacke sheepe, Cattell and Ulgries, eating all up before them, as
they goe.
For the Tartars of Nagi, they have neither Towne, nor house,
corne, nor drinke; but flesh and milke. The milke they keepe in great
skinnes like Burracho's,
well with their strong stomackes. They live all in Hordias, as doth the
Crim-Tartars, three or foure hundred in a company, in great Carts
fifteene or sixteene foot broad, which is covered with small rods,
wattled together in the forme of a birds nest turned upwards, and
they have: they lome them so well, that no weather will pierce them,
and yet verie light. Each Hordia hatha Murse, which they obey as
their King. Their Gods are infinite. One or two thousand of those
glittering white Carts drawen with Camels, Deere, Buls, and Ulgries,
they bring round in a ring, where they pitch their Campe; and the
Murse, with his chiefe alliances, are placed in the midst. They doe
much hurt when they can get any Stroggs, which are great boats used
upon the river Volga, (which they call Edle) to them that dwell in
the Countrey of Perolog, and would doe much more, were it not for
the Muscovites Garrisons that there inhabit.
Chapter XIIII.
The description of the Crym-Tartars; their houses
and carts; their Idolatry in their lodgings.
NOW you are to understand, Tartary and Scythia
are all one, butso large and spacious, few or none could ever perfectly describe
it, nor all the severall kinds of those most barbarous people that inhabit
it. Those we call the Crym-Tartars, border upon Moldavia,
Podolia, Lituania, and Russia, are much more regular than the
troubled all his neighbours, they alwayes call Chan, which signifieth
Emperour; but we, the Crym-Tartar. He liveth for most part in the
best champion plaines of many Provinces; and his removing Court
is like a great Citie of houses and tents, drawne on Carts, all so
orderly placed East and West, on the right and left hand of the Prince
his house, which is alwayes in the midst towards the South, before
which none may pitch their houses, every one knowing their order
and quarter, as in an Armie. The Princes houses are very artificially
wrought, both the foundation, sides, and roofe of wickers, ascending
round to the top like a Dove-coat; this they cover with white felt, or
white earth tempered with the powder of bones, that it may shine
the whiter; sometimes with blacke felt, curiously painted with vines,
trees, birds, and beasts; the breadth of the Carts are eighteene or
twenty foot, but the house stretcheth foure or five foot over each side,
and is drawne with ten or twelve, or for more state, twenty Camels
and Oxen. They have also great baskets, made of smaller wickers
like great chests, with a covering of the same, all covered over with
blacke felt, rubbed over with tallow and sheeps milke, to keepe out
the raine; prettily bedecked with painting or feathers; in those they
put their houshold stuffe and treasure, drawne upon other carts for
that purpose. When they take downe their houses, they set the doore
alwayes towards the South, and their carts thirtie or fortie foot distant
on each side, East and West, as if they were two walls: the women
also have most curious carts; every one of his wives hatha great one
for herselfe, and so many other for her attendants, that they seeme
as many Courts, as he hathwives. One great Tartar or Nobleman,
will have for his particular, more than an hundred of those houses
and carts, for his severall offices and uses, but set so farre from each
other, they will seeme like a great village. Having taken their houses
from the carts, they place the Master alwayes towards the North;
over whose head is alwayes an Image like a Puppet, made of felt,
which they call his brother; the women on his left hand, and over the
chiefe Mistris her head, such another brother, and betweene them
a little one, which is the keeper of the house; at the good wives beds-feet
is a kids skinne, stuffed with wooll, and neere it a Puppet looking
towards the Maids; next the doore another, with a dried cowes
udder, for the women that milke the kine, because only the men
milke mares; every morning those ∥ Images in their orders they
besprinkle with that they drinke, bee it Cossmos, or whatsoever,
but all the white mares milke is reserved for the Prince. Then without
the doore, thrice to the South, every one bowing his knee in
then to the West, in honour of the water; and lastly to the North, in
behalfe of the dead. After the servant hathdone this duty to the foure
quarters of the world, he returnes into the house, where his fellowes
stand waiting, ready with two cups and two basons to give their
master, and his wife that lay with him that night, to wash and drinke,
who must keepe him company all the day following; and all his other
wives come thither to drinke, where hee keepes his house that day;
and all the gifts presented him till night, are laid up in her chests;
and at the doore a bench full of cups, and drinke for any of them to
make merry.
Chapter XV.
Their feasts; common diet; Princes estate; buildings;
tributes; lawes; slaves; entertainment of Ambassadours.
FOR their feasts
they have all sorts of beasts, birds, fish, fruits, andhearbs they can get, but the more variety of wilde ones is the
best; to which they have excellent drinke made of rice, millit, and
honey, like wine; they have also wine, but in Summer they drinke
most Cossmos, that standeth ready alwayes at the entrance of the
doore, and by it a fidler; when the master of the house beginneth to
drinke, they all cry, ha, ha, and the fidler playes, then they all clap
their hands and dance, the men before their Masters, the women
before their Mistresses; and ever when he drinks, they cry as before;
then the fidler stayeth till they drinke all round; sometimes they will
drinke for the victory; and to provoke one to drinke, they will pull
him by the ears, and lugge and draw him, to stretch and heat him,
clapping their hands, stamping with their feet, and dancing before
the champions, offering them cups, then draw them backe againe to
increase their appetite; and thus continue till they be drunke, or
their drinke done, which they hold an honour, and no infirmity.
Though the ground be fertile,
they sow little corne, yet the Gentlemen have bread and hony-wine; grapes they have plenty,stamped millit, mingled with milke and water. They call Cassa for
meat, and drinke any thing; also any beast unprofitable for service
they kill, when they are like to die, or however they die, they will eat
them, guts liver and all; but the most fleshy parts they cut in thinne
slices, and hang it up in the Sunne and wind without salting, where
it will drie so hard, it will not putrifie in a long time. A Ramme they
esteeme a great feast among forty or fiftie, which they cut in peeces
boiled or roast, put it in a great bowle with salt and water, for other
sauce they have none; the master of the feast ∥ giveth every one a
peece, which he eateth by himselfe, or carrieth away with him. Thus
their hard fare makes them so infinite in Cattell, and their great
number of captived women to breed upon, makes them so populous.
But neere the Christian frontiers, the baser sort make little cottages
of wood, called Ulusi, daubed over with durt, and beasts dung
covered with sedge; yet in Summer they leave them, beginning their
progresse in Aprill, with their wives, children, and slaves, in their
carted houses, scarce convenient for foure or five persons; driving
their flocks towards Perecopya, and sometimes into Taurica, or
Osow, a towne upon the river Tanais, which is great and swift,
where the Turke hatha garrison; and in October returne againe to
their Cottages. Their Clothes are the skinnes of dogges, goats, and
sheepe, lined with cotton cloath, made of their finest wooll, for of
their worst they make their felt, which they use in aboundance, as
well for shooes and caps, as houses, beds, and Idolls; also of the coarse
wooll mingled with horse haire, they make all their cordage. Notwithstanding
this wandring life, their Princes sit in great state upon
beds, or carpits, and with great reverence are attended both by men
upon the knee, attired in rich furres, lined with plush, or
taffity, or robes of tissue. These Tartars possesse many large and
goodly plaines, wherein feed innumerable herds of horse and cattell,
as well wilde as tame; which are Elkes, Bisones, Horses, Deere,
Sheepe, Goates, Swine, Beares, and divers others.
In those countries are the ruines of many faire Monasteries,
Castles, and Cities, as Bacasaray,
Cremum, Sedacom, Capha, and divers others by the Sea, but all
kept with strong garrisons for the great Turke, who yearely by trade
or trafficke, receiveth the chiefe commodities those fertile countries
afford, as Bezer, Rice, Furres, Hides, Butter, Salt, Cattell, and
Slaves, yet by the spoiles they get from the secure and idle Christians,
they maintaine themselves in this Pompe. Also their wives, of whom
they have as many as they will, very costly, yet in a constant custome
with decency.
They are Mahometans,
as are the Turks, from whom also theyhave their Lawes, but no Lawyers, nor Attournies, onely Judges, and
Justices in every Village, or Hordia; but capitall criminalls, or matters
of moment, before the Chan himselfe, or Privie Counsells, of whom
they are alwayes heard, and speedily discharged; for any may have
accesse at any time to them, before whom they appeare with great
reverence, adoring their Princes as Gods, and their spirituall Judges
as Saints; for Justice is with such integrity and expedition executed,
without covetousnesse, bribery, partiality, and brawling, that in six
moneths they have sometimes scarce six causes to heare. About the
Princes court none but his guard weares any weapon, but abroad
they goe very strong, because there are many bandytos, and Theeves.
They use the Hungarians, Russians, Wallachians, and Moldavian
slaves (whereof they have plenty) as beasts to every worke;
and those Tartars that serve the Chan, or noblemen, have only
victuall and apparell, the rest are generally nasty, and idle, naturally
miserable, and in their warres better theeves than souldiers.
This Chan
hathyeerely a Donative from the King of Poland,the Dukes of Lituania, Moldavia, and Nagagon Tartars; their Messengers
commonly he useth bountifully, and verie nobly, but sometimes
his houshold Officers they are entertained in a plaine field, with a
moderate proportion of flesh, bread and wine, for once; but when
they come before him, the Sultaines, Tuians, Ulans, Marhies, his
chiefe Officers and Councellors attend, one man only bringeth the
Ambassadour to the Court gate, but to the Chan he is led betweene
two Councellors; where saluting him upon their bended knees, declaring
their message, are admitted to eat with him, and presented
with a great silver cup full of Mead from his owne hand, but they
drinke it upon their knees: when they are dispatched, he invites them
againe, the feast ended, they go backe a little from the Palace doore,
and rewarded with silke Vestures wrought with gold downe to their
anckles, with an horse or two, and sometimes a slave of their owne
Nation; in them robes presently they come to him againe, to give
him thankes, take their leave, and so depart.
Chapter XVI.
How he levieth an Armie; their Armes and Provision;
how he divideth the spoile; and his service to the
Great Turke.
WHEN he intends any warres, he must first have leave of the
Great Turke, whom hee is bound to assist when hee commandeth,
receiving daily for himselfe and chiefe of his Nobilitie,
pensions from the Turke, that holds all Kings but slaves, that pay
tribute or are subject to any: signifying his intent to all his subjects,
within a monethcommonly he raiseth his Armie, and everie man is
to furnish himselfe for three moneths victuals, which is parched
Millit, or grownd to meale, which they ordinarily mingle with water
(as is said) hard cheese or cruds
will make much water like milke, and dried flesh, this they put also
and quicke cattell to kill when they please, wherewith verie
sparingly they are contented. Being provided with expert Guides,
and got into the Countrey he intends to invade, he sends forth his
Scouts to bring in what prisoners they can, from whom he will wrest
the utmost of their knowledge fit for his purpose: having advised
with his Councell, what is most fit to be done, the Nobilitie, according
to their antiquitie, doth march; then moves he with his whole
Armie: if hee finde there is no enemie to oppose him, he adviseth
how farre they shall invade, commanding everie man (upon paine
of his life) to kill all the obvious Rusticks; but not to hurt any
women, or children.
Ten, or fifteene thousand, he commonly placeth, where hee
findeth most convenient for his standing Campe; the rest of his Armie
hee di- ∥ vides in severall troops, bearing ten or twelve miles square
before them,
Campe, putting all to fire and sword, but that they carrie with them
backe to their Campe; and in this scattering manner he will invade
a Countrey, and be gone with his prey, with an incredible expedition.
But if he understand of an enemie, he will either fight in Ambuscado,
or flie; for he will never fight any battell if he can chuse, but upon
treble advantage; yet by his innumerable flights of arrowes, I have
seene flie from his flying troopes, we could not well judge, whether
his fighting or flying was most dangerous, so good is his horse, and so
expert his bowmen; but if they be so intangled they must fight, there
is none can bee more hardy, or resolute in their defences.
Regaining his owne borders, he takes the tenth of the principall
captives, man, woman, childe, or beast (but his captaines that take
them, will accept of some particular person they best like for themselves)
the rest are divided amongst the whole Armie, according to
every mans desert, and quality; that they keepe them, or sell them to
who will give most; but they will not forget to use all the meanes they
can, to know their estates, friends, and quality, and the better they
finde you, the worse they will use you, till you doe agree to pay such
a ransome, as they will impose upon you; therefore many great
persons have endured much misery to conceale themselves, because
their ransomes are so intolerable: their best hope is of some Christian
Agent, that many times commeth to redeeme slaves, either with
mony, or man for man; those Agents knowing so well the extreme
that feigning they will sell them againe to some other nation, are oft
redeemed for a very small ransome.
But to this Tartarian Armie, when the Turke commands, he
goeth with some small artillery; and the Nagagians,
Crimes, Osovens, and Cersessians, are his tributaries; but the Petigorves,
Oczaconians, Byalogordens, and Dobrucen Tartars, the
Turke by covenant commands to follow him, so that from all those
Tartars he hathhad an Army of an hundred and twenty thousand
excellent, swift, stomackfull Tartarian horse, for foot they have
none. Now the Chan, his Sultaines and nobility, use Turkish, Caramanian,
Arabian, Parthian, and other strange Tartarian horses;
the swiftest they esteeme the best; seldome they feede any more at
home, than they have present use for; but upon their plaines is a
short wodde like heath, in some countries like gaile, full of berries,
farre much better than any grasse.
Their Armes are such as they have surprised or got from the
Christians or Persians, both brest-plates, swords, semiteres, and helmets;
bowes and arrowes they make most themselves, also their
bridles and saddles are indifferent, but the nobility are very handsome,
and well armed like the Turkes, in whom consisteth their
greatest glory; the ordinary sort have little armor, some a plaine
young pole unshaven, headed with a peece of iron for a lance; some
an old Christian pike, or a Turks cavarine;
will have two or three horses, some ∥ foure or five, as well for service,
as for to eat; which makes their Armies seem thrice so many as there
are souldiers. The Chan himselfe hathabout his person ten thousand
chosen Tartars and Janizaries, some small Ordnance, and a white
mares taile, with a peece of greene taffity on a great Pike, is carried
before him for a standard; because they hold no beast so precious as
sacrifice to their Idolls; but the rest have ensignes of divers colours.
For all this miserable knowledge,
furniture, and equipage, themischiefe they doe in Christendome is wonderfull, by reason of their
hardnesse of life and constitution, obedience, agilitie, and their Emperours
bountie, honours, grace, and dignities he ever bestoweth
upon those, that have done him any memorable service in the face of
his enemies.
The Caspian Sea,
most men agree that have passed it, to be inlength about 200. leagues, and in breadth an hundred and fifty,
environed to the East, with the great desarts of the Tartars of Turkamane;
to the West, by the Circasses, and the mountaine Caucasus;
to the North, by the river Volga, and the land of Nagay; and to the
South, by Media, and Persia: this sea is fresh water in many places,
in others as salt as the great Ocean; it hathmany great rivers which
fall into it, as the mighty river of Volga, which is like a sea, running
neere two thousand miles, through many great and large Countries,
that send into it many other great rivers; also out of Saberya, Yaick,
and Yem, out of the great mountaine Caucasus, the river Sirus,
Arash, and divers others, yet no Sea neerer it than the blacke Sea,
which is at least an hundred leagues distant: in which Country live
the Georgians, now part Armenians, part Nestorians; it is neither
found to increase or diminish, or empty it selfe any way, except it be
under ground, and in some places they can finde no ground at two
hundred fadome.
Many other most strange and wonderfull things are in the land
of Cathay towards the North-east,
where are many of the most famous Kingdomes in the world;
where most arts, plenty, and curiosities are in such abundance, as
might seeme incredible, which hereafter I will relate, as I have briefly
gathered from such authors as have lived there.
Chapter XVII.
How captaine Smith escaped his captivity; slew the
Bashaw of Nalbrits in Cambia; his passage to
Russia, Transilvania, and the middest of Europe
to Affrica.
ALL the hope he had ever to be delivered from this thraldome,
was only the love of Tragabigzanda, who surely was ignorant of
his bad usage; for although he had often debated the matter with
some Christians, that had beene there a long time slaves, they could
not finde how to make an escape, by any reason or possibility; but
God be- ∥ yond mans expectation or imagination helpeth his servants,
when they least thinke of helpe, as it hapned to him. So long he lived
in this miserable estate, as he became a thresher at a grange in a great
field, more than a league from the Tymors house; the Bashaw as he
oft used to visit his granges, visited him, and tooke occasion so to
beat, spurne, and revile him, that forgetting all reason, he beat out
the Tymors braines with his threshing bat, for they have no flailes;
and seeing his estate could be no worse than it was, clothed himselfe
in his clothes, hid his body under the straw, filled his knapsacke with
corne, shut the doores, mounted his horse, and ranne into the desart
at all adventure; two or three dayes thus fearfully wandring he knew
not whither, and well it was he met not any to aske the way; being
even as taking leave of this miserable world, God did direct him to
the great way or Castragan, as they call it, which doth crosse these
large territories, and generally knowne among them by these markes.
In every crossing of this great way is planted a post, and in it so
many bobs
figure painted on it, that demonstrateth to what part that way
leadeth; as that which pointeth towards the Cryms Country, is
marked with a halfe Moone, if towards the Georgians and Persia, a
blacke man, full of white spots, if towards China, the picture of the
habitation of any other Prince, the figure whereby his standard is
knowne. To his dying spirits thus God added some comfort in this
melancholy journey, wherein if he had met any of that vilde generation,
they had made him their slave, or knowing the figure engraven
in the iron about his necke, (as all slaves have) he had beene sent
backe againe to his master; sixteene dayes he travelled in this feare
and torment, after the Crosse, till he arrived at Æcopolis, upon the
river Don, a garrison of the Muscovites. The governour after due
examination of those his hard events, tooke off his irons, and so
kindly used him, he thought himselfe new risen from death, and the
good Lady Callamata, largely supplied all his wants.
This is as much as he could learne of those wilde Countries, that
the Country of Cambia is two dayes journy from the head of the great
river Bruapo,
of Innagachi, that joyne themselves together in the Poole Kerkas;
which they account for the head, and falleth into the Sea Dissabacca,
called by some the lake Meotis, which receiveth also the river Tanais,
and all the rivers that fall from the great Countries of the Circassi,
the Cartaches, and many from the Tauricaes, Precopes, Cummani,
Cossunka, and the Cryme; through which Sea he sailed, and up the
river Bruapo to Nalbrits, and thence through the desarts of Circassi
to Æcopolis, as is related; where he stayed with the Governour, till
the Convoy went to Coragnaw; then with his certificate how hee
found him, and had examined with his friendly letters sent him by
Zumalacke to Caragnaw, whose Governour in like manner so kindly
use him, that by this meanes he went with a safe conduct to Letch,
and Donka, in Cologoske, and thence to Berniske, and Newgrod in
Littuania; from whence with as much kindnesse he was convoyed in
like manner by Coroski, Duberesko, Duzihell, Drohobus, and
Ostroge in Volonia; Saslaw and Lasco in Podolia; Halico and Collonia
in Polonia; and so to Hermonstat in Transilvania. In all his life
he seldome met with more respect, mirth, content, and entertainment;
and not any Governour where he came, but gave him somewhat
as a present, besides his charges; seeing themselves as subject
to the like calamity. Through those poore continually forraged
Countries there is no passage, but with the Carravans or Convoyes;
for they are Countries rather to be pitied, than envied; and it is a
wonder any should make warres for them. The Villages are onely
here and there a few houses of straight Firre trees, laid heads and
points above one another, made fast by notches at the ends more
than a mans height, and with broad split boards, pinned together
with woodden pinnes, as thatched for coverture. In ten Villages you
shall scarce finde ten iron nailes, except it be in some extraordinary
mans house. For their Townes, Æcopolis, Letch, and Donko, have
rampiers made of that woodden walled fashion, double, and betwixt
them earth and stones, but so latched with crosse timber, they
are very strong against any thing but fire; and about them a deepe
ditch, and a Palizado of young Firre trees: but most of the rest have
only a great ditch cast about them, and the ditches earth is all their
rampier; but round well environed with Palizadoes. Some have
some few small peeces of small Ordnance, and slings, calievers, and
muskets, but their generallest weapons are the Russe bowes and
arrowes; you shall find pavements over bogges, onely of young Firre
trees laid crosse one over another, for two or three houres journey,
or as the passage requires, and yet in two dayes travell you shall scarce
see six habitations. Notwithstanding to see how their Lords, Governours,
Jewells, Sables, and Horses, and after their manner with curious
furniture, it is wonderfull; but they are all Lords or slaves, which
makes them so subject to every invasion.
In Transilvania
he found so many good friends, that but to see,and rejoyce himselfe (after all those encounters) in his native Country,
he would ever hardly have left them, though the mirrour of
vertue their Prince was absent. Being thus glutted with content, and
neere drowned with joy, he passed high Hungaria by Fileck, Tocka,
Cassovia, and Underoroway, by Ulmicht in Moravia, to Prague in
Bohemia; at last he found the most gracious Prince Sigismundus,
with his Colonell at Lipswick in Misenland, who gave him his Passe,
intimating the service he had done, and the honours he had received,
with fifteene hundred ducats of gold to repaire his losses: with this he
spent some time to visit the faire Cities and Countries of Drasdon in
Saxonie, Magdaburgh and Brunswicke; Cassell in Hessen; Wittenberg,
Ullum, and Minikin in Bavaria; Aughsbrough, and her Universities;
Hama, Franckford, Mentz, the Palatinate; Wormes,
Speyre, and Strausborough; passing Nancie in Loraine, and France
by Paris to Orleans, hee went downe the river of Loyer, to Angiers,
and imbarked himselfe at Nantz in Britanny, for Bilbao in Biskay, to
see Burgos, ∥ Valiadolid, the admired monasterie of the Escuriall,
Madrill, Toledo, Cordua, Cuedyriall, Civill, Cheryes, Cales, and
Saint Lucas in Spaine.
Chapter XVIII.
The observations of Captaine Smith; Master Henrie
Archer and others in Barbarie.
BEING thus satisfied with Europe and Asia, understanding of the
warres in Barbarie,
Tanger, thence to Saffee, where growing into acquaintance with a
French man of warre, the Captaine and some twelve more went to
Morocco, to see the ancient monuments of that large renowned
Citie: it was once the principall Citie in Barbarie, situated in a
goodly plaine Countrey, 14. miles from the great Mount Atlas, and
sixtie miles from the Atlanticke Sea; but now little remaining, but
the Kings Palace, which is like a Citie of it selfe, and the Christian
Church, on whose flat square steeple is a great brouch of iron,
whereon is placed the three golden Bals of Affrica: the first is neere
three Ells in circumference, the next above it somewhat lesse, the
uppermost the least over them, as it were an halfe Ball, and over all
a prettie guilded Pyramides. Against those golden Bals hathbeen
shot many a shot, their weight is recorded 700. weight of pure gold,
hollow within, yet no shot did ever hit them, nor could ever any Conspirator
attaine that honor as to get them downe. They report the
Prince of Morocco betrothed himselfe to the Kings Daughter of
Æthiopia, he dying before their marriage, she caused those three
golden Balls to be set up for his Monument, and vowed virginitie all
her life. The Alfantica is also a place of note, because it is invironed
with a great wall, wherein lye the goods of all the Merchants securely
guarded. The Juderea is also (as it were) a Citie of it selfe, where
dwell the Jewes: the rest for the most part is defaced: but by the many
pinnacles and towers, with Balls on their tops, hathmuch appearance
of much sumptuousnesse and curiositie. There have been many
and the houses in most parts lye tumbled one above another; the walls
of Earth are with the great fresh flouds washed to the ground; nor is
there any village in it, but tents for Strangers, Larbes and Moores.
Strange tales they will tell of a great Garden, wherein were all sorts
of Birds, Fishes, Beasts, Fruits and Fountaines, which for beautie, Art
and pleasure, exceeded any place knowne in the world, though now
nothing but dung-hils, Pigeon-houses, shrubs and bushes. There are
yet many excellent fountaines adorned with marble, and many
arches, pillers, towers, ports and Temples; but most only reliques
of lamentable ruines and sad desolation.
When Mully Hamet
reigned in Barbarie, hee had three sonnes,Mully Shecke, Mully Sidan, and Mully Befferres, he a most good and
noble King, that governed well with peace and plentie, till his Empresse,
more cruell ∥ than any beast in Affrica, poysoned him, her
owne daughter, Mully Shecke his eldest sonne borne of a Portugall
Ladie, and his daughter, to bring Mully Sidan to the Crowne now
reigning, which was the cause of all those brawles and warres that
followed betwixt those Brothers, their children, and a Saint that
start up, but he played the Devill.
King Mully Hamet was not blacke, as many suppose, but
Molata,
kinde and friendly, verie rich and pompous in State and Majestie,
though hee sitteth not upon a Throne nor Chaire of Estate, but
crosse legged upon a rich Carpet, as doth the Turke, whose Religion
of Mahomet, with an incredible miserable curiositie they observe.
His Ordinarie Guard is at least 5000 but in progresse he goeth not
with lesse than 20000. horsemen, himselfe as rich in all his Equipage,
as any Prince in Christendome, and yet a Contributor to the Turke.
In all his Kingdome were so few good Artificers, that hee entertained
from England, Gold-smiths, Plummers, Carvers, and Polishers of
stone, and Watch-makers, so much hee delighted in the reformation
of workmanship, hee allowed each of them ten shillings a day standing
fee, linnen, woollen, silkes, and what they would for diet and
apparell, and custome-free to transport, or import what they would;
those, of which there are divers of them living at this present in
London. Amongst the rest, one Master Henry Archer, a Watch-maker,
walking in Morocco, from the Alfantica to the Juderea, the
way being verie foule, met a great Priest, or a Sante (as they call all
great Clergy-men) who would have thrust him into the durt for the
way; but Archer, not knowing what he was, gave him a box on the
eare, presently he was apprehended, and condemned to have his
tongue cut out, and his hand cut off: but no sooner it was knowen at
the Kings Court, but 300. of his Guard came, and broke open the
Prison, and delivered him, although the fact was next degree to
Treason.
Concerning this Archer, there is one thing more worth noting:
Not farre from Mount Atlas, a great Lionesse in the heat of the day,
did use to bathe her selfe, and teach her young Puppies to swimme
in the river Cauzeff,
one after another over the river; which some Moores perceiving
watched their opportunitie, and when the river was betweene her
and them, stole foure of her whelps, which she perceiving, with all
the speed shee could passed the river, and comming neere them they
let fall a whelpe (and fled with the rest) which she tooke in her mouth,
and so returned to the rest: a Male and a Female of those they gave
Master Archer, who kept them in the Kings Garden, till the Male
killed the Female, then he brought it up as a Puppy-dog lying upon
his bed, till it grew so great as a Mastiffe, and no dog more tame or
gentle to them hee knew: but being to returne for England, at Saffee
he gave him to a Merchant of Marsellis, that presented him to the
French King, who sent him to King James, where it was kept in the
Tower seven yeeres: After one Master John Bull, then servant to
Master Archer, with divers of his friends, went to see the Lyons, not
knowing any thing at all of him; yet this rare beast smelled him
before hee ∥ saw him, whining, groaning, and tumbling, with such
an expression of acquaintance, that being informed by the Keepers
how hee came thither; Master Bull so prevailed, the Keeper opened
the grate, and Bull went in: But no Dogge could fawne more on his
Master, than the Lyon on him, licking his feet, hands, and face,
skipping and tumbling to and fro, to the wonder of all the beholders;
being satisfied with his acquaintance, he made shift to get out of the
grate. But when the Lyon saw his friend gone, no beast by bellowing,
roaring, scratching, and howling, could expresse more rage and
sorrow, nor in foure dayes after would he either eat or drinke.
In Morocco, the Kings Lyons are all together in a Court, invironed
with a great high wall; to those they put a young Puppy-dogge:
the greatest Lyon had a sore upon his necke, which this Dogge
so licked that he was healed: the Lyon defended him from the furie
of all the rest, nor durst they eat till the Dogge and he had fed; this
Dog grew great, and lived amongst them many yeeres after.
Fez also is a most large and plentifull Countrey,
the chiefe Citieis called Fez, divided into two parts; old Fez, containing about 80.
thousand housholds, the other 4000. pleasantly situated upon a River
in the heart of Barbarie, part upon hils, part upon plaines, full of
people, and all sorts of Merchandise. The great Temple is called
Carucen, in bredth seventeene Arches, in length 120. borne up with
2500. white marble pillars: under the chiefe Arch, where the Tribunall
is kept, hangeth a most huge lampe, compassed with 110.
lesser, under the other also hang great lamps, and about some are
burning fifteene hundred lights. They say they were all made of the
bels the Arabians brought from Spaine. It haththree gates of notable
height, Priests and Officers so many, that the circuit of the Church,
the Yard, and other houses, is little lesse than a mile and an halfe in
compasse; there are in this Citie 200. Schooles, 200. Innes, 400.
water-mils, 600. water-Conduits, 700. Temples and Oratories; but
fiftie of them most stately and richly furnished. Their Alcazer or
Burse is walled about, it hathtwelve gates, and fifteen walks covered
with tents, to keepe the Sun from the Merchants, and them that
come there. The Kings Palace, both for strength and beautie is excellent,
and the Citizens have many great privileges. Those two
Countreyes of Fez and Morocco, are the best part of all Barbarie,
abounding with people, cattell, and all good necessaries for mans
use. For the rest, as the Larbes, or Mountainers, the Kingdomes of
Cocow, Algier, Tripoly, Tunis, and Ægypt; there are many large
histories of them in divers languages, especially that writ by that
most excellent Statesman, John de Leo, who afterward turned
Christian. The unknowen Countries of Ginny and Binne, this six
only to trade, especially the river of Senaga, by Captaine Brimstead,
Captaine Brockit, Master Crump, and divers others. Also the great
river of Gambra, by Captaine Jobson, who is returned in thither
againe in the yeere 1626. with Master William Grent, and thirteene
or fourteene others, to stay in the Countrey, to discover some way to
those rich mines of Gago or Tumbatu, from whence is supposed the
Moores of ∥ Barbarie have their gold, and the certaintie of those
supposed descriptions and relations of those interiour parts, which
daily the more they are sought into, the more they are corrected. For
surely, those interiour parts of Affrica are little knowen to either
English, French, or Dutch, though they use much the Coast; therefore
wee will make a little bold with the observations of the Portugalls.
Chapter XIX.
The strange discoveries and observations
of the Portugalls in Affrica.
THE Portugalls on those parts have the glorie, who first coasting
along this Westerne shore of Affrica, to finde passage to the East
Indies, within this hundred and fiftie yeeres,
of Gibralter, about the Cape of Bone Esperance to the Persian Gulfe,
and thence all along the Asian Coast to the Moluccas, have subjected
many great Kingdomes, erected many Common-wealths,
built many great and strong Cities; and where is it they have not
beene by trade or force? no not so much as Cape de Verd, and Serraleone;
but most Bayes or Rivers, where there is any trade to bee had,
living so amongst those Blacks, by time and cunning they
seeme to bee naturalized amongst them. As for the Isles of the
Canaries, they have faire Townes, many Villages, and many thousands
of people rich in commodities.
Odoardo Lopez, a noble Portugall, Anno Dom. 1578.
imbarquinghimselfe for Congo to trade, where he found such entertainment,
finding the King much oppressed with enemies, hee found
meanes to bring in the Portugalls to assist him, whereby he planted
there Christian Religion, and spent most of his life to bring those
Countreyes to the Crowne of Portugall, which he describeth in this
manner.
The Kingdome of Congo is about 600. miles diameter any way,
the chiefe Citie called St. Salvadore,
mountaine, 150. miles from the Sea, verie fertile, and inhabited with
more than 100000. persons; where is an excellent prospect over all
the plaine Countreyes about it, well watered, lying (as it were) in the
Center of this Kingdome, over all which the Portugalls now command,
though but an handfull in comparison of Negroes. They have
flesh and fruits verie plentifull of divers sorts.
This Kingdom is divided into five Provinces, viz. Bamba, Sundi,
Pango, Batta and Pembo;
affoord 400000. men of warre. Elephants are bred over all those
Provinces, and of wonderfull greatnesse; though some report they
cannot kneele, nor lye downe, they can doe both, and have their
joynts as other creatures for use: with their fore-feet they will leape
upon trees to pull downe the boughes, and are of that strength, they
will shake a great Cocar tree for ∥ the nuts, and pull downe a good
tree with their tuskes, to get the leaves to eat, as well as sedge and long
grasse, Cocar nuts and berries, etc. which with their trunke they put
in their mouth, and chew it with their smaller teeth; in most of those
Provinces, are many rich mines, but the Negars opposed the Portugalls
for working in them.
The Kingdome of Angola is wonderfull populous, and rich in
mines of silver, copper, and most other mettalls; fruitfull in all manner
of food, and sundry sorts of cattell, but dogges flesh they love
better than any other meat; they use few clothes, and no Armour;
bowes, arrowes, and clubs, are their weapons. But the Portugalls are
well armed against those engines,
well proportioned.
The Anchicos
are a most valiant nation, but most strange to allabout them. Their Armes are Bowes, short and small, wrapped about
with serpents skinnes, of divers colours, but so smooth you would
thinke them all one with the wood, and it makes them very strong;
their strings little twigs, but exceeding tough and flexible; their
arrowes short, which they shoot with an incredible quicknesse. They
have short axes of brasse and copper for swords; wonderfull loyall
and faithfull, and exceeding simple, yet so active, they skip amongst
the rockes like goats. They trade with them of Nubea, and Congo,
for Lamache, which is a small kinde of shell fish, of an excellent azure
colour, male and female, but the female they hold most pure; they
value them at divers prices, because they are of divers sorts, and those
they use for coine, to buy and sell, as we doe gold and silver; nor will
they have any other money in all those Countries, for which they
give Elephants teeth; and slaves for salt, silke, linnen cloth, glasse-beads,
and such like Portugall commodities.
They circumcise themselves, and marke their faces with sundry
slashes from their infancie. They keepe a shambles
if it were beefe, or other victuall; for when they cannot have a good
market for their slaves; or their enemies they take, they kill, and sell
them in this manner; some are so resolute, in shewing how much they
scorne death, they will offer themselves and slaves, to this butchery
to their Prince and friends; and though there be many nations will
eat their enemies, in America and Asia, yet none but those are
knowne to be so mad, as to eat their slaves and friends also.
Religions and idolls
they have as many, as nations and humours;but the devill haththe greatest part of their devotions,
whom all those Blacks doe say is white; for there are no Saints but
Blacks.
But besides those great Kingdomes of Congo, Angola, and
Azichi, in those unfrequented parts are the kingdomes of Lango,
Matania, Buttua, Sofola, Mozambeche, Quivola, the Isle of Saint
Lawrence, Mombaza, Metruda, the Empires of Monomatopa,
Monemugi, and Presbiter John, with whom they have a kinde of
trade, and their rites, customes, climates, temperatures, and commodities
Seas, and huge mountaines of divers ∥ sorts, as some scorched with
heat, some covered with snow; the mountaines of the Sunne, also of
the Moone, some of crystall, some of iron, some of silver, and mountaines
of gold, with the originall of Nilus; likewise sundry sorts of
cattell, fishes, Fowles, strange beasts, and monstrous serpents; for
Affrica was alwayes noted to be a fruitfull mother of such terrible
creatures; who meeting at their watering places, which are but Ponds
in desart places, in regard of the heat of the Country, and their extremities
of nature, make strange copulations, and so ingender those
extraordinary monsters. Of all these you may reade in the history of
this Edward Lopez, translated into English by Abraham Hartwell,
and dedicated to John, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, 1597. But
because the particulars are most concerning the conversion of those
Pagans, by a good poore Priest, that first converted a Noble man, to
convert the King, and the rest of the Nobility; sent for so many
Priests and ornaments into Portugall, to solemnize their baptismes
with such magnificence, which was performed with such strange
curiosities, that those poore Negros adored them as Gods, till the
Priests grew to that wealth, a Bishop was sent to rule over them,
which they would not endure, which endangered to spoile all before
they could bee reconciled. But not to trouble you too long with those
rarities of uncertainties; let us returne againe to Barbary, where the
warres being ended, and Befferres possessed of Morocco, and his
fathers treasure, a new bruit arose amongst them, that Muly Sidan,
was raising an Armie against him, who after tooke his brother Befferres
prisoner; but by reason of the uncertainty, and the perfidious,
treacherous, bloudy murthers rather than warre, amongst those perfidious,
barbarous Moores, Smith returned with Merham, and the
rest to Saffe, and so aboard his Ship, to try some other conclusions
at Sea.
Chapter XX.
A brave Sea fight betwixt two Spanish men of warre,
and Captaine Merham, with Smith.
MERHAM a captaine of a man of war then in the Road,
invitedcaptaine Smith, and two or three more of them aboord with
him, where he spared not any thing he had to expresse his kindnesse,
necessitie constrained them to stay aboord; a fairer Evening could
not bee, yet eremidnight such a storme did arise, they were forced
to let slip Cable, and Anchor, and put to Sea; spooning before the
wind, till they were driven to the Canaries; in the calmes they
accommodated themselves, hoping this strange accident might yet
produce some good event; not long it was before they tooke a small
Barke comming from Teneryf, loaded with Wine; three or foure
more they chased, two they tooke, but found little in them, save a
few passengers, that told them of five Dutch men of warre, about the
Isles, so that they stood for Boyadora, ∥ upon the Affrican shore,
betwixt which and Cape Noa, they descried two saile. Merham intending
to know what they were, hailed them; very civilly they
dansed their topsailes, and desired the man of warre to come aboord
them, and take what he would, for they were but two poore distressed
Biskiners. But Merham the old fox, seeing himselfe in the lions pawes,
sprung his loufe, the other tacked after him, and came close up to
his nether quarter, gave his broad side, and so loufed up to windward;
the Vice-Admirall did the like, and at the next bout, the
Admirall with a noise of Trumpets, and all his Ordnance, murtherers,
and muskets, boorded him on his broad side; the other in like manner
on his ley quarter, that it was so darke, there was little light, but fire
and smoake; long he stayed not, before he fell off, leaving 4. or 5. of
his men sprawling over the grating; after they had battered Merham
about an houre, they boorded him againe as before; and threw foure
kedgers or grapnalls in iron chaines, then shearing off they thought
so to have torne downe the grating; but the Admiralls yard was so
intangled in their shrouds, Merham had time to discharge two crosse
barre shot amongst them, and divers bolts of iron made for that
purpose, against his bow, that made such a breach, he feared they
both should have sunke for company; so that the Spaniard was as
yare in slipping his chained Grapnalls, as Merham was in cutting
the tackling, kept fast their yards in his shrouds; the Vice-admirall
presently cleared himselfe, but spared neither his Ordnance nor
repaired his leake; from twelve at noone, till six at night, they thus
interchanged one volly for another; then the Vice-admirall fell on
starne, staying for the Admirall that came up againe to him, and all
that night stood after Merham, that shaped his course for Mamora,
but such small way they made, the next morning they were not three
leagues off from Cape Noa. The two Spanish men of warre, for so
they were, and well appointed, taking it in scorne as it seemed, with
their chase, broad side, and starne, the one after the other, within
Musket shot, plying their ordnance; and after an houres worke commanded
Merham a maine for the King of Spaine upon faire quarter;
Merham dranke to them, and so discharged his quarter peeces:
which pride the Spaniard to revenge, boorded him againe, and many
of them were got to the top to unsling the maine saile, which the
Master and some others from the round house, caused to their cost
to come tumbling downe; about the round house the Spaniards so
pestered, that they were forced to the great Cabben and blew it up;
the smoake and fire was so vehement, as they thought the Ship on
fire; they in the fore castle were no lesse assaulted, that blew up a
peece of the grating, with a great many of Spaniards more; then they
cleared themselves with all speed, and Merham with as much expedition
to quench the fire with wet clothes and water, which beganne
to grow too fast. The Spaniard still playing upon him with all the
shot they could; the open places presently they covered with old
sailes, and prepared themselves to fight to the last man. The angry
Spaniard seeing the fire quenched, hung out a flagge of truce to have
but a parley; but that desperate ∥ Merham knew there was but one
way with him, and would have none, but the report of his Ordnance,
which hee did know well how to use for his best advantage. Thus they
spent the next after-noone, and halfe that night, when the Spanyards
either lost them, or left them. Seven and twentie men Merham had
slaine, and sixteene wounded, and could finde they had received 140.
great shot. A wounded Spanyard they kept alive confessed, they had
lost 100. men in the Admirall, which they did feare would sinke, ere
she could recover a Port. Thus reaccommodating their sailes, they
sailed for Sancta Cruse, Cape Goa, and Magadore, till they came
againe to Saffee, and then he returned into England.
Chapter XXI.
The continuation of the generall Historie of Virginia;
the Summer Iles; and New England; with their
present estate from 1624. to this present 1629.
CONCERNING these Countreyes, I would be sorrie to trouble you
with repeating one thing twice, as with their Maps, Commodities,
People, Government and Religion yet knowen, the beginning of
those plantations, their numbers and names, with the names of the
Adventurers, the yeerely proceedings of everie Governour both here
and there. As for the misprisions,
of all those rumours, losses and crosses that have happened; I referre
you to the Generall Historie, where you shall finde all this at large;
especially to those pages, where you may read my letter of advice to
the Councell and Company, what of necessitie must be done, or lose
all and leave the Countrey, pag. 70. what commodities I sent home,
pag. 163. my opinion and offer to the Company, to feed and defend
the Colonies, pag. 150. my account to them here of my actions there,
pag. 163. my seven answers to his Majesties Commissioners: seven
questions what hathhindered Virginia, and the remedie, pag. 165.
How those noble Gentlemen spent neere two yeares in perusing all
letters came from thence; and the differences betwixt many factions,
both here and there, with their complaints; especially about the
Sallerie, which should have beene a new office in London, for the
well ordering the sale of Tobacco, that 2500. pounds should yearely
have beene raised out of it, to pay foure or five hundred pounds yearly
to the Governor of that Companie; two or three hundred to his
Deputie; the rest into stipends of thirtie or fiftie pounds yearely for
their Clerks and under Officers which were never there, pag. 153.
but not one hundred pounds for all them in Virginia, nor any thing
for the most part of the Adventurers in England, except the undertakers
for the Lotteries, Setters out of ships, Adventurers of commodities,
also their Factors and many other Officers, there imployed
only by friendship to raise their fortunes out of the labours of the true
industrious planters by the title of their office, who ∥ under the colour
of sinceritie, did pillage and deceive all the rest most cunningly: For
more than 150000. pounds have beene spent out of the common
neere 7000. people that there died, only for want of good order and
government, otherwise long erethis there would have beene more
than 20000. people, where after twentie yeeres spent onely in complement,
and trying new conclusions, was remaining scarce 1500. with
some few cattell.
Then the Company dissolved, but no account of any thing; so
that his Majestie appointed Commissioners to oversee, and give order
for their proceedings. Being thus in a manner left to themselves, since
then within these foure yeeres, you shall see how wonderfully they
have increased beyond expectation; but so exactly as I desired, I
cannot relate unto you: For although I have tired my selfe in seeking
and discoursing with those returned thence, more than would a
voyage to Virginia;
places they have inhabited, and he is a great traveller that hathgone
up and downe the river of James Towne, been at Pamaunke, Smiths
Iles, or Accomack; wherein for the most part they keepe one tune of
their now particular abundance, and their former wants, having
beene there, some sixteene yeeres, some twelve, some six, some neere
twentie, etc. But of their generall estate, or any thing of worth, the
most of them doth know verie little to any purpose.
Now the most I could understand in generall, was from the relation
of Master Nathaniel Cawsey,
returned Anno Dom. 1627. and some others affirme; Sir George
Yerley was Governour, Captaine Francis West, Doctor John Poot,
Captain Roger Smith, Captaine Matthewes, Captaine Tucker,
Master Clabourne, and Master Farrer of the Councell: their habitations
many. The Governour, with two or three of the Councell, are
for most part at James Towne, the rest repaire thither as there is
consider of their publike affaires.
Their numbers then were about 1500. some say rather 2000.
divided into seventeene or eighteene severall Plantations;
greatest part thereof towards the falls, are so inclosed with Pallizadoes
they regard not the salvages; and amongst those Plantations
above James Towne, they have now found meanes to take plentie of
fish, as well with lines, as nets, and where the waters are the largest,
having meanes, they need not want.
Upon this River they seldome see any salvages, but in the
woods, many times their fires: yet some few there are, that upon their
opportunitie have slaine some few stragglers, which have beene revenged
with the death of so many of themselves; but no other attempt
hathbeene made upon them this two or three yeares.
Their Cattle, namely Oxen, Kine, Buls, they imagine to be
about 2000. Goats great store and great increase; the wilde Hogs,
which were infinite, are destroyed and eaten by the salvages: but no
family is so poore, that hathnot tame Swine sufficient; and for
Poultrie, he is a verie ∥ bad husband breedeth not an hundred in a
yeere, and the richer sort doth daily feed on them.
For bread they have plentie, and so good, that those that make
it well, better cannot be: divers have much English corne, especially
Master Abraham Perce,
hundred acres of English wheat, and as much with barley, feeding
daily about the number of sixtie persons at his owne charges.
For drinke, some malt the Indian corne, others barley, of which
they make good Ale, both strong and small, and such plentie thereof,
few of the upper Planters drinke any water: but the better sort are
well furnished with Sacke, Aquavitæ, and good English Beere.
Their servants commonly feed upon Milke Homini,
which isbruized Indian corne pounded, and boiled thicke, and milke for the
sauce; but boiled with milke, the best of all will oft feed on it, and
leave their flesh; with milke, butter and cheese; with fish, Bulls flesh,
for they seldome kill any other, etc. And everie one is so applyed to
his labour about Tobacco and Corne, which doth yeeld them such
profit, they never regard any food from the salvages, nor have they
any trade or conference with them, but upon meere accidents and
defiances: and now the Merchants have left it, there have gone so
many voluntarie ships within this two yeeres, as have furnished them
than ever before.
For Armes, there is scarce any man but he is furnished with a
Peece, a Jacke,
Holy-day, everie Plantation doth exercise their men in Armes, by
which meanes, hunting and fowling, the most part of them are most
excellent markmen.
For Discoveries they have made none, nor any other commoditie
than Tobacco doe they apply themselves unto, though never any
was planted at first. And whereas the Countrey was heretofore held
most intemperate and contagious by many, now they have houses,
lodgings and victuall, and the Sunne hathpower to exhale up
moyst vapours of the earth, where they have cut downe the wood,
which before it could not, being covered with spreading tops of high
trees; they finde it much more healthfull than before; nor for their
numbers, few Countreyes are lesse troubled with death, sicknesse, or
any other disease, nor where overgrowne women become more fruitfull.
Since this, Sir George Yerley died 1628. Captaine West succeeded
him; but about a yeere after returned for England: Now
Doctor Poot
James Towne is yet their chiefe seat, most of the wood destroyed,
little corne there planted, but all converted into pasture and gardens,
wherein doth grow all manner of herbs and roots we have in England
in abundance, and as good grasse as can be. Here most of their Cattle
doe feed, their Owners being most some one way, some another,
about their plantations, and returne againe when they please, or any
shipping comes in to trade. Here in winter they have hay for their
Cattell, but in other places they browze upon wood, and the great
huskes of their corne, with some corne in ∥ them, doth keepe them
well. Master Hutchins saith, they have 2000. Cattle, and about
5000. people; but Master Floud, John Davis, William Emerson, and
divers others, say, about five thousand people, and five thousand
kine, calves, oxen, and bulls; for goats, hogs, and poultry; corne,
fish, deere, and many sorts of other wilde beasts; and fowle in their
season, they have so much more than they spend, they are able to
feed three or foure hundred men more than they have; and doe oft
last yeare was there at least two or three and twenty saile. They have
oft much salt fish from New England, but fresh fish enough, when
they will take it; Peaches in abundance at Kecoughtan; Apples,
Peares, Apricocks, Vines, figges, and other fruits some have planted,
that prospered exceedingly, but their diligence about Tobacco, left
them to be spoiled by the cattell, yet now they beginne to revive;
Mistresse Pearce, an honest industrious woman, hathbeene there
neere twentie yeares, and now returned, saith, shee hatha Garden
at James towne, containing three or foure acres, where in one yeare
shee hathgathered neere an hundred bushels of excellent figges; and
that of her owne provision she can keepe a better house in Virginia,
than here in London for 3. or 400. pounds a yeare, yet went thither
with little or nothing. They have some tame geese, ducks, and
turkies. The masters now do so traine up their servants and youth in
shooting deere, and fowle, that the youths will kill them as well as
their Masters. They have two brew-houses, but they finde the Indian
corne so much better than ours, they beginne to leave sowing it.
Their Cities and Townes are onely scattered houses, they call plantations,
as are our Country Villages, but no Ordnance mounted. The
Forts Captaine Smith left a building, so ruined, there is scarce mention
where they were; no discoveries of any thing more, than the
curing of Tobacco, by which hitherto, being so present a commodity
of gaine, it hathbrought them to this abundance; but that they are
so disjoynted, and every one commander of himselfe, to plant what
he will: they are now so well provided, that they are able to subsist;
and if they would joyne together now to worke upon Sope-ashes,
Iron, Rape-oile, Mader, Pitch and Tarre, Flax and Hempe; as for
their Tobacco, there comes from many places such abundance, and
the charge so great, it is not worth the bringing home.
worth making,
Blacke Walnut
Ash for Pikes,
Oke for planks,
knees for Ships,
Cipresse for
Chests, etc.
There is gone, and now a going,
divers Ships; as CaptainePerse, Captaine Prine, with Sir John Harvy to be their governour,
with two or three hundred people; there is also some from Bristow,
and other parts of the West Country a preparing, which I heartily
Chapter XXII.
The proceedings and present estate of the Summer Iles,
from An. Dom. 1624 to this present 1629.
FROM the Summer Iles, Master Ireland,
and divers others report,their Forts, Ordnance, and proceedings, are much as they were
in the yeare 1622. as you may read in the generall History, page 199.
Captaine Woodhouse governour. There are few sorts of any fruits
in the West Indies, but they grow there in abundance; yet the fertility
of the soile in many places decayeth, being planted every yeare; for
their Plantaines, which is a most delicate fruit, they have lately found
a way, by pickling or drying them, to bring them over into England,
there being no such fruit in Europe, and wonderfull for increase. For
fish, flesh, figs, wine, and all sorts of most excellent hearbs, fruits,
and rootes they have in abundance. In this Governours time, a kinde
of Whale, or rather a Jubarta, was driven on shore in Southampton
tribe from the west, over an infinite number of rocks, so bruised, that
the water in the Bay where she lay, was all oily, and the rocks about
it all bedasht with Parmacitty, congealed like ice, a good quantity
we gathered, with which we commonly cured any byle, hurt, or
bruise; some burnt it in their lamps, which blowing out, the very
snuffe will burne, so long as there is any of the oile remaining, for
two or three dayes together.
The next Governour, was Captaine Philip Bell,
whose timebeing expired, Captaine Roger Wood possessed his place, a worthy
Gentleman of good desert, and hathlived a long time in the Country;
their numbers are about two or three thousand, men, women, and
children, who increase there exceedingly; their greatest complaint,
is want of apparell, and too much custome, and too many officers;
the pity is, there are more men than women, yet no great mischiefe,
because there is so much lesse pride: the cattell they have increase
exceedingly; their forts are well maintained by the Merchants here,
and Planters there; to be briefe, this Ile is an excellent bit, to rule a
great horse.
All the Cohow birds and Egbirds are gone; seldome any wilde
cats seene; no Rats to speake of; but the wormes are yet very troublesome;
the people very healthfull; and the Ravens gone; fish enough,
but not so neere the shore as it used, by the much beating
Ile that hathsuch a rampire and a ditch, and for the quantity so
manned, victualled, and fortified, as few in the world doe exceed it,
or is like it.
The 22. of March, two ships came from thence; the Peter Bonaventure,
neere two hundred tunnes, and sixteene peeces of Ordnance;
the Captaine, Thomas Sherwin; The Master, Master Edward Some,
like him in condition, a goodly, lusty, proper, valiant man: the
Lydia, wherein was Master Anthony Thorne, a smaller ship; were
chased by eleven ships of Dunkerk; being thus overmatched, Captaine
Sherwin was taken by them in Turbay,
was slaine; the ship with about ∥ seventy English men, they carried
betwixt Dover and Callis, to Dunkerk; but the Lydia safely recovered
Dartmouth.
These noble adventurers for all those losses, patiently doe beare
them; but they hope the King and state will understand it is worth
keeping, though it afford nothing but Tobacco, and that now worth
little or nothing, custome and fraught payed, yet it is worth keeping,
and not supplanting; though great men feele not those losses, yet
Gardiners, Carpenters, and Smiths doe pay for it.
From the relation of Robert Chesteven, and others.
Chapter XXIII.
The proceedings and present estate of New England,
since 1624. to this present 1629.
WHEN I went first to the North part of Virginia, where the Westerly
Colony had beene planted, it had dissolved it selfe within
a yeare, and there was not one Christian in all the land. I was set
forth at the sole charge of foure Merchants of London;
being then reputed by your westerlings, a most rockie, barren, desolate
desart; but the good returne I brought from thence, with the
maps and relations I made of the Country, which I made so manifest,
some of them did beleeve me, and they were well embraced, both by
the Londoners, and Westerlings, for whom I had promised to undertake
it, thinking to have joyned them all together, but that might
well have beene a worke for Hercules. betwixt them long there was
much contention; the Londoners indeed went bravely forward; but
in three or foure yeares, I and my friends consumed many hundred
pounds amongst the Plimothians, who only fed me but with delayes,
promises, and excuses, but no performance of any thing to any purpose.
In the interim, many particular ships went thither, and finding
my relations true, and that I had not taken that I brought home
from the French men, as had beene reported; yet further for my
paines to discredit me, and my calling it New England, they obscured
it, and shadowed it, with the title of Cannada, till at my humble
suit, it pleased our most Royall King Charles, whom God long keepe,
blesse, and preserve, then Prince of Wales, to confirme it with my
map and booke, by the title of New England; the gaine thence returning
did make the fame thereof so increase, that thirty, forty, or
fifty saile, went yearly only to trade and fish; but nothing would bee
done for a plantation, till about some hundred, of your Brownists of
England, Amsterdam, and Leyden, went to New Plimouth, whose
humorous ignorances, caused them for more than a yeare, to endure
a wonderfull deale of misery, with an infinite patience; saying my
books and maps were much better cheape to teach them, than my
selfe; many other have used the ∥ like good husbandry, that have
payed soundly in trying their selfe-willed conclusions; but those in
time doing well, divers others have in small handfulls undertaken to
goe there, to be severall Lords and Kings of themselves, but most
vanished to nothing; notwithstanding the fishing ships, made such
good returnes, at last it was ingrossed by twenty Pattenties, that
mony not comming in as they expected, procured a Proclamation,
none should goe thither without their licences to fish; but for every
thirty tunnes of shipping, to pay them five pounds; besides, upon
great penalties, neither to trade with the natives, cut downe wood
for their stages, without giving satisfaction, though all the Country
is nothing but wood, and none to make use of it, with many such
other pretences, for to make this Country plant it selfe, by its owne
wealth: hereupon most men grew so discontented, that few or none
would goe; so that the Pattenties, who never one of them had beene
there, seeing those projects would not prevaile, have since not hindred
any to goe that would, that within these few last yeares, more
have gone thither than ever.
Now this yeare 1629. a great company of people of good ranke,
zeale, meanes, and quality, have made a great stocke, and with six
good ships in the moneths of Aprill and May, they set saile from
Thames, for the Bay of the Massachusetts, otherwise called Charles
River; viz. the George Bonaventure, of twenty peeces of Ordnance, the
Talbot nineteene, the Lions-whelpe eight, the May-flower fourteene, the
Foure Sisters, foureteene, the Pilgrim foure, with three hundred and
fifty men, women, and children; also an hundred and fifteene head
of Cattell, as horse, mares, and neat beast; one and forty goats, some
Conies, with all provision for houshold, and apparell; six peeces of
great Ordnance for a Fort, with Muskets, Pikes, Corselets, Drums,
Colours, with all provisions necessary for a plantation, for the good
of man; other particulars I understand of no more, than is writ in
the generall historie of those Countries.
But you are to understand, that the noble Lord chiefe Justice
Popham, Judge Doderege;
Southampton, Salesbury, and the rest, as I take it, they did
all thinke, as I and them went with me, did; That had those two
Countries beene planted, as it was intended, that no other nation
should fall foule, those Countries being so capable of all materialls
for shipping, by this might have beene owners of a good Fleet of
ships, and to have releeved a whole Navy from England upon occasion;
yea, and to have furnished England with the most Easterly
commodities; and now since, seeing how conveniently the Summer
Iles fell to our shares, so neere the West Indies, wee might with much
more facility than the Dutchmen have invaded the West Indies, that
doth now put in practice, what so long hathbeene advised on, by
many an honest English States-man.
Those Countries Captaine Smith oft times used to call his children
that never had mother; and well he might, for few fathers everpayed dearer for so little content; and for those that would truly
understand, how ∥ many strange accidents hathbefallen them and
him; how oft up, how oft downe, sometimes neere desperate, and ere
long flourishing, cannot but conceive Gods infinite mercies and
favours towards them. Had his designes beene to have perswaded
men to a mine of gold, though few doth conceive either the charge
or paines in refining it, nor the power nor care to defend it; or some
new Invention to passe to the South Sea; or some strange plot to
invade some strange Monastery: or some portable Countrie; or
some chargeable Fleet to take some rich Caracks in the East Indies;
or Letters of Mark to rob some poore Merchants; what multitudes
of both people and mony, would contend to be first imployed: but
in those noble endevours (now) how few of quality, unlesse it be to
beg some Monopolie; and those seldome seeke the common good,
but the commons goods; as you may reade at large in his generall
history, page 217, 218, 219. his generall observations and reasons for
this plantation; for yet those Countries are not so forward but they
may become as miserable as ever, if better courses be not taken than
is; as this Smith will plainly demonstrate to his Majesty; or any other
noble person of ability, liable generously to undertake it; how within
a short time to make Virginia able to resist any enemy, that as yet
lieth open to all; and yeeld the King more custome within these few
yeares, in certaine staple commodities, than ever it did in Tobacco;
which now not being worth bringing home, the custome will bee as
uncertaine to the King, as dangerous to the plantations.
Chapter XXIIII.
A briefe discourse of divers voyages made unto the
goodly Countrey of Guiana, and the great River of the
Amazons; relating also the present Plantation there.
IT is not unknowen how that most industrious and honourable
Knight Sir Walter Rauleigh,
the Ile of Trinidado, fell with the Coast of Guiana Northward of the
Line ten degrees, and coasted the Coast; and searched up the River
Oranoca: where understanding that twentie severall voyages had
beene made by the Spanyards, in discovering this Coast and River;
to finde a passage to the great Citie of Mano, called by them the
Eldorado, or the Golden Citie: he did his utmost to have found some
better satisfaction than relations: But meanes failing him, hee left
his trustie servant Francis Sparrow to seeke it, who wandring up and
downe those Countreyes, some foureteene or fifteene yeares, unexpectedly
returned: I have heard him say, he was led blinded into
this Citie by Indians; but little discourse of any purpose touching
the largenesse of the report of it; his body seeming as a man of an
uncurable consumption, shortly dyed here after in England. There
are above thirtie faire rivers that fall into the Sea, betweene the River
of Amazons and Oranoca, which are some nine degrees asunder.
In the yeare 1605. Captaine Ley,
brother to that noble KnightSir Oliver Ley, with divers others, planted himselfe in the River
Weapoco, wherein I should have beene a partie; but hee dyed, and
there lyes buried, and the supply miscarrying, the rest escaped as
they could.
Sir Thomas Roe,
well knowen to be a most noble Gentleman,before he went Lord Ambassadour to the Great Mogoll, or the Great
Turke, spent a yeare or two upon this Coast, and about the River of
the Amazones, wherein he most imployed Captaine Matthew
Morton, an expert Sea-man in the discoverie of this famous River,
to death, with me in Virginia, yet since hathbeene twice with command
in the East Indies; Also Captaine William White, and divers
others worthy and industrious Gentlemen, both before and since,
hathspent much time and charge to discover it more perfitly, but
nothing more effected for a Plantation, till it was undertaken by
Captaine Robert Harcote, 1609.
This worthy Gentleman,
after he had by Commission made adiscoverie to his minde, left his brother Michael Harcote, with some
fiftie or sixtie men in the River Weapoco, and so presently returned
to England, where he obtained by the favour of Prince Henrie, a
large Patent for all that Coast called Guiana, together with the
famous River of Amazones, to him and his heires: but so many
troubles here surprized him, though he did his best to supply them,
he was not able, only some few hee sent over as passengers with certaine
Dutch-men, but to small purpose. Thus this businesse lay dead
for divers yeeres, till Sir Walter Rauleigh, accompanied with many
valiant Souldiers and brave Gentlemen, went his last voyage to
Guiana, amongst the which was Captaine Roger North, brother to
the Right Honourable the Lord Dudley North, who upon this voyage
having stayed and seene divers Rivers upon this Coast, tooke such a
liking to those Countreyes, having had before this voyage more perfect
and particular information of the excellencie of the great River
of the Amazones, above any of the rest, by certaine Englishmen returned
so rich from thence in good commodities, they would not goe
with Sir Walter Rauleigh in search of gold; that after his returne for
England, he endevoured by his best abilities to interest his Countrey
and state in those faire Regions, which by the way of Letters Patents
unto divers Noblemen and Gentlemen of qualitie, erected into a
company and perpetuitie for trade and plantation, not knowing of
the Interest of Captaine Harcote.
Whereupon accompanied with 120. Gentlemen and others, with
a ship, a pinnace and two shallops, to remaine in the Countrey, hee
weekes after hee arrived well in the Amazones, only with the losse
of one old man: some hundred leagues they ran up the River to settle
his men, where the sight of the Countrey and people so contented
them, that never men thought themselves more happie: Some English
and Irish that had lived there some eight yeeres, only supplyed by
the Dutch, hee reduced to his company and to leave the Dutch:
having made a good voyage, to the value of more than the charge,
he returned to England with divers good ∥ commodities besides Tobacco:
So that it may well be conceived, that if this action had not
beene thus crossed, the Generalitie of England had by this time beene
wonne and encouraged therein. But the time was not yet come, that
God would have this great businesse effected, by reason of the great
power the Lord Gundamore, Ambassadour for the King of Spaine,
had in England, to crosse and ruine those proceedings, and so unfortunate
Captaine North was in this businesse, hee was twice committed
prisoner to the Tower, and the goods detained, till they were
spoiled, who beyond all others was by much the greatest Adventurer
and Loser.
Notwithstanding all this, those that he had left in the Amazons
would not abandon the Countrey. Captaine Thomas Painton, a
worthy Gentleman, his Lieutenant dead. Captaine Charles Parker,
brother to the Right Honourable the Lord Morley, lived there six
yeares after;
not returne, although they might, with divers other Gentle-men of
qualitie and others: all thus destitute of any supplyes from England.
But all authoritie being dissolved, want of government did more
wrong their proceedings, than all other crosses whatsoever. Some
releefe they had sometime from the Dutch, who knowing their estates,
gave what they pleased and tooke what they list. Two brothers
Gentlemen, Thomas and William Hixon, who stayed three yeares
there, are now gone to stay in the Amazons, in the ships lately sent
thither.
The businesse thus remaining in this sort, three private men left
of that Company, named Master Thomas Warriner,
England, and to be free from the disorders that did grow in the
Amazons for want of Government amongst their Countrey-men, and
to be quiet amongst themselves, made meanes to set themselves out
for St. Christophers; their whole number being but fifteene persons,
that payed for their passage in a ship going for Virginia, where they
remained a yeare before they were supplyed, and then that was but
foure or five men. Thus this Ile, by this small beginning, having no
interruption by their owne Countrey, hathnow got the start of the
Continent and maine Land of Guiana, which hathbeene layd apart
and let alone untill that Captaine North, ever watching his best
opportunitie and advantage of time in the state, hathnow againe
pursued and set on foot his former designe. Captaine Harcote being
now willing to surrender his grant, and to joyne with Captaine North,
in passing a new Patent, and to erect a company for trade and plantation
in the Amazons, and all the Coast and Countrey of Guiana
for ever. Whereupon, they have sent this present yeare in Januarie,
and since 1628. foure ships with neere two hundred persons; the first
ship with 112. men, not one miscarried; the rest went since, not yet
heard of, and are preparing another with their best expedition: and
since Januarie is gone from Holland, 100. English and Irish, conducted
by the old Planters.
This great River
lieth under the Line, the two chiefe head landsNorth and South, are about three degrees asunder, the mouth of it
is ∥ so full of many great and small Iles, it is an easie matter for an
unexperienced Pilot to lose his way. It is held one of the greatest
rivers in America, and as most men thinke, in the world: and commeth
downe with such a fresh, it maketh the Sea fresh more than
thirtie miles from the shore. Captaine North having seated his men
about an hundred leagues in the Maine, sent Captaine William
White, with thirtie Gentlemen and others, in a pinnace of thirtie tun,
to discover further, which they did some two hundred leagues, where
they found the River to divide it selfe in two parts, till then all full
of Ilands, and a Countrey most healthfull, pleasant and fruitfull; for
they found food enough, and all returned safe and in good health: In
this discoverie they saw many Townes well inhabited, some with
three hundred people, some with five, six, or seven hundred; and of
some they understood to be of so many thousands, most differing
verie much, especially in their languages: whereof they suppose by
those Indians, they understand are many hundreds more, unfrequented
men, women and children, but they saw not any such giant-like
women as the Rivers name importeth. But for those where Captaine
North hathseated his company, it is not knowen where Indians were
ever so kinde to any Nation, not sparing any paines, danger or
labour, to feed and maintaine them. The English following their
buildings, fortifications and sugar-workes; for which they have sent
most expert men, and with them all things necessarie for that purpose;
to effect which, they want not the helpe of those kinde Indians
to produce; and many other good commodities, which (God willing)
will erelong make plaine and apparent to this Kingdome, and all
the Adventurers and Well-willers to this Plantation, to bee well
worthy the cherishing and following with all alacritie.
Chapter XXV.
The beginning and proceedings of the new plantation
of St. Christopher by Captaine Warner.
MASTER Ralfe Merifield
and others, having furnished thisworthy industrious Gentleman, hee arrived at St. Christophers,
as is said, with fifteene men, the 28. of Januarie, 1623. viz. William
Tested, John Rhodes, Robert Bims, Master Benifield, Sergeant
Jones, Master Ware, William Royle, Rowland Grascocke, Master
Bond, Master Langley, Master Weaver, Edward Warner their Captaines
sonne, and now Deputy-Governour till his fathers returne,
Sergeant Aplon, one Sailor and a Cooke: At their arrivall they found
three French-men, who sought to oppose Captaine Warner, and to
set the Indians upon us; but at last we all became friends, and lived
with the Indians a moneth, then we built a Fort, and a house, and
planting fruits, by September we made a crop of Tobacco; but upon
the nineteenth of September came a Hericano and blew it away, all
this while wee lived upon Cassada bread, Potatoes, Plantines, Pines,
∥ Turtels, Guanes, and fish plentie; for drinke wee had Nicnobbie.
The 18. of March 1624. arrived Captaine Jefferson with three
men passengers in the Hope-well of London, with some trade for the
Indians, and then we had another crop of Tobacco, in the meane
time the French had planted themselves in the other end of the Ile;
with this crop Captaine Warner returned for England in September,
1625.
In his absence came in a French pinnace, under the command
of Monsieur de Nombe,
French-men in other of the Charybes Iles, and that there were six
Peryagoes, which are huge great trees formed as your Canowes, but
so laid out on the sides with boords, they will seeme like a little Gally:
six of those, with about foure or five hundred strange Indians came
unto us, we bade them be gone, but they would not; whereupon we
and the French joyned together, and upon the fifth of November set
upon them, and put them to flight: upon New-yeares Even they
came againe, found three English going about the Ile, whom they
slue.
Until the fourth of August, we stood upon our guard, living
upon the spoile and did nothing. But now Captaine Warner arriving
againe with neere an hundred people, then we fell to worke and
planting as before; but upon the fourth of September, came such a
Hericano, as blew downe all our houses, Tobacco, and two Drums
into the aire we know not whither, drove two ships on shore that
were both split; all our provision thus lost, we were very miserable,
living onely on what we could get in the wilde woods, we made a
small party of French and English to goe aboord for provision, but in
their returning home, eight French men were slaine in the harbour.
Thus were continued till neere June that the Tortels
came in,1627. but the French being like to starve, sought to surprize us, and
all the Cassado, Potatos, and Tobacco we had planted, but we did
prevent them. The 26. of October, came in Captaine William Smith,
in the Hope-well, with some Ordnance, shot and powder, from the
Earle of Carlile; with Captaine Pelham and thirty men, about that
time also came the Plow; also a small ship of Bristow, with Captaine
Warners wife, and six or seven women more.
Upon the 25. of November, the Indians set upon the French, for
some injury about their women, and slew six and twentie French
arrowes; their bowes are never bent, but the string lies flat to the
bow; their arrowes a small reed, foure or five foot long, headed some
with the poysoned sting of the taile of a Stingray, some with iron,
some with wood, but all so poysoned, that if they draw but bloud, the
hurt is incurable.
The next day came in Captaine Charles Saltonstall, a young
Gentleman, son of Sir Samuell Saltonstall,
good store of all commodities to releeve the plantation; but by reason
some Hollanders, and others, had bin there lately before him, who
carried away with them all the Tobacco, he was forced to put away
all his commodities upon trust till the next crop; in the meane time
hee resolved there to stay, and imploy himselfe and his company in
planting Tobacco, hoping ∥ thereby to make a voyage, but before he
could be ready to returne for England, a Hericano hapning, his ship
was split, to his great losse, being sole Merchant and owner himselfe,
notwithstanding forced to pay to the Governour, the fift part of his
Tobacco, and for fraught to England, three pence a pound, and nine
pence a pound custome, which amounts together to more than threescore
pound in the hundred pound, to the great discouragement of
him and many others, that intended well to those plantations. Neverthelesse
he is gone againe this present yeare 1629. with a ship of about
three hundred tunnes, and very neere two hundred people, with Sir
William Tuffton, Governour for the Barbados, and divers gentlemen,
and all manner of commodities fit for a plantation.
Captaine Prinne, Captaine Stone,
and divers others, came inabout Christmas; so that this last yeare there hathbeene about thirtie
saile of English, French, and Dutch ships, and all the Indians forced
out of the Ile, for they had done much mischiefe amongst the French,
in cutting their throats, burning their houses, and spoyling their
Tobacco; amongst the rest Tegramund, a little childe the Kings
sonne, his parents being slaine, or fled, was by great chance saved,
and carefully brought to England by Master Merifield, who brought
him from thence, and bringeth him up as his owne children.
It
lyeth seventeene degrees Northward of the line, about anmaine land in America, it is about eight leagues in length, and foure
in bredth; an Iland amongst 100. Iles in the West Indies, called the
Caribes, where ordinarily all them that frequent the West Indies,
refresh themselves; those most of them are rocky, little, and mountainous,
yet frequented with the Canibals; many of them inhabited,
as Saint Domingo, Saint Mattalin, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent,
Granada, and Margarita, to the Southward; Northward, none but
Saint Christophers, and it but lately, yet they will be ranging Marigalanta,
Guardalupo, Deceado, Monserat, Antigua, Mevis, Bernardo,
Saint Martin, and Saint Bartholomew, but the worst of the
foure Iles possessed by the Spanyard, as Portorico or Jamica, is better
than them all; as for Hispaniola, and Cuba, they are worthy the
title of two rich Kingdomes, the rest not respected by the Spanyards,
for want of harbors, and their better choice of good land, and profit
in the maine. But Captaine Warner, having beene very familiar
with Captaine Painton, in the Amazon, hearing his information of
this St. Christophers; and having made a yeares tryall, as it is said,
returned for England, joyning with Master Merifield, and his friends,
got Letters Pattents, from King James, to plant and possesse it. Since
then, the Right Honourable the Earle of Carlile, hathgot Letters
Pattents also, not only of that, but all the Caribes Iles about it, who
is now chiefe Lord of them, and the English his tenants, that doe
possesse them; over whom he appointeth such Governours and
Officers, as their affaires require; and although there be a great
custome imposed upon them, considering their other charges, both
to feed and maintaine themselves; yet there is there, and now a
going, neere upon the number of three thousand people; where by
reason of the rockinesse and thicknesse of the woods in the Ile, it is
∥ difficult to passe, and such a snuffe of the Sea goeth on the shore,
ten may better defend, than fifty assault. In this Ile are many springs,
but yet water is scarce againe in many places; the valleyes and sides
of the hills very fertile, but the mountaines harsh, and of a sulphurous
composition; all overgrowne with Palmetas, Cotten trees, Lignum
vitæ, and divers other sorts, but none like any in Christendome,
except those carried thither; the aire very pleasant and healthfull,
but exceeding hot, yet so tempered with coole breaths, it seemes very
temperate to them, that are a little used to it; the trees being alwaies
alwayes Summer; only they have in their seasons great gusts and
raines, and somtimes a Hericano, which is an overgrowne, and a
most violent storme.
In some of those Iles, are cattell, goats, and hogges, but here
none but what they must carry; Gwanes they have, which is a little
harmelesse beast, like a Crokadell, or Aligator, very fat and good
meat, she layes egges in the sand, as doth the land Crabs, which live
here in abundance, like Conies in Boroughs, unlesse about May,
when they come downe to the Sea side, to lay in the sand, as the
other; and all their egges are hatched by the heat of the Sunne.
From May to September they have good store of Tortasses,
thatcome out of the Sea to lay their egges in the sand, and are hatched as
the other; they will lay halfe a pecke at a time, and neere a bushell
erethey have done; and are round like Tenis-balls: this fish is like
veale in taste, the fat of a brownish colour, very good and wholsome.
We seeke them in the nights, where we finde them on shore, we turne
them upon their backs, till the next day we fetch them home, for they
can never returne themselves, being so hard a cart may goe over
them; and so bigge, one will suffice forty or fifty men to dinner.
Divers sorts of other fish they have in abundance, and Prawnes most
great and excellent, but none will keepe sweet scarce twelve houres.
The best and greatest is a Passer Flaminga,
which walking ather length is as tall as a man; Pigeons, and Turtle Doves in abundance;
some Parrots, wilde Hawkes, but divers other sorts of good
Sea fowle, whose names we know not.
Cassado
is a root planted in the ground, of a wonderfull increase,and will make very good white bread, but the Juyce ranke
poyson, yet boyled, better than wine; Potatos, Cabbages and Radish
plenty.
Mayes,
like the Virginia wheat; we have Pine-apples, neereso bigge as an Hartichocke, but the most daintiest taste of any fruit;
Plantains, an excellent, and a most increasing fruit; Apples, Prickell
Peares, and Pease, but differing all from ours. There is Pepper that
groweth in a little red huske, as bigge as a Walnut, about foure inches
in length, but the long cods are small, and much stronger, and better
for use, than that from the East Indies. There is two sorts of Cotten,
the silke Cotten as in the East Indies, groweth upon a small stalke,
as good for beds as downe; the other upon a shrub, and beareth a cod
bigger than a Walnut, full of Cotten wooll: Anotto also groweth upon
Anotto, very ∥ good for Dyers, though wilde; Sugar Canes, not tame,
4. or 5. foot high; also Masticke, and Locus trees; great and hard
timber, Gourds, Muske Melons, Water Melons, Lettice, Parsly; all
places naturally beare purslaine of it selfe; Sope-berries like a Musket
bullet, that washeth as white as Sope; in the middle of the root is a
thing like a sedge, a very good fruit, we call Pengromes; a Pappaw
is as great as an apple, coloured like an Orange, and good to eat; a
small hard nut, like a hazell nut, growes close to the ground, and like
this growes on the Palmetas, which we call a Mucca nut; Mustard-seed
will grow to a great tree, but beares no seed, yet the leaves will
make good mustard; the Mancinell tree the fruit is poyson; good
figs in abundance; but the Palmeta serveth to build Forts and houses,
the leaves to cover them, and many other uses; the juyce we draw
from them, till we sucke them to death, (is held restorative) and the
top for meat doth serve us as Cabbage; but oft we want poudered
Beefe, and Bacon, and many other needfull necessaries.
Chapter XXVI.
The first planting of the Barbados.
THE Barbados lies South-west and by South, an hundred leagues
from Saint Christophers,
from Trinidado, and some fourescore leagues from Cape de Salinos,
the next part of the maine. The first planters brought thither by Captaine
Henry Powel, were forty English, with seven or eight Negros;
then he went to Disacuba in the maine, where he got thirty Indians,
men, women, and children, of the Arawacos, enemies both to the
Caribes, and the Spaniards. The Ile is most like a triangle, each side
forty or fifty miles square, some exceeding great rocks, but the most
part exceeding good ground; abounding with an infinite number of
ponds wherein is Ducke and Mallard; excellent clay for pots, wood
and stone for building, and a spring neere the middest of the Ile of
Bitume, which is a liquid mixture like Tarre, that by the great raines
falls from the tops of the mountaines, it floats upon the water in such
abundance, that drying up, it remaines like great rocks of pitch, and
as good as pitch for any use.
The Mancinell apple, is of a most pleasant sweet smell, of the
bignesse of a Crab,
wit to shun it; great store of exceeding great Locus trees, two or three
fadome about, of a great height, that beareth a cod full of meale, will
make bread in time of necessity. A tree like a Pine, beareth a fruit so
great as a Muske Melon, which hathalwayes ripe fruit, flowers, or
greene fruit, which will refresh two or three men, and very comfortable;
Plumb trees ∥ many, the fruit great and yellow, which but
strained into water in foure and twenty houres will be very good
drinke; wilde figge trees there are many; all those fruits doe fat the
hogges, yet at some times of the yeare they are so leane, as carrion;
Gwane trees beare a fruit so bigge as a Peare, good and wholsome;
Palmetaes of three severall sorts; Papawes, Prickle Peares good to
eat or make drinke; Cedar trees very tall and great; Fusticke trees
are very great and the wood yellow, good for dying; sope berries, the
kernell so bigge as a sloe, and good to eat; Pumpeons in abundance;
Goards so great as will make good great bottles, and cut in two peeces
good dishes and platters; many small brooks of very good water;
Ginni wheat, Cassado, Pines and Plantaines; all things we there
plant doe grow exceedingly, so well as Tobacco; the corne, pease,
and beanes, cut but away the stalke, young sprigs will grow, and so
beare fruit for many yeares together, without any more planting; the
Ile is overgrowne with wod or great reeds, those wods which are soft
are exceeding light and full of pitch, and those that are hard, are so
hard and great, they are as hard to cut as stone.
Master John Powell
came thither the fourth of August 1627.with forty five men, where we stayed three weeks, and then returning,
left behind us about an hundred people, and his sonne John Powell
for his Deputy, as Governour; but there have beene so many factions
amongst them, I cannot from so many variable relations give you
any certainty for their orderly Government: for all those plenties,
landing, and long stay without supplies; therefore those that goe
thither, it were good they carry good provision with them; but the
Ile is most healthfull, and all things planted doe increase abundantly:
and by this time there is, and now a going, about the number of
fifteene or sixteene hundred people.
Sir William Curtine, and Captaine John Powell, were the first
and chiefe adventurers to the planting this fortunate Ile;
beene oft frequented by men of Warre to refresh themselves, and set
up their shallops; being so farre remote from the rest of the Iles, they
never were troubled with any of the Indies. Harbours they have
none, but exceeding good Rodes, which with a small charge might
bee very well fortified; it doth ebbe and flow foure or five foot, and
they cannot perceive there hathever beene any Hericano in that Ile.
From the relations of Captaine John White,
and Captaine Wolverstone.
Chapter XXVII.
The first plantation of the Ile of Mevis.
BECAUSE I have ranged and lived amongst those Ilands, what my
authours cannot tell me, I thinke it no great errour in helping
them to tell it my selfe. In this little Ile of Mevis, more than twenty
∥ yeares agoe, I have remained a good time together, to wod, and
water and refresh my men; it is all woddy, but by the Sea side Southward
there are sands like downes, where a thousand men may
quarter themselves conveniently; but in most places the wod groweth
close to the water side, at a high water marke, and in some places so
thicke of a soft spungy wood like a wilde figge tree, you cannot get
through it, but by making your way with hatchets, or fauchions:
whether it was the dew of those trees, or of some others, I am not
certaine, but many of our men became so tormented with a burning
swelling all over their bodies, they seemed like scalded men, and
neere mad with paine;
themselves, they found much ease; and finding it fed with a pleasant
a mile within the land, distilling from a many of rocks, by which they
were well cured in two or three dayes. Such factions here we had, as
commonly attend such voyages, that a paire of gallowes was made,
but Captaine Smith, for whom they were intended, could not be
perswaded to use them; but not any one of the inventers, but their
lives by justice fell into his power, to determine of at his pleasure,
whom with much mercy he favoured, that most basely and unjustly
would have betrayed him.
.
The last yeare, 1628. Master Littleton,
with some others got aPattent of the Earle of Carlile, to plant the Ile called the Barbados,
thirty leagues Northward of Saint Christophers; which by report of
their informers, and undertakers, for the excellencie and pleasantnesse
thereof, they called Dulcina, but when they came there, they
found it such a barren rocke, they left it; although they were told as
much before, they would not beleeve it, perswading themselves,
those contradicters would get it for themselves, was thus by their
cunning opinion, the deceiver of themselves; for seeing it lie conveniently
for their purpose in a map, they had not patience to know
the goodnesse or badnesse, the inconvenience nor probabilities of the
quality, nor quantity; which errour doth predominate in most of our
homebred adventurers, that will have all things as they conceit and
would have it; and the more they are contradicted, the more hot
they are; but you may see by many examples in the generall history,
how difficult a matter it is, to gather the truth from amongst so many
forren and severall relations, except you have exceeding good experience
both of the Countries, people, and their conditions; and
those ignorant undertakings, have beene the greatest hinderance of
all those plantations.
At last because they would be absolute, they came to Mevis, a
little Ile by Saint Christophers; where they seated themselves, well
furnished with all necessaries, being about the number of an hundred,
and since increased to an hundred and fifty persons, whereof many
were old planters of Saint Christophers, especially Master Anthony
Hinton,
let this discourse serve for the description of them all. Thus much
concerning those plantations, which now after all this time, losse, and
charge, should they be abandoned, suppressed, and dissolved, were
most lamentable; and surely seeing they all strive so much about this
Tobacco, and that the fraught thereof, and other charges are so
great, and so open to any enemie, by that commodity they cannot
long subsist.
And it is a wonder to me to see such miracles of mischiefes in
men; how ∥ greedily they pursue to dispossesse the planters of the
Name of Christ Jesus, yet say they are Christians, when so much of
the world is unpossessed; yea, and better land than they so much
strive for, murthering so many Christians, burning and spoiling so
many cities, villages, and Countries, and subverting so many kingdomes,
when so much lieth vast,
Savages, that more serve the Devill for feare, than God for love;
whose ignorance we pretend to reforme, but covetousnesse, humours,
ambition, faction, and pride, hathso many instruments, we performe
very little to any purpose; nor is there either honour or profit to be
got by any that are so vile, to undertake the subversion, or hinderance
of any honest intended christian plantation.
Now to conclude the travels and adventures of Captaine Smith;
how first he planted Virginia, and was set ashore with about an
hundred men in the wilde woods; how he was taken prisoner by the
Savages, by the King of Pamaunke tied to a tree to be shot to death,
led up and downe their Country to be shewed for a wonder; fatted
as he thought, for a sacrifice for their Idoll, before whom they conjured
him three dayes, with strange dances and invocations, then
brought him before their Emperor Powhatan, that commanded him
to be slaine; how his daughter Pocahontas saved his life, returned
him to James towne, releeved him and his famished company, which
was but eight and thirty to possesse those large dominions; how he
discovered all the severall nations, upon the rivers falling into the
Bay of Chisapeacke; stung neere to death with a most poysoned taile
of a fish called Stingray: how Powhatan out of his Country tooke
the kings of Pamaunke and Paspahegh prisoners, forced thirty nine
of those kings to pay him contribution, subjected all the Savages:
how Smith was blowne up with gunpowder, and returned for
England to be cured.
Also how hee brought our new England to the subjection of the
amongst a many French men of Warre, and his ship ran from him;
his Sea-fights for the French against the Spaniards; their bad usage
of him; how in France in a little boat he escaped them; was adrift all
such a stormy night at Sea by himselfe, when thirteene French Ships
were split, or driven on shore by the Ile of Ree, the generall and
most of his men drowned, when God to whom be all honour and
praise, brought him safe on shore to all their admirations that
escaped; you may read at large in his generall history of Virginia,
the Summer Iles, and New England.
Chapter XXVIII.
The bad life, qualities and conditions of Pyrats;
and how they taught the Turks
and Moores to become men of warre.
AS in all lands where there are many people, there are some
theeves, so in all Seas much frequented, there are some pyrats;
the most ancient within the memory of threescore yeares was one
Callis,
Clinton and Pursser his companions, who grew famous, till Queene
Elizabeth of blessed memory, hanged ∥ them at Wapping; Flemming
was as expert and as much sought for as they, yet such a friend
to his Country, that discovering the Spanish Armado, he voluntarily
came to Plimouth, yeelded himselfe freely to my Lord Admirall, and
gave him notice of the Spaniards comming; which good warning
came so happily and unexpectedly, that he had his pardon, and a
good reward; some few Pirats there then remained; notwithstanding
it is incredible how many great and rich prizes the little barques of
the West Country daily brought home, in regard of their small
charge; for there are so many difficulties in a great Navy, by wind
and weather, victuall, sicknesse, losing and finding one another, they
of the Coast and narrow Seas, a great Navy is most necessary, but
not to attempt any farre voyage, except there be such a competent
stocke, they want not wherewith to furnish and supply all things with
expedition; but to the purpose.
After the death of our most gracious Queene Elizabeth, of
blessed memory, our Royall King James, who from his infancy had
reigned in peace with all Nations; had no imployment for those men
of warre, so that those that were rich rested with that they had; those
that were poore and had nothing but from hand to mouth, turned
Pirats; some, because they became sleighted of those for whom they
had got much wealth; some, for that they could not get their due;
some, that had lived bravely, would not abase themselves to poverty;
some vainly, only to get a name; others for revenge, covetousnesse,
or as ill; and as they found themselves more and more oppressed,
their passions increasing with discontent, made them turne Pirats.
Now because they grew hatefull to all Christian Princes, they
retired to Barbary, where although there be not many good Harbours,
but Tunis, Argier, Sally,
many convenient Rodes, or the open Sea, which is their chiefe Lordship:
For their best harbours Massalqueber, the townes of Oran,
Mellila, Tanger, and Cuta, within the Streights, are possessed by
the Spaniards; without the Streights they have also Arzella, and
Mazagan; Mamora likewise they have lately taken, and fortified.
Ward a poore English sailer, and Dansker a Dutchman, made first
here their Marts, when the Moores knew scarce how to saile a ship;
Bishop was Ancient, and did little hurt; but Easton got so much,
as made himselfe a Marquesse in Savoy; and Ward lived like a
Bashaw in Barbary; those were the first that taught the Moores to
be men of warre. Gennings, Harris, Tompson, and divers others,
were taken in Ireland, a Coast they much frequented, and died at
Wapping. Hewes, Bough, Smith, Walsingam, Ellis, Collins, Sawkwell,
were Captaines amongst the Pirats, whom King James mercifully
pardoned; and was it not strange, a few of these should command the
Seas. Notwithstanding the Malteses, the Pope, Florentines, Genoeses,
French, Dutch, and English, Gallies, and Men of Warre, they would
rob before their faces, and even at their owne Ports, yet seldome
more than three, foure, five or six in a Fleet: many times they had
very good ships, and well manned, but commonly in such factions
amongst themselves, and so riotous, quarrellous, treacherous, blasphemous,
and villanous, it is more than a wonder they could so long
continue, to doe so much mischiefe; and all they got, they basely
consumed it amongst Jewes, Turks, Moores, and whores.
The best was, they would seldome goe to Sea, so long as they
could ∥ possibly live on shore, being compiled
Dutch, and Moores, (but very few Spanyards, or Italians) commonly
running one from another, till they became so disjoynted, disordered,
debawched, and miserable, that the Turks and Moores
beganne to command them as slaves, and force them to instruct them
in their best skill, which many an accursed runnagado, or Christian
turned Turke did, till they have made those Sally men, or Moores of
Barbary so powerfull as they be, to the terror of all the Straights, and
many times they take purchase in the maine Ocean, yea sometimes
even in the narrow Seas in England, and those are the most cruell
villaines in Turkie, or Barbarie; whose natives are very noble, and
of good natures, in comparison of them.
To conclude, the misery of a Pirate (although many are as sufficient
Sea-men as any) yet in regard of his superfluity,
finde it such, that any wise man would rather live amongst wilde
beasts, than them; therefore let all unadvised persons take heed, how
they entertaine that quality; and I could wish Merchants, Gentlemen,
and all setters forth of ships, not to bee sparing of a competent
pay, nor true payment; for neither Souldiers nor Sea-men can live
without meanes, but necessity will force them to steale; and when
they are once entered into that trade, they are hardly reclaimed.
Those titles of Sea-men and Souldiers, have beene most worthily
honoured and esteemed, but now regarded for most part, but as the
scumme of the world; regaine therefore your wonted reputations,
and endevour rather to adventure to those faire plantations of our
contemned, yet now you see how many rich and gallant people come
from thence, who went thither as poore as any Souldier or Sailer, and
gets more in one yeare, than you by Piracie in seven. I intreat you
therefore to consider, how many thousands yearely goe thither; also
how many Ships and Sailers are imployed to transport them, and
what custome they yearely pay to our most Royall King Charles,
whose prosperity and his Kingdomes good, I humbly beseech the
immortall God ever to preserve and increase.
FINIS.
[There is some disagreement about the respective contributions of the two artists involved with this
illustration. In the lower left of compartment eight, the legend clearly reads: "Marten Dr[oeshout] sculptor"
(engraver). In compartment two, the title reads: "Part of the Travels of Capt. John Smith a mongst Turkes,
Tartars, and others extracted out of the History by John Payn." Wilberforce Eames comments: "The plate
of Smith's adventures was drawn by John Payne, and engraved by Martin Droeshout" (Joseph Sabin et al.
eds., A Dictionary of Books Relating to America, XX [New York, 1927–1928], 260). Arthur M. Hind notes,
however, "The plate is signed by Martin Droeshout ..., and Payne's task must have been confined to
choosing the subjects to be illustrated" (Engraving in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: A
Descriptive Catalogue with Introductions [Cambridge, 1952–1964], III, 25).
Martin Droeshout was baptized in 1601 and is chiefly known today for his famous portrait of Shakespeare
(done seven years after Shakespeare's death). John Payne, a near contemporary, had been associated
with Simon and Willem van de Passein his youth and "enjoyed a contemporary reputation" (ibid., 6–7).
The nine compartments may well have been intended to be cut up and pasted on inserts in the text
(see the British Library copy, Grenville 7195). Two deserve special mention. Compartment one: the map
that was copied is reversed in the engraving, so that Algiers and Toulon appear east of Tunis and Nice,
respectively, though they lie to the west, cartographically. Compartment four: the first line of the heading
was altered in a later state to read, "His three single Combats before Regall in Transilvania" (Sabin,
Dictionary, 260).
Note that James Reeve, the printer, also printed the altered state of Smith's map of New England that
accompanied the Generall Historie in 1624 (see note to map in Description of New England).]
1. Chap. 1 seems to have been prepared hastily, perhaps from random notes, after
chaps. 2–20 were ready for the press (see p. 3n, below), and possibly even after Aug. 29,
1629, when the book was entered for publication. The chapter consists of one long paragraph
that suffers from obviously faulty chronology. To correct this, the editor has
divided it into paragraphs and indicated their proper chronological sequence by means
of editorial reconstruction in the footnotes.
3. The parish register of St. Helen's Church, Willoughby by Alford, contains the
following entry: "Iōhes smith filius Georgie smith baptizatus fuit ixth die Ianuarie Anno
supradicto [1580 (Old Style, 1579)]."
4. In the absence of surviving official records, it can be said only that "it is ...
claimed that Captain John Smith ... attended Alford Grammar School" (A[lan] S.
Hackett, comp., The Story of Queen Elizabeth I's Grammar School, Alford, Lincolnshire, 1566–
1966 [Alford, 1966]), and that it has long been believed that Smith attended the King
Edward VI Grammar School, Louth (see, inter alia, Elsie Gooding, From Virginia to
Willoughby to Remember the Great Capt. John Smith [Alford, 1960]).
5. See note to the illustration of Smith's coat of arms, following the facsimile title
page, above.
6. This paragraph should probably read as follows: "When he was about thirteene
yeeres of age [in 1593], his minde being even then set upon brave adventures, [he] sould
his Satchell, bookes, and all he had, intending secretly to get to Sea, but that his father
stayed him. About the age of fifteene yeeres [1595] hee was bound an Apprentice to
Master Thomas Sendall of Linne [King's Lynn], the greatest Merchant of all those parts,
but because hee would not presently send him to Sea, he never saw his master in eight
yeeres after. His parents [father's] dying [1596] left him a competent meanes, which hee
not being capable to manage, little regarded. But now the Guardians of his estate more
regarding it than him, he had libertie enough, though no meanes, to get beyond the Sea."
7. George Smith was buried Apr. 3, 1596. In due course his estate was inventoried,
and on Feb. 19, 1597, it was appraised. By that time, John Smith's mother was remarried
to one Martin Johnson (see the supporting documents in the Lincolnshire Archives,
Lincoln, INV/87/250).
8. This probably refers to the "supervisor" or executor of George Smith's will,
George Metham (see the Biographical Directory), who was connected by marriage with
the Bertie family (see n, below).
10. The paragraph beginning "At last he found meanes ..." suffers principally
from Smith's eagerness to introduce the Bertie family, with some resultant confusion
about the sequence of events. It may be reconstructed as follows: "Who [his guardians]
when he came from [for?] London they liberally gave him (but out of his owne estate)
ten shillings to be rid of him. Arriving at Roane [Rouen], seeing his money neere spent,
downe the River he went to Haver de grace [Le Havre], where he first began to learne
the life of a souldier: he went with Captaine Joseph Duxbury into the Low-countries,
under whose Colours having served three or foure yeeres, peace being concluded in
France, [he returned to England.] At last he found meanes to attend Master Perigrine
Barty [Bertie] into France [1599], second sonne to the Right Honourable Perigrine, that
generous and famous Souldier, Lord Willoughby, where comming to his brother Robert,
then at Orleans, now Earle of Lin[d]sey, and Lord great Chamberlaine of England;
being then but little youths under Tutorage: his service being needlesse, within a moneths
or six weekes they sent him backe againe to his friends. But those two Honourable
Brethren gave him sufficient to returne for England. But it was the least thought of his
determination, for now being freely at libertie in Paris, growing acquainted with one
Master David Hume, who making some use of his purse, gave him Letters to his friends
in Scotland to preferre [introduce] him to King James. He [then] tooke his journey for
Scotland, to deliver his Letters."
1. Usually spelled "Bertie," though locally pronounced "Barty." Peregrine the
younger left London sometime after June 26, 1599, when a license was granted to him to
travel for three years. See the Biographical Directory, s.v. "Bertie, Robert."
2. David Hume was a distant cousin of a well-to-do Scottish nobleman who was a
friend of the Berties (see the Biographical Directory, and Philip L. Barbour, The Three
Worlds of Captain John Smith [Boston, 1964], 12). King James, of course, was not yet king
of England.
3. Peace was concluded in France in 1598. Captain Duxbury's identity has not yet
been determined.
4. Enkhuizen, the Netherlands, whence many fishing fleets sailed for Scotland (and
still do); presumably Smith had found some sort of coastal vessel to convey him to the
Netherlands from Le Havre. Leith is the port of Edinburgh, only an hour's hike from
Holyrood Palace.
5. Berwick, the northernmost fort on England's E coast before the Scottish border.
Robert Bertie's father was governor there (though he may have been away at the time),
and Robert had charged Smith with reporting to him "tout au long l'état de nous et de
nos affaires" (from an undated letter to Lord Willoughby, Ancaster MSS, Lincolnshire
Archives). Since there is no mention of Robert's charge in Smith's writings, the wreck
and his sickness at the Holy Isle of Lindisfarne may have put it out of his mind.
6. Ripweth, or Rippeth (now Redpath) is the name of some five places in the neighborhood,
one of which is but 9 mi. from Berwick. Broxmouth is 2 mi. from Dunbar.
9. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Arte of Warre ..., trans. Peter Whitehorne (London,
1560). On the basis of sundry entries in Lord Willoughby's various account books, it is
fair to surmise that books of this type were available in his library (based on a letter to the
editor from Mrs. Joan Varley, Feb. 5, 1959, Lincolnshire Archives Office, Lincoln).
10. The so-called "Meditations" of Marcus Aurelius were first translated directly
into English from the original Greek by Méric Casaubon (son of a Huguenot émigré)
and published in London in 1634. The "Marcus Aurelius" to which Smith refers must
have been Thomas North's translation of Antonio de Guevara's The Diall of Princes ...
(London, 1557). (See Aurelius Antoninus, Marcus, in the Biographical Directory.)
Worthy of note here is the comment in George Long's translation of The Thoughts of the
Emperor M. Aurelius Antoninus, rev. ed. (London, 1887 [orig. publ. 1862]), 26–27: "The
little book of Antoninus has been the companion of some great men. Machiavelli's Art
of War and Marcus Antoninus were the two books which were used when he was a young
man by Captain John Smith, and he could not have found two writers better fitted to
form the character of a soldier and a man."
1. Cf. the common phrase "a gentleman and his man"; here "the man" was undoubtedly
just some local youth enthralled by Smith's tales.
3. Theodore Paleologue appears to have been a collateral descendant of Constantine
XI, last Roman emperor of the East. Paleologue became riding master to Henry
Clinton, earl of Lincoln, in 1598 or 1599, but left Tattershall briefly to marry Mary Balls
at Cottingham, near Hull, Yorkshire, on May 1, 1600 (see nn, below).
4. Reports, tales, anecdotes. It may well have been Smith's legal guardian who
urged Paleologue to ingratiate himself with the "hermit."
5. The keep of Tattershall Castle still stands awesomely in a great plain, not 20 mi.
SW of Willoughby.
6. The combination of Paleologue's brief absence and the news of the great battle
of Nieuport in the Netherlands on June 22, 1600, probably was the immediate cause of
Smith's departure (cf. the beginning of chap. 2, below).
7. Basically, chaps. 2–20 are a reprint of "The Travels and Adventures of Captaine
John Smith in divers parts of the world, begun about the yeere 1596." This work forms
chap. 11 of pt. I, bk. viii, of Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas His Pilgrimes
... (London, 1625), II, 1361–1370, which was fairly certainly in print by 1624.
Whether Purchas had cut a number of passages (mostly brief sentences) that Smith
restored, or whether Smith added the passages in 1629, cannot be known. Significant
differences will be noted below. The entire Purchas version is reprinted as Fragment J
at the end of this volume.
8. Smith's urge to fight the Turks could well have been born of Paleologue's tales;
Tattershall Castle itself antedated the fall of Constantinople.
9. The final piously alliterative clause does not appear in the Purchas version.
Attention will not be called to expansions of this sort hereafter.
1. The name of the "lord," Depreau, appears in a marginal note in the Purchas
version. See Barbour, Three Worlds, 17–27, for an expanded narrative of what probably
took place in the period covered by Smith's chaps. 2–3. As for the names of the Frenchmen
(see the next paragraph), Curzianvere (or Currianver) may possibly be derived
from a mishearing of the village name Clécy (-sur-Orne), 36 air km. (22–23 mi.) NE of
Vire. The other names specifically occur in French sources, though the individuals
cannot be identified.
2. The duke "of Mercury" was Philippe-Emmanuel de Lorraine, duke of Mercoeur,
who was a brother-in-law of Henry III of France, a second cousin of Mary Queen
of Scots, and a cousin by marriage of Rudolph II of the Holy Roman Empire, who made
Mercoeur a general in the imperial army. His name appears often in the following pages
(see the Biographical Directory). The duchess was then living in or near Paris, probably
at Anet, on the Eure River, N of Chartres.
3. Apparently a mishearing or misprint for "cardecu" ("cardakew" in Thomas
Coryate's Coryats Crudities; Hastily gobled up in five Moneths travells ... [London, 1611],
69), the usual English spelling of French quart d'écu, then valued at one shilling and sixpence,
but evidently considered almost worthless by John Smith. In any case, it is unclear
why he had to "pay for his passage" under such circumstances.
4. This seems to be Mortain (Manche) rather than Mortagne (Orne). Though
Mortain is in Normandy, it is near the Breton border, while Mortagne is much farther E.
5. The places mentioned are Dieppe, Caudebec, Honfleur, and Pont-Audemer.
Caen was often anglicized as Cane.
7. Colombiers, Larchamp, and Chasseguey are identifiable surnames; no individual
identities have been established.
9. The reference is to Amaury II Gouyon, count of Plouër, and below, to his
younger brothers, Charles, viscount of Pommerit, and Jacques, baron of Marcé (see
Barbour, Three Worlds, 21, and the Biographical Directory).
10. Saint-Brieuc. Lannion is easily recognizable, and among the place-names that
follow perhaps only "Tuncadeck" (Tonquédec), "Gingan" (Guingamp), and "Raynes"
(Rennes) need be clarified (there is an interesting old picture of the castle at Tonquédec
in La Grande Encyclopédie ... [Paris, 1886–1902], VII, 1159).
1. The Purchas version adds "Poundegale" after Nimes. This must be the famous
Roman aqueduct called Pont du Gard, some 14 mi. (20-odd km.) NE of Nîmes.
"Marcellos" is probably a misprint for "Marseilles."
2. "The little Isle of S. Mary" appears to have been the Isle de Maire, an uninhabited
island c. 6 mi. (9 km.) S of Marseilles that produced nothing beyond scant
pasturage as reported for 1639–1640 (Adolphe Crémieux, Marseille et la royauté pendant la
minorité de Louis XIV (1643–1660) [Paris, 1917], 83–84n). "Against" here means merely
"toward or en route to" (cf. "ad Urbem Regalem," pp. 15, 17n, below). On the behavior
of "the inhumane Provincialls," cf. Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean
World in the Age of Philip II, trans. Siân Reynolds (New York, 1972 [rev. ed. orig.
publ. Paris, 1966]), I, 104–105.
4. "Cape Rosata" was undoubtedly Cape Ras et Tin, just E of Derna, Libya, and
not Rosetta in the Nile Delta, where the key to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs was found.
Below, "Scandaroone" was subsequently known as Alexandretta and is now called
Iskenderun, "the best harbor between Istanbul and Alexandria." In the days when
"Captaine la Roche" was viewing "what ships was in the Roade," Iskenderun was
unhealthy and later had to be temporarily abandoned because of what may have been
malarial fever (Braudel, Mediterranean World, I, 65, 65n).
5. Perhaps read: "They lay to there, and againe for a few dayes." The "Archipellagans"
obviously refers to the islands of the Archipelago, in the Aegean Sea between
Greece and Turkey (Smith seems to have been familiar with a French adjective derived
from early 17th-century French archipelague). "Candia" was an old name for Crete, and
"Zaffalonia" was an early English form for Cephalonia, modern Greek Kefallinia.
6. An argosy was a kind of carrack, or any large merchant vessel. The name
"argosy" comes from the republic of Ragusa (called Arragosa or Arragourse in English),
which was the rival of Venice for a short while and is now known as Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia.
7. The Breton captain, La Roche, and sometimes the entire ship and crew. For
pertinent background, see Braudel, Mediterranean World, I, 103–108, ending with a highly
germane comment: "Everyday coastal shipping has untiringly spun threads ... which
may pass unnoticed in the great movements of history." See ibid., 125–133, for relevant
material on the Adriatic Sea, with maps on pp. 112–114.
8. Though the "exchange rate" of various currencies was chaotic at the time, it can
be said that piaster was the Italian name for the Spanish peso duro (piece of eight, dollar);
Venetian zecchini were gold coins worth seven to nine shillings; and sultanies, or sultanons,
were Turkish gold pieces valued at eight shillings or better (see Barbour, Three Worlds,
404, n. 3). Note that the ship's tonnage, as estimated by Smith below, seems relatively
small for an argosy.
9. Galleys with their oarsmen and powerful armament could prove dangerous to a
ship dependent on sails for propulsion. These galleys were undoubtedly Spanish, hence
enemies. For galleys in general, consult John Francis Guilmartin, Jr., Gunpowder and
Galleys: Changing Technology and Mediterranean Warfare at Sea in the Sixteenth Century
(London, 1974), 32, 98. On Messina, see Barbour, Three Worlds, 133–134.
1. Antibes, in Piedmont, was in the territory of the dukes of Savoy in Smith's day
and was called Antibo.
2. Leghorn (Italian, Livorno) had just begun to buzz with commercial activity
when Smith was there, not later than early 1601. A detailed census taken in 160: shows
a total population of nearly 5,000, including 762 soldiers and 76 "young prostitutes"
(Fernand Braudel and Ruggiero Romano, Navires et marchandises à l'entrée du port de
Livourne (1547–1611) [Paris, 1951], 21).
3. Investigation in the various archives in Siena has so far failed to reveal any
pertinent documentation of this incident, and nothing has yet appeared in the Ancaster
papers in the Lincolnshire Archives. Nevertheless, such a fray would not have been unlikely,
considering the times and the known prickliness of young Peregrine Bertie.
4. The Purchas version is somewhat shorter here, and there is no mention of Father
Parsons. Yet Parsons seems to have been the man who put young Smith in touch with the
Irish Jesuit in Graz, Austria (see below). The simplest explanation of Smith's moves
would be to assume that his theological luggage rested lightly on his shoulders, despite
his puritanical habits and his obvious inclination to conform with the Church of England.
Smith's career, which begins at this point, may be profitably compared with that of
Thomas Arundell, 20 years his senior, who was created count of the Holy Roman Empire
by Rudolph II in 1595 for valor in the field; similarly, Smith was granted the right to
bear arms by Zsigmond Báthory in 1603 for defeating three Turkish captains in as many
duels.
6. The circuitousness of Smith's route from Venice to Capodistria, just across the
northern tip of the Adriatic Sea, was most likely caused by an outbreak of maritime
guerrilla warfare between Slavic Christians, who were refugees from the Turks, and the
Venetian republic (see Barbour, Three Worlds, 25–26). The place-names are, more correctly:
Slovenia, Ljubljana, Graz, and Styria. Almania is an old name for Germany,
though the Purchas version's "Almaine" is a more common spelling.
7. A good deal has been made of this statement by at least one sound modern
scholar. For a discussion of the points at issue, see Fragment J, 1363n, where an attempt
has been made to identify persons and places.
8. In the Purchas version, chaps. 4–11 are attributed to one Francisco Ferneza (see
the editor's Introduction to and pp. 1363–1364nn of Fragment J). Here the attribution
is made only in a marginal note on p. 22. In the Purchas version Ferneza's "Storie" is
printed in italics and the end is indicated by a return to roman type. Here the account
ends on p. 22 with a colon, followed by an expostulation worthy of John Smith at his best.
9. The location of Smith's "Olumpagh" (Purchas version, "Olimpach") has been
established by the editor's on-the-spot surveys, coupled by recorded evidence in local
archives (see Fragment J for details). The town is now known as Lendava and is not over
2 mi. (3 km.) from the present Yugoslav-Hungarian frontier. This was the Alsölendva
(Lower Limbach) of contemporary maps. Felsölendva (Upper Limbach), nearly 25 mi.
(40 km.) NW, is ruled out by orographical as well as other reasons.
2. Nagykanizsa (English, Great Kanizsa) was an important fortress nearly 30 mi.
(48 km.) E by S of Lendava in what is now Hungary. It had been lost to the Turks late
in Oct. 1600.
3. Procedure, code. Lord Ebersbaught, mentioned at the end of chap. 3, was the
governor and friend.
5. Smith's immediate source for this system seems to have been Peter Whithorne
(or Whitehorne), who added to his translation of Machiavelli's Arte of Warre an appendix,
"Certain waies ...," chap. 41 of which explains the whole system. (Some investigators
have suggested instead William Bourne's Inventions or Devises ... [London, 1578], 61.)
For further details, see Barbour, Three Worlds, 27, 407, n. 6. Below the alphabets, note
that a link was a torch of tow and pitch then much used for lighting the way along dark
streets.
7. The river was evidently the Krka (formerly Kerka), a tributary of the Mur
(Mura) c. 6 mi. (10 km.) E of Lendava.
8. Undoubtedly Eisenburg is meant ("Eysnaburge" in the Purchas version, p. 1364),
the German name for Vasvar, a fort on the Raab (Rába) River, below Körmend, and
40 mi. (65 km.) NE of Lendava. There had been Christian troop movements in this area
for some time, especially after mid-Sept. 1600.
1. Assuming that this was translated from Italian, the original probably read "alla
rinfusa," which would be "pell-mell" in English.
2. On "Knousbruck," see "Konbrucke" in the Purchas version (Fragment J, 1364,
1364n). In Smith's day few Englishmen knew how to swim, and even a Turkish soldier
was lost if heavily armored (cf. Michael West, "Spenser, Everard Digby, and the
Renaissance Art of Swimming," Renaissance Quarterly, XXVI [1973], 11–22).
4. The Purchas version has only "Colonell Meldrich" (1364). Smith's "Volda/
Voldo" may have been an invention.
5. Stuhlweissenburg is the German name for Hungarian Szekesfehervar (Latin,
Alba Regia), the coronation and burial place of the kings of Hungary. Having escaped
the Mongol invaders in the 13th century, it fell into the hands of the Ottomans in 1543.
6. This was Hermann Christof, Graf von Russworm. For an account of the siege
and its aftermath, see Barbour, Three Worlds, 33–36.
8. "Gonzago" was Ferrante II Gonzaga, count of Guastalla (duke after 1621),
second cousin of Vincenzo Gonzaga, the duke of Mantua referred to just above (see the
Biographical Directory).
2. The figures seem high. Note that Mercoeur led his troops from Komarom at
least 60 km. (nearly 40 mi.) to Szekesfehervar unseen and unreported in Budapest, which
was only 80 km. (50 mi.) away and at the time was occupied by the Turks.
4. The detail about Colonel Grandvile is not in the Purchas version; it was added
here, perhaps gratuitously, perhaps a real recollection.
5. Something seems to be missing in the original account of the "fiery Dragons"
(see Fragment J, 1364n). The name was apparently coined by Smith.
6. Judging by this, it would seem that Smith spent the winter of 1600–1601 in
Komarom (at the junction of the Danube with the Vah [German, Waag], now Komarno,
Czechoslovakia); see ibid. This important fort was about 160 km. (100 mi.) down the
Raab from Körmend (see p. 7n, above).
7. The Buda (or Pest) Gate was on the E of the city. Mercoeur's camp was on dry
ground to the N. The attack planned by Russworm (see p. 9) was through the marshes
W of the city. By setting fire to the suburbs by the Buda Gate, Mercoeur would distract
the attention of the defenders.
8. The rest of this chapter, excepting the last clause, is not in the Purchas version.
It is possible that Purchas deleted the passage as too "tedious." Smith seems to have
refreshed his memory here by referring to Richard Knolles, The Generall Historie of the
Turkes ... (London, 1603), 1135–1136. The phrasing, however, is clearly his own.
"Segeth" is the suburb of Sziget ("Island"); below, bavins were bundles of lightweight
brushwood.
9. The correct Turkish form is paşa, the stress falling on the last syllable; most
commonly in English, "pasha."
2. Hasan Pasha (called Yemişçi, "the Fruiterer") was promoted from deputy to
grand vizier and commander in chief in Hungary, July 21, 1601. He set out from Istanbul
19 days later and by forced marches reached Zemun (Belgrade) about Sept. 5. He had
led an army 1,000 km. (over 600 mi.) across mountains and rivers only to be led astray
by mistaken intelligence to Budapest instead of Szekesfehervar. From there, he turned
back to remedy the error, but he was too late (see Joseph von Hammer, Geschichte des
Osmanischen Reiches ... [Pest, 1827–1835], IV, 314). The name of the "viceroy" of Pest
was Mankirkuschi Mohammed Efendi (ibid.; the spelling is Hammer's), who had replaced
Murad Pasha (Smith's "Amaroz"), apparently unbeknown to many Turks, as
well as to the Christian forces.
3. The name "Girke," not mentioned in the Purchas version, is an excellent illustration
of Smith's attempts to refresh his memory. Recalling the battle fought near
Szekesfehervar three weeks after the fall of that city, he found on a map the homophonic
name of a place 6o-odd km. (c. 40 mi.) S, now called Györköny. Historically this was
impossible, but it was all he could find. The battle is recorded, however, as taking place
on Oct. 15, 1601, in Charka Bogazi, which means merely "Skirmish Gorge" — it is not
on any map available up to the time of writing. A sketch of the battle was found by the
editor some years ago, which confirms a large part of Smith's romanticized account (see
Barbour, Three Worlds, 35–36, 408, n. 2, and prints following p. 268).
4. Properly speaking, a sanjak (Turkish, sancak, with the c pronounced as an English
j) was a military cavalry district, governed by a sanjak bey. Here Smith is undoubtedly
referring to a cavalry officer. His identity is unknown.
5. The basic facts are found in the Purchas version, 1365. The details are in Knolles,
Historie of the Turkes, 1136. The question arises, who borrowed from whom? The editor
suspects that there was a common source for both, not mentioned by either.
6. Smith's account of the aftermath of the battle is confused and largely mistaken.
Several detailed accounts, none of which was available to Smith, agree that Hasan Pasha
first retired to Palota, 20 km. (12 mi.) W of Szekesfehervar, where his army dug in for
the winter, then betook himself to Nagykanizsa, where Russworm was soon sent (see a
few lines below). Note that Smith's "Zigetum" was most likely modern Szigetvar, c. 110
km. (70 mi.) SE of Nagykanizsa by modern roads.
7. This paragraph, dedicated to the duke of Mercoeur, reads almost as if it had
been written by Michel Baudier, historiographer of Louis XIII of France (see his
Inventaire de l'histoire généralle des Turcs [Paris, 1617], 693–611). For an account from the
Turkish point of view, see Hammer, Geschicnte des Osmanischen Reiches, IV, 315–319;
Knolles provides a less glamorous story in Historie of the Turkes, 1137–1138.
8. Hungarian Esztergom, German Gran; taken by the Ottoman army in 1543, it
was liberated in 1595 only to be recaptured in 1604.
9. Michael the Brave (Mihai Viteazul), voivode of Walachia, joined forces with
General Basta to defeat Zsigmond Bathory, prince of Transylvania, Aug. 13, 1601, only
to be assassinated by order of Basta six days later, on trumped-up charges of plotting with
the sultan against the Holy Roman emperor (see Ştefan Olteanu, Les Pays roumains à
l'époque de Michel le Brave (l'union de 1600) [Bucharest, 1975], 139). Zsigmond had turned
up in Brasov, Transylvania, and received a certain recognition from Istanbul (early Oct.
1601), and Mercoeur had fled from the winter's cold in the swampy environs of Nagykanizsa.
Basta was made commander in chief of the imperial forces on Jan. 20, 1602.
Zsigmond backtracked a little. Mercoeur died suddenly on Feb. 17 in Nuremberg, on
his way to France to enlist additional troops. Shortly thereafter Zsigmond had another
change of heart. With that, we may leave the story to John Smith (see Barbour, Three
Worlds, 41–44, and the Purchas version [Fragment J, 1363–1365nn], for a few minor
revisions of the editor's earlier studies).
3. Veltus is mentioned again on pp. 19–22, but does not appear in the much condensed
Purchas version. A village called Völcz (Hungarian) or Wöltz[en] (German) is
recorded c. 9 km. (6 mi.) NW of Medias, then and now an important highway junction
in central Transylvania. "Colonell Veltus" may have come from Völcz. For a conjecture
regarding the events narrated on pp. 12–13, see Barbour, Three Worlds, 44–49. A summary
of the latest research is given in the notes to the Purchas version (Fragment J,
1365–1366).
6. Mózes Székely had been a captain under Zsigmond Báthory's uncle, King István
Báthory of Poland (1533–1586). As indicated by his name, transcribed by Smith last
name first, according to Hungarian custom, he was a Szekler, one of the three "nations"
of Transylvania (the others being the Hungarians and the Saxons, since the Rumanian
peasants did not count).
7. The Purchas version (p. 1365) has "foure thousand Foote"; there are further
numerical discrepancies below.
8. The meaning of "fear" here is almost certainly "frighten"; the Purchas version
(p. 1365) has "they did more feare [frighten] then hurt them."
9. This clause is not in the Purchas version. Smith's meaning apparently is that the
Turks' artillery was a pledge of battle, and no battle was forthcoming.
1. This name could be merely Smith's misunderstanding: a başt was a Turkish
officer; some such phrase as türk başt could have meant "a Turkish captain."
2. This phrase, found also in the Purchas version, is a clear hint that Ferneza's book
was used as a source.
5. The Janissaries (Turkish yeni çeri, new militia) were the crack infantry troops of
the Ottoman army.
7. Such names as "Grualgo," "Bonny Mulgro," and others below have led some
Rumanian and Turkish scholars to label this work of Smith's fantaisiste — fanciful. It is
true that the names are Smith's invention — he had undoubtedly forgotten the actual
names, if he ever knew them, but no event referred to here is without historical basis.
9. Broadly, a piece of armor; a breastplate or backplate, or an additional plate
worn over the cuirass.
1. Despite general Turkish scorn of such "false conceptions of valour" (Clarence
Dana Rouillard, The Turk in French History, Thought, and Literature (1520–1660) [Paris,
(1941)], 296–297), duels of this type were far from unknown in Transylvania and
Hungary in those years. A subsection of István Szamosközy's Történeti Maradványai
(Historico-literary remains) entitled "Memorabilis inter Turcam et Ungarum in duellum
provocatio" (Memorable provocation to dueling between Turk and Hungarian) lists
three types of duels, the most ferocious of which set the pattern for Smith (Sándor
Szilágyi, ed., Monumenta Hungariae Historica, 2d Ser., XXI [Budapest, 1876], I, 237–239).
Smith could hardly have read about this sort of thing.
5. In Smith's day a sergeant major ranked just below a lieutenant colonel; i.e.,
Smith was made a major, though he never used that title.
7. This passage and the Purchas version both imply that Meldritch's father had
been killed in a melee with Turkish troops or during a Turkish cavalry raid. Information
of this sort reaching Smith's ears may have been the source of his belief that Meldritch
was "a Transylvanian borne" or even that he was born in this neighborhood. See n,
below.
8. The account of Mózes Székely's activities and later razzia down the Mures (Hungarian,
Maros) valley is at odds with the account in the Purchas version (Fragment J,
1366, 1366n). There, the antecedent of "he sacked Varatzo," etc. is clearly "the Earle
[Meldritch]." It is the editor's belief that Purchas, in making extensive cuts, neglected
to supply "Moyses" as the antecedent. This, then, was corrected here.
1. This document, along with its variant copy, translation, and recording in London,
is discussed in the editor's Introduction, above. While it is likely that both Purchas and
Sir Robert Cotton had a hand in procuring the registering of the patent, Purchas's
Pilgrimes was in print (1624-early 1625) before Aug. 19, 1625, when Sir William Segar
"subscribed and recorded" the document (p. 18, below). There are a few minor variants
in the unofficial copy in the "Collectanea" of Augustine Vincent, Windsor Herald until
his death, Jan. 11, 1626. Only the variant discussed in n. 4, below, is of any substantive
significance (see p. 18, below, and the Purchas version [Fragment J, 1366n]).
4. "Augusti 8vo" in the "Collectanea." The date of this specific battle or skirmish
has not been recorded. For a discussion of the details, see the editor's Introduction to
Fragment J, as well as the Introduction to the True Travels, above.
5. Zsigmond Báthory's uncle István Báthory first used a coat of arms consisting of
three tusks (of a dragon or a wolf) encircled by a dragon biting its own tail. This remained
the Báthory family device, but after 1590 Zsigmond began using more elaborate shields.
Since the seal on the patent he gave to John Smith was evidently damaged over nearly
22 years (Dec. 9, 1603, to Aug. 19, 1625), it can only be surmised that the "open crown"
was genuine, as were the tusks, that the NONONONONONON replaced an undecipherable
dragon, and that the title should read "Sigismundus Bathori D. G. Prin[ceps] Transsilvaniae
Walachiae," or something very similar. See J. B. v. S., Die Wappen und Siegel
der Fürsten van Siebenbürgen und der einzelnen ständischen Nationen dieses Landes (Hermannstadt,
1838) for details.
7. Note that Segar himself has corrected "Vandalorum" in the Latin text to
"Moldavia" here. This is more appropriate to Báthory.
9. Segar's translation is not precisely faithful to the original, which must mean "on
the way to the royal city" (see the editor's Introduction to Fragment J).
2. Zsigmond was in Litomerice (German, Leitmeritz) on Dec. 16, 1602, and in
Prague on Mar. 7, 1604 (but see the Purchas version). Litomerice is c. 66 km. (40 mi.)
N of Prague, and less than 200 km. (125 mi.) SE of Leipzig. John Smith's wanderings
late in 1603 led him through E Czechoslovakia to Prague, whence he went to Leipzig to
find Zsigmond. After this meeting he went to Dresden, Magdeburg, and Brunswick
(Braunschweig), as is narrated on p. 33, below.
3. Segar's English at times is absurd. The original "Salutem" (p. 16, above) means
merely "Greetings!"
6. With this chapter, Smith returns to the Purchas version, but with considerable
expansion. What his specific source was is difficult to establish, although the first half of
the paragraph reads as if it was based on vivid personal recollections. The rest is confirmed
in some measure in Knolles's Historie of the Turkes, 1139–1143 (with occasional bits
borrowed?) and also in Ciro Spontoni's Historia della Transilvania (Venice, 1638), 194–
200.
1. "Poles"; Zsigmond's wife Maria Christina was a sister of Anna, wife of Sigismund
III, king of Poland. Both of these ladies were first cousins of Emperor Rudolph II.
In addition, Jan Zamoyski, great chancellor of Poland, was Zsigmond Báthory's brother-in-law.
It is no great wonder that Zsigmond at last gave up the struggle.
2. Spontoni says 50,000 "Toleri" (dollars), but it is not clear what coin he meant
(Historia della Transilvania, 204). In the same passage he states that Zsigmond retired to
live at "Libocovitio" (Libochovice, 28 mi. NW of Prague). Smith's (Austrian) Silesia
would be to the E.
3. The Purchas version (p. 1366) has "sixe or seven thousand" — perhaps an echo
of the "sixe or seven houres."
4. The account in the editor's Three Worlds should be revised here and there in the
light of recent studies. In this case, Székely, a Unitarian, had served under Michael the
Brave (see p. IIn, above). When Michael was murdered by Basta's orders, Székely fled
to the Turks in Timisoara (Hungarian, Temesvár), passing Zsigmond Báthory on the
way. Zsigmond, to separate himself from both the action and the defeat, promptly sent
off a messenger to Basta avouching his innocence and six days later was welcomed by the
general in Alba-Iulia. Székely went on to meet Yemişçi Hasan, the grand vizier, who
gave him some encouragement but was determined to retake Szekesfehervar first. This
he did, on Aug. 29. For the sequel, see Carl Max Kortepeter, Ottoman Imperialism during
the Reformation: Europe and the Caucasus (New York, 1972), 194–195. So far as John Smith's
affairs were concerned, "the chronology is rather confused from ... July 2, 1602, until
... November 20, 1604" (ibid., 194).
5. "Voivode" is a better spelling. For Michael the Brave, voivode of Walachia and
one of the founders of modern Rumania, see the Biographical Directory, s.v. "Mihai
Viteazul." Michael's dependence on the Ottoman sultan has been brought within
factual bounds by modern studies (see Olteanu, Les Pays roumains, 139).
6. Radul Şerban was a Bessarabian (from the region between the Prut and the
Dniester rivers, Ukrainian S.S.R.), who was ready to accept the sovereignty of Rudolph
II in preference to that of Mehmet III. "Jeremy" was Jeremia Movila, who was the joint
choice of the Poles and the Turks for voivode of Moldavia.
8. Most of these names, not elsewhere recorded, seem to be derived from town
names (Barbour, Three Worlds, 51).
9. Modern Ramnicu-Valcea, 50-odd km. (30–35 mi.) S of the Transylvanian-Walachian
border, at the end of the pass. The Altus River is now called the Olt, but Raza
cannot be identified with certainty (cf. Edward Arber, ed., Captain John Smith ... Works,
1608–1631, The English Scholars Library Edition, No. 16 [Birmingham, 1884], xxvii).
1. Modern Curtea-de-Arges (the Court at Arges). "The oldest capital-city [of
Walachia] was undoubtedly Argeş," but Campulung (see p. 21n) was also a capital;
indeed, the voivodeship of Walachia was created after the retreat of the Mongol-Tatar
"cataclysm" of 1241–1242 by Rumanians from Transylvania, who began to fill the void
left to the S of the Carpathians by slow migration (see Ion Donat, "The Romanians
South of the Carpathians and the Migratory Peoples in the Tenth-Thirteenth Centuries,"
in Miron Constantinescu et al., eds., Relations between the Autochthonous Population
and the Migratory Populations on the Territory of Romania ... [Bucharest, 1975], 286–287).
5. All of this chapter and half of chap. 11 have been expanded from half a folio page
of the Ferneza account in the Purchas version (p. 1366). The personal names listed need
not be taken seriously, as has been mentioned before. Smith's account makes vivid, however,
an encounter the bare facts of which occupy only a few lines of history. Mehmet III
had ordered the khan, Gazi Giray, to reinforce the Ottoman troops involved in the "Long
War." By the time he set out, the Transylvanian frontier was fixed as his goal, since he
saw an opportunity actually to place the brother of Jeremia Movila in power in Walachia.
The imperial appointee, Radul Şerban, was credited with little military strength and
could easily be overthrown. When Gazi Giray arrived, he found that the imperial general,
Basta, had spared crack troops to stop him. John Smith was a captain in these crack
troops. After severe fighting, the khan was forced to retire, suffering heavy losses (Kortepeter,
Ottoman Imperialism, 177).
6. The haiduks were freebooters, irregulars, who within a year or two became important
elements in István Bocskai's struggle to free Hungary of Austrian tyranny.
7. For an attempt at analyzing the account, see Barbour, Three Worlds, 52–56,
which can now be read in the light of Kortepeter's more recent work. Obviously there
was more than one wave in the overall attack.
9. Modern Campulung, nestled in a narrow valley 30-odd km. (20 mi.) ENE of
Curtea-de-Arges, was probably older than Arges, and is attested c. 1300. Voivode
Basarab I of Walachia (c. 1300-c. 1340) died there. For "Rottenton," see n, below.
3. Nine mi. (14 km.); the pass is exceptionally rugged at this point, and such a
large body of Tatars seems improbable.
4. "Entrenched Walloons and four well-placed cannon" stopped the khan and his
troops (Kortepeter, Ottoman Imperialism, 177).
5. "Red Tower Fort," called Rotenturm, Vorostorony (or Verestorony; Hungarian
scholars acquainted with the region state that this is the preferred local pronunciation
and spelling), Turnu Roşu, and Turris Rubra, in German, Hungarian,
Rumanian, and Latin, respectively, is about 20 km. (12 mi.) S of Sibiu (Smith's Hermannstadt).
7. The end of the extract from Ferneza is greatly expanded from the Purchas
version, 1366 (see p. 2on, above).
8. Ens. Thomas Carlton and Sgt. Edward Robinson contributed poems in honor of
Smith that were appended to the Description of N.E., [62], [63], and reprinted in the
Generall Historie, 202.
9. Axiopolis was on the Danube near modern Cernavoda (Constantin C. Giurescu,
Contributions to the History of Romanian Science and Technique from the 15th to the Early 19th
Century, trans. Maria Farca [Bucharest, 1974], 85), where the modern railway Bucharest-Constanta
crosses the river. Since we know the Tatars retired to Silistra, however, it is
possible that Smith confused the two towns. About 70 km. (45 mi.) upstream, Silistra has
been a flourishing city since Roman days. For an early description of the slave traffic, see
Luigi Bassano, Costumi et i modi particolari della vita de' Turchi (1545), ed. Franz Babinger
(Monaco di Bavicra, 1963), fols. 41–42r.
1. "Bashaw Bogall" possibly stands for Basi Bakkal (Captain Grocer). Such a name
is attested in England in the 1300s; cf. grand vizier Yemişçi Hasan (Fruiterer Hasan).
"Adrinopolis" is modern Edirne, then not much less than 400 km. (250 mi.) by winding
roads through and over mountains from Axiopolis. From Edirne to Istanbul is about
230 km. (145 mi.) by the modern highway.
2. "Charatza Tragabigzanda" (better, "Trabigzanda") is a distortion of a Greek
phrase meaning "girl from Trebizond" (see Barbour, Three Worlds, 58–59). William
Biddulph, preacher to the Company of English Merchants in Aleppo, wrote c. 1605:
"Some few amongst them [the Turks] have the Italian tongue: and many (especially in
and about Constantinople) speake the vulgar Greeke. ... For in Constantinople there
are as many Grecians and Hebrues as Turkes" (Purchas, Pilgrimes, II, 1340).
3. The "Dissabacca Sea," now the Sea of Azov, was a distortion of a Genoese name
based on the Tatar word for a kind of carp, chabak (see Philip L. Barbour, "Captain John
Smith's Route through Turkey and Russia," William and Mary Quarterly, 3d Ser., XIV
[1957], 363).
4. Smith has added these bits of local color by borrowing from William Biddulph's
"Travels" as quoted in Purchas, Pilgrimes, II, 1334–1353 (the passage used here is from
p. 1340). "Banians" is an error for "Banias" (see the Purchas version, 1367), which in
turn is distorted from Turkish banyo (borrowed from Italian bagno, bath).
5. Regarding "Cambia" ("Cambria" in the Purchas version), the editor has not
found any new information to justify a change in his earlier suggestion that Robert
Vaughan, the Welsh engraver, had something to do with this name (see Barbour, Three
Worlds, 364). It is evident from what follows that Smith was only vaguely aware of where
he was sent and that he puzzled out a conjectural route with the help of maps and documents
back in London, probably supplied by Samuel Purchas 10 or more years after the
event. For discussion, see the Purchas version (Fragment J, 1367n). Nevertheless, there
is no reason to doubt that Charatza's brother was in charge of a timar, a small government
fief usually granted for military service and operated by an army officer.
7. Gerardus Mercator's Atlas sive cosmographicae meditationes de fabrica mundi et fabricati
figura (Duisburg, 1595), map of Walachia, etc., shows "Romania" as corresponding
roughly to modern Turkey in Europe, southern Bulgaria, and Greek Thrace. The name
was not applied to modern Rumania until Sept. 1857, when the principalities of Walachia
and Moldavia were united to form the present country.
10. The name "Nalbrits" appears on contemporary maps (see Barbour, Three
Worlds, 60–61). See the Purchas version (Fragment J, 1368n) for a discussion of the location
of the timar. The holder of such a fief was called the timar sipahisi, "man-at-arms
holding a timar" (New Redhouse Turkish-English Dictionary [Istanbul, 1968]), for which
the Italians invented the term timariotto, whence English "timariot."
11. Smith clearly knew some Italian, but obviously he did not understand enough
to know what was apparently going on. Judging by this paragraph, it would seem that
Charatza's brother had no objection to what she proposed and was putting Smith through
the almost sadistic disciplining required by Turkish custom to make a Turkish official of
him. For an explanation of this, see the editor's Introduction to Fragment J.
1. "Drub-man" is an error for Purchas's anglicization ("drugman"; see the Purchas
version, p. 1367) of the Turkish word dragoman. Note that "drub-man" is a "ghost" in
the OED due to failure to refer to the Purchas version.
2. "Ulgrie" is likely a distortion of a local name for "argali," big-horned sheep
(Philip L. Barbour, "Captain John Smith's Observations on Life in Tartary," VMHB,
LXVIII [1960], 276–279).
4. Much of the material in chaps. 13–16 has been borrowed or adapted from other
sources, printed or manuscript.
5. "Garnances" was evidently a misprint for "garuances," or "garvances," Spanish
garbanzos, that persisted in Smith. This passage appears to be based on Biddulph's
"Travels," in Purchas, Pilgrimes, II, 1340. "Buckones" is probably taken from Italian
boccone, a mouthful.
6. "Sambouses and Muclebites" in Biddulph's "Travels," in Purchas, Pilgrimes, II,
1340; see Barbour, "Smith's Observations on Life in Tartary," VMHB, LXVIII (1960),
275–276, 275–276nn.
7. "Sherbet" in Biddulph's "Travels," in Purchas, Pilgrimes, II, 1340; şerbet in
Turkish, from Arabic shariba, to drink. In the homes of the grandees, sherbet was served
with snow; whence, probably, the English use of the word for water ice.
8. Smith's erroneous assumption is in a way justified by Ottaviano Bon, "Descrizione
del serraglio del gransignore," in Nicolò Barozzi and Guglielmo Berchet, eds.,
Relazioni degli stati europei lette al senato dagli Ambasciatori Veneti nel secolo decimosettimo, Ser. V,
Turchia (Venice, 1866), 96, here translated by the editor: "Several kinds of bread are
made: very white for the mouth of the king, the sultanas, and the other grandees;
moderately good for average people and others; black quality for the acemi oglans."
This passage is somewhat elaborated in the contemporary English version translated by
Robert Withers in Purchas, Pilgrimes, II, 1600.
9. Couscous is a North African dish made of flour or millet seed. Here, Smith seems
to be helping out his memory with John Pory's translation of John Leo's A Geographical
Historie of Africa ... (1600) as reprinted by Samuel Purchas (Pilgrimes, II, 793). John
Pory had been Smith's source for a portion of the Generall Historie (pp. 141–143).
1. Smith supplies a connective passage of uncertain source, then relies on the well-known
"Voyage" of Anthony Jenkinson, one of the first Englishmen to travel in central
Asia, who died at a ripe old age in 1611 (see Richard Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations,
Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation [London, 1598–1600], I, 324–335,
and Purchas, Pilgrimes, III, 231).
3. This is another hint that Smith may have visited Ireland (cf. the Map of Va., 2on;
and the Proceedings, 18n).
5. This is from Jenkinson's "Voyage," in Purchas, Pilgrimes, III, 232. "Hordia" is
an unusual variant of "horde."
9. Kazan-Tatar Idyl (Max Vasmer, Russisches etymologisches Wörterbuch [Heidelberg,
1950–1958], I, 216–217).
1. Apparently a miscopy of Jenkinson's "Perovolog," from a Russian word for
"portage." Jenkinson's map, Russiae tabula (London, 1562), shows the site at the narrowest
strip between the Volga and Don rivers, where the Turks began digging a canal
in 1569 (see Purchas, Pilgrimes, III, 233; W. E. D. Allen, Problems of Turkish Power in the
Sixteenth Century [London, 1963], 27; and E. G. R. Taylor, Tudor Geography, 1485–1583
[London, 1930], 176).
2. Chaps. 14–16 are not in the Purchas version, for reasons suggested in the editor's
Introduction to Fragment J. Be it said here only that Smith availed himself generously
of the Itinerarium (Purchas's "Peregrinations") of Friar William de Rubruquis (c. 1215–
1270), which had been published by Hakluyt in Latin and English (Principal Navigations,
I, 71–117) from a defective text, and in an edited translation in English by Samuel
Purchas, who found "the whole worke" in "Benet College" (now Corpus Christi), Cambridge
(Pilgrimes, III, 1–52). That John Smith, who presumably saw something of the
Tatars in 1603, relied on a work 350 years old for support and background is neither
inept nor unfitting. Time stands still, here and there.
3. The first dozen or so lines are adjusted to fit Smith's story and contain geographical
details not found in Purchas, Pilgrimes, III, 3.
4. Moldavia was the principality that now forms NE Rumania, between Transylvania
and modern Bessarabia, U.S.S.R.; Podolia was to the N and formed part of the
Polish-Lithuanian state; Lithuania then extended from the Baltic to the Black Sea; and
"Russia" here refers to Rassia (or Rascia), the former see of the bishop of Ras, modern
Novi Pazar, c. 175 km. (110 mi.) NNW of Skoplje by road. These districts were "more
regular" in that they were better organized.
5. A variant of "champaign" — level, open country. Smith follows Rubruquis (in
Purchas, Pilgrimes, III, 1–52) only roughly, but chap. 2 of the latter begins about here.
7. "Cossmos" was an early form of "kumiss" (Tatar kumyz) — fermented mare's or
camel's milk. This is not brought up in Rubruquis until chap. 6 (ibid., 5).
9. This paragraph broadly corresponds with chap. 4 of Rubruquis (ibid., 4–5), but
Smith has added a number of details, either from personal experience or from other
sources (see n. 3, below).
2. Although the rest of this page to the top of p. 28 is partly based on chap. 5 of
Rubruquis (ibid., 5), a few details are added, as noted below.
3. The "hony-wine" is surely mead (modern Russian myod). This passage appears
to have been adapted from a new source, Martin Broniovius (Marcin Broniowski),
ambassador from King István Báthory of Poland (uncle of Zsigmond) to the Crimean
khan, 1578–1579, whose "Description of Tartaria" was printed in Purchas, Pilgrimes,
III, 632–643. There we read, "Yet the Gentlemen have bread, flesh, ... and Metheglin
[a kind of mead]" (ibid., 639). After this snippet Smith returns to Rubruquis (ibid., 5),
oblivious to the 330-year chronological imbalance.
4. The punctuation is faulty; it should read: "the common sort [drink] stamped
[pounded] millit ... [which] they call Cassa. ..." This is another snippet from Broniovius's
"Description of Tartaria" (ibid., 639).
6. Here Smith appears to turn to Broniovius's "Description of Tartaria" in earnest,
though he continues to pick scraps and shreds at random. Since specific references to all
of Smith's borrowings would be tedious and largely profitless for the purposes of this
edition, the editor leaves it to those especially interested in early 17th-century plagiarism
to locate each borrowed morsel (see ibid., 632–643). Only broad guidelines will be
provided.
7. "Ulusi" is a case of misunderstanding on the part of Broniovius and may serve to
indicate that Smith was not personally familiar with the word. "Ulus" means "camp"
in Russian but "people" in the Turkic languages (cf. Broniovius's "Description of Tartaria,"
ibid., 633, with Vasmer, Wörterbuch, II, 182–183; and see Barbour, "Smith's
Observations on Life in Tartary," VMHB, LXVIII [1960], 282).
8. This is partly based on Broniovius's "Description of Tartaria" (Purchas, Pil-
grimes, III, 633). Perecopia was another name for Eupatoria, on the Crimean W coast;
Taurica was an ancient name of Crimea itself; Osow was a variant of Russian Azov
(Turkish Azak, slavicized by Broniovius or Purchas[?] as Azaph [ibid.]); and Tanaīs
was the classic name of the Don River. Azov, at the mouth of that river, was held by the
Turks in Smith's day, but the hinterland was controlled by roaming Tatars, who had not
yet yielded to Poland, Lithuania, or Muscovy.
1. Bakhchisarai (Turkish Bağçe̊saray, garden palace) and the other Crimean towns
are listed, with extended comments, in Broniovius (ibid., 634–636); Smith shows minor
variations.
2. "Bezoar" was the original Persian name for any anti-poison. The calculus, or
stone, found in the stomach or intestines of some ruminant animals in Asia Minor, particularly
wild goats, was highly prized as a medicine and thus was called a bezoar-stone.
The word "bezer" was apparently inserted by Smith, as were most of the comments (cf.
ibid., 640).
5. These titles are from Broniovius's "Description of Tartaria" and need not be
taken as necessarily Tatar. According to his account, the sultans were (younger) sons of
the khan; the tuians (by implication only) were lesser "nobles"; the ulans were "anciently
descended of the Chans bloud" (ibid., 637; from Turkish oğlan [young men, youth]
through Polish or 15th-century Russian, though at least two Turkic dialects have the
form ulan [Martti Räsänen, Versuch eines etymologischen Wörterbuchs der Türksprachen (Helsinki,
1969), 358]); and "marhies" must be an error for "marzies [mirzas]," who were
princes' sons.
7. The bulk of chap. 16 is derived from Broniovius's "Description of Tartaria"
(ibid., 640–643), but considerably condensed and otherwise altered. Smith's style of
writing breaks through, but on the whole he has condensed Broniovius's account faithfully.
Sir Robert Cotton had asked Smith to write a book about his life (see sig. A2r,
above), and he had already written all that he really remembered.
3. Broniovius puts it more clearly: "the rest of the Armie ... is extended in longitude
more then ten miles, and in latitude as much" (ibid.).
5. Broniovius's "Description of Tartaria" has "but the Agent who wel knowes,"
which is clearer (ibid., 642).
6. Broniovius's version of these names (ibid.) is generally better, but the editor
cannot know how faithful Purchas was in his translation, since the original, published as
"Opisanie Kryma" (Tartariae Descriptio) in Zapiski Odesskago obshchestva istorii i drevnostey,
VI (Odessa, 1867), has not been available; see Kortepeter, Ottoman Imperialism, 257.
In modern terms the list should read: The Nogay horde and the Tatars of Perecopia,
Crimea, and Azov, and the Circassians ...; but those of Petigoren (Colchis, at the E end
of the Black Sea), Ochakov (in the delta of the Bug River), Byelgorod (better known as
Akkerman, in Bessarabia), and Dobrogea (lower Danube, in Rumania)....
1. Italian chiaverina, a sort of javelin; unrecorded in English until long after Smith.
Note that it was misprinted by Arber as "cavatine" (Arber, Smith, Works, 864); see
Barbour, "Smith's Observations on Life in Tartary," VMHB, LXVIII (1960), 282.
2. The original is clearer: "In the Chans Regiment a very great white Mares tayle,
and a piece of Greene and Red Silke of the Turkish Emperour is carryed before on a great
Pike for a Standard" (Broniovius, "Description of Tartaria," in Purchas, Pilgrimes, III,
643).
3. This paragraph is a mixture of Smith and the last paragraph of Broniovius's
"Description of Tartaria" (ibid.).
5. Jenkinson also has it thus, though Media had disappeared as a political unit many
centuries before. Perhaps it was a matter of biblical influence.
6. Siberia was a vast, little-known expanse then; the Yaik is the Ural River, which
flows into the Caspian Sea, E of the Volga; and the "Yem" was probably the Yema,
better known as the Ob, which flows into the Arctic Ocean.
7. Again it would hardly be worthwhile to attempt to locate Smith's specific source
or sources. There are several extracts included by Purchas in vol. III of his Pilgrimes that
might have inspired Smith, but none of those inspected by the editor tallies with Smith's
narrative in its several aspects.
8. Here Smith at length picks up his account in the Purchas version (p. 1368),
neglected since the bottom of p. 25, above.
9. A bat was a simple stick or small club; a flail was a technological invention, albeit
a simple one, having a secondary rod attached so that it swung freely. It was a more
effective weapon if so used. Below, "estate" means merely "condition."
1. Smith evidently thought he heard the name of the road, apparently from some
Muscovite. All he remembered, however, was that it was k Astrakhani, "[the road] to
Astrakhan." See the Purchas version for notes on Smith's travel route (Fragment J,
1368n).
2. Signposts of the general nature described by Smith have been preserved in
Rumania, where the editor inspected two that have been reerected in the Village
Museum, Bucharest. A recent book review by Karl H. Menges mentions a Turkic word
perhaps meaning "a slight elevation with a road-mark," indicating the existence of such
signs (Journal of the American Oriental Society, XCIV [1974], 243).
5. The editor has postulated the identification of Aecopolis as Valuiki (Barbour,
"Smith's Route through Turkey and Russia," WMQ, 3d Ser., XIV [1957], 366), but
see the Purchas version (Fragment J, 1368n) for further suggestions.
6. In a recent study, E. M. Dvoychenko-Markova has pointed out that Salamata
is a common Don Cossack name and that "the good Lady Callamata" was probably the
wife of the Cossack ataman, or chieftain ("Dzhon Smit v Rossii" [John Smith in Russia],
Novaya i noveyshaya istoriya, Akademiya Nauk [Academy of Sciences], No. 3 [1976], 158–
160).
7. The name "Bruapo" ("Bruago" in the Purchas version, 1367) may also have
been suggested by Vaughan (see Fragment J, 1367n; and 23n, above). The "mountaines
of Innagachi" and the "Poole Kerkas" on the other hand, may have been found in
roughly this spelling on some map mentioning the Nogai Tatars and the Circassians
("Cherkesy," in Russian). Both peoples roamed in the great steppe E and NE of the
Black Sea.
8. Maeotis and Tanaïs were the classical names for the Sea of Azov and the Don
River. For information on a few of the other names, see Fragment J, 1368–1369nn.
1. "Coragnaw" ("Caragnaw") and "Zumalacke," below, are analyzed in Barbour,
"Smith's Route through Turkey and Russia," WMQ, 3d Ser., XIV (1957), 366. They
are most likely Chernava, 20 mi. (30-odd km.) SW of Yelets (see n, below) and the
Izyumskii Shlyakh, the track that served as a road in that region.
2. Surely Yelets and Dankov, on the Don River. The next half dozen names stand
for the region of Chernigov, the towns of Bryansk and Novgorod, the region of Severski,
the town of Rechitsa, and the Dnieper.
3. Lithuania was then the eastern half of the Polish-Lithuanian "republic," ruled
by King Sigismund III from 1587 to 1632. Suggested identifications of place-names
follow: Coroski — Korosten, 200 km. (125 mi.) SW of Rechitsa; Duberesko — Barashi,
nearly halfway between Korosten and Novograd-Volynski; Drohobus — either Dorogobuzh
or Drogobyck; Ostroge — Ostrog, 40 km. (25 mi.) SE of Rovno; Volonia —
Volhynia, the name of a district in NW Ukrainian S.S.R.; Saslaw — Izyaslav, SE of
Ostrog; Lasco — Olesko, 135 km. (85 mi.) to the W; Podolia — a former district S of
Volhynia (see p. 26n, above); Halico — Galich (Halich in Ukrainian), some 95 km. (60
mi.) to the S; Collonia — Kolomyya, now U.S.S.R. (no longer an important road junction);
Hermonstat — Hermannstadt (Sibiu in Rumanian), Transylvania, whence Smith
had set out for Red Tower Pass.
4. These were true log cabins, such as were not known in North America before the
Swedes brought the idea to the Delaware River area in 1638 (Harold R. Shurtleff, The
Log Cabin Myth: A Study of the Early Dwellings of the English Colonists in North America [Cambridge,
Mass., 1939], 186–208).
6. The caliver seems to have been the lightest kind of firearm except the pistol; a
light musket (see the Sea Grammar, 69, "colivers").
7. Remembering that "two dayes travell" may well mean 50–60 km. (30–40 mi.),
the editor can vouch for the truth of the latter part of the sentence for some places in that
area, which he visited in the mid-1960s; for the earlier part of the sentence, see Barbour,
Three Worlds, 414, n. 5, which vouches for its truth in 1945.
8. Beautifully wrought — not odd or strange. The observation that follows is a good
example of Smith's insight.
9. In Sibiu, Smith could have learned that Mózes Székely had been finally defeated
and expelled and that Zsigmond's "final abdication" (he had abdicated more than once
before) had this time really been final. Young Gábor Bethlen (born in 1580, like John
Smith) had emerged from obscurity to set in motion a Transylvanian risorgimento.
Basta, who had brought the peace of the grave to the country, would soon retire. John
Smith saw nothing for himself to do but find Zsigmond, get his pension confirmed, and
return to England.
1. For Smith, High Hungary seems to have meant that part of the kingdom, mostly
N of the Danube, that had not been conquered by the Ottoman army, a good portion of
which is now Czechoslovakia. A brief list of correspondences may make the geography
clearer: Fileck — Filakovo, Slovakia; Tocka — Tokaj, N Hungary; Cassovia — Kosice,
Slovakia; Underoroway — Oravsky Podzamok, Moravia-Silesia; Ulmicht — Olomouc,
Moravia; Lipswick — Leipzig; Misenland — Meissen (Misnia), a former margraviate
that included both Leipzig and Dresden.
2. This travel route includes only one city that may not be easily recognized, perhaps
two (see n, below).
4. Smith's list of Spanish place-names may be worth clarifying here and there:
Valiadolid — Valladolid, then the residence of King Philip III; Madrill — Madrid;
Cordua — Córdoba; Civill — Seville; Cheryes — Jerez; Cales — Cádiz; Saint Lucas —
Sanlúcar de Barrameda.
5. Barbary, so called from the Berbers who lived there, comprised North Africa from
Morocco E to the Egyptian border. The Purchas version has: "Then understanding that
the Warres of Mully Shash and Mully Sedan, the two Brothers in Barbarie of Fez and
Moroco (to which hee was animated by some friends) were concluded in peace, he imbarked
himselfe for England ..." (p. 1370). The fact of the case is, however, that the
"Warres" did not break out until the death of the old king on Aug. 24, 1603, when three
of his sons began to dispute the succession. It was five years before one of them, Mūlāi
Zīdān, won out.
6. "Guta" is an error for Ceuta; "Tánger" is the Spanish form of "Tangier"; and
"Saffee" is Safi, the leading port in the Marrakesh region of Morocco.
7. Here Smith begins to borrow at random from Leo's Geographical Historie of Africa,
trans. and amplified by Smith's friend (or at least acquaintance) John Pory, and reprinted
with modification in Purchas, Pilgrimes, II, 749–851. Smith begins with p. 774 of Purchas.
9. Both this detail and the following legend are missing from this passage in Purchas
(ibid., 749–851).
1. Customhouse; Smith was one of the first (of few) English writers to borrow the
word from Arabic al-fondoq, more literally, "the inn" (cf. the famous fondachi in Venice).
2. Fine workmanship, elegance. Though the "Universities," below, are an addition
by Smith, the rest of the paragraph follows Leo (ibid., 776) in basic content.
3. Sources in Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, and Purchas, Pilgrimes, show that
"Larbes," or "Larbies," were Berbers.
4. Here Smith turned to one of several more up-to-date sources, either in Purchas's
Pilgrimes or independently printed. "Mully Hamet" was Mūlāi Ahmed IV, "El-Mansur"
or "Ed-Dhahabi." Three of his sons enter Smith's account: Mūlāi "Es-Sheikh" (crown
prince); Mūlāi Zīdān (spelling modernized, but see Purchas, Pilgrimes, II, 853); and
Mūlāi 'Abd-el-'Aziz, "Abu Fāris."
5. The poisoning is the figment of somebody's imagination, but Mūlāi Zidān did
attempt to seize the throne as soon as the old king died, probably of the plague (see ibid.,
855).
6. "Mulatto." Smith could have gotten this information in Morocco or could
merely have expanded what was available in Purchas (ibid., 853).
1. Since the Clockmakers' Company was not formed until 1631, it is doubtful if any
specific information will be forthcoming about Henry Archer, the watchmaker.
2. A variant of "santon," from Spanish and Italian santo, saint; a European name
for a kind of Moslem monk or hermit.
3. Not certainly identified. The best suggestion seems to be the "Chauz" shown on
Hondius's map of the kingdom of Fez (ibid., following p. 984).
4. In Smith's day Morocco was considered to be an empire composed of at least two
kingdoms: Morocco and Fez (Arabic, Fas). Here Smith returns to Leo's Geographical
Historie of Africa for basic material, condensing and picking out bits at random. The
references to the city of Fez begin with Purchas, Pilgrimes, II, 784, though it is not clear
from where Smith obtained his demographic statistics.
5. Smith's "Carucen" is probably an error for "Carueen," an attempt to transcribe
Arabic al-Qarawiyyin, the name of the great mosque and attached schools. Purchas copied
John Leo's "Caruven," which possibly should be "Caruuen" (ibid., 786). Smith's
statistics do not seem to be taken from Leo.
6. An alcázar was a castle. The Stanford Dictionary of Anglicised Words and Phrases
(Cambridge, 1892) explains Smith's confusion: "alcazar, ... fortress; also (rarely) a
bourse, exchange, bazaar, by confusion with alcaiceria" (44–45). The passage on the
"Burse" is from Leo's Geographical Historie of Africa (Purchas, Pilgrimes, II, 790).
8. The "Countries of Ginny and Binne [Guinea and Benin]" in Smith's day meant
the coast of Africa (and a certain amount of the interior) from the modern republic of
Senegal to the federation of Nigeria, first explored by the English in 1553 (Hakluyt,
Principal Navigations, II, 9–10). For a recent study of Benin, see R. E. Bradbury, Benin
Studies, ed. Peter Morton-Williams (London, 1973).
1. This English effort seems to be missing from Purchas, who printed instead
copious extracts from a Dutch account (Pilgrimes, II, 926–970). The traders who went
to the Senegal River have not been identified by the editor.
2. For Capt. Richard Jobson's account of a previous voyage, see ibid., 921–926
(there is an error in the date at the beginning; possibly read: "Saturday, the ninth of
October, 1619"). The significant detail is that a "Master William Grent" accompanied
Captain Jobson in 1626. This would seem almost certainly to be the William Grent who
contributed commendatory verses to Smith's Generall Historie (sig. A2v); see the Biographical
Directory. "Gago" and "Tumbatu" are Gao (or Gao-Gao) and Timbuktu,
640 km. (400 mi.) apart, on the Niger River.
4. Chap. 19 is highly condensed from Purchas, Pilgrimes, II, 986–1026, as far as the
top of p. 39, below. Purchas in turn had condensed the material from Duarte Lopes, A
Reporte of the Kingdome of Congo, a Region of Africa ..., gathered by Filippo Pigafetta, trans.
Abraham Hartwell (London, 1597). Since it is not certain whether Smith used Hartwell's
translation or Purchas's abbreviation thereof, it seems idle here to do more than
call attention to a few points of at least minor significance.
7. São Salvador is by air 225 km. (141 mi.) from the mouth of the Congo in northern
Angola. A tribe of anthropophagi raided the place about 1588, and it is highly doubtful
that the town had 100,000 inhabitants in Smith's day.
2. The two paragraphs on the Anzichi are based on Purchas (ibid., 992–993).
Purchas has "Anzigues," but the original Italian source has "Anzichi."
3. Apparently a misprint for lamache, snails. The erroneous definition is Hartwell's,
not Smith's or Purchas's, and does not appear in the original Italian. A modern Portuguese
translation calls them búzios (conchs, whelks) and supplies the native name zimbo
(Duarte Lopes and Filippo Pigafetta, Relação do reino de Congo e das terra circunvizinhas,
trans. Rosa Capeans [Lisbon, 1951], 32). The creatures are probably sea snails.
4. Here "meat market, bench or table on which meat was sold"; the usual modern
meaning, "carnage," developed about Smith's day.
5. This is Smith's summary of several passages dealing with religion. Note that
"Azichi," a few lines below, is a mistake for "Anzichi" (n. 2, above).
8. Chap. 20 gives an account of a naval engagement for which there is no other
evidence, beyond a hint or two in the text itself. These hints of Smith's presence and
participation are pointed out below.
1. From Safi to Lanzarote in the Canary Islands was less than 600 km. (375 mi.);
a sailing vessel might easily be driven that far by a storm. If Smith was "in the calmes"
near the Canaries on this occasion, his "pretended mutiny" near there hinted at in the
1607 accounts would be partially explained; that is, his attitude of "I've been here before
and I know what I'm doing" would have irritated such colonists as Edward Maria
Wingfield.
3. Smith has omitted the detail given in the Purchas version that he had "one
thousand Duckets in his Purse" (p. 1370).
4. Smith's title page shows he was aware that he did not have the makings of "a
book by it selfe" even at the outset. The borrowings, expansions, and paddings from
which the True Travels suffers are explained by this.
6. As Edward Arber has pointed out, "With the exception of the Eye-witness description
of Nevis [True Travels, 56–57, below], this latter part is simply a compilation
by our Author, out of such Relations as came to his hands" (Smith, Works, 882). References
to sources in the following notes will be limited to such as have been identified with
reasonable certainty. The editor will make no attempt to "ravel out" each thread of
Smith's "weaved up" summary.
7. While Smith's figures may be too high (and they were raised still higher in the
Advertisements, 3), there can be no doubt that he was on firm ground (see the modern
summary of developments in Wesley Frank Craven, Dissolution of the Virginia Company:
The Failure of a Colonial Experiment [New York, 1932], 312–313, 322–328). "Complement"
here means "compliments, fine behavior."
1. It must be remembered that a "voyage to Virginia" involved at least eight weeks
in a small, malodorous sailing ship.
3. For Nathaniel Causey, see the Biographical Directory. George Yeardley was
appointed governor for life by Charles I on Mar. 4, 1626, and arrived in Virginia toward
the end of June. He died in office and was buried on Nov. 13, 1627. For Francis West,
see the Biographical Directory. Dr. John Pott, sent to Virginia by the Virginia Council
as physician-general, had a "taste for politics," was elected temporary governor (1629–
1630), and remained in Virginia until he died, ante-1642 (see Wyndham B. Blanton,
Medicine in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century [Richmond, Va., 1930], 16–25). Capt. Roger
Smith, a veteran of the Netherlands wars and member of the council in Virginia, was
still alive in 1629. He was married to Jane Pierce Rolfe, widow of John Rolfe, whose first
wife had been Pocahontas. Capt. Samuel Matthews was a member of the council in
Virginia. Capt. William Tucker was a merchant and trader in Virginia from at least
1617 to 1633. William Claiborne (c. 1587–c. 1677), originally appointed surveyor in
Virginia in 1621, was long active both there and in Maryland (see the Dictionary of
American Biography). Smith's reference is probably to John Ferrar (see the Dictionary of
National Biography, s.v. "Ferrar, Nicholas," his brother).
4. Modern research indicates that a total of 27 communities existed in 1625, all of
them along the James River excepting two on the Eastern Shore (Charles E. Hatch, Jr.,
The First Seventeen Years: Virginia, 1607–1624, Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical
Booklets, No. 6 [Williamsburg, Va., 1957], 32–35).
6. Abraham Piersey (Peirse, etc.), cape merchant, amassed huge acreage in nearly
20 years of residence and became one of the most prominent colonists.
2. See p. 42n, above, for these names. Smith has apparently drawn on another
source for this paragraph.
3. Apparently the Robert Hutchins who received a patent for 100 acres below Blunt
Point (between Newport News and Mulberry Island) in May 1625.
4. Master Floud may be the John Flood (Fludd) who arrived in 1610 and appears
in the 1624 muster roll. The other two may be the John Davies (arrived on the George in
1617) and the William Emerson (arrived on the Sampson in 1618) who are listed as
partners in the same muster roll.
5. Most likely, this is Mistress Jane Pierce, who arrived on the Blessing (1609? or
1610?), wife of Capt. William Pierce, who had sailed with Sir Thomas Gates and Sir
George Somers in 1609. The Muster of the Inhabitants of James Cittie, Jan. 24, 1624/5,
includes the couple (see John Camden Hotten, ed., The Original Lists of Persons of Quality
... and Others Who Went from Great Britain to the American Plantations, 1600–1700 ...
[London, 1874], 224).
9. That is, from London. Sir John Harvey sailed during the winter of 1629–1630,
arriving in Virginia before Mar. 24, 1630. Captain Perse was possibly William (see n,
above), and Captain Prine may have been John Prynne, a London merchant who was
also shipowner and master.
1. Master Barnet and Master Cooper have not been identified; the others have
been mentioned in the notes immediately above.
2. Although a "Jno [John] Ireland" is mentioned in connection with the investigation
of a Spanish wreck off Bermuda in 1622 (J. H. Lefroy, comp., Memorials of the
Discovery and Early Settlement of the Bermudas or Somers Islands, 1515–1685, I [London, 1877],
254), there is no way of knowing if he is the same as Smith's "Master Ireland." The
whole of chap. 22 is reprinted by Lefroy (ibid., 493–495), with some errors in transcription.
3. The reference is largely correct, but Capt. Henry Woodhouse is not mentioned
until p. 201 of the Generall Historie.
4. Wine (if that is what is meant here) was imported and was considered expensive
(see "A Proclamacion against the exceedinge price of strong liquor, 6 February 1622/3,"
in Lefroy, comp., Memorials of the Bermudas, I, 285).
1. Roger Wood is frequently referred to in Lefroy, comp., Memorials of the Bermudas;
see the index.
4. Lefroy has a note on this bit of piracy (Memorials of the Bermudas, I, 723). The
Peter Bonaventure had apparently arrived in Bermuda on Mar. 22, 1627. Dunkirk, France,
on the English Channel, was then a nest of pirates. Tor Bay is on the SE coast of Devon.
6. Robert Kesteven was not one of the early colonists, but he later became a local
councillor. He is mentioned in Lefroy, comp., Memorials of the Bermudas, I, 575, 610, 617.
9. This passage refers, of course, to the Pilgrims, whose story was told more fully in
the Generall Historie, 230–241, but Smith's keen disappointment at not having been asked
to go with the group is revealed here and is repeated in the Advertisements, 17, 21.
1. It is fairly clear that the 20 patentees, under the aegis of Sir William Alexander,
who "divided my [Smith's] map [of New England] into twenty parts," based the division
on a map by Samuel de Champlain. Champlain's published map of 1632 confirms this,
though chronologically it is impossible for it to have been copied. Whatever the immediate
source of Sir William's map (or its ultimate debt to Smith's), Smith's protest is
in some measure justified. He, in any event, had not seen any other possible source (see
the expansion of this theme in the Advertisements, 22–23). Cf. Richard Arthur Preston,
Gorges of Plymouth Fort: A Life of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Captain of Plymouth Fort, Governor of
New England, and Lord of the Province of Maine (Toronto, 1953), 224, 278, 422, n. 68.
3. The Massachusetts Bay Company. Any discussion of this movement is far beyond
the scope of this edition of Capt. John Smith's works.
5. Smith has once more lost himself in a highly "conditional" sentence. He obviously
means that the newborn Dutch colony at New York Bay would not have come into
being if the two English colonies of Virginia and New England had been developed "as
it was intended."
6. Here Smith returns to his conception of himself as parent of the colonies (see the
Generall Historie, 241).
9. This paragraph is obviously derived from chap. 11 of Purchas's Pilgrimes (IV,
1247–1250), which in turn was taken from MSS previously in Hakluyt's possession (see
mark "H" in Purchas's table of contents).
5. Capt. Charles Leigh sailed for "Guiana" (the area between the Orinoco and the
Amazon) on Mar. 21, 1604, and died on shipboard a year later. He was the brother of
Sir Oliph (Olyph) Leigh (see the Biographical Directory; the Dictionary of Canadian
Biography; and Purchas, Pilgrimes, IV, 1250–1255). Below, the "Weapoco" is modern
Oyapock River.
6. Roe was in Guiana c. 1610. He was ambassador to the Great Mogul Jahangir
from 1613 to 1619 and ambassador to the Sublime Porte in Istanbul from 1621 to 1628;
see the Biographical Directory.
1. Smith's chronology is not entirely sound. Leigh was the first Englishman to explore
the coast; Robert Harcourt, the second. Harcourt reached the "Weapoco"
(Oyapock) May 17, 1609; Roe arrived in the Amazon c. Apr. 30, 1610. For the details
of Harcourt's voyage, see C. Alexander Harris, ed., A Relation of a Voyage to Guiana by
Robert Harcourt, 1613 (Hakluyt Soc., 2d Ser., LX [London, 1928]), which includes the
additions made in 1626 in the 2d ed. Although Smith undoubtedly used the version in
Purchas, Pilgrimes, IV, 1267–1273, he may well have had access to the 2d ed. of the
original.
2. This is summed up in V. T. Harlow, ed., Colonising Expeditions to the West Indies
and Guiana, 1623–1667 (Hakluyt Soc., 2d Ser., LVI [London, 1925]), lxxv–lxxxvii. Here
Smith's account is occasionally used as a historical source, with exception taken to only
two passages: the 50 or 60 men left "in the River Weapoco" (at the beginning of the paragraph)
is termed a probable exaggeration, and Smith's statement that Capt. Roger
North formed his company "not knowing of the Interest of Captaine Harcote" (at the
end of the paragraph) is said to be erroneous (ibid., lxxii, lxxvi).
4. Harris has a brief mention of the Dutch in this region (ibid., 30–32), and there
are references in James A. Williamson, English Colonies in Guiana and on the Amazon, 1604–
1668 (Oxford, 1923), which remains a basic reference work. "Reduced" in the next
phrase means merely "caused to join."
5. Don Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, Conde de Gondomar, surely must be included
among the most meddlesome ambassadors at any court in Smith's day. From the point
of view of Philip III of Spain, however, he was a vital protector of Spanish claims in
northern South America (see the editor's Introduction to New Englands Trials [1620]).
7. For Capt. Thomas Warner and the story of the settlement of Saint Christopher
(now Saint Kitts), Nevis, and Barbados, see Harlow, ed., Colonising Expeditions, 1–17.
8. The description of the Amazon is roughly accurate. Its main stream lies between
2 and 3 degrees S latitude, and its delta lies athwart the equator.
9. A rush of fresh water. Some have said that the Amazon's flood is noticeable 100
mi. out to sea.
1. This would seem to refer to the junction of the Rio Negro with the Amazon,
about 12 mi. below modern Manaus and 900-odd mi. from the Atlantic.
2. The name does not import "giant-like women," but women ready to fight.
Francisco Orellana, friend and companion of Pizarro, descended the river from Peru in
1541 and named it "Amazonas" because of an affray in which the Tapuya women fought
alongside the men.
3. Here Smith is almost, though briefly, taking the place of Hakluyt and Purchas.
For Ralph Merrifield, see Harlow, ed., Colonising Expeditions, xv, xvi.
6. Apparently a local name only. The editor has not succeeded in finding Smith's
source for this word, but suggests that it may be equivalent to the "mobby" of Barbados
in use about 1650, which was made of potatoes, then boiled and strained through a bag
with water added — "it will not last above one day" (Harlow, ed., Colonising Expeditions,
46). Elsewhere it is stated that "the potatos makes good drink ..." (ibid., 93).
7. This was Pierre Belain, sieur d'Esnambuc, who first attempted colonization of
the French Antilles between 1627 and 1636.
9. Sir Thomas Warner's colony did not really get on its feet for several years. Frequently
short of food, it was beset by the Caribs and by the French (see Harlow, ed.,
Colonising Expeditions, xviii — xix). Smith is one of the chief English sources for the history
of this period.
2. On July 2, 1627, James Hay, earl of Carlisle (fl. 1603–1636), was made lord proprietor
of all the Caribbean islands, under letters patent granted by Charles I, despite
the prior claims of Captain Warner.
3. The tail of a stingray is dangerous but not poisonous. The misconception was
Smith's (cf. the Proceedings, 34).
4. Sir Samuel, it will be remembered, was a loyal friend and backer of Smith's (see
sig. A2V, above).
5. For a fuller account of Sir William Tufton's appointment and other developments
in Barbados, see Harlow, ed., Colonising Expeditions, xxiv, 75.
6. Identities uncertain; Prinne cannot have been Capt. Martin Pring (see the
Generall Historie, 18; and the Advertisement, 38), since Pring died in 1626 in Bristol.
7. Smith seems to be confused here. Tegreeman was the name of the king, who was
indeed killed, early in 1624 (Harlow, ed., Colonising Expeditions, xv–xvi, 1–2).
9. Saint Kitts is 17° 20' N lat. and 23 mi. (37 km.) in length, but only 6 mi. (9 km.)
wide. Below, the number of islands in the West Indies should be stated as "uncounted."
2. "Deceado" is apparently Désirade, just E of Guadeloupe. "Mevis" is the usual
mistake for Nevis. "Bernardo" is Barbuda, NE of Nevis; Saint Martin and Saint-Barthélemy,
NW.
3. Smith seems to be tapping a new source here. His account reads very much like
that in the introduction to Harlow, ed., Colonising Expeditions, xv–xvii. For one contemporary
source, see John Featly, A Sermon Preached to ... Sir Thomas Warner: And the rest of
his Companie: Bound to the West-Indies ... (London, 1629).
6. The passeriform order, typified by the genus Passer (sparrow), includes more than
half of existing birds.
9. Apparently a Carib word; a small tree bearing a waxy pulp from which an
orange-red dye is made.
2. This does not seem to have been identified, although "pengromes" is faintly
reminiscent of "pomegranates." Smith has possibly garbled his source.
6. Whether the error was in Smith's source or in the copying, Barbados is rather
SSE of Saint Kitts, at a direct distance of over 350 mi. (560 km.), NE of Trinidad by 210
mi. (335 km.), and only a little farther from Cabo de Salinas, modern Venezuela, just
across Dragon's Mouth (Bocas del Dragón) from Trinidad.
7. The Essequibo (or Dissequibe) River in modern Guyana. For a modern study of
Henry Powell's venture, with documents, see Harlow, ed., Colonising Expeditions, xxix–
xxxi, 36–42.
8. Punctuate: "neere the middest of the I[s]le, of Bitume[n], which is. ..." The
substance was later locally known as manjak (see the OED).
9. The fuller form "crab apple" does not appear until the 18th century. "Mancinell"
is a variant of "manchineel."
5. Depositions pertinent to the three Powells and to Barbados are printed in Harlow,
ed., Colonising Expeditions, 36–42.
7. "Nevis." Smith barely mentioned this island in the Proceedings, 3, or in the
Generall Historie, 42. For George Percy's fuller account of the colonists' visit of Mar. 27 to
Apr. 3, 1607, see Philip L. Barbour, ed., The Jamestown Voyages under the First Charter,
1606–1609 (Hakluyt Soc., 2d Ser., CXXXVI–CXXXVII [Cambridge, 1669]), I, 131–132.
8. The poisonous plant was probably manchineel (see Barbour, Three Worlds, 117,
429, n. 3). It seems odd that George Percy did not mention the matter.
9. Thomas Littleton was a merchant who had a commission from the earl of Carlisle
(see Harlow, ed., Colonising Expeditions, 5, 14–17, 85n).
1. Smith or his source may have confused Barbados with Barbuda, which is c. 70
mi. (110 km.) ENE. Neither island is "a barren rocke," Barbados (much the larger) being
166 sq. mi. (430 sq. km.) in area. The coral reefs, however, could have deterred the first
explorers.
3. This is apparently the same man as Anthony Hilton, who sailed for Virginia in
1623 (Susan Myra Kingsbury, ed., The Records of the Virginia Company of London [Washington,
D.C., 1906–1935], IV, 164–167), returned to England, and sailed once again, to
become one of the earliest planters in Saint Kitts (Harlow, ed., Colonising Expeditions,
4–8). Edward Tompson may have been the same as, or related to, Morice Thompson of
Saint Kitts (ibid., 26n).
7. See p. 52n, above. The rest of this sentence should probably read: "how he drove
Powhatan out of his country, took the kings of Pamaunke and Paspahegh prisoners,
forced thirty-nine of those kings to pay him tribute, and subjected all the savages...."
8. Smith has at last "corrected" his spelling of the Ile de Ré, off La Rochelle (see
the Description of N.E., 56n).
9. Several small books and pamphlets about pirates were printed during Smith's
lifetime. Reference is made below only to the most significant, along with modern works.
1. See E[dward] Roland Williams, Some Studies of Elizabethan Wales (Newtown,
Montgomeryshire, 1924), chap. 9 of which is devoted to John Callice. This colorful
pirate, who took up piracy about 1574, was a cousin of Henry Herbert, second earl of
Pembroke.
2. See Clinton, Purser and Arnold, to Their Countreymen wheresoever (London, [1583?]),
reprinted in J. P. Collier, ed., Illustrations of Early English Popular Literature (London,
1863–1864), II.
3. For Capt. Thomas Flemyng, see M[ichael] Oppenheim, ed., The Naval Tracts of
Sir William Monson (Navy Records Society, Publications, XXII, XXIII, XLIII, XLV,
XLVII [London, 1902–1914]), I, 154.
4. The ancient town of Sallee (modern Salé) stands just across the Bou Regreg from
Rabat, Morocco. It was a famous pirates' nest.
5. Mers-el-Kebir, four miles W of Oran, Algeria, another famous pirates' nest.
Below, "Cuta" is of course Ceuta.
7. Jack Ward made a name for himself (see [John Ward], Newes from Sea, of Two
Notorious Pyrats, Ward the Englishman and Danseker the Dutchman [London, (1609)]; and
Andrew Barker, A True and Certaine Report of the Beginning, Proceedings, Overthrowes, and now
Present Estate of Captaine Ward and Danseker, the Two Late Famous Pirates ... [London,
1609]; note the word "late").
8. For Bishop, see [James Harris], The Lives, Apprehensions, Arraignments, and Executions,
of the Nineteen Late Pyrates ... (London, [1609]).
9. For Peter Easton, see Sir Godfrey Fisher, Barbary Legend: War, Trade, and Piracy
in North Africa, 1415–1830 (Oxford, 1957), 138–139: he "settled down as a wealthy
Catholic and marquis in Savoy."
1. Jennings was the best known of the following list (see [Harris], Lives, Apprehensions,
Arraignments).
| THE TRUE
TRAVELS,
ADVENTURES,
AND OBSERVATIONS
Of Captaine John Smith,
in Europe, Asia, Africke, and America:
beginning about the yeere 1593, and
continued to this present 1629. | |