University of Virginia Library

"This table is on the south side of the choir in St. Sepulcher's, with
this inscription:

To The Living Memory
of his
Deceased Friend,
CAPTAINE JOHN SMITH,
Who Departed this Mortall Life
on the
21st Day of June, 1631.

with his arms and this motto:

Accordamus, vincere est vivere.

Here lies one conquer'd
that hath conquer'd Kings,
Subdu'd large Territories,
and done things
Which to the World
impossible would seeme,
But that the truth
is held in more esteeme,

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37

Shall I report
His former service done
In honour of his God
and Christendome:
How that he did
divide from Pagans three,
Their heads and Lives,
types of his chivalry:
For which great service
in that Climate done,
Brave Sigismundus
(King of Hungarion)
Did give him as a Coat
of Armes to weare,
Those conquer'd heads
got by his Sword and Speare?
Or shall I tell
of his adventures since,
Done in Virginia,
that large Continence?
How that he subdu'd
Kings unto his yoke,
And made those heathen flie,
as wind doth smoke:
And made their Land,
being of so large a Station,
A habitation
for our Christian Nation:
Where God is glorifi'd,
their wants suppli'd,
Which else for necessaries
might have di'd?
But what avails his Conquest,
now he lyes
Inter'd in earth,
a prey for Wormes and Flies?
O may his soule
in sweet Elizium sleepe,
Until the Keeper
that all soules doth keepe,
Return to judgement,
and that after thence,
With Angels he may have
his recompence.

"Captain John Smith, sometime Govenour of Virginia, and Admirall
New England."

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So passed from the arena of life a man who has left his
impress upon the world's history. To contemplate his
career as a whole, it presents only a view of marvelous
exploits and heroic adventures, with scanty foreshadowings
in his brief journey of two and fifty years, of the mighty consequences
of his life-work. But, in the section of that panorama
which shows Captain Smith as the founder of the Jamestown
Colony, we see now beyond the canvas, and behold, a
mighty empire has arisen where those brave settlers led the
way. An organized and powerful home of freedom stretches
from sea to sea; and with "one country, one constitution,
and one destiny," the invitation has gone out to all the peoples
of the earth to come and join in this great heritage!

The following extracts afford an interesting insight to a
portion of early Virginia history, and also show the honor in
which Captain John Smith was held by some distinguished
Americans of the nineteenth century:

On "the tenth of September, 1608, by the election of the Councell and
request of the Company, Captain Smith received the Letters Patents, which
till then by no meanes he would accept, though he was often importuned
thereunto. Now, the building of Ratcliffe's Pallace stayed as a thing needlesse;
the Church was repaired; the Store-house recouered; buildings
prepared for the Supplyes we expected; the Fort reduced to a fiue square

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39

forme; the order of the Watch renewed; the squadrons (each setting of
the Watch) trained; the whole Company euery Saturday exercised in the
plaine by the west Bulwarke, prepared for that purpose, we called Smithfield;
where sometimes more than an hundred Salvages would stand in an
amazement to behold how a fyle would batter a tree, where he would make
them a marke to shoot at; the boats trimmed for trade, which being sent
out with Lieutenant Percy, in their Journey incountred the second Supply,
that brought them back to discover the Country of Monacan."

—The
True Travels, Adventures, and Observations of Captain John Smith.

"He united the highest spirit of adventure with eminent powers of
action. His courage and self-possession accomplished what others esteemed
desperate. Fruitful in expedients, he was prompt in execution.
He was accustomed to lead, not to send, his men to danger; would suffer
want rather than borrow, and starve sooner than not to pay. He had a

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"Discord, anarchy, and confusion mark the early history of these
colonists (1608), and but for the genius, courage, and skill of Smith, they
had shared the fate of the Colony of Roanoke. Guided by his talents,
influenced by his example, under the wise administration of Smith, the
Colony of Virginia was founded."

"In proof of the religious character of Captain Smith, as a part of the
history of James City Parish, I quote the following account of the first
place of worship in the same, etc.:

" `Now, because I have spoken so much for the body, give me leave
to say somewhat of the soul; and the rather, because I have been
demanded by so many, how we began to preach the Gospel in Virginia,
and by what authority, what churches we had, our order of service, and
maintenance for our ministers; therefore, I think it not amiss to satisfie
their demands, it being the mother of all our Plantations, entreating pride
to spare laughter, to understand her simple beginnings and proceedings.
When I went first to Virginia, I well remember, we did hang an awning
(which is an old sail) to three or four trees, to shadow us from the sun;
our walls were rails of wood, our seats unhewed trees till we cut planks,
our pulpit a bar of wood nailed to two neighboring trees; in foul weather
we shifted into an old rotten tent, for we had few better; and this came
by way of adventure for new. This was our church till we built a homely
thing like a barn, set upon crotchetts, covered with rafts, sedge, and
earth; so was also the walls. The best of our houses were of the like curiosity,
but the most part far much worse workmanship, that could neither
well defend wind nor rain, yet we had daily Common Prayer, morning
and evening, every Sunday two sermons, and every three months the
holy communion, till our minister died (the Rev. Mr. Hunt). But (after
that) our prayers daily, with an homily on Sundays, we continued two or
three years after, till more preachers came, and surely God did most mercyfully
hear us, etc.

Capt. John Smith.'

"Of the piety of Captain Smith we have further evidence in the
account given of the survey of Virginia, when he and his valiant comrades
fell into so many perils among the Indians. `Our order was daily
to have prayer with a psalm, at which solemnity the poor savages much
wondered.'

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"On Smith's return to Jamestown, notwithstanding all former opposition,
such were his merits and such its difficulties that the Council
elected him President of the Colony; and the first thing done was to
repair the church, which, during his absence among the Indians, had,
with other houses, been destroyed by fire. Characteristic and evincive of
piety in him is the statement of it:—`Now the building of the palace
was stayed as a thing needless, and the church was repaired.' "

"He was one of the persons selected by the Company to govern the
infant Colony of Virginia; he was entrusted with the charge of two expeditions
to New England, and was appointed Admiral of that country.
His maps of the countries he visited, and descriptions of their inhabitants,
are acknowledged by all writers to be remarkably accurate, and the
estimation in which he was held by those who knew him best is admirably
expressed by one of the writers in the `Oxford Tract,' upon the occasion
of his departure from the Colony, in these words: `What shall I
saye, but thus we lost him; that in all his proceedings made justice his
first guide, and experience his second, ever hating basenesse, sloth, pride,
and indignitie more than any dangers; that never allowed more for himselfe
than for his soldiers with him; that upon no danger would send
them where he would not lead them himselfe; that would never see us
want what he either had or could by any means get us; that would rather
want than borrow, or starve than not pay; that loved action more than
wordes, and hated falsehood and covetousness worse than death; whose
adventures were our lives, and whose losse our deathes.'

"The London Company were prompted in sending out the Colony by
the desire of immediate gain, and when disappointed threatened to abandon
the colonists to their fate; and the hardships of colonial life made
many desirous of abandoning the enterprise. But the far-reaching genius
of Smith saw in the fertile soil and mild climate of Virginia the provision
by Providence for a great people, and he set himself resolutely to the
work of bringing into subjection the native tribes, and of making the Colony
self-supporting. He rebuked the London Company for their threat
to abandon the Colony, he defeated the efforts to abandon the settlement
at the risk of his life, he forced the men to labor, and he taught them how
to hold the Indians in subjection and to get from them needed provisions.
In a word, he demonstrated the practicability of the enterprise. Years
afterward, and when, through his exertions in a great measure, Virginia
had been successfully planted, he pictured the miseries through which
they had passed who planted it, and his entire devotion of himself to its
interests, in these words: `By that acquaintance I have with them, I call
them my children, for they have been my wife, my hawks, hounds, my
cards, my dice, and in totall my best content, as indifferent to my heart as
my left hand to my right; and notwithstanding all those miracles of disasters
have crossed both them and me, yet were there not an Englishman

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"The site is a very handsome one. The river is three miles broad;
and on the opposite shore the country presents a fine range of bold and
beautiful hills. Where is the busy, bustling crowd which landed here two
hundred years ago? Where is Smith, that pink of gallantry, that flower
of chivalry? I fancy that I can see their first slow and cautious approach
to the shore; their keen and vigilant eyes piercing the forest in every
direction, to detect the lurking Indian, with his tomahawk, bow and
arrow. Good Heavens! what an enterprise! how full of the most fearful
perils! and yet, how entirely profitless to the daring men who personally
undertook and achieved it! Through what a series of the most spirit-chilling
hardships had they to toil! how often did they cast their eyes to
England in vain! and with what delusive hopes, day after day, did the
little famished crew strain their sight to catch the white sail of comfort
and relief! But day after day the sun set and darkness covered the earth,
but no sail of comfort or relief came. How often in the pangs of hunger,
sickness, solitude, and disconsolation did they think of London, her shops,
her markets, groaning under the weight of plenty; her streets swarming
with gilded coaches, bustling hacks, with crowds of lords, dukes, and commons;
with healthy, busy, contented faces of every description; and
among them none more healthy or more contented than those of their
ungrateful and improvident directors!"

"But as I traversed the ground over which Pocahontas had so often
bounded and frolicked in the sprightly morning of her youth, I could not
help recalling the principal features of her history, and heaving a sigh of
mingled pity and veneration to her memory!

"Unfortunate princess! She deserved a happier fate! But I am consoled
* * * * that she sees her descendants among the most respectable
families in Virginia; and that they are not only superior to the false
shame of disowning her as their ancestor, but that they pride themselves,
and with reason, too, on the honor of their descent."