generally brought a good price, many of the planters[9] became quite
rich.

[Footnote 9: Planter: a person who owns a plantation or large farm
at the South; it is cultivated by laborers living on it; once these
laborers were generally negro slaves.]

49. Bacon's war against Governor Berkeley;[10] Jamestown
burned.--Long after Captain Smith was in his grave, Sir William
Berkeley was made governor of Virginia by the king of England. He
treated the people very badly. At last a young planter named Bacon
raised a small army and marched against the governor, who was in
Jamestown. The governor, finding that he had few friends to fight
for him, made haste to get out of the place. Bacon then entered it
with his men; but as he knew that, if necessary, the king would send
soldiers from England to aid the governor in getting it back, he set
fire to the place and burned it. It was never built up again, and
so only a crumbling church-tower and a few gravestones can now be
seen where Jamestown once stood. Those ruins mark the first English
town settled in America.

[Illustration: THE BURNING OF JAMESTOWN.]

[Footnote 10: Berkeley (Berk'li).]

50. What happened later in Virginia; the Revolution; Washington;
four presidents.--But though Jamestown was destroyed, Virginia kept
growing in strength and wealth. What was better still, the country
grew in the number of its great men. The king of England continued
to rule America until, in 1776, the people of Virginia demanded that
independence should be declared. The great war of the Revolution
overthrew the king's power and made us free. The military leader of
that war was a Virginia planter named George Washington.

After we had gained the victory and peace was made, we chose
presidents to govern the country. Four out of six of our first
presidents, beginning with Washington, came from Virginia. For this
reason that state has sometimes been called the "Mother of
Presidents."

51. Summary.--In 1607 Captain John Smith, with others, made the first
lasting settlement built up by Englishmen in America. Through
Captain Smith's energy and courage, Jamestown, Virginia, took firm
root. Virginia was the first state to demand the independence of
America, and Washington, who was a Virginian, led the war of the
Revolution by which that independence was gained.

What can you tell about Captain John Smith before he went to Virginia?
What happened to him on his way to Virginia? What is s