n on the River Don, where he found good
friends. In 1604, after some other adventures, he came again to England.
All London was talking of the doings of King James, who in one short
year had managed to dissatisfy both Catholics and Protestants. Since the
voyages of Gosnold, Pring and Weymouth there was much interest in
Virginia. Ralegh was a prisoner in the Tower. There was talk of a
trading association to be called the London Company, and it was said
that this company planned a new plantation somewhere north of Roanoke.
Smith could see the great future which might await an English settlement
in that rich land. He decided to join the adventurers going out in the
fleet of Captain Christopher Newport. Before sailing, he went to
Lincolnshire to bid farewell to his own people, and in the shadow of the
Tower of Saint Botolph's he espied a tall lad whose look recalled
something.

"Why," he cried with a hearty clasp of the hand. "'t is thyself grown a
man, Will! And how goes the Latin?"

"I love it well," the youth answered shyly. "Master Brewster hath also
instructed me in the Greek. If--if I had known where to send it I would
have repaid the money you was so kind as to spare."

"Nay, think no more o't--or rather, hand it on to some other young
book-worm," laughed the bearded and bronzed captain. "And how be all
your folk?"

The lad's eyes rested wistfully upon the quaint old seaport streets.
"The Bishop rails upon our congregation," he said. "Holland is better
than a prison, and we shall go there soon."

Smith's practical mind saw the uselessness of trying to get any
Non-Conformist taken on by a royal colony in Virginia just then. "'Tis a
hard case," he said sympathetically, "but we may meet again some day.
There's room enough in the Americas, the Lord knows, for all the honest
men England can spare."

Thus they parted, and on April 26, 1607, the Virginia voyagers saw land
at the mouth of the Chesapeake.

The company was rather top-heavy. Out of the hundred who were enrolled,
fifty-two were gentlemen adventurers, each of whom thought himself as
good as the rest and even a little better. No sooner had the ship
dropped anchor than thirty of them went ashore to roam the forest,
laughing and shouting as if they had the country to themselves. The
appearance of five Indians sent them scurrying back to the ship with two
of their number wounded, for they had no weapons with them. That night
the sealed orders of the London C