e years of age, and emphatically a soldier of fortune.
The tale of his prowess and adventures had preceded him, and he was
eagerly welcomed in London by kindred spirits who were preparing to
emigrate to America to form the colony of Virginia under the grant and
direct patronage of James I. By the time the enterprise was ripe for
execution, Smith had made himself so useful in counsel and preparation
that the king named him as one of the councillors of the prospective
colony.

The boundary lines of the royal grant were two hundred miles north, and
the same distance south, of the mouth of the James River, and east and
west "from sea to sea."

On December 19, 1606, the band of adventurers, 100 in number, embarked
at Gravesend in three small vessels. Christopher Newport was in command,
but Smith, and his close allies, Bartholomew Gosnold and George Percy, a
younger brother of the Duke of Northumberland, were the ruling spirits
of the voyagers. Carpenters and laborers were oddly jumbled upon the
list of emigrants with jewellers, perfumers, and gold refiners, and
"gentlemen" held prominence in numbers and influence. The officers
outnumbered the privates. The little fleet was hardly out of the offing
when the struggle for power began. The voyage was not half accomplished
when John Smith was charged with complicity in a discovered mutiny. He
had intended, it was alleged, to murder his superiors, seize the fleet,
and make himself king of Virginia. The "General History of Virginia"
tells how serious an aspect the affair wore:

"Such factions here we had, as commonly attend such voyages, that a
paire of gallowes was made, but Captain Smith, for whom they were
intended, _could not be persuaded to use them_."

He was still under suspicion and arrest when the fleet anchored (May 13,
1607) in the broad river, Powhatan, to which the English explorers gave
the name of their king. Their first tents were pitched and first cabins
built upon a low peninsula flanked by extensive marshes. The settlement
received the name of Jamestown, in further demonstration of loyalty.

When the king's sealed orders were opened, the name of John Smith
appeared second upon the roll of seven councillors appointed to govern
the infant colony. Next to him Gosnold was fittest for the responsible
position assigned to them. His death within three months after the
landing, left Smith the object of the envious distrust of Wingfield, who
had been elected presiden