anderers, that
splendid source of the best civilization of the world, cast anchor by
chance in a noble bay for which they had not sailed, and settled a
colony; not with any particularly high or noble object, but really in
pursuit of gold, and searching for a South Sea which they never found.
The voyage had been projected without any other object than the
accumulation of wealth, which wealth was to be carried back to the old
country and enjoyed in that England which they loved, and to which their
eyes ever turned backward with affection, reverence, and the hope of
return. This band of younger sons and penniless nobility, attempted to
make a settlement under the charter known as the London charter of
Virginia; and while we find to-day men sneering at John Smith, the fact
remains that he alone was enabled by his strong personality, by his
sterling, individual worth, to resist the savages, to make the lazy
work, to furnish food for the weak and sickly, to re-inspire those who
had lost hope, and to firmly establish a settlement in Virginia. His
reward was what? Sedition in his own camp, ingratitude among his own
followers, misrepresentation to his patrons, disappointment, disease,
and poverty to himself; a return to England and posthumous fame. But his
bulldog fangs, the fangs of that English blood which once sunk in the
throat of a savage land remain forever, were placed upon America, to
mark it as another conquest and another triumph of Anglo-Saxon
colonization. Three years of peace and quiet in England were not to his
taste. His mother's spirit craved new adventures, and he sought them in
sea voyages to the north. Although his task was a much less difficult
one, and not quite so prominent as the task he had accomplished in
Virginia, he prepared the way for the settlement at Plymouth Rock. To
his title of President of Virginia was added the title of Admiral of New
England, because this John Smith, without a pedigree, except such as was
blazoned on his shield by his slaughter of three Turks, turned his
attention from the land to the sea, sailed the colder waters of the
north, located the colonies of New England, named your own Boston, and
the result of his voyages and reports were the Plymouth charter and
settlement. So it is that we have a common founder of the settlements of
this country. Of all the gallants who embarked in the first adventure,
all disappeared save John Smith, who bore the plainest and commonest
name that