"John Smith, Captain, was born in Cheshire, as Master Arthur Smith, his kinsman and my schoolmaster, did inform me. He spent most of his life in foreign parts. First in Hungary, under the emperor, fighting against the Turks; three of which he himself killed in single duel; and therefore (so it is writ over his tomb) was authorised by Sigismund King of Hungary to bear three Turk's heads as augmentation to his arms. Here he gave intelligence to a besieged city in the night, by significant fire-works formed in the air, in legible characters, with many strange performances, the scene whereof is laid at such a distance, they are cheaper credited than confuted.
[Illustration: St. Luke's, near Smithfield, built in 1623. The Oldest Protestant Church in America.
Copyright, 1906, by Jamestown Official Photo. Corp'n. ]
"From the Turks in Europe he passed to the pagans in America where towards the latter end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth (!) such his perils, preservations, dangers, deliverances, they seem to most men above belief, to some beyond truth. Yet have we two witnesses to attest them, the prose and the pictures, both in his own book; and it soundeth much to the diminution of his deeds, that he alone is the herald to publish and proclaim them.
"Two captains being at dinner one of them fell into a large relation of his own achievements, concluding his discourse with this question to his fellow: 'And pray, Sir, what service have _you_ done?' To whom he answered: 'Other men can tell that.' However, moderate men must allow Captain Smith to have been very instrumental in settling the plantation in Virginia whereof he was Governor, as also admiral of New England.
"He led his old age in London, where his having a prince's mind imprisoned in a poor man's purse, rendered him to the contempt of such who were not ingenuous. Yet he efforted his spirits with the remembrance and relation of what formerly had been and what he had done. He was buried in Sepulchre's Church choir, on the south side thereof, having a ranting epitaph inscribed in a table over him, too long to transcribe. Only we will insert the first and last verses, the rather because the one may fit Alexander's life for his valour, the other his death for his religion:--