Let us remember that American life and literature owe their most
interesting traits to these three Elizabethan qualities--initiative,
ingenuity, and democracy. Let us not forget that the Cambridge University
graduate, the cooper, cloth-maker, printer, and blacksmith had the
initiative to set out for the New World, the ingenuity to deal with its
varied exigencies, and the democratic spirit that enabled them to work side
by side, no matter how diverse their former trades, modes of life, and
social condition.
CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH, 1579-1631
[Illustration: JOHN SMITH]
The hero of the Jamestown colony, and its savior during the first two
years, was Captain John Smith, born in Willoughby, Lincolnshire, in 1579,
twenty-four years before the death of Elizabeth and thirty-seven before the
death of Shakespeare. Smith was a man of Elizabethan stamp,--active,
ingenious, imaginative, craving new experiences. While a mere boy, he could
not stand the tediousness of ordinary life, and so betook himself to the
forest where he could hunt and play knight.
In the first part of his young manhood he crossed the Channel, voyaged in
the Mediterranean, fought the Turks, killing three of them in single
combat, was taken prisoner and enslaved by the Tartars, killed his inhuman
master, escaped into Russia, went thence through Europe to Africa, was in
desperate naval battles, returned to England, sailing thence for Virginia,
which he reached at the age of twenty-eight.
Pages:
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27