Rome, and put to sea. Compelled by tempests, the ship anchored under the Isle of St. Mary, off Nice, where the "inhumane Provincialls," concluding that Smith, in his double capacity of Englishman and heretic was their Jonah, set upon him, "hourely cursing him," he tells us, "not onely for a Huguenoit but his Nation they swore were all Pyrats, and so vildly railed on his dread sovereigne Queene Elizabeth, and that they never should have faire weather as long as hee was aboard them; their disputations grew to that passion" (stimulated, perhaps, by the liberal use of a staff, with which the gallant Captain requited their assaults) "that they threw him overboard, yet God brought him to that little Isle, where was no inhabitants but a few kine and goats." With his customary good-luck, however, next morning he was taken on board of the Britaine, a French ship, and handsomely entertained by the captain. Sailing to Alexandria, the ship discharged her freight, and thence passed over to the northern coasts. Meeting with a large Venetian argosy, the French captain hailed her, and was answered by a shot which lost him a man. A naval battle, contested with great fury, and lasting for some hours, with all the horrors of broadsides, boarding, danger of conflagration, &c., ensued; but after the argosy had lost twenty men and was ready to sink, she yielded. All was now active exertion in stopping her leaks and transferring her cargo to the victor. "The Silkes, Velvets, Cloth of Gold, and Tissue, Pyasters, Chicqueenes, and Sultanies, (which is gold and silver,) they unloaded in four and twenty houres, was wonderfull, whereof having sufficient, and tired with toile, they cast her off with her company, with as much good merchandize as would have fraughted another Britaine, that was but two hundred Tunnes, shee foure or five hundred." As a reward for his valour in this desperate engagement, Smith received five hundred chicqueenes "and a little box God sent him" (he piously adds) "worth neere as much more." Landing in Piedmont, he travelled through much of Italy, spent some time in surveying the rugged and picturesque coast of Albania and Dalmatia, and, eager for a chance to fight against the Turks, finally made his way to Gratz, in Syria, where was the court of the Archduke Ferdinand, of Austria. No time could have been more propitious to his hopes. The memorable war with the Great Turk, Mahomet II., was then in full contest, and the young adventurer, Introduced by some of his countrymen to the high officers of the imperial service, soon found an ample field for the display of his courage and military genius. At the siege of Olympcha, soon after he joined the army, by an ingenious system of telegraphic fires. he concerted a plan with the garrison, by which the Turks, with great slaughter, were compelled to raise the siege. He now received the command of two hundred and fifty men in the regiment of the famous Earl Meldritch, and executed other ingenious devices against the enemy, which, in his biography, are quaintly titled "An excellent stratagem by Smith; another not much worse;" "A pretty stratagem of fire-works by Smith," &c., &c. One of these contrivances, at the siege of Stowlle-Wesenburg, (1601,) consisted of a great number of bombs or grenades, prepared with all manner of explosive and combustible materials, which, by means of great slings, he flung into the thickest of the besieged. "At midnight, upon the alarum," he says, "it was a feareful sight to behold the short flaming course of their flight in the aire, but presently after their fall, the lamentable noise of the miserably slaughtered Turkes was most wonderful to heare." This town, which the latter had held for nearly sixty years, was finally taken by storm, "with such a mer-. cilesse execution as was most pitifull to behold." Soon after they were again defeated with the loss of six thousand men, in a battle on the plains of Girke, and Smith, half of whose regiment was cut to pieces, as he says, "had his horse slaine under him and himself sore wounded; but he was not long unmounted, for there was choice enough of horses that wanted masters." The Christian army, seventeen thousand strong, under Prince Moyses and Earl Meldritch, laid siege to Regall, a strong and almost impregnable town in the mountains of Transylvania, garrisoned by a large force of "Turks, Tartars, Bandittoes, Rennegadoes, and such like." The work of making trenches and batteries went on but slowly, and the Turks, jeering at their enemies, would ask if their artillery was in pawn, and complain that they were growing fat for want of exercise. A message presently arrived from the fort, that "to delight the Ladies, who did long to see some court-like pastime, the Lord Tusbashaw did defie any captain that had the command of a company that durst combate with him for his Head." So many of the Christian officers were eager to undertake the duel, that the matter was decided by lot, and the peril and honour of the adventure fell to our young friend Smith. At a given signal, the adversaries, in full view of both armies "the Rampiers all beset with faire Dames"-tilted against each other with equal courage and fury, but with better advantage to the Christian, who ran his enemy through helmet and brain, and nimbly alighting, cut off his head, which he presented to the Prince General. One Grualgro, "the vowed friend" of the fallen chief, resolved to avenge his fall or share his fate; and a second encounter, the next day, came off, with equal success to Smith, who unhorsed his enemy and speedily possessed himself of his head. Unsatisfied with his unusual good fortune and renown, the young champion, in turn, sent a courteous message that the ladies might have the heads of their two servants, and his own besides, if any Turk of proper degree would come and take them. This audacious challenge, accepted by one Bonny Mulgro, had nearly proved the death of our hero, who, by a blow of his opponent's battle-axe, lost his own and was nearly unhorsed. The Turks set up a tremendous shout of applause from the ramparts, yet Smith, to use his own language, "what by the readinesse of his horse, and his judgment and dexteritie in such a businesse, beyond all men's expectation, by God's assistance, not onely avoided the Turke's violence, but having drawne his Faulcheon, pierced the Turke so under the Culets, thorow backe and body, that, although he alighted from his horse, hee stood not long ere hee lost his head, as the rest had done." Great rejoicing took place in the Christian army, and Smith was complimented and exalted to the skies. The town, after a desperate defence, was taken by storm, and the Turks entrenched themselves in the castle. "The Earle, remembering his father's death, battered it with all the ordnance in the towne, and the next day took it; all he found could bear Armes he put to the sword, and set their heads upon stakes round about the walls, as they had used the Christians when they tooke it." This was certainly rather an indifferent school for the cultivation of humanity or refinement; yet Smith seems never to have become infected with the cruelty of the age, or to have engaged in these sanguinary scenes with any motive beyond that of the renown to be acquired by gallant deeds of arms, and the idea, in his day not altogether groundless, that a blow struck in behalf of Christendom against the invading ranks of the infidels, was a meritorious work. Sigismund of Transylvania, on repairing to the army, was so pleased with this last exploit of the young soldier, that "with great honour he gave him three Turkes' Heads in a Shield for his Armes. by patent under his hand and seale, with an oathe ever to weare them in his Colours, his picture in Gould, and three hundred Ducats yeerely for a pension." This patent was afterwards admitted and recorded in the Herald's College of England. Fortune finally turned against the Christians, whose army, in the terrible battle of Rotenton, overwhelmed by superior numbers, was almost entirely cut to pieces. "In this bloudy field," says our author, "neere 30,000 lay, some headlesse, armelesse, and leglesse, all cut and mangled; where breathing their last, they gave this knowledge to the world, that for the lives of so few, the Crym-Tartar never paid dearer." Among the victims were a number of adventurous Englishmen, fighting for renown, who all "did what men could doe, and when they could do no more, left there their bodies in testimonie of their mindes. But Smith" (continues that gentleman) "among the slaughtered dead bodies and many a gasping soule, with toile and wounds lay groaning among the rest." * * * Captured and cured of his wounds, he was sold with many more as a slave at Axapolis; and his purchaser, a certain Bashaw Bogall, sent him on to Constantinople as a present to his young mistress, with the assurance that he was a Bohemian lord, the trophy of his personal prowess. The lady, like most whom the gallant captain encountered, at once experienced a tender interest for his welfare; and fearing lest he should be sold out of the family, dispatched him, with a letter of recommendation, to her brother, the Bashaw of Nalbritz, in Tartary, near the sea of Azof. This kindly manoeuvre, however, served him nothing; for the ferocious Turk, apprehending the true state of the case, took all imaginable pains in persecuting him. With his head and beard shaved "so bare as his hand," a great iron ring rivetted about his neck, and a rough garment of hair and hide, the unfortunate Smith underwent a slavery, "so bad, a dog could hardly have lived to endure," and was finally made thresher at a lonely grange of his master, more than a league from the house. The result, in his own brief language, was, that "the Bashaw, as he used often to visit his granges, visited him, and took occasion so to beat, spurne, and revile him, that, forgetting all reason, he beat out the Tymour's braines with his threshing-bat, for they have no flailes; and seeing his estate could be no worse than it was, clothed himself in his clothes, hid his body under the straw, filled his knapsacke with corne, mounted his horse, and ranne into the desart at all adventure." For some days he wandered in the wilderness, but finally, lighting upon the high road from Tartary to Russia, made his way, after a journey of sixteen days, to Ecopolis, à Russian post on the Don. Here he was kindly received, and on his return to Transylvania, "glutted with content and neere drowned with joy," great rejoicing took place at his escape and the manner of it, both so characteristic of his temper. At Prague, whither he repaired, Sigismund presented him with fifteen hundred ducats, equipped with which he travelled through Germany, France, and Spain, viewing notable places and adding to his extensive information. In a French ship he sailed to Africa, meaning to take part in the civil wars in Morocco; "but by reason of the uncertaintie, and the perfidious, treacherous, bloudy murthers rather than warre, among those perfidious, barbarous Moores," changed his purpose. Passing an evening aboard the ship, a gale of wind compelled her to run to sea, and the captain's taste for adventure was presently gratified by "a brave seafight," lasting for two days, with a couple of Spanish men-of-war. They were finally beaten off, with a loss, it was supposed, of a hundred men. In an action so desperate, the services of Smith, it may well be supposed, were not without an opportunity for their full appreciation. Not long after (1604) he returned to England. CHAPTER II. VIRGINIAN COLONIZATION REVIVED.-PATENT OF JAMES I.-ILL- JAMESTOWN FOUNDED.-EXCURSION OF SMITH AND Soon after the return of Smith, he became acquainted with Captain Gosnold, whose voyage has already been mentioned; and the scheme of Virginian colonization was again revived. Sir Ferdinand Gorges, Sir John Popham, chief justice of England, and other persons of rank and influence, were persuaded to take an interest in their plan; and thus in April, 1606, the king (James I.) was induced to issue letters patent to Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers and others, granting them all the territory on the eastern sea-board of North |