But John Smith’s career had been anything but common.  Born in Lincolnshire in 1579, and early left an orphan, he had gone to the Netherlands while still in his teens, and had spent three years there fighting against the Spaniards.  A year or two later, he had embarked with a company of Catholic pilgrims for the Levant, intent on fighting against the Turk, but a storm arose which all attributed to the presence of the Huguenot heretic on board, and he was forthwith flung into the sea.  Whether the storm thereupon abated, history does not state, but Smith managed to swim to a small island, from which he was rescued next day.  Journeying across Europe to Styria, he entered the service of Emperor Rudolph II., and spent two or three years fighting against the Turks, accomplishing feats so surprising that one would be inclined to class them with those of Baron Munchausen, were they not, for the most part, well authenticated.  He was captured, at last, but managed to escape, and made his way across the Styrian desert, through Russia, Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, and finally back to England, just in time to meet Captain Newport, and arrange to sail with him for Virginia.

It is not remarkable that a man tried by such experiences should, from the first, have taken a prominent part in the enterprise.  An unwelcome part in the beginning, for scarcely had the voyage begun, when he was accused of plotting mutiny, arrested and kept in irons until the ships reached Virginia.  Late in April, the fleet entered Hampton Roads, and proceeding up the river, which was forthwith named the James, came at last on May 13th, to a low peninsula which seemed suited for a settlement.  The next day they set to work building a fort, which they called Fort James, but the settlement soon came to be known as Jamestown.

Once the fort was finished, Captain Newport sailed back to England for supplies, and the little settlement was soon in desperate straits for food.  Within three months, half of the colonists were in their graves, and bitter feuds arose among the survivors.  These were for the most part “gentlemen adventurers,” who had accompanied the expedition in the hope of finding gold, and who were wholly unfitted to cope with the conditions in which they found themselves.  Of all of them, Smith was by far the most competent, and he did valiant service in trading with the Indians for corn and in conducting a number of expeditions in search of game.

It was while on one of these, in December, 1607, that that incident of his career occurred which is all that a great many people know of Captain John Smith.  With two companions, he was paddling in a canoe up the Chickahominy, when the party was attacked by Indians.  Smith’s two companions were killed, and he himself saved his life only by exhibiting his compass and doing other things to astonish and impress the savages.