The explanation about the Bible as a part of his baggage is a little far-fetched, and it is evident that that book was not his daily companion.  Whether John Smith habitually carried one about with him we are not informed.  The whole passage quoted gives us a curious picture of the mind and of the habits of the time.  This allusion to John Smith’s begging is the only reference we can find to his having been in Ireland.  If he was there it must have been in that interim in his own narrative between his return from Morocco and his going to Virginia.  He was likely enough to seek adventure there, as the hangers-on of the court in Raleigh’s day occasionally did, and perhaps nothing occurred during his visit there that he cared to celebrate.  If he went to Ireland he probably got in straits there, for that was his usual luck.

Whatever is the truth about Mr. Wingfield’s inefficiency and embezzlement of corn meal, Communion sack, and penny whittles, his enemies had no respect for each other or concord among themselves.  It is Wingfield’s testimony that Ratcliffe said he would not have been deposed if he had visited Ratcliffe during his sickness.  Smith said that Wingfield would not have been deposed except for Archer; that the charges against him were frivolous.  Yet, says Wingfield, “I do believe him the first and only practiser in these practices,” and he attributed Smith’s hostility to the fact that “his name was mentioned in the intended and confessed mutiny by Galthrop.”  Noother reference is made to this mutiny.  Galthrop was one of those who died in the previous August.

One of the best re-enforcements of the first supply was Matthew Scrivener, who was appointed one of the Council.  He was a sensible man, and he and Smith worked together in harmony for some time.  They were intent upon building up the colony.  Everybody else in the camp was crazy about the prospect of gold:  there was, says Smith, “no talk, no hope, no work, but dig gold, wash gold, refine gold, load gold, such a bruit of gold that one mad fellow desired to be buried in the sands, lest they should by their art make gold of his bones.”  He charges that Newport delayed his return to England on account of this gold fever, in order to load his vessel (which remained fourteen weeks when it might have sailed in fourteen days) with gold-dust.  Captain Martin seconded Newport in this; Smith protested against it; he thought Newport was no refiner, and it did torment him “to see all necessary business neglected, to fraught such a drunken ship with so much gilded durt.”  This was the famous load of gold that proved to be iron pyrites.