Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/192

 176 SMITH [JOHN- Space fails to describe how splendidly Smith worked after his deliverance for the good of the colony, how he explored Chesapeake Bay and its influents, how (when all others had failed) the presidency was forced on him on 10th September 1608 ; how he tried to seize Powhatan at Werowocomoco on 12th January 1609, but he fled to Orapakes, 40 miles farther off; how with only eighteen men he cowed Opecanchanough in his own house at Pamunkey, in spite of the hundreds of Indians that were there, and made him sell corn ; how well he administered the colony all through the spring and summer of 1609. Meanwhile the establishment of this forlorn hope in Virginia had stirred up a general interest in England, so that the London Company were able in June 1609 to send out 9 ships with 500 colonists. Smith had now got the Indians into splendid order ; but from the arrival on 1 1 th August of the newcomers his authority came to an end. They refused to acknowledge him, and robbed and injured the Indians, who attacked them in turn. Smith did his best to smooth matters, while the rioters were plotting to shoot him in his bed. In the meantime he was away up the river. On his return, " sleeping in his boat, acci- dentally one fired his powder bag, which tore his flesh from his body and thighs, 9 or 10 inches square, in a most pitiful manner ; but to quench the tormenting fire frying him in his clothes he leaped overboard into the deep river, where, ere they could recover him, he was nearly drowned." Thus disabled, he was sent home on 4th October 1609 and never set foot in Virginia again. Nemesis overtook the rioters the winter after he left, which is known in Virginian story as "the starving time." Out of 490 persons in the colony in October 1609 all but 60 died by the following March. The rest of Smith's life can only be briefly touched upon. The third period, 1610-1617, was chiefly spent in discover- ing Nusconcus, Canada, and Pemaquid in North Virginia, to which, at his solicitation, Prince Charles gave the name of New England. His first object was to fish for cod and barter for furs, his next, to discover the coast-line with the view to settlement. Two attempts, in 1615 and 1617, to settle at Capawuck failed, but through no fault of his. It was in connexion with these projects that the Western Company for North Virginia gave him the title of admiral of New England. We cannot better conclude this sketch of his active operations than in his own words printed in 1631. "Having been a slave to the Turks; prisoner among the most barbarous savages ; after my deliverance commonly discovering and ranging those large rivers and unknown nations with such a handful of ignorant companions that the wiser sort often gave me up for lost ; always in mutinies, wants, and miseries ; blown up with gunpowder; a long time a prisoner among the French pirates, from whom escaping in a little boat by myself, and adrift all such a stormy winter night, when their ships were split, more than 100,000 lost which they had taken at sea, and most of them drowned upon the Isle of Rhe not far from whence I was driven on shore, in my little boat, &c. And many a score of the worst winter months have [I] lived in the fields ; yet to have lived near thirty-seven years [1593-1630] in the midst of wars, pesti- lence, and famine, by which many a hundred thousand have died about me, and scarce five living of them that went first with me to Virginia, and yet to see the fruits of my labours thus well begin to prosper (though I have but my petitioned Queen Anne on her behalf ; and it is in this petition of June 1616 that the account of his deliverance by the Indian girl first appears. After a pleasant sojourn of about seven months, being well received both by the court and the people, Pocahontas with her husband embarked for Virginia in the George, Captain S. Argall (her old captor), but she died off Gravesend about February 1617. labour for my pains), have I not much reason, both privately and publicly to acknowledge it, and give God thanks 1 " The last period, 1618-1631, of Smith's life was chiefly devoted to authorship. In 1618 he applied (in vain) to Lord Bacon to be numbered among his servants. In 1619 he offered to lead out the pilgrim fathers to North Virginia ; but they would not have him, he being a Protestant and they Puritans. The London Virginia Company became bankrupt for 200,000 in 1624. A list of his publications will be found at the end of this article. Thus having done much, endured much, and written much, while still contemplating a History of the Sea, Captain John Smith died on 21st June 1631, and was buried in St Sepulchre's Church, London. Two of the sixty survivors of " the starving time," Richard Pots and William Phettiplace, thus nobly ex- pressed in print, so early as 1612, their estimate of Smith : " What shall I say 1 but thus we lost him [4th October 1609] that in all his proceedings made justice his first guide and experience his second ; ever hating baseness, sloth, pride, and indignity more than any dangers ; that never allowed more for himself than his souldiers with him ; that upon no danger would send them where he would not lead them himself ; that would never see us want what he either had, or could by any means get us ; that would rather want than borrow or starve than not pay ; that loved actions more than words, and hated falsehood and cozenage than death ; whose adventures were our lives, and whose loss our deaths." A fairly complete bibliography will be found in Professor Edward Arber's reprint of Smith's Works, Birmingham, 1884, 8vo. The order of their first appearance is, A True Relation, &e., 1608 (first attributed to a gentleman of the colony, next to Th. Watson, and finally to Captain Smith) ; A Mai) of Virginia, ed. by W[illiam] S[immonds], Oxford, 1612 ; A Description of New England, 1616 ; New England's Trials, 1620; New England's Trials, 2d ed., 1622; The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles, 1624 ; An Accidence for all Young Seamen, 1626 ; the same work recast and enlarged as A Sea Grammar, 1627, both works continuing on sale for years, side by side ; The True Travels, &c., 1630; Advertisements for the Unexperienced Planters, &c., 1631. Of some of the smaller texts limited 4to editions have been published in the United States by Dr C. Deane, J. Carter Brown, and others. (E. A.) SMITH, JOHN RAPHAEL (1752-1812), English painter and mezzotint engraver, a son of Thomas Smith of Derby, the landscape painter, was born in 1752. He was apprenticed to a linen draper in Derby, and afterwards pursued the same business in London, adding, however, to his income by the production of miniatures. He then turned to engraving, and executed his plate of the Public Ledger, which had great popularity, and was followed by his mezzotints of Edwin the Minstrel (a portrait of Thomas Haden), after Wright of Derby, and Mercury Inventing the Lyre, after Barry. He reproduced some forty of the works of Reynolds, some of these plates ranking among the masterpieces of the art of mezzotint, and he was ap- pointed engraver to the Prince of Wales. Adding to his artistic pursuits an extensive connexion as a print-dealer and publisher, he would soon have acquired wealth had it not been for his dissipated habits. He was passionately attached to field-sports, pugilism, and the stage, and was a boon companion of George Morland, whose figure-pieces he excellently mezzotinted. He executed many original portraits in chalks, and painted subject-pictures such as the Unsuspecting Maid, Inattention, and the Moralist, exhibiting in the Royal Academy from 1779 to 1790. Upon the decline of his business as a printseller he made a tour as an itinerant portrait painter through the northern and midland counties of England, producing much hasty and indifferent work, and settled in Doncaster, where he died on 2d March 1812. As a mezzotint engraver Smith occupies the very first rank. His