1692 John Smith Navigation Military Naval Virginia

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1692 John Smith Navigation Military Naval Virginia Picture(s) and Description:

LONDON; Printed for Tho. Dring and B. Griffin, and are to beSold at the Harrow at Chancery-Lane end in Fleetftreet, 1692. Contemporary, i.e. seventeenth century reverse calf, rubbed and marked, rebacked and blank endpapers replaced, some spotting and light browning, final leaf with loss of the lower half of the leaf but affecting blank area only, small worm track to inner blank margins of last two gatherings. A quarto volume, it measures approximately 20cm (8") x 16cm (6") x 2cm ("). Pagination pp. [8], 163, [1] leaf of plates. Leaf '(k)' is a cancel and, unusually the upper half of the cancelled leaf has been preserved and is loosely inserted, and the folded leaf 'Description of a Ship with all her Tackling' is present.

JOHN SMITH (1580-1631), English soldier and explorer. At the age of 16 he went to seek his fortune in the French army. In 1598 he offered his services to the insurgents in the Low Countries, with whom he remained for three or four years. About 1600 he returned to England and abode at home in Lincolnshire for a short time, studying the theory of war and practising the exercise of a cavalry soldier. In 1600 Smith again sought foreign service, and went through, according to his own vivid testimony, a number of startling adventures. He first voyaged to Italy in company with a number of French pilgrims bound for Rome, and having been thrown overboard as a huguenot, was rescued by a pirate or privateer, with whom he served for some time. Then, travelling through Italy and Dalmatia, he reached Styria, and took service under the Archduke of Austria. He asserts that he did specially good service when the imperial army was endeavouring to raise the siege of 'Olumpagh' by introducing a system of signalling between them and the garrison, and afterwards helped by like means to bring about the fall of Stuhlweissenburg. After this he killed three Turkish champions in a series of single combats fought in sight of the two armies, and for this he received a coat of arms from Sigismund Bathori, prince of Transylvania, under whom he was then serving. At the battle of Rothenthurm he was taken prisoner, sold for a slave, and sent to Constantinople. Befriended by a Turkish lady of quality, he was removed to Varna in the Black Sea. There, after much cruel treatment from his master, a pasha, Smith killed his tyrant and made his escape. After long wanderings through Europe he reached Morocco, and, there falling in with an English man-of-war, came home in 1605. In the next year Smith then entered on the best known portion of his career, the conduct of the Virginian colony, and was among the 105 emigrants who, on 19 Dec. 1606, set out from Blackwall to found Virginia. They sailed in three vessels, the Susan Constant, under Christopher Newport; the Godspeed, under Bartholomew Gosnold; and the Discovery, under John Ratcliffe. From the outset he did good service. The settlers, who had come in search of an Eldorado, had neither the intelligence nor the industry to support themselves by tillage, and they had to subsist on the supplies which they could buy, beg, or steal from the natives. In the various expeditions into the country in search of food Smith proved himself an energetic and effective leader. In one of these, in December 1607, he was taken prisoner, and was released, according to a statement made by himself many years later, through the intervention of the Indian princess Pocahontas. In 1608 Smith became the titular head of the colony, as he had been almost from the outset its guiding and animating spirit. With resolute discipline Smith introduced something of order and industry among the thriftless and helpless settlers. They built houses and finished the church, fortified the settlement at Jamestown, and took some steps towards supporting themselves by tillage and fishing. During the summer of 1608 he explored the coasts of the Chesapeake as far as the mouth of the Patapsco, and further explored the head of the Chesapeake. On these two voyages Smith computed that he sailed three thousand miles. From his surveys he constructed a map of the bay and its environs. His dealings with the natives were marked by honesty and good judgment. In August 1609 a fresh party of colonists arrived, deprived unhappily of their leaders by a storm which separated the fleet. Further dissensions arose, leading to cabals against Smith and to difficulties with the natives. In the following September Smith was badly hurt by the accidental explosion of a bag of gunpowder, and left the colony, never to revisit it. Henceforth he took no part in the proceedings of the Virginia Company, but devoted himself to encouraging in England colonisation and the establishment of fisheries in what was afterwards known as New England. Thither he sailed with two ships on a voyage of exploration in 1614. Smith now became intimate with one of the chief patrons of New England exploration, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and in 1615 he made two attempts to visit New England. The first failed through a storm in which Smith's ship was dismasted. At the next attempt he was taken by a French ship of war, and, after serving with his captors against the Spaniards, was set free. In 1617 he made a last attempt, but the three vessels in which he and his company were embarked were kept in port by bad weather, and the expedition was abandoned. Henceforth Smith's exertions on behalf of American colonisation were confined to the production in London of maps and pamphlets. He died in June 1631, and was buried in St. Sepulchre's Church, London. Smith's Sea-Mans Grammar and Dictionary, was originally published in 1626 as An accidence or The path-way to experience. It is one of the earilest examples of the larger place that science was beginning to take in the work of the seaman. Smith describes the duties of all the officers of the ship, as well as her timbers and sails, and adds many quaint illustrations of the use of sea terms, and the manner of working the ship and giving battle. Smith goes on to describe the ordnance of the ship, with reference to gunnery treatises, saying, "any of these will give you the Theorike; but to be a good Gunner, you must learne it by practise." It began as a short pamphlet of some 42 pages, but "the excellence of his maxims caused a demand for his book" and was subsequently expanded to four times its original size, and in the 1690's editions a folding plate to illustrate "a Ship with all her Tacklin."