John Smith, of the Smiths of Cruffley, Co.Lancaster, in 1629, and describes it: " Vert, a chev.gu.betw.three Turks' heads couped ppr.turbaned or.Crest-an Ostrich or, holding in the mouth a horseshoe or."]
XX
DEATH AND CHARACTER
Hardship and disappointment made our hero prematurely old, but could not conquer his indomitable spirit.The disastrous voyage of June, 1615, when he fell into the hands of the French, is spoken of by the Council for New England in 1622 as "the ruin of that poor gentleman, Captain Smith, who was detained prisoner by them, and forced to suffer many extremities before he got free of his troubles;" but he did not know that he was ruined, and did not for a moment relax his efforts to promote colonization and obtain a command, nor relinquish his superintendence of the Western Continent.
His last days were evidently passed in a struggle for existence, which was not so bitter to him as it might have been to another man, for he was sustained by ever-elating "great expectations." That he was pinched for means of living, there is no doubt.In 1623 he issued a prospectus of his "General Historie," in which he said:
"These observations are all I have for the expenses of a thousand pounds and the loss of eighteen years' time, besides all the travels, dangers, miseries and incumbrances for my countries good, I have endured gratis:....this is composed in less than eighty sheets, besides the three maps, which will stand me near in a hundred pounds, which sum I cannot disburse: nor shall the stationers have the copy for nothing.I therefore, humbly entreat your Honour, either to adventure, or give me what you please towards the impression, and Iwill be both accountable and thankful."
He had come before he was fifty to regard himself as an old man, and to speak of his "aged endeavors." Where and how he lived in his later years, and with what surroundings and under what circumstances he died, there is no record.That he had no settled home, and was in mean lodgings at the last, may be reasonably inferred.There is a manuscript note on the fly-leaf of one of the original editions of "The Map of Virginia...." (Oxford, 1612), in ancient chirography, but which from its reference to Fuller could not have been written until more than thirty years after Smith's death.It says: "When he was old he lived in London poor but kept up his spirits with the commemoration of his former actions and bravery.He was buried in St.Sepulcher's Church, as Fuller tells us, who has given us a line of his Ranting Epitaph."That seems to have been the tradition of the man, buoyantly supporting himself in the commemoration of his own achievements.To the end his industrious and hopeful spirit sustained him, and in the last year of his life he was toiling on another compilation, and promised his readers a variety of actions and memorable observations which they shall "find with admiration in my History of the Sea, if God be pleased I live to finish it."He died on the 21 St of June, 1631, and the same day made his last will, to which he appended his mark, as he seems to have been too feeble to write his name.In this he describes himself as "Captain John Smith of the parish of St.Sepulcher's London Esquior." He commends his soul "into the hands of Almighty God, my maker, hoping through the merits of Christ Jesus my Redeemer to receive full remission of all my sins and to inherit a place in the everlasting kingdom"; his body he commits to the earth whence it came; and "of such worldly goods whereof it hath pleased God in his mercy to make me an unworthy receiver," he bequeathes: first, to Thomas Packer, Esq., one of his Majesty's clerks of the Privy Seal, It all my houses, lands, tenantements and hereditaments whatsoever, situate lying and being in the parishes of Louthe and Great Carleton, in the county of Lincoln together with my coat of armes"; and charges him to pay certain legacies not exceeding the sum of eighty pounds, out of which he reserves to himself twenty pounds to be disposed of as he chooses in his lifetime.The sum of twenty pounds is to be disbursed about the funeral.To his most worthy friend, Sir Samuel Saltonstall Knight, he gives five pounds; to Morris Treadway, five pounds; to his sister Smith, the widow of his brother, ten pounds; to his cousin Steven Smith, and his sister, six pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence between them; to Thomas Packer, Joane, his wife, and Eleanor, his daughter, ten pounds among them; to "Mr.Reynolds, the lay Mr of the Goldsmiths Hall, the sum of forty shillings"; to Thomas, the son of said Thomas Packer, "my trunk standing in my chamber at Sir Samuel Saltonstall's house in St.Sepulcher's parish, together with my best suit of apparel of a tawny color viz.hose, doublet jirkin and cloak," "also, my trunk bound with iron bars standing in the house of Richard Hinde in Lambeth, together--with half the books therein"; the other half of the books to Mr.John Tredeskin and Richard Hinde.His much honored friend, Sir Samuel Saltonstall, and Thomas Packer, were joint executors, and the will was acknowledged in the presence "of Willmu Keble Snr civitas, London, William Packer, Elizabeth Sewster, Marmaduke Walker, his mark, witness."We have no idea that Thomas Packer got rich out of the houses, lands and tenements in the county of Lincoln.The will is that of a poor man, and reference to his trunks standing about in the houses of his friends, and to his chamber in the house of Sir Samuel Saltonstall, may be taken as proof that he had no independent and permanent abiding-place.
It is supposed that he was buried in St.Sepulcher's Church.The negative evidence of this is his residence in the parish at the time of his death, and the more positive, a record in Stow's "Survey of London," 1633, which we copy in full:
This Table is on the south side of the Quire in Saint Sepulchers, with this Inscription: