Enemies he had in plenty, but there are no records left of their opinion of his character.The nearest biographical notice of him in point of time is found in the "History of the Worthies of England,"by Thomas Fuller, D.D., London, 1662.
Old Fuller's schoolmaster was Master Arthur Smith, a kinsman of John, who told him that John was born in Lincolnshire, and it is probable that Fuller received from his teacher some impression about the adventurer.
Of his "strange performances" in Hungary, Fuller says: "The scene whereof is laid at such a distance that they are cheaper credited than confuted.""From the Turks in Europe he passed to the pagans in America, where towards the latter end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth [it was in the reign of James] such his perils, preservations, dangers, deliverances, they seem to most men above belief, to some beyond truth.Yet have we two witnesses to attest them, the prose and the pictures, both in his own book; and it soundeth much to the diminution of his deeds that he alone is the herald to publish and proclaim them.""Surely such reports from strangers carry the greater reputation.
However, moderate men must allow Captain Smith to have been very instrumental in settling the plantation in Virginia, whereof he was governor, as also Admiral of New England.""He led his old age in London, where his having a prince's mind imprisoned in a poor man's purse, rendered him to the contempt of such as were not ingenuous.Yet he efforted his spirits with the remembrance and relation of what formerly he had been, and what he had done."Of the "ranting epitaph," quoted above, Fuller says: "The orthography, poetry, history and divinity in this epitaph are much alike."Without taking Captain John Smith at his own estimate of himself, he was a peculiar character even for the times in which he lived.He shared with his contemporaries the restless spirit of roving and adventure which resulted from the invention of the mariner's compass and the discovery of the New World; but he was neither so sordid nor so rapacious as many of them, for his boyhood reading of romances had evidently fired him with the conceits of the past chivalric period.
This imported into his conduct something inflated and something elevated.And, besides, with all his enormous conceit, he had a stratum of practical good sense, a shrewd wit, and the salt of humor.
If Shakespeare had known him, as he might have done, he would have had a character ready to his hand that would have added one of the most amusing and interesting portraits to his gallery.He faintly suggests a moral Falstaff, if we can imagine a Falstaff without vices.As a narrator he has the swagger of a Captain Dalghetty, but his actions are marked by honesty and sincerity.He appears to have had none of the small vices of the gallants of his time.His chivalric attitude toward certain ladies who appear in his adventures, must have been sufficiently amusing to his associates.
There is about his virtue a certain antique flavor which must have seemed strange to the adventurers and court hangers-on in London.
Not improbably his assumptions were offensive to the ungodly, and his ingenuous boastings made him the object of amusement to the skeptics.
Their ridicule would naturally appear to him to arise from envy.We read between the lines of his own eulogies of himself, that there was a widespread skepticism about his greatness and his achievements, which he attributed to jealousy.Perhaps his obtrusive virtues made him enemies, and his rectitude was a standing offense to his associates.
It is certain he got on well with scarcely anybody with whom he was thrown in his enterprises.He was of common origin, and always carried with him the need of assertion in an insecure position.He appears to us always self-conscious and ill at ease with gentlemen born.The captains of his own station resented his assumptions of superiority, and while he did not try to win them by an affectation of comradeship, he probably repelled those of better breeding by a swaggering manner.No doubt his want of advancement was partly due to want of influence, which better birth would have given him; but the plain truth is that he had a talent for making himself disagreeable to his associates.Unfortunately he never engaged in any enterprise with any one on earth who was so capable of conducting it as himself, and this fact he always made plain to his comrades.
Skill he had in managing savages, but with his equals among whites he lacked tact, and knew not the secret of having his own way without seeming to have it.He was insubordinate, impatient of any authority over him, and unwilling to submit to discipline he did not himself impose.
Yet it must be said that he was less self-seeking than those who were with him in Virginia, making glory his aim rather than gain always;that he had a superior conception of what a colony should be, and how it should establish itself, and that his judgment of what was best was nearly always vindicated by the event.He was not the founder of the Virginia colony, its final success was not due to him, but it was owing almost entirely to his pluck and energy that it held on and maintained an existence during the two years and a half that he was with it at Jamestown.And to effect this mere holding on, with the vagabond crew that composed most of the colony, and with the extravagant and unintelligent expectations of the London Company, was a feat showing decided ability.He had the qualities fitting him to be an explorer and the leader of an expedition.He does not appear to have had the character necessary to impress his authority on a community.He was quarrelsome, irascible, and quick to fancy that his full value was not admitted.He shines most upon such small expeditions as the exploration of the Chesapeake; then his energy, self-confidence, shrewdness, inventiveness, had free play, and his pluck and perseverance are recognized as of the true heroic substance.