“Mr. Smyth, in the time of our hungar, had spread a rumor in the
Collony, that I did feast myself and my servants out of the comon
stoare, with entent (as I gathered) to have stirred the discontented
company against me. I told him privately, in Mr. Gosnold's tent, that
indeede I had caused half a pint of pease to be sodden with a peese
of pork, of my own provision, for a poore old man, which in a sicknes
(whereof he died) he much desired; and said, that if out of his malice
he had given it out otherwise, that hee did tell a leye. It was proved
to his face, that he begged in Ireland like a rogue, without a lycence.
To such I would not my nam should be a companyon.”
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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