There was but one peaceful spot in all Christendom, and that the “right little, tight little island” of our forefathers. There were, however, thousands of Englishmen who, like John Smith, had no stomach for a life of ease and they were to be found in every army on the continent, fighting for gain or religion, and often for sheer love of the life of action. Moreover Cabot, the first on the coast of America, had started that movement which was to create the greatest colonial empire in the history of the world, and Raleigh had already made his first futile attempt to settle Virginia, where John Smith was destined to play a master part. On the seas, vessels of each nation preyed upon those of every other, for a tacit condition of enmity prevailed among them regardless of the status of their several countries. Navies were composed mainly of the merchant marine, for every ocean-going ship carried cannon and small arms. Commonly their captains were furnished with letters of marque, commissions issued by their sovereigns authorizing the holders to attack the sails of other countries hostile to their own and to take prizes and prisoners. The possession of letters of marque saved a captain and his crew from the disgrace and the penalty of piracy, but it was often no more than a cloak for the practice. Two ships flying different flags hardly ever met, but the stronger attacked the other and, if victorious, plundered her, and that without any consideration for the friendly relations that might at the time exist between their respective countries. The age of the robber barons had passed away, to be succeeded by a somewhat less immoral state of society in which the powerful refrained from preying upon their countrymen but recognized no law of justice in dealing with foreigners. Judged by our standards, Dampier and Drake were pirates; Pizzaro and Cortes, bandits. Smith, with a less acute sense of honor and a lower regard for right, might have amassed a ready fortune in the days when such qualities as his ensured wealth to the unscrupulous adventurers on land and sea, whose predatory careers were countenanced and abetted by monarchs and men in high places. In his latter years, when embittered by his failure to secure money for legitimate exploration, he writes:[1] “Had I set myself to persuade men that I knew of a mine of gold, as I know many to have done in sheer deception; or had I advanced some wild scheme for a passage to the South Sea; or some plot to loot a foreign monastery; or the equipment of a fleet to make prizes of rich East Indiamen; or letters of marque to rob some poor merchant or honest fisherman, multitudes with their money would have contended to be first employed.”