[1] Here, and in a few instances in the following pages, I have made slight changes in the wording, without affecting the meaning, of Smith’s expressions. Although he is a very clear writer, the English of Shakespeare’s time is not always readily understandable by us.--C. H. F-L. Queen Elizabeth, the wisest and the most humane sovereign of her time, had ample excuse for the license which she extended to her sea captains in the matter of attacking the Spanish possessions and ships. It was a measure of self-defence, designed for the protection of the liberties and religion of her subjects against the aggressive power of Spain, which, after the discovery of America, bid fair, unless checked, to make her the mistress of the world. Smith was in his ninth year when our dauntless ancestors, by shattering the great Armada, scotched the pride of Philip and halted his ambition. This was of all naval battles, perhaps, the most momentous to the Anglo-Saxon race and certainly of vital consequence to America, for had Philip’s fleet gained a victory on that occasion, we, as a nation, had never been. It is more than probable that the old religion would have been re-established in England, with a stop to the march of liberty and independence, and certain that Spain would have found no obstacle to the acquisition of the entire American continent. The immediate effect of England’s victory was to set her on the highway to the naval supremacy of the world, and the generation to which John Smith belonged maintained a constant struggle for the command of the seas. Later generations of Englishmen carried on the contest with Holland and afterwards with France. We have seen that John Smith lived in a period of the world that afforded the adventurer ample and varied scope for the exercise of talents and energy, but in any other age than his own a man of Smith’s extraordinary parts must have taken a prominent place among his contemporaries. In the period following the decline of the Roman power, when the nations of Europe were in the formative stage, such a man would surely have been one of the great dukes (_duces_), or leaders who founded dynasties of kings. At the present day he might be an explorer, a captain of industry, or a statesman--for Smith had the qualities that ensure success in any walk of life. It is a wonderful and inspiring story, that of the stripling who, without money or friends, boldly left his native land and, abandoning himself to the chance currents of a strange world, at the age when the modern schoolboy is seeking distinction on the football field, was learning the art of arms in the practical school of war. Dame Fortune surely smiled upon the errant boy and, whilst she led him into constant adventure and danger, as frequently saw him safely out of them.