which many a hundred thousand died” about him, passing his last days in the comparative poverty which had been his condition through life. Captain John Smith had not yet reached the prime of life--indeed, he was hardly more than forty years of age--when he was compelled to retire from active life. Despairing of honorable employment, he settled down to write the many books that issued from his pen. It would be difficult to surmise what valuable services he might, with better opportunity, have performed for his country, during this last decade of his life. The time was well spent, however, that he occupied in the composition of his life and historical works. He is a clear and terse writer. We are seldom at a loss to fully understand him, and the only complaint that we feel disposed to make against Captain John Smith as a writer is that he too often fails to give an account of his own part in the stirring events which he records. In fact he combined with the modesty usually associated with true greatness, the self-confidence of the man whose ultimate reliance is upon an all-powerful Providence. “If you but truly consider,” he writes in the history of Virginia, “how many strange accidents have befallen these plantations and myself, you cannot but conceive God’s infinite mercy both to them and to me.... Though I have but my labor for my pains, have I not much reason publicly and privately to acknowledge it and to give good thanks?” Few men have compassed in fifty years of life so much of noble action and inspiring example as did John Smith. He died, as he had lived, a God-fearing, honorable gentleman, rich in the consciousness of a life well spent and in the respect of all who knew him. He was a connecting link between the old world and the new, and we, no less than England, should keep his memory green. THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE John Smith Gentleman Adventurer I. WHERE THERE’S A WILL THERE’S A WAY Jack Smith is introduced to the reader--He takes part in the rejoicing at the defeat of the Spanish Armada--His relations to the sons of Lord Willoughby--He runs away from school and sells his books and satchel--He is starting for London when his father dies--He is apprenticed to a merchant and shipowner--He tires of life at the desk and deserts the counting-house--His guardian consents to his going into the world and furnishes him with ten shillings--Jack takes the road to London with a bundle on his back--He meets Peregrine Willoughby.