In 1619, a General Assembly was held, which was the first legislative body elected by the people to convene this side of the Atlantic. It was an English acorn germinating in American soil, and from it has sprung the tree of liberty which has filled the continent. Among the colonists who landed at Jamestown, was the celebrated Captain John Smith, who was destined later to be snatched from the jaws of death by the lovely Indian princess, Pocahontas. From the story of his life, told by himself, and the Rev. Samuel Purchas in his _Pilgrims_, we learn that he had already been the hero of many adventures. He had been robbed, had encountered pirates, and had been shipwrecked at sea. He had slain three Turks in single combat while serving under Sigismundus Báthori, the Prince of Transylvania. He had been beloved by the fair Turkish lady, Tragabigzanda, besides having had many other _affaires du cœur_--notably one with the good lady Calamata of Russia. [Illustration: GRAVE OF POWHATAN ON THE JAMES.] Nine days after the landing of the colony at Jamestown, and thirteen years before the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth, Captain Newport, with Smith and a party of men, ascended the James River, and discovered the site of the city of Richmond. In Smith’s _True Relation_, printed in London in 1608, he says: “The two and twenty day of April [or rather May, 1607] Captain Newport and myselfe with diuers others to the number of twenty-two persons, set forward to discouer the Riuer some fiftie or sixtie miles.... In the midway, staying to refresh ourselues in a little Ile foure or fiue savages came vnto vs which described vnto vs the course of the Riuer, and after, in our journey, they often met vs, trading with vs for such provision as wee had, and arriuing at Arsatecke, hee whom wee supposed to bee the Chiefe King of all the rest, moste kindely entertained vs, giuing vs a guide to go with vs vp the riuer Powhatan, of which place their Great Emperor taketh his name, where he they honored for King used vs kindlly. “But to finish this discouerie, we passed on further, where within an ile [a mile] we were intercepted with great craggy stones in the midst of the river, where the water falleth so rudely and with such violence, as not any boat can possibly passe, and so broad disperseth the streame as there is not past fiue or sixe foote at low water, and to the shore scarce passage with a barge.” This was the first view had by Englishmen of the situation where the city of Richmond was located.