History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of VirginiaCampbell, Charles
History
History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia
Campbell, Charles
Virginia -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775; Virginia -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783
After visiting many parts of France and Navarre, he came to Marseilles,
where he embarked for Italy, in a vessel carrying a motley crowd of
pilgrims of divers nations, bound for Rome. The winds proving
unfavorable, the vessel was obliged to put in at Toulon, and sailing
thence the weather grew so stormy that they anchored close to the Isle
of St. Mary, opposite Nice, in Savoy. Here the unfeeling provincials and
superstitious pilgrims showered imprecations on Smith's head,
stigmatizing him as a Huguenot, and his nation as all pirates, and Queen
Elizabeth as a heretic; and, protesting that they should never have fair
weather as long as _he_ was on board, they cast him into the sea to
propitiate heaven. However, he swam to the Islet of St. Mary, which he
found inhabited by a few cattle and goats. On the next day he was taken
up by a privateering French ship, the captain of which, named La Roche,
proving to be a neighbor and friend of the Earl of Ployer, entertained
him kindly. With him, Smith visited Alexandria in Egypt, Scanderoon, the
Archipelago, and coast of Greece. At the mouth of the Adriatic Sea, a
Venetian argosy, richly laden, was captured and plundered, after a
desperate action, in which Smith appears to have participated. He landed
in Piedmont with five hundred sequins and a box of jewels, worth about
as much more--his share of the prize. Embarking for Leghorn, he
travelled in Italy, and here met with his friends, Lord Willoughby and
his brother, both severely wounded in a recent bloody fray. Going to
Rome, Smith surveyed the wonders of the Imperial City, and saw the Pope,
with the cardinals, ascend the holy staircase, and say mass in the
Church of St. John de Lateran. Leaving Rome, he made the tour of Italy,
and embarking at Venice, crossed over to the wild regions of Albania and
Dalmatia. Passing through sterile Sclavonia, he found his way to Gratz,
in Styria, the residence of the Archduke Ferdinand, afterwards Emperor
of Germany. Here he met with an Englishman and an Irish Jesuit, by whose
assistance he was enabled to join a regiment of artillery, commanded by
Count Meldritch, whom he accompanied to Vienna, and thence to the seat
of war. At this time, 1601, there was a bloody war going on between
Germany and the Turks, and the latter had gained many signal advantages,
and the Crescent, flushed with victory, was rapidly encroaching upon the
confines of Christendom. Canissia having just fallen, it was at the
siege of Olympach, beleaguered by the Turks, that Smith first had an
opportunity of displaying the resources of his military genius, for
which he was put in command of two hundred and fifty horse.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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