These were the interlopers who had alarmed the French traders then settled in the Bay of Fundy. Before Weymouth left Maine, Champlain was making his own exploration southward along the coast as far as Cape Cod. He learned enough to decide that all the English ventures had been failures. They had discovered no mines, no passage, and, although they had made a temporary camp or two, no colony was yet planted. Obviously, the Frenchman surmised, the English had found nothing of great value to the south or they would be trying to occupy that coast. Champlain turned back, convinced that the best prospects lay in the valley of the St. Lawrence. But then, late in 1606, three small ships put down the Thames, bound for America. Aboard, in addition to the crews, were a hundred or more men committed to colonizing an English plantation in the vicinity of Chesapeake Bay. One of these was Captain John Smith, soldier and adventurer extraordinary--and, fortunately, a forthright man who spoke his mind. VI _Captain John Smith Takes to Trade_ When Captain John Smith arrived in America early in 1607 he was but freshly turned twenty-seven years of age. And he was in serious trouble--a prospect for the gibbet, in fact, because of alleged treason. On the voyage over he had plotted to supplant those in charge, or so it was charged by his enemies in the expedition. But, when the sealed instructions from the London Company were opened that spring in Virginia, it was learned that John Smith himself was to be a member of the council in the government of the colony. In the end he had to be given his rightful position of authority at Jamestown where the colony was planted. It had always been thus with young Smith. By just such amazing experiences he had succeeded in raising himself from the status of a poor tenant farmer’s son in Lincolnshire to that of soldier and “gentleman.” Unfortunately, however, at this period in England’s history such social climbing, though countenanced and legitimate enough, had not quite come to be “accepted.” It provided fertile ground for the cultivation of jealous enemies. Still, John Smith had probably packed more thrilling experiences and hairbreadth escapes into his life than anyone else in the realm. He had warred in far-off countries, engaged in sea fights and been forced to ship with Barbary pirates. An award of a coat of arms and the princely sum of fifteen hundred gold ducats had come to him from Transylvania where, like a knight of old, he cut off three Turks’ heads in single combat. He had escaped death from wounds on a middle-eastern battlefield, only to be enslaved by the Turks. This hard fate was mitigated somewhat by the favors of a high-born Turkish lady who acquired him as a slave. But then her brother mercilessly shackled him off to the land of the Tartars. From there, however, Smith succeeded in making a miraculous escape after killing his cruel master.