THE FOUNDING OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL 225 



great deal more. He was possessed of ardor, courage, penetra- 

 tion, industry and perseverance. Had he remained longer in the 

 colony (for his whole service in Virginia covered only two and 

 a-half years, from tw^enty-eight to thirty years of his age) he 

 might have made a much greater record. As it was, he did 

 more for the struggling colony in its first two years than any 

 other man, and with less means. He explored, with cool daring, 

 amid tribes of hostile savages, the James river, the Chicka- 

 hominy, and the Potomac. He made the first map of Virginia 

 worthy of the name, a map, considering the obstacles in the way, 

 and the non-existing data, of surprising accuracy. He had the 

 sense to despise the gold fever, and the abortive aims of his 

 fellow-adventurers, and to devote himself to practical utilities 

 with his utmost energy. His sagacity made him deal with the 

 cunning and treacherous savages with more success than any 

 others. In his short term of the presidency of the colony, he 

 built defences, foraged successfully for supplies of corn in the 

 starving time, and required lazy vagabonds to work. He was 

 surrounded by dissensions and difficulties of every kind. The 

 absurd ordinance of the London Virginia Company, that the 

 colonists should share all in common, ended in the idlers and 

 the shirks sponging upon the community. Then, as now, com- 

 munism meant that the industrious and the capable should labor 

 to support the indolent and the shiftless. If John Smith, in his 

 many wTitings, sometimes boasted more than other men, he had 

 also done more. Men are rare who can be trusted to write their 

 own biography. Let us have charity for poor John Smith, vain 

 though he may have been, as we behold him vanishing, all 

 blackened with powder, from the Virginia for which he had 

 done so much, bearing with stout heart the heavy ' white man's 

 burden.' 



As years rolled on, there came a steady influx of emigrants 

 to Virginia. Colony after colony crossed the sea, until, about 

 1620, there were landed some eleven hundred annually. In 

 Hotten's ' Original Lists of Persons of Quality, Emigrants,' 

 etc., London, 1874, ^^^^ o^ily extensive published record of early 

 emigrants to America, are some fifteen thousand names. But 

 among the multitude of eager searchers who daily haunt our 



