50 Singing Valleys 



Britons, you stay too long, 

 Quickly aboard bestow you, 



And with a merry gale 



Swell your stretched sail, 

 With vows as strong 

 As the winds that blow you. 



And cheerfully at sea, 

 Success you still entice, 



To get the pearl and gold, 



And ours to hold 

 VIRGINIA, 

 Earth's only paradise. 



Where nature hath in store, 

 Fowl, venison and fish; 



And the fruitfull'st soil 



Without your toil, 

 Three harvests more, 

 All greater than you wish. 



There was one member of the expedition who, if those lines 

 happened to catch his eye, must have frowned and sworn 

 roundly. 



"Without your toil ..." A pox on poets! 'Tis such wind- 

 bags as he that have enlisted these fine gentlemen with the 

 white soft hands, and no guts beneath their slashed doublets, 

 to be planters. Planters . . . 



So, undoubtedly, thought Captain John Smith, veteran ad- 

 venturer and practical realist. The Directors of the Company 

 dubbed him dangerous and insubordinate. He reached Virginia 

 in irons. It was only several weeks later, and after Captain New- 

 port, who recognized the qualities of leadership in John Smith, 

 had prevailed with the other members of the Council, that 

 the irons were struck off and Smith was permitted to exercise 

 his authority as a Council member. There seems to have been 

 little doubt in the minds of the rank and file that the Captain 

 was the best man of the three whom the Company Directors 



