96 



The next voyage that claims our attention is that of Smith,* (so often 

 mentioned as the father of Virginia,) who came to Maine in 1614, 

 caught forty-seven thousand fish within twenty leagues of Mohegan, 

 and explored the coast from Penobscot to Cape Cod. The result of 

 his observations was published in London, in 1616. This work, "writ 

 with his oune hand," was of greater pretensions than the tracts of the 

 associates of Gosnold and Waymouth. He devotes whole pages to 

 the subject of fishing, and argues, as the previous voyagers had done, 

 tfiat the seas of New England were far preferable to those of New- 

 foundland; and he labors the point, and repeats it even to tediousness. 

 He institutes comparisons between the fishing grounds of the two re- 

 gions ; and all the details respecting the necessary wood, iron, pitch, 

 tar, nets, leads, salt, hooks and lines, and articles of provision, are given 

 with great minuteness. Smith perceives, indeed, that he must excuse 

 himself to his readers, and thus apologises: "But because 1 speak so 

 much of fishing, if any one take me for such a devout fisher, as I dream 

 of naught else, they mistake me." 



In reading the accounts of Archer, Brereton, Rosier, and Smith, the 

 thought has often occurred to me that, for some reason or other, the 

 writers owed Newfoundland a sort of spite, and were determined to write 

 that island down, and to write their favorite country up. Smith, I think, 

 especially strives to accomplish this end. He was a man who left his 

 mark everywhere. He had roved over Europe, and had fought on the 

 side of Austria against the Turks ; and he was now fresh from James- 

 town, and the preservation of his life by the beautiful Pocahontas still 

 excited the public mind. His romantic adventures, his chivalrous 

 character, and his energy of purpose, gave him commanding influence. 

 He had set his heart on founding a colony in "North Virginia," (as 

 New England was called until his voyage in 1614,) and seems to have 

 thought that he could best accomplish his design by dwelhng upon the 

 superior advantages of its coasts for fishing. "If Newfoundland," he 

 reasons, "doth yearly freight near eight hundred sail of ships with a 

 silly, lean, skinny, poor-John, a7id cor-Jish,''^ and those who adventure 

 there "can gain, though they draw meat, drink, and clothes," and all 

 the necessary gear and outfits, from "second, third, fourth, or fifth 

 hand, and from so many parts of the world, ere they come together to 

 be used in this voyage;" and if "HoUand, Portugale, Spaniard, French, 

 or other, do much better than they," why doubt of success in going to 

 New England, "where there is victual to feed us, wood of all sorts to 

 build boats, ships, or barques, the fish at our doors, pitch, tar, masts, 

 and yards ?" " Oi all the four parts of the world that I have yet seen,'''' he 

 observes, '■'■not inhabited, I should rather live here than anywhere.^'' 



His publications on the subject of New England were numerous. The 

 third, or fourth, was printed in 1620, and treated of the "successe of 

 twenty-six ships" employed in fishing there "within these sixyeares;" 

 and the last, published in 1631, (the year of his death,) gave an ac- 



*Captam John Smith was born in Lincohishii'e, England, in 1579. He was an adventurer in 

 almost every part of the world. His several works on American colonization are of great 

 value. For his services and suffeiings in the New World he received no recompense. Ho died 

 in London, in 1631. 



