CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH

By Charles Dudley Warner



PREFACE

When I consented to prepare this volume for a series, which should
deal with the notables of American history with some familiarity and
disregard of historic gravity, I did not anticipate the seriousness
of the task. But investigation of the subject showed me that while
Captain John Smith would lend himself easily enough to the purely
facetious treatment, there were historic problems worthy of a
different handling, and that if the life of Smith was to be written,
an effort should be made to state the truth, and to disentangle the
career of the adventurer from the fables and misrepresentations that
have clustered about it.

The extant biographies of Smith, and the portions of the history of
Virginia that relate to him, all follow his own narrative, and accept
his estimate of himself, and are little more than paraphrases of his
story as told by himself. But within the last twenty years some new
contemporary evidence has come to light, and special scholars have
expended much critical research upon different portions of his
career. The result of this modern investigation has been to
discredit much of the romance gathered about Smith and Pocahontas,
and a good deal to reduce his heroic proportions. A vague report of
--these scholarly studies has gone abroad, but no effort has been made
to tell the real story of Smith as a connected whole in the light of