its wielders have become famous since that day; and the gentlemen of
Jamestown may enjoy the credit of having blazed the way.

Fresh emigrants kept coming in, of a more or less desirable quality, as
is the case with emigrants still. Some of them had been sent out by other
organizations than the London Company, and bred confusion; but Smith was
always more than equal to the emergency, and kept his growing brood in
hand. He had the satisfaction of feeling that he was the right man in the
right place; and let the grass grow under neither his feet nor theirs. The
abandonment threat of the London Company led him to take measures to make
the colony independent so far as food was concerned, and a tract of land
was prepared and planted with corn. Traffic for supplies with the Indians
was systematized; and by the time Smith's year of office had expired the
Jamestown settlement was self-supporting, and forever placed beyond the
reach of annihilation--though, the very year after he had left it, it came
within measurable distance thereof.

He now returned to England, and never revisited Jamestown; but he by no
means relaxed his interest in American colonization, or his efforts to
promote it. In 1614 he once more sailed westward with two ships, on a
trading and exploring enterprise, which was successful. He examined and
mapped the northern coast, already seen by Gosnold, and bestowed upon the
country the name of New England. Traditions of his presence and exploits
are still told along the shores of Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
In the year following he tried to found a small colony somewhere in these
regions, but was defeated by violent storms; and at a subsequent attempt
he fell in with French pirates, and his ship and fortune were lost, though
he himself escaped in an open skiff: the chains were never forged that
could hold this man. Nor was his spirit broken; he took his map and his
description of New England, and personally canvassed all likely persons