Captain John Smith by Roger Pocock
Roger Pocock's Captain John Smith opens by placing its subject in the early seventeenth century, when Smith returned to England after a series of extraordinary military adventures on the continent. Beginning his career as a trooper with the Dutch at seventeen, Smith fought as a mariner, gunner, and engineer across several theatres of war, his inventions helping to relieve besieged towns and capture fortified cities held by the Turks. At the siege of Reigall, Smith accepted a challenge to single combat from the Turkish commander Lord Turbishaw, killing him with a lance thrust through the visor at the first charge and taking his head and horse as trophies. A succession of further duels followed, each issued by the previous champion's comrades: Grualgo was defeated after a prolonged fight with lances and then pistols, and a third champion, Bonni Mulgro, fell to Smith's falchion after a long and evenly matched battle-axe contest. These three victories earned Smith his coat of arms bearing three Turks' heads. After the fall of Reigall, Smith's forces were trapped between a Turkish army and a Tartar horde in the pass of Rothenthurm. A night charge using blazing branches stampeded the Turks, but the following day brought disaster, with thirty thousand dead in the pass and only a handful of survivors escaping. Found wounded among the slain, Smith was taken captive and sold into slavery, eventually becoming the property of a Turkish pasha north of the Caucasus. After enduring brutal treatment, Smith killed the pasha with a threshing bat, took his clothes and horse, and fled through Russia and Poland to the court of Prince Sigismund, who rewarded him with a generous purse. Traveling onward through Germany, Spain, and Morocco, Smith found himself in a prolonged sea battle against two Spanish warships, fighting alongside Captain Merstham and helping to drive off the enemy after two days of close combat. Smith reached England at twenty-five, and the account of Sir Walter Raleigh's failed Virginia settlement drew him to join a second expedition to that country. Despite being placed in irons during the voyage and landing in disgrace, Smith became the practical backbone of the struggling colony at Jamestown, organizing labor, hunting, building, and trade while the colony's official leaders obstructed progress. When he was taken prisoner by the local tribes in December, his apparent fearlessness convinced the Indians he possessed supernatural powers. Brought before the king Powhatan and sentenced to have his brains beaten out on a block, Smith was saved at the last moment by Powhatan's young daughter Pocahontas, who threw herself over him and refused to be pulled away. Powhatan released Smith in exchange for a promise of artillery pieces, a bargain that dissolved when the promised guns proved to weigh four and a half tons and their firing terrified the king's messengers into accepting glass trinkets instead. Pocahontas subsequently visited the fort every five days with provisions, earning the gratitude of the colonists, who called her the Blessed Pocahontas. When the supply ship captain Newport arrived and was greeted as a great king of the sea, his clumsy trading with Powhatan yielded only four bushels of maize, while Smith's artful presentation of blue beads as jewels fit only for the world's greatest kings secured a hundred bushels. The colony continued to be undermined by idle colonists, corrupt officials, Dutchmen who armed the Indian tribes with stolen English weapons, and misguided diplomatic gestures that emboldened Powhatan. Pocahontas repeatedly warned Smith of plots against his life, and he survived several ambushes, on one occasion marching his fifteen musketeers against seven hundred warriors and forcing them to load his ship with corn. His firm governance was repaid with complaints to the Virginia Company, which dispatched seven shiploads of officials to remove him. Before they could act, a spark from a sailor's pipe ignited a bag of powder on which Smith was sleeping, and the near-fatal wound forced him to return to England for medical care. In his absence the colony collapsed into starvation and massacre, with only sixty survivors remaining when relief ships finally arrived. On his recovery Smith led a further expedition that explored and named New England, and a third voyage intended to plant a colony there ended when he was captured by a French squadron on charges of piracy. He escaped in a small boat on the same night that his prison ship foundered in a storm. Pocahontas, meanwhile, had been taken hostage by the Virginian colonists. This captivity led to her marriage with Master John Rolfe, and the couple traveled to England, where she was received with royal honors as the Lady Rebecca Rolfe. She met Smith again in England, having always regarded him with something approaching reverence, but the English winter broke her health and she died before she could be taken home, and was buried at Gravesend. Unable to venture overseas again, Smith spent sixteen years writing books advocating American settlement. The Pilgrim Fathers, inspired by his work, sailed in the Mayflower to found a colony in New England, and both Virginia and New England, which Smith regarded as his children, grew into the great American republic.
By Roger Pocock · First published 1927 · Genre: Historical Fiction, Adventure, Biography · 2,707 words
First lines
A. D. 1608
The sentence just quoted, the most beautiful perhaps in English prose, is copied from the _History of the World_, which Raleigh wrote when a prisoner in the tower, while wee James sat on the throne. It was then that a gentleman and adventurer, Captain John Smith, came home from foreign parts.
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Genres
- Historical Fiction — The work is a biographical narrative of Captain John Smith's life, blending documented historical events with literary narrative techniques and dramatized dialogue characteristic of historical fiction.
- Adventure — The text is dominated by accounts of military exploits, combat, exploration, and perilous journeys across Europe, Turkey, and America, with emphasis on action and daring exploits.
- Biography — The work presents a chronological account of Captain John Smith's life from age seventeen through his later years, focusing on his personal achievements, character, and historical significance.
- Colonial Literature — The narrative extensively covers the founding of Virginia and New England colonies, their struggles, and Smith's pivotal role in their establishment and survival.
Tags
biography · historical fiction · colonial America · exploration · adventure · Virginia · Jamestown · Native Americans · Pocahontas · 16th century · 17th century · English history
What this Textopian page supports
Captain John Smith is listed on Textopian as a historical account by Roger Pocock, dated 1927 CE.
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- Work type: Historical account
- Author: Roger Pocock
- Date: 1927 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Historical Fiction, Adventure, Biography, Colonial Literature, Romance
- Length: 2,707 words
- Structure: 1 section, 22 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
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