第343章

He laments the imbecility in the conduct of the new plantations.At first, he says, it was feared the Spaniards would invade the plantations or the English Papists dissolve them: but neither the councils of Spain nor the Papists could have desired a better course to ruin the plantations than have been pursued; "It seems God is angry to see Virginia in hands so strange where nothing but murder and indiscretion contends for the victory."In his letters to the company and to the King's commissions for the reformation of Virginia, Smith invariably reproduces his own exploits, until we can imagine every person in London, who could read, was sick of the story.He reminds them of his unrequited services: "in neither of those two countries have I one foot of land, nor the very house I builded, nor the ground I digged with my own hands, nor ever any content or satisfaction at all, and though I see ordinarily those two countries shared before me by them that neither have them nor knows them, but by my descriptions....For the books and maps I have made, I will thank him that will show me so much for so little recompense, and bear with their errors till I have done better.For the materials in them I cannot deny, but am ready to affirm them both there and here, upon such ground as I have propounded, which is to have but fifteen hundred men to subdue again the Salvages, fortify the country, discover that yet unknown, and both defend and feed their colony."There is no record that these various petitions and letters of advice were received by the companies, but Smith prints them in his History, and gives also seven questions propounded to him by the commissioners, with his replies; in which he clearly states the cause of the disasters in the colonies, and proposes wise and statesman-like remedies.He insists upon industry and good conduct: "to rectify a commonwealth with debauched people is impossible, and no wise man would throw himself into such society, that intends honestly, and knows what he understands, for there is no country to pillage, as the Romans found; all you expect from thence must be by labour."Smith was no friend to tobacco, and although he favored the production to a certain limit as a means of profit, it is interesting to note his true prophecy that it would ultimately be a demoralizing product.He often proposes the restriction of its cultivation, and speaks with contempt of "our men rooting in the ground about tobacco like swine." The colony would have been much better off "had they not so much doated on their tobacco, on whose furnish foundation there is small stability."So long as he lived, Smith kept himself informed of the progress of adventure and settlement in the New World, reading all relations and eagerly questioning all voyagers, and transferring their accounts to his own History, which became a confused patchwork of other men's exploits and his own reminiscences and reflections.He always regards the new plantations as somehow his own, and made in the light of his advice; and their mischances are usually due to the neglect of his counsel.He relates in this volume the story of the Pilgrims in 1620 and the years following, and of the settlement of the Somers Isles, making himself appear as a kind of Providence over the New World.