Hardship and disappointment made our hero prematurely old, but couldnot conquer his indomitable spirit. The disastrous voyage of June,1615, when he fell into the hands of the French, is spoken of by theCouncil for New England in 1622 as "the ruin of that poor gentleman,Captain Smith, who was detained prisoner by them, and forced tosuffer many extremities before he got free of his troubles;" but hedid not know that he was ruined, and did not for a moment relax hisefforts to promote colonization and obtain a command, nor relinquishhis superintendence of the Western Continent.

　　His last days were evidently passed in a struggle for existence,which was not so bitter to him as it might have been to another man,for he was sustained by ever-elating "great expectations." That hewas pinched for means of living, there is no doubt. In 1623 heissued a prospectus of his "General Historie," in which he said:

　　"These observations are all I have for the expenses of a thousandpounds and the loss of eighteen years' time, besides all the travels,dangers, miseries and incumbrances for my countries good, I haveendured gratis: ....this is composed in less than eighty sheets,besides the three maps, which will stand me near in a hundred pounds,which sum I cannot disburse: nor shall the stationers have the copyfor nothing. I therefore, humbly entreat your Honour, either toadventure, or give me what you please towards the impression, and Iwill be both accountable and thankful."He had come before he was fifty to regard himself as an old man, andto speak of his "aged endeavors." Where and how he lived in hislater years, and with what surroundings and under what circumstanceshe died, there is no record. That he had no settled home, and was inmean lodgings at the last, may be reasonably inferred. There is amanuscript note on the fly-leaf of one of the original editions of"The Map of Virginia...." (Oxford, 1612), in ancient chirography,but which from its reference to Fuller could not have been writtenuntil more than thirty years after Smith's death. It says: "When hewas old he lived in London poor but kept up his spirits with thecommemoration of his former actions and bravery. He was buried inSt. Sepulcher's Church, as Fuller tells us, who has given us a lineof his Ranting Epitaph."That seems to have been the tradition of the man, buoyantlysupporting himself in the commemoration of his own achievements. Tothe end his industrious and hopeful spirit sustained him, and in thelast year of his life he was toiling on another compilation, andpromised his readers a variety of actions and memorable observationswhich they shall "find with admiration in my History of the Sea, ifGod be pleased I live to finish it."He died on the 21 St of June, 1631, and the same day made his lastwill, to which he appended his mark, as he seems to have been toofeeble to write his name. In this he describes himself as "CaptainJohn Smith of the parish of St. Sepulcher's London Esquior." Hecommends his soul "into the hands of Almighty God, my maker, hopingthrough the merits of Christ Jesus my Redeemer to receive fullremission of all my sins and to inherit a place in the everlastingkingdom"; his body he commits to the earth whence it came; and "ofsuch worldly goods whereof it hath pleased God in his mercy to makeme an unworthy receiver," he bequeathes: first, to Thomas Packer,Esq., one of his Majesty's clerks of the Privy Seal, "all myhouses, lands, tenantements and hereditaments whatsoever, situatelying and being in the parishes of Louthe and Great Carleton, in thecounty of Lincoln together with my coat of armes"; and charges him topay certain legacies not exceeding the sum of eighty pounds, out ofwhich he reserves to himself twenty pounds to be disposed of as hechooses in his lifetime. The sum of twenty pounds is to be disbursedabout the funeral. To his most worthy friend, Sir Samuel SaltonstallKnight, he gives five pounds; to Morris Treadway, five pounds; to hissister Smith, the widow of his brother, ten pounds; to his cousinSteven Smith, and his sister, six pounds thirteen shillings andfourpence between them; to Thomas Packer, Joane, his wife, andEleanor, his daughter, ten pounds among them; to "Mr. Reynolds, thelay Mr of the Goldsmiths Hall, the sum of forty shillings"; toThomas, the son of said Thomas Packer, "my trunk standing in mychamber at Sir Samuel Saltonstall's house in St. Sepulcher's parish,together with my best suit of apparel of a tawny color viz. hose,doublet jirkin and cloak," "also, my trunk bound with iron barsstanding in the house of Richard Hinde in Lambeth, together--withhalf the books therein"; the other half of the books to Mr. JohnTredeskin and Richard Hinde. His much honored friend, Sir SamuelSaltonstall, and Thomas Packer, were joint executors, and the willwas acknowledged in the presence "of Willmu Keble Snr civitas,London, William Packer, Elizabeth Sewster, Marmaduke Walker, hismark, witness."We have no idea that Thomas Packer got rich out of the houses, landsand tenements in the county of Lincoln. The will is that of a poorman, and reference to his trunks standing about in the houses of hisfriends, and to his chamber in the house of Sir Samuel Saltonstall,may be taken as proof that he had no independent and permanentabiding-place.

　　It is supposed that he was buried in St. Sepulcher's Church. Thenegative evidence of this is his residence in the parish at the timeof his death, and the more positive, a record in Stow's "Survey ofLondon," 1633, which we copy in full:

　　This Table is on the south side of the Quire in Saint Sepulchers,with this Inscription:

　　To the living Memory of his deceased Friend, Captaine John Smith, whodeparted this mortall life on the 21 day of June, 1631, with hisArmes, and this Motto,Accordamus, vincere est vivere.

　　Here lies one conquer'd that hath conquer'd Kings,Subdu'd large Territories, and done thingsWhich to the World impossible would seeme,But that the truth is held in more esteeme,Shall I report His former service doneIn honour of his God and Christendome:

　　How that he did divide from Pagans three,Their heads and Lives, types of his chivalry:

　　For which great service in that Climate done,Brave Sigismundus (King of Hungarion)Did give him as a Coat of Armes to weare,Those conquer'd heads got by his Sword and Speare?

　　Or shall I tell of his adventures since,Done in Firginia, that large Continence:

　　I-low that he subdu'd Kings unto his yoke,And made those heathen flie, as wind doth smoke:

　　And made their Land, being of so large a Station,A hab;tation for our Christian Nation:

　　Where God is glorifi'd, their wants suppli'd,Which else for necessaries might have di'd?

　　But what avails his Conquest now he lyesInter'd in earth a prey for Wormes & Flies?

　　O may his soule in sweet Mizium sleepe,Untill the Keeper that all soules doth keepe,Returne to judgement and that after thence,With Angels he may have his recompence.

　　Captaine John Smith, sometime Governour of Firginia, andAdmirall of New England.

　　This remarkable epitaph is such an autobiographical record as Smithmight have written himself. That it was engraved upon a tablet andset up in this church rests entirely upon the authority of Stow. Thepresent pilgrim to the old church will find no memorial that Smithwas buried there, and will encounter besides incredulity of thetradition that he ever rested there.

　　The old church of St. Sepulcher's, formerly at the confluence of SnowHill and the Old Bailey, now lifts its head far above the pompousviaduct which spans the valley along which the Fleet Ditch onceflowed. All the registers of burial in the church were destroyed bythe great fire of 1666, which burnt down the edifice from floor toroof, leaving only the walls and tower standing. Mr. Charles Deane,whose lively interest in Smith led him recently to pay a visit to St.

　　Sepulcher's, speaks of it as the church "under the pavement of whichthe remains of our hero were buried; but he was not able to see thestone placed over those remains, as the floor of the church at thattime was covered with a carpet.... The epitaph to his memory,however, it is understood, cannot now be deciphered upon thetablet,"--which he supposes to be the one in Stow.

　　The existing tablet is a slab of bluish-black marble, which formerlywas in the chancel. That it in no way relates to Captain Smith anear examination of it shows. This slab has an escutcheon whichindicates three heads, which a lively imagination may conceive to bethose of Moors, on a line in the upper left corner on the husband'sside of a shield, which is divided by a perpendicular line. As Smithhad no wife, this could not have been his cognizance. Nor are thesehis arms, which were three Turks' heads borne over and beneath achevron. The cognizance of "Moors' heads," as we have said, was notsingular in the Middle Ages, and there existed recently in this verychurch another tomb which bore a Moor's head as a family badge. Theinscription itself is in a style of lettering unlike that used in thetime of James I., and the letters are believed not to belong to anearlier period than that of the Georges. This bluish-black stone hasbeen recently gazed at by many pilgrims from this side of the ocean,with something of the feeling with which the Moslems regard the Kaabaat Mecca. This veneration is misplaced, for upon the stone aredistinctly visible these words:

　　"Departed this life September....

　　....sixty-six ....years....

　　....months ...."As John Smith died in June, 1631, in his fifty-second year, thisstone is clearly not in his honor: and if his dust rests in thischurch, the fire of 1666 made it probably a labor of wasted love tolook hereabouts for any monument of him.

　　A few years ago some American antiquarians desired to place somemonument to the "Admiral of New England" in this church, and amemorial window, commemorating the "Baptism of Pocahontas," wassuggested. We have been told, however, that a custom of St.

　　Sepulcher's requires a handsome bonus to the rector for any memorialset up in the church which the kindly incumbent had no power to setaside (in his own case) for a foreign gift and act of internationalcourtesy of this sort; and the project was abandoned.

　　Nearly every trace of this insatiable explorer of the earth hasdisappeared from it except in his own writings. The only monument tohis memory existing is a shabby little marble shaft erected on thesoutherly summit of Star Island, one of the Isles of Shoals. By akind of irony of fortune, which Smith would have grimly appreciated,the only stone to perpetuate his fame stands upon a little heap ofrocks in the sea; upon which it is only an inference that he ever setfoot, and we can almost hear him say again, looking round upon thisroomy earth, so much of which he possessed in his mind, "No lot forme but Smith's Isles, which are an array of barren rocks, the mostovergrowne with shrubs and sharpe whins you can hardly passe them:

　　without either grasse or wood but three or foure short shrubby oldcedars."Nearly all of Smith's biographers and the historians of Virginiahave, with great respect, woven his romances about his career intotheir narratives, imparting to their paraphrases of his story such anelevation as his own opinion of himself seemed to demand. Ofcontemporary estimate of him there is little to quote except thepanegyrics in verse he has preserved for us, and the inference fromhis own writings that he was the object of calumny and detraction.

　　Enemies he had in plenty, but there are no records left of theiropinion of his character. The nearest biographical notice of him inpoint of time is found in the "History of the Worthies of England,"by Thomas Fuller, D.D.,............