"Captain John Smith's Satire of Sir Walter Raleigh" by Raymond F. Dolle On October 29, 1618, as Sir Walter Raleigh's head rolled after his failure to find gold in Guiana (now Venezuela), Captain John Smith was writing a pamphlet promoting New England as a fishing, fur trading, and lumbering colony. While dreaming of golden plunder and searching for the goldmine in Venezuela that his 1595 expedition had reported during their quest for the "great and golden citie of Manoa (which the Spanyards call El Dorado)," Raleigh had skirmished with the Spanish garrison against James the First's strict orders. Locked in the Tower upon his return, he wrote his "Apology," a pedantic, paranoid self-justification for the debacle, still insisting that he could find "five or six of the richest mines which the Spaniards have, and from whence all the mass of gold that comes into Spain in effect is drawn."(1) In contrast, meanwhile, Smith was detailing his practical plan of social development by industrious, free colonists--begun in "A Description of New England" (1614), continued in his letter "To the Right Honorable Sir Frances Bacon" (late summer 1618), and revised into "New Englands Trials" (1620, 1622). In a passage that suggests the paradigmatic differences between the two colonial adventurers, written soon after the beheading of "the last Elizabethan," Smith alluded to Raleigh's suicidal New World expectations in the emphatic conclusion of "New Englands Trials": And though I can promise no mines of golde, yet the warrelike Hollanders let us immitate, but not hate, whose wealth and strength are good testimonies of their treasure gotten by fishing. Therefore (honourable and worthy Countrymen) let not the meannesse of the word Fish distaste you, for it will afford as good golde as the mines of Guiana, or Tumbatu, with lesse hazard and charge, and more certaintie and facilitie. (1:406)(2) In the revised version of this passage used as the conclusion of Smith's "Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles" (1624), Smith further emphasizes and supports his claim by adding, "and New-England hath yeelded already by generall computation one hundred thousand pounds at the least" (2:474). The revision also substitutes "Potassie" for "Tumbatu." The comparison to the profitable Spanish mines at Potosi, Bolivia, more so than to the fabled Timbuktu, emphatically stresses the potential value of the New World resources, while in both versions Raleigh remains a warning to hopeful treasure hunters. For Smith, Raleigh's fiasco in Guiana was synonymous with the foolishness of such dreams in light of the actual riches awaiting those who worked wisely. This passage epitomized the antithetical Renaissance attitudes toward the New World embodied by these two explorers. The two men illustrate the change in the image of America that led to a shift from exploration to settlement, as the voyage to the New World in search of quick wealth was replaced by the process of the colony becoming established. The reflection of this transition in early American prose is traced most convincingly in Wayne Franklin's "Discoverers, Explorers, Settlers",(3) but Franklin does not directly compare Raleigh and Smith. Raleigh represented the early gentlemen treasure hunters. Like so many of the first Europeans in the New World, he hoped to find riches as the Spanish had in Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia, or at least a passage to Cathay in the Golden East. For Raleigh, America, specifically Guiana, was a prize waiting to be possessed by valent and noble conquerors. In "The Discoverie of the Large, Rich, and Bewtiful Empyre of Guiana" ... (1596), his imagination merged with his rapaciousness to produce a nightmarish image of the violent rape of the virgin New World, which Annette Kolodny refers to in "The Lay of the Land"(4) as the most explicit articulation of the English land-as-woman metaphor that reinforced their desire to conquer the New World: The common soldier shal here fight for gold, and pay himselfe in steede of pence, with plates of halfe a foote brode.... Those commanders and chieftaines, that shoote at honour, and abundance, shal find there more rich and bewtifull cities, more temples adorned with golden Images, more sepulchres filled with treasure than either Cortez found in Mexico or Pazzarro in Peru: and the shining glorie of this conquest will eclipse all those so farre extended beames of the Spanish nation. ...[Guiana is] a Countrey that hath yet her Maydenhead, never sackt, turned, nor wrought, ... the graves have not beene opened for gold, the mines not broken with sledges, nor their Images puld down out of their temples. It hath never been entred by any army of strength, and never conquered or possesed by any Christian Prince.(5) In contrast, Smith promoted exploitation of the natural resources and realized the need for hard working, self-reliant settlers to establish colonies in Virginia and New England, where equal opportunity and independence awaited all with skill, courage, and common sense. For these reasons, such scholars as Leo Lemay(6) and John Seelye(7) have argued that Smith represented a new American identity. For Smith, America was a place where the poor could earn a new social position and where heroic, self-made men could establish a new democratic society, as he most memorably stated in "A Description of New England": ...here every man may be master and owner of his owne labour and land; or the greatest part in a small time. If hee have nothing but his hands, he may set up this trade; and by industrie quickly grow rich.... Heer nature and liberty affords us that freely, which in England we want. (I:332, 347) As suggested by this remarkable early statement of the rags-to- riches American Dream, Smith's radical egalitarian and economic themes were as influential in creating a characteristic secular American identity as were the "Puritan origins of the American self" recently identified by Sacvan Bercovitch and other scholars of early New England. While religious writers counted souls to be saved and blessed the opportunities to test their spiritual condition through wilderness suffering, Smith catalogued the natural riches and planned ways to exploit them. Similarly, while Raleigh and other promotional writers idealized and fantasized about the edenic New World and Golden Land to conquer, Smith combined visionary ideals of American potential with realistic objectivity, describing the risks and requirements, hard work as well as hope for wealth. To emphasize the practicality of his own ideas, Smith often contrasts them to Raleigh's disastrous imperialist plans at Roanoke and in South America. In Smith's writings are several satiric allusions to Raleigh that deserve attention as evidence of Smith's rhetorical and literary skills and as expressions of a central British-American thematic opposition. For Smith, the way to wealth was not the Spanish road of conquest and plunder but the Dutch path of colonization and trade. The influence and richness of Smith's writings, as exemplified by his repeated critique of Raleigh, the great treasure hunter, illustrates the importance of the current reassessment of British-American literature led by William Spengemann(8) and supported by the efforts of such scholars as Philip Barbour, whose monumental edition of Smith's complete works makes this revisionist study possible. Probably because of the sensitive nature of the subject, Raleigh's Guiana voyages are not explicitly mentioned in Smith's writings until "The True Travels" (1630). However, besides the conclusion of "New Englands Trials", one other allusion to Raleigh's South American affairs is noteworthy. Also in "New Englands Trials" (1622), slightly revised in "The Generall Historie", while criticizing the reluctance of investors to support his colonial schemes, Smith quotes from Richard Hakluyt's "Principal Navigations" (1598-1600): "oh incredulitie! the wit of fooles, that slovenly do spit at all things faire; a sluggards cradle, a cowards castle, how easie it is to be an infidell" (1:436; 2:464). The lines are from George Chapman's commendatory verse "De Guiana carmen Epicum" in honor of Laurence Keymis, whose "Relation of the Second Voyage to Guiana" (1596) was dedicated to Raleigh. Keymis was one of Raleigh's captains on his expedition in search of Manoa. It was Keymis who reported the goldmine, and Raleigh sent him back to Guiana to gather ore samples that would substantiate his claim and impress colonial investors. Due to newly arrived Spanish colonists, his attempt failed, but he interpreted the Spanish presence as evidence that the area indeed contained auriferous deposits. Smith's implication that the skeptical businessmen who refused to finance his practical proposals were fools is all the more stinging in relation to those, like Raleigh and Keymis, who invested in treasure hunts and lost everything, including their lives. The uproar over Raleigh's execution for treason having settled somewhat by 1630, Smith's "True Travels" refers directly to Raleigh's Guiana misadventures, but his treatment of the subject is ambiguous. In light of the wasted effort, expense, and lives (including Keymis, Raleigh's son, and indirectly Raleigh himself), a hint of sarcasm undercuts Smith's epitaph for "that most industrious and honourable Knight Sir Walter Rauleigh" (3:224). Certainly, Raleigh energetically and sincerely believed in his vision of a rich British New World empire that would rival Spain's, but by 1630 the absurd extremes and predestined failure of his obsession were clear. Smith's summary of the 1595 expedition is obviously scornful of those who chased the ignis fatuus of Eldorado: ...understanding that twentie severall voyages had beene made by the Spanyards, in discovering this Coast and River; to finde a passage to the great Citie of Mano, called by them the Eldorado, or the Golden Citie: he [Raleigh] did his utmost to have found some better satisfaction than relations: But meanes failing him, hee left his trustie servant Francis Sparrow to seeke it, who wandring up and downe those Countreyes, some foureteene or fifteene yeares, unexpectedly returned: I have heard him say, he was led blinded into this Citie by Indians; but little discourse of any purpose touching the largenesse of the report of it; his body seeming as a man of an uncurable consumption, shortly died here after in England. (3:224) Sparrow, in a figurative sense, embodied Smith's views not only of Raleigh's obsession, blindness, and suicidal monomania, but also of the madness of Renaissance Europe's imperialism. Following this passage, Smith summarizes several attempts to colonize the area between the Orinoco and Amazon rivers by "divers others worthy and industrious Gentlemen" (3:225)-- including Charles Ley, Thomas Roe, Matthew Morton, William White, and Robert Harcote--all of whom Smith genuinely admired; in fact, he had intended to accompany Ley. Again, in contrast to these efforts, Smith juxtaposes Raleigh's 1617 voyage: Thus this businesse lay dead for divers yeeres, till Sir Walter Rauleigh, accompanied with many valent Souldiers and brave Gentlemen, went his last voyage to Guiana, amongst the which was Captaine Roger North, brother to the Right Honourable the Lord Dudley North, who upon this voyage having stayed and seene divers Rivers upon this Coast, tooke such a liking to those Countreyes, having had before this voyage more perfect and particular information of the excellencie of the great River of the Amazones, above any of the rest, by certaine Englishmen returned so rich from thence in good commodities, they would not goe with Sir Walter Rauleigh in search of gold; that after his [North's] returne for England, he endevoured by his best abilities to interest his Countrey and state in those faire Regions, which by the way of Letters Patents unto divers Noblemen and Gentlemen of qualitie, erected into a company and perpetuitie for trade and plantation[.] (3:225) Although Smith's criticism of Raleigh's South American military blunders is understandable, we might expect Smith to have approved of Raleigh's Roanoke colonies. Based on this likelihood, Noel B. Gerson, in his biography of Smith, "The Glorious Scoundrel", cites "The Generall Historie of Virginia" in his discussion of a hypothetical friendship that developed between Smith and Raleigh while Raleigh was in the Tower: The first volume was a history of the effort's to colonize Virginia before 1605. In it Smith paid tribute to Sir Walter Raleigh. It was a courageous thing to do, for Raleigh's final expedition to the Caribbean in 1617 had been a failure, and he had been executed by order of the Crown the following year. Smith's tribute could thus be construed as an indirect reproach to King James. Although most of England shared Smith's sentiments, it took a very brave man to set them down in print.(9) The supposed "tribute" referred to can only be the transition paragraph between Smith's summaries of early English voyages and his condensations of documents related to Roanoke (all from Hakluyt's "Principal Navigations"): Upon all those Relations and inducements, Sir Walter Raleigh, a noble Gentleman, and then in great esteeme, undertooke to send to discover to the Southward. And though his occasions and other imployments were such he could not goe himselfe, yet he procured her Majesties Letters Pattents, and perswaded many worthy Knights and Gentlemen to adventure with him to finde a place fit for a Plantation. Their Proceedings followeth. (2:63) Gerson's interpretation of this solitary reference to Raleigh in the volume, like his entire imaginative story of Raleigh's influential friendship with Smith, is not supported by any textual evidence. Not Raleigh, Raleigh's biographers,(10) Smith, Everett Emerson, who wrote the Twayne bio-critical study of Smith,(11) nor Philip Barbour, who wrote the standard biography, "The Three Worlds of Captain John Smith",(12) and edited the authoritative edition of Smith's "Complete Works", say anything about the two men ever meeting. Rather, Barbour cites Hakluyt as the source of Smith's knowledge of Raleigh's activities. Considering the failure of the ill prepared and poorly planned settlement attempts at Roanoke, as recorded in the documents that Smith goes on to abridge, and considering references to the Roanoke colonies in Smith's other writings, the passage seems a prelude and backdrop against which Smith's tributes to his own activities shine in striking contrast. In 1585 Raleigh may have been held "then in great esteeme," but forty years later Smith saw himself as the hero of the British-American epic. Smith's opinion of Raleigh's Roanoke colony seems sympathetic at best, with increasing annoyance at continual requests by the Virginia Company to search for survivors of the Lost Colony while he served on the council in Virginia. Included in his Generall Historie are reports by Thomas Heriot, John White, and others testifying to the efforts behind the attempted Roanoke settlement while revealing the ineffective leadership that doomed it. Smith's abridgements from Hakluyt seem to stress mistakes, accidents, and delays. For example, In the yeare of our Lord 1586, Sir Walter Raleigh and his Associates prepared a ship of a hundred tun, fraughted plentifully of all things necessary: but before they set sayle from England it was Easter. And arriving at Hatorask, they after some time spent in seeking the Collony up in the Country, and not finding them, returned with all the provision againe to England. (2:82) As a final word, at the end of John White's compelling account of finding the empty houses and the famous carved message CROATOAN, which of course brought false hope and final grief, Smith adds a sharp concluding comment: "And thus we left seeking our Colony, that was never any of them found, nor seene to this day 1622. And this was the conclusion of this Plantation, after so much time, labour, and charge consumed" (2:88). Smith's attitude toward Roanoke was influenced by the distraction it created during the settlement of Virginia. While he was encouraging efforts to ensure survival, leaders of the Virginia Company in London, influenced by advice from Raleigh, wanted him to explore for riches, waterways, and the Lost Colonists.(13) Upon one occasion, when Christopher Newport arrived with instructions to search by portaging a large pinnace over the waterfall up the James River, Smith wrote a sarcastic letter to the Council pointing out the inanity of such ideas: For the charge of this Voyage of two or three thousand pounds, we have not received the value of an hundred pounds. And for the quartered Boat to be borne by the Souldiers over the Falles, Newport had 120 of the best men he could chuse. If he had burnt her to ashes, one might have carried her in a bag; but as she is, five hundred cannot, to a navigable place above the Falles. And for him at that time to find in the South Sea, a Mine of gold; or any of them sent by Sir Walter Raleigh: at our Consultation I told them was as likely as the rest. (2:188) Perhaps the most artful reference to Raleigh's affairs is Smith's ironic invoking of the example of Roanoke governor Ralph Lane's expedition up the Roanoke River in search of a Southwest passage and the fabled Indian kingdom of Chaunis Temoatan rumored to be rich in precious, soft, pale yellow metal called wassador. Not only is that part of Lane's report to Raleigh reprinted in the First Book of "The Generall Historie" (2:70-73), where Lane's search sets the stage for Smith's leading role in the drama of colonization, but also Smith refers to the wild-goose chase by Raleigh's men in a speech to his own prospecting party, printed in "The Proceedings of the English Colonie in Virginia"... (1612) and reprinted in "The Generall Historie" (2:166). Like Raleigh and Lane, the first leaders at Jamestown misdirected their efforts toward treasure hunting rather than establishing a settlement. In particular, President John Ratcliffe, encouraged by certain members of the Council and by Christopher Newport, ordered Smith to explore the Chesapeake Bay during June 1608. After prolonged hardships and dangers, the men started to complain and importune Smith to lead them back to the fort. No doubt angry that "our store, our time, our strength and labours were idely consumed to fulfill his phantasies" (2:162-63), Smith delivered a speech that appeared to urge continued exploration but most likely was an ironic portrayal of their own foolish, greedy willingness to chase delusions: Gentlemen if you would remember the memorable history of Sir Ralph Layne, how his company importuned him to proceed in the discovery of Moratico, alleadging they had yet a dog, that being boyled with Saxafras leaves, would richly feede them in their returnes; then what a shame would it be for you (that have bin so suspitious of my tendernesse) to force me returne, with so much provision as we have, and scarce able to say where we have beene, nor yet heard of that we were sent to seeke? ... Regaine therefore your old spirits for returne I will not (if God please) till I have seene the Massawomeks, found Patawomek, or the head of this water you conceit to be endlesse. (2:166) Smith intended to teach them a lesson and prove that their fantasies were unreal, indeed dangerous. The irony of the speech is that Lane's party had been soon after attacked by Indians and forced to retreat to the fort at Roanoke, and the planting time they wasted led to the eventual abandonment of the colony. Following the text of Smith's speech in both "The Proceedings" and "The Generall Historie", the appropriateness of the reference to Lane becomes clear when Smith provides some background: The cause of this discovery was to search this mine, of which Newport did assure us that those small baggs (we had given him [with a glistering metal obtained from the Massawomeks]) in England he had tryed to hold halfe silver; but all we got proved of no value. (2:167-68) A humorous anecdote immediately follows that promotes Smith's characteristic theme of exploitable natural abundance and serves as a corollary to the fruitless search for gold by unequipped explorers: ...that aboundance of fish, lying so thicke with their heads above the water, as for want of nets (our barge driving amongst them) we attempted to catch them with a frying pan: but we found it a bad instrument to catch fish with: neither better fish, more plenty, nor more variety for smal fish, had any of us ever seene in any place so swimming in the water, but they are not to be caught with frying pans. (2:168) Similarly, the land undoubtedly contained gold, but it could not be mined with their available equipment, such as frying pans. The moral of this early American tall tale is clear: the settlers should learn from the mistakes of dreamers like Lane and Raleigh and harvest the natural riches within their grasp. In addition, while the spawning schools probably did actually overfill the virgin rivers, Smith's use of the classical locus amoenus is further evidence of his rhetorical skill. Smith's writings about Raleigh and the New World reveal more about Smith than about Raleigh or early America, just as Raleigh's writings about the New World reflect his preconceptions and self-deception. For both men, writing was a continuation of their participation in the adventures that they described and reshaped in order to assert, promote, defend, and justify their actions and views. While Raleigh wrote to sell his dream and save his life, Smith saw writing as the extension of his unselfish devotion to the colonies. Although he placed himself at the center of his vision of America and wrote to advance his own interests, he identified with America and celebrated himself as part of his celebration of an ideal, thus transcending the self-serving promotions of Raleigh. Smith's writings are essential to his paradoxical identity as the first major British-American author and a Renaissance Englishman. His practical, realistic opposition to the naive attitudes of the early explorers, who in many ways still thought like medieval travellers, exiled him from his beloved America and alienated him from an English society both enchanted by and disenchanted with stories of a golden New World. Unlike Raleigh's spectacular public trial and execution, Smith's last years were obscure, and he felt reduced to the isolated hulk personified in his poem "The Sea Marke," though still believing in himself and his vision of America. Denied the opportunity to return to sea, Smith nonetheless offered himself as an example and a warning for other explorers: I onely lie upon this shelfe to be a marke to all which on the same might fall, That none may perish but my selfe.(14) Although his contemporaries appear to have been skeptical about his claims, as demonstrated by the recently discovered satire of Smith's accounts,(15) Smith had faith in his American dream and, in turn, satirized Raleigh as a foil. His vision of a new society, so ardently and at times artistically pictured in his writings, establishes Smith as a modern Renaissance man and a legendary American hero. Notes 1. "Last Voyages--Cavendish, Hudson, Ralegh: The Original Narratives", ed. Philip Edwards (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 242. 2. All quotations from Smith's writings are from "The Complete Works of Captain John Smith (1560-1631)", ed. Philip L. Barbour, 3 vols. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986). 3. Wayne Franklin, "Discoverers, Explorers, Settlers: The Diligent Writers of Early America" (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979). 4. Annette Kolodny, "The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in American Life and Letters" (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975), 11. 5. "The Discoveries of the Large, Rich, and Bewtiful Empire of Guiana, with a Relation of the Great and Golden Citie of Manoa (which the Spaniards call El Dorado) And the Province of Emeria, Arromaia, and other Countries with Their Rivers, adjoyning", ed. V.T. Harlow (London: Argonaut Press, 1928), 71-73. 6. J.A. Leo Lemay, "Captain John Smith: American (?)," "The University of Mississippi Studies in English", n.s., 5 (1984-1987): 288-96. 7. John Seelye, "Captain Courageous: Captain John Smith, Father of Us All," in "Prophetic Waters: The River in Early American Life and Literature" (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), 57-95. 8. William C. Spengemann, "Discovering the Literature of British America," "Early American Literature" 18 (Spring 1983): 3-16. 9. Noel B. Gerson, "The Glorious Scoundrel: A Biography of Captain John Smith" (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1978), 229-30. 10. Robert Lacey, "Sir Walter Ralegh" (New York: Atheneum, 1974). Philip Magnus, "Sir Walter Raleigh" (London: Collins, 1956). 11. Everett H. Emerson, "Captain John Smith" (New York: Twayne, 1971). 12. Philip L. Barbour, "The Three Worlds of Captain John Smith" (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1964). 13. David B. Quinn, "Raleigh and the British Empire", 2nd ed. (London: English Universities Press, 1962), 232-35. 14. Harrison T. Meserole, "Seventeenth-Century American Poetry" (New York: New York University Press, 1968), 378. 15. Alden T. Vaughan, "John Smith Satirized: "The Legend of Captain Iones"," "William and Mary Quarterly" 45 (October 1988): 712-32. References Barbour, Philip L., ed. "The Complete Works of Captain John Smith (1560-1631)". 3 vols. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986. -----. "The Three Worlds of Captain John Smith". Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1964. Edwards, Philip, ed. "Last Voyages--Cavendish, Hudson, Ralegh: The Original Narratives". Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. Emerson, Everett H. "Captain John Smith". New York: Twayne, 1971. Franklin, Wayne. "Discoveries, Explorers, Settlers: The Diligent Writers of Early America". Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979. Gerson, Noel B. "The Glorious Scoundrel: A Biography of Captain John Smith". New York: Dodd, Mead, 1978. Kolodny, Annette. "The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in American Life and Letters". Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975. Lacey, Robert. "Sir Walter Ralegh". New York: Atheneum, 1974. Lemay, J.A. Leo. "Captain John Smith: American (?)." "The University of Mississippi Studies in English" n.s. 5 (1984-1987): 288-96. Magnus, Philip. "Sir Walter Raleigh". London: Collins, 1956. Meserole, Harrison T. "Seventeenth-Century American Poetry". New York: New York University Press, 1968. Quinn, David B. "Raleigh and the British Empire". 2nd ed. London: English Universities Press, 1962. Raleigh, Sir Walter. "The Discoveries of the Large, Rich, and Bewtiful Empire of Guiana, with a Relation of the Great and Golden Citie of Manoa (which the Spaniards call El Dorado) And the Province of Emeria, Arromaia, and other Countries with Their Rivers, adjoyning". Edited by V.T. Harlow. London: Argonaut Press, 1928. Seelye, John. "Captain Courageous: Captain John Smith, Father of Us All," in "Prophetic Waters: The River in Early American Life and Literature", 57-95. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. Spengemann, William C. "Discovering the Literature of British America," "Early American Literature" 18 (Spring 1983): 3-16. Vaughan, Alden T. "John Smith Satirized: "The Legend of Captain Iones"," "William and Mary Quarterly" 45 (October 1988): 712-32. 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