His revenge was in his good fortune in setting his own story afloat
in the current of history. The first narrative of these events,
published by Smith in his Oxford tract of 1612, was considerably
remodeled and changed in his "General Historie" of 1624. As we have
said before, he had a progressive memory, and his opponents ought to
be thankful that the pungent Captain did not live to work the story
over a third time.
It is no doubt true, however, that but for the accident to our hero,
he would have continued to rule till the arrival of Gates and Somers
with the new commissions; as he himself says, "but had that unhappy
blast not happened, he would quickly have qualified the heat of those
humors and factions, had the ships but once left them and us to our
fortunes; and have made that provision from among the salvages, as we
neither feared Spaniard, Salvage, nor famine: nor would have left
Virginia nor our lawful authority, but at as dear a price as we had
bought it, and paid for it."
He doubtless would have fought it out against all comers; and who
shall say that he does not merit the glowing eulogy on himself which
he inserts in his General History? "What shall I say but this, we
left him, that in all his proceedings made justice his first guide,
and experience his second, ever hating baseness, sloth, pride, and
indignity, more than any dangers; that upon no danger would send them
where he would not lead them himself; that would never see us want
what he either had or could by any means get us; that would rather
want than borrow; or starve than not pay; that loved action more than
words, and hated falsehood and covetousness worse than death; whose
adventures were our lives, and whose loss our deaths.
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