Excerpt from John Smith Gentleman Adventurer The history of the world furnishes few lives so romantic and replete with stirring incident as that of John Smith, the founder of the first English colony in America - that settlement at Jamestown in Virginia, of which the United States of today is the outgrowth. John Smith began life in the year 1580, in the glorious reign of Good Queen Bess. It was a world of turmoil into which our hero came, but a most fitting field for so adventurous a spirit. In France, the gallant Henry of Navarre was fighting for a kingdom and his faith against the Catholic League. In the Low Countries, the sturdy Dutchmen, under Maurice of Orange, were defending their homes from the invasion of the arrogant and bigoted Spaniard, who deemed it his duty to punish every Protestant people. In the east of Europe, the Ottomans - Asiatics from Turkestan and other countries - maintained an incessant and savage warfare against the subjects of the Emperor of Germany. There was but one peaceful spot In all Christendom, and that the "right little, tight little island" of our forefathers. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.