CHAPTER IX. Showing more particularly the honor, content and profit of those undertakings. To descend from those generals to more particulars. What can be more pleasing to a generous nature than to be exercised in doing public good? especially when his labor and industry tends to the private good and reputation of himself and posterity; and what monument so durable, as erecting of houses, villages and towns? and what more pious than advancing of Christian religion amongst people who have not known the excellency thereof? But, seeing works of piety and public good are in this age rather commended by all than acted by any, let us come a little nearer to that which all hearken unto, and that forsooth is profit. Be it so. Art thou a laborer, that desirest to take pains for the maintenance of thyself ?-the employments in plantations gives thee not only extraordinary wages, but opportunity to build some house or cottage, and a proportion of land agreeable to thy fortunes to set thyself when either lameness or other infirmities seize on thee. Hast thou a wife and a family?—by plantation thou buildest, enclosest, and dost labor to live and enjoy the fruits thereof with plenty, multiplying thy little means for thy children's good when thou art no more. But art thou of a greater fortune and more gloriously spirited ?—I have told thee before what thou mayst be assured of, whereby it may appear thou shalt not want means nor opportunity to exercise the excellency of thine own justice, and ingenuity to govern and act the best things, whether it be for thyself or such as live under thee, or have their dependency or hopes of happiness upon thy worth and virtue as their chief. Neither are these parts of the world void of opportunity to make a further discovery into the vast territories, that promiseth so much hopes of honor and profits (formerly spoken of) to be raised to posterity by the means and opportunity of those great and goodly lakes and rivers, which invite all that are of brave spirits to seek the extent of them, especially since it is already known that some of these lakes contain fifty or sixty leagues in length, some one hundred, some two hundred, others four or five hundred; the greatest abounding in multitude of islands fit for habitation; the land on both sides, especially to the southward, fertile and pleasant, being between the degrees of forty-four and forty-five of latitude; and to the west of these lakes that are now known, they pass by a main river to another sea or lake, which is conceived to disembogue into the South Seas; where the savages report that they have a trade with a nation, that comes once a year unto them with great ships, and brings shoes and buskins, kettles and hatchets, and the like, which they barter for skins and furs of all kinds,-the people being clothed with long robes, their heads bald or shaven, so as it is conceived they must be Catayons or Chinawaies. Whatsoever they be, were the strength of my body and means answerable to my heart, I would undertake the discovery of the uttermost extent thereof; and whosoever shall effect the same, shall both eternize his virtues and make happy such as will endeavor to partake thereof. But I end, and leave all to Him who is the only author of all goodness, and knows best his own time to bring his will to be made manifest, and appoints his instruments for the accomplishing thereof; to whose pleasure it becomes every one of us to submit ourselves, as to that mighty God and great and gracious Lord, to whom all glory doth belong. FINIS. [The reader must have perceived that the preceding Tract abounds with grammatical errors, unfinished sentences, and passages which convey no meaning whatever. These we conceive are not to be ascribed to the author, but to the negligence of his printer, who does not appear to have understood the author's manuscript. In one or two instances, where the blunder was palpable, we have ventured to correct it, and restore the author's meaning; but in general we have been obliged to follow the defective copy. Publishing Committee.] A DESCRIPTION of New England : OR THE OBSERVATIONS, AND DISCOUERIES, went the next yeare 1615; and the acci- With the proofe of the present benefit this At LONDON Printed by Humfrey Lownes, for Robert Clerke; and [For an account of Captain John Smith's adventurous and romantic life, the reader is referred to Belknap's American Biography, Vol. I., to Sparks's American Biography, Vol. II., and to his own personal narrative, published in 1630, under the title of True Travels, Adventures, and Observations in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, from 1593 to 1629. This work was reprinted at Richmond, Virginia, in 1819, in two volumes octavo. Mr. Rich, in his Catalogue of Books relating to America, says of Smith's Description of New-England, that "this is the first book published which speaks of NEW-ENGLAND, previously called North Virginia.' Publishing Committee.] |