was what?  Sedition in his own camp, ingratitude among his own followers, misrepresentation to his patrons, disappointment, disease, and poverty to himself; a return to England and posthumous fame.  But his bulldog fangs, the fangs of that English blood which once sunk in the throat of a savage land remain forever, were placed upon America, to mark it as another conquest and another triumph of Anglo-Saxon colonization.  Three years of peace and quiet in England were not to his taste.  His mother’s spirit craved new adventures, and he sought them in sea voyages to the north.  Although his task was a much less difficult one, and not quite so prominent as the task he had accomplished in Virginia, he prepared the way for the settlement at Plymouth Rock.  To his title of President of Virginia was added the title of Admiral of New England, because this John Smith, without a pedigree, except such as was blazoned on his shield by his slaughter of three Turks, turned his attention from the land to the sea, sailed the colder waters of the north, located the colonies of New England, named your own Boston, and the result of his voyages and reports were the Plymouth charter and settlement.  So it is that we have a common founder of the settlements of this country.  Of all the gallants who embarked in the first adventure, all disappeared save John Smith, who bore the plainest and commonest name that human imagination can devise.  He became the patron saint of American civilization, as much yours as ours, and as much ours as yours. [Laughter and applause.]

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen:  We had one founder; we came from one master-mind; one great spirit was the source of both our settlements; and this initial fact in our histories has seemed to inspire the American people through all the centuries with the sentiment that our union should be eternal in spite of all disturbing circumstances. [Applause.] When I said, in a light way, that old Virginia and Massachusetts had sought to rend themselves asunder, it was scarcely true.  They have too much that is glorious in common to be aught but loving sisters.  The men who are before me will not forget that the settlers of the London colony of Virginia, and settlers of the Plymouth colony of Massachusetts, have been at the front of every great movement which has agitated this nation from its birth.  When it came to the question of whether we should dissolve the political ties that bound us to the British King, Massachusetts Bay and the colony of Virginia were the first to form their Committees of Safety, exchange their messages of mutual support, and strengthen the weak among their sister colonies. [Applause.] When it came to the time that tried men’s souls in the Revolution, it was the men of Virginia and the men of Massachusetts Bay that furnished the largest quotas of revolutionary soldiers who achieved the independence of the American colonies.