Captain John Smith eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 268 pages of information about Captain John Smith.

Captain John Smith eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 268 pages of information about Captain John Smith.
from the more vulgar fighters of his time.  The assault succeeded, but at great cost of life.  The Turks sent a flag of truce and desired a “composition,” but the earl, remembering the death of his father, continued to batter the town and when he took it put all the men in arms to the sword, and then set their heads upon stakes along the walls, the Turks having ornamented the walls with Christian heads when they captured the fortress.  Although the town afforded much pillage, the loss of so many troops so mixed the sour with the sweet that General Moyses could only allay his grief by sacking three other towns, Veratis, Solmos, and Kapronka.  Taking from these a couple of thousand prisoners, mostly women and children, Earl Moyses marched north to Weisenberg (Alba Julia), and camped near the palace of Prince Sigismund.

When Sigismund Battori came out to view his army he was made acquainted with the signal services of Smith at “Olumpagh, Stowell-Weisenberg, and Regall,” and rewarded him by conferring upon him, according to the law of—­arms, a shield of arms with “three Turks’ heads.”  This was granted by a letter-patent, in Latin, which is dated at “Lipswick, in Misenland, December 9, 1603” It recites that Smith was taken captive by the Turks in Wallachia November 18, 1602; that he escaped and rejoined his fellow-soldiers.  This patent, therefore, was not given at Alba Julia, nor until Prince Sigismund had finally left his country, and when the Emperor was, in fact, the Prince of Transylvania.  Sigismund styles himself, by the grace of God, Duke of Transylvania, etc.  Appended to this patent, as published in Smith’s “True Travels,” is a certificate by William Segar, knight of the garter and principal king of arms of England, that he had seen this patent and had recorded a copy of it in the office of the Herald of Armes.  This certificate is dated August 19, 1625, the year after the publication of the General Historie.

Smith says that Prince Sigismund also gave him his picture in gold, and granted him an annual pension of three hundred ducats.  This promise of a pension was perhaps the most unsubstantial portion of his reward, for Sigismund himself became a pensioner shortly after the events last narrated.

The last mention of Sigismund by Smith is after his escape from captivity in Tartaria, when this mirror of virtues had abdicated.  Smith visited him at “Lipswicke in Misenland,” and the Prince “gave him his Passe, intimating the service he had done, and the honors he had received, with fifteen hundred ducats of gold to repair his losses.”  The “Passe” was doubtless the “Patent” before introduced, and we hear no word of the annual pension.

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Captain John Smith from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.