Excerpt from Captain John Smith (1579-1631) John Smith was born in the little village of Willoughby, England, in sight of the North Sea, in January, I 579. His parents were in humble circumstances, yet not so poor but that his father left an estate large enough to tempt John's guard ians to get rid of him that they might enjoy it themselves. He was sent to the free schools of Louth and Alford, not far away, and acquired what we should call a good common-school edu cation. 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.