A True Relation

The title page of John Smith's A True Relation of such occurrences and accidents of noate as hath hapned in Virginia since the first planting of that Collony (1608) notes that the text was "Written by Captaine Smith … of the said Collony, to a worshipfull friend of his in England." Smith wrote this lengthy letter to a patron as a private correspondence and did not expect his frank, and at times critical, assessment of the Virginia colony and its leaders to be published.