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If people remember John Smith these days it is as the guy rescued by Pocahontas, but there was much more to him. A mercenary rising to the rank of captain, whose adventures saw him as a prisoner in Istanbul, an escapee in Russia, a privateer in the Mediterranean. When he travelled to America he found the passion of his life .. colonisation, but unlike so many he was a realist focussing on economic development and relationships with the natives.