burn and had to return to England for treatment in October 1609, but he never surrendered his now expired commission, only let it be stolen before he had "taken order to be free from the danger of their malice". In those days, a match was a cord used to discharge a firelock musket or pistol. The practice was to light it and keep it burning when there was prospect of the need of force. Smith offered no explanation of why anyone attending him would be on the point of firing a weapon. The pain of the burn, Smith said, was terrible, but more unhappiness would be awaiting him when he would return back to Jamestown. Of the five hundred settlers he left at Jamestown when he did in fact return to England, only sixty were found alive.

Nevertheless, Smith looked to his defence in the publishing's found in his book "The Proceedings of The English Colony in Virginia". This testimony was about two supporters of Smith's ideas, Richard Pots and William Phettiplace. From their comment emerges this particular idea: "Now all of those men Smith had either whipped, punished, or any way disgraced had free power and liberty to say or swear any thing, and from a whole armful of their examinations this was concluded and states this in the book itself. "This was it for Smith; he left Virginia to never return again: a man scorned, and a prisoner, just as he arrived".

He then went to London, where he began actively promoting the further colonization of Virginia even though he would not return. Smith was then said to be unpopular with the Virginia Company at this time, after having quarrelled with them. In April 1614, he returned to the New World in a successful voyage to Maine and the Massachusetts Bay areas, which he later named New England. In his travels, he mapped out the coast from Penobscot Bay to Cape Cod. He again later made one more trip to New England, but was forced by violent storms to return back to England. Smith then lost all hopes for the Plymouth Company, after he was denied further opportunities to return to America, due to his independent nature, and spent the rest of his life in England, penniless, and writing books.