He seems to think, from his closing remarks, that the colony had little purpose in those early days beyond mere survival, which would have been impossible without him.
William Bradford also wrote is account of the Plymouth landing and the colony founded thereabouts in the third person, but he is not nearly as self-aggrandizing as Smith. His account is not exactly humble though, but rather speaks with a certain religious authority that comes perhaps in part from the years between the actual events and Bradford's writing about them. The purpose for the colony, as he seems to see it, was to establish a place where God would receive due reverence. That had been their purpose in leaving Europe, after all, and he counts misfortunes as trials from God and good events as signs of God's blessing. He, too, lists the difficult times that were encountered by the colonists upon landing; there was no readily available food but what they had brought with them, and the weather was not welcoming in December, either. Bradford also relates the colonists issues with the Native Americans, though his tale is far less adventurous than Smith's, and does not contain the same action-hero quality. Instead, Bradford notes the signing of a treaty and the helpfulness and wisdom of Squanto, their translator, reflecting the colony's purpose of establishing a place of wisdom and grace in what they saw...
Because this oration was delivered while still on the ship, it contains no mention of the external hardships that the colonists will face. Winthrop does, however, determine how those hardships shall be dealt with: by using techniques which have today become almost cliches of Christianity, such as "loving thy enemy" and a practice of charity even in poverty. Like Bradford, he saw that the purpose of his new colony was to be a source of inspiration and wisdom for others to follow; both men wished to build a perfect society from the ground up. Winthrop's vision is different than Bradford's account because, perhaps due to age and certainly due to experience in the new world, Bradford had somewhat less optimism about the achievability of this goal.
The odd duck of these three is certainly Smith, with his arrogance showing quite clearly in his writing, while both Bradford and Winthrop make God a more important figure than themselves. These different attitudes, and the ways in which these men tackled the problems they encountered, were reflective of the different paths the colonies were taking. Even today, there are great differences that exist in our democracy -- it's the American way.
