According to the long-accepted story of Pocahontas, she did something more than interfere to save from barbarous torture and death a stranger and a captive, who had forfeited his life by shooting those who opposed his invasion.In all times, among the most savage tribes and in civilized society, women have been moved to heavenly pity by the sight of a prisoner, and risked life to save him--the impulse was as natural to a Highland lass as to an African maid.Pocahontas went further than efforts to make peace between the superior race and her own.When the whites forced the Indians to contribute from their scanty stores to the support of the invaders, and burned their dwellings and shot them on sight if they refused, the Indian maid sympathized with the exposed whites and warned them of stratagems against them; captured herself by a base violation of the laws of hospitality, she was easily reconciled to her situation, adopted the habits of the foreigners, married one of her captors, and in peace and in war cast in her lot with the strangers.History has not preserved for us the Indian view of her conduct.
It was no doubt fortunate for her, though perhaps not for the colony, that her romantic career ended by an early death, so that she always remains in history in the bloom of youth.She did not live to be pained by the contrast, to which her eyes were opened, between her own and her adopted people, nor to learn what things could be done in the Christian name she loved, nor to see her husband in a less honorable light than she left him, nor to be involved in any way in the frightful massacre of 1622.If she had remained in England after the novelty was over, she might have been subject to slights and mortifying neglect.The struggles of the fighting colony could have brought her little but pain.Dying when she did, she rounded out one of the prettiest romances of all history, and secured for her name the affection of a great nation, whose empire has spared little that belonged to her childhood and race, except the remembrance of her friendship for those who destroyed her people.
XVII
NEW ENGLAND ADVENTURES
Captain John Smith returned to England in the autumn of 1609, wounded in body and loaded with accusations of misconduct, concocted by his factious companions in Virginia.There is no record that these charges were ever considered by the London Company.Indeed, we cannot find that the company in those days ever took any action on the charges made against any of its servants in Virginia.Men came home in disgrace and appeared to receive neither vindication nor condemnation.Some sunk into private life, and others more pushing and brazen, like Ratcliffe, the enemy of Smith, got employment again after a time.The affairs of the company seem to have been conducted with little order or justice.
Whatever may have been the justice of the charges against Smith, he had evidently forfeited the good opinion of the company as a desirable man to employ.They might esteem his energy and profit by his advice and experience, but they did not want his services.And in time he came to be considered an enemy of the company.
Unfortunately for biographical purposes, Smith's life is pretty much a blank from 1609 to 1614.When he ceases to write about himself he passes out of sight.There are scarcely any contemporary allusions to his existence at this time.We may assume, however, from our knowledge of his restlessness, ambition, and love of adventure, that he was not idle.We may assume that he besieged the company with his plans for the proper conduct of the settlement of Virginia; that he talked at large in all companies of his discoveries, his exploits, which grew by the relating, and of the prospective greatness of the new Britain beyond the Atlantic.That he wearied the Council by his importunity and his acquaintances by his hobby, we can also surmise.
No doubt also he was considered a fanatic by those who failed to comprehend the greatness of his schemes, and to realize, as he did, the importance of securing the new empire to the English before it was occupied by the Spanish and the French.His conceit, his boasting, and his overbearing manner, which no doubt was one of the causes why he was unable to act in harmony with the other adventurers of that day, all told against him.He was that most uncomfortable person, a man conscious of his own importance, and out of favor and out of money.
Yet Smith had friends, and followers, and men who believed in him.
This is shown by the remarkable eulogies in verse from many pens, which he prefixes to the various editions of his many works.They seem to have been written after reading the manuscripts, and prepared to accompany the printed volumes and tracts.They all allude to the envy and detraction to which he was subject, and which must have amounted to a storm of abuse and perhaps ridicule; and they all tax the English vocabulary to extol Smith, his deeds, and his works.In putting forward these tributes of admiration and affection, as well as in his constant allusion to the ill requital of his services, we see a man fighting for his reputation, and conscious of the necessity of doing so.He is ever turning back, in whatever he writes, to rehearse his exploits and to defend his motives.