Chapter XIII: FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE. Written and adapted from various (5)

In his letters to his learned friends, however, he frequently commented on the sweetness of her character and the depth of her erudition. He spoke of Lady Mildred Cooke and the Lady Jane Grey as the two most learned women in England; and summed up his praises of the latter in the remark that "however illustrious she was by her fortune and royal extraction, this bore no proportion to the accomplishments of her mind, adorned with the doctrine of Plato and the eloquence of Demosthenes."

Her illustrious rank, her piety and her erudition necessarily made the Lady Jane an object of special interest to the leaders of the Reformed Church in England and on the continent. The learned Martin Bruce, whom Edward VI. had appointed to the chair of divinity at the University of Cambridge, watched over her with prayerful anxiety. Bullinger, a minister of Zurich, corresponded with her frequently, encouraging her in the practice of every virtue. Under the direction and counsel of these and other divines she pursued her theological studies with great success, so as to be able to defend and maintain the creed she had adopted, and give abundant reason for the faith that was in her.

The Marquis of Dorset, in October, 1551, was raised to the dukedom of Suffolk; and on the same day the subtle and ambitious intriguer, John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, who was to exercise so malignant an influence on his daughter's destiny, was created Duke of Northumberland.

The Lady Jane was then removed to the metropolis, residing with her family at her father's town house, in Suffolk Place. She necessarily shared in the festivities of the court; but she would seem to have been distinguished always by a remarkable plainness of apparel; in this obeying the impulse of her simplicity of taste, supported and confirmed by the advice of Bullinger and Aylmer.

On one occasion the Princess Mary presented her with a sumptuous robe, which she was desired to wear in recognition of the donor's generosity. "Nay," she replied, "that were a shame, to follow my Lady Mary, who leaveth God's word, and leave my Lady Elizabeth who followeth God's word." A speech which the Lady Mary doubtless remembered.

Early in 1553, men clearly saw that the life and reign of Edward VI. were drawing to an abrupt termination. His legitimate successor was his elder sister Mary; but her morose temper and bigoted attachment to the old Church had filled the minds of the Reformers with anxiety. Her unpopularity, and the dangers to the Reformed Church to be apprehended from her accession, led Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, to conceive an audacious design. He resolved to raise his son to the throne. But for this purpose it was necessary to ally him to the blood-royal, and he therefore planned a marriage between his young son, Lord Guilford Dudley, and Lady Jane Grey.

There were such elements of fitness in the match that on neither side was any obstruction thrown; and in June 1553 the bridal ceremony took place at the Duke of Northumberland's palace in the Strand. The Duke then obtained from King Edward, by an appeal to his zeal for the Church, letters-patent excluding Mary and Elizabeth from the succession and declaring Lady Jane Grey heir to the throne.

A few days afterwards the young king died; and on the evening of the 9th of July, the Duke of Northumberland, accompanied by the Marquis of Northampton, the Earls of Arundel, Huntingdon and Pembroke, appeared before the young bride in her quiet chamber at Northumberland House, and urged her acceptance of a crown which was fated to become, for her, a crown of thorns.

"How I was beside myself," she afterwards wrote, "how I was beside myself, stupefied and troubled, I will leave it to those lords who were present to testify, who saw me overcome by sudden and unexpected grief, fall on the ground, weeping very bitterly; and then declaring to them my insufficiency, I greatly bewailed myself for the death of so noble a Prince, and at the same time turned myself to God, humbly praying and beseeching Him that if what was given to me was _rightly and lawfully_ mine, His divine Majesty would grant _me_ such grace and spirit that I might govern it to His glory and service and to the advantage of this realm."

Her prudent reluctance, however, was overruled. History records the brief twelve days' pageant of her reign.

On the 19th of July her opponent, Mary entered London in triumph.

"Great was the rejoicing," says a contemporary; so great that the like of it had never been seen by any living. The number of caps that were flung into the air at the proclamation could not be told. The Earl of Pembroke cast among the crowd a liberal largess. Bonfires blazed in every street; and what with shouting and crying of the people, and ringing of bells, there could no one man hear what another said.

Lady Jane was at first confined in the house of one Partridge, a warder of the Tower. Thence, after she and her husband had been tried for high treason and found guilty, they were removed to the Tower. During her captivity she occasionally amused herself with the graceful pursuits of her earlier and happier years, engraving on the walls of her prison, with a pin, some Latin distich, which turned into English read:

"Believe not, man, in care's despite,
That thou from others' ills art free
The _cross_ that now _I_ suffer might
To-morrow haply fall on _thee_"

"Endless all malice, if our God is nigh:
Fruitless all pains, if He His help deny,
Patient I pass these gloomy hours away,
And wait the morning of eternal day."

Her execution was fixed for the 12th of February 1554. On the night preceding she wrote a few sentences of advice to her sister on the blank leaf of a New Testament. To her father she addressed the following beautiful letter, in which filial reverence softens and subdues the exhortations of a dying saint:

The Lord comfort Your Grace, and that in His Word, wherein all
creatures only are to be comforted; and though it hath pleased
God to take away two of your children, yet think not, I most
humbly beseech Your Grace, that you have lost them; but trust
that we, by leaving this mortal life, have won an immortal life.
And I, for my part, as I have honoured Your Grace in this life,
will pray for you in another life.--Your Grace's humble
daughter,

JANE DUDLEY.

The stern Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir John Brydges, had been vanquished by the gentle graces of his prisoner and he sought from her some memorial in writing. In a manual of manuscript prayers she wrote a few sentences of farewell:

Forasmuch as you have desired so simple a woman to write in so
worthy a book, good Master Lieutenant, therefore I shall, as a
friend, desire you, and as a Christian require you, to call upon
God to incline your heart to His laws, to quicken you in His
way, and not to take the word of truth utterly out of your
mouth. Live still to die, that by death you may purchase eternal
life, and remember how Methuselah, who, as we read in the
Scriptures, was the longest liver that was of a man, died at the
last; for, as the Preacher saith, there is a time to be born and
a time to die; and the day of death is better than the day of
our birth.--Yours, as the Lord knoweth, as a friend,

JANE DUDLEY.

Mary and her advisers had originally intended that both Lady Jane and her husband should be executed together on Tower Hill; but reflection convinced them that the spectacle of so comely and youthful a pair suffering for what was rather the crime of others than their own, might powerfully awaken the sympathies of the multitude, and produce a revulsion of feeling. It was ordered, therefore, that Lady Jane should suffer within the precincts of the Tower.

The fatal morning came. The young husband--still a bridegroom and a lover--had obtained permission to bid her a last farewell; but she refused to see him, apprehensive that so bitter a parting might overwhelm them, and deprive them of the courage needful to face death with calmness. She sent him, however, many loving messages, reminding him how brief would be their separation, and how quickly they would meet in a brighter and better world.

In going to his death on Tower Hill, he passed beneath the window of her cell; so that they had an opportunity of exchanging a farewell look. He behaved on the scaffold with calm intrepidity. After spending a brief space in silent devotion, he requested the prayers of the spectators, and, laying his head upon the block, gave the fatal signal. At one blow his head was severed from his body.

The scaffold on which the girl-queen was to close her stainless career had been erected on the green opposite the White Tower. As soon as her husband was dead the officers announced that the sheriffs waited to attend her thither. And when she had gone down and been delivered into their hands, the bystanders noted in her "a countenance so gravely settled and with all modest and comely resolution, that not the least symptom either of fear or grief could be perceived either in her speech or motions; she was like one going to be united to her heart's best and longest beloved."

So, like a martyr, crowned with glory, she went unto her death. Her serene composure was scarcely shaken when, through an unfortunate misunderstanding of the officer in command, she met on her way her husband's headless trunk being borne to its last resting-place.

"Oh Guilford! Guilford!" she exclaimed; "the antepast is not so bitter that you have tasted, and that I shall soon taste, as to make my flesh tremble; it is nothing compared to the feast that you and I shall this day partake of in heaven." This thought renewed her strength and sustained and consoled, we might almost believe, by ministering angels, she proceeded to the scaffold with as much grace and dignity as if it were a wedding banquet that awaited her.

She was conducted by Sir John Brydges, the Lieutenant of the Tower, and attended by her two waiting-women, Mrs. Elizabeth Tylney and Mrs. Ellen. While these wept and sobbed bitterly, her eyes were dry, and her countenance shone with the light of a sure and certain hope. She read earnestly her manual of prayers. On reaching the place of execution she saluted the lords and gentlemen present with unshaken composure and infinite grace. No minister of her own Church had been allowed to attend her, and she did not care to accept the services of Feckenham, Queen Mary's confessor. She was not indifferent, however, to his respectful sympathy and when bidding him farewell, she said:

"Go now; God grant you all your desires, and accept my own warm thanks for your attentions to me; although, indeed, those attentions have tried me more than death could now terrify me."

To the spectators she addressed a few gentle words, in admirable keeping with the gentle tenor of her life.

"Good people," she exclaimed, "I am come hither to die, and by law I am condemned to the same. My offence to the Queen's Highness was only in consent to the device of others, which now is deemed treason; but it was never my seeking, but by counsel of those who should seem to have further understanding of things than I, who knew little of the law, and much less of the titles to the Crown. I pray you all, good Christian people, to bear me witness that I die a true Christian woman, and that I look to be saved by none other means but only by the mercy of God, in the merits of the blood of His only son, Jesus Christ; and I confess, when I did know the word of God, I neglected the same, loved myself and the world, and therefore this plague or punishment is happily and worthily happened unto me for my sins; and yet I thank God of His goodness, that He hath thus given me a time and respite to repent. And now, good people, while I am alive, I pray you to assist me with your prayers."

She knelt to her devotions, and turning to Feckenham, inquired whether she should repeat the Miserere psalm (the fifty-first, "Have mercy upon me, O Lord").

He replied in the affirmative; and she said it with great earnestness from beginning to end. Rising from her knees, she began to prepare herself for the headsman and pulling off her gloves, gave them and her handkerchief to Mistress Tylney. The manual of prayers, in which she had written at the desire of the Lieutenant, she handed to Thomas Brydges, his brother. When she was unfastening her robe, the executioner would have assisted her, but she motioned him aside, and accepted the last offices of her waiting-women, who then gave her a white handkerchief with which to bandage her eyes.

Throwing himself at her feet, the headsman humbly craved her forgiveness, which she willingly granted. He then requested her to stand upon the straw, and in complying with his direction she for the first time saw the fatal block. Her composure remained unshaken; she simply entreated the executioner to dispatch her quickly. Again kneeling she asked him:

"Will you take it off before I lay me down?"

"No, madam," he replied.

She bound the handkerchief round her eyes, and feeling for the block, exclaimed,

"What shall I do? Where is it?"

Being guided to it by one of the bystanders, she laid her head down, exclaiming, in an audible voice:

"Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit."

In an instant the axe fell, and the tragedy was consummated. An involuntary groan from the assembled multitude seemed to acknowledge that vengeance had been satisfied, but justice outraged.

Lady Jane--or Queen Jane, as she should more properly be called--was little more than seventeen years old when she thus fell a victim to Mary's jealous fears and hate. She had hardly entered upon womanhood, and the promise of her young life had had no time to ripen into fruition. We may well believe, however, that she would not have disappointed the hopes which that promise had awakened. Her heroic death showed how well she had profited by the lessons she had imbibed in her early years.

There was no affectation, no exaggeration, in her conduct upon the scaffold; but she bore herself with serene dignity and with true courage. It was worthy of her life--which, brief as an unhappy fortune made it, was full of beauty, full of calmness, and truth, and elevation and modest piety. The impression which it made upon her contemporaries, an impression taken up and retained by posterity, is visible in the fact to this hour we speak of her as she was in her sweet simple maidenhood--we pass over her married name and her regal title, and love to honour her, not as Lady Jane Dudley, or Queen Jane, but as Lady Jane Grey.

VIII

POCAHONTAS

In his younger days Powhatan had been a great warrior. He was the chief, or _werowance_, of eight tribes. Through conquest his dominions had been extended until they reached from the James River to the Potomac, from the sea to the falls in the rivers, and included thirty of the forty tribes in Virginia. It is estimated that his subjects numbered eight thousand. The name of his nation and the Indian name of the James River was Powhatan. His enemies were two neighbouring confederacies, the Mannahoacs, between the Rappahannock and York rivers, and the Monacans between the York and James rivers, above the falls.

Powhatan lived sometimes at a village of his name, where Richmond now stands, and sometimes at Werowocomoco, on the York River. He had in each of his hereditary villages a house built like a long arbour for his especial reception. When Powhatan visited one of these villages a feast was already spread in the long house or arbour. He had a hunting town in the wilderness called Orapax. A mile from this place, deep in the woods, he had another arbour-like house, where he kept furs, copper, pearls, and beads, treasures which he was saving against his burial.

Powhatan had twenty sons and eleven daughters living. We know nothing of his sons except Nanteguas, "the most manliest, comliest, boldest spirit" ever seen in "a savage." Pocahontas was Powhatan's favourite daughter. She was born in 1594 or 1595. Of her mother nothing is known. Powhatan had many wives; when he tired of them he would present them to those of his subjects whom he considered the most deserving.

Indians are frequently known by several names. It is a disappointment to learn that the name which the romantic story of this Indian princess has made so famous was not her real name. She was called in childhood Metoax, or Metoake. Concealing this from the English, because of a superstitious notion that if these pale-faced strangers knew her true name they could do her some harm, the Indians gave her name as Pocahontas.

Powhatan's authority, like that of all Indian chiefs, was held in check by custom. "The lawes whereby he ruleth," says Captain Smith, "is custome. Yet when he listeth, his will is a law, and must be obeyed: not only as a king, but as halfe a god they esteeme him."

Each village and tribe had its respective chief, or "werowance," as he was called among the Powhatan Indians. The affairs of the tribe were settled in a council of the chiefs and warriors of the several villages.

Powhatan was the great werowance over all, "unto whom," says Captain Smith, "they pay tribute of skinnes, beads, copper, pearle, deere, turkies, wild beasts, and corne. What he commandeth they dare not disobey in the least thing. It is strange to see with what care and adoration all these people do obey this Powhatan. For at his feete they present whatsoever he commandeth, and at the least frown of his brow, their greatest spirits will tremble! and no marvell, for he is very terrible and tyrannous in punishing such as offend him."

It was a barbarous life in which the little Pocahontas was bred. Her people always washed their young babies in the river on the coldest mornings to harden them. She was accustomed to see her old father sitting at the door of his cabin regarding with grim pleasure a string of his enemy's scalps, suspended from tree to tree, and waving in the breeze. Men in England in her time idealised her into a princess and fine lady. In our time historians have been surprised and indignant at finding that she was not a heroine of romance, but simply an Indian maiden. Such as her life made her she was--in her manners an untrained savage. But she was also the steadfast friend and helper of the feeble colony, and that is why her life is heroic and full of interest.

Powhatan, sensible of the pomp and dignity proper to his position as a great warrior, particularly desired to impress the English who were settling at Jamestown. A member of the colony, Captain Smith had been prisoner for several weeks and was detained until preparations had been made to receive him in state.

When Powhatan and his train had had time to deck themselves in all "their greatest braveries," Captain Smith was admitted to the chief's presence. He was seated upon a sort of divan resembling a bedstead. Before him was a fire, and on either hand sat two young women about eighteen years of age. Powhatan, "well beaten with many cold and stormy winters," wore strings of pearls around his neck, and was covered with a great robe of raccoon skins decorated with the tails. Around the council house was ranged a double row of warriors. Behind these were as many women. The heads and shoulders of the Indians were painted red, many had their hair decorated with white down, and all wore some savage ornament.

On the appearance of the prisoner a great shout arose from these primitive courtiers. An Indian woman was appointed to bring water for the prisoner to wash his hands in. Another woman brought him feathers to dry them and Captain Smith was then feasted in the "best barbarous manner," and a council was held to decide his fate. This debate lasted a long time, but the conclusion could hardly have been favourable to Captain Smith, since Powhatan was jealous of the white colony already encroaching upon his seclusion at Werowocomoco.

During this solemn debate Captain Smith must have felt anything but comfortable. He did not know his doom until two stones were brought in and placed before Powhatan. Then as many as could lay hands on him dragged him to the feet of the chief and laid his head upon the stones. The executioners raised their clubs to beat out his brains. Such a scene was not uncommon in this forest court. From childhood these savage men and women were accustomed to exult in the most barbarous tortures and executions. It is then the more wonderful that the heart of a little Indian maiden should have been touched with pity for the doomed white man. Pocahontas, a child of ten or twelve, and "the king's dearest daughter," pleaded for the life of the captive. But "no entreaty could prevail" with the stern Powhatan.

The warriors were ready to strike the blow, when the child flew to the side of Captain Smith, took "his head in her arms and laid her own upon his to save him from death, whereat," says the quaint narrative "the Emperor [Powhatan] was contented he should live to make him hatchets and her beads and copper," thinking he was accustomed to follow all occupations. "For," says the story, "the king himself will make his own robes, shoes, bows, arrows, and pots," while he would "plant, hunt, or do any thing so well as the rest."

Powhatan did not long detain Captain Smith for such trivial uses as making trinkets for Pocahontas. It had become the desire of his heart to possess the powerful weapons and tools of the English. He saw that a friend in Jamestown would be a good thing, and he perhaps hoped from friendly commerce with the colony to acquire ascendancy over other Indian tribes.

He took occasion to express his wishes to Captain Smith in a curious manner.

Two days after his rescue from death he had the captive taken to one of his arbour-like buildings in the woods and left alone upon a mat by the fire. The house was curtained off in the centre with a mat. Soon a most doleful noise came from behind the mat, and Powhatan, disguised in "the most fearfullest manner," and looking "more like a devil than a man," entered, with some two hundred Indians, painted black. The outcome of this impressive ceremony was that Powhatan told Captain Smith that they were now friends, and that he would presently send him home, and that when he arrived at Jamestown he must send him two great guns and a grindstone. In return he said he would give him the country of Capahowosick, and would always consider him his son.

Captain Smith was accordingly sent to Jamestown with twelve guides. The Indians delayed on their journey, though the distance was short. They camped in the woods one night, and feasted sumptuously; but Captain Smith was in constant fear of his life still, "expecting every hour to be put to one death or another." He was, however, led in safety to the fort. Here he treated his savage guides with great hospitality, and showed Rawhunt, a trusty servant of Powhatan, two demi-culverins (long cannons carrying a nine-pound shot) and a mill-stone to carry to his chief. The Indians however, "found them somewhat too heavy." For their benefit, Captain Smith had the guns loaded with stones, and discharged among the boughs of trees covered with icicles. The crashing fall of the ice-laden limbs so frightened the Indians that they fled, "half dead with fear," and it was some time before they could be induced to return. Presents of various toys were given them for Powhatan and his family, and they went away satisfied.

The winter of 1607-08 was remarkably cold, both in Europe and America. In the midst of its severity an accident resulted in a fire which destroyed many of the reed-thatched cottages, the palisades, and much of the provisions of the colonists at Jamestown.

Powhatan still looked with covetous eyes upon the glittering swords, the ponderous muskets, and the serviceable pistols of the English. So long as the white man used supernatural bullets and sharp-edged swords and the red man possessed only tomahawks of stone and stone-pointed arrows and javelins, so long were the English safe from Indian attacks. It was now the ambition of Powhatan's life to obtain a goodly store of English weapons, instead of the rude wooden swords used by the Indians. Savage-like, he went about his purpose in the most crafty way with the most innocent air. And sent twenty turkeys "to express his love," with the request that Captain Smith would return the compliment with a present of twenty swords. But Smith refused, knowing it would cut the throat of the colony to put such weapons into the hands of the crafty chief.

Powhatan was not to be thus outdone. If he could not procure the swords in one way he would in another. "He caused his people with twenty devices to obtain" as many swords. The Indians became "insolent." They surprised the colonists at their work. They would lie in ambuscade at the very gates of Jamestown and procure the weapons of stragglers by force. The council in England had deemed it the only wise policy to keep peace with the savages at all hazards, and a wise policy it was if it were not carried too far. The orders from this body had been very strict; the colonists were in no way to offend the Indians.

Thus a "charitable humour prevailed" until Captain Smith was the man they "meddled" with. This fiery soldier did not wait for deliberation. He hunted the miscreants, and those whom he captured he "terrified" with whipping and imprisonment. In return, the Indians captured two straggling Englishmen, and came in force to the very gates of Jamestown, demanding seven Indians, whom, "for their villainies," Smith had detained. The irrepressible Captain immediately headed a sally in which he forced the Indians to surrender the Englishmen unconditionally. He then examined his prisoners, but they were faithful to their chief, and he could get nothing from them. He made six of them believe, by "several volleys of shot," that he had caused one of their number to be killed. They immediately confessed, in separate examinations, to a plot on the part of Powhatan to procure the weapons, and then to cut the throats of the colonists. Captain Smith still detained the Indians, resolving to give them a wholesome fright.

Pocahontas presently came to Jamestown, accompanied by Indian messengers. Her father had sent them with presents, and a message excusing "the injuries done by some rash, untoward captains, his subjects, desiring their liberties for this time with the assurance of his love forever."

When Captain Smith had punished his seven prisoners as he thought fit, he "used them well" for a few days, and delivered them to Pocahontas, pretending that he saved their lives only for the sake of the little Indian girl.

One cannot refrain from admiring in the brave colonists and their captain the fortitude and persistence that they showed, and the wonderful tact with which they managed the natives. Many had died, some had recovered, and others were still sick.

Captain Smith had been installed as president. He governed the colony wisely. His measures were doubtless severe, but severity was necessary among these men totally unqualified for a frontier life, with an unwise management in England, and endless discontent and jealousy at Jamestown. Men shut up together in hard circumstances are sure to fall out.

Captain Smith went energetically to work to better the condition of the colony. Jamestown was once more the scene of busy activity. Church and storehouse were repaired, new houses built for more supplies, and the fort altered in form. The soldiers were drilled every day upon a plain called Smithfield. Here crowds of Indians would gather to watch with wonder the Englishmen shoot at a mark.

Captain Smith, to quiet all fears, and to show his willingness to assist in the business on hand, as well as to hasten an affair which would consume so much valuable time, undertook with four companions a journey to Werowocomoco, to ask Powhatan to come to Jamestown.

It was now the season to trade for corn with the Indians.

* * * * *

When the Englishmen reached the home of Powhatan they found that he was some thirty miles away. They were received by the steadfast friend of all white men, Pocahontas. She sent messengers for her father, and undertook to entertain her friends while they waited.

The Englishmen were left in an open space, seated on a mat by the fire. Suddenly they heard a "hideous noise" in the woods. Supposing that Powhatan and his warriors were upon them, they sprang to their feet, grasped their arms and seized two or three old Indians who were near them. Pocahontas came to them, however, with her apology, saying that they might kill her "if any hurt were intended." Those who stood near, men, women and children, assured the white men that all was right. Presently thirty young women came rushing out of the woods. Their only covering was a cincture or apron of green leaves; they were gaily painted, some one colour and some another. Every girl wore a pair of deer's horns on her head, while from her girdle and upon one arm hung an otter's skin. The leader wore a quiver of arrows, and carried a bow and arrow in her hands. The others followed with swords, clubs and pot-sticks.

"These fiends, with most hellish shouts and cries," says the ungallant narrator, "cast themselves in a ring about the fire, singing and dancing with most excellent ill variety." This masquerade lasted about half an hour, when the Indian girls disappeared as they had come.

They again reappeared in their ordinary costume. Pocahontas invited Captain Smith to a dinner which had been spread for him with "all the savage dainties" which they could procure. They tormented the captain by pressing around him saying, "Love you not me? Love you not me?" While he feasted they danced, and ended by conducting him to his lodging with fire-brands for torches.

* * * * *

Powhatan arrived the next day. Cold weather had come and famine began to stare the colonists in the face. The president set out for the country of the Nansemond Indians. These people refused not only to provide the four hundred bushels of corn which they had promised in their treaty with the colonists on their previous visit, but they refused to trade at all. Their excuse was that they had used up the most that they had, and that they were under commands from Powhatan neither to trade with the English nor to allow them to enter their river. The English had recourse to force, and the Indians fled at the first volley of musketry without shooting a single arrow. The first cabin the white men discovered they set on fire. The Indians immediately desired peace, and promised the English half that they had. Before night all the boats were loaded with corn, and the English sailed some four miles down the river. Here they camped out for the night in the open woods on frozen ground covered with snow.

The manner in which these adventurers of nearly three hundred years ago made themselves comfortable is interesting. They would dig away the snow and build a great fire, which would serve to dry and warm the ground. They would then scrape away the fire, spread a mat on the place where it had been, and here they would sleep with another mat hung up as a shield against the wind. In the night, as the wind shifted, they would change their hanging mat, and when the ground grew cold they would again remove their fire and take its place. Their story says that many "a cold winter night" did the adventurers sleep thus; and yet those who went on these expeditions "were always in health, lusty and fat."

Finding that the old Indian chief had determined to starve the colony out of existence by a refusal to trade with the white men, Captain Smith, appreciating the desperate extremity, resolved to take, as usual, the boldest plan out of the difficulty. He meditated a plan for surprising and entrapping Powhatan into his power. Smith saw no other chance to procure food, and starving men do not stop to debate whether a course is right or wrong.

About this time Powhatan sent a message to Smith inviting him to visit him, and saying that if he would but build him a house, give him a grindstone, fifty swords, some firearms, a hen and rooster, and much beads and copper, he would fill the ship with corn. Captain Smith made haste to accept this offer. He sent some of the Dutchmen and some Englishmen ahead to begin the building of Powhatan's house.

On the twelfth of January the English neared Werowocomoco. The ice extended nearly half a mile from shore in the York River. Captain Smith pushed as near the shore as he could in the barge, by breaking the ice. Impatient of remaining in an open boat in the freezing cold, he jumped into the half-frozen marsh, and waded ashore. His example was followed by eighteen of his men.

The English quartered at the first cabins they reached, and announced their arrival in a message to Powhatan, requesting provision. The chief sent them plenty of bread, venison and turkeys, and feasted them according to his custom. The following day, however, he desired to know when they "would be gone," pretending that he had not sent for the English. He made the astonishing statement that he himself had no corn, and his people had much less; but that he would furnish them forty baskets of this grain for as many swords. Captain Smith quickly confronted him with the men who had brought Powhatan's message to Jamestown, and asked the chief "how it chanced he became so forgetful." Powhatan answered with "a merry laughter," and invited the English to show their commodities. But the crafty chief was not suited with anything, unless it were guns or swords.

"Powhatan," said Captain Smith, "believing your promises to supply my wants, I neglected all to satisfy your desire, and to testify my love I sent you my men for your building, neglecting mine own. As for swords and guns, I told you long ago I had none to spare, and you must know those I have can keep me from want. Yet steal or wrong you I will not, nor dissolve that friendship we have mutually promised, except you constrain me by your bad usage."

Powhatan listened attentively to this speech, and promised that he would spare them what he could, which he would deliver to them in two days.

"Yet, Captain Smith," said the chief, "I have some doubt of your coming hither that makes me not so kindly seek to relieve you as I would, for many do inform me your coming hither is not for trade, but to invade my people and possess my country, who dare not bring you corn, seeing you thus armed with your men. To free us of this fear, leave aboard your weapons, for here they are needless, we being all friends."

But Captain Smith was not to be cajoled into a council without weapons. That night was spent at Werowocomoco, and the following day the building of Powhatan's house went forward.

Meanwhile the English managed "to wrangle" some ten bushels of corn out of the chief for a copper kettle.

* * * * *

The chief was dissatisfied that he could not have his way.

"Captain Smith," said Powhatan with a sigh, "I never used any werowance so kindly as yourself, yet from you I receive the least kindness of any. Another captain gave me swords, copper, clothes, a bed, towels or what I desired, ever taking what I offered him, and would send away his guns when I entreated him; none doth deny to lie at my feet or refuse to do what I desire but only you, of whom I can have nothing but what you regard not, and yet you will have whatsoever you demand. You call me father, but I see you will do what you list, and we must seek to content you. But if you intend so friendly as you say, send hence your arms, that I may believe you."

The wily old chief was right. Captain Smith was determined to have his own way. He saw that nothing could be gained thus. Powhatan was watching with lynx eyes for a chance to get the white men into his power while he delivered eloquent and persuasive speeches. Captain Smith asked the savages to break the ice for him that his boat might reach the shore, to take him and the corn. He intended, when the boat came, to land more men and surprise the chief. Meanwhile, to entertain Powhatan and keep him from suspecting anything, he made the following reply to his last speech:

"Powhatan, you must know as I have but one God I honour but one king, and I live not here as your subject, but as your friend, to pleasure you with what I can. By the gifts you bestow on me you gain more than by trade, yet would you visit me as I do you, you should know it is not our custom to sell our courtesies. To content you, to-morrow I will leave my arms and trust to your promise. I call you father indeed, and as a father you shall see I will love you; but the small care you have for such a child caused my men to persuade me to look to myself."

But Powhatan was not to be fooled. His mind was on the fast disappearing ice. He managed to disengage himself from the captain's conversation, and secretly fled with his women, children and luggage. To avoid any suspicion, two or three women were left to engage Captain Smith in talk while warriors beset the house where they were. When Captain Smith discovered what they were doing, he and John Russell went about making their way out with the help of their pistols, swords and Indian shields. At the first shot the savages tumbled "one over another" and quickly fled in every direction, and the two men reached their companions in safety.

* * * * *

Powhatan saw that his stratagem had failed. He immediately tried to remove the unfavourable impression which this event and the sudden appearance of so many warriors might make on the minds of the English. He sent an "ancient orator" to Captain Smith with presents of a great bracelet and chain of pearls.

"Captain Smith," said the Indian, "our werowance has fled, fearing your guns, and knowing when the ice was broken there would come more men; he sent these numbers but to guard his corn from stealing. Now since the ice is open, he would have you send away your corn, and if you would have his company, send away also your guns, which so affrighteth his people that they dare not come to you as he promised they should."

The Indians provided baskets that the English might carry their corn to the boat. They were officious in tendering their services to guard the colonists' arms while they were thus occupied, lest any one should steal them. There were crowds of those grim, sturdy savages about; but the sight of the white men cocking their matchlock guns rendered them exceedingly meek. They were easily persuaded by this sight to leave their bows and arrows in charge of the Englishmen, while they themselves carried the corn down to the boats on their own backs. This they did with wonderful dispatch.

Ebb tide left the boat stuck in the marsh, and the adventurers were obliged to remain at Werowocomoco until high water. They returned to the cabins where they were at first quartered. The savages entertained them until night with "merry sports," and then left them. Powhatan was gathering his forces and planning the certain destruction of his visitors. The English were alone in the Indian cabins. Suddenly Pocahontas, Powhatan's "dearest jewel and daughter," as she is styled in the quaint narrative, appeared before Captain Smith. She had come this dark night through the "irksome woods" alone from her father's cabin.

"Captain Smith," said she, "great cheer will be sent you by and by; but Powhatan and all the power he can make will after come and kill you all, if they that bring you the cheer do not kill you with your own weapons when you are at supper. Therefore, if you would live, I wish you presently to be gone."

Captain Smith wished to give Pocahontas presents of those trifles dear to the heart of an Indian, and such as Pocahontas most delighted in.

"I dare not," said the girl, with tears running down her cheeks, "be seen to have any, for if Powhatan should know it, I am but dead."

She then ran away into the woods as she had come. Within less than an hour, eight or ten savages came, bringing great platters of venison and other food. They begged the Englishmen to put out the matches of their guns, for the "smoke made them sick," and to sit down to eat. But the Captain was vigilant. He made the Indians first taste of every dish, and he then sent them back to Powhatan, asking him, "to make haste," for he was awaiting his arrival. Soon after more messengers came, "to see what news," and they were followed in a short time by still more. Thus the night was spent by both parties with the utmost vigilance, though to all appearances they were on very friendly terms. When high water came the English prepared to depart. At Powhatan's request they left a man named Edward Brynton to hunt for him, while the Dutchmen remained to finish his house.

On an eminence near where Werowocomoco must have been, still stands a stone chimney which is known to this day as "Powhatan's Chimney," and according to tradition is the chimney of the house which the colonists erected for this chief.

For several years Powhatan continued to be hostile to the colonists. In one way and another he possessed himself of many English arms, and detained a number of Englishmen as prisoners. Some time after this Pocahontas happened to be among the Potomacs on the river of that name. One account says that she had gone thither, feasting among her friends, but another writer of that time says that she had been sent to the Potomacs to trade with them. Perhaps also Powhatan distrusted her friendship for the whites. Whatever may have been the cause, Pocahontas was certainly making a stay on the Potomac River.

The English Captain Argall had gone to trade with the Indians on the Potomac. Some friendly Indians informed him that Pocahontas was in the region. A plan for bringing Powhatan to terms immediately suggested itself to the unscrupulous captain. He sent for one of the Indian chiefs, and told him that if he did not give Pocahontas into his hands they would no longer be "brothers nor friends." The Potomac Indians were at first unwilling to do this, fearing that it might involve them in a war with Powhatan. Captain Argall assured them that he would take their part in such a war, and they consented to his plan.

The following story is told of the manner in which Pocahontas was betrayed. The Indian girl manifested no desire to go aboard Captain Argall's vessels, having many a time been on English vessels, in her friendly relations with the whites. Captain Argall offered an old Indian named Japazaws the irresistible bribe of a copper kettle if he would betray Pocahontas into his power. Japazaws undertook to do this with the assistance of his wife. This wife became immediately possessed with an intense desire to visit the English ship, which she said had been there three or four times and she had never been aboard it. She begged her husband to allow her to go aboard, but Japazaws sternly refused, saying she could not go unless she had some woman to accompany her. He at last threatened to beat her for her persistence.

The tender heart of Pocahontas was moved with pity; she offered to accompany the woman on board the English vessel. Japazaws and his wife with the chief's daughter were taken on to the ship, where they were well entertained and invited to supper. The old man and his wife were so well pleased with their success that during the whole meal they kept treading on Captain Argall's toes. After supper the captain sent Pocahontas to the gun-room while he pretended to have a private conversation with Japazaws. He presently recalled her, and told her that she must remain with him, and that she should not again see Powhatan until she had served to bring about a peace between her father and the English. Immediately Japazaws and his wife set up "a howl and cry," and Pocahontas began to be "exceedingly pensive and discontented." The old people were rowed to shore, happy in the possession of their copper kettle and some trinkets.

Captain Argall sent an Indian messenger to Powhatan, informing him that "his delight and darling, his daughter Pocahontas," was a prisoner, and informing him that "if he would send home the Englishmen whom he had detained in slavery, with such arms and tools as the Indians had gotten and stolen, and also a great quantity of corn, that then he should have his daughter restored, otherwise not."

Powhatan was "very much grieved," having a strong affection both for his daughter and for the English weapons which he possessed. It was a hard alternative. He sent, however, a message desiring the English to use Pocahontas well, and promising to perform the conditions for her rescue.

* * * * *

It was a long time before anything more was heard from Powhatan. After three months he sent to the governor by way of ransom seven Englishmen, overjoyed to be free from slavery and the constant fear of cruel death, three muskets, a broadaxe, a whip-saw, and a canoe full of corn. These were accompanied by a message to the effect that he would satisfy injuries, give the English a large quantity of corn, and be forever their friend when his daughter was delivered up. The English received these things "in part payment," and returned such an answer as this to Powhatan:

"Your daughter shall be well used, but we cannot believe the rest of our arms are either lost or stolen from you, and therefore, till you send them we will keep your daughter."

The wily old chief was much grieved at this message, and it was again a long time before anything was heard from him. At last Sir Thomas Dale, then the governor of the colony, taking with him Pocahontas and one hundred and fifty men, embarked in the colony's vessels for a visit to Powhatan. The party sailed up the York River. Powhatan was not to be seen. The English told the Indians that they had come to deliver up the daughter of Powhatan and to receive the promised return of men and arms. These overtures were received with scornful threats and open hostility. Skirmishing ensued, in which some of the Indian houses were burned and property spoiled.

The Indians asked why this had been done. The English answered by asking why they had shot at them. The Indians excused themselves, laying the blame on some straggling savages. They protested they intended no harm, but were the white man's friends. The English rejoined that they did not come to hurt them, but came as friends.

A peace was patched up and messengers were sent to Powhatan. The Indians told the English that their imprisoned men "were run off" for fear the English would hang them, but that Powhatan's men "were run after to bring them back." They promised to return them with the stolen swords and muskets on the following day. The English perceived that this story was told only to gain time.

Meantime two brothers of Pocahontas came aboard the ship to visit her. They had heard that she was not well, and were overjoyed to find her in good health and contented. While they were visiting with their sister, Mr. John Rolfe and Mr. Sparks were sent to negotiate with Powhatan. They were received kindly and hospitably entertained, but they were not admitted to the presence of the offended chief. His brother, Opechancanough, saw them and promised to do the best he could with Powhatan, saying that "all might be well." With such slight satisfaction the English were obliged to return to Jamestown, for it was now April and time to sow corn.

Pocahontas had been about a year a prisoner at Jamestown. There can be no doubt that she was treated with the greatest friendliness by the colonists. Her feelings had always been warm for the white strangers. Now that she was an innocent and interesting young prisoner among them, what more natural than that she should be honoured and petted? Pocahontas was now a woman, being about eighteen to nineteen years of age. To judge from her portrait she could not have had the beauty with which tradition has invested her, but she had at least a pleasant and interesting face, and there must have been some charm in her large black eyes and straight black hair.

There was one colonist at least who took a great interest in the young prisoner. Mr. John Rolfe is styled in the different records "an honest gentleman of good behaviour," "an honest and discreet English gentleman," "a gentleman of approved behaviour and honest carriage."

The subject of the conversion of Pocahontas had weighed heavily upon the mind of Mr. Rolfe. He accordingly attempted to convert her to Christianity, and in doing so fell in love with her. Pocahontas became a Christian, and what more natural than that the constant friend of the white men should love an Englishman?

Long before the trip up the York River Mr. Rolfe had loved the Indian maiden. He wrote a long letter to the governor, Sir Thomas Dale, asking his advice. Sir Thomas readily consented to the marriage. Pocahontas, on her part, told her brother of her attachment to Mr. Rolfe. He informed Powhatan, who seemed to have been well pleased with the proposition, for within ten days an old uncle of Pocahontas and two of her brothers arrived at Jamestown. Powhatan had sent them as deputies to witness the marriage of his daughter, and to do his part toward the confirmation of it.

Pocahontas was first baptised. It was deemed necessary to give her a Christian name at her baptism. She was christened Rebecca, and as a king's daughter she was known after this as the Lady Rebecca, and sometimes as the Lady Pocahontas.

In April, 1614, the odd bridal procession moved up the little church with its wide-open windows and its cedar pews. The bridegroom was a young Englishman, the bride an Indian chief's daughter, accompanied by two red-skinned warriors, her brothers. Before the altar with its canoe-like front Pocahontas repeated in imperfect English her marriage vows, and received her wedding ring. The wedding is briefly mentioned by the old recorders only as something bearing upon the welfare of the colony. It was the first union between the people who were to possess the land and the natives. The colonists doubtless regarded it as a most auspicious event, binding as it did the most powerful chief in Virginia to their interests.

From this day friendly intercourse and trade were again established with Powhatan and his people. To the day of his death the old chief never violated the peace which was thus brought about.