That some ten years ago, being in Virginia, and taken prisoner by the power of Powhatan, their chief king, I received from this great savage exceeding great courtesy, especially from his son Nantaquond, the most manliest, comeliest, boldest spirit I ever saw in a savage, and his sister Pocahontas, the king’s most dear and well-beloved daughter,――being but a child of twelve or thirteen years of age, whose compassionate, pitiful heart of my desperate estate gave me much cause to respect her, I being the first Christian this proud king and his grim attendants ever saw. And, thus enthralled in their barbarous power, I cannot say I felt the least occasion of want that was in the power of those my mortal foes to prevent, notwithstanding all their threats. After some six weeks’ fatting amongst those savage courtiers, at the minute of my execution, she hazarded the beating out of her own brains to save mine; and not only that, but so prevailed with her father, that I was safely conducted to Jamestown, where I found about eight and thirty miserable, poor, and sick creatures, to keep possession of all those large territories of Virginia. Such was the weakness of this poor commonwealth, as, had the savages not fed us, we directly had starved. Illustration: POCAHANTAS. And this relief, most gracious Queen, was commonly brought us by this lady, Pocahontas. Notwithstanding all these passages, when inconstant fortune turned our peace to war, this tender virgin would still not spare to dare to visit us, and by her our jars have been oft appeased, and our wants still supplied. Were it the policy of her father thus to employ her, or the ordinance of God thus to make her his instrument, or her extraordinary affection to our nation, I know not. But of this I am sure; when her father, with the utmost of his policy and power, sought to surprise me, having but eighteen with me, the dark night could not affright her from coming through the irksome woods; and with watered eyes gave me intelligence, with her best advice to escape his fury, which had he known, he had surely slain her. Jamestown, with her wild train, she as freely frequented as her father’s habitation; and, during the time of two or three years, she, next under God, was still the instrument to preserve this colony from death, famine, and utter confusion, which, if in those times, had once been dissolved, Virginia might have lain as it was at our first arrival to this day. Since then, this business having been turned and varied by many accidents from that I left it at, it is most certain, after a long and troublesome war after my departure, betwixt her father and our colony, all which time she was not heard of, about two years after, she herself was taken prisoner, being so detained near two years longer. The colony by that means was relieved, peace concluded, and at last, rejecting her