Censure is sometimes cast upon Captain Smith for having failed to marry Pocahontas; but history no where gives any just ground for such a reproach. The rescue of Smith took place in the winter of 1607, when he was twenty-eight years of age, and she only twelve or thirteen.[123:A] Smith left Virginia early in 1609, and never returned. Pocahontas was then about fourteen years of age; but if she had been older, it would have been impossible for him to marry her unless by kidnapping her, as was done by the unscrupulous Argall some years afterwards--a measure which, if it had been adopted in 1609, when the colony was so feeble, and so rent by faction, would probably have provoked the vengeance of Powhatan, and overwhelmed the plantation in premature ruin. It was in 1612 that Argall captured Pocahontas on the banks of the Potomac, and from the departure of Smith until this time she never had been seen at Jamestown, but had lived on the distant banks of the Potomac. In the spring of 1613 it is stated, that long before that time "Mr. John Rolfe had been in love with Pocahontas, and she with him." This attachment must, therefore, have been formed immediately after her capture, if it did not exist before; and the marriage took place in April, 1613. It is true that Pocahontas had been led to believe that Smith was dead, and in practising this deception upon her, Rolfe must have been a party; but Smith was in no manner whatever privy to it; he cherished for her a friendship animated by the deepest emotions of gratitude; and friendship, according to Spenser, a cotemporary poet, is a more exalted sentiment than love. Pocahontas appears to have regarded Smith with a sort of filial affection, and she accordingly said to him, in the interview at Brentford, "I tell you then, I _will_ call you father, and you _shall_ call me child." The delusion practised on her relative to Smith's death would, indeed, seem to argue an apprehension on the part of Rolfe and his friends that she would not marry another while Smith was alive, and the particular circumstances of the interview at Brentford would seem to confirm the existence of such an apprehension. Yet, however that may have been, the honor and integrity of Smith remain untarnished. FOOTNOTES: [112:A] Smith, ii. 19. There appears to be a mistake in affixing William Parker's name to the account of this visit, for it was evidently written by Hamor. [114:A] Smith, ii. 21. [114:B] Court and Times of James the First, i. 311. [115:A] Court and Times of James the First, i. 317. [116:A] Chalmers' Annals, 33. [116:B] Anderson's Hist. Col. Church, i. 27, in note. [116:C] Chalmers' Introduc., i. 10. [116:D] Court and Times of James the First, i. 415.