“But in no situation does she appear to more advantage, than when, disgusted with the cold formalities of a court (in England) and the impertinent and troublesome curiosity of the people, she addressed the feeling and pathetic remonstrance to Captain Smith on the distant coldness of his manner. Briefly she stated the rise and progress of their friendship; modestly she pointed out the services she had rendered him; concluding with an affecting picture of her situation, at a distance from her country and family, and surrounded by strangers in a strange land. “Indeed there is ground for apprehension that posterity, in reading this part of American history, will be inclined to consider the story of Pocahontas as an interesting romance; perhaps recalling the palpable fictions of early travellers and navigators, they may suppose that in those times a portion of fiction was deemed essential to the embellishment of history. It is not even improbable, that considering every thing relating to Captain Smith and Pocahontas as a mere fiction, they may vent their spleen against the historian for impairing the interest of his plot by marrying the princess of Powhatan to a Mr. Rolf, of whom nothing had previously been said, in defiance of all the expectations raised by the foregoing parts of the fable. “It is the last sad office of history to record the fate of this incomparable woman. The severe muse, which presides over this department, cannot plant the cypress over her grave, and consign her to the tomb, with the stately pomp and graceful tears of poetry. She cannot with pious sorrow inurn the ashes and immortalize the virtues of the dead by the soul-piercing elegy, which fancy, mysterious deity, pours out, wild and plaintive, her hair loose, and her white bosom throbbing with anguish. Those things are placed equally beyond her reach and her inclination. But history affects not to conceal her sorrow on this occasion. “She died at Gravesend, (England,) where she was preparing to embark with her husband and son on her return to Virginia. Her death was a happy mixture of Indian fortitude and Christian submission, affecting all those who saw her, by the lively and edifying picture of piety and virtue which marked her latter moments.”--_Burk’s Virginia._ [NOTE 25--CANTO SIXTH, SECT. IX.] And now this land is ours again; The rest of the pale-face crew We’ll brush away from our forest home, As we brush the drops of dew. “The savages no sooner understood Smith was gone, but they all revolted, and did spoil and murther all they encountered.”--_Smith’s Virginia._ [NOTE 26--CANTO SEVENTH, SECT. III.] We ran to rescue, but in vain; They bore her from the shore, Away, away, and much I fear Thou’lt never see her more.