“From this time the number of the plantations and settlements, which before amounted to eighty, was reduced to six, and their strength concentrated by order of the governor about Jamestown and the neighborhood. All works of public utility, as well as the exertions of private industry, were entirely suspended; and the whole attention of the colonists was bent on the means of defence, and on projects of vengeance. A bloody and exterminating war ensued, in which treachery and cruelty took place of manly courage and generous warfare. The laws of war, and that humanity, which in the moments of victory give quarter to the vanquished, were forgotten amid the suggestions of craving and insatiable revenge. But the opportunities of retaliation, owing to the swiftness of the natives, were not frequent enough to appease the boiling spirit of vengeance. The Indian, pressed by hunger, or stimulated by the hope of plunder or revenge, would on a sudden burst from his concealment on his enemy, and if outnumbered and pursued, he vanished amid the eternal midnight of his forests. Whole days he lies on his belly in breathless silence, his color not distinguishable from the earth on which he lies, and every faculty wound up to attention. He watches the moment when he can strike with certainty, and his aim is as fatal and unerring as destiny. “At last the Indians were invited from their fastnesses by the hopes of peace and the solemn assurances of safety and forgiveness. That inhuman maxim of the Roman Church, ‘that no faith is to be kept with heretics,’ appears to have been adopted by the colonists in its fullest force. “The habitations of the unfortunate people were beset at the same moment; and an indiscriminate slaughter took place, without regard to age, sex, or infancy. The horrid scene terminated by setting fire to the huts and corn of the savages.” FOOTNOTES: [A] Powhatan. This name, in the northern and middle states, has usually been accented on the second syllable. But in Virginia the accent is thrown on the first and last syllables, which is undoubtedly according to the Indian mode of pronunciation, and therefore the true one. [B] Metoka, or Metoaka, which was the original name of Pocahontas, is adopted in preference to the latter throughout this poem, on account of its greater euphony. [C] This name is sometimes pronounced by throwing a strong accent on the fourth syllable. The pronunciation adopted in this work throws a slight accent on the first, third, and fifth syllables, which is believed to be more agreeable to the usage of the Indian tribes. In pronouncing long words they seldom give much accent to any one syllable, but utter each syllable with nearly the same intonation. [D] Okee was the name of one of their principal gods, a rude image of which was kept in most of the tribes. [E] Kecoughtan was on the west side of Chesapeake Bay, where Hampton now stands. James River was called, by the natives, Powhatan.