The Birth of the Nation, Jamestown, 1607Pryor, Sara Agnes Rice
History
The Birth of the Nation, Jamestown, 1607
Pryor, Sara Agnes Rice
Virginia -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775
"He led his old age in London, where his having a prince's mind imprisoned
in a poor man's purse, rendered him to the contempt of such who were
not ingenuous. Yet he efforted his spirits with the remembrance and
relation of what formerly had been and what he had done. He was buried
in Sepulchre's Church choir, on the south side thereof, having a ranting
epitaph inscribed in a table over him, too long to transcribe. Only we
will insert the first and last verses, the rather because the one may fit
Alexander's life for his valour, the other his death for his religion:--
"'Here lies one conquered who hath conquered kings!'
'Oh, may his soul in sweet Elysium sleep!'
The orthography, piety, history, and divinity are much alike."
As to his feelings with regard to Pocahontas, I can do no better than
quote the words of his contemporaries:--
"Some propheticall spirits calculated that hee had the savages in such
subjection, hee would have made himselfe a king by marrying Pocahontas,
Powhatan's daughter. It is true she was the very nonpareil of his Kingdome
and at most not past 13 yeares of age. Very oft shee came to our fort,
with what shee could get for Captaine Smith; that ever loved and used the
Countrie well, but her especially he ever much respected: and so well she
requited it, that when her father intended to have surprized him, shee
by stealth in the darke night came through the wild woods and told him of
it.
"But her marriage could no way have entitled him by any right to the
kingdome, nor was it ever suspected hee had ever such a thought; or
more regarded her of any of them than in honest reason and discreation
he might. If he would, he might have married her, or have done what him
listed; for there was none that could have hindred his determination."[61]
The Indians[62] eagerly courted intermarriage with the white man, and were
painfully stung by the disdain with which the English receded from their
advances and declined to be the husbands of Indian women. The colonists
forgot that they had inflicted this mortification; but it was remembered
by the Indians, who sacredly embalmed the memory of every affront in
lasting, stern, silent, and implacable resentment. We have seen how often
"wives" were offered to John Smith, and Powhatan eagerly hastened his
daughter's marriage to John Rolfe. Her engagement was no sooner announced
than her old uncle appeared at Jamestown to witness the marriage ceremony.
Captain Smith never returned to Virginia, but after the massacre of 1622
he offered his services as commander of a company to drive the Indians
out of the country. For some unexplained reason this offer was declined.
The king thought it unnecessary! He indeed offered a few of the rusty arms
in the Tower to be sent to the survivors--this much and only this was he
willing to do.
[Illustration: Captain John Smith.
From the bust by Baden-Powell.
Copyright, 1906, by Jamestown Official Photo. Corp'n. ]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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