I have told you this story as it was told by Captain Smith. "The Newes from Virginia," which he wrote immediately upon his return to Jamestown, contained no word of complaint of the Indians. On the contrary, it is full of grateful appreciation of their kindness. Nor does it relate the incident of Pocahontas as the saviour of his life! "The Newes from Virginia" was carefully worded to encourage immigration. He could not frighten away immigrants by stories of bloodthirsty savages; he could not tell of the heroism of Pocahontas without revealing the fact of his own imminent danger. He told the whole again and again afterward. None of the early historians questioned it. All repeated, accepted, and admired it,--Hamor, Strachey, and Stith, who read every written word, and knew every tradition relating to the subject. The later historians--John Burke, Bishop Meade, Gilmore Simms, Charles Campbell, and John Esten Cooke--accept the story without any thought of questioning its truth. So do James Graham and Edward Arber, in England. There seems to have been no adverse suggestion until a few years ago. Those who incline to doubt the truth of John Smith's story will be strengthened by reading Doyle's "English Colonies in America," and "The First Republic," by Alexander Brown. These are only a few of the writers _pro_ and _con_ upon this interesting question. Melvin Arthur Lane in _The Strand_, London, August, 1906, thus bewails our possible loss of the beautiful romance: "For years antiquarians and other iconoclasts--worthy men, no doubt, but terrible shatterers of other men's ideals--have taken from us, one by one, the historic objects of our love and scorn. Henry VIII, they tell us, was a very good fellow, much less black than he was painted. Richard III likewise was a perfect gentleman. He sent the little princes to the Tower that he might be near them and take a kindly interest in their welfare, as became such a benevolent uncle. Paul Jones, whom we have just reinterred with great honour at Annapolis, is said by some people to have been the bloodiest of pirates, most cruel of men. Captain Kidd may soon turn out to have been a distributer of tracts, Columbus a lifelong landsman, and Bluebeard a model of all the domestic virtues."