He might have made his list longer, and included George Washington and many others whom we have been taught to honour and revere. John Smith, like all strong characters, had good haters as well as devoted lovers. He had the misfortune of living in an age which did not appreciate him. But one must belong to the former prejudiced class, and be a very good hater indeed, to believe him capable of weaving a romance "out of the whole cloth," and retailing it in a dignified letter to his Queen; at a time, too, when Pocahontas was at court and could herself have contradicted it. It is not possible that the attendants upon Queen Anne's Court should have been ignorant of the interesting feature in the letter from John Smith, or failed to refer to it in conversing with Pocahontas and her husband. Nor is it possible that the Christian woman would have assented, even by silence, to a falsehood. For myself, I see nothing improbable in her action. A reckless, impulsive child will face dangers and take risks that appall those of mature years. Nor was she the only Indian maiden who saved the life of her father's enemy.[37] Hakluyt tells of "John Ortiz, who was captured in Florida in 1528. The Indian chief Ucita was about to have him put to death, but at the intercession of an Indian princess, one of Ucita's daughters, his life was spared. Again, when her father was about to sacrifice him to their god (they being worshippers of the devil), the same maiden rescued him by night and set him in the way to escape, and returned because she would not be discovered." She would have been quite capable of daring even more had she been a little child of ten or eleven years. I do not believe Pocahontas was an inspired maiden, like Joan of Arc, nor that she was actuated by purely lofty and unselfish motives. I believe that she was a very ardent, impulsive child, fond of trinkets, grateful for favours, absolutely uncontrolled, and with plenty of wild Indian blood in her veins. Whether or no she saved John Smith's life, she deserves our homage for her kindness in warning him of danger, in rescuing Henry Spelman, in bringing food to the colonists during the hard winter of 1608-1609. She knew John Smith for only sixteen months, and yet in that brief time the two have occupied the stage to the exclusion of many noble and good men, such is the eagerness with which we welcome the romances that enliven the prosaic pages of history. She owes much of the interest attending her life to the fact that the child of a savage should be presented at court, and receive attention from the highest lords and ladies in the land. The Beggar-maid was as nothing compared with her, and Cophetua a very humdrum prince indeed beside Captain John Smith.