Meanwhile he "looked around," and was one of those Johns who could speak for himself. He could not do without a woman, any more than John Smith could have done with one. When he saw the slim and pensive prisoner, Pocahontas, he was susceptible at first glance, although he admitted that there were plenty of Christians more pleasing to the eye, and he tried to convince himself that he was more concerned for her soul than for her heart. Like an eighteen-year-old schoolgirl she was learning the language and the catechism from the Reverend Alexander Whitaker, and as a devout layman Rolfe was happy to enlighten her. Three months after she had been taken as a hostage Powhatan did return the seven Englishmen and three muskets and he promised five hundred bushels of corn. The English did not want to give Pocahontas up until they got more arms from Powhatan, and Rolfe and Whitaker did not want to surrender her until they were sure of her becoming the first convert on this side of the world. Rolfe craved her in marriage with an intensity that troubled his mind no less than his heart, and his conscience was more sorely beset than either, for no one else had risked marriage with the alien race, so why should he of all people, the most religious and ambitious man in the lot? His course seemed brave to him--"to sweep and make clean the path wherein I walk, from all suspicions and doubts." He wrote to Governor Dale about the "grounds and principal agitations which thus should provoke me to be in love." He still had no compunctions about being impure. "Nor am I in so desperate an estate that I regard not what becometh of me, nor am I out of hope one day to see my country, not so void of friends, nor mean in birth, but there to obtain a match to my great content." Rolfe believed that he was not "led with unbridled desire of carnal affection; but for the good of this plantation; for the honor of our country; for the glory of God; for my own salvation; and for the converting to the true knowledge of God and Jesus Christ, an unbelieving creature, namely Pocahontas, to whom my heart is and best thoughts are, and have a long time been so entangled, and inthralled in so intricate a labyrinth, that I was ever awearied to unwind myself thereout." Rolfe confessed his heart's erring with the local preacher as well as the Governor. Both surprised him by thinking it a good thing. Governor Dale thought it would be a love match between the races. The preacher said: "Don't worry about being unequally yoken with an unbeliever. That one is easy. Convert the heathan." He thought that it would be a feather in his cap to baptize, and later to marry the girl to Rolfe, and not too flamboyant a feather in Rolfe's to marry her. Powhatan would be immensely pleased, although he would never admit it.