Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/63

], and in general scant justice was meted out to them.

In the following year the Adventurers in England obtained from the king an enlargement of their grants. The Bermudas were included within the limits of their third patent, but were soon after transferred to a separate Company, and named, in honor of Sir George Somers, the Somers Islands. The supreme power which heretofore resided in the Council was now transferred to the Company, and frequent meetings were held for the transaction of business, thus giving to the corporation something of a democratic form. The colony continued steadily to increase in prosperity, and was especially favored at this period in its history by a firm alliance being effected between the English and Powhatan and the Indians, in consequence of the marriage of the gentle and affectionate Pocahontas.

A foraging party, headed by Argall, had succeeded in carrying off this noble maiden, and when her father indignantly demanded' her return it was refused. Hostilities were about to break out, when a worthy young Englishman, named John Rolfe, winning the favor of Pocahontas, asked her in marriage. Powhatan was delighted; his daughter, docile and gentle, was soon instructed in the Christian faith, and received baptism at the hands of that good man and minister of Christ, the Rev. Alexander Whitaker. The marriage was solemnized by the same clergyman, according to the usages of the Episcopal Church. The powerful Chickahominies sought the friendship of the English, and it was earnestly hoped that intermarriages might become frequent; but no such result followed. The colonists seemed to have eschewed all alliances of the kind; and the Indians nursed their vexation and wrath for a fitting revenge.

A few words seem to be only due to the fate of Pocahontas. About three years after her marriage she accompanied her husband to England, where she was much caressed for her gentle, modest behavior, and her great services to the colony. Here she fell in again with the gallant Smith, whom from report she supposed to have been long dead, and who has left us an interesting account of his interview with her, and of the circumstances of her untimely death: "Being about this time preparing to set sail for New England, I could not stay to do her that service I desired and she well deserved; but healing shee was at Branford with divers of my friends, I went to see her. After a modest salutation, without any word, she turned about, obscured her face, as not seeming well contented; and in that humour, her husband with divers others, we all left her two or three houres, repenting myselfe to have writ she could speake English; but not long after, she began to talke, and remembered mee well what courtesies she had done, saying, 'You did promise Powhatan what was yours should bee his. and he the like to you: you called him father, being in his land a stranger, and by the same reason so must I doe you;'