Graham's Magazine, Vol. XX, No. 3, March 1842

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.
Vol. XX. March, 1842 No. 3.
Contents
J. G. Chapman. R. Hinshelwood.
GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.
Vol. XX. PHILADELPHIA: MARCH, 1842. No. 3.
The settlement at Jamestown was begun in 1606. Among the earliest of the adventurers was the chivalrous Captain Smith, whose life was a romance even in those romantic days. He soon came to be the leader of the colonists, and it was through his exertions that the settlement was kept up, amid privations and dangers almost incredible. The story of his capture by the Indians, and his preservation from death by Pocahontas, has become a national tradition, and poets have sung, orators declaimed, and novelists penned volumes to record the bravery of the Captain, and the love of the Indian maid. But, perhaps, nowhere is the story told with such effect as in the “Generall Historie” of the gallant Smith himself, a work published in 1624, and still to be met with in the libraries of the curious. The book is a rarity. It is adorned with maps,—not the most correct, to be sure—and with engravings setting forth the various perilous situations of the author, over which a book-worm would gloat for a month. The narrative is written in a plain, frank, unassuming style, and the author is always spoken of in the third person. To this book we are indebted for an account of the crowning of Powhatan, and our only regret is that our limits will not suffer us to give the quaint language of Smith.
This singular ceremony took place in 1608, and was performed at the instigation of the council at home, who sent over the necessary insignia by Capt. Newport from London. The object of the ceremony was to propitiate Powhatan, and induce him to guide the colonists to the country of the Monacons, whom the dreamy adventurers, exaggerating the casual hints of the Indians, had pictured to themselves as a people of boundless wealth. It is evident, from the “Generall Historie,” that Smith did not approve of the measure, for he says appositely—“As for the coronation of Powhatan, and his presents of Basin and Ewer, Bed, Bedstead, Clothes, &c., and such costly novelties, they had been much better spared than so ill spent, for we had his favor much better only for a plain piece of copper.” The measure had been resolved on at home, however, and Captain Smith had no alternative but to obey. Accordingly, he sent a messenger to Powhatan to come and receive his presents; but the Indian monarch, with the spirit of an Alexander, replied, “If your King have sent me presents, I also am a King, and this is my land: eight days I will stay to receive them. Your father is to come to me, not I to him.” The Captain now sent the presents “a hundred miles by river,” as he tells us, to Powhatan. Here a masked ball and other festivities came off, in which the Captain seems to have been quite a favorite with the Indian belles. At length the ceremony of the coronation was performed, but, if the bold Captain speaks aright, it must have been a sorry crowning. He says, “But a sore trouble there was to make him kneel to receive his crown, he neither knowing the majesty nor meaning of a crown, nor bending of the knee, endured as many persuasions, examples and instructions as enraged them all. At last, by bearing hard on his shoulders, he a little stooped, and those having the crown in their hands put it on his head, when by the warning of a pistol, the boats were prepared with such a volley of shot, that the King started up with a horrible fear, till he saw all was well.” A graphic picture. A sturdy old republican was Powhatan, having no notion of their crown! We imagine we can see the perturbation of the good Captain and his followers when they found that the old warrior would not kneel, and the glee with which they regarded their success, when, by pressing hard on the royal shoulders, they surprised him into being duly crowned.