This brings us to the incident which is the most famous in the history of Captain John Smith. He says his head was laid upon two large stones and the warriors were about to beat out his brains, when Pocahontas, the favorite daughter of Powhatan, and not more than ten or twelve years old, threw her arms around the prisoner's neck, and prayed her father to spare him. He could not refuse the pleadings of his loved child.
Whether such an incident ever took place will never be known. While it is not impossible, many doubt its truth. It seems to have been an afterthought of the grim boaster, for years passed without anyone hearing a reference of it, and it was not until the death of Pocahontas that Captain Smith told how he had passed through such a strange experience.
POCAHONTAS SAVING THE LIFE OF JOHN SMITH
Powhatan seemed to think that since he had spared the life of the Englishman, the latter should be turned to account. He made him help in forming bows and arrows, moccasins, robes and copper trinkets. A son of the chieftain became friendly to Smith, and did him many kindnesses during his captivity. The Englishman rapidly learned the tongue of his captors, and this knowledge afterwards proved of great help to him. Finally he was sent back to Jamestown. The guard who went with him were treated with great kindness, and a number of presents were sent through them to Powhatan. This seems to have won the friendship of the old chief, who sent his daughter Pocahontas every few days to the settlement with food, where it was sorely needed. Everything would have gone well but for the foolish course of Captain Newport, who soon after arrived from a voyage to England. He gave Powhatan so many presents, that the emperor was puffed up with his own importance, and refused to part with any of his goods without being paid five or six times their value. When Newport had offered about all he had to offer, Powhatan sneeringly gave only two or three bushels of corn in return. Then it was that Smith proved himself as shrewd as the chieftain. He managed, as if by accident, to let Powhatan see a number of shining beads of blue glass. The chief's eye was caught, and he asked for them. Smith said they were of great value, and only worn by great kings. This fired the envy of the chief, who was determined to own them, for who had a better right than he to wear the jewels of a mighty monarch? With much seeming unwillingness, Smith parted with the beads for more than two hundred bushels of corn.
Powhatan began to fear that the continual coming of new emigrants meant danger to himself and people. He began plotting to massacre the settlers, but the prompt vigor of Smith scared him, and he sent Pocahontas to Jamestown with a message that the evil plot was due to some of his fiery chiefs. Smith, who had taken several prisoners, thereupon released them, and all remained tranquil for a time.
Captain Newport's silly course with Powhatan came to a head in the autumn of 1608, when he arrived again from England, just after Smith had been elected governor of the colony. Newport brought a gilded crown for Powhatan, and had the whole programme arranged for his coronation. At the same time settlers were to offer to aid Powhatan against a tribe with which he was at war. When this message was sent to him, the haughty old leader told the English that since he was a king he would not go to Jamestown, and as for the offered help, he did not wish it, as he knew how to manage his own affairs.
A GROUP OF INDIAN CHIEFS AND THEIR WIVES VISITING THE PRESIDENT AT WASHINGTON.