Powhatan and his chiefs were very glad of this marriage, as were also the colonists, and for many years after the Indians were more friendly. Pocahontas was taken by her husband to England, where she was received with great delight by the English court. The king and queen grew very fond of her and showed her every kindness that they could, and all the great English lords and ladies wished to see the Indian girl who had been so kind to their countrymen in Jamestown. As she was a princess she was called Lady Pocahontas, and every one was surprised that a girl who had been brought up in the society of cruel savages, should have such beautiful and gentle manners. They said that she acted more like one of their own English ladies than the daughter of an Indian chief, but Pocahontas was gentle-mannered because her heart was kind and good; not gentle birth but kind hearts make the truest ladies and gentlemen, and no lady of the English court could say that she had saved another's life at the risk of her own as could the Indian maid from across the sea. Pocahontas was much surprised to find Captain Smith alive and in England; she wept on seeing him, and begged him to let her call him father.
Smith told her that, as she was a king's daughter, this would not be allowed at the court; but she said that she must call him father and he must call her child, and that she would be his countrywoman forever. Smith wrote a letter to the king and queen asking them to receive Pocahontas kindly, and it was through him that she was so much noticed by the English nobility.
Her beauty and sweetness would have won their hearts, but it was the memory of what she had done for the English in Jamestown that made them so eager to be kind to her in return. Pocahontas did not stay very long in England, although she grew to love it dearly, and did not want to go away from the land where she had only known happiness and kindness. But her husband decided to return to Jamestown, and Pocahontas prepared to leave England with a heavy heart. She thought that they could be much happier there than in America, and she wanted to bring up her little son as an English boy, and did not want him to see all the cruelty and wickedness which she knew he would find in the wild life in Jamestown. So all things were made ready, and they left London and went to Gravesend, where they were to take ship for America. But, just as they were about to sail Pocahontas was taken ill and died; the English climate had been too severe for one born in the South, and so Rolfe and his little son went back to America alone, and the beautiful princess was buried in England, far from her own land; and her English friends mourned for the sweet Indian girl whom they all loved; and for years and years her story was listened to with admiration by the boys and girls in the homes of England, for it was the story of a brave and true heart, and such we must always honor.
[CHAPTER XIX.]
THE SETTLEMENT OF MAINE AND DISCOVERY OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN.
Although the southern part of North America became very well known to Europe almost immediately after its discovery, yet many years passed away before the whites knew very much about the lands farther north. This was because in settling America the settlers thought more of finding gold and silver than any thing else. Gold and silver had been found in such quantities in Mexico and Peru, and Spain had grown so rich by conquering those countries, that no one thought it worth while to go to any place that had neither gold nor silver nor precious stones to offer. And then, besides this reason, the northern part of America did not have such a warm, delightful climate as the southern. In Florida one could live for the greater part of the year on the fruit, that was so abundant, and one scarcely needed a house where the summer lasted so long; but up in the north one must be well protected from the icy winds, must have heavy fur clothing and warm comfortable houses, and above all, must spend the spring and summer months in planting corn and grain for use in the long, cold winter; and so, as men knew living would be very hard work, and the chance of getting rich very small up there on those northern coasts, they stayed away, and long years passed before white settlers came to live among the beautiful mountains and valleys of New England.
The first people who came were the fisher-folk. They came from France, and spent the warm months in tossing on the waters around the coast of Newfoundland and Maine, taking in large cargoes of fish which they sold readily in European markets. When they went back home again they told very entertaining stories about the northern lands; of their great rivers that came rushing down from the north, and of the beautiful forests of pine and spruce, and of the pleasant inland lakes whose waters were so clear that one could see the pebbles on the bottom, and which were filled with delicious trout.
By and by these fishermen's stories attracted other people to those regions, and men began to go there not only to fish, but to trade with the natives; and gradually it came to be quite a general custom for the traders and fishermen to build a few warm huts and pass the winter on the shores of some sheltered bay, instead of going back to France at the first sign of cold weather. And here they learned many interesting things about the new country, and which made it seem quite worth living in. They learned how the Indian could start from the coast in his bark canoe, and, by means of those large streams, the Kennebec, and the Penobscot, and the lakes that they formed, reach easily the smaller rivers of Canada and so float down to the great Hochelaga or St. Lawrence; thus going from the Atlantic coast, through hundreds of miles of dense forest, to the large Indian villages of Hochelaga or Stadacona. Sometimes the traveller would have to carry his canoe from one lake to another, always a short distance, or around the rapids or waterfalls of the narrowing river; but with these exceptions the journey was made entirely by water. And as the Indians of Canada and those of Maine were constantly trading with one another, the whites soon saw that a country where distant places could be so easily reached, and whose fine forests, and rich furs, and excellent fisheries could be had for the taking, was not so poor after all, and that perhaps they might as easily draw gold from the sea, or find it in the sweet-scented woods, as by wandering through the marshes of Florida, or on the banks of the Mississippi.
And so, little by little, the French king began to believe that it would be a very good thing for France to own and settle Maine and Canada, or, as all the northern part of America was then called, New France; and in 1604 Sieur De Monts, a Huguenot nobleman, sailed from Havre de Grace for the purpose of making a French settlement in Acadia. With De Monts came his friend Jean de Biancourt, Baron de Poutrincourt, also a Huguenot, who wished to find a new home in America, where he would be free from all the religious troubles that were constantly vexing him in France. Samuel Champlain was also one of the company, and as he had been on several voyages before, and knew the country and people better than the others, he was looked upon as a very important member.
The ships reached Nova Scotia without any mishaps, and Poutrincourt, who was delighted with the country, got permission to settle here, and began the foundation of his new home. He had chosen a delightful spot, and for many years lived there peacefully and happily, cultivating the rich soil, and showing the Indians how to improve their own way of farming. And although Poutrincourt was a loyal Frenchman, still he never looked back regretfully to France, for he found, amid the pleasant meadows and blossoming orchards of Acadia, a greater peace than he had ever known in his old home. The Indians all loved him, and the little Indian children came and went freely through the halls of his stately mansion, often lying at his feet while he was dining, and catching in their little dark hands the nuts and raisins which he threw them as their part of the dessert.