"Two captains being at dinner one of them fell into a large relation of his own achievements, concluding his discourse with this question to his fellow: 'And pray, Sir, what service have you done?' To whom he answered: 'Other men can tell that.' However, moderate men must allow Captain Smith to have been very instrumental in settling the plantation in Virginia whereof he was Governor, as also admiral of New England.
"He led his old age in London, where his having a prince's mind imprisoned in a poor man's purse, rendered him to the contempt of such who were not ingenuous. Yet he efforted his spirits with the remembrance and relation of what formerly had been and what he had done. He was buried in Sepulchre's Church choir, on the south side thereof, having a ranting epitaph inscribed in a table over him, too long to transcribe. Only we will insert the first and last verses, the rather because the one may fit Alexander's life for his valour, the other his death for his religion:—
"'Here lies one conquered who hath conquered kings!'
'Oh, may his soul in sweet Elysium sleep!'
The orthography, piety, history, and divinity are much alike."
As to his feelings with regard to Pocahontas, I can do no better than quote the words of his contemporaries:—
"Some propheticall spirits calculated that hee had the savages in such subjection, hee would have made himselfe a king by marrying Pocahontas, Powhatan's daughter. It is true she was the very nonpareil of his Kingdome and at most not past 13 yeares of age. Very oft shee came to our fort, with what shee could get for Captaine Smith; that ever loved and used the Countrie well, but her especially he ever much respected: and so well she requited it, that when her father intended to have surprized him, shee by stealth in the darke night came through the wild woods and told him of it.
"But her marriage could no way have entitled him by any right to the kingdome, nor was it ever suspected hee had ever such a thought; or more regarded her of any of them than in honest reason and discreation he might. If he would, he might have married her, or have done what him listed; for there was none that could have hindred his determination."[61]
The Indians[62] eagerly courted intermarriage with the white man, and were painfully stung by the disdain with which the English receded from their advances and declined to be the husbands of Indian women. The colonists forgot that they had inflicted this mortification; but it was remembered by the Indians, who sacredly embalmed the memory of every affront in lasting, stern, silent, and implacable resentment. We have seen how often "wives" were offered to John Smith, and Powhatan eagerly hastened his daughter's marriage to John Rolfe. Her engagement was no sooner announced than her old uncle appeared at Jamestown to witness the marriage ceremony.
Captain Smith never returned to Virginia, but after the massacre of 1622 he offered his services as commander of a company to drive the Indians out of the country. For some unexplained reason this offer was declined. The king thought it unnecessary! He indeed offered a few of the rusty arms in the Tower to be sent to the survivors—this much and only this was he willing to do.