The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew Part 3

Neither was he such a one as that excellent artist, Mr. Hogarth, has depicted in his picture of a Modern Midnight Conversation;-nor such a one as the author of Joseph Andrews has, above all authors, so inimitably drawn to the life; nor yet was he such a one as thou hast often seen at a quarter sessions, with a large wig, a heavy unmeaning countenance, and a sour aspect, who gravely nods over a cause, and then pa.s.ses a decision on what he does not understand; and no wonder, when he, perhaps, never saw, much less read the laws of his country; but of Justice Brown, I can a.s.sure the reader, he could not only read, but upon occasion write a mittimus, without the a.s.sistance of his clerk; he was thoroughly acquainted with the general duties of his office, and the particular laws of Maryland; his countenance was an awful majesty, tempered with a humane sweetness, ever unwilling to punish, yet always afraid of offending justice; and if at any time necessity obliged him to use the rod, he did it with so much humanity and compa.s.sion, as plainly indicated the duties of his office forced, rather than the cruelty or haughtiness of his temper prompted to it; and while the unhappy criminal suffered a corporeal punishment, he did all that lay in his power, to the end that it might have a due effect, by endeavouring to amend the mind with salutary advice; if the exigencies of the state required taxes to be levied upon the subjects, he never, by his authority or office, excused himself from bearing his full proportion; nor even would he meanly submit to see any of his fellow-justices do so.

It was before such a justice Mr. Carew had the good fortune to be carried: they found him in his court-yard, just mounting his horse to go out, and he very civilly inquired their business; the timbermen told him they had got a runaway: the justice then inquired of Mr. Carew who he was: he replied he was a sea-faring man, belonging to the Hector privateer of Boston, captain Anderson, and as they could not agree, he had left the s.h.i.+p. The justice told him he was very sorry it should happen so, but he was obliged by the laws of his country to stop all pa.s.sengers who could not produce pa.s.ses; and, therefore, though unwillingly, he should be obliged to commit him; he then entertained him very plentifully with victuals and drink, and in the mean time made his commitment for New Town gaol. Mr. Carew, finding his commitment made, told the timbermen, that, as they got their money easily, he would have a horse to ride upon, for it was too hot for him to walk in that country.

The justice merrily cried, Well spoken, prisoner. There was then a great ado with the timbermen to get a horse for him; but at last one was procured, and our hero, mounted on a milk-white steed, was conveyed in a sort of triumph to New Town, the timbermen performing the cavalcade on foot.

The commitment was directed to the under-sheriff in New Town, a saddler by profession, who immediately waited on him to the prison; he found it well peopled, and his ears were confused with almost as many dialects as put a stop to the building of Babel. Mr. Carew saluted them, and courteously inquired what countrymen they were: some were from Kilkenny, some Limeric, some Dublin, others of Somerset, Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall; so that he found he had choice enough of companions, and, as he saw he had no remedy but patience, he endeavoured to amuse himself as well as he could.

Looking through the bars one day, he espied a whipping-post and gallows, at which he turned to his companions, and cried out, A fine sight truly this is, my friends! which was a jest many of them could not relish, as they had before tasted of the whipping; looking on the other side, he saw a fine house, and demanding whose it was, they told him it was the a.s.sembly-house. While he was thus amusing himself, reflecting on the variety of his fate, fortune was preparing a more agreeable scene for him. A person coming up to the window, asked where the runaway was, who had been brought in that day, Mr. Carew composedly told him he was the man; they then entered into discourse, inquiring of each other of what country they were, and soon found they were pretty near neighbours, the person who addressed him being one out of Dorsets.h.i.+re. While they were talking, our hero seeing the tops of some vessels riding in the river, inquired what place they belonged to. The man replied, To the west of England, to one Mr. Buck of Biddeford, to whom most of the town belonged.

Our hero's heart leaped for joy at this good news, and he hastily asked if the captains Kenny, Hervey, Hopkins, and George Bird were there; the man replying in the affirmative, still heightened his satisfaction. Will you have the goodness to be an unfortunate prisoner's friend, said he to the person he was talking with, and present my humble duty to any of them, but particularly to Captain Hervey, and inform them I am here. The man very civilly replied he would do it; and asked what he should tell them was his name? Carew, replied our hero. Away ran the messenger with great haste, but before he got half way, forgetting the name ran back again to ask it. Tell them my name is Carew, the rat-catcher; away went the man again, repeating all the way, Carew, the rat-catcher, lest he should forget it a second time; and he now executed his message so well, that very soon after came the captains to the gaol door.

Inquiring for Carew, the rat-catcher, as they wanted to speak with him; our hero, who heard them, answered with a tantivy, and a halloo to the dogs; upon which Captain Hervey swore it was Carew, and fell a laughing very heartily, then coming to the window, they very cordially shook hands with him, saying, they should as soon have expected to have seen Sir Robert Walpole there as him. They then inquired by what means he came there; and he informed them circ.u.mstantially of every thing as already mentioned. The captains asked him if he would drink a gla.s.s of rum, which he accepted of very gladly in his present condition; one of them quickly sent down to the storehouse for a bottle of rum and a bottle of October, and then they all went into the gaol, and sat down with him.

Thus did he see himself once more surrounded by his friends, so that he scarcely regretted his meeting with the timbermen, as they had brought him into such good company. He was so elevated with his good fortune, that he forgot all his misfortunes, and pa.s.sed the evening as cheerfully as if he was neither a slave nor a prisoner. The captains inquired if he had been sold to a planter before he made his escape; he replied in the negative, when they informed him, that unless his captain came and demanded him, he would be publicly sold the next court-day. When they took their leaves, they told him they would see him the next morning.

Accordingly they returned very early, and having got admittance into the prison, hailed him with the pleasing sound of liberty, telling him, they had agreed among themselves to purchase him, then give him his release, and furnish him with proper pa.s.ses; but instead of receiving this joyful news with the transports they expected, our hero stood for some time silent and lost in thought. During this while, he reflected within himself, whether his honour would permit him to purchase his liberty on these terms: and it was indeed no little struggle which pa.s.sed in his breast on this occasion. On the one side, Liberty, with all her charms, presented herself, and wooed to be accepted, supported by Fear, who set before his eyes all the horrors and cruelties of a severe slavery; on the other side, dame Honour, with a majestic mein, forbade him, sounding loudly in his ears how it would read in future story, that the ingenious Mr. Carew had no contrivance left to regain his lost liberty, but meanly to purchase it at his friends' expense. For some time did these pa.s.sions remain in equipoise; as thou hast often seen the scales of some honest tradesman, before he weighs his commodity; but at length honour preponderated, and liberty and fear flew up and kicked the beam; he therefore told the captains he had the most grateful sense of this instance of their love, but that he could never consent to purchase his freedom at their expense: and therefore desired they would only do him the favour to acquaint Captain Froade of his being there. The captains were quite amazed at this resolution, and used great entreaties to persuade him to alter it, but all in vain; so that at last they were obliged to comply with his earnest request, in writing to Captain Froade.

Captain Froade received with great pleasure the news of his being in custody in New Town, and soon sent round his long-boat, paid all costs and charges, and brought him once more on board his s.h.i.+p. The captain received him with a great deal of malicious satisfaction in his countenance, telling him in a taunting manner, that, though he had promised Sir William Courtney to be at home before him, he should find himself d.a.m.nably mistaken; and then with a tyrannic tone bade him strip, calling the boatswain to bring up a cat-o'-nine-tails, and tie him fast up to the main geers; accordingly our hero was obliged to undergo a cruel and shameful punishment. Here, gentle reader, if thou hast not a heart made of something harder than adamant, thou canst not choose but melt at the sufferings of our hero; he, who but just before, did what would have immortalised the name of Caesar or Alexander, is now rewarded for it with cruel and ignominious stripes, far from his native country, wife, children, or any friends, and still doomed to undergo severe hards.h.i.+ps.

As soon as the captain had satisfied his revenge, he ordered Mr. Carew on sh.o.r.e, taking him to a blacksmith, whom he desired to make a heavy iron collar for him, which in Maryland they call a pot-hook, and is usually put about the necks of runaway slaves. When it was fastened on, the captain jeeringly cried, Now run away if you can; I will make you help to load this vessel, and then I'll take care of you, and send you to the ironworks of Susky Hadlam.

Captain Froade soon after left the vessel, and went up to a storehouse at Tuckhoe, and the first mate to Kent island, whilst the second mate and boatswain kept the s.h.i.+p; in the mean time our hero was employed in loading the vessel, and doing all manner of drudgery. Galled with a heavy yoke and narrowly watched, he began to lose all hopes of escape; his spirits now began to fail him, and he almost gave himself up to despair, little thinking his deliverance so near at hand, as he found it soon to be.

One day, as he was employed in his usual drudgery, reflecting within himself upon his unhappy condition, he unexpectedly saw his good friends, Captains Hervey and Hopkins, two of the Biddeford captains, who, as has been before related, had offered to redeem him from the prison at New Town; he was overjoyed at the sight of them, not that he expected any deliverance from them, but only as they were friends he had been so much obliged to.

The captains came up and inquired very kindly how it fared with him, and how he bore the drudgery they saw him employed in; adding, that he had better have accepted the offer they made him at New Town. Our hero gallantly replied, that however severe the hards.h.i.+ps he underwent, and were they still more so, he would rather choose to suffer them, than purchase liberty at their cost. The captains, charmed with his magnanimity, were resolved to make one attempt more to get him his liberty. They soon after sounded the boatswain and mate; and finding them not greatly averse to give him an opportunity to escape, they took him aside, and thus addressed him:-Friend Carew, the offer we made you at New Town may convince you of the regard we have for you; we therefore cannot think of leaving the country before we have, by some means or other, procured your liberty; we have already sounded the boatswain and mate, and find we can bring them to wink at your escape; but the greatest obstacle is, that there is forty pounds penalty and half a year's imprisonment, for any one that takes off your iron collar, so that you must be obliged to travel with it, till you come among the friendly Indians, many miles distant from hence, who will a.s.sist you to take it off, for they are great friends with the English, and trade with us for lattens, kettles, frying-pans, gunpowder and shot; giving us in exchange buffalo and deer skins, with other sorts of furs. But there are other sorts of Indians, one of which are distinguished by a very flat forehead, who use cross-bows in fighting; the other of a very small stature, who are great enemies, and very cruel to the whites; these you must endeavour by all means to avoid, for if you fall into their hands, they will certainly murder you.

And here the reader will, we make no doubt, be pleased to see some account of the Indians, among whom our hero was treated with so much kindness and civility, as we shall relate in its proper place.

At the first settling of Maryland, there were several nations of them governed by petty kings. Mr. Calvert, Lord Baltimore's brother having been sent by him to make the first settlement in Maryland, landed at Potowmac town; during the infancy of Werowance, Archibau, his uncle, who governed his territories in his minority, received the English in a friendly manner. From Potowmac the governor proceeded to Piscataqua, about 20 leagues higher, where he found many Indians a.s.sembled, and among them an Englishman, Captain Henry Fleet, who had lived there several years in great esteem with the natives. Captain Fleet brought the prince on board the governor's pinnace to treat with him. Mr. Calvert asked him, whether he was agreeable that he and his people should settle in his country. The prince replied, I will not bid you go, neither will I bid you stay, but you may use your own discretion. The Indians, finding their prince stay longer on board than they expected, crowded down to the water-side to look after him, fearing the English had killed him, and they were not satisfied till he showed himself to them, to please them.

The natives, who fled from St. Clement's isle, when they saw the English come as friends, returned to their habitations; and the governor, not thinking it advisable to settle so high up the river in the infancy of the colony, sent his pinnaces down the river, and went with Captain Fleet to a river on the north side of the Potowmac, within four or five leagues, in his long-boat, and came to the town of Yoamaco, from which the Indians of that neighbourhood are called Yoamacoes. The governor landed, and treating with the prince there, acquainted him with the occasion of his coming, to whom the Indian said little, but invited him to his house, entertained him kindly, and gave him his own bed to lie on.

The next day he showed him the country, and the governor determining to make the first settlement there, ordered all his s.h.i.+ps and pinnaces to come thither to him.

To make his entry the more safe and peaceable, he presented the Werowance and Wilsos, and princ.i.p.al men of the place, with some English cloth, axes, hoes and knives, which they accepted very kindly, and freely consented that he and his company should dwell in one part of the town, and reserving the other for themselves. Those Indians who inhabited that part which was a.s.signed to the English, readily abandoned their houses to them; and Mr. Calvert immediately set hands to work to plant corn. The natives agreed further to leave the whole town to the English as soon as their harvest was in; which they did accordingly, and both English and Indians promised to live friendly together. If any injury was done on either part, the nation offending was to make satisfaction. Thus, on the 27th March, 1634, the governor took possession of the town, and named it St. Mary's.

There happened an event which much facilitated this with the Indians.

The Susquehanocks, a warlike people, dwelling between Chesapeak Bay and Delaware Bay, were wont to make incursions on their neighbours, partly for dominion and partly for booty, of which the women were most desired by them. The Yoamacoes, fearing these Susquehanocks, had a year before the English arrived, resolved to desert their habitations, and remove higher into the country; many of them were actually gone, and the rest prepared to follow them. The s.h.i.+ps and pinnaces arriving at the town, the Indians were amazed and terrified at the sight of them, especially at hearing their cannon thunder, when they came to anchor.

The first thing that Mr. Calvert did was to fix a court of guard, and erect a storehouse; and he had not been there many days before Sir John Harvey, governor of Virginia, came there to visit him, as did several of the Indian Werowances, and many other Indians, from several parts of the continent; among others, came the king of Patuxent, and, being carried aboard the s.h.i.+p, then at anchor in the river, was placed between the governor of Virginia and the governor of Maryland, at an entertainment made for him and others. A Patuxent Indian coming aboard, and seeing his king thus seated, started back; thinking he was surprised, he would have fain leaped overboard, and could not be persuaded to enter the cabin, till the Werowance came himself, and satisfied him he was in no danger.

This king had formerly been taken prisoner by the English of Virginia.

After the storehouse was finished and the s.h.i.+p unladen, Mr. Calvert ordered the colours to be brought ash.o.r.e, which was done with great solemnity, the gentlemen and their servants attending in arms: several volleys were fired on board and on sh.o.r.e, as also the cannon, at which the natives were struck with admiration, such at least as had not heard the firing of pieces of ordnance before, to whom it could not be dreadful.

The kings of Patuxent and Yoamaco were present at this ceremony, with many other Indians of Yoamaco; and the Werowance of Patuxent took that occasion to advise the Indians of Yoamaco to be careful to keep the league that had been made with the English. He staid in town several days, and was full of his Indian compliments; when he went away he made this speech to the governor: "I love the English so well, that, should they go about to kill me, if I had so much breath as to speak, I would command my people not to revenge my death, for I know they would not do such a thing, except it were through my own fault."

This infant colony supplied themselves with Indian corn at Barbadoes, which, at their first arrival, they began to use to save their French store of flour and oatmeal. The Indian women, perceiving that their servants did not know how to dress it, made their bread for them, and taught them to do it themselves. There was Indian corn enough in the country, and these new adventurers soon after s.h.i.+pped off 10,000 bushels for New England, to purchase salt fish and other provisions. While the English and Indians lived at St. Mary's together, the natives went every day to hunt with the new comers for deer and turkeys, which, when they had caught, they gave to the English, or sold for knives, beads, and such like trifles. They also brought them good store of fish, and behaved themselves very kindly, suffering their women and children to come among them, which was a certain sign of their confidence in them.

Most of the Indians still follow the religion and customs of their ancestors; and are not become either more pious or more polite by the company of the English.

As to their religion, they have all of them some dark notions about G.o.d; but some of them have brighter ones, if a person may be believed who had this confession from the mouth of an Indian: "That they believed G.o.d was universally beneficent; that his dwelling was in heaven above, and the influence of his goodness reached to the earth beneath; that he was incomprehensible in his excellence, and enjoyed all possible felicity; that his duration was eternal, his perfection boundless, and that he possessed everlasting happiness." So far the savage talked as rationally of the existence of a G.o.d as a Christian divine or philosopher could have done; but when he came to justify their wors.h.i.+pping of the Devil, whom they call Okee, his notions were very heterodox. He said, "It is true G.o.d is the giver of all good things, but they flow naturally and promiscuously from him; that they are showered down upon all men without distinction; that G.o.d does not trouble himself with the impertinent affairs of men, nor is concerned at what they do, but leaves them to make the most of their free will, and to secure as many as they can of the good things that flow from him; that therefore it was to no purpose either to fear or wors.h.i.+p him; but, on the contrary, if they did not pacify the evil spirit, he would ruin their health, peace, and plenty, he being always visiting them in the air, thunders, storms, &c."

As to the idol which they all wors.h.i.+p, and is kept in a temple called Quiocasan, he seemed to have a very different opinion of its divinity, and cried out against the juggling of the priests.-This man did not talk like a common savage, and therefore we may suppose he had studied the matter more than his countrymen, who, for the generality, paid a great deal of devotion to the idol, and wors.h.i.+pped him as their chief deity.

Their priests and conjurors are highly reverenced by them. They are given extremely to p.a.w.ning or conjuring; and one of them very lately conjured a shower of rain for a gentleman's plantation, in a time of drought, for two bottles of rum. We are not apt to give credit to such supernatural events; and, had we not found this in an author who was on the spot, we should have rejected it as a fable.

Their priests promise fine women, eternal spring, and every pleasure in perfection in the other world, which charmed them in this; and threaten them with lakes of fire, and torments by a fairy in the shape of an old woman. They are often b.l.o.o.d.y in their sacrifices, and offer up young children to the devil. They have a superst.i.tious ceremony among them, which they call _Huskanawing_, and is performed thus: they shut up ten or twelve young men, the most deserving among them, about twenty years of age, in a strong inclosure, made on purpose, like a sugar loaf, and every way open like a lattice, for the air to pa.s.s through; they are kept for several months, and are allowed to have no sustenance but the infusion or decoction of poisonous intoxicating roots, which turn their brains, and they run stark mad.

By this it is pretended they lose the remembrance of all former things, even of their parents, treasure, and language, as if they had drunk of the water of oblivion, drawn out of the lake of Lethe. When they have been in this condition as long as their custom directs, they lessen this intoxicating potion; and, by degrees, the young men recover the use of their senses; but before they are quite well, they are shown in their towns; and the youths who have been _huskanawed_ are afraid to discover the least sign of their remembering any thing of their past lives; for, in such a case, they must be huskanawed again, and they are disciplined so severely the second time, that it generally kills them.

After the young men have pa.s.sed this trial, they are Coucarouses, or men of quality in their nations; and the Indians say they do it to take away from youth all childish impressions, and that strong partiality to persons and things which is contracted before reason takes place.

The Indian priests, to command the respect of the people, make themselves look as ugly and as terrible as they can; the conjurors always share with them in their deceit, and they gain by it; the Indians consult both of them before they go on any enterprise. There are no priestesses or witches among them. They erect altars on every remarkable occasion, and have temples built like their common cabins, in which their idol stands, and the corpses of their kings and rulers are preserved.

They have no sort of literature among them; and their way of communicating things from one to another is by hieroglyphics. They make their accounts by units, tens, hundreds, &c., as the English do; but they reckon their years by cohonks, or winters, and divide every year into five seasons; the budding time, the earing of the corn, the summer, the harvest, and the winter.

Their months they count by moons. They divide the day into three parts, the rise, power, and lowering, of the sun; and keep their accounts by knots on a string, or notches on a stick, of which Captain Smith relates a very pleasant story; that, when the princess Pocahonta went for England, a Coucarouse, or lord of her own nation, attended her; his name was Uttamaccomack: and king Powhatan, Pocahonta's father, commanded him, when he arrived in England, to count the people, and give him an account of their number. Uttamaccomock, when he came ash.o.r.e, got a stick, intending to count them by notches; but he soon found that his arithmetic would be to no purpose, and threw away his stick. At his return, the king asked him how many people there were? and he replied, count the stars of the sky, the leaves upon the trees, and the sand upon the seash.o.r.e, and you will know how many are the people in England.

They esteem the marriage-vow as the most sacred of all engagements, and abhor divorces; adultery is the most unpardonable of all crimes amongst them, and seldom occurs without exemplary punishment.

Their maidens are very chaste; and if any one of them happen to have a child before marriage, her fortune is spoiled. They are very sprightly and good humoured, and the women generally handsome. Their manner of handling infants is very rough: as soon as the child is born, they plunge it over head and ears in cold water, and they bind it naked to a board, making a hole in the proper place for evacuation. Between the child and the board they put some cotton, wool, or fur, and let it lie in this posture till the bones begin to harden, the joints to knit, and the limbs to grow strong; they then loosen it from the board, and let it crawl about where it pleases. From this custom, it is said, the Indians derive the neatness and exactness of their limbs, which are the most perfect in the world. Some of them are of a gigantic stature, live to a great age, and are stronger than others; but there is not a crooked, bandy-legged, or ill-shaped, Indian to be seen. Some nations of them are very tall and large limbed, but others are short and small; their complexion is a dark brown and tawny. They paint themselves with a pecone root, which stains them a reddish colour. They are clear when they are young, but greasing and sunning make their skin turn hard and black. Their hair, for the most part, is coal black; so are their eyes; they wear their hair cut after several whimsical modes, the persons of note always keep a long lock behind; the women wearing it very long, hanging at their backs, or twisted up with beads; and all the better sort adorn their heads with a kind of coronet. The men have no beards, and, to prevent their having any, use certain devices, which they will not communicate to the English.

Their clothes are a mantle girt close in the middle, and underneath a piece of cloth tied round their waist, and reaching down to the middle of the thigh. The common sort only tie a piece of cloth or skin round the middle. As for their food they boil, broil, or roast, all the meat they eat; honomy is the standing dish, and consists of Indian corn soaked, broken in a mortar, and then boiled in water over a gentle fire ten or twelve hours together. They draw and pluck their fowls, skin and paunch their quadrupeds, but dress their fish with the scales on, and without gutting; they leave the scales, entrails, and bones, till they eat the fish, when they throw the offal away. Their food is chiefly beeves, turtle, several species of snakes, broth made of deer's humbles, peas, beans, &c. They have no set meals: they eat when they are hungry, and drink nothing but water. Their bread is made of Indian corn, wild oats, or the seed of the sun-flower; they eat it alone, and not with meat.

They travel always on foot with a gun or bow. They live upon the game they kill, and lie under a tree upon a little high gra.s.s. The English prohibit them to keep corn, sheep, or hogs, lest they should steal their neighbour's.

When they come to rivers, they presently patch up a canoe of birch bark, cross over in it, and leave it on the river's bank, if they think they shall not want it; otherwise they carry it along with them.

Their way of receiving strangers is by the pipe, or calumet of peace. Of this Pere Henepin has given a long account in his voyage, and the pipe is as follows: they fill a pipe of tobacco, larger and bigger than any common pipe, light it, and then the chief of them takes a whiff, gives it to the stranger, and if he smoke of it, it is peace; if not, war; if peace, the pipe is handed all round the company.

The diseases of the Indians are very few, and easy to be cured: they for the most part arise from excessive heats and colds, which they get rid of by sweating. As for aches, and settled pains in the joints or limbs, they use caustics and scarifying. The priests are their physicians, and from their childhood are taught the nature and use of simples, in which their knowledge is excellent; but they will not communicate it, pretending it is a gift of G.o.d; and by this mystery they make it the more valuable.

Their riches consist of furs, peak, roenocke, and pearl. Their peak and roenocke are made of sh.e.l.ls; the peak is an English bugle, but the roenocke is a piece of c.o.c.kle, drilled through like a bead. Before the English came among them, the peak and the roenocke were all their treasure; but now they set a value on their fur and pearl, and are greedy of keeping quant.i.ties of them together. The pearl is good, and formerly was not so rare as it is at this time.

They had no iron tools till the English brought them over: their knives were sharpened reeds or sh.e.l.ls, their axes sharp stones. They rubbed fire, by turning the end of a hard piece of wood upon the side of one that is soft and dry, which at last would burn. They felled great trees by burning them down at the root, having ways of keeping the fire from ascending. They hollowed them with a gentle fire, and sc.r.a.ped the trunk clean, and this made their canoes, of which some were thirty feet long.

They are very good handicraft men, and what they do is generally neat and convenient.

Their kingdoms descended to the next heir, male or female, and they were exact in preserving the succession in the right line. If, as it often happened, one great prince subjected the other, those conquests commonly were lost at his death, and the nation returned again to the obedience of their natural princes. They have no written laws, neither can they have any, having no letters.

Their lands are in common, and their Werowances, or judges, are all lord-chancellors, deciding causes and inflicting punishments according as they think fit. These Werowances and the Coucarouses are their terms to distinguish the men of quality; the former are their war-captains, and the latter such as have pa.s.sed the trial of huskanawing. Their priests and conjurors have great authority among them. They have servants whom they call black boys, and are very exact in requiring the respect that is due to their several qualities.

Most of the Indians live on the eastern sh.o.r.e, where they have two or three little towns; some of them go over to the other side, in winter time, to hunt for deer, being generally employed by the English. They take delight in nothing else, and it is very rare that any of them will embrace the Christian way of living and wors.h.i.+p. There are about 500 fighting Indians in all the province; the cause of their diminution proceeded not from wars with the English, for they have none with them worth speaking of, but from the perpetual discords and wars among themselves. The female s.e.x have always swept away a great many.

One thing is observed in them, though they are a people very timorous and cowardly in fight, yet when taken prisoners and condemned, they will die like heroes, braving the most exquisite tortures that can be invented, and singing all the time they are upon the rack.

We find several of the Indians doing actions which would do honour to the greatest heroes of antiquity: thus captain Smith, who was one of the first adventurers in planting the colony of Virginia, being taken prisoner, while he was making discoveries, by king Oppecamcanough, he not only spared Mr. Smith's life, but carried him to his town and feasted him; and afterwards presented him to Powhaton, the chief king of the savages, who would have beheaded him, had he not been saved by the intercession and generosity of his daughter, Pocahonto, who, when Mr.

Smith's head was on the block, and she could not prevail with her father to give him his life, put her own head upon his, and ventured receiving the blow to save him, though she was scarce then sixteen years of age.

Some time after, Sir Thomas Dale sent captain Argall to Patowmac to buy corn, where he met with Pocahonta. He invited her to come aboard his s.h.i.+p, which with some difficulty she consented to, being betrayed by the king of Postcany, brother to the king of Patowmac, with whom she then resided.

Argall, having got her into his custody, detained her, and carried her to James's Town, intending to oblige her father, king Powhaton, to come to what terms he pleased for the deliverance of his daughter. Though the king loved her tenderly, yet he would not do any thing for her sake which he thought was not for his own and the nation's interest; nor would he be prevailed upon to conclude a firm treaty of peace till he heard his daughter, who had turned a Christian, was christened Rebecca, and married to Mr. John Rolfe, an English gentleman, her uncle giving her away in the church.

Powhaton approved of the marriage, took it for a sincere token of friends.h.i.+p, and was so pleased with it, that he concluded a league with the English in the year 1613.