"Lastly, remember as faction, pride, and security produces nothing but confusion, misery and dissolution; so the contraries well practised will in short time make you happy, and the most admired people of all our plantations for your time in the world.
"John Smith writ this with his owne hand."The extent to which Smith retouched his narrations, as they grew in his imagination, in his many reproductions of them, has been referred to, and illustrated by previous quotations.An amusing instance of his care and ingenuity is furnished by the interpolation of Pocahontas into his stories after 1623.In his "General Historie" of 1624 he adopts, for the account of his career in Virginia, the narratives in the Oxford tract of 1612, which he had supervised.We have seen how he interpolated the wonderful story of his rescue by the Indian child.Some of his other insertions of her name, to bring all the narrative up to that level, are curious.The following passages from the "Oxford Tract" contain in italics the words inserted when they were transferred to the "General Historie":
"So revived their dead spirits (especially the love of Pocahuntas) as all anxious fears were abandoned.""Part always they brought him as presents from their king, or Pocahuntas."In the account of the "masques" of girls to entertain Smith at Werowocomoco we read:
"But presently Pocahuntas came, wishing him to kill her if any hurt were intended, and the beholders, which were women and children, satisfied the Captain there was no such matter."In the account of Wyffin's bringing the news of Scrivener's drowning, when Wyffin was lodged a night with Powhatan, we read:.
"He did assure himself some mischief was intended.Pocahontas hid him for a time, and sent them who pursued him the clean contrary way to seek him; but by her means and extraordinary bribes and much trouble in three days' travel, at length he found us in the middest of these turmoyles."The affecting story of the visit and warning from Pocahontas in the night, when she appeared with "tears running down her cheeks," is not in the first narration in the Oxford Tract, but is inserted in the narrative in the "General Historie." Indeed, the first account would by its terms exclude the later one.It is all contained in these few lines:
"But our barge being left by the ebb, caused us to staie till the midnight tide carried us safe aboord, having spent that half night with such mirth as though we never had suspected or intended anything, we left the Dutchmen to build, Brinton to kill foule for Powhatan (as by his messengers he importunately desired), and left directions with our men to give Powhatan all the content they could, that we might enjoy his company on our return from Pamaunke."It should be added, however, that there is an allusion to some warning by Pocahontas in the last chapter of the "Oxford Tract." But the full story of the night visit and the streaming tears as we have given it seems without doubt to have been elaborated from very slight materials.And the subsequent insertion of the name of Pocahontas--of which we have given examples above--into old accounts that had no allusion to her, adds new and strong presumptions to the belief that Smith invented what is known as the Pocahontas legend."As a mere literary criticism on Smith's writings, it would appear that he had a habit of transferring to his own career notable incidents and adventures of which he had read, and this is somewhat damaging to an estimate of his originality.His wonderful system of telegraphy by means of torches, which he says he put in practice at the siege of Olympack, and which he describes as if it were his own invention, he had doubtless read in Polybius, and it seemed a good thing to introduce into his narrative.
He was (it must also be noted) the second white man whose life was saved by an Indian princess in America, who subsequently warned her favorite of a plot to kill him.In 1528 Pamphilo de Narvaes landed at Tampa Bay, Florida, and made a disastrous expedition into the interior.Among the Spaniards who were missing as a result of this excursion was a soldier named Juan Ortiz.When De Soto marched into the same country in 1539 he encountered this soldier, who had been held in captivity by the Indians and had learned their language.The story that Ortiz told was this: He was taken prisoner by the chief Ucita, bound hand and foot, and stretched upon a scaffold to be roasted, when, just as the flames were seizing him, a daughter of the chief interposed in his behalf, and upon her prayers Ucita spared the life of the prisoner.Three years afterward, when there was danger that Ortiz would be sacrificed to appease the devil, the princess came to him, warned him of his danger, and led him secretly and alone in the night to the camp of a chieftain who protected him.
This narrative was in print before Smith wrote, and as he was fond of such adventures he may have read it.The incidents are curiously parallel.And all the comment needed upon it is that Smith seems to have been peculiarly subject to such coincidencesOur author's selection of a coat of arms, the distinguishing feature of which was "three Turks' heads," showed little more originality.
It was a common device before his day: on many coats of arms of the Middle Ages and later appear "three Saracens' heads," or "three Moors' heads"--probably most of them had their origin in the Crusades.Smith's patent to use this charge, which he produced from Sigismund, was dated 1603, but the certificate appended to it by the Garter King at Arms, certifying that it was recorded in the register and office of the heralds, is dated 1625.Whether Smith used it before this latter date we are not told.We do not know why he had not as good right to assume it as anybody.
[Burke's " Encyclopedia of Heraldry " gives it as granted to Capt.
