no farther, he left her in a broad bay out of danger of shot, commanding
none should go ashore till his returne; himselfe with 2 English and two
Salvages went up higher in a Canowe, but he was not long absent, but
his men went ashore, whose want of government gave both occasion and
opportunity to the Salvages to surprise one George Casson, and much
failed not to have cut of the boat and all the rest. Smith little
dreaming of that accident, being got to the marshes at the river's head,
20 miles in the desert, had his 2 men slaine (as is supposed) sleeping
by the Canowe, whilst himselfe by fowling sought them victual, who
finding he was beset by 200 Salvages, 2 of them he slew, stil defending
himselfe with the aid of a Salvage his guid (whome bee bound to his
arme and used as his buckler), till at last slipping into a bogmire
they tooke him prisoner: when this news came to the fort much was
their sorrow for his losse, fewe expecting what ensued. A month those
Barbarians kept him prisoner, many strange triumphs and conjurations
they made of him, yet he so demeaned himselfe amongst them, as he
not only diverted them from surprising the Fort, but procured his own
liberty, and got himselfe and his company such estimation amongst them,
that those Salvages admired him as a demi-God. So returning safe to the
Fort, once more staied the pinnas her flight for England, which til his
returne could not set saile, so extreme was the weather and so great the
frost."

The first allusion to the salvation of Captain Smith by Pocahontas
occurs in a letter or "little booke" which he wrote to Queen Anne in
1616, about the time of the arrival in England of the Indian Princess,
who was then called the Lady Rebecca, and was wife of John Rolfe, by
whom she had a son, who accompanied them. Pocahontas had by this
time become a person of some importance. Her friendship had been of
substantial service to the colony. Smith had acknowledged this in
his "True Relation," where he referred to her as the "nonpareil" of
Virginia. He was kind-hearted and naturally magnanimous, and would take
some pains to do the Indian convert a favor, even to the invention of an
incident that would make her attractive. To be sure, he was vain as well
as inventive, and here was an opportunity to attract the attention of
his sovereign and increase his own importance by connecting his name
with hers in a romantic manner. Still, we believe that the main motive
that dictated th