a loving princess, and her attendant, in love with the
British captain's servant; a traitor in the English fort; a brave Indian
warrior, himself entertaining an unhappy passion for Pocahontas; a
medicine-man and priest of the Indians (very well played by Palmer),
capable of every treason, stratagem, and crime, and bent upon the
torture and death of the English prisoner;--these, with the accidents
of the wilderness, the war-dances and cries (which Gumbo had learned to
mimic very accurately from the red people at home), and the arrival
of the English fleet, with allusions to the late glorious victories in
Canada, and the determination of Britons ever to rule and conquer in
America, some of us not unnaturally thought might contribute to the
success of our tragedy.

But I have mentioned the ill omens which preceded the day: the
difficulties which a peevish, and jealous, and timid management threw in
the way of the piece, and the violent prejudice which was felt against
it in certain high quarters. What wonder then, I ask, that Pocahontas
should have turned out not to be a victory? I laugh to scorn the
malignity of the critics who found fault with the performance. Pretty
critics, forsooth, who said that Carpezan was a masterpiece, whilst
a far superior and more elaborate work received only their sneers! I
insist on it that Hagan acted his part so admirably that a certain actor
and manager of the theatre might well be jealous of him; and that, but
for the cabal made outside, the piece would have succeeded. The order
had been given that the play should not succeed; so at least Sampson
declared to me. "The house swarmed with Macs, by George, and they should
have the galleries washed with brimstone," the honest fellow swore,
and always vowed that Mr. Garrick himself would not have had the piece
succeed for the world; and was never in such a rage as during that grand
scene in the second act, where Smith (poor Hagan) being bound to the
stake, Pocahontas comes and saves him, and when the whole house was
thrilling with applause and sympathy.

Anybody who has curiosity sufficient, may refer to the published tragedy
(in the octavo form, or in the subsequent splendid quarto edition of my
Collected Works, and Poems Original and Translated), and say whether the
scene is without merit, whether the verses are not elegant, the language
rich and noble? One of the causes of the failure was my actual fidelity
to history. I had copied myself a