generation, meerely for the good and honor of
the plantation: and least any man should conceive that some sinister
respects allured him hereunto, I have made bold, contrary to his
knowledge, in the end of my treatise to insert the true coppie of his
letter written to Sir Thomas Dale."

The letter is a long, labored, and curious document, and comes nearer
to a theological treatise than any love-letter we have on record. It
reeks with unction. Why Rolfe did not speak to Dale, whom he saw
every day, instead of inflicting upon him this painful document, in
which the flutterings of a too susceptible widower's heart are hidden
under a great resolve of self-sacrifice, is not plain.

The letter protests in a tedious preamble that the writer is moved
entirely by the Spirit of God, and continues:

"Let therefore this my well advised protestation, which here I make
between God and my own conscience, be a sufficient witness, at the
dreadful day of judgment (when the secrets of all men's hearts shall
be opened) to condemne me herein, if my chiefest interest and purpose
be not to strive with all my power of body and mind, in the
undertaking of so weighty a matter, no way led (so far forth as man's
weakness may permit) with the unbridled desire of carnall affection;
but for the good of this plantation, for the honour of our countrie,
for the glory of God, for my owne salvation, and for the converting
to the true knowledge of God and Jesus Christ, an unbelieving
creature, namely Pokahuntas. To whom my heartie and best thoughts
are, and have a long time bin so entangled, and inthralled in so
intricate a laborinth, that I was even awearied to unwinde myself
thereout."

Master Rolfe goes on to describe the mighty war in his meditations on
this subject, in which he had set before his eyes the frailty of
mankind and his proneness to evil and wicked thoughts. He is aware
of God's displeasure against the sons of Levi and Israel for marrying
strange wives, and this has caused him to look about warily and with
good circumspection "into the grounds and principall agitations which
should thus provoke me to be in love with one, whose education hath
bin rude, her manners barbarous, her generation accursed, and so
discrepant in all nurtriture from myselfe, that oftentimes with feare
and trembling, I have ended my private controversie with this: surely
these are wicked instigations, fetched by him who seeketh and
delighteth in man's distruction