As Smith lay waiting the fatal stroke, she caught him in her arms and interposed herself between him and the club. Her intercession prevailed, and Smith was set free.

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Five years later, an honest and discreet " young Englishman, called John Rolfe, loved this young Indian girl.

He had

one of

a sore mental struggle about uniting himself with " barbarous breeding and of a cursed race." But love triumphed. He labored for her conversion, and had the happiness of seeing her baptized in the little church of Jamestown. Then he married her.

When Smith returned from captivity the colony was on the verge of extinction. Only thirty-eight persons were left, and they were preparing to depart. With Smith, hope returned to the despairing settlers. They resumed their work, confident in the resources of their chief. Fresh arrivals from England cheered them. The character of these reinforcements had not as yet improved. "Vagabond gentlemen" formed still a large majority of the settlers, many of them, we are told, "packed off to escape worse destinies at home." The colony, thus composed, had already gained a very bad reputation; so bad that some, rather than be sent there, "chose to be hanged, and were." Over these most undesirable subjects Smith ruled with an authority which no man dared or desired to question. But he was severely injured by an accidental explosion of gunpowder. Surgical aid was not in the colony. Smith required to go to England, and once more ruin settled down upon Virginia. In six months the five hundred men whom Smith had left dwindled to sixty. These were already embarked and departing, when they were met by Lord Delaware, the new governor. Once more the colony was saved. Years of quiet growth succeeded. Emigrants- not largely now of the dissolute sort - flowed steadily in. Bad people bore rule in England during most of the seventeenth century, and they sold the good people to be slaves in Virginia. The

1688.

The Story of Virginia.

75

victims of the brutal Judge Jeffreys - the Scotch Covenanters taken at Bothwell Bridge- were shipped off to this profitable market. In 1688 the population of Virginia had increased to fifty thousand. The little capital grew. Other little towns established themselves. Deep in the unfathomed wilderness rose the huts of adventurous settlers, in secluded nooks, by the banks of nameless Virginian streams. A semblance of roads connected the youthful communities. The Indians were relentlessly suppressed. The Virginians bought no land. They took what they required, slaying or expelling the former occupants. Perhaps there were faults on both sides. Once the Indians planned a massacre so cunningly that over three hundred Englishmen perished before the bloody hand of the savages could be stayed.

The early explorers of Virginia found tobacco in extensive use among the Indians. It was the chief medicine of the savages. Its virtues otherwise unaccountable were supposed to proceed from a spiritual presence whose home was in the plant. Tobacco was quickly introduced into England. It rose rapidly into favor. Men who had heretofore smoked hemp eagerly sought tobacco. King James wrote vehemently against it. He issued a proclamation against trading in an article which was corrupting to mind and body. He taxed it heavily when he could not exclude it. The Pope excommunicated all who smoked in churches. But, in defiance of law and reason, the demand for tobacco continued to increase.

The Virginians found their most profitable occupation in supplying this demand. So eager were they that tobacco was grown in the squares and streets of Jamestown. In the absence of money, tobacco became the Virginian currency. Accounts were kept in tobacco. The salaries of members of Assembly, the stipends of clergymen, were paid in tobacco. Offences were punished by fines expressed in tobacco. Ab

sence from church cost the delinquent fifty pounds; refusing to have his child baptized, two thousand pounds; entertaining a Quaker, five thousand pounds. When the stock of tobacco was unduly large, the currency was debased, and much inconvenience resulted. The Virginians corrected this evil in their monetary system by compelling every planter to burn a certain proportion of his stock.

Within a few years of the settlement the Virginians had a written Constitution, according to which they were ruled. They had a parliament chosen by the burghs, and a governor sent them from England. The Episcopal Church was established among them, and the colony divided into parishes. A college was erected for the use, not only of the English, but also of the most promising young Indians. In this colony the first white child was born. She was baptized under the name of Virginia Dare.

THE STORY OF LADY POCAHONTAS.

Pocahontas was baptized under the name of Rebecca. After her marriage with John Rolfe she went with her husband to England, where, being a chief's daughter, she was known as Lady Pocahontas. She was eighteen years old at her baptism, was very graceful and beautiful, and had learned much refinement from her intercourse with English society.

Her admiration for Captain John Smith seems to have been her ruling passion as long as that brave man remained in the colony. He treated her with the kindness of a father, he delighted in making her little presents that were surprises, and his courage made him appear to her as something more than human.

The Indians again and again sought the life of Smith. The brother of Powhatan once surrounded him with a body of