ory we must take up the account of Captain Argall and of
Ralph Hamor, Jr., secretary of the colony under Governor Dale.

Captain Argall, who seems to have been as bold as he was unscrupulous
in the execution of any plan intrusted to him, arrived in Virginia
in September, 1612, and early in the spring of 1613 he was sent on an
expedition up the Patowomek to trade for corn and to effect a capture
that would bring Powhatan to terms. The Emperor, from being a friend,
had become the most implacable enemy of the English. Captain Argall
says: "I was told by certain Indians, my friends, that the great
Powhatan's daughter Pokahuntis was with the great King Potowomek,
whither I presently repaired, resolved to possess myself of her by any
stratagem that I could use, for the ransoming of so many Englishmen as
were prisoners with Powhatan, as also to get such armes and tooles as
he and other Indians had got by murther and stealing some others of our
nation, with some quantity of corn for the colonies relief."

By the aid of Japazeus, King of Pasptancy, an old acquaintance and
friend of Argall's, and the connivance of the King of Potowomek,
Pocahontas was enticed on board Argall's ship and secured. Word was sent
to Powhatan of the capture and the terms on which his daughter would be
released; namely, the return of the white men he held in slavery, the
tools and arms he had gotten and stolen, and a great quantity of corn.
Powhatan, "much grieved," replied that if Argall would use his daughter
well, and bring the ship into his river and release her, he would accede
to all his demands. Therefore, on the 13th of April, Argall repaired to
Governor Gates at Jamestown, and delivered his prisoner, and a few days
after the King sent home some of the white captives, three pieces, one
broad-axe, a long whip-saw, and a canoe of corn. Pocahontas, however,
was kept at Jamestown.

Why Pocahontas had left Werowocomoco and gone to stay with Patowomek
we can only conjecture. It is possible that Powhatan suspected her
friendliness to the whites, and was weary of her importunity, and it may
be that she wanted to escape the sight of continual fighting, ambushes,
and murders. More likely she was only making a common friendly visit,
though Hamor says she went to trade at an Indian fair.

The story of her capture is enlarged and more minutely related by Ralph
Hamor, Jr., who was one of the colony shipwrecked on the Bermudas in
1609, and returned to Engla