crease his own
importance or because Pocahontas was neglected, addressed a letter or
"little booke" to Queen Anne, the consort of King James. This letter is
found in Smith's "General Historie" ( 1624), where it is introduced
as having been sent to Queen Anne in 1616. Probably he sent her such a
letter. We find no mention of its receipt or of any acknowledgment of
it. Whether the "abstract" in the "General Historie" is exactly like
the original we have no means of knowing. We have no more confidence in
Smith's memory than we have in his dates. The letter is as follows:

"To the most high and vertuous Princesse Queene Anne of Great Brittaine.

"Most ADMIRED QUEENE.

"The love I beare my God, my King and Countrie hath so oft emboldened me
in the worst of extreme dangers, that now honestie doth constraine mee
presume thus farre beyond my selfe, to present your Majestie this short
discourse: if ingratitude be a deadly poyson to all honest vertues,
I must be guiltie of that crime if I should omit any meanes to bee
thankful. So it is.

"That some ten yeeres agoe being in Virginia, and taken prisoner by the
power of Powhaten, their chiefe King, I received from this great Salvage
exceeding great courtesie, especially from his sonne Nantaquaus, the
most manliest, comeliest, boldest spirit, I ever saw in a Salvage and
his sister Pocahontas, the Kings most deare and well-beloved daughter,
being but a childe of twelve or thirteen yeeres of age, whose
compassionate pitifull heart, of desperate estate, gave me much cause
to respect her: I being the first Christian this proud King and his grim
attendants ever saw, and thus enthralled in their barbarous power, I
cannot say I felt the least occasion of want that was in the power of
those my mortall foes to prevent notwithstanding al their threats. After
some six weeks fatting amongst those Salvage Courtiers, at the minute of
my execution, she hazarded the beating out of her owne braines to save
mine, and not onely that, but so prevailed with her father, that I was
safely conducted to Jamestowne, where I found about eight and thirty
miserable poore and sicke creatures, to keepe possession of all those
large territories of Virginia, such was the weaknesse of this poore
Commonwealth, as had the Salvages not fed us, we directly had starved.

"And this reliefe, most gracious Queene, was commonly brought us by
this Lady Pocahontas, notwithstanding all these passages when inconstant
Fortun