The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1882-04-27

81 savs had no authority for saying that
smiths claims for services rendered were
NOT allowed by the Virginia Company.
said Captain Smith was my authority.
think Il apparent that Smith was tried Tor
/. some misdemeanorsv on bis return from
Virginia the last OF 1909, and dismissed
from the service Of the company. ID In
June, 1921, Smith presented petition TO
the company for reward for services al
legged 10 have been rendered in lG06|9.
The petition was referred TO "The Com
mittee for rewarding OF men upon mer-
rits.v (2 On the 4th of February, 1922,
smith says "that bavinge spent upon Viz
GINA verie great matter, he did by Gods
bIessinge hope to receave this yeare
good quantity of tobacco" DC. lie
may have based this hope on this petition
and he may not. Doubtless he hoped 10
get tobacco, or something else, when ne
presented his petition In 1871, ana the
speech "goes far to prove" that ne was
still hopeful, for some cause, in l622; Dut
I can see no evidence in II that his claim
had been allowed, or that the committee
had taken any notice OF IL; and as neither
IN Stith or (4) Neill could find any farther
mention of il in the copies OF the compa-
py's records, which are certified as (5) cor
rect and complete Save in few items men
tioned), il seems evident the petition must
have persisted in the committee. But
whatever Smith based his hopes on
they were groundless, he says, and
repeats to the last that he received
nothing. The company was dissolved In
June, 1924, three years after the petition
was presented, and fifteen years after the
services Gas he alledgeth" were rendered.
/ II seems to me the company had ample
time to do something for Smith IL they
thought be deserved anything. From
about 1916 there were three WAYS OF ac-
curing land i'm Virginia-by adventure OF
the person, by adventure Of the purse, and
by grant Of merit When any one had
conferred benefit or done service to the
company or colony it was requited by
grant Of land, which could not exceed two
thousand acres. Yet Smith says he never
received Zone foot Of land nor ever any
| content or satisfaction at ALL" [Stith, PIP.
lS9-14O, Smith, Vol. H., p. 1927
made no effort to impeach the yeraclty
OF Smiths companions because they wrote
bad poetry. So much OF the poetry Is bad
that, in justice to his companions, think
some of it must have been only catering
to his vanity.
do not think Mr.. Henry's paper will do
"full justice TO Lord Delaware unless 1t
asserts that he was the founder OF the first
permanent English colony on the North
American continent. i do not think that
Captain Smith laid the foundation for a
colony i'm Virginia. He does not seem
himself to lay any more claim TO having
founded Virginia than he did to New Eng
land. He calls them both "pigs OF his
sow; and, in fact, he seems to have been
under the impression that all the English
colonies in America were under his charge.
do not wish to be understood as making
any attack on the character OF Pocahontas.
/ have never seen it stated that she did
anything that was not correct according TO
the best of her knowledge and belief. She
seems TO have been a noted woman III hei
tribe and with the colonists. There is a
bare possibility that she may have descend
ed from Montezuma, the Emperor OF Mex
leo. Beverley says: "Opechancanough
was said to have been prince OF foreign
nation, and came TO Virginia great way
from the Southwest, and i'y their the In
diam account we suppose him to have come
from the Spanish Indians, somewhere near
Mexico, or the mines of st. Barrie" Smith
says Opechancanough was brother TO Pow
| natdn, WHICH DtNtIly uOupirJ hpnN'ci'
Hamor says Powhatan's father was driven
from the West Indies by the Spaniards.
Thus il seems Pocahontas was certainly OF
foreign extraction; but, however difficult
it may be to trace her ancestry, 1t Is certain
that from her descend many Of those illus
trious in the annals OF the Old Dominion.
Captain Smith is certainly entitled to our
regard las all the pioneer colonists are) for
several reasons; but, | think he was, espe-
cially in his latter years, great braggart
that he oyer-estimated himself and his SER
vices; that our historians have erred in
taking him at his own estimate; that he
did not found colony in America. and
that our historians have given him too
much credit that Justly belongs to Others.
ALEXANDER BROWN, Norwood, Va.
nJ(4) Virginia Company of London. Neili-
lei Virginia Company of London. Neiil-p
Isl Virginia Company of London. Nelll-Pre-
! ISl Stith's History of Virginia-p. 192.