Note 62 — Chapter III

Of the really critical attacks upon the story of Pocahontas, the most important are those of Charles Deane, in his Notes on Wingfield's Discourse of Virginia, Boston, 1859, and Henry Adams, in the North American Review, vol. civ. Their arguments have been ably answered by W. W. Henry, in Proceedings of Virginia Historical Society, 1882, and Charles Poindexter, in his Captain John Smith and his Critics, Richmond, 1893. There are two writers of valuable books who seldom allude to Smith without sneers and words of abuse,—Alexander Brown, of Virginia, and Edward Duffield Neill, of Minnesota; they seem to resent, as a personal grievance, the fact that the gallant captain ever existed. On the other hand, no one loves him better than the learned editor of his books, who has studied them with microscopic thoroughness, Edward Arber. My own defence of Smith, when set forth in a lecture at University College, London, 1879, was warmly approved by my friend, the late Henry Stevens.