1828

Darby, William. Lectures on the Discovery of America and Colonization of North America by the English. Baltimore, 1828. 173-94. Darby, a geographer and surveyor who worked fixing the boundary with Canada, tells the story of the "saving angel," the "guardian angel," with extensive quotation from Burk but ends with a long, melancholy personal response. He must "record the cold ingratitude of the man, whose life she contributed so much to prolong. Two hundred and eleven years have now rolled away since Pocahontas ceased to live in this world of pain and sorrow. Two centuries have consecrated her spotless name to well deserved immortality; and the same terrible lapse of time, has affixed upon the name of Smith an indelible and the only blemish that tarnishes its lustre; the black and shameful indifference to the finer feelings, of one of the purest hearts that ever warmed a human breast." Darby recalls in fancy dropping a tear over reading about Pocahontas's death: "I saw her unspotted soul, departing to the regions of peace and everlasting bliss . . . before the occurrence of that murderous warfare [the 1622 events], in which all that was dear to her, was involved in deadly strife; and in which, her brothers, kindred and countrymen, fell before the men whose lives she humanely saved."