member to have heard him say, he was there when his old and kind monitor, Patrick Henry, made one of his last addresses to the people, and when the celebrated John Randolph, of Roanoke, made almost his first appearance on the stage of public life. This was, I think, in the spring of 1799, when Mr. Henry, was a candidate to represent the county of Charlotte, in which he resided, in the General Assembly, and Mr. Randolph was out to represent the district of which that county formed a part, in the Congress of the United States. He was, of course, greatly pleased with both orators. Though he paid his special homage, as he told me, to the setting rather than to the rising sun. The former, indeed, still showed all the grandeur of his splendid orb; while the latter, we may suppose, just rising above the edge of the horizon, hardly appeared as yet in his proper shape, and only intimated his future brilliancy, by the fitful but prophetic glances of his beams."*

* I may add here, by the way, that in giving me his account of the affair, he exhibited a very amusing specimen of that peculiar humour which Dr. Speece has mentioned as one of his characteristic traits, in describing the effect produced by the two speakers upon a countryman present, in a most droll and diverting manner. The man, it seems, drank in all Mr. Henry's words with open mouth, as well as ears, and when the orator closed his address, stood still waiting for more last words from those wonderful lips; thinking, no doubt, (as he showed by his looks,) that such a talker was the only man in the world worth hearing. Accordingly, when Mr. Randolph, immediately afterwards, got up to make something like a reply to Mr. Henry, (though they were not rival candidates; but only of opposite politics,) Clodpole appeared to regard it as a great piece of presumption in any one, but especially such a beardless whipster, to attempt to speak after old Patrick, and was evidently most doggedly determined not to hear a word that he could say. By degrees, however, the clear silver tones, and spirit-stirring accents of the youthful orator began to produce their effect upon him in spite of himself, and, after listening to him for a little while, he turned around to another countryman at his elbow, and, with a most comical expression of face, "I tell you what," said he, "the young man is no bug-eater neither."

We must add here, that on reading our correspondent's account of this first speech of Mr. Randolph, (confirming that of Dr. Alexander,) we doubt whether the writer of the Memoir has not given it too high a praise in the somewhat cautious compliment which he pays it; and Mr. Randolph himself, we observe, does not appear to have thought much of this juvenile effort, when he says of it, in one of his letters recently published in Garland's Life of him: "My first attempt at public speaking was in opposition to Patrick Henry, at Charlotte March court, 1799." As to Mr. G.'s account of the affair, which is very different, we shall only say that it is not supported by any evidence that we have either heard or seen.

STRACHEY'S ACCOUNT OF POCAHONTAS.

Mr. Editor,-In a brief notice of Strachey's Virginia Britannia which appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger for April last, (written, I understand, by a pleasant friend of ours,) I find the following paragraph:

"We have also a circumstance mentioned in connection with the family of this great chief, (Powhatan,) which is certainly new to us, namely, that "young Pocahunta, (Pocahontas,) a daughter of his, using to our fort in tymes past, was married to a private captaine called Kokoum, some two years since." This was, of course, before the marriage of this interesting woman to Mr. Rolfe."

Now I own I was a little startled at reading this novel piece of intelligence; for though I am not exactly a monogamist, and have no objection of course to a young widow's marrying again, (after a reasonable time allowed for

mourning,) I confess I felt a little hurt to learn in this way, that my incomparable Indian maid, (as I have always thought her) had turned out to be one who had worn weeds. I was indeed naturally unwilling to believe it on the testimony of a stranger like Strachey, unsupported, and in fact virtually and almost expressly contradicted by all our other early chroniclers, and Captain Smith himself among them. Still I thought it but fair to suspend my opinion until I could see the book, and examine the point for myself. Now I have since seen the book, which I have before me at this time, and I am satisfied that our friend has not, in this instance, used all that attention and acumen which he knows so well how to exert in a case in court, (aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus, says Horace ;) but has simply mistaken the true meaning of the passage he quotes: as, with your leave, I propose to show.

Observe then, if you please, that the whole passage in Strachey which our writer quotes only in part, reads thus: "I say they," (Kemps and Machumps, two Indians,)" of ten reported to us that Powhatan had then lyving twenty sonnes and ten daughters, beside a young one by Winganuske, Machumps his sister, a great darling of the king's; and besides, young Pocahunta," (our Pocahontas,) a daughter of his using sometyme to our fort in tymes past, now married to a private captaine, called Kokoum, some two years since." (p. 54.)

Now I shall surprise our writer-and perhaps our reader too-by asserting at once what I shall prove presently, that the report of the marriage of young Pocahunta recorded in this last clause of the sentence which I have underscored, refers in fact to the first and only marriage of our heroine with Mr. Rolfe, in 1613, and not as our writer supposes to any prior one-the only mistake being in the name of the husband. And how do I make this out? Why

thus. On a close inspection of that part of the sentence which I have marked, it is plain that it is not to be taken as a part of Kemps and Machumps' report to Strachey, nor, as it might seem at first sight, as Strachey's own statement of a fact coming within his own knowledge while he was in Virginia, (in 1610 and 1611,) but only as a report which he bad heard at some subsequent time which he “now” records. And when did he write this "now?" for the answer to this question will furnish the key to open the true meaning of the sentence.

In answer to this question, then, I shall only say that the able and accomplished editor, Mr. Major, informs us in his Introduction, that Strachey after his return to England, in 1612, employed himself in preparing his work, that is, as we may say, in writing out his Notes on Virginia, in a manuscript of which he made two copies and shortly after lodged one of them, dedicated to Sir Francis Bacon, in the British Museum, and the other, dedicated to Sir Thomas Apsley, (father of the celebrated Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson,) afterwards appointed Lieutenant of the Tower, in the Ashmolean Collection of Manuscripts at Oxford; and though he cannot ascertain the exact time at which these copies were written, he argues very reasonably to prove that the last mentioned one of them which was the earliest, if they were not both of the same date, must have been written after 1612 and before 1616. Say, then, that Strachey began his work in 1613 or 1614, and allow him a year or two to write his book, which is little enough seeing that they did not write by steam in those days, and he was not writing for the press or for money, but for posterity, ("This shall be known to the generations to come," is his motto ;) and it will appear that he must have finished his copies, or the earliest of them, sometime in 1615. But if so, the "two years since" would just carry us back to

1613, the very year in which, according to all accounts, Pocahontas was actually married to Mr. Rolfe:—which is what I undertook to prove.

"But what then," our writer may ask, "are we to do with Capt. Kokoum? Can you turn him into master Rolfe, by any sleight of hand or pen?" Well, perhaps I could if I felt myself bound to do so; but in fact I have virtually done it already; for I have proved that Strachey's report refers to the marriage of our heroine with master Rolfe, and if Capt. Kokoum is not master Rolfe, he is nobody that we know of a mere man of straw-and the report itself was a thing of air, and nothing more,

But at any rate, if I cannot exactly turn Capt. Kokoum into master Rolfe, I think I can imagine at least how Strachey may have come to call master Rolfe Capt. Kokoumwhich will do as well. Suppose, then, what is likely enough, that he heard the report of the marriage in London, from some Indian come over from Virginia, (perhaps the said Machumps himself, who, he tells us, had been sometime in England before he saw him in Virginia, and. may have come over again,) it is not at all improbable that such an informant might call master Rolfe Capt. Kokoum, by trying awkwardly to accommodate his outlandish name to his own Indian mouth. Or it may have been a fancy name that he gave him, from some association or other that we have not learned. The Indians indeed were apt to indulge themselves in this way. Thus Strachey tells us that they called the English Tassantasses, for some reason best known to themselves, and, if so, why might they not call Rolfe Kokoum, or any thing else they liked? As for Captaine, it was manifestly only a title of honor-a nom de guerre-like the honorary Colonel which, by the courtesy of Virginia, we often confer upon any distinguished gentleman; though master Rolfe may have been a veritable