parts of the work will associate the knowledge of every thing essential respecting those things or persons. The second volume will comprehend the history of more than a century."

In the writer's occasional remarks there is a shrewdness and sagacity, accompanied, however, with an air which bespeaks a young man. The compact and coherent plan of Robertson must not be looked for in this work. The eloquent fragment of that author affords us a sample of a work, which it is in vain to hope will be speedily supplied. Mean while, the narrative of Mr. Burk will, if we may judge from this specimen, be a very valuable addition to our domestic literature.

One of the most memorable events in the early history of the colony, is the massacre of the English, in 1622. Mr. Burk's account of this event is as follows:

"Whilst the colony was thus rapidly advancing to eminence and wealth, she carried in her bosom, and about her, an enemy which was to blight her budding honours, and which brought near to ruin and desolation her growing establishment. Since the marriage of Pocahontas the natives had lived on terms of uninterrupted and apparently cordial amity with the English, which daily gained strength by mutual wants and necessities. Each had something beyond their wants which the other stood in need of and commerce, regulated by good faith, and a spirit of justice, gave facility to the exchange or barter of their superfluous productions. The consequence of this state of things was a complete security on the part of the English; a total disregard and disuse of military precautions and martial exercises. The time and the hands of labour were considered too valuable to be employed in an idle and holiday array of arms; and, in this situation, wholly intent on amassing wealth, and totally unprovided for defence, they were attacked by an enemy, whose resentment no time

nor good offices could disarm; whose preparations were silent as night; to whom the arts of native cunning had given a deep dissimulation, an exterior so specious, as might impose on suspicion itself.

"After the death of Powhatan, the empire descended, by order of succession, to his brother Opitchapan. But amongst a people where a daring and intrepid courage, and invincible patience under pain and suffering, were esteemed the principal virtues, but little regard is paid to the accidental merit of descent. An Indian chieftain must be the most renowned warrior in his tribe. Every Indian, whatever may be the form of his government, is the absolute master of his own actions. A nation which is always in arms, and acknowledges no other deity than the god of war, feels respect only for those qualities, which can secure to them victory, or conduct a surprise or retreat. Under such circumstances, and coming after a chief of such glory as Powhatan, the feeble and decrepid Opitchapan was little calculated to secure respect, or enforce obedience.

"The defects of the new emperor were aggravated, in the minds of the Indians, by a comparison with the accomplished Opechancanough, who, in the council and the field, was the most conspicuous warrior amongst the Powhatans; and who, as has been told above, during the life time of the late emperor, had procured, from the free tribe of the Chickahominies, the title of their king.

"Opechancanough possessed another powerful recommendation in the eyes of his countrymen: his ha tred of the English was rooted and deadly. Never for a moment did he forget the unjust invasion and insolent aggressions of those strangers; never did he forget his own personal wrongs and humiliation.

"Compelled, by the inferiority of his countrymen in the weapons and instruments of war, as by their cus toms, to employ stratagem instead

of force, he buried deep in his bosom all traces of the rage with which he was agitated.

"To the English, if any faith was due to appearances, his deportment was uniformly frank and unreserved: he was the equitable mediator in the several differences which arose between them and his countrymen.

"The intellectual superiority of the white men was the constant theme of his admiration. He appeared to consider them as the peculiar favourites of heaven, against whom resistance were at once impious and impracticable. But far different was his language and deportment in the presence of his countrymen.

"In the gloom and silence of the dark and impenetrable forest, or the inaccessible swamp, he gave utterance to the sorrows and indignation of his swelling bosom. He painted, with the strength and brilliancy of savage colouring, the tyranny, rapacity, and cruelty of the English; whilst he mournfully contrasted the unalloyed content and felicity of their former lives, with their present abject and degraded condition; subject, as they were, to the capricious controul and intolerable requisitions of those hard and unpitying task-masters.

"Independence is the first blessing of the savage state. Without it, all other advantages are light and valueless: bereft of this, in their estimation, even life itself is a barren and comfortless possession. It is not surprising, then, that Opechancanough, independent of his influence as a great werowance, or war captain, should, on such a subject, discover kindred feelings in the breasts of his countrymen. The war song and war whoop, breaking like thunder from the fierce and barbarous multitudes, mingling with the clatter of their shields, and enforced by the terrific gestures of the war dance, proclaimed to their leader their determination to die with him, or conquer.

"With equal address the experienced and wily savage proceeded to allay the storm which his invectives had conjured up in the breasts of the Indians. The English, although experience had proved them neither immortal nor invincible, he represented as formidable by their fire arms, and their superior knowledge in the art of war; and he in culcated, as the sole means of deliverance and revenge, secrecy and caution, until an occasion should offer, when, by surprise or ambush, the scattered establishments of their enemies might, at the same moment, be assaulted and swept away.

"Four years had nearly elapsed in maturing this formidable conspiracy; during which time, not a single Indian belonging to the thirty nations, which composed the empire of Powhatan, was found to violate his engagements, or betray his leader; not a word or hint was heedlessly or deliberately dropt to awaken jealousy or excite suspicion : when all at once a circumstance occurred, which was made the pretext, and which possibly accelerated the execution, of this project.

"There was, among the Indians, a warrior named Nemattanow, who, for those virtues in highest estimation amonst savages, as well as for the extravagance and eccentricity of his conduct, was peculiarly distinguished. He was possessed of uncommon bodily strength and activity, and of a courage in the highest degree daring and adventurous. Although engaged in a multitude of battles with Indians and English, in all of which he was conspicuous in the onset and the van; prodigal of life, and fearless of danger, he had invariably come off without a wound. A good fortune so singular, joined with a bravery so rash and impetuous, easily induced the belief among his countrymen that he was invulnerable and immortal; an opinion which his vanity found less inclination to discourage than support. It is difficult in any (more especially in the rude and savage) state to

bear a long and uninterrupted tide of good fortune with temper and moderation. Nemattanow, not content with his well-earned glory as a warrior, affected a gaudy peculiarity in his dress; ornamenting his person fantastically with feathers of different colours, on which account he was, amongst his countrymen and by the English, known by the name of Jack o' the Feather. This man, on several occasions, had committed depredations on the property of the English; but at length, having deliberately murdered an Englishman of the name of Morgan, he was seized by the servants of the deceased, and, attempting to escape, was shot by one of them through the body.

"It is said that Opechancanough envied the reputation of this savage, and was secretly pleased that he was no more. He affected grief and indignation, only to inflame the breasts of the Indians to fury and revenge.

"A singular story is related by all our historians of the last moments of Nemattanow: when he discovered that death was fast approaching, and that his dream of glory and immortality would shortly vanish, forgetting his pains, he appeared anxious only about his reputation amongst his countrymen, and with posterity. "It is curious to trace, in the mind of this rude and unlettered savage, the operation of the same principles which put in motion the poet, the historian, and the conque

ror.

With earnestness and anxiety he besought his enemies, with the solemnity of a last dying request, to conceal his grave, in the hope, that "this evidence and monument of his mortality might be kept from his countrymen."

"But, in spite of the profound dissimulation of Opechancanough, he had not passed entirely without suspicion, and, in some instances, even direct charges were brought against him, of a design to surprise and exterminate the colonists. But he found means to silence those alarms by the apparent frankness

and sincerity of his manners, and by an invariable and assiduous attention to their interest and conveni

ence.

"Induced by evidence so specious, sir G. Yeardley, who was then governor, supposed that the charges were altogether without foundation, and the short-lived caution and vigilance, induced by those suspicions, were again permitted to relapse into the lethargy of a deep and fatal security.

"Every thing being at length ripe for execution, the several nations of Indians were secretly drawn together, and stationed at the several points of attack, with a celerity and precision unparalleled in history. Although some of the detachments had to march from great distances, and through a continued forest, guided only by the stars and the dubious light of the moon, no instance of mistake or disorder took place. The Indian mode of march is by single files. They follow one after the other, in profound silence, treading as nearly as possible in the steps of each other, and adjusting the long grass and branches which they have displaced. This is done to conceal all traces of their route from their enemies, who are equally sagacious and quick-sighted.

"They halted at a short distance from the English, waiting without impatience for the signal, which was to be given by their fellows, who, under pretence of traffic, had this day, in considerable numbers, repaired to the plantations of the colonists.

"So perfect was the cunning and dissimulation of Opechancanough, that, on the morning of this fatal day, the straggling English, by his direction, were conducted in safety through the woods to their settlements, and presents of venison and wild fowl were sent, in his name, to the governor and counsellors, accompanied with expressions of regard, and assurances of friendship. "Sooner," said the wily chieftain, "shall the sky fall, than the peace shall be violated on my part."

"And so entirely were the English duped by those professions and appearances, that they freely lent the Indians their boats, with which they announced the concert, the signal, and the hour of attack to their countrymen on the other side of the river.

"The fatal hour having at length arrived, and the necessary dispositions having every where taken place, on a signal given, at mid-day, innumerable detachments, setting up the war whoop, burst from their concealments on the defenceless setlements of the English, massacring all they met, without distinction of age or sex; and, according to custom, mutilating and mangling, in a shocking manner, the dead bodies of their enemies.

"So unexpected and terrible was the onset, that scarcely any resistance was made. The English fell, scarcely knowing their enemies, and in many instances by their own weapons. In one hour three hundred and forty-seven men, women, and children, including six of the council, and several others of distinction, fell without a struggle by the hands of the Indians. Chance alone saved the colony from utter extirpation.

"A converted Indian, named Chanco, lived with Richard Pace, loved by his master on account of his good qualities, with an affection at once christian and parental. The night preceding the massacre, the brother of Chanco slept with him; and, after a strict injunction of secrecy, having revealed to him the intended plot, he commanded him, in the name of Opechancanough, to murder his master. The grateful Indian, shocked at the atrocity of the proposal, after his brother's departure, flew to Pace, and disclosed to him the information he had received. There was no time to be lost. Before day, a dispatch was forwarded to the governor, at James Town; which, with the adjacent settlements, were thus preserved from the ruin which hung over them.

"In several plantations also, where the information of Chanco

was unknown, the Indians were repulsed by the intrepidity of the proprietors."

The following sketch of the natives will exemplify Mr. Burk's mode of political and moral speculation:

"Notwithstanding the general charge of barbarism and treachery against the Indians of Virginia, and of cruelty and tyranny against Powhatan, with which the early historians abound, not a single fact is brought in support of this accusation; and, in several instances, with an inconsistency, for which it is difficult to account, the same writers speak with admiration of the exact order which prevailed among all the tribes of which this empire was composed; and confess, at the same time, that this order and security arose from the inviolable observance of customs, which time had consecrated as law, and which were equally binding on the king and the people.

"Stith and Smith relate, that Powhatan made his own hatchets, and the other instruments of tillage and war; and the same writers assert, that Opechancanough and Opitchapan had no power to rid themselves of those Indians who had incurred their dislike, but by privately soliciting the English to do them this service. Another striking example is given by those writers of the absolute independence of the Indians, in their contempt of what is called the order of succession, by their neglect of Opitchapan, and their preference of the superior virtues of Opechancanough.

"It appears farther, that the werowances, or war chiefs, considered themselves no farther bound by the directions of the emperor, than as they were in themselves reasonable; and that, on several occasions, they pointedly, as in the affair of the massacre, refused obedience to those directions.

"It is a real misfortune that so little attention should have been paid, by the first Virginia colonists, to the character, laws, and language