authorities (Powell? and Todkill?) represent these two savages as
"the most exact villaines in the country".[2] They were made to
labour in fetters, then were set at liberty, but "little desired
it".[3] Some "souldiers" ran away to the liberated Kemps, who
brought them back to Smith.[4] Why Kemps and his friend are called
"two of the most exact villains in the country" does not appear.
Kemps died "of the surveye" (scurvey, probably) at Jamestown, in
1610-11. He was much made of by Lord De la Warr, "could speak a
pretty deal of our English, and came orderly to church every day to
prayers". He gave Strachey the names of Powhattan's wives, and
told him, truly or not, that Pocahontas was married, about 1610, to
an Indian named Kocoum.[5] I offer the guess that Kemps and
Machumps, who came and went from Pocahontas, and recited an Indian
prayer which Strachey neglected to copy out, may have been among
Strachey's authorities. I shall, of course, be told that Kemps
picked up Ahone at church. This did not strike Strachey as being
the fact; he had no opinion of the creed in which Ahone was a
factor, "the misery and thraldome under which Sathan has bound
these wretched miscreants". According to Strachey, the priests,
far from borrowing any part of our faith, "feare and tremble lest
the knowledge of God, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ be taught in
these parts".


[1] Arber, cxvii. Strachey mentions that (before his arrival in
Virginia) Pocahontas turned cart-wheels, naked, in Jamestown, being
then under twelve, and not yet wearing the apron. Smith says she
was ten in 1608, but does not mention the cart-wheels. Later, he
found it convenient to put her age at twelve or thirteen in 1608.
Most American scholars, such as Mr. Adams, entirely distrust the