Powhatan and those allied to him as members of a fifth kingdom, with
certain privileges. Cunega, the Spanish ambassador at London, on
September 22, 1612, writes: "Although some suppose the plantation to
decrease, he is credibly informed that there is a determination to
marry some of the people that go over to Virginia; forty or fifty are
already so married, and English women intermingle and are received
kindly by the natives. A zealous minister hath been wounded for
reprehending it."

Mr. John Rolfe was a man of industry, and apparently devoted to the
welfare of the colony. He probably brought with him in 1610 his
wife, who gave birth to his daughter Bermuda, born on the Somers
Islands at the time of the shipwreck. We find no notice of her
death. Hamor gives him the distinction of being the first in the
colony to try, in 1612, the planting and raising of tobacco. "No man
[he adds] hath labored to his power, by good example there and worthy
encouragement into England by his letters, than he hath done, witness
his marriage with Powhatan's daughter, one of rude education, manners
barbarous and cursed generation, meerely for the good and honor of
the plantation: and least any man should conceive that some sinister
respects allured him hereunto, I have made bold, contrary to his
knowledge, in the end of my treatise to insert the true coppie of his
letter written to Sir Thomas Dale."

The letter is a long, labored, and curious document, and comes nearer
to a theological treatise than any love-letter we have on record. It
reeks with unction. Why Rolfe did not speak to Dale, whom he saw
every day, instead of inflicting upon him this painful document, in
which the flutterings of a too susceptible widower's heart are hidden
under a great resolve of self-sacrifice, is not plain.