Historie" is exactly like the original we have no means of knowing.
We have no more confidence in Smith's memory than we have in his
dates. The letter is as follows:

"To the most high and vertuous Princesse Queene Anne of Great
Brittaine.

"Most ADMIRED QUEENE.

"The love I beare my God, my King and Countrie hath so oft emboldened
me in the worst of extreme dangers, that now honestie doth constraine
mee presume thus farre beyond my selfe, to present your Majestie this
short discourse: if ingratitude be a deadly poyson to all honest
vertues, I must be guiltie of that crime if I should omit any meanes
to bee thankful. So it is.

"That some ten yeeres agoe being in Virginia, and taken prisoner by
the power of Powhaten, their chiefe King, I received from this great
Salvage exceeding great courtesie, especially from his sonne
Nantaquaus, the most manliest, comeliest, boldest spirit, I ever saw
in a Salvage and his sister Pocahontas, the Kings most deare and
well-beloved daughter, being but a childe of twelve or thirteen yeeres
of age, whose compassionate pitifull heart, of desperate estate, gave
me much cause to respect her: I being the first Christian this proud
King and his grim attendants ever saw, and thus enthralled in their
barbarous power, I cannot say I felt the least occasion of want that
was in the power of those my mortall foes to prevent notwithstanding
al their threats. After some six weeks fatting amongst those Salvage
Courtiers, at the minute of my execution, she hazarded the beating out
of her owne braines to save mine, and not onely that, but so prevailed