thus depleted, would have succeeded in governing the colony in peace, but the settlers were given no respite from their wrangling and disputes. In September, Ratcliffe, Smith and Martin entered into an agreement to depose President Wingfield and to oust him from the Council. Before they proceeded against him, however, they pledged each other that the expulsions should then stop, and that no one of the three should be attacked by the other two.
The Councillors then appeared before Wingfield's tent with a warrant, "subscribed under their handes, to depose the President; sayeing they thought him very unworthy to be eyther President or of the Councell, and therefore discharged him of both".[19] They accused him of misappropriating funds, of improper division of the public stores, of being an atheist, of plotting to desert Virginia in the pinnace left at Jamestown by Captain Newport, of combining with the Spaniards for the destruction of the colony. Wingfield, when he returned to England, made a vigorous defense of his conduct, but it is now impossible to determine whether or not he was justly accused. After his expulsion from office, he was summoned before the court by the remnant of the Council to answer these numerous charges. It might have gone hard with him, had he not demanded a hearing before the King. As his enemies feared to deny him this privilege, they closed the court, and committed him to prison on board the pinnace, where he was kept until means were at hand to send him to England.[20]
The removal of the President did not bring peace to the colony. If we may believe the testimony of Wingfield, the triumvirate that now held sway ruled the settlers with a harsh and odious tyranny. "Wear," he says, "this whipping, lawing, beating, and hanging, in Virginia, known in England, I fear it would drive many well affected myndes from this honourable action."[21] One day Ratcliffe, who had been chosen to succeed Wingfield, became embroiled with James Read, the smith. Read forgot the respect due his superior, and struck the new President. So heinous a crime was this affront to the dignity of the chief officer of the infant colony, that the smith was brought to trial, convicted and sentenced to be hanged. But he saved his life, upon the very eve of his execution, by revealing to Ratcliffe a plot against the government, headed, he declared, by Captain Kendall.[22] Immediately Kendall, who had long been an object of suspicion, was tried for mutiny, found guilty and executed.[23]
In December, 1607, when the colony was suffering severely for the want of food, Captain Smith led an expedition into the territory of the Chickahominies in quest of corn.[24] During his absence the President, despite the protests of Martin, admitted Captain Gabriel Archer to the Council.[25] Archer, who seems to have been a bitter enemy of Smith, had no sooner attained this place of power, than he set to work to ruin the adventurous captain. "Being settled in his authority", he "sought to call Master Smythes lief in question, and … indicted him upon a Chapter in Leviticus for the death" of two men under his charge, that had been murdered by the Indians. He was to have had his trial upon the very day of his return from his thrilling adventures with the savages. His conviction and immediate execution would doubtless have resulted, had not the proceedings against him been interrupted by the arrival of the First Supply from England.[26] Captain Newport, whose influence seems always to have been exerted in favor of moderation and harmony, persuaded the Council to drop the charges against Smith, to release him from restraint, and to restore him to his seat in the Council.
Of extraordinary interest is the assertion of Wingfield that the arrival of the fleet "prevented a Parliament, which ye newe Counsailour (Archer) intended thear to summon".[27] It is not surprising that the settlers, disgusted as they were with the violence and harshness of their rulers, should have wished to share in the government. But we cannot but wonder at their boldness in attempting to set aside the constitution given them by the King and the Company. Had they succeeded in establishing direct government by the people, it could not be supposed that James would have permitted it to continue. But the attempt is very significant, as indicating that they were desirous, even at this early date, of having a voice in the management of affairs.
Archer and the unfortunate Wingfield sailed with the fleet when Captain Newport returned to England, and a few months later Martin followed them.[28] Since, with the First Supply had come a new Councillor, Matthew Scrivener, the governing body once more numbered three.
During the summer of 1608 Smith was frequently away, chasing the phantom of the passage to the South Sea, but this did not prevent the usual quarrels. If we may believe the account in Smith's history, Ratcliffe was deposed from the Presidency because of "pride and unreasonable needlesse cruelty" and for wasting the public stores.[29] It is probable that for some weeks Scrivener conducted the government, while Ratcliffe was kept a prisoner.[30] In September, Captain Smith, returning from a voyage in the Chesapeake Bay, "received the letters patents, and took upon him the place of president".[31]
Smith was now supreme in the government, for the Council was reduced to two, and his casting vote made his will superior to that of Scrivener. But he was not long to enjoy this power. In October, 1608, Captain Newport, arriving with the Second Supply, brought with him two "antient souldiers and valient gentlemen"—Richard Waldo and Peter Wynne—both bearing commissions as Councillors.[32] Soon afterward Ratcliffe was restored to his seat. The Council, thus recruited, resumed its control over the colony, "so that although Smith was President yet the Council had the authority, and ruled it as they listed".[33]
Two months later, when Newport sailed again, Ratcliffe returned to England. Smith wrote the English Council, "Captaine Ratcliffe is … a poore counterfeited Imposture. I have sent you him home, least the company should cut his throat."[34] The next spring Waldo and Scrivener, with nine others, were caught in a small boat upon the James by a violent gale, and were drowned.[35] As Captain Wynne soon succumbed to the sickness, Smith became the sole surviving Councillor.[36] During the summer of 1609 the colony was governed, not, as the King and Company had designed, by a Council, but by the will of this one man.
In the meanwhile the London Company was becoming aware that a mistake had been made in entrusting the government of the colony to a body of Councillors. The reports of Wingfield, Archer, Newport and Ratcliffe made it evident that the lack of harmony in the Council had been a serious hindrance to the success of the enterprise.[37] Feeling, therefore, that this "error in the equality of the governors … had a little shaken so tender a body", the managers held an especial meeting to effect a change.[38] A new charter was drawn up by Sir Edwin Sandys, approved by the Company and assented to by the King.
In this document James relinquished into the hands of the Company not only the direct management of the colony, but the power of drawing up a new and more satisfactory system of government. Acting under this authority, Sandys and his associates abolished the Council and entrusted the entire control of the colony to an all-powerful Governor. The disorder that had so impeded the success of the enterprise was to be crushed under the iron hand of a despot. Doubtless Sandys would have attempted to establish representative government at once in Virginia, had conditions favored so radical a change. But the colony was too young and feeble, and James could hardly be expected to give his consent. Yet the many liberal members of the Company were deeply interested in Virginia and were determined, should a favorable opportunity occur, to establish there an Assembly similar in character to the English Parliament.
The granting of the new charter aroused extraordinary interest in the fortunes of the colony throughout England and stimulated the Company to renewed efforts.[39] Thousands of pounds were contributed to defray the expenses of another expedition, and hundreds of persons responded to the appeals for settlers. The first Governor was a man of ability and distinction—Thomas Lord De la Warr. Sir Thomas Gates was made Lieutenant-Governor, George Summers, Admiral, and Captain Newport, Vice-Admiral.[40] De la Warr found it impossible to leave at once to assume control of his government, but the other officers, with nine vessels and no less than five hundred colonists, sailed in June, 1609.[41] Unfortunately, in crossing the Gulf of Bahama, the fleet encountered a terrific storm, which scattered the vessels in all directions. When the tempest abated, several of the ships reunited and continued on their way to Jamestown, but the Sea Adventure, which carried Gates, Summers and Newport, was wrecked upon an island in the Bermudas.[42] As a result of this misfortune none of the leaders
