Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/283

 have contributed liberally to its support. Ratcliffe, in his letter to Salisbury, sent to England at this time, recommended that provisions for one year should be forwarded to Virginia, but it had now become difficult to secure the means for the purchase of supplies. The managers of the Company nevertheless were not to be daunted by the calamities of the expedition under Gates, upon which so many hopes had been founded; barely a fortnight after the vessels that had gone out in this expedition reached England, they issued the True and Sincere Declaration, in which a powerful appeal was made to every instinct of the English people, religious, political, and material, to induce them to contribute to the advancement of the enterprise, in spite of the repeated disasters that had over taken it. This appeal was followed up doubtless by still more active and direct measures for securing the necessary funds. It proved highly effective. In April, 1610, Delaware sailed from England to Virginia with a fleet of three vessels, laden with cargoes purchased in a measure by his own contributions to the treasury of the Company. The additional money required had been adventured by other shareholders. As soon as Delaware had reestablished the Colony at Jamestown, he ordered Gates to proceed to England to obtain the articles for which provision had at the time of his own departure from the mother country been made, at least in part. It was during this visit that Gates was summoned before the Council in London and questioned as to the advisability of abandoning the enterprise, the Council being very much discouraged by his failure to bring with him, on his return, commodities, by