Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 1.djvu/47



Wingfield, Edward Maria, first president of the council of Virginia, of "Stoneley Priorye" in Huntingdonshire, was born about 1560, of a very distinguished family and was a soldier in Ireland and the Netherlands. He was active in procuring the charter of 1606, and his name is one of the first of the incorporators, which appear in that paper. He was appointed by the Council in England one of the local Council in Virginia and on May 14, 1607, he was elected at Jamestown by this body their first president. His experience was unfortunate. The colony was at once assailed by the Indians, and the president was among the foremost in repelling the attacks, "having an arrow shot clean through his beard." Then followed a pestilential sickness which prostrated everybody in the fort. Added to this the constitution of the Council under the charter offered a premium to wranglings and dissensions, for a mere majority controlled everything and could remove the president or any of the members. Wingfield was blamed by the others for what could not be prevented, by any president, and the most trivial objections were made against him to justify his deposition from the presidency. It was charged that he was a Catholic, because he did not bring a Bible with him, that he monopolized the liquors and other provisions, etc., all at which Wingfield vigorously denies in his statement, and shows that he made many sacrifices out of his own private stores for the good of the colony. He was, nevertheless, removed both from the Council and his office as president. September 10, 1607. He was kept a prisoner on shipboard till Newport's arrival in January. 1608, and April 10, 1608, he returned with Newport to England. He afterwards wrote an account of his stay in Virginia, which was discovered and published not many years ago, and it gives us a very different idea of the man from that so long current on the authority of John Smith, who was his bitter personal enemy, lie never returned to Virginia.

Ratcliffe, John, alias Sicklemore, second president of the local council at Jamestown, had seen service as a seaman before coming to Virginia. He was also, it is believed, a soldier in the Low Countries, and is supposed to have been the Captain Ratcliffe who was taken prisoner with Sir Henry Cary and Captain Pigott at Mulheim in October, 1605. He commanded the Discovery, the smallest of the three ships that brought the emigrants to Jamestown. When the names of the councillors were read, April 26, 1607, Ratcliffe's name was one of them. On the deposition of Wingfield. Ratcliffe became president, but the summer of 1608 proving as unhealthy as that of 1607, Ratcliffe suffered an experience similar to Wingfield's, was removed from the government in July, 1608, and succeeded by Mathew Scrivener. One subject of complaint against him was that he enlisted the men in building a governor's house. When Captain Newport sailed from Virginia, December, 1608, Captain Ratcliffe accompanied him. Owing to his complaints and Wingfield's, a new charter was obtained by the London Company, and Ratcliffe commanded the
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