Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 1.djvu/52

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VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

at Jamestown without their governor or their charter, Percy was persuaded to accept the presidency on the expiration of Smith's term of office. Probably no ability as a leader could have accomplished anything, and Percy was soon incapacitated by illness. The period of his administration is known as the starving time. 'Jhe new settlers had landed sick and without adequate supplies, and they soon con- sumed the provisions that the old settlers had at Jamestown. The consequence was that they nearly all died, and there were only sixty settlers remaining, when the governor under the new commission. Sir Thomas Gates arrived from Bermuda where he had been wrecked and compelled to remain for forty weeks. When Lord Delaware left Virginia in March, 1611, Percy was appointed deputy governor, which shows the confidence enter- tained in him, despite his unfortunate experi- ences. He was a brave soldier, and in punish- ment for treachery attacked and destroyed the towns of the Paspaheghs and of the Appomat- tox people. He left Virginia, April 22, 1612, and reached England in the following summer. He never returned to Virginia, but about 1625, when war was declared against Spain, he went again to the Netherlands where as captain of a company he distinguished himself, losing a finger in battle. He died unmarried in 1632. He kept a journal of the original Virginia voyage, an abridgement of which was pub- lished for the first time in 1625 by Samuel Purchas. Mutilated as it was, it presents the fullest account we have of the voyage and of the first events of the settlement to Newport's departure June 12, 1607. After the appear- ance of Smith's "General Historic" with his very prejudiced account of the afifairs during the time of Percy's government, Captain Percy wrote "A Trewe Relacyon" of the occurrences

in Virginia from the time of the shipwreck of Sir Thomas Gates in 1609 until his ow^n departure from the country in 1612. In a letter to his brother Henry, Earl of Northum- berland, he declared that his account was in- ducer! by the many untruths formerly pub- lished. This interesting narrative still remains in manuscript owing to the narrow conceptions of its present possessor, although he has suf- fered some few extracts to be published by Dr. E. D. Neill and Mr. G. C. Eggleston.

Gates, Sir Thomas, appointed the first and absolute governor of Mrginia under the second charter to the Virginia Company of London, is said to have been born at Colyford, in Coly- ton parish, Devonshire ; was a lieutenant of Captain Christopher Carleill's own company in the celebrated Drake-Sidney voyage to America 1585-86; published the Brigges Crof- tes account of this voyage in 1589, which he dedicated to the Earl of Essex ; served gal- lantly at the capture of Cadiz and was knighted by Essex in June, 1596. He also served in the island voyage August-October, 1597; entered Gray's Inn March 14, 1598. About 1603 he enlisted in the service of the Netherlands, but when King James granted the first charter to the Virginia Company of London, he "had the honor to all posterity" of being first named in that celebrated document. He was in the gar- rison at Oudwater in South Holland with Dale in November, 1606; and in 1608 he received leave of absence to go to Virginia. The Vir- ginia Company selected him as first governor undier the new charter (1609), and in June he took passage with about 500 settlers. This expedition is known as the "Third Supply," and the emigration was the largest that ever left England up to that time. But the voyage over was very unfortunate, for an epidemic