Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 1.djvu/53

 COLONIAL PRESIDENTS AND GOVERNORS

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broke out among the passengers and there followed a great storm which scattered the fleet and wrecked upon the Bermuda Islands the Sea \'enture which bore the governor and one hundred and fifty passengers; and though the rest of the fleet reached Jamestown in safety, their arrival only added to the trouble already existing there. The new settlers brought with them the yellow fever and the London ]:)lague, and. as their provisions were all ruined by sea water, the next nine months were a season of disease and starvation.

In the meantime. Gates and his fellow pas- sengers on the Sea \"enturc were comfortably housed on the Bermuda Islands, and out of the cedar that grew there the\ constructed two vessels in which they at length got away. On May 23. 1610, they arrived at Jamestown to find all but sixty of the settlers dead. Gates relieved the immediate distress by the prompt distribution of provisions, and then asserted order by the publication of a code of martial law drawn up in England. Deeming the con- ditions desperate. Gates, with the advice of hii council, determined to abandon Jamestown . and on June 7, 1610, embarked with all the surviving settlers. On the way down the river he learned of the arrival of Lord Delaware at Point Comfort as governor for life, and in obedience to instructions took his fleet back to Jamestown. Under Delaware's commission Gates became lieutenant-governor and com- manded an expedition against the Indians, whom he drove from Kecoughtan. In July, however, of the same year, he was sent to England for supplies. He returned to James- town August I, 161 1, when finding that Lord Delaware had departed he again assumed direction of affairs. He remained in Virginia nearly three years, and returned to England in April. 1614. Soon after, he resumed his

service in Holland and was paid by the states all past dues. He appears to have retained his interest in Virginia, and in 1620 we find him as one of "the Ancient Adventurers" petitioning to have some man of quality sent over as governor. During his administration new settlements were established at Henrico, Hermuda Hundred, City Point and other places : the French were driven from New England ; and Pocahontas, daughter to the Emperor Powhatan, was captured and soon after married to John Rolfe. He left a son of the same name, who distinguished himself in 1626 in the expedition against Cadiz and in 1627 at the Isle of Re and Rochelle. when he was killed by a cannon shot.

Dale, Sir Thomas, high marshal of Vir- ginia, and deputy governor from May 21, to August I, 161 1, and from March, 1614, till May, 161 6. He entered the service of the Low Countries with the Earl of Essex in 1588. In 1595 he was sent by the Provinces into Scot- land, where he became one of the retinue of the infant Prince Henry, who had a great afi'ection for him. He remained in Scotland some years, but returned to the Netherlands probably in 1603. In 1604 Lord Cecil wrote to the English ambassador at the Hague to inform him of the king's gracious interest in the military advancement of Dale. On June 19, 1606. while on a visit to England, he was knighted at Richmond by King James as "Sir Thomas Dale of Surrey." He remained in the service of the Low Countries till February 161 1, when he came to England and entered into the service of the Virginia Company of London. Dale was selected to head the expedi- tion then preparing, and on March 2"/. 161 t, he left Land's End with three ships carrying 300 people and also horses, cows, goats.