attered by the storm, and having suffered the loss of
the greater portion of their supplies, and many of their number by
sickness, at length reached Jamestown in August, 1609. They brought back
Ratcliffe, or Sicklemore, who had been remanded to England on account of
his mutinous conduct, also Martin and Archer, together with sundry other
captains, and divers gentlemen of good means and high birth, and about
three hundred settlers, the greater part of them profligate youths,
packed off from home to escape ill destinies, broken-down gentlemen,
bankrupt tradesmen, and the like, "decayed tapsters, and ostlers
trade-fallen, the cankers of a calm world and long peace."

Upon the appearance of this fleet near Jamestown, Smith, not expecting
such a supply, took them to be Spaniards, and prepared to encounter
them, and the Indians readily offered their assistance. The colony had
already, before the arrival of the fleet, been threatened with anarchy,
owing to intelligence of the premature repeal of the charter, brought
out by Captain Argall, and the new settlers had now no sooner landed
than they gave rise to new confusion and disorder. The factious leaders,
although they brought no commission with them, insisted on the
abrogation of the existing charter, rejected the authority of Smith,
whom they hated and feared, and undertook to usurp the government. Their
capricious folly equalled their insolence; to-day the old commission
must rule, to-morrow the new, the next day neither--thus, by continual
change, plunging all things into anarchy.

Smith, filled with disgust, would cheerfully have embarked for England,
but seeing little prospect of the arrival of the new commission, (which
was in the possession of Gates on the Island of Bermudas,) he resolved
to put an end to these incessant plots and machinations. The
ringleaders, Ratcliffe, Archer, and others, he arrested; to cut off
another source of disturbance, he gave permission to Percy, who was in
feeble health, to embark for England, of which, however, he did not
avail himself. West, with one hundred and twenty picked men, was
detached to the falls of James River, and Martin, with nearly the same
number, to Nansemond. Smith's presidency having expired about this time,
he had been succeeded by Martin, who, conscious of his incompetency, had
immediately resigned it to Smith. Martin, at Nansemond, seized the
chief, and, capturing the town, occupied it with his detachment; but
owing