esources.[16] No
sooner had he gone than the spirit of discord reappeared. The quarrels
within the Council became more violent than ever, and soon resulted in
the complete disruption of that body. Captain Kendall, who seems to have
been active in fomenting ill feeling among his colleagues, was the first
to be expelled. Upon the charge of exciting discord he was deprived of
his seat and committed to prison.[17]

As Captain John Smith had, before the departure of Newport, been allowed
to take his place in the Council, there were now five members of that
body. The number was soon reduced to four by the death of Captain
Gosnold, who fell a victim to the sickness.[18] One would imagine that
the Council, thus depleted, would have succeeded in governing the colony
in peace, but the settlers were given no respite from their wrangling
and disputes. In September, Ratcliffe, Smith and Martin entered into an
agreement to depose President Wingfield and to oust him from the
Council. Before they proceeded against him, however, they pledged each
other that the expulsions should then stop, and that no one of the three
should be attacked by the other two.

The Councillors then appeared before Wingfield's tent with a warrant,
"subscribed under their handes, to depose the President; sayeing they
thought him very unworthy to be eyther President or of the Councell, and
therefore discharged him of both".[19] They accused him of
misappropriating funds, of improper division of the public stores, of
being an atheist, of plotting to desert Virginia in the pinnace left at
Jamestown by Captain Newport, of combining with the Spaniards for the
destruction of the colony. Wingfield, when he returned to England, made
a vigorous defense of his conduct, but it is now impossible to determine
whether or not he was justly accused. After his expulsion from office,
he was summoned before the court by the remnant of the Council to answer
these numerous charges. It might have gone hard with him, had he not
demanded a hearing before the King. As his enemies feared to deny him
this privilege, they closed the court, and committed him to prison on
board the pinnace, where he was kept until means were at hand to send
him to England.[20]

The removal of the President did not bring peace to the colony. If we
may believe the testimony of Wingfield, the triumvirate that now held
sway ruled the settlers with a harsh and odious tyranny. "Wear," he
says, "this whipping,