chase and spoils," and but for the energy
and persistence of Captain Smith the expedition of 1606 might have
had no better fate. It needed a man of tenacious will to hold a
colony together in one spot long enough to give it root. Captain
Smith was that man, and if we find him glorying in his exploits, and
repeating upon single big Indians the personal prowess that
distinguished him in Transylvania and in the mythical Nalbrits, we
have only to transfer our sympathy from the Turks to the
Sasquesahanocks if the sense of his heroism becomes oppressive.

Upon the return of Samuel Mace, mariner, who was sent out in 1602 to
search for White's lost colony, all Raleigh's interest in the
Virginia colony had, by his attainder, escheated to the crown. But
he never gave up his faith in Virginia: neither the failure of nine
several expeditions nor twelve years imprisonment shook it. On the
eve of his fall he had written, "I shall yet live to see it an
English nation:" and he lived to see his prediction come true.

The first or Virginian colony, chartered with the Plymouth colony in
April, 1606, was at last organized by the appointment of Sir Thomas
Smith, the 'Chief of Raleigh's assignees, a wealthy London merchant,
who had been ambassador to Persia, and was then, or shortly after,
governor of the East India Company, treasurer and president of the
meetings of the council in London; and by the assignment of the
transportation of the colony to Captain Christopher Newport, a
mariner of experience in voyages to the West Indies and in plundering
the Spaniards, who had the power to appoint different captains and
mariners, and the sole charge of the voyage. No local councilors
were named for Virginia, but to Captain Newport, Captain Bartholomew
Gosnold, and Captain John Ratcliffe were delivered sealed
instructions, to be opened within twenty-four hours after their
arrival in Virginia, wherein would be found the names of the persons
designated for the Council.

This colony, which was accompanied by the prayers and hopes of
London, left the Thames December 19, 1606, in three vessels--the
Susan Constant, one hundred tons, Captain Newport, with seventy-one
persons; the God-Speed, forty tons, Captain Gosnold, with fifty-two
persons; and a pinnace of twenty tons, the Discovery, Captain
Ratcliffe, with twenty persons. The Mercure Francais, Paris, 1619,
says some of the passengers were women and children, but there is
no other mention of women.