were
able to work, and provision for three weeks' bread was laid up.

Nevertheless, says Mr. Wingfield, the Council had fully plotted to
depose him. Of the original seven there remained, besides Mr.
Wingfield, only three in the Council. Newport was in England,
Gosnold was dead, and Kendall deposed. Mr. Wingfield charged that
the three--Ratcliffe, Smith, and Martin--forsook the instructions of
his Majesty, and set up a Triumvirate. At any rate, Wingfield was
forcibly deposed from the Council on the 10th of September. If the
object had been merely to depose him, there was an easier way, for
Wingfield was ready to resign. But it appears, by subsequent
proceedings, that they wished to fasten upon him the charge of
embezzlement, the responsibility of the sufferings of the colony, and
to mulct him in fines. He was arrested, and confined on the pinnace.
Mr. Ratcliffe was made President.

On the 11th of September Mr. Wingfield was brought before the Council
sitting as a court, and heard the charges against him. They were, as
Mr. Wingfield says, mostly frivolous trifles. According to his
report they were these:

First, Mister President [Radcliffe] said that I had denied him a
penny whitle, a chicken, a spoonful of beer, and served him with foul
corn; and with that pulled some grain out of a bag, showing it to the
company.

Then starts up Mr. Smith and said that I had told him plainly how he
lied; and that I said, though we were equal here, yet if we were in
England, he [I] would think scorn his man should be my companion.

Mr. Martin followed with: "He reported that I do slack the service
in the colony, and do nothing but tend my pot, spit, and oven; but he
hath starved my son, and denied him a spoonful of beer. I have
friends in England shall be revenged on him, if ever he come in
London."

Voluminous charges were read against Mr. Wingfield by Mr. Archer, who
had been made by the Council, Recorder of Virginia, the author,
according to Wingfield, of three several mutinies, as "always
hatching of some mutiny in my time."

Mr. Percy sent him word in his prison that witnesses were hired to
testify against him by bribes of cakes and by threats. If Mr. Percy,
who was a volunteer in this expedition, and a man of high character,
did send this information, it shows that he sympathized with him, and
this is an important piece of testimony to his good character.

Wingfield saw no way of escape from the malice of his accusers, w