a soldier for the better discipline of the
colonists. Sir Thomas Gates, who followed Dale out in May, had a
broader task. He would continue to serve as the lieutenant governor
under Lord De la Warr, and, like Dale, he carried 300 passengers. But
his six ships also carried much more. One of the basic problems of
original colonization, though it has often been lost sight of, was to
stock the colony with cattle, hogs, poultry, etc. Later colonists, in
Maryland or Carolina, would buy these essentials in Virginia, but the
Virginia colonists had no established neighbor of their own nation on
which to rely, and during the starving time they had literally eaten
themselves out of stock. Nothing could better illustrate the fact that
the Virginia adventurers in 1611 had to begin all over again than the
100 cattle, the 200 swine, and the poultry in unspecified numbers Gates
had aboard his ships as they set their course westward. And if any one
wishes to estimate the value of a cow that had been transported across
the Atlantic, let him notice the penalty imposed by Dale's laws, so
called, for killing one.

As Gates dropped down the Thames in May, the adventurers must have
relaxed with the satisfaction that comes from real achievement. Twice
now, within the span of two years, they had raised a great fund with
which they sent each time nine vessels and 600 colonists to Virginia.
Indeed, they had done even more. Counting Argall's ship, which sailed
ahead of Somers in the spring of 1609, and the three vessels going over
with De la Warr in 1610, the company had dispatched to Virginia no less
than 22 vessels and close to 1,400 colonists in a two year period. But
Gates had hardly cleared the coasts of England before Lord De la Warr,
of all persons, turned up in London, to the great consternation of his
fellow adventurers.

A general assembly of the adventurers on June 25 listened to his
explanation, which was promptly published by order of the council.
The story briefly was this. Ever since he had reached Virginia
the preceding June he had suffered a succession of violent
sicknesses--fevers, the flux, gout, and finally scurvy, "till I was
upon the point to leave the world." In preference to this he left
Virginia in a vessel commanded by Argall, and in the hope that he might
recover his health with the aid of hot baths in the West Indies.
Contrary winds had forced him to alter his course to the Azores, where
oranges and lemons had cured