harging gross mismanagement of its affairs. Such, at any rate, was the
conviction to which many adventurers came, chiefly it would seem the
lesser adventurers who were easily prejudiced against the great
merchants of London, of whom Sir Thomas was the chief. In a company
where the ultimate power to decide had been vested since 1612 in a
general assembly of the adventurers voting by head rather than by
share, the discontent of the lesser adventurers could become under the
guidance of an effective leader a very potent force.

The leader was found in Sir Edwin Sandys, one of the ablest
parliamentarians of seventeenth century England. Sandys himself was not
one of the lesser adventurers. He had been a member of the Virginia
Council since 1607, and in 1611 he had responded to the company's
appeal for a subscription of L37 10s. by subscribing double that
amount, thereby matching the subscription of Sir Thomas Smith. With the
aid of other prominent adventurers, including the Earl of Southampton,
and by making common cause for the moment with the Rich faction, Sir
Edwin won election to the governorship of the company in the spring of
1619. In the absence of anything approaching a full record, it is
impossible to say what justification there may have been for the
charges of mismanagement that were brought against Smith's
administration. It would not be surprising if over the long and
frequently discouraging years of his leadership, and especially in the
period since 1612, some irregularities, some carelessness had crept
into the conduct of the company's business. A very noticeable result of
Sandys' election was an effort to systematize the company's procedures
by adoption of new standing orders and regulations, and to bring order
out of an alleged confusion of the company's records, especially those
pertaining to the rights of the adventurers to land in Virginia. But it
is possible to speak with full assurance on only one point: no other of
the adventurers had shown more courage or more devotion to the colony,
no other of them deserves to be better remembered than Sir Thomas
Smith.

There can be no question, however, that the reviving interest in
Virginia received an additional stimulant from the fact that the
business now had a new management. At the close of 1618, and largely as
the result of emigration during that year, the population of the colony
stood at approximately 1,000 persons. During the year after Sandys'
election