penny loaf each a day for food, and might be turned away to eat bark off
the trees, or moulds off the ground. "Oh," he said, "that you did see my
daily and hourly sighs, groans, tears and thumps that I afford mine own
breast, and rue and curse the time of my birth and with holy Job I
thought no head had been able to hold so much water as hath and doth
daily flow from mine eyes."[70]

Thus was the immigrant to Virginia beset on all sides with deadly
perils. If he escaped the plague, the yellow fever and the scurvy during
his voyage across the Atlantic, he was more than apt to fall a victim to
malaria or dysentery after he reached his new home. Even if he survived
all these dangers, he might perish miserably of hunger, or be butchered
by the savage Indians. No wonder he cursed the country, calling it "a
miserie, a ruine, a death, a hell".[71]

It is remarkable that the enterprise, in the face of these stupendous
difficulties, should ever have succeeded. The explanation lies in the
great enthusiasm of all England for this attempt to extend the British
domains to the shores of the New World, and in the devotion of a few
brave spirits of the London Company, who would not be daunted by
repeated failures. It mattered not to them that thousands of pounds were
lost in the undertaking, that many hundreds of men perished, the
English flag and the English religion must gain a foothold upon the
American continent.

Sir Thomas Gates found the colony in a pitiable condition. The tomahawk
of the Indians, famine and pestilence had wrought terrible havoc with
the settlers. A mere handful of poor wretched men were left to welcome
the newcomers and to beg eagerly to be taken away from the ill-fated
country. The town "appeared rather as the ruins of some auntient
fortification, then that any people living might now in habit it: the
pallisadoes he found tourne downe, the portes open, the gates from the
hinges, the church ruined and unfrequented.... Only the block house ...
was the safetie of the remainder that lived: which yet could not have
preserved them now many days longer from the watching, subtile, and
offended Indians."[72]

Nor was it in the power of Gates to remedy these conditions, for he had
brought with him from Devil's Island but a limited supply of provisions.
So, with great reluctance, the Lieutenant-Governor decided to abandon
Virginia rather than sacrifice his people. As the colonists climbed
aboard the vessels which w