with
fresh supplies and new recruits; whereupon he turned back, still hoping
to retrieve the desperate fortunes of Virginia.

The decision proved wise in the event. But it was doubtless due to the
drastic measures of the company that the misfortunes of previous years
were not repeated. The governor returned to England, leaving the colony
in the hands of De la Warr, who governed in the spirit of the
instructions issued to Gates at the time of his appointment. Popularly
known as "Dale's Laws," the regulations under which Virginia was finally
made self-supporting were published by Gates after his return in 1611,
under the title of "Articles, Laws and Orders, Divine, Politique, and
Martial for the Government of Virginia." The new code was based upon the
military laws of the Netherlands, and was enforced in the spirit with
which the experience of Gates and Dale had made them familiar. From
blasphemy to disrespect, from murder to idleness or embezzlement of the
common store, the company's servants were liable to meet the knife, the
lash, or the gallows at every turn. Until 1618 the regime of martial law
was maintained; and the settlers stood guard or marched to the fields at
the word of command, scarcely aware, doubtless, that they had been
granted all the liberties enjoyed by men "born within this our realm of
England."

The military regime which made Virginia self-supporting did not make it
prosperous, or profitable to the company. In December, 1618, after an
expenditure of L80,000 sterling, there were in the colony "600 persons,
men, women and children, and cattle three hundred att the most. And the
Company was then lefte in debt neer five thousand pounds." The
hard-headed Smythe saw little prospect of the dividends which the
shareholders were demanding; and he was ready to give way to any one who
still had faith to sink yet more money in the enterprise that for a
dozen years had disappointed every expectation. Such an idealist was Sir
Edwin Sandys. Son of a Puritan Archbishop of York, he had studied at
Oxford under Richard Hooker, whose famous book he had read in
manuscript. The _Ecclesiastical Polity_ had perhaps confirmed Sandys in
a republican way of thinking; and in the year 1618 he was probably a
nonconformist--a "religious gentleman," as Edward Winslow called him: at
all events, a man of humanitarian and anti-prerogative instincts; a
friend of the Earl of Southampton, and leader of those in the company
who were in