All things being in readiness, the “Third Supply” left Falmouth, June 8, 1609, in nine ships, carrying about six hundred men, women, and children, and in one of the ships called the Sea Venture sailed the governor, Sir Thomas Gates, and the two officers next in command, Sir George Somers and Captain Christopher Newport.

When within one hundred and fifty leagues of the West Indies they were caught in the tail of a hurricane, which scattered the fleet and sank one of the ships.  To keep the Sea Venture from sinking, the men bailed for three days without intermission, standing up to their middle in water.  Through this great danger they were preserved by Somers, who acted as pilot, without taking food or sleep for three days and nights, and kept the ship steady in the waves till she stranded, July 29, 1609, on one of the Bermuda Islands, where the company, one hundred and fifty in number, landed in safety.  They found the island a beautiful place, full of wild hogs, which furnished them an abundance of meat, to which they added turtles, wild fowl, and various fruits.  How to get away was the question, and though they had not a nail they started promptly to build two small ships, the Patience and Deliverance, out of the cedar which covered the country-side.  May 10, 1610, they were ready to sail with the whole party for Jamestown, which they reached without accident May 23.[13]

At Jamestown a sad sight met their view.  The place looked like “some ancient fortification” all in ruins; the palisades were down, the gates were off their hinges, and the church and houses were in a state of utter neglect and desolation.  Out of the ruins tottered some sixty wretches, looking more like ghosts than human beings, and they told a story of suffering having hardly a parallel.[14]

The energetic Captain Argall, whose arrival at Jamestown has been already noticed, temporarily relieved the destitution there, first by supplies which he brought from England and afterwards by sturgeon which he caught in the river.[15] August 11, 1609, four of the storm-tossed ships of Gates’s fleet entered Hampton Roads, and not long after three others joined them.  They set on land at Jamestown about four hundred passengers, many of them ill with the London plague; and as it was the sickly season in Virginia, and most of their provisions were spoiled by rain and sea-water, their arrival simply aggravated the situation.

To these troubles, grave enough of themselves, were added dissensions among the chief men.  Ratcliffe, Martin, and Archer returned at this time, and President Smith showed little disposition to make friends with them or with the new-comers, and insisted upon his authority under the old commission until Gates could be heard from.  In the wrangles that ensued, nearly all the gentlemen opposed Smith, while the mariners on the ships took his side, and it was finally decided that Smith should continue in the presidency till September 10, when his term expired.[16]