The proprietors of the London Company had established the settlement of Jamestown in Virginia in 1607, and delivered supplies and additional settlers in 1608, raising the English colony's population to 200, despite many deaths.

The company's fleet was composed of vessels that were less than optimal for delivering large numbers of passengers across the Atlantic Ocean, and the colony itself was threatened by starvation, diseases, and warfare with native peoples.

They specifically demanded that the colonists send commodities sufficient to pay the cost of the voyage, a lump of gold, assurance that they had found the South Sea, and one member of the lost Roanoke Colony.

2 June] 1609, Sea Venture set sail from Plymouth, England as the flagship of a seven-ship fleet (towing two additional pinnaces) destined for Jamestown, Virginia as part of the Third Supply, carrying 500 to 600 people (it is unclear whether that number includes crew, or only settlers).

Normally, ships destined for North America from Europe sailed south as far as the Canary Islands as at that latitude the mean direction of the wind is to the West, pushing them across the Atlantic (ships returning to Europe turned eastward at the Carolinas, as at that latitude the mean wind direction is to the East), then followed the chain of west Indian islands to Florida and from there followed the Atlantic coast of the continent.

The survivors included several company officials: Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Gates, the ship's captain Christopher Newport, Samuel Jordan, Silvester Jourdain, Stephen Hopkins (later of Mayflower), along with secretary William Strachey.

Along with future English notables George Yeardley and John Rolfe, the Powhatan emissary Namontack and his companion, Machumps,[14] were all stranded on Bermuda for approximately nine months.

The settlers were unwilling to move on, having now heard about the true conditions in Jamestown from the sailors, and made multiple attempts to rebel and stay in Bermuda.

Governor Gates suppressed escape attempts, and the new settlement became a prison labour camp, with settlers forced to build ships to carry them away against their wills.

[c] They were constructed between late fall 1609 and early spring 1610 under the guidance of Admiral Somers and James Davis, Captain of the "Gift of God" who possessed considerable ship building knowledge.

[citation needed] The original plan was to build only one vessel, Deliverance, but it soon became evident that she would not be large enough to carry the settlers and all of the food that was being sourced on the islands.

[18][19][20] Bermudian teacher and Lieutenant-Commander Royal Naval Reserve (Sea Cadet Corps) Dr. Derek Tully, however, has suggested St. David's Island as the construction site.

[21] In Stratchey's account: In his absence Sir George Summers coasted the Ilands, and drew the former plot of them, and daily fished, and hunted for our whole company, vntill the seuen and twentieth of Nouember, when then well perceuing that we were not likely to heare from Virginia, and conceuing how the Pinnace which Richard Frubbusher was a building would not be of a burthen sufficient to transport all our men from thence into Virginia (especially considering the season of the yeare, wherein we were likely to put off) he consulted with our Gouernor, that if hee might haue two Carpenters (for we had foure, such as they were) and twenty men, ouer with him into the maine Iland, he would quickly frame vp another little Barke, to second ours, for the better sitting and conueiance of our people.

[22]While the new ships were being built, Sea Venture's longboat was fitted with a mast and sent under the command of Henry Ravens to find Virginia, but the boat and her crew were never seen again.

[23] Finally, under the command of Newport, the two ships with 142 survivors (of the 150-153 mariners and passengers Strachey reported surviving the wreck – Gates, Somers, Newport, and 150 others – those who died in Bermuda were: Mrs. Rolfe, the wife of John Rolfe; Edward Samuell, the sailor killed by Waters; Richard Lewis; William Hitchman; Jeffery Briars; and Henry Paine, who had been executed by firing squad.

Henry Ravens had been sent to Jamestown in command of the Sea Venture's longboat, fitted out for the ocean voyage, along with cape merchant Thomas Whittingham and 6 unidentified sailors; they returned several days later, having been unable to find a passage through Bermuda's reefline onto the open Atlantic, then set out for another attempt and were never heard of again.

Sea Venture sat atop the reefs off Gate's Bay long enough to be stripped of all useful parts and materials, not only by her crew and passengers, but by subsequent settlers; what was left of her eventually disappeared beneath the waves.

[29][page needed] After the wreck's submergence, her precise location was unknown until rediscovered by sport divers Downing and Heird in October 1958, still wedged into a coral reef.