Jamestown supply missions
Early in the voyage, on February 13, 1607, near the Canary Islands, Captain John Smith was charged with mutiny, and Newport had him arrested and planned to execute him upon arrival in the Caribbean (and later in Virginia).
The execution was never carried out, after the colonists landed at Cape Henry on April 26, 1607, and unsealed orders from the Virginia Company designating Smith as one of the leaders of the new colony, thus sparing him from the gallows.
[7] After an unusually long voyage of 144 days and the death of only one passenger, they made landfall on April 26, 1607, at the southern edge of the mouth of what they named the James River on the Chesapeake Bay.
14 May] 1607, they finally chose Jamestown Island (at that time a peninsula), further upriver and on the northern shore, for their settlement, as it was a location that could be easily defended from attacks by other European states, notably the Dutch Republic, France, and Spain.
Further, the worst drought in 700 years occurred in the area between 1606 and 1612, affecting the Jamestown colonist's and local Powhatan tribe's ability to produce food and obtain a safe supply of water.
On June 22, 1607, Newport sailed back for London with Susan Constant and Godspeed carrying a load of supposedly precious minerals, leaving behind the 104 colonists and Discovery (to be used in exploring the area).
Using Discovery and some assembled shallops left to the colony, Smith undertook three exploratory voyages of the Chesapeake Bay and along the various rivers seeking a supply of food for the colonists in June, July, and August 1607.
However, while leading one food-gathering expedition in December 1607, this time up the Chickahominy River west of Jamestown, his men were set upon by Pamunkey natives, and Smith was captured.
Arriving back in London on August 12, 1607, Newport delivered a letter from the council alongside his cargo of "gold" (which was quickly determined to be iron pyrite).
After expanding fortifications, rebuilding shelters, and placing armed men to defend crops from native attacks, Newport felt he had sufficiently re-secured the settlement by the end of winter.
The ship was: A manifest of "new colonists" in the second fleet was recorded, in Volume 1 of The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles by Captain John Smith, published 1624.
Newport's instructions were to search for any survivors of the Lost Colony of Roanoke, resume exploring for gold mines, and stage a "coronation" of Powhatan, making him a "sub-king" under James I.
He then returned to England, this time not with iron pyrite but with products of the New World[24] including: "clapboard, wainscot, pitch, tarre, glasse, frankincense, and sope ashes".
[23] He arrived in London in mid-January 1609, and despite all these efforts, profits from these early exports were not sufficient to meet the expenses and expectations of the investors back in England, and no New-World silver or gold had been discovered, as earlier imagined.
In early 1609, Captain Samuel Argall, as an employee of the London Company, was commissioned to develop a shorter, more direct route for sailing from England across the Atlantic Ocean to the colony at Jamestown.
Upon his arrival at Jamestown, Argall found the colonists in dire straits, since in April an infestation of rats had been discovered, along with dampness, which had destroyed all their stored corn.
He resupplied the colony with all the food and wine he could spare (which Smith bought on credit), and also brought the news that the company was being reorganized and was sending more supplies and settlers to Jamestown along with a new governor.
Also aboard the flagship were Admiral George Somers, William Strachey, Silvester Jourdain, Ralph Hamor, and Thomas Gates, people notable in the early history of English colonization in North America.
In the absence of strong leadership and most of the supplies, all of which had been aboard Sea Venture, the existing and newly-brought settlers at James Fort were ill-prepared to survive the winter, resulting in the siege and "Starving Time" of 1609-1610, when most of the inhabitants perished.
"[38] During the period that Sea Venture suffered its misfortune and its survivors were struggling in Bermuda to continue on to Virginia, the publication of Smith's books of his adventures in England sparked a resurgence of interest and investment in the company.
The ships were:[39] West and his fleet departed London on March 12, 1610, and arrived on the James River on June 9, just as the existing colonists were sailing downriver to leave Virginia.
On June 19, 1610, Somers, not wanting to be subordinate to West, departed for Bermuda aboard Patience, accompanied by Captain Argall on Discovery, with the intention of gathering more food, including fish, sweet potatoes, and live pigs[35] for Jamestown.
[39] When the Jamestown garrison again required provisions in December 1610, Captain Argall was dispatched to the Potomac River and procured maize and furs there from Iopassus (Japazaws), a Patawomeck town.
The last major fleet of this time, under Sir Thomas Gates, lieutenant General of Virginia, sailed from England towards the end of May 1611 with three ships, 280 men, 20 women, 200 cattle, and "many swine and other necessaries".
The timely arrival of West and the “Fourth” fleet in 1610 resulted in a renovation of the settlement and a counter-offensive against the Powhatan Confederacy, whose refusal to trade and siege of the fort had threatened the food security of the colony.
This allowed the English to fully secure the colony's fortifications and housing, expand its farming, develop a network of alliances with other Indian nations, and establish a series of outlying smaller settlements.
For the next five years, governors Gates and Dale continued to keep strict discipline, with Sir Thomas Smythe in London attempting to find skilled craftsmen and other settlers to send to Jamestown.
