[Footnote 2: Read the _Life and Writings of Captain John Smith_, by
Charles Dudley Warner; also John Fiske in _Atlantic Monthly_, December,
1895; Eggleston's _Beginners of a Nation_, pp. 31-38. Smith's _True
Relation_ is printed in _American History Leaflets_, No. 27, and
_Library of American Literature_ Vol. I.]

[Illustration: All that is left of Jamestown]

Bad as matters were, they became worse when a little fleet arrived with
many new settlers, making the whole number about 500. The newcomers were
a worthless set picked up in the streets of London or taken from the
jails, and utterly unfit to become the founders of a state in the
wilderness of the New World. Out of such material Smith in time might
have made something, but he was forced by a wound to return to England,
and the colony went rapidly to ruin. Sickness and famine did their work
so quickly that after six months there were but sixty of the 500 men
alive. Then two small ships, under Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George
Somers, arrived at Jamestown with more settlers; but all decided to
flee, and had actually sailed a few miles down the James, when, June 8,
1610, they met Lord Delaware with three ships full of men and supplies
coming up the river. Delaware came out as governor under a new charter
granted in 1609.[1]

[Footnote 1: Read "The Jamestown Experiments," in Eggleston's _Beginners
of a Nation,_ pp. 25-72.]

[Illustration: Vicinity of Jamestown]

%21. The Virginia Charter of 1609% made a great change in the
boundary of the company's property. By the 1606 charter the colony was