Thomas Fuller (Worthies of England, ii. p. 284) says "his [Popham's] justice was exemplary on Theeves and Robbers." Wood quotes this passage, adding, "whose wayes and courses he well understood when he was a young man," and connects it with the fact of his sending convicts to the plantations. Fuller, in his essay on Plantations, in "Holy and Profane States," 1642, says: "If the planters be such as leap thither from the gallows, can any hope for cream out of scum, when men send, as I may say, Christian savages to heathen savages? It is rather bitterly than _falsely_ spoken concerning _one_ of our Western plantations, consisting of most dissolute people, that it was very like unto England, as being spit out of the very mouth of it." David Lloyd (State Worthies, 1760, ii. p. 46) gives a sketch of Chief Justice Popham, in which, quoting the words of Fuller, already cited, he goes on to say: "neither did he only punish malefactors, but provide for them. He first set up the discovery of New England to maintain and employ those that could not live honestly in the Old." Lloyd also, in this connection, quotes the passage we have cited from Lord Bacon (p. 23), showing that it was understood by the old English historians as applying to the Popham Colony.
The authorities seem to be conclusive as to the character of the colonists sent to Sagadahoc, the person by whom, and the manner in which, they were "prepared;"--for that is the expression Strachey uses (p. 163) with regard to these very colonists. Popham had sent out the year before (1606) a colony of one hundred persons destined to the same place. The ship was captured by the Spaniards, and the persons taken to Spain, and "made slaves in their gallions." The loss of the ship and outfit was suitably lamented; but not one word of sympathy was expressed by the old writers for the persons enslaved by the Spaniards; nor did Popham, so far as we know, make any attempt to rescue them from their hard fate; but he forthwith "prepared a greater number of planters,"--that is, the one hundred and twenty persons who afterwards landed at Sabino. If it is pretended that the first company were honest, worthy men, the assumption carries with it the necessary inference that Popham was a heartless wretch; but, assuming that they also were criminals, it was natural that he should leave them to their fate.