At his departure, the colony consisted of about five hundred inhabitants. They were furnished with three ships, seven boats, commodities ready for trade, ten weeks' provision in the public stores, six mares and a horse, a large stock of hogs and poultry, some sheep and goats, utensils for agriculture, nets for fishing, one hundred trained and expert soldiers well acquainted with the Indians, their language and habitations, twenty-four pieces of ordnance, and three hundred muskets, with a sufficient quantity of arms and ammunition.[23]
The fair prospects of the colony were soon blasted by a course of folly and crime, of riot and insubordination.
Numerous pretenders advanced their claims to the supreme command. The choice at length fell upon captain Percy, who derived much consideration from his virtues, as well as from his illustrious family; but his talents, at no time equal to this new and difficult station, were rendered still less competent to the task, by a long course of ill health. Being generally confined by sickness to his bed, he was incapable of maintaining his authority; and total confusion ensued, with its accustomed baneful consequences.
The Indians, no longer awed by the genius and vigour of Smith, attacked the colony on all sides. West and Martin, after losing their boats and nearly half their men, were driven into Jamestown. The stock of provisions was lavishly wasted; and famine added its desolating scourge to their other calamities. After devouring the skins of their horses, and the Indians they had killed, the survivors fed on those of their companions who had sunk under such accumulated misery. The recollection of these tremendous sufferings was long retained, and, for many years, this period was distinguished by the name of THE STARVING TIME.[24]
[Footnote 24: Robertson. Chalmer. Stith. Beverly.]
In six months, the colony was reduced, by these distresses, to sixty persons, who could not have survived ten days longer, when they were relieved from this state of despair by the arrival of Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, and Captain Newport, from Bermuda.
The determination to abandon the country was immediately taken, and the wretched remnant of the colony embarked on board the vessels, and sailed for England. "None dropped a tear," says Mr. Chalmer, "because none had enjoyed one day of happiness."