[Sidenote: Wingfield deposed; Ratcliffe chosen president, Sept., 1607.]
In such a state of things our colonists would have been more than human had they shown very amiable tempers. From the early wanderings of the Spaniards in Darien down to the recent marches of Stanley in Africa, men struggling with the wilderness have fiercely quarrelled. The fever at Jamestown carried off Captain Gosnold in August, and after his death the feud between Smith's friends and Wingfield's flamed up with fresh virulence. Both gentlemen have left printed statements, and in our time the quarrel is between historians as to which to believe. Perhaps it is Smith's detractors who are just at this moment the more impetuous and implacable, appealing as they do to the churlish feeling that delights in seeing long-established reputations assailed. Such writers will tell you as positively as if there could be no doubt about it, that Smith was engaged in a plot with two other members of the Council to depose Wingfield from his presidency and establish a "triumvirate" over that tiny woodland company. Others will assert, with equal confidence, that Wingfield was a tyrant whose ruthless rule became insupportable. A perusal of his "Discourse of Virginia," written in 1608 in defence of his conduct, should make it clear, I think, that he was an honourable gentleman, but ill fitted for the trying situation in which he found himself. To control the rations of so many hungry men was no pleasant or easy matter. It was charged against Wingfield that he kept back sundry dainties, and especially some wine and spirits for himself and a few favoured friends; but his quite plausible defence is that he reserved two gallons of sack for the communion table and a few bottles of brandy for extreme emergencies, but the other members of the Council, whose flasks were all empty, "did long for to sup up that little remnant!"[53] At length a suspicion arose that he intended to take one of the small vessels that remained in the river and abandon the colony. Early in September the Council deposed him and elected John Ratcliffe in his place. A few days later Wingfield was condemned to pay heavy damages to Smith for defaming his character. "Then Master Recorder," says poor Wingfield, "did very learnedly comfort me that if I had wrong I might bring my writ of error in London; whereat I smiled.... I tould Master President I ... prayed they would be more sparing of law vntill wee had more witt or wealthe."[54]