In 1624 the English won a great victory over the most troublesome of the Indian tribes, the Pamunkeys. Governor Wyatt, in leading an expedition against this people had evidently expected little resistance, for he brought with him but sixty fighting men. The Pamunkeys, however, had planted that year a very large crop of corn, which they needed for the support of themselves and their confederates, and they determined to protect it at all hazards. So Wyatt and his little band were surprised, on approaching their village to find before them more than eight hundred warriors prepared for battle. The English did not falter in the face of this army, and a fierce contest ensued. "Fightinge not only for safeguards of their houses and such a huge quantity of corn", but for their reputation with the other nations, the Pamunkeys displayed unusual bravery. For two days the battle went on. Whenever the young warriors wavered before the volleys of musketry, they were driven back into the fight by the older men. Twenty-four of the English were detached from the firing line and were employed in destroying the maize. In this they were so successful that enough corn was cut down "as by Estimation of men of good judgment was sufficient to have sustained fower thousand men for a twelvemonth". At last the savages in despair gave up the fight and stood nearby "rufully lookinge on whilst their Corne was cutt down". "In this Expedition," wrote the colonists, "sixteene of the English were hurte our first and seconde day, whereby nyne of the best shott were made unserviceable for that tyme, yett never a man slayne, nor none miscarried of those hurtes, Since when they have not greatly troubled us, nor interrupted our labours."[196]
The series of misfortunes which befel the London Company during the administration of Sir Edwin Sandys culminated in the loss of their charter. For some time King James had been growing more and more hostile to the party that had assumed control of the colony. It is highly probable that he had had no intimation, when the charter of 1612 was granted, that popular institutions would be established in Virginia, and the extension of the English parliamentary system to America must have been distasteful to him. The enemies of Sandys had been whispering to the King that he "aymed at nothing more than to make a free popular state there, and himselfe and his assured friends to be the leaders of them".[197] James knew that Sandys was not friendly to the prerogative of the Crown. It had been stated "that there was not any man in the world that carried a more malitious heart to the Government of a Monarchie".[198]