The stockholders, seven hundred and sixty-five in number, came from every rank, profession, or trade in England, and even included the merchant guilds in London.[10] The charter increased the company's bounds to a tract fronting on the Atlantic Ocean, "from the point of land called Cape, or Point, Comfort all along the sea-coast to the northward two hundred miles, and from the point of Cape Comfort all along the sea-coast to the southward two hundred miles," and extending "up into the land, throughout from sea to sea, west and northwest,"[11] a clause which subsequently caused much dispute.
The governing power was still far from taking a popular form, being centred in a treasurer and council, vacancies in which the company had the right to fill.

For the colonists it meant nothing more than change of one tyranny for another, since the local government in Virginia was made the rule of an absolute governor.

For this office the council selected one of the peers of the realm, Thomas West, Lord Delaware, but as he could not go out at once they commissioned Sir Thomas Gates as first governor of Virginia,[12] arming him with a code of martial law which fixed the penalty of death for many offences.
All things being in readiness, the "Third Supply" left Falmouth, June 8, 1609, in nine ships, carrying about six hundred men, women, and children, and in one of the ships called the _Sea Venture_ sailed the governor, Sir Thomas Gates, and the two officers next in command, Sir George Somers and Captain Christopher Newport.
When within one hundred and fifty leagues of the West Indies they were caught in the tail of a hurricane, which scattered the fleet and sank one of the ships.

To keep the _Sea Venture_ from sinking, the men bailed for three days without intermission, standing up to their middle in water.

Through this great danger they were preserved by Somers, who acted as pilot, without taking food or sleep for three days and nights, and kept the ship steady in the waves till she stranded, July 29, 1609, on one of the Bermuda Islands, where the company, one hundred and fifty in number, landed in safety.