They found the island a beautiful place, full of wild hogs, which furnished them an abundance of meat, to which they added turtles, wild fowl, and various fruits.

How to get away was the question, and though they had not a nail they started promptly to build two small ships, the _Patience_ and _Deliverance_, out of the cedar which covered the country-side.

May 10, 1610, they were ready to sail with the whole party for Jamestown, which they reached without accident May 23.[13] At Jamestown a sad sight met their view.

The place looked like "some ancient fortification" all in ruins; the palisades were down, the gates were off their hinges, and the church and houses were in a state of utter neglect and desolation.

Out of the ruins tottered some sixty wretches, looking more like ghosts than human beings, and they told a story of suffering having hardly a parallel.[14] The energetic Captain Argall, whose arrival at Jamestown has been already noticed, temporarily relieved the destitution there, first by supplies which he brought from England and afterwards by sturgeon which he caught in the river.[15] August 11, 1609, four of the storm-tossed ships of Gates's fleet entered Hampton Roads, and not long after three others joined them.