That Company might tax and legislate within the Virginian field, punish the ill-doer or "rebel," and wage war, if need be, against Indian or Spaniard: One of the first actions of the newly constituted body was to seek remedy for the customary passage by way of the West Indies--so long and so beset by dangers.

They sent forth a small ship under Captain Samuel Argall, with instructions "to attempt a direct and cleare passage, by leaving the Canaries to the East, and from thence to run a straight westerne course....

And so to make an experience of the Winds and Currents which have affrighted all undertakers by the North." This Argall, a young man with a stirring and adventurous life behind him and before him, took his ship the indicated way.

He made the voyage in nine weeks, of which two were spent becalmed, and upon his return reported that it might be made in seven, "and no apparent inconvenience in the way." He brought to the great Council of the Company a story of necessity and distress at Jamestown, and the Council lays much of the blame for that upon "the misgovernment of the Commanders, by dissention and ambition among themselves," and upon the idleness of the general run, "active in nothing but adhearing to factions and parts." The Council, sitting afar from a savage land, is probably much too severe.
But the "factions and parts" cannot easily be denied.
Before Argall's return, the Company had commissioned as Governor of Virginia Sir Thomas Gates, and had gathered a fleet of seven ships and two pinnaces with Sir George Somers as Admiral, in the ship called the Sea Adventure, and Christopher Newport as Vice-Admiral.

All weighed anchor from Falmouth early in June and sailed by the newly tried course, south to the Canaries and then across.