Career
Gates is first noticed as a lieutenant in the fleet which sailed under Drake in September 1585 to avenge the wrongs of Queen Elizabeth on the King of Spain, and which captured Cartagena, burned St. Augustine, Florida, and carried back to England the ill-fated Roanoke colonists.
In the years which followed, Gates served under Essex. He commanded a company of English soldiers in Normandy in 1591; he served in the expedition which harried the coast of Spain in 1596 and took part in the capture of Cadiz, and he was there knighted by Essex.
In the following year, he took part in an attack on the Azores. In February 1598/9, Gates and his company were sent into Ireland. After the execution of Essex, Gates commanded a company of English soldiers in the Low Countries. Meanwhile, on March 14, 1597/8, he had been admitted to Gray’s Inn.
Probably as a result of his voyage under Drake, Gates became interested in the plans to colonize Virginia. On April 14/24, 1608, the States General of the Netherlands granted him a leave of absence from his company for one year to colonize Virginia. From this time until his death, Gates’s chief interest was Virginia.
In 1609, the reorganized Virginia Company planned an expedition under Gates, to be followed by a second expedition under Lord De La Warr, and appointed De La Warr general, Gates lieutenant-general, and Sir George Somers admiral.
On June 2, 1609, Gates left Plymouth, and six days later Falmouth, with eight ships and a pinnace, carrying five hundred men and women, bound for Virginia.
On July 25 the Sea Adventure, which carried Gates, Somers, William Strachey, and Capt. Newport, was separated from the other vessels in a storm. It failed to reach Virginia, and for ten months the belief prevailed in England and Virginia that the vessel had been lost at sea.
The passengers and crew of the Sea Adventure, however, after bailing and pumping for three days and four nights, had landed in the Bermudas. They found the islands rich, offering an abundance of fish and wild swine, healthful, and pleasant, and remained there ten months while two cedar pinnaces were under construction.
On May 10, 1610, the company set sail from the Bermudas, and in about two weeks arrived in Virginia. It was Strachey’s account of this adventure which suggested the writing of The Tempest to Shakespeare. Gates took over the government of Virginia from Percy.
He found the colonists in a deplorable condition and decided to carry them back to England. On June 7 they embarked but on the following day, they met Lord De La Warr, just arriving from England, who turned them back, took over the government from Gates, and dispatched Somers to the Bermudas and Gates to England for supplies.
Gates left Virginia in July and in September 1610 was in England. There he worked to attract settlers from England and Holland to Virginia and to gain support from the Company for the Colony. Plans for another expedition under his leadership were soon underway.
In February 1611 he obtained a second leave of absence from the States General, who agreed to maintain his company in Holland and to keep the place of captain open but refused to pay him during his absence.
Toward the end of May 1611, he sailed with three ships, three caravels, 280 men and twenty women, 100 cows and 200 swine. He took his wife and daughters with him at this time, thus indicating an intention to remain in Virginia, but Lady Gates died on the voyage and upon arrival in Virginia Gates sent his daughters back to England.
About the first of August, he was at Jamestown. There he found that Lord De La Warr had turned the government over to Percy and sailed for home. Percy, in turn, had given way to Dale in May 1611. Gates now resumed the government.
It was a discouraging time, but he laid the foundations for the prosperity of the colony. Under him Dale founded Henrico. In the spring of 1614, Gates once more went to England, where he took an active part in the affairs of the Virginia Company.
In 1618, he seems to have planned to return to Virginia but in 1619 and 1620 he disposed of sixty shares of his stock in the Company and in January 1621 was at The Hague.
He died in the Low Countries, probably before April 1621.
