This last advice did not last the expedition out of sight of land.  They sailed from Blackwell, December 19, 1606, but were kept six weeks on the coast of England by contrary winds.  A crew of saints cabined in those little caravels and tossed about on that coast for six weeks would scarcely keep in good humor.  Besides, the position of the captains and leaders was not yet defined.  Factious quarrels broke out immediately, and the expedition would likely have broken up but for the wise conduct and pious exhortations of Mr. Robert Hunt, the preacher.  This faithful man was so ill and weak that it was thought he could not recover, yet notwithstanding the stormy weather, the factions on board, and although his home was almost in sight, only twelve miles across the Downs, he refused to quit the ship.  He was unmoved, says Smith, either by the weather or by “the scandalous imputations (of some few little better than atheists, of the greatest rank amongst us).”  With “the water of his patience” and “his godly exhortations” he quenched the flames of envy and dissension.

They took the old route by the West Indies.  George Percy notes that on the 12th of February they saw a blazing star, and presently a storm.  They watered at the Canaries, traded with savages at San Domingo, and spent three weeks refreshing themselves among the islands.  The quarrels revived before they reached the Canaries, and there Captain Smith was seized and put in close confinement for thirteen weeks.

We get little light from contemporary writers on this quarrel.  Smith does not mention the arrest in his “True Relation,” but in his “General Historie,” writing of the time when they had been six weeks in Virginia, he says:  “Now Captain Smith who all this time from their departure from the Canaries was restrained as a prisoner upon the scandalous suggestion of some of the chiefs (envying his repute) who fancied he intended to usurp the government, murder the Council, and make himself King, that his confedcrates were dispersed in all three ships, and that divers of his confederates that revealed it, would affirm it, for this he was committed a prisoner; thirteen weeks he remained thus suspected, and by that time they should return they pretended out of their commiserations, to refer him to the Council in England to receive a check, rather than by particulating his designs make him so odious to the world, as to touch his life, or utterly overthrow his reputation.  But he so much scorned their charity and publically defied the uttermost of their cruelty, he wisely prevented their policies, though he could not suppress their envies, yet so well he demeaned himself in this business, as all the company did see his innocency, and his adversaries’ malice, and those suborned to accuse him accused his accusers of subornation; many untruths were alleged against him; but being apparently disproved, begot a general hatred in the hearts of the company against such unjust Commanders, that the President was adjudged to give him L 200, so that all he had was seized upon, in part of satisfaction, which Smith presently returned to the store for the general use of the colony.”—­