With these ideas in mind, and enlightened by past experience, the company appointed Sir Thomas Gates to be "sole and absolute Governor," and sent him out in 1609, together with five hundred settlers in nine ships. Two vessels were wrecked, and what with plague and fever less than half the new colonists ever reached Virginia. The governor was himself stranded on the Bermudas; and when he finally arrived after nine months, sixty starving settlers were found scattered along the James River. Men who had been reduced to eating their dead comrades or the putrid flesh of buried Indians were scarcely good material for regenerating a feeble plantation. Sir Thomas Gates, therefore, decided to abandon the colony. But by a happy chance, as he was sailing with the survivors down the river, he met Lord de la Warr come from England with fresh supplies and new recruits; whereupon he turned back, still hoping to retrieve the desperate fortunes of Virginia. The decision proved wise in the event. But it was doubtless due to the drastic measures of the company that the misfortunes of previous years were not repeated. The governor returned to England, leaving the colony in the hands of De la Warr, who governed in the spirit of the instructions issued to Gates at the time of his appointment. Popularly known as "Dale's Laws," the regulations under which Virginia was finally made self-supporting were published by Gates after his return in 1611, under the title of "Articles, Laws and Orders, Divine, Politique, and Martial for the Government of Virginia." The new code was based upon the military laws of the Netherlands, and was enforced in the spirit with which the experience of Gates and Dale had made them familiar. From blasphemy to disrespect, from murder to idleness or embezzlement of the common store, the company's servants were liable to meet the knife, the lash, or the gallows at every turn. Until 1618 the regime of martial law was maintained; and the settlers stood guard or marched to the fields at the word of command, scarcely aware, doubtless, that they had been granted all the liberties enjoyed by men "born within this our realm of England."