But lack of food was only one of the hardships which befell the poor wretches. There were but few dwellings yet constructed, and being forced to lie upon the low damp ground, malarial fever and typhoid broke out among them and spread with such fearful rapidity that not one of them escaped sickness. Hardly a day passed but one at least of their number found a happy release from his sufferings in death. Fifty in all--just half of them--died between June and September. The unaccustomed heat aided in prostrating them, so that at one time there were scarce ten men able to stand upon their feet. And all this time the Indians kept up a desultory warfare and only refrained from a determined attack upon the settlement for fear of the firearms. Had they assaulted the stockade, instead of contenting themselves with shooting arrows into it from a distance, the colonists could have made no effective defence against them. Shortly, the whole weight of authority and the entire charge of the safety of the settlement fell upon Captain Smith. He was sick like the rest, but kept his feet by sheer strength of will, knowing that otherwise they would all fall victims to the savages in short order. Gosnold was under the sod. Wingfield, Martin and Ratcliffe were on the verge of death. Kendall was sick and, moreover, had been deposed from his place in the Council. In fact, all the chief men of the colony were incapacitated, “the rest being in such despair that they would rather starve and rot with idleness than be persuaded to do anything for their own relief without constraint.” In this strait the courage and resolution of one man saved them as happened repeatedly afterward. He nursed the sick, distributed the stores, stood guard day and night, coaxed and threatened the least weak into exerting themselves, cunningly hid their real condition from the Indians, and, by the exercise of every available resource, tided over the terrible months of July and August. Early in September, Wingfield was deposed from the presidency. His manifest incompetency had long been the occasion of discontent which was fanned to fever heat when the starving settlers discovered that the leader, who was too fine a gentleman to eat from the common kettle, had been diverting the best of the supplies from the public store to his private larder. The climax which brought about his downfall, however, was reached when it transpired that the President had made arrangements to steal away in the pinnace and return to England, leaving the settlement in the lurch. Ratcliffe was elected to fill his place. He was a man of no greater capacity than his predecessor, but it happened that conditions improved at about this time and the undiscerning colonists were willing to give him credit for the change.