The plan of providing for the colony was now changed. Instead of feeding out of the common store, and laboring jointly together, the people were allowed to hold each a lot of his own, with a sufficient time to cultivate it. This change produced the most beneficial results, as it prevented the idleness and inefficiency which are apt to attend a common-stock social establishment, and multiplied, in a ten-fold degree, the amount of their provisions. The experiment having been so propitious, the original plan of a community of labor and supply was finally abandoned. The government of the colony at this time was again in the hands of Sir Thomas Dale; the former governor, Sir Thomas Gates, having returned to England in the spring of 1614. Governor Dale continued about two years, superintending satisfactorily the affairs of the colony, and, having chosen Captain George Yeardley to be deputy-governor, he returned to England, accompanied by Pocahontas and her husband. Pocahontas became a Christian and a mother; and it may be added, that her descendants, in a subsequent age, inherited her lands in Virginia, and that some of the first families of that state trace from her their lineage. Yeardley applied himself to the cultivation of tobacco, and was highly successful in an attack on the savages, who refused to pay their annual tribute of corn. He continued in the colony about a year, when, by an appointment made in England, the government devolved on Captain Argal, before named. Argal found Jamestown in a bad condition; the dwellings, which were slight structures, had mostly disappeared, and the public works neglected or in decay, and "the colonie dispersed all about, planting _Tobacco_." A reformation to some extent was effected. At this period, 1617, more colonists arrived; but it would seem, from a remark in a narrative of that date, that the number of the higher classes of society exceeded their wants; "for, in Virginia, a plaine souldier, that can use a pickaxe and spade, is better than five knights, although they were knights that could break a lance; for men of great place, not inured to those encounters, when they finde things not suitable, grow many times so discontented, they forget themselves, and oft become so carelesse, that a discontented melancholy brings them to much sorrow, and to others, much miserie." When it was ascertained that great multitudes were preparing, in England, to be sent, the colonists, in a communication to the council, entreated that provisions might be forwarded as well as people, and gave the company to understand, "what they did suffer for want of skilful husbandmen and meanes to set their plough on worke, having as good land as any man can desire."