Nine vessels were speedily fitted out, with supplies of men and women, five hundred in number, and provisions and other stores for the colony. Newport, who was entrusted with the command of the fleet, and Gates and Somers, were each severally authorized, whichever might happen first to reach Jamestown, to supersede the existing administration there until the arrival of Lord Delaware, who was not to embark for several months, and who did not reach Virginia until the lapse of more than a year. This abundant caution defeated itself, for Newport, and the lieutenant-governor, and the admiral, finding it impossible to adjust the point of precedence among themselves, embarked together by way of compromise, in the same vessel, the Sea-Venture.[77:A] The expedition sailed from Plymouth toward the end of May, 1609, and going, contrary to instructions, by the old circuitous route, via the Canaries and the West Indies, late in July, when in latitude thirty degrees north, and, as was supposed, within eight days' sail of Virginia, they were caught "in the tail of a hurricane," blowing from the northeast, accompanied by an appalling darkness, that continued for forty-four hours. Some of the vessels lost their masts, some their sails blown from the yards, the sea breaking over the ships. "When rattling thunder ran along the clouds, Did not the sailors poor and masters proud A terror feel, as struck with fear of God?"[78:A] A small vessel was lost, July twenty-fourth, and the Sea-Venture, with Newport, Gates, Somers, and one hundred and fifty settlers, destined for Virginia, was separated from the other vessels of the expedition. The other vessels, shattered by the storm, and having suffered the loss of the greater portion of their supplies, and many of their number by sickness, at length reached Jamestown in August, 1609. They brought back Ratcliffe, or Sicklemore, who had been remanded to England on account of his mutinous conduct, also Martin and Archer, together with sundry other captains, and divers gentlemen of good means and high birth, and about three hundred settlers, the greater part of them profligate youths, packed off from home to escape ill destinies, broken-down gentlemen, bankrupt tradesmen, and the like, "decayed tapsters, and ostlers trade-fallen, the cankers of a calm world and long peace."