Arriving in Virginia in the month of May, 1611, Dale touched at Kiquotan, and set all hands there to planting corn. Reaching Jamestown on the tenth of May, he found the settlers busily engaged in their usual occupation, playing at bowls in the streets. He set them to work felling trees, repairing houses, and providing materials for enclosing the new town, which he proposed to build. To find a site for it he surveyed the Nansemond River and the James as far as the falls, and finally pitched upon a high ground, with steep banks, on the north side of the river, near Arrohattock, and about twelve miles below the falls of the river. The site was on a peninsula, known as Farrar's Island, in Varina Neck. Sir Thomas was prevented for a time from founding the new town by the disturbances that prevailed in the colony, and to restore order he enforced martial law with rigor. Eight of the colonists appear to have been convicted of treasonable plots and conspiracies, and executed by cruel and unusual modes, before midsummer. Among these was Jeffrey Abbot, who had served long in the army in Ireland and in the Netherlands; had been a sergeant of Captain John Smith's company in Virginia, who avers that he never knew there a better soldier or more loyal friend of the colony. It must be acknowledged that rigorous measures were necessary, and it was fortunate for the colony that the cruel and despotic code of laws, to which it was now subjected, was administered by so discreet and upright a governor as Dale. Early in August, 1611, Sir Thomas Gates, commissioned to take charge of the government of the colony, came over with six vessels, three hundred men, and abundant supplies. He was accompanied by the Rev. Mr. Glover, an approved preacher in Bedford and Huntingdonshire, a graduate of Cambridge, in easy circumstances, and somewhat advanced in years. Arriving at Jamestown early in August, during the sickly season, he soon after died.