[Sidenote: Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist. N. Y., i, pp. 1, 2, 3, 9, 10, 16-21.] As the hope of immediate profit from Virginia died away, the colony would have been abandoned if there had not arisen in its favor a patriotic enthusiasm which gave it a second lease of life. Many of the great noblemen were deeply engaged in this new agitation in favor of the unlucky colony, and none more deeply, perhaps, than Prince Henry, the heir apparent. At Henry's request, Sir Thomas Dale, an officer who had been employed about the prince's person, and who with other English officers was now in the service of the Netherlands, was granted leave of absence to go to Virginia. Since the colony was a check to Spain, the Netherlands were supposed to have an indirect interest in the enterprise and were persuaded to continue Captain Dale's pay. De la Warr, who remained in England, was nominally governor; Gates, when present in Virginia, was the ranking officer; but for five years Dale appears to have been the ruling spirit in the colony. [Sidenote: The heavy hand of Dale, 1611-1616.] [Sidenote: A Briefe Declaration of the Plantation of Virginia, 1624, MS., Pub. Rec. Off.] To induce him to go, Dale had been deceived regarding the condition of the plantation, as had been everybody else that had gone to Jamestown after the first ships sailed. The vice-admiral, Newport, was the principal reporter of Virginia affairs in England and the principal agent of the company in this deception. Dale's rough temper was already well known. It was for this, no doubt, that he had been chosen to do a rude piece of work. On his arrival he saw the desperate state of the undertaking. He pulled Vice-Admiral Newport's beard and threatened him with the gallows, demanding "whether it weare meant that people heere in Virginia shoulde feed uppon trees." [Sidenote: Brit. Museum, MS., 21,993, f. 174.] [Sidenote: Briefe Declaration.]