It seems unthinkable that England should have so starved her colony. In Elizabeth's reign the narrow, selfish charter and the meagre outfit would have been impossible. All things were possible to James that could in any way contribute to his own self-aggrandizement. Bitter as was the lot of the unhappy adventurers, they were too manly to complain. "When some affirm," says a historian of the time,[27] "that it was ill done of the Council to send forth men so badly provided, this incontradictable reason will show them plainly they are ill-advised to nourish such ill conceits: first, the fault of going was our own, what could be thought fitting or necessary we had; but what we should find or want or where we should be, we were all ignorant, and supposing to make our passage in two months, with victuall to live, and the advantage of the spring to work; we were at sea five months where we both spent our victuall and lost the time and opportunity to plant by the unskilful presumption of our ignorant transporters that understood not at all what they undertook. Such actions have ever since the world's beginning been subject to such accidents and everything of worth is found full of difficulties; but nothing so difficult as to establish a commonwealth so far remote from men and means and where men's minds are so untoward as neither to do well themselves nor suffer others." The closing sentence was a very mild commentary indeed upon the state of things at Jamestown. The miniature republic--for such it rapidly grew to be in nearly everything except in name--held within its borders just the elements that distinguish the great republic of to-day: some noble spirits with high aims and fervent patriotism; some sordid souls intent alone on gain; some unprincipled, desperate characters; others simply useless, idle, and ignoble. Of the latter class, the President, Wingfield, was notably conspicuous. It was evident, from the first, that he was utterly unfit for his position. One of the earliest efforts of the convalescents was to get rid of him.