At first, however, all went well at Sagadahoc, and early in October the Mary and John was sent home to carry word of the colony.[111] The account brought back so pleased Gorges that he wrote a letter, “late at night,” to Sir Robert Cecil, to tell him of the “greate newes.” But he was doomed to disappointment. A couple of days later he had evidently heard more, and in a second letter wrote that the settlement was getting into trouble because of “childish factions, ignorant, timerous and ambitious persons.” Popham, who had been made president of the colony, he described as “an honest man, but ould, and of an unwieldy body, and timerously fearfull to offende, or contest with others that will or do oppose him, but otherways a discreete, carefull man.” Gilbert was declared, by hearsay, to be “desirous of supremacy, and rule, a loose life prompte to sensuality, little zeale in Religion, humerouse, headstronge and of small judgment and experience, other wayes valiant inough.”[112] The next ship brought a letter from Popham to the King, but no better news for the company than the first, in spite of the president's enthusiastic belief in the presence of nutmegs, cinnamon, and “other products of great importance,” in the imaginatively tropical climate of Maine.[113] Footnote 111: _Cf._ note on the “Movement of the ships,” Thayer, _Sagadahoc_, pp. 192 _ff._ Footnote 112: Baxter, _Sir F. Gorges_, vol. III, pp. 154 _f._ Footnote 113: _Maine Historical Society Collections_, vol. V, pp. 357-60. During the winter, which was unusually severe, the storehouse was burned, with most of the provisions; and before the arrival of the two supply ships sent out from England, Popham, the leader of the colony, died. The ships carried yet more serious news to the colonists in the death of the Chief Justice in England, which proved “such a corrosive to all, as struck them with despair of future remedy.”[114] A later ship brought word of the death of Sir John, Gilbert's elder brother, which necessitated that leader's returning to England to look after his affairs. The colonists, in view of all these circumstances, resolved to quit the place, and return with Gilbert; and so all “former hopes were frozen to death,” and, by October, the wilderness of Maine was abandoned by the English, as, five years before, it had been by the French.[115] Footnote 114: Gorges, “Briefe Narration,” p. 55. Footnote 115: Attempts have been made to magnify the importance of the colony, and even to insist upon its continued existence. Following the publication of the uncritical _Popham Memorial_, Portland, 1863, 98 pamphlets and articles appeared in six years. The literature is surveyed by Thayer, _Sagadahoc_, pp. 87-156.