5. The Popham Colony "came to an end within a year, by reason of the death of its two chief supporters." Did it ever occur to "Sabino," that his Colony must have had a very slender _foundation_ to have fallen in ruins at the death of two, out of a hundred and twenty, persons engaged in it? The Plymouth Colony lost by death, in four mouths after the landing, fifty-one out of one hundred and two, and still the Colony lived. We neither accept nor deny "Sabino's" statement as to the cause by which _his_ Colony came to its end. Mourners, in doubtful cases, should be allowed to settle these questions for themselves. It was a case of complicated diseases, any one of which would have resulted in dissolution. Sworn testimony and a coroner's jury would be necessary to determine the approximate cause. The first question before such a tribunal would be whether the patient could be said to have ever lived. Waiving this point, we should, if pressed for a verdict, give--"Died by visitation of the Almighty." Who were the two persons whose lives were so intimately entwined with that of the Colony? They were George Popham, who came over as president, and his brother, Sir John Popham, who never came over--both very aged persons. Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who was "interested in all these misfortunes," and knew more of the end of the Colony than any other person whose writings have come down to us, did not regard the president's death as a matter of importance. He says, his death "was not so strange, in that he was well stricken in years before he went, and had long been an infirme man" (Briefe Narration, p. 10). Raleigh Gilbert, a younger and more energetic man, "a man," says Gorges, "worthy to be beloved of them all for his industry," was forthwith appointed president; and the change was rather a benefit, than otherwise, to the Colony, if anything could benefit what was _in articulo mortis_.