This arrangement did not restore harmony. West felt aggrieved that Captain Smith should insist upon continuing the old order of affairs despite the known wishes of the Company, and took occasion to ignore and slight his authority. This so angered the President that he is said to have plotted with the Indians to surprise and cut off a party of men that his rival was leading up the James. Before this could be accomplished, however, Smith met with a serious accident, which led to his immediate overthrow. "Sleeping in his Boate ... accidentallie, one fired his powder-bag, which tore the flesh ... in a most pittifull manner; but to quench the tormenting fire ... he leaped over-board into the deepe river, where ever they could recover him he was neere drowned."[46] Three former Councillors--Ratcliffe, Archer and Martin--who had come over with the new fleet, availed themselves of the helplessness of their old foe to rid the colony of his presence. Claiming, with some justice, that if Smith could retain his office under the old charter, they were by the same power still members of the Council, they held a meeting, deposed him from the Presidency and sent him back to England.[47] Having thus disposed of the troublesome Captain, they looked about them for some man suitable to head the colony until the arrival of Gates. Neglecting the claims of West, whom they probably considered too inexperienced for the place, they selected Captain George Percy.[48] In the meanwhile, the crew and passengers of the _Sea Adventure_ were stranded in the Bermudas, upon what was called Devil's Island. Some of their number were daring enough to venture out into the ocean in the longboat, in an attempt to reach the colony, but they must have perished, for they were never heard from again.[49] The rest of the company, seeing no other way of escape, built two pinnaces and, in May, 1610, sailed away in them for Jamestown. A few days later, upon their arrival in Virginia, Gates received the old patent and the seal from the President and the period of the first royal government in Virginia came to an end.[50] But the "faction breeding" government by the Council was by no means the only cause of trouble. Far more disastrous was the "sicknesse". When the first expedition sailed for Virginia, the Council in England, solicitous for the welfare of the emigrants, commanded them to avoid, in the choice of a site for their town, all "low and moist places".[51] Well would it have been for the colonists had they obeyed these instructions. Captain Smith says there was in fact opposition on the part of some of the leaders to the selection of the Jamestown peninsula, and it was amply justified by the event. The place was low and marshy and extremely unhealthful.[52] In the summer months great swarms of mosquitoes arose from the stagnant pools of water to attack the immigrants with a sting more deadly than that of the Indian arrow or the Spanish musket ball.