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Thomas Gates

Only by luck and happenstance did Britain’s first permanent settlement in the New World survive

Arriving at the English colony of Jamestown in late May 1610, Sir Thomas Gates was appalled by what he discovered.

The storm that wrecked the Virginia-bound ship Sea Venture in 1609 inspired a play by Shakespeare— and the survivors’ tribulations may well have sown the first seeds of democracy in the New World

The story of the British ship Sea Venture is one of history’s most remarkable sagas, an almost unbelievable tale of shipwreck, endurance, and human resourcefulness. But it is more than that.

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