In short, Virginia was launched with varied hopes and vague expectations.

The project was on the knees of the gods, which for a time proved a place of extreme discomfort and peril.
The first comers in the spring of 1607, numbering a bare hundred men and no women, were moved by the spirit of adventure.

With a cumbrous and oppressive government over them, and with no private ownership of land nor other encouragement for steadygoing thrift, the only chance for personal gain was through a stroke of discovery.

No wonder the loss of time and strength in futile excursions.

No wonder the disheartening reaction in the malaria-stricken camp of Jamestown.
A second hundred men arriving early in 1608 found but forty of the first alive.