west from the Azores to Bermuda and then almost due west to the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. His voyage took nine weeks and six days, including two weeks becalmed. This new route enabled the English to avoid hostile Spanish ships and to save on provisions. Upon his arrival at Jamestown, Captain Argall found the colonists in dire straits. Argall resupplied them with all the food he could spare and returned to England at the end of the summer. The help came to the colony at one of the most critical periods in its history, as this was the beginning of the Starving Time, during which fewer than one in five survived. Without the provisions supplied by Argall, the colony may have been totally destroyed. During this voyage, Argall also prevented the Spanish from learning about the weakness of the Jamestown colony. In July 1609, Argall encountered a Spanish reconnaissance ship, La Asunción de Cristo, under the command of Francisco Fernández de Écija, sent from St. Augustine by governor Pedro de Ibarra to survey activities at Jamestown. Argall had a larger ship, Mary and John, stationed at Cape Henry, and chased the Spanish ship, preventing it from entering Chesapeake Bay. Under Lord de la Warre Argall returned to the Virginia Colony in the summer of 1610, when Royal Governor Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr reinforced the defences of the English against the sometimes hostile Native Americans there. De La Warr became so ill that in the spring of 1611 he sailed home to England, and Sir Thomas Dale took his place as Deputy Governor in charge of the Virginia Colony. After De la Warr reached England and recovered, he wrote a book, The Relation of the Right Honourable the Lord De-La-Warre, of the Colonie, Planted in Virginia. He was considered the nominal Royal Governor until his death in 1618. Serving under Dale, in March 1613, Argall, looking for food for the settlement, sailed up the Potomac River. There, he traded with the Patawomeck, a Native American tribe who were affiliated with the Powhatan Confederacy. The Patawomeck lived at the village of Passapatanzy, as well as several other villages along the river. When two English colonists began trading with the Patawomeck, they discovered that Pocahontas, the daughter of Wahunsonacock, Chief of the Powhatan Confederacy, was living there. According to a book by Captain John Smith, she had been there