Floundering from two years of warfare with Indians and dissent among the settlers, the Virginia Company was about to collapse. To rescue the doomed colonists and restore order, the company chose a new leader, Thomas Gates. Nine ships left Plymouth in the summer of 1609--the largest fleet England had ever assembled--and sailed into the teeth of a storm.... The inspiration for Shakespeare's The Tempest, the hurricane separated the flagship from the fleet, driving it onto reefs off the coast of Bermuda--a lucky shipwreck (all hands survived) which proved the turning point in the colony's fortune.--From publisher description.