ABSTRACT
As a plea for the support of the early Virginia settlers, Whitaker's sermon was published by the Virginia Company in London. Alexander Whitaker (1585-1617) was familiar with the conditions and anxieties of the settlers. After ordination in 1608 and some service in England, he volunteered for Virginia, arriving in the spring of 1611 and becoming minister of Henricopolis and Bermuda Hundreds some miles up river above the original settlement of Jamestown. He was a conscientious minister, inclined to Puritan views, whose account of troubles and near disaster was designed both to elicit aid from England and underline God's favour towards the settlements.
