Sir Thomas Gates was born in Colyford, Devon. In 1585, he was a part of Sir Francis Drake’s expedition in the Caribbean to fight the Spanish. After attacking Cartagena and Saint Augustine, he helped bring the Roanoke colonists back to England. He was knighted in 1596 for his work under the second duke of Essex in the campaign against Cadiz. He was a part of Gray’s Inn but was never called to the bar, so he gave up law and went into diplomacy and the military instead. In 1604, he went to the Netherlands with Sir Henry Wotton, then went to Vienna to serve as ambassador to England in the court of the Holy Roman Emperor.

Gates was one of the first people to petition King James for a charter to settle Virginia and invested 2,000 pounds in the Virginia Company. He was named deputy to Lord De La Warr in the second charter of the London Company. In 1609, he was named deputy governor of Virginia and commanded a fleet of nine ships to deliver aid to Jamestown. However, during the journey, his ship, the Sea Venture, crashed on Bermuda.