THE "VEXED BERMOOTHES."*

A CASUAL glance at this volume might lead to the idea that nothing of general interest would be found in it, and that though a meritorious, it was a decidedly dry book. A closer acquaint- ance with the work will not only not sustain this view, but will reverse it. The history of the discovery and settlement of the "Vexed Bermoothea " contains in itself not a few elements of romance, and the quaintness of style, as well as the ability ob- servable in several of the records published in the volume before us, give their narratives a freshness and vigour which would have rendered a much duller subject interesting. General Lefroy, who was some years ago Governor of the Bermudas, originally en- tered on the task of investigating the history of this curious group of islands, "as a congenial employment, and upon his own responsibility." No small industry and patience were necessary for the performance of the work, and General Lefroy, besides taking an ardent interest in his subject, evidently possesses both these qualities in large measure. The Legislature of the colony have recently resolved, with commendable liberality, to provide "for the entire cost of printing and publishing the present work. The editor's only anxiety, therefore, is to do justice to the natural desire of the descendants of the early settlers for details which are principally of local interest, relating to persons and places chiefly familiar to themselves, without relin- quishing the hope that readers unacquainted with the colony may find in these pages a picture of English life and society in the seventeenth century which has claims to their notice." The expectation thus modestly expressed is certainly more than fulfilled.

Most people are probably aware of some facts relating to the Bermudas,—that they were discovered by Juan Bermudez, for instance, and that somehow or other they fulfilled their destiny by falling into our hands. But we very much question whether average Englishmen know the precise circumstances under which the islands, known by their first discoverers, the Spaniards, as the "Devil's Islands," became an English colony, nearly a hundred years after they were first known. Tradition places the date of their discovery in 1515, but they were probably known before that year. In 1527 a scheme was actually set on foot by a Portuguese for colonising the islands, with a view to using them as a refuge for ships, and to ascertain if, "with the peopling of it a remedy could be found for the tempests there encountered, caused by the great dampness, owing to its dense woods." The fogs and storms prevalent near La Bermuda bad given the place an evil reputation, which the enlightened Portuguese, Hernando Camelo, the author of the above wise proposal, was not able to destroy, since his scheme fell to the ground. A French ship was wrecked on the islands between 1560 and 1570, and the crew found them not inhospitable. in 1593, another French vessel, bound for Europe, on board of which was an Englishman named Henry May, was wrecked on a rock some distance from the islands themselves. May's account of the place contains nothing remark- able, but is interesting as showing that a great subsidence of the reefs and of the rocky shores of the Bermudas has occurred during the last three centuries. We now come to 1609, the date of the shipwreck of Sir George Somers, of which we • Memorials of the Discovery and Early Settlement of the Bermudas, or Somers Islands, 1515-1685. By Major-General J. H. Let roy, B.A., C.B., F.H.B. VoL I., 1615-1852. London : Longmana, Green, and Co. 1877.

have ample accounts, one of which, Sir George Somers's own, is published for the first time in the present

volume. Were it not for the narratives of two of his companions, his own gallant and skilful conduct would have been unknown to us. Fortunately, two persons, Silvanus Jourdan and William

Strachy, who were on board Sir George Somers's ship, have written accounts of the shipwreck, and of what happened to the

ship's company after they were cast upon the Bermudas. There is also an account of the disaster in an anonymous .pamphlet pub- lished in 1610, under the direction of the Council of Virginia. All three narratives are well worth reading, not merely on account

of the interesting nature of the subject, but because their style is so good. Strachy in particular would seem to be a man of culture, as well as possessing a power of writing hard, strong English sentences, of which we shall give a specimen later. On June 2nd, 1609, Sir George Somers, with a fleet of seven ships and two pinnaces, set sail from Plymouth for Virginia, which had recently been colonised. On board the 'Sea-Venture,' Sir George's vessel, was Sir Thomas Gates, Governor of Virginia, and Captain Newport, the 'Sea-Venture's' commander. The fleet kept together till June 24th, when it was scattered by a tremendous storm, during which the ' Sea-Venture ' sprang a leak. For three days the ship was at the mercy of the gale, and every moment of that time was spent in striving to free the hold from water. Strachy had had some previous experience of the sea :—

" What shall I say ?" he says ; " windes and seas were as mad as fury and rage could make them ; for mine owne part, I had bin in some stormes before, as well upon the coast of Barbary and Algeere, in the Leuant, and once more distreeful in the Adriatique guile, in a bottome of Candy, so as I may well say, Ego quid sit ater Adria) noui sinus, et quid albus Peecet Iapox.' Yet all that I had euer suffered, gathered together, might not hold comparison with this."

On one occasion a huge sea broke over the ship with such violence that the helm was taken out of the steersman's hand, and every one expected the vessel to go to pieces :—

"Oar Governor [Sir Thomas Gates] was at this time below at the capstone, both by his speech and authoritie heartening euerie man vnto his labour. It sbrooke him from the place where bee sate, and groueled him, and all vs about him on our faces, beating together with our breaths all thoughts from our bosomes, else, then, that wee were now sinking. For my part, I thought her alreadie in the bottome of the Sea; and I have heard him say, wading out of the fiend thereof, all his ambition was but to climbe vp above hatches to dye in Aperto ccelo, and in the company of his old friends."

At length, after three days spent in a valiant battle with the water, which was slowly gaining on them, Sir George Somers, who, as Silvanus Jourdan tells us, had been "sitting upon the poop of the ship (where he sate three dayes and three nights together, without meales, meate, and little or no sleep), conning the ship to keep her as upright as he could," perceived land. With great good- fortune they contrived to run the ship aground without destroying

it. They remained nine months on the islands, during which time they were not free from dissensions, and in one case from

serious mutiny. At length, having built boats, they arrived safely at Virginia. The accounts received in England of the fertility of the islands were so encouraging, that a Company was formed to colonise tbetu. The Company continued to govern the islands until 1685, when they were taken over by the Crown, and placed on the same footing as the other colonies of Great Britain.

The records of the Bermudas contained in the present volume are full of matters of interest to the historian and the antiquarian, besides abounding in quaint episodes. The language, too, is often delightfully comic, to our ideas. On one occasion in 1626, a cer-

tain "Mr. Bernard accused John Grimsditch that he was a thievish gamester, and would so prove him by the apparell he wore in church." Not content with this, Bernard further threatened Grimsditch that he "would depaint him to the Gouventor, and sett him out in coulters." Again, to return to the anonymous author above referred to, what an elegant "conceit" is the following I—" The Islands of the Bermudos have euer beene accounted as an inchaunted pile of rockes, and a desert inhabitation for Diuels ; but all the Fairies of rockes were but flocks of birds, and all the Diesels that haunted the woods were but heards of swine." An unknown writer, in giving a description of the state of the islands in the year 1612, -thus speaks of the

whales which at that time were common in the neighbourhood of the Bermudas :—

"Likewisl there commeth in two other Fishes with them, but such as the whale I ad rather bee without their companie : one is called a Sword 11-1), the other a Threasher ; the Sword fish swimmos vnder the whale, and pricketh him vpward ; the Threasher keepeth above him, and with a :nightie great thing like vnto a flaile bee so bangeth the whale, that hoe will roare as though it thundered, and doth give him

such blowes with his weapon that you would thinke it to be a crack(' of great shot."

In another account of the islands, written in 1616, by some person of a sadly sceptical turn of mind, we meet with our old friend the sea-serpent, in a most portentous form. This writer says, "Job Hortop relateth, that in the height [latitude] of Bermuda, they had sight of a Sea-monster, which three timee shewed hitnselfe from the middle vpwards, in shape like a man, of the complexion of a Mulato or tawny Indian." Our rationalist mentions this circumstance as showing the supernatural character of the islands, and then adds, "But this name [Island of Devils) was given to it not of such monsters, but of the monstrous tem- pests which here they have often sustayned." In these two " of's " we have a beautiful example of the genitive, or as one might almost say, the genetic case.

A very curious fact is found on p. 456. It seems that the usual challenge of a sentry on duty was, as late as 1627, " kivilough," or " kivilaugh," a corruption, as General Lefroy points out in a note, of " Qui va là ?" He thinks it probably came into vogue at the siege of Calais in 1558, and refers to another record to show that the old desire for dominion over- France was not dead even as late as 1627. it is strange to per- ceive in the history of the Bermudas during the English Civil War a small copy of the history of England. There was one popular rising, happily unaccompanied by bloodshed, which resulted in the election of a Governor by the people. During one disturb- ance, a " reinforcement " of five men was sent to the King's Castle. This was before the Civil War broke out in England, and must have bad reference to some local riot, a species of trouble of which the records before us speak pretty often.

The inhabitants of the Bermudas seem to have had considerable- difficulties in dealing with a question with which we are very familiar. On p. 304 of the volume will be found" An Act against the Excessive Wages demanded by Artificers," which sets forth that "great extortion and oppression" was practised by varioua classes of workmen against the public. The men, says the Act, "will either tye the Inhabitants to theire own unreasonable de- mends, or ell's they will loyter, shifts, and. live idley, or fall to other labours, wch seemeth verye apparentlye to be done by Com- bination and Confederacy amongst themselves." The measure adopted was the usual one of fixing a maximum of wages, a plan against which civilisation has since decided emphatically. But in 1627, and for a long time after, there is no need to go to the Bermudas for examples of high-handed treatment of the labouring classes by governments, and not of the labouring classes alone. Here- is an ordinance directed against planters and sellers of bad tobacco, which will amuse the humourist and certainly rejoice the heart of every smoker. It is a part of the form of oath for the Triers of Tobacco, and was published in 1630. After providing that the triers shall behave with absolute impartiality in judging of the quality of the tobacco, and shall certify the goodness of it when good, the document proceeds :—" And such as you shall find base, foggie, stinking, stoned in salt water, or any other waies fraudu- lently and deceiptfully made vpp, you shall instantly Burne, or cause to be burnte, at the owners doores." Let us hope that after the dreadful threat expressed in the words we have italicised, the good people of the Bermudas were not troubled with bad tobacco. We must remember that in Bermuda tobacco was for a long time almost the sole measure of value, and indeed, to a large extent, the currency. There were a few coins struck, but their rarity at the present time is a proof that the number was very small. It is to be hoped that General Lefroy will be able to continue the work he has begun, and carry it on, as be pro- poses, to the time when Bermuda became a colony of the English Crown.