Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 8.djvu/136

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��Ear/y History of the Betfuuda Islands.

��the complaints that were forwarded to England concerning the tyrannical gov- ernment of Tucker, and he, fearing to be recalled, at last returned to Eng- land of his own accord, having ap- pointed a person named Kendall as his deputy.

Kendall was disposed to be attentive to his office, but wanted energy, and the compay took an early opportunity to re- lieve him ; this was not very agreeable to the people, but they did not offer any resistance.

Governor Butler arrived with four ships and five hundred men on the t\ventieth of October, 1619, which raised the number of the colonists to 1000, and at his departure three years later, it had increased to 1500.

On the first of August, 1620, in con- formity with instructions sent out by the company, the Governor summoned the first general assembly at St. George's for the dispatch of public business. It consisted of the Governor, Council, Bailiffs, Burgesses, Secretary, and Clerk. It appears that they all sat in one house, which was probably the " State House " shown on Smith's engraving. Most of the Acts passed on this occasion were creditable to the new legislators.

Governor Butler, as Moore had done before him, turned his chief attention to the building of forts and magazines ; he also finished the cedar Church at St. George's, and caused the assembly to pass an Act for the building of three bridges, and then initiated the useful project of connecting together the prin- cipal islands. When Governor Butler returned to England he left the islands in a greatly improved condition. But in his time, also, there were such-frequent mutinies and discontent, that at last " he longed for deliverance from his thankless and troublesome employ- ment." It was probably during Gov-

��ernor Butler's administration that *Cap- tain John Smith had a map and illustra- tions of the " Summer lis " made, for in it we find the three bridges, numerous well-constructed forts, and the State House at St. George's. The map and illustrations were published in " Smith's General Historic of Virginia, New Eng- land and the Summer lis " 1 624 ; they are of the greatest value and importance, as they show accurately the class of build- ings and forts erected on these islands at that early period ; such details even are entered into as the showing of the stocks in the market place of St. George's, and the architecture and the substantial manner in which the build- ings were constructed is remarkable, es- pecially so when it is considered that previous to 1620 the Puritans had not settled at Plymouth, and it was ten years from that date before the settle- ment of Boston : in fact, with the excep- tion of Jamestown in Virginia, the Eng- lish had not secured a foot-hold in North America at the time these build- ings and forts were constructed. There are very few copies of this rare print in existence, even in Smith's history it is usually found wanting, and it was only after considerable trouble and expense that the writer succeeded in obtaining a reproduction of it.

The early history of Bermuda is in many important points similar to that of New England. Like motives had in most instances induced emigration, and the distinguished characteristics of those people were repeated here.

Like the Salem and Boston colonists they had their witchcraft delusions, an-

  • Captain John Smith was never in Bermuda. He de-

rived all hi? information from his opponunities as a mem- ber of the Virginia Company, and from correspondence or personal narratives of returned planters. This was his habitual way, as is shown by the number of authori- ties that he quotes. He probably obtained the sketches, from which these illustrations were made, from Richard Norwood, the schoolmaster.

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