given by Columbus, but changed by the Adventurers into Eleutheria, to signify the pure religious liberty to be established there-a liberty going far beyond the relative freedom of Massachusetts Bay and New Plymouth, where indeed the yoke of ministers and elders was soon found to be more galling than that of bishops. This settlement was in its early history much linked with Bermuda, and the reader will find abundant materials for romance in the particulars recorded about it. In other respects these records throw some light on Church history, for we clearly find episcopal orders treated after the Restoration as non-essential: some ministers were ordained and some were not; those who were, like Nathaniel White and Sampson Bond, changed sides with so little hesitation, that we must infer the absence of the strong lines of demarcation since established. Most readers are familiar with the wholesale transportation of those more fortunate Scotch, Irish, and English prisoners of the civil wars who escaped execution. They were bought and sold like cattle, their bones lie in Jamaica, Barbadoes, Bermuda, Pennsylvania, and wherever else cheap labour was in demand; but of their fortunes and social condition in the Plantations to which they were deported, little has ever been traced. These records afford some glimpses of it. The passionate Scot who was made prison drudge for maiming a man; 2 the wild Irish, who are ever ready to join the negroes in cutting the throats of the planters; 3 are samples of the elements introduced into the Colonies by these mistaken severities. They probably met nowhere with better treatment than among the homely rural population of Bermuda. Even the short-lived Monmouth rebellion had a perceptible effect on the struggle of parties in the island, and raised Frequently mentioned as Segiteo, Segateo, or Segatoo, a fact unknown to R. H. Major, when he identified the island of Eleutheria with Cigateo, in his exhaustive investigation of the Landfall of Columbus ('Journ. R. Geogr. Soc.' 1871). The writer has recently found it so marked in a map of the West Indies, by Le Sieur Robert, Géographe Ordinaire du Roy, 1750; and also enumerated among the Bahamas in the Universal History. An ingenious conjecture that Eleutheria is a corrupted form of Isle de Tierra is hardly to be maintained in the face of the contemporary reference to its more obvious origin at p. 4; but, singularly enough, it is spelt Ilathera on an old chart by John Thornton. p. 159. 2 p. 140. 3 4 p. 560. hopes which probably reflect its influence on more important dependencies. A large part of this volume is filled with proceedings against the Quakers, a sect which has entirely disappeared from Bermuda. There, as elsewhere, the spirit of faction assumed the garb of piety, and some of the worst men in the community were foremost in loud profession; yet there is something real in the courage and devotedness of several of the party. The defence of Parnell Wilkinson (p. 376) has a simple pathos in it which leaves no doubt of her sincerity. It will be seen at p. 730 that she was a woman of some property. The writer cannot conclude his labour without holding up to the imitation of Colonies contemporary with Bermuda the remarkable and enlightened liberality shown by its Legislature in providing for the expense of the present publication. Diligent search in Antigua, the Bahamas, Barbadoes, St. Christopher, Jamaica, Monserrat, Nevis, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward's Island, followed up at the Record Office in London, could scarcely fail to recover out of public or private sources matter, if not so copious, as interesting to their present and future inhabitants, as well calculated to stimulate and satisfy a spirit of intelligent enquiry, and as illusa as trative of English social history. Those who are well acquainted with the Bermuda of the present day will find innumerable keys, not without political value and significance, to the interpretation of its many marked characteristics, in these Records. The like would probably be furnished in many other cases, and if it be true that We are the ancients of the earth And in the morning of the times the solution of the pressing Colonial problem, how small but independent insular communities, in these days, shall be grouped and governed, may yet receive aid from a more accurate knowledge of the moral foundations they severally stand on. The subjoined list of original authorities relating to Bermuda, although probably imperfect, may be of use to future enquirers. The vignette below represents the sole surviving monument of a Bermuda which has ceased to exist. It is the North Rock, a group of pinnacles, the loftiest only fourteen or fifteen feet high, which rises from the outer reef at about eight miles distance from the nearest land, buffetted by the storms of countless ages, and itself slowly yielding to the doom of inevitable submergence. Few who have visited this spot, only accessible in the calmest weather, where not a sea-bird finds a resting place, can ever forget the impression of silence and solitude which it leaves on the mind. From a Photograph taken Dec. 27, 1875. Rock bearing N. 80° W. at 115 feet distance. Greatest height 14 feet. Lamination at a dip of 35° to the South. THE LITERATURE OF BERMUDA. 1526 Oviedo, De la Natural Hystoria de las Indias,' Toledo, 1526. 1594 Narrative of Henry May' (Vol. I. p. 7), printed by Hakluyt 1596 in 1599. See also the Voyages of Sir James Lancaster, Kt., to the East Indies, &c., edited for the Hakluyt Society by Clements R. Markham, 1877, p. 25; and in the same volume a brief notice by Lieut. Edmund Barker, who had touched at Bermuda in the Edward Bonaventure,' September 17, 1593, three months before May's shipwreck, p. 20. The Discoverie of the large, Rich and Beautiful empyre of Gviana &c.' Performed in the year 1595 by Sir W. Ralegh knight &c.1 Imprinted at London by Peter Robinson 4to, 1596. 1600 Brief Narrative of the most remarkable things that Samuel Champlain of Brouage observed in the Western Indies, during the voyage which he made to the same in the years 1599-1602. Clements Markham, in Publ. of the Hakluyt Society, London, 1859.2 1601 'Historia General de los Hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas i Tierra firme del mar oceano.' Escrita por Antonio de Herrera, &c. Madrid, 1601.3 1610 A Trve Declaration of the estate of the Colonie in Virginia, with a confutation of such scandalous reports as haue tended to the disgrace of so worthy an enterprise.' Published by aduise and direction of the councell of Virginia. London, Printed for William Barret, 4to, 1610. Contains probably the earliest notice of the Bermudas printed in England.4 1610 A discovery of the Barmudas otherwise called the Ile of Divils' by Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Summers'and Captain Newport with Diuers others, set forth for the loue of my country, and also for the good of the Plantation in Virginia by Sil Jourdan, 4to, 1610.5 1610 Newes from Virginia' of the Happy Arrival of that Famous and Worthy knight Sir Thomas Gates, and well reputed and valiant Captain Newport into England. By R. Rich, Soldier, 1610.6 |