The gallant Somers was doomed again to be tempesttossed. His companion vessel was soon driven back to port, but he kept the sea; and, as usual, remained at his post on deck, in all weathers. His voyage was long and boisterous, and the fatigues and exposures which he underwent, were too much for a frame impaired by age and by previous hardships. He arrived at Bermudas completely exhausted and broken down.

His nephew, Captain Matthew Somers, attended him in his illness with affectionate assiduity. Finding his end approaching, the veteran called his men together, and exhorted them to be true to the interests of Virginia; to procure provisions with all possible despatch, and hasten back to the relief of the colony.

With this dying charge, he gave up the ghost, leaving his nephew and crew overwhelmed with grief and consternation. Their first thought was to pay honour to his remains. Opening the body, they took out the heart and entrails, and buried them, erecting a cross over the grave. They then embalmed the body, and set sail with it for England; thus, while paying empty honours to their deceased commander, neglecting his earnest wish and dying injunction, that they should return with relief to Virginia.

The little bark arrived safely at Whitechurch in Dorsetshire, with its melancholy freight. The body of the worthy Somers was interred with the military honours due to a brave soldier, and many volleys fired over his grave. The Bermudas have since received the name of the Somers Islands, as a tribute to his memory.

The accounts given by Captain Matthew Somers and his crew of the delightful climate, and the great

beauty, fertility, and abundance of these islands, excited the zeal of enthusiasts and the cupidity of speculators, and a plan was set on foot to colonize them. The Virginia Company sold their right to the islands to one hundred and twenty of their own members, who erected themselves into a distinct corporation, under the name of the "Somers Island Society;" and Mr. Richard More was sent out in 1612 as governor, with sixty men, to found a colony; and this leads me to the second branch of this research.

THE THREE KINGS OF BERMUDA,

AND THEIR TREASURE OF AMBERGRIS.

At the time that Sir George Somers was preparing to launch his cedar-built bark, and sail for Virginia, there were three culprits among his men, who had been guilty of capital offences. One of them was shot; the others, named Christopher Carter and Edward Waters, escaped. Waters, indeed, made a very narrow escape, for he had actually been tied to a tree to be executed, but cut the rope with a knife which he had concealed about his person, and fled to the woods, where he was joined by Carter. These two worthies kept themselves concealed in the secret parts of the island until the departure of the two vessels. When Sir George Somers revisited the island in quest of supplies for the Virginia colony, these culprits hovered about the landing-place, and succeeded in persuading another seaman, named Edward Chard, to join them, giving him the most seductive picture of the ease and abundance in which they revelled.

When the bark that bore Sir George's body to England had faded from the watery horizon, these three vagabonds walked forth in their majesty and might, the lords and sole inhabitants of these islands. For a time, their little commonwealth went on prosperously and happily. They built a house, sowed corn, and the seeds of various fruits; and having plenty of hogs, wild-fowl, and fish of all kinds, with turtle in abundance, carried on their tripartite sovereignty with great harmony and much feasting. All kingdoms, however, are doomed to revolution, convulsion, or decay; and so it fared with the empire of the three kings of Bermuda, albeit they were monarchs without subjects. In an evil hour, in their search after turtle among the fissures of the rocks, they came upon a great treasure of ambergris, which had been cast on shore by the ocean. Besides a number of pieces of smaller dimensions, there was one great mass, the largest that had ever been known, weighing eighty pounds, and which, of itself, according to the market value of ambergris in those days, was worth about nine or ten thousand pounds.

From that moment the happiness and harmony of the three kings of Bermuda were gone for ever. While poor devils, with nothing to share but the common blessings of the island, which administered to present enjoyment, but had nothing of convertible value, they were loving and united; but here was actual wealth, which would make them rich men, whenever they could transport it to market.

Adieu the delights of the island! They now became flat and insipid. Each pictured to himself the consequence he might now aspire to in civilized life, could

he once get there with this mass of ambergris. No longer a poor Jack-tar, frolicking in the low taverns of Wapping, he might roll through Loudon in his coach, and perchance arrive, like Whittington, at the dignity of Lord Mayor.

With riches came envy and covetousness. Each was now for assuming the supreme power, and getting the monopoly of the ambergris. A civil war at length broke out: Chard and Waters defied each other to mortal combat, and the kingdom of the Bermudas was on the point of being deluged with royal blood. Fortunately, Carter took no part in the bloody feud. Ambition might have made him view it with secret exultation; for if either or both of his brother potentates were slain in the conflict, he would be a gainer in purse and ambergris. But he dreaded to be left alone in this uninhabited island, and to find himself the monarch of a solitude; so he secretly purloined and hid the weapons of the belligerent rivals, who, having no means of carrying on the war, gradually cooled down into a sullen armistice.

It

The arrival of Governor More, with an overpowering force of sixty men, put an end to the empire. He took possession of the kingdom, in the name of the Somers Island Company, and forthwith proceeded to make a settlement. The three kings tacitly relinquished their sway, but stood up stoutly for their treasure. was determined, however, that they had been fitted out at the expense, and employed in the service, of the Virginia Company; that they had found the ambergris while in the service of that company, and on that company's land; that the ambergris therefore belonged to that company, or rather to the Somers Island Com

pany, in consequence of their recent purchase of the islands, and all their appurtenances. Having thus legally established their right, and being, moreover, able to back it by might, the company laid the lion's paw upon the spoil; and nothing more remains on historic record of the Three Kings of Bermuda, and their treasure of ambergris.

The reader will now determine whether I am mare extravagant than most of the commentators on Shakespeare, in my surmise that the story of Sir George Somers' shipwreck, and the subsequent occurrences that took place on the uninhabited island, may have furnished the bard with some of the elements of his drama of the Tempest. The tidings of the shipwreck, and of the incidents connected with it, reached England not long before the production of this drama, and made a great sensation there. A narrative of the whole matter, from which most of the foregoing particulars are extracted, was published at the time in London, in a pamphlet form, and could not fail to be eagerly perused by Shakespeare, and to make a vivid impression on his fancy. His expression, in the Tempest, of "the still vext Bermoothes," accords exactly with the storm-beaten character of those islands. The enchantments, too, with which he has clothed the island of Prospero, may they not be traced to the wild and superstitious notions entertained about the Bermudas? I have already cited two passages from a pamphlet published at the time, showing that they were esteemed 'a most prodigious and inchanted place," and the "habitation of divells;" and another pamphlet, published shortly afterwards, observes: "And whereas it is re