452 A. E. Verrill — The Bermuda Islands. 



Governor Butler also relates a quaint anecdote in regard to this 

 affair, as follows : — 



"Upon the very expectance of the entrance of these shyps, and in 

 the hurrey of the preparation for a defence, the only barrell of pow- 

 der that they had was improvidently tumbled vnder the mussell of 

 one of the ordinance, the which being one of thoes two that wer dis- 

 charged, the powder notwithstandinge, which lay thus under her, 

 fired not certaine cartredges slightly made of paper and filled Avith 

 powder, being brought up to be used upon occasion, a negligent fel- 

 lowe left his lighted match upon one of them, all the whilst they 

 wer at prayer, the cole whereof, though it continually touched the 

 paper, yet kindled noethinge. Thes direct demonstrations of heavenly 

 assistance exceedinge wrought upon most of them, and especially it 

 moved the governour, who (as I find him generally) was noe lesse 

 pious than painefull ; so that callinge his men together like a good 

 christian and a soldier he publickly gave thanks to God for this his 

 so protecting a preservation." 



The first temporary cedar fortification, which was described as 

 having four guns, was replaced by a larger one, built by Governor 

 Moore, who was mentioned as assiduously engaged in this work in 

 June, 1613, and March, 1614. 



Governor Butler (1619) thus referred to the work as still going on 

 at the arrival of the " Blessing " and " Starre " [about March, 

 1614,] with 280 new settlers:* "for some of them he sent to the 

 Gurnetts head, to make that plattforme and rayse thoes battlements, 

 that to this daye lie out upon the mouth of the harbor ; the which, 

 haveing finished in some reasonable manner, was called the Kings- 

 Castle." 



Governor Moore built on Castle Island two cedar platforms and 

 three redoubts : two of the latter on the top of Gurnet Head, which 

 came to be called, more specially, King's Castle ; the other on the 

 highest point of the island, to which Governor Butler, when he 

 rebuilt it in 1620, gave the name of " Devonshyres Redoubt." But 



* Within the first three years, up to the autumn of 1615, 660 settlers are 

 recorded as having arrived, a large part of them ignorant and depraved, 

 many having been taken from the slums and prisons of London and almost use- 

 less as pioneer colonists in a remote place like the Bermudas. It was fortunate, 

 perhaps, that many of the laziest and most worthless died in the famines of 1614 

 and 1615. The first 60 seem to have been better men, though there were also 

 some good men in the later arrivals. Governor Moore's task to take care of such 

 a crowd of helpless men and women, without any adequate supply of provisions, 

 must have been a terrible ordeal. (See Part III, c-h. 23.) 



