A. E. Verrill — The Bermuda Islands. 553 



vegetable food, although animal food was abundant. This affected 

 chiefly the ignorant, indolent, and vicious persons who had been sent 

 there only a short time before by the Company. 



The Rev. Mr. Hughes, who was present as an eye-witness, described 

 it in 1620, as follows : " Your looking for more supplies out of Eng- 

 land, and following Tobacco to greedily, did cause you to neglect 

 setting of corne, whereby you were brought into great want, [1615]. 

 Then the number of people encreasing and as they encreased, sin 

 and disorder did also encrease, which brought the correcting hand of 

 God upon you in many wayes, so as divers did perish miserably : 

 but consider I pray you that most of them that so dyed, were 

 ungodly, slothfull and heartlesse men, which sheweth plainly thai 

 God hath not reserved these Hands from the beginning of the world, 

 to bestowe them now upon such as shall dishonor and provoke him 

 every day as many of them did, I cannot but wonder, when I think 

 upon the nastinesse & loathsome lazinesse, wherein too many of them 

 died, crying night and day for meat, notwithstanding they had meat 

 enough, if not too much, for they did nothing night and day but 

 dresse, and eate, and so greedy, as they would not stay till their 

 meate was sod ; but more like dogges than Christians did devoure it 

 blood rawe." * * * * * 



" They died miserably, some with meate in their mouthes crying 

 for more. This surely was a great jugement of God upon those 

 slothful and greedy Belly-gods and a manifest signe and token (as I 

 said even now) that God hath not reserved these Hands from the 

 beginning of the world till now to bestow them upon such as shall 

 provoke him eveiy day, as many of them did. The correcting hand 

 of God, which then lay heaviest upon the lazie ones, did stretch out 

 itselfe over all, even the most industrious, when their Lines, Hooks 

 and Nets were worne out, so as many of them also died/"' 



It seems, therefore, that it was a case of " Natural Selection," or 

 survival of the fittest, and probably was, on the whole, a blessing to 

 the Colony, though other similar emigrants, quite as bad, were 

 sent out subsequently, in 1619-20. (See p. 567.) 



In regard to the cause of the death of so many of the miserable 

 people at that time, there ma} r be some doubt. There can be no 

 doubt, however, that it was largely due, directly or indirectly, to the 

 lack of suitable vegetable food, for of bread there was none. 



But there seems to have been an abundance of animal food, for 

 the cahows and their eggs were still abundant, and there were plenty 

 of fish to be had, with little trouble, as well as shell-fish on the rocks. 



