A. EF. 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 Rey. 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 that 
God hath not reserved these Ilands 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.” i 4 * - : 
“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 Ilands from the 
beginning of the world till now to bestow them upon such as shall 
provoke him every 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 may 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. 
