447 A, FE. Verrill— The Bermuda Islands. 35 
Paget’s Island and Smith’s Island, which form the southeast bound- 
ary of the harbor, were both fortified in the early years of the 
settlement, by Governors Moore, Tucker, and Butler (1612-1621), 
and Governor Woodhouse, in 1626, built a new fort on Paget’s 
Island, near the present Fort Cunningham. 
Governor Tucker, though a rather energetic man in some direc- 
tions, apparently had about as little knowledge of, or respect for, 
the ordinary rules and customs in the construction of forts, as in the 
administration of the civil laws. He was accused of having greatly 
exceeded his authority and of violating the English laws, in some of 
the trials. His officers and juries were evidently so cowed by fear 
for their own safety that they did about anything he wished. 
Many persons, in his time, were sentenced to be hanged for very 
trivial crimes, though some, after being sentenced and taken to the 
gallows, were reprieved by the governor “in his great mercye,” as 
the records say, but they then remained as “condemned persons,” 
and in some cases were illegally sentenced to remain as “slaves to 
the company.” Perhaps he was well aware that some of these per- 
sons richly deserved hanging for other crimes. 
Governor Butler (1619) gave the following account of one of 
these trials :— 
“ But the third man (whose name was Paul Deane) escaped not so 
well, for being endicted for the stealeinge of a peece of cheese, he 
was arraigned and condemned, and therupon craveinge the benefitt 
of his booke (the prize of the stolne goodes being valued at twenty 
pence), it was answered him by the Governours owne mouth (very 
unwarrantably) that he would allowe noe booke in a plantation ; so 
that therupon being sentenced, he was hanged the next daye ; and 
it was secretly muttered, as if the Governour had owed him some 
secrett spleene, and the rather because at his arringement, when the 
stolen cheese was at the first valued under twelve pence,* he caused 
it (in a fury) to be prized at twenty pence.” 
Some of the people, who afterwards sent a complaint about this to 
the Company, did not object to the hanging, but only complained of 
the illegal character of the trial. The laws of England were con- 
sidered strictly applicable to Bermuda at that time. 
Governor Butler, who was more skilled in constructing public 
* It appears to have been a regular practice, in those times, for the owners of 
stolen articles to undervalue them, in order to avoid the application of capital 
punishment. It would seem that the complainant had a right to do so by usage, 
if not by law. Stealing anything of the value of 204 or more was a capital crime 
at that time. 
