569 A. KE. Verriti—The Bermuda Islands. 15 
I 
over-populated about 1639, and the people began to emigrate in 
numbers to the West Indies, the Company petitioned to the “ Lords 
Comissioners for Forraigne Plantacons,” July 28, 1639, that such a 
tract of land should be assigned them according to the agreement, 
in Virginia, between the Rapahanock and Patowmack [Potomac] 
rivers. In their petition they state that the people had become so 
numerous in Bermuda that “they are not able to subsist,” that 
several times parties had migrated or ‘“inconsiderately desperced 
themselves into other parts and especially the last yeare, when about 
one hundred and thirty persons have in like manner transplanted 
themselves into the Island of St. Luzea [Lucia] without provision or 
Amunicon befitting a Plantacon ; where your petitioners understand 
that they have already both bin assaulted by the Saviges, very much 
sicknesse, and other descomforts, insomuch as there was not one of 
them in health at the date of the last Itres receaved thence.” 
They added that they understood that 400 or 500 more were ready 
“to depart the Islands, and that many more must of necessity 
yearely depart, by reason of the increase of the people and the 
straitness of the place.” 
The land granted is said to have been the tract still called the 
“Bermuda Hundred,” but not the same tract mentioned in the peti- 
tion. It does not appear that this effort led to any large emigration 
to Virginia.* 
Two hundred emigrants are mentioned in the records as having 
sailed for Jamaica in October, 1657, on the “Golden Falcon,” and 
200 more, Jan. 1, 1658. Many persons also went to Barbadoes, from 
time to time. Richard Stafford, in his letter to the Royal Society in 
1668, mentions that some of the people were then emigrating to 
New Providence, and some were already settled there. 
Laws were very early made forbidding Quakers and Catholics to 
remain on the islands. The Quakers were constantly persecuted, 
* Perhaps unrecorded vessels may have taken parties of emigrants to Virginia 
to settle on the ‘‘ Bermuda Hundred,” made famous by the civil war. There are 
many coincidences and similarities of family names in Virginia and Bermuda. 
But this may be because both colonies were settled at about the same time and 
by people from the same localities, rather than due to emigration from Ber- 
muda. As an illustration of these interesting coincidences, I may cite the fol- 
lowing case : 
In November, 1650, George Washington was charged with treason and tried, 
but he appealed to the English Government. The final result is not recorded, 
so far as I know, nor do I know whether he was an ancestor of General George 
Washington, but he may well have been of the same family stock. 
