HISTORY. 9 



Attempts were now seriously made by England 

 to colonize Bermuda, and on the 11th July, 1612, 

 a vessel with sixty emigrants arrived, and was 

 conducted into harbour by three men who had 

 been left on the islands. They were attracted 

 hither by the hope of finding ambergris. 



The attention of England was now roused in 

 favour of Bermuda by the report of Captain 

 Matthew Somers, the nephew and heir of Sir 

 George. Publicity was given to highly-coloured 

 statements, and great exaggerations, in contrast 

 with the dark ideas formerly prevalent. Jourdan 

 remarks that " this prodigious and enchanted place, 

 which had been shunned as a Scylla and Charybdis, 

 and where no one had ever landed but against his 

 will, was really the richest, healthfullest, and most 

 pleasing land ever man set foot on." Strachy sums 

 up his pithy remark by saying, that the Company 

 " liked it very well." 



The Virginia Company, after having bestirred 

 themselves in representations to King James I., 

 showing the vast importance and the proximity of 

 Bermuda to his Majesty's " plantation " of Virginia, 

 succeeded in procuring an extension of their charter, 

 on the 12th March, 1612, to embrace Bermuda in 

 their boundaries, for the purpose of trade with the 



