8 BERMUDA. 



station. Somers, whose name the islands then bore, 

 though the original one of Bermuda has since pre- 

 vailed, pushed steadily on, and arrived at Bermuda 

 on the 19th June; but from age, and fatigue of the 

 voyage, he survived only a short time; his body 

 was embalmed; and the colonists, alarmed at the 

 untimely fate of their energetic commander, dis- 

 regarded his dying exhortation to use their utmost 

 endeavours for the benefit of the plantations, and 

 to return to Virginia, sailed for England with his 

 remains, in the little vessel of thirty tons, and, 

 shortly after their arrival, the embalmed body of 

 their hero was buried in White Church, Dorsetshire. 

 In a narrow enclosure, at the lower end of Govern- 

 ment House Garden at St. George's, in the midst of 

 weeds and rubbish, a mutilated slab, of a coarse de- 

 scription of stone, may be perceived, on which was 

 engraved the following epitaph, composed to the me- 

 mory of Sir George Somers, by Governor Nathaniel 

 Butler : — 



"In the Teeee 1611. 



" Noble Sir George Summers went hence to Heaven, 

 Whose well-tried worth, that held him still imploid, 

 Gare him the knowledge of the world so wide ; 

 Hence, 'twas by Heaven's decree, to this place 

 He brought new quests and name to mutual grace ; 

 At last his soul and body being to part. 

 He here bequeathed his entrails and his heart." 



