253 



CONCLUDING EEMAEKS. 



In the preceding pages I have endeavoured to 

 give an honest and correct general account of the 

 Bermudas, from the period of their settlement to 

 the present time. The original formation of the 

 islands is a matter of doubt, unless, indeed, they 

 may be considered as the remains of the vast conti- 

 nent (Atlantis) which tradition informs us^ was, 

 with its immense population, submerged in the 

 ocean, after being shaken for three days by the 

 incessant and hourly increasing concussions of an 

 earthquake.* 



It may 'be necessary to notice one great evil 

 existing in Bermuda, which arises from the minute 

 subdivision of land. Modern writers on Political 

 Economy mention the subdivision of landed pro- 

 perty as the principal cause of the poverty and 

 barbarism which have long prevailed in Ireland : the 

 misery proceeding, not from the smallness, but from 



♦ This is the recorded tradition of Plato and the ancients. 



