History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of VirginiaCampbell, Charles
History
History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia
Campbell, Charles
Virginia -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775; Virginia -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783
choir, in a green velvet chair, with a cloth, and also a velvet cushion
laid on the table before him on which he knelt. The council and officers
sate on each side of him, and when he returned to his house he was
escorted back in the same manner. The newly appointed council consisted
of Sir Thomas Gates, whose title was changed from that of
Lieutenant-Governor to that of Lieutenant-General; Sir George Somers,
Admiral; Captain George Percy; Sir Ferdinando Wayman, Master of the
Ordnance; Captain Newport, Vice-Admiral; and Mr. Strachey, Secretary and
Recorder. Strachey, who appears to have been a scholar, published an
interesting account of the colony at this period. Some of the houses at
Jamestown were covered with boards; some with Indian mats. They were
comfortable, and securely protected from the savages by the forts. Lord
Delaware was a generous friend of the colony; but it was as yet quite
too poor and too much in its infancy to maintain the state suitable to
him and his splendid retinue. The fashions of a court were preposterous
in a wilderness. On the ninth of June, Sir George Somers was dispatched,
in compliance with his own suggestion, in his cedar vessel to the
Bermudas, accompanied by Argall in another vessel, to procure further
supplies for the colony. Captain Argall, in consequence of adverse winds
and heavy fogs, returned to Jamestown. Sir George Somers, after much
difficulty, reached his destination, where he shortly after died, at a
spot on which the town of St. George commemorates his name. The islands
themselves received the designation of his surname, and were afterwards
called the Summer Islands. It is said that the Bermudas were at first
named in England "Virginiola," but shortly after the "Summer Islands,"
partly in allusion to their temperature, and partly in honor of Sir
George.[102:A] It was remarked of him that he was "a lamb upon land; a
lion at sea." As his life had been divided between the Old World and
the New, so after his death his remains were buried, part at Bermuda,
part at Whitchurch, Dorsetshire, in England.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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