The fleet, contrary to directions, followed the old circuitous route, _via_ the Canaries and West Indies, and, of course, as always, were "caught in the tail of a hurricane." Some of the vessels lost their masts, some their sails from the sea breaking over the ships. One small vessel was lost and never heard from again, and the _Sea Venture_, with Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, Admiral, charter, and all, was separated from the other ships of the fleet. The other vessels, badly shattered by the storm, their stores spoiled with sea water, and many of their passengers dead or dying with the plague, arrived at Jamestown in August, 1609. They brought back the early agitators, Martin, Archer, and Ratcliffe, together with "sundry other captains, divers gentlemen of good means and high birth, and about three hundred settlers; the greater part of them profligate youths, packed off from home to escape ill destinies, broken-down gentlemen, bankrupt tradesmen, and the like, decayed tapsters, and ostlers, trade-fallen; 'the cankers of a calm world and long peace.'" Among the "youths"--we hope only a wild youth and not "profligate,"--was the Henry Spelman, son of Sir Henry Spelman, of literary fame, whom we remember as a fine fellow and good nurse. He came over in the _Unity_, and had a career of adventure second to none in the colony. He was rescued once from massacre by Pocahontas, was a valiant soldier and expert interpreter, and fell at last, in 1623, under the tomahawk of the Indian. The story of the _Sea Venture_ is a thrilling one. Who can read unmoved of Sir George Somers, the brave old Admiral, who scarce took leisure to eat or sleep day or night, but stood at the helm and kept his ship upright until she was jammed between the ledges of two rocks on one of the Bermudas! His crew had given themselves up as lost, and some having "comfortable waters" on board, drank themselves into oblivion after pumping vainly night and day. "Neither living or dying are we the better for being drunk," said the old Admiral. They found themselves castaways on the "Isles of Devils," as the Bermudas had been named by the buccaneers who had visited them. This was the wreck which is said to have suggested Shakespeare's "Tempest." The author had evidently read Strachey's "True Repertory," and followed it in his descriptions of the "vexed Bermoothes": the cries of the mariners, the trembling star, flaming among the shrouds, which had appeared to the excited imagination of the weary and fasting Admiral at the helm. "On this strand at moonlight, the hag-born Caliban might roll and growl: Sycorax, the blue-eyed witch, might hover in the cloud wracks: and the voices of the winds whisper strange secrets."