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97-585: Bermuda had been settled, inadvertently, in 1609 by the Virginia Company when its flagship, Sea Venture , was wrecked on the reefs to its east. The Admiral of the company, Sir George Somers , was at the helm as the ship fought a storm that had broken apart a relief fleet destined for Jamestown , the Virginian settlement established by the Company two years earlier. Somers had deliberately driven

194-653: A Hudson's Bay Company brigade, he travelled more than 5,000 miles in the Northwest from May 1843 to November 1844, taking measurements at over 300 stations in an attempt to map the geo-magnetic activity of British North America from Montreal to the Arctic Circle, and locate the North Magnetic Pole . They followed the Mackenzie River as far as Fort Good Hope and visited Fort Simpson in

291-608: A charter to each company with a monopoly to explore, settle, or trade with a particular region of the world. Profits were shared among the investors according to the amount of stock that each owned. More than 6,300 Englishmen invested in joint-stock companies between 1585 and 1630, trading in Russia, Turkey, Africa, the East Indies, the Mediterranean, and North America. Investors in the Virginia Company hoped to profit from

388-552: A forest". While it did portray the Powhatan as peace-loving, it threatened to deal with any who resisted conversion to Anglicanism as enemies of their country. (Johnson was the son-in-law of Sir Thomas Smythe , treasurer of the company in London and leader of its "court" faction.) The company began to turn a profit after 1612, when planting a couple of new varieties of tobacco yielded a product that appealed more to English tastes than

485-399: A high order in case of other necessity, otherwise the settlers were forbidden to store gunpowder at home,) and received clothes and food from the common store. After seven years, they were to receive land of their own. The gentlemen, who provided their armor and weapons, were to be paid in land, dividends, or additional shares of stock. Initially, the colonists were governed by a president and

582-506: A large portion of Atlantic and inland Canada. The company was permitted by its charter to establish a 100-square-mile (260 km ) settlement within this area. The portion of the company's territory north of the 38th parallel was shared with the Plymouth Company , with the stipulation that neither company found a colony within 100 miles (161 km) of the other. The Virginia Company of London made landfall on 26 April 1607, at

679-602: A letter to the people of Bermuda seeking their aid in the war: To THE INHABITANTS OF THE ISLAND OF BERMUDA Camp at Cambridge 3 Miles from Boston, September 6, 1775. Gentn: (In the great Conflict, which agitates this Continent, I cannot doubt but the Assertors of Freedom and the Rights of the Constitution, are possessed of your most favorable Regards and Wishes for Success. As Descendents of Freemen and Heirs with us of

776-455: A need for Bermudian-owned ships to deliver their exports. Bermudians began to turn away from agriculture quite early, building boats and developing the Bermuda sloop to pursue maritime trades. As the Company derived no income, except from tobacco sent to England aboard the company's magazine ships, it acted to stymie these activities. The building of vessels was banned without its license, and

873-568: A reprieve. All the settlers were put ashore again, and Sir George Somers returned to Bermuda aboard the Patience to obtain more food. (Somers died there, and his nephew, Matthew Somers, the captain of the Patience , sailed the vessel to Lyme Regis in England instead, to claim his inheritance.) The third Virginia Charter or Charter of 1612, was essentially the same as the Charter of 1609, with

970-524: A seven-member council selected by the King. Leadership problems quickly erupted. Jamestown's first two leaders coped with varying degrees of success with sickness, assaults by Native Americans, poor food and water supplies, and class strife. Many colonists were ill-prepared to carve out a new settlement on a frontier. When Captain John Smith became Virginia's third president, he proved the strong leader that

1067-627: A small Space; their Arms disgraced, and Suffering all the Calamities of a Siege. The Virtue, Spirit, and Union of the Provinces leave them nothing to fear, but the Want of Ammunition, The applications of our Enemies to foreign States and their Vigilance upon our Coasts, are the only Efforts they have made against us with Success. Under those Circumstances, and with these Sentiments we have turned our Eyes to you Gentlemen for Relief, We are informed there

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1164-461: A state of perpetual hostility would exist between them and Christians. In 1609, the company issued instructions to settlers to kidnap Native American children so as to educate them with English values and religion. These instructions also sanctioned attacking the Iniocasoockes , the cultural leaders of the local Powhatans . Only after Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr arrived in 1610, was

1261-500: Is a very large Magazine in your Island under a very feeble Guard; We would not wish to in volve you in an Opposition, in which from your Situation, we should be unable to support you: — We knew not therefore to what Extent to sollicit your Assistance in availing ourselves of this Supply; — but if your Favor and Friendship to North America and its Liberties have not been misrepresented, I persuade myself you may, consistent with your own Safety, pro mote and further this Scheme, so as to give it

1358-746: The Bahamas under the Cromwell-loyalist William Sayle as the Eleutheran Adventurers . The response of Parliament to what was characterised as the rebellion of Bermuda (and of other colonies, particularly Virginia, Barbados , and Antigua ) was the passage of An Act for prohibiting Trade with the Barbadoes, Virginia, Bermuda and Antego in October, 1650. This called for due punishment [to be] inflicted upon

1455-649: The Company of the City of London for the Plantacion of The Somers Isles , which administered that colony until losing its royal charter in 1684. Bermuda remained strongly linked to Virginia (the nearest English territory to it until Carolina Colony was settled from Bermuda in 1670 under William Sayle ); however, until the American War of Independence , when rebel General George Washington of Virginia would address

1552-401: The Plymouth Company of London (today known as the "Plymouth Company"), was empowered to settle as far as 45° North, encompassing what is present-day Pennsylvania , New Jersey , New York , and New England . The company paid all the costs of establishing each colony, and in return controlled all land and resources there, requiring all settlers to work for the company. The first leader of

1649-624: The Powhatan princess Pocahontas . Jamestown, and the sixty survivors of its original five hundred settlers, were found in such a poor state that it was decided to abandon the Jamestown settlement and return everyone to England. The timely arrival of another relief fleet under Thomas West from England granted the colony a reprieve. However, the food shortage was made more critical by the new arrivals. Somers returned to Bermuda on Patience , captained by his nephew, Matthew, to gather provisions for

1746-547: The Susan Constant , and Bartholomew Gosnold , captain of the Godspeed and leader of the expedition of three ships, on their duties upon reaching the land they named Virginia. There were no instructions for administration or governance. The First Virginia Charter established provisions for the governance of the colony. It was to be governed by a colonial council, which proved ineffective. A governor, Lord De La Warr ,

1843-827: The 12th of March, 1612, at Westminster, with the archipelago granted by the Crown unto the Treasurer and Company of Aduenturers and Planters of the Cittie of London for the first colony in Virginia . The new colony was officially named Virgineola , although this was soon changed to The Somers Isles or The Somers Islands in honour of Sir George Somers. A Governor , Richard Moore, arrived in 1612 with settlers, aboard Plough , to join those left behind by Sea Venture , Patience , and Deliverance . The new settlers were primarily tenant farmers, who gave seven years of indentured servitude to

1940-527: The 1620s, Virginia's tobacco exports were increasing, and newer English colonies in the West Indies were also emulating Bermuda by focusing on growing tobacco for export, with the result of drastically reducing the profitability of growing tobacco for Bermudian farmers. Bermudian farmers increasingly turned to growing food crops and rearing livestock, both to reduce their dependence on overpriced imports, and to sell to other colonies. This growing trade created

2037-658: The Citizens of America, your Brother Colonists, into Arms; We equally detest and lament the Prevalence of those Councils, which have led to the Effusion of so much human Blood and left us no Alternative but a Civil War or a base Submission. The wise disposer of all Events has hitherto smiled upon our virtuous Efforts; Those Mercenary Troops, a few of whom lately boasted of Subjugating this vast Continent, have been check'd in their earliest Ravages and are now actually encircled in

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2134-545: The Company in exchange for the cost of transport. Although the primary industry was envisioned to be agriculture, the early Governors enthusiastically, if mostly unsuccessfully, attempted to develop other industries also. These included pearl diving (there are no pearls in Bermuda) and ambergris . The first two slaves to arrive in Bermuda, one black, one Native American, were brought in for their skills as pearl divers. Free of

2231-570: The Company of the City of London for the Plantation of The Somers Isles, but generally referred to as the Somers Isles Company), operated until 1684. In Renaissance England, wealthy merchants were eager to find investment opportunities, so they established several companies to trade in various parts of the world. Each company was made up of investors, known as "adventurers", who purchased shares of company stock. The Crown granted

2328-556: The Crown . The Somers Isles Company, with its separate charter, continued to administer Bermuda for another six decades. The original Adventurers of the Somers Isles Company listed in the letters patent were essentially the same as those of the Virginia Company. Major-General Sir John Henry Lefroy , Governor of Bermuda from 1871 to 1877, transcribed the list which was ordered by social rank, but commented that

2425-707: The Irish landowner and politician John McClintock, who was created the 1st Baron Rathdonnell in 1868. Lefroy was also a first cousin to Thomas Lefroy (1776-1869), the future Chief Justice of Ireland. Lefroy entered the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich in London in 1831 and became a 2nd lieutenant of the Royal Artillery in 1834. When the British government launched a project under the direction of Edward Sabine to study terrestrial magnetism , he

2522-571: The Islands were "first christened Virginiola as a member of [the Virginia] plantation, but now lately resolved to be called Sommer Islands, as well in respect of the continual temperate air, as in remembrance of Sir George Sommers that died there". Administration of the Somers Isles, alias Islands of Bermuda, was in fact transferred in 1615 to a spin-off of the Virginia Company of London titled

2619-404: The Jamestown colony, but died on Bermuda in 1610. Matthew Somers was keen to receive his inheritance (Sir George and his wife were childless, but had raised his two nephews), and took Patience to Somers' hometown, Lyme Regis , and not to Virginia. When news reached England of the adventures of Sea Venture' s survivors, the royal charter of the Virginia Company was extended to include Bermuda on

2716-683: The Ordnance Office. In 1859 his wife died, and on 12 September the following year he married his second wife Charlotte Anna née Dundas (widow of Col. Armine Mountain). When he retired from the army in 1870 with the honorary rank of Major General , he entered the Colonial Service (now the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and was appointed Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Bermuda from 1871 to 1877. These positions, always held together, were reserved for military officers as Bermuda

2813-749: The Royalist colonies, but the outbreak of the Second Anglo-Dutch War in 1651 was to engulf the British West Indies in war with France and Holland. A thousand miles distant, Bermuda was untouched by that war and reached a compromise with Parliament. With the Restoration , Bermudians found they had a powerful ally in the Crown, which had its own interest in wresting control of the English Empire from corporations like

2910-419: The Somers Isles Company. It was worsening interference by the Company into the livelihoods of the islanders which led to its dissolution. A protest to the Crown resulting initially from the treatment of Perient Trott and his heirs, but expanding to include the company's wider mismanagement of the colony, was directed to the Crown. This led to a lengthy court case in which the Crown championed Bermudians against

3007-767: The Virginia Company in England was its treasurer, Sir Thomas Smythe , who arranged the 1609 charter. He had been governor of the East India Company since 1603 and continued with one break until 1620. In an extensive publicity campaign, Wingfield, Gosnold and a few others, circulated pamphlets, plays, sermons and broadsides throughout England to raise interest in New World investments. Investors could buy stock individually or in groups. Almost 1,700 people purchased shares, including men of different occupations and classes, wealthy women, and representatives of institutions such as trade guilds, towns and cities. Proceeds from

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3104-526: The Virginia Company received its Second Charter, which allowed the company to choose its new governor from among its shareholders. Investment boomed as the company launched an intensive recruitment campaign. Over 600 colonists set sail for Virginia between March 1608 and March 1609 . Sir Thomas Gates , Virginia's deputy governor, bound for the colony in the Third Supply aboard the Sea Venture ,

3201-459: The Virginia colony. When the Crown and company officials proposed a fourth charter, severely reducing the company's ability to make decisions in the governing of Virginia, subscribers rejected it. King James I forthwith changed the status of Virginia in 1624, taking control of it as a royal colony to be administered by a governor appointed by the King. However, the government's colonial policy of export restrictions did not change. The Crown approved

3298-779: The West Indies . Though the majority of the Bermudian population was of English descent , a number of other ethnic groups were brought to Bermuda during the Company's administration; the first group being Irish and Scottish indentured servants, with both groups primarily consisting of prisoners of war captured during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (including the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland ). The second group were Native Americans from North America who were brought to Bermuda as slaves after being sold into slavery in

3395-536: The abundance of food which Gates' expedition brought from Bermuda (which had necessitated the building of two ships), it was clear the colony was not yet self-sufficient and could not survive. The survivors of Jamestown were taken aboard the Deliverance and the Patience , and the colony was abandoned. Gates intended to transport all the settlers back to England, but the fortuitous arrival of another relief fleet, bearing Governor Lord De la Warre , granted Jamestown

3492-485: The aftermath of various conflicts in colonial New England such as the Pequot War and King Philip's War . The third group were Africans ; though a few were free people of colour from Spanish America , the majority were imported by European slave traders as part of the transatlantic slave trade . A rapid influx of Africans to Bermuda during the 17th century led to the white majority becoming uneasy, and resulted in

3589-623: The bid at C$ 5,062,500 including fees (US$ 3,172,567.50 at the time). Thomson subsequently donated the painting as part of his Thomson Collection to the Art Gallery of Ontario . In 1960, the Ontario Heritage Foundation, Ministry of Citizenship and Culture erected a Provincial Military Plaque dedicated to Sir John Lefroy (1817–1890) on the University of Toronto campus. Sir John Henry Lefroy 1817–1890: A pioneer in

3686-531: The colonial administration. The records of the company record a discussion during one of its first meetings about publishing a justification of their business enterprise methods to "give adventurers, a clearness and satisfaction", a public debate where Catholics and neutrals might attack them. Whereas Catholic arguments would be in support of Spanish legal claims to the New World under the Treaty of Tordesillas , it

3783-476: The colony needed. Industry flourished and relations with Chief Powhatan 's people improved. After so many failed colonizing attempts in the 16th century such as the Roanoke Colony , and with the ascension of King James to the throne of England on 24 March 1603, the effort to colonize was renewed, but this time in the form of joint-stock companies, which did not involve the king's treasury, also known as

3880-489: The colony was transferred to Sir William Wade et cetera in exchange for £2,000, who then resigned it to the Crown in 1614. The Crown briefly administered the Colony directly before the adventurers (shareholders) of the Virginia Company formed a second company, the Somers Isles Company, to which Bermuda was transferred in 1615. The Virginia Company was dissolved in 1622, with the administration of its continental colony passing to

3977-467: The colony. It is also of great significance for it provides governance independent of the Crown. An assembly took place in a church composed of Governor Sir George Yeardley and 22 select men representing seven regions. They then organized into a legislative body, establishing a precedent for self-governance, a pivotal point in American history. After 1620, with growing demand for tobacco on

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4074-527: The company able to commence a war against the Powhatan with the First Anglo-Powhatan War . De La Warr was replaced by Sir Thomas Dale , who continued the war, which continued until a truce was made with the marriage of Pocahontas to John Rolfe in 1614. The military offensive was accompanied by a propaganda war: Alderman Robert Johnson published Nova Britannia , in 1609, which compared Native Americans to wild animals—"heardes of deere in

4171-458: The company would not accept. Thus, Opchanacanough's attack , on 18 April 1622, may have been a pre-emptive attempt to defeat the colony before reinforcements arrived. In about a day, the Powhatan killed 350 of 1,240 colonists, destroying some outlying settlements. The Virginia Company quickly published an account of this attack. It was steeped in Calvinist theology of the time: the massacre

4268-493: The company. This resulted in the company's Royal Charter being revoked in 1684, and from then on the Crown assumed responsibility for appointing the Colony's governors (it first re-appointed the last company governor). Freed of the company's restraints, the local merchant class came to dominate and shape Bermuda's progress, as Bermudians abandoned agriculture en masse and turned to the sea. London Company The Virginia Company of London (sometimes called "London Company")

4365-598: The continent, the company arranged to sell Virginia tobacco in the Netherlands, but the next year and despite company pleas to maintain the privilege of freedom of trade, the Privy Council forbade the export of any product of Virginia to a foreign country until the commodities had been landed in England, and English duties had been paid. By 1621, the company was in trouble; unpaid dividends and increased use of lotteries had made future investors wary. The company debt

4462-504: The difference being territorial jurisdiction, expanding it to the Atlantic Islands like Bermuda and from "sea to sea". In "domestic correspondence" written by John Chamberlain to The Right Honorable Sir Dudley Carlton , Knight, His Maties [read: Majesty's] Ambassador at Venice dated 12 February 1612, Chamberlain wrote: 2. There is a lotterie in hand for the furthering of the Virginia viage, and an vnder companie erecting for

4559-474: The easternmost parish, was Saint George's , comprising Saint George's Island , Saint David's Island , part of the Main Island, and various smaller islands and islets around Castle Harbour (then known as Southampton Harbour) and Saint George's Harbour . This area was held as common , or King's land, and was not subdivided for exploitation by the Company. This was where the capital, Saint George's Town

4656-601: The election of a Virginia Assembly in 1627. This form of government, with governor and assembly, would oversee the colony of Virginia until 1776, excepting only the years of the English Commonwealth . Bermuda had been separated from the Virginia Company in 1614, when the Crown briefly took over its administration. In 1615, the shareholders of the Virginia Company created a new company, the Somers Isles Company , which continued to operate Bermuda. It

4753-465: The endemic warfare and other hardships which plagued the continental settlement, Bermuda thrived from the beginning, though it was never to be particularly profitable for its investors. Its population quickly surpassed that of Jamestown, and consideration was given to abandoning the North American continent and evacuating its settlers to Bermuda. The Virginia Company ran Bermuda until 1613, when

4850-459: The fairest prospect of Success. Be assured, that in this Case, the whole Power and Execution of my Influence will be made with the Honble. Continental Congress, that your Island may not only be Supplied with Provisions, but experience every other Mark of Affection and Friendship, which grateful Citizens of a free Country can bestow on its Brethren and Benefactors. I am &c. By this Charter, neither

4947-597: The first governor of Virginia between 1610 and 1618. (The English colonists named the Delaware River and Native American Lenape tribe, called the Delaware Indians, after him.) The business of the company was the settlement of the Virginia colony, supported by a labor force of voluntary transportees under the customary indenture system. In exchange for 7 years of labor for the company, the company provided passage, food, protection, and land ownership (if

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5044-461: The first laws to protect the Bermuda cedar , which were passed early in the seventeenth century, may have been intended more to restrict shipbuilding than to conserve the resource. By the 1630s, the company had ceased sending Governors to Bermuda and began appointing a string of prominent Bermudians, such as William Sayle , to the role. As few Adventurers actually settled in Bermuda, with their properties instead managed by poorer relatives or tenants,

5141-443: The forest meant that each farmer had only a very small area under cultivation, by comparison to the 50 acres (200,000 m) granted to each settler in Virginia. Bermudian farmers had to raise as many as three crops a year in order to be economically viable. This meant that they could not allow fields to lie fallow, and the soil, already high in alkaline and low in magnesium (used by plants to form chlorophyll ), became depleted. By

5238-782: The former separated isolation ward of the Royal Naval Hospital of the Royal Naval Dockyard on Ireland Island , in Bermuda , is named for Lefroy. The painting Scene in the Northwest: Portrait of John Henry Lefroy by Paul Kane showing John Henry Lefroy, which had been in possession of the Lefroy family in England, garnered a record price at an auction at Sotheby's in Toronto on 25 February 2002, when Canadian billionaire Kenneth Thomson won

5335-399: The increasingly hostile relationship between Bermudians and the company, the majority of Bermudians sided with the Crown. With control of the military forces in Bermuda as well as the Assembly, the Royalists deposed the Company appointed Governor, Captain Thomas Turner, and elected John Trimigham in his stead. The colony's Independents, who sided with Parliament, were forced into exile, settling

5432-401: The islands for England , some dead. Those aboard the two ships included Sir Thomas Gates , the military commander and future governor of Jamestown, William Strachey , whose account of the wrecking may later have inspired Shakespeare's The Tempest , and John Rolfe , who would found Virginia's tobacco industry, and who left a wife and child buried in Bermuda. Rolfe would find a new bride in

5529-526: The land's fertility. From the outset, settlers thought that the abundance of timber would be the primary leg of the economy, as Britain's forests had long been felled. The seemingly inexhaustible supply of cheap American timber was to be the primary enabler of England's (and then Britain's) rise to maritime (merchant and naval) supremacy. However, the settlers could not devote as much time as the Virginia Company would have liked to developing commodity products for export. They were too busy trying to survive. Within

5626-428: The local House of Assembly was necessarily elected without a property qualification, unlike the House of Commons of England . This meant it was far more concerned with the interests of the islanders, rather than the Adventurers in England. By the mid-17th century, with tobacco exports failing, many Adventurers in England eagerly cut their losses by selling their shares to the tenants who occupied. Bermudians quickly became

5723-450: The mainstay of the economy under the Somers Isles Company. The primary cash crop was tobacco , but the quantity and quality produced were very poor. The Bermuda cedar boxes in which the tobacco was shipped to England were said to be worth more than their contents, and much of the tobacco was destroyed on arrival. The Colony also had little success with other export crops. Additionally, the several acres of arable land that had been cut from

5820-422: The majority of landowners, but the Adventurers who remained in England maintained control of the company by barring any shareholder who did not personally attend meetings in England from the decision-making process. Many of those English shareholders belonged to the gentry and anti- Episcopalian sects within the Church of England , and sided with the Parliamentarians during the 1642–1651 Civil War . Given

5917-479: The native tobacco. Tobacco became the commodity crop of the colony, and settlers were urged to cultivate more. The colony struggled with labor shortages as mortality was high. In 1622, the Second Anglo-Powhatan War erupted. Its origins are disputed. English apologists for the company say that Opchanacanough initiated the war. Robert Williams , a 21st-century Native American law professor, argues that Opchanacanough had secured concessions from Governor Yeardley which

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6014-446: The native variety were cultivated and successfully exported from Virginia as a cash crop beginning in 1612. By 1619 a system of indentured service was fully developed in the colony; the same year the home government passed a law that prohibited the commercial growing of tobacco in England. In 1624, the company lost its charter, and Virginia became a royal colony. A spin-off , The Virginia Company of London of The Somers Isles (fully

6111-475: The natural resources of the New World. In 1606 Captain Bartholomew Gosnold obtained King James I a charter for two companies. The first, the Virginia Company of London (now known generally as the "Virginia Company of London"), covered what is now Maryland , Virginia and Carolina , between latitude 34° and latitude 41° north. Gosnold's principal backers were Sir Thomas Gates , Sir George Somers , Edward Wingfield and Richard Hakluyt . The second company,

6208-408: The original list began with Henry, Earl of Southampton: Most of Bermuda was subdivided into eight equally sized tribes , later called parishes . These were named for shareholders in the Company, and were further divided (by tribe roads ) into lots which equated to shares in the Company. The Company's return on investment came specifically from cash crops raised on that land. A ninth subdivision, now

6305-569: The public treasury. Thus it became, from a royal perspective at least, a largely risk-free endeavor. Although a profit-driven enterprise, the king was motivated by international rivalry and the propagation of religion, and the individuals who ventured to the New World were motivated by a chance to improve their economic and social standing. Thus King James awarded a patent to a group of investors which included detailed instructions for everything from where to place watchmen and with how many, to where to plant. It instructed Christopher Newport , captain of

6402-533: The said Delinquents, do Declare all and every the said persons in Barbada's, Antego, Bermuda's and Virginia, that have contrived, abetted, aided or assisted those horrid Rebellions, or have since willingly joyned with them, to be notorious Robbers and Traitors, and such as by the Law of Nations are not to be permitted any maner of Commerce or Traffique with any people whatsoever; and do forbid to all maner of persons, Foreiners, and others, all maner of Commerce, Traffique and Correspondency whatsoever, to be used or held with

6499-442: The said Rebels in the Barbada's, Bermuda's, Virginia and Antego, or either of them. Parliamentary privateers were authorised to act against English vessels trading with these colonies: All Ships that Trade with the Rebels may be surprized. Goods and tackle of such ships not to be embezeled, till judgement in the Admiralty.; Two or three of the Officers of every ship to be examined upon oath. Parliament made preparations to invade

6596-407: The sale of stock were used to help finance the costs of establishing overseas settlements, including paying for ships and supplies and recruiting and outfitting laborers. A single share of stock in the Virginia Company cost 12 pounds 10 shillings, the equivalent of more than six months' wages for an ordinary working man. The largest single investor was Thomas West, Lord de la Warre , who served as

6693-402: The same Glorious Inheritance, we flatter ourselves that tho' divided by our Situation, we are firmly united in Sentiment; the Cause of Virtue and Liberty is Confined to no Continent or Climate, it comprehends within its capacious Limits, the Wise and good, however dispersed and separated in Space or distance.) You need not be informed, that Violence and Rapacity of a tyrannick Ministry, have forced

6790-470: The ship onto the reefs to prevent its foundering, thereby saving all aboard. The settlers and seamen spent ten months in Bermuda while they built two new ships to continue the voyage to Jamestown. During the building, Sea Venture' s longboat was fitted with a mast and sent to find Jamestown. Neither it, nor its crew, was ever seen again. When Deliverance and Patience set sail for Jamestown, they left several people behind, some to maintain Somers' claim to

6887-581: The site of Jamestown Island , further upriver and on the northern shore, as the place to build their fort. In addition to survival, the early colonists were expected to make a profit for the owners of the Virginia Company. Although the settlers were disappointed that gold did not wash up on the beach and gems did not grow in the trees, they realized there was great potential for a wealth of other kinds in their new home. Early industries, such as glass manufacture, pitch and tar production for naval stores, and beer and wine making took advantage of natural resources and

6984-669: The southern edge of the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay , which they named Cape Henry , near present-day Virginia Beach . Deciding to move the encampment, on 4 May 1607 they established the Jamestown Settlement on the James River about 40 miles (64 km) upstream from its mouth at the Chesapeake Bay . Later in 1607, the Plymouth Company established its Popham Colony in present-day Maine , but it

7081-494: The stock issue of 1609 nor the authorized lottery system mitigated the shortage of cash flow. This was an ordinance and constitution that proceeded from a set of instructions issued in 1618 to the governor and the Council of Virginia known as An Ordinance and Constitution of the Virginia Company in England on 24 July 1621. This document replaced military law with common law, and provided for land ownership for settlers living in

7178-777: The study of terrestrial magnetism, Lefroy was director of the magnetic observatory here from 1842 to 1853. Born in Hampshire, England, he was commissioned in the Royal Artillery at the age of seventeen and, because of his aptitude for science, was posted to St. Helena in 1839 to establish a magnetic observatory. Three years later he was transferred to Toronto. During 1843–44 Lefroy conducted the first comprehensive magnetic and meteorological survey in British North America, making observations of exceptional scope and scientific value. Before returning to England in 1853 he

7275-537: The terms of indenture for African indentured servants to be raised from seven to ninety-nine years. After the outbreak of the English Civil War (1642–1651), Bermuda remained sympathetic towards the Royalist cause, perhaps due to the fact that the shareholders of the Somers Isles Company consisted primarily of wealthy members of the upper-class . Despite the Royalist defeat during the conflict, Bermuda

7372-597: The territory in 1624 as a royal colony . John Henry Lefroy Sir John Henry Lefroy KCMG CB FRS (28 January 1817 – 11 April 1890) was an English military officer and later colonial administrator who also distinguished himself with his scientific studies of the Earth's magnetism . Lefroy was a son of the Rev. John Henry George Lefroy, of Ewshot House (subsequently Itchel) in Hampshire, England, and his wife, Sophia Cottrell. His sister Anne married

7469-473: The three-sided fort erected on the banks of the James, the settlers quickly discovered that they were, first and foremost, employees of the Virginia Company of London, following instructions of the men appointed by the company to rule them. In exchange, the laborers were armed (though gunpowder was stored separately at the powder magazine, to be distributed in definite quantities monthly for hunting purposes, or by

7566-539: The total landmass of the eight commercial parishes was greater than originally estimated. His superior, Daniel Tucker , the Governor of Bermuda , appropriated a choice piece of land, equivalent to the excess, for himself. The Company continued to appoint governors until its dissolution in 1684. In 1620, however, a colonial parliament was created, the House of Assembly . Suffrage was restricted to male land owners, and there

7663-633: The trade of the Bermudas, wch have changed theyre name twise within this moneth, beeing first christned Virginiola as a member of that plantation, but now lastly resoued to be called Sommer Islands , as well in respect of the continuall temperat ayre, as in remembrance of Sr George Sommers that died there. This is also quoted in Bermuda under the Sommer Islands Company 1612–1684 by A. C. Hollis Hallett: The contemporary letter-writer and social commentator, John Chamberlain, wrote that

7760-833: The transfer of the Toronto Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory to the provincial government. Upon his return to London in April 1853, Lefroy held various office positions in the British Army . He became involved in the army reform, and in that function corresponded from 1855 to 1868 with Florence Nightingale . During the Crimean War he began the negotiations that would eventually see the Dardanelles Gun being gifted to Britain. Later, he became Inspector General of army schools and finally in 1868 director of

7857-642: The west. On 9 June 1848, Lefroy was made a member of the Royal Society . Lefroy remained in Toronto until 1853, continuing his observations and managing the observatory. On 16 April 1846, he married his first wife Emily Mary, a daughter of Sir John Robinson, 1st Baronet, of Toronto ; they had two daughters and two sons. Lefroy also helped found the Royal Canadian Institute , where he was the first vice-president in 1851/52 and then president in 1852/53. Before his return to London, he managed

7954-461: The worker survived). In December 1606, the Virginia Company's three ships , containing 105 men and boys as passengers and 39 crew members, set sail from Blackwall, London and made landfall on 26 April 1607 at the southern edge of the mouth of what they named the James River on the Chesapeake Bay . They named this shore Cape Henry . They were attacked by Native Americans, and the settlers moved north. On 14 May 1607, these first settlers selected

8051-492: Was a division of the Virginia Company with responsibility for colonizing the east coast of North America between latitudes 34° and 41° N . The territory granted to the Virginia Company of London included the eastern coast of North America from the 34th parallel at Cape Fear north to the 41st parallel in Long Island Sound . As part of the Virginia Company and Colony, the Virginia Company of London owned

8148-534: Was abandoned after about a year. By 1609, the Plymouth Company had dissolved. As a result, the charter for the Virginia Company of London was adjusted with a new grant that extended from "sea to sea" of the previously shared area between the 38th and the 40th parallels . It was amended in 1612 to include the new territory of the Somers Isles (or Bermuda ). The Virginia Company of London struggled financially, especially with labor shortages in its Virginia colony. Its profits improved after sweeter strains of tobacco than

8245-546: Was an Imperial fortress and the most important British naval and military base in the Western Hemisphere, with the Governor in his role of Commander-in-Chief, or General Officer Commanding, having control of the large regular army garrison . He left this position due to illness and returned to England, but later served as Administrator of Tasmania from 21 October 1880 to 7 December 1881. John Henry Lefroy

8342-517: Was chosen to set up and supervise the observatory on Saint Helena . He embarked on 25 September 1839, for Saint Helena, and carried out his task throughout the following year. In 1842, Lefroy was sent to Toronto as the superintendent of the new Toronto Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory built there as part of that project. He immediately began planning a field expedition to the Canadian northwest to measure magnetism there. With an assistant and

8439-404: Was dispatched in 1610 to provide firmer governance of the colony. The council back in London whose directives and interests Lord De La Warr represented was composed of knights, gentlemen and merchants who had invested in the company. This charter also limited the jurisdiction of the Virginia Company of London to 100 miles from the seaboard and from 38 degrees to 45 degrees latitude north. In 1609,

8536-756: Was feared that the neutral "pen-adversaries" might "cast scruples into our conscience" by "criticising the lawfulness of the plantation." It was decided to forego such a publication of a justification. In 1608, Sir Edward Coke , in his capacity as Lord Chief Justice , offered a ruling in Calvin's Case that went beyond the issue at hand: whether a Scotsman could seek justice at an English Court. Coke distinguished between aliens from nations at war with England and friendly aliens, those from nations in league with England. Friendly aliens could have recourse to English courts. But he also ruled that with "all infidels" (i.e. those from non-Christian nations), there could be no peace, and

8633-596: Was largely spared the effects and aftermath of the Parliamentarian victory. Supporters of the Parliamentarians in Bermuda, which like their counterparts in England were similar to the Puritan and anti- Episcopalian demographic, were forced into exile by the Company administration, becoming the Eleutheran Adventurers who settled on the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas . Agriculture remained

8730-422: Was located. The choice of this location followed the original settlement created by Sea Venture survivors, and was also determined by the two eastern harbours being the only ones then readily accessible to shipping. A surveyor, Richard Norwood , was hired to produce a survey of the colony, which also served as a census. This was completed in 1616, although he made later updates. In the process, he discovered that

8827-763: Was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in 1870, and knighted in 1877 ( KCMG ). A small town in Ontario, Lefroy, situated on the south end of Lake Simcoe was named after John Henry Lefroy. Mount Lefroy in the Rocky Mountains named after John Henry Lefroy, although it appears unclear if James Hector of the Palliser Expedition named it in 1858, or if the name is due to George Mercer Dawson , 1884. The Lefroy House care home, which occupies

8924-420: Was no upper house. An appointed council, composed primarily from the leading merchant families of the Colony, came to fill a role similar to both an upper house, and a cabinet, and often proved the true repository of power in Bermuda. The immediate concern of the first governors was for the colony's protection from a feared Spanish or Dutch attack, and the building of fortifications, and the raising of militias ,

9021-561: Was now over £9,000. Worried Virginians were hardly reassured by the advice of pragmatic Treasurer Edwin Sandys who warned that the company "cannot wish you to rely on anything but yourselves". In March 1622, the company's and the colony's situation went from dire to disastrous when, during the Indian massacre of 1622 , the Powhatan confederacy killed one-quarter of the European population of

9118-590: Was shipwrecked in Bermuda , along with the admiral of the company, Sir George Somers , Captain Newport, and 147 other settlers and seamen. When Gates finally arrived to take up his new post in 1610, with most of the survivors of the Sea Venture (on two new ships built in Bermuda, the Deliverance and the Patience ), he found that only 60 of the original 214 colonists had survived the infamous "Starving Time" of 1609–1610 . Most of these were dying or ill. Despite

9215-479: Was subsequently, also known officially as The Somers Isles (for the Admiral of the Virginia Company, Sir George Somers ) until being dissolved in 1684 and made a royal colony. Meetings were held at town hall to discuss the distribution of the tobacco. The instructions issued to Sir Thomas Gates , on 20 November 1608, called for a forcible conversion of Native Americans to Anglicanism and their subordination to

9312-492: Was sustained throughout the company's administration, and beyond. A review of the colony's defences was carried out by Captain John Smith . The immigration of European indentured servants underpinned the Bermudian economy during the Company's administration over the island, and this source of cheap labour meant that Bermuda never adopted a slavery-based economic system which came to characterise other European colonies in

9409-416: Was the work of Providence in that it was justification for the destruction of the Powhatan, and building English settlements over their former towns. New orders from the Virginia Company of London directed a "perpetual war without peace or truce" "to root out from being any longer a people, so cursed a nation, ungrateful to all benefitte, and incapable of all goodnesses". Within two years, the Crown took over

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