ABSTRACT
Amyas Preston was privateering—in the Eleanour of Weymouth—in 1587, and served with distinction in the Armada campaign. The following year he sailed with Cumberland to the Azores. During October, gathered numerous privateers, among them Preston's own Julian of Lyme, under the command of one George Sommers, the Dorsetshire seaman who was later to give his name to the Bermudas or Somers Islands. Sommers was also associated with Lyme: he had been born in or near there in 1554 and was to represent the borough in Parliament from 1604 until his death in 1610. It may be thought strange that Preston should have consented to co-operate with Raleigh after the dispute between them in the later eighties, and it is not unlikely that he did so with some reluctance. Once at sea, Preston made no haste, perhaps because he was already persuaded he would be too late for the rendezvous at Trinidad.
