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 MWIMMiaSS!""''' »' 'he English 
 
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 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
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 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924008333233 
 
YALE 
 HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS 
 
 MISCELLANY 
 
 I 
 
 published ttlfdeb the dibection of the 
 
 Department of History 
 
 from the income of 
 
 THE HENRY WELDON BARNES 
 MEMORIAL FUND 
 
The Colonising Activities of 
 THE English Puritans 
 
 The Last Phase of the Elizabethan 
 Struggle with Spain 
 
 By 
 ARTHUR PERCIVAL NEWTON 
 
 Lecturer in Colonial History^ University of London 
 
 With an IsTRODncTioH 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES M. ANDREWS 
 
 NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 MDCCCCXIV 
 
 E.V. 
 
COPTIUSHT, 1914, BY 
 
 Y.U.E UuivKKarTY Fkess 
 
 First printed January, 1914, lOOO copies 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The first forty years of the seventeenth century in 
 England, primarily of interest as a period of constitu- 
 tional conflict, was marked by an outburst of romantic 
 activity that sent hundreds of Englishmen out into the 
 western seas in search of adventure and profit. Coinci- 
 dent with the later days of these half-piratical expedi- 
 tions and organised commercial enterprises were the 
 migrations of those who, moved by impulses that were 
 partly religious, partly political, and partly economic, 
 sought independence of worship and permanent homes 
 in the New World. Though differing widely in purposes 
 and results, these journeyings into the unknown West 
 were often closely related in origin, and were supported 
 by groups of men, aristocrats, commoners, merchants,^ 
 and adventurers, who were ready to promote any under- 
 taking, whether commercial or religious, that promised 
 a profitable return. It is difficult to grasp the full signifi- 
 cance of the settlements of Virginia, Maryland, Massa-> 
 chusetts, and Saybrook, without a knowledge of the 
 circumstances under which the colonies of Bermuda, 
 Barbadoes, and Old Providence were established ; for all 
 represented in different forms and proportions the in- 
 fluences at work in the motherland which were arousing 
 in men of all classes the spirit of adventure and revolt. 
 No single motive governed the men who voyaged over 
 seas during this romantic period. The zeal of the viking 
 and the lust of the capitalist were inextricably inter- 
 woven with the hopes of the godly in the task of opening 
 and occupying the great frontier which stretched west- 
 ward from the maritime states of Europe. 
 
vi INTRODUCTION 
 
 In dealing with, the events of this period the historian 
 cannot isolate a part of his subject and observe it, as it 
 were, in vacuo. Such treatment is illogical in ignoring 
 the unity of causes which provoked colonial enterprise, 
 and incomplete in omitting many phases of the larger 
 movement that are essential to a proper understanding, 
 not only of the whole, but of any of its parts. Hitherto, 
 the picture of our settlement in the period from 1607 to 
 1640 has been left provokingly incomplete, and, in conse- 
 quence, estimates and conclusions have been reached that 
 are often exaggerated, sometimes even grotesque. 
 Writers on early American history have been accus- 
 tomed, as a rule, to segregate individual efforts at 
 colonisation and to deal with them as independent 
 phenomena, thus giving to our era of beginnings 
 the appearance of a running track, laid out in sepa- 
 rate and mutually exclusive courses. However agree- 
 able this form of procedure may be to those whose 
 interest is limited to the history of a single colony, and 
 whose chief concern is a microscopic examination of the 
 incidents of that colony's career, it cannot be satisfactory 
 to those to whom settlement on the American seaboard 
 was but part of a larger commercial and colonising move- 
 ment in the wider world of the Atlantic basin, where all 
 the maritime enemies of Spain were engaged in the 
 effort, successful in the end, to break the monopoly of the 
 great Colossus. 
 
 As a contribution to this aspect of our early history, 
 I welcome Mr. Newton's book. Though dealing pri- 
 marily with the colonising experiments of the English 
 Puritans in the Caribbean, the author ranges over the 
 larger field of English activity during the eventful years 
 from 1604 to 1660 and gives us a point of view from 
 which to observe the happenings in the New World. 
 Thus to no small extent his work fills in the missing 
 
INTRODUCTION vii 
 
 parts of our picture and renders intelligible aspects of 
 the scene that had hitherto remained obscure. Though 
 many phases of the subject still need to be investigated 
 with the same painstaldng care that is here expended 
 on the history of the Puritan movement, yet the angle 
 of observation is rightly selected and the character of 
 the period is determined with accuracy and skill. At 
 many points the narrative touches the "original" colo- 
 nies and throws needed light on details of their history. 
 This is particularly true of the origins of Virginia and 
 Massachusetts and the short-lived settlement of Say- 
 brook, but it is also true of the later history of New 
 England and of the relations of the Puritans of Massa- 
 chusetts Bay with the aristocratic and conservative 
 Puritans at home. Many passages in Winthrop 's journal 
 take on a new meaning, and the unity of Puritan activity, 
 in England and New England and the Caribbean, mani- 
 fests itself with striking significance. In short, we get 
 glimpses of ourselves from the outside and an oppor- 
 tunity of comparison that cannot but be beneficial. Self- 
 contemplation is never conducive to soundness of judg- 
 ment, if indulged in without regard to the world around 
 us. 
 
 Mr. Newton has done more than fill in our picture and 
 set before us a new point of view. He has presented an 
 exceedingly interesting account of a colonial settlement, 
 hitherto almost unknown and, except in one or two 
 features, entirely unstudied. The ample material that 
 exists for the history of the Providence Company and 
 its colonising ventures enables the author to deal fully 
 with the company, its organisation, personnel, and 
 methods; with the colony, its types of settlers, manner 
 of settlement, forms of cultivation, staples, labour, diffi- 
 culties, quarrels, and other hindrances to success; and, 
 lastly, with the relations between the two, government. 
 
viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 defence, supplies, and distribution of profits. Not only 
 is sucli a study of interest as showing the prevailing 
 ideas of the period regarding a plantation, but it is 
 particularly suggestive as a Puritan experiment, similar 
 in its inception and spirit, during the early years of its 
 career, to the colony of Massachusetts. As Mr. Newton 
 says, "The founders of both wished to provide a refuge 
 for the oppressed victims of Laud's ecclesiastical 
 regime, each was to be a sanctuary where the Puritans 
 might worship God after their own fashion, each was to 
 be a society ordered according to the dictates of religion 
 and governed with justice and equity, but upon the 
 strictest Puritan pattern." That the Providence settle- 
 ment failed was in part due to its location in the heart 
 of the Spanish Main, and in part to the fact that "the 
 founding of an ideal community and the pursuit of a 
 profitable investment for trading capital are incom- 
 patible aims." The student of New England history 
 cannot but profit from a study of an experiment that 
 presents so many points in common with the Puritan 
 settlements there. 
 
 Of equal importance with the light thrown on the 
 colonising activities of the period is the information 
 furnished regarding the political situation in England 
 and the connection of the members of the company, 
 particularly John Pym and the Earl of Warwick, with 
 organised resistance to the personal government of 
 Charles I. The English Puritans formed a veritable 
 clan, intimately bound together by ties of blood, mar- 
 riage, and neighbourhood, and they acted together in all 
 that concerned colonisation on one hand and autocratic 
 rule on the other. The genealogical features of the book 
 form an impressive commentary upon the religious and 
 political groupings of the period, a commentary the more 
 significant in that the company, which became the nucleus 
 
INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 of resistance, was active as a chartered body during the 
 very years when Charles I was endeavouring to rule 
 without parliament. In the months of 1637, at a critical 
 time in the constitutional conflict, "nothing less was in 
 process of formation," says Mr. Newton, "than the first 
 organised political party of opposition to an English 
 government," and of this party John Pym, the treasurer 
 of the company, was the leader and energising force. To 
 the life of King Pym, the author has contributed a 
 valuable chapter, disclosing the importance of his activi- 
 ties during a period of obscurity, to which Gardiner was 
 able to devote but a few lines in his elaborate article on 
 Pym in the Dictionary of National Biography. As this 
 period coincided also with the great migration to New 
 England, so careful a study of Puritan plans and pur- 
 poses furnishes a needed background to New England 
 history, and sets forth for the first time the facts regard- 
 ing the proposed withdrawal of the Puritan "Lords and 
 Gentlemen" from the Old World to the New. 
 
 In the larger field of international relations, the Provi- 
 dence Company played a conspicuous part. Starting as 
 a Puritan colony, it merged into a privateering centre 
 of warfare upon Spanish possessions in the West Indies 
 and on the Main. Mr. Newton shows clearly that the 
 Puritan company perpetuated the Elizabethan tradition 
 of hostility to Spain, which continued for more than 
 seventy years after the Armada, partly because religious 
 warfare was still a vital force during the first half of 
 the seventeenth century, and partly because with the 
 opening of the colonising era a new rivalry arose for 
 the possession of profitable vantage points in the West. 
 The story of the Providence Company is, therefore, th6^ 
 story of organised opposition to Spain in the Caribbean ; 
 and its leaders, after the failure of their settlement, by 
 handing on the traditional policy to Cromwell and the 
 
X INTRODUCTION 
 
 men of the Protectorate, prolonged the conflict to the 
 very eve of the Restoration. Apart from the main theme 
 of the book, this abiding hostility to Spain is perhaps 
 the most conspicuous feature of the narrative, and fur- 
 nishes the connection between the deeds of Elizabethan 
 seamen, the commercial enterprises of the Earl of "War- 
 wick, the work of the Providence Company, the voyages 
 of William Jackson at the time of the Long Parliament, 
 the Jamaican expedition of Cromwell, and the plans for 
 an anti-Spanish West Indian company drafted by the 
 merchants and sea captains at the close of the Inter- 
 regnum. In this respect, as in many others, Mr. Newton 
 has been able to gather scattered threads into an orderly 
 narrative and to give imity and meaning to many events 
 hitherto treated in isolation. His book is of importance 
 to English and American readers alike. 
 
 Charles M. Andebws. 
 Yale University, 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 Author's Introduction .... 1 
 
 I. Beginnings of Englisli Colonisation . 13 
 
 n. Puritan Emigration and the Formation of 
 
 the Providence Company . 40 
 
 III. The Saybrook Project and the Settle- 
 ment of Providence ... 80 
 rv. The Planting of Tortuga (Association) 
 
 and Troubles in Providence . . 101 
 V. Enlargement of the Activities of the 
 
 Company 123 
 
 VI. Progress and Controversy in Association 
 
 and Providence .... 146 
 VII. Projected Emigration to Connecticut: 
 
 Saybrook 172 
 
 Vni. Spanish Attacks and the Company's 
 
 Change of Policy .... 187 
 
 IX, Counter Attacks 209 
 
 X. The Providence Company and the Ship- 
 
 Money Case 236 
 
 XL The Final Reconstruction of the Company 248 
 XII. Trade with the Main; French Capture 
 
 of Tortuga 272 
 
 XIII. The Company and New England . 283 
 
 XrV. Capture of Providence by Spain . . 294 
 XV. The Abiding Influence of the Providence 
 
 Company's Enterprises . 314 
 
THE COLONISING ACTIVITIES OF THE 
 ENGLISH PURITANS 
 
AUTHOE'S INTBODUCTION 
 
 Nowhere, perhaps, in the great field of historic enquiry- 
 has there been during the past half -century more patient 
 searching than in that corner where were laid the foun- 
 dations of the modem constitutional liberties of two 
 great nations, the English and the American. Writing 
 now nearly thirty years ago, one of the most diligent of 
 historical investigators said of the period he had pecu- 
 liarly made his own: "The subject-matter has been 
 already attempted by writers of no mean reputation, 
 some of whom succeeded in convincing their readers 
 that there is nothing more to be said about the matter; 
 but even the richest materials fail to yield all that the 
 historian requires. Again and again, however the 
 frontier of knowledge may be advanced, the enquirer is 
 confronted by darkness into which he cannot safely 
 penetrate.'" The frontier of knowledge has been 
 advanced beyond the point where Gardiner left it, and 
 yet the darkness surrounds the seeker after truth who 
 strays but a little from the well-trodden highways of 
 Stuart history. It is in the hope of illumining some por- 
 tion of this outer darkness that we engage ourselves in 
 the following pages with the story of a long-forgotten 
 attempt to colonise some insignificant West Indian 
 islands, and shall endeavour to show that light sought 
 even thus far from the scene of great events, may yet 
 aid us to see those events in a more balanced perspective 
 and a little more in their own true colours. 
 
 In our enquiry it will be borne in upon us again and 
 again that the history of English colonisation in the first 
 half of the seventeenth century is peculiarly a part of 
 the history of England itself; colonising attempts were 
 
 1 Gardiner, Fall of the Monarchy of Charles I, I, p. v. 
 
2 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 blessed or frowned upon according to the exigencies of 
 European politics, the jealousies and rivalries of Eng- 
 lish courtiers or merchants involved similar rivalries of 
 their servants abroad, and the quarrels that began at 
 Whitehall or in Change Alley have swayed in a marked 
 degree the destinies of colonists on the banks of the 
 Chesapeake, in bleak New England, or among the tropic 
 Caribbees. But, as in nature all action involves a 
 reaction, so the course of English domestic politics under 
 Charles I was materially influenced by the colonising 
 schemes of the time. The leaders of the parliamentary 
 opposition acquired their power of working harmo- 
 niously together in the joint schemes of colonisation that 
 interested them; men who had for years discussed 
 questions of policy round the board of a chartered com- 
 pany, were more capable of acting in concert than had 
 they only met one another in the hunting field, upon the 
 bench or during the rare and brief sessions of parlia- 
 ment. The work of the Long Parliament, that broke 
 forever the power of absolute monarchy in England, 
 and made possible Cromwell's schemes of world politics, 
 was begun in the courts of the Virginia, the Saybrook, 
 and the Providence companies. It is in connection with 
 the story of the last of these, the Company of Adven- 
 turers to the Island of Providence, that we shall pursue 
 an attempt to trace out once more some parts of the 
 oft-told tale of the great Puritan migration, and to enter 
 upon the little-explored field of West Indian history in 
 the seventeenth century. 
 
 The story of the company that undertook the coloni- 
 sation of the islands of Provideilce, Henrietta, and 
 Association, and engaged in various attempts at trade 
 and colonisation upon the mainland of Central America, 
 is of interest from several points of view. The adven- 
 turers in the company included amongst their number 
 
AUTHOE'S INTEODUCTION 3 
 
 almost every important member of the inner circle of 
 leaders in opposition to the arbitrary rule of Charles I. 
 The Earl of Warwick, Viscount Saye and Sele, and Lord 
 Brooke took a most active part in the company's affairs 
 throughout; John Pym was its treasurer and the prime 
 mover in every design; while Sir Grilbert Gerrard, Sir 
 Benjamin Rudyerd, and Sir Thomas Barrington, all 
 active members of the Puritan party in the Long Parlia- 
 ment, were unremitting in their attention to its business. 
 Other well-known names met with are those of Oliver 
 St. John, John Gurdon, the intimate friend of John 
 Winthrop, John Robartes, the Earl of Radnor of Charles 
 II 's reign, John Hampden, and Sir William Waller, and 
 we shall find that the company provided an outlet for 
 the energies of the parliament men who were thrust out 
 from national affairs during the long eleven years of 
 personal government. On the 2d of March, 1629, Charles 
 I's third parliament was dissolved amid scenes of 
 unprecedented violence and on the 28th of April, Sir 
 Nathaniel Rich received from Bermuda the letter that 
 led to the formation of the new company. On the 3d of 
 November, 1640, the Long Parliament met and the last 
 act of the great constitutional struggle began, while on 
 the 28th of March, 1641, the last letters to Providence 
 were signed, letters that were never to be received, for 
 the island was taken by the Spaniards in May of the 
 same year. The eleven years of the company's activity 
 therefore coincide almost exactly with the eleven years 
 of Charles I's autocracy. This coincidence will seem the 
 more striking when we show that between 1636 and 1640 
 many of the plans of opposition to the government were 
 matured in security under cloak of the company's 
 meetings. 
 
 Through the history of the Providence Company and 
 the allied designs of the Earl of Warwick in the West 
 
4 PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 Indies it is possible to trace the development o£ tlie 
 Elizabethan tradition of hostility to Spain down to the 
 capture of Jamaica in 1655 and the foundation on a firm 
 basis of the West Indian empire, that during the eight- 
 eenth century was of such paramount importance to 
 England. The semi-legal piracy that was carried on 
 under the aegis of the company, connects the freebooting 
 enterprises of Drake, Cumberland, and the Elizabethan 
 sea-dogs with Cromwell's "Western Design," a plan that 
 had its inspiration from the minds of Pym and of War- 
 wick. Cromwell himself took no part in the work of 
 the Providence Company, though there is no doubt that 
 he was intimately acquainted with it. His aunt Joan 
 was the mother of Sir Thomas Barrington, and some 
 of his most intimate friends were deeply interested in 
 the company's affairs; the Earl of Warwick was lord 
 high admiral of the parliamentary fleet till 1649, while 
 William Jessop, who had been secretary of the Provi- 
 dence Company, was clerk of the Council of State which 
 took over the lord high admiral's functions after 
 Warwick had resigned. 
 
 There is an intimate connection between the Provi- 
 dence Company and the strictly contemporary colonisa- 
 tion of New England. In its beginnings the Massachu- 
 setts enterprise was dependent for its influence with the 
 ruling powers upon the members of the Providence 
 Company. The original patent of the Saybrook settle- 
 ment was issued to them, and, though in later years the 
 company's aims and those of the rulers of Massachusetts 
 were seen to be hopelessly divergent, it was through the 
 Providence leaders that the principles which led to the 
 Massachusetts migration were brought to bear upon the 
 development of the English nation. It is possible to 
 trace in the company's records the ideas of colonisation 
 that animated the English country gentlemen who were 
 
AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 the Puritan leaders, and the development of their design 
 of founding a refuge for the Nonconformists from the 
 Laudian persecution. The ideas of John White of Dor- 
 chester, expressed in widely circulated pamphlets and 
 letters, commended themselves to the leaders as well as 
 to the rank and file of the Puritans, but while the eyes 
 of Warwick, Saye, Rich, and Pym were turned to the 
 West Indies as the proper home for a Puritan colony, 
 the leaders of the great migration, Winthrop and Dudley, 
 whose names before 1630 were hardly known outside 
 their immediate circle, dared to differ from their power- 
 ful friends and, defying precedent, directed the ever- 
 swelling stream of emigrants to the shores of Massa- 
 chusetts Bay, there to found rather a commonwealth 
 than a colony. 
 
 We have concerning Providence a wealth of detail, 
 which is lacking for the colonies in St. Christopher and 
 Barbadoes. It is possible to trace the course of its" 
 development from the early ideal of the colony as a 
 home for Englishmen to the realisation of a tropical 
 plantation where all manual labour was performed by 
 negro slaves for the profit of a few white planters, a 
 plantation such as Barbadoes became, after the intro- 
 duction of the cultivation of sugar on a commercial scale 
 gave to the West Indies the profitable staple commodity 
 that had so long been sought. Interest of a more per- 
 sonal character is not lacking from the records, which 
 in many ways illuminate the views and aspirations of 
 the time and especially those of John Pym, the great 
 protagonist of the constitutional struggle, whose organ- 
 ising capacity and steadfastness of purpose guided the 
 company in every emergency. Pym's life outside parlia- 
 ment has been very little studied, and it is of interest 
 therefore to trace in these records the application of his 
 views of statesmanship to the government of a colony. 
 
6 PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 and to catch here and there a glimpse of Ms ideas con- 
 cerning England's true foreign policy as the unrelenting 
 opponent of Spanish power, ideas which his successor, 
 Cromwell, was able to carry into effect when the times 
 were propitious. The career of Eobert Rich, Earl of 
 Warwick, will also demand a share of our attention 
 and rightly, for to him, perhaps more than to any of his 
 contemporaries, is credit due for a persistence in colonis- 
 ing enterprise through good or evil fortune, that has 
 written his name large in the records of every English 
 colony of his time. 
 
 The story of the Providence Company falls naturally 
 into two portions ; from its foundation down to the year 
 1635 the company was endeavouring to build up a Puri- 
 tan community, but at the same time by the raising of 
 saleable crops to make a profit on the capital invested; 
 in 1635 this design, having proved impracticable, was to 
 a large extent abandoned and the colony became openly, 
 what before it had been secretly, a base for privateering 
 against the Spaniards. Our attention will first be 
 directed to the circumstances that gave rise to the 
 formation of the company and to the history of Provi- 
 dence as a Puritan settlement. As such it failed miser- 
 ably, but its story is worth study from this point of view, 
 if only as showing that Puritanism was not necessarily 
 as successful a colonising force as might be supposed 
 if New England only were considered. The second por- 
 tion of our enquiry will be concerned with Providence 
 as a centre of buccaneering enterprise and as a fortress 
 whence were directed efforts to plant an English colony 
 upon the mainland of Central America. The company's 
 endeavours to found a Puritan colony during this period 
 were at first directed to the banks of the Connecticut 
 River, but, when they again proved unsuccessful, 
 attempts were made to people the Central American 
 
AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 colony from New England, and our attention must be 
 directed to the resulting hostility of the rulers of Massa- 
 chusetts to the English leaders of the Puritan party, a 
 hostility which will show us how far even in those early 
 days Massachusetts had diverged from the normal course 
 of English development. 
 
 The sources of our information of the company's 
 affairs may be briefly stated. The Providence Company 
 and its efforts to colonise its islands and to establish 
 English trade upon the mainland of Central America 
 lasted, as we have seen, only for the eleven years from 
 1630 to 1641 and have been quite forgotten by succeeding 
 generations. So much has this been the case that the 
 chief colony, established upon the small island of Santa 
 Catalina off the MosMto Coast, has, owing to its English 
 name of Providence, been confused since the middle of 
 the eighteenth century with the Island of New Provi- 
 dence in the Bahamas, the colonisation of which was not 
 seriously undertaken till 1670. The earliest instance 
 of confusion concerning the colony appears to occur in 
 John Josselyn'^ Accoimt of two Voyages to New Eng- 
 land, published in 1675, where Providence is said to be 
 one of the Somers or Bermuda Islands, and in the same 
 author's Chronological Observations of America, the 
 mistake occurs in a similar form." In Hutchinson's 
 History of Massachusetts Bay, published in 1760, the 
 accounts of the dealings of New England with the Provi- 
 dence colony that had been derived from Hubbard's 
 manuscript history of New England (1680), are misap- 
 plied to New Providence in the Bahamas.* The same con- 
 
 2 An Account of two Voyages into New England by John Josaelyn, London, 
 1675. Chronological Observations of America, London, 1673. Both reprinted 
 in Mass. Hist. Soe. Coll., 3d Series, Vol. IIL See p. 381 under date 1637. 
 ' ' The Spaniards took the Island of Providence, one of the Summer Islands, 
 from the English. ' ' Both date and position wrong. 
 
 3 Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts Bay, London, 1760, p. 96, ' ' The 
 
8 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 fusion can also be traced in Churchill's Voyages (1763) 
 and has passed thence into Pinkerton's Voyages (1810) 
 and Southey's Chronological History of the West Indies 
 (1827), though the latter speaks of the colony in some 
 places as Santa Catarina or Old Providence,* and in 
 others of it as New Providence in the Bahamas. The 
 Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, 1574-1660, in which 
 the records of the colony are calendared, continues the 
 confusion and speaks throughout of the Bahamas, under 
 which title the papers were then catalogued in the Public 
 Record Office. From the Calendar the error has crept 
 into many modern works which speak of the colonisation 
 of the Bahamas as having taken place in 1630.* Owing 
 to the enquiries of Major General Sir J. H. Lefroy, the 
 author of the Memorials of the Bermudas, the true ver- 
 sion of the matter was finally arrived at by W. N. Sains- 
 bury, the editor of the Calendar, and placed on record 
 in the AthencBum, May, 1876. He showed conclusively 
 that the records of the company are quite inconsistent 
 with the history of New Providence in the Bahamas, 
 and that they refer to the island of Old Providence off 
 the Moskito Coast, whose later occupation by the bucca- 
 neers in the reign of Charles II is well known. The 
 Bahamas or Veajus Islands were included within the 
 
 Lords and others concerned in this attempt to settle the Bahama Islands 
 spent £60,000." 
 
 4 Southey, Chronological History of the West Indies, London, 1827, I, 279, 
 "1637. The English were in possession of Santa Catarina or Old Provi- 
 dence." I, 293, "1641. The Spaniards attacked the English at New 
 Providence. ' ' 
 
 5 See for instance Cunningham, Growth of British Industry. Modern 
 Times, I, 332 n. C. J. Hoadly, The Warwick Patent. The Acorn Club, 
 
 •Hartford, Conn., 1902. Brown, Genesis of the United States, II, 979, etc. 
 Many difficulties arise in the short biographies annexed to this work from 
 the confusion of Sa. Catalina with New Providence. See especially the life 
 of Daniel Elfrith. 
 
AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 limits of Sir Robert Heath's Carolana patent of 1629, 
 but no steps were taken for their colonisation." 
 
 The records of the Providence Company are contained 
 in two thick folio volumes preserved in the Public Record 
 Office.' They are entitled respectively "Journal of the 
 Governor and Company of Adventurers for the Planta- 
 tion of the Island of Providence" and "Book of Entries 
 of," etc., and contain, as these titles imply, minutes of the 
 meetings held by the company and copies of the letters 
 despatched to the colony. We have in the two volumes a 
 complete and unbroken record in the greatest detail of the 
 proceedings of the company from its foundation in 1630 
 to the capture of the island of Providence by the Span- 
 iards in 1641 and the abandonment by the company of all 
 its designs in the West Indies owing to the absorption of 
 its moving spirit, John Pym, in the struggles of the Long 
 Parliament and to his early death. It is suggested in 
 the preface to the Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, 
 1574-1660, that the volumes were written most probably 
 between 1640 and 1650, when several proceedings were 
 being taken concerning the debts of the company. So 
 far as the company's journal is concerned, this would 
 appear to be correct, but the entry book of letters is 
 written throughout in the hand of William Jessop, the 
 secretary of the company, and it is annotated by him in 
 the same way as his own private Letter Book, containing 
 in shorthand the drafts of less important letters written 
 to the colony and now preserved in the British Museum.* 
 The volumes of the Historical MSS. Commission contain 
 many references to the company and from them it is 
 
 8 C. S. p. Col., 30 Oct. 1629, Grant to Sir Eobert Heath of a territory in 
 America betwixt 31 and 36 degrees of North Latitude, "together with the 
 Islands of Veajus or Bahamas and aU other islands lying southerly or near 
 upon the said continent." 
 
 1 P. B. O., C. O. 124, 1 and 2. 
 
 8 Brit. Mus., Add. MSS., 10615. 
 
10 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 possible to throw some additional light upon its doings. 
 From the Manchester Papers," now in the Public Record 
 OflSce, we learn something of the beginnings of the com- 
 pany as an oflfshoot from the Somers Islands Company, 
 and among these papers are also preserved a few letters 
 written from the islands to Sir Nathaniel Rich, or to 
 Viscount Mandeville, the Earl of Manchester of the Civil 
 War. Most of the extant letters from the colony in its 
 early days are to be found among the Barrington MSS., 
 now in the British Museum," but once the property of 
 Sir Thomas Barrington, for some time deputy governor 
 of the company and one of the leaders of the parliamen- 
 tary party in Essex during the Civil War. Scattered 
 references to the company are also to be found among 
 the Bouverie MSS.," once the property of John Pym, and 
 the Hulton MSS.," which come to us from William 
 Jessop, the secretary of the company and afterwards 
 clerk to the Council of State and the Restoration House 
 of Commons. Repeated references to the company and 
 colony are to be found in the Winthrop Papers and 
 Winthrop's Journal printed in the Collections of the 
 Massachusetts Historical Society." In the British 
 Museum" is the manuscript Diary of Capt. Nathaniel 
 Butler, who was governor of the colony in 1639 
 and this gives us in detail a picture of Providence as 
 a privateering stronghold. 
 
 Printed references to the colony are not very numer- 
 ous, but we hear of its beginnings in the diary of John 
 
 » Very briefly calendared in Hist. MSS. Coimu., Eighth Report, Appendix 
 2. In this study only the original papers themselves have been used. 
 
 10 Brit. Mus., Eg., 2643-51. 
 
 11 Hist. MSS. Comm., Seventh Report, Appendix. 
 
 12 Ibid., Twelfth Report, Appendix. 
 
 "Mass. Hist. Soe. Coll., 3d Series, Vol. IX, 4th Vols. VI and VH, 5th 
 Vol. I, 6th Vol. III. 
 
 " Brit. Mus., Sloane MSB., 758. 
 
AUTHOE'S INTRODUCTION 11 
 
 Rous (1625-1641)," and many details concerning the 
 relations of tlie colonists with New England from 
 Hubbard's history of Massachusetts." Some light is 
 thrown upon the later history of the colony by the life 
 of the Rev. Mr. Leverton, a minister there, in Calamy's 
 Nonconformist's Memorial}'' The colony appeared 
 to the Spaniards as a mere nest of pirates and their views 
 concerning it can be gathered from Gage's New Survey 
 of the West Indies" written about 1638, but not pub- 
 lished till later. Gage was himself an eyewitness of 
 some of the piratical exploits of the Providence colonists, 
 and had personal relations with those of them who had 
 been taken prisoners by the Spaniards. Much light on 
 the island's story is also thrown by the many Spanish 
 MSS. relating to the West Indies preserved in the 
 British^ Museum; some of these are Originals," while 
 others are copies made from the originals at Simancas 
 for the purposes of the Venezuelan Arbitration.^" They 
 include many letters from the Spanish officials in the 
 Indies, bewailing the constant depredations of the Eng- 
 lish and Dutch corsairs and pleading for assistance to 
 clear the Caribbean of their presence. Other Spanish 
 sources of information are mentioned in the text. The 
 only modern account of the company that affords reliable 
 information is contained in Scott's learned work on 
 joint stock companies,^^ where, for the first time, the 
 importance of Providence in English colonial history is 
 properly appreciated. 
 
 15 Camden Soe., Vol. XLII. 
 
 16 Printed in Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. 
 
 "Bd. Calamy, D. D., Tfce Nonconformist's Memorial. Palmer's edition, 
 1802. 
 
 18 T. Gage, The English, American, his Travail hy Sea and Land. London 
 1648. 
 
 19 Especially in the Kingsborough Collection. Add. MSS., 13977, etc. 
 
 20 Venezuela Papers, Add. MSS., 36314-36327. 
 
 21 W. E. Scott, Joint Stock Companies to 17110. London 1911. 
 
12 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 The island of Santa Catalina, or Providence, is sit- 
 uated off the eastern coast of Nicaragua upon the edge 
 of the Moskito Bank about equidistant from Porto Bello, 
 Cartagena, and the island of Jamaica, and lies very close 
 to the track of vessels sailing from Porto Bello or Carta- 
 gena to Mexico and Havana. The island is about six 
 Exiles long and four wide, and is described by Alcedo"" 
 as one of the best of the West India islands, notwith- 
 standing its small size, as well from the salubrity of its 
 climate as from its fertility. It is exceptionally easy of 
 fortification, abounds in fine water, and is said to contain 
 no serpent or venomous insect. It now forms part of 
 the Republic of Colombia and is inhabited by a few hun- 
 dred negroes. San Andreas or Henrietta, which was 
 also granted by patent to the company, lies some sixty 
 miles southwest of Providence and is about sixteen miles 
 in length by four in width. It is a long, low island 
 abounding in fine timber, but neither as easily fortifiable 
 nor as fertile as Providence. It also is now a possession 
 of the Republic of Colombia. Tortuga or Association, the 
 third island which will concern us, lies off the northwest 
 coast of the island of Hispaniola or Hayti, within a few 
 miles of Cape San Nicolas and the entrance to the Wind- 
 ward Passage between Hispaniola and Cuba. It is sur- 
 rounded by rocks and shoals, which render access to its 
 fine harbour difficult. Tortuga had been a rendezvous 
 for the rovers of all nations, at any rate since the time 
 of Drake; from 1640 on it became the headquarters of 
 buccaneering enterprise in the West Indies under the 
 SBgis of the French. It now forms a part of the negro 
 republic of Hayti. 
 
 22 A. de Alcedo, Geographical and Historiedl Dictionary of America and 
 the West Indies. Transl. hj Q. A. Thompson, 5 vols., and Atlas. London 
 1812-1815. 
 
Brooke,'^ 
 Tort,', 
 
 ■ifort •" 
 
 North Eoit Hil 
 
 <S'Crab 
 Cay 
 
 The Brothci-i 
 
 PROVIDENCE 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH COLONISATION 
 
 In August, 1604, tlie treaty of peace was signed that 
 brought the long war between England and Spain to an 
 end. War had been officially waged between the two 
 powers since 1587, but ever since Hawkins' ill-fated 
 voyage of 1567-1568 the preying of English privateers 
 upon the Spanish shipping and towns in-the West Indies 
 had proved a constant source of profit to the merchants 
 who financed them. Since the ' ' Islands Voyage ' ' of 1597 
 the war had remained in the hands of the privateers,^* 
 who were waxing ever bolder, and their daring attacks 
 both on the coast of Spain and in the East and West 
 Indies had befen returning handsome profits to their 
 owners. The romance of their bolder strokes, so vividly 
 described in the pages of Hakluyt and Purchas, must 
 not blind us to the fact that in the main this privateering 
 was a sordid and prosaic business, which was expected 
 to return its proper percentage of profits to the owners 
 without involving an unnecessary amount of risk. The 
 settled policy of the Spanish government to regard the 
 Indies as the private property of the crown involved of 
 necessity the official view that every foreigner, or, for 
 that matter, every unauthorised Spaniard, found within 
 the Indies was to be looked upon as a trespasser and a 
 robber. But the Spanish fleets that formed the only 
 authorised means of communication between the Indies 
 and Europe were to a considerable extent navigated by 
 Flemings and by Englishmen, who thus acquired a thor- 
 
 2s Sir J. K. Laughton in C<mb. Mod. Hist., Ill, 327. 
 
14 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 ough acquaintance with American waters and liad many 
 friends in every port. The unofficial Spaniard, there- 
 fore, could not brand all foreigners as criminals and in 
 many instances we find a considerable amount of good 
 feeling existing between the Spanish colonists and the 
 visitors to their shores. In the last years of the war 
 period the greater part of the Spanish shipping had 
 been driven from the sea and only very small profits 
 would have been returned by mere privateering. A far 
 more profitable way of employing capital was to carry 
 out from Europe a full cargo of manufactured goods to 
 be disposed of secretly in the Indies either to Spaniards 
 or to the natives, and to return laden with the tropical 
 products for which they had been exchanged. An even 
 more prosaic trade which reached large dimensions 
 about 1600, was the carrying of salt to Europe from 
 Punta Araya on the coast of Venezuela. The ships, both 
 Dutch and English, came out laden with goods for barter 
 and after disposing of them met at the great salt pans 
 some fifty miles from Margarita, where their holds were 
 filled with salt, which was then conveyed to England 
 and to Flanders and sold at an excellent profit. Between 
 June, 1602, and May, 1603, one hundred and seventy-two 
 salt vessels and thirty barter vessels of large size came 
 to Araya, and at one time in January, 1603, sixty salt 
 vessels and four barter vessels were lading salt at one 
 time,"* thus showing that the trade had reached large 
 dimensions. 
 
 With the conclusion of peace, the facilities for fitting 
 out these ships in English ports and the ease of disposal 
 of their cargoes on their return were at an end. King 
 
 2* Venezuela Papers, Add. MSS., 36318, fo. 191. Governor of Cmnana 
 to King. The letters from the Indies abound with complaints of the 
 clandestine trade. Far more harm was done to the royal revenue by this 
 barter than by all the more showm exploits of Cumberland, Parker, and 
 Sherley. 
 
ENGLISH COLONISATION 15 
 
 James, it was well known, regarded the war as at once 
 concluded by Ms accession, for as king of Scotland he 
 had always been on terms of peace and amity with the 
 Spanish crown. The terms of the treaty itself were a 
 complete surrender of the English right of trade to the 
 Indies,''^ the recognition of which Elizabeth had always 
 insisted upon as a necessary condition of peace. It was 
 no longer possible for a reputable merchant to engage 
 openly in the West Indian trade and large amounts of 
 capital began to be withdrawn and turned to other uses. 
 Capt. John Smith, writing in 1629, puts ~;the matter 
 clearly: "After the death of our most gracious Queen 
 Elizabeth of blessed memory, our Eoyal King James, who 
 from his infancy had reigned in peace with all Nations, 
 had no employment for those men-of-war, so that those 
 that were rich, rested with that they had ; those that were 
 poor and had nothing but from hand to mouth, turned 
 Pirates; some, because they had got much wealth; some, 
 for that they could not get their due ; some, that had lived 
 bravely, would not abase themselves to poverty; some 
 vainly, only to get a name ; others for revenge, covetous- 
 ness or as ill; and as they found themselves more and 
 more oppressed, their passions increasing with discon- 
 tent made them turn Pirates.'"* That a very large 
 increase of the evil of piracy ensued after the signing 
 of the peace may be very roughly proved from the 
 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic. In the four years, 
 1603-1607, only eleven mentions of piracy occur and most 
 of these are concerned with the granting of pardons to 
 English sailors accused of technical piracy against 
 French and Venetian ships. In the four years, 1607- 
 1610, piracy is mentioned twenty-eight times and mostly 
 in connection with outrages on English ships. So acute 
 
 26 Camb. Mod. Bist., HI, 537. 
 
 29 Smith's Worlcs (ed. Arber), p. 914. 
 
16 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 had the evil become in 1609 that a royal commission was 
 appointed to find some means of putting a stop to the 
 pirates' depredations. Many of the more far-seeing 
 London merchants had long realised the precarionsness 
 of privateering enterprise and had endeavoured to 
 engage solely in legitimate trade,"' but others in alliance 
 with men of high rank such as George Clifford, Earl of 
 Cumberland, had expended in it large anaounts of capital 
 and had organised what were in reality small navies, 
 most of the ships sailing under the English flag, but 
 others under that of the states of Holland or of Zeeland. 
 One of the foremost of the wealthy men of high rank 
 engaged in schemes of this description, was Lord Eich, 
 who had numbers of ships always at sea. The cessation 
 of hostilities between England and Spain made little 
 difference to his fleet, which merely changed its letters 
 of marque from English to Dutch and made its home 
 ports Middleburg or Flushing instead of the port of 
 London."' When the twelve years' truce of 1609 sus- 
 pended hostilities between the States and Spain and 
 withdrew Dutch letters of marque. Rich's operations 
 continued as before, but under different colours, and 
 some years later we find his ships sailing the Channel 
 with commissions from the Duke of Savoy and still 
 returning a handsome profit to their owner."' 
 
 The withdrawal of the greater part of the English 
 capital invested in privateering set it free for employ- 
 ment in other directions, and the first five years of the 
 seventeenth century saw the despatch of many private 
 
 27 Cunningham, English Industry, Mod. Times, I, 70. 
 
 28 The many ramifications of the schemes of the Rich family lie beyond 
 the scope of this enquiry, but sidelights will be thrown on their later 
 developments in subsequent chapters. From at any rate 1600 onwards the 
 Eich family always had a commercial agent at Middleburg or Amsterdam. 
 
 29 Hist. M88. Comm., Fourth Beport. C. S. P. Vom., 1609-1618. C. S. P. 
 East Indies, 1617-1621, p. Ixxxvi. 
 
ENGLISH COLONISATION 17 
 
 expeditions for exploration to the Northwest, mostly 
 financed by the merchants who had fitted out the expedi- 
 tions of the late sixteenth century;'" the acute economic 
 difficulties of the time, caused by the growth of popu- 
 lation, induced publicists like Popham to join hands with 
 these great merchants and to suggest that the time was 
 now propitious for the carrying out of the ideas of 
 colonisation that had so long been expounded by Gilbert 
 and Raleigh. It is to this conjunction of interests that 
 the founding of the Plymouth and London Companies 
 for Virginia was due. 
 
 Previous attempts at English colonisation had been 
 made in each of three directions, and it is of interest to 
 note that geographical conditions had a good deal to do 
 with the location of the first successful colony. In 1600 
 the shores of the American continents were inhabited 
 by Europeans in three regions separated by enormous 
 stretches of unexplored coast; the Hispano-Portuguese 
 empire of Brazil was divided from the Spanish territory 
 round the Caribbean by the no man's land of Guiana. 
 The shores of the Caribbean and the islands of the 
 Antilles were all occupied in a loose kind of way by the 
 Spanish power or rendered inaccessible by the presence 
 of the fierce and cannibal Caribs, while to the northward 
 iPlorida, the scene of the long-remembered massacre of 
 Eibault and Laudpnniere's Huguenot colonists, was 
 sundered by Raleigh's deserted Virginia from^ the 
 regions round the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where the 
 French fur-traders were beginning to found a regular 
 trade with the Indians, and where Newfoundland was 
 already a temporary home for fishermen of all the 
 northern nations. The route to all these regions, save 
 the last, was in the main the same; coasting down the 
 shores of Spain and Africa till Cape Cantin was reached, 
 
 so Kingsbury, Introd. to Secords of Va. Co., p. 14. 
 
18 PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 a course was made for the Canaries'^ and thence, after 
 watering, a due westerly course was steered for the 
 Island of Deseada or for Dominica. For Brazil a south- 
 westerly course from the Canaries was taken.'^ The 
 direct and more northerly route to Virginia was only 
 discovered by Argall in 1614 and was not regularly used 
 until some years after that date. The homeward course 
 by the Gulf stream lay through the Florida Channel and 
 across by the Azores, so that the shores of Virginia 
 would be the last point seen upon the American conti- 
 nent. Gilbert's attempts at colonisation had followed 
 the northerly fishing route to Newfoundland'* and were 
 long remembered for the extreme hardships that had 
 been encountered ; Raleigh, however, had taken the usual 
 southern course and had endeavoured to plant his colo- 
 nies either in Guiana, the first unoccupied portion of the 
 mainland met with, or in Virginia, the last left. Now we 
 shall show later that, notwithstanding Raleigh's double 
 failure in Guiana, repeated efforts were made by English- 
 men to establish trading stations there during the early 
 years of the seventeenth century, though the conditions 
 were too precarious to attract the attention of the larger 
 capitalists, who had to keep Bang James's pro-Spanish 
 predilections in view. England could show a plausible 
 claim of right to Virginia by the ancient discoveries of 
 the Cabots, and the region was more attractive to the 
 merchant adventurers as affording a hope of discovery 
 of the long-sought channel leading westward into the 
 Sea of Cathay. It was Virginia that was therefore 
 chosen with the royal sanction as the scene of the new 
 effort at colonisation. 
 The two branches of the Virginia Company received 
 
 siHakluTt's Voyages (Everyman Edition), VII, 246. 
 saPurchas's Pilgrims (Maclehose's Edition), XVI, 179. 
 88 Hakluyt, VI, 8. 
 
ENGLISH COLONISATION 19 
 
 their patents from the king in April, 1606," and the 
 London Company, among whose members were most of 
 the merchants in whom we are interested,^^ and notably 
 Sir Thomas Smythe and the Eiches, at once took steps 
 to fit out a pioneer expedition. The North Virginia 
 Company contained fewer men of practical business 
 experience and soon fell into a moribund condition, but 
 the London Company succeeded by 1609 in enlisting in 
 their work the sympathies of almost every rank of 
 society. Englishmen saw in the new colony the only 
 means open to them of continuing the efforts to curb the 
 overweening power of Spain, that had been abandoned 
 by King James and his advisers, but this widespread 
 interest soon failed before the prosaic difficulties of the 
 undertaking, and before long the management of the 
 company's affairs fell into the hands of a small number 
 of men of high rank and of a group of well-to-do London 
 merchants, many of whom had long been interested in 
 privateering enterprises. The Spanish ministers re- 
 garded the Virginia colony as a perfidious device of the 
 English government for continuing English piratical 
 enterprise in defiance of the recently concluded treaty, 
 and we can read in the letters of the Spanish officials'* 
 the same complaints against the new colony that had so 
 often been penned from Venezuela and the same sug- 
 gestions for nipping the infant community in the bud." 
 Lying directly in the path of ships northward bound 
 
 84 Brown, Genesis of the United States, I, 52-62. 
 
 80 Kingsbury, Introd. to Becords of Va. Co., p. 14. 
 
 86 Brown, Genesis, I, passim. 
 
 8T Add. MSS., 36317, fo. 372. Diego Suarez de Amaya, Governor of 
 Cumana, writes to the King on Dec. 8, 1600, suggesting that the salt at 
 Punta Araya should be poisoned in order to destroy the Dutch and English 
 pirates wholesale. Zuniga repeatedly suggested that the whole of the 
 Virginia colonists should be wiped out to avoid further growth of the 
 colony. 
 
20 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 through the Florida Channel, the Bermuda Islands had 
 had an evil reputation throughout the sixteenth century 
 as a place of storms, and were in consequence always 
 avoided by mariners. But after Sir George Somers's 
 shipwreck there in July, 1609, and the subsequent fur- 
 nishing of Virginia with much-needed provisions, the 
 islands were claimed as lying within the grant of the 
 Virginia Company and as forming a likely field for col- 
 onisation. Their importance was so little appreciated, 
 however, that the active members of 1612 bought out the 
 Virginia Company's rights and formed a fresh company 
 of only one hundred and twenty adventurers to under- 
 take the plantation. The new company entered on its 
 operations with vigour and secured a fresh charter on 
 June 29, 1615."" 
 
 For some years matters proceeded smoothly in both 
 companies, the most active part in their management 
 being taken by those who had, along with the Eich 
 family, an interest in pseudo-privateering enterprise in 
 the West Indies. Grradually, however, we find that two 
 factions were forming in the companies and by 1619 
 matters were rapidly moving to an open breach. 
 
 In May, 1619, Sir Thomas Smythe, who, as treasurer, 
 had been the executive head of the Virginia Company 
 since its foundation, was displaced and Sir Edwin 
 Sandys was elected in his stead."" The complete story 
 of this quarrel in the Virginia Company has never yet 
 been written from the standpoint of the Warwick faction, 
 and we can here only deal with those aspects of it that 
 bear directly upon our subject. It must be noted, how- 
 ever, that Sir Thomas Smythe and his supporters repre- 
 sented the privileged merchants of the Merchant 
 Adventurers, the East India, the Turkey, and other 
 
 38 C. S. p. Col, 1574-1660, p. 17. 
 
 39 C. S. p. Vom., 1619, p. 44. 
 
ENGLISH COLONISATION 21 
 
 companies who believed in carrying on Elizabethan 
 traditions and had been interested in privateering in 
 earlier years, while Sandys had, since his chairmanship 
 of the Commons committee on the free trade bills of 
 1604,*° definitely committed himself to hostility to the 
 privileged companies. Personal rivalries and family 
 feuds were to a considerable extent responsible for the 
 ranging of the aristocratic members of the company on 
 opposite sides and for their bitterness one against 
 another.*^ 
 
 Sir Thomas Smythe after his displacement still re- 
 tained the leadership of the Somers Islands Company, 
 but this did nothing to assuage ill-feeling, and Alderman 
 Johnson, one of his warmest supporters in the City of 
 London, attempted to organize an attack upon Sandys, 
 the new Virginia treasurer. He did not secure much 
 support at first and was censured by a committee of the 
 Virginia Company held at Southampton House*" on July 
 8, 1619, of which both the Earl of Warwick and Sir 
 Nathaniel Eich were members. About the beginning of 
 1620, however, rumours began to spread abroad of some 
 mysterious exploit against the Spaniards achieved by 
 a certain Capt. Daniel Elfrith in a ship called the 
 Treasurer; Elfrith seems to have been in a sense acting 
 under the orders of Capt. Samuel Argall, who had been 
 
 *» Hewins, Trade and Finance m the nth Century, ch. III. 
 
 11 The groupings of the parties in the quarrel recall the scandal that 
 divided society into two hostile camps in the previous generation. Penelope 
 Devereux, Lady Eich, Warwick's mother, lived for years in open adultery 
 with Charles Blount, Earl of Devonshire, and the bitterest hostility reigned 
 between her legitimate offspring and the children of her illicit union, of 
 whom the eldest, Mountjoy Blount, afterwards Earl of Newport, was 
 received into high favour at court in 1617. Southampton, Sackville, and 
 the Cavendishes sided with the Blounts and it seems to be a legitimate 
 hypothesis to assume that this added another to the many causes of the 
 quarrel. 
 
 12 Maneh. Pap., nos. 250, 251. 
 
22 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 governor of Virginia and was using the Earl of War- 
 wick's name as a bolster to Ms unwarrantable actions.** 
 Elfritb brought his vessel to Bermuda in an unseaworthy 
 condition and with her a number of negroes. That the 
 Earl of Warwick was not entirely unconnected with the 
 Treasurer's piratical proceedings can be seen by a letter 
 written to him from Bermuda by his protege, Capt. 
 Nathaniel Butler, the governor, to the e£fect that he had 
 disposed of his lordship's negroes according to instruc- 
 tions, but that the Treasurer's people were dangerous- 
 tongued fellows and had given out secretly that, if they 
 were not paid to their uttermost penny of wages, they 
 "would go to the Spanish Ambassador and tell all."" 
 It is a mistake to suppose with some modern ■v^iters 
 that anything very terrible lay behind this threat and 
 that the mariners of the Treasurer and her sister ship, 
 the Neptune, were bloodthirsty ruffians of the type of 
 the legendary Capt. Kidd, sailing beneath the skuU and 
 cross-bones and ready for any deed of darkness. The 
 Spanish ambassador of the time was Diego Sarmiento 
 d'Acuna, Conde de Grondomar^, in 1620 the broken thread 
 of negotiation for the Spanish Match had just been 
 picked up, and King James was ready to do anything 
 to propitiate the Spanish monarchy. Only two years 
 before, Raleigh, in spite of the semi-approval with which 
 James had regarded his proceedings, had been sent to 
 the block on a similar charge of piracy, and a threat of 
 disclosure, therefore, was no idle one. 
 
 The council of the Virginia Company was informed 
 by Capt. Yeardley, the governor, that the Treasurer, 
 which was admitted to be the Earl of Warwick's prop- 
 erty, was supposed to have "gone to rob the King of 
 
 43 Maneh. Pap., no. 262, 20 Jan., 1620. 
 
 i^Iiid., 9 Oct., 1620, no. 275. A very full list of the docmnents con- 
 nected with this affair is contained in Kingsbury's Jieo. of Va. Co. 
 
ENGLISH COLONISATION 23 
 
 Spain's subjects in the West Indies by direction from 
 my Lord of Warwick."" Sir Edwin Sandys and the 
 council agreed that it was necessary to communicate the 
 information to the Privy Council, but only after having 
 "first blotted my Lord of Warwick's name out of the 
 letters." No action was taken at the time and the War- 
 wick party succeeded in hushing matters up. Further 
 letters arrived from Virginia with details as to the ship's 
 proceedings derived from one of the crew, who had been 
 left behind in the colony; Sandys at once, on receipt of 
 these depositions, reopened the matter by assembling the 
 council and persuading them to acquaint the Spanish 
 ambassador and the lords of the Privy Council with the 
 facts. This step was bitterly resented by the other side, 
 for its effect was "to put upon my Lord of Warwick 
 suddenly ere he was aware," a confiscation of the ship 
 and goods. The quarrel was henceforward irreconcilable, 
 and now became a matter of common scandal. 
 
 Things were going none too well with the Somers 
 Islands Company. Daniel Tucker, the first governor, 
 was superseded in 1619 in consequence of his constant 
 disagreements with the adherents of Sir Nathaniel Rich 
 and the Warwick party, and Capt. Nathaniel Butler, one 
 of Warwick's followers, was sent back to the islands as 
 governor; the two factions in the colony were always 
 quarrelling and constant accusations were made against 
 the governor of fostering pirates, most of whom seem 
 to have pretended to hold commissions from the Prince 
 of Orange, the familiar old commissions of the "Sea- 
 beggars." Space will not admit of an examination of 
 the rights and wrongs of the case, but Butler's dealings 
 with a Spanish wreck in 1621 provided specific grounds 
 of complaint and Gondomar, much to the satisfaction of 
 the Sandys party, appealed to the Somers Islands Com- 
 
 *5 Manch. Pap., no. 279. 
 
24 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 pany** and the Privy Council for redress. This appeal 
 and the news of the terrible massacre of the Virginia 
 colonists that reached England in July, 1622,*^ deter- 
 mined the king and his ministers that something was 
 radically wrong and a complete enquiry into the affairs 
 of both companies was ordered April 13, 1623. A variety 
 of evidence was brought before the commission of 
 enquiry, on one side by the Earl of Southampton, Lord 
 Cavendish, Sir Edward Sackville, afterwards Earl of 
 Dorset, Sandys, and the Ferrars, and on the other by 
 the Earl of Warwick, Sir Nathaniel Rich, Sir Thomas 
 Smythe, and Alderman Johnson. After a long and care- 
 ful investigation, the Virginia Company's charter was 
 surrendered October 20, 1623, and the colony taken under 
 the direct management of the crown, very much to its 
 own benefit. Attempts were made to reopen the matter 
 in the House of Commons, but these were put an end to 
 by a royal message, to the general satisfaction. The 
 Somers Islands Company was permitted to continue 
 along the old lines, and the struggle for control was 
 maintained with varying fortunes, each succeeding treas- 
 urer reversing the policy of his predecessor and sending 
 out a fresh governor. 
 
 It has been necessary to enter on this very brief out- 
 line of the quarrel in the two companies, because to it 
 the genesis of the Providence Company can be traced. 
 The orthodox view concerning the quarrel and the 
 ensuing surrender of the Virginia Company's charter, 
 as expressed by Doyle and other writers, is entirely 
 hostile to the Warwick faction and represents them as 
 mere tools of the court. This is far too simple an expla- 
 nation of the matter, and the causes would appear to 
 be more complex, for the careers both of Warwick and 
 
 *« C. 8. p. Col., 1574-1660, p. 27. 6 Feb., 1622. 
 " Hid., p. 31. 13 July, 1622. 
 
ENGLISH COLONISATION 25 
 
 Sir Thomas Smythe are completely opposed to their 
 assumed subserviency. The idea that in the two factions 
 we have in embryo the parties of the Civil War** is 
 almost grotesque, for in truth, as our subsequent pages 
 will show, there were no more ardent opponents of an 
 absolutist regime and no stronger or more definite 
 Puritans than were the Earl of Warwick and Sir 
 Nathaniel Eich, the so-called "subservient tools" of the 
 court. Neither side in the quarrel could claim a 
 monopoly of virtue and it is a mistake to allow the con- 
 nection of the Earl of Southampton with Shakespeare, 
 the legendary saintliness of the character of Nicholas 
 Ferrar, or the high spirit of Sir Edwin Sandys to blind 
 us to the many solid merits of Sir Thomas Smythe, Sir 
 Nathaniel Eich, Grabriel Barber, and their other 
 opponents. 
 
 The abandonment of the West Indian trade after the 
 conclusion of peace in 1604 by the more prominent Eng- 
 lish merchants did not by any means bring to an end 
 English dealings in Gruiana and the Caribbean. Clan- 
 destine trade was still carried on and to such an extent 
 as to involve the Spanish authorities in continual anxiety. 
 The vessels engaged in the trade, however, were now of 
 small burthen and were equipped and set forth mainly 
 from Irish ports and from Barnstaple and Dartmouth, 
 where there was less likelihood of coming into conflict 
 with the authorities than in ports nearer the seat of 
 government. So great was the damage done to Spanish 
 commerce that in 1607 the cultivation of tobacco was 
 forbidden in the provinces of Caracas and Venezuela for 
 
 48 This idea has astonishing vitality. In the recently published ' ' England 
 in America" (Vol. 4 of The American Nation, p. 76) the author spealcs of 
 the "Court" party with Sir Robert Eich at its head, while the "Country" 
 or "patriot" party is led by Southampton, Sandys, and Ferrar. Tor a 
 juster view of the matter see Scott's Joint Stock Compcmies to 17fS0, II, 
 269-287. 
 
26 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 ten years owing to the large numbers of English and 
 Dutch who were attracted to purchase it/° Little effect 
 was produced by the prohibition, for from 1610 to 1620 
 the Island of Trinidad seems to have been a regular 
 emporium for the illicit tobacco trade/" and firms like 
 the Reskeimers of Dartmouth, the Delbridges of Barn- 
 staple, and, on a larger scale, the Courteens of Middle- 
 burg made large sums in the trade. Nor did the trade 
 with the Indians languish; repeated attempts to found 
 English trading stations on the Gruiana rivers were made 
 and it has been shown" that such Dutch firms as the Cour- 
 teens were building up a perfect network of trade-routes 
 in the interior of South America. Leigh's colony upon 
 the Wiapoco in 1604-1606 was a disastrous failure,"" but 
 Sir Thomas Roe saw the beginnings of his life of adven- 
 ture in a couple of years' trading (1606-1607) upon the 
 Guiana coast and several of the pioneer Virginia colo- 
 nists gained their experience with him in exploring the 
 swamps of the Wiapoco and the Cuyuni.'* Robert Har- 
 court in 1608 obtained a patent from Henry, Prince of 
 Wales, and set sail from Dartmouth with ninety-seven 
 men to attempt a trading colony on the Wiapoco;"* the 
 attempt was a failure and in 1610 the remaining colonists 
 were scattered among the Indians, and for eight or nine 
 years subsisted in native fashion and with occasional 
 supplies obtained from the Dutch.°" Raleigh's last voy- 
 age in 1617 ended, as is well known, in utter disaster, 
 
 48 Venezuela Papers, Add. MSS., 36319, fo. 141. Sancho de Aljuiza to the 
 King. June 15, 1607. 
 
 60 Add. MSS., 36319, passim. 
 
 Bi G. Edmundson, Arts, in Eng. Hist. Mev., 1896-1903. 
 
 52 For an account of this attempt see Purchas, XVI, 316 sqq. 
 
 53 Smith's Works, p. 896, and Brown, Genesis of United States, I, 375, 
 re Boe's voyage of 1610. 
 
 5* Purehas, XVI, 358. 
 66 Smith, p. 897. 
 
ENGLISH COLONISATION 27 
 
 but the breaking off of the Spanish negotiations in 1618 
 and the downfall of the king's pro-Spanish favourites, 
 the Howards, seemed to the Earl of Warwick and his 
 associates a propitious opportunity to undertake the 
 colonisation of Guiana in a more ambitious way than had 
 before been tried. The company undertaking the project 
 was largely prganised by Warwick,^' a patent for the 
 colony was obtained" and Capt. Roger North, brother 
 of Lord North and Warwick's cousin, was despatched 
 to Guiana with one hundred and twenty men ; there they 
 joined forces with the remnant of Harcourt's colonists 
 and tobacco planting was begun. But, early in 1620, 
 Gondomar returned to England, the broken thread of 
 negotiation for the Spanish Match was taken up, and 
 on May 7, 1620,°* Warwick was ordered by the Privy 
 Council to deliver up the commission on which North 
 had sailed and compelled to disavow his proceedings. 
 Gondomar 's protests to King James were so effective 
 that on North's return to England in December, 1620, 
 to secure fresh supplies he was imprisoned in the Tower 
 and his goods confiscated. His men, abandoned in Guiana, 
 dispersed themselves among the Indians or joined forces 
 with the Dutch. Among the colonists thus abandoned 
 was one Thomas Warner," who, having remained in 
 Guiana about two years, returned to England by 
 way of the Caribbee Islands with two companions. 
 Watering at St. Christopher on the homeward voyage, 
 Warner became friendly with Togreman, the Carib chief 
 
 58 C. S. p. Dom., 30 April, 1619, Locke to Carleton. 
 
 57 C. S. P. Col., 30 April, 1619, p. 21. 
 
 58 Acts of Prvoy Council, Col., I, 36. 
 
 59 The outline of Warner 's pToceedings in the text is based upon three 
 sources of authority: Smith's account, 1629, Works, p. 898 sqq., John 
 Hilton's account, 1675, Brit. Mus., Eg., 2395, fo. 503; and Sloane M88., 
 3662, fo. 45a, written by Major Scott, 1667. For a discussion of the relia- 
 bility of this last authority, see Edmundson, Eng. Hist. Bev. (1901), XVI, 
 640. 
 
28 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 of tlie island ; on his return to England he succeeded in 
 securing some capital from one Merrifield, a merchant 
 interested in the clandestine West Indian trade, and with 
 fourteen companions sailed at the end of 1622 for 
 Virginia and thence to St. Christopher, where they 
 commenced planting tobacco on January 28, 1623.'° 
 Warner's small band lived in amity with the Caribs for 
 some time, but difficulties at length arose, and it was 
 only by a series of fortunate happenings that the infant 
 colony was saved from destruction. To secure assist- 
 ance against the Caribs,"^ Warner acquiesced in the 
 division of the island between his men and a band of 
 Frenchmen under D'Esnambuc, who had landed there 
 not long after him. 
 
 The breaking off of the Spanish Match in 1623 and 
 Buckingham's hostility to Spain removed the difficulties 
 that had lain in the way of early colonising attempts. 
 The foundation of the Dutch West Indian Company in 
 1621 put into practice the ideas of colonisation at the 
 expense of Spain as opposed to freebooting that Willem 
 Usselincx had so long been urging and its early success 
 pointed out to the general public both in England and 
 France that the West Indies offered a profitable field 
 for colonisation. Within a month or so of the rupture 
 with Spain we find Secretary Conway proposing"'' that 
 a colonising enterprise should be undertaken in the West 
 Indies in concert with Holland in order to draw off idle 
 people from the kingdom without cost to the king. In 
 April, 1625, Sir John Coke proposed to the king"' to 
 
 60 Smith, p. 900. 
 
 01 This is the version of the story given in 1675 by one of the first English 
 settlers. (Eg., 2395, fo. 509.) A good deal of dispute raged in 1675 about 
 the whole sequence of these events, but the facts appear to be as given. 
 Du Tertre is our authority on the French side. 
 
 82 C. S. P. Bom., 1623, no. 64. 
 
 88 nid., 14 April, 1625. 
 
ENGLISH COLONISATION 29 
 
 incorporate a company for defence and protection in the 
 West Indies and to develop English trade thither; in 
 the same month Attorney General Heath drew up a 
 memorandum®* for Charles I, stating that it was neither 
 safe nor profitable for the Spaniards and Dutch to be 
 absolute lords of the West Indies and suggesting English 
 intervention, either openly or underhand. Preparations 
 for the war with Spain were now in full swing and any 
 suggestions for weakening the Spanish power were lis- 
 tened to by Charles and Buckingham with the utmost 
 readiness. Among the Clarendon State Papers"' there 
 has been preserved a remarkable plan, presented to 
 Buckingham by a fugitive Spaniard, showing how Eng- 
 land, without the expenditure of much capital, might 
 found an English empire in the heart of "the Spanish 
 Indies. There are reasons for supposing that the plan 
 was introduced to Buckingham's notice by Warwick's 
 mediation, and we have here probably the first germ of 
 some of the ideas animating the Providence Company 
 a few years later. Among the bustle of the war prepara- 
 tions no steps could be taken for a West Indian expedi- 
 tion, but the change of circumstances now made it easy 
 for adventurous spirits to find capitalists ready to 
 finance their colonising schemes. Warner returned to 
 England in September, 1625, and with Ralph Merrifield 
 obtained from the crown letters patent" for the colony 
 of St. Christopher, and for the colonisation of Nevis, 
 Barbadoes, and Montserrat ; in the same year, Capt. John 
 Powell in the William and John with thirty settlers 
 financed by Sir William Courteen, made the first 
 permanent English settlement in Barbadoes. 
 When grants and privileges had to be obtained from 
 
 64 C. 3. p. Col., [AprU] 1625, p. 73. 
 
 «5 Clar. State Pap., vol. I. 
 
 88 C. S. P. Col, 1574-16601, 13 Sept., 1625. 
 
30 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 the crown, it was useful to have on one's side a persona 
 grata at court; Merrifield and "Warner succeeded in 
 interesting in their cause James Hay, the Earl of 
 Carlisle, and 1626 saw the grant of rights of government 
 over the whole of the Caribbee Islands to the earl, who 
 at once took effective steps to enforce his rights. In 
 1627 he and the merchants associated with him des- 
 patched several emigrants and a store of ordnance to 
 St. Christopher and the first English colony in the West 
 Indies was fairly launched. Courteen, not to be out- 
 done, secured the patronage of Lord Treasurer Ley, Earl 
 of Marlborough, for his colony in Barbadoes, but in 
 1627 a wholesale grant covering many islands was 
 bestowed upon the lord chamberlain, Philip, Earl of 
 Montgomery, and considerable confusion ensued. The 
 further fortunes of these grants and of the colonies 
 established in virtue of them need not detain us here, 
 but we shall have to return to the early history of St. 
 Christopher and Nevis in a later chapter. 
 
 Between 1623 and 1628 the affairs of the Somers 
 Islands Company had been steadily going from bad to 
 worse ; John Bernard,^ the governor sent out in 1622 to 
 investigate Capt. Butler's proceedings, died within a 
 few weeks of his arrival, and his successor, John Har- 
 rison, a nominee of the Sandys faction, only held office 
 for a year (1623). He was succeeded by Capt. Henry 
 Woodhouse (1623-1626), and he again by Capt. Philip 
 Bell, a man of good family and an adherent of the War- 
 wick party. Constant complaints were received in Eng- 
 land of the monopolist proceedings of the company's 
 agents, who bought the planters ' produce cheap and sold 
 in return the necessaries of life at exorbitant rates, while 
 the company were engaged in a perpetual struggle with 
 a merchant, John Delbridge of Barnstaple, who desired 
 to secure the right of trade to the islands without paying 
 
ENGLISH COLONISATION 31 
 
 the very high license duties demanded. The colonists at 
 length in 1628 appealed to the House of Commons for 
 redress and a committee of enquiry was appointed 
 numbering among its members John Pym,*' whose name 
 now appears for the first time in connection with colonial 
 affairs. The committee prepared a petition to the king 
 in the colonists' favour, but little appears to have come 
 of it save an order of the Privy Council for an abatement 
 of the tobacco duty in favour of the adventurers. 
 
 On April 28, 1629, Sir Nathaniel Rich, one of the most 
 active members of the Somers Islands Company, received 
 from Capt. Philip Bell, the governor of the islands, a 
 long and closely written letter"' of four quarto pages. 
 The writer expresses grief and surprise that he had been 
 blamed by the company at home without having had an 
 opportunity of defending himself. He describes the 
 many difficulties against which he has had to contend 
 and the factions existing in Bermuda, and then proceeds 
 to the main business of his letter. This is of so much 
 importance in our enquiry that his words must be 
 reproduced in extenso: 
 
 Now to the main business I come without further interrup- 
 tion, which is that two of your ships, the "Earl of Warwick" 
 and the "Somers Islands" are now returning home again and 
 in the "Earl of Warwick" is Daniel Elfrith himself coming, 
 who hath put himself out of his own ship into it because she 
 hath neither captain nor master left for her safe conduct home. 
 The other is furnished still with the full company that brought 
 her out, though no present purchase is returned according to 
 hopeful expectation, for it was unhappily lost and missed of. 
 Capt. Cammock with thirty odd men is left upon an island 
 called St. Andreas, which is a very fertile and hopeful place and 
 such as is hoped will give the adventurers good satisfaction. 
 
 97 C. S. P. Col., 19 June, 1628. 
 88 Manch. Pap., no. 416. 
 
32 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 Notwithstanding his own [Elfrith's] island, which was pointed 
 and aimed at, he hath yet reserved undiscovered to himself. So 
 I put it only into my Lord's own hands and yours with such 
 selected friends and companions as shall be thought worthy to 
 be made partakers thereof. For he doth absolutely refuse and 
 resolve the whole company [the Somers Is. Company] shall never 
 more have to do with him, in respect of their ingratitude towards 
 him for his pains and endeavors already past. 
 
 The name of it [the island] is Kathalina and [it] lies not 
 above 20 or 30 leagues from the other where his men are left, 
 but it differs much from that place both in the pleasantness 
 and rich fertility of the soil, and, which is very material, half 
 the charge will fortify this and make it invincible, which must 
 go to the other where they" are. Neither indeed can that possibly 
 ever be made half so strong, but which is notwithstanding hope- 
 ful because freer from enemies and more out of harm's way 
 and all danger."' 
 
 There is another island, called Fonceta,'" which lies some 100 
 leagues to the eastwards of the Caribbee Islands and out of 
 all the Spaniards roads and ways, which by the report of some 
 Indians, which once strayed from thence and could never find 
 it again, as also of some seamen who once touched there and 
 Daniel Blfrith did afterwards speak withal; it is one of the 
 bravest and most fertile islands in the world, having according 
 to the pilot three fair rivers in it, and is likewise well fortified 
 and encompassed with rocks and shoals for defence against all 
 enemies. This island I have set Daniel Elfrith in resolution to 
 discover, which may be done in sending to the other islands 
 without any further charge or trouble worth the speaking of, 
 being not above 80 leagues out of the way [the way from Ber- 
 muda to Santa Catalina], which in all likelihood will not be 
 above four or five days' sail at the most, and so if he can find 
 the island, as neither I nor himself do make any question, and if 
 he find it answerable to report and our expectation, then he may 
 
 69 San Andreaa lies further up on the great Moskito Bank than does 
 Santa Catalina. Bell means that it lies more out of the track of ships 
 from Cartagena. 
 
 10 Mythical, see below, pp. 132-134. 
 
ENGLISH COLONISATION 33 
 
 stay and settle with his men and provisions there without going 
 further. But if either he or the place should fail of our hopes^ 
 then, without any prejudice at all, he may proceed forwards to 
 the island which cannot fail, and which he knows as perfectly 
 as needs to be, and than this island already known none can be 
 more fruitful or more hopeful, but yet it lying in the heart of 
 the Indies and the mouth of the Spaniards and the other lying 
 far from both, it [Fonceta] is therefore much to be preferred 
 before it, and there is neither of them but in short time [could] 
 be made more rich and bountiful either by tobacco or any 
 other commodities than double or treble any man's estate in 
 all England; though they should utterly fail of any gold or 
 silver mines, which notwithstanding is very hopeful, they may 
 be enriched withal. 
 
 And as for this island, the strength and work of the land 
 doth so much decrease and decay daily that in a short time it 
 will be of very small value or profit, especially so much tobacco 
 now being planted and being brought home of better quality 
 and from richer climates and plantations, and I make a ques- 
 tion whether this will shortly be worth anything at all. For 
 my part, therefore, though I shall be willing for my credit's 
 sake and the country's good, but also for the propagation of 
 the Gospel and the service of my good God, to stay here yet one, 
 two or three years longer if my Lord [Warwick] and yourself 
 [Rich] shall think fit so to dispose an^ command me, yet longer 
 than that same [I am] absolutely unwilling. For one year in 
 one of those places will be more profitable than seven years 
 here, and I am resolved that in which of those islands Daniel 
 Elfrith shall settle his good liking and abode, that there wiU I 
 settle my abode with him likewise, for out of his part of the 
 land in both he hath promised a good proportion to myself as 
 a portion with his daughter. 
 
 In the way and means of proceeding I have likewise deliv- 
 ered my opinion to my Lord, as first that Daniel Elfrith 's own 
 advice in everything may be followed, that he may be set out in 
 a ship or two belonging solely to my Lord, yourself and such 
 special friends, that things may be carried and done with all 
 
34 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 possible secrecy. That my Lord may get the patent of Fonceta, 
 or rather of both, before they be discovered, which will be easily 
 obtained and will take away all the claim and opposition of 
 my Lord of Carlisle or any other. And thus having contracted 
 and finished my matter and room together, I will conclude all 
 and myself. 
 
 Your really affected friend and servant 
 
 Philip Bell. 
 
 Gov. Bell addressed this most important letter to Sir 
 Nathaniel Rich as second in command and business head 
 of the Warwick faction, whose connection with the Vir- 
 ginia and Somers Islands companies has already been 
 noticed. Their interest in colonial affairs had been 
 heightened during the years 1625 to 1629 by many causes, 
 and Bell's letter arrived in England at a moment when 
 the future government of the English race lay in the 
 balance. What were the conditions governing this critical 
 position, can be most properly considered if the career 
 of the head of the Warwick party, Robert Rich, second 
 Earl of Warwick, is examined. 
 
 Robert Rich, eldest son of the third Lord Rich and 
 great-grandson of Richard, first Lord Rich, Chancellor 
 of the Court of Augmentations to Henry VIII, after- 
 wards lord chancellor, and the founder of the family 
 fortunes, was born in 1587 and educated at Emmanuel 
 College, the principal Puritan college at Cambridge 
 under Elizabeth, where he was a contemporary of the 
 celebrated Puritan, John Preston. He represented Mai- 
 don in the parliaments of 1610 and 1614, and succeeded 
 his father as second Earl of Warwick in 1619, The anti- 
 Spanish schemes of the Rich family rendered them dis- 
 tasteful to James I, but the hitch in the negotiations for 
 the Spanish Match in 1618 was marked by the bestowal 
 of the earldom of Warwick upon the third Lord Rich; 
 
ENGLISH COLONISATION 35 
 
 Robert Rich's strong Puritan leanings made court life 
 distasteful to Mm and his attention was very early 
 directed to colonial ventures, to which he was drawn by 
 his interest in the privateering enterprises of his family. 
 He was, as has been shown, an active member of the 
 Virginia Company and in 1614 became one of the original 
 members of the Somers Islands Company. In 1618 he 
 possessed fourteen shares in the company and one of the 
 divisions of the islands was called Warwick Tribe in his 
 honour; in 1616 he and his father fitted out two ships 
 and despatched them with a Savoy commission" on a 
 roving voyage to the East Indies. Their seizure of a 
 ship, worth £100,000, belonging to the Great Mogul, and 
 its recapture by an East India Company's ship, involved 
 Rich in a long dispute with the company, but this and 
 other subsequent disputes did not prevent his active 
 participation in their enterprises, and we find him a 
 constant attendant at the company's courts and repeat- 
 edly borrowing from the stock ordnance and stores for 
 his ships." 
 
 In 1618 Warwick became one of the original members 
 of the Guinea Company, newly incorporated to engage 
 in the profitable traffic in African negroes. In the same 
 year the Treasurer, commanded by Daniel Elfrith, was 
 fitted out and provided with a Savoy commission as a 
 man-of-war. She carried to Virginia the first cargo of 
 negroes ever sold there and, as we have shown, her 
 arrival provided Warwick's enemies in the Virginia 
 Company with one of their sharpest weapons of attack. 
 They accused him of piratical dealings, but it is quite 
 possible that there is some connection between the Treas- 
 
 '1 Obtained in return for a large money payment from Searnafissi, the 
 agent of Charles Emmanuel I, who was then upon a money-seeking mission 
 in England. 
 
 72 C. S. P. East Indies, 19 March, 1627, March, 1628, March, 1629, etc. 
 
36 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 urer's voyage and Warwick's venture in the Guinea Com- 
 pany. If this were so, the negroes might have been 
 obtained in an entirely legitimate way, as Elfrith main- 
 tained. At any rate, it is one of the ironies of history that 
 it should have been through the agency of one and the 
 same man that negroes were first introduced into British 
 America and that the charter of Massachusetts, the 
 foremost abolition state, was obtained. 
 
 In 1619 Warwick took a prominent part in financing 
 North's Guiana expedition, and in 1620 he was granted 
 a seat in the council of the resuscitated Plymouth Com- 
 pany for New England and was frequently present at its 
 meetings," as was a neighbour of his. Sir John Bourchier, 
 whose daughter, Elizabeth, had recently married Oliver 
 Cromwell. Warwick, as the organiser of the Guiana 
 Company, had for some time been in touch with Robin- 
 son's congregation of Separatists at Leyden, who were 
 contemplating emigration to Guiana," but the dissolution 
 of the company turned their hopes to North Virginia, and 
 thither the Mayflower sailed in August, 1620. As will 
 be remembered, the accidents of the voyage compelled 
 the Pilgrims to land at Plymouth in New England and 
 outside the limit of the Virginia Company's patent, and 
 Warwick's influence was again employed to secure from 
 the Council for New England a patent for the land on 
 which the new settlement was founded." It is another 
 striking fact in Warwick's career that he was the only 
 person of high rank and influence connected with all the 
 bodies with whom the Leyden pilgrims negotiated before 
 they could secure a home for themselves in the New 
 World. He was a member of the Guiana Company, the 
 
 '8 ' ' KecoTds of Council for New England. ' ' Printed in Prooeedings of 
 American Antiquarian Society for 1867 and 1875. 
 
 7* Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation (ed. Ford, 1912), I, 61-62. 
 76 June 1, 1621. 
 
ENGLISH COLONISATION 37 
 
 Virginia Company, and the Council for New England, 
 and it was he who, as president of the last of these, 
 obtained the grant of the second Plymouth patent on 
 January 13, 1630." 
 
 The breach with Spain in 1623 threw George Villiers, 
 Duke of Buckingham, the all-powerful favourite of 
 James and Charles, on to the side of the anti-Spanish 
 and Puritan party and in 1625 he became an adventurer 
 along with "Warwick for the discovery of the Northwest 
 Passage." This alliance of Buckingham with the Puri- 
 tans was marked by Warwick's appointment as lord 
 lieutenant of Essex; his brother Henry had been since 
 1618 in high favour at court and was one of Bucking- 
 ham's most intimate friends. In 1623 Henry was 
 created Baron Kensington, was sent with Carlisle to 
 France in 1624 to arrange Charles's marriage with 
 Louis XIII 's sister, Henrietta Maria, and on his return 
 was created Earl of Holland. Holland henceforward 
 became the queen's mouthpiece in English politics and 
 was always hostile to the Spanish party at court. War- 
 wick's connection with the court was shortlived; he 
 sided against Buckingham in the parliament of 1626 and 
 in November joined with Lord Saye, the Earl of 
 Lincoln, and other Puritan peers in refusing to pay the 
 forced loan that was the king's expedient for financing 
 the war. The value of the Eich navy, however, was so 
 great that in March, 1627, a very full commission was 
 issued to Warwick authorising him to undertake hostili- 
 ties against the Spaniards, the commission" being 
 
 76 Bradford (1908 edition), p. 248 and note; (Pord, ed., 1912), II, 69-70. 
 
 " C. S. P. Dom., April, 1625. 
 
 '8 C. S. P. Dom., 18 Mar., 1627. Itequest from Secretary Coke to Attorney 
 General Heath to prepare for the Earl of Warwick such a commission as 
 was granted by Queen Elizabeth to the Earl of Cumberland. For enlarge- 
 ment, T. ibid., 17 April, 1627. The exact bearing of this and some of the 
 other commissions of the period upon the prize law of the time is dealt 
 
38 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 modelled on the lines of Queen Elizabeth's commission 
 to the Earl of Cumberland. By an enlargement of the 
 commission in April, 1627, Warwick was authorised to 
 invade or possess any of the dominions of the king of 
 Spain or the archdukes in Europe, Africa, or America, 
 but the issue of this commission was not at all well 
 received by the court party and we find Secretary 
 Nicholas writing in the following October that Lord 
 Warwick's commission would never have passed had it 
 not been for the puzzle of the great preparations then 
 in hand for the Eochelle expedition." 
 
 In pursuance of this commission Warwick, with the 
 aid of some London merchants,*" fitted out a fleet of eight 
 ships and put to sea in the hope of capturing the Brazil 
 fleet. He failed in his attempt and himself narrowly 
 escaped capture, while his financial resources were badly 
 crippled. In 1628 and 1629 he sent out more ships and 
 took prizes both from the Spaniards and from the 
 Genoese, which brought him little profit but involved 
 him in legal disputes that were unsettled for many years. 
 Among other ships he despatched the Earl of Warwick 
 and the Somers Islands to the West Indies on the voyage 
 that is referred to in Capt. Bell's letter. Warwick did 
 not stand alone in these ventures, but may be regarded 
 as the head of a elan, composed on the one hand of his 
 own relatives and adherents and on the other of a body of 
 powerful London merchants. We have seen the clan in 
 action in the disputes of the Virginia Company, and 
 during the years that had since elapsed, the group had 
 
 with in an article on "Early Prize Law," by Mr. E. G. Marsden in the 
 English Historical Review for April, 1910. 
 
 79 C. S. P. Dom., 25 Oct., 1627. Nicholas's Letter Book, p. 64. 
 
 80 Coke MS8., Hist. MSS. Comm., Twelfth Beport, App'x, p. 297. War- 
 wick to Sir John Coke, "I agreed with Mr. Attorney and the Judge of 
 the Admiralty upon a commisBion and shewed it to divers merchants, my 
 partners, who have come in and adventured their money." 
 
ENGLISH COLONISATION 39 
 
 been further cemented together by the growing unity 
 of feeling in the Puritan party. The intimate business 
 alliance of such members of the Upper House as War- 
 wick, Saye, and Brooke with great London merchants is 
 prominent throughout our pages and we must recognize 
 that these commercial bonds are of great importance 
 in the history of the time, as rendering it easier for great 
 nobles and wealthy country gentlemen to unite with the 
 city merchants and to work side by side with them in 
 the constitutional struggle against the crown. Such a 
 union would have been impossible at an earlier period. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 PURITAN EMIGRATION AND THE FORMATION 
 OF THE PROVIDENCE COMPANY 
 
 To appreciate justly the causes governing the course 
 of colonial events in the momentous years 1628-1629 is 
 impossible without some realisation of the general pos- 
 ture of affairs in England and Europe at the time and 
 to this we must for a moment turn our attention. The 
 high hopes with which the nation had welcomed the 
 accession of the debonair young king and had taken 
 up arms once more against the hated Spaniards, had 
 crumbled under disaster after disaster. The Cadiz 
 expedition had ended in demoralisation and disgrace, 
 the vaunted French alliance had been frittered away 
 in ignoble squabbles and had resulted in naught but 
 the use of English ships against Protestant Rochelle; 
 nothing had been done to aid the King of Denmark in 
 delivering the persecuted churches of Bohemia and the 
 Palatinate, while the expeditions for the relief of those 
 Rochellois whom England had encouraged in their 
 resistance to their king, had returned each* a more 
 broken, more diseased, and more disgraceful failure than 
 the last though Rochelle was slowly starving to death 
 with a shuddering dread of the vengeance of Richelieu 
 in a final sack. Nor were home affairs in a more hopeful 
 condition; the incompetence of the government was 
 flagrant, but its demands for money were unceasing and 
 those who refused its forced loans were imprisoned 
 without trial or banished from their homes. The 
 
THE PROVIDENCE COMPANY 41 
 
 countryside swarmed with unpaid and mutinous soldiery, 
 torn from tlieir parishes by the press-gang and billeted 
 on all below the rank of gentleman. Eobbery and out- 
 rage aflBicted their unwilling hosts, and no redress could 
 be obtained ; yet while the poor were thus oppressed and 
 the rich were fleeced without warrant of law, the religious 
 feelings of some of the most upright members of the 
 community were wounded by the silencing of the Calvin- 
 istic lectures and pamphleteers ; the protagonists of the 
 Arminians received preferment to the highest dignities 
 in the church, and the penalties against recusants re- 
 mained a dead letter to please the queen and her brother, 
 the king of France, though the countries were at open 
 war. Never in English history had the government faced 
 so united an opposition as when Charles I's third parlia- 
 ment opened in March, 1628, but never did a monarch 
 fail so to realise his position. For two months the debate 
 of grievances went on behind the closed doors of parlia- 
 ment, while to common men the outlook was becoming 
 ever blacker. 
 
 It was during these months of gloom that there were 
 passed from hand to hand the suggestions of one of the 
 most respected Puritan divines, John White of Dorches- 
 ter, for the founding of a refuge in another land for 
 God's oppressed people, where a bulwark might be 
 raised "against the kingdom of Anti-Christ which the 
 Jesuits labour to rear up in all quarters of the world." 
 White had been connected before with a colonising effort 
 in New England of some Dorchester merchants and the 
 treasurer of this defunct company, John Humphry, 
 brother-in-law of the Earl of Lincoln, determined to 
 obtain from the Earl of Warwick, who was now beginning 
 to be looked up to as the head of the Puritans, a grant 
 of land in New England whereon he and others inter- 
 ested in carrying out White's new project might found 
 
42 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 their settlement. In June, 1623, the Council for New 
 England, finding it impossible to secure capital or set- 
 tlers for their territory, had decided^ to divide the whole 
 region into twenty shares to be distributed by lot among 
 those of the council who had paid in capital to the stock. 
 On June 29, 1623, the drawing had taken place in the 
 presence of King James, and Warwick had drawn as 
 his share the region round Massachusetts Bay.^ It was 
 this tract that Warwick granted by patent to John 
 Humphry, John Endecott, and their associates on 
 March 19, 1628.* Endecott sailed on his first voyage to 
 New England in June and the colonisation of Massa- 
 chusetts began, almost unnoticed amidst the national 
 troubles. 
 
 The great Commons' debate on grievances that ended 
 on the twenty-eighth of May, 1628, in the presentation 
 to the king of the Petition of Eight, was marked by a 
 crystallisation of the Puritan party in parliament into 
 a form that had great influence upon the after course of 
 events. It was the extreme Puritans who were respon- 
 sible for the final mould in which the Petition was cast, 
 and it is most noticeable that the men forming the inner 
 ring of the party were closely united one with another 
 by ties of relationship and sincere friendship. Warwick, 
 Saye, and Lincoln were the exponents of the popular 
 poKcy in the Lords; Sir John Eliot, the leader of the 
 Commons, was united to Warwick by close bonds,* while 
 Sir Nathaniel Rich, John Pym, Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, 
 and Sir Gilbert Grerrard were all, as we shall show later, 
 
 1 ' ' Records of Council for New England, ' ' Proceedings of Amer. Antiq. 
 See. for 1875, p. 49. 
 
 2 See the map in Alexander 's Encouragement to Colonies, 1624. 
 
 8 C. 8. P. Col., 19 March, 1628. See also Massachusetts Colonial Becords, 
 29 Sept., 1629. 
 
 iForster's Life of Eliot, II, 64, 72, 642. See also Bagg's letters to the 
 Privy Council, e.g. C. S. P. Dom., 20 April, 1620. 
 
THE PROVIDENCE COMPANY 43 
 
 intimately linked together and all took important parts 
 in the struggle. For more than a week after the presen- 
 tation of the Petition, the issue hung in the balance, but 
 at last on the seventh of June the king yielded and the 
 Petition of Right became the law of the land. To the 
 lighter hearted it seemed as though the threatened 
 liberties of England were safe, but the leaders realised 
 that there was still much to be done, and, without an 
 instant's delay, they proceeded to attack the king's 
 Arminian religious policy, the illegal levying of tonnage 
 and poundage, and, worst of all, the ministerial acts of 
 Buckingham. So vehement were the remonstrances 
 addressed to him that, in anger and disgust at what he 
 thought their base ingratitude, Charles prorogued the 
 parliament on the 26th with a speech of cutting severity. 
 The hopes of early June were dashed and once more 
 gloom settled down on Puritan hearts, saddened and 
 revolted as they were by the king's ostentatious bestowal 
 of preferment upon the Arminian prelates. For a 
 moment the gloom was lightened by a somewhat untimely 
 rejoicing at Felton's murder of the favourite, but the 
 news from Germany was not encouraging, as Wallenstein 
 drove Christian of Denmark, the champion of Protes- 
 tantism, to his island fastnesses in utter rout. Rochelle 
 at last lay prone, her walls dismantled, her merchants 
 beggared, and her treasured Huguenot liberties gone 
 at the bidding of the ruthless cardinal. Everywhere 
 absolutism and Catholicism seemed triumphant and 
 many an earnest. God-fearing man trembled as he feared 
 that ere long the queen and Laud would bring Protestant 
 England once more under the power of the Roman see. 
 The publication in December of the "Declaration 
 touching Public Worship," was regarded by the Puritans 
 as granting license to the Arminians for far-reaching 
 innovations in religion, while the feelings of the mer- 
 
44 PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 chants were outraged by the government's high-handed 
 proceedings in the conflict over Chambers's obstinate 
 refusals to pay the illegal tonnage and poundage. Once 
 more, with the opening of the new year, the public gaze 
 was fixed upon the doors that guarded the central scene 
 in the great struggle. Parliament met again on January 
 20, 1629, and the Commons under Eliot's leadership at 
 once vehemently assailed the "Declaration," and put 
 forward in a series of resolutions against popery and 
 Arminianism their own conception of the type of uni- 
 formity to be demanded for the church. For more than 
 a month the debates raged round the resolutions and the 
 religious grievances they were meant to remedy, while 
 Charles endeavoured in vain to divert attention to the 
 less thorny question of finance. Eliot, with even more 
 intemperate words, refused to be turned from his chosen 
 path and though many lesser members would have 
 debated the threatening action of the courts against 
 their own treasured freedom from arrest, he persisted 
 in recalling their attention to the larger question of the 
 national liberties, until at length the king's slender 
 patience was at end. Never had a more moving scene 
 been witnessed in the Commons' House than on that 
 second of March, 1629, when Speaker Finch announced 
 His Majesty's pleasure that the House should then 
 adjourn. On all sides rose angry murmurs against the 
 order; in flat defiance of it the doors were locked and, 
 though Finch did his courtly best to obey his royal 
 master's commands, the leaders were resolved on vio- 
 lence rather than be baulked of their will. While the 
 trembling speaker was held in his chair, and the weaker 
 members cowered weeping in their seats, it was resolved 
 that whoever should bring in innovations in religion, 
 should introduce popery or Arminianism, or should pay 
 tonnage or poundage, should be reputed a traitor and a 
 
THE PROVIDENCE COMPANY 45 
 
 capital enemy to the commonwealth. The doors were 
 opened, the speaker released, and to all men it seemed 
 as though the established parliamentary privileges of 
 England were at an end; Eliot, Selden, and other leaders 
 were committed to the Tower. 
 
 "The increasing of our sins gives us great cause to 
 look for some heavy scourge and judgment to be coming 
 upon us," wrote John Winthrop a few days later." "My 
 dear wife, I am verily persuaded God will bring some 
 heavy, affliction upon this land, and that speedily; but 
 if the Lord seeth it will be good for us, he will provide 
 a shelter and a hiding-place for us and others, as a Zoar 
 for Lot, a Sarephthah for his prophet." What wonder 
 that at such a time White's message of hope should find 
 an echo in Puritan hearts, and that God's people "should 
 turn with eyes of longing to the free and open spaces of 
 the New World, whither they might flee to be at peace. 
 
 ^he summer of 1629 was filled with events of the 
 utmost importance to colonial history. Though only the 
 leaders had been imprisoned for their share in the 
 Commons' scene, every member of the Puritan party, 
 both great and small, was made to feel the displeasure 
 of the governme^ It was impossible to deprive Sir 
 Benjamin Eudyerd of the lucrative office of surveyor of 
 the Court of Wards, which had been granted him for 
 life in his courtier days, but lesser Puritans might be 
 attacked more easily. J3Lohn Humphry had long been 
 an attorney of the Court of Wards and a noticeable 
 Puritan and now both he and his colleague, John Win- 
 throp, the Puritan squire of Groton in Suffolk, were 
 deprived of their offices.* This apparently unimportant 
 removal was in truth of tremendous import, for in 
 Winthrop at last was found the man who was needed 
 
 London, 15 May, 1629, Life and Letters of Winthrop, I, 296. 
 8 June, 1629, Life of Wmthrop, I, 298. 
 
46 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 to convert the aspirations of the Puritans into realitiesj 
 Winthrop, a man already of middle age, had been 
 afflicted during the past year (1628) with a succession 
 of bereavements that had disillusioned him with life in 
 England and had turned his thoughts to the proposals 
 for migration that were occupying the minds of his 
 friends. The Massachusetts Bay Company had received 
 the sanction of a royal charter in March, 1629, and in 
 July^ Winthrop and his brother-in-law, Emmanuel 
 Downing, rode down to Sempringham, the Kesteven seat 
 of the Earl of Lincoln, to talk over their plans of joining 
 the company. 
 
 Theophilus Fiennes-Clinton, fourth Earl of Lincoln, 
 who was descended from a distant branch of the great 
 Fiennes family that held the ancient peerage of Saye 
 and Sele, was the most earnest Puritan among the peers, 
 and his seat at Sempringham was the central point where 
 were discussed the projects for a Puritan migration. 
 Lincoln was married to Bridget Fiennes, daughter of 
 Viscount Saye, and his sister. Lady Susan Fiennes- 
 Clinton, was the wife of John Humphry, who had long 
 been interested in White's colonising projects. Hum- 
 phry had succeeded in imparting this interest to 
 Lincoln and to Isaac Johnson, who was married to 
 another of Lincoln's sisters. Winthrop found the whole 
 society assembled at Sempringham and, though we have 
 no account of the discussions that ensued, it is certain 
 that the affairs of the Massachusetts Bay Company must 
 have been talked over. Among Lincoln 's dependents was 
 his distant kinsman, Thomas Dudley, a man of an 
 earnest and almost fanatical Puritan temper. Together 
 he, John Humphry, Isaac Johnson, and Winthrop came 
 to the momentous decision to cast off the dust of Eng- 
 
 ' .Tuly, 1629, Ufe of Wmth/rop, I, 304. 
 
THE PROVIDENCE COMPANY 47 
 
 land from their feet and throw in their lot with the 
 Massachusetts Bay Company. In this same critical 
 week Matthew Cradock, the governor, had suggested to 
 the members of the company the entire transfer of the 
 government to America, and on the twenty-sixth of 
 August' it was resolved in a full meeting at Cambridge, 
 that this step should be taken. Twelve members of the 
 company, including Sir Richard Saltonstall, John 
 Humphry, and Winthrop, announced their intention of 
 leaving England to settle on American shores, and all 
 of them took immediate steps in preparation for their 
 voyage. From this point onwards Winthrop began to 
 take the lead in the company's affairs, a lead at once 
 marked by a decision and a statesmanlike foresight in 
 marked contrast to the timorous conservatism of 
 Matthew Cradock. 
 
 The importance of all these happenings from the point 
 of view of our immediate subject is that every step 
 taken by the Massachusetts emigrants was taken in 
 concert with and often upon the advice of those veteran 
 colonisers, the Earl of Warwick and Sir Nathaniel Rich. 
 It is hardly likely that the idea of migration to America 
 can have been thoroughly shaped as early as April, 1629, 
 when Bell's letter' reached Sir Nathaniel Rich, but the 
 idea was gradually taking shape and it must have been 
 within the critical months of June and July that that 
 decision was reached. Two courses lay open to the 
 emigrants. On the one hand, they might sail towards 
 what were then regarded as the bleak and inhospitable 
 shores of North Virginia, where so many attempts at 
 colonisation had been made to end only in disaster, and 
 where the Pilgrims at Plymouth were even then strug- 
 gling with small success against the hardships of their 
 
 8 Life of Winthrop, I, 344. 
 » V. supra, pp. 31-34. 
 
48 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 lot. On the other hand, they might guide their course 
 toward the fertile islands of the Caribbean that were 
 described so glowingly by Capt. Bell. 
 
 Warwick had every reason to counsel the colonists 
 towards the latter course, and, though he was willing to 
 aid them whatever their choice should be, we cannot 
 doubt that it was southward he wished them to sail. 
 His ventures of late years had met with little success and 
 there was here the prospect of retrieving loss and at the 
 same time of providing another home for his discon- 
 tented proteges in Bermuda. The colonisation of St. 
 Christopher and Barbadoes under the protection of 
 Lords Carlisle and Marlborough, both members of the 
 court party and both personally hostile to the Riches," 
 can have been no more acceptable to Warwick and his 
 friends than was the success of Sir William Courteen, 
 Thomas Warner, and Ralph Merrifield, to his merchant 
 associates. The knowledge that fertile islands were 
 awaiting settlement in the heart of the West Indies, and 
 that they could be fortified with ease, must have been 
 welcome news to so strong a hater of Spain as was War- 
 wick. Here at last appeared a chance of redeeming the 
 failure of his naval enterprise of 1627 and the general ill 
 success of the Spanish war, here was a chance of carry- 
 ing on the glorious traditions of the Elizabethan age and 
 of putting once and for all that bit in the ancient enemy's 
 mouth, that had so long been the dream of all patriotic 
 Englishmen. It is easy for us to commend Winthrop's 
 
 10 A personal coolness had existed between the Eieh family and Jamea 
 Hay, Earl of Carlisle, since his quarrel with Lord ^olland while they were 
 fellow envoys in Paris in 1624. Only with difficulty had a duel then been 
 prevented. The statement of Clarendon that Holland and Carlisle were good 
 friends is no contradiction of our view, as it applies to a later period and 
 the friendship can, at best, have been only superficial. The rivalry between 
 Warwick and the Carlisle interests was an important factor in West Indian 
 affairs as late, at any rate, as 1648. 
 
THE PROVIDENCE COMPANY 49 
 
 neglect of advice and to deride those who gave it and 
 for ten years contended that his choice had been wrongly 
 made, but in 1629 the colonial empires of every power, 
 save Spain, were still to make, and all experience pointed 
 to the shores of a summer sea as those whereon colon- 
 ising success could alone be obtained. 
 
 The Stuart age witnessed many departures from the 
 ancient ways, but the one that marks more definitely, 
 perhaps, than any other, the period as modern, has not 
 always received the attention it deserves. For the first 
 time we find men of the middle class, who were neither 
 great lawyers nor churchmen and who had had no train- 
 ing in the narrow circle of officialdom, printing deep the 
 impress of their personality upon the national destinies. 
 Just as Pym and Cromwell were sprung from that upper 
 middle class that has done such great things for the 
 world, so in the birth throes of the Massachusetts 
 commonwealth the critical decision was made, and made 
 aright, by the obscure Suffolk squire, while the great 
 noble, skilled and cautious though he was, was hopelessly 
 wrong, ^he Massachusetts migration was an event 
 entirely without precedent in the modern worl<iJ Vir- 
 ginia, Newfoundland, and Guiana had attracted merely 
 the adventurers and the needy; the Mayflower pilgrims, 
 though later ages have glorified them, were too few in 
 number, too humble in station, and too far removed from 
 the main currents of English life to be of importance; 
 but mow sober, well-to-do men of middle age, to whom 
 the spirit of adventure was entirely foreign, were con- 
 templating a transfer of themselves, their families, and 
 their goods to new homes across the seas, there to found 
 not a colony but a commonwealthj At such a crisis the 
 caution, the experience, and the knowledge of past 
 failures of the man of affairs stand ranged against the 
 fervour, the enthusiasm, and the hope in the future of 
 
50 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 the new man; Warwick and Rich well knew the diffi- 
 culties to be contended with and preferred to move along 
 the well-marked lines of policy; Winthrop and White, 
 guided as they felt by a Higher Power, were resolved 
 upon a course that was new. The men of the future had 
 their way and the great human stream was directed to 
 the New England shore. 
 
 Though we are unable to examine in detail the discus- 
 sions that went on between Warwick and his associates 
 concerning the designs suggested in Bell's letter, we find 
 that by September, 1629, they were complete, and that 
 it had been resolved to put the project into immediate 
 execution." The total cost of the equipment of this 
 pioneer expedition was about two thousand pounds and 
 this had been provided by the Earl of Warwick, Sir 
 Nathaniel Rich (£275), Gabriel Barber (£250), John 
 Dyke, and Gregory Gawsell. An account of these men 
 will be given when we come to deal with the membership 
 of the company as a whole. The arrangements for the 
 voyage were entmisted to Dyke, who engaged artificers 
 and mariners, purchased provisions and tools, and se- 
 cured from the Admiralty letters of marque for two ships. 
 A pinnace of eighty tons burthen was entrusted to the 
 command of Daniel Elfrith and the bark Warwick to that 
 of John Tanner. Daniel Elfrith" had been engaged for 
 many years in the contraband West Indian trade ; he first 
 appears as an officer serving under Capt. Fisher on a 
 voyage of discovery to Guiana in 1614. He was put as 
 master into a captured Spanish caravel with a cargo of 
 
 11 Our main authority from this point onwards is the Providence records. 
 Though Sainsbury's calendar of them is very full in places, he makes many 
 mistakes and entirely misapprehends certain letters. We shall refer here 
 only to the records themselves, 
 
 12 Tor the early career of Elfrith see Brown, II, 885. Brown's account 
 of his later life is misleading owing to the confusion of Old and New 
 Providence. 
 
THE PROVIDENCE COMPANY 51 
 
 meal and brought her to Bermuda in 1615 just in time 
 to save the colony from famine, but her coming was by 
 no means an unmixed blessing, for she brought into the 
 islands a plague of rats that took years to eradicate.^* 
 Elfrith was accused of securing the Vessel in the West 
 Indies by dishonest means and, though he stoutly main- 
 tained his innocence, he was sent home to England a 
 prisoner.^* He soon vindicated himself and in 1618 he 
 again arrived in Bermuda as master of the ship Treas- 
 urer on his way to the West Indies. Tucker, the governor 
 of the colony, who was on the point of departure for 
 England, suspected that Elfrith was bound roving and 
 warned the colonists to have nothing to do with him. 
 No heed was paid to this warning and Elfrith was 
 received with every kindness." He reached Virginia on 
 his return voyage in the late summer of 1619 in consort 
 with a Flushing privateer and with a hundred negroes 
 he is said to have captured from a Spanish vessel ; some 
 of these he disposed of to the planters and they were the 
 first of Virginia's negro servants; the rest he carried on 
 to Bermuda, where his ship, the Treasurer, was broken 
 up as unserviceable by command of the governor, Capt. 
 Nathaniel Butler. We have seen in a previous chapter 
 how much commotion this voyage caused in England. 
 Elfrith seems now to have settled in Bermuda on the 
 Earl of Warwick's land, which he worked with the aid 
 of the earl's negroes. From 1623 onwards he was a 
 member of the council," but he did not agree well with the 
 governor, Henry Woodhouse. He appears to have main- 
 tained that the governor was lining his own pockets with 
 
 13 Smith 's Vvrgvnia, p. 125. 
 1* V. supra, p. 21. 
 15 Smith, p. 666. 
 
 10 Sir J. H. Lefroy's Memorials of the Bermudas is our authority for this 
 period. 
 
52 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 public funds and in September, 1625, ie was arraigned 
 before the council on a charge of sedition, which was 
 the graver as he had been suspected of complicity in a 
 plot against Grov. Butler in 1622. He was compelled to 
 make abject submission, but on the removal of Wood- 
 house from the governorship in 1626, this submission 
 was removed from the records. During 1626 and 1627 
 he was acting on the council, was an officer of the prin- 
 cipal fort or King's Castle, and was looking after the 
 boats belonging to the colony. He returned to England 
 late in 1627. 
 
 In February, 1628, the Earl of Warwick and his asso- 
 ciates, in virtue of his commission of April, 1627, des- 
 patched three ships on a privateering voyage to the 
 West Indies, making Bermuda their rendezvous. These 
 vessels were the Earl of Warwick of eighty tons, master, 
 Sussex Camock, the Somers Islands of about one hundred 
 tons, master, John Rose, and the Robert of fifty tons, 
 master, Daniel Elfrith." The voyage was not very suc- 
 cessful and Camock with some thirty men was left 
 behind on the island of San Andreas. Elfrith took com- 
 mand of the Earl of Warwick for the voyage home, 
 handing over the command of the Robert to John Tanner. 
 They reached England about the end of April, 1629, 
 armed as we have seen with Gov. Bell's commendation 
 of the projects Elfrith had formed on the voyage. 
 
 The letters of marque for the new expedition for the 
 occupation of Santa Catalina were issued on September 
 28, 1629," and the ships set sail on the second week of 
 October. It had been decided that it would be best to 
 establish a colony firmly on Santa Catalina before 
 undertaking the more doubtful design upon Fonseca; 
 Elfrith therefore sailed direct to Bermuda and after a 
 
 17 P. E. O. Register Book of Letters of Marque, 1628. 
 
 18 Ihid., 1629. 
 
THE PROVIDENCE COMPANY 53 
 
 few days' stay, thence to the Caribbean, which was 
 entered by the Windward Passage. The ships called 
 first at San Andreas, where it was found that the greater 
 part of Camoek's company had left the island in a Dutch 
 ship, though a few, of whom George Needham was the 
 chief, had remained to plant tobacco. After a day or 
 two's stay Elfrith proceeded on his voyage and reached 
 Santa Catalina about Christmas, 1629. A start was at 
 once made on the preparations for the reception of the 
 main body of colonists, who were expected from Bermuda 
 early in the spring of 1630. The harbour of Santa Cata- 
 lina lies to the northwest of the island and is approached 
 by two narrow entrances well-guarded by rocks ; on the 
 north it is sheltered by a peninsula joined to the main 
 island in 1630 by a narrow neck of land.^° The point of 
 this peninsula is a flat-topped bluff, some forty feet 
 above sea-level, and on this bluff it was decided to erect 
 the first fort, called in honour of the expedition's patron, 
 Warwick Fort. The hills make a bold sweep round the 
 eastern and southern sides of the harbour, ascending 
 into three noticeable peaks, now called respectively Spht 
 Hill (550 feet). Fairway Hill, and the Mound (700 feet) ; 
 the central peak of the island lies to the southward and 
 reaches a height of one thousand one hundred and sixty 
 feet. Between the hills and the harbour there is a flat 
 plain and this was chosen as the site of the first settle- 
 ment ; houses were first erected on the neck of land close 
 to the water's edge, the infant town being called in 
 honour of the company. New Westminster. On the 
 arrival of the expedition the island was found to be 
 uninhabited save for a few Dutchmen, who were received 
 as comrades and in their turn aided the settlers in their 
 
 19 This neck of land was not pierced by the buccaneers till about 1670, 
 though Capt. Rudyerd had advised the step as early as 1634 in order to 
 make the peninsula into a kind of citadel. 
 
54 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 preparations; under Elfrith's directions the planters 
 chose such plots of ground in the immediate vicinity of 
 the harbour as they fancied, and at once started clearing 
 them and planning tobacco. No difficulties were en- 
 countered in this work, for the dry season in the island 
 lasts from January to May and there is almost always 
 an abundance of fresh water to be obtained. The work 
 of building the fort was entrusted to the direction of 
 Samuel Axe,^a soldier who had seen service in the Eng- 
 lish contingents in the Netherlands and had there learned 
 some of the principles of fortification. The spot he had 
 selected for the fort was well chosen, as it commanded 
 the main entrance to the harbour, and timber for its 
 construction could be obtained close at hand. Its dis- 
 advantage lay in its distance from a supply of fresh 
 water, but as the only attack was to be expected from 
 the sea, this was not much of a drawback. 
 
 Elfrith and Tanner set sail again from Providence 
 about the end of February, 1630, leaving Axe as deputy 
 governor of the island; a direct course was steered for 
 Bermuda, where Bell during their absence had been 
 making arrangements with his adherents for the migra- 
 tion. He had retired from the governorship in December 
 and was succeeded by Capt. Roger Wood, the late secre- 
 tary, but he still retained his seat upon the council, as 
 did Elfrith. The new colony must have been an engross- 
 ing topic in Bermuda throughout the winter, and BeU 
 was spoken hardly of for his desertion; these strictures 
 he was by no means ready to submit to and at a council 
 on February 9, 1630, we find him bringing forward what 
 he called the scandalous statements of a Mr. Ewer, who 
 was compelled to apologize humbly for them. According 
 to the bad precedent set in the case of previous govern- 
 ors, attempts were made to bring Bell to book for acts 
 done during his governorship. He pleaded the prece- 
 
THE PROVIDENCE COMPANY 55 
 
 dent of immunity that had been established when he 
 succeeded Woodhouse in 1626, this having been sanc- 
 tioned by an order of the Somers Islands Company 
 bearing date of November 28, 1627. The majority of 
 the council maintained that this precedent did not apply 
 as Woodhouse in 1627 had left the islands for England, 
 whereas Bell was going to Santa Gatalina and would be 
 out of the company's jurisdiction; he was therefore com- 
 pelled to give security to answer all such things as should 
 be brought against him either by the inhabitants of the 
 Somers Islands or by the company in England. Elfrith 
 also was compelled to give account to his successor, Capt. 
 Saile, of the things that had been under his charge in 
 the King's Castle and was closely examined concerning 
 the disposal of a cargo of tobacco jointly owned by sev- 
 eral planters, that he had taken with him on his last 
 voyage to England. 
 
 It had been decided that only men should be taken to 
 Santa Catalina in the first instance and some difficulties 
 were placed in the way of those who wished to leave 
 their dependents behind in Bermuda. "Miles Port being 
 desirous to go to St. Catulina, it was thought fit to be 
 considered whether or no he should go without his wife 
 a;nd being put to question at the Council table, the Gov- 
 ernor and all the Council did consider, (excepting Capt. 
 Bell and Capt. Elfrith) that he should not go without 
 her." Miles Port had therefore to abandon the voyage. 
 The men accompanying the expedition mainly belonged 
 to the planting class with only a few servants; they 
 arranged with the planters remaining in Bermuda to 
 send over a further supply of servants later. It is 
 impossible to say whether Bell married Elfrith 's daugh- 
 ter before his departure from Bermuda or after, but 
 he is spoken of as Elfrith 's son-in-law in letters from 
 England in February, 1631, so that the marriage must 
 
56 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 have taken place before August, 1630. Bell and Elfrith 
 took their seats at the Bermuda council table for the 
 last time on April 13, 1630, and sailed for Santa Cata- 
 lina before the next council meeting in May. A few days 
 after their departure there arrived fresh supplies of 
 provisions, etc., for the new colony, which Elfrith had 
 arranged before leaving England; these were too late 
 and had to be left in the Somers Islands till the following 
 year. 
 
 While these events were taking place oversea, the 
 organisers of the enterprise in England had not been 
 idle. Rumours that the Earl of Warwick was engaged 
 in some new venture in the West Indies had begun to 
 spread abroad and the diarist, John Rous, records under 
 date August 24, 1629, "News of an island, 20 miles long 
 and 10 broad, discovered by a captain sent out by the Earl 
 of Warwick."^" On 16 February, 1630, he notes, "The 
 ships be set to sea for New England and for a plantation 
 near Mexico, ut dicitur. ' '" Although the news that some- 
 thing was afoot had thus to some extent leaked out, 
 nothing definite was known outside Warwick's imme- 
 diate circle, for it had been determined to fall in with 
 Bell's suggestion and to keep the new enterprise entirely 
 in the hands of the Earl and his usual financial associates 
 together with a few members of the inner circle of the 
 Puritan party. Subscriptions were invited privately 
 during the summer of 1630 and by the early autumn the 
 company was practically complete. It was impossible 
 to hold any meetings of the adventurers as a whole until 
 
 20 Camden Soe., Diary of John Rous, p. 43. Bous was rector of Stanton 
 Downham in Suffolk and was in a position to learn the gossip of the Earl 
 of 'Vyarwick's tenantry as we may find from the entry of 13 October, 1629. 
 ' ' The news was brought to Lees by the Earl of Warwick 's coachman, who 
 returned from the Earl at London that day, that the Earl was like to have 
 a great prize of 6 ships of the silver fleet." 
 
 21 This was the second supply, sent to Bermuda and missed by Elfrith. 
 
THE PROVIDENCE COMPANY 57 
 
 November, for London and tlie country generally were 
 suffering from one of those periodical visitations of the 
 plague^^ that were so frequent down to the middle of the 
 seventeenth century. The plague had been raging in 
 the north of France and in Holland throughout the 
 summer of 1629^^ and many precautions were taken to 
 preserve England from infection but in vain. The first 
 cases in London were reported early in ApriP* and before 
 the end of the month the capital was so infected that all 
 those able to do so were taking steps to leave it for the 
 country .^^ Fjm, for instance, had been intending to take 
 Barrington Hall for the summer, but Sir Thomas Bar- 
 rington wrote to his mother in May, "My wife, out of 
 her provident care of yourself and us, thinks that fear 
 of the sickness dispersing is cause enough to keep that 
 house free for a refuge.'"" So much had the ravages 
 of the plague dislocated affairs that the christening 
 of the infant Prince Charles in June was announced 
 throughout the country by proclamation instead of by 
 heralds, as was the custom in such cases," while the 
 festivities themselves were hastened through as much as 
 possible. In August Saint Bartholomew Pair and South- 
 wark Fair were prohibited by proclamation for fear of 
 infection, while London was practically deserted by peo- 
 ple of rank, and business was at a standstill. By the 
 end of October, however, the worst was over in London, 
 and November saw the usual current of life resumed, 
 though in many counties, where infection still existed 
 
 22 For this visitation of the plague and its destructive effects at Cam- 
 bridge, V. Masson 's Milton, II. 
 28 C. S. p. Dom., 16 Oct., 1629. 
 a* Ibid., 10 Apra, 1630. 
 26 Ibid. 
 
 26 Hist. M8S. Conun., Seventh Seport, App 'x, Sir T. B. to Lady Joan B. 
 May, 1630. 
 
 27 C. 8. P. Dom., 15 June, 1630. 
 
58 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 as late as Christmas, the usual autumn musters were 
 abandoned. 
 
 As soon as it was possible to assemble in London with 
 any reasonable safety, Warwick took steps to gather his 
 friends together and the first meeting of adventurers in 
 the new company took place at Brooke House in Hol- 
 born^' on the 19th of November; definite and immediate 
 action was decided upon and on the 4th of December 
 the patent was sealed granting formal incorporation to 
 the company by the style of "The Grovernor and Com- 
 pany of Adventurers of the City of Westminster for the 
 plantation of the Islands of Providence, Henrietta, and 
 the adjacent islands lying upon the coast of America." 
 
 The propositions for the formation of the company 
 that had been circulated during the summer of 1630,"' 
 had mentioned £200 as the amount of the first adventure 
 and some portion of this had been paid in before Novem- 
 ber by most of the adventurers. The amount necessary 
 to complete this adventure money of £200 in each case 
 is given against the name of each adventurer on the 
 first page of the company's journal and we are thus 
 provided with a complete list of the original members: 
 
 28 Brooke House, the usual meeting place of the company, lay in what was 
 then a fashionable quarter, at the corner of Oray's Inn Lane and Holborn 
 and immediately opposite the still-existing Staple's Inn; Brooke Street and 
 Greville Street were built upon its site before the beginning of the eight- 
 eenth century. The locality is curiously identified by an entry in C. S. P. 
 Bom., 1633, p. 164. A spy who had been set to watch Lords Saye and 
 Brooke, suspected of too great familiarity with the Dutch ambassador, sat 
 in the gateway of Staple's Inn for some time to watch the ambassador 
 come out from Brooke House. Other meeting places of the company were 
 Warwick House, a little further west along Holborn, and Sir Gilbert Ger- 
 rard 's or Mr. Pym 's lodgings, both of which were then in Gray 's Inn Lane. 
 Jessop, the secretary, was a member of and had chambers in Gray's Inn 
 itself. 
 
 28 None of these letters have been discovered, but it has been possible to 
 arrive at their import from references in the records. 
 
THE PROVIDENCE COMPANY 
 
 59 
 
 19 November, 1630 aleeadypaid to be paid 
 
 £ £ 
 
 Earl of Warwick 100 100 
 
 Earl of Holland — 200 
 
 Lord Saye and Sale .... 100 100 
 
 Lord Brooke ...... — 200 
 
 Jno. Robartes, Esq — 200 
 
 Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, Knt. 125 75 
 
 Sir Gilbert Gerrard, Bart. . . 100 100 
 
 Sir Edward Harwood, Knt. . . 100 100 
 
 Sir Nathaniel Rich, Knt. . . 125 75 
 
 Sir Edmond Moundeford, Knt. . 100 100 
 
 Jno. Pym, Esq 125 75 
 
 Richard Knightley, Esq. ... 125 75 
 
 Jno. Gurdon, Esq 100 100 
 
 Gregory Gawsell 125 75 
 
 Jno. Dyke, merchant .... 125 75 
 
 Jno. Graunt 125 75 
 
 Mr. St. John's of Lincoln's Inn — 200 
 
 Chr. Sherland, Esq — 200 
 
 Gabriel Barber 100 100 
 
 Original venture 
 New total venture . 
 
 £1575 
 
 £2225 
 £3800 
 
 Sir Thomas Barrington, Bart., was admitted an adven- 
 turer on January 21, 1631, and paid in £200. This com- 
 pleted the full number of twenty whole shares. The 
 adventurers present at the first meeting" before the 
 patent was sealed and the company formally incorpo- 
 rated, decided to increase the first adventure from £200 
 to £500, of which £200 was to be made up at once, £100 
 paid at Michaelmas, 1631, and the remaining £200 as 
 and when required. The officers for the first year were 
 provisionally elected, the Earl of Holland being chosen 
 
 80 Saye, Brooke, Budyerd, Gerrard, N. Bich, Moundeford, Pym, Gurdon, 
 Gawsell, Dyke, Graunt. 
 
60 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 governor, John Dyke, deputy governor, Jolin Pym, 
 treasurer, and William Jessop, secretary. 
 
 In examining the list of adventurers it is to be noted 
 that they fall into four classes according to the nature 
 of the inducement that led them to take shares in the 
 company. With one exception. Dyke, all of the members 
 were strong Puritans and though some members have 
 been classed as induced to join the company by their 
 Puritanism, this is not to preclude the others from being 
 swayed by the same motive. The first group of mem- 
 bers includes those who were intimately connected with 
 the Earl of Warwick and his schemes ; to this class may 
 be said to have belonged his brother, the Earl of Hol- 
 land, Sir Nathaniel Rich, John Dyke, Gabriel Barber, 
 and Sir Thomas Barrington. The second group includes 
 members of the inner ring of the Puritan party and all, 
 save Harwood, members of the parliament of 1628-1629. 
 The adventurers belonging to this group were Viscount 
 Saye and Sele, Robert, Lord Brooke, Sir Benjamin Rud- 
 yerd. Sir Gilbert Gerrard, Sir Edward Harwood, Richard 
 Kjiightley, Christopher Sherland, and, most important 
 of all, John Pym. Then come three members induced to 
 join by Pym's personal influence, John Robartes, John 
 Graunt, and Oliver St. John ; and finally there is a little 
 group of East Anglian squires, Gregory Gawsell, John 
 Gurdon, and Sir Edmond Moundeford. 
 
 A full account of the members of the company would, 
 as may be seen from the above list, involve a biographical 
 study of nearly all the Puritan leaders and our attention 
 must therefore be confined in the main to their connec- 
 tion one with another and to their interest in colonial 
 affairs down to 1630. Sidelights will be thrown on the 
 characters of some of them in the course of our pages, 
 but it may here be remarked how intimately the members 
 of the company, and, what is almost the same thing, the 
 
THE PROVIDENCE COMPANY 61 
 
 leaders of the Puritan party, were allied one with 
 another, with the principal emigrants to New England, 
 and also in some degree with the emigrants to Provi- 
 dence itself. This intimacy was of great moment in the 
 events of the time and provided the link between the 
 Puritan leaders that was needful to enable them to build 
 up slowly during the silence of parliament an organised 
 and powerful party of resistance to the arbitrary policy 
 of the crown. 
 
 With the Earl of Holland, the nominal governor of the 
 company, we need concern ourselves very little. His 
 career is well known in the history of the period and his 
 connection with the company was of the slightest. In 
 none of his public employments had Holland displayed 
 ability, but his courtly graces placed him very high in 
 the favour of both Charles and his queen, and, at a time 
 when court favour was the surest road to the obtaining 
 of privileges, it was important to have so acceptable an 
 advocate as Holland to plead one's cause. He never 
 seems to have taken any interest in colonial ventures, 
 but his cupidity and his family ties rendered him willing 
 to accept the titular position of governor of the Provi- 
 dence Company, providing he might share in the com- 
 pany's dividends without expenditure of capital. He 
 never subscribed a halfpenny to the company's funds, 
 but in return for his interest at court was credited with 
 a fully paid share in all distributions of profits. He 
 attended only one meeting of the company. 
 
 Sir Nathaniel Rich (1585-1636)'^ was one of the best 
 known and most respected of the Puritan leaders. He 
 was the son of Richard, illegitimate son of the second 
 Lord Rich, by his marriage with the daughter of John 
 
 81 The short life of Bieh ia the Diet. Nat. Biog. needs emendation. It 
 quite misrepresents his share in the work of the Providence Company. 
 Brown gives more accurate information. 
 
62 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 Michell, sherijff of London. He was admitted to Q-ray's 
 Inn in 1610 and entered parliament for Totnes in 1614. 
 His brother Robert was wrecked on Bermuda with Sir 
 George Somers in 1609 and was probably the author of 
 the pamphlet, Newes from Virginia, published in 1610. 
 According to Brown, Robert Rich was living in Bermuda 
 in 1617 and died there in 1620. Sir Nathaniel Rich early 
 took a large interest in the colonial enterprises of his 
 family and became well known in public life; he was 
 knighted in 1617 and served upon several royal com- 
 missions. He was an original member of the -Bermuda 
 Company, a member of the Council for New England, 
 and managed the Warwick interests in the courts of the 
 Virginia and East India companies; for his conduct of 
 his party's case in the quarrel in the Virginia Company 
 he was bitterly attacked by Sandys and his faction in 
 the House of Commons in 1624, but he was one of the 
 most prominent members of the Council for Virginia 
 appointed by the crown on the dissolution of the com- 
 pany. In the struggles of the parliament of 1628-1629 
 Rich took a prominent part and his speeches in the debate 
 on the Petition of Right have been preserved. We may 
 regard Mm throughout his career as the Earl of War- 
 wick's man of business, who had a very large share in 
 shaping the family policy. 
 
 William Jessop, who was appointed to the secretary- 
 ship of the company, was a young student of Gray's 
 Inn, who had already done a considerable amount of 
 clerical work for the Rich family. He occupied the post 
 of secretary to the company and to the patentees of 
 Saybrook throughout their existence, and these appoint- 
 ments proved the opening to a prosperous career; he 
 became later legal agent to many noble houses, was clerk 
 to the House of Lords under Henry Elsing in the Long 
 Parliament, clerk to the Council of State under the Com- 
 
THE PROVIDENCE COMPANY 63 
 
 monwealth, and clerk to the House of Commons in the 
 Long Parliament of the Restoration. He died in 1675, 
 leaving a considerable fortune. Two London merchants 
 took a share in financing the first voyage of exploration, 
 and both had been actively engaged in privateering 
 enterprises and colonial trade and sharers in Warwick's 
 ventures. The two were men of quite different stamp, 
 though both were typical London merchants of the time. 
 Gabriel Barber was one of the earliest adventurers in 
 the Virginia Company and an original member of the 
 Bermuda Company. He was a close adherent of the 
 Warwick party and in 1623 was deputy governor of the 
 Somers Islands Company, while he was a heavy share- 
 holder in the East India Company, and in 1625 we find 
 recorded the sale of £1200 of East India stock by him.*^ 
 That he was both wealthy and public spirited we may 
 judge from his anonymous donation of £550 with the 
 promise of more for the founding of the first free school 
 in Virginia.*^ John Dyke was a member of the Fish- 
 monger's Company in the City of London and an adven- 
 turer in the Virginia, Bermuda, Muscovy, and East India 
 companies. His father, Thomas Dyke,'* had come to 
 London from Yorkshire in the reign of Queen Elizabeth 
 and had done well as a foreign merchant. In 1612 he 
 was one of the adventurers in Hudson's voyage to the 
 Northwest Passage; on his death in 1617'' his adven- 
 tures in the East India, Virginia, and Bermuda com- 
 panies were left to be divided among his five sons. At 
 the request of the eldest, Robert, his share was passed 
 on to the third son, John Dyke, who thenceforward took 
 
 32 C. S. P. East Indies, 4 March, 1625. 
 
 33 Barber signed himself "Dust and Ashes." See Fiske, Old Virginia 
 and her NeigKbours, I, 234. 
 34 Harl. Soe. Visit, of London, I, 233. 
 36 C. S. P. East Indies, 4 March, 1625. 
 
64 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 the lead in the family affairs. His interest in colonial 
 matters was entirely financial and we find in the registers 
 of letters of marque'" repeated issue of letters for ships 
 owned by him in partnership with the Earl of Warwick 
 and others. He was an adherent of the Warwick party 
 in the Virginia quarrel and was one of the Council for 
 Virginia appointed in 1624. His appointment to the 
 deputy governorship of the Providence Company was 
 entirely owing to his commercial experience and, it will 
 be shown later, the company suffered severely from its 
 connection with him. He may be taken as a type of the 
 grasping financier who regarded West Indian adventure 
 with a favouring eye only as long as it returned him 
 large dividends. 
 
 It is hard ,to say whether his attachment to the Eich 
 family or his ardent Puritanism was the more potent 
 motive in securing Sir Thomas Barrington's adhesion 
 to the company. The Barrington family was one of the 
 most important Puritan families of the second rank and 
 was allied with practically all the leaders in the constitu- 
 tional struggle. The priories of Leighs and Hatfield in 
 the parish of Hatfield Broad Oak, near Felsted in Essex, 
 had been granted to Chancellor Eich upon the Dissolu- 
 tion and from him the Barringtons had purchased the 
 priory of Hatfield in 1564.'^ Here, henceforth, the family 
 resided on terms of close intimacy with the Eiches, whose 
 principal seat was at Leighs Priory. Sir Francis Bar- 
 rington, the first baronet, married Joan, daughter of 
 Sir Henry Cromwell, the "Golden KJnight" of Hinching- 
 brook, and aunt of John Hampden and Oliver Cromwell, 
 the future Protector. Lady Joan Barrington was one 
 of the most remarkable women of her time, who kept up 
 to her very latest years a voluminous correspondence 
 
 s« 0. S. p. Dom., 1625-1630. 
 87 Wright 's Mssex, II, 310. 
 
THE PEOVIDENCE COMPANY 65 
 
 witli her numerous family and whose advice was repeat- 
 edly sought by the leaders of the Puritan party, both 
 clerical and lay. She took an intimate interest in New 
 England and kept up a correspondence with many of 
 the Massachusetts emigrants. Roger Williams, the foun- 
 der of the colony of Ehode Island, often corresponded 
 with Lady Barrington and married one of her nieces.'* 
 Many letters from the Eliot family are preserved among 
 the Barrington correspondence and there are some rea- 
 sons for believing that Oliver Cromwell met his future 
 wife, Elizabeth Bourchier, at Lady Joan's house, for she 
 and Sir John Bourchier were near neighbours. Sir 
 Francis Barrington represented Essex in all parliaments 
 from 1601 to his death in 1628 and was one of the earliest 
 members of the Virginia Company. Thomas (c. 1590- 
 1644) was knighted in his father's lifetime and succeeded 
 to the baronetcy in 1628; he represented various bor- 
 oughs in the Rich interest in the parliaments from 1621 
 to 1628, when he succeeded his father as knight of the 
 shire for Essex. During the struggles over the Petition 
 of Right he was one of the inner circle of Puritan leaders, 
 and was a fellow member with Pym and with his brother- 
 in-law, Gerrard, of many important committees. He 
 married as his second wife, Judith Litton, who was con- 
 nected with the family of St. John of Bletsho and hence 
 with the Russells,^ Earls of Bedford. As one of the 
 deputy-lieutenants of Essex, Barrington carried out the 
 directions of the lord lieutenant, the Earl of Warwick, 
 and was a person of great importance in the county. 
 Many of the extant letters from Providence are addressed 
 to him as deputy-governor of the company for 1633- 
 1634. 
 William Fiennes (1582-1662), first Viscount Saye and 
 
 88 Brit. Mus., Eg., 2643, fo. 1, WilliamB to Lady Joan Barrington, 2 May, 
 1629. 
 
66 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 Sele, has been largely forgotten by succeeding genera- 
 tions, but down to the opening of the Civil War he was 
 regarded by all as the typical Puritan and as one of the 
 most intractable opponents of arbitrary government in 
 church and state. Educated at Oxford a little earlier 
 than Pym, he succeeded his father in the revived barony 
 of Saye and Sele in 1613. His Puritanism was of the 
 strongest and he was, from 1621 onwards, one of the 
 most prominent of the anti-court and anti-Spanish party ; 
 to the breaking-off of the Spanish Match Saye owed his 
 promotion in the peerage, but this did not modify his 
 uncompromising hostility to arbitrary power and during 
 the parliament of 1628-1629 he was the king's most 
 implacable opponent in the House of Lords, and was the 
 most skilful tactician among the Puritan leaders. His 
 daughter, Bridget, was married to Theophilus Fiennes- 
 Clinton, Earl of Lincoln, and through this connection 
 and his intimacy with Warwick, he began about 1629 to 
 take an interest in colonisation. He shared in the work 
 of the Providence Company and in New England affairs 
 from this time and we shall have a good deal to say con- 
 cerning his schemes. Many of the Puritan emigrants 
 to Providence came from the neighbourhood of his seat 
 at Broughton near Banbury. Saye's fortune was hardly 
 equal to his rank and some part of his interest in coloni- 
 sation was probably to be attributed to his hopes of 
 profit from his ventures. He purchased in 1633 a share 
 in the Providence Company for his eldest son, James 
 Fiennes, but the latter took no part in the company's 
 affairs. 
 
 Robert Greville, second Lord Brooke (1608-1643), was 
 the adopted son of his great uncle. Sir Fulke Greville, 
 first Baron."' He sat in the parliament of 1628-1629 for 
 the family borough of Warwick and succeeded to the 
 
 38 Harl. Soc. Lincolnshire Pedigrees, II, 431. 
 
THE PROVIDENCE COMPANY 67 
 
 barony soon after attaining his majority. The inclina- 
 tion towards Puritanism that he had imbibed during his 
 education in Holland, threw him under the influence of 
 Warwick and Saye, and it was they who led him to take 
 a share in the Providence Company's enterprise and 
 later interested him in the colonisation of New England 
 and especially of, Saybrook.*" The large fortune he had 
 inherited enabled him to be of much financial assistance 
 to the conipany, and, as he grew older, he became more 
 and more interested in its work and ready to carry on 
 some portion of it at his own charge. He married 
 Katherine Eussell, daughter of Francis, fourth Earl of 
 Bedford; this connection and his talents, wealth, and 
 position caused him to fill a very prominent place in the 
 Puritan struggle. 
 
 Sir Benjamin Eudyerd (1572-1658), son of James Eud- 
 yerd of Eudyerd in Staffordshire,*^ came to court to try 
 his fortune at the height of Queen Elizabeth's reign, and 
 his brother, James, started his career in the City of 
 London about the same time. He played a prominent 
 part in the literary world under James I, and was 
 granted through his patron, the Earl of Pembroke, the 
 lucrative position of surveyor to the Court of Wards 
 for life. He was knighted in 1618, entered the House of 
 Commons in 1620 as member for Portsmouth, and sat 
 in every subsequent parliament down to his death. 
 Although the anti-Spanish views he had imbibed in early 
 manhood under Elizabeth placed him, like Pembroke, in 
 opposition at first to King James's foreign policy, the 
 breaking-off of the Spanish Match allowed him to take 
 up a more moderate position, and in the parliament of 
 
 *o Fulke Greville, the first Lord Brooke, had beeli an intimate friend of 
 Raleigh's and had taken great interest in his schemes of colonisation. 
 V. Brown, I, 15. 
 
 *i Harl. Soc, Visit, of London, II, 215. 
 
68 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 1623 he acted as spokesman for the government. But 
 his zeal for church reform threw him on to the side of the 
 opposition and in the parliament of 1628-1629 he defi- 
 nitely took his stand with the Puritan leaders and 
 became one of the chief members of the party. He was 
 an intimate friend of the Earl of Warwick and Sir 
 Nathaniel Rich*^ and it was this friendship that led him 
 to join the Providence Company. He was a regular 
 attendant at its meetings for some years, though later 
 his interest somewhat cooled. 
 
 Sir Gilbert Gerrard, Bart., of Harrow-on-the-Hill, Mid- 
 dlesex, succeeded his father in 1583 and was admitted to 
 Gray's Inn in 1592. He married in 1620, Mary, daugh- 
 ter of Sir Francis and Lady Joan Barrington, and was 
 thus more strongly confirmed in his sympathies with 
 Puritanism. He entered parliament as member for Mid- 
 dlesex in 1621 and thenceforth, except in 1626, when he 
 was pricked for sheriff of the county, he sat in every 
 parliament down to the Long Parliament, as one of the 
 inner circle of the Puritan party. The Gerrard family 
 had been connected with colonial ventures since the early 
 part of Elizabeth's reign, but Sir Gilbert does not appear 
 to have taken any personal interest in colonisation prior 
 to the founding of the Providence Company in which he 
 was led to take a share by his friendship with the Earl 
 of Warwick, Sir Nathaniel Rich, and Pym. He was an 
 active member of the company and served as deputy- 
 governor in 1634-1635; the company's meetings were 
 occasionally held at his house in Holborn, 
 
 Sir Edward Harwood (1586-1632)," one of the four 
 
 *2 For the intimacy of the families see Brit. Mus., Eg., 2646, fo. 54. 
 
 *8 Brown calls Edward Harwood the son of Leonard Harwood, member of 
 the Virginia Company. This is shown to be incorrect by Harl. Soc, Lines. 
 Pedigrees, II. 458, where William Harwood of Thurlby, father of Edward, 
 is given as dying in 1600. 
 
THE PROVIDENCE COMPANY 69 
 
 standing colonels of the EngHsh contingent in the Low 
 Countries, had long had an interest in colonisation. He 
 was for many years a member of the Virginia Company 
 and possessed four shares in the Somers Islands Com- 
 pany. He was bound by ties of close intimacy with the 
 family of the Earl of Lincoln and his family seat of 
 Thurlby was not far from Sempringham. His brother, 
 George Harwood,** one of the feoffees for impropria- 
 tions in 1627, was the first treasurer of the Massachu- 
 setts Bay Company*^ and may have had something to do 
 with interesting the Clinton family in the project. Sir 
 Edward Harwood's sympathies were very strongly Puri- 
 tan and there is some reason to suppose that he was of 
 assistance to the Pilgrim Fathers during their sojourn 
 in Leyden and may have aided them to secure their 
 patent from the Earl of Warwick. During the education 
 of Lord Brooke in Holland, Harwood was in close touch 
 with the latter, and as his residence abroad precluded his 
 attendance at the Providence meetings save on one or 
 two occasions, Lord Brooke acted as his proxy. Har- 
 wood was killed in action at the siege of Maestricht in 
 1632. 
 
 Eichard Knightley (1593-1639) succeeded to the family 
 domain of Fawsley in Northamptonshire on the death 
 of his cousin, Sir Valentine Ejiightley, in 1618. He was 
 one of the most respected members of the Puritan party 
 and represented Northants in the parliaments of 1621- 
 1622, 1624-1625, 1625 and 1628-1629. He was prevented 
 from sitting in that of 1626 by being pricked sheriff of 
 his county. Sir Valentine Elnightley had been a member 
 of the Virginia Company and Richard Knightley suc- 
 ceeded to his interest in colonial affairs, which interest 
 may have been augmented by his marriage with Anne, 
 
 44 Lvtics. Pedigrees, II, 458. 8. P. Dom., Car. I, cclv, ii. 
 
 4s Elected 28 February, 1628-1629, Massachusetts Colonial Records, I. 
 
70 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 daughter of Sir William Courteen. His house at Faws- 
 ley was often a meeting place for the opposition leaders 
 and the Providence Company occasionally met there at 
 the same time. The Knightleys were close friends of 
 the Hampdens, and Richard Knightley's son married 
 one of John Hampden's daughters, while his brother, 
 Nathaniel,*' a merchant tailor of London, was married 
 to a daughter of Alderman Johnson of the Virginia Com- 
 pany. The adhesion of the Knightley family to Puri- 
 tanism was traditional, for at the time of the "Marpre- 
 late" controversy in Elizabeth's reign many of the 
 tracts were printed upon a secret press at Fawsley in 
 the house of Sir Richard Knightley. 
 
 Christopher Sherland of Gray's Inn, recorder of 
 Northampton, represented the borough in the parlia- 
 ments of 1623-1624, 1625, 1626 and 1628-1629. He held 
 a high position in the counsels of the Puritan party and 
 was the reporter of several committees of the House of 
 Cohamons. He came under the unfavourable notice of 
 the government along with George Harwood as one of 
 the feoffees for the impropriations of the tithes of Dun- 
 stable, Cirencester, and Hertford in 1627.*^ His strong 
 Puritanism led him to take frequent part in the debates 
 on religious ques^ons in parliament. He died early in 
 1632. 
 
 The most important executive office in the Providence 
 Company, as in the Virginia and Somers Islands com- 
 panies, was the treasurership. To this office his strik- 
 es Harl. Soc, Visit, of London, II, 35. 
 
 " Neal in his History of the Puritans gives his name as Sherman, but a 
 reference to the original list among the Domestic State Papers proves that 
 this should really be Sherland. S. P., Dom., Car. I, cclv, it. The Feoffees 
 were a prominent group of Puritans, in whom were vested the impropriate 
 tithes of certain benefices. These tithes they administered for the support 
 of Puritan lecturers, and they therefore fell under Laud's displeasure and 
 were dissolved. See Puilications, Mass. Col. Soc. XI, pp. 263-277. 
 
THE PROVIDENCE COMPANY 71 
 
 ing financial ability and experience secured the election 
 of Jolin Pym. Of those who have exercised a command- 
 ing influence on English history there is perhaps no one 
 whose career has been less studied than has Pym's. His 
 only modern biographers, Forster, Gardiner, and Grold- 
 win Smith,*' concern themselves almost entirely with his 
 public life in parliament and are in great part devoted 
 to the last three years of his life, when his name was on 
 every lip. The whole ordered development of his career, 
 however, marked him out to his colleagues in the inner 
 circle of the Puritan party during the intermission of 
 parliaments as the natural successor of Eliot in the lead- 
 ership in the struggle against arbitrary power, and the 
 commanding position he at once took up on the opening 
 of the Long Parliament, must have seemed entirely nat- 
 ural to the men whose schemes he had advised and 
 directed ever since the prison doors closed upon Eliot in 
 1629. The master-mind that governed the whole course 
 of the Providence Company was Pym's, and it is neces- 
 sary therefore to deal with his earlier career at some 
 length. 
 
 John Pym (1584-1643) was the son of Alexander Pym 
 of Brymore, Somerset ; his father died when he was very 
 young and his mother, Philippa Coles, married within a 
 year or two Sir Anthony Rous of Halton St. Dominick, 
 Cornwall, with whose family Pym was brought up. Sir 
 Anthony's second son by his first wife married Pym's 
 sister Jane, born in 1581, while his fourth son was Fran- 
 cis Rous, the celebrated provost of Eton, who played an 
 important part in the Puritan struggle. We shall find 
 several members of the Rous family mentioned in the 
 Providence records. Pym matriculated at Broadgates 
 Hall (now Pembroke College), Oxford, in 1599, his step- 
 
 <8 A popular biography of Pym has recently appeared, but to this the 
 same eritieism applies. 
 
72 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 brotlier, Francis, having graduated from the same college 
 three years before; in 1602 he became a student of the 
 Middle Temple but was never called to the bar. 
 
 Sir Anthony Rous was the representative of the inter- 
 ests of the great Russell family on the Devon and Cor- 
 nish border. The parish of Halton St. Dominick lies 
 under ten miles from Tavistock, the spoils of whose abbey 
 had fallen to the Russells at the Dissolution ;** the region 
 is rich in lead and copper mines and from these mines 
 the family then drew a large share of their wealth. The 
 interest of the third Earl of Bedford was sufficient to 
 secure for young Pym a lucrative appointment in the 
 Exchequer and on June 11, 1605, an order"" was issued 
 to draw a grant to John Pym in reversion after Henry 
 Audley of the receivership of the counties of Hants, 
 Wilts, and GHoucestershire. How long he waited for his 
 office does not appear, but from 1613 we find occasional 
 references to his work in the financial business of the 
 counties. The monetary difficulties that beset James I 
 must have added considerably to the work of Pym's post 
 and in 1618 he is found writing to the Lords of the 
 Treasury that it was impossible to raise a sum of £2000, 
 which he had been directed to procure by the sale of 
 some crown rents." Pym entered parliament for the 
 first time for the borough of Tavistock in 1620," the 
 borough being entirely devoted to the Russell interest. 
 He at once began to take an active part in the committee 
 work of the Commons, and showed even thus early a 
 strong interest in religious questions. He was naturally 
 urged towards Puritanism by his serious temper; and 
 
 *9 See Diet. Nat. Biog. art. William Eussell, first Earl of Bedford, XLIX, 
 446. 
 
 50 C. S. P. Dom., 1 June, 1605. 
 
 51 C. S. P. Dom., 28 Sept., 1618. 
 
 62 The statement that he sat in the parliament of 1614 for Calne has been 
 shown to be incorrect. 
 
THE PROVIDENCE COMPANY 73 
 
 the influence of his step-brother, Francis Rous, and of his 
 friend, Charles Fitz-Geffry, put him definitely upon the 
 Puritan side. The death of his wife, Anna Hooke,°* in 
 1620, increased his devotion to religion. He was a mem- 
 ber of the Commons' committee of 1620-1621 upon reli- 
 gious grievances and his work, while it brought him into 
 notice with the Puritan party, led to his detention along 
 with other prominent Puritan members at the end of 
 the parliament. From his confinement in his own house 
 he had to be released early in 1622 by Cranfield's influ- 
 ence to carry out some important financial work for the 
 Exchequer," but he was compelled to return to confine- 
 ment when the work was complete. Cranfield found his 
 assistance in the Exchequer so useful, however, that he 
 secured from the king Pym's full release about the end 
 of the year. 
 
 In the first parliament of Charles I, Pym began to 
 take a really prominent part, especially in committee 
 work; an experience in financial affairs, so uncommon 
 outside the oflScial members of the house, made him 
 reporter of the committee on the lord treasurer's finan- 
 cial statement, while his mastery of detail caused his 
 repeated choice as reporter of the numerous other com- 
 mittees upon which he sat. It is most noticeable in the 
 Commons' journals of this period how frequently the 
 names of a small knot of members occur upon the impor- 
 tant committees that then did so large a share of the 
 work of the House ; Sir N. Rich, Sir B. Rudyerd, Sir G. 
 Gerrard, Sir T. Barrington, Christopher Sherland, and 
 Pym himself, were repeatedly serving together in this 
 way, and one of them was in most cases chosen reporter 
 of the committee. The intimate personal friendship unit- 
 es Capt. Hooke, a relative, was in the years 1634-1635 a principal leader of 
 the malcontents in Providence. 
 6* Hist. M88. Oomm., Fourth Beport, App'x, De la Warr MS8., p. 305, etc. 
 
74 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 ing them and this common experience in public work 
 made the group the most powerful body in England 
 outside the official hierarchies. 
 
 Pym continued deeply interested in religious and finan- 
 cial matters and was entrusted with the management of 
 the financial articles of the impeachment of Buckingham, 
 May, 1626. He conducted the impeachment of Mainwar- 
 ing in the parliament of 1628, but in the riotous scene 
 that closed the session of 1629 he took no part. With 
 the dissolution of parliament and the arrest of Eliot, 
 his public career must have seemed closed and he there- 
 fore turned, in the practical way that characterised him, 
 to the new interest of colonisation that had lately begun 
 to occupy his mind. Opportunities for the exercise of 
 statecraft in the early seventeenth century were denied 
 to any Englishman outside the ranks of the high nobility 
 or the narrow circle of permanent officials ; to a man like 
 Pym, who had had for ten years a share, though a small 
 one, in the government of his country, who had sat in 
 every parliament since 1620 and had slowly built up for 
 himself a reputation for capacity, the closing of all hope 
 of further influence on his country's life with the closing 
 of parliament, must have been a hard blow to his ambi- 
 tion. But the schemes for Puritan colonisation presented 
 themselves to him with their vistas of opportunity and 
 Pym seized upon them with avidity and devoted whole- 
 heartedly to the Providence Company's affairs his time, 
 his thought, and his fortune. For eight years the com- 
 pany absorbed him until the events of 1638-1639 again 
 encouraged a hope that the great struggle still remained 
 to be won, and he felt that a part upon the great stage 
 once more was calling him. 
 
 Pym seems first to have come into contact with colo- 
 nial affairs in 1628, when he was appointed reporter of 
 the Commons' committee upon the petition of the Somers 
 
THE PROVIDENCE COMPANY 75 
 
 Islands planters. The committee's investigation much 
 interested him in the affairs of the islands and the report, 
 which was drawn up by him, Sir Nathaniel Rich, and two 
 others, strongly represented to the king the planters' 
 claim for relief. The Bermuda charter had been granted 
 to the company on June 29, 1615, but now after an inter- 
 val of thirteen years it was submitted to parliament for 
 confirmation. It is difficult to account for its presenta- 
 tion after so long a delay, but it may have been due to 
 a desire on the part of the crown to show the Commons, 
 who had been attacking so many royal grants to com- 
 panies, that some of them were quite unexceptionable. 
 The bill of confirmation was sent to a select committee 
 comprising among others Sir Nathaniel Rich (reporter), 
 •Pym, Barrington, and Rudyerd." The interest in Ber- 
 muda thus excited in Pym's mind caused him to purchase 
 several shares of land in the islands ; on the formation of 
 the Providence Company his new interest in colonisation 
 further expanded and he was prepared to accept the 
 treasurership, which was offered to him by a unanimous 
 vote. Although Pym for the next eight years devoted 
 so much time to the Providence Company, he still found 
 enough energy to do other work. He retained his post 
 in the Exchequer, and that he still hankered after gov- 
 ernmental work which did not commit him to approval 
 of arbitrary power, is shown by his willingness to serve 
 in 1632 as a commissioner for Gloucestershire to enquire 
 into the causes of depopulation and of the conversion of 
 arable land to pasture. 
 
 John Robartes (1606-1685)" was led to invest money 
 in the Providence Company either by his friendship with 
 
 <i° For the information concerning these committees refer to Commons' 
 Journal. 
 
 56 Succeeded his father as Lord Bobartes of Truro in 1634, and was 
 created at the Bestoration Earl of Badnor. 
 
76 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 Pym or by his connection with the Rich family. He 
 belonged to a Cornish family that had attained to great 
 wealth by dealings in tin and wool. His father, Richard 
 Robartes, had for years suffered from governmental 
 extortion and one of the charges in the impeachment of 
 Buckingham, which it fell to Pym to prove, was that he 
 had compelled Robartes to purchase his barony in 1625 
 at a cost of £10,000. The family was closely allied with 
 Pym and the Rous family by marriage, William Rous, 
 eldest grandson of Sir Anthony Rous, having married 
 Maria, sister of John Robartes, in 1617, while John 
 Robartes himself married Lucy Rich, second daughter 
 of the Earl of Warwick. He was educated at Exeter 
 College, Oxford, where, according to Wood, he "sucked 
 in evil principles both as to Church and State. ' '" In 1630 
 he was just beginning to take an interest in public affairs 
 and his intimacy with the promoters induced him to take 
 a share in the Providence Company, but he was never a 
 regular attendant at its meetings though he could be 
 depended on to follow the lead of the older members. 
 
 It was certainly Pym's influence that led Oliver St. 
 John to take an interest for the first time in colonisation 
 and to invest in the Providence Company. A cadet of 
 the house of St. John of Bletsho, Oliver St. John was 
 in 1630 beginning to acquire a practice as a pleader under 
 the aegis of the Russell family. He had married Lady 
 Joan Barrington's favourite niece Joan, daughter of her 
 brother, Henry Cromwell, and was the old lady's con- 
 stant correspondent on business matters. He had been 
 called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1626 and was at this 
 period earning a reputation among his friends as an 
 acute lawyer. He had been sent to the Tower in Novem- 
 ber, 1629, for communicating to his patron, the Earl of 
 Bedford, Dudley's tract on Bridling Parliaments, but 
 
 57 Wood 'b AthencB Oxonienses, III, 271, IV, 178. 
 
THE PROVroENCE COMPANY 77 
 
 was released on the birth of Prince Charles in June, 
 1630. His services were always called into requisition by 
 the Providence and Saybrook patentees in legal matters, 
 and to the reputation for legal acumen he acquired 
 among the Puritan leaders we may attribute his selection 
 as Hampden's counsel in the Ship-Money case, when he 
 was quite unknown to the nation at large. It was 
 through Pym also that John Graunt came to join the 
 company. He had for years been an employe of the 
 government in various posts under the Exchequer'* and 
 was therefore in all probability an old personal friend 
 of Pym's. He was, at the time of which we are writing, 
 clerk of the cheque in the Exchequer and in charge of 
 all the king's messengers. His financial abilities were 
 made use of by the Providence Company, who employed 
 him as auditor of their accounts. 
 
 The last group of adventurers owe their connection 
 with the company to the interest in Puritan colonisation 
 that they had acquired from their neighbours. Gregory 
 Gawsell was lord of the manor of Watlington, John Gur- 
 don was the eldest son of old Brampton Gurdon of 
 Assington, Suffolk, and Letton, Norfolk, while Sir Ed- 
 mond Moundeford was lord of the manor of Feltwell. 
 All these places lie within a radius of twenty miles from 
 John Winthrop's home of Groton, Suffolk, and all three 
 men were friends of the Winthrops and their relations, 
 ll'uritanism and the desire for emigration were particu- 
 larly strong in this corner of East Anglia, and it was 
 this fact that led them to invest in the Providence Com- 
 pany. Gregory Gawsell was probably entrusted by the 
 Earl of Warwick with the oversight of the estates of the 
 Rich family in Norfolk and Suffolk. He was a man of 
 considerable importance in the county, as is shown by 
 his position as treasurer for the Eastern Counties' Asso- 
 
 58 C. S. p. Dom., 12 July, 1619, 23 July, 1620; 1635-1636, p. 182. 
 
78 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 ciation in the Civil War," His sister was married to one 
 of the Saltonstall family, but he himself was never mar- 
 ried; his tomb, with a long Latin inscription narrating 
 his virtues, is in Watlington Church.'" John Gurdon was 
 an intimate friend of John Winthrop®^ and his sister 
 married Richard, eldest son of Sir Richard Saltonstall ;'" 
 he was also well known to Sir Nathaniel Rich. He came 
 to the front during the Civil War, was a member of the 
 Eastern Counties' Association and one of the king's 
 judges. His name is spelt in the Providence records 
 Gourden, but he must not be confused with John Gauden, 
 chaplain to the Earl of Warwick and after the Restora- 
 tion Bishop of Worcester, who is said to have been the 
 author of the Eikon Basilike. Sir Edmond Moundeford 
 represented Thetford in the parliament of 1628-1629 and 
 the county of Norfolk in the Short and Long Parliaments. 
 He took as active a part in the affairs of the Providence 
 Company as his residence so far from London would 
 allow, and a letter from him to his friend Sir Simonds 
 d'Ewes concerning the company is extant.'* 
 
 The intimate bonds uniting the members of the com- 
 pany, and in a wider circle the leaders of the Puritan 
 party, cannot fail to be remarked in these brief notices 
 of their careers, but there is a second fact about them, 
 that is, perhaps, not so obvious, jjt is remarkable what 
 a preponderant part East Anglia played in the great 
 Puritan emigration and in the Puritan revolution ten 
 years later, and here we find that, outside London, the 
 Providence Company was mainly of interest to men 
 from the eastern shires?^ It would be a study of great 
 
 68 S. P. Dom., Car. I, Vol. 539, no. 291, 30 May, 1645, GawseU's signature. 
 
 80 Blomefield's Norfolk, VII, 480. For GawseU's pedigree see Harl. Soc, 
 Visit, of Norfolk. 
 
 81 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 4th series, VII, 632. 
 
 82 Ihid., p. 251. 
 
 88 Brit. Mus., Harl. M88., 207, fo. 211. 
 
THE PEOVIDENCE COMPANY 79 
 
 interest, but one that lies beyond tbe scope of our pres- 
 ent subject, to examine the causes that, between the years 
 1630 and 1640, specially predisposed the men of eastern 
 England to emigration. The tendency seems to have 
 affected most strongly those living in an area that is 
 spread out in a great horseshoe around the low-lying 
 fen country that drains iato the Wash. Puritanism was 
 certainly stronger in this part of England than in any 
 other, but this would hardly be sufficient to account for 
 the phenomenon, anduj; is probable that a minute enquiry 
 would reveal the workings of some deep-seated economic 
 cause, a probability that is strengthened when we recall 
 that throughout the early Stuart period there was in the 
 area in question constant agitation of an economic and 
 agrarian character, as is evidenced by the Domestic 
 State Papers\ 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE SAYBROOK PROJECT AND THE SETTLE- 
 MENT OF PROVIDENCE 
 
 While Bell and Elfrith were getting their colonists 
 together in Bermuda and establishing the foundations 
 of a colony in Santa Catalina, matters were moving 
 apace with the emigrants to Massachusetts. Endecott 
 on his second voyage in 1629 had established the settle- 
 ments of Salem and Charlestown, and the maia expedi- 
 tion under Winthrop's leadership left Southampton 
 Water on March 23, 1630. The more important members 
 of the company, such as Dudley and Johnson, accom- 
 panied Winthrop, but John Humphry, the first deputy- 
 governor, was left behind to look after the company's 
 affairs in England,^ and Winthrop's eldest son, John, 
 remained to sell off the family estates and refresh his 
 knowledge of fortification for use if necessary in defence 
 against the Indians. T^he intimate connection of the 
 Providence Company's leaders with the Massachusetts 
 enterprise at this time was most marked and they were 
 constantly rendering services to the emigrants. Just 
 before sailing, for instance, we find Isaac Johnson writ- 
 ing to Winthrop concerning his son John's studies in 
 fortification:^ "We have writ a letter to Sir N. Rich 
 to get a letter from him to Capt. G-osnall that your son 
 may by his means take a view and plot of Harwich Fort 
 for us ; for which I pray you will let him have time. . . . 
 
 1 Massachusetts Colonial Becords, 23 March, 1629-1630. 
 
 2 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 4th series, VI, 31. 
 
 Warwick, as lord lieutenant of Essex, was in command of all the forti- 
 fications in the country. 
 
SAYBROOK AND PROVIDENCE 81 
 
 P. S. I have sent Sir N. Rich his letter for your son, 
 which, I hope, is sufficient." On December 9, 1630, John 
 Humphry writes to Isaac Johnson at Charlestown :* 
 "We are all much bound to my Lord Say for his cordial 
 advice and true affections. As also to my Lord of War- 
 wick. Sir Natha: Rich deserves much acknowledgment 
 of his wise handling. . . . My Lord of Warwick will take 
 a Patent of that place you writ of for himself, and so we 
 may be bold to do there as if it were our own. Write 
 letters abundantly to him and others, though they deserve 
 them not as he doth. My Lord Say told me he had writ 
 a letter to you, but I cannot learn where he hath left it." 
 This patent that Humphry mentions is of great 
 interest as it shows us the beginnings of the movement 
 that resulted a few years later in the foundation of the 
 Saybrook settlement. It will be remembered that in a 
 previous chapter we spoke of the division by lot in 1623 
 of the lands of New England between the subscribing 
 members of the Council for New England owing to the 
 great parliamentary opposition that the council had 
 encountered as a monopoly. From 1623 to 1628 the 
 Council for New England was in a moribund condition 
 and appears to have done little or nothing. About the 
 beginning of 1629, however, the Earl of Warwick began 
 to take a renewed interest in its affairs and in concert 
 with Sir Ferdinando Gorges began to resuscitate its 
 activities. It has been the custom of writers to represent 
 Gorges as in a state of perennial hostility to the Puritan 
 colonists of New England and, if we only considered the 
 period from 1632 onwards, this does correctly represent 
 his attitude, but in the period 1629-1632 all the contem- 
 porary accounts of his action are consistent with his own 
 version of what occurred. His attitude towards the 
 Puritan colonies was entirely benevolent providing the 
 
 3 Ibid., VI, 15. \ 
 
82 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 interests of his own family were not injured, and he was 
 quite willing to join Warwick in smoothing matters for 
 the colonists as much as possible. In his Brief e Narra- 
 tion he puts the matter thus:* "The King, not pleased 
 with divers the passages of some particular persons, 
 who in their speeches seemed to trench further on his 
 royal prerogative than stood with his safety and honour 
 to give way unto, suddenly brake off the Parliament. 
 Whereby divers were so fearful what would follow so 
 unaccustomed an action, some of the principal of those 
 liberal speakers being committed to the Tower, others 
 to other prisons — ^which took all hope of reformation 
 of Church government from many not affecting Episco- 
 pal jurisdiction, nor the usual practice of the common 
 prayers of the Church, whereof there were several sorts, 
 though not agreeing among themselves, yet all of dis- 
 like of those particulars. Some of the discreeter sort, 
 to avoid what they found themselves subject unto, made 
 use of their friends to procure from the Council for the 
 affairs of New England to settle a colony within their 
 limits; to which it pleased the thrice-honoured Lord of 
 Warwick to write to me then at Plymouth to condescend' 
 that a patent might be granted to such as then sued for 
 it. Whereupon I gave my approbation, so far forth as 
 it might not be prejudicial to my son, Robert Grorges', 
 interests whereof he had a patent under the seal of the 
 Council. Hereupon there was a grant passed' as was 
 thought reasonable, but the same was afterwards en- 
 larged by his Majesty and confirmed under the great 
 seal of England,'" 
 
 ^Archmol. Amer., Ill, xlv. 
 
 6 A word implying in the seventeenth century not the attitude of a superior 
 towards an inferior, but mere acquiescence. 
 
 8 Warwick's Patent of 19 March, 1628. 
 
 7 The Massachusetts Charter of 4 March, 1629. 
 
SAYBROOK AND PROVIDENCE 83 
 
 The Council for New England was in a state of revived 
 activity under Warwick's presidency from 1628 onwards, 
 and it was by his direction that the draft of a grant was 
 prepared late in 1630. A printed version of the deed 
 that was subsequently based on this draft has come down 
 to us through TrimibuU, the historian of Connecticut,* 
 but neither of the original documents nor any record of 
 their official enrolment has ever been discovered, and a 
 large amount of controversy has raged round the ques- 
 tion of their validity. The subject need not detain us 
 here, but it may be suggested that in promising a further 
 patent to the Massachusetts settlers, Warwick was 
 relying on his control of the New England Council and 
 his temporary agreement with the Gorges. The so- 
 called patent that is printed by Trumbull is not at all 
 usual in form and may have been the informal draft, 
 which, before it could be sealed, would have had to 
 undergo revision at the hands of the lawyers. The 
 grantor of a territory must himself have a legal title 
 before he can validly transfer it to others, and it cer- 
 tainly cannot be said that Warwick, even though he was 
 president of the New England Council, had either a clear 
 or an undisputed right to make grants of the territory 
 that was nominally vested in the council. 
 
 Warwick and his friends, however, undoubtedly acted 
 on the assumption that they could dispose of the desired 
 territory, and it appears safe to take Trumbull's version 
 of the grant as correct in the main. On March 19, 1632, 
 Robert, Earl of Warwick, regranted the land for a dis- 
 tance of forty leagues from the Narragansett River to 
 the following peers and gentlemen: "the right honour- 
 able William, Viscount Saye and Sele, the right honour- 
 able Robert, Lord Brooke, the right honourable Lord 
 Rich, and the honourable Charles Fiennes, Esq., Sir 
 
 8 Trumbull 's History of Conneetieut, I, 495. 
 
84 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 Nathaniel Rich, Knt., Sir Richard Saltonstall, Knt., 
 Richard Knightley, Esq., John Pym, Esq., John Hamp- 
 den, Esq., John Humphry, Esq., and Herbert Pelham, 
 Esq.'" With the exception of the last named, we can 
 identify each of these gentlemen as intimately interested 
 in the Puritan migration to Massachusetts, and six out 
 of eleven as members of the newly founded Providence 
 Company. No action to enforce the grant was taken as 
 yet, but from the surrounding circumstances we may be 
 certain that the preliminary steps now taken were not 
 without aim, but were in pursuance of a settled policy. 
 The project for a great migration was seizing more and 
 more upon the minds of Puritan men, Massachusetts had 
 just been founded as one home for the refugees, Provi- 
 dence, it was hoped, would soon become another; many 
 attempts were being made by godless men, such as Old- 
 ham or Mason, and by Arminians, such as the Brownes, 
 to found settlements along the New England coasts. 
 It would be well to secure a further large part of New 
 England for the expansion of the new Puritan commu- 
 nity and for a refuge for the Puritan settlers from 
 Providence if Puritan hopes in the West Indies should 
 be disappointed. We shall see how some of these antici- 
 pations were verified four years later, but in a way 
 entirely unexpected to the first patentees. 
 
 Before we gather up the scattered threads we have 
 collected and attempt to weave with them the story of 
 the Providence Company, let us pause for a moment and 
 regard the changes that had taken place along the 
 American seaboard since we surveyed it as it was in 
 1600. The infant French colony around Quebec and 
 along the banks of the St. Lawrence was beginning to 
 be called Canada and was in 1631 for the moment in the 
 
 9 The Clinton family were allied with the Pelhams and this man was 
 probably a relative of the Earl of Lincoln. 
 
SAYBEOOK AND PROVIDENCE 85 
 
 hands of the Franco-Scottish brothers Kirke; in Nova 
 Scotia the French Acadians at Port Royal and Sir 
 William Alexander's rival Scottish colony had begun 
 their century-long conflict. Along the shores of Maine 
 a few scattered fishing settlements were all that yet 
 existed, but the rise of Massachusetts as a stable com- 
 munity had begun, and Plymouth had already quite a 
 respectable history of struggle behind it. Neither Dutch 
 nor English had yet entered the valley of the Connecticut, 
 though at the mouth of the Hudson River Manhattan 
 had commenced a precarious existence as the Cinderella 
 of the Dutch colonies. It was not till 1632 that George 
 Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, . abandoning his 
 attempts at colonisation in Newfoundland and Virginia, 
 secured from Charles I the proprietorship of Maryland, 
 though already WilUaJn Claiborne had established a 
 plantation on Kent Island in the Chesapeake and settled 
 there about a hundred men from Virginia." Virginia 
 had in 1631 long since passed the struggling stage and 
 was on the high road to prosperity; Bermuda, as we 
 have seen, had disappointed the hopes of its colonisers, 
 and Sir Robert Heath's attempted colonisation of 
 "Carolana" had proved entirely abortive. 
 
 Matters in the West Indies had as yet changed little ; 
 St. Christopher and Nevis had just been cleared by Spain 
 of their English and French settlers, but these had 
 almost immediately returned. St. Martin's, Saba, and 
 St. Eustatius were each held by a few Dutchmen, and 
 others were attempting a colony on Tobago ; Martinique 
 already had a few French settlers and Barbadoes was 
 definitely showing signs of becoming a prosperous Eng- 
 lish colony. The rest of the Lesser Antilles were still 
 abandoned to the cannibal Caribs; off the shores of 
 
 10 cT'. H. U. Studies, XIII, LatanS, "Early Belations between Maryland 
 and Virginia," p. 11. 
 
86 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 Tierra Firme the Dutch had already made Curagao into 
 a place of arms and thence were maintaining the profit- 
 able clandestine trade with the Spanish colonies. In 
 Guiana they were the only nation achieving anything 
 like success, though English and French were still making 
 attempts at trade and settlement. It was in Brazil that 
 the Dutch West India Company were achieving great 
 things at the expense of Spain and were making the most 
 successful attempt to maintain an empire in tropical 
 America that has ever been made by a non-Iberian 
 nation. The Iberian monopoly of the New World had in 
 thirty years been utterly destroyed, all the great colo- 
 nising nations had taken their first steps westward and 
 already the lists were being prepared for the struggle 
 for colonial power that was to rage through the next 
 two centuries with ever-varying fortunes. 
 
 There does not appear to have been in 1630 any 
 invariable method of securing from the crown the right 
 of planting a colony, grants being issued both under the 
 sign manual and under the great seal, while some colonies 
 were commenced without any direct license from the 
 crown. The most formal, but at the same time the most 
 costly method, was to obtain the issue of letters patent 
 under the great seal, and this was the method chosen 
 by the Providence Company. The letters patent were 
 prepared upon the direction of a secretary of state by 
 the attorney-general in consultation with the legal repre- 
 sentative of the company, Oliver St. John, and were 
 engrossed upon the patent roll" on December 4, 1630. 
 The total cost of the patent including the necessary fees 
 amounted to some £60, but in this total the numerous 
 douceurs paid to the clerks of the Privy Coimcil, etc., 
 were not included. The company was incorporated under 
 the title of "The Governor and Company of Adventurers 
 
 11 7 Car., I, Part 14. 
 
SAYBROOK AND PROVIDENCE 87 
 
 of the City of Westminster for the Plantation of the 
 Islands of Providence or Catalina, Henrietta or Andrea, 
 and the adjacent islands lying upon the coast of 
 America," and the limits within which the company's 
 activities were confined were the tenth and twentieth 
 degrees "from the Equinoctial line towards the Tropic 
 of Cancer," and the two hundred and ninetieth and 
 three hundred and tenth degrees of longitude. The area 
 thus marked out for the company's enterprise is some 
 six hundred geographical miles from north to south by 
 one thousand two hundred miles from west to east. The 
 longitude was measured eastward from Ferro in the 
 Canaries and the two hundred and ninetieth meridian 
 (88° W. of Greenwich) passes through Cape Catoche and 
 the head of the Gulf of Honduras, while the three hun- 
 dred and tenth meridian (68° W.) runs through the Mona 
 Passage between Hispaniola and Porto Rico. The par- 
 allel of 10° N. lat. passes to the north of the Isthmus of 
 Darien and the northern limit of the patent just included 
 the northern shore of Hispaniola. 
 
 The patent follows the general lines of the colonial 
 patents of the period, and, as copied into the company's 
 entry book, fills its first twenty pages. The Earl of 
 Holland was named as first governor of the company 
 and his deputy was to be elected annually in every 
 Easter term. A general court was to be held upon the 
 last Thursday of every term to ordain forms of govern- 
 ment and appoint officers for the company and colony, 
 while ordinary courts might be held at any time. Men, 
 women, and children might be transported to the colony 
 as the company desired unless the king should "expressly 
 forbid any particular person or persons to the con- 
 trary"; the company was to administer the oaths of 
 allegiance and supremacy to all persons passing to the 
 colony. These provisions as to the government's veto 
 
88 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 and the oatli of allegiance were quite usual and had been 
 inserted in all grants since Gilbert's patent of 1579, but 
 they are of special interest when we remember that 
 between 1630 and 1640, contrary to earlier usage, they 
 were often put into effect, and many ships conveying 
 emigrants to America were stopped by order of the 
 crown. The sole right of trade within the prescribed 
 limits was granted to the company upon the customary 
 conditions of paying a royalty to the crown of one-fifth 
 of all precious metals found. All persons resident or 
 born within the limits of the patent were to be free 
 denizens," the company might give their oflScers the 
 right to execute martial law, and the ordained magis- 
 trates and judges were to have full jurisdiction of life 
 and death. The company might fit ships and furnish 
 them with arms and ammunition and were granted in 
 case of attack power of reprisal upon their assailants 
 or any others of the same nation, after permission to 
 obtain satisfaction had been granted by the crown. This 
 is a clause not met with in earlier patents, but it was 
 inserted here in view of the colony's position in the heart 
 of the Spanish Indies and the likelihood of attack. The 
 commission from the Earl of Warwick under which the 
 first expedition had sailed, having been issued in time 
 of war, gave fuller powers of hostile action, but the 
 powers granted to the company and its servants were 
 quite wide enough to cover a good deal of warlike 
 activity. 
 
 In view of the English political situation in 1630, 
 perhaps the most interesting provision of the patent is 
 the last: "The privileges of the Company shall be con- 
 firmed by an Act of Parliament, if Parliament shall 
 think fit to agree to the same, and the King promises to 
 
 12 No mention is made of negroes, but it seems to be understood that 
 "person" means "person of European descent." 
 
SAYBEOOK AND PROVIDENCE 89 
 
 give his assent to the confirming Act when passed." A 
 similar clause had been added to the Guiana patent of 
 1627," issued to the Earl of Warwick and others, but it 
 was an unusual provision and may have been inserted 
 because so many of the adventurers of the company had 
 been members of parliament. It is at any rate notice- 
 able that such a clause should have been inserted in an 
 official document at a time when Charles I and his min- 
 isters were building up a system designed to render 
 the crown independent of parliamentary subsidies and 
 the accompanying parliamentary interference with the 
 executive which they had learned to expect and which 
 they so detested. 
 
 Even before the issue of the patent active preparations 
 were being made by the company through the deputy- 
 governor for the despatch of a strong expedition to 
 Providence. The arrangements for arming the expe- 
 dition were entrusted to the Earl of Warwick, who on 
 January 10, 1631, was given permission by the Privy 
 Council" to purchase from the crown and to ship to the 
 colony twenty pieces of ordnance with their carriages 
 and appurtenances and one last of powder. Each 
 member of the company was urged at an early court to 
 seek out as many men and boys as were fit to be sent, 
 the numbers of which were to be reported to the deputy, 
 who would give them directions when and where to 
 assemble. 
 
 The emigrants were divided into three classes : 
 
 1. Labourers, or, as we shall afterwards call them, 
 planters, who were to cultivate the ground, sharing the 
 profits of their toil equally with the company. 
 
 2. Artificers, also to share their profits equally with 
 
 isBaleigh's patent of 1584 received parliamentary confirmation. Brown, 
 1,13. 
 
 14 Acts of Privy Council, Colonial, I, p. 265. 
 
90 PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 the company, or else to work solely for the corapany and 
 be allowed meat and drink and £5 a year wages. 
 
 3. Apprentices, usually called servants, above four- 
 teen years of age, who entered into indentures for a term 
 of years and were furnished meat, drink, and clothes 
 during their apprenticeship. If any apprentice had any 
 special faculty, he was to be allowed a reasonable recom- 
 pense for its exercise. For the better encouragement 
 of the planters and artificers, apprentices were to be 
 allotted to them, their transportation and provisions 
 being paid for by the company; this allotment of servants 
 was the usual method adopted by the company to 
 discharge their obligations to their officers. 
 
 The vessel chartered for the voyage was the Seaflower 
 of two hundred tons burthen, of which John Dyke was 
 part owner and John Tanner, Elfrith's fellow com- 
 mander of the first voyage, was appointed master. Dyke 
 had purchased a large magazine of commodities and laded 
 the Seaflower with them from his warehouses in Billiter 
 Lane." His conduct in the matter was by no means 
 irreproachable and, when the accounts for the voyage 
 came to be made up on the return of the vessel early in 
 1632, it was found that very high prices had been 
 charged. The quality of the provisions for use on the 
 voyage and of the commodities to stock the company's 
 store in the island, was very inferior and the many 
 aspersions cast upon Dyke in the matter, impugning 
 either his good faith or his judgment, caused a complete 
 breach between him and the company from which he was 
 paid out in 1632. 
 
 15 Fym paid Dyke various Bums on account as the furnishing went along. 
 A sheet of accounts in Pjm 's own handwriting, giving particulars of various 
 amounts disbursed, is among the Bouverie MSS. (Hist. MSS. Comm., Tenth 
 Seport, App'x, p. 85.) A copy of Purchas's Pilgrims cost £2-14-6, and 
 six dozen catechisms for the plantation cost 12s. 
 
SAYBROOK AND PEOVIDENCE 91 
 
 The command of the passengers in the Seaflower was 
 given to Capt. William Rudyerd," younger brother of 
 Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, who had seen some service in the 
 Low Countries and whose miKtary experience therefore 
 recommended him to the company for strengthening the 
 defences of the colony. The ninety passengers were 
 solely men and boys; a barber surgeon was engaged to 
 look after their health on the voyage and to remain in 
 the island on arrival. It had been found impossible to 
 secure the services as minister of the Mr. Ward who had 
 been asked for by the emigrants from the Somers Islands, 
 the company giving as their reason that they did not 
 wish the Somers Islands Company to think their men 
 were being drawn away. Grave, experienced ministers, 
 it was found, were reluctant to leave their wives and 
 children and therefore a young Welshman, Lewis 
 Morgan, was sent to care for the spiritual welfare of the 
 colonists. The company recommended him as a very 
 suflScient scholar for his time and a studious and sober 
 man, but their expectations of him were woefully dis- 
 appointed and he proved a complete failure. The 
 emigrants in general came from localities where the 
 personal influence of the adventurers was strong, espe- 
 cially from Essex, recruited by the Riches and Sir 
 Thomas Barrington, from Northants, recruited by Mr. 
 Knightley, and from Oxfordshire by Lord Saye; there 
 were also several Cornish and Devon men recruited by 
 Pym. In addition a good many Welshmen went out 
 among the earlier emigrants and it may be conjectured 
 that some of these had been among the earliest sufferers 
 from Laud's repressive ecclesiastical policy." 
 
 18 For Eudyerd Pedigree see Harl. See, Visit, of London, II, 215. For 
 some unexplained reason Budyerd did not sail in the Seaflower, but went out 
 in the Little Eopewell, in July, 1631. 
 
 IT Laud was Bishop of St. David's from 1621 to 1628, when he was 
 translated to Bath and Wells. 
 
92 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 Discussions went on through December and January, 
 1631, as to the form of government to be established and 
 the hues to be laid down for the development of the 
 colony. The conclusions come to were embodied in a 
 series of instructions in thirty-five articles forwarded 
 to the governor and council, and in a very long letter 
 addressed to G-ov. Bell personally. The government of 
 the island was entrusted to the governor and a council 
 of six members nominated by the company. The gov- 
 ernor was to take serious measures only in consultation 
 with the council, save in cases where explicit instructions 
 had been received from England. The council had power 
 to initiate measures, but over these the governor pos- 
 sessed an absolute power of veto, though in all cases of 
 such veto he was to notify the company in England of 
 the facts of the case at the first opportunity. This con- 
 stitution was similar to that in force in Virginia during 
 the later years of corporate control and was regarded 
 as the most suitable form of government for an infant 
 colony. Sir Nathaniel Rich and Warwick had vivid 
 recollections of the early difficulties of Virginia under 
 her first charter, when it was only by chance that Capt. 
 John Smith had been able to make himself supreme and 
 save the colony in spite of the members of his council.^* 
 The elective element was probably considered unsuitable 
 in the council for the first few years, in view of the con- 
 tinual discord that existed in the elected Bermuda 
 assembly, but that there was no general objection to 
 the elective principle in colonial government is plain 
 from the company's resort to it in Tortuga in 1635. 
 
 The governor and council were constituted the supreme 
 judicial tribunal in all cases, civil and criminal, but all 
 cases of importance were to be proceeded in by way of 
 jury empanelled from the planters. Oaths were pre- 
 
 18 If one view of a much-debated ease is to be trusted. 
 
SAYBROOK AND PROVIDENCE 93 
 
 scribed to be taken by the governor, the council, and 
 every planter over the age of sixteen; the governor's 
 oath fills thirty closely written lines in the journal and 
 abounds in scriptural quotations and phrases; extreme 
 hostility to the Roman Church is expressed, but no men- 
 tion whatever is made of the Church of England, which 
 is also tacitly ignored in the planter's oath, another 
 form of great length. The question as to the appoint- 
 ment of the first governor had much exercised the minds 
 of the company at one of their earliest meetings ; it had 
 been suggested that the government should be vested 
 jointly in Elfrith and Bell, but as it was feared that this 
 might lead to friction, the decision was reached that 
 Elfrith should be sole governor till his return from the 
 colony. On hearing of this decision, the Earl of War- 
 wick, who had been absent from the meeting, intimated 
 that Elfrith had expressed his content if the government 
 were conferred on his son-in-law Bell, solely, as better 
 quahfied by his experience in the government of the 
 "Somers Islands, and as he (Elfrith) might often be 
 absent from the island on the company's business. This 
 of course clinched the matter and Bell's commission was 
 signed and sealed on February 7, 1631. 
 
 Capt. Philip Bell was the younger brother of Robert 
 Bell, a prominent London merchant and member of the 
 common council for Lime Street Ward. Robert Bell was 
 deeply interested in colonial enterprise and had been one 
 of the most successful factors of the East India Com- 
 pany; he was a member of the Northwest Passage Com- 
 pany and one of the commissioners for regulating the 
 affairs of Virginia in 1624. Philip Bell became a member 
 of the Somers Islands Company in 1624" and his ac- 
 quaintance with Dyke, then deputy-governor of the com- 
 pany, recommended him for the governorship of the 
 
 18 Lefroy, Mem. of Bermudas, I, 375. 
 
94 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 islands in 1626 when Woodhouse had to be superseded. 
 He left England for Bermuda in September, 1626, and 
 took his seat as governor at the council table for the first 
 time on February 16, 1627,''° being then about thirty years 
 of age.^' Bell's governorship of Bermuda was unmarked 
 by any special incident, but he had considerable difficulty 
 in quelling a dispute between rival ministers and only 
 succeeded in procuring peace by prohibiting all vestry 
 meetings in the islands." That his stay in Bermuda was 
 not entirely happy, we have noted in an earlier chapter, 
 but Bell must have acquired a large amount of expe- 
 rience in dealing with cantankerous councillors and 
 discontented planters. 
 
 Capt. Daniel Elfrith was appointed admiral of the 
 island and next in precedence to the governor, while the 
 members of the first council were Capt. Samuel Axe and 
 Lieut. Hugh Price, resident in the island, and Capt. 
 William Eudyerd, William Rous, and John Hunt, who 
 were to go out in the Seaflower.^^ William Rous owed 
 his appointment to his kinship with Pym, being the eldest 
 grandson of Sir Anthony Rous of Halton St, Dominick. 
 He had married Maria, elder sister of John Robartes,** 
 and we shall find him playing an important part in the 
 island's affairs. John Hunt was appointed secretary 
 of the council, Roger Floud, sheriff, and Thomas Fitch 
 and Thomas Jenks, clerks of the company's stores. The 
 dignity of the governor and council was jealously 
 
 20 Ihid., I, 409. 
 
 siLigon {Kist. of Barhadoes, p. 24) visited Bell as governor of Bar- 
 badoes in 1647 and describes him then as a feeble old man. His will and 
 that of his wife have been found by Mr. N. Damall Davis, the author of 
 Cavaliers and Soundheads m Barhadoes, who believes that the Philip Bell 
 mentioned in 1669 (Acts of Privy Council, Col., I, 506) was a nephew. 
 
 22 Lefroy, Mem. of Bermudas, I, 469. 
 
 28 Went out in lAttle Hopewell in July, 1631. 
 
 2* Harl. Soc, Visit, of Cornwall, p. 195. 
 
SAYBROOK AND PROVIDENCE 95 
 
 regarded by the company, who forwarded a tipstaff or 
 mace to be the ensign of government and thus described 
 it : "On the one end upon a plate of silver is a portray- 
 ment of the seal of the Company, viz. three islands and 
 the words written about it, 'Legem ejus expectabunt/ 
 taken out of Isaiah, 42., 4, 'The islands shaU wait for his 
 law,' which prophecy we hope may in some sort be ful- 
 filled by planting the Gospel in those islands. On the 
 end of the staff upon a plate likewise of silver are 
 engrossed these words 'Innocens liberahit insulam,' 
 taken out of Job, 22, 30, 'The innocent shall deliver or 
 preserve the island,' a good memento at all times when 
 we go to God's house or to places of counsel and 
 judicature." 
 
 Minute directions were given as to the ecclesiastical 
 arrangements of the island. Two parsonage houses were 
 built, one near the harbour and the other on the south- 
 west shore ; the minister, while he continued single, was 
 to be lodged and dieted in the governor's house in order 
 to make the governor's family an example to the rest 
 of the island. He was to administer the sacrament 
 monthly, and the company, with the state of religious 
 affairs in England in their minds, summed up their 
 desires for his success by saying: "We pray you to 
 give him all the encouragement you can, for our sincere 
 aim and desire above all things is to plant the true and 
 sincere Religion and worship of God, which in the 
 Christian world is now very much opposed. ' ' 
 
 The peace with Spain, concluded at Madrid on Novem- 
 ber 5, 1630, had been proclaimed in England on the fifth 
 of December,^° and its particulars were conveyed by the 
 company to the governor and council. They added, 
 however: "It seems there is no peace between us [and 
 
 25 Eowe's Contimuation of Stowe's AtmaU, p. 1046. John Humphry to 
 John Winthrop, Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 4th series, VI, 15. 
 
96 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 the Spaniards] in the latitude where you are, and there- 
 fore you must be careful and vigilant to prevent their 
 attempts, as ever." Even at the present day the great 
 body of rules and understandings, that we call inter- 
 national law, has at times of crisis very little force to 
 restrain the proceedings of belligerent nations and it is 
 still hard to determine exactly when a state of war begins 
 and when it ends. In the seventeenth century outside 
 the limits of western Europe even the rudimentary inter- 
 national law of the time did not exist, and it was almost 
 a recognized maxim that there was "No peace beyond 
 the line." The Providence Company were quite right 
 in assuming that the treaty would do little to bring to 
 an end the chronic state of war in the Indies, and more 
 than forty years were to elapse before it was possible 
 for England and Spain to agree upon a treaty of peace 
 for their American possessions which should outlaw the 
 disturbers of it and brand as pirates those who under- 
 took belligerent acts in the western seas. To preserve 
 the semblance of peace as long as possible the colonists 
 were cautioned agaiast taking the offensive against the 
 Spaniards, but in order to be prepared to repel attack, 
 the greatest efforts were to be devoted to fortification. 
 Capt. Axe was to be maintained in command of Warwick 
 Fort, already built, and a new fort, called Fort Henry, 
 was to be erected to command the watering place in the 
 southwest of the island and the approach to the southern 
 entrance of the harbour ; of this fort Capt. Eudyerd was 
 appointed commander and he was also to act as muster 
 master general of the island. Another fort, afterwards 
 called Darley's Fort, was to be built upon the peninsula 
 upon which Warwick Fort stood, but more to the east- 
 ward, so that the enemy's approach to the harbour might 
 be further barred. These directions were improved 
 upon by Bell and his council and a fourth important 
 
SAYBROOK AND PROVIDENCE 97 
 
 fort, called Black Rock Fort, was built on Black Point 
 and completely guarded the harbour's southern entrance. 
 A private signal was to be arranged to guard against 
 dangerous admittances; when the approach of any un- 
 known ship was signalled from the lookout station on 
 The Mound, the forts were to be manned and all precau- 
 tions taken. With regard to the Dutchmen in the island 
 the company advised caution. Although the English and 
 Dutch in the West Indies were still closely allied in their 
 common hostility to Spain, there were signs that their 
 ways were beginning to diverge, and the English were 
 becoming jealous of the greater success of the Dutch, 
 who, it must be remembered, had recently captured the 
 great prize of the Plate Fleet^* and were engaged in 
 building up an empire in Brazil. "We desire," wrote 
 the company, "that the Dutchmen that are with you, may 
 be very well respected that they may have no cause of 
 complaint to us or their friends. We give you power to 
 yield them such contentment as you, yourself, shall think 
 reasonable : yet be careful that you give them no interest 
 in any land whatsoever, otherwise than as occupiers and 
 manurers. And, being of another nation, you will do 
 well to have a care what letters they send out of the 
 island. ' ' 
 
 Full directions as to the social organisation of the 
 plantation were given by the company. The freemen 
 without servants were to be distributed into families of 
 at least six or seven persons; of these one was to be 
 chief and was to take special care "that he with his 
 whole family, besides public duties, do daily, morning 
 and evening, pray together unto God that his blessing 
 may be upon them and the whole island." Freemen 
 were to be allowed to choose their own partners, but 
 stores were only to be delivered out of the company's 
 
 28 TJnder Admiral Piet Hein, 8 September, 1628. 
 
98 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 magazine to the chief of the family, who must give 
 security to pay for them out of the produce of his and 
 his fellows' plantations. The members of the family 
 were to be responsible for one another's good behaviour, 
 a device that was a favourite one with the colonial 
 organisers of the early seventeenth century; it had been 
 tried without much success in the early years of Vir- 
 ginia" and had been prescribed by the Massachusetts 
 Company to Endecott for adoption by the servants sent 
 out by the company under his charge.^' Neither in 
 Massachusetts nor in Providence did the prescribed 
 system meet with any measure of success. Within a 
 couple of years in Providence it had fallen into compara- 
 tive disuse and had been superseded by the ordinary 
 plantation system. The first planters, who had chosen 
 thfeir own ground and had been tilling it for a year past, 
 were not to be dispossessed, but the company would not 
 allow them the whole profit of the tobacco they had 
 raised. The system of half-profits that had caused so 
 much discontent among the Bermuda planters was still 
 retained, and the company divided their share of the first 
 year's tobacco that was to be returned by the Seaflower 
 between Elfrith, who received three-fifths of it, and Axe 
 who had two-fifths, an arrangement that produced con- 
 siderable bickering and left a lasting breach between the 
 two men. The planters were specially cautioned against 
 falling into the error that had so nearly brought Virginia 
 to ruin in its early years, and every family was directed 
 to plant twice as much corn as would feed its members. 
 Excess of tobacco planting was strictly prohibited and 
 liberal rewards were promised to any who would intro- 
 duce a staple commodity suitable for growth in the island. 
 Elfrith was directed to sail in his pinnace to other West 
 
 27 Bruee, Economic Bistory of Virginia. 
 
 28 Doyle, Puritan Colonies, I, 95. 
 
SAYBROOK AND PROVIDENCE 99 
 
 Indian islands, Spanish, English, or Dutch, in search of 
 such a commodity, and of sugar-canes, figs, oranges, 
 and other fruit trees for the island's benefit. Unfor- 
 tunately Elfrith's partiality for roving did not permit 
 him so peaceful a voyage and his journey developed into 
 a mere piratical cruise, for which he had to be severely 
 reprimanded by the company. 
 
 The apprentices or servants sent out to Providence 
 were of quite a different class to the criminals sent to 
 Maryland and Virginia and the youths decoyed and 
 deported to Barbadoes in later years. Many of them 
 were young men of a fairly good social class, who looked 
 forward to making a career for themselves and had 
 emigrated in hopes of receiving at the end of their two 
 or three years ' indentures servants of their own. Many 
 of the men sent were specially recommended to the 
 ofl&cers and notably one, Pearsall, kinsman and late 
 servant to Sir Edmond Moundeford, and Ralph Walcott, 
 a near relative of Lord Brooke, who, during his inden- 
 tures, was to serve the minister. The system in its 
 inception, therefore, was by no means the oppressive one 
 that it afterwards became in the colonies; a servant's 
 lot in Providence was by no means easy, but if it were, 
 as unfortunately it often was, but a form of slavery, 
 this was not the intention of its organisers,' who had 
 simply modelled it upon the apprenticeship system then 
 universally in use in England, but who had not yet 
 learned the impossibility for white men of hard field 
 labour in a tropical climate. 
 
 The total number of passengers in the Seaflower, the 
 vessel that was to convey the first emigrants from Eng- 
 land to Providence, was ninety and the vessel set sail 
 from the Thames in the third week of February, 1631. 
 Her voyage must have been a terrible one for her pas- 
 sengers; the provisions supplied by Dyke proved very 
 
100 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 bad, the bread was mouldy and the beer sour, and not 
 merely was the quality poor, but the master, John 
 Tanner, who owned a share in the ship, refused the 
 passengers sufficient rations and kept a large quantity 
 of provisions for private sale on reaching the island. 
 On her voyage the vessel touched at Bermuda and took 
 on board a few of Elfrith's adherents, who had been left 
 behind in 1630. Providence was reached about the end 
 of May, 1631, the governor's instructions were delivered, 
 the surviving passengers landed, and the full life of the 
 colpny definitely opened. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE PLANTING OF TORTUGA (ASSOCIATION) 
 AND TROUBLES IN PROVIDENCE 
 
 In our preliminary survey of West Indian history we 
 showed that St. Christopher was planted by Capt. 
 Thomas Warner in 1623, and that after a few initial 
 difficulties a stable colony had been established, which 
 from 1626 onwards was taken under the protection of 
 James Hay, Earl of Carlisle. In the spring of 1623 a 
 young shipmaster, Anthony Hilton by name,^ born and 
 brought up in the bishopric of Durham, was employed 
 by certain merchants of Barnstaple in a voyage to North 
 Virginia for the fur trade and for the exploration of 
 the Hudson River^ in the hope of discovering the North- 
 west Passage before the Dutch, who were just beginning 
 to undertake the settlement of Manhattan in earnest. 
 Sailing by the usual outward course via the West Indies, 
 which had not yet been abandoned in favour of Argall's 
 more northerly route, Hilton touched at St. Christopher 
 
 1 The aeeount here given is based upon that given in 1675 of the settling 
 of St. Christopher and Nevis by John Hilton, the aged store-keeper of Nevis, 
 younger brother of Anthony Hilton. The account was despatched to Eng- 
 land to be used in the negotiations with France concerning the islands and 
 thus came into the possession of Thomas Povey, among whose papers it is 
 preserved in the British Museum (Eg., 2395, fo. 503). It agrees with the 
 account published by Capt. John Smith in 1629 {Works, p. 903), and, where 
 capable of verification, with the extant letters from the islands. It seems 
 right, therefore, that credence should be attached to Hilton's statements, 
 but his chronology needs some slight emendation. 
 
 2 We learn this from a letter written by Hilton to his mother from on 
 board ship at the commencement of the voyage, May 4, 1623. The letter 
 is extant among the Manchester Papers. Hist. MSS. Comm., Eighth Report, 
 p. 47, No. 364. 
 
102 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 and there made the acquaintance of Capt. Warner. He 
 was much struck with the possibilities of the island for 
 tobacco growing and, on his return from America after 
 the failure of the Hudson River project, imparted his 
 design for planting there to certain Irish gentlemen, who 
 proved willing to finance him. Resigning his employ- 
 ment with the Barnstaple merchants, he again set sail 
 for St. Christopher with a few followers and, arriving 
 safe, was granted by Warner a plantation on the wind- 
 ward side of the island, where he was the first to settle. 
 St. Christopher was not yet free from Carib raids and 
 Hilton's first plantation was soon destroyed. He man- 
 aged to escape, however, and, clearing another plantation 
 on the leeward side, raised there a good crop of tobacco 
 and returned with it in the autumn of 1627 to Ireland, 
 where it was disposed of to good advantage. 
 
 The experience Hilton had had, determined him that 
 he would do better to plant another island rather than 
 remain in St. Christopher; he obtained financial aid, 
 therefore, from a London merchant, Thomas Littleton, 
 and having procured a patent from the Earl of Carlisle, 
 attempted to settle upon the island of Barbuda,' but as 
 he and his associates found that island very barren and 
 were also dissatisfied with Antigua and Montserrat, they 
 ultimately decided to plant the small island of Nevis, 
 where they landed on July 22, 1628. Other planters 
 were attracted from St. Christopher and by the end of 
 the year nearly a hundred and fifty persons were 
 assembled in the island under the governorship of 
 Anthony Hilton. Warner returned to England from 
 St. Christopher towards the end of 1628, leaving as his 
 deputy in the island one Aston, a personal enemy of 
 Hilton's; matters did not long remain on a peaceful 
 footing and on an accusation that Aston had attempted 
 
 3 Smith, p. 910. 
 
TORTUGA AND PEOVIDENCE 103 
 
 to suborn one of his servants to murder him while on 
 a visit to St. Christopher, Hilton took up arms in his 
 defence. Before open hostilities took place, however, 
 a great English ship coming into the harbour, Hilton 
 took refuge on board and returned to Nevis. The news 
 of the tumult reaching England, Lord Carlisle deter- 
 mined that Hilton was an unsuitable person for governor 
 and that it would be well to remove him and replace 
 him by one of his own kinsmen. Before the design could 
 be carried out by the earl's commissioners despatched 
 from England, Hilton got wind of it and fled in a small 
 west country ship then loading tobacco in Nevis harbour.* 
 Arrived in England, Hilton attempted to make his peace 
 with Carlisle, but within a very short time news arrived 
 that both St. Christopher and Nevis had been taken by 
 a Spanish fleet on September 7, 1629, and the inhabitants, 
 both French and English, expelled, though some had 
 escaped to the mountains and others had taken refuge on 
 adjacent uninhabited islands. On the retirement of 
 the Spanish armada, these fugitives returned and a 
 provisional government was again established in the 
 islands. 
 
 Sir Thomas Warner, now knighted for his services, 
 returned to St. Christopher early in 1630 with further 
 colonists, but Hilton had got into difficulties with Littleton 
 over financial matters and only returned to Nevis to 
 gather round him a few personal adherents of both 
 nationalities and to migrate from the island to a fresh 
 home. There are reasons to suppose that Hilton's 
 acquaintance among the rovers of all nationalities was 
 more extensive and peculiar than was fitting even in those 
 days of laxity. His knowledge of the rovers' resorts led 
 him to fix for his new place of settlement upon the island 
 of Tortuga off the north coast of Hispaniola and only a 
 
 * August, 1629. 
 
104 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 few miles away from the opening of the Windward 
 Passage. 
 
 This island was far removed from any of the Spanish 
 settlements in Hispaniola and had long been used by 
 rovers of all nationalities as a resort where they might 
 replenish their victuals and refit their ships. It was 
 especially a resort for French rovers and since the 
 mountains in the centre of the island abounded in wild 
 hogs, fresh meat could always be obtained. According 
 to De Laet,° the French and Dutch obtained large sup- 
 plies there and were accustomed to call Tortuga "L'Isle 
 des Porceaux." Only a narrow strait, some two miles 
 wide, separates Tortuga from Hispaniola, in the forests 
 covering the northern shore of which great herds of 
 cattle then ran wild. Upon the shores of Cape San 
 Nicolas, some forty miles away, a few Dutchmen had 
 established themselves and were engaged in making salt 
 and curing the flesh of the cattle they slew in the forests.* 
 
 Hilton's colonists, finding Tortuga much to their 
 liking, resolved to make it their permanent home and 
 despatched some of their number to England to secure 
 financial assistance and supplies. They succeeded in 
 interesting in their case Dr. Samuel Rand,' a doctor of 
 physic well known in the City of London, and John Hart, 
 a colonial merchant of the second rank; finding, how- 
 ever, that more powerful assistance would be needed 
 before they could obtain from the crown the loan of the 
 ordnance they required, in the middle of May, 1631, they 
 got into touch with the Providence Company and sug- 
 gested that an arrangement should be come to for mutual 
 benefit. The idea was well received by the company, and 
 
 5 De Laet, J., Novus Oriis, French translation, 1640, p. 13. 
 8 Hence according to the accepted explanation derived from Du Tertre, 
 1654 (III, 141), the term "buccaneers" from boucan — dried meat. 
 » Harl See, Visit, of London, II, 184. 
 
TOETUGA AND PROVIDENCE 105 
 
 a committee, consisting of Sir Nathaniel Rich, Pym, 
 Dyke, Barber, and Graunt, was appointed to carry on 
 the negotiations; by the end of May, 1631, terms satis- 
 factory to both sides had been agreed upon and the 
 planters were taken under the protection of the Provi- 
 dence Company. The Tortuga adventurers, — Capt. 
 Anthony Hilton, Capt. Christopher Wormeley, and 
 Capt. Richard Bragg, resident in Tortuga, Robert 
 Wormeley, who was going there, Dr. Samuel Rand, and 
 John Hart, — ^were to be permitted to join the Providence 
 Company so far as it concerned itself in Tortuga; the 
 fee-simple of the island was vested in the company, who 
 were to receive twenty per cent of all future commodities 
 raised by the Tortuga planters, but who took no respon- 
 sibility for past expenses. Bach member of the Provi- 
 dence Company contributed £70 and each Tortuga 
 adventurer £40, towards the cost of a first magazine for 
 the island, and it was resolved to send six pieces of 
 ordnance with the necessary ammunition for purposes 
 of fortification. 
 
 The northern limits of the first patent of the Provi- 
 dence Company, 20° N. lat., were such as just to exclude 
 Tortuga, which lies in lat. 20° 4' N. A petition was, 
 therefore, prepared and presented to the king by the 
 Earl of Holland, praying for the enlargement of the 
 company's grant to include Tortuga and all other un- 
 occupied islands lying within three or four degrees of 
 their former grant. On June 17, 1631, a grant* was 
 accordingly issued extending the limits of the company's 
 rights to all islands lying between six and twenty-four 
 degrees from the equinoctial line in north latitude and 
 between the degrees of longitude of the earlier grant 
 (290°-310°) so that these islands were not in the actual 
 
 8 C. S. p. Dom,., 17 June, 1631. A copy of the enlarged grant in Jessop's 
 writing is extant among the Sloane MSS. (Brit. Mus., Sloane, 973.) 
 
106 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 possession of any other Christian prince nor were 
 formerly granted to any of his Majesty's subjects. This 
 enlarged grant immensely extended the company's 
 opportunities, for the parallel of 24° N. passes through 
 the Florida Channel and the Bahamas, while 6° N. runs 
 well to the southward of the Isthmus of Panama, and 
 the whole of the central portion of the West Indies was, 
 therefore, claimed as a field for English colonisation 
 after the light-hearted manner of the time. 
 
 A large amount of discussion took place concerning 
 the despatch of the required supplies, and it was 
 strongly suggested that it would be well to undertake 
 nothing until the spring of 1632, when the prevalence 
 of the " norths "° would keep the Spanish fleets in port 
 and the company's vessel might reach Tortuga in safety. 
 In the end, however, the urgent need of the colonists for 
 an immediate supply prevailed and directions were 
 given to Hart, who had been engaged as the company's 
 factor or "husband," to charter a small vessel for a 
 voyage of seven or eight months. He secured the Little 
 Hopewell, a small vessel of some sixty tons with seven 
 guns, at the rate of £32 a month, the owners being also 
 allowed the free freight of twelve cwt. of tobacco. 
 Matthew Harbottle, who had already served the company 
 in the first voyage, was appointed master at the rate 
 of £4 per month, a rate of pay somewhat higher than 
 that usual in the royal navy of the period." It was 
 decided, owing to the difficulty that would be experienced 
 in raising any considerable number of servants in such 
 a time of good employment," that it would be better to 
 
 9 Storms and north winds prevailing during the months of December, 
 January, and February. The large Spanish war vessels were very unsea- 
 worthy and remained in port during the winter. 
 
 10 Clowes, The Boyal Navy, II, 13. 
 
 11 1630 had been a year of plague and scarcity; 1631, as we see from 
 this entry in the records, was, on the contrary, prosperous. 
 
TORTUGA AND PROVIDENCE 107 
 
 postpone the sending of many men from England and to 
 trust to recruiting men for the colony in the "West Indies. 
 Many of the English plantations in the Caribbees and 
 notably Nevis, the company heard, were in a bad way 
 and were likely to dissolve, so that the new plantation 
 if it offered good prospects would probably attract 
 those who deserted, and by this means its strength might 
 be rapidly increased. 
 
 The government of the island was placed in the hands 
 of Capt. Anthony Hilton, who was to be succeeded in 
 case of death by Capt. Christopher Wormeley ; a council 
 of six persons was nominated, and Anthony Roberts was 
 sent out from England as clerk of stores in charge of 
 the magazine. Careful directions were drawn up for 
 the fortification of the harbour, which lay on the shore 
 nearest Hispaniola, and, to mark the change in the status 
 of the island, it was resolved that its name should be 
 changed and that it should henceforward be called the 
 "Island of Association." It was not expected that the 
 prosperity of the new colony would depend mainly upon 
 the planting of such commodities as tobacco and cotton, 
 which were looked to in Providence, but it was hoped 
 that a large revenue would be derived from the export 
 of the dye-woods growing in the forests that covered the 
 island. The introduction into Europe of new dyeing 
 materials had been a noticeable result of the opening-up 
 of the West Indian trade during the latter half of the 
 sixteenth century. Among the most important of these 
 dyes were the red dyes derived from various woods, 
 known as logwood, Brazil or braziletta wood, and Cam- 
 peachy wood, the best qualities of which grew on the 
 shores of Yucatan, but which were also plentiful in many 
 of the Caribbees. Perhaps one of the most potent induce- 
 ments to the Providence Company to aid the Tortuga 
 adventurers, was the fact that large quantities of these 
 
108 PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 valuable woods might be cut and exported from the 
 island, and one of the cardinal provisions of the original 
 agreement was that no merchantable wood was to be cut 
 in the island but under license from the company, who 
 were to receive one-fifth of the proceeds. Unfortunately, 
 however, stringent legal enactments" were in force in 
 England against the importation of these woods, which 
 had been fraudulently used by dyers and did not in their 
 hands produce fast colours. It was necessary, there- 
 fore, to carry the wood to France or Holland, where the 
 use was permitted, and this rendered the restriction of 
 cutting to the company's licensees incapable of enforce- 
 ment, and the difficulties with which the colony of Asso- 
 ciation had to contend from the beginning were due to 
 the cutting of wood by interlopers with the connivance 
 of the company's officers. 
 
 The Little Hopewell was got ready for sea by the 
 middle of July, 1631, and, after embarking her passengers 
 and goods, sailed from the Thames on July 23. Her 
 master had received directions that, after landing the 
 magazine and ordnance at Association, he was to proceed 
 to Providence, there to deliver a letter for the governor 
 and council and to land Eudyerd and Rous, who had not 
 sailed in the Seaflower as originally intended. The 
 master was to carry from Association to Providence 
 any surplus corn that was available and on his return 
 voyage was to lade with tobacco and wood at Associa- 
 tion, which cargo he was to bring to Europe. The 
 voyage was successfully prosecuted along these lines and 
 the Little Hopewell returned to England on April 20, 
 1632. What happened to her cargo of wood does not 
 appear, but the presumption is that by the connivance 
 
 12 23 Eliz,, cap. 9. Continual attempts to Bmuggle the prohibited dyes into 
 England were being made, and the lucrative patent place of searcher for 
 prohibited dye-stuflE was much sought after. See C. 8. P. Dom. 
 
TORTUGA AND PROVIDENCE 109 
 
 of the Earl of Ancram, who was then patentee for 
 logwood, it was quietly smuggled into England and 
 disposed of. 
 
 Further emigrants to Association were despatched by 
 the Charity in May, 1632, under the lead of Samuel 
 Filby,^* who took out his wife and several servants. 
 He had been a planter in St. Christopher and was thus 
 experienced in West Indian planting and looked forward 
 to a prosperous career in the island. The accord between 
 the company and the Tortuga planters was not long 
 uninterrupted, for before the close of 1631 it was learned 
 by a "stranger" English ship, the Whale, touching at 
 Association on her way home from Providence, that it 
 had been found impossible to recruit wood-cutters at 
 Nevis and St. Christopher as expected, and that much 
 wood was being cut in the island by French and Dutch 
 with the connivance of Capt. Hilton, who was pocketing 
 the proceeds for himself and exporting the wood in 
 French and Dutch ships. Many objections were, there- 
 fore, made by the adventurers to subscribing towards a 
 second magazine that had been promised for 1632. They 
 felt that they had no assurances as to the future inten- 
 tions of the planters and that, if the prohibition of trad- 
 ing with interlopers was incapable of enforcement, there 
 was no guarantee whatever of a return for their expendi- 
 ture. Pym, however, maintained that Association ought 
 to be looked upon in connection with Providence and as 
 providing a second string to the company's bow. When 
 responsibility for the island was assumed, a magazine 
 had been promised for October, 1632, and Pym held that 
 the promise having once been given, it should be adhered 
 to. He agreed that Englishmen were unsuited to the 
 labour of wood-cutting in tropical forests, where "there 
 
 13 A letter from him is extant among the Barrington MSS. 
 
110 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 was an abundance of offensive flies," but he pointed to 
 the fact that the Dutch ships carrying negroes to the 
 Spaniards passed close by the island on their voyage, 
 and suggested that it would be possible to obtain from 
 them a supply of labour well suited to the work. Pym 
 finally carried his point and a magazine was despatched 
 to the island according to promise about the end of July, 
 1632. A minister, Mr. Key, was engaged to care for the 
 spiritual welfare of the colonists and sailed by the same 
 ship ; he must have found a very arid field for his labours, 
 for the class of colonists in Association was very differ- 
 ent from that in Providence. The more adventurous 
 spirits from St. Christopher and Nevis, augmented by 
 rough woodsmen of at least three nationalities, many of 
 whom had spent years roving the Indies for plunder, 
 were not promising disciples for a young minister chosen 
 by the straitest of English Puritans. Mr. Key's stay 
 in the island was by no means happy, and within a couple 
 of years we find him obtaining permission from the 
 company to proceed to Providence, where he found 
 emplojmaent with Capt. Camock's expedition to the 
 mainland of Central America. 
 
 Pym's suggestion of the possibility of employing 
 negroes for wood-cutting must have been based upon 
 private information received from Hilton, for by 
 February, 1633, Hilton had already purchased forty 
 negroes and was employing them in the island. So profit- 
 able did the new departure appear that the company 
 were desirous of entering into an arrangement with him, 
 whereby twenty of these negroes were to become their 
 property and were to be employed under his direction 
 and along with his men in the wood-cutting, the charge 
 of supervision and the profits to be equally divided. 
 They directed him to procure more negroes on their 
 account from the Dutch, and if it were found that there 
 
TORTUGA AND PROVIDENCE 111 
 
 were more than could be profitably employed in Asso- 
 ciation, the extra hands were to be sent to Providence. 
 
 The first intelligence of the safe arrival of the iS'eo- 
 flower at Providence reached England in December, 
 1631, letters from the island being brought by an English 
 ship, the Whale, that had touched there on her voyage 
 through the West Indies.^* She had also touched at 
 Association and brought thence some sixty cwt. of 
 tobacco, the produce of the plantation, which proved to 
 be of good quality and was disposed of to advantage. 
 By the same or some other "stranger" ship came George 
 Needham, who in 1629 had been left behind by Capt. 
 Camock to plant tobacco in Henrietta. Needham brought 
 with him a good supply of tobacco, which was purchased 
 from him by the company, but his carriage and behaviour 
 were so offensive to them that they refused him any 
 further assistance. He apparently felt it as a grievance 
 that no steps were to be taken for the carrying on of 
 the plantation he had begun in Henrietta, and was in- 
 cautious enough to express his dissatisfaction openly. 
 However, being simimoned before the treasurer, Pym, 
 and expressing his contrition, some assistance was 
 granted to him for his more pressing needs and, on 
 promising never to repeat his harsh words against the 
 company and Capt. Elfrith, he was told that he should 
 be employed in the next ship to Providence and have 
 servants allotted to him. The company was the readier 
 to pardon Needham as he had had long experience as 
 a planter in the West Indies, both in Bermuda and in 
 St. Christopher, and such experience was a valuable 
 asset in a new colony. 
 
 i*rrom letters of about this date from New England it would appear 
 that the Whale had sailed to Massachusetts with emigrants in 1630 and 
 thence to the West Indies in the hopes of picking up a cargo. Many ships 
 did this in later years. 
 
112 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 The Seaflower arrived in England on her return voy- 
 age from Providence on April 2, 1632, and for the first 
 time the company were placed in possession of full 
 information concerning the happenings in the colony 
 and the steps necessary to place matters on a satisfactory 
 footing. The misusage of the Seaflower' s passengers on 
 the outward voyage and the bad and insufficient provi- 
 sions supplied to them have already been mentioned; 
 not only the provisions but also the magazine she took 
 out for the supply of the planters proved very bad. 
 Dyke had supplied articles of the very poorest quality 
 and had charged the company full prices. They, expect- 
 ing to be recouped by the planters and ignorant of the 
 facts, had fixed their retail prices accordingly, and in 
 consequence bitter murmurings resulted. To overcharge 
 for worthless goods was by no means a novel proceeding 
 on the part of Dyke, and many of the old Bermuda 
 planters must have remembered with disgust that such 
 malpractices had characterised his proceedings towards 
 the earlier colony," while he was the bitterest opponent 
 of the policy of allowing freedom of trade to the planters. 
 As has been shown, the conaplaints of the company 
 resulted in Dyke's practical dismissal and from thence- 
 forward Pym, as treasurer, took the oversight of the 
 provisions and supplies sent to the island, being assisted 
 by the company's husband, John Hart. 
 
 The Seaflower had left Providence on her homeward 
 voyage on December 21, 1631, and steered direct for 
 home by the usual course through the Florida Channel. 
 On her way between Cuba and Florida she was attacked 
 by a Spanish man-of-war from Havana and compelled 
 to fight her way clear. The attack must have been a 
 fierce one, for she was three times boarded, but the 
 
 IS See the full account of the proceedings relative to the attempts of 
 Delbridge of Barnstaple. Lefroy, Mem. of Bermudas, I. 
 
TORTUGA AND PEOVIDENCE 113 
 
 Spaniards were finally repulsed with great loss. Six 
 or eight men were wounded and four Englishmen killed, 
 including Mr. Essex, a planter who had gone out in the 
 first voyage but was now returning to England without 
 the company's permission. Capt. Tanner, who had lost 
 an eye in the fight, was warmly commended for his 
 prowess, but the company now began to realise more 
 clearly the risks they ran in establishing a colony in the 
 heart of the Indies, and it was resolved that even more 
 stringent precautions than before must be taken for 
 the immediate arming and fortification of the colony. 
 
 Under Bell's careful guidance the immigrants from 
 the Somers Islands, after clearing the two acres of 
 ground allotted to each of them of the timber and under- 
 growth that covered it, had begun by planting corn." 
 When their future subsistence was thus assured, the rest 
 of their ground was planted with tobacco, the crop they 
 had always been accustomed to raise in Bermuda. 
 Indian corn and pease were found to grow very rapidly 
 and bear excellently, so that when the Seaflower arrived, 
 there was ample store of provisions to maintain both the 
 old planters and the new arrivals. These also were at 
 once set to plant corn and by October, 1631, they had 
 provided sufficient to maintain themselves, for it was 
 found that two or three crops of corn a year might be 
 raised in the tropical climate of the island. The second 
 and third crops were hardly as abundant as the first, 
 and were more subject to attacks of blight, but the fer- 
 tility of the soil astonished the newcomers. A large pro- 
 portion of the servants sent out in the Seaflower were 
 set to finish the work on Warwick Fort under Axe's 
 
 16 Many of these details are derived from a private letter written from 
 Providence to Pym by Wm. Eudyerd and Wm. Eons in October, 1633. The 
 letter is now among the Bouverie MSS. at Brymore, Somerset. Hist. M8S. 
 Comm., Tenth Beport, App'x, p. 87. 
 
114 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 directions and the company's half -share of all provisions 
 raised was allotted to their maintenance. In October, 
 1631, some eighty more Bermudians arrived and set to 
 work with a will in clearing their ground. By the end 
 of November they had planted their corn, but the dry 
 season was coming on, the crop did not flourish, they 
 found that the excess of stores the earlier immigrants 
 had accumulated was insufficient to fill so many extra 
 mouths, and the last comers were the first to feel the 
 dearth. As was so often the case in the early days of 
 a new colony, it was found that the immigrants were of 
 very unequal capabilities, and that some of them showed 
 a strong distaste for hard work. Those who had by their 
 efforts provided for their subsistence, were unwilling to 
 deprive themselves for the benefit of newcomers, espe- 
 cially when those newcomers were as alien in sympathy 
 to them as were many of the Bermudians. The religious 
 difficulties that were agitating England were repro- 
 duced in little in the Somers Islands and although those 
 who accompanied Bell to Providence mainly belonged 
 to the Puritan party, there was an admixture of others, 
 and the eighty arrivals in October, 1631, were men who 
 had been gladly spared from the Somers Islands as 
 undesirable members of a hard-working society. The 
 immigrants from England were practically all strict 
 Puritans of the same type as those who were leaving 
 England for Massachusetts Bay and, being by far the 
 stronger party in the island at this time (1632), aimed 
 at a strictness of religion and discipline that their fellows 
 were ill suited to observe. 
 
 Gov. Bell, although Puritan in sympathy, had shown 
 during his government of Bermuda that he would not 
 sacrifice the well-being of a colony to religious differ- 
 ences, and he attempted to preserve a balance between 
 the parties and to insist upon hard and unremitting work 
 
TORTUGA AND PROVIDENCE 115 
 
 by all for the strengthening and fortification of the 
 island. Lewis Morgan, the young Welsh minister of 
 the settlement, was not prepared to submit to the gov- 
 ernor's control and, aided by a planter, Mr. Essex, 
 fomented and focused the discontent of the planters 
 against both Bell and the company. It may be that 
 Morgan and some of his adherents were sincere in basing 
 their discontent on religious grounds, but from their 
 complaints we may guess that, while Morgan's bitterness 
 was occasioned by disillusionment and by finding that 
 his work was a great deal more difficult and uncongenial 
 than he had anticipated, many of the planters were 
 actuated in the main by their hostility to the company's 
 insistence upon the same system of profit sharing that 
 had been so much objected to in the Somers Islands. 
 
 Morgan voiced his own complaints in a private letter 
 despatched by the Seaflower to Sir Nathaniel Rich, while 
 the general objections of the planters were embodied by 
 him in a petition from them to the company and 
 entrusted to Mr. Essex, who secured his passage by 
 pretending to have received permission from the com- 
 pany to return home when he desired. As we have 
 seen, Essex was slain in the Seaflower' s fight off Florida 
 and the whole of his papers, showing the genesis of the 
 petition, fell into the company's hands when the vessel 
 reached England. Morgan's letter to Sir Nathaniel 
 Rich was "so stuffed with bitter expressions" and so 
 avowed "a spirit inclined to sedition and mutiny," that 
 the company at once resolved that he must be sent home 
 without delay. They saw in him the author or at least 
 the fomenter of so much seeming discontent among the 
 planters that he might cause a revolt in the island from 
 the company's government. Preparations for the des- 
 patch of reinforcements to the island by the new ship, 
 the Charity, were far advanced when the Seaflower 
 
116 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 arrived, and in order to avoid delay at this critical 
 juncture, the sailing was expedited as much as possible 
 and full directions for dealing with the crisis were sent 
 out to the governor. Bell was directed to suspend 
 Morgan at once from the ministry without vouchsafing 
 him any explanation. A day or two before the vessel 
 was to sail on her return, he was to cause Morgan's 
 arrest, sending him at once on board ship and allowing 
 him no intercourse with those on shore. He was to be 
 brought home in strict confinement and the company 
 promised to deal severely with him when he reached 
 England. The governor carried out these directions with 
 promptitude, and the culprit came before the court on 
 the Charity's return, March 15, 1633. His long confine- 
 ment had already induced a contrite spirit and, after a 
 very severe rating by Pym and Sir Nathaniel Eich, he 
 humbly begged the pardon of the company. They did 
 not desire to carry matters to an extreme against the 
 person of a minister, however unworthy, and permitted 
 him to make a humble acknowledgment in writing of his 
 mutinous, unworthy, and uncharitable conduct as suffi- 
 cient amends. Payment of his salary was refused, but 
 to maintain him until he could secure further employ- 
 ment, a gratuity of £5 was bestowed on him through the 
 treasurer, and the company agreed to allow him a small 
 sum for the books he had left behind him in the island. 
 
 Though Morgan was thus easily dealt with, to settle, 
 the complaints in the planters ' petition was a much more 
 diflficult task. What, perhaps, galled the company most 
 was Morgan's insinuation to the planters that the 
 adventurers were solely and covetously desirous of profit 
 for themselves and that they put on a hypocritical show 
 of godliness for the encompassing of ungodly ends. To 
 answer this most unjust and unworthy accusation, the 
 company devoted three closely written folio pages of 
 
TORTUGA AND PROVIDENCE 117 
 
 their letter to the governor and some extracts from this 
 letter give us an indication of their aims in founding 
 the colony. The planters' "bitter insultings and 
 infamous libels are such as it behooves not one Christian 
 man to write to another," and the company wonder how 
 men can so much forget their duty to God and their 
 respect to those "who have sought their good safety 
 and welfare both for soul and body not [the adven- 
 turers'] own profit as some . . . have published there 
 and sent home written." Each adventurer has expended 
 £600 at least;" while in other plantations £25 or £50 was 
 the usual share and if a man laid out £100 before return 
 of profit, "he was accounted a great Patriot, but scarce 
 a wise Adventurer." The planters gain a comfortable 
 subsistence abroad, which they never do at home, "and 
 have likewise means to do God and their countrymen 
 great service in spreading Religion and advancing the 
 honour of the English name in those, till of late, ahnost 
 unknown parts of the world." The planters are like 
 the Israelites for their murmurings. "It is nothing to 
 them to have been the first men that have laid that 
 foundation of so great a work, to raise an eternal monu- 
 ment to their never-dying Glory in propagating God's 
 true religion and spreading the English empire. Oh, no ! 
 but the Planters must be presently rich, the Adventurers 
 poor and, as much as in you lies, discouraged wholly 
 from proceeding in that noble work of providing a refuge 
 for those oppressed for righteousness sake." The 
 company are glad to learn that there are still some 
 godly and discreet persons left, who are steadfast like 
 Joshua. Let them admonish the guilty and threaten 
 their return home with shame and dishonour; for the 
 sake of the righteous and for their sake only, the Adven- 
 
 17 That is, up to the date when this letter was written, May 10, 1632. 
 
118 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 turers hope Q-od will send his blessing upon the colony 
 and multiply it exceedingly. 
 
 Treasurer Pym's hand is visible in many of the 
 phrases of this lengthy reproof, but his practical mind 
 could not be contented with mere admonition without 
 an attempt to remove any real causes of discontent that 
 might exist. The elements hostile to the Puritan atmos- 
 phere of the colony must be at once removed and direc- 
 tions to this end were given: "Whereas complaint is 
 made of the superstitious and evil disposition of some 
 of those that came by the Seaflower and other ships from 
 the Somers Islands, we would have you to send them 
 back by this ship [the Charity] to their former habita- 
 tions if the season of the year shall be convenient so 
 that the voyage may not be prevented thereby." Strict 
 instructions were given to the master that he was to 
 land these passengers at Bermuda and nowhere else. 
 That the company did not mean to be respecters of per- 
 sons in their dispensation of justice was shown by their 
 original intention to order the trial of Capt. "William 
 Rudyerd on charges of drunkenness, swearing, ill-car- 
 riage towards the governor, and other misdemeanours 
 since he had been in the island, but on the appeal of his 
 brother, Sir Benjamin, and the Earl of Holland, himself, 
 it was finally resolved that if he were a reformed man 
 and no longer likely to breed division or hinder the pro- 
 gress of religion, he should not be brought to trial but 
 merely admonished. His drunkenness caused the com- 
 pany to write: "That by the taking away the cause of 
 some abuses we may in some measure prevent their 
 increase, we do order that all the strong waters out of 
 our magazine that come in this ship or that shall here- 
 after come in any other ship from us, shall be taken into 
 our store and be issued thence by our officers according 
 to directions from you [the governor], excepting such 
 
TORTUaA AND PROVIDENCE 119 
 
 private supplies as shall be sent from particular friends 
 to persons well-qualified witli temperance." It was 
 learned that some in the island had sent to England for 
 cards, dice, and tables. Bell was directed that if any 
 of these baubles should arrive, he was to have them pub- 
 licly burned and strictly to prohibit the use of such 
 ungodly things under severe penalties. Lawful recrea- 
 tions, however, such as chess and shooting, might be per- 
 mitted and even encouraged as long as they did not 
 conflict with work. 
 
 That the planters might have encouragement to piety 
 and the furtherance of the true religion, three ministers 
 were sent, Arthur Rous as lecturer, Hope Sherrard" as 
 minister of New Westminster, and Mr. Ditloff as min- 
 ister of the southwest part of the island. Arthur Rous" 
 was the fifth son of Sir Anthony Rous by his first wife 
 and was thus the younger brother of Francis Rous, and 
 Pym's step-brother. He had married a daughter of 
 Nicholas Roope, a shipowner of Dartmouth, who had 
 many ships engaged in the privateering trade, and by 
 her Rous had a large family who accompanied him to 
 Providence ; it was therefore considered convenient that 
 a house should be built for him near New Westminster 
 and that he should preach a lecture there on some week- 
 day. Hope Sherrard's early history cannot be traced; 
 he played a very important part in the island's story 
 and some letters from him have been preserved. Ditloff 
 seems to have been one of those poor Palatine ministers, 
 dispossessed by the Spaniards, on whose behalf many 
 collections were made in English churches about this 
 time. The company enjoined respect and attention to 
 
 18 His name is spelt Sherhard in the records and in some contemporary 
 aeeonnts he is called Sherwood. His extant letters are alwa^rs signed as 
 above. 
 
 i» Harl. Soc, Visit, of Cornwall (1620), p. 195. 
 
120 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 the ministers as an aid to piety. "We advise you all 
 therefore as to an humble and sincere obedience to their 
 message and a devout and respective carriage towards 
 their persons. At the Council Table they shall sit cov- 
 ered, but at such times as they deliver their opinion, we 
 require that they stand uncovered. . . . That they may 
 have much encouragement to spend their times and 
 pains in the service of your souls and that God may make 
 their endeavours effectual to the confining of those that 
 stand, to the increase of Grace and the conversion of 
 those who are yet strangers from God to the knowledge 
 of his Grace, wherein our prayers shall not be wanting, 
 and to the attainment whereof our charge of their enter- 
 tainment shall not seem burdensome, we would have you 
 presently assign unto them all proportionable quantities 
 of land and to take some course that their servants may 
 be provided for with diet, lodging and washing till they 
 shall be able so to dispose of themselves that they may 
 make convenient provision for their maintenance. ' ' 
 
 The company's care for the providing of the island 
 with worthier ministers than Morgan, was blessed in the 
 case of Sherrard, but Eous only lived a few months after 
 landing, being carried off by fever in 1634. Ditloff 
 proved faint-hearted and returned to England in dis- 
 grace in May, 1634, leaving Sherrard as the only minister 
 of the colony. Ditloff was accused in letters to the com- 
 pany of a levity of conduct unbecoming in a minister and 
 was called upon to exculpate himself before receiving his 
 salary. A vivid little glimpse of the time is afforded in 
 his answers to the charge; in reply to Pym's enquiry 
 whether it was true that he and others used to sing on the 
 Sabbath Day songs that were not divine, he answered 
 that "Mr. Rous taught him songs, called catches, the 
 meaning of which word he understood not, the matter of 
 which was the motion of creatures as the nightingale and 
 
TORTUGA AND PROVIDENCE 121 
 
 tlie like." Rous and Sherrard sang with him, but never 
 on the Lord's Day. Ditloff was not content to bear the 
 attacks made upon him without retaliation, and told 
 Pym that he was informed that many of the planters 
 who went out with bim thought Rous insufficient, "not 
 being able to pray extemporary and would soldier-like 
 beat his men." "If these things were so," he wrote, 
 "Mr. Rous was fitter for a buff-coat than a cassock, and 
 he did not think himself to have been at fault in the 
 opinion." The company apparently did not think so 
 either, for in the end Ditloff was paid the money owing 
 to him, and departed into his own country. 
 
 These trivial details have their importance in our 
 enquiry as showing the type of society the company and 
 some of the colonists were aiming to establish in the 
 island, and as suggesting the similarity of the colony in 
 its inception to Massachusetts. The founders of both 
 wished to provide a refuge for the oppressed victims of 
 Laud's ecclesiastical regime, each was to be a sanctuary 
 where the Puritans might worship God after their own 
 fashion, each was to be a society ordered according to 
 the dictates of religion and governed with justice and 
 equity, but upon the strictest Puritan pattern. In each 
 colony there was a section of the community hostile to 
 Puritanism; in Massachusetts the earlier settlers, such 
 as Morton, Gardiner, and Oldham, were for a time a real 
 danger to the fruition of the ideals of its rulers and had 
 to be suppressed or driven out; in Providence the 
 "superstitious" Bermudians had to be got rid of. But, 
 whereas their conditions of comparative isolation enabled 
 the rulers of Massachusetts to found a pure theocracy 
 that lasted unchanged for forty years, the situation of 
 Providence, the enervating effects of its tropical climate, 
 and the ever-present temptation to prey upon the neigh- 
 bouring Spaniards, proved fatal to the Puritan ideal, 
 
122 PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 and before it had been settled five years converted the 
 island into a mere fortified base, whence privateering 
 warfare might be waged against the Spanish Indies. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 ENLARGEMENT OF THE ACTIVITIES OF THE 
 
 COMPANY 
 
 That the foundation of an ideal community and the 
 pursuit of a profitable investment for trading capital are 
 incompatible aims has been so often demonstrated that 
 the proposition may nowadays be regarded as a truism; 
 but even in the seventeenth century experience had 
 shown that it is impossible to combine business with sen- 
 timent, however noble. The Pilgrim Fathers of 1620 
 had been financed for their voyage across the Atlantic 
 by London merchants interested in fishing and the fur 
 trade, but the arrangement led to so much friction that 
 in 1627 the settlers bought up the whole of the stock by 
 instalments and became entirely independent of outside 
 control. John White's company of Dorchester adven- 
 turers at Cape Ann in 1623 found it impossible to satisfy 
 the demands for profits of their backers in England and 
 within a year or two were abandoned to support them- 
 selves as best they could. The only attempt at Puritan 
 colonisation that succeeded, the colonisation of Massa- 
 chusetts, succeeded because of the inherent difference 
 between it and other attempts. Except in the early ven- 
 ture at Salem, Massachusetts was never a plantation 
 financed in thfe main by adventurers remaining at home 
 in England and bound down by their English ties and 
 interests; it was a migration of settlers almost after 
 the pattern of a Greek colonisation, a migration of men 
 depending solely upon their own resources and expecting 
 no return for the capital they had invested save what 
 
124 PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 they aided in acquiring by their own personal efforts and 
 privations. 
 
 The Providence Company from the start attempted 
 to combine two divergent aims, and although its mem- 
 bers subscribed largely and generously to the enterprise 
 at first, yet the capital they contributed was an invest- 
 ment and not a gift. From the first even the more 
 strongly Puritan members of the company, such as Saye 
 and Pym, expected to receive some return upon their 
 expenditure, though they desired at the same time to 
 found a community upon the strictest Puritan pattern; 
 the merchants, however, to whom the financing of 
 schemes of exploration and colonisation was a regular 
 matter of business, looked upon the colony merely as a 
 likely speculation and had little sympathy with the 
 aspirations of their fellow members. A very short time 
 convinced them that there was little profit to be obtained 
 and, as we have seen. Dyke, who had attempted to make 
 a profit out of the scheme at the expense of his fellow 
 adventurers, abandoned the company in 1632, his share 
 being purchased by Saye, Eudyerd, Pym, and Grraunt. 
 Gabriel Barber, a man of finer fibre, if of less business 
 capacity, also left the company in 1632; his enterprises 
 had for some years been succeeding ilP and he now found 
 the necessity of realising his investments in order to 
 stave off bankruptcy. In return for the reimbursement 
 by the company of his out-of-pocket expenses upon his 
 share, viz., £500, he assigned to them his five allotments 
 of land in the Somers Islands and these were hence- 
 forward the joint property of the Providence Company 
 and were leased and worked by the well-known merchant, 
 Humphrey Slany. For the expenses he had been put to 
 for the first voyage, the company reimbursed Barber by 
 
 1 C. S. p. East Indies, 4 March, 1625. Sale by Barber of £1200 of East 
 India Stock. Other similar entries. 
 
ACTIVITIES OF THE COMPANY 125 
 
 the payment of £200 cash., a composition that was also 
 offered to Dyke, but at first refused. Sir Nathaniel Rich 
 was reimbursed for his expenditure by the assignment 
 of one-quarter of Dyke's share in the company without 
 payment. Barber did not long survive his financial ship- 
 wreck and died some time in 1633. 
 
 It had been resolved in the first six months of the com- 
 pany's existence that, in order to keep the control in the 
 hands of the original members, not more than twenty 
 whole shares should ever be created, but it was found 
 impracticable to refuse absolutely to admit new members, 
 and the difficulty was got over by allowing members, 
 while increasing the total sum invested, to let some por- 
 tion of the new capital be provided by their friends, por- 
 tions of the whole share being assigned to them and the 
 voting power of an entire share being wielded by a 
 majority of those owning it. It is unnecessary to enter 
 into details as to the way in which these fractions of 
 shares changed hands, though it is possible to trace them 
 all in the records. A list of the new members, however, 
 will show that the company after Dyke's retirement was 
 entirely confined to members of the Puritan party and 
 that the merchant element had abandoned the enterprise. 
 Henry Darley, who joined the company in November, 
 1632, was a personal friend of Pym's and a strong Puri- 
 tan; he and his younger brother, Eichard, were sons of 
 Sir Richard Darley" of Buttercrambe in Yorkshire and 
 Elizabeth, daughter of Edward Gates, possibly a rela- 
 tive of Sir Thomas G-ates, the governor of Virginia. 
 Darley played an important part among the English 
 Puritans and both he and his brother were prominent 
 members of the ruling oligarchy under the Long Parlia- 
 ment and the Commonwealth. Darley took great interest 
 in the projects for Puritan emigration and subscribed 
 
 2 Harl. Soc, Visit, of London, I, 216. 
 
126 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 £50 to the funds of the Massachusetts Bay Company 
 before May, 1628.' He and his brother offered to the 
 Rev. Thomas Shepard, when silenced for Nonconformity 
 by Archbishop Laud, £20 a year towards his support.* 
 Sir Thomas Cheeke of Pirgo, Essex," was married to 
 Essex Rich, sister of the Earl of Warwick, and had been 
 a member of the Council for Virginia, 1612-1620. He sat 
 in all parliaments from 1624 to the Long Parliament, 
 for various Essex seats, and was a strong Puritan. His 
 daughter, Essex Cheeke, married as her second husband, 
 Edward Montagu, Viscount Mandeville, about whose 
 connection with the company we shall have much to say 
 later. James Fiennes was the eldest son of Lord Saye 
 and became later second viscount. His younger brother 
 was the celebrated Colonel Nathaniel Fiennes of the Civil 
 War. John Michell, who bought a quarter of Sir 
 Nathaniel Rich's share in May, 1633, was probably a 
 cousin of Rich, whose mother was a daughter of John 
 Michell, sheriff of London.* William Ball, who bought 
 half of Sherland's share on his death, may have been the 
 William Ball who in 1634 was attorney of the office of 
 pleas in the Exchequer" and must have been known to 
 Pym and Graunt. John Upton of Lucton, Devon,* who 
 purchased a quarter of Pym's share in November, 1632, 
 and thenceforward acted as the company's agent in the 
 west of England, had married Pym's half-sister, Dorothy 
 Rous. He did a good deal of work for the company and 
 subscribed several sums to their capital. 
 
 By May, 1633, £1025 had been paid upon each whole 
 share, of which Lord Brooke held two, but when fresh 
 
 s ArchcBologia Americana, III, \sxx. 
 
 ^Autobiography of Shepard, p. 36. 
 
 Bro-wn, Genesis, II, 883. 
 
 « Brown, II, 978. 
 
 T Harl. Soc, Visit, of London, II, 40. 
 
 8 Visit, of Devon, p. 293. Visit, of Cornwall, p. 195. 
 
ACTIVITIES OF THE COMPANY 127 
 
 capital had to be raised in June, 1634, it was decided 
 to introduce an arrangement somewhat similar to the 
 modern device of preference shares. The sums now 
 paid in as multiples of a quarter-share (£256 5s.) were 
 to be reimbursed aiid receive dividends from the profits 
 gained before anything was paid on the original shares. 
 Practically all the adventurers subscribed to this new 
 stock, and three new adventurers, William Woodcock, 
 Thomas Barnardiston, and William Boswell, also joined. 
 John Hart, the first "husband" of the company, died 
 in 1633, leaving his affairs in a somewhat involved con- 
 dition. The arrangement of giving full power to the 
 "husband" to act in the company's name had been 
 found to lead to abuse and it was determined by Pym 
 that a new system of management was necessary. His 
 interest in the company and its projects had been steadily 
 growing and he was now prepared to place his business 
 capacity entirely at the service of the scheme. The new 
 husband, William Woodcock, who was engaged on the 
 recommendation of Lord Brooke, was to be merely the 
 company's executive agent to carry out the plans drawn 
 up by the treasurer. The details of all arrangements 
 were to be submitted to and decided upon by Pym, and 
 no orders were to be valid unless they were signed by 
 him and by Secretary Jessop. Woodcock, however, was 
 allowed to have a share in the business and subscribed 
 to the preference stock. 
 
 Thomas Barnardiston,* a London merchant, engaged 
 in the East India Company's trade, was a near relative 
 of Richard KJiightley of Fawsley and brother of Sir 
 Nathaniel Barnardiston, M. P. for Suffolk in 1628-1629 
 and an intimate friend of John Winthrop.^" He was an 
 important member of the Puritan party in the City of 
 
 9 Visit, of London, II, 51. 
 
 10 Life of Wimthrop, I, 393. 
 
128 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 London, but, like the otlier merchants, he did not long 
 remain connected with the Providence Company, prob- 
 ably being dissatisfied with the profits and finding a 
 far more fertile field for the employment of his capital 
 in the East Indian trade. William Boswell, at one time 
 secretary to the Earl of Carlisle, was deeply engaged 
 in 1629-1630 in the attempts to settle "Carolana" with 
 Huguenots. His slight connection with the Providence 
 Company owes its importance to this fact. 
 
 The fullest details for a treatment of the company's 
 financial history are contained in the records but they 
 hardly appear to afford sufficient matter of interest to 
 detain us. It must suffice here to say that a large part 
 of the company's business was carried on in very modern 
 fashion by means of short-dated loans, largely from 
 wealthy Puritans such as the Earl of Lincoln and Lord 
 Grey of Groby, but also from other capitalists such as 
 Edward Cecil, Viscount Wimbledon, and from London 
 merchants in the ordinary way of business. Pym man- 
 aged all these transactions and must have been kept very 
 busy, for he was continually reminding the members of 
 the company of the debts that remained to be paid off 
 and suggesting to them means of raising money for the 
 purpose. The general total indebtedness of the company 
 was a continually increasing amount and great com- 
 plexity was introduced into the accounts by attempting 
 to keep the finances of each voyage distinct and by paying 
 out the profits upon each voyage in dividends without 
 accumulating any reserve fund. Although the company 
 was a rudimentary joint stock concern, it was a very 
 inefficient one and the contrast between it and a modern 
 enterprise is very great. 
 
 While the desire of the founders of the company to 
 keep its shares entirely in the hands of Puritans was 
 easily fulfilled, their scheme for attracting Puritan 
 
ACTIVITIES OF THE COMPANY 129 
 
 emigrants to the colony met with only a very slight 
 measure of success, though they made every endeavour 
 to carry it through. In order to avoid the ill-usage of 
 which the passengers in the Seaflower had been the 
 victims, it was decided to charter a ship which should 
 be entirely officered by the company's men, and the 
 Charity, a vessel of two hundred tons, was got ready to 
 sail in the early part of 1632 under the mastership of 
 Thomas Punt. The engagement of three ministers for 
 the island has already been mentioned and all three 
 sailed in this ship, the command of the passengers in 
 which was entrusted to Henry Halhead and Samuel 
 Rishworth, Puritans of the true New England type. 
 Henry Halhead was a native of the town of Banbury 
 and a dependent of Lord Saye; like his patron, he was 
 always to the fore in defence of ancient rights, and in 
 1632 he had made himself so obnoxious to the authorities 
 that he was compelled to emigrate. In March, 1628, 
 forty soldiers, billeted in Banbury, had engaged in riot- 
 ing and had set fire to the houses of some of those 
 opposed to them. The parish constable, in trying to 
 prevent further outrage, had been maltreated by the 
 soldiers and failed to obtain redress from the justices, 
 who, from fear of the government, considered that they 
 had no power to punish the soldiers without consent of 
 their captains. The constable appealed to the House 
 of Lords^^ then sitting and brought forward Halhead to 
 prove the truth of his statements. The lords sent for 
 the justices and admonished them, while the offending 
 soldiers were punished with stripes. To the end of his 
 life Halhead maintained the interest in opposing 
 enclosures that he had imbibed under Lord Saye in 
 
 11 "House of Lords MSS." (Hist. MSS. Comm., Fmirth Beport, App'x, p. 
 13), 26 March, 1628, Petition of George Philips, constable of Banbury; 
 see also Lords' Jownal, III, 700, 708. 
 
130 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 1617." In 1650, after his return from the West Indies, 
 there appeared from his pen a small work against 
 enclosures under the title of Inclosure Thrown Open, 
 showing the practice to be wicked by quotations from 
 Scripture and many other sources." 
 
 One hundred and fifty passengers in all were gathered 
 together for the voyage to Providence under Halhead's 
 leadership and these were of a more strongly Puritan 
 type than any other emigrants to Providence. Those 
 coming from Essex were directed to come to a rendezvous 
 in London and boarded the Charity there; those from 
 Devon and Warwickshire, together with Lord Saye's 
 party from Oxfordshire, assembled at Plymouth and 
 were lodged at the company's charge in the houses of 
 Puritan sympathisers while waiting for the ship. The 
 cost of transportation, £6 per head including victuals, 
 was borne by the emigrants themselves in most cases, 
 but when poverty prevented their paying before leaving 
 England, the company arranged that the emigrants 
 might repay the passage money out of their first year's 
 profits in the island. No servants were sent out to the 
 planters in this voyage, the emigrants being all freemen 
 and many of them taking wiih them their wives and 
 families. The majority were agriculturists, but a good 
 many mechanics also went out, such as carpenters, 
 sawyers, coopers, smiths, and brickmakers. 
 
 Although great care had been taken in the preparation 
 of the instructions for the voyage, they were almost 
 entirely disregarded by the master, and the passengers 
 suffered even more cruelly than had those in the Sea- 
 
 12 Privy Oouncil Eegister, James I, Vol. Ill, pp. 111-115. Quoted by 
 Prof. E. C. K. Gonner in EAg. Sist. Bev., 1908, p. 482. 
 
 ^B Inclosure Thrown Open or Depopulation Depopulated Not ty Spades 
 and MattocTcs hut iy the Word of God, the Laws of the Land, and Solid 
 Arguments. And the most material Pleas that can he hrought for it con- 
 sidered and answered. By Henry Halhead. London, 1650, 
 
ACTIVITIES OF THE COMPANY 131 
 
 flower. The Charity had not long left Plymouth when 
 a dangerous sickness broke out on board and the surgeon 
 appealed to the master for the issue of stores for relief 
 of the sick. Not only did Punt refuse this reasonable 
 demand, but he stinted the passengers and seamen of 
 the poor food allowed them ; one-third of their allowance 
 of biscuit, one-half of their beer, and a proportion of 
 their pease were abated, while only three stock-fish and 
 a half were allowed each week between forty persons. 
 That this niggardliness was solely due to Punt's desire 
 for illicit gain was shown by the fact that he privately 
 disposed of twenty-eight butts of beer on reaching 
 Providence and of a large amount of biscuit on his return 
 to England. The despotic power of a master on ship- 
 board was even greater in the seventeenth century than 
 it is to-day and Punt's reply to all complaints was an 
 order for a flogging for the complainant. One seaman 
 who grumbled was first flogged and then tied to the 
 capstan for two hours with fifteen heavy cannon shot 
 about his neck. Though Halhead was in command of 
 the passengers. Punt threatened him with the "bilboes" 
 or heavy leg-irons for mutiny, because he had directed 
 one of his own body servants to go ashore without the 
 master's express permission. The company did their 
 best to bring Punt to book for his misdeeds on his return 
 to England and he was examined before certain masters 
 of Trinity House concerning the allegations against 
 him. After the case had dragged on two or three 
 months, it was found that no satisfaction was obtain- 
 able through Trinity House and it was decided to pay 
 Punt and his accomplice, the purser, the wages owing 
 to them and to abandon any further proceedings. It 
 can hardly be wondered at that the emigrants who had 
 voyaged to the island under such painful conditions, 
 sent back most doleful accounts to their friends in Eng- 
 
132 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 land, and the company found great difficulty in conse- 
 quence of these reports in securing further emigrants. 
 In the original proposals from Elfrith to Gov. Bell, that 
 ultimately led to the formation of the Providence Com- 
 pany, he pointed out as the most likely place for a colony 
 an island, which he called Fonseca, and which, he said, 
 lay "some one hundred leagues to the eastwards of the 
 Caribbees out of all the Spaniards' roads and ways."" 
 At the end of 1632 Pym's energy felt the need for some 
 fresh outlet and his thoughts turned to Fonseca as the 
 most suitable scene for further activity of the company, 
 for it was said to be of considerable size and great fer- 
 tility. The existence of such an island had been confi- 
 dently believed in by the Spaniards throughout the 
 sixteenth century and the growth of the myth is an 
 interesting subject of enquiry.^^ The name "San 
 Bernaldo" was in use by the Spaniards quite early in 
 the century for one of the Caribbee Islands, which were 
 then only very roughly and vaguely marked upon the 
 maps. By 1544 the name had become definitely applied 
 to a fair-sized island marked as lying well out of the 
 chain of the Lesser Antilles and bearing about E. N. E. 
 of Tobago. The Sebastian Cabot map of 1544 gives it 
 in this position and this is repeated in several other 
 maps of somewhat later date ; in some of these it bears 
 also the name of "Fonsequa" or "Fonseca," and is 
 given a very noticeable cross-like outline, probably thus 
 indicating that it had been scrupulously copied from 
 earlier maps; in other and more accurate maps it is 
 marked definitely as lying in the position which Elfrith 
 described. In the ' ' Euttier for the West Indies, ' ' printed 
 
 1* F. supra, p. 39. 
 
 IB For some of these ref erences the writer is indebted to the courtesy of 
 Mr. E. Heawood, librarian of the Boyal Geographical Society, and of Mr. 
 W. E. Kettle, editor of Finlay's Directory of tlie North AtUmtie. 
 
ACTIVITIES OF THE COMPANY 133 
 
 by Hakluyt," there is a list of all tlie more important 
 West Indian islands and their latitudes, where we find: 
 "The island of Fonzeca standeth in Degrees of latitude 
 1114." One of the most reliable maps of the American 
 coast and islands in the early seventeenth century is that 
 of Sebastian de Ruesta, cosmographer to the Contra- 
 tacion House of Seville, and on this map Fonseca is 
 marked as bearing due north of what is now French 
 Guiana." In letters from, the Indies to Spain in 1630, 
 the corsairs are said frequently to take refuge in the 
 island of Fonseca, while on February 28, 1628, Charles I 
 granted" to Philip, Earl of Montgomery, "the islands 
 lying between 8 and 13 degrees of north latitude, called 
 Trinidado, Tabago, Barbudos, and Fonseca." 
 
 Both in Spain and England, then, the island was 
 assumed to have a real existence and it was only towards 
 the end of the seventeenth century that it disappeared 
 from the maps. In the excellent atlas of N. Visscher 
 (1650)" there is no mention of the island, but it is 
 occasionally met with as late as 1866, when Keith John- 
 ston's Royal Atlas definitely marks it and in the accom- 
 panying Index Geographicus its exact position is given 
 as 12° 27' N., 54° 48' W. Upon an admiralty chart of 
 1848 no island appears in this position, but a rock termed 
 "La Gallissonniere Rock" is marked. The non-existence 
 of both island and rock was finally ascertained by the 
 oflficers of the United States government brig Dolphin, 
 who in 1852 obtained a sounding of two thousand five 
 hundred and seventy fathoms near the reputed position. 
 The lengthy period through which the existence of an 
 
 leHaMuyt's Voyages (Everyman Library), VII, 267. 
 
 IT Brit. Mus., Add. M8S., 5027a. 
 
 18 Sign Man., Car. I, Vol. V, no. 22, C. 8. P. Col., 1574-1660, p. 87. In , 
 Brit. Mus., Sloane, 3662, fo. 46, the version of this patent calls the island 
 "San Bemaldo." 
 
 i» Atlas Contractus Orbis Terrarum. N. Visseher, Amsterdam, 1650. 
 
134 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 island lying far out of the chain of the Antilles was 
 assumed as certain, gives to Fonseca or San Bernaldo 
 a rather more tangible position than such an entirely 
 vague and mythical island as "St. Brendan's Isle," 
 though even this in 1628 was granted by patent as a field 
 for colonisation. In the rudimentary state of the science 
 of navigation in the sixteenth century, the accurate 
 determination of longitude was impossible and mariners 
 worked entirely by means of latitude and dead reckon- 
 ing. It is quite possible that an early navigator, taking 
 a course more southerly than usual, should have failed 
 to allow for the westerly drift of the great equatorial 
 current and should have made his first land fall two or 
 three days before he expected it upon Tobago, or even 
 Barbadoes. Hakluyt gives the latitude of Tobago as 
 eleven degrees, which differs very little from the eleven 
 and one-fourth degrees of Fonseca. The existence of 
 the island having once been assumed, it was very difficult 
 to prove it mythical and the mistake, like many another, 
 was copied by writer after writer for two hundred years. 
 At a meeting of the Providence Company on November 
 26, 1632, in John Pym's house,"" it was definitely decided 
 to extend the area of the company's activities and it was 
 resolved that £25 should be paid in on each entire share 
 of adventure towards the expenses of a voyage of dis- 
 covery to Fonseca. As the lord chamberlain, the Earl 
 of Pembroke and Montgomery, possessed some preten- 
 sions to the island, it was resolved to invite him to join 
 as a private adventurer in the enterprise, but Pembroke, 
 whose West Indian ventures had not been graced with 
 much success and who had been involved in a long con- 
 test with the Earl of Carlisle concerning the right to 
 
 20 Pym's house was at this period on the eastern side of Gray's Inn Lane, 
 only a few doors away from Brooke House. Nugent 's Mema. of Eampden, 
 I, 296. C. 8. P. Dom., 16 Jan. 1637-1638, Return of Justices of the Peace. 
 
ACTIVITIES OF THE COMPANY 135 
 
 Barbadoes, declined to have anything to do with the 
 enterprise and tacitly renounced his rights in favour of 
 the company. A pinnace, the Elisabeth, was hired at 
 the rate of £4 per month, and Matthew Harbottle, lately 
 master of the Little Hopewell, was appointed to the 
 command. The pinnace was to call at Association and 
 take on board Capt. Hilton, who would direct the voyage, 
 buring the winter the subscriptions were all collected 
 and Pym made enquiries of those experienced in West 
 Indian navigation as to the proper course to pursue. 
 These enquiries were evidently unsatisfactory and were 
 sufficient to cast doubts not only upon the feasibility of 
 the enterprise, but even upon the existence of such an 
 island as Fonseca. Pym's native caution was far too 
 strong to allow him to throw away his own and his 
 partner's money in the chase of a will-o'-the-wisp, and 
 in March, 1633, he came to the conclusion that the 
 Fonseca design should be abandoned in favour of a 
 project more likely to offer success. 
 
 Hilton had laid before the company in his letters two 
 schemes for the outlay of capital in Indian trade. The 
 first of these schemes involved the seizure of islands 
 in the Florida Channel, either the cays where Key West 
 now stands, or some of the western Bahamas; this was 
 far too bold a plan for the company to sanction, for it 
 really courted failure. The Spaniards' brutal massacre 
 of Ribault and Laudonniere's Florida colonists some 
 seventy years bef ore^^ was still vividly remembered, and 
 that the governor of Havana would do what he could to 
 maintain Spain's exclusive policy in Florida waters had 
 been clearly brought home to the Providence Company 
 by the narrow escape of their vessel, the Seaflower, on 
 her homeward voyage through the Straits. Hilton's 
 second project was for a trade with the Indians in the 
 
 21 By Menendez, 20 Sept., 1565. 
 
136 PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 Gulf of Darien and this was far easier to carry out. 
 Althougli within a few score of miles of a world's high- 
 way so much travelled as is the Isthmus of Panama, the 
 country round the Gulf of Darien is, even to the present 
 day, little visited, and the wild and intractable San Bias 
 Indians inhabiting its hills and swampy shores have 
 never bowed beneath the Spanish yoke. From Porto 
 Bello to the head of the gulf, the coast is lined with small 
 islands, the creeks between which had from the middle 
 of the sixteenth century formed a favourite refuge for 
 English corsairs, where they might mature in safety 
 their plans against the Spanish treasure convoys.^^ The 
 hostility of the Darien Indians against the Spaniards 
 was intensified by their alliance with the Cimarones or 
 negroes, who, having fled from the plantations round 
 Panama, had taken refuge in the Darien swamps and 
 hills; their friendliness towards the English was, how- 
 ever, very marked and was an important factor in the 
 history of the Isthmus for two hundred years.''* 
 
 In March, 1633, the Providence Company definitely 
 decided to divert the subscriptions that had been received 
 for the Fonseca design, to the fitting out of a trading 
 voyage to Darien. A pinnace, the Elisabeth, was pur- 
 chased and placed under the command of Matthew 
 Harbottle, who, as mate of the Charity, had pro- 
 tested against Punt's malpractices, and had given 
 evidence against him. A Dartmouth pinnace, the Pole, 
 was chartered under the command of her owner, Nicholas 
 Eoope, and was fitted out to accompany the Elisabeth. 
 
 22 Drake, while preparing for his attack on Nombre de Dios in 1572, spent 
 some time among the Darien Indians and the Oimarones. John Oxenham 
 also visited them in 1575. Hakluyt, VII, 63, 64. 
 
 23 Dampier and his companions spent many months in Darien in 1679, 
 and there is a contemporary map of the locality in his Voyages. In 1739 
 Governor Trelawny of Jamaica organized a revolt in Darien to facilitate 
 Admiral Vernon's attack on Porto Bello and Panama. 
 
ACTIVITIES OF THE COMPANY 137 
 
 Forty-two passengers went out with these vessels to 
 Association and Providence, half of them being servants 
 under bond, who had been recruited for the company 
 by paid agents and were of an entirely different char- 
 acter to the earlier Puritan emigrants. From Associa- 
 tion the vessels were directed to sail to St. Christopher 
 or Barbadoes to obtain cotton-seed, and thence to Provi- 
 dence. If Hilton desired to do so, he was to take com- 
 mand of the expedition, but if not Richard Lane, a 
 protege of Lord Brooke's, was to direct the course of 
 the traders after leaving Providence. Hilton did not 
 care to leave the scene of his profitable duplicity and 
 Lane therefore acted as cape-merchant or supercargo 
 and had charge of the "cargazoon." As an evidence of 
 the care bestowed by Pym upon the instructions issued 
 to the company's commanders, it is worth while to 
 examine those issued to Lane in detail. 
 
 Lane was directed on his arrival in Providence to plant 
 carefully the madder he took out and to leave explicit 
 directions with responsible persons for its cultivation. 
 He was then to take on board Roger Floyd and six or 
 eight other persons and to sail to the Bay of Darien, 
 "which lies South-east and by South from Cape Cattina 
 not far from Porto Bello upon the continent of the West 
 Indies." On arrival there he was to take what steps he 
 thought fit for finding a suitable landing place and to 
 take care to conceal his movements from the Spaniards. 
 "If you shall see cause to fear discovery by the Span- 
 iards or danger by foul weather, you may give the 
 Master direction to put into the harbour lying there- 
 about (as we are informed between the main and an 
 island called Isla de Pinas)" where she may ride out of 
 sight of such ships as may pass by and out of danger of 
 
 2* A favourite place of concealment of the Tovers among the Islas de San 
 Bias. See Dampier's Voyages. 
 
138 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 wind." He was to use all possible means to ingratiate 
 himself with, the Indians, "taking care that [he] be not 
 too liberal nor that they may have cause to suspect [his] 
 own disesteem of the commodities." He was to use all 
 possible means to conceal from them the object of his 
 coming, but was to express a desire of renewing friend- 
 ship with them as "favourers of the English nation and 
 especially of Don Francisco Draco (whose name they 
 seem to honour)." He was to make advantage of them 
 by, trade for gold, etc., to discover what things might be 
 obtained from them and their value, and to labour to 
 possess them with the natural goodness of the English 
 nation. He was to restrain any boisterous carriage to 
 the women and particularly "mocking, pointing or 
 laughing at their nakedness. ' ' None of the seamen were 
 to be permitted to trade with the Indians or to have 
 much familiarity with them. He was to keep a careful 
 account of all the trade he did, and when he had obtained 
 a cargo he was to return with it to Providence. 
 
 The Elisabeth left England in April, 1633, and 
 attempted to carry out the programme arranged for her, 
 but the Darien trade proved impossible for the time 
 being, owing to circumstances which could not have been 
 foreseen. When the Elisabeth arrived in the Gulf of 
 Darien, she found there three Dutch ships that were 
 attempting to trade. Though English and Dutch were 
 still closely allied through their common hostility to 
 Spain's exclusive pretensions, there were many signs 
 that commercial rivalries were beginning to drive them 
 asunder. In the East, the Amboyna massacre had un- 
 mistakably shown the English what consideration they 
 might expect when Dutchmen felt that they really had 
 the upper hand, but in western waters conditions 
 remained more friendly and the main complaint of 
 Englishmen as yet was that the Dutch were so brutal in 
 
ACTIVITIES OF THE COMPANY 139 
 
 their dealings with the natives as to render it difficult to 
 carry on trade. A flagrant instance of this brutality 
 now dashed all hopes of the Darien trade to both nations 
 for some years. Some small parties from the Dutch 
 ships had already got into communication with the 
 Indians before the Elisabeth arrived on the coast, and 
 they had seen sufficient gold round the natives' necks 
 to excite all their cupidity. The Indians had informed 
 them that they had plenty of gold in the hills and prom- 
 ised in six days' time to bring down some of the hill 
 people to trade with them. Accordingly at the end of 
 that time some two or three hundred Indians from the 
 interior came down to the shore, and a young man, who 
 knew something of their language, was sent among them 
 to try their disposition to trade. His report was evi- 
 dently favourable, for the Dutch vice-admiral, seeing 
 great hopes of gain, determined to land and go among 
 them'. In order, however, to guard against surprise, he 
 ordered his men to carry their arms with them; this 
 was a fatal step, for the Indians, when they saw armed 
 men beginning to land, took to flight. The Dutch were 
 resolved that their hopes of gain should not so easily 
 be dashed, and pursued the natives into the woods, 
 behaving with great brutality and seizing the gold 
 ornaments round the necks of the women and whatever 
 else of value they could lay their hands on. The fight 
 soon became general and in the melee the Dutch vice- 
 admiral was slain by an Indian dart. This loss cast his 
 men into the greatest confusion and it was only with 
 difficulty and after the loss of several of their men that 
 they succeeded in regaining their boats and taking refuge 
 on shipboard. It was patent to everyone that all hopes 
 of peaceful trade must be abandoned for the time being 
 and after a short delay and a few unsuccessful attempts 
 
140 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 to trade on other parts of the coast, the Elizabeth 
 returned with her cargo to Providence. 
 
 Other trading ventures had been directed from Provi- 
 dence in 1631 and 1632 and in these Daniel Elfrith had 
 played the leading part. It will be remembered that at 
 the first election of officers Elfrith had chosen the post 
 of admiral in preference to that of governor, and in pur- 
 suance of the company's directions he set forth early 
 in 1631 on a voyage to other West Indian islands and to 
 the adjacent mainland of Central America in search of 
 commodities suitable for raising in Providence. The first 
 voyage and others, performed by Elfrith during 1631 
 and 1632, met with very little success and Elfrith had to 
 be severely reproved by the company for his aggressive 
 acts at the expense of the Spaniards, but the accounts he 
 sent home gave the company such a very favourable idea 
 of the mainland opposite to Providence that after mature 
 consideration it was resolved to concentrate the com- 
 pany's greatest efforts at Indian trade rather upon Cape 
 Gracias a Dios than in the territory round the Gulf of 
 Darien. The idea grew further as time went on and 
 developed into a project for settling a great colony of 
 Englishmen, in Central America, but in the first instance, 
 when the preliminary steps were taken in 1633, it was 
 trade that was aimed at. 
 
 The first mention of their design to Gov. Bell was made 
 by the company in the letters sent by the Elisabeth 
 (April, 1633). He was informed that the company 
 intended to lay the foundation of a trade upon Cape 
 Gracias a Dios and to employ there persons acquainted 
 with the character and language of the Indians. In order 
 to avoid any difficulty. Bell was ordered that the Main 
 was not to be visited until full directions as to the carry- 
 ing on of the trade were received. If any Indian came 
 to Providence from the Main no pistols, knives, hooks, 
 
ACTIVITIES OF THE COMPANY 141 
 
 or iron of any Mnd were to be trucked with them. The 
 company had heard that many in the island began to 
 look towards the Main for profit. As this would conflict 
 with their design to found a prosperous colony in Provi- 
 dence, Bell was to cheek all such tendencies and was to 
 exhort the planters to look for profit to their plantations 
 in the island and not elsewhere. Immediately after the 
 business connected with the sailing of the Elizabeth had 
 been completed, Pym took up the new project in, earnest. 
 It was decided that each adventurer should contribute 
 £60 towards the voyage and that a magazine of trade 
 goods should be provided for £600. A pinnace of ninety 
 tons, the Golden Falcon, was purchased at a cost of £405 
 from Lord Paulet and sent round from Southampton to 
 the Thames to be refitted for the voyage under the direc- 
 tions of the Earl of Warwick. The command of the expe- 
 dition was entrusted to Capt. Sussex Camock, who, it will 
 be remembered, was Elfrith's fellow-commander in the 
 1627-1628 voyage and who had been left planting tobacco 
 upon Henrietta. Sussex Camock was the brother of 
 Capt. Thomas Camock, who had married Frances, 
 daughter of the second Lord Eich and aunt of Robert, 
 Earl of Warwick. Thomas Camock had for some years 
 been interested in New England and had been living 
 on the eastern bank of Black Point River. On November 
 4, 1631, he obtained through the Earl of Warwick a 
 patent^° for one thousand five hundred acres and pro- 
 posed to settle there with his wife and family; a settle- 
 ment was founded on the grant and received the name 
 of Black Point, Sussex Camock had had a good deal of 
 experience as a commander of privateers and his name 
 appears frequently in the registers of letters of marque 
 as the master of ships belonging to the Earl of Warwick. 
 
 2B"Eecords of the Cotmeil for New England," 4 Nov., 1631, Proe. of 
 Amer. Antiq. Soc. for 1867; Doyle's Puritan Colomes, I, 324. 
 
142 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 He had accompanied his patron on his disastrous 
 expedition against the Plate Fleet in 1627. 
 
 Active preparations for the voyage went on through 
 May and June, 1633, the arms and provisions being got 
 ready and shipped on board the Golden Falcon at Dart- 
 mouth. The vessel was placed under the command of 
 Joseph Collins as master, with Sussex Camock as captain 
 and in command of the passengers. These were of a 
 much better class than those sent out in the Elisabeth 
 and the Pole and many of them were strong Puritans. 
 They were followers of a nonconformist minister, the 
 Rev. Henry Root,'" and were the last distinctively Puri- 
 tan emigrants to reach Providence from England. The 
 Golden Falcon had orders to call first at the Dutch island 
 of St. Martin's, where she was to take on board a supply 
 of salt for Providence ; if salt could not be obtained there 
 at a reasonable price, the master was to purchase it at 
 Cape San Nicolas or one of the other salt pans, which the 
 Dutch were working upon the northern shore of His- 
 paniola. Having called at Association to take on board 
 three pieces of the company's ordnance that had been 
 left there, the master was to steer for Providence and 
 to deliver to Gov. Bell the company's letters, to land his 
 passengers, and then to proceed under the entire com- 
 mand of Capt. Camock to the cape, where the Golden 
 Falcon was to be placed and remain at his disposal. 
 
 It is impossible to enter into the many details of the 
 instructions given by Treasurer Pym to Camock for the 
 management of the new trade, as they fill six closely 
 written folio pages of the company's letter book, and 
 though they abound in interesting details concerning 
 the commodities to be searched for and the procedure to 
 
 aaOalamy, Nonoonformist's Memorial, II, 450, gives some account of 
 Root and says that in early life he, was a considerable traveller, rrom 
 1645 to 1662 he miniBtered at Sowerby and died there. 
 
ACTIVITIES OF THE COMPANY 143 
 
 be adopted, we must confine our attention to the general 
 directions given, Capt. Camock was directed to "set" 
 witli his company upon Cape Gracias a Dios, there to 
 discover and maintain a trade with the natives ; he was 
 to search out a fit place in which to establish a perma- 
 nent colony for trade and plantation. "And," say the 
 company, "because the hope of the business most spe- 
 cially depends upon God's blessing, therefore we pray 
 and require you to make it your first and principal care 
 to carry God along with you in all places by the diligent 
 performance of holy duties in your own person and by 
 setting up and preserving the true worship of God in 
 the hearts and lives of all your company, so far as you 
 shall be able. Also to restrain and prevent to your 
 utmost power all sins and disorders, as swearing, drunk- 
 enness, uncleanness or the like, which will render the 
 name of Christians odious to the very heathen and be 
 infinitely prejudicial to the business you take in hand 
 by drawing the curse of God upon your endeavours. . . . 
 You are to endear yourselves with the Indians and their 
 commanders and we conjure you to be friendly and cause 
 no jealousy." Among the many exhortations as to the 
 proper treatment of native races that have been sent 
 forth from England to the pioneers of her empire, it 
 would be difficult to find a loftier yet simpler exordium 
 than these words of Pym, and never, perhaps, has so 
 lasting a friendship existed between Englishmen and a 
 native race as that which, since these words were penned, 
 has subsisted between Englishmen and the Indian tribes 
 of the MosMto Coast. 
 
 The eastern coast of Central America lying opposite 
 the Island of Providence has, even to this day, been very 
 little explored and never properly mapped. It is in- 
 habited by various Indian tribes grouped under the 
 
144 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 generic name of Moskitos,"^ but all closely allied to the 
 Caribs of the Lesser Antilles. The first Europeans to 
 come into contact with them were Alonzo de Ojeda and 
 Diego de Nuesca, the conquerors of Nicaragua, whose 
 arms were repulsed by the MosMtos and who never suc- 
 ceeded in establishing a footing in their territory. A 
 deadly hatred had always subsisted between the Moskitos 
 and the Spaniards and, even as early as Drake's voyages, 
 we find them, as well as the Darien Indians, fraternising 
 with and assisting the Spaniards' most implacable 
 enemies, the English corsairs. To the relations estab- 
 lished with the Moskitos by Bell and Camock we may 
 attribute the close friendship that bound them to Eng- 
 land throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centu- 
 ries, a friendship that at times during the eighteenth 
 century had an important influence upon West Indian 
 affairs. The protectorate exercised by England over the 
 MosMto Territory, or MosMto Coast Reserve, was only 
 finally relinquished as late as 1900."* 
 
 The Indians were accustomed to come over to Provi- 
 dence at certain periods of the year for fishing and Grov. 
 Bell was directed not to interfere with this practice. 
 A small number of them might be persuaded to stay in 
 the island, "but," wrote Pym, "they must be free men 
 drawn to work by reward and they must be entertained 
 by kind usage and be at liberty to return at pleasure." 
 Missionary efforts were to be made among them and no 
 idolatrous worship was to be permitted in the island 
 "that so there shall be no mixture of Paganism with 
 
 27 This name has nothing to do with the name of the familiar Anopheles 
 or Mosquito. It is probably a corruption of a native word and should be 
 written more accurately Miskito. Seport of Prussian Comm., on MosMto 
 Territory. 1845. 
 
 28 The well-known Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850, abrogated by the 
 Hay-Pauncefote Treaty of 1900, governed English relations with this part 
 of Central America throughout the latter part of the nineteenth century. 
 
THE MOSKITO COAST 
 
 ; J \ Caxores 
 
 ,_^Vivonlla 
 
 (o;John Thomas' J Cay 
 jAlar^atK Alia 
 
 RW^iU^ Cajjc Gracias a Dioi 
 
 |Pl6.orito o J ^\ 
 Ox ^' ' 
 
 * '•.9 .' 
 
 DcvtriCoy 
 
 *> « O Turn ef f c Ca^s 
 
 o B Kin^*2 Coys 
 
 * " fiqrl Coya 
 
 ^ Little Corn I 
 Great Corn I. 
 
 H Moutk 
 
 Quito 
 V ^ueno 
 
 //^ \ Old Provldenct 
 \.^'' or ^anta Catalina 
 
 {_,'or Jan Andreas 
 
ACTIVITIES OF THE COMPANY 145 
 
 the pure religioii of Almighty God." Both Camock and 
 Bell received the most explicit directions that the Mos- 
 kitos were never to he furnished with the means of 
 practising the use of gunpowder. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 PEOGRESS AND CONTROVERSY IN ASSOCIA- 
 TION AND PROVIDENCE 
 
 The fullness of the directions despatched by the com- 
 pany to the colony in reference to the raising of commodi- 
 ties and their preparation for the market is a noticeable 
 feature of the records we are dealing with. Page after 
 page of the company's letter book is devoted to com- 
 ments on the method of cultivation to be adopted, the 
 commodities to be sought for and the sources whence 
 they might be obtained, and not merely did the company 
 (or rather Pym) thus give counsel to the settlers, but 
 the greatest trouble was also taken to secure for them 
 plants and seeds, tools and appliances from all quarters, 
 these being forwarded with the fullest directions for 
 their use. We repeatedly find in the letters directions for 
 the planters to communicate with Pym in cases of doubt 
 concerning the growth or preparation of a commodity, 
 and it seems no unwarrantable assumption to credit 
 him with the authorship of the general directions sent 
 to the company's servants. The details as to the various 
 commodities tried and the success achieved form too 
 large a subject to be entered upon here, though they 
 provide a valuable source of information and material 
 to be considered in connection with a study of the gen- 
 eral early economic history of the European colonies in 
 the West Indies.^ We must be content to summarise the 
 
 1 The information available is similar to that used by Bruce in his 
 Economic History of Virginia in the 17th Century, 2 vols. New York, 
 1896. Interesting comparisons might be drawn from Weeden's Economic 
 and Social History of New England, 2 vols. Boston, 1890. 
 
PEOGRESS AND CONTROVEESY 147 
 
 main results obtained during the first five years of the 
 colony's life, though in the end these results proved very 
 small. 
 
 As we have seen tobacco was the first crop attempted 
 by the planters from Bermuda and proved of very fair 
 quality. That raised between January and August was 
 as good as any made in the Indies if, after the Spanish 
 method, it were kept to mature for a year before expor- 
 tation. But insufficient care was devoted to the sorting 
 and packing and in consequence only a very poor price 
 could be obtained in England. The company had a strong 
 objection to tobacco-growing as the staple industry of 
 the colony, based partly upon economic ■ grounds and 
 partly upon religious scruples, and their language is 
 reminiscent of that used by the Massachusetts Bay 
 Company in their first general letter to Gov. Endecott •? 
 " [The tobacco] trade is by the Company generally dis- 
 avowed and utterly disclaimed by some of the greatest 
 adventurers amongst us, who absolutely declared them- 
 selves unwilling to have any hand in this plantation, if 
 we intend to cherish or permit the planting of the noxious 
 weed." Circumstances in Providence, however, proved 
 too strong for the company and tobacco was always the 
 principal export from the island. Two sorts of cotton 
 were found growing wild in the island, one of short and 
 the other of long staple, and both were cultivated, as well 
 as varieties obtained from Jamaica and Barbadoes. 
 Here again, however, the disinclination of the planters 
 to take trouble in preparing and packing the product 
 prevented a fair price being obtained for it in England. 
 The company were continually urging the colonists to 
 search for a staple commodity suitable for growth in the 
 island, and offered large rewards for its discovery, but 
 without success. It was thought that a profitable staple 
 
 2 ArcJujeologia Americana, III, 82, 17 April, 1629. 
 
148 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 commodity had been discovered in silk-grass, or as the 
 company called it, "Camock's flax," which grew wild in 
 the forests of the Main. This seems to have been the 
 fibre which is now known as henequen or sisal hemp,* 
 derived from the fleshy leaves of a species of agave 
 growing largely in Central America. The first samples 
 were sent home from the cape by Camock in 1634 and 
 were submitted by Pym to several experienced trades- 
 men; after a careful examination it was declared by 
 them to be fit for several manufactures and worth about 
 four shillings a pound. Bell was informed that "experi- 
 ment upon a small quantity of the silk-grass sent from 
 the Main shows it to be a very excellent staple com- 
 modity, vendible in greater abundance than you shall be 
 able to send it us and at a price to exceed our hopes. 
 May God's blessing rest upon it as a merchandize abun- 
 dantly sufficient to give both us and you contentment." 
 The great difficulty concerning the fibre was the extrac- 
 tion of it from the rind of the leaf; experiments were 
 carried out both in England and in Providence under 
 Pym's direction and some success was obtained. After 
 a few years' trial of the fibre in the European markets, 
 the company resolved to undertake the production of it 
 on a large scale and to obtain a patent for its manufac- 
 ture. To this subject we will return in a later chapter. 
 Madder and indigo planting were both tried in a half- 
 hearted sort of way, but the inability of the planters to 
 work their land satisfactorily with the aid only of 
 Englishmen in so warm a climate threw them back upon 
 tobacco and cotton as their staple crops, since these 
 required less labour than other commodities. The most 
 valuable exports from the island were mainly dye-woods 
 obtained in small quantities in the forests of Providence 
 and in larger quantities by traffic with the Moskito 
 
 a Chisholm, Handboolc of Commercial Geography, p. 145. 
 
PROGRESS AND CONTROVERSY 149 
 
 Indians. Negroes were first introduced into Providence 
 from Association in 1633 and thenceforward the number 
 of them in the island was a continually increasing one, 
 and they began before long to be a real danger to the 
 safety of the community. While the owning of negroes 
 as slaves occasioned not the slightest misgiving to the 
 strict Puritans in the company, the minds of some of 
 the Puritan party in the island were by no means at rest 
 and one of them at least, Samuel Rishworth, held such 
 strong views against slavery that he began to play the 
 part of "abolitionist" and to aid the negroes in escaping 
 to liberty. His views seem to have been similar to those 
 of Roger Williams of Rhode Island and, needless to say, 
 were not tolerated either by the company or by the 
 planters. ' ' We fear that the running away of the negroes 
 may be of very ill consequence and do utterly mislike 
 Mr. Rishworth 's behaviour in promising to treat about 
 their liberty if it were such as you conceive and the same 
 is represented to us in your letter, it being both indiscreet 
 (arising as it seems from a groundless opinion that 
 Christians may not lawfully keep such persons in a state 
 of servitude during their strangeness from Christianity) 
 and also injurious to ourselves, whose service he hath 
 made them disaffected to, and to their particular mas- 
 ters, who should have been advised withal before any 
 overture touching their liberty." Rishworth is to be 
 admonished that he is to mend his behaviour and to learn 
 that "Religion consists not so much in an outward con- 
 formity of actions as in truth of the inward parts," — 
 surely an odd argument in favour of slave-holding. It 
 was only on rare occasions that the negroes could suc- 
 ceed in escaping from the island, but a good number of 
 them managed to flee into the woods and there they 
 preserved a precarious existence. The planters' life was 
 occasionally enlivened by a hunt after these poor savages 
 
150 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 and, though very few were recaptured, their huts were 
 discovered and burnt amid great rejoicing. Their head- 
 quarters seems to have been in a lofty valley, known as 
 the "Palmetto Grove," in the southeast of the island, 
 and on two or three occasions they were driven thence 
 and forced to disperse into the adjacent forests. 
 
 The thorough exploration that the island had received 
 showed that it contained some three or four thousand 
 acres of very fertile land and about four thousand more 
 acres of land suitable for planting but not as fertile; 
 the rest of the island consisted of rocky hills and shore 
 unfit for cultivation. The forests clothing the lower 
 slopes of the hills contained cedars and other varieties 
 of hard wood, but the supply in 1634 was beginning to 
 run sliort and the colonists obtained better wood from 
 Henrietta Island, where some shallops were built with 
 the aid of Dutch shipwrights. In very dry seasons the 
 brooks in the island ran dry and care had to be taken 
 to husband the water from the springs. Potatoes flour- 
 ished well and were a principal article of the planters' 
 diet; cassava, plantains, pines, oranges, bananas, and 
 melons flourished exceedingly, but figs and vines proved 
 indifferent. Fishing was profitable and turtles were 
 obtained in abundance on the neighbouring cays. The 
 planters found that since their plantations were not 
 enclosed, they had a good deal of difficulty in rearing 
 the cattle sent from England and from Tortuga, and in 
 1634 they had only twelve beasts. Sheep they could not 
 rear at all, but hogs were many, and of poultry they had 
 great store. At the beginning of 1635 there were five 
 hundred white men in the island, including a few Dutch- 
 men, and some forty white women with a few children. 
 The negroes then numbered ninety. The dwellings of the 
 planters were dispersed upon their plantations about 
 the island and were substantially built of timber; at 
 
PEOGRESS AND CONTROVEESY 151 
 
 New Westminster near the harbour there was a village 
 of some thirty well-constructed houses surrounding a 
 commodious brick-built church and a governor's house, 
 also of brick. 
 
 The ever-present fear of the settlers was of attack 
 from the Spaniards and great precautions had to be 
 taken to perfect the fortifications required to repel such 
 attack. The island possessed forty pieces of ordnance 
 mounted in thirteen or fourteen fortified places, and no 
 ship or boat could approach the island but within the 
 command of two or three forts. For the garrison of 
 each of these forts the neighbouring planters were 
 assigned with their servants and they were expected to 
 muster at least once a week for drill under the command 
 of their captain and his lieutenants, whose plantations 
 lay close to the fort. A gunner, paid by the company 
 £20 or £40 a year besides his land, was in charge of the 
 ordnance at each fort and was accustomed to give the 
 planters regular instruction in musketry. The colo- 
 nists had some dozen or so shallops which they used 
 ostensibly for fishing, but also unfortunately for less 
 legitimate purposes. 
 
 It has been shown above that the pinnace Elisabeth, 
 which had originally been intended for the discovery of 
 Fonseca, was in April, 1633, sent to Tortuga with direc- 
 tions to Gov. Hilton to attempt a trade with the Indians 
 at Darien. Such orders, however, did not suit Hilton's 
 purpose and he preferred to remaia in Tortuga and 
 drive a profitable trade in the company's wood with 
 French and Dutch ships. He proved utterly unscrupu- 
 lous in his dealings with the company and they found 
 it quite impossible to secure any payment for the maga- 
 zines they had despatched to him, even though they 
 attempted by legal process in Holland to arrest ships 
 coming from Tortuga with their wood. Two or three 
 
152 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 cargoes he certainly did send to the company's agents 
 at Middleburg and these were disposed of to the cele- 
 brated London merchant, Abraham Chamberlayne,* who 
 sold the wood to dyers in Rouen. It was bought by 
 sample and guaranteed by Hilton to be of uniform 
 quality, but proved in reality to be nothing of the kind, 
 and the company was involved in a long and unpleasant 
 dispute with Chamberlayne, who practically accused 
 them of bad faith, and the dispute had to be finally com- 
 promised at a considerable reduction on the contract 
 price of £23 per ton. Hilton's behaviour to the colonists 
 sent out by the company was very unsatisfactory and 
 we find, from a letter sent by Samuel Filby from Asso- 
 ciation to Sir Thomas Barrington,^ that he was seizing 
 all the tobacco raised in the island and converting it to 
 his own profit. Tortuga was very unhealthy and almost 
 all the English emigrants had perished from fever by 
 the middle of 1634. But not merely was Hilton in hot 
 water with the company, he had left a large number of 
 debts unpaid in Nevis and St. Christopher, and his 
 creditors were talking of arresting the company's ships 
 there in order to secure payment. Thomas Littleton, the 
 financier of Hilton's first voyage, even went so far as 
 to cause the arrest of Capt. Richard Bragg, one of the 
 Tortuga adventurers, who was in Nevis in order to obtain 
 recruits and trade goods for the company's Darien trade. 
 Littleton also threatened to bring a suit against the com- 
 pany to recover Hilton's debts in the English courts, 
 but they refused point-blank to have anything to do with 
 the matter and, in the face of this direct refusal, Littleton 
 took, no further steps. The company's patience with 
 Hilton was at length exhausted and in 1634 directions 
 
 * Blown, Genesis, II, 852, gives his biography; see also Visit, of London, 
 I, 148. 
 
 5 Brit. Mus., Eg., 2646, f o. 67. 
 
PROGRESS AND CONTROVERSY 153 
 
 were sent out for Ms supersession ; if it were found that 
 the conditions in Tortuga were too bad to afford any 
 likelihood of improvement, the remaining inhabitants 
 were to be transported to Providence and the company's 
 ordnance removed. Before these instructions had been 
 long despatched, the company received word of Hilton's 
 death in the island and of the accession of Christopher 
 Wormeley to the governorship; more of Hilton's mis- 
 doings now came to light and it was found that he had 
 been making Tortuga into a regular rendezvous for 
 rovers of all nationalities. 
 
 A certain ship, the Hunter, had been purchased in 
 Rotterdam and victualed and armed at Dover by a 
 Capt. Powell and Thomas Newman, financed by the 
 brother of the latter, a London merchant, one Lionel 
 Newman. Some part of the ordnance was supplied by 
 John Hart, the Providence Company's husband, without 
 authorisation. The vessel sailed from Dover late in 
 1632 or early in 1633 with a few passengers for Tortuga, 
 ostensibly on a peaceable voyage to cut wood there ; just 
 before sailing, however, the leaders announced that they 
 held letters of marque from the Prince of Orange against 
 the Spaniards, but they did not show them to anyone. 
 Near the Canary Islands they attacked and captured 
 two Spanish vessels, and on reaching Tortuga they fitted 
 out one of these as a man-of-war and set sail on a roving 
 cruise in the Mona and Windward passages to lie in 
 wait for Spanish ships. They returned now and again 
 to Tortuga for fresh water, etc., and really made it a 
 headquarters for their piratical enterprise. Gov. Hilton 
 gave them every encouragement, as he did to other rovers, 
 French and Dutch, that came in. On the Hvmter's return 
 to Europe in December, 1634, the booty was unloaded 
 at Rotterdam, and the Spanish government, hearing of 
 the matter, at once protested to the English authorities 
 
154 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 against their countenancing such piracy under cloak of 
 the Providence Company. The parties were cited to 
 appear before the Admiralty Court and there examined, 
 so that the whole matter became public* 
 
 Although rovers were not received at Providence in 
 quite so open a fashion as at Tortuga and though Gov. 
 Bell in one or two instances refused harbourage to Dutch 
 ships whose credentials were not quite satisfactory, yet 
 the fact that Dutch men-of-war (or, as we should now 
 call them, privateers) frequently touched at the island 
 and sometimes sold the colonists captured Spanish 
 ordnance, was sufficient to implicate the island as a 
 harbourage for pirates. The proceedings of some of 
 the colonists themselves were by no means above 
 reproach; Elfrith had been despatched on a voyage to 
 various parts of the West Indies in 1631 and 1632 to 
 secure plants and trees suitable to raise in the island, 
 and although he knew that peace had been proclaimed 
 between England and Spain in November, 1630, and 
 though his commission and instructions explicitly for- 
 bade him to execute any hostile acts except in self- 
 defence, he did not scruple to attack and plunder any 
 small Spanish vessels he came across. His own vessel 
 being unseaworthy, in 1632 he seized a Spanish frigate^ 
 lying in one of the Jamaican harbours, leaving his pin- 
 nace in exchange. The company got wind of this and 
 severely rated him for running such risks and for endan- 
 gering the safety of the colony by his proceedings. The 
 reproof had little effect, but he took good care not to let 
 the company know of his further enterprises. 
 
 The news of Elfrith 's piratical proceedings and the 
 reports brought home by the masters of the company's 
 
 The priueipal depositions are to be found in S. P. Dom., Car. I, Vol. 
 282, Nos. 89 and 90. Others are among the Admiralty Court Becords. 
 T Frigates were small decked vessels of about thirty tons burthen. 
 
PROGRESS AND CONTROVERSY 155 
 
 ships of the difficulty they had had in procuring a return 
 cargo from Providence owing to the sale by the colonists 
 of all their produce to the Dutch, caused the company 
 much uneasiness. They had, of course, known that in 
 settling an island in the very heart of the Indies, they 
 were laying themselves open to Spanish attack, but they 
 desired to avoid as much as possible any proceedings that 
 would put them in the wrong with the English govern- 
 ment and deprive them of the right of asking for national 
 support in any dispute that might arise with Spain. 
 Pym's directions to BeU, however, were very disin- 
 genuous and savoured of a desire to do as much harm 
 as possible to Spain without running any risks. If any 
 ordnance taken by the Dutch were offered for sale to 
 him, he was to purchase it in exchange for commodities 
 or victuals, but he was to destroy as far as possible any 
 evidence of its origin. Too great a resort of ships to 
 the island was to be deprecated, as it might endanger its 
 safety, but if a ship came in for relief, he might grant 
 it at a reasonable charge. The restrictions on free trade 
 with strange ships in general were retained, "lest your 
 measures should be discovered and a greater envy of 
 the Spaniards drawn upon you for being a receptacle and 
 relief to their enemies." We must remember as some 
 palliation of this double dealing that, at the period of 
 which we write, the savage war between the United 
 Provinces and Spain was still being waged, a war 
 wherein at sea quarter was hardly ever granted by either 
 side to its adversaries, wherein every Hollander was 
 regarded as a rebel and traitor against his lawful sov- 
 ereign and every Spaniard as a sharer in the guilt of 
 Alva and of Philip. It was perhaps a maxim of English 
 policy that there was "No peace beyond the Une," but 
 Englishmen and Spaniards did regard one another as 
 honourable enemies and conducted their mutual dealings 
 
156 PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 with reasonable courtesy and a desire to avoid unneces- 
 sary cruelty; no measure, however, could be too atrocious 
 for a Spaniard or a Hollander to employ against his 
 hated foe and not for many years were the bitter memo- 
 ries of Haarlem and Alkmaar assuaged. Hence the 
 company's desire that Bell should not identify himself 
 too closely with Dutch interests was merely an evidence 
 of statesmanlike caution and prudence. 
 
 The company's uneasiness concerning the safety of 
 the island, in view of the constant rumours of Spanish 
 preparations, was increased by the reports they received 
 of dissensions in the island. Elfrith and Axe had dis- 
 agreed in 1631 about the division of the company's share 
 of the first planters' tobacco, and, instead of showing 
 signs of healing, the estrangement had become wider as 
 time went on. Elfrith was constantly interfering with 
 Axe's exercise of military authority and, in virtue of his 
 position as admiral of the island, had succeeded in mak- 
 ing himself a nuisance to everybody. Axe had become 
 so disgusted at the state of affairs that he took advantage 
 of Camock's expedition to the Main to leave Providence 
 for the time being and settle himself on the largest of 
 the Moskito Cays, lying midway between Providence and 
 the cape, in charge of Camock's depot of stores and pro- 
 visions. This was a considerable loss to the colony, for 
 Axe was one of its most capable officers. Constant little 
 disagreements were arising in the council on questions 
 of precedence and the use of heated language; even a 
 slight knowledge of New England history would convince 
 us that a seventeenth century Puritan was a very touchy 
 person and the numerous discomforts of the West Indian 
 climate did nothing to lessen this touchiness in Provi- 
 dence. To a modern mind, the amount of trouble the 
 company gave themselves in clearing up some of these 
 silly disputes seems an egregious waste of energy. 
 
PROGEESS AND CONTEOVERSY 157 
 
 Thomas Hunt, tlie secretary of the island, was accused 
 to the company at home of what were called "grave 
 falsifications" of the records, but when we examine the 
 charges they turn out to involve merely a small amount 
 of carelessness and inaccurticy. He had omitted to 
 cancel an article in the records concerning a charge of 
 Halhead against the Eev. Mr. Eous of enticing away one 
 of his servants; he had sent the accusation to England 
 and had omitted the servant's name, he had entered 
 depositions on the matter in the records after it had been 
 remitted to the company, and so on. And yet to this 
 puerile charge the company devoted two whole meetings 
 and in the end administered to Hunt a reproof of por- 
 tentous weight, filling two closely written folio pages of 
 the letter book. Lieut. WilUam Eous, in the violence of 
 an argument, had lost his temper and had smacked the 
 face of Forman, the principal smith in the island; he 
 was in consequence suspended ftom his place at the 
 council table until he should acknowledge his fault. Grov. 
 Bell, however, who found Eous too useful a member of 
 the council to be dispensed with, absolved him from his 
 fault and restored him to his seat without the public 
 apology, but the company, on learning of the matter, 
 regarded this as far too lenient a way of deahng with 
 so heinous a fault. It was ordered that Eous be sus- 
 pended until he made a public acknowledgment accord- 
 ing to the censure, and that the governor be sharply 
 reproved for having "acted in an undue manner." The 
 quaint proviso was added that Rous's suspension was 
 not to involve a suspension from training his men — ^the 
 company's interests must not be neglected. 
 
 But it was not always with such insignificant charges 
 that the company had to deal; the hot "West Indian sun 
 sometimes provoked crimes of hideous cruelty and vio- 
 lence at the expense of a master's unfortunate servants. 
 
158 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 Capt. William Eudyerd returned to England in the 
 Golden Falcon in May, 1634, and many in the island 
 breathed more freely at his departure, for Eudyerd, 
 during his three years' stay in Providence, had been 
 noted for his cruelty to his servants. One, Fload, had 
 suffered so much that he ran away from the plantation 
 and took refuge in the hills, but was recaptured and 
 brought back. Though he was suffering from scurvy, 
 Eudyerd beat him and continued to treat him cruelly. 
 A second time Fload ran away and complained to the 
 governor without securing redress; Eudyerd again 
 f^captured him, had him tied to a tree and ordered three 
 other servants to beat him with rods and then rub salt 
 into his wounds. Poor Fload lingered in agony for six 
 weeks and then died of the injuries he had received. 
 Eudyerd 's influence with the company was sufficient to 
 save him frpm punishment for his misdeeds, but it was 
 evident to all that he was a very unsuitable officer to 
 wield command. 
 
 The amount of real crime in the island never appears 
 to have been large and the majority of the offences dealt 
 with by the council were small offences against morality 
 or public decency. So great a part of the council's time, 
 however, was taken up in dealing with judicial business 
 that in 1633 the company directed that justices of the 
 peace should be appointed to deal with petty matters 
 of police ; only grave crimes were to be tried before the 
 governor in council. As time went on a small class 
 of independent shopkeepers grew up in the island, who 
 bought the stores and provisions brought by the com- 
 pany's or by strangers' ships, and disposed of them to 
 the colonists at a profit. It was against this evil of 
 engrossing rather than against the quality of goods from 
 the company's stores that the planters complained to 
 the company after the first two years of the colony's 
 
PEOGEESS AND CONTEOVEESY 159 
 
 existence. Pym's constant care and supervision seem 
 to have ensured that the goods sent out in the company's 
 magazine were reasonable in^price and of good quality. 
 In order to guard against the evils of which the planters 
 complained, careful regulations were drawn up to ensure 
 that these goods should be sold on their arrival in a free 
 and open market, but engrossing still occurred until 
 the constant resort of ships to the island and the 
 removal of restrictions on trade with strangers prac- 
 tically brought effective competition into play and the 
 evils were .automaticaUy removed. 
 
 The company had to fight hard against a system that 
 was always tending to increase, whereby a planter, hav- 
 ing started a plantation in the island, placed in charge 
 of it an overseer who was to work it with negroes or 
 white servants and to forward the profits to the owner, 
 who had returned to England. This system was evi- 
 dently a bad one and the company attempted to check 
 it by enacting that while planters were at liberty to let 
 their plantations and the servants, who worked them, as 
 long as they remained in the island, as soon as they 
 departed all their interest in the plantation was to cease, 
 and the plantation to escheat to the company. In special 
 circumstances, permission might be granted for a planter 
 to come home, provided he promised to return to Provi- 
 dence by the next ship, and in such a case he might let 
 his plantation for the period of his absence. It was the 
 fixed intention of the leaders that the colony should not 
 become what Barbadoes was already fast becoming, a 
 colony almost wholly in the hands of servants and factors 
 and owned by absentee landlords. 
 
 It must have become evident in the course of our 
 enquiry that many causes were tending to form Provi- 
 dence into something very different from the ideal Puri- 
 tan community aimed at by its English founders. Not 
 
160 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 the least of these causes were the intolerance and narrow- 
 ness of the Puritan ministers and their constant en- 
 croachments upon the civil power. The defect seems to 
 have been inherent in the Puritan temper, for we may 
 note it at work in New England, in Scotland, and in other 
 Calvinist communities. But whereas in Massachusetts 
 such leaders of the colony as Winthrop and Endecott, 
 though in favour of theocracy, had yet a strong enough 
 backing of public opinion to limit its exercise within 
 reasonable bounds, in the tiny Providence community 
 the outrageous claims of the ministers resulted in the 
 formation of two factions, a small body of zealots 
 opposed to a large party that had lost the earnestness 
 of Puritanism and considered solely their material wel- 
 fare. A quotation or two from the records will illus- 
 trate the progressive antagonising of many of the 
 colonists by the ministers as their claims became more 
 and more aggressive. Henry Halhead was, as we have 
 shown, a strong Puritan and in entire sympathy with 
 the views of the company, but Ditloff suspended him 
 from the sacrament (1632), "first for that he did not 
 redeliver a stone which he had received from the 
 Apothecary, though in answer he alleged that he sup- 
 posed that he had delivered it, howsoever that he knew 
 not where it was, yet offered to make any honest satis- 
 faction. Secondly for affirming to himself [Ditloff] that 
 Mate Wells was a carnal man and would sometimes 
 swear, yet to others that he was an honest and religious 
 man, and afterwards denying to him that he used the 
 word 'carnal.' " The disproportion between these petty 
 charges and the punishment meted out caused the com- 
 pany to write: "Though Mr. Halhead did upon answer 
 again affirm that, in conference with Mr. Ditloff, he did 
 not use the word 'carnal,' we think it an unfitting thing 
 that any minister should keep a man from the Com- 
 
PEOGRESS AND CONTROVERSY 161 
 
 munion for the foresaid causes alleged in your letter, 
 and cannot imagine that any Minister will be so indis- 
 creet as to do the like hereafter and therefore in such 
 cases we do absolutely forbid it to be done." The com- 
 pany further decreed that censures were to be drawn 
 up by the civil magistrates and only if they are to be 
 made public in the congregation should the minister be 
 consulted. Ditloff, it will be remembered, left the island 
 in 1633, and it was only after he had relinquished entirely 
 the company's employment that they learned of the high- 
 handed way in which he had interfered with the gov- 
 ernor's ordinances concerning the management of his 
 parish. In 1634 the company wrote: "We commend 
 Mr. Sherrard very much for his discreet and orderly 
 carriage, but we discommend the other [Ditloff] in all 
 the parts of those proceedings, conceiving that no 
 authority belongs to the Ministers or Parishioners of 
 themselves to do an act of that nature. And whereas he 
 claimed such a power as given to him from us by word 
 of mouth, we do utterly disclaim it. If he had not gone 
 to his country, we would have punished him." 
 
 Bell had had a good deal of experience in dealing with 
 cantankerous ministers in the Somers Islands and did 
 his best to hold an even balance between the two factions. 
 He attempted in as far as he was able to carry out the 
 company's desires for the preservation of a rigid 
 decorum in the island, but he found it very difficult to 
 prevent many of the looser sort gathering in New West- 
 minster and refusing to do any work in the plantations. 
 In 1634 the company wrote that those who would not 
 work were not to have any supplies from the stores, 
 "according to the Apostle's rule — ^he that will not 
 labour, let him not eat. Let care be taken that diligence 
 may be supplied and the sluggard clothed with rags." 
 They very much approved of the governor's proclama- 
 
162 PUBITAN COLONISATION 
 
 tion for preventing mixed dances, but "are sorry to hear 
 that, notwithstanding your care and our direction, some 
 have the boldness to speak against such restraints. If 
 any shall appear to do so we wish that they may be 
 admonished, it showing an ill-affection to piety and an 
 opposition to authority. We forbear as yet to send 
 more particular directions for preventing the abuse of 
 God's creatures, but refer it to you at present to take 
 the best course you shall be able and to advise with the 
 ministers to second your authority with their public 
 exhortations. ' ' But while the company were thus ready 
 to back up the governor when his views coincided with 
 their own, they were not in the least prepared to give 
 him a free hand. There is an echo of the constitutional 
 struggle in England in the reproof addressed to Bell in 
 1634 for his use of an independent judgment. The 
 company supported him against the councillors who had 
 not observed the respect due to his office, and they 
 approved the discontinuance of his personal body-guard, 
 of which the cost was very great, but they go on to say 
 that in many cases he seems to have grounded his 
 authority "upon a supposed privilege, which you call 
 Prerogative, annexed to your place. Our resolution in 
 that point will appear in the general letter, and we will 
 only add here that we know no such thing as the Gov- 
 ernor's Prerogative, being such that you cannot find in 
 our Instruction, neither do we like the use of that horrid 
 word. . . . Again for the word absolute power, we do 
 utterly dislike the language and therefore would not 
 have it once named, the same tending to the discourage- 
 ment of men's stay and coming thither." Too frequent 
 meetings of the council, they added, caused desertion of 
 the councillors' private business and he should there- 
 fore set definite times for them and not vary them except 
 in extraordinary circumstances. The meetings must be 
 
PEOGEESS AND CONTEOVEESY 163 
 
 secret, for "it suits not with the gravity of councillors 
 to discuss their affairs of counsel in the audience of the 
 country especially when there shall arise any difference 
 among them." These words have interest when we 
 remember that they were penned by that leader of the 
 Long Parliament whose speeches were the first parlia- 
 mentary utterances to be circulated throughout the 
 nation at large and gave an immense circulation of those 
 gazettes and broadsheets that were the earliest fore- 
 runners of the modern newspapers. 
 
 The dissensions in the island at the end of 1634 were 
 beginning to make Bell's position of mediator an imprac- 
 ticable one, for, while on the one hand the planters were 
 writing home to the company accusing him of caring 
 rather for his own interests than those of the company 
 and of favouring the views of the impracticable ministers 
 in restraint of freedom of enterprise, on the other the 
 ministers were accusing him of impiety and despotism 
 for attempting to curb their pretensions. Hope Sherrard 
 had been imprisoned in his own house by Bell for per- 
 sistently flouting the authority of the governor and 
 council, and by stirring up his more fanatical followers 
 to attack those planters who did not at once make implicit 
 submission to his ecclesiastical censures." 
 . As we have shown, the Golden Falcon carried out to 
 Providence in July, 1633, the last distinctively Puritan 
 emigrants from England, under the command of a min- 
 ister, Henry Eoot. The conditions Eoot found prevail- 
 ing in the island were so little like those of a strictly 
 Puritan community that he refused to remain, and 
 returned to England in the same ship in May, 1634, to 
 voice the views of the Puritan faction in the island and 
 to open the eyes of the company to the impiety and 
 
 8 Cf. Sherrard 's letter of February 25, 1635, to his patron. Sir Thomas 
 Barrington. Brit. Mus., Eg., 2646, fo. 76. 
 
164 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 laxity that, he said, were rampant and with which Sher- 
 rard was left to deal single-handed. Root's story was 
 supplemented by that of the protagonist of the other 
 side, William Rudyerd, who stated that the island was 
 not in itself worth the keeping, but could easily be forti- 
 fied and held by six hundred men against any force sent 
 to attack it, while a hundred ships might ride safely at 
 anchor in its harbour under the command of the ord- 
 nance in the forts. These stories must have been a hard 
 blow to Pym and the more strongly Puritan adven- 
 turers, who had aimed at founding an ideal Puritan 
 community for the refuge of the oppressed, and had 
 found that they had sunk their money in a colony that 
 appeared good for nothing but a privateer's stronghold. 
 Root proposed to return to the island with a large party 
 of Puritans, if the company would give him a free hand 
 in expelling those whose life and conduct did not con- 
 form to the most rigid Puritan standard. Such expul- 
 sions had already been frequent in MassQ^chusetts Bay, 
 as was of course well known to the company. Root's 
 proposals were fully and carefully considered, but before 
 a conclusion could be arrived at, many events had taken 
 place that forced the hand of the company, and these we 
 must now consider. 
 
 The coast of the province of Honduras, which at first 
 runs practically due east from the head of the Golfo 
 Dolce, takes a sharp turn to the southward at the cape 
 which has been known ever since Columbus's discovery 
 of it in his third voyage as Cape Gracias & Dios' (or 
 Gratia de Dios), "Thanks to God," for the promise 
 vouchsafed by this change in direction that the search for 
 a strait into the Sea of Cathay might not be a fruitless 
 one. The whole of the coast near the cape in either 
 direction is low-lying and is fringed with many small 
 
 Herrera, Deoadas, 6, fo. 18. 
 
PROGRESS AND CONTROVERSY 165 
 
 cays. A large river empties into the sea near the cape 
 through a many-mouthed delta, and this river has been 
 called by many names ; most maps now give its name as 
 the Wanks or Segovia River, but it always appears to 
 have been known to the English frequenters of the coast 
 simply as the Cape River. The coast is fairly well 
 peopled by tribes of the MosMto Indians and near the 
 cape itself there are several of their villages surrounding 
 a harbour of large size. 
 
 It was upon the shores of this harbour that Capt. 
 Sussex Camock established his first trading post sur- 
 rounded by a palisade, and it was up the course of the 
 Cape River that he attempted to penetrate into the 
 interior and get into touch with the Indian tribes. He 
 did not think it safe to commit the whole of his trading 
 truck to the chances of Indian hostility upon the main- 
 land, so a depot was established upon the largest of the 
 Moskito Cays lying some eight or ten miles off shore, 
 and this was committed to the care of his second in 
 command, Capt. Samuel Axe. The trade was under- 
 taken in a very systematic fashion, small parties being 
 sent out to all Indian villages within reach. The goods 
 issued out of the store to each of the parties were 
 entered in a register ; to every party a man was assigned 
 who could write and read, and he was provided with 
 pens, paper, and ink, so that he might keep an exact 
 journal in writing of the events that happened every 
 day amongst his company, and on return to the rendez- 
 vous these journals were carefully copied into a ledger. 
 Anyone who had strayed from his party and had not com- 
 mitted his observations to writing, was to be examined 
 on his return and his statements recorded. Great care 
 was taken to prevent private trade, especially by mari- 
 ners, and the company on several occasions had up 
 before them on return to England the mariners who were 
 
166 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 accused of breach, of this rule; they even attempted to 
 put a stop to the trade in parrots and monkeys by 
 charging the sailors ten shillings apiece for their freight. 
 Full directions had been given to Camock regarding the 
 commodities he was to search out and send home, and 
 he had a fair measure of success in the quest, but some 
 elusive rarities baflBed him. He could find "silk-grass, 
 gum of pine trees, lignum vitse, and other gums, annatto, 
 tomarin, skins of all beasts that have any fur or seem 
 vendible, cassia fistula, sarsaparilla, guiacum, mecoa- 
 chan or wild potatoes, red oil and contra yerba, which 
 is antidote against poison of serpents and arrows," but 
 we never hear of his success as regards "the bezar stone, 
 the manatee stone, or the stone in the alligator's head." 
 
 It was an especial fear of the company that Camock 
 would come into contact with the Spaniards, and he was 
 repeatedly cautioned against aggression. "We desire 
 you," wrote the company, "to remove all occasions of 
 jealousy or suspicion that this design should be intended 
 for plunder rather than for the business of lawful trade. 
 And therefore take special order that none be employed 
 to take anything from the Spaniards or any other nation 
 by violence or otherwise than by way of peaceful com- 
 merce. "We pray you to have a special care of the fugitive 
 Spaniard that we hear is with you lest he should escape 
 and so make his own peace by betraying of that business. 
 While he is amongst you let his usage be as he deserves. ' ' 
 
 By the end of 1634 the trade on the Main appeared 
 so successful and Camock 's flax promised to be so much 
 of a commercial success, that the principal members of 
 the company resolved that a fresh patent for the trade 
 should be obtained and special subscriptions invited for 
 its carrying on to the exclusion of the Hollanders who, 
 they heard, were beginning to cast their eyes upon the 
 
PROGRESS AND CONTROVERSY 167 
 
 Moskito Coast. Oliver St. John and Pym were deputed 
 to draw a patent entirely distinct from the patent of 
 the Providence Company, and the Earl of Holland 
 promised to move the king for a grant and to crave the 
 assistance of the lord treasurer.^" A good deal of dis- 
 cussion took place as to whether everyone in the Provi- 
 dence Company should be permitted to invest in the 
 new company or whether they should not be first com- 
 pelled to complete their adventures in Providence. Sir 
 Nathaniel Rich maintained the view that no one should 
 be permitted to enter the new company unless he had 
 subscribed to every adventure before ;^^ but Pym took 
 the far more generous view that by subscribing at all 
 to the Providence Company the adventurers had ac- 
 quired a right to participate in any new ventures. He 
 held that the trade at the Main was contemplated in the 
 original design of the Providence Company, that each 
 subscriber to the preference stock had contributed 
 towards the expenses of exploring the Main as well as 
 to the expenses of Providence, and that Camock's party 
 were the employes of the whole company. He urged, 
 therefore, that every member should have the right to 
 subscribe if he thought fit, and even if he did not sub- 
 scribe, he should have a right to a portion of the profits. 
 Pym's views, however, were too broad for the rest of 
 the company, and at the motion of Sir Nathaniel Rich ■ 
 it was resolved that everything done in the past should 
 be neglected and only those subscribing to the stock of 
 the new company should receive any benefit from the 
 new trade. 
 
 10 Weston, Earl of Portland. 
 
 "In the short life of Sir Nathaniel Rich in the Diet. Nat. Biog., his 
 attitude is entirely misrepresented. It is stated that he pursued a forward 
 policy and in 1635 advocated admission of all adventurers to the trade of 
 the Main. This is almost the contrary of his real proposal 
 
168 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 The new patent was issued in March, 1635," to the 
 earls of Warwick and Holland and their associates under 
 the name of * ' The Governor and Company of Adventur- 
 ers of the City of London for a trade upon the coasts 
 and islands of divers parts of America." The right of 
 sole trade with the heathen on the shores of the Carib- 
 bean was granted to the new company where they were 
 not under the dominion of any Christian, prince. The 
 company was granted for fourteen years "the sole 
 manufacture of all thread and stuff to be made of a 
 kind of flagg or grass brought from those parts and not 
 in common use in this kingdom, which is by them called 
 Cammock's flax, and of the sole manufacture and 
 employment of all kinds of new materials and mer- 
 chandize not heretofore commonly used in this Realm, 
 which shall by them be brought from those parts, and 
 found to be profitable and useful here. They are to pay 
 custom for the said Cammock's flax after the rate of the 
 best unwrought flax now brought into this kingdom and 
 for all other commodities after the rate of 5 per cent 
 according to the clear value of the goods and not above. ' ' 
 It was decided that as all the officers of the Providence 
 Company, save the Earl of Holland, were subscribers 
 to the stock of the new company, the same officers should 
 serve both for the plantation and for the trade. 
 
 We have already seen that considerable difficulty was 
 found by the company in obtaining Puritan emigrants to 
 the colony and that only a few had gone out with Root 
 in the Golden Falcon in 1633. The voyage of 1634 was 
 planned on a more lavish scale than that of 1633, and 
 the money obtained by the issue of the preference stock" 
 
 i2Docquet Book, March, 163%. The grant is apparently not calendared 
 in C. S. P. Colonial or Domestic. 
 
 13 See p. 126. When this preference stock was fully subscribed the total 
 sum paid up on each whole share of adventure was £1025. In July, 1634, 
 the total paid-up capital of the company amounted to about £20,000. 
 
PROGRESS AND CONTROVERSY 169 
 
 was devoted to hiring a ship of three hundred tons, the 
 Long Robert, and purchasing a pinnace and ketch to 
 accompany her. Two well-furnished magazines were put 
 on board and Pym gave a large amount of personal atten- 
 tion to seeing that everything sent was of excellent qual- 
 ity. It was found almost impossible to secure emigrants 
 of decent standing, and with the exception of a few 
 planters returning to Providence, a minister, Bartholo- 
 mew Styles, going to Association, and one or two Puritan 
 gentlemen, the passengers were bond-servants recruited 
 by paid agents" and sent out to serve the officers and 
 council. Difficulties were found in getting together even 
 penniless servants and the company complained bitterly 
 in their letters to the council that the discouraging infor- 
 mation sent home in the planters' letters had prevented 
 decent, God-fearing men of substance from emigrating to 
 Providence. In order to make up the deficiency, the 
 master of the Long Robert was directed to call at St. 
 Christopher and attempt to recruit for the colony among 
 the planters and servants there. He was also to call at 
 Association and purchase thirty negroes, who were to 
 be transported to Providence and were allotted as ser- 
 vants to the officers. Nothing could indicate more 
 plainly than did these directions that the company 
 recognised the failure of their attempt to provide in the 
 Caribbean a second home for Puritan refugees. 
 
 The total expenditure on the voyage amounted to 
 £3000 and the Long Robert and her consorts left England 
 in September, 1634. It was expected that a full and 
 valuable freight would be found awaiting her at Provi- 
 dence, but these expectations were woefully disappointed. 
 In June, 1635, the vessel returned, bringing nothing but 
 
 14 Eighteen shilliags a head was received for servants by the lecruiting 
 agents at this period, but a couple of years later as much as 22s. was given 
 owing to the increased difficulty of obtaining recruits. 
 
170 PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 a poor cargo of tobacco and cotton, and. with many of 
 the quondam planters of the colony on board. Their 
 complaints of the conduct of the governor and council 
 and their girdings at the restraints upon their conduct 
 imposed by the minister, Sherrard, were a poor return 
 to the company, whose orders the governor and minister 
 had endeavoured to carry out to the best of their ability. 
 And not merely were the Puritan members of the com- 
 pany hurt in the failure of their ideals of a Puritan 
 community; their pockets also were badly hit, for the 
 voyage of the Long Robert, instead of doing something 
 to reimburse the adventurers for their previous expendi- 
 ture, had added a sum of at least £1300 to the company's 
 indebtedness. The goods brought home in the Robert 
 fetched only £328-5s.-ld., and the thirteen undertakers 
 for the voyage had to pay in £100-15s.-2i4d. each to make 
 up the deficiency. The total amount owed by the com- 
 pany, not including this £1309, was £2750, and this 
 indebtedness was a constant source of uneasiness to the 
 treasurer, Pym. In May, 1635, he pointed out to the 
 company that, at the departure of the Long Robert, the 
 company's assets exceeded its liabilities, so that the 
 whole of the debt had accrued in a year. He "put the 
 Company in mind of the burden and charge of that office 
 of Treasurer, which he had borne ever since their first 
 incorporation, whereby he had been diverted from his 
 own business and put upon extraordinary expense." 
 At Sir Nathaniel Eich's motion, it was resolved to make 
 a levy upon all members to pay off the debt. The feel- 
 ings of Rich and of Pym, who had been so energetic in 
 persuading their friends and relatives to become adven- 
 turers and to invest money in the enterprise, must have 
 been none of the pleasantest, and from 1635 onwards we 
 find that no more adventurers of the same class joined 
 the company, but almost all of the additional capital 
 
PROGEESS AND CONTROVERSY 171 
 
 raised was contributed by the wealthy men who were 
 already adventurers, Warwick, Saye, Brooke, Rudyerd, 
 and Pym, together with two other wealthy Puritans, Lord 
 Mandeville and Sir William Waller. 
 
 Although the results of the Long Robert's voyage were 
 not yet known, no money could be raised to send out a 
 ship in 1635, and the needful supplies to the island to the 
 value of £716 were forwarded by the ship Expectation, 
 owned by William Woodcock, the company's husband, 
 which was sailing for St. Christopher and was placed 
 at the company's disposal after she had finished her 
 unlading there. Only twenty passengers went out in her 
 and with the exception of ten servants and of Sherrard's 
 betrothed, who was going out to be married to him, none 
 of them were fresh to the colony. The Expectation left 
 England in April, 1635, and returned in the following 
 December, briaging the news of the great Spanish attack 
 on Providence, which we shall consider in a subsequent 
 chapter. With the return of the Expectation, the history 
 of Providence as a Puritan haven may be said in the 
 main to have come to an end and consequently our 
 interest at this point centers on different aspects of the 
 story. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 PROJECTED EMIGRATION TO CONNECTICUT: 
 SAYBROOK 
 
 In an earlier chapter we left the story of the Puritans 
 of New England at the time when the great expedition 
 set sail under John Winthrop, the elder, and the colony 
 of Massachusetts sprang into vigorous life. From 
 the very first there was little doubt of success, and by 
 1635 a flourishing and already fairly prosperous com- 
 munity was spread around the shores of Massachusetts 
 Bay. Our interest now turns once more to this main 
 stream of Puritan migration, as did the minds of the 
 Puritan leaders in England, and it seems at last possible 
 with the means at our disposal to supply the true version 
 of a story that has in the past caused much controversy. 
 After the restoration of Charles II to the English throne 
 in 1660, it was said by the royalist writers, Dr. George 
 Bate and Sir William Dugdale, that about 1638 the 
 Puritan leaders, Pym, Hampden, and Cromwell, em- 
 barked on shipboard with the intention of proceeding 
 to New England, but that they were stopped by the king's 
 orders and compelled to remain iu England, to plot 
 rebellion. This story has been largely discredited by 
 historians, and John Forster, the biographer of Pym, 
 having shown that such an occurrence could not have 
 taken place in 1638 or later, came to the conclusion that 
 no credence could be attached to Dugdale 's statement. 
 That actual embarkation took place is certainly untrue, 
 but our present investigation seems to make clear that 
 the story is a fair interpretation of the plans of Pym, 
 
SAYBROOK: PROJECTED EMIGRATION 173 
 
 Hampden, and others; and, though it is impossible to 
 speak definitely as to the plans of Oliver Cromwell, who, 
 down to 1642, was not regarded as a person of much 
 importance among the Puritans, yet there is a proba- 
 bility that he would have followed the path of his friends 
 had it been necessary. 
 
 The absolutist regime, that had been entered upon by 
 Charles I after the dissolution of parliament in 1629, 
 had by 1635 been in full activity for six years and to 
 those who regarded externals only must have appeared 
 to justify itself by its success. Clarendon asserts of this 
 time that never had England enjoyed such order and 
 prosperity and never had her material well-being been 
 more envied by her distracted and war-ridden Conti- 
 nental neighbours. But in reality the mood of despair 
 that had overwhelmed the best minds of the nation in 
 1629 had not been dispelled as time went on, and by 1635 
 it seemed as though England were destined to remain 
 subject to a well-meaning but incapable and capricious 
 despotism. Beneath the outward cahn, deep discontent 
 lay hid, for nearly every class in the community found 
 itself attacked or menaced by the injudicious meddle- 
 someness of the government or by its unwise devices for 
 the increase of the revenues of the crown. To the 
 ordinary man these devices were irksome and unsettling 
 enough, but to an earnest Puritan, whose religious feel- 
 ings were at the same time being outraged by his 
 Arminian enemies in high places, they were unbearable. 
 The tide of migration to New England, that had begun 
 to flow when Winthrop and his followers sailed in 1630, 
 had moved on with ever-swelling increase, till 1635 saw 
 the largest number of emigrants leave England's shores 
 for Massachusetts that ever passed thither.^ Thence- 
 forward the tide began to slacken as the progressive 
 
 1 Hutchinson 's History of Massachusetts Bay, I, 41. 
 
174 PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 steps taken against the royal absolutism began to 
 rouse men's hopes in a restoration of parliamentary 
 government. 
 
 It will be remembered'' that on March 19, 1632, the 
 Earl of Warwick, then president of the New England 
 Council, deeded a tract of land south of Massachusetts 
 to a body of patentees including most of the members 
 of the Providence Company. On the 21st and 26th of 
 the following June,* the New England Council agreed 
 to the rough draft of a patent to Warwick, who directed 
 that it be made out to Lord Rich and his associates, but 
 there is no evidence that a patent was ever actually 
 issued. That a blank draft was drawn up is clear, but, 
 in default of a formal confirmation by the council, the 
 deed of March remained without validity. Warwick had 
 for some time been getting out of touch with the rest of 
 the New England Coimcil, owing to his patronage of the 
 Massachusetts settlers, and this renewed attempt to 
 establish another Puritan settlement in New England 
 seems to have finally brought "about an open breach with 
 Gorges, for the meeting at which it was made was the 
 last at which the earl was present, and within a week we 
 find the members resolving to reconstitute the council 
 and sending to the Earl of Warwick to ask him to deliver 
 up the council's seal. From November, 1632, the council 
 fell entirely into the hands of the court party under the 
 presidency, first of the Earl of Lindsey and later of 
 Hamilton, Arundel, and Carlisle with Ferdinando 
 Gorges as its leading and most active member. The 
 affairs of the council became a crying scandal by 1635 
 and consisted mainly of quarrels over the division of 
 lands ; so serious had matters become that the king was 
 
 2 See p. 83. 
 
 8 ' ' Becords of ConneU for New England, ' ' at Warwick House, 21 and 26 
 June, 1632, Froc. of Amer. Antiq. Soc. for 1867, p. 100. 
 
SAYBROOK: PROJECTED EMIGRATION 175 
 
 bound to step in, and the charter was surrendered into 
 his hands on April ^5, 1635, the last act of the council 
 being to publish a manifesto reciting the wrongs done 
 to its members and especially to the Gorges family by 
 the Massachusetts settlers. 
 
 The winter of 1634-1635 was a particularly trying time 
 for the Puritan leaders in England, who were harassed 
 by the government at all points. At the forest court 
 held for Waltham Forest in October, 1634, both Warwick 
 and Barrington suffered in their estates by Sir John 
 Finch's strict enforcement of the forest laws;* Saye had 
 been attacked both on his Oxfordshire and his Gloucester- 
 shire estates, and Brooke in Warwickshire in the same 
 way. Pym, in the winter of 1633-1634, had been twice 
 sued by the attorney-general for remaining in London 
 to look after the business of the Providence Company 
 instead of returning to his house in the country. The 
 Roman emissary, Gregorio Panzani, had been welcomed 
 with open arms at court and conversions to the Roman 
 Church were being announced daily; while the laws 
 against recusants, so dear to the hearts of the Puritan 
 leaders, were everywhere a dead letter, the archbishop's 
 metropolitical visitation was in full swing and Puritan 
 divines were everywhere being silenced, browbeaten, 
 and fined. Early in 1635, Warwick had to suffer the 
 indignity of dividing his lord lieutenancy of Essex with 
 Lord Maynard, and on the death of Lord Treasurer 
 Portland in March, 1635, another powerful office fell 
 under the sway of the hated archbishop, who was placed 
 first on the commission to exercise the lord treasurer- 
 
 * C. 8. p. Dom., 1634-1635, p. xxxiii. For Saye and the Forest of Whieh- 
 wood in Oxfordshire, see Whiteloeke's Memorials, I, 70. 
 
 GardineT (VIII, 129) shows that there was an ever-spreading apprehen- 
 sion of danger at this time. The English Church might at any time fall 
 a victim to a conspiracy carried on in the very name of the king by Laud, 
 its prime mover. 
 
176 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 ship. The first writ of ship-money had been levied on 
 maritime counties in October, 1634, with a reasonable 
 plea of urgent naval necessity, but the winter was full 
 of rumours that the impost was to be extended over the 
 whole country,^ and this was quite a different matter. 
 
 The cup of bitterness for the Puritan leaders was filled 
 to overflowing and they began to think that the time had 
 come for them also to look across the Atlantic for fresh 
 homes, where so many of their humble brethren had 
 already gone. John Winthrop, the younger, had lost his 
 wife in September, 1634, and sailed for England in 
 October, much disillusioned with Massachusetts and 
 desiring to begin a settlement elsewhere in New England. 
 It was only natural that on his return to London he 
 should enter into close communication with those who 
 had been such good friends to Massachusetts as Lord 
 Saye and Sir Nathaniel Rich, and should give them all 
 the personal information he could about the new colonies. 
 It has not been possible to trace the details of the nego- 
 tiations that went on in the spring of 1635, and indeed 
 it seems very unlikely that it will ever be possible to 
 do so, for both Saye and Brooke were constant objects 
 of suspicion to the government' and would commit as 
 little as possible of their projects to paper. 
 
 No steps had been taken to act upon the Saybrook 
 grant, which Warwick had drawn up, until July, 1633,'^ 
 
 Bin June the lord keeper, Coventry, openly told -the judges, "Upon 
 advice [the King] hath resolved that he will forthwith send out new writs 
 for the preparation of a greater fleet next year and that not only to the 
 maritime towns but to all the kingdom besides." Bushworth, II, 294. 
 
 « C. S. P. Dom., 1635, p. 164. 
 
 T In the year 1633, Saye, Brooke, Saltonstall, Easelrigg, and others pur- 
 chased for £2150 the interest of an association of merchants from Bristol, 
 Shrewsbury, and other towns of western England in Fiscataqua and Ken- 
 nebec, and became involved with the Plymouth colony on account of the 
 murder of Capt. Hocking. Bradford, Eist. of Plym. Plant, (ed. 1912, 
 Ford), pp. 175-180, and notes. 
 
SAYBROOK: PROJECTED EMIGRATION 177 
 
 when the Providence Company agreed to lend to Lords 
 Saye and Brooke five pieces of ordnance, viz., two 
 minions and three faulcons, for their use in New Eng- 
 land, but nothing further was done until, in May, 1635, 
 Sir Richard Saltonstall sent out twenty men — the Stiles 
 party* — to the Connecticut Valley to make a beginning 
 of a settlement under the grant, and Woodcock, the 
 husband of the Providence Company, was directed to 
 assemble stores for the despatch of a larger expedition. 
 It was at last decided definitely that southern Connecti- 
 cut should replace Providence as the scene of the building 
 up of the Puritan colony planned by the patentees, and 
 on July 7, 1635,* an agreement was signed with John 
 "Winthrop, jr., as leader of the pioneer expedition on 
 their behalf. In the words of his commission, "He shall 
 endeavour to provide able men, to the munber of fifty 
 at least, for making of fortifications and building of 
 houses at the river Connecticut and the harbour adjoin- 
 ing, first for their own present accommodation, and then 
 such houses as may receive men of quality, which houses 
 we would have to be builded in the fort. ' ' The commis- 
 sion was signed for the rest of the patentees by Sir 
 Richard Saltonstall, Henry Lawrence, Henry Darley, Sir 
 Arthur Haselrigg, and George Fenwick, who had been 
 appointed to remain in London and act as a committee 
 in charge of the affair." Large sums were being sub- 
 
 8 In July this party, composed of Saltonstall 's servants led by Francis 
 Stiles, appeared at Windsor on the Connecticut and claimed the territory 
 by virtue of their patent. But the previous occupants from Dorchester in 
 Massachusetts ignored the demands of these representatives of the "Lords 
 and Gentlemen." They allowed the Stiles servants to settle on the place, 
 but refused any recognition of the claims of the patentees. 
 
 9 Mass. Hist. Soo. Coll., 5th Ser., I, 482. The agreement and commission 
 were drawn up by William Jessop, who was acting as clerk to the Saybrook 
 patentees. As we already know, Jessop was secretary of the Providence 
 Company. 
 
 10 Trumbull, I, 497. 
 
178 PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 scribed to finance the expedition, for Winthrop took 
 £2000 with him," and we find Philip Nye writing to hitn 
 in July, "I have sent the other £1000 by Mr. Peirce" to be 
 delivered to your father for you." It was the expendi- 
 ture of their capital on this design on the Connecticut 
 River that rendered it impossible for the adventurers to 
 secure sufficient subscriptions to send out a ship of their 
 own to Providence in 1635. Winthrop sailed from Eng- 
 land about the beginning of August, 1635, accompanied 
 by the son of the comptroller of the king's household, 
 young Henry Vane, who was deep in the Puritan counsels 
 and upon whose judgment the leaders placed great 
 reliance. The project was by now becoming generally 
 known and on September 1, 1635, we find Garrard writing 
 to the lord deputy:^' "Mr. Comptroller Sir Henry Vane's 
 eldest son hath left his Father, his Mother, his Country 
 and that fortune which his father would have left him 
 here, and is for conscience sake gone into New England, 
 there to lead the rest of his days, being about twenty 
 years of age. He had abstained two years from taking 
 the Sacrament in England, because he could get nobody 
 to administer it to him standing. He was bred up in 
 Leyden and I hear that Sir Nathaniel Rich and Mr. Pym 
 have done him much hurt in their persuasions this way. 
 Grod forgive them for it, if they be guilty." 
 
 The interest in the north of England in the new project 
 was very great and many of the Yorkshire gentry who 
 
 11 This we learn with some other partievilars from a letter from Philip 
 Nye to John Winthrop, jr., 28 July, 1635 (Mass. Hist. Soo. Coll, 5th series, 
 I, 210). Nye, a protfigfi of Lord MandevUle's, was assisting Jessop with 
 the secretarial work. The regulations concerning residence were being 
 very strictly enforced on the country gentlemen in 1635 and the plague was 
 raging in London. Practically the whole work of the Providence Company 
 was being done by a committee of Pym, Darley, and Woodcock for this 
 reason. 
 
 12 The celebrated New England shipmaster. 
 
 13 Strafford Papers, I, 463. 
 
SAYBEOOK: PEOJECTED EMIGEATION 179 
 
 had been antagonised by the harsli administration of the 
 CoTincil of the North, had been persuaded by Barley's 
 influence to consider migration to the new colony. Sir 
 Matthew Boynton of Bramston, for example, a strong 
 Puritan and M. P. for Scarborough in the Long Parlia- 
 ment, wrote to Winthrop through Henry Darley:" "I 
 pray you advertise me what course I shall take for pro- 
 viding a house against my coming over, where I may 
 remain with my family till I can be better provided to 
 settle myself, and let me have your best assistance, and 
 withal, I pray you, let me receive advice from time to 
 time what provisions are most commodious to be made 
 there or to be sent from hence, that so I may make the 
 best advantage of my time before I come, as also what 
 things will be most expedient for me both for my neces- 
 sary use and benefit there to bring over with me when 
 I come." All through the autumn of 1635 preparations 
 were going on apace, but as quietly and unostentatiously 
 as possible. So much were the energies of the patentees 
 immersed in the new design that Providence was entirely 
 neglected for a time and no meetings of the company 
 were held between the beginning of June and the end 
 of November. On September 22, 1635, Henry Lawrence 
 wrote to Winthrop:" "I shall remember you now but 
 of two things, one is the place of our pitching, wherein 
 (if in anything) we are peremptory for Connecticut, it 
 being, as you know, and so continuing, the joint resolu- 
 tion of us all that nothing but a plain impossibility could 
 divert us from that place, which in many respects we 
 conceived most advantageous both for the securing of 
 our friends at the Bay" and our own personal accom- 
 
 1* Mass. Hist. Soe. Coll., 4th series, VTI, 164. 
 15 Mass. Hist. Soe. Coll., 5th series, I, 214. 
 
 1° That is, seeuring the Massachusetts settlers from the encroachments of 
 the Dutch. 
 
180 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 modations. . . . [The other] is that fortifications and 
 some convenient buildings for the receipt of the gentle- 
 men may go hand in hand, for there are likely to come 
 more over next summer, both to be witness of what you 
 have done and to thank you for it, than you are yet 
 aware of. Other things I shall leave to your own wisdom 
 and the directions given you, earnestly beseeching God 
 that He would farther suggest such things to us all as 
 may be most for the glory of His great name and (which 
 in this design we specially aim at) the good of His 
 churches." Winthrop and Vane reached Massachusetts 
 in October, 1635, and the first steps were at once taken 
 to commence the new settlement. A vessel with twenty 
 men" and some ordnance started in November, which 
 reached its destination on the 24th, and formal posses- 
 sion of the territory was taken in the name of the 
 patentees. Under the direction of Lyon Gardiner, an 
 English engineer, who had seen service under the Prince 
 of Orange, a fort and houses were built of "a spungie 
 kind of timber called a read oack," the "pallisadoes" 
 being composed of whole trees set in the ground, and 
 here, during an exceptionally cold winter, Winthrop, 
 Gardiner, and the score of settlers made shift to live. In 
 the spring Fenwick arrived, only to return to England 
 in the summer for his wife, Alice Apsley, widow of Sir 
 John Boteler of Teston, Kent, whom he brought to the 
 colony in 1639. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Puritan leaders in England had been 
 drawing up a suggested basis for the constitution of the 
 colony, and this was despatched by Saye to the authorities 
 
 1' These twenty men may have been the servants of Sir Matthew Boynton, 
 referred to in Boynton 's letter of April 12, 1637, to Winthrop, releasing 
 his servants in Connecticut from their engagements to him and giving 
 them leave to shift for themselves. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 4th series, VII, 
 169. 
 
SAYBEOOK: PROJECTED EMIGRATION 181 
 
 in Massacliusetts late in the year with a request for their 
 suggestions upon it. This scheme" has always been a 
 well-known document and has by some writers been 
 regarded as a base attempt to foist an aristocratic consti- 
 tution upon a people who had succeeded in freeing them- 
 selves from the control of absolutism. In reality the 
 scheme was most reasonable and should be of interest 
 to students of English history as showing in their own 
 words what was the conception of an ideal constitution, 
 or we might rather say what was the conception of the 
 time-honoured English constitution, that was held by the 
 men who, within so few years, were to sway the destinies 
 of England for good or ill. It is of immediate interest 
 to the student of Puritan colonisation from a narrower 
 point of view, for from time to time, when the answers 
 of the ruling oligarchy in Massachusetts to the patentees ' 
 demands were despatched by the pen of Cotton, is to be 
 dated the progressive estrangement between the Eng- 
 
 18 Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts Bay, I, 490. 
 
 "CeTtain proposals made by Lord Saje, Lord Brooke, and other Persons 
 of quality, as conditions of their removing to New England with the 
 answers thereto : ' ' 
 
 1. Two ranks of citizens, gentlemen and freeholders. 
 
 2. The power of making and repealing laws to lie in the two ranks 
 assembled together. 
 
 3. Each rank to possess a negative voice. 
 
 4. The first rank to attend Parliament personally, the second by deputy. 
 
 5. The ranks to sit in two Houses. 
 
 6. Set times to be appointed for the meeting of Parliament yearly or 
 half-yearly. 
 
 7. Parliament to have the power of calling the Governor to account and 
 all of&cers to determine with a new Parliament, unless Parliament enact 
 otherwise. 
 
 8. The governor always to be chosen out of the ranks of gentlemen. 
 
 9. The Patentees and those aiding them should belong to the first rank 
 but afterwards appointments to it should be made with the consent of both 
 Houses. 
 
 10. Freeholders should have a certain estate or contribute a certain 
 amount to the public charges. 
 
182 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 lish and the American Puritans, that will, to a certain 
 extent, call for our attention in following chapters. To 
 none of the patentees' demands did the Massachusetts 
 rulers make any material objection, for these demands 
 very closely represented the constitution under which all 
 of the Puritans had grown up. But the Massachusetts 
 leaders added to these demands the important and funda- 
 mental condition that civil rights should be obtainable 
 only through church membership and, be it understood, 
 church membership as guarded and granted or withheld 
 by the spiritual power. The demand was impossible of 
 acceptance by English aristocrats of the profoundly 
 Erastian temper of Saye and of Pym, and we may 
 already discern that two parties had sprung from the 
 nonconforming Puritanism of EZing James's day; on the 
 one hand, we have the narrow theocrats of New Eng- 
 land, steeped in the theology and political speculations of 
 Leyden and Dort and resolved to confine the full rights 
 of citizenship to the orthodox adherents of their creed; 
 on the other, we have the Erastian English squires, con- 
 servative laymen glorying in what they believed to be 
 England's ancient constitution. 
 
 While the Saybrook grantees were contemplating an 
 immediate removal of themselves, their families, and 
 their fortunes to the other side of the Atlantic, the 
 government of England was falling more and more into 
 the hands of Laud, who, when he succeeded Weston as 
 practical head of the Treasury in March, 1635, secured 
 a power in the Privy Council that was thenceforth 
 almost supreme. Colonial matters, too, began to occupy 
 the archbishop's attention, for in 1634 he had been 
 nominated one of twelve commissioners to supervise the 
 colonies." No objections had been found to the lines 
 upon which New England was developing, when the 
 
 i» Ool. Pap., 28 AprU, 1634. 
 
SAYBROOK: PEOJECTED EMIGRATION 183 
 
 first governmental enquiry into its affairs was made in 
 1633, and the well-known nonconformity of the colonists 
 was tacitly acquiesced in. But Laud's accession to 
 power in any sphere was marked by a tightening up of 
 administration and a legally minded supervision of 
 details that left little room for flexibility and toleration. 
 The quarrel over the New England Council in 1635 and 
 Gorges 's accusations against Massachusetts would have 
 drawn the archbishop's unfavourable attention to the 
 colony, even had he not been receiving complaints from 
 the churchmen expelled by its rulers. For the first time, 
 in 1635, an oath of conformity to the Prayer Book had 
 been demanded above and beyond the usual oath of 
 allegiance from those wishing to emigrate, and in the 
 course of the summer the news of Roger Williams's pro- 
 ceedings and the views he was expounding in the colony 
 began to reach the archbishop and roused in him the 
 conviction that something definite must be done. When, 
 therefore, he learned that so notable a person as Vane 
 had gone, and that eminent opponents of the govern- 
 ment, such as Saye and Brooke, were making prepara- 
 tions to go to New England, he resolved that instant 
 steps must be taken to crush the movement and to pre- 
 vent so important an accession of strength to the recal- 
 citrant colony. For the first time the eyes of England's 
 governors were opened to what had been going on 
 unheeded in America; it had not seemed a very great 
 thing that such an unimportant and dispossessed lawyer 
 as Winthrop, such a land steward as Dudley, or such 
 silenced ministers as Cotton and Hooker, should lead 
 farmers and tradesmen across the Atlantic, but when 
 men personally known and disliked at court, such as 
 the bitter-tongued Saye or the severe and lofty-minded 
 Brooke, began to talk of selling their estates, and when 
 the son and heir of one so well known as Sir Henry Vane 
 
184 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 had actually sailed for Massachusetts, the matter had 
 become serious. 
 
 Into the details of the suit of quo warranto against the 
 Massachusetts Bay Company, begun in 1635, we need not 
 enter here, but a letter"" from Nye to John Winthrop, jr., 
 in the same month will illustrate the way in which the 
 government had begun to frustrate the intentions of the 
 would-be emigrants: "We have sent you some servants, 
 but not so many as we purposed; the reason is this. 
 Some of the gentlemen of the north, who lay 3 or 4 
 months in London transacting these affairs, did think 
 that there would have been no notice of their purposes, 
 and therefore assumed to send us up servants, but when 
 they came down, found the country full of the reports 
 of their going now. Those two (being Deputy Lieuten- 
 ants of the shire) did not dare to move any further in 
 sending up of men. My lord Brooke likewise, that under- 
 took for twenty, failed likewise and sent us not one. Our 
 gentlemen's minds remain the same and are in a way 
 of selling off their estates with the greatest expedition. ' ' 
 The moment had gone by never to return; by the gen- 
 eral trend of affairs and by the direct connivance of the 
 government, the Puritan leaders became once more 
 immersed in English politics, their eyes were once more 
 turned, first to difficulties in their own counties and 
 later to the great national struggle, and never again did 
 they look to New England as likely to provide them with 
 a home. In August, 1635, the second writs for the col- 
 lection of ship-money were issued and, regardless of 
 precedent, for the first time the inland counties were 
 called upon to contribute. Special harshness was exer- 
 cised in the collection from the tenants of persons of 
 known hostility to the government, such as Saye and 
 
 20 Philip Nye to John Winthrop, jr., 2 Sept., 1635. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 
 5th series, I, 210. 
 
SAYBEOOK: PROJECTED EMIGEATION 185 
 
 Brooke, and before th.e end of 1635 serious disturbances 
 had arisen in Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, and Essex, and 
 the Puritan leaders were soon deeply immersed in a 
 concerted design for organising a resistance to pay- 
 ment that should be national in character and suflScient 
 to tax the whole energies of the government. 
 
 The Saybrook settlement was abandoned by its pro- 
 moters. Fenwick remained, burdened with heavy ex- 
 penses and in daily expectation of a large accession of 
 noblemen and gentlemen from England, but as the years 
 passed and no results were attained, he wrote, in 1642 
 and 1643, to Haselrigg and Barrington, begging for 
 information as to their plans, only to learn that Lord 
 Brooke, Sir William Constable, and Sir Matthew Boyn- 
 ton had relinquished all intention of crossing the water, 
 and that the proposed emigration had been given up, 
 because "affairs in England had taken such a turn that 
 persons of that character had no occasion for an asy- 
 lum." Wearying of his burden and yet desirous of 
 securing the patentees against loss, he offered their 
 "whole interest heare and in the River" to the Connec- 
 ticut towns for £3000. The towns rejecting this offer, 
 made tender of £200 a year for ten years, payable in 
 corn, pork, and pipe-staves, but Fenwick refused. With 
 the failure of further negotiations, Fenwick in despera- 
 tion thought of renting out the land, but soon discovered 
 that in New England a quit-rent would not be borne. 
 He also thought of levying a custom toll on the river 
 traffic, but that plan also he abandoned. Realising that 
 there was "no other way but selling out of it to 
 the [Connecticut] towns," for the housing and fortifi- 
 cation were in such bad repair that continued posses- 
 sion would cost more than could be spared, he again 
 approached the northern colony, and on December 5, 
 1644, accepted their terms and transferred the title to 
 
186 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 Saybrook to the inhabitants of Hartford, Wethersfield, 
 and Windsor. Henceforward Saybrook was a part of 
 the colony of Connecticut." 
 
 21 Brit. Mus., Eg., 2646, fos. 181, 182, 240; 2648, fo. 1; Mass. Hist. Soc. 
 Coll., 4th series, YII, 169, 5th series, IX, 381 ; HutcMoson, Siit., I, 64. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SPANISH ATTACKS AND THE COMPANY'S 
 CHANGE OP POLICY 
 
 Our attention has so far been directed mainly to the 
 work of the Providence Company and its members, as 
 far as they were involved in the great movement of 
 Puritan migration. We must now direct our enquiry to 
 another aspect of the subject and regard the colonies of 
 Providence and Association in connection with the Span- 
 ish possessions that lay round about them. The Spanish 
 dominions in America differed essentially from the settle- 
 ments of other European nations in America in that the 
 latter were either self-governing communities, such as 
 Virginia and Massachusetts, or were under the imme- 
 diate control of a commercial company, such as the Dutch 
 West India Company, and had little direct interference 
 to suffer from the home government. The Spanish gov- 
 ernment, on the other hand, through the Council of the 
 Indies, exercised an all-pervading control over the colo- 
 nies, and a perpetual stream of orders dealing with the 
 smallest details of government was poured upon the 
 governor of every kingdom in the Indies.^ The fortunes 
 of the Castilian monarchy, therefore, had a most potent 
 influence upon the energy with which designs were 
 matured and carried out, even when the designs merely 
 concerned such small islands in the Caribbean as Provi- 
 dence and Tortuga. From 1628 on, the Spanish govern- 
 ment, in addition to its constant diflBculties in raising 
 financial supplies from exhausted provinces wherewith 
 
 1 F. A. Kirkpatrick in Camb. Mod. Hist., X, 248 ; Bourne, Spam in 
 America, 225-227. 
 
188 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 to carry on the never-ending straggles in Flanders and 
 Germany, had to conduct the unsuccessful Mantuan War 
 in North Italy against Richelieu and his allies, the Pope 
 and Venice. The task proved overwhelming and at 
 length, in April, 1631, OHvares, the all-powerful minister 
 of Philip rV, was compelled to sign the ignominious trea- 
 ties of Cherasco, which marked another step in the down- 
 fall of Spain from her once dominant position. While 
 the war was raging little attention could be spared for 
 American affairs, but the short interval of peace before 
 war with France again broke out in May, 1635, was 
 marked by many attempts to deal with the swarms of 
 foreigners, that since 1625 had swooped down upon the 
 unoccupied islands of the Antilles and were rapidly 
 strangling the remaining commerce of the Indies. Sug- 
 gestions for dealing with the difficulty and for expelling 
 the Dutch, French, and English, were invited from the 
 governors of all the provinces surrounding the Carib- 
 bean. Many of the repHes^ afford graphic pictures of 
 the difficulties against which the royal governors in the 
 New World had to contend. The constant burden of com- 
 plaint in the replies is that the whole of the wealth of 
 the Indies must be despatched to Spain, though salaries 
 are unpaid, fortresses are in need of repair, and it is 
 impossible to find means for equipping a fleet against 
 the corsairs. The case made out was bad enough to 
 move even the government of Philip IV to action and 
 strict orders were despatched that everything possible 
 was to be done against the. intruders, even though the 
 cost reduced a little the tribute sent to Europe. The 
 sacrifice was a great one to the Castilian monarchy, for 
 only with the produce of the Indies could even an attempt 
 
 2 See especially Venezuela Papers, Add. MSS., 36322, fos. 7, 69, 175, 180; 
 Add. MSS. (Kingsborough Collection), 13992, fo. 110, 13974, fo. 71, 13977, 
 fo. 14. 
 
SPANISH ATTACKS 189 
 
 be made to satisfy the insatiable demands of Flanders 
 and Germany upon tbe Spanish exchequer, and Piet 
 Hein's capture of the Plate Fleet of 1627 had been a 
 terrible blow to Spain's ever-dwindling credit. 
 
 St. Christopher and Nevis had been temporarily 
 cleared of English and French in 1629, but the greatest 
 effort was made in 1633 when Juan de Eulate, governor 
 of Margarita, destroyed a settlement of trading Eng- 
 lishmen at Punta Galena, on the eastern side of Trini- 
 dad,^ and then passed on to the capture of Tobago from 
 the Dutch and the massacre of the unfortunate prisoners 
 taken in that island.* The Windward Islands had also 
 to suffer attack and the Dutch in St. Martin's were«< 
 wiped out in the same year. St. Martin's was at this 
 period one of the most important of the Lesser Antilles, 
 for it was everywhere famous for its salt pans and 
 thither collected ships of all nationalities to obtain the 
 salt made by its Dutch colonists. After the departure of 
 the fleet from St. Martin's and in order to avoid the 
 return of those expelled, a Spanish garrison was left in 
 the island^ and there remained for some years. Curagao 
 was held by the Dutch in great force and owing to its 
 defensibility succeeded in beating back the attempt of 
 the governor of Venezuela to capture it in the same year, 
 1633." 
 
 Needless to say, the news of this Spanish activity 
 caused the greatest uneasiness to the Providence Com- 
 pany and its colonists, and some extracts from a letter 
 of Minister Sherrard to Sir Thomas Barrington will 
 convey an idea of their attitude towards the expected 
 
 s Venezuela Papers, Add. M8S., 36322, fo. 208. Juan de Eulate to King, 
 Margarita, 20 July, 1633. 
 * Ibid., 36324, fos. 89, 233. 
 B Add. MSS., 13977, fo. 509. 
 8 Ihid., fo. 510. 
 
190 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 attack.'' In January, 1634, he writes: "Blessed be God, 
 that hath hitherto put his hook into the mouth and his 
 bridle into the jaws of His and our enemies, that they 
 could not so much as make any attempt upon us, and 
 still let Him say of them as He did of Sennacherib — 
 They shall not shoot forth an arrow here. Amen. — ^We 
 have need of prayers and faith now, if ever, considering 
 our imminent danger, having not shot for above a day's 
 fight in case an enemy should assault us; and besides 
 fifty of our ablest and helpfuUest men are gone from us 
 of late, some to the Main and some for England, so that 
 we have not able men half enough to man our forts nor 
 any power of men to speak of to repel an enemy from 
 landing, so that we must now console ourselves as well 
 in the want as if we had the enjoyment of means, and 
 cast ourselves upon Him that made even the Spaniards, 
 yea the whole universe itself. St. Martin's is taken by 
 the Spaniard that would engross the whole world to 
 himself, and the rest of the Islands that are inhabited in 
 these parts by our English are threatened, and who 
 knows how soon our turn may be if Grod divert not. . . . 
 I am sorry that this island hath not better answered their 
 honour's expense and expectation. The Lord in mercy 
 crown their honour's noble undertakings in these parts 
 with a glorious success that the Gospel may be planted 
 on the Main. What glory thereby would accrue to God ! 
 How would it eternise their honour's names t6 posterity 
 and how would the children yet unborn bless their hon- 
 ours!" Even while Sherrard wrote, the blow was pre- 
 paring, but before Providence suffered. Association was 
 attacked and its colonists scattered. 
 
 The great island of Hispaniola had been the first por- 
 tion of the Indies settled by the Spaniards and had in 
 
 T Brit. Mus., Eg., 2646, fo. 58, Hope Sherrard to Sir T. B., Providence, 
 6 Jan. 163%. 
 
SPANISH ATTACKS 191 
 
 the earlier years of their domination been the seat of the 
 principal government in the Indies. Owing to the diffi- 
 culty the earliest invaders had found in subduing the 
 Indians of the northern shore of the island, the principal 
 Spanish settlement was founded at San Domingo in the 
 southeastern corner of the island, and in the great 
 savannas surroucading the city almost all of the Spanish 
 population of Hispaniola was gathered. The native 
 inhabitants of the island had been exterminated very 
 early, and the wide forests covering its northern shore 
 were in the early part of the seventeenth century 
 inhabited only by a few bands of Cimarones or negroes 
 escaped from the Spanish plantations. No means of 
 communication existed through these dense tracts, and 
 the northern shore was therefore entirely removed from 
 Spanish influence ; for this reason it was a favourite base 
 for rovers,* English, French, and Dutch, who were 
 accustomed to refit and obtain fresh victuals in its num- 
 erous harbours. No permanent settlements existed, but 
 each nationality among the rovers had its usual gather- 
 ing place. The Dutch mainly congregated at San Nico- 
 las, the abandoned site of Spain's earliest settlement in 
 the island, and there they carried on a considerable 
 industry of salt-making and of curing the flesh of the 
 cattle they killed in the forests; the French usually 
 landed at the island now called La Gonaive, but then 
 known to the Spaniards as El Caimito, and at a harbour 
 on the main island of Hispaniola known as Gonaives.' 
 The only settlement that up to 1635 had acquired any- 
 thing of a permanent character, was that formed by 
 Anthony Hilton round the harbour of the island of Tor- 
 tuga that we know from the Providence records as Asso- 
 
 8 An English piiate had been captured by the Spaniards at Tortuga in 
 1611. Brown, I, 522. 
 
 » Hakluyt, VII, 160, Brit. Mus., Add. M8S., 13977, fo. 509. 
 
192 PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 ciation. The depredations committed on the shores of 
 Cuba, San Domingo, and Porto Rico by the- rovers who 
 gathered in Tortuga harbour were so frequent and so 
 destructive that the Audiencia of San Domingo had 
 resolved in 1633 that Tortuga must be one of the first 
 pirate strongholds to be cleared at any cost." 
 
 From the report to the Providence Company of a 
 Dutch shipmaster, Richard Evertsen, who called at 
 Association late in 1634, we learn that the settlement then 
 had one hundred and fifty regular inhabitants, but there 
 was such a large admixture of Frenchmen among these 
 that the Spaniards took it for a French settlement. A 
 fort furnished with the artillery supplied by the Provi- 
 dence Company was supposed to guard the harbour, but 
 no proper watches were kept and no military discipline 
 existed. The governor, elected by the planters after 
 Hilton's death in 1634, was Christopher Wormeley, one 
 of the original adventurers, but he had little control over 
 the settlers and devoted his attention to making what 
 profit he could out of incoming rovers. The Spanish 
 expedition" for the surprise of the island was got ready 
 at San Domingo during November and December, 1634, 
 and consisted of a force of two hundred and fifty soldiers 
 under the command of Don Ruiz Fernandez de Fuem- 
 
 10 There is no doubt that the Providence Company were quite deceived all 
 through as to what was happening in Association. We cannot saj whether 
 Hilton ever had any intention of acting honestly and attempting to found 
 a legitimate colony, but by 1634 his settlement was, without doubt, what the 
 Spaniards called it, merely a pirate hold. 
 
 11 The full Spanish account of the capture of Tortuga, sent to the Council 
 of the Indies on 12 June, 1635, is now to be found in Brit. Mus., Add. MSS., 
 13977, fo. 506. Du Tertre says something of the capture from the French 
 side (I, 169 sqq.) ; he dates it however by error in 1638. Labat and 
 Charlevoix, and others copy Du Tertre, while Eaquemeling in his History 
 of the Buccaneers with his usual untrustworthiness confuses names and 
 dates badly. In one place he dates the capture in 1630, and in another in 
 1664 when D'Ogeron was governor. 
 
SPANISH ATTACKS 193 
 
 ayor. The force was embarked in small frigates and 
 in the month of January, 1635, the attack was delivered 
 without warning. According to the Spanish accoimt 
 some six hundred men, women, and children had been 
 found present in the settlement and in the ships in the 
 harbour, but hardly a blow was struck in defence of 
 their homes and the ordnance in the fort was found dis- 
 mounted and unusable. Grov. Wormeley displayed the 
 most utter cowardice and took instant flight in a small 
 bark for Virginia ;" a few of the colonists succeeded in 
 getting away in an English ship, the William and Anne, 
 that had just finished loading braziletta wood in the 
 harbour, and among them was Mrs. Filby, the widow of 
 Samuel Filby, who had died of fever in the previous 
 summer. The William and Anne, grievously over- 
 crowded, just managed to escape and was compelled to 
 land a part of her passengers at Gratiosa in the Azores ; 
 ill-luck continued to dog her, for she reached Europe 
 only to fall a wreck on the shore of Belle Isle-en-Mer 
 (March, 1635). The first colonists who were captured 
 by the Spaniards were ruthlessly put to the sword, while 
 of those who fled to the woods, most were compelled by 
 hunger to deliver themselves prisoners within a few days. 
 No more mercy was shown to them than to their fellows 
 and Puemayor hanged every man. The settlement was 
 entirely razed to the ground and, after remaining about 
 a month, the Spanish force sailed away, leaving Asso- 
 ciation a desert. 
 
 The turn of Providence came next, but the governor of 
 Cartagena, Don Nicolas de Judice, was not so forward 
 
 12 Wormeley became a somewhat important personage in Virginia. From 
 Acts of Privy Council, Colonial, I, p. 263, we learn that in 1639 he was 
 being accused by Mrs. Hart, the widow of the Providence Company's 
 husband, John Hart, of repudiation of his just debts. He became captain 
 of the fort at Point Comfort and married Frances Armistead, Mackenzie, 
 Colonial Families, p. 12. 
 
194 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 nor so secret with his preparations as had been his 
 colleague at San Domingo. Providence lies on the flank 
 of the course of Spanish ships sailing from Cartagena 
 and Porto Bello to Mexico and Havana, but these vessels 
 sailed mainly in strong fleets, and the small pinnaces 
 from Providence left them as a rule severely alone; an 
 easier prey passed close by the island, and to explain 
 why Providence was such a convenient base for pirates 
 it is necessary here to recapitulate one or two well-known 
 facts concerning West Indian trade in the early seven- 
 teenth century. Two fleets convoyed by warships sailed 
 annually from Seville to the Indies, the "flota" steering 
 for Vera Cruz in Mexico and the "armada" for Carta- 
 gena. The European goods brought out by this latter 
 fleet were exchanged for indigo, cochineal, hides, and 
 other valuable commodities at the great fair of Carta- 
 gena, where they had been collected from all parts of 
 Tierra Firme, or, as the English called it, the "Main." 
 Besides the commodities reaching Cartagena from the 
 provinces of New Biscay on the southern shore of the 
 Caribbean, goods came mainly from the districts in the 
 kingdom of Guatemala and from the province of Yuca- 
 tan. The produce of the rich plain of Nicaragua was 
 collected at Granada on Lake Nicaragua and despatched 
 in small frigates down the Desaguadero, or as we now call 
 it, the San Juan Eiver;" the produce from the region 
 round Guatemala City was sent over the mountains to 
 be shipped in the Golfo Dolce," and that from Honduras 
 was shipped at Truxillo and Puerto Caballos. The prov- 
 es De Laet, Novus Oriis, p. 263: "Juan k 30 lieues de la Mer du Nord, 
 suT 1 'embouchure du lac de Nicaragua, par laquelle le long d'un long et 
 Stroit canal k la fa^on d'une rivigre, il decharge ses eaux dans la mer; 
 elle est nommSe Bl desaguadero des Espagnols qui transportent les mar- 
 chandises de 1 'Europe, qu'ils ont €t€ querir k Porto Bello, lelong de ce 
 canal k cette vUle et lieux voisins. ' ' > 
 
 1* Gage, The English American, London 1677, p. 287. 
 
SPANISH ATTACKS 195 
 
 ince of Veraguas yielded little of value, but what com- 
 modities did come from Costa Rica were mainly ex- 
 changed for European goods at the second great fair 
 of the year, held later on at Porto Bello. The small ves- 
 sels in which goods were carried to Cartagena were too 
 frail to voyage out into the open Caribbean and kept 
 well in towards the coast until they got into the latitude 
 of their destination, when they steered due east across 
 the bight at the head of which Porto Bello stood. None 
 of the frigates were armed to any extent or capable of 
 great resistance ; all of them had to pass close under the 
 shores of Providence and could be readily attacked in 
 small pinnaces or even in shallops, with the prospect of 
 a considerable booty. The temptations thus displayed 
 were too strong for an old rover like Elfrith, and from 
 the very beginning some of the colonists engaged in 
 piracy. An easy market for the plunder could be 
 obtained with the Holland ships that frequently touched 
 at the island and it is to the facilities thus afforded for 
 obtaining European goods at a cheap rate that we must 
 attribute the colonists' disinclination to pay the high 
 prices demanded for the goods in the company's maga- 
 zines. 
 
 The shrewder men in the island saw the risk they 
 must necessarily be running into by this piracy, when 
 even the mere presence of foreigners in an island in the 
 very heart of the Indies must be repugnant to every 
 Spaniard. The governor and council insisted therefore 
 on renewed energy being applied to the work of forti- 
 fication, and on the taking of stringent precautions 
 against the admission of any Spaniards or Spanish 
 negroes into the island. The moment the company in 
 England learned of the capture of Association, they sent 
 warning of his danger to Gov. Bell. But the Expectation, 
 by which the message was despatched, early in 1635, did 
 
196 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 not get away from her first port of call at St. Christopher 
 before July, and at that time the warning had been long 
 anticipated. Providence learned of the surprise of Asso- 
 ciation from some of the fugitives very soon after the 
 event, and, needless to say, the whole island was set in 
 alarm. Redoubled energy soon put the fortifications in 
 good order and a constant watch was set for suspicious 
 ships, while Samuel Axe, one of the company's best 
 soldiers, on hearing of the likelihood of attack, left the 
 new plantation he was engaged in developing at the 
 Cape and returned to aid in the island's defence. 
 
 On the second of July, 1635, the Spanish fleet was 
 espied approaching the island from the southeast and 
 constantly sounding as it came among the encircling 
 shoals. The force, which was under the personal com- 
 mand of the governor of Cartagena, Don Nicolas de 
 Judice, consisted of three ships, four shallops, and one 
 boat, and carried a force of about three hundred soldiers. 
 For five days the vessels were feeling their way through 
 the rocks and shoals only at the end of that time to come 
 under the fire of the heavy ordnance in "Warwick Fort. 
 Again and again the soldiers attempted to force their way 
 in to the shore in order to land, but again and again they 
 were driven back by fierce musketry fire from the small 
 earthworks thrown up on the beach, and at the last were 
 compelled to retreat in disorder to their ships. A flag of 
 truce covered a message from the Spanish commander to 
 Gov. Bell, summoning the colonists at once to depart on 
 pain of the penalties attaching to piracy and announcing 
 that further reinforcements were on the way from Carta- 
 gena and that the island's defenders would be over- 
 whelmed by force of numbers. But coming from one who 
 had already been repulsed, these threats were of little 
 avail, the English were quite undismayed and, a defiant 
 answer having been returned, the battle was renewed 
 
SPANISH ATTACKS 197 
 
 more fiercely than before. So battered at length, were 
 the Spanish ships by the shot from the forts and so many 
 men had they lost in their futile attempts at landing, that 
 finally, seven days after their arrival, the Spanish vessels 
 slipped their cables and anchors and retreated under 
 cover of night, in haste and disorder. The attack had 
 been repulsed and, for the time being, Providence was 
 safe. 
 
 It was not until the return of the Expectation to Eng- 
 land in December, 1635, that the company learned of 
 the Spaniards' attempt on Providence and its gallant 
 repulse, but the news lost nothing of its importance by 
 the delay. We have shown how the course of affairs had 
 been leading the company to the conclusion that perhaps, 
 after all, Providence was not destined to be the great 
 refuge for the oppressed Puritans that they had hoped to 
 found, and the capture of Association and the narrow 
 escape of their whole enterprise from overthrow were 
 sufficient to confirm the view that Providence could never 
 succeed as a mere plantation, but must be developed into 
 a fortress capable of withstanding a powerful attack and, 
 in reprisal, a base whence a profitable privateering war- 
 fare might be waged against the wealth of Spanish 
 America. As has been shown in earlier chapters, this 
 had been one of the aims that had led to the founding 
 of the colony, but from 1635 onward it comes more 
 prominently to the front, and the idea of Providence as 
 a home for Puritans falls into the background. 
 
 The Elizabethan tradition of hatred to Spain as the 
 common enemy still lived in the minds of Englishmen, 
 but nowhere was it a more vital and energising force 
 than with Warwick and his associates. No one had 
 thrown himself more whole-heartedly into the schemes of 
 the Providence Company than had John Pym and to no 
 one did he yield in detesting the Spanish claims to world- 
 
198 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 wide power ; in joining the company he had been prima- 
 rily moved by his Puritanism and by his sympathy with 
 John White's scheme for founding a refuge for the 
 oppressed, but he had grown to manhood under the influ- 
 ence of men who had shared in the anxieties of the 
 Elizabethan struggle, and who, under Eing James, 
 believed that England had turned from her true path 
 in foreign policy to dally with the power that was cease- 
 lessly plotting her overthrow. For us, who know that 
 with Philip II the Spanish power had sunk, never to 
 rise again, it is hard to realise the intensity of fear and 
 of hatred with which the Englishmen of that generation 
 regarded their ancient enemy. The only right foreign 
 policy seemed to them to lie in carrying on the traditions 
 under which England had grown to greatness ; and they 
 wished to continue to share with the Dutch in the inex- 
 haustible booty of the Indies, that, as they thought, had 
 raised Holland and Zeeland from poverty to wealth. 
 The zest with which the parliament of 1624 had turned 
 from the himiiliations of the Spanish Match to urge on 
 the longed-for war, and the eagerness with which that 
 of 1625 had granted supplies for the Cadiz expedition, 
 show plainly the potency of these views, but it would 
 be hard to express them more clearly than did Pym 
 himself, when his voice could once more be raised within 
 the walls of parliament :" 
 
 "The differences and discontents betwixt his Majesty 
 and the people at home have, in all likelihood, diverted 
 his royal thoughts and counsels from those great oppor- 
 tunities which he might have not only to weaken the 
 House of Austria and to restore the Palatinate, but to 
 gain himself a higher pitch of power and greatness than 
 any of his ancestors. For it is not unknown how weak, 
 
 IS Speech to the Short Parliament, April, 1640, Forster, lAfe of Pym, p. 
 117. 
 
SPANISH ATTACKS 199 
 
 how distracted, how discontented the Spanish colonies 
 are in the West Indies. There are now in those parts, 
 in New England, Virginia and the Carib Islands and 
 in the Barmudos, at least 60,000 able persons of this 
 nation, many of them well-armed and their bodies sea- 
 soned to that climate, which, with a very small charge 
 might be set down in some advantageous parts of those 
 pleasant, rich and fruitful countries and easily make his 
 Majesty master of all that treasure, which not only 
 foments the war but is the great support of popery in all 
 parts of Christendom." 
 
 Holding such views it was easy for Pym to convince 
 himself that the Providence enterprise was worth carry- 
 ing on, even though it should have to be through the 
 agency of men who did not see eye to eye with him in 
 matters of religion. It is this power of realising that it 
 might be possible to secure worthy ends, though the tools 
 employed might not conform to the most rigid standard 
 of orthodoxy, that distinguishes the leaders of the Eng- 
 lish Puritans, and especially Pym, from the unbending 
 rulers of New England, such as Endecott and Dudley. 
 Pym was essentially an opportunist in the best sense of 
 the term; while an idea seemed to him possible of ful- 
 filment, aU his energies were devoted to carrying it out, 
 but if circumstances proved too strong for him and the 
 idea had to be abandoned, he was always ready to modify 
 his course and, with no abandonment of principle, to 
 work with the means at hand for the fruition of some 
 cognate purpose. Providence was no home for a strictly 
 Puritan community, but it had great possibilities for 
 the furtherance of English aggrandisement at the ex- 
 pense of Spain. The Dutch were carving out for them- 
 selves an empire in Brazil. Why should not England, 
 from Providence as a base, carve out for herself another 
 dominion in Central America and found a second Brazil 
 
200 . PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 upon the shores of New Spain? In so doing she wonld 
 be crippling still further the enemy of Grod and man, and 
 advancing her own resources at his expense. The words 
 of a writer of the time concerning the Dutch are just as 
 true when applied to Pym and Warwick and their part- 
 ners; they "hated Spain and the Pope with a perfect 
 hatred and firmly believed that in plundering the Span- 
 iard they were best serving not merely their own interests 
 but the cause of Grod and the true religion. ' '" From 1635 
 onwards, therefore, this was to be the object of the Provi- 
 dence Company, and the putting aside of the earlier 
 object without its abandonment can be no better summed 
 up than in the words Pym addressed to the adventurers : 
 "Although we cannot procure so many religious persons 
 as we desire, yet, when the place [Providence] is safe, 
 godly persons and families will be encouraged to trans- 
 port themselves ; and though God succour not our endeav- 
 ours in that, yet we may make a civil commodity of it, 
 upholding the profession of religion, moral duty, and 
 justice, till God shall please to plant amongst us a more 
 settled Church, . . . The planters must be heartened for 
 the defence of the island, lest otherwise his Majesty do 
 lose a place apt to be made of much advantage and use to 
 this kingdom as any we know of the like bigness in the 
 world. The strengthening thereof we must most spe- 
 cially regard (though in itself it never answer profit), 
 for the better maintaining our trade upon the Main, it 
 being so convenient for a storehouse of provision and so 
 fit to receive and keep the goods, which shall by negotia- 
 tion be procured, and for a retreat upon all occasions." 
 Such words as these from their trusted treasurer were 
 sufficient to clinch the determination of the active mem- 
 bers of the company to carry on their work despite their 
 
 16 BarlsBus, Brasilianische Geschichte, p. 34, quoted by Edmundson in 
 Eng. Hist. Sev., 1896, p. 233. 
 
SPANISH ATTACKS 201 
 
 many difficulties. They felt, however, that the task had 
 become so dangerous and so much a matter of national 
 concern that the government should be appealed to for 
 help in carrying it on, and they took steps to lay their 
 petition before the king without delay. 
 
 On learning of the capture of Association, the com- 
 pany had resolved that it would be necessary for them 
 to free themselves from charges of remissness and 
 negligence in their care of the island, and a memorandum 
 was drawn up for presentation to Charles through the 
 Earl of Holland, the governor of the company. In this 
 memorandum it was shown that Association was never 
 planted by the Providence Company of their own motion, 
 but that in return for a promise by the planters there to 
 pay one-twentieth of their profits, the company had 
 agreed to supply them with ordnance and recruits. This 
 was done in order to prevent the planters placing them- 
 selves under the protection of the Dutch, but it was 
 pointed out that Association was always ' ' a mixed plan- 
 tation consisting of English, Dutch, and French, whereby 
 the Spaniard was moved the rather to watch an oppor- 
 tunity for their displanting. This mixture was admitted 
 by the planters without the company's direction or 
 knowledge." While the governor appointed by the com- 
 pany was alive, the island was kept safe, but when he 
 died, the planters themselves elected a governor who 
 was neglectful of his watch and by Ms incompetence and 
 cowardice left the island defenceless, and for this the 
 company could not legitimately be held responsible. 
 
 The presentation of this memorandum was an entirely 
 informal matter and no official notice seems to have been 
 taken of it, but the receipt of the news of the attack 
 upon Providence was much more seriously regarded, and 
 a declaration concerning it, together with a demand for 
 redress, were forthwith drawn up and presented without 
 
202 PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 an instant's delay to the governor of the company for 
 delivery to the crown. The declaration, which is written 
 in the hand of Secretary Jessop, is still extant among the 
 State Papers,^'^ and was presented by the Earl of Hol- 
 land to the king at the council board at Whitehall on 
 Sunday, the 27th of December, 1635. After recounting 
 the circumstances of the Spanish attack and its repulse, 
 the declaration proceeds: "Upon this occasion it be- 
 hoves us to put your Lordship in mind (being our Gov- 
 ernor) of the extraordinary importance of the place, able 
 to give his Majesty a great power in the West Indian 
 Seas and a profitable interest in the trade of the richest 
 part of America. So strong by nature as it is hardly 
 accessible, having a large harbour with a very narrow 
 entrance, where may ride 100 ships of good burthen 
 under the safeguard of such forts as we have already 
 built; being distant 40 leagues from the next continent 
 and no sign at all that any man had ever set foot there 
 until we took possession of it for the Crown of England. 
 Upon this island (as y"^. LoP. knows) we have bestowed 
 Thirty Thousand Pounds above what has been returned 
 from thence, although his Majesty has received £1000 in 
 one year for Custom. 
 
 "The discouragements we daily meet with both of loss 
 and danger, do disable us to proceed in any further 
 charge unless his Majesty will be graciously pleased to 
 give us leave to right ourselves of this [that is, the 
 attack] and former injuries done by the Spaniards ; for 
 y''. LoP may remember that we had divers men slain and 
 goods spoiled the last year," and about four years since 
 a ship of ours" was attempted by the Spaniards, in which 
 fight our Captain lost one of his eyes and 10 or 12 men 
 
 " Col. Pap., VIII, 81. 
 
 18 At Association, January, 163^. 
 
 10 The Seaflower, see p. 112. 
 
SPANISH ATTACKS 203 
 
 were slain and hurt without any provocation at any time 
 on our part, we having always given strict order that 
 none of our men should offer the least distaste unto the 
 Spaniards. 
 
 "We do make the more speed to give y' LoP notice 
 hereof because the Spanish commanders which thus sum- 
 moned and assaulted the island, did publish an intention 
 of their King to send greater forces to destroy that and 
 other English plantations. 
 
 "Whereupon the inhabitants of the Island have written 
 unto us that they must desert the place, if they be not 
 relieved by May next, which cannot be effected unless we 
 go presently in hand with provisions. 
 
 "All which we leave to y' Lop'^ consideration, that 
 some sudden resolution may be taken to encourage other 
 Adventurers to join with us, and so hearten the Planters 
 for defence of the island, lest otherwise his Majesty lose 
 a place apt to be made of much advantage and use to this 
 kingdom as any we know of the like bigness in the world, 
 and y' LoP with ourselves sustain a great prejudice in 
 the loss of all the adventures which were first undertaken 
 in the time of war betwixt his Majesty and the King of 
 Spain, when we conceived that this design would [give] 
 his Majesty's subjects opportunity of repairing all the 
 losses sustained by the Dunkirkers or any other then in 
 opposition to the Crown. ' "" 
 
 From Nicholas 's notes of the proceedings in Council,^^ 
 we learn that the king referred the matter to the Council 
 board to inform themselves of the importance of Provi- 
 dence and to consider whether it would be better to send 
 venturers to hold the island or to give leave to the adven- 
 turers to offend the Spaniards there by way of reprisal. 
 
 20 [Endorsed] ' ' Presented Sunday, 27th Dec. to the King in Council by 
 the Earl of Holland." 
 
 21 S. P. Dom., Car. I, eccvii, no. 19. 27 Dec, 1635. 
 
204 PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 The secretaries were directed to see how far it lay with 
 the Anglo-Spanish treaty of 1630 to suffer his Majesty's 
 ships to defend themselves and to offend any if they be 
 offended, being beyond the line. The investigation of the 
 matter was entrusted to the secretary of state, Sir John 
 Coke, and the original draft of his conclusions in his own 
 handwriting is now preserved among the State Papers."" 
 The memorial is of great interest in our enquiry as giv- 
 ing an unbiased survey of the company's affairs, but it 
 is too long to be produced in extenso and we must confine 
 ourselves to a few extracts from it. It begins with an 
 account of the strategical position of the island: 
 
 "The island called St. Cathelina by the Spaniards and 
 by our men the Island of Providence, is situated within 
 the tropic, betwixt 12 and 13 degrees of the northerly 
 latitude from the Equinoctial. It lieth in the high way 
 of the Spanish fleets that come from Cartagena, from 
 which it lieth about 100 leagues and from Porto Bello 80 
 leagues and about 80 leagues also from the Bay of Nico- 
 raga,"^ at which place of the terra firma the Spaniards 
 have great trade for their treasure, and all ships that 
 come from these places must pass on the one or other 
 side of the island within 20 leagues and may be easily 
 discovered from thence. From Virginia it is distant 
 about 1900 leagues, though in their course homewards 
 they come near it. . . . [The island] will yield provision 
 sufficient fori 1000 men besides women and children. Now 
 there are of white persons about 500, women about 30 or 
 40. . . . For strength the access is very difficult and a 
 ship cannot get in without much danger of rocks and 
 shoals. On nine parts of ten the island is compassed with 
 rock whereof most are seen and others under water. 
 Betwixt the rocks above and those under water there is 
 
 22 Col. Pap., Viil, 83. Many erasures and much altered by Coke in parts. 
 
 23 That is, the ^fieaxagua or San Juan Biver. 
 
SPANISH ATTACKS 205 
 
 a channel so narrow that but one ship at once can well 
 pass through it. They come in with a trade wind, which 
 bloweth always except in part of October, in November 
 and part of December, in all two months, when northerly 
 winds blow, which are very boisterous. No ships can 
 lie long about the island, nor ride at anchor safely, save 
 only at about 3 or 4 miles from the Island and that but 
 in fair weather and then they are also subject to fretting 
 their cables with the rocks, and if any storm they are in 
 great danger. The Island hath but one harbour on the 
 [north] side, which will contain 3 or 4 score sail of ships 
 of 300 tons, for greater ships cannot get in without much 
 care, because they will want breadth to turn in and must 
 come in sounding all the way. They ride within at 20 
 or 24 foot water, very good and safe ground and free 
 from all danger of winds, being enclosed by a promon- 
 tory that keepeth it very safe. The harbour is defended 
 with 3 forts, pne at the entrance and one on either side. 
 In the whole island they have 13 or 14 fortified places, 
 which have ordnance, and no ship or boat can approach 
 but within the command of two or three of their 
 forts. . . . 
 
 "The enemy cannot land otherwise than by shallops 
 and therefore there should be boats to hinder their 
 landing. The Spaniards also send treasure in shallops^ 
 which they can freight at places along the coast and by 
 these shallops may be met with much advantage. . . . 
 Spanish frigates, as they call them, are no better than 
 shallops. Many are very rich. . . . Other benefit from 
 the Island is not to be expected but what may be gotten 
 by trade or prizes. The trade is not yet settled. . . . 
 The planters are discouraged because many of their 
 Adventurers are fallen off, more than half the last year 
 [1635]. They were whole shares 18 and in all contribu- 
 tors in quarter shares to make 24. . . . The charge aris- 
 
206 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 eth in sending men, for every man they have severally 
 costeth. them near Thirty Pounds; . . . £8000 a year 
 will not suffice to supply it. . . . This charge cannot be 
 raised otherwise than by war or reprisal. . . . 
 
 ' ' The planters find not themselves able to maintain so 
 great a charge, but may be able with the king's leave to 
 put it off to some others to save themselves and to afford 
 his Majesty Ten Thousand Pounds profit, whereas if it 
 be taken out of their hands by force, they know they 
 shall lose and can expect nothing save cruelty, as the 
 Spaniards use to all nations that come there. ... If his 
 Majesty should undertake it, they expect to be reim- 
 bursed with reasonable profit. . . . The planters desire 
 his Majesty's speedy resolution because they must before 
 the spring desert it or supply it : which will be hard to 
 do." 
 
 This memorial was taken into consideration by the 
 king during the month of January, 1636, and he also 
 viewed "the plat of the Island and Main adjacent," that 
 had been prepared by Capt. Axe for the company and 
 was forwarded by them, before he could determine 
 whether to grant the company the desired assistance. 
 
 The ever-changing conditions governing Charles I's 
 tortuous foreign policy were at the moment of presenta- 
 tion of the company's petition not unfavourable to the 
 granting of the required permission to undertake re- 
 prisals. The years 1634 and 1635 had been filled with 
 negotiations with Spain wherein Charles was prepared 
 to offer the alliance of England against the Dutch if the 
 Palatinate were evacuated; in August, 1635, a definite 
 alliance against France had also been offered on the same 
 conditions, but, when Spain showed no alacrity to close 
 with the offer, the contrary course was considered and in 
 November the king was prepared to listen to Queen 
 Henrietta Maria and her adviser, the Earl of Holland, 
 
SPANISH ATTACKS 207 
 
 who were urging upon Mm hostility to Spain and an 
 intimate alliance with France." The never-ending battle 
 in the Council went on from day to day between the pro- 
 Spanish party, now represented by Cottington and 
 Windebank, and their opponents, represented by Holland 
 and Coke, who for the moment, in January, 1636, gained 
 the upper hand. The fact that the leaders of the Provi- 
 dence Company, Warwick, Saye, and Brooke, were 
 actively opposed to many points in the government's 
 home policy, and that steps had recently been taken to 
 frustrate their intention of emigrating to New England, 
 would not militate against the granting of permission to 
 engage themselves more deeply in the West Indies, for 
 such action would entirely fall ia with the government's 
 forward naval policy. Only six months before the king 
 had prompted the republication of Selden's Mare 
 Glausum,^^ claiming for England the most exacting rights 
 over the Narrow Seas, and the Ship-Money fleet was at 
 this very time being equipped to enforce these rights. 
 AU things combined, therefore, to secure from the king 
 the desired permission to undertake reprisals, and in 
 January, 1636, this was granted. 
 
 The procedure in the matter of granting letters of 
 reprisal does not appear to have been a fixed one, but 
 in this particular instance no formal letters or com- 
 missions were issued. The only written record is the 
 report of a Privy Council meeting antedated to coin- 
 cide with the date when the company made formal com- 
 plaint to the governor.^' As a matter of fact, we learn 
 from the company's records"^ that the king gave the 
 
 2* For the whole of these bewildering changes of front, see Gardiner, 
 VIII, 99, and authorities cited by him. 
 
 25 August, 1635, Gardiner, VIII, 154. 
 
 26 Col. Pap., VIII, 90. 
 
 27 See also Col. Pap., X, 39. 
 
208 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 desired permission only by word of mouth at the council 
 board, but in the presence of Sir Henry Martin, judge of 
 the Admiralty. It would seem that Martin had been 
 specially summoned to hear the permission granted, but 
 the whole proceeding is a commentary on the lax and 
 shifty governmental methods of the time. It is to be 
 wondered whether any of those who received the desired 
 permission thought of Ealeigh and his fate twenty years 
 before for acting on a similarly loosely granted permis- 
 sion to wage private war, which was disavowed when 
 he failed to succeed. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 COUNTER ATTACKS 
 
 On January 29, 1636, a full meeting of the company 
 was summoned to Lord Saye's lodgings in Holbom under 
 the chairmanship of Sir Nathaniel Rich, then deputy-gov- 
 ernor, and Treasurer Pym there laid before them a full 
 report of the story of the colony as received by the 
 Expectation, and an account of what had been done by 
 himself and the committee left in charge of the com- 
 pany's affairs since the last general meeting. To the 
 declaration concerning the attack on the island, it was 
 announced that the king had graciously replied, giving 
 the company permission to right themselves by way of 
 reprisal, so that whatever they should take from the 
 Spaniard in the West Indies would be adjudged lawful 
 prize. It was now necessary, therefore, for the company 
 to take steps to provide an immediate supply for the 
 planters, for their reputation required them to keep on 
 as long as their estates would bear it. The state had a 
 right to expect of them that they proceed with a work in 
 which the honour of the English empire was so much 
 bound up, or else to put it off to others that would not 
 let it fall. Unfortunately, Pym told them, many of the 
 company living far off found the burden too great and 
 desired not to go on, and it was requisite, therefore, for 
 those that were earnest in the matter to make all the 
 greater efforts. The proportion of charge required to 
 pay off debts accumulated in the past and to carry on the 
 work for the future he computed at £10,000, and he 
 desired the company to resolve at once upon means for 
 raising this sum. 
 
210 PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 The discussion thus initiated was carried on with 
 great vigour and all kinds of ways were proposed for 
 managing the company's affairs more successfully than 
 in the past. It was suggested that everything should be 
 put in charge of one man and Pym was mentioned as the 
 best qualified to undertake the charge; his practical 
 spirit, however, refused to allow him to place himself 
 in so invidious a position and he insisted most strongly 
 that everyone subscribing to the new stock should have 
 a vote in the carrying-on of the business. Lord Brooke 
 was not so backward and offered to undertake the whole 
 affair of the colony if he might have the sole manage- 
 ment and not be bound to commit his designs to any. 
 So sweeping a relinquishment of control did not com- 
 mend itself to the adventurers and Lord Brooke's offer 
 was declined. It was finally resolved that an entirely 
 new stock of £10,000 to carry on the business should be 
 raised within two years; for nine years all profits from 
 the trade of the Main, from the islands or from reprisals, 
 were to be paid to the new undertakers, the old adven- 
 turers having no share of the profits till after the com- 
 pletion of nine years. All those joining in the adven- 
 ture were to have a share in the management 
 proportional to the amount of their adventure, and Lord 
 Brooke undertook to underwrite any portion of the 
 £10,000 stock not taken up, in return for a corresponding 
 voice in the direction. The whole share of adventure 
 was put at £500, for which one vote was allotted. Those 
 subscribing for portions of a £500 share were to decide 
 its vote by a majority. As a result the sum of £3900 was 
 subscribed^ by the middle of 1636, and to this Brooke 
 iadded £1000, though he could not be persuaded to fulfil 
 
 1 Warwick £500, Saye £500, N. Rich £500, Pym £500, Woodcock £500, 
 Barrington £500, Knightley £400, Budyerd £250, Sir William Waller and 
 Thomas Upton £250 jointly. 
 
COUNTEE ATTACKS 211 
 
 Ms promise to subscribe the remaining amount up to 
 £10,000. Application was made to the lord treasurer to 
 assist the company by the abatement of the customs 
 duties on goods sent to the island or imported from it, 
 and several attempts were made to secure this conces- 
 sion, which had been granted by King James to the 
 Virginia and Newfoundland companies during their 
 early years, but no success was obtained, and Pym finally 
 moved the company to put up with the best treatment 
 they could get from the farmers of the customs, "they 
 being so far authorized by the book of rates, without 
 addressing themselves therein to His Majesty." 
 
 This regeneration of the company at home occupied 
 the whole of the winter months of 1635-1636, but imme- 
 diately upon the receipt of the news of the capture of 
 Association in March, 1635, Pym and Eieh, the principal 
 members of the committee left in charge of the business 
 of the company during the summer, had taken steps to 
 ensure the reoccupation of the island, and a gathering 
 up as far as possible of the company's property there. 
 Several names were discussed as those of persons likely 
 to make satisfactory governors of the island and among 
 them that of John Hilton,^ the younger brother of 
 Anthony Hilton, who had remained planting in Nevis. 
 As none of these persons seemed entirely suitable. Sir 
 Nathaniel Eich suggested that a council should be 
 appointed to govern the island with a president to be 
 elected by themselves, but it was finally decided that 
 Capt. Nicholas Eeskeimer* should be made governor, and 
 that he should be supplied with fresh ordnance and stores 
 sufficient to defend Association satisfactorily. The Ees- 
 
 2 The author of the account of the planting of St. Christopher and Nevis, 
 who was then quite a young man. 
 
 s Or Biskrnner. He had been employed in command of one of the mer- 
 chant ships in the Cadiz expedition, C. S. P. Dom., 1625-1626, p. 142. See 
 also C. S. P. Dom., 1619-1623, p. 557. 
 
212 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 keimers were a family of Flemish origin, long settled at 
 Dartmouth and deeply engaged in the clandestine West 
 Indian trade; they were intimately allied with the cele- 
 brated privateering family of the Killigrews, and Res- 
 keimer was probably acceptable to the company as hav- 
 ing a large acquaintance among the rovers, who, they 
 now realised, made Tortuga a regular place of call. He 
 was recommended to the colonists as a soldier and a 
 gentleman, whose military experience would serve them 
 in repelling any further Spanish attack.* Mrs. Filby 
 and the other fugitives who had reached England, were 
 supplied with certain stores and again sent out to the 
 island under Reskeimer's command in the Expectation, 
 April, 1635. The carrying-on of the plantation was thus 
 provided for, but it was also necessary to do something 
 to secure the £2000 owing from Hilton's estate. 
 
 From the testimony of the fugitive planters it was evi- 
 dent that Hilton had been defrauding the company right 
 and left; he had pocketed all the money paid by the 
 planters for goods from the company's stores and had 
 been consigning brazilwood wholesale to one Ashman, a 
 merchant of the Dutch West India Company, at Middle- 
 burg. Over two hundred tons of wood, the worth of 
 which must have been nearly £5000, had been despatched 
 by Hilton during 1634, and the William and Anne, which 
 had escaped from the harbour of Association during 
 the Spanish attack, had over seventy tons on board. The 
 wreck of the William and Anne at Belle Isle had placed 
 this valuable cargo in the charge of the French govern- 
 ment and the company had to institute suits in the French 
 courts for its recovery and in the Zeeland courts for the 
 recovery of damages from Ashman. The French suit 
 
 * Beskeimer was provided with 30 musketa, 10 pistols, 2 pieces of ord- 
 nance, 33 barrels of powder, shot and match, 30 swords, a drum and flag, 
 a large supply of tools, and £20 cash for himself. 
 
COUNTER ATTACKS 213 
 
 was successful and the company in conjunction with the 
 insurers of the cargo managed to recover the greater 
 portion of the goods, but no redress could be obtained 
 at Middleburg and the suit had to be abandoned. Hil- 
 ton's estate in England was sequestered by Dr. Rand for 
 the benefit of his wife and family, but the company man- 
 aged to seize all his negroes, who had escaped to the 
 mountains in Tortuga, and these along with some women 
 negroes" were sent over to Providence. 
 
 Reskeimer's appointment and the small reinforcement 
 of the colony sent out with him, could only be regarded 
 as a temporary means of tiding over a difficulty and it 
 was evident that if Association was to be permanently 
 occupied further recruits must be sent. As a matter of 
 fact, Reskeimer turned out quite unfit to exercise the 
 government, and died of fever almost immediately after 
 his arrival in the "West Indies; the way was therefore 
 clear for an arrangement that had been for some time 
 contemplated. When Rochelle capitulated on October 
 29, 1628, the last Protestant stronghold on the French 
 coast was closed to the fleet of Soubise, who since 1625 
 had been scouring the western seas and had succeeded 
 almost entirely in intercepting French commerce. His 
 ships, when their home port was closed, had to take 
 refuge in English ports and to disband their crews, who 
 were left to fend for themselves as best they could. One 
 of the most prominent of Soubise 's captains was De 
 Sance, who was well known to a London merchant of 
 Huguenot descent, Samuel Vassall, one of Sir Robert 
 Heath's principal backers in the attempted colonisation 
 of "Carolana."* A large number of De Sauce's Hugue- 
 
 B This seems to be one of the earliest mentions of women negroes as 
 servants in an English colony. Prom the company's letter we learn that 
 they were regarded as a novelty. 
 
 8 Sainsbury, preface to C. S. P. Col., 1574-1660, p. xxiv. 
 
214 PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 not followers were despatch.ed by Vassall to Carolana, 
 but they failed to make any satisfactory footing there 
 and were dispersed before the end of the year 1632. 
 Another partner of Sir Robert Heath in the Carolana 
 project was the celebrated William Boswell, who had 
 made many acquaintances among the Eochellois during 
 his service as an English agent in France; in 1635 he 
 was a regular attendant for a time at the Providence 
 meetings, and now that Association had to be reinforced 
 and already had a large number of French settlers, he 
 thought it an excellent opportunity to provide for his 
 remaining Huguenot proteges. He therefore introduced 
 to the company a Captain Delahay, whom he recom- 
 mended for the governorship and with whom the company 
 entered into treaty. This was a very important step in 
 the history of the Tortuga colony, for many of Soubise 's 
 followers had succeeded in making their peace with 
 Eichelieu and had been sent out as employes of the royal 
 "Compagnie des Isles d'Amerique" to serve under de 
 Roissey and D'Esnambuc in St. Christopher, and it is 
 probable that some of them had been among the many 
 Frenchmen who had already reached Tortuga. 
 
 The company were urged to come to terms with Dela- 
 hay by the news they received from Association in 
 March, 1633, by two returning planters, that they had 
 been closely questioned by the Dutch West India Com- 
 pany, who had expressed an intention of taking posses- 
 sion of the island as having been practically abandoned 
 by the Providence Company. After Reskeimer's death 
 the eighty odd Englishmen in the island had formed a 
 council among themselves for the government of the 
 colony and to keep in subjection the one hundred and 
 fifty negroes, twenty-seven of whom were the company's 
 property. Several of the negroes had escaped to the 
 woods, but the planters thought that they might be 
 
COUNTEE ATTACKS 215 
 
 brought back into subjection if tbere were more white 
 men in the island. The French were beginning to fre- 
 quent Tortuga in ever greater numbers to cut the brazi- 
 letta wood and to lade with salt; they had captured some 
 of the negroes and carried them away. These pieces of 
 information caused the greatest possible concern to Pym 
 and throughout the spring of 1636 we find him suggest- 
 ing ways and means of furnishing Association with sup- 
 plies and men, although he found it impossible to get the 
 company to adopt any of them. All kinds of resolutions 
 were come to and afterwards rescinded because the 
 adventurers declined to provide more capital. It was 
 found that a Mr. Donnington was setting up bills in 
 London offering to transport passengers to Association, 
 although he had had no permission from the company 
 and the speculation was merely a private one on his own 
 part. Pym and Saye were so strongly in favour of 
 retaining the island as a valuable harbourage for their 
 men-of-war, that they offered to go over themselves to 
 carry on the plantation if the company would support 
 them, but the rest of the active adventurers were 
 opposed to any further dealings as a company with the 
 island and offered to turn over their rights in it to any 
 of their number who would undertake its supply. 
 
 It was finally settled in June, 1636, that the company's 
 rights in Association should be vested in Brooke, Pym, 
 and Saye, together with their merchant associate. Wood- 
 cock, who promised to provide a supply and a hundred 
 men at a cost of £1500.' Delahay had sailed for Tortuga 
 while the propositions for its arming were being debated, 
 so the governorship of the island was conferred upon 
 Capt. William Rudyerd, who was placed in command of 
 
 T Brooke £750, Pym £500 (£100 of this afterwards subscribed by Bud- 
 yerd and £100 by Waller), Saye £250. Woodcock paid the cost of the 
 voyage. 
 
216 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 the James, wMcli after her arrival was to ply for prizes. 
 During Rudyerd's absence on these voyages, the gov- 
 ernorship of the island was to be placed in the charge 
 of Capt. Henry Hunks,* who was to go out as Eudyerd's 
 second in command. Everything was prepared and the 
 James put to sea in August, 1636, but fate seemed to con- 
 spire against the undertakers in the matter, for after 
 being badly buffeted by storms and never reaching her 
 destination, the James returned to England in January, 
 1637, in a nearly sinking condition. Intelligence was 
 received at about the same time that the English inhabi- 
 tants of Association had abandoned their plantations and 
 had removed to the main island of Hispaniola. The 
 Association design was therefore abandoned and the 
 subscribed capital devoted to fitting out a second ship, 
 the Mary Hope, to ply for prizes from Providence under 
 the command of Capt. Rudyerd. 
 
 The tracing of the fruitless attempts to resettle Tor- 
 tuga has led us to anticipate our story somewhat, and 
 we must now return to Providence and to the steps taken 
 by the company to reorganise the colony as a privateer- 
 ing base after the Spanish attack in 1635. Capt, Philip 
 Bell had been governor of Providence for five years, 
 and Lord Saye and other members of the company felt 
 that, as the colony was to be given a fresh start, it would 
 be well for a new governor to be appointed. It was 
 requisite that the man chosen should be an able soldier, 
 and at the same time a godly and religious Puritan; 
 such an one was recommended by Lord Brooke from 
 among his dependents at Warwick in the person of Capt. 
 Robert Hunt, who had seen some service in the Nether- 
 
 8 Sir Heniy Hunks was a eonneetion of the family of Sir Edward Conway 
 and had seen Bervice mider him in the Netherlands. He did not take up 
 the Association appointment, but went to Barbadoes as governor for the 
 Earl of Carlisle. He was succeeded in 1641 by Philip Bell. 
 
COUNTER ATTACKS 217 
 
 lands and in Buckingham's expedition to Isle de Rhe. 
 The company realised that in superseding Bell they might 
 antagonise a party of his supporters in the island led 
 by Elf rith and William Rous, and it was resolved, there- 
 fore, that the supersession should be carried out in the 
 most courteous way possible in return, for the mercies 
 vouchsafed to the island imder Bell's government; as 
 all the conditions of the original contracts with Bell 
 respecting supply of servants had certainly not been 
 fulfilled, the company were quite prepared for "the 
 clamours they may expect at his coming home for not 
 maldng good their contracts." The private letter 
 informing Bell of the appointment of his successor is 
 very cool in tone and shows very little appreciation of 
 the services he had rendered to the company; he is 
 requested to continue cheerfully in his new place of 
 councillor, giving assistance to the new governor pub- 
 licly and privately. They trust that he wiU not be * ' trans- 
 ported by any jealousy" as they intend nothing towards 
 him but what may stand with justice and honour; they 
 will be much gladder to find him deserving of thanks 
 and reward than any way blameworthy. After the 
 vicious practice common to all the English colonies of ' 
 the time. Bell's supersession was a signal for all those 
 in the island who had been aggrieved by any of his acts 
 as governor, to rise up against him and attempt to secure 
 satisfaction from him in his private capacity. The dis- 
 sensions that previously existed therefore broke out with 
 redoubled violence and the company in their letter of 
 1637 had to speak very strongly in order to preserve the 
 ex-governor from complete ruin. The judgments that 
 had been delivered against him for actp done during his 
 tenure of the governorship were declared null and void, 
 and his goods and negroes that had been confiscated by 
 the council were restored to him. He received permis- 
 
218 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 sion to sell off his plantation and goods, and returned 
 home in June, 1637. The company were justified in 
 their expectation that trouble would arise over the non- 
 fulfilment of their contracts with Bell by sending him 
 an insufficient number of servants, and the dispute about 
 the matter occupied the time of Treasurer Pym very 
 much during the latter part of 1637. 
 
 Bell desired the company to compensate him by a 
 money payment for the lack of the labours of the ser- 
 vants that had been promised to him as salary; he 
 alleged that he had received some twenty-five less than 
 had been promised and that many of those who were 
 sent ran away or proved unfit. He had felled much 
 ground to grow provisions for the servants he expected 
 and was therefore involved in further loss when they 
 did not arrive. In all he claimed £1250 from the com- 
 pany, bilt was willing to write off £400 due from him for 
 store-goods, tobacco not paid over, and bills discharged 
 for him in England. The company replied that they 
 were only bound by their contract to supply men to work 
 for him in the island, which, as it would tend to the 
 strengthening of Providence, they were ready to do, but 
 this answer was obviously disingenuous and it entirely 
 failed to satisfy Bell. After six months' discussion no 
 progress had been made in the matter, and it was decided 
 to refer to arbitration Bell's demands and Pym's excep- 
 tions thereto. Bell nominated as his arbitrator his 
 brother. Sir Robert Bell, while the company chose John 
 Hampden, but refused to sign any undertaking to be 
 bound individually by the arbitrators' award. In conse- 
 quence of this and Bell's refusal to be unconditionally 
 bound to accept the award, no conclusion could be come 
 to by the arbitrators, and in May, 1638, the ex-governor 
 petitioned the king, who ordered the lord keeper to give 
 attention to the matter and decide it. The company's 
 
COUNTER ATTACKS 219 
 
 case was placed in the hands of Oliver St. John and in 
 the result the lord keeper decided (November, 1638) that 
 particular members of the company were not liable for 
 agreements made under the common seal of the com- 
 pany, but no definite conclusion of the dispute had been 
 arrived at two years later and Bell, sick of the delay, 
 ultimately in July, 1640, accepted £50 in full settlement 
 of his claims. 
 
 The rest of Bell's story is soon told; when he accepted 
 the Providence Company's composition, he was contem- 
 plating a new voyage to the West Indies, and on Novem- 
 ber 29, 1640, he received permission from the Privy 
 Council' to transport one hundred and forty passengers 
 and stores to commence a plantation on the island of 
 Santa Lucia. The plantation does not appear to have 
 met with any success and in 1641 Bell moved with 
 his followers to Barbadoes, where he became deputy- 
 governor on Sir Henry Hunks's sailing for England in 
 1642. On Hunks's death in 1645, Bell became governor 
 of Barbadoes,'^" and there Ligon visited him in 1647.^^ 
 On the seizure of the island by the royalist fleet imder 
 Lord Willoughby of Parham in 1649, Bell, who was 
 notoriously parliamentarian in his sympathies, fled to 
 St. Christopher and there we hear of him for the last 
 time in 1669, when he was one of the commissioners for 
 receiving restitution of the island from the French." 
 
 Capt. Eobert Hunt was appointed governor of Provi- 
 dence by an agreement dated 1 March, 1636, and a 
 formal commission of March 28, 1636." The expenses 
 
 9 Acts of Privy Council, Col., I, p. 290. 
 
 10 Bryan Edwards, Bist. of West Indies, I, 325. 
 
 11 Ligon, Hist, of Bariadoes, p. 24. 
 
 12 The PhUip BeU of 1669 (A. P. C. Col., 1, 506) may have been a nephew. 
 See p. 94, note. 
 
 13 Hunt was well known to many in the Puritan party, as we may learn 
 from a letter to John Winthrop, jr., from Samuel Beade, his brother-in-law, 
 
220 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 of the transportation of himself, his wife, three children, 
 and two maid-servants, were to be borne by the company, 
 who promised in case of his death to do "what should 
 become them in honour and conscience for his wife." 
 One hundred acres of land were allotted to him for his 
 own benefit, together with twenty servants to work it 
 for him; no money salary was to be paid, but he was 
 to derive all his recompense for his pains from his land 
 and servants. In the very full instructions issued to 
 him, he was directed to bear himself indifferently between 
 all the parties in the island and to endeavour to compose 
 the acute differences that had arisen concerning Sher- 
 rard's ecclesiastical censures, many having complained 
 that they were much aggrieved by them. The general 
 letter from the company to the governor and council 
 March 28, 1636, to explain the changes that the company 
 had resolved to sanction in the island in consequence of 
 the permission they had received from the crown to 
 undertake reprisals against the Spaniards, is of enormous 
 length and fiUs sixteen closely written folio pages in the 
 letter book. It deals in the greatest minuteness with 
 details of all sorts, but contains also some general 
 declarations of a change of policy, and these are aU that 
 we can concern ourselves with. After congratulating 
 the planters on their successful repulse of the Spanish 
 attack, the company inform them that owing to the dis- 
 couragement of many adventurers the burden of the 
 enterprise is now cast upon very few shoulders, but they 
 have resolved to make a further trial, and keep the 
 island for the honour and public good of the English 
 nation. A general amnesty for all offences up to the 
 day of their deliverance from the Spanish attack is pro- 
 claimed, and everyone is exhorted to live in peace and 
 
 London, 5 March, 163%. "Mr. Hunt, I hear, is going into the Isle of 
 Providence." Mass. Hist. Soe. Coll., 5th series, I, 217. 
 
COUNTER ATTACKS 221 
 
 quietness, love and amity. Tlie permission given by tlie 
 crown to undertake reprisals is confirmed to properly 
 commissioned ships, and no man is to take prizes from 
 the Spaniards, whether by boat or otherwise, unless 
 specially authorised to do so. Indiscriminate attacks 
 weaken the island until it is better fortified, and great 
 care is to be exercised by the council to see that boats 
 are not surreptitiously taken to prey upon the eniemy; 
 any men attempting to steal away secretly in this fashion 
 are to be tried as traitors. To provide further for the 
 defence of the island, the company have sent a sergeant 
 gunner and three trained soldiers, "whom the Earl of 
 Warwick hath taken from Landgard Fort purposely 
 for the service of the island," The Spaniards will be 
 more inimical to Providence than ever now that they 
 have been repulsed, and ceaseless vigilance is to be 
 exercised to repel their attacks. The inhabitants are 
 to be drilled once or twice a week by the soldiers, so that 
 they may know the use of their arms, but the soldiers 
 are especially cautioned not to exhibit a proud and over- 
 bearing spirit, but to show mildness and justice to those 
 under them. 
 
 Trade with Dutch ships is still much disliked by the 
 company, because, being only for wine and sack, it has 
 tended not to men's health but to the increase of drunk- 
 enness, disorder, and poverty. The Dutch ships have 
 carried away almost the whole crop of the island, and, 
 even when the company's own ship was in the harbour, 
 the planters preferred to trade with the Dutch and run 
 so much into debt as to mortgage the whole of their 
 next crop. From henceforth the company will refuse 
 to send any goods upon their own account, but they 
 permit their husband, William Woodcock, to supply 
 goods to the planters upon such conditions as may be 
 agreed upon between them and his agents. Past debts 
 
222 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 to the company's stores are forgiven to those who remain 
 and strengthen the island, but no permission will be 
 given to planters to leave the island until they have dis- 
 charged their debts in full. Four months' supply is 
 sent with those coming over in the new ships, and by 
 the time this is exhausted, they ought to be able to fend 
 for themselves. 
 
 Perhaps the most important pronouncement of the 
 letter is that in which the company definitely announce 
 the abandonment of the system of half profits, which had 
 been so much objected to by the planters in this and 
 other plantations. The conditions" are imposed that the 
 company shall be freed from all pubUc charges, whether 
 for fortification or otherwise, the crops are to be sent 
 home by the company's ships and not sold to the Dutch, 
 and the letter goes on to say: "That [the planters] 
 may be more easily moved to apply themselves to build- 
 ing and husbandry for the improving of the land, we 
 have resolved that all the same shall be divided into 
 several proportions, that every man may know his own, 
 and have a certainty of tenure and estate, some part of 
 the land for the Governor, Captains and other ofl&cers, 
 and the rest to be disposed into farms and tenements 
 under such, the rent to be paid in tobacco, cotton or 
 other staple commodities, as shall be indifferent." The 
 estates shall be allotted in fee simple at a fee ferm rent, 
 . and time-expired servants shall be put upon plantations 
 at this fixed charge. When the island is fully planted, 
 they shall be transferred to the main continent and there 
 provided for. If the servants prefer it they may remain 
 upon the tenant's plantation and receive from him wages. 
 The men of better quality are to have about fifty acres 
 of land apiece, which the company think will be enough 
 
 1* The whole of this scheme was worked out by Pym and was accepted 
 at his suggestion. 
 
COUNTER ATTACKS 223 
 
 to maintain the master and fourteen servants; men of 
 lesser rank are to have thirty acres. The reserved rent 
 is to be about one-fourth of the commodities produced, 
 but the company cannot prescribe a definite rent> as they 
 hear that the land differs much in quality. The propor- 
 tions allotted are greater than the masters can con- 
 veniently manage to manure, but they are arranged so 
 that large courts and gardens may be kept round the 
 houses. Every planter is to be urged to enclose his 
 own ground, and every three months or thereabouts, the 
 governor is to inspect the plantations, to suggest 
 improvements where necessary, and to note the pro- 
 portion of ground planted with corn, with tobacco, with 
 cotton, and so on. 
 
 In the decision of the company embodied in these direc- 
 tions, we have the final abandonment of the system of 
 organisation that had been tried in so many colonies, 
 from Raleigh's Virginia onwards, though it had never 
 met with any measure of success. The organisation of 
 Providence was the last collective effort of the men who 
 had been responsible for the conduct of Virginia and 
 the Somers Islands in their earlier years, and once more, 
 as in those colonies, it was shown that, in order to make 
 colonists use their best endeavours for the cultivation of 
 the soil, it was needful to give them a proprietary inter- 
 est in it, and to make their obligations fixed and certain. 
 The constant uncertainty as to the amount due to the 
 company under the half-profit system, and the eternal 
 bickerings that went on concerning the quality and price 
 of the goods supplied in the company's magazines, always 
 tended to make the system unworkable with the intensely 
 individualistic Englishman of the seventeenth century. 
 The system may have been a necessary phase of Eng- 
 land's colonial development, but it is a striking fact that 
 the system was always imposed upon the colonists by an 
 
224 PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 external authority, and that in the councils of the Provi- 
 dence Company a prominent share was always taken by 
 men like Warwick and Sir Nathaniel Eich, who were the 
 especial upholders in the early seventeenth century of 
 the ideas of colonisation expressed by GUbert and 
 Raleigh at the end of the century before. 
 
 It wiU be remembered that upon receiving permission 
 from the crown to undertake reprisals against the Span- 
 iards, a reconstruction of the company had taken place 
 and the whole of the enterprise was placed for nine 
 years in the hands of the adventurers subscribing for 
 the new stock, amounting in aU to about £5000. This sum 
 was in part expended in supplying Providence with 
 ammunition and necessaries, and the rest went to the 
 equipment of three vessels, the Blessing, the Expectation, 
 and the Hopewell, for a prolonged privateering cruise in 
 the Indies from Providence as a base. A treaty was also 
 entered into at Pym's suggestion with Sir Edward Con- 
 way, whereby, in return for a fifth part of all prizes 
 taken, the company agreed to let bim share in their right 
 of reprisal with a ship he had previously been intending 
 to send into the Indies provided with a commission from 
 the Prince of Orange. The Blessing was put under the 
 command of WiUiam Rous, who was relieved from his 
 command of Fort Henry in Providence; John Leicester 
 served as master of the Blessing, and Cornelius Billinger 
 as master of the Expectation. The Hopewell was owned 
 by William Woodcock, the company's husband, and was 
 sent out on his account, one-fifth of all prizes taken being 
 allotted to the company. 
 
 The directions given to the masters of these ships 
 were all of a similar character, and as all subsequent 
 regulations of the company concerning prizes were based 
 upon them, it is worth while to consider them somewhat 
 in detail. The Blessing, a vessel of about two hundred 
 
COUNTEE ATTACKS 225 
 
 tons, was armed, in addition to what slie had previously 
 carried, with new ordnance at a cost of £182," and her 
 ship's company was increased beyond the usual comple- 
 ment. The master was directed to acquaint the seamen 
 with his designs shortly after leaving the English coast 
 and to agree with them as to their proportion of the 
 booty. The priaciple of shares was to be adopted in 
 preference to fixed wages, as making the men more ready 
 to assault the enemy's ships and as securing the booty 
 from embezzlement. The alternative placed before the 
 men was the usual one, to be allowed pillage of all above 
 deck or else one-third of the total profit obtained from 
 the prizes. The Blessing was ordered to sail to Provi- 
 dence via Tortuga Salada," where a supply of salt was 
 to be obtained, the services of the passengers she was 
 taking out being used in the lading. At Providence two 
 shallops were to be obtained and these were to be 
 manned with twenty men apiece, one to assist the Bless- 
 ing and the other the Expectation. No enterprises of 
 difficulty were to be undertaken by Eous, but after con- 
 sultation with Leicester and Billinger, the will of the 
 majority was to prevail. If a prize of poor value were 
 taken, it was to be manned with a prize crew and sent 
 to Providence, where her goods were to be kept safe; 
 a prize of good value was to be brought to England, but 
 all prisoners were to be disposed of in such a way as to 
 avoid discovery of the ship's designs; captured negroes 
 were to be conveyed to Providence and there disposed of, 
 save those who could dive for pearls, who were to be 
 retained as the company's property. The Blessing was 
 permitted to consort with any English or Dutch ship, 
 
 16 Two minions, £25, 4 demi-eulverins, £139-2s., 2 drakes, £18. 
 
 16 The island of Tortuga Salada, or Salt Tortuga, noted for its salt pans, 
 must be distinguished from the Tortuga ofE Hispaniola. It lies not far from 
 Punta Araya and Margarita off the coast of Venezuela. 
 
226 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 ton for ton and man for man ; if any good Spanish pilots 
 were taken, well acquainted with the Bay of Nicaragua, 
 the Bay of Honduras, or any part of the coast of Terra 
 Firma, use might be made of them, but if any came to 
 Providence, care was to be taken that their liberty did 
 not discover the weakness of the island. 
 
 While they were employed in the first instance for 
 prizes, trade was not to be entirely lost sight of by Rous 
 and his fellows ; strict enquiry was to be made wherever 
 they went, where indigo, cochineal, sarsaparilla, ginger, 
 rice, or any other commodities of value might be obtained. 
 If gardens were found near the coast, they were to be 
 searched for commodities fit to grow in Providence. 
 When a suitable length of time had been spent in the 
 Indies, the vessels were to steer for home via Bermuda, 
 whither they were to carry any freight the governor and 
 council of Providence thought suitable. They were to 
 leave it in Bermuda in charge of the servants of War- 
 wick, Saye, N. Eich, or Pym, who would dispose of it to 
 ships trading to New England. If no suitable freight 
 6ould be sent from Providence to England and the ves- 
 sels were not filled with prize booty, they were to lade 
 with wood at Tortuga or with salt at Hispaniola, and 
 this they were to bring to Europe. In case the island of 
 Providence was found to have been captured, enquiry 
 was to be made at Henrietta Island, at the Moskito Cays, 
 and on the Main to find whether any of the inhabitants 
 had escaped. If there were no chance of resettling 
 Providence, the passengers and the remaining colonists 
 were to be transported to the settlement on Cape Gracias 
 a Dios and this was henceforward to be made the head- 
 quarters of the ships; but if the enemy after its cap- 
 ture had wholly relinquished Providence it was to be 
 reoccupied. 
 
 In the course of our pages very little, it will have been 
 
COUNTER ATTACKS 227 
 
 noticed, has been said concerning the island of Hen- 
 rietta or San Andreas, although this was included in the 
 original patent of the Providence Company as suitable 
 for the company's activities. As a matter of fact, 
 although the idea had been broached two or three times, 
 no attempt had been made at any permanent settlement 
 of the island. San Andreas is a long low island, largely 
 of a sandy nature, and its harbour, lying on the west 
 side, is very unsafe and exposed to the prevailing winds. 
 The island did not lend itself to fortification and the 
 company, therefore, did not choose to waste upon it 
 the labours and expense that could be more profit- 
 ably expended on Providence. San Andreas, however, 
 abounded in fine timber and became the scene of a 
 quite respectable ship-building industry, and many shal- 
 lops were built there under the direction of some Dutch 
 shipwrights. The island was also the base for a great 
 deal of the surreptitious preying on the smaller Spanish 
 vessels that had to be carefully concealed from the gov- 
 ernor and council of Providence during the early years 
 of the colony's existence. We gather some light upon 
 the proceedings of those who sheltered in the island 
 from an extract or two from an extant letter of one 
 Roger Floud to Sir Nathaniel Rich:" "Honored Sir — 
 My last was by the Elisabeth which set sail home the 24th 
 of March with a purpose to leave Mr. Key with Capt. 
 Cammock, whose pinnace came here the 7th of April and 
 without any stay went to Henrietta to saw boards for a 
 shallop, where by an unknown accident she was burned 
 and the people brought here by a ship of Flushing hired 
 by Governor Hilton to bring Mr. Williams with car- 
 riages and wheels and other munitions. ... If Mr. 
 Williams can meet with a frigate and take it, the Dutch 
 
 " Maneh. Pap., no. 420, Boger Floud to Sir N. Bich, Providence, 16 May, 
 1634. 
 
228 PTJEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 captain will bestow tlie vessel on them. ... I offered 
 the Governor,^* if he would let me go with 5 or 6 men to 
 carry Capt. Cammock the news [at the Cape] I would 
 take my shallop and bear the men safe, which was 
 regarded as a task of desperateness. The Dutch captain 
 and pilot, being of my acquaintance, made offer to me 
 and others to sell his ship ; if we would go with 20 men, 
 he would serve us a twelve-month for one-third of what 
 we should take, which offer was refused as prejudicial 
 to the peace, yet [if] Captain Cammock 's men is suffered 
 to go and take, although but a fisherman, the breach is 
 no less than in a plate ship." 
 
 The Spanish fleet that attacked Providence in 1635 
 had previously reconnoitred Henrietta and found there 
 only a few escaped servants, who on their approach fled 
 to the dense woods covering the island. After burning 
 the few huts and sheds that were made use of by the boat 
 builders, the enemy departed to the attack upon their 
 main objective. After the Spanish repulse, boat-building 
 was carried on in Henrietta as before and some pinnaces 
 of fair size were launched, among them the two that 
 were to act as tenders to the Blessing and Expectation. 
 Salt-making for curing the flesh of the turtle found on 
 the shores of the island was also carried on. In March, 
 1636, William Woodcock, the company's husband, pro- 
 posed to the company that he should send on his own 
 account a number of men to raise commodities, especially 
 dettee and annotto, upon Henrietta, he in return paying 
 to the company one-fifth of the profits but bearing all 
 expense himself. He had recently been engaging in a 
 similar undertaking in Connecticut, where he had placed 
 several servants to look after the flocks of sheep he had 
 exported from England in partnership with Sir Eichard 
 
 18 Gov. Bell of Providence. 
 
COUNTER ATTACKS 229 
 
 Saltonstall/' The Massachusetts immigrants from Dor- 
 chester interfered with the peaceful occupation of his 
 land, broke down his fences and allowed his sheep to 
 escape, whereby both he and Saltonstall suffered consid- 
 erable loss.^° He now got ready some fifty servants 
 under the command of one Capt. Andrew Carter and 
 shipped them on one of his own ships, the Hopewell. 
 Carter received a commission from the company as gov- 
 ernor of the island of Henrietta and by April, 1636, 
 everything was ready for sailing, when for some reason 
 Woodcock resolved to defer the plantation of Henrietta 
 for a time, and his men were ordered to Providence 
 instead. The company wrote to the council that Wood- 
 cock had deferred his plantation upon Henrietta and 
 consented that those who were designed to begin a plan- 
 tation there should be left at Providence until a further 
 number could be sent over. The defence of the island 
 would thereby be strengthened, "the principal thing 
 considerable in our designs." Woodcock's men were 
 directed to seat themselves together on some part of the 
 windward side of the island, that was not yet planted, 
 and there they were to get ready provisions for their 
 future plantation. This body of men under Carter's 
 leadership formed an important addition to the anti- 
 Puritan party in Providence and had a good deal to do 
 with its ultimate loss. 
 
 The Blessing, the Expectation, and the Hopewell set 
 sail from England in company in May, 1636, but soon lost 
 
 19 Mass. Hist. Soe. Coll., 4th series, VI, 579, Sir Bichard Saltonstall to 
 John Winthrop, jr. See also 5th series, I, 216. 
 
 20 Lord Brooke to John Winthrop. ' ' I am informed by Mr. Woodcock 
 that he sent over the last year [1635] to Connecticut at least 20 servants to 
 impale some ground, where they might improve their industry to his ad- 
 vantage and wherein he might feed some store of sheep." He was pre- 
 vented by the Dorchester men and Lord Brooke recommends to Winthrop 
 his demands for compensation. Mass. Hist. Soe. Coll., 5th series, I, 240. 
 
230 PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 sight one of another. The Blessing and the Hopewell 
 arrived in Providence after comparatively uneventful 
 voyages, and William Eous having taken command of 
 the former, she set sail on her roving commission against 
 the Spaniards. The Expectation's voyage, however, was 
 by no means so uneventful and her hundred passengers 
 underwent terrible privations. She had not long left 
 England when some mysterious sickness broke out on 
 board to which Cornelius Billinger, the master, soon fell 
 a victim. The command therefore devolved upon Giles 
 Mersh, the mate, who, instead of landing his passengers 
 at Providence, refused to enter the harbour and retained 
 them on board to augment his fighting force. Two or 
 three Spanish frigates were attacked in turn, but noth- 
 ing of value was secured save a few negroes. After 
 setting the crews of these frigates on shore near Car- 
 tagena, Mersh sailed across to the Moskito Cays and 
 there remained for fourteen days trading for negroes 
 with the Dutch slave-merchants in return for goods 
 taken out of the supply he was carrying to Providence. 
 Leaving the Moskito Cays, he again bore across to the 
 coast of Terra Firma and there met the Blessing, whose 
 captain, Rous, proposed to make a joint attack on the 
 Spanish town of Santa Marta guided by a Spanish pilot 
 he had captured. Though Mersh agreed to assist Eous 
 in his enterprise, by his dilatoriness he failed to take 
 advantage of favouring winds and the Blessing was left 
 to make the attack alone. The supply of provisions on 
 the Expectation had by now begun to run very short and 
 the seamen and passengers were practically starving, 
 though Mersh and his mate were living riotously in the 
 cabin. The sickness again broke out on board and when, 
 six weeks after leaving the MosMtos, the Expectation at 
 last cast anchor in the harbour of Providence, more than 
 forty of the original complement of one hundred passen- 
 
COUNTEE ATTACKS 231 
 
 gers were dead and of the survivors not more than ten 
 were whole and well. 
 
 When the Blessing had landed Gov. Hunt and the rest 
 of her passengers in Providence and Capt. Rous came 
 aboard to take command, it was to the great delight of 
 the crew, for Rous had obtained a great name in the 
 Indies for his profitable depredations in light pinnaces. 
 Thomas Gage, the English Capuchin, who was sailing 
 from Porto Bello to Cartagena late in 1636, gives us an 
 idea of the hatred felt by the Spaniards towards the 
 Providence colonists at this time:" "The greatest fear 
 that, I perceived, possessed the Spaniard in this voyage 
 was about the Island of Providence, called by them Sta. 
 Catahna or St. Katherine, from whence they feared lest 
 some English ships should come out against them with 
 great strength. They cursed the English in it and called 
 the Island the den of Thieves and Pirates wishing that 
 the King of Spain would take some course with it; or 
 else that it would prove very prejudicial to the Spaniards, 
 lying near the mouth of the Desaguadero, and so endan- 
 gering the Frigates of Granada, and standing between 
 Portobel and Cartagena and so threatening the Galeons 
 and their King's yearly and mighty treasure. Thus with 
 bitter invectives against the English and the Island of 
 Providence, we sailed on to Cartagena." 
 
 The Blessing's roving cruise was neither a successful 
 nor a lengthy one, for, having, as we have seen, met the 
 Expectation, and arranged to attack the town of Santa 
 Marta in concert, the Expectation was becalmed and the 
 Blessing entered the harbour alone. The town had been 
 warned of the approach of the English by the Spaniards, 
 who had been put ashore from the Expectation near Car- 
 tagena, and Rous met with a very warm reception. The 
 
 21 Gage, The English American, p. 450. 
 
232 PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 fight was too unequal to be a long one and after tlie 
 Englisli liacl lost several men, the rest, including Eous 
 himself, were compelled to surrender on October 20, 1636. 
 The prisoners were taken overland to Cartagena and 
 there they were met on his landing by Thomas Gage-. 
 He says:^^ "I stayed in the Haven of Cartagena for the 
 space of eight or ten days, where I met with some of my 
 countrymen their prisoners, but especially that gallant 
 Captain Eouse, who came unto me to complain of 
 some affronts which had been offered imto him by the 
 Spaniards in the ship whereby he came; which he, not 
 being able to put up with, though a Prisoner unto them, 
 desired to question in the field, challenging his proud 
 contemners to meet him if they durst in any place of the 
 Havanna (a brave temper in a dejected and imprisoned 
 English man to challenge a Spaniard in his own country 
 as a cock upon his own dunghill)." The temper that 
 Eous had exhibited in Providence, he therefore carried 
 with him into his captivity. G-age with difficulty per- 
 suaded him to abandon his attempt at satisfaction and in 
 due course Eous was sent to Europe and arrived a 
 prisoner at San Lucar. 
 
 He had already written from Cartagena to his kinsman 
 Pym to secure his release, and he agaia wrote from San 
 Lucar. Pym at once sent to him in Spain £20 out of his 
 own pocket to relieve his pressing necessities, and in 
 January, 1638, he informed the company of Eous's 
 plight. Letters were at once obtained from the king to 
 the English ambassador ia Spain requesting Eous's 
 immediate release and inquiring what right the Span- 
 iards had to take our ships prize upon the coast of 
 America."^ But it was found impossible to do anything 
 and on June 12, 1638, Fanshawe, the English charge 
 
 22 Hid., p. 452. 
 
 28 state Papers, Foreign, Spain, Hopton to Windebank, 14 July, 1638. 
 
COUNTER ATTACKS 233 
 
 d'affaires, wrote to Secretary Coke:" "There depends 
 another business here concerning one, Captain Eons, who 
 was brought likewise from the Indies to the prison of 
 San Lucar his Lordship could procure no resolution 
 touching him, neither can I hitherto, and it may be likely 
 in my opinion that the issue will be as of other cases," — 
 that is to say that no official order would be forthcoming 
 for the prisoner's release, but the use of bribery would 
 be tacitly winked at and the prisoners would be permitted 
 to make their escape from the prison of the Casa de 
 Contratacion. The expected happened; for ten months 
 Rous was allowed on bail in the town of San Lucar, being 
 supported by a sum of £75 sent to him privately by Pym 
 and by £100 borrowed from the English consul, Paul 
 Wadworth; one of his fellow-prisoners" having ab- 
 sconded, Rous had his bail withdrawn and was cast into 
 the common gaol of the town. Li November, 1639, by 
 dint of money provided by Pym, he managed to secure 
 his escape along with the other surviving prisoners and 
 at once returned to England, where he was content to 
 settle down for a time. He was in later years elected a 
 member of the Long Parliament, but played no very 
 important part in its proceedings. 
 
 The story of Rous and the Blessing has seemed worth 
 the telling in this detail, if only to illustrate the fact 
 that the English sailors of Charles I's day were subject 
 to the same vicissitudes that Hakluyt and Purchas de- 
 scribe for the Elizabethan sailors. There had been as 
 yet no break of the Elizabethan tradition, the old feud 
 was still kept up, and stories such as these going the 
 round of English firesides made blind hatred of Papist 
 
 2* S. P. Foreign, Spain. 
 
 20 Edward Lajfield. The ship he escaped in fell into the hands of 
 Algerine pirates and he was again a prisoner. 
 
234 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 Spain still the dominant motive of the ordinary English- 
 man in foreign politics. 
 
 The Blessing and her consorts had sailed from Eng- 
 land in May, 1636, and in the same month the company 
 was approached by Capt. Thomas Newman, with whose 
 privateering exploits in the West Indies in the ship 
 Hunter we dealt in a previous chapter. Newman pro- 
 posed to the company through Treasurer Pym to under- 
 take a voyage for reprisals in the Indies under the com- 
 pany's commission, either being set out by them or if he 
 set himself out, paying them a fixed proportion of the 
 proceeds of the voyage. Pym strongly advised that 
 Newman should be employed and was of the opinion that 
 it would be more profitable for the company to send him 
 out in one of their own ships, as by this means they 
 would secure a larger share of the booty. This was the 
 plan accepted by the company and a fresh joint stock 
 was started to provide the requisite capital. Nine adven- 
 turers''" subscribed £1250 between them, and to this New- 
 man himself added £400; a ship of three hundred tons, 
 the Happy Return, was hired, together with a smaller 
 vessel, the Providence, and both were well equipped with 
 ammunition and ordnance. Some twenty servants were 
 the only passengers sent by these vessels to Providence, 
 as Newman desired to undertake hostilities against the 
 enemy on his voyage out and civilian passengers would 
 impede his activity. The vessels sailed from England 
 in August, 1636, with the same commission and instruc- 
 tions that had been issued for the Blessing; their voyage 
 was fairly successful until its last few weeks and we must 
 return to some consideration of it later. 
 
 Owing to the terrible visitation of the plague that 
 afSicted England throughout the later part of 1636, there 
 
 asSaye £200, Brooke £200, Eudyerd £50, N. Rich £100, Pym £200, 
 Gurdon £50, Darley £100, Barrington £100, Woodcock £200, Waller £50. 
 
COUNTER ATTACKS 235 
 
 was an entire intermission of the company's meetings 
 from June, 1636, to January, 1637, and the small amount 
 of business that had to be carried on was left in the 
 hands of Secretary Jessop. In December the James, 
 under the command of Capt. William Rudyerd, that had 
 sailed to recolonise Association in June, 1636, put back 
 into Plymouth utterly disabled. The news was carried 
 to Pym, who was then staying with Lord Brooke at his 
 country seat, Warwick Castle ; they with Lord Saye, who 
 was also staying at the castle, decided that the design 
 upon Association should be abandoned, and that Rud- 
 yerd should be placed in command of a new vessel, the 
 Mary Mope, and despatched to the West Indies on a prize 
 voyage, financed by the remainder of the amount sub- 
 scribed for the Association design. The instructions for 
 his voyage were similar in form to those issued to others 
 of the company's captains, but there was one important 
 addition. Pym had begun to find that the company's 
 permission to undertake reprisals against the Spaniards 
 had a high commercial value, and that considerable sxmas 
 might be made by issuing licenses or commissions to act 
 under it for a percentage of the profits obtained. Rud- 
 yerd was therefore instructed to stay any Englishmen 
 whom he found trading within the limits of the com- 
 pany's patents without their licenses. Any hostile action 
 against Spain by other Englishmen he was to prevent in 
 as far as he was able. Such an order was obviously futile 
 and incapable of fulfilment, but it was a useful advertise- 
 ment to the merchants, who desired to undertake priva- 
 teering voyages, that the Providence Company had a 
 valuable article to dispose of and would be pleased to do 
 business at a reasonable rate. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE PROVIDENCE COMPANY AND THE SHIP- 
 MONEY CASE 
 
 In the story of the Providence Company and its activi- 
 ties there is, perhaps, no more striking fact to be noted 
 than the intimate connection of its fortunes with the 
 general history of the time. We have shown in an earlier 
 chapter how the growing agitation against the illegal 
 levying of ship-money had much to do with the frustra- 
 tion of the project of the Puritan leaders for emigration 
 to the New World, and our investigation now leads us to 
 consider how, in 1637, Pym and his fellows became 
 involved in an organised conspiracy to defeat the gov- 
 ernment's plans to finance their arbitrary regime by the 
 extension of a tax that had never received the sanction 
 of parliament. The student of Stuart history cannot 
 fail to notice at every turn of his enquiries, how great 
 an influence the variations in England's foreign policy 
 had upon the course of home politics, and here again we 
 find the king's insoluble problem of how to secure the 
 restoration of the Palatinate to Protestant hands play- 
 ing a potent part in the affairs of the Puritan leaders. 
 
 Charles I's plans for the recovery of the hereditary 
 possessions of his young nephew, the Elector Palatine, 
 were marked by an irresolution and a trust in tortuous 
 diplomatic intrigues that made his name a byword in 
 every court in Europe. A perpetual conflict of opinion 
 raged in his councils between those who favoured a close 
 alliance with Spain and those who, led by the queen and 
 her confidant, the Earl of Holland, urged an opposite 
 
THE SHIP-MONEY CASE 237 
 
 course and a reliance upon French, support. In Decem- 
 ber, 1636, the Earl of Arundel, who had been prominent 
 among the pro-Spanish party, returned to England from 
 an unsuccessful mission to the court of Vienna, so dis- 
 couraged and disillusioned that he resolved to throw his 
 influence into the opposite scale and to advise the king 
 to an open alliance with France against Spain/ His 
 assistance was particularly welcome to the Earl of Hol- 
 land and the queen, and strong pressure was brought to 
 bear on the king to force him to yield to the entreaties for 
 overt action of his sister, the dispossessed queen of 
 Bohemia, and her devoted adherent. Sir Thomas Eoe. 
 For months Roe had been suggesting that letters of 
 marque for voluntary war against the king of Spain in 
 the Indies should be granted in the name of the young 
 Elector Palatine,^ and in January, 1637, the foreign 
 affairs committee of the Privy Council decided that some 
 of the ships raised by the ship-money should be lent to 
 the elector.' The greatest enthusiasm for the new plan 
 was expressed at court and many noblemen came for- 
 ward with subscriptions to aid the enterprise. While 
 the preliminary arrangements were being made, over- 
 tures were received from Richelieu for a close treaty of 
 alliance between England and France, and it appeared 
 as though the king would at last be able to strike out a 
 clear course in foreign policy, that would meet with the 
 approval of the nation at large. On the 7th of February, 
 all the twelve judges to whom the question of the legality 
 of ship-money had been referred returned an answer in 
 the affirmative and Charles was sanguine enough to sup- 
 
 1 Gardiner, VIII, 202. 
 
 2 C. S. P. Dom., 1636-1637, Oct. 19. See also p. 504 and 8. P. Dom., 
 ceel, no. 77. For Boe's propositions in 1637 for the formation of an 
 English West Indian Company, see C. S. P. Dom., 6 Aug., 1637, and Col. 
 Pap., IX, 61, 62, 63. 
 
 3 Gardiner, VIII, 204. 
 
238 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 pose that this answer would soon put a stop to the agi- 
 tation in the country about the obnoxious tax, and that 
 he would soon be in possession of a revenue ample 
 enough to permit him to undertake hostilities with every 
 hope of success. 
 
 While the meetings of the Providence Company in 
 London had been intermitted owing to the plague, some 
 most important overtures from the West India Company 
 of Holland had been made to the Earl of Warwick and 
 his partners. The period of the greatest activity of the 
 Dutch company was just opening, and active prepara- 
 tions were being made for the despatch of Count Joan 
 Maurice of Nassau with ample resources to develop the 
 Dutch empire in Brazil as supreme civil and military 
 commander. In order to divide the Spaniards ' attention 
 a great diversion in the West Indies was contemplated 
 and it was therefore suggested that the Providence Com- 
 pany should transfer their rights in the island to the 
 West India Company of Holland, who would undertake 
 the maintenance of the colony and would make it a base 
 of attack upon the Panama trade. That the negotiations 
 might be carried on, it was necessary for the Providence 
 Company to obtain permission from the crown to part 
 with the island, if a decent price could be obtained. The 
 Earl of Holland was therefore requested to approach 
 the king and to report to the company the result of his 
 petition, but the request was made at the height of the 
 new enthusiasm at court for anti-Spanish projects and 
 the moment was evidently inopportune for the granting 
 of the desired permission to part with an English pos- 
 session that would form so suitable a base for offensive 
 operations against the Spaniards. 
 
 On February 9, 1637, the Earl of Holland made his 
 only appearance at the general court of the Providence 
 Company to convey the decision of the king concerning 
 
THE SHIP-MONEY CASE 239 
 
 the island "for the parting from whicli his Majesty was 
 pleased to promise leave to the company some time 
 since, it proving hitherto a place of charge rather than 
 profit." "Forasmuch," said he, "as the Dutch ambas- 
 sador had declared to his Lordship the Hollander's un- 
 certainty and delays in resolution and their unwillingness 
 to part with so great a sum as might be expected by the 
 company, he had moved his Majesty to retain the island 
 still in the hands of his own subjects, and the rather 
 because of some designs in resolutions to be attempted 
 about those parts. And to that end his Majesty would be 
 pleased either to allow the company a convenient sum 
 of money for recompense of their charges, or to furnish 
 them with means to secure the place until his Majesty 
 shall think fit to take it of them. ' ' The negotiations with 
 the Dutch were therefore to be broken off and the com- 
 pany were directed to prepare propositions for carrying 
 on the work. In accordance with this direction the gen- 
 eral court appointed a standing committee for the 
 launching of a new scheme, and the last reconstruction 
 of the company was begun. The work occupied rather 
 more than a year, and in April, 1638, a large expedition 
 was sent to strengthen Providence, under the command 
 of the celebrated Capt. Nathaniel Butler as military gov- 
 ernor. The negotiations that led up to the despatch of 
 this expedition had, of course, a great indSuence on the 
 fortunes of the colony and will demand our attention 
 from that point of view, but they are of wider interest as 
 a part of the activity of the Puritan leaders and it is 
 from this standpoint that we must first consider them. 
 
 "When the king refused his permission for the sale of 
 Providence and recommended a reconstruction of the 
 company in February, 1637, his affairs had to the inex- 
 perienced eye never seemed in a more prosperous con- 
 dition ; when in April, 1638, the reconstruction was com- 
 
240 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 plete and Butler's expedition was despatched, this hol- 
 low show of prosperity had vanished before the menace 
 of Scottish rebellion, and even the least capable student 
 of affairs could see that a crisis was at hand, and that 
 the struggle between crown and parliament, that had 
 apparently closed in 1629, still remained to be fought to 
 an issue. Through these months of preparation the 
 doings of the Puritan leaders are wrapped in obscurity, 
 and any indirect light that can be thrown upon them is 
 of value where evidence is so lacking. Some such light 
 it is possible to obtain from the Providence records, and, 
 though its gleams are scant and fitful, yet where more 
 definite information cannot, of necessity, be obtained, it 
 may aid us somewhat to pierce the gloom. Nothing less 
 was in process of formation during these months than 
 the first organised political party of opposition to an 
 English government, a task whose difficulty can hardly 
 be grasped by the modern Englishman, to whom nothing 
 is more natural than the existence of "His Majesty's 
 Opposition," bound as closely to constitutional courses 
 as any other party in the state. As in nature the shock 
 of an external impulse will cause the saturated fluid to 
 congeal round a tiny nucleus into a solid mass, so did 
 that congeries of discordant units, the England of 1637, 
 form itself round the nucleus of the Providence Company 
 into the opposition of 1640, stiffened in active resistance 
 to absolutism by the external impulse of the Scottish 
 Wars. 
 
 The men of the next generation realized what an impor- 
 tant part the meetings of the Providence adventurers 
 played in the organisation of the opposition, for we may 
 learn from the pages of Anthony a Wood that: "At 
 Saye's house in the country at Broughton [near Ban- 
 bury] the malcontents used to meet, and what embryos 
 were conceived in the country, were shaped in Gray's Inn 
 
THE SHIP-MONEY CASE 241 
 
 Lane, near London, where the undertakers for the Isle of 
 Providence did meet."* Hostility to the second writ of 
 ship-money had been most noticeable in those counties 
 where the Puritan leaders could especially exercise their 
 territorial influence, and the State Papers for 1636-1637 
 bear this out in detail. Fawsley, Broughton, Hatfield 
 Broad Oak, Great Hampden, and Harrow-on-the-Hill 
 are names that are constantly recurring in the sheriffs' 
 complaints of their inability to collect their quotas," and 
 the conviction is borne in upon us that a concerted plan 
 of resistance to the impost had been agreed upon. Saye, 
 as the Puritan leader who had been most often engaged 
 in similar contests with the government, determined, if 
 possible, to test the legality of the hated tax in the courts 
 of law, and chose one of his Lincolnshire estates as the 
 case for conflict. Some of his goods had been distrained 
 upon for payment of his portion of the ship-money and 
 Saye in consequence sued the constable for illegal dis- 
 traint;* in reply the constable pleaded the king's writ 
 and to this Saye demurred as an insufficient authority. 
 The government declined to take up the battle on such 
 grounds and Saye was proceeded against in the Star 
 Chamber for depopulation of his estates, an entire 
 shirking of the issue. Nor could Warwick, even though 
 he openly protested to the king, secure that his case 
 should be brought before the courts, while he found it 
 difficult to secure the signatures of any but his own 
 
 < Wood, Afhen<B Oxonienses, ed. Bliss, III, 547. 
 
 s A few instances only wiU suffice: C. 8. P. Dom., 1636-1637, 20 March, 
 28 March, 10 October, difficulty of collection from Knightley's tenants at 
 Fawsley; 12 Sept., distress to be levied on Saye's Gloucestershire tenants; 
 many other entries re Saye; 4 Oct., Sir Gilbert Gerrard refuses to pay 
 ship-money at Harrow; p. 214, very refractory in payment among Barring- 
 ton's tenants at Hatfield Broad Oak; 17 Nov., 17 Dec, the Earl of Warwick 
 refuses to pay. 
 
 8 C. S. P. Vom., 1636-1637, pp. 155, 252. 
 
242 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 immediate party to the public protest against the ship- 
 money with which he meant to approach the king. 
 Charles's presentation of the question of legality to the 
 judges was intended to put an end to all hopes of a 
 direct trial of the issue, and the public reading of the 
 judges' answer on February 14, 1637, finally clinched 
 the matter as far as the majority of people were con- 
 cerned.' But although Lord Keeper Coventry had hinted 
 his belief that any lawyer would be very foolish to take 
 up so desperate a case as the contest of the legality of 
 ship-money in face of the unanimous decision of the 
 judges, the Puritan leaders were not of the same mind. 
 
 On the 24th, 26th, and 27th of February, 1637, we find 
 from our records that meetings of the Providence Com- 
 pany were held at Preston Capes in Northamptonshire, 
 only half a mile away from Knightley's seat at Fawsley 
 and where he may have possessed a second residence. 
 The adventurers attending these meetings were Saye, 
 Brooke, Mandeville,* Knightley, and Pym, together with 
 the company's husband, Woodcock, whom we may 
 neglect. The presence of John Hampden at Preston 
 may also be confidently assumed, for his seat at Great 
 Hampden in Buckinghamshire was only a few hours' 
 ride away. Among Knightley's guests there is no doubt 
 that the Providence Company's affairs would demand 
 very little share of the conversation, but the one absorb- 
 ing topic would be the recent answer of the judges and 
 
 7 Gardiner, VTII, 209. 
 
 8 Edward Montagu, Viscount Mandeville, had begun to take a pTominent 
 part in the company's work after the death of Sir Nathaniel Bich on 29 
 May, 1636. Prom a letter of Matthew Cradock to John Winthrop, 15 
 March, 1637, we learn that Sir Nathaniel's life was shortened by the 
 immoderate use of a new quack medicine, the "Antimoniall Cuppe" (Mass. 
 Hist. Soc. Coll., 4th series, VI, 125). Mandeville was Rich's executor and 
 succeeded to the whole of his holding in the company, and to his papers. 
 This accounts for the presence of Bich 's papers in the Manchester collection. 
 Bieh's will is extant at Somerset House. 
 
THE SHIP-MONEY CASE 243 
 
 the best means of compelling the government to take up 
 a definite challenge in the law courts. Pym could speak 
 for the wealthiest and most respected Puritan in Eng- 
 land, the Earl of Bedford, as entirely sympathetic to the 
 object in view, and the services of the two lawyers, 
 Holborne and St. John, to whom the management of the 
 whole of the vast Russell law business was entrusted, 
 might be depended upon for the proper presentation of 
 the case. On the 9th of March,® the plans of the con- 
 spirators were put into action, a writ of certiorari was 
 directed from the Chancery in respect of Hampden's 
 refusal to pay the twenty shillings of ship-money 
 assessed on his lands in the parish of Stoke Mandeville, 
 and before the year 1637 was out the names of John 
 Hampden and Oliver St. John were the most famous in 
 England. 
 
 Throughout the early summer of 1637 the business of 
 the Providence Company was transacted at Brooke 
 House in Holbom by a committee consisting of Saye 
 and Pym, with Brooke, Warwick, Rudyerd, and Darley 
 as occasional attendants. On July 24, however, we again 
 find Saye, Brooke, Pym, and Mandeville meeting at 
 Fawsley. Between July and November no meetings 
 were held owing to the immersion of Pym in the prepa- 
 rations for the coming case. Pym and St. John were 
 Hampden's close counsellors in the interval before the 
 public trial, and six months^" were passed in preparation 
 on both sides. While the public arguments on the case 
 were proceeding in the Exchequer Chamber,^^ there was 
 a full assembling of the Puritan leaders in London. On 
 November 27, Saye, Brooke, Pym, Waller, Barrington 
 (now a very rare attendant), Darley, and Woodcock met 
 
 » Nugent 's Mems. of Hampden (5th ed., pub. Bell), p. 108. 
 
 loPorster's Life of Pym, p. 76. 
 
 11 6 November to 18 December, 1637. 
 
244 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 at Brooke House; on December 9, Saye, Brooke, Pym, 
 Warwick, Mandeville, Darley, and Woodcock and two 
 days later Saye, Brooke, Pym, Darley, Waller, Barring- 
 ton, and Woodcock met at Brooke House. The regula- 
 tions enforcing upon country gentlemen residence upon 
 their estates were particularly strictly enforced at Christ- 
 mas, 1637, and orders were issued that all must leave 
 London before December 12. It is now for the first time 
 that we find Pym taking charge of the business of the 
 Puritan party during the absence of its members from 
 London and a special petition was addressed from the 
 Providence Company to the king asking permission for 
 him to remain along with Darley to look after the busi- 
 ness, and in the return of the Middlesex justices" to the 
 government, we find his name recorded as residing during 
 the early part of January in St. Andrew's parish, Hol- 
 born. Against some of the names given, mention is made 
 that permission to stay had been accorded, but there is 
 no record of the sort against Pym's name and it is 
 possible, therefore, that he stayed without any proper 
 warrant and in despite of the royal order. 
 
 From the end of January, 1638, onwards, full meetings 
 of the company were resumed at Brooke House, and 
 Saye, Brooke, Warwick, Pym, and Mandeville were 
 regular attendants. At this period the outlook of affairs 
 was so black for the Puritan party, and there seemed so 
 little chance of making headway against the tide of 
 absolutism and Arminian innovation, that once more the 
 idea of emigration presented itself to the leaders and 
 preparations began to be made for them to proceed to 
 Providence and the Main. On January 31, 1638, Lord 
 Saye announced to the company his intention of emi- 
 
 12 S. p. Dom., Car. I, occlxxviii, No. 94, 16 Jan., 1638. Return by John 
 Heme and Geo. Long, justices of the peace for Middlesex, of such persons 
 of honour as have continued in London since 12 December last. 
 
THE SHIP-MONEY CASE 245 
 
 grating to the island as soon as lie could clear up Ms 
 affairs in England, and on February 15 the Earl of 
 Warwick, Lord Brooke, and Henry Darley signified that 
 they had the same intention, thus reviving the idea that 
 they had been compelled by governmental pressure to 
 abandon in 1633,- when their intended goal was New 
 England. The feelings of profound discouragement that 
 filled the hearts of the Puritan leaders were even deeper 
 in 1638 than in 1635, and Gardiner hd;s described for us^* 
 how these feelings had spread even to those least in 
 sympathy with Calvinism, and has shown how the gentle 
 Milton of "L 'Allegro" was waked "to the scornful 
 indignation of the time that sounds forth with so stern 
 a note from among the graceful lamentations of 
 Lycidas." Almost as striking a note is heard in a brief 
 letter that John Pym addressed to his old friend, John 
 Wandesford, then consul of the English Levant Com- 
 pany at Aleppo. This letter has found its way into the 
 State Papers, and this fact may indicate that the govern- 
 ment, even in 1638, were beginning to suspect Pym of 
 being the business man of the Puritan party and were 
 intercepting some of his correspondence in the hope of 
 finding evidence of treasonable communications with the 
 malcontent Scots. The letter, though brief, is of interest 
 as being one of the very few personal communications 
 from Pym that have come down to us. He says : " I have 
 passed through much variety of occasions since I last 
 writ to you, and they furnish me matter of excuse of 
 several kinds, which will not yield any the least charge 
 or touch of disrespect or forgetfulness to be laid upon 
 me. Now, being again to go into the country, where I 
 have been for the most part of those two years last past, 
 and it being a time which threatens great change and 
 trouble, I have thought good now to salute you with this 
 
 18 Gardiner, VIII, 244 sqq. 
 
246 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 short letter and to assure you that you have always had 
 a place in my thoughts and affections of much estimation 
 and respect, and that I think myself indebted to you for 
 many kindnesses and expressions of love, which I cannot 
 deserve. How God will dispose of me I know notl If 
 the public peace continue, I hope to write again in 
 Michaelmas Term; if distemper and confusion do over- 
 whelm us, in whatever condition I am, I shall live in a 
 resolution, both by my prayers and endeavours, always 
 to express myself your very assured friend and servant 
 Jo:Pym."" 
 
 In March, 1638, the adventurers were determined to 
 depart and a formal petition was presented to the king 
 through the Earl of Holland, praying for permission for 
 the principal members of the Providence Company to 
 leave England for Providence in order to settle there the 
 affairs of the island. In the distractions of the conflict 
 in Scotland that was rapidly moving towards war, 
 the "West Indian designs of 1637 had been entirely for- 
 gotten and it was hardly likely that the government 
 would consent to lose sight of notorious malcontents, 
 such as Saye and Brooke, who were suspected with very 
 good reason of being in intimate relations with the Scot- 
 tish rebels." A single entry in the Providence records 
 under date February 20, 1638, tends to confirm this. 
 Lord Brooke desired the company to acquaint Lord 
 Forbes "that they had thought of his brother as a 
 gentleman well qualified for the government of Provi- 
 dence," and Lord Forbes was to invite his brother to 
 accept a proposition of the company. Nothing came of 
 the plan, but the entry is of interest to us when we 
 remember that Lord Forbes was one of the most cele- 
 brated Scottish soldiers of the time, was deep in the 
 
 " C. 8. p. Dom., 20 July, 1638, John Pym to John Wandesford. 
 10 Gardiner, VIII, 335. 
 
THE SHIP-MONEY CASE 247 
 
 counsels of the Scots leaders and a year later was one 
 of those who, out of his military experience in Germany, 
 recommended Alexander Leslie for the command of the 
 Covenanting forces. No answer was returned by the 
 king to Saye's petition and the only trace of it that has 
 remained outside our records is, as we showed in a 
 previous chapter, the tradition preserved by Bate and 
 Dugdale that the Puritan leaders were contemplating 
 emigration to America in 1638. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 FINAL RECONSTRUCTION OF THE COMPANY 
 
 We liave now to retrace our steps a little and take up 
 again the thread of our story where we dropped it with 
 the king's suggestion for a reconstruction of the Provi- 
 dence Company in February, 1637. The standing com- 
 mittee appointed to draft a scheme laboured diligently 
 under the presidency of Pym, and by June their plans 
 were ready and were submitted to the company at large 
 and to many outside members of the Puritan party, who 
 were thought likely to join. As their scheme is recorded 
 in the company's minutes, it bears a striking resemblance 
 to a modem company prospectus and it is worth while 
 to examine it for a moment. For the good of the king- 
 dom it is fitting that the design of Providence should be 
 pursued because of: "1. The strength and opportunity 
 of that island to become the foundation of very great 
 enterprise by annoying the Spaniard and intercepting 
 his treasure, whereby he hath troubled and endangered 
 most of the States of Christendom and doth foment the 
 wars against the professors of the reformed religion. 
 2. The facility of transporting colonies from thence to 
 the Main Continent being, as [the company] hath [been] 
 informed by divers that have viewed it, as rich and fer- 
 tile as any other part of the Indies, where there do 
 already grow commodities of very good use, which may 
 by the industry of many hands be brought home in great 
 quantities ; and the soil capable of the richest drugs and 
 merchandize, which come from America. ' ' The king has 
 promised the company freedom from all customs both 
 
EECONSTEUCTION OF THE COMPANY 249 
 
 for outlading and inlading for twenty-one years, freedom 
 from the new impositions on ordnance and ammunition, 
 to be accountable to no admiralty but their own, and to 
 be free from all the proclamations set forth against 
 going into America. 
 
 The committee therefore propose that a stock of 
 £100,000 shall be raised by instahnents of £20,000 a year 
 for five years. One thousand pounds shall be a whole 
 share with four votes and £250 to have one vote ; no man 
 shall be obliged to pay in to the first supply before 
 twenty whole shares have been subscribed, nor into the 
 final supply till fifty whole shares. Three principal 
 members of the company shall go out to govern the 
 colony as^ soon as the company is provided to set them 
 forth, but until then a soldier and a gentleman shall be 
 set forth as governor with one hundred well-anned fight- 
 ing men and supplies to prepare the way. Further light 
 is thrown on the designs of the company by an extant 
 letter from Sir Edmond Moundeford to Sir Simonds 
 D'Ewes, the antiquary, inviting him to subscribe to the 
 new stock:" 
 
 Sir 
 
 I have received your command to inform you concerning the 
 Isle of Providence. Lately we finding our strength too weak 
 longer to support so great a burden, the Company were resolved 
 to sell it to the States of Holland, they then offering us for it 
 £70,000; we, by the Earl of Holland, our Governor, petitioned 
 his Maty for leave to seU; our answer was very gracious that 
 he hoped it might be useful to him ia his present designs, there- 
 fore would not as yet have it sold, but desired we would go on 
 with the work and we should have such helps from Viim as in 
 compass of reason should be desired, which accordingly were 
 
 1 This provision is of interest as showing that even thus early it was 
 recognized that Massachusetts had succeeded better than other colonies 
 because it was governed by members of the company on the spot. 
 
 2 Brit. Mus., Harl. M88., 287, fo. 265. 
 
250 PURITAN. COLONISATION 
 
 upon our petition granted with promise of further addition of 
 his favour. I shall relate some of those things we obtained as 
 my memory will help. 
 
 (Here Moundeford recites most of the privileges above 
 enumerated and adds) : Freedom from the proclamations set 
 forth against going into the American plantations. So that we 
 may send or carry whom we will, without disturbance or further 
 trouble. ... It was resolved before I came out of town that 
 three of our company should go in person . . . and five hundred 
 men to be sent with them. Some of the Lords and oJ;hers of 
 great quality are resolved to go. 
 
 It is thought a great part of the stream will be carried from 
 the late intended course and fall upon this plantation instead 
 of New England, we having there many good people and very 
 considerable teachers. The place is highly commended for 
 health and plenty. I will not now trouble you further ; so soon 
 as I hear from London I will send to you, being desirous to see 
 you added to the honourable Company, of whom, you know, 
 many will be glad of your society, and so shall I who crave to 
 have my service presented to your noble lady 
 
 and to be ever your affectionate friend 
 
 To his much honoured and ally 
 
 friend and kinsman Ed. Moundeford 
 
 Sir Simonds D'Ewes, Knight, these at his StowhaU, Suffix. 
 
 The idea expressed in the last paragraph of this letter, 
 of diverting the stream of Puritan emigration from New 
 England, marks how far the Puritan parties in England 
 and America had become estranged one from another 
 in seven years, and the company's efforts to carry it out 
 will demand our full consideration in a subsequent 
 chapter. Owing to the troubles in which England became 
 immersed in the latter part of 1637, no new adventurers 
 could be persuaded to take up shares in the new stock, 
 and finally £6000 had to be subscribed by Warwick, Saye, 
 Brooke, Mandeville, and Pym in order to keep the enter- 
 
EECONSTRUCTION OF THE COMPANY 251 
 
 prise running/ It was impossible to secure from the 
 king any ratification of the privileges he had promised, 
 as he had rapidly lost all interest in the western design 
 and had begun once more to desire a rapprochement with 
 Spain. 
 
 The new expedition, however, was got ready by April, 
 1638, and placed under the. command of an old protege of 
 the Earl of Warwick, Capt. Nathaniel Butler, whose 
 name was particularly well known in the Western 
 Hemisphere.* Butler, who came of a good Bedfordshire 
 family, had led a very adventurous life and had prob- 
 ably had his first American experience in one of the 
 early Guiana voyages. In 1619 he was appointed by the 
 Earl of Warwick's influence to the governorship of 
 Bermuda, which he held till 1622. His governorship was 
 marked by the difficulties concerning the ship Treasurer, 
 that we have dealt with in an earlier chapter, and by 
 some very questionable proceedings concerning a Spian- 
 ish wreck. The Spanish government took up the matter 
 so vigorously that Butler had to be superseded, and he 
 proceeded to Virginia in the autumn of 1622. There he 
 led an expedition against the up-river Indians and, 
 returning to England, published in April, 1623, the 
 
 sWarmek, Saye, Mandeville, Pym, £1000 each, Brooke £2000 in two 
 instalments. 
 
 « For an outline of Butler 's life, see Brown, Genesis, II, 836. He makes 
 the usual confusion between Sta. Catalina and the Bahamas and says that 
 Butler "was probably the person who was committed to Newgate for 
 dispersing treasonable and scandalous books in June, 1649." This guess 
 is demonstrably wrong; the prisoner was the well-known Nathaniel Butter, 
 the publisher of so many of the tracts in the Thomason Collection, who 
 often got into trouble with the authorities for his publications. Butler 
 was the author of a work upon seamanship, which was fairly well known 
 in the seventeenth century. The original draft of the work is in the British 
 Museum (Sloane MSS., 758). The work must have been written in part 
 while Butler was governor of Providence, for many pages of the MSS. are 
 filled with notes concerning the island's affairs and the volume also 
 contains a very full diary of events in Providence. 
 
252 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 venomous attack upon the administration of the colony 
 called The Unmasking of Virginia. After the dissolu- 
 tion of the Virginia Company he was placed upon the 
 council for the government of the colony, but did not 
 serve for long. In the Cadiz expedition of 1625 he com- 
 manded the hired merchant vessel, the Jonathan, of 
 two hundred and fifty tons° and he served also in the 
 expedition to Isle de Ehe. In 1637 he was appointed to 
 the command of H. M. frigate Nicodemus, and must have 
 relinquished this command to take up the governorship 
 of Providence. To the colonists the company recom- 
 mended Butler as "a man of very good parts and 
 experience, being an ancient soldier at sea and land and 
 heretofore employed in good places of trust and com- 
 mand, and a man of very good esteem here, the defence 
 of the island requiring at this time a man of ability in 
 regard of the danger from the Spaniards. ' ' 
 
 Gov. Hunt had been sent out to supersede Capt. Philip 
 Bell in 1636, as having had some acquaintance with the 
 military art, but his governorship had been noticeable 
 only for a bitter recrudescence of the quarrels that Bell 
 had vainly attempted to assuage. The first governor 
 had always endeavoured to hold an even balance between 
 the Puritan zealots who, under the leadership of Rish- 
 worth and Rous, sided with Sherrard, the minister, and 
 the party who desired a relaxation of the rigid Puritan 
 regulations that had been imposed by the company. 
 The zealots desired to confine the attention of the colo- 
 nists to planting and wished to expel from the island 
 everyone who did not satisfy the exacting demands of 
 the minister for orthodoxy, even though the defence of 
 the island were thereby weakened ; their opponents under 
 the guidance of Daniel Elfrith and Andrew Carter cared 
 
 8 S. p. Dom., Car. I, VII, 47. See also Nicholas's lists, colxx, 65, eclxxxiv, 
 84. 
 
RECONSTRUCTION OF THE COMPANY 253 
 
 nothing for religious matters and very little for planting, 
 but they wished to rob the Spaniard with as much ease 
 and security as possible, and to have a ready market for 
 their booty with the Dutch and French ships that came 
 to the island. Gov. Hunt, as a rigid Puritan, boldly sided 
 with the zealots, and as soon as he had recovered from 
 an illness that attacked him on his arrival in Providence, 
 lent his aid to an attack on Bell for acts done as governor. 
 As we have seen. Bell had to suffer many annoyances, 
 but he soon left for England, and the zealots then turned 
 their attack upon Elfrith. Even under Bell's governor- 
 ship a petition had been presented by certain members 
 of the council for his dismissal from all his offices and 
 for his punishment "as a carnal and ungodly man"; 
 the zealots were, however, in a minority and the governor 
 refused to receive the petition. The change of governors 
 gave the Puritans a majority, and within a few weeks 
 Elfrith was deprived of his offices of councillor and 
 admiral amid the rejoicings of Sherrard and his adhe- 
 rents, though they must have been very much damped 
 when they received a letter from the company denounc- 
 ing the whole of their proceedings and stigmatising them 
 as "a mere nullity." 
 
 The other Christian virtues seem to have found little 
 place in the hearts of the zealots beside their fervour 
 for orthodoxy, for the company were compelled to point 
 out to them that when Grov. Bell helped starving new- 
 comers out of the company's stores in defiance of the 
 wish of Rishworth's party in the council, he was only 
 exercising the virtue of Christian charity and was to 
 be commended rather than blamed. In other colonies 
 the ministers were supported by the voluntary oflferings 
 of the planters, but in Providence the company was 
 expected to bear the whole charge ; nor were the planters 
 forward in contributing to the upkeep of the church, 
 
254 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 for the company heard with regret that more trouble 
 was lavished upon private dwellings than upon God's 
 House; they therefore exhorted the planters to repair 
 the church and keep it in a decent manner, this "being 
 commended to Christians by the practice of the very 
 Pagans themselves." The absence of many of the most 
 unruly spirits from the island on the privateering voy- 
 ages that were undertaken from 1636 onwards, left the 
 Puritan party in the ascendant throughout the whole of 
 Hunt's governorship, but the arrival of Capt. Butler 
 as governor, the capture of Rous in the Blessing, and 
 the return of Samuel Rishworth to England, weighed 
 down the balance on the other side, and it may be well 
 here for us somewhat to anticipate events and complete 
 the story of the colony's religious troubles. Our infor- 
 mation concerning the end of the long conflict is derived 
 not only from the colony's records, but also from the 
 narrative communicated by one of the ministers of the 
 island, Nicholas Leverton, to Dr. Edward Calamy and 
 reproduced by him in his Nonconformist's Memorial." 
 
 Nicholas Leverton, B. A., of Exeter College, Oxford, 
 was born at St. Wall, Cornwall, about 1600. After leav- 
 ing Oxford, he kfept a little school at Padstow, "but 
 being ordained he went to Barbadoes, and there met with 
 good acceptance. Though he had yet little seriousness, 
 he soon grew weary of the profligate morals of the people 
 and went as chaplain to a ship's crew who designed to 
 begin a plantation upon Tobago.' By this means he met 
 with a variety of remarkable providences, which God 
 blessed to awaken him to a serious sense of religion." 
 
 « Calamy, Nonconformist's Memorial, I, 371. 
 
 ' Tobago had been eolonised by a party of Zeelanders from Waleheren 
 under the auspices of Jan de Moor, burgomaster of Flushing. This colony 
 was destroyed with great cruelty by Spaniards and Caribs from Trinidad 
 in 1637 and Leverton 's visit to Tobago was soon after this. See Edmundson, 
 Eng. Hist. Bev., XVI, 643. 
 
RECONSTRUCTION OF THE COMPANY 255 
 
 The attempt at the colonisation of Tobago ended in. 
 complete failure, more than half of the company of 
 between thirty and forty men being killed by the Caribs. 
 The survivors managed to recover their boat with diffi- 
 culty and put out to sea. "Not being able to return to 
 Barbadoes or any of our English plantations on that 
 side, because of contrary winds, they resolved to make 
 to the Isle of Providence, which was five hundred leagues 
 o£f near the line. Notwithstanding many fears and diffi- 
 culties they had a prosperous voyage and a welcome 
 reception from their countrymen there. 
 
 "Most of the inhabitants were such as had left their 
 native country upon a dissatisfaction with the English 
 hierarchy and settled there as others did in New Eng- 
 land. They had but one minister among them, viz., Mr. 
 Sherwood,* who was also dissatisfied with conformity. 
 Yet some of the inhabitants were for the English cere- 
 monies and upon Mr. Leverton's arrival would have had 
 him minister to them in their own way." It is evident 
 that the laxer party in the island were here endeavouring 
 to set up a rival minister to Sherrard in order to cloak 
 their proceedings under guise of attachment to Arminian 
 doctrines. "Hitherto [Mr. Leverton] had never con- 
 sidered the controversy, but his impressions of religion 
 were such as the general custom of his country and 
 education had made. But now, being made very serious 
 by the remarkable providences he had met with and 
 finding Mr. S. a pious person, he was disposed to hear 
 his reasons for Nonconformity, which induced him 
 heartily to fall in with him in the same way." Gov. 
 Butler reached Providence in October, 1638, and at once 
 took sides against the extremists of the Puritan party 
 and the ministers, and wrote home to the company to 
 their detriment. The company were not prepared to 
 
 8 That is, Sherrard. 
 
256 PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 listen to these stories and exhorted Butler to give Sher- 
 rard and Ms particular congregation every liberty and 
 favour, "God makes no difference," they told him by 
 the hand of Pym, "between them that do faithfully and 
 heartily seek him, though there be in the appearance of 
 men some difference between them in opinion and prac- 
 tice concerning outward things." He was exhorted to 
 take away all occasion of faction among the colonists 
 and of any breach with the churches of New England, 
 who, on their side, they hoped would carry themselves 
 modestly and be content with their own freedom, leaving 
 others to theirs. The communication between Provi- 
 dence and New England had been constant ever since 
 1637 and the Puritan party were now applying for active 
 help from the churches in Massachusetts. Of their 
 intention to support him against his enemies, the com- 
 pany assured Hunt, the leader of the Puritans, by the 
 same ship: "Our main desire," they wrote, "is that 
 Godliness may be furthered and vice beaten down, 
 and though all honest men shall not agree in their 
 opinions and practice concerning outward things, yet 
 we hope they will agree with those which are apparent 
 for God's glory and the furtherance of the public good, 
 which is a disposition which, we hope, is in yourself." 
 To the governor and council in their public letter they 
 wrote: "We heartily pray God to bless and direct you 
 in your plans that you may be Instruments of His glory, 
 and for the furtherance of that great work of subverting 
 the Spanish Tyranny in those parts and planting the 
 Gospel, which is the main thing that drew us to bestow 
 our care and money upon this Design." 
 
 Butler's ideas for the subversion of the Spanish 
 tyranny did not involve attention to the duties of his 
 governorship, but ran rather in the direction of piratical 
 attacks upon Spanish ports. Within six months after 
 
RECONSTRUCTION OF THE COMPANY 257 
 
 reaching Providence he got together a mixed fleet of 
 Dutch and English ships and set forth on a regular 
 piratical cruise against the Spanish coasts. Butler sup- 
 plies us in his diary with full details concerning the 
 expedition, but these need not detain us. It wound up 
 with the surprise of Truxillo, the chief port of the prov- 
 ince of Honduras, which had successfully repelled the 
 attack of Sir Antony Sherley and Capt. Parker in 1597.® 
 The town was much decayed and was unable to offer 
 resistance to the corsairs' attack. The citizens com- 
 pounded for the town's freedom from sack for a ransom 
 of 16,000 pieces of eight, paid partly in bullion and 
 partly in indigo, the chief product of the province. 
 After so satisfactory an adventure, Butler felt no inclina- 
 tion to carry out his bargain with the Providence Com- 
 pany, but determined to leave for England without 
 delay. Returning to Providence in September, 1639, 
 he, without consulting the rest of the council, appointed 
 Capt. Andrew Carter, the leader of the anti-Puritans, 
 to act as deputy-governor, and took his departure for 
 England in great haste in February, 1640. Carter lost 
 no time in taking his revenge upon the Puritans for 
 their proscription of Elfrith and other of his friends, 
 and Leverton's story goes on to tell us that "at length 
 the governor leaving the island, a difference arose in 
 the colony. He named his successor, but the people 
 pleaded a right by charter to choose their governor and 
 fixed upon a person of their ovm. nomination, one 
 Captain Lane." But the other [i.e. Carter] privately 
 arming some of the under sort, seized Lane and both 
 the ministers and sent them prisoners" to England, with 
 
 9 HaMuyt, VII, 220. 
 
 10 This was the Eichard Lane, a protSgS of Lord Brooke, who had been 
 employed in the company's trade at Darien. 
 
 11 Lane, Leverton, Sherrard, and Henry Halhead, were sent prisoners 
 in the Eopewell and arrived in England in January, 1641. 
 
258 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 an information against them to Archbishop Laud, that 
 they were disaffected to the liturgy and ceremonies of 
 England. When they arrived here, the state of things 
 was changed and Laud was in custody of the Black Rod." 
 They were kindly received by the Lords Patentees or 
 proprietors of the island and encouraged to return." 
 Before they did so, however, much had taken place and 
 none of them saw Providence again. 
 
 From the economic point of view the period of the 
 colony's life that succeeded the supersession of Gov. Bell, 
 in 1636, is marked by the great rapidity with which 
 Providence approximated to the ordinary type of a West 
 Indian colony that subsisted with very little change down 
 to the end of the eighteenth century. Barbadoes and 
 St. Christopher long had a large majority of whites over 
 negroes and carried on the production of tobacco and 
 cotton by the labours of indentured white servants, as 
 did the English planters of Jamaica for some years after 
 its capture, but Providence, owing to the privateering 
 carried on from thence, was always able to obtain unlim- 
 ited supplies of negroes at very cheap rates, and by the 
 end of 1637 there were almost as many negroes as white 
 men in the island. The company strongly objected to 
 the constant increase in the number of negroes as 
 endangering the safety of the island, but owing to their 
 difficulties in England, they were unable to supply white 
 servants to the planters in anything like sufficient 
 numbers, and had great difficulty in getting the planters 
 to accept even those they did send. The servants were 
 contracted with for three or four years' labour in return 
 for food, lodging, and clothing, and at the end of their 
 time they were to receive £10 each from their masters and 
 a parcel of land from the company. These terms the 
 
 1' Laud had been committed to custody by the Lords on December 18, 
 1640. 
 
EECONSTRUCTION OF THE COMPANY 259 
 
 planters became more and more disinclined to assent to 
 as time went on, and tlie company complained that the 
 increased employment of negroes "brought down the 
 bodies and labours of men to such cheapness that we 
 shall not be able to supply servants as we have done 
 formerly." Those servants who could not be disposed 
 of to the planters were combined into families of twenty 
 or less and set to work on tobacco and cotton raising for 
 the company's profit. A store was accumulated from 
 these profits to pay the £10 due to each on the expiry of 
 their indentures, and inspectors were appointed by the 
 council to view the plantations every three months and 
 see that the arrangements were working satisfactorily. 
 
 None of the company's efforts to stop the influx of 
 negroes met with any measure of success. It was 
 ordained that every planter keeping a negro should' 
 maintain a servant one day in every week upon the public 
 works. Those having no negroes were to be excused 
 labour upon the public works, their places being filled by 
 the negroes belonging to the company. When this 
 arrangement was found of no avail, it was directed that 
 to every two Englishmen upon a plantation, one negro 
 might be received, but no more, and for each of these 
 negroes forty pounds of tobacco was to be paid per 
 annum to the company's store. In addition to this each 
 negro was bound to labour sixteen days in the year on 
 the public works, "since they are cheaper and are per- 
 petual servants, and the rather that the desire of English 
 bodies may be kept, we depending on them for the defence 
 of the island." Negroes were only to be bought from 
 the Dutch on the company's account for disposal in 
 Virginia and the Somers Islands, "we well knowing that 
 if men be left at liberty to buy as they please, no man 
 will take off English servants. And therefore we think 
 fit that whosoever buys a Negro, shall be bound to take 
 
260 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 off two English servants at the common charge of 
 transportation and otherwise." 
 
 The sale of negroes to other plantations was becoming 
 a very important part of the colony's activities, and both 
 Capt. Newman in the Happy Return and Capt. Rndyerd 
 in the Mary Mope were constantly landing captured 
 negroes in the island and there disposing of them to ship- 
 masters from Virginia and New England. From 1637 
 onwards the traffic between Providence and the northern 
 colonies became a regular one and from Winthrop's 
 journal, as well as from the Providence records, we can 
 learn that William Peirce,^* the well-known New England 
 ship-master, was a frequent visitor to the island. After 
 the victory of the Massachusetts colonists over the 
 Pequot Indians in July, 1637, Winthrop says:^* "We 
 had now slain and taken in all about seven hundred. 
 We sent fifteen of the boys and two women to Bermuda 
 by Mr. Peirce, but he, missing it, carried them to Provi- 
 dence Isle."" Peirce returned to New England in 
 February, 1638, and Winthrop in his journal for that 
 month gives us a fuller account of the island.^* Feb- 
 ruary 26, 1638, "Mr. Peirce in the Salem ship Desire 
 returned from the West Indies after seven months and 
 brought some cotton and tobacco and negroes from 
 thence and salt from Tertugos." Dry fish and strong 
 liquors are the only commodities for those parts. He 
 met there two men-of-war set forth by the Lords of 
 
 13 William Peiree was in command of the lAon in Winthrop 's voyage of 
 1629 and was by far the best-known master in the New England trade, in 
 which he had been engaged at any rate from 1623. Bradford's Sist. of 
 Flym. Plant, (ed. 1912), I, 309 and note 2. 
 
 nJmmal, I, 228 (1905 ed.). 
 
 IS Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 5th series, I, 277. 
 
 iBJownial, I, 260. 
 
 11 This may be either Tortuga Salada or Association. Salt was being 
 made at both places in 1637. 
 
RECONSTRUCTION OF THE COMPANY 261 
 
 Providence with letters of mart, who had taken divers 
 prizes from the Spaniard and many negroes." Some 
 of the negroes sent from Providence to New England 
 were very savage and had to be at once returned, for 
 soon after one of Peirce's voyages we find the company 
 giving special caution to Gov, Butler to take great care 
 of "the cannibal negroes brought from New England." 
 
 The company's fears of trouble arising from the large 
 number of negroes in the island were only too well 
 founded. Large numbers of them escaped to the woods 
 covering the highest parts of the island, and great diffi- 
 culties were experienced in bringing about their sub- 
 mission, though those who surrendered voluntarily were 
 well treated, while those who resisted were barbarously 
 put to death. Matters came to a head at the end of 1638, 
 when the escaped slaves in concert with those negroes 
 still in servitude rose in rebellion against their masters. 
 It was only with the greatest difficulty that the revolt 
 was suppressed and the island was gravely weakened by 
 it, for it emboldened the Spaniards from Cartagena once 
 more to renew their efforts to clear out their English foes. 
 
 As has been shown in earlier chapters, the company 
 had entirely abandoned the sending of magazines to the 
 island, for those sent had proved very unprofitable. 
 During the later years of the colony's existence entire 
 freedom of trade was permitted subject to the payment 
 of customs dues to the company. These were fixed at 
 a higher rate for Dutch ships than for English in order 
 to comply with the royal commands restricting inter- 
 course with the Hollanders, and for reasons which the 
 company expressed thus : "For every pound of tobacco 
 the Dutch shall receive out of the island in exchange for 
 any goods you require of them, vi* is to be paid there, 
 and so for every pound of cotton, which are about the 
 usual rates of custom paid here, and so for other com- 
 
262 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 modities. The customs on tobacco in England are very 
 high, whereas in Holland it is low and so the Dutch can 
 sell their tobacco and other commodities at a cheaper 
 rate than can be obtained from commodities received 
 through London, whither [the Company's] ships are 
 bound to return." In order further to mark their hos- 
 tility to foreign interlopers, the company ordered that 
 any fort or bay having a Dutch name was to be renamed 
 in English, and the Dutchmen in the island were to be 
 treated very coldly. So difficult and precarious were 
 trade conditions in England in 1639, that the company 
 resolved to attempt to make the cloth they required for 
 clothing the colonists from the cotton in the island itself ; 
 weavers and spinners were hired and sent out in the 
 Mary in June, 1639, with engines "to weave the cotton 
 into fustians and dimities;" and it was resolved also to 
 trade as much as possible with New England for the 
 commodities the island required. Orders were given that 
 any hides, tallow, or sarsaparilla captured by the com- 
 pany's ships were to be disposed of in New England, 
 whence they might be despatched through the Straits 
 of Gibraltar to Mediterranean ports or to France, so as 
 to save the customs and impositions in England. That 
 this course was in fact adopted, we may learn from many 
 entries by Massachusetts writers. 
 
 In September, 1638, Capt. Newman sent to Massa- 
 chusetts a captured Spanish frigate with hides and 
 tallow," and in November he arrived there himself in 
 his pinnace, the Providence^* "One Captain Newman, 
 being set forth with commission from the Earl of Hol- 
 land, Governor of the Westminster Company, and the 
 Earl of Warwick and others of the same company, to 
 spoil the Spaniard within the limits of their grant in 
 
 isWinthrop's Journal, I, 278. 
 19 Ihid., I, 283. 
 
EEOONSTRUCTION OF THE COMPANY 263 
 
 the West Indies, after he had taken many of their 
 small vessels, etc., returned home by the Massachusetts 
 in a small pinnace, with which he had taken all his prizes 
 (for his great ship was of no use for that purpose). 
 He brought many hides and much tallow. The hides he 
 sold here for £17-10s. the score; the tallow at 29s the 
 hundred ; and set sail for England on the 1st of Decem- 
 ber." Newman's adventures after leaving Massachu- 
 setts are of interest to us as involving the Providence 
 Company in a lawsuit that was undecided for many years 
 and was still debated long after the colony had been 
 destroyed. 
 
 The Happy Return, Newman's larger vessel, had 
 reached England safely in April, 1638, and had landed 
 a cargo of tobacco, tallow, and hides to the value of about 
 £4000. Sarsaparilla to the value of about £900 had been 
 disposed of in New England, so that the company for 
 their share got about £3000 out of the cargo. Newman 
 in the pinnace Providence was sailing up the Channel 
 on Christmas Day, 1638,^° after a favourable passage 
 from New England, when less than two leagues off Dun- 
 geness the vessel was attacked by a Dunkirk ship, belong- 
 ing to one of the principal officers of the town. Five 
 sailors were wounded and three killed in the fight and 
 the Providence was finally overwhelmed by force of 
 numbers and compelled to surrender. The officers and 
 sailors were stripped to their shirts, carried to Dunkirk 
 and there tied two by two and thrust into a dungeon 
 below the town ditch. The cargo of the Providence, when 
 discharged, was found to comprise valuables of all 
 
 20 Many depositions about the case exist among State Papers, Domestic, 
 State Papers, Foreign (Flanders), and the Admiralty Court records. 
 Some of these have been calendared under a misapprehension as having 
 to do with the great fishing company of the Earl of Pembroke that was 
 also having trouble with Dunkirkers about this time. 
 
264 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 sorts,"— twenty-five packages of indigo, divers packages 
 of sarsaparilla, a gold chain three ells long, a sack of 
 ambergris, four diamonds, a large quantity of pearls, 
 several bags of gold and silver, some silver plate, two 
 large and heavy lumps of gold as heavy as a man could 
 lift, the whole being of the value of about £30,000. No 
 sooner had the company heard of Newman's capture than 
 they began through the Earl of Holland to move the king 
 to secure his immediate release. Sir Balthasar Gerbier 
 was directed to make the most strenuous representations 
 to the Cardinal Infante, the ruler of the Spanish Nether- 
 lands; Sir Arthur Hopton was ordered to do the same 
 to the Spanish court, but not the least progress could 
 be made, for Newman was held at Dunkirk to be "the 
 greatest English pirate unhanged." Gerbier's repre- 
 sentations to the Cardinal Infante himself were received 
 with studied rudeness, and his letters home pointed out 
 that his pleadings for a notorious pirate damaged badly 
 the more important negotiations he was constantly being 
 charged to deal with. The only boon secured after nearly 
 two years' negotiation was the release of the prisoners 
 on the payment of their very heavy charges. Newman 
 at once returned to his piratical exploits and from 
 Winthrop^^ we learn that "he was afterwards cast away 
 at Christopher's with a very rich prize in the great 
 hyrracano, 1642." The matter of the captured cargo 
 was brought before parliament in 1641,"° but stood still 
 during the troubles, until in 1649 we find the surviving 
 members of the Providence Company claiming a share 
 of the value of the celebrated Spanish vessel, the Santa 
 
 21 These details are derived from Sir Balthasar Gerbier 's representation 
 to the Cardinal Infante. S. P. For. Flanders, 4 Jan., 1640. 
 
 2^ Journal, I, 283. 
 
 23 "House of Lords, MS8.," Hist. MSS. Com., Fowrth Seport, 20 April, 
 28 June, 6 July, 1641, 12 Oct., 1643. 
 
EECONSTRUCTION OF THE COMPANY 265 
 
 Clara, that had been seized in Portsmouth harbour. No 
 conclusion could be arrived at and on January 25, 1650, 
 the matter was left in the hands of the Rump Parliament 
 to be dealt with, but apparently without result. The last 
 mention of the affair is found in a petition to the 
 Restoration House of Lords in the session of 1660. 
 
 Attempts might be made by the company to secure 
 redress from the DunMrkers, though the attempts might 
 be vain, but no redress could be sought from the Algerine 
 pirates, who swarmed in the Bay of Biscay and the 
 entrance to the English Channel. The reinforcements 
 for Providence for the year 1639 were sent out by the 
 Mary, a ship belonging to the well-known merchant, 
 Maurice Thompson, which was bound for Barbadoes and 
 was chartered by the company for their service after 
 leaving there. She carried a few servants for Provi- 
 dence and one or two Puritan families under the lead 
 of John Symonds, a client of Lord Mandeville, who was 
 returning to his wife in Providence. Hardly had the 
 Mary left the Channel (July, 1639), when she was cap- 
 tured by an Algerine corsair and her passengers and 
 crew carried into captivity. The first news from them 
 arrived in a letter written by Symonds from Algiers in 
 November, 1639, and still extant among the Manchester 
 Papers.^* Symonds writes to Lord Mandeville to beg 
 the company to ransom the poor captives from their 
 slavery. "When I considered," he says, "that the soul 
 into which God hath distilled most grace, and [which] 
 hath tasted the joys of God's spirit is ever compassion- 
 ate, having a fellow feeling of the miseries of others, 
 
 2*Maneh. Pap., 423, 20 Nov., 1639. The letter is very badly written 
 and has been calendared (Hist. MSS. Com., Eighth Seport, App. 2) as 
 coming from "Aryter most probably Henrietta "(I), a misreading of 
 Argier, the seventeenth century form of the name Algiers. The prSeis of 
 the letter is badly done. 
 
266 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 that consoled me to trouble your Lordship humbly 
 beseeching that you would commiserate the miserable 
 condition of a company of poor people. We expect not 
 that the honourable Company should disburse money 
 for our redemption, for the sum will be great, we being 
 about 30 that were shipped for the island. Right 
 Honourable, if it may be done with conveniency [we pray 
 you] to move our gracious King in our behalf ; there are 
 2000 English Christians besides Renegadoes. . . . There 
 are some forced to filthiness, some to despair, and so to 
 turn their back upon Christ. Myself have been much 
 solicited, but God hath established my heart. ... I have 
 been a suitor through Mr. Carter to their honours Lord 
 Saye and Lord Brooke, and the same suit I present to 
 your honour. There is a gracious woman weeping, as 
 I humbly beseech your Lordship to think, upon your 
 poor island." Symonds's pathetic plaint did not fall 
 on deaf ears, for by February, 1640, the company had 
 arranged to ransom at any rate some of the captives. 
 
 The possession by the Providence Company of per- 
 mission from the crown to undertake reprisals against 
 the Spaniards was a very valuable asset to them, and 
 they were constantly being approached by speculators 
 during the later years of their existence as a company 
 for the issue of commissions for ships to undertake 
 privateering voyages in the West Indies in return for 
 a share of the proceeds. The company always refused 
 to invest money in fitting out these privateer ships, but 
 granted the desired commissions to the adventurers in 
 return for a fixed payment of one-fifth part of all booty 
 taken. The last ships fitted out by the company them- 
 selves were two pinnaces, the Swallow and the Spy, 
 despatched in July, 1638, under the command of Capt. 
 Samuel Axe, his son Andrew Axe, Capt. Nicholas 
 
EECONSTRUCTION OF THE COMPANY 267 
 
 Parker,^^ and Matthew Harbottle. In October, 1638, the 
 Earl of "Warwick, who had bought out the rights of 
 Philip, Earl of Pembroke, over the islands of Trinidad, 
 Tobago, St. Bernard [Fonseca], and Barbadoes,^" 
 despatched two pinnaces to commence a plantation upon 
 Trinidad, and these received from the Providence Com- 
 pany commissions for reprisals against the Spaniards. 
 In June of the same year a grant of incorporation was 
 issued by the company to William Claiborne, the Vir- 
 ginia and Maryland planter, for the settlement "of an 
 island by him and his associates discovered within the 
 Company's Patent to be called Eich Island in honour 
 of the Earl of Holland. ' ' This was the island of Ruatan 
 (Rattan), the principal of the Bay Islands, off the coast 
 of Honduras ; the first settlement of the island by Eng- 
 lishmen did not last long, for they were expelled by the 
 Spaniards in 1642,^^ but the connection of England with 
 the Bay Islands subsisted through the eighteenth century 
 and the claims to their possession were only abandoned 
 some fifty years ago. 
 
 In July, 1639, Capt. John Dell was provided with a 
 commission for his ship, the Advantage, financed by 
 Abraham de Leau, a prominent Huguenot merchant in 
 the City of London, and some of his partners, and in 
 January, 1641, there returned to England Capt. William 
 Jackson with a prize richly laden with indigo, which had 
 been captured under the company's commission and 
 brought into their coffers over £3000. In the turmoil of 
 the time Capt. Jackson's name has been entirely for- 
 gotten by succeeding generations, but by the English- 
 es Capt. Parker filled an important part in later West Indian liistoiy 
 and became a trusted employ! of the Commonwealth. In 1660 he was consul 
 at Algiers. 
 
 28 Brit. Mus., Sloane MSS., 3662, fo. 45, Scott's account. 
 2TBrit. Mus., Sloane MSS., 793 or 894. Alcedo y Herrera, Fvratenas y 
 agressiones en la America Espanola, Madrid, 1883, p. 123. 
 
268 PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 man of 1642 his exploits were as proudly thought of 
 as those of Drake and Hawkins. No account of his doings 
 appears to have been printed, but among the Sloane 
 MSS. in the British Museum there is a little manuscript 
 volume entitled "Mercurius Americanus,'"" giving a full 
 account of the last expedition in the Elizabethan manner 
 against the Spanish Indies, carried out under Jackson's 
 command in 1642-1643. The account is written by an 
 eyewitness of the exploits and is quite after the Hakluyt 
 fashion. At some future time it may be possible to 
 rescue Jackson's story from its undeserved oblivion. 
 Both his voyage of 1639-1641 and the later and greater 
 expedition were carried out under the Providence Com- 
 pany's comimission for reprisals. The first voyage was 
 financed by the well-known merchant, Maurice Thompson 
 of London, and some Cornish merchants interested along 
 with the Killegrews in the privateering trade."' Jackson 
 left England some time in 1638 and obtained little success 
 on his outward voyage; he put in to Providence to re- 
 victual in April, 1639, while Gov. Butler was absent from 
 the island and the government was vested for the time 
 being in the hands of Capt. Andrew Carter. We showed 
 in the previous chapter to what lengths of injustice 
 Carter proceeded when the government was definitely 
 vested in him, but even thus early he displayed the same 
 spirit. 
 
 One Eobert Eobins, a native of Penrhyn in Cornwall, 
 had long been a planter in Providence and a prominent 
 supporter of the Puritan party. Having in some way 
 offended the governor, he was arrested, clapped into 
 
 28 Brit. Hus., Sloane HSS., 793 or 894. 
 
 28 "House of Lords MSS.," Hist. MSS. Com., Fourth Beport, App., p. 63. 
 Lords' Journals, IV, 248. The majority of the details given in the text 
 are derived from the original petition of Bobert Bobins to the House of 
 Lords, 22 AprU, 1642, calendared very briefly, fifth Beport, App., p. 18. 
 
RECONSTRUCTION OF THE COMPANY 269 
 
 irons, and refused communication with Ms wife, servants, 
 or family; the following day, being brought before Carter, 
 an order of banishment was pronounced against him 
 without any trial and he was forcibly conveyed aboard 
 Jackson's ship, then lying in the harbour. The Puritan 
 party of the council, hearing of Robins 's plight, ap- 
 proached Carter under the leadership of Sherrard and 
 Halhead and offered to stand bail for his appearance at 
 a public trial either before the council or in England 
 before the company. Carter entirely refused to listen 
 to them and maintained that what he had done was 
 within his prerogative as governor. Jackson was then 
 bound on a daring raid up the Nicaragua River or El 
 Desaguadero, and Robins in his own words was "in 
 fearful storms of thunder and foul weather forced to 
 work, stand sentry, watch and fight, he being a prisoner. 
 The pillage that he got was taken from him, also he 
 suffered miserable afflictions for want of clothes by 
 mosquitoes and other venomous vermin and flies, daily 
 in danger of his life." Jackson's raid was very profit- 
 able, but Robins for all his sufferings was only granted 
 a single share. "When the goods were being shared, 
 one of the company, pitying his cause, promised him a 
 single share, being half so much as the boys have, yet 
 they had made him cook for the whole company and 
 divers others, strangers and negroes, and four shares 
 belonged to the cook by order of the Trinity House." 
 Robins was sent ashore in Providence and told to shift 
 for himself, while Jackson sailed to New England to 
 dispose of the booty. 
 
 On August 27, 1639, "Winthrop writes in his journal :'" 
 "Here came a small bark from the West Indies, one 
 Captain Jackson in her, with commission from the West- 
 minster Company to take prize, etc., from the Spaniard. 
 
 so Journal, I, 309. 
 
270 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 He brought much wealth in money, plate, indico and 
 sugar. He sold his indico and sugar here for £1400, 
 wherewith he furnished himself with commodies and 
 again departed for the West Indies." For another year 
 Jackson continued his roving cruise in the Indies and 
 met with very fair success, but about the end of 1640 he 
 set sail for England with the large indigo-laden prize 
 we have before mentioned. Robins had succeeded in 
 collecting some of the debts owing to him in Providence, 
 and having with great difficulty secured from Carter 
 permission to leave the island, he paid for his passage 
 to England on one of Thompson's ships. But his 
 troubles were not yet over. "The petitioner shipped 
 himself a passenger for England with one Thompson 
 and delivered him his ticket'^ for his free departure out 
 of the island, yet within three weeks of their being at 
 sea, in the Grulf of Florida, Jackson and Thompson com- 
 bined together and violently took and carried the peti- 
 tioner aboard Jackson's man-of-war, kept all his goods 
 and much of his clothes, gave special directions to the 
 master of the ship to keep him in irons and convey him 
 to New England to be hanged and his goods to be spent 
 upon the seamen. Then the petitioner demanded his 
 ticket, being his relief from imprisoimient, and a bill 
 of lading for his goods, but Jackson and Thompson said 
 he was a prisoner and should have none of them nor 
 any bill of lading for them." Robins suffered a great 
 deal of misery and "was forced to eat tallow for the 
 most part of his meat for a long time, which caused a 
 dangerous sickness when he came ashore, being almost 
 starved and naked." The vessel in which he was a pris- 
 oner did not sail direct to England, but put iato some 
 
 81 The "ticket" was a paper signed by the governor and certifjTng that 
 the person named in it had full permission to sail for England. 
 
EECONSTRUCTION OF THE COMPANY 271 
 
 Irish port and there disposed of a large part of her 
 booty. 
 
 There is no room to donbt that the Providence Com- 
 pany were not being honestly dealt with by those who 
 plundered the Spaniards under their commission, and 
 it is certain that Jackson paid over to the company much 
 less than the fifth due to them under their agreement. 
 He also endeavoured to cheat some of his partners and 
 the journals of the Long Parliament contain many 
 references to the disputes that resulted in consequence 
 of his sharp practice. Robins found it impossible to get 
 redress for his wrongs either from Jackson or from "the 
 honourable Company of Adventurers into Providence in 
 respect of State affairs, all of them being members of 
 Parliament . . . and now," wrote he in 1642, "all his 
 witnesses are bound to sea, and also Captain Jackson is 
 bound to the West Indies on the first of April next 
 [1642], so that the petitioner is likely to lose all his 
 goods, suffer all their wrongs and return to his friends 
 begging, in respect he can get relief in no Court in Eng- 
 land, but in this hon^e House, and except your Lop^ hear 
 his case." It is to be feared that Robins got very little 
 satisfaction even from the House of Lords, for though 
 Lords Brooke and Robartes were appointed as a com- 
 mittee to examine the matter, no conclusion was arrived 
 at before England was plunged into the throes of the 
 Civil War, and all good government was at a standstill. 
 
CHAPTER Xn 
 
 TRADE WITH THE MAIN; FRENCH CAPTURE 
 OF TORTUGA 
 
 While the course of events in Providence and Asso- 
 ciation was proving fataj to all the company's hopes of 
 profit and success, their scheme for founding a pros- 
 perous colony and trading post upon the mainland coast 
 was flourishing no better. In 1634 a large vessel, the 
 Robert, had carried out a valuable cargo of trade stuff 
 to Capt. Sussex Camoek, the company's agent at Cape 
 Grracias a Dios, but the voyage was an entire failure, 
 and when the Robert returned to England in June, 1635, 
 the company were disgusted to find that Camoek had 
 wearied of the work he had contracted to do, and had 
 returned home in defiance of all engagements.^ Camoek 
 had left in charge of the colony Capt. Samuel Axe, who 
 had done much for the company's interests while in 
 charge of the depot at the MoskLto Cays. Axe was well 
 seconded in his efforts to carry on a successful Indian 
 trade by a Dutch sailor, who had long served as mate 
 in the company's ships. This Abraham Blauvelt, or 
 Blewfield (Bluefield)" as the English called him, was a 
 daring and resourceful sailor who was constantly under- 
 taking voyages of exploration and trade up the rivers 
 
 1 Camoek left the company's service on his return to England. In 1636 
 the State Papers show us (3 June, 1636) that he became captain of Land- 
 guard Fort at Harwich and there he was still serving during the early years 
 of the Civil War. 
 
 2 The name is frequently spelled Bluefield or Blueflelds. 
 
TRADE: LOSS OF TORTUGA 273 
 
 of the coast, and who has left his name permanently 
 in at least two places on the map of the "West Indies. 
 We first hear of him as doing shipwright's work in the 
 repair ships at Providence, and later building shallops 
 for the company from the cedar-wood that grew in pro- 
 fusion in Henrietta Island. In a pinnace that he him- 
 self had built, he began his exploration of the rivers of 
 the Main, and with her he maintained communication 
 between the island of Providence and the men engaged 
 in preparing silk-grass at the Cape. In 1637 he returned 
 to England as mate of the Expectation in order to give 
 an account to the company of his explorations of the 
 mainland coast. He told them that at Monkey Bay he 
 had discovered a good harbour a mile and a half broad 
 at the mouth and capable of strong fortification by means 
 of some islands lying in its entrance. This harbour 
 provided an excellent anchorage for ships, and was sur- 
 rounded by fertile country overgrown with silk-grass 
 and containing many other excellent commodities. Into 
 the harbour flows an important river now called, after its 
 discoverer, the Blewfields Eiver and by the Spaniards 
 the Escondido ; this river Blewfield explored for a consid- 
 erable distance into the Main. He recommended the 
 harbour to the company as a suitable place for the estab- 
 lishment of a trading station and settlement, but their 
 preoccupations rendered it impossible for them to act 
 upon his suggestion. At a later period, however, the 
 buccaneers made the harbour one of their principal 
 rendezvous, and the town there estabfished is still called 
 after the name of the discoverer of the harbour, Blew- 
 fields. After the capture of Providence by the Span- 
 iards, Blewfield entered for a time the service of the 
 Swedish West India Company, but he found privateering 
 a more profitable occupation than trade, and in 1644 we 
 find him commanding a ship of his own and sailing from 
 
274 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 New Amsterdam^ to prey upon the Spaniards. At this 
 time, or perhaps later, he occasionally made his head- 
 quarters at a harbour in the southwest of Jamaica and 
 this is still called Blewfields Bay. The publication of 
 the treaty of Munster in 1648, by which the long war 
 between Holland and Spain was closed, prevented him 
 from bringing his prizes safely into New Amsterdam, 
 and he began to dispose of them instead at Newport in 
 Ehode Island. There he got into trouble with his crew 
 of many nationalities and we hear of him in a letter from 
 Roger "Williams, who was much put about at the ill- 
 name his unlawful proceedings would bring upon the 
 Rhode Island colony.* "We last hear of him in a list of 
 buccaneers in 1663 as "Captain Blewfield, belonging to 
 Cape Gratia de Dios, living among the Indians." His 
 ship was a barque with fifty men and three guns." 
 
 The trade at the Cape, although it never attained to 
 any considerable proportions, was maintained by the 
 Providence Company throughout its existence, and in 
 the later years, when they realised that Providence might 
 at any time be overwhelmed by the Spaniards, the 
 masters of their ships were instructed to carry their 
 passengers to the Cape, if Providence were found to have 
 been captured. In 1638 Capt. Axe described the land 
 surrounding the settlement in these terms: "At the 
 Cape [Gracias a Dios] there is good store of victuals, 
 a good country for com, the grass not troublesome as 
 in the Island, store of honey, yet not to make a com- 
 modity. Reasonable store of flax, greater store at 
 
 8 O 'Callaghan, Hist, of New Netherland, I, 296 ; New York Documents, 
 I, 397-399. In 1650 he owned and commanded the French ship La Garse. 
 
 * Mass. Hist. Soe. Coll., 4th series, VI, 272. Boger Williams to John 
 Winthrop, jr., Narragansett, 25 Oct., 1649, and 9 Nov., 1649, "Here hath 
 been great bickerings about Blewfield 's ship at Newport." 
 
 5 Eawlinson MSS., quoted by C. H. Haring, Buccaneers of West Indies, 
 Lond., 1910, p. 273. 
 
TEADE: LOSS OF TOETUGA 275 
 
 Monkey Bay, but then they that gather it must go strong 
 in regard of the Spanish neighbourhood.* The flax after 
 cutting will grow again in 6 or 7 months. As fair sugar 
 canes as any in the world. The air is temperate; it 
 agrees with English bodies and is very healthful; the 
 soil some miles from the coast is very firm. The Cape 
 Eiver is navigable with small vessels, but the entrance 
 is unhealthful in regard to the drowned grounds there- 
 about, which may be avoided by going up the river at 
 Many Bay for about 10 miles, which will bring one into 
 the Cape Eiver above the 'moorish" grounds. Some 
 quantity of deer, good materials for brick, good trees for 
 building. The only clothes requisite are linen, shoes and 
 hats. Annotto thrives well and in great abundance, and 
 there is plenty of cotton. The tobacco is like to exceed 
 that of the island in goodness." 
 
 Axe had been less successful than other employes of 
 the company in dealing with the Indians and the only 
 occasion on which we hear of any Indian fighting in the 
 colony's history is soon after his taMng over from 
 Camock the command of the enterprise on the Main. 
 The affair appears to have occurred during one of his 
 exploring voyages up the Cape Eiver and he came in for 
 a very severe reproof for undertaking any hostility what- 
 ever against the natives. "We desire to receive expla- 
 nations," wrote the company, "concerning the slaughter 
 of the Indians by the English under your command upon 
 the Main. We know that the law will not take notice of 
 it, yet the Lord is the avenger of blood and His justice 
 will certainly requite it. Besides we are yet ignorant 
 
 8 The Spanish friars had made many attempts to convert the Moskito 
 Indians and many had suffered martyrdom, e.g., Fray Martinez in 1624. 
 Axe's allusion may point to some fresh Spanish missions on the Ascondido, 
 V. Juarros, Bist. of Guatemala, p. 361. 
 
 1 For "mere-ish." Covered with shallow sheets of water filled with reeds. 
 
276 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 how the guilt of your crime may redound to the blasting 
 of our own designs. We expect your defence by the next 
 ship, but as the matter now stands, we cannot clear you 
 from a crime of very high nature, though we do not hold 
 you guilty till we hear your defence. Remember that 
 the eye of G-od is upon you and cannot be deceived. If 
 you are not able to take off the guilt of blood from your 
 conscience, we advise you to humble yourself before 
 the Lord by unfeigned repentance and to give public 
 testimonies of the truth of your humiliation." 
 
 The chief difficulty the company had to labour against 
 in carrying on both their trade at the Main and the 
 plantation in Providence itself was the great disincli- 
 nation of the colonists for steady and laborious work 
 and their preference for the free and easy life of the 
 rover, who though one day he might be starving on a 
 meagre allowance of raw turtle, might the next be master 
 of a rich prize of sarsaparilla or indigo that he could 
 dispose of to the merchants in New England for what 
 was a fabulous sum to a poor sailor. The fascination of 
 this roving seems to have been almost irresistible and 
 most stringent penalties had to be enacted by the com- 
 pany in order to prevent their servants from stealing 
 away in shallops or canoes to seek for wealth at the 
 Spaniards' expense. "If any man shall offer to run 
 away from the island in boats or otherwise, upon dis- 
 covery of his purpose," wrote the company to the council, 
 "you are to sentence him to be whipped and then to be 
 laid in irons and afterwards to be condemned to per- 
 petual service on the public works till we give other 
 order, having such reasonable food allowed him as may 
 keep him in strength only. If frequent attempts are 
 made, some of those so attempting are to be sentenced 
 to death in order to make an example." But these 
 harsh penalties proved ineffectual and the perpetual 
 
TRADE: LOSS OF TORTUGA 277 
 
 leakage went on, even though men learned of the hard 
 fate of some of those who had escaped. On February 
 15, 1639, an alarm was given from the lookout stationed 
 upon Fair Way Hill that a large ship was making for 
 the harbour without showing the private signal; her 
 navigators were evidently strangers to Providence, for 
 she fell among the narrow channels to the northwest of 
 the island and was deserted by her crew. Nor were they 
 in their shallops able to find their way into the harbour 
 until Gov. Butler, going out in his barge to reconnoitre, 
 found the vessel to be a Dutch privateer with a com- 
 mission from the Prince of Orange, and guided them 
 into the harbour, where they were hospitably entertained. 
 Among those on board the Dutch vessel was an English- 
 man, who with four companions had escaped from 
 Providence long before in a shallop they had stolen by 
 night in the hope of intercepting one of the small 
 Guatemala frigates that crept along close in to the shores 
 of the Main. But a gale springing up, they had been 
 driven far from their intended course to the northward 
 and their boat had been dashed to pieces on the tiny 
 sandy islet of Roncador or "The Snorer," some ninety 
 miles to the east of Providence. The islet had received 
 its name from the continual noise made by the breakers 
 upon the sunken rocks surrounding it and was avoided 
 by every mariner. It is quite barren and without fresh 
 water, but in the breeding season is the haunt of sea- 
 birds. There for two and a half years the Englishman 
 had lived a miserable existence upon the fish and sea- 
 fowl he caught, and the rain that gathered in the hollows 
 of the rocks. One by one his companions had perished, 
 and for the last ten months he was quite alone, till the 
 crew of the Dutch vessel espied and rescued him. So 
 striking was his deliverance thought to be after so many 
 vicissitudes that Minister Sherrard could not resist the 
 
278 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 opportunity of pointing a moral, and the following 
 Sunday at the evening service in the presence of the 
 governor and council, the rescued man was introduced 
 after the sermon to offer up public thanksgiving for his 
 deliverance, to make confession of his vicious life, and to 
 register a vow of future atonement. 
 
 The passion for wandering from island to island in 
 search of an easy road to wealth is a most noticeable 
 trait of the early colonists in the West Indies, and it was 
 many years before the English colonies settled down 
 into well-organised and stable communities. The average 
 man who had once abandoned the ordinary equable course 
 of his life in England in order to emigrate either to New 
 England or the Caribbean must have had in him some 
 latent love of adventure for its own sake, and the zest 
 for novelty once having been roused was hard to quell, 
 and it was difficult for him to settle down again to a life 
 of monotonous toil. This restlessness is noticeable as it 
 affected many among the New England colonists, but 
 there the conditions of the community soon became prac- 
 tically stable and the social system was after all not very 
 different from what the colonists had left behind in the 
 old country. The general trend of affairs in New Eng- 
 land, therefore, was towards stability and so remained 
 well on into the eighteenth century; in St. Christopher, 
 Providence, and Barbadoes everything tended in the 
 opposite direction. The climate and the surroundings 
 of the settlers were entirely different from those they 
 had left in England, different methods of cultivation 
 must be adopted, and to secure good profits from the 
 soil constant effort was necessary. Unremitting effort 
 is always difficult for a white man beneath a tropical 
 sun, but it was especially hard for a new-landed emigrant 
 when he had before his eyes the spectacle to be seen 
 daily in the houses round his harbour, where the rovers 
 
TEADE: LOSS OF TOETUGA 279 
 
 would, congregate after their voyages to squander their 
 gains in revelry and to boast of the wealth to be won 
 at the Spaniards' expense. One of the greatest masters 
 of English fiction has imparted to the pages of his 
 Treasure Island the glamour of this spirit of adventure 
 in a way that a prosaic summing up of details and sta- 
 tistics would entirely fail to do ; but even the most cursory 
 reading in the records of the early seventeenth century 
 must convince us that the spirit of adventure was as real 
 a factor in the history of the Caribbean as it has been 
 in the history of the western frontier of America. 
 
 Just as Providence lost settlers to other colonies, so 
 did it receive them; we have already mentioned the 
 arrival of the minister Leverton and his followers from 
 Barbadoes and Tobago, and many others migrated from 
 Barbadoes to Providence at a later date. In the space 
 of four months in the early part of 1639, forty-nine per- 
 sons arrived from Barbadoes and twenty-seven from 
 St. Christopher, besides stragglers from Virginia and 
 Bermuda on their way to Claiborne's projected settle- 
 ment in the Bay Islands. Tortuga had been deserted by 
 the majority of its English colonists in 1637, but it did 
 not remain uninhabited for long, for many of the old 
 planters who had abandoned it in favour of a settlement 
 upon the main island of Hispaniola soon returned and 
 were joined by several Englishmen from St. Christo- 
 pher. One William Summers* with several companions 
 attempted in 1638 to found a settlement at the Great 
 Salt Pan in St. Christopher on territory which had up 
 to then been occupied neither by English nor French. 
 
 8 Brit. Mus., Eg., 2395, fo. 508. An aecotint of the early history of St. 
 Christopher by foiirteen of the oldest planters, given to Gov. Stapleton in 
 1675 and forwarded by him along with John Hilton's account. The covering 
 letter is to be found in Col. Pap., xxadv. No. 85. For migration of French 
 stragglers to Tortuga, see Charlevoix, HI, 7. 
 
280 PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 Finding, however, that no water was to be had there 
 without much labour and toil. Summers and his settlers 
 determined to leave St. Christopher and to settle in the 
 abandoned colony of Tortuga. By the end of 1639, 
 therefore, Tortuga no longer lay deserted but was occu- 
 pied by some three hundred inhabitants, mainly English, 
 but with a large admixture of Frenchmen. They had 
 gathered there from all parts of the West Indies and 
 appointed as their governor Capt. Roger Floud, who 
 had at one time been sheriff of Providence Island. Floud 
 failed to give satisfaction to the colonists and they 
 elected in his stead one James, who chose to caU himself 
 "president" as a more fitting title than governor for the 
 head of a self-governing community. Remembering the 
 assistance the Providence Company had given to their 
 old Association colonists in Tortuga, James wrote to 
 them in 1640 to beg for a supply of arms and ammuni- 
 tion, in return for which he promised that the colonists 
 would pay to the company a poll-tax of so much per 
 head. The active members of the company were dis- 
 posed to furnish aid upon these terms and in June, 1640, 
 John Pym was given a free hand to carry out all the 
 necessary arrangements. This, however, he was unable 
 to do before news arrived that Tortuga had fallen into 
 the hands of the French* and that the English had been 
 expelled. 
 
 9 Out authority concemmg the French capture of Tortuga in 1640 is 
 derived from three sources, all French. J. B. Du ^ertre, Bistoire des 
 Antilles Franfoises, Paris, 1667, gives original information derived from 
 Hothman, the governor of Tortuga in 1650. J. B. Labat, Nouveaux Voyages 
 aux Isles de I 'Am&rique, Paris, 1722, copies Du Tertre. P. F. X. Charlevoix, 
 Bistoire de I 'Isle de St. Dommgue, Paris, 1730, bases his work on original 
 sources of information in the French colonial records, see Vol. II, p. 7, etc. 
 Bsquemeling's celebrated Bistory of the Buccaneers, where tested for this 
 period, has proved worthless. He calls Le Vasseur "Le Passeur," and dates 
 the capture of the island by the Spaniards in 1635, in one place in 1630, 
 and in another in 1664 under B'Ogeron. The compilation had a tremendous 
 
TEADE : LOSS OF TORTUGA 281 
 
 According to Charlevoix, the historian of St. Domingo, 
 there were four sorts of inhabitants in Tortuga in 1640, 
 Buccaneers engaged in the chase. Filibusters who roved 
 the sea, Habitans or planters who cultivated the soil, and 
 Engages or servants, who were supplied by merchants 
 of Dieppe to the planters on three-year terms. A demo- 
 cratic government had been established and an English- 
 man of resolution had been chosen by both English and 
 French as captain;" but he seized the entire power for 
 the English and treated the French settlers with consid- 
 erable injustice. One of them embarking secretly for 
 St. Christopher there informed De Poincy, gouverneur 
 general des Isles du Vent, that the English were now 
 masters of Tortuga to the oppression of the French. 
 He begged assistance to seize the island for France, 
 which might be done without much difficulty. De Poincy 
 had been getting into considerable trouble in France for 
 nurturing Huguenots in St. Christopher and saw here 
 an opportunity of getting rid of many of them by sending 
 them to the assistance of their countrymen in Tortuga, 
 many of whom were Huguenots. He therefore offered 
 
 vogue in Weatein Europe and seems to have been got up to sell by its 
 Benaationalism. Early buccaneering, at any rate, was a good deal more 
 prosaic than Esquemeling makes out. Two works have recently appeared 
 which deal critically with the history of Tortuga, C. H. Haring, The 
 Buccaneers of the West Indies in the Seventeenth Century, London, 1910, 
 a work largely based on Esquemeling, and P. de Vaissidre, Saint 
 Domingue, Paris, 1909, an excellent historical work dealing with the social 
 life of the French colony in the eighteenth century but incidentally touching 
 upon the early history of Tortuga and giving in full some original letters 
 from De Poincy from the French archives. 
 
 10 Charlevoix calls this man Willis and all subsequent writers have copied 
 this from him. Du Tertre says simply: "Quelques Anglais s'y etant remis 
 y ayant attir£, quelques Fran^ais, boucaniers, ils se trouverent jusqu'au 
 nombre de 300, desquela un Anglais s'etait fait le chef." The Providence 
 records repeatedly give the leader's name as President James. His real 
 name may have been William James for Charlevoix's spelling of English 
 names is very erratic, e.g. Waemaerd for Warner. 
 
282 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 one Le Vasseur, a companion of D'Esnambuc in the first 
 settlement of St. Christopher, liberty of conscience to 
 himself and any Huguenots who would accompany him 
 if he would lead the expedition. Le Vasseur, knowing 
 Tortuga and its advantages, accepted the governor's 
 offer and, gathering together a small force, set sail. For 
 three months he remained sheltered in a small harbour 
 on the Hispaniola coast some twenty miles from Tortuga 
 and there he drilled his small force into something like 
 discipline. On the last day of August, 1640, hearing that 
 many of the English rovers were absent, he suddenly 
 entered the harbour of Tortuga and landed without oppo- 
 sition. He at once summoned the English to surrender 
 and leave the island within twenty-four hours or no 
 quarter would be given; they, staggered at the sudden 
 onslaught and at the defection of the French colonists 
 who at once joined Le Vasseur, gave way without striking 
 a blow. The flag of the French king was hoisted over 
 the primitive fort and thenceforward Tortuga remained 
 in French hands." ' The conquest was more important in 
 reality than it appeared, for from this modest beginning 
 sprang the greatest French colony of the eighteenth 
 century, the "Saint Domingue" that was the richest and 
 best cultivated of the West Indian islands. 
 
 11 The Spaniards again attacked Tortuga in 1643 and 1654 but were both 
 times repulsed. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 THE COMPANY AND NEW ENGLAND 
 
 The intimate accord that had subsisted throughout the 
 early years of Massachusetts' history between the colo- 
 nists and the English Puritan leaders, was first dis- 
 turbed by the reply of the colony's leaders to Saye's 
 propositions for government in 1636. A slight, but grad- 
 ually widening, estrangement began to divide the two 
 branches of Puritans, and aided by many causes this 
 estrangement had by the end of 1638 rendered the Puri- 
 tan leaders in England almost as hostile to the ruling 
 oligarchy in Massachusetts' as were King Charles and 
 Archbishop Laud. The constitutional development of 
 the colony had been all in the direction of an intolerant 
 theocracy and this growth in the power and influence 
 of divines like Peters and Cotton, was profoundly dis- 
 tasteful to the thorough Erastian English spirit of Saye, 
 of Brooke, and of Pym. Convinced Puritans as they 
 were, they were not Separatists in the least, for though 
 they hated Laud bitterly for his narrow ecclesiasticism, 
 they hated him far more for his innovations in the semi- 
 Calvinism of that Elizabethan Church of England in 
 which they had been brought up and to which they were 
 deeply attached. The rule of ecclesiastics has never 
 been palatable to Englishmen, and the harsh dogmatic 
 government of the archbishop was not only in itself a 
 medisBval anachronism in the seventeenth century, but 
 was also profoundly foreign in temper to the com- 
 promise-loving English country gentlemen, who, whether 
 Puritan or Arminian, liked a parson well enough only 
 as long as he knew his place and did not dictate to his 
 
284 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 betters. In Massachusetts matters were entirely dif- 
 ferent; almost all those passing to the colony in its 
 earlier years were moved by religious fervour and looked 
 up to their ministers as messengers of Heaven ; the rulers 
 of the colony were profoundly religious men in whom, 
 with the exception of Winthrop, the religious spirit was 
 deeply tinged with fanaticism. Everything, therefore, 
 tended to exalt the ministers' power in the community 
 and, as always, clerical rule was wielded with a ruthless 
 dogmatism and a hard logic that were fatal to com- 
 promise or tolerance. The attack on Gov, Winthrop 's 
 administration^ in 1636 for its lenity and remissness 
 was submitted for adjudication to the three principal 
 ministers of the colony, who practically forced him to 
 admit his error and administered to him a severe admo- 
 nition to observe greater strictness of discipline in the 
 future. Young Henry Vane, who succeeded to the gov- 
 ernorship in 1636, found his position untenable owing 
 to the bitterness and intolerance of the theological dis- 
 putes of the ministers with the Antinomians. So out of 
 tune with the ruling oligarchy did he find himself that 
 at the election of 1637 he was excluded from the govern- 
 ment and left Massachusetts for England in August of 
 the same year. 
 
 Vane's report to his friends in England of his Ameri- 
 can experiences must have done much to add to the 
 estrangement already existing and have aided in con- 
 vincing the leaders that it would be well to divert future 
 emigrants towards Providence, if possible, rather than 
 to allow them to strengthen further the aggressive com- 
 munity in New England that had already diverged so 
 far from the good old type of English society. It was 
 this aim of diversion that actuated Pym and his fellows 
 
 1 Doyle, Puritan Colonies, I, 128; Osgood, The American Colonies in the 
 Seventeenth Centwy, I, 238-246. 
 
THE COMPANY AND NEW ENGLAND 285 
 
 in the final reconstruction of the Providence Company, 
 as is shown in Moundeford's letter to D'Ewes,^ and 
 many persuasions were brought to bear on ministers and 
 emigrants proceeding to New England to urge them to 
 change their direction and sail to the Caribbean. The 
 success obtained in procuring emigrants for Providence 
 was very small, but the tide of emigration to New Eng- 
 land began in 1637 to slacken, and we may justly attribute 
 some part of this slackening to the efforts of the Puritan 
 leaders and their friends. These efforts of course became 
 immediately known to the rulers of Massachusetts and 
 naturally embittered their feelings against their old 
 allies. They consequently resolved as a set-off to accede 
 to the prayers of the extreme Puritan party in Provi- 
 dence for assistance against their governor and the 
 demands of the company. That communications between 
 the colonies were frequent from 1638 onwards, we have 
 already seen, and that assistance against their enemies 
 was sought by the Providence Puritans we can learn 
 both from the records and from Winthrop's journal. In 
 June, 1639, the company wrote to Gov. Butler urging him 
 to take away all occasion for breach with the New Eng- 
 land churches and expressing the hope that "they like- 
 wise of New England will carry themselves moderately, 
 be content with their own freedom and leave others to 
 theirs. ' ' 
 
 The bitterness of the Massachusetts rulers against 
 those who disparaged the colony, was the greater in 
 these years, 1639-1640, because many causes in the colony 
 itself were tending to discourage the settlers and per- 
 suade them to abandon the enterprise. The falling off 
 of emigration, the long conflict over the Antinomian 
 heresy, ending in the expulsion among scenes of hardship 
 of Mrs. Hutchinson and her followers, the disputes over 
 
 2 See p. 249. 
 
286 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 boundaries in which Massachusetts became involved 
 because of her claims under her charter, the constant 
 dangers to be apprehended from the Indian tribes, 
 Pequots, Narragansetts, and Mohegans, the incessant 
 strain of labour against the hard New England winters, 
 the exhaustion of the supplies that had been brought 
 from England, and the almost utter absence of money to 
 procure more, — all these causes had produced in the 
 minds of many of the Massachusetts colonists feelings 
 of the deepest depression and a conviction that after all 
 they had been deluded in fancying that God had directed 
 them to New England as the "promised land.'" Those 
 who gave way to these counsels of despair found a rally- 
 ing point in the person of one of the earliest leaders of 
 the Massachusetts enterprise, John Humphry. We have 
 already said something of Humphry's earlier career; 
 in the colony he had always stood to a certain extent 
 aloof from the rest of the ruling group, and Cotton in 
 his reply to Lord Saye's proposals of 1636 tells us* that 
 Humphry was the only freeman of the colony who was 
 not a member of a church. This lack of church member- 
 ship. Cotton puts down to the unsettledness of the place 
 where Humphry lived at Saugus, but the excuse seems 
 very weak when we realize that Saugus lies only a very 
 few miles from either Boston or Salem. Humphry had 
 reached Massachusetts with higher hopes and far more 
 resources than most of his fellows, but he had failed in 
 his struggle with the conditions of New England, and 
 had sunk lower and lower in estate until he was com- 
 pelled in 1638 to beg from the Court of Assistants 
 pecuniary help to tide him over his difficulties. His first 
 application was favourably received, but on a second 
 
 3Cf. strong, "A Forgotten Danger to the New England Colonies," 
 Seport, American Historical Association, 1898, 79-81. 
 * Hutchinson, Hist, of Mass. Bay, I, 498. 
 
THE COMPANY AND NEW ENGLAND 287 
 
 appeal the court refused to do anything, probably at the 
 motion of Endecott. There was some ill will between 
 the two men, for later we find Humphry bringing certain 
 charges against Endecott at Salem and being compelled 
 to withdraw them." 
 
 It had been suggested in the colony that in view of the 
 slackening of emigration it would be well to employ an 
 agent in England to secure men or money, or both, and 
 for this service the employment of Humphry had been 
 suggested, but against the whole plan Endecott pro- 
 tested most strongly to Gov. Winthrop. He wrote late in 
 1639:' "For the project for an agent or agents to be 
 employed by the country or council to procure men or 
 money or both for us from England,- we (submitting to 
 better judgments) think it may prove more hurtful than 
 helpful to us in divers ways. For first it will confirm 
 my Lord Say and others of his judgment that New Eng- 
 land can no longer subsist without the help of Old 
 "England, especially they being already informed of the 
 forwardness of divers amongst us to remove to the West 
 Indies because they cannot here maintain their fami- 
 lies. . . . Touching the persons, some of them, who are 
 thought to be most fit to be employed in this design, I 
 do think [them] most unfit. In general take notice that 
 they are men well affected to the West Indies." 
 
 The idea of migration to the Caribbean was making 
 so great a headway among the Massachusetts colonists 
 at this time as to cause the greatest uneasiness among 
 their leaders, who put down the whole cause of the 
 unrest to Lord Saye and the rest of the Providence 
 Company.' So strong were the expressions of feeling 
 
 » Mass. Hist. Soe. Coll., 4th series, VII, 145 ; see also, VII, 96. 
 8 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 4th series, VI, 138. 
 
 7 This pTojected migration has been dealt with by Strong in the article 
 already noted. 
 
288 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 among the members of the Court of Assistants on the 
 subject of these disparagements that in March, 1640, 
 Gov. Winthrop wrote personally to Lord Saye a strong 
 letter of protest.* The letter itself is not extant, but it 
 drew forth a lengthy reply from Saye, which has been 
 preserved for us among the Winthrop Papers.' Saye 
 begins his letter by reproving Winthrop for taking Grod's 
 name in vain. He says: "I received a letter from you 
 dated the 20th of March wherein upon hearsay you faU 
 into a reproof of me backed with intimations that I may 
 expect and fear judgments, as the ten princes of Israel 
 found, for briaging up an ill-report upon your land and 
 diverting men's intentions from coming to you, as they 
 did the Israelites from going into the land of Canaan. 
 . . . For the matter itself, the substance of what you 
 charge me with, is that my authority (which you advance 
 as very effectual) hath diverted many from coming to 
 you and cast their affections another way. . . . Why 
 should you or any other man be grieved that men follow 
 their own judgments in transporting themselves when 
 it is free for them so to do, . . . why am I so sharply 
 dealt withal for speaking that which is a truth in my 
 judgment to any that shall advise with me? But you 
 will say I disparage that plantation to advance another : 
 it is meet for him that will judge, to hear both sides first 
 and to be sure of his grounds : if you knew how falsely 
 and basely that other plantation of Providence hath been 
 disparaged by those affected to yours for the end for 
 
 8 Winthrop 's Journal, I, 335. 
 
 9 Lord Saye and Sele to John Winthrop, 9 July, 1640. Mass. Hist. Soc. 
 Coll., 5th series, I, 297, and Life of Winthrop, II, 248, and App. VIII, p. 422. 
 Saye wrote his letter among the most pressing distractions, for he and the 
 other Puritan leaders were at the time deep in secret negotiations with the 
 Scots, carried on through Henry Darley. The celebrated letter from the 
 associated peers to the Convenanters is dated July 8, see Gardiner's Vail 
 of Monarchy, 1, 402. 
 
THE COMPANY AND NEW ENGLAND 289 
 
 which yoTi suspect I had done the like to you, then you 
 would better know where to place and apply your 
 reproof. For my part, my prayers have been and shall 
 be for the good and advancement of those faithful people 
 and pure churches I know to be there ; and to that very 
 end have I, according to my judgment, persuaded men 
 to think of a more southerly part of that continent where 
 they might find a commodious place for such a body as 
 they already are, and are likely to grow into quickly by 
 accession of those who would there come unto them, or 
 they would be able to bring unto them if poor, by the 
 ability that such places would afford them." Saye 
 evidently here alludes to Pym's project for the great 
 mainland colony at Cape G-racias a Dios that had so 
 gripped the imaginations of all the Providence leaders. 
 That his aims were not centred on Providence alone, 
 we can see from his following sentence which, approxi- 
 mating closely to the unpalatable truth, greatly roused 
 Winthrop's ire. ''Now [the Massachusetts colonists] 
 are so placed that rich men grow poor, and poor men, 
 if they come over, are a burden, the rich only maintain- 
 ing the market for a time until that be spent which they 
 bring out of England, which land flood will have an 
 end. ... In a place where staple commodities already 
 are, and the soil and climate known to be fit to produce 
 the richest and thereby to carry on so great a work as 
 the framing of a commonwealth and the settling thereof 
 for posterity, there will be no place for this [impoverish- 
 ment] and by this, I hope also, I shall not be thought to 
 have a little island and the advancement thereof only in 
 my contemplation in all this proposition. ' ' 
 
 Saye went on to suggest that God had appointed 
 Massachusetts only for a temporary abiding place and 
 did not mean His people to settle there forever, but into 
 these arguments and his reiteration of the objections to 
 
290 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 the system of government of the colony as set forth by 
 Cotton, we need not follow him, for in his prediction of 
 a prosperous future for the colony on the Main, he had 
 laid himself open defenceless to Winthrop's retort. The 
 full text of this does not appear to have been preserved, 
 but upon the back of Saye's letter Winthrop jotted down 
 a few heads for his answer and its general purport may 
 be conjectured with fair probability.^" He would protest 
 against the lords taking Humphry and other broken men 
 as reliable guides as to the condition of affairs in Massa- 
 chusetts, for they had already run through their estates 
 by bad management and had everythiiig to hope for from 
 a new start. Gurdon and Darley could bear witness to 
 Humphry's poor financial position. It was notorious that 
 the Providence planters were terribly discontented with 
 their position and prospects, not only from a material 
 point of view, but also from that of religion ; Gov. Butler 
 was quite alien in sympathy to earnest Puritans and the 
 constant struggles between the minister and the governor 
 were well known in New England. It was all very well 
 for Lord Saye to talk of the staple commodities of the 
 Main and their richness, but it would be difficult for him 
 to point out one whereby the planters might make a 
 decent livelihood. If the West Indies offered so fine a 
 field for colonisation and for the investment of capital, 
 why was it that the lords of Providence themselves had 
 already sunk almost £120,000 without any material 
 return? — a final question that with its bit of pardonable 
 exaggeration must have been a hard nut for Saye and 
 his friends to crack. 
 
 i» The complete endorsement is as follows: (Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 
 5th series, I, 303), "To my Lo: Brooke that their estates were gone already. 
 Ask Mr. Gurdon, Dr. Darley, etc., what is borne of them. Mr. [illegible]. 
 What content those have who be there. What Governor they [illeg.] with 
 [illeg.] . What staple commodities for livelihood. What is become of their 
 £120,000?" 
 
THE COMPANY AND NEW ENGLAND 291 
 
 Every effort was made by the governor and the ruling 
 powers in Massachusetts to dissuade those colonists who 
 thought of abandoning New England, and we can per- 
 ceive the line which their arguments took in Winthrop's 
 own words in his journal:" "Many men began to enquire 
 after the southern parts, and the great advantages sup- 
 posed to be had in Virginia, the West Indies, etc., made 
 this country to be disesteemed of many, and yet those 
 countries (for all their great wealth) have sent hither 
 both this year [1640] and formerly for supply of clothes 
 and other necessaries, and some families have forsaken 
 both Providence and other [of] the Caribbee Islands 
 and Virginia to come live here. And though our people 
 saw what meagre, unhealthful countenances they brought 
 hither, and how fat and well-liking they became soon, 
 yet they were so taken with the ease and plenty of those 
 countries as many of them sold their estates here to 
 transport themselves to Providence. . . . Some consid- 
 erations were proposed to them by the Court, which 
 diverted some of them and made others to pause upon 
 three points especially: 
 
 1. How dangerous it was to bring up an ill-report 
 upon this good land, which God had found out and given 
 to His people and so to discourage the hearts of their 
 brethren, etc. 
 
 2. To leave a place of rest and safety to expose 
 themselves, their wives and children, to the anger of a 
 potent enemy, the Spaniard. 
 
 3. Their subjection to such governors as those in 
 England shall set over them, etc. Notwithstanding these 
 considerations divers of them persisted in their resolu- 
 tions and set about to get some ship or bark to transport 
 them." 
 
 XI Winthrop 's Jcfurnal, I, 333. 
 
292 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 So firmly had some of the colonists set their minds 
 upon abandoning Massachusetts, that two of them, 
 Elijah Goose and Emmanuel Truebody, surreptitiously 
 sailed for England to lay their views before the Provi- 
 dence Company and to arrange with them for the migra- 
 tion of a large number of New Englanders to the 
 mainland of Cape Gracias a Dios, there to join in the 
 building up of Pym's great English colony. The Provi- 
 dence leaders were only too pleased to receive an acces- 
 sion of settlers to their plantations, especially seeing 
 that the new emigrants were strong Puritans who dis- 
 liked the aggressively theocratic temper of Massa- 
 chusetts' rulers. The reports of the state of affairs 
 in Providence brought by Sherrard and Halhead and 
 the other prisoners sent home by Capt. Carter, showed 
 the company -^hat a mistake they had made in appointing 
 to the governorship a man like Capt. Butler; they 
 resolved, therefore, to appoint as governor John 
 Humphry, the leader of the new colonists, and to give 
 him the fullest power over all their "West Indian pos- 
 sessions, thus endeavouring to secure success by a return 
 to the regime of a strongly Puritan governor and council. 
 
 Though Humphry found comparatively little diffi- 
 culty in negotiating with the Providence Company, his 
 arrangements with those desiring to leave New England 
 proved a great deal harder to make. From a letter 
 written by him to Lord Mandeville, that is still extant 
 among the Manchester Papers,^^ we learn that he had 
 persuaded between two and three hundred persons to 
 leave Massachusetts with him. Although certain Provi- 
 dence planters had come to New England to paint the 
 beauties and richness of Central America to recruits, 
 neither they nor Humphry could prove to the emigrants 
 that Cape Gracias a Dios was the best site for their new 
 
 12 No. 424. 
 
THE COMPANY AND NEW ENGLAND 293 
 
 colony. Most of them had fixed their minds upon Florida 
 for their home, and it was only when Humphry was able 
 to promise them free transportation on two ships hired 
 by Emmanuel Truebody at the Providence Company's 
 expense, and to assure them of assistance in disposing 
 of their surplus property in New England, that he suc- 
 ceeded finally in fixing their goal. Every possible 
 obstacle was placed in their way by the Massachusetts 
 rulers, and Fate herself proved unkind. "We learn from 
 Winthrop's journal that: "Mr. Humphry, who was now 
 for Providence with his company, [and had] raised an 
 ill-report of this country, was here kept in spite of all 
 their endeavours and means to have been gone this winter 
 [1640], and his corn and hay to the value of £160 were 
 burnt by his own servants, who made a fire in his barn, 
 and by gunpowder, which accidentally took fire, consumed 
 all." However, at length, in May, 1641, the first party 
 of emigrants, thirty men, five women, and eight children, 
 left Boston for Providence in two small vessels under 
 the command of Capt. William Pejrce, being followed 
 by Humphry with the main party in July. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 CAPTURE OF PROVIDENCE BY SPAIN 
 
 The negotiations between the Providence Company and 
 Truebody and Humphry had been conducted, not by Pym, 
 but by Lord Mandeville, with the help and concurrence 
 of Saye. Pym, who had been the moving spirit in the 
 company for so long, had since the opening of the Short 
 Parliament become so immersed in the direction of the 
 struggle against absolutism that he could no longer spare 
 time to carry forward his colonial schemes. Battle had 
 at last been joined between two worthy foemen, the 
 aristocrat, Strafford, fresh from the triumphs of his 
 "Thorough" policy in Ireland, and the old parliament 
 man, once more treading his familiar ground and 
 determined to stake his life and all. With the closing 
 of the Short Parliament all hopes of compromise between 
 them were at an end, and Pym's energies throughout the 
 summer and autumn months of 1640 were devoted to the 
 organisation of the first electoral campaign that England 
 had ever seen. His journeys from end to end of the 
 country, his constant immersion in a tortuous web of 
 intrigue that at any moment might lead him to the block, 
 rendered all thoughts of Providence impossible and it 
 was left to other hands to carry on the work. Warwick 
 was devoting a great share of his attention to other West 
 Indian schemes, and both he and Saye were in constant 
 parley with the Scots, but Mandeville was still com- 
 paratively free and the Providence work fell to his 
 share. 
 
CAPTURE OF PROVIDENCE 295 
 
 ^ While the inevitable march of events towards an open 
 struggle between king and people demanded the entire 
 concentration of Pym's efforts, and thus deprived the 
 Providence Company of his guidance at a critical 
 moment, the fate that they had so long courted was 
 hastening to overwhelm the Providence colonists. Their 
 depredations upon Spanish towns and shipping, cuhni- 
 uating in Butler's ransom of Truxillo, had at last reached 
 such a pitch of audacity as to goad the Spanish authori- 
 ties to the determination that Santa Catalina must be 
 cleared of its pirate inhabitants at whatever cost. The 
 failure of the attack of 1635 had been so great a dis- 
 appointment as to demand the serious attention of the 
 government at Madrid, in spite of its many preoccupa- 
 tions with the European situation. Special orders were 
 issued to the Council of War, the Council of the Indies, 
 and the Council of State to deliberate together and to 
 determine on some means of redeeming the failure. The 
 conclusions arrived at were recorded on December 11, 
 1636,^ and though it was long before they were acted 
 upon, they were the authority on which future action 
 was taken, and therefore concern us. Two of the con- 
 clusions, voiced by the Duke d 'Albuquerque and the 
 Duke de Villahermosa, did little to help on matters, but 
 the third, voiced by the Count del Castrillo, was more 
 practical. The best moment for the expulsion of the 
 pirates had passed since they had not taken advantage 
 of the great military preparations to clear the Indies, 
 when the Dutch were attacked at the battle of Curagao. 
 Funds were lacking for further preparations directed 
 from Spain, so that it appeared to be the best course to 
 give the governors of Cartagena, Panama, and Porto 
 Bello a free hand to tiy and dislodge the English pirates 
 with the means at their disposal and when there seemed 
 
 1 Brit. MuB., Venezuela Papers, Add. MSS., 36323, fo. 297. 
 
296 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 a likely probability of success. If tbe English, were dis- 
 lodged from Santa Catalina they would move on to some 
 other undefended island, as they had done in past years, 
 and would return to their original fastness when the 
 danger was past. The only way of preserving Spanish 
 rights intact was to maintain a great fleet in the Carib- 
 bean, ready for instant employment wherever required. 
 
 In these last words the whole root of the matter is 
 expressed; it was impossible for the governors of the 
 Indies to do anything effectual to clear out the foreigners, 
 who had settled down on the Antilles like a plague of 
 locusts, and who were swept from one place only to 
 appear in another. Nothing but a great and powerful 
 fleet, permanently stationed in the Indies and with some 
 of its vessels constantly at sea, could effect the colossal 
 task, but this fleet it was impossible for the impoverished 
 Spanish government to supply. It has been the fashion 
 among some writers to deride the Spanish colonial gov- 
 ernment and to accuse its officials of slothful ineptitude 
 for their incapacity to maintain intact the inflated pre- 
 tensions of the monarchy of Philip II, but nothing can 
 in reality be more unjust. To guard the whole of a 
 hemisphere would be too gigantic a task for any nation, 
 and it is rather a tribute to the Spanish genius that the 
 Castilian monarchy was able to maintain its American 
 empire in the maiu untouched, than an occasion for 
 derision that some of the smaller unoccupied islands on 
 the edge of the Caribbean should have been lost to the 
 foreigners. 
 
 The whole of the years 1637-1638 were occupied in 
 Spain in the preparation of a great fleet for the supreme 
 effort to recapture Brazil from the Dutch, and every 
 Spanish or Portuguese vessel that could be spared was 
 pressed into the service, special care being taken that 
 ships, men, and stores should all be of the highest quality. 
 
CAPTURE OF PROVIDENCE 297 
 
 The fleet sailed from Lisbon in October, 1638,^ and 
 further reinforcements were despatched in January, 
 1639; but the Spanish government dared not weaken 
 further their own coasts, owing to the constant fear of 
 French attacks in the Bay of Biscay. Under these cir- 
 cumstances it was evident that nothing could be done 
 towards the establishment of the required fleet in the 
 Caribbean, and orders were therefore despatched to the 
 governors of San Domingo and Cartagena to do the best 
 they could against Santa Catalina with the means at 
 their command. Nothing could be attempted till the 
 summer of 1640,° when Don Melchior Aguilar, governor 
 and captain general of the province of Cartagena, profit- 
 ing by the arrival in that port of some reinforcements 
 from Brazil, despatched Don Antonio Maldonado y 
 Tejada, his sergeant-major, with eight hundred soldiers 
 from the garrison and two hundred negroes from the 
 local militia on board six frigates and a galleon of the 
 armada. The expedition left Cartagena in May, 1640, 
 
 2 State Papers, Foreign, Spain, Bundle XL, No. 150, Hopton to Coke. 
 Also Hopton to Coke, 23 Jan., 1639, and other letters of about the same date. 
 
 3 The information on the Spanish side concerning the attacks on Provi- 
 dence can be derived from three sources: 
 
 1. Alcedo y Herrera, Firaterias y agressiones en la America Espanola, 
 edited by P. Zaragoza. Madrid, 1883. A very scrappy compilation from 
 the eighteenth century works of A. de Alcedo and from Herrera 's Deeadas. 
 
 2. Cesareo Fernandez y Duro, Armada EspaHola, 9 vols., Madrid, 1898. 
 See tom. IV, 339. The most recent history of the Spanish navy. 
 
 3. JosS Wangumert y Poggio, El Almvrante Don Francisco Diae 
 Pimienta y iu Epoca. Madrid, 1905. An enthusiastic appreciation of 
 the admiral based upon, and giving long quotations from, the original 
 sources. For the capture of Providence these are: 
 
 a. "Carta 6 informacidn enviada por D. Juan Bitrian de Briamonte, 
 29 de Junio de 1640." Coleecion Navarrete, tomo xzv. 
 
 b. Memorial originally in the Chapel of the Pimienta family at Palma 
 in the Canaries and now in the collection of the Marquis de Gnisla y 
 GhiuseUn. 
 
 c. A relation of the battle of Sa. Catalina, printed at Madrid in 
 1642 by Juan Sanchez and at Seville by Francisco Lyra. 
 
298 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 and reaching Providence on Thursday, May 28, spent 
 some time in attempting to find a passage through the 
 shoals that form a barrier round the island.* Failing 
 in this, attempts were made to reach the shore in shallops, 
 and on May 30 the Spaniards succeeded in landing a 
 large party of their best soldiers. Again and again were 
 the island forts assaulted, but all attempts were unsuc- 
 cessful and the attacking party was defeated in a pitched 
 battle with great loss. Very few of the Spaniards suc- 
 ceeded in escaping to their ships, and finally on June 1, 
 a gale springing up, the galleon and her consorts, which 
 could find no safe anchorage, had to abandon the attack 
 and return to Cartagena, having lost, either slain or 
 taken prisoners, more than a hundred men and two 
 captains. The rejoicings in Providence at the repulse 
 of the attack were naturally great, and Thursday, June 
 11, was set apart as a day of thanksgiving for the great 
 deliverance, but Gov. Carter marred his victory by put- 
 ting to death the Spanish prisoners he had taken, though 
 their lives had been promised them. It was the protest 
 of Sherrard, Leverton, Halhead, and Lane against this 
 cruelty that caused the governor's final excess of tyr- 
 anny, which culminated in their despatch to England as 
 prisoners in irons. 
 
 Maldonado returned to announce his discomfiture at 
 Cartagena just as the armada for the silver had arrived 
 from Spain under the command of Admiral Don Fran- 
 cisco Diaz de Pimienta. Pimienta was a man of great 
 energy of character, who has earned for himself a con- 
 siderable name in Spanish naval annals; leaving his 
 vessels for their usual lengthy stay at Cartagena, he set 
 
 *A vei7 full account of the attack and its repulse was sent home to the 
 company in a sixteen-page letter' signed by Henry Halhead, Bichard Lane, 
 Hope Sherrard, and Nicholas Leverton. It has been preserved among the 
 Finch MS8., Vol. I, pp. 51-58, Hist. MSS. Comm., Seventeenth Beport. 
 
CAPTUEE OF PROVIDENCE 299 
 
 out in a swift barque for Spain to lay the state of affairs 
 before the king and to demand permission to retrieve 
 the dishonour to the Spanish arms. The permission thus 
 demanded in person by a captain of Pimienta's merit 
 could not be refused, and he was ordered to return 
 immediately to the Indies and to dislodge the corsairs 
 of Santa Catalina in the time that would elapse before 
 the galleons had to commence their return to Spain with 
 their precious freight. Pimienta lost no time and before 
 the end of 1640 he was back in Cartagena, careening his 
 ships, disciplining his infantry, and preparing his plans 
 for the coming attack. It was evident to him that his 
 task would be no easy one, for he was able to gather 
 full information as to the strength of Providence from 
 the Spaniards who had been permitted to land there from 
 time to time. Fugitives from Spanish justice could find 
 their most secure harbourage among the corsairs to whom 
 their information as to local conditions was of much 
 value, but they were always ready to make their peace 
 with their own government, if they could do so at the 
 price of their knowledge of the corsairs' retreats. One 
 of the colonists' greatest complaints against Gov. Butler 
 was that he so often permitted Spanish pilots to come 
 ashore in Providence and thus allowed them to glean 
 full information as to the defences of the island. From 
 spies of this sort Pimienta learned that Providence was 
 armed with fifty-six great pieces of artillery and one 
 hundred and forty-eight smaller pieces disposed in 
 fourteen forts and entrenched defences; there were 
 about six hundred men capable of bearing arms. Feel- 
 ing in Cartagena was excited in the highest degree on 
 learning of the treacherous slaughter of the prisoners 
 taken from Maldonado, and of the presence in Santa 
 Catalina in strict confinement of several friars, who had 
 been captured while proceeding in frigates on missionary 
 
300 PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 journeys along the coast. For three months Pimienta 
 diligently made his preparations and his biographer 
 waxes eloquent over the earnest religious and crusading 
 spirit in which these preparations were undertaken, his 
 hatred against the natural enemies of his nation, and 
 the care with which he had enquired into the hydro- 
 graphic conditions of the island and with which he had 
 organised his supplies. On the 6th of May, 1641, the 
 expedition sailed from Cartagena, numbering in all two 
 thousand men. The admiral was embarked in the galleon 
 San Jucm of four hundred tons, because she drew little 
 water ; his second in command, Don Jeronimo de Ojeda, 
 sailed in the Urea Sanson of nine hundred tons, and 
 accompanying them were the Jesus Maria de Castilla 
 (four hundred tons), the Santa Anna (three hundred 
 and fifty tons), the Urea de 8. M. San Marcos (four 
 hundred tons), the Convoy (three hundred tons), the 
 Teatina (three hundred tons), the Jesus Maria de Ajuda 
 (two hundred and thirty tons), the San Pedro, and three 
 pataches of from seventy to eighty tons apiece. On the 
 17th of May, the armada first saw Santa Catalina, but 
 it was not till two days later that attempts were made 
 to penetrate the surrounding reefs. After sounding a 
 passage in shallops, the vessels cast anchor within the 
 outermost fringe of reefs at nine o'clock on the morning 
 of Whitsunday. The Urea Sanson galleon, however, 
 found that her draught was too great to enter even the 
 outermost channel and she was therefore sent back to 
 Cartagena. Pimienta was not content to entrust the 
 reconnoitring of the island to a subordinate and set out 
 himself with his most experienced captains in a felucca 
 to try whether with the aid of a Moorish corsair, who 
 had visited the island in a French vessel, it was possible 
 to find a way into the harbour. The Moor proved a use- 
 less guide, but a Spaniard, who had long acted as pilot 
 
CAPTURE OF PROVIDENCE 301 
 
 to the Providence ships and had lately fled from them 
 to Jamaica, was sent to the admiralty by the governor 
 of that island, and under his guidance Pimienta and the 
 Conde de Castimellor with a force of some six hundred 
 soldiers in nineteen lighters finally succeeded in effect- 
 ing a landing on the 24th. 
 
 The spot chosen for the landing lay in the southeast of 
 the island and was guarded only by earthworks. Fierce 
 fighting took place round these works, but the English 
 defenders were finally dislodged and took refuge in the 
 hills. Neglecting to pursue them, Pimienta marched 
 across the island to New Westminster and laid siege to 
 the governor's house and the church, which were held 
 by a few musketeers. These were unable to hold out 
 for long against the overwhelming odds, and amid great 
 rejoicings on the part of the Spaniards, their defenders 
 were forced to surrender and the Dominican friars, who 
 had been held captive in the island for three years, were 
 set free. The remaining Englishmen with most of the 
 women and children had taken refuge in the citadel-like 
 peninsula that juts out from the northern part of the 
 island, but in face of the great numbers arrayed against 
 them, they willingly agreed to lay down their arms when 
 Pimienta sent one of the liberated friars to them under 
 a flag of truce to promise them their lives. Gov. Carter, 
 Sergeant Major Hunt, and others of the principal Eng- 
 lish officers came in person to thank the admiral for his 
 clemency and to deliver up possession of the remaining 
 forts of the garrison. 
 
 On the 26th of May, solemn high mass was celebrated 
 and a festal Te Deum was sung in the town square of 
 New Westminster as a thanksgiving for victory in the 
 presence of the whole of the Spanish force and of the 
 four hundred captured heretics. Some of the English, 
 who had fled to the woods at the first Spanish landing, 
 
302 PTJEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 had managed to make their escape in shallops to Hen- 
 rietta and the Main, but almost all the principal colonists 
 had been captured, and these were sent prisoners on 
 board the fleet to be carried to Cartagena and thence to 
 captivity in Spain. The women and children were per- 
 mitted to take away a few of their personal belongings, 
 and were placed on board an English ship and despatched 
 to England. Nearly six hundred negroes and a great 
 booty of gold, indigo, and cochineal, fell into the hands 
 of the captors and the total worth of the prize was esti- 
 mated at over half a million ducats. No attempt had 
 been made to bring the ships into the harbour in view 
 of the narrowness of the passage and of the disaster to 
 the Jesus Maria de Ajuda, which, in attempting to find 
 a safe anchorage, struck upon a sunken rock and was 
 lost. The island was left under the command of Don 
 Jeronimo de Ojeda with thirty-two pieces of artillery, 
 many gunners, and some infantry, and the armada set 
 sail for Cartagena, which was reached on the 6th of 
 June, amid great rejoicings. The galleons of the plate 
 fleet with Pimienta in command left Porto Bello on the 
 9th of July and reached Cadiz on the 7th of October 
 with the English prisoners on board. The news of the 
 capture soon got abroad in Spain and was received with 
 the greatest satisfaction, but no official notice of the 
 details of the fight was issued till the early part of 1642, 
 when, in reward for his exploit, the king conferred upon 
 Pimienta the habit of the Military Order of the Knights 
 of Santiago. A full account of the battle was published 
 in f oUo at Madrid and Seville^ and it is from this account 
 that most of the foregoing details have been derived. 
 
 ° Belaeidn del suceso gue tuvo en la isla de Santa Catalma 6 de la Provi- 
 deneia el Almirante D. Francisco Diaz Pimienta en que se da cuenta de 
 como la tonid d las enemigos echdndolos de ella y de la estimaddn de los 
 despojos y n&mero de prisioneros. Madrid, folio, 1642. 
 
CAPTURE OF PEOVIDENCE 303 
 
 Pimienta's sister in coimnemoration of his success 
 ordered a picture of the battle to be painted from the 
 descriptions of eyewitnesses, and placed this picture in 
 the chapel of Santa Anna, the patron saint of the 
 Pimienta family, in the parish church of Pahna in the 
 Canaries. An account of the battle was deposited among 
 the archives of the church, but this has now found its 
 way into private hands. 
 
 The outlook of Englishmen upon the capture was from 
 a different standpoint and it would probably have caused 
 greater stir had not men's minds been so disturbed and 
 the country been arming for imminent civil war. The 
 newsmongers, however, were not entirely silent on the 
 matter and in March, 1642, the news appeared in print 
 along with other miscellaneous information. The news- 
 letter is now among the Thomason Tracts;* under the 
 title, "Avisoes from several Places," it tells us of Car- 
 tagena: "The General of the galleons, named Francisco 
 Diaz Pimienta, had been formerly in the month of July 
 [sic] with above 3000 men and the least of his ships in 
 the Island of Santa Catalina, from which he had taken 
 and carried away all the English and razed the Forts, 
 wherein they found 600 negroes, much gold and indigo, 
 so that the prize is esteemed worth above half a million. 
 This unexpected and undeserved act of the Spaniard in 
 supplanting our Nation, will, I hope, ere long be requited 
 when as in cool blood the Spaniard shall do us a mischief 
 in demolishing and ruining that which another hath 
 built and is not able or will not make use of it himself, 
 supplanting our more industrious people, which en- 
 deavoured to do good both to the bodies and souls 
 of men, and only to shew his greatness with his multitude 
 to destroy a handful and to account that a victory which 
 
 8 Thomason Tracts in Brit. Mus. (E. 141.10), "A letter [for N. Butter] 
 from the Low Countries. 22 March, 164%." 
 
304 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 is rather a credilous [sic] treachery, but let Mm triumph 
 that wins at last." 
 
 In our previous chapter we left the colonists from New 
 England setting forth in two small vessels, the Salutation 
 and the Sparrow of Salem, for what they expected to be 
 their new home in the West Indies. They arrived at 
 St. Christopher early in June, 1641, and we may let 
 Winthrop take up the thread of their story, for he must 
 have received it from their own lips :'' "At Christopher 's 
 they heard that a great fleet of Spanish ships was 
 abroad, and that it was feared they had taken Provi- 
 dence, so as the master, Mr. Peirce, a godly man and 
 most expert mariner, advised them to return and offered 
 to bear part of the loss. But they not hearkening to 
 him, he replied, 'Then I am a dead man.' And coming 
 to the Island,* they marvelled they saw no colours upon 
 the fort, nor any boat coming towards them ; whereupon 
 he was counselled to drop an anchor. He liked the 
 advice, but yet stood on into the harbour and after a 
 second advice he still went on; but being come within 
 pistol shot of one fort and hailing and no answer made, 
 he put his bark a stays, and being upon the deck, which 
 was also full of passengers, women and children, and 
 hearing one cry out, 'They are traversing a piece at 
 us,' he threw himself in at the door of the cuddy and 
 one, Samuel Wakeman, a member of the church of Hart- 
 ford, who was sent with goods to buy cotton, cast himself 
 down by him and presently a great shot took them both. 
 Mr. Peirce died within an hour; the other having only 
 his thighs tore, lived ten days. Mr. Peirce had read to 
 the company that morning (as it fell in course) that in 
 G-enesis the last, — 'Lo I die, but God will surely visit 
 
 1 Winthrop 's Journal, II, 34. Hubbard repeats the story from Winthrop 
 and Hutchinson summarises it. 
 8 21 June, 1641. 
 
CAPTURE OF PROVIDENCE 305 
 
 you and bring you back,' — out of whicb words he used 
 godly exhortations to them. Then they shot from all 
 parts about thirty great shot besides small and tore the 
 sails and shrouds but hurt not the bark, nor any person 
 more in it. The other vessel was then a league behind, 
 which was marvelled at, for she was the better sailer 
 and could fetch up the other at pleasure, but that morn- 
 ing they could not by any means keep company with her. 
 After this, the passengers being ashamed to return, 
 would have been set on shore at Cape Grace de Dios, or 
 Florida, or Virginia, but the seamen would not, and 
 through the wonderful providence of God, they came all 
 home the 3rd of September following. This brought 
 some of them to see their error and acknowledge it in the 
 open congregation, but others were hardened. There 
 was a special providence in that the ministers were sent 
 prisoners to England before the Island was taken, for 
 otherwise it is most probable they had all been put to the 
 sword, because, some Spaniards had been slain there a 
 little before by the deputy-governor his command, after 
 the lieutenant had received them upon quarter in an 
 attempt they had made upon the island, wherein they 
 were repulsed with the loss of 2 or 300 men. ' ' 
 
 The vessel carrying out from England the new deputy- 
 governor, Thomas Fitch, and the Rev. Mr. Leverton, 
 also approached within gunshot of the island before they 
 discovered that it was no longer in English possession. 
 Calamy tells us :* " [the prisoners] were kindly received 
 by the lords planters or proprietors of the island and 
 encouraged to return. Mr. Sherrard, being of a timorous 
 disposition, chose to stay here, but Capt. Lane and Mr. 
 Leverton returned plentifully furnished for their voyage 
 and authorised with a new commission. At their 
 approach to the island they found that the Spaniards 
 
 8 Calamy, Nonconformist's Memorial, I, 373. 
 
306 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 had seized it in their absence. However at Mr. Lever- 
 ton's desire, they ventured an engagement with them, 
 killed a great many of their men and forced their armed 
 long-boats ashore." No landing, however, could be 
 effected and Leverton and his companions had to sail 
 away, leaving Santa CataUna in the Spaniards' hands. 
 Leverton remained cruising in the West Indies for some 
 years before he returned to England and met with many 
 adventures and hardships. His landing in England after 
 his travels is rather quaintly described by his biogra- 
 pher:^" "Arrived at the Downs, he landed at Sandwich, 
 where, as he was taking horse for London, the ostler says 
 to him, *Mr. So and so, you are somewhat like our minis- 
 ter. I believe you have lived in the hot countries, as well 
 as he. ' Upon enquiry he found the minister to be his old 
 colleague, Mr. Sherrard, who was settled there, which 
 brought them to an interview again to their mutual joy. 
 Coming to London, he was received with great honour 
 and respect by the Lords Proprietors of the Island of 
 Providence, and soon after settled as minister of High 
 Hedingham in Suffolk." After his ejection at the 
 Eestoration, he went out as chaplain to Lord Wil- 
 loughby's plantation of Surinam, where he died. Sher- 
 rard in return for his services to the Providence 
 Company had been presented by the Westminster 
 Assembly with one of the sequestered livings at Sand- 
 wich, but his contentious temper allowed him to lead no 
 more a peaceful life there than he had secured in Provi- 
 dence. Many disturbances arose in the town in conse- 
 quence of his attempts to aggrandise himself at the 
 expense of others, and his parishioners petitioned the 
 House of Lords against him in very bitter terms." After 
 a great deal of trouble, Sandwich finally succeeded in 
 
 10 Ibid. 
 
 11 "House of Lords MSB.," 23 Oct., 1647, etc. 
 
CAPTURE OF PROVIDENCE 307 
 
 getting rid of him, and we last liear of him as being 
 intruded upon the sequestered rectory of Melcombe in 
 Dorset." 
 
 The capture of Providence was a hard blow to the 
 company as completing the loss of the capital they had 
 sunk in the enterprise, but so engrossing were the pre- 
 occupations of the members in the national struggle that 
 no attempts could be made to retrieve their losses. On 
 February 8, 1642, a meeting of Pym, Warwick, Saye, 
 MandeviUe, and Brooke was held at Brooke House to 
 straighten up the finances of the company as far as 
 possible, and to notify each member the proportion 
 of the company's debt for which he wa:s personally 
 responsible. The chaotic state of all business during 
 the Civil War prevented any settlement of these debts, 
 and it was not until the resumption of a more settled 
 state of affairs in 1649 that the amounts due from each 
 member were definitely ascertained. Then it was shown 
 that Pym's estate still owed £1740, Saye £1190, and other 
 members smaller amounts. No redress had been 
 obtained from the Spaniards for the capture of New- 
 man's ship by the Dunkirkers, and the company made 
 this a pretext for demanding from parliament a share 
 of the spoils of the rich Spanish ship, Santa Clara, which 
 was seized with very doubtful morality in Portsmouth 
 harbour in 1644. The case caused a great deal of stir 
 at the time and was productive of a large amount of 
 bitterness between the English and the Spanish govern- 
 ments. It was debated for many years and even till 
 after the Restoration, and was productive of a large 
 mass of documents which are still extant.^' Its main 
 interest for us lies in the fact that the Providence Com- 
 pany's journal was recopied as an exhibit in the case and 
 
 12 Lords ' Journal, X, 32. 
 18 S. P. Dom., Car. I. 
 
308 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 probably came into the State Paper Office among the 
 Santa Clara papers. The Providence Company ulti- 
 mately got little or nothing from the sequestered funds 
 which dribbled away among the many venial employes 
 of the Commonwealth. 
 
 The creditors of the company were not content to wait 
 for their money, while the members were quarrelling as 
 to how it should be paid. They began to take proceedings 
 against members of the company in their individual 
 capacity, though they had great difficulty in doing so 
 owing to the fact that most of them were protected by 
 parliamentary privileges. It is interesting to note that 
 the permanent session of the Long Parliament acted as 
 a bar to the recovery of debts from its members and their 
 servants, and that full advantage was taken of this par- 
 liamentary privilege at the expense of the unfortunate 
 creditors. Sir John Barrington, heir of Sir Thomas 
 Barrington, who had died in 1643, was the only Provi- 
 dence adventurer who was unprotected from distraint 
 by parliamentary privilege, and in 1645 we find him 
 petitioning parliament" for protection against the 
 Providence creditors, who were suing him for the whole 
 of the company's debts. He was successful in his peti- 
 tion, and was compelled to pay only the debt owing by 
 his father. On February 5, 1650, the last meeting" of 
 the Providence Company of which we have any record 
 took place and each surviving member assumed personal 
 responsibility for the portion of the debts that was shown 
 by Secretary Jessop to be due from him. With this 
 step the company may be said to have dissolved. 
 
 "We have now examined in detail the story of the 
 Providence Company and its allied enterprises from their 
 
 ""House of Lords M8S.," 24 July, 1645, Hist. MSS. Oomm., Swtft 
 Beport, App., p. 71a; Lords' Journal, VII, 506; Brit. Mus., Eg., 2648. 
 IB Present Warwick, Budyerd, Darley, N. Fiennes, Knightley, Graunt. 
 
CAPTURE OF PROVIDENCE 309 
 
 inception to their abandonment, and it behooves us to 
 attempt to supply an answer to some questions that 
 cannot fail to have suggested themselves in the course 
 of our enquiry. Why did men migrate from England 
 in the decade 1630-1640 by the thousand, with their wives, 
 their families, and their whole possessions? Why did 
 the then inhospitable shores of New England attract 
 them, while only an insignificant number could be per- 
 suaded by the leaders of their party in England to sail 
 for the balmy climate of the Caribbean? 
 
 It has been well said that revolts against tyranny arise, 
 not when men are in the depths of misery, but when their 
 prevailing prosperity is attacked. The Great Rebellion 
 of the seventeenth century and the migration that pre- 
 ceded it, do something to bear out the truth of this state- 
 ment, for the profound internal peace enjoyed by Eng- 
 land for sixty years, had, by 1630, resulted in enormous 
 progress in wealth and enlightenment. But while the 
 nation as a whole was infinitely better off under Charles 
 I than in the early days of Elizabeth,[ttiere was much in 
 the condition of rural England to breed discontent in 
 the hearts of the farming class." The power of the 
 nobility and greater gentry in the government of their 
 counties was supreme, and though their rule generally 
 commended itself to their poorer neighbours, yet there 
 are many indications in the records of the time that Eng- 
 lish tenant farmers were not contented with their lot, but 
 felt keenly that land hunger which so often besets the 
 members of a rural community. In Massachusetts from 
 the first it was possible for practically every man to own 
 his own land in entire freedom from a landlord's over- 
 sight and from the heavy rents exacted in EnglandJ In 
 Providence, on the other hand, in its earlier years the 
 
 i« See Thorold Eogers, Hist, of Agriculture and Prices, Chaps. I and 
 XXVII. 
 
310 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 whole of the land was the property of the English com- 
 pany, and the half of all profits produced had to be paid 
 over to them. At first the company would not even grant 
 definite leases of the plantations, and this proved a ter- 
 rible drawback in the eyes of men who left England, 
 not merely to escape religious tyranny as they regarded 
 it, but also to become their own masters and to owl tlieir 
 own acres free from the overlordship of squire or noble. 
 We are familiar with the objections of the ruling 
 classes to the obsolescent feudal rights of the crown, for 
 they were loudly voiced during the debates in parliament 
 on the "Great Contract." [The pressure of feudal rights 
 upon the tenant farmer class, though less heard of, must 
 have been even more gallingj For any proper under- 
 standing of the social conditions prevailing under the 
 early Stuarts we must remember that however modern 
 the tendencies of the time may appear, those tendencies 
 had to work themselves out in a society bound 9,nd 
 shackled in every direction by the rusty chains of the 
 mediaeval polity. The "Ancien Regime" died in a cer- 
 tain sense with an English king as much as it died with 
 a French one, and there are many curiously exact par- 
 allels to be drawn between the last days of feudalism in 
 both countries. The Stuart age was peculiarly one of 
 lawyers, who, nurtured on the legal learning of Lancas- 
 trian precedents, could always find a way to prove that 
 right lay on the side of the over-lord. Coke and Hakewill, 
 Noy and Digges, may have laid the foundation of our 
 modern liberties, but their rule was a hard one for the 
 small man. JTo escape from the meshes of manorial 
 pedantry to a community where practically all men were 
 of equal rank, and where every freeman had a voice in 
 the election of his rulers, must have been a most potent 
 inducement to emigration to a generation that had begun 
 to think for itselfjj 
 
CAPTURE OF PROVIDENCE 311 
 
 While New England could offer this prospect of free- 
 dom, Providence could hold out no such boon. The gov- 
 ernor and the council were obedient nominees of the 
 company at home, and their control of the planters was 
 absolute, although in their selection no person in the 
 colony had a share. The company's regulation of the 
 trade of the island, and their requirement that the colo- 
 nists should purchase all their goods from the stores, 
 while they were compelled to dispose of their crops 
 through the company's agents in England, contrasted 
 ill with the entire freedom of trade enjoyed in Massa- 
 chusetts, where commodities could be purchased in an 
 open market and the fruits of the colonists' labours 
 could be sold without restraint to the highest bidder. 
 The conditions under which farming was carried on in 
 New England and the crops to be raised there were 
 familiar to every immigrant from a rural parish, but in 
 the West Indies a man must learn to cope with an en- 
 tirely new set of conditions in a climate unsuited to the 
 exertion of the unremitting energy essential to success. 
 In Massachusetts a man's whole labours might be 
 devoted to his own concerns and very little danger was 
 to be apprehended in the early years from the neighbour- 
 ing Indian tribes; but in Providence a planter must be 
 always ready to take up his pike or his musket, and was 
 constantly being called away from his own plantation for 
 hard work upon the fortifications. The constant dread 
 of Spanish attack must have been one of the most potent 
 causes in persuading an emigrant to choose Massa- 
 chusetts as his goal rather than Providence, for while 
 it might appear to men Uke Saye and Pym a most states- 
 manlike course to combine hatred of Spanish domination 
 with hatred of English Arminianism, the course can 
 hardly have presented itself in the same light to plain 
 men, who had never had a share in politics at home, and 
 
312 PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 who in emigrating to the West Indies laid themselves 
 open to the prospect of ending their days in a Spanish 
 dungeon. It was one thing to hate the Spaniard in the 
 security of an English parish, but quite another to be 
 prepared at any moment to join in repelling an over- 
 whelming Spanish attack. Eeligious motives were far 
 stronger in guiding the conduct of an Englishman in the 
 seventeenth century than they are to-day, but it was only 
 rarely that crusading ardour could be found combined 
 in one personality with the patience, prudence, and per- 
 sistence that are requisite in the founders of a successful 
 colony. Not every infant community has been blest with 
 the possession of a John Winthrop. 
 
 Some part of the reluctance of Puritans to emigrate 
 to Providence may be attributed to personal causes. 
 Looking back over the whole Puritan struggle, the Civil 
 War, and the first years of the Commonwealth, we see 
 the party groupings of the preceding years in a way 
 quite different from that in which they appeared to plain 
 men at the time. Warwick, Saye, Pym, and Barrington 
 were the leaders of the opposition to King Charles I's 
 ministers when parliament was sitting and they directed 
 the policy of their party during the years of absolute rule, 
 but their aims and their efforts were of necessity secret, 
 and to the Puritan rank and file they must have appeared 
 merely as somewhat distinguished members of the ruling 
 classes, who, though having sound views upon religion, 
 were yet acquiescent supporters of the absolute regime. 
 To an Essex farmer the Earl of Warwick would appear 
 only as the lord lieutenant of the county, keeping almost 
 regal state at his seat of Leighs Priory, Puritan in his 
 sympathies certainly, but carrying out obediently the 
 orders of the government, appearing at the oppressive 
 forest courts held by his brother, the Earl of Holland, 
 as chief justice in eyre, anxious to maintain his rights 
 
CAPTUEE OF PROVIDENCE 313 
 
 against tlie Mng, but on his own estates insisting strongly 
 upon Ms rights as landlord. Sir Thomas Barrington, as 
 the lord lieutenant's trusty deputy, appeared in the 
 same light as an agent of the government, and that he 
 was not much liked by the lower orders in his own neigh- 
 bourhood we can see from the many cases in the Domestic 
 State Papers, where he was accused of illegally enclosing 
 forest and common lands. Saye was more favourably 
 known to the common people as an implacable opponent 
 of the government, but Pym had made very little mark 
 in public life before the opening of the Short Parliament, 
 and he was always regarded by political observers of the 
 time as a mere client of the Earl of Bedford, and a mod- 
 erate, who, like Rudyerd, was hampered by his long 
 connection with official life. Contrast this with^e way 
 in which men like John Winthrop and Thomas Dudley 
 must have appeared to their humbler brethren. Both 
 were men of decent family, but their religious fervour 
 was strong enough to overcome their class feelings and 
 to make them prefer to leave England forever, rather 
 than submit to a church policy that they detested. They 
 did not merely offer to send out emigrants to a distant 
 colony, while they remained at home and weakly com- 
 promised with absolutism ; in person they led the stream 
 of emigrants across the Atlantic, shared their dangers 
 and. their hardships, and governed the colony they had 
 founded with self-sacrificing care, foresight, and integ- 
 rity. Such was the esteem in which the leaders of the 
 rival colonies were held by the humbler folk] Can we 
 wonder that while the colony succeeded abundantly that 
 had but one member of the ruling classes, Henry Vane, 
 among its leaders. Providence, essentially the creation 
 of the Puritan members of those ruling classes, proved 
 in the end and in every respect a failure? 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE ABIDING INFLUENCE OF THE PROVI- 
 DENCE COMPANY'S ENTERPRISES 
 
 The Providence Company and its schemes had by 1641 
 come to a most unfortunate ending, as far as material 
 advantage and success were concerned, but even in 
 failure the efforts of the company prepared the way for 
 future accomplishment. At the commencement of the 
 present enquiry we stated that the Providence Company 
 served as a connecting link between the Elizabethan sea- 
 men and Cromwell's "Western Design," between the 
 exploits of Drake and Hawkins and the founding of 
 Jamaica. With the chain of events that formed this 
 connection we have been concerned throughout the fore- 
 going pages, and it now only remains to look to the last 
 of the links and to show briefly that the "Western 
 Design" was no new creation of Cromwell's brain, but 
 was an ordered attempt to carry to fruition the ideas 
 of England's true foreign policy that Pym and Warwick 
 had instilled into the minds of the members of the 
 Providence Company and the Puritan party in general. 
 
 Throughout the whole life of the Providence Company 
 the Earl of Warwick had maintained his private warfare 
 against Spain and, in conjunction with certain London 
 and Dartmouth merchants, had continued the privateer- 
 ing business that he found so profitable. He continued 
 to take the greatest interest in all colonising schemes and 
 when the Earl of Pembroke, seeing no likelihood of profit 
 from his Caribbee patent, desired to dispose of it. War- 
 
LATER INFLUENCES 315 
 
 wick purchased all his rights over the islands for a 
 nominal sum. In 1638 he began to take steps to en- 
 force these rights and founded small colonies in Trinidad 
 and Tobago with emigrants from Bermuda under one 
 of his old shipmasters, a Capt. Chaddock. After the 
 capture of Providence certain of the settlers, who had 
 managed to escape, took refuge with Warwick's colonists 
 in Tobago and there carried on a precarious existence 
 for a few years. Others fled to Cape Grracias a Dios 
 and there mingled with the Indians, while others again 
 took refuge with Claiborne's colonists in Buatan and 
 others of the Bay Islands. These last did not have a very 
 long respite, for in 1642 they were attacked by a Spanish 
 expedition from Honduras and either slaughtered or 
 dispersed among the Indians. The most important group 
 of fugitives, however, led by Samuel and Andrew Axe, 
 escaped to St. Christopher and played a very important 
 part in West Indian history in connection with the 
 capture of Jamaica. 
 
 It will be recalled that Robins, the petitioner to the 
 House of Lords against the tyrannical behaviour of which 
 he had been the victim in Providence, complained in 1642 
 that Capt. Jackson, his persecutor, was bound to the West 
 Indies on a voyage for the Earl of Warwick. This voy- 
 age we have already mentioned very briefly, and it must 
 now again be noticed, for it was by far the most important 
 event in the history of the West Indies between 1641 and 
 1655. The enterprise was financed by the Earl of War- 
 wick and others of the Providence Company in conjunc- 
 tion with Maurice Thompson, and other merchants in 
 the City of London. Jackson sailed from England in 
 July, 1642, with three well-equipped vessels, having as 
 his vice-admiral Samuel Axe, the old Providence colonist. 
 Arriving at Barbadoes on the 27th of September, he 
 made public proclamation of his commission from the 
 
316 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 Earl of Warwick and of Ms intended expedition against 
 the Spaniards, and called for volunteers. He was at 
 once joined by large numbers of recruits both from 
 Barbadoes and St. Christopher, and especially by very 
 many of those who had escaped from the capture of 
 Providence. By the beginning of November the whole 
 force was complete, and consisted of seven vessels of 
 various sizes and something over eleven hundred men. 
 The land forces were divided into companies and placed 
 under the supreme command of Capt. William Rous, 
 who on his release from a Spanish prison had again 
 found his way to the West Indies. 
 
 The first attack was directed against the pearl fisheries 
 at the Island of Margarita, but little booty was obtained. 
 After the capture and ransom of Maracaibo in December, 
 other places in New Granada were pillaged and at the 
 end of February, 1643, the expedition sailed over to 
 Hispaniola to refit. On the 25th of March, Jackson 
 landed his forces in the island of Jamaica and without 
 any great difficulty captured its Spanish capital, San- 
 tiago de la Vega. For some three weeks Jackson held 
 Jamaica at his mercy, and it was only on receiving a 
 ransom of 7000 pieces of eight and very large stores of 
 victuals for his ships, that he finally consented to retire 
 on the 21st of April. Rous now gave up his command 
 in the expedition and returned to England, having 
 learned that he had been elected as a member of the 
 Long Parliament. The expedition sailed next into the 
 Gulf of Honduras under the guidance of the New England 
 pirate, Capt. CromweU. Truxillo was captured, but 
 yielded little return, and the freebooters did not meet 
 with much profit during the summer of 1643. In 
 November a raid was made against the smaller towns 
 of Costa Rica and the Isthmus, but again little booty was 
 procured. 
 
LATER INFLUENCES 317 
 
 The winter of 1643-1644 was spent in raids upon the 
 coast of Cartagena and the summer of 1644 in expedi- 
 tions against Guatemala and the small towns in the Gulf 
 of Mexico, and finally in September, Jackson and the 
 remains of his fleet sailed out through the Straits of 
 Florida without mishap and reached Bermuda on the 
 27th of October. After a long stay there to divide the 
 booty, the expedition finally returned to England in 
 March, 1645, and had its last fight off Plymouth with 
 three Dunkirk men-of-war, one of its smaller vessels 
 being sunk and a large portion of the crew drowned. For 
 three years Jackson and his followers had kept the 
 Indies in an uproar. It is needless to remark that the 
 Spanish government had exhausted every means in their 
 power to cause the English authorities to put a stop to 
 his depredations; but when a country is plunged in the 
 throes of civil war, little can be done, even by a willing 
 government, to bring its disobedient subjects under con- 
 trol. As to the will of the parliament to bring Jackson's 
 depredations to an end, we shall be more certain if we 
 note briefly what happened in colonial affairs after regu- 
 lar government ceased in 1641. 
 
 The members of the Providence Company did not 
 abandon their interest in colonial affairs when the 
 events in England became so engrossing as to demand 
 their whole attention. A lull in the civil strife appeared 
 to have been reached, when, on September 9, 1641, both 
 houses of parliament adjourned till the 20th of October, 
 and once more we find an interest being taken in the 
 West Indies. A committee was appointed by each house 
 to look after affairs during the recess, and when we find 
 upon the Lords' committee the names of Warwick and 
 Mandeville, and upon that of the Commons ' Pym, chair- 
 man, St. John, Grerrard, and Barrington, we are not sur- 
 prised to learn that among the terms of reference is a 
 
318 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 direction "To consider of framing and constituting a 
 West Indian Company.'" Circumstances, however, were 
 too critical for the committee to devote attention to the 
 project and colonial affairs were left more and more 
 to be dealt with by Warwick alone with the assistance of 
 Jessop as his secretary. 
 
 With the outbreak of civil war in 1642, all formal gov- 
 ernmental connection between England and her colonies 
 ceased for nearly a decade. A body of so-called colonial 
 commissioners was established by the Long Parliament, 
 but though they contained among their number all the 
 principal members of the Providence Company, they did 
 very little business. In 1643 the Earl of Warwick was 
 appointed governor-in-chief of all the American planta- 
 tions and there seems to have been some tmderstanding 
 that he should submit important matters for considera- 
 tion to the great Derby House committee. As a matter 
 of fact, the parliamentary government was so over- 
 whelmed with difficulties of all kinds, that no share of 
 its attention could be paid to the colonies, and they were 
 allowed to shift for themselves as best they could. An 
 accurate investigation of the relations between the colo- 
 nies and the mother country in those years of chaos 
 would demand much patient and not very profitable 
 research, but it would appear that our general conclu- 
 sions are in the main correct, and that what small amount 
 of communication was kept up, was carried out by the 
 Earl of Warwick through William Jessop and practi- 
 cally upon his own authority.'' Each colony was for the 
 time being a little independent state, adherent nominally 
 to either king or parliament as the ease might be, and 
 
 1 Clarendon, Hist, of the BebelUon, IV, 12; Commons' Journal, II, 288. 
 
 2 A register of letters written to the colonies hj Jessop in the name of 
 the Earl of Warwick, 1645-1648, is in the British Museum, Stowe MSS., 
 184, fos. 114 sqq. 
 
LATER INFLUENCES 319 
 
 providing a haven for privateers of its own way of think- 
 ing, but in practice having very little to do with the 
 struggle at home. 
 
 With the suppression of the second Civil War and the 
 execution of the king in 1649, the reorganisation of gov- 
 ernment in England began to place affairs upon a more 
 stable footing, and it became possible for the parliament 
 acting through the Council of State to attempt to recall 
 the colonies once more to an effective allegiance. A 
 strong fleet was fitted out in 1650 and despatched under 
 Sir Greorge Ayscue to bring the royalists of Virginia, 
 Barbadoes, and Bermuda into subjection. The task was 
 practically completed by the early part of 1652, in time 
 to deprive Prince Rupert of a refuge for his fleet in 
 Barbadoes. The whole direction of the enterprise was 
 supervised in a very' spasmodic way by a committee of 
 the council of state with William Jessop as its clerk and 
 executive officer. Its guiding spirit, as far as colonial 
 policy was concerned, was the Earl of Warwick, who 
 even after his retirement from the position of lord high 
 admiral had a very great influence in affairs, and we 
 may claim with justice that through him and Jessop 
 there was a direct connection between the colonial policy 
 of 1652 and the Providence Company's West Indian 
 enterprises that had failed in 1641. 
 
 On April 20, 1653, Oliver Cromwell, the chosen leader 
 of the now all-powerful army, drove the Rump from the 
 Parliament House and made the way clear for a new 
 and definite course of policy in foreign affairs. Through- 
 out the year the form which the new government was to 
 assume was uncertain, but on December 16, 1653, a new 
 written constitution, the Instrument of Government, was 
 accepted, and Cromwell became Lord Protector. He was 
 now free in great measure to fashion a definite foreign 
 policy and to give to England once more a place of 
 
320 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 respect and influence in the European world. Either 
 of two alternatives might be chosen as a policy, and each 
 of them was supported by a party in the Council of 
 State, with which under the Instrument of Government 
 lay the deciding voice. On one hand, the Protector might 
 adopt a policy of close alliance with the Spanish mon- 
 archy to curb the growing power of France, or on the 
 other, he might take up that traditional policy of hostility 
 to Spain that he and some of his most intimate friends^ 
 had been brought up from their earliest years to regard 
 as England's heritage from the days of the great queen. 
 Between these two alternatives the struggle raged in 
 a tangle of confused negotiation that lasted until, in the 
 summer of 1654, Cromwell was able to force his council- 
 lors to accept the decision to which his own personal 
 feelings and his Puritan up-bringing had led him. 
 
 The modern mind, says Seeley,* is tempted to question 
 this momentous decision and to ask why Cromwell wan- 
 tonly plunged his country into war with the Spanish 
 monarchy at a moment when she had scarcely emerged 
 from a long, dark period of civil discord. He suggests 
 that the guiding cause was Cromwell's emulation of 
 the example of Gustavus Adolphus as the champion of 
 Protestantism, rather than his foresight of the future 
 colonial greatness of England and a desire to enrich 
 her with the spoils of the declining Spanish empire. An 
 American writer^ has more justly ascribed Cromwell's 
 motive to an emulation of the Elizabethans, but he 
 imputes the connection of ideas to the inspiration of 
 the renegade Dominican, Thomas Gage. The enquiry 
 that has been carried through in these pages enables us 
 
 »For the intimacy of Cromwell with Warwick, see Carlyle's Letters of 
 Cromwell, ed. Mrs. S. C. Lomas, III, 294, 338. 
 * Seeley, Growth of British Policy, II, 75. 
 B Strong, Amer. Bist. Bev., Vol. IV, p. 233. 
 
LATER INFLUENCES 321 
 
 to offer a solution to the problem more prosaic than the 
 one view, more natural than the other, and proof is not 
 lacking that our solution is the true one, for it can be 
 supported by evidence derived from Cromwell himself. 
 For thirty years the foreign policy of the Puritan party 
 had been to enrich England at the expense of the Spanish 
 Indies, but only once within that time had it been pos- 
 sible to attempt this openly, and then its success had 
 been foiled by royal bungling. At last the way lay open 
 to carry the Puritan policy to fruition by Puritan means. 
 Everything in Cromwell's personal and family history, 
 everything in the counsels of his intimate friends, urged 
 him to take up, now that he was able, the great cause of 
 Protestantism in the Indies, that the Puritan leaders 
 had attempted to uphold during the ten long years of 
 absolute rule. Let him go on with the interrupted work 
 to found, with the greater means at his command, Pym's 
 English empire on the shores of the Caribbean — a blow 
 at the realm of Anti-Christ and an extension of the 
 Kingdom of God in the world. 
 
 In December, 1654, a great fleet sailed from Ports- 
 mouth under Adm. Penn and Gen. Venables with sealed 
 orders to attack Hispaniola in prosecution of the 
 "Western Design." In September, 1655, after having 
 succeeded in capturing qnly that island of Jamaica which 
 had fallen such an easy prey to Jackson's much smaller 
 force twelve years before, they returned to England 
 dejected, discredited, and in enmity one with another. 
 So great an apparent failure seemed to demand an 
 apology for the policy that had inspired the expedition, 
 and on the 26th of October, 1655, there was published a 
 lengthy Latin document entitled Scriptum domini pro- 
 tectoris contra hispanos, or in the English version of 
 Birch, a Manifesto of the Lord Protector, etc., wherein 
 
322 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 is shewn the Reasonableness of the Cause of this 
 Republic against the Depredations of the Spaniards." 
 
 This manifesto has been always attributed to the pen 
 of John Milton, then Latin secretary to the Protector. 
 It recites at length the wrongs suffered by Englishmen 
 at the hands of Spaniards since the beginning of the 
 seventeenth century, and justifies the declaration of war 
 and the despatch of the West Indian expedition as a 
 retaliation for past injuries and an attempt to right the 
 wrongs of Englishmen. It may be that the manifesto 
 was merely an attempt to justify to the public an expe- 
 dition that had been despatched by the Protector on 
 quite other grounds, but this somewhat forced explana- 
 tion seems exceedingly unlikely when we examine the 
 list of wrongs charged against the Spaniards, and find 
 how large a,mong them loom the losses of the Provi- 
 dence Company, which had touched the pockets of so 
 many among Cromwell's immediate friends and allies. 
 
 Ten instances of the unjustified seizure of English 
 ships between 1605 and 1608 are dealt with in a general 
 fashion in sixty-four lines of the manifesto, which then 
 goes on to deal with the story of the Providence Com- 
 pany and the capture of Tortuga and Providence in a 
 hundred and nineteen lines of accurate detail. With 
 two or three very brief mentions of more recent attacks 
 of the Dunkirkers on English ships the grievances of 
 the Providence Company complete the list of wrongs. 
 It is evident that Milton must have derived his informa- 
 tion from someone entirely familiar with the history 
 of the Providence Company, and this informant can be 
 no other than the company's late secretary, William 
 Jessop, now one of the clerks of the Council of State and 
 in daily contact with Milton. 
 
 8 Translated by Birch (1738) and printed in Bohn's edition of Milton's 
 Prose Works, II, 342. 
 
LATER INFLUENCES 323 
 
 That the Protector himself was entirely familiar with 
 the strategic situation and importance of Providence, 
 we may learn from one of his own letters. Writing 
 under date October 30, 1655, to Major-General Fortescue, 
 then in command in Jamaica, he said:' "We think, and 
 it is much designed amongst us, to strive with the 
 Spaniards for the mastery of all those seas ; and there- 
 fore we could heartily wish that the Island of Providence 
 were in our hands again, believing that it lies so advan- 
 tageously in reference to the Main, and especially for the 
 hindrance of the Peru trade and Cartagena, that you 
 might not only have great advantage thereby of intelli- 
 gence and surprise, but even block up the same.'" This 
 mastery of the Spanish treasure route had been strongly 
 insisted upon in the original instructions issued to Gen. 
 Venables;* and, it will be remembered, was one of the 
 most cherished designs of Pym and the Providence 
 Company. 
 
 Not only were those in power in England familiar 
 with the Providence story, but the leaders of the expedi- 
 tion themselves knew it well, and, if necessary, could 
 refresh their memories from some of those who had taken 
 part in it. Andrew Carter, the old deputy-governor of 
 Providence,^" was the leader of the fifth regiment, 
 Anthony Eous, son of the deceased Providence minister, 
 was serving in the army, and Kempo Sabada, the old 
 Providence pilot, was one of the principal guides of the 
 expedition.^^ A complete search through the records 
 
 'Carlyle's Letters of Cromwell, ed. Mrs. S. C. Lomas (1904), no. CCVI; 
 old edition No. CXLIII. 
 
 sCarlyle emends "the same," which is in the original, to "Cartagena" 
 and Mrs. Lomas allows the emendation to stand. It would rather seem 
 that "the same" refers to the Peru trade. 
 
 » Vendbles' Narratme, ed. C. H. Krth, p. 113. 
 
 10 For his later life see ibid., Introduction, p. zxi. 
 
 11 Hid., p. 20. 
 
324 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 would doubtless yield other names, but it seems hardly 
 necessary. The terms propounded to the Spaniards in 
 Jamaica are sufficient to prove that revenge for the 
 humiliations^ of 1641 was in every mind. Whistler tells 
 us in his journal of the West India expedition:" "This 
 morning came in to us eight Spaniards, they being the 
 chief men of the Island [of Jamaica] to treat with us : 
 and General Venables propounding to them the same 
 compositions that they gave our English upon Provi- 
 dence, which was all to go off from the Island, each with 
 a suit of clothes on his back : And to bring in all goods 
 and all money and plate, with their negroes and all other 
 slaves into the place appointed for the reviewing of it 
 within ten days, upon pain of death, and so to be gone 
 off the island." 
 
 Jamaica, having been captured, must be peopled and 
 settlers sought on all sides. Again Cromwell followed 
 the old lines and took up Saye's old project of obtaining 
 settlers from New England. Saye's arguments and 
 almost his very phrases were used to further his purpose. 
 Again did Winthrop protest, again did the rulers of 
 Massachusetts throw every obstacle in the way, and once 
 again was the attempt to people the West Indies at the 
 expense of New England a failure." English and Ameri- 
 can Puritanism were divergent to the last. Other intimate 
 links connecting Providence with the "Western Design" 
 might be demonstrated, but even what has here been 
 touched upon would seem sufficient to prove that it was 
 from his own life-long friends, from those who, like 
 Warwick, had made war upon the Spaniard a perpetual 
 
 12 Ibid., p. 164. 
 
 IS Strong deals with the whole of this controversy in his article in the 
 Beport of the American Historical Association for 1898, pp. 77-94. See 
 also correspondence with Daniel Qookin in Thurloe, State Papers, IV; Life 
 of Daniel GooMn, Chs. IX, X. 
 
LATER INFLUENCES 325 
 
 duty, that Cromwell derived the inspiration for that 
 "Western Design" and for that Spanish war, that 
 formed so important a part of his foreign policy. He 
 may have emulated Gustavus Adolphus, he may have 
 talked with Thomas Gage, but it was the Elizabethan 
 tradition, handed down through the members of the 
 Providence Company, that decided his course. 
 
 It would be wrong to assume that the traditional policy 
 of hostility against Spain had entirely expended its force 
 when it led to the despatch of the Jamaica expedition. 
 For a few years longer it continued to move the minds 
 of men who had a large influence on England's colonial 
 policy, and it was only with the restoration of the Stuarts 
 and the advent to power of fresh men with a new out- 
 look on world affairs that the long chapter was closed 
 and it was seen that it was no longer the Spaniards but 
 the Dutch whose commercial rivalry England had to 
 fear in the western seas. In all his colonial adminis- 
 tration Cromwell was personally influenced by a group 
 of London merchants upon whom he constantly called 
 for advice and whom he placed upon the many com- 
 mittees and councils established to look after trade 
 affairs." Among these men an important part was 
 played by Martin Noell and Thomas Povey, to the last 
 of whom more than to any one else England owes the 
 beginnings of a definite colonial policy. In the "Over- 
 tures" of 1656-1657, that were drawn up by Noell and 
 Povey and led to the formation of the Select Committee 
 for Trade and Foreign Plantations, we find the following 
 paragraph :" 
 
 "That [the proposed Council] do use their utmost 
 industry and endeavour for the promoting those begin- 
 
 i« C. M. Andrews, British Cotnmissions, etc, J. H. XT. Studies, XXVI, 37. 
 IB Brit. Mus., Eg., 2395, fo. 99, Povey 's draft. For all this matter see 
 Andrews, op. oit., pp. 38-60. 
 
326 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 nings his Highness hath made at Jamaica both within 
 itself and in order to further attempts upon the Span- 
 iard. And that they do give encouragements (and 
 rewards if they shall be deserved) to such as bring any 
 considerable intelligence or information, and shall receive 
 and debate and favour all such propositions as shall be 
 tendered to them either for the making further dis- 
 coveries or attempts upon any of the Spanish Domin- 
 ions, or that shall- desire by ships of war to make prize 
 of any of his ships or goods in those Indias, that thereby 
 Merchants and others may be invited either by them- 
 selves in their own ships and persons, or by a joint stock, 
 to adventure upon some laudable undertaking in some 
 of those parts." 
 
 We have here a continuance of the old tradition that 
 would give governmental sanction and support to such 
 a warfare of privateers as that carried on by the old 
 Providence Company. The merchants went so far as 
 to propose the incorporation by Act of Parliament of 
 a company, to be known as the West India Company, 
 for the express purpose of attacking Spanish towns, 
 interrupting the treasure fleet, and driving the Spaniards 
 from their control in the West Indies and South America. 
 The project went very far towards completion and 
 among Povey's papers^" we have many drafts and 
 counter-drafts of projects that show what serious atten- 
 tion was paid to the matter. The proposals were pre- 
 sented to the Council of State after Cromwell's death, 
 but the times were unpropitious" for their acceptance and 
 
 16 Brit. Mus., Eg., 2395, fos. 89-113 and 202-237. See also Povey's Letter 
 Book, Add. MSS., 11411. 
 
 IT < ' In 1659 business in the city was so poor that some merchants visited 
 it only rarely; while through want of employment, a great number of poor 
 families were in danger of perishing, and the burden of relieving them in 
 some wards was found almost insupportable, ' ' Scott, Jomt Stock Companies, 
 II, 130. 
 
CONCLUSION 327 
 
 after 1659 nothing more is heard of them. When in 
 November, 1659, the harsh provisions of the Peace of 
 the Pyrenees demonstrated to the world that the power 
 of the Spanish Colossus was irretrievably at an end, a 
 new era was opened in colonial affairs as in so many 
 other branches of world polities. The newer maritime 
 powers had definitely won their right to share in the 
 exploitation of the Western Hemisphere and, although 
 ten years were to elapse before Spain would acknowl- 
 edge her defeat in the treaty of 1670, the further use- 
 lessness of the Elizabethan tradition was demonstrated 
 to all Englishmen. It had long been felt by many that 
 legalised piracy was compromising to the dignity of a 
 great nation, and though Morgan and his ruffians were 
 yet to sack Panama, and Esquemeling was yet to harrow 
 the minds of Western Europe by his stories of the bucca- 
 neers and their exploits, it was as pirates that they 
 fought — ^in defiance of their governments and with ever- 
 increasing ferocity and a determination to profit not 
 only at the expense of the Spaniards but of all honest 
 men. As Major Eobert Sedgwick wrote in 1655," so 
 after 1660 it became universally recognized that "this 
 kind of marooning, cruizing West Indian trade of plun- 
 dering and burning of towns, though it hath been long 
 practised in these parts, yet is not honourable for a 
 princely navy." 
 
 With the abandonment of Povey's project for a pri- 
 vateering West Indian company our enquiry comes to 
 its natural close. It has ranged over the whole period 
 of England's colonial beginnings from the earliest colon- 
 ising of Guiana to the definite formation of a colonial 
 policy, and though it has been mainly concerned with the 
 history of a single colonising company it has, owing to 
 
 18 Col. Papers, No. 35, xxxii, Nov. 14, 1655, Maj. Bobert Sedgwick to the 
 Conunissioiiers of the Admiralty. 
 
328 PURITAN COLONISATION 
 
 the importance of the members of the company, had to 
 touch upon many points in the history of the seventeenth 
 century. Even if the story had dealt only with the details 
 of the life of the Providence colony itself, it would have 
 been worth the telling, for we have no such wealth of 
 information concerning any other of the first West Indian 
 colonies and only in a few cases so much concerning an 
 early chartered company. But the main interest has not 
 lain in this direction; it has rather been found in the 
 Ught which the career of the company throws on the 
 course of English history, at home during that lull of 
 eleven years between the Petition of Eight and the Long 
 Parliament, when Charles I was endeavouring to estab- 
 lish his personal rule; and abroad in perpetuating the 
 Elizabethan tradition of conflict with Spain for the con- 
 trol of America and the West Indies, which had not 
 spent its course until in the days of the Restoration 
 fear of the Spaniards passed permanently away. The 
 purposes and activities of the Providence Company are 
 not isolated forces operating in the backwaters of 
 the historical current; they are factors contributing in 
 no small measure to the outworking of important phases 
 in the parliamentary and colonising influences of the 
 time and as such deserve to take a sufficiently prominent 
 place in the narrative as not to mask their historical 
 significance. 
 
 The close relation between the leaders of the great 
 migration to New England and the men who had directed 
 the activities of the Virginia and Somers Islands com- 
 panies has been demonstrated in many of our pages, 
 and their intimacy with the principal English Puritans 
 has also been made apparent. It has been shown that 
 all these men were united by ties of relationship and by 
 community of interest in a very near degree, and we have 
 been enabled to c"ast some fresh light upon the careers 
 
CONCLUSION 329 
 
 of two men of commanding influence in the struggle 
 against absolute monarchy. The obscurity that has 
 veiled the life of John Pym from the dissolution of 1629 
 to the opening of the Short Parliament has been some- 
 what cleared, and we have shown that during that period 
 he was playing a very active part in national Hfe. In 
 the management of the affairs of the Providence Com- 
 pany he was developing that massive breadth of judg- 
 ment and that sagacious instinct for the right moment 
 that were to make him for two crowded years "Kiag 
 Pym," the master of his country. The measure, the 
 foresight, and the rare power in times of high contention 
 of singling out the central issues and choosing the best 
 battle ground, — all these were perfected in those eleven 
 years ; the industry, the patient persistence, and the tire- 
 less energy whereto he then had schooled himself, he 
 could apply, when the time came, to some of the gravest 
 problems that have confronted an English statesman. 
 The work of Robert Eich, too, has been touched upon at 
 many points, and we have noted how he had some share 
 in the foundation of almost every English colony of his 
 time. His great influence in the central government 
 during the Civil War was the natural sequel to his 
 activity ia the Puritan councils during the period of 
 absolutism. His inherited position as a great and wealthy 
 noble made his house a rallying point for many of those 
 who disliked innovations in church and state, while his 
 natural abilities and adventurous spirit made him take 
 the lead in many directions where Liucobi's natural 
 timidity and Saye's disagreeable and radical temper 
 debarred them from success. His true importance as 
 an actor in the historical drama has hardly yet been 
 properly appreciated, and some day, no doubt, Warwick 
 will receive his due meed of recognition as an important 
 figure in the action of his time. 
 
330 PUEITAN COLONISATION 
 
 Tlie field of West Indian history after the period of 
 the Spanish conquest is as yet ahnost virgin soil and we 
 have here been able only in the briefest way to indicate 
 the movements that were going on where they were of 
 importance to our immediate subject. The Caribbean, 
 that under Philip II was a Spanish sea, became during 
 the first half of the seventeenth century a seething 
 cauldron into which were poured the most adventurous 
 spirits from every western nation; therein worked all 
 the passions that could no longer find their outlet on 
 their native soil. Huguenot and Leaguer, Puritan and 
 Arminian, Hollander, Swede, and Courlander, all could 
 hope for fighting, adventure, and booty from the Span- 
 iard. Their hopes of riches might be disappointed and 
 they might be compelled to take to peaceful planting in 
 the islands they had wrested from him, or to smuggling 
 with his colonists and slaves, but the end of the struggle 
 was the same for all. When with the pacification of 
 Europe peace came to the western seas, Spain had lost all 
 she was to lose for a hundred and fifty years and the other 
 nations were fixed in the outer ring of islands, which 
 from barren volcanic rocks they were to convert during 
 the eighteenth century into some of the richest and most 
 populous spots in the world. Throughout our pages 
 this theme has never been far away and it has provided, 
 perhaps, the principal justification for their writing. 
 If the work has contributed anything to illustrate the 
 development of the policy of hostility to Spain from its 
 full vigour to its final close, its purpose has been achieved. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Absenteeism, Begulations against, 159. 
 
 Adventurers in Providence Company, principal leaders of opposition to 
 
 Charles I, 3; list of, 59; classification of, 60; their aims in founding 
 
 the colony, 117. 
 Adventurers in Tortuga Company, 105 ; vest their rights in Brooke, Pym and 
 
 Saye, 215. 
 Alexander, Sir William, 42 note, 85. 
 Algiers, pirates, 265. 
 Amboyna, massacre at, 138. 
 America, settlements in at the beginning of the 17th century, 17; route 
 
 for sailing to, 17; settlements in 1631, 85. 
 ArgaU, Samuel, discovers northern route to Virginia, 18; connected with 
 
 the voyage of the Treasv/rer, 21. 
 Armada, the, 194. 
 
 Ashman, Dutch West India merchant, 212. 
 Association, see Tortuga. 
 
 Aston, deputy-governor of St. Christopher, 102. 
 Axe, Andrew, 266. 
 Axe, Capt. Samuel, entrusted with fortification of Providence, 54; member 
 
 of council, 94; commander of Warwick Fort, 96; quarrels with Elfrith, 
 
 156; settles at Moskito eays, 156, 165; returns to Providence, 196; 
 
 his plan of the island, 206; commander of the Swallow, 266; in charge 
 
 of Cape trade, 272; description of the Cape, 274; escapes from 
 
 capture at Providence, 315; vice-admiral in Jackson's voyage, 315. 
 Ayscue, Sir George, 319. 
 BaU, William, stockholder, 126. 
 Barbadoes, first settlement in, 29; absentee landlordism in, 159; emigra-' 
 
 tion from, to Providence, 279. 
 Barber, Gabriel, his life, 63; paid out of Providence Company, 124. 
 Barbuda, Hilton attempts to colonise, 102. 
 Barnardiston, Thomas, stockholder, 127. 
 Barrington, Lady Joan, 65. 
 
 Barrington, Sir John, petitions House of Lords, 308. 
 Barrington, Sir Thomas, his MSS., 10; his life, 64; suffers in the Forest 
 
 Court, 175; letter to, 190; how regarded by his contemporaries, 313. 
 Bell, Capt. PhUip, governor of Bermuda, 30, 94; letter to Sir N. Rich 
 
 (1629), 31; resigns governorship, 54; his marriage, 55; appointed 
 
 governor of Providence, 93; early life, 93; quells religious quarrels, 
 
 114, 161; regulations for decorum, 162; supersession, 216; disputes 
 
 with the company, 218; later life, 219. 
 Bell, Sir Eobert, 218. 
 
332 INDEX 
 
 Bermuda or Somers Is., claimed by Virginia Company, 20; company 
 formed, 20; succession of governors in, 30; Commons' committee of 
 enquiry, 31, 75; Governor Bell resigns, 54; troubles respecting sale of 
 commodities, 112; emigrants to Providence, 113; religious difficulties, 
 114; land of Providence Company in, 124; captured goods deposited, 
 226. 
 
 BUlinger, Cornelius, shipmaster, 224. 
 
 Black Point Eiver (New England), 141. 
 
 Blauvelt or Blewfield, Abraham, explores the Main, 272; disposes of his 
 booty in Bhode Island, 274. 
 ' Blessing, ship, despatched as man-of-war, 224; voyage and capture, 231. 
 
 Blewfields Bay (Jamaica), 273. 
 
 Blewfields Biver or Escondido, 273. 
 
 Bluefields, see Blewfields. 
 
 Boswell, William, stockholder, 127; his share in the Carolana project, 214. 
 
 Bourehier, Sir John, member of New England Council, 36; friendship with 
 the Barringtons, 65. 
 
 Boynton, Sir Matthew, interested in Saybrook, 179; abandons his projected 
 emigration, 185. 
 
 Bragg, Capt. Bichard, Tortuga adventurer, 105; in Nevis, 152. 
 
 Brazil, Dutch successes in, 86, 238; Spanish efforts for recapture of, 297. 
 
 Buccaneers, settlements in Hispaniola, 104. See Esquemeling. 
 
 Butler, Capt. Nathaniel, letter to Earl of Warwick, 22; malfeasance as 
 governor of Bermuda, 23 ; governor of Providence, 239 ; early life, 251 ; 
 sides against Sherrard, 255; buccaneering cruise, 257; allows Spaniards 
 to land in Providence, 299. 
 
 Calvert, Sir George, first Lord Baltimore, 85. 
 
 Camoek, Capt. Sussex, commander in first Providence voyage, 52; com- 
 mands expedition to Main, 141; proceedings at the Cape, 165; dealings 
 with privateers, 227; returns to England, 272. 
 
 Camoek, Capt. Thomas, settles in New England, 141. 
 
 Cape Biver, Wanks or Segovia, 165, 275. 
 
 Carolana, 9, 213. 
 
 Cartagena, 194, 299. 
 
 Carter, Capt. Andrew, sent out by Woodcock, 229; quarrels with Sherrard, 
 252; appointed deputy-governor, 257; sends ministers as prisoners to 
 England, 257; his tyranny, 268; kills Spanish prisoners, 298; sur- 
 renders the island, 301; command in Jamaica expedition, 323. 
 
 Chamberlayne, Abraham, merchant, 151. 
 
 Charity, ship, voyage of, 109, 129 sqq. 
 
 Charles I, absolutism of, 173; appealed to by Providence Company, 202; 
 tortuous foreign policy, 206, 236; refuses permission for the sale of 
 Providence, 238. 
 
 Cheeke, Sir Thomas, stockholder, 126. 
 
INDEX 333 
 
 Church affairs in Providence, directions concerning, 95, 119; religious 
 worship at the Main, 143; difficulties of the theocratic temper, 160; 
 constant quarrels, 252 sqq. 
 
 Cimarones in Darien, 136; in Hispaniola, 191. 
 
 Claiborne, William, founds trading post in Isle of Kent, 85 ; f oimds colony in 
 Euatan, 267; its struggles and end, 315. 
 
 Coke, Sir John, Sec. of State, proposes the formation of an English West 
 India Company, 28; memorandum concerning Providence Company, 
 204; letter from Spain to, 238. 
 
 Collins, Joseph, shipmaster, 142. 
 
 Colonies, essential difference between Spanish and other, 187. 
 
 Connecticut, Woodcock's enterprise in, 228; see Saybrook. 
 
 Constitution of government in Providence, 92; proposed for Saybrook, 181. 
 
 Conway, Sir Edward, is granted rights of reprisal, 224. 
 
 Costa Biea, trade of, 195. 
 
 Cotton in Providence, 147, 262. 
 
 Courteen, Sir William, finances the first settlement in Barbadoes, 29; 
 secures the support of Ley, Earl of Marlborough, 30; his daughter 
 marries Bichard KJiightley, 70. 
 
 Cradock, Matthew, first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company, 47. 
 
 Cromwell, Elizabeth, n^ Bourchier, 36, 65. 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, Lord Protector, connection with Providence Company, 4; 
 relationship with the Barringtons, 65; story of his projected emigra- 
 tion, 172 sqq. ; his "Western Design," 314, 320; letter concerning 
 Providence, 323; attempts to secure New England colonists for 
 Jamaica, 324. 
 
 Crops and commodities in Providence and the Main, 113, 146 sqq., 166. 
 
 CuraQao, Spanish attempt at capture, 187. 
 
 Customs, application for abatement of, 211. 
 
 Darien, projected Indian trade, 136 sqq. ; honour paid to the name of 
 Drake, 138 ; failure of the project owing to Dutch brutality, 138. 
 
 Darley, Henry, his life, 125; interest in New England, 126; secures support 
 for Saybrook, 179. 
 
 Declaration of Providence Company to King in Council, 202; reply thereto, 
 204. 
 
 Declaration touching Public Worship, 43. 
 
 Delahay, Capt., 214. 
 
 Delbridge, John, interloping trade with Bermuda, 30. 
 
 De Leau, Abraham, 267. 
 
 Dell, Capt. John, 267. 
 
 De Poincy, French governor of St. Christopher, 281. 
 
 DesagJadero or San Juan Eiver, 194; Jackson's raid, 268. 
 
 De Sancfi, Huguenot leader, 213. 
 
 D'Esnambue, Sieur, settles in St. Christopher, 28, 214. 
 
 D'Ewes, Sir Simonds, letter from Moundeford to, 249. 
 
334 INDEX 
 
 Ditloff, Mr., minister, 119; accused of levity of conduct, 120; suspends 
 Halhead from the sacrameiit, 160. 
 
 Drake, Sir Francis, honoured by Darien Indians, 138 ; and by the Moskitos, 
 144. 
 
 Dudley, Thomas, joins Massachusetts Bay Company, 46. 
 
 Dutchmen in Providence, precautions concerning, 97; ill behaviour at 
 Darien, 138; interloping trade at Providence, 154. 
 
 Dye-stuflEs, new materials for, 107; law-suit concerning logwood, 151. 
 
 Dyke, John, arranges for first Providence voyage, 50; deputy-governor of 
 Providence Company, 60; his life, 63; sharp practice in provisioning 
 the Seaflower, 90, 112; malpractices in Bermuda, 112; paid out, 124. 
 
 Elfrith, Daniel, exploits in the Treasurer, 21, 31, 51; early life, 50; com- 
 mands first expedition to Providence, 50; second voyage, 52; attacked 
 in Bermuda council, 55 ; refuses governorship of Providence and becomes 
 admiral, 93; directed to sail for new commodities, 98, 140; roving 
 voyages, 154; quarrels with Axe, 156; leads a party in the island, 
 217, 252; attacked by the Puritans, 253. 
 
 Eliedbeth, pinnace, 135; voyage, 138. 
 
 Eliot, Sir John, intemperate speeches in Parliament, 44; committed to the 
 Tower, 45. 
 
 Emigrants, classification of, 89; places of origin, 91; freedom from restric- 
 tion, 250; causes tending to facilitate emigration, 309. 
 
 Endecott, John, sails on first Massachusetts voyage, 42; hostility to 
 Humphry, 286. 
 
 Esquemeling, his untrustworthiness and sensationalism, 280 note. 
 
 Essex, Mr., planter, killed by Spaniards, 113; foments discontent, 115; his 
 papers found, 115. 
 
 Eulate, Juan de, governor of Margarita, destroys settlements in Trinidad 
 and Tobaigo, 189. 
 
 Evertsen, Bichard, shipmaster, 192. 
 
 Expectation, ship, 171, 195; despatched as man-of-war, 224; her eventful 
 voyage, 230. 
 
 Family, the artificial, in Providence, 97, 222, 259. 
 
 Fenwick, George, settles in Saybrook, 180; left to manage the settlement, 
 185; sells out to the Connecticut towns, 185. 
 
 Feoffees for Impropriations, 70 note. 
 
 Fiennes, James, stockholder, 126. 
 
 Fiennes, William, first Viscount Saye and Sele, his life, 65; a patentee of 
 Saybrook, 83 ; suffers in the Forest Courts, 175 ; his proposed constitu- 
 tion for Saybrook, 181; determines to test the legality of ship-money, 
 241; announces his intention of emigrating, 244; distrust of him in 
 New England, 287; replies to Winthrop's protest, 288. 
 
 Fiennes-Clinton, TheophUus, fourth Earl of Lincoln, an important Puritan 
 leader, 46; son-in-law of Saye, 66; loans from, 128. 
 
INDEX 335 
 
 FUby, Samuel, emigrant to Association, 109; letter to Barrington, 152; his 
 
 death, 193; his wife escapes from Association, 193; but returns, 212. 
 Pinch, Sir John, 175. 
 
 Fitch, Thomas, clerk of stores in Providence, 94; deputy-governor, 305. 
 Plead, a servant, his ill treatment, 158. 
 Florida Channel, Hilton's plan for seizing islands, 135. 
 "Flota," the, 194. 
 Floud or Floyd, Roger, sheriff of Providence, 94; letter to Sir N. Bieh, 
 
 227; governor of Tortuga, 280. 
 Fonseea or San Bemaldo, mythical island, 132 sqq. 
 Forbes, Lord, 246. 
 
 Forman, Thomas, smith, quarrel with Bous, 157. 
 Fort, Black Rock, 97. 
 Fort, Barley, 96. 
 Fort, Henry, 96. 
 Fort, Warwick, erection and situation, 53; commanded by Samuel Axe, 96; 
 
 finishing of, 113. 
 Friars in Providence, 299, 301. 
 
 Fuemayor, Ruiz Fernandez de, captures Tortuga, 193. 
 Gage, Thomas, his account of Providence, 231. 
 Gardiner, Lyon, builds Saybrook fort, 180. 
 Gawsell, Gregory, Providence adventurer, 77. 
 Gerbier, Sir Balthasar, English agent in Flanders, 264. 
 Gerrard, Sir Gilbert, Bart., Providence adventurer, 68. 
 Golden Falcon, pinnace, 141, 142. 
 Gondomar, Biego Sarmiento d'Acuna, Conde de, 22; appeals to Privy Conn-' 
 
 cil against Bermuda colonists, 24; compels the abandonment of North's 
 
 Guiana enterprise, 27. 
 Goose, Elijah, Massachusetts colonist, 292. 
 Gorges, Sir Perdinando, interest in New England Council, 81; his Brief e 
 
 Narration, 82; breach with Warwick, 174; influence in New England 
 
 CouncU, 174. 
 Gracios & Bios, Cape, design for trade at, 140; its situation, 164, 275. 
 Graunt, John, Providence adventurer, 77. 
 Great Contract, the, 310. 
 Greville, Robert, second Lord Brooke, his early life, 66; a patentee of 
 
 Saybrook, 83 ; suffers in the Forest Courts, 175 ; offers to take over the 
 
 whole work of the Providence Company, 210. 
 Guiana, early expeditions to, 26 ; patent for North 's company, 89. 
 Guinea Company, founded to engage in traffic for negroes, 25. 
 Gurdon, John, Providence adventurer, 77. 
 Half -profit system, 223. 
 Halhead, Henry, commands passengers in the Charity, 129; causes of his 
 
 emigration, 129; writer against enclosures, 130; quarrel with Rev. 
 
 Arthur Bous, 157; suspended from the sacrament, 160. 
 
336 INDEX 
 
 Hampden, John, relationship with the Knightleys, 70; a patentee for 
 Saybrook, 83 ; story of his projected emigration, 172 sqq. ; arbitrator 
 in Bell's case, 218; presence at Puritan meetings, 242. 
 
 Happy Meturn, ship, 234, 263. 
 
 Harbottle, Matthew, master of the lAttle Hopewell, 106; master of the 
 Elizabeth, 135, 137; master of the Spy, 267. 
 
 Harcourt, Bobert, patent for colony in Quiana, 26. 
 
 Hart, John, helps the Tortuga colonists, 104; husband of Providence 
 Company, 106 ; supplies ordnance without authority, 153. 
 
 Harwood, Sir Edward, Providence adventurer, 68. 
 
 Hay, James, first Earl of Carlisle, supports Warner's enterprise in the 
 Caribbees, 31; his dealings with Anthony Hilton, 103. 
 
 Heath, Sir Bobert, attorney general, his colony of Carolana, 9, 213; mem- 
 orandum on West Indian colonisation, 29; his financial backing by 
 Yassall, 213. 
 
 Hein, Piet, his capture of the Plate Fleet, 188. 
 
 Henrietta or San Andreas Island, geography of, 12; shallops built in, 150; 
 use as a privateering base, 227. 
 
 Herbert, Philip, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, obtains a West Indian 
 patent, 30, 133; refuses to subscribe to the Fonseca design, 134; sells 
 his rights in the West Indies to Warwick, 267. 
 
 Hilton, Capt. Anthony, early life, 101; settles in St. Christopher, 102; 
 governor of Nevis, 102; leads an expedition to Tortuga, 103; appointed 
 governor of Tortuga (Association), 105; misappropriates the com- 
 pany's logwood, 109, 151, 212; orders for his supersession, 153; his 
 death, 153. 
 
 Hilton, John, 211. 
 
 Eispaniola, settlements in, 191. 
 
 Hopewell, ship, 224. 
 
 Howard, Thomas, Earl of Arundel, 237. 
 
 Huguenots in St. Christopher and Tortuga, 281. 
 
 Humphry, John, treasurer of the Dorchester fishing company, 41; deprived 
 of his oflice of attorney in the Court of Wards, 45; imparts an interest 
 in colonisation to the Earl of Lincoln, 46; left to supervise Massachu- 
 setts affairs in England, 80; letter from, 81; a patentee for Saybrook, 
 83; leader of the discontented in Massachusetts, 286; appointed gov- 
 ernor of Providence, 292 ; letter to MandevUle, 292. 
 
 Hunks, Sir Henry, governor of Barbadoes, 216. 
 
 Hunt, John, member of Providence council, 94. 
 
 Hunt, Capt. Bobert, recommended by Lord Brooke for governor, 217; his 
 agreement, 219; his governorship, 252. 
 
 Himt, Thomas, secretary of Providence, reproved by company for careless- 
 ness, 157. 
 
 Hwnter., ship, 153. 
 
INDEX 337 
 
 Indians, rules for behaviour to, 138; Axe's troubles with, 275; see also 
 
 Moskito Coast. 
 Intoxicants, orders concerning, 118. 
 Jackson, Capt. WiUiain, brings great booty, 267; his great voyage of 1642, 
 
 315 sqq. ; captures Jamaica, 316. 
 Jamaica, captured by Jackson, 316. 
 James [William], president of Tortuga, 280. 
 James, ship, 216, 235. 
 
 Jenks, Thomas, clerk of stores in Providence, 94. 
 Jessop, William, his letter book, 9; secretary of Providence Company, 60; 
 
 early life, 62; clerk of the Saybrook patentees, 177; has control over 
 
 eolonal affairs, 318; intimacy with Milton, 322. 
 Jesus Maria de Ajuda, ship, 302. 
 Johnson, Isaac, joins Massachusetts Bay Company, 46; letter from, 80; 
 
 letter to, 81. 
 Johnson, Alderman Bobert, attacks the Sandys administration, 21. 
 Judice, Nicolas de, attacks Providence, 193, 196. 
 Justices of the peace, appointed in Providence, 158. 
 Kempo Sabada, Providence pilot, serves in the Jamaica expedition, 323. 
 Key, Samuel, minister in Association, 110; goes as minister to the Cape, 
 
 227. 
 Kirke, the brothers, 85. 
 Knightley, Bichard, his life, 69; a patentee for Saybrook, 83; Puritan 
 
 meetings at his house, 242. 
 La OallissonniSre Bock, see Fonseca. 
 La Gonaive or El Caimito, 191. 
 Land Tenure in Providence, 222. 
 
 Lane, Bichard, commands expedition to Darien, 137; nominated for deputy- 
 governor of Providence, 257; sent as prisoner to England, 258. 
 Laud, Archbishop, his repressive policy as bishop of St. David's, 91; 
 
 metropolitical visitation, 175; becomes head of the Treasury, 176; 
 
 takes an interest in colonial affairs, 182; unfavourable notice drawn 
 
 to Massachusetts, 183; his dogmatic temper, 283. 
 Lefroy, Maj. Gen. Sir J. H., clears up confusion between Old and New 
 
 Providence, 8. 
 Le Vasseur, Sieur, captures Tortuga, 282. 
 Leverton, Bev. Nicholas, early life, 254; refugee in Providence, 255; sent 
 
 prisoner to England, 257; returns to the West Indies, 305. 
 Little Mopewell, ship, 106; her voyage, 108. 
 
 Littleton, Thomas, finances Hilton, 102; attempts to collect his debts, 152. 
 Litton, Judith, second wife of Sir ThoQias Barrington, 65. 
 Logwood, see Dye-stuffs. 
 Long Parliament, its work begun in the courts of the chartered companies, 
 
 2; its permanent session as a bar to the recovery of debts, 308. 
 Long Sohert, ship, 169, 272. 
 
338 INDEX 
 
 Main, the directions for trade at, 140, 142; new patent for trade, 168; 
 Spanish trade" on, 194; exploration of, 272; Saye's description of his 
 project for colonisation, 289; see also Moskito Coast. 
 
 Maldonado y Tejada, Don Antonio, attacks Providence, 297. 
 
 Manchester MSS. in. the Public Becord Office, 10. 
 
 Mary, ship, 265. 
 
 Mary Hope, ship, 216, 235. 
 
 Massachusetts Bay Company, receives grant of land from Warwick, 42; 
 government transferred to America, 47; George Harwood, first treasurer 
 of, 69; Winthrop sails for America, 80; letter to Gov. Bndecott re 
 tobacco, 147. 
 
 Massachusetts, colony of, comparison of with Providence, 121, 309; dif- 
 ference from other colonies, 123; emigration at its height, 173; 
 development of theocracy, "283; causes for discouragement in, 286. 
 
 Merrifield, Kalph, finances Warner's enterprise in St. Christopher, 28; 
 obtains letters patent for the colony, 29. 
 
 Mersh, Giles, commands the Expectation, 230. 
 
 Michell, John, stockholder, 126. 
 
 Milton, John, his manifesto against the Spaniards, 321. 
 
 Monkey Bay, 273. 
 
 Montagu, Edward, Viscount Mandeville and Earl of Manchester, Providence 
 adventurer, 212; letter to, 265; conducts negotiations with the dis- 
 contented Massachusetts colonists, 294. 
 
 Morgan, Lewis, minister, 91; foments discontent and is punished, 115. 
 
 Moskito Cays, 156, 165, 272. 
 
 Moskito Coast, Indians upon, 143; regulations for dealing with, 144; Axe's 
 difficulties with the Indians, 275. 
 
 Moundef ord. Sir Edmond, Providence adventurer, 77 ; letter to D 'Ewes, 249. 
 
 Keedham, George, planter in Henrietta, 111. 
 
 Negroes, introduced into Virginia, 35; used by Hilton in Tortuga, 110; 
 in Providence, 149; negro women sent to Providence, 213; those 
 captured by men-of-war to be sent to Providence, 225; increase in 
 number, 258; sale in Virginia, 259; rebellion, 261; number captured 
 in Providence, 301. 
 
 Nevis, first colonisation of, 102; capture by the Spaniards, 103. 
 
 New England, coimection of Providence Company with, 4; proposals to 
 divert emigration from, 251; Providence Puritans apply for help to, 
 256 ; disposal of captured goods in, 262 ; contrast between New England 
 and Providence, 278; Cromwell attempts to secure Jamaica colonists 
 from, 324. 
 
 New England Council, Warwick becomes member of, 36; territory divided 
 among members of, 42; revival of interest in, 81; Warwick resigns the 
 presidency of, and Gorges becomes prune mover in, 174; surrender of 
 charter of, 175. 
 
 Newman, Lionel, 153. 
 
INDEX 339 
 
 Newman, Capt. Thomas, his roving in the Hunter, 153; secures employment 
 
 in command of man-of-war, 234; sends booty to New England, 262; 
 
 captured by Dunkirkers, 263; his subsequent career, 264. 
 Newport (Bhode Island), base for privateers, 273. 
 New Westminster, 53, 151. 
 Nicaragua, trade of, 194. 
 Noell, Martin, 325. 
 
 North Virginia or Plymouth Company, see New England Council. 
 North, Capt. Soger, expedition to Guiana, 27; patent to receive parlia- 
 mentary confirmation, 89. 
 Nuesca, Diego de, 144. 
 
 Nye, PhUip, 178 ; letter to John Winthrop, jr., 184. 
 Oaths, to be administered in Providence, 93; belief in the prayer book for 
 
 emigrants, 183. 
 Ojeda, Alonzo de, 144. 
 Opposition, formation of an organised, 240. 
 Palmetto Grove, a negro hiding place, 150. 
 Palatinate, schemes for the recovery of the, 236; ships to be lent to the 
 
 elector, 237. 
 Panzani, Gregorio, 175. 
 Parker, Capt. Nicholas, 267. 
 
 Parliament, power to confirm Providence patent, 88. 
 Patent, the Providence Company's, 86sqq.; is extended to include Tortuga, 
 
 y r05; new patent for the trade on the Main, 168. 
 Peace treaty between England and Spain (1604), 15; id. (1630), 95. 
 Peirce, Capt. William, New England shipmaster, 178, 260; transports 
 
 emigrants from Massachusetts to Providence, 293; his last voyage and 
 
 death, 304. 
 Pelham, Herbert, a patentee for Saybrook, 83. 
 Penn, Admiral, leader of expedition against Hispaniola, 321. 
 Pequot Indians, 260. 
 Petition of Eight, 42. 
 Pilgrim Fathers, sail for America, 36; Warwick secures a patent for, 
 
 36; not of national importance, 49; financed by London merchants, 123. 
 Pimienta, Don Francisco Diaz de, attacks and captures Providence, 298 
 
 sqq.; created Ejiight of Santiago, 302. 
 Pinas, Isla de, 137. 
 Pirates and piracy, great increase after 1607, 15; roving voyage of the 
 
 Sunter, 153; pirates in Providence, 154. 
 Plague of 1630, 57. 
 Pole, pinnace, 136. 
 Population of Providence, 150. 
 Porto Bello, trade at, 195. 
 Povey, Thomas, 325. 
 
340 INDEX 
 
 Powell, Capt. John, first settler in Barbadoes, 29. 
 
 Prerogative, company's objection to, 162. 
 
 Price, Lieut. Hugh, member of Providence council, 94. 
 
 Privateering, a prosaic trade, 13; system of profit-sharing, 225; attractions 
 of, 276. 
 
 Providence Company, passi/m. 
 
 Providence or Santa Catalina, island of, wealth of detail concerning its 
 colonisation, 5; confusion with New Providence, 7; geography of, 12, 
 204; articles for the government of, 92; topography of, 150; piracy 
 from, 194; Spanish attack on (1635), 194; contrast with New Eng- 
 land, 278; Maldonado's attack on (1640), 297; Pimienta's capture of, 
 299 sqq.; English account of the capture, 302; comparison with 
 Massachusetts, 309. 
 
 Providence, ship, 234, 263. 
 
 Punt, Thomas, shipmaster, 129; arraigned before the company, 131. 
 
 Punta Araya, salt trade with, 14; suggestions for poisoning foreign pirates 
 at, 19. 
 
 Puritans, essential difference between English and American, 199; intrigues 
 of English leaders With Scots, 240; ultra-Puritan party in Providence 
 appeal to New England, 256, 285; breach between leaders in England 
 and America, 283. 
 
 Pym, John, new information regarding, in Providence records, 6; appointed 
 to committee on Somers Is. Company, 31; early life, 70 sqq.; interest 
 in colonial affairs, 74; a patentee for Saybrook, 83; maintains impor- 
 tance of Tortnga plantation, 109; suggests the use of negroes, 110; 
 takes oversight of supplies, 112; his scheme for removing planters' 
 discontent, 118; manages finance, 128; instructions to company's 
 ofElcers, 137, 142; directions for dealing with Moskitos, 144; directions 
 concerning reprisals, 155; appointed to draw up patent for trade on 
 the Main, 167; liberal attitude concerning new subscriptions, 167; 
 complains of the burden of the treasurership, 170; story of his pro- 
 jected emigration, 172 sqq. ; fined for remaining in London, 175; his 
 influence with Vane, 178; traditional hostility to Spain, 197; speech on 
 foreign policy, 198; speech on carrying on the Providence design, 200; 
 arranges for new subscriptions for reprisals, 209; offers to go to 
 Tortuga, 215; works out new scheme of landholding, 222; endeavours 
 to secure Bous's release from captivity, 232; takes charge of Puritan 
 business in London, 244; letter to Wandesford, 245; becomes immersed 
 in national affairs, 294; how regarded by his contemporaries, 313, 329. 
 
 Band, Dr. Samuel, Tortuga adventurer, 104, 213. 
 
 Beprisals, power to exact, 88; permission granted to Providence Company, 
 207; directions for carrying on, 220, 225; restriction of the right to 
 company's ships, 235; system of licensing to undertal^e, 266. 
 
 Beskeimer, Capt. Nicholas, 211, 213. 
 
INDEX 341 
 
 Bich, Henry, Lord Kensington and Karl of Holland, sent with marriage 
 embassy to France, 37; quarrels with Carlisle, 48; governor of Provi- 
 dence Company, 59; his connection with the company, 61; promises to 
 secure patent for trade on the Main, 167; influence on foreign policy, 
 237; conveys to the company the King's refusal of permission for the 
 sale of Providence, 238. 
 
 Bieh, Sir Nathaniel, letter from Bell (1629), 31; his descent and life, 61; a 
 patentee of Saybrook, 83; reimbursed for expenses in first voyage, 
 124; restrictive attitude towards new subscriptions, 167; endeavours 
 to discharge debt, 170; influence with Vane, 178; letter from Henrietta 
 to, 227. 
 
 Bich, Bobert, third Lord Bich and first Earl of Warwick, his fleet of pri- 
 vateers, 16; his matrimonial troubles, 21 note; created Earl of 
 Warwick, 34. 
 
 Bich, Bobert, second Earl of Warwick, member of committee of Virginia 
 Company, 21; not a court tool in the Virginia quarrel, 25; his career 
 to 1630, 34; quarrels with East India Company, 35; assists the Pilgrim 
 Fathers, 36; adventurer for Northwest Passage, 37; refuses to pay 
 the forced loan, 37; receives commission against Spain, 38; grants 
 land to Humphry, etc., 42; advises Massachusetts Bay Company, 48; 
 revives New England Council, 81 ; grants patent to Saybrook patentees, 
 83; quarrels with New England Council, 174; suffers in the Forest 
 Courts, 175; compelled to share the Lord Lieutenancy of Essex, 175; 
 derivation of his colonial ideas, 224; fails to bring to trial the legality 
 of ship-money, 241; his intention to emigrate, 245; purchases Pem- 
 broke's rights in the West Indies, 267; engages in other West Indian 
 schemes, 294, 314; regard in which held by his contemporaries, 312, 
 329; issues commission for Jackson's voyage, 316; acquires control of 
 all colonial affairs, 318. 
 
 Bishworth, Samuel, commands passengers in Charity, 129; aids negroes to 
 escape, 149; quarrels with the governor, 252. 
 
 Bobartes, John, afterwards Earl of Badnor, Providence adventurer, 75. 
 
 Bobins, Bobert, his sufferings, 268. 
 
 BocheUe, siege of by Biehelieu, 42; capture, 213. 
 
 Boe, Sir Thomas, early trading voyage to Guiana, 26; suggestions for 
 aiding the Queen of Bohemia, 237. 
 
 Boncador, islet, 277. 
 
 Boope, Nicholas, shipowner, 119, 136. 
 
 Boot, Bev. Henry, 142; report on condition of Providence, 164. 
 
 Bous, Sir Anthony, 71. 
 
 Bous, Bev. Arthur, lecturer, 119; quarrel with Halhead, 157; his son, 
 Anthony, serves in the Jamaica expedition, 323. 
 
 Bous, Francis, afterwards provost of Eton, 71, 72. 
 
 Bous, John, diarist, 56. 
 
342 INDEX 
 
 Bous, Capt. William, member of council, 94; sails in Little Hopewell, 108; 
 quarrel with Forman, 157; appointed to command Blessing, 224; 
 voyage and capture, 231 sqq.; efforts for release, 233; leads troops in 
 Jackson's voyage, 316. 
 
 Buatan, Island, settlement in, 267; its struggles and end, 315. 
 
 Budyerd, Oapt. William, appointed to command passengers in Seaflower, 
 91; member of council, 95; commander of Fort Henry, 96; sails in 
 Little Hopewell, 108; charges against him, 118; his cruelty, 158; dis- 
 paragement of Providence, 164; governor of Association, 215; com- 
 mands James, 216; commands Mary Hope, 235. 
 
 Eussell, family of, connection with Barringtons, 65; Lord Brooke marries 
 into, 68; wealth in west of Sngland, 72; patrons of Oliver St. John, 
 76; interest in Puritan cause, 243. 
 
 St. Brendan's Isle, 134. 
 
 St. Christopher, island, settled by Thomas Warner, 27; French settlement 
 in, 28; Hilton's settlement, 102; capture by Spaniards, 103; emigra- 
 tion from to Providence, 279. 
 
 St. John, Oliver, afterwards Lord Chief Justice, interest in colonisation, 76; 
 draws Providence patent, 86; draws patent for trade on the Main, 
 167; advises the company in the dispute with Bell, 218. 
 
 St. Martin's, island, capture of, 189. 
 
 Saltoustall, Sir Bichard, a patentee for Saybrook, 83; sends men into the 
 Connecticut Valley, 177, 229. 
 
 San Berualdo, mythical island, see Fonseca. 
 
 Sandwich, Sherrard's troubles at, 306. 
 
 Sandys, Sir Edwin, appointed treasurer of Virginia Company, 21; informs 
 Privy Council of the voyage of the Treasurer, 23. 
 
 San Hicolas (Hispaniola), Dutch settlement at, 191. 
 
 Santa Clara, ship, seized at Portsmouth, 265, 307. 
 
 Santa Lucia, Bell's colony in, 219. 
 
 Santa Marta, attack on, 231. 
 
 Saybrook, patent for, 81 sqq.; borrows ordnance of Providence Company, 
 177; settlement begun, 180; patentees abandon the idea of emigration, 
 185; sold to the Connecticut towns, 185. 
 
 Seaflower, ship, voyage of, 90, 99; attacked by the Spaniards, 112. 
 
 Seamen in privateering voyages, system of profit-sharing, 225. 
 
 Selden's Mare Clausum, 207. 
 
 Servants or apprentices, rules governing, 90; their character and prospects, 
 99 ; bounties paid for recruiting, 169 ; their life in Providence, 258. 
 
 Sherland, Christopher, Providence adventurer, 70. 
 
 Sherrard, Hope, minister, 119; commended, 161; imprisoned by Bell, 163; 
 his betrothed wife, 171; letter from, 190; finds an ally, 255; sent 
 prisoner to England, 257; protests against Carter's cruelties, 298; 
 later life, 306. 
 
 Ship-money, the first writ, 176 ; the second writ, 184, Chap. X, passim. 
 
INDEX 343 
 
 Silk-grass, Camock's flax or sisal hemp, 148. 
 
 Slany, Humphrey, leases land in Bermuda from Providence Company, 124. 
 
 Smith, Capt. John, on growth of piracy, 15; his government of Virginia, 92. 
 
 Smythe, Sir Thomas, 20. 
 
 Social organisation in Providence, 97. 
 
 Soubise, Marquis de, 213. 
 
 Spain, Elizabethan hostility to, 4; protests against Newman's piracy, 154; 
 comparative amenity of war with England, 155 ; close governmental con- 
 trol of her colonies, 187; concerts means of expelling the corsairs, 188; 
 attack on Tortuga, 192; attack on Providence, 196; persistence of the 
 tradition of hostility, 197; negotiations for release of prisoners, 232; 
 great preparations for the capture of Providence, 295; impossibility of 
 clearing the West Indies from foreigners, 296; Maldonado attacks 
 Providence, 297; Pimienta's capture of Providence, 299 sqq. 
 
 Spy, ship, 266. 
 
 Stiles, Francis, settler in Connecticut, 177. 
 
 Styles, Bartholomew, minister, 169. 
 
 Summers, William, settles in Tortuga, 229. 
 
 Swallow, ship, 266. 
 
 Symonds, John, letter to Lord Mandeville, 265. 
 
 Tanner, John, master of Seafiower, 90, 100 ; loses an eye in a Spanish attack, 
 113. 
 
 Thompson, Maurice, 265; finances Jackson's voyage, 315. 
 
 Tobacco, illicit trade at Trinidad, 26; in Providence, 147. 
 
 Tobagd, Spain captures from the Dutch, 189; English settlers in, 254, 315. 
 
 Tortuga or Association, island of, geography of, 12, 164; Hilton settles in, 
 103; renamed, 107; difSeulties concerning dye-woods in, 108; a resort 
 of rovers, 192; its condition in 1634, 192; Spanish capture of, 193; 
 arrangements for resettling, 211; quarrels between English and French, 
 214; the colonists abandon the island, 216; resettled from St. Christo- 
 pher, 279; inhabitants in 1640, 281; French capture of, 281. 
 
 Tortuga Salada, 225. 
 
 Trade, regulations for Indian, 165; general course in the West Indies, 194; 
 with Dutch ships at Providence, 221; freedom granted, 261. 
 
 Treasurer, ship, 21; her voyage to Virginia, 35. 
 
 Trinidad, English settlement destroyed by Eulate, 189; Warwick com- 
 mences settlement, 267, 315. 
 
 Truebody, Emmanuel, 292. 
 
 Truxillo, trade of, 194; surprised by Butler's expedition, 257. 
 
 Upton, John, Providence Company's agent in western England, 126. 
 
 Usselinex, Willem, poiats to the West Indies as a field for colonisation, 28. 
 
 Vane, Henry, the younger, sails for New England, 178; his government 
 attacked, 284. 
 
 Vassall, Samuel, 213. 
 
344 INDEX 
 
 Villiers, George, first Duke of Buckingham, favors the Puritans, 37; 
 
 murdered, 43. 
 Virginia Company, foimdation of, 19; falls into the hands of a clique, 19; 
 
 beginning of the quarrel in, 20; enquiry into the affairs of, 24; charter 
 
 surrendered, 24. 
 Wakeman, Samuel, 304. 
 Warner, Sir Thomas, founds a colony in St. Christopher, 28; his dealings 
 
 with Anthony Hilton, 102. 
 Western Design, Cromwell's, 314. 
 West India Company of England, proposals for the formation of, 28, 237, 
 
 318, 326. 
 West India Company of Holland, foundation of, 28; success in Brazil, 86; 
 
 easts eyes on Association, 214; overtures for purchase of Providence, 
 
 238. 
 Whale, ship, 109, 111. 
 White, Eev. John, of Dorchester, proposes to found a Puritan colony, 41; 
 
 financing of his colonists at Cape Aim, 123. 
 William and Anne, ship, 193, 212. 
 Williams, Roger, connected with Barringtons, 65; views on negro servitude, 
 
 149. 
 Winthrop, John, letter to his wife, 45; deprived of his office of attorney 
 
 in the Court of Wards, 45; joins Massachusetts Bay Company, 46; 
 
 takes the lead, 47; letter from Isaac Johnson to, 80; account of 
 
 Providence, 260; government attacked for lenity, 284; protest to Saye, 
 
 288; rejoinder to Saye's reply, 290; how regarded by his contempo- 
 raries, 313. 
 Winthrop, John, the younger, 80; returns to England, 176; signs an 
 
 agreement with Saybrook patentees, 177; letters to, 179, 184. 
 Woodcock, William, husband of Providence Company, 127; prepares stores 
 
 for Saybrook, 177; sends out man-of-war, 224; proposes to finance a 
 
 settlement on Henrietta Island, 228; his enterprise in Connecticut, 229. 
 Wormeley, Capt. Christopher, an original Tortuga adventurer, 105; governor 
 
 of Association, 153, 192; his cowardice and flight to Virginia, 198. 
 Yeardley, Capt., governor of Virginia, 22. 
 
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