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| Nov. 10–11. |
42. Minutes of Council and Assembly of Antigua. The Assembly sent a message that the Act for Courts had been much amended by them, but would be ready for Council at next sitting. Messages passed between the Council and Assembly as to the alleged carrying of provisions to the French at Martinique by Barry Tankard. After inquiry and hearing of evidence, the Governor agreed to the request of the Assembly that the men of Tankard's sloop should be secured on her return. Request of the Assembly for the calling of a General Council and Assembly within thirty days. Orders as to grants of land. [Board of Trade. Leeward Islands, 64. pp. 215–218.] |
| Nov. 12. |
43. Archibald Hutcheson to William Popple. I return a written relation of what I have to offer respecting Governor Codrington. Signed, Arch. Hutcheson. P.S.—I lodge next door but one to the White Periwig, about the middle of Pell Mell, on the square side of the way. ¼ p. Endorsed, Recd. Read 15 Nov., 1697. Enclosed, |
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43. I. Archibald Hutcheson to Council of Trade and Plantations, 12 November, 1697. I have seen Mr. Edward Walrond's information against Governor Codrington, and doubt not to answer it satisfactorily. Meanwhile that no impressions to Governor Codrington's prejudice may remain, and that you may judge of the probability
of this accusation, I enclose a copy of my last memorial to the Treasury relating to him, a memorial of his services, a letter to Mr. Lowndes on the same subject, and part of an address and certificate referred to in the memorial. I remained in the Leeward Islands until 1692, and was till then an eye-witness of the services that I have mentioned; and since then I have constantly corresponded with Governor Codrington. But my testimony is the least in importance as to his character, which is well known to all of any note concerned in Barbados and the Leeward Islands. If you consult the Agents for the Leeward Islands, who are eminent on the Exchange here and have considerable estates there, and who correspond constantly with the Councils, Assemblies and principal inhabitants of the Islands, they will give you an account of him, inconsistent with Mr. Walrond's representation. It is certain that on the first notice of the Revolution Colonel Codrington appeared for the present Government, and has since on all occasions exposed his person and employed his purse in the service. He both commended and encouraged his son to attend the King every campaign of the war, and the whole tenor of his conduct has been a contradiction to any inclination to King James. He has also made considerable improvements in the French part of St. Christophers, which will now be a loss to him, and this was scarcely done in any hopes of King James's return. I quite agree with Mr. Walrond that Governor Codrington is highly obliged to the King's grace and favour; but he has not gained a great estate by the Government. He has indeed a great estate, for he has the best in Barbados, and better than any other three in the Leeward Islands. But he had all this before he was Governor, and has thereby been able to support the expense of that post, for his salary, were it duly paid, would do but little towards it, and the inhabitants, as you may see from the enclosed papers, have nowise assisted him therein. I have been informed that for some time past Governor Codrington and Mr. Walrond have not been on good terms, from which perhaps his professed zeal may have received part of its warmth. However this may be, it is evident that his arguments against Governor Codrington and the narrative of his own loyalty make up a much greater part of his letter than the facts he relates. I beg you to consider these memorials and to recommend them, if you think fit, to the Treasury. Signed, Arch. Hutcheson. 1½ pp. |
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43. II. Memorial of Archibald Hutcheson, agent for Governor Codrington, to the Lords of the Treasury. In April, 1695, I presented to you a memorial praying that the salary of Governor Codrington (£750 per annum) and the contingent charges of his Government might be paid
by the sale of a sufficient proportion of the 4½ per cent. duty on the spot, or that the husband of that revenue should be instructed to pay the same out of the produce thereof. This memorial you referred to Mr. Blathwayt, and I was instructed to move you again in the matter, when any of the said revenue should arrive. I accordingly did so by a new memorial in December, 1695, and you informed me that you would direct the salary to be paid out of the produce of the duty here. I again applied to you in May, 1696, and was answered as aforesaid, but as yet you have made no order therein, nor since then have I troubled you with further applications. Governor Codrington has always expressed great zeal for the King's service, as the annexed memorial will shew, and has commanded his only son to attend the King every campaign, assigning him for his expenses all his salary as Governor of the Leeward Islands; but since this has not been paid since 26 October, 1694, the son has been obliged to run into debt to pay the expenses of the two last campaigns. I beg therefore that you will direct the salary and contingent charges to be paid either by sale of a sufficient proportion of the 4½ per cent. duty on the spot or out of the produce thereof here. Copy. 1 p. |
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Copy of a former memorial of Archibald Hutcheson to the Lords of the Treasury in April, 1695. This rehearses the King's orders for the payment of Governor Codrington's salary out of the 4½ per cent. duty, and the due payment of the same from the sale of the produce thereof in the Leeward Islands till October, 1694, in which year an Order in Council directed the produce of the duty to be sent home in kind; and begs that the salary may be paid by those that sell the produce of the duty either in England or on the spot. 1 p. |
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Copy of a letter from William Blathwayt to the Treasury, 1 May, 1695. Recommending orders to the Collectors of the 4½ per cent. duty in the Leeward Islands to pay to Governor Codrington his salary from that revenue on the spot. ¾ p. |
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Memorial of Governor Codrington's services. 1. He accepted the Government of the Leeward Islands in July, 1689, when they were in a most distracted condition, and St. Christophers was already taken by the French. He brought back the Irish papists in Montserrat to quiet loyalty, and within four months of the arrival of the first squadron from England destroyed St. Martins and St. Bartholemew and greatly damaged Mariegalante. 2. The squadron which brought him his commission as Captain-General arrived on 1 June, 1690. On 21 June he landed in St. Christophers, and in three weeks he had recaptured the island and sent all the French away, with a loss to himself of no more than a hundred men. 3. In April, 1691, he raised what
troops he could, and destroyed Mariegalante, and the leeward part of Guadeloupe. 4. He raised 1,000 men to join Colonel Foulke's force against Martinique and accompanied it himself under Colonel Foulke's command sooner than that the King's service should suffer. The failure of the expedition was due to no fault of his. 5. Soon after his entrance into the Government he bought with his own money powder and stores for the islands, and has continued to do so, without any interest or gratification. On 18 August, 1692, the Islands owed him £1,895, and Antigua alone, besides her proportion of that sum, owed him £640 in money and near 100,000lbs. of sugar. 6. His predecessors have usually received a considerable present from the Islands on first taking office, and yearly allowances afterwards. He himself has never asked for sixpence, but assisted them with money as aforesaid. He has also advanced money for the Regiment there without interest. Near £1,000 is owing to him for the same at this moment, and £1,500 for the frigates. 7. He has always shewn zeal for the present Government, and though his advantages from his post have been less than those of his predecessors, his hardships, fatigue and expenses have been greater. The Lords of Trade have twice represented his good services to the King, on 24 June, 1690, and 8 January, 1693–4; and the King has accepted of them. 2 pp. |
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43. III. Certificate of the General Assembly of the Leeward Islands, 18 August, 1692. As to the money advanced by Governor Codrington to the Leeward Islands (see par. 5 of preceding memorial) for which he has asked no interest nor gratification, nor even abatement of the levies on his estate, having always paid his full share of taxation like all other inhabitants. 1¼ pp. |
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Extract from Address of the General Assembly of the Leeward Islands to the King and Queen. November, 1691. Bearing witness to Governor Codrington's good service to his Government. ½ p. |
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43. IV. Copy of a letter from Archibald Hutcheson to the Secretary of the Treasury. 9 July, 1697. Governor Codrington is now three years in arrear of his salary, during which time he has paid all the contingent charges of Government with his own money and is now considerably in disburse on that account. For two years past I have represented this to the Lords of the Treasury, but without obtaining any final directions thereon. My last memorial on the subject, with a memorial of Governor Codrington's services, has been lodged with Mr. Glanville for several months, and I am persuaded that if it were read, its prayer would be granted. I would add that though in arrear of his own salary and in great disburse for the contingent charges of his Government, and although in repayment for £1,500, which he advanced for the King's ships, he
received tallies which his Agents here could not sell for £900, yet notwithstanding all this discouragement he continues to pay for the maintenance of St. Christophers Fort and other contingent charges of Government; and in his last letters of 1 May, 1697, he writes that he was then disbursing several hundred pounds to supply H.M.S. Colchester with provisions. I beg you on this gentleman's behalf to procure that his memorial may be read and that you will give your kind assistance in procuring the dispatch of an order by the Lords of the Treasury thereupon. 1¼ pp. [Board of Trade. Leeward Islands, 5. Nos. 61, 61 I.–IV.] |
Nov. 12.
Whitehall. |
44. Council of Trade and Plantations to the Earl of Bellomont. We have received yours of 1st inst. from H.M.S. Deptford. This is to acquaint you that the Lords Justices have ordered that the 30 per cent. deduction is not to be made from the pay of the two New York Companies before their arrival at New York, and that an account is to be given of the £1,690 unappropriated overplus of that deduction, and transmitted by you on your arrival. You will take note of these orders. Signed, Ph. Meadows, Jno. Pollexfen, Jno. Locke, Abr. Hill, George Stepney. [Board of Trade. New York, 52. pp. 291–294.] |
Nov. 13.
Goodman's
Fields. |
45. Francis Jones to William Penn. In reply to yours I must confess that I wrote to Governor Nicholson in a heat, occasioned by my want of sailors to man a ship built in your province, Colonel Markham having commissioned one Day to go out privateering (who has since been forced into Curaçoa where he sold his ship) and on which ship seamen entered themselves as fast as I shipped them in my own. I desired Colonel Markham to order it otherwise, when he answered that Day was down the river out of his reach, and that they had not force in the province to command him. Thereupon knowing that there were several men-of-war in Virginia and Maryland I in that heat wrote to Governor Nicholson, not supposing that any further use would be made of my letter, for notwithstanding the heat that has happened between Colonel Markham and myself I must do him the justice to assure you that in my judgment no fitter person could be found to govern in the King's interest and the province's. I have lived under his Government for five years, during all which time his Government has been to the satisfaction of the substantial inhabitants and traders in general of the province. Only within this year or two some turbulent and discontented people have come here from other Colonies, who have picked occasion to hold correspondence with Maryland (an absolute enemy to the prosperity of Pennsylvania) particularly one Snead, a Jamaica man of passionate temper and unworthy of your notice, being of little or no reputation, very indigent of money to compass a small plantation, and a fellow that has little or no credit given to his words. Next, as to Every's crew, I was in Pennsylvania when the proclamation for apprehending them came out, at which time Colonel Markham at once issued a warrant for their apprehension, and had all that were in the province committed
to the common gaol. By assistance of their friends they after a short confinement broke out of prison and escaped in the night (except one who was stopped, and was in prison when I left Pennsylvania). Immediately thereupon hues and cries were issued and sent to the neighbouring Colonies for their apprehension, Colonel Markham offering a reward of £5 for each man. It is not strange if Maryland endeavours to subvert your Government, since they so publicly show their disaffection to its trade by laying an imposition of 10 per cent. on all European commodities imported through their country, though a "pennard" [? pennyworth] thereof be not exposed to sale in their province, nor a penny benefit received of them; while at the same time all goods from New York and Virginia are free. There is also a custom upon all wine, beer, rum, etc., though they would want all these, as well as sugar and molasses, if Pennsylvania did not supply them, they having their chief supply of that and their ships of bread and flour constantly from Pennsylvania, having none of these things of their own importing or making. As to running tobacco from the head of the bay from Maryland, that is a general mistake, the inhabitants of Pennsylvania forbidding it by a particular law of their own making. Instead of that there was to my own knowledge about 100 hogsheads of tobacco transported last year from Pennsylvania to Maryland, partly by permit of Colonel Nicholson, the tobacco being for export to England by that way. It is also an error that the Curaçoa trade is encouraged by Colonel Markham, for it is contrary to the interests of the merchants to bring Dutch goods thence to Pennsylvania. It is true that a trade is driven to Curaçoa, but not to the prejudice of the King's customs, provisions being shipped from Pennsylvania to Curaçoa, "for which is given "in return heavy pieces of eight at 4 shillings to 4½ shillings (?), "the which advances about 75 per cent. in Pennsylvania, the "which money the same vessels generally carry to the salt-ponds, "and there load home to Pennsylvania with salt, which, with the "advance the money yields, affords more profit than any Curaçoa "commodities, without the risk of being seized can do." As to Scots trading, I know not what may have happened in the infancy of the province, but since my five years of constant trading in Pennsylvania no such trade has been encouraged but quite the contrary, there being sufficient security taken for every vessel that loads thence, and not above one that I ever heard of whose bond was forfeited, when the vessel was confiscated accordingly. Little tobacco can be exported thence because the inhabitants incline to the husbandry of tilling corn. I believe that not above 1,000 hogsheads are made in the province annually, and so few of them shipped to the plantations abroad that the King's customs must go an inconsiderable way towards the paying of three officers, who I hear were sent to the river Delaware. If the traders there were inclined to false and irregular methods (which is not worth their while), thirty officers would be little enough to prevent it, owing to the length of the river and the conveniency to be found in it. Your country daily improves with inhabitants, and is cultivated with an industry much exceeding the neighbouring provinces. Hence their envy and malicious endeavour to hinder its prosperity
by having the Government altered. Without this the province will in a little time be the flower of the whole continent. Signed, Fr. Jones. P.S.-I suppose the occasion of Colonel Markham's granting a commission to Day was our having three sloops taken by the French on the coast just before. Holograph. 4 pp. Endorsed, Recd. 15 Nov., 1697. [Board of Trade. Proprieties, 2. No. 4.] |
| Nov. 15. |
46. Minutes of Council of Montserrat. Two patents for lands passed to John Daly and Thomas Gibbons. [Board of Trade. Leeward Islands, 64. p. 526.] |
| Nov. 15. |
47. Journal of Council of Trade and Plantations. Mr. Hutcheson's letter of 12th inst. read. |
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The Secretary produced a letter from Mr. Francis Jones tending to the vindication of Governor Markham, which had been left with him by Mr. Penn. |
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Order for a representation to be drawn as to the passing of a law respecting trials for piracy in the Colonies. |
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Draft letter to Governor Nicholson agreed to. Order for a doubt, expressed in his letter of 13 July as to trial for breaches of the Acts of Trade, to be referred to the Solicitor and Attorney-General. |
| Nov. 17. |
Letter to Governor Nicholson signed and committed to Colonel Quarry for conveyance. |
| Nov. 19. |
An anonymous letter to the Agents of Barbados was given in by Lord Bridgewater (No. 52). [Board of Trade. Journal, 10. pp. 347–349.] |
Nov. 16.
New York. |
48. Governor Fletcher to Council of Trade and Plantations. I have received no letters from you since my last. A brigantine with a cargo worth £6,000, bound hither from England, has been taken by a French privateer and carried into Canada. The French Governor treated the prisoners kindly, giving them provisions and other necessaries, and let them travel to Albany, whereupon with the Council's advice I released an equal number of old men and women, who had been captured by Indians and were a burden to the country, and gave them necessaries for their journey to Canada. I send by this vessel, which is without convoy, copy of the latest Indian propositions. The province is safe, and the Indians of Albany have had the advantage of the French both in slain and prisoners this summer. We have heard some time that Lord Bellomont is appointed Governor of New York and New England, and that the Fowey is appointed to relieve the Richmond, bringing out clothing which is much wanted for the four companies. But we have no account yet of the Earl or his ship, which is a great obstruction to affairs, the common people being of opinion that there will be no taxes for carrying on the war after his arrival, and all that is raised will be repaid them. I have cleared off the victuallers and staff and warrant officers to the 1st of May. There is six months due to them on the 1st inst., and since another Governor is appointed I cannot have money upon bills for their subsistence. The Council has agreed that if the victuallers raise money upon interest to answer a further supply of provisions for the ensuing winter, they will order the payment of the interest out of revenue. I doubt it will be difficult to raise money on that order. I hope the Earl will
soon arrive. If the clothing does not come quickly there is no hope of getting up to Albany this winter, and the men are in extreme want. On the 10th inst. I sent up £500, New York money, towards the relief of the soldiers which will be some help, and I should have gone there myself but for the daily expectation of being recalled. The Lieutenant-Governor of Boston keeps a constant friendly correspondence with me. He sent me copy of your instructions for giving assistance to Colonel Gibson in Newfoundland, and because the inhabitants of Boston have great part of their bread from hence and have been in great necessity, he wrote to me to perform the said order. The Council agreed that the merchants of the city should be convened and your letter laid before them; and three vessels full of provisions were quickly dispatched to Newfoundland, where we hear that the two first are safely arrived. I bless God that my endeavours for the province have not been ineffectual. It has improved more in building and trade these last five years than in many years before, as I shall be able to prove to you when I return home. Signed, Ben. Fletcher. 3 pp. Endorsed, Recd. 7 Jan. Read 10 Jan., 1697. Enclosed, |
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48. I. The Agents at Albany to Governor Fletcher at Albany. 28 September, 1697. Three Cayouge Sachems came and spoke as follows. Brethren, we come to lay before you our poverty and that we are menaced by French and Indian enemies. We beg you to assist us with powder and lead, to enable us to annoy the enemy. (Here they gave two otters and four beaver-skins.) We are sorry to have to tell you of the loss suffered by the Senecas in a fight with the Twitchtwichts. Our young men killed several of the enemy but in their retreat some of their chief captains were cut off. Pray give us wampum to condole our dead, according to custom, for which we give you these beavers. (Here they laid down ten skins; the wampum was immediately given to them, and the next day appointed for a conference on the first proposition concerning powder and lead.) |
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On the next day we, the English Agents, said as follows. You desire of us powder and lead. What occasion have you for necessaries of war, and how can you ask assistance from us when meanwhile you have privily sent messengers to the Governor of Canada, our enemy and yours, desiring to make peace? To this the Sachems replied, that they knew nothing of it, had no hand in it directly or indirectly, and never heard of it until they arrived at Onandaga, in their journey hither, where they were informed that messengers were sent to Canada from thence, but only to delude the Governor and gain time for their young men to hunt in safety. For their own parts they said that they would never agree to peace with the French Governor without Governor Fletcher's and the Five Nations' approval, and that they would also keep the covenant chain with the Governor unrusted. We then thought it proper to put
more notions into their heads to keep them warm to the war and to keep Canada in alarm of an attack this winter; so we desired that each Nation should furnish us with twenty pairs of snow-shoes about Christmas time, upon which we gave them seven bands of wampum to communicate with all the Five Nations. Two days after we had dispatched these Indians, three Seneca Sachems arrived with us at Albany, gave furs, asked for wampum, and gave the same assurances as the Cayouges. We design to dismiss the bushlopers, their service being chiefly in the summer. We undertook to pay them when discharged, which we shall do by our private bonds if money be not remitted in time, of which no doubt you will take care, as your prudence has already done much for the Colony and particularly for the Five Nations, despite their occasional waverings. Signed, P. Schuyler, Dirck Wessels, Dellius. 2½ pp. Endorsed, Recd. Jan., 1697–8 in Governor Fletcher's letter of 16 Nov., 1697. [Board of Trade. New York, 7. Nos. 54, 54I.; and (without enclosure) 52. pp. 296–298.] |
Nov. 17.
Whitehall. |
49. Council of Trade and Plantations to Governor Nicholson. We have received yours of 13 July and 31 August to ourselves, and of 30 June to the Privy Council. Your proposals concerning convoys are all answered by the happy conclusion of peace. We learn that the merchants have had very good markets for tobacco, so we hope that they will supply you with manufactured goods in such plenty and so cheap that your people will have no encouragement to go on making them there (as you say they were too much inclined) but instead thereof apply themselves more industriously to planting. However your observations on the subject and your endeavour to promote what is apparently the true interest of England therein will always be very acceptable. We have perused the Journals and other public papers, and shall use them. But the laws are still in the Attorney-General's hands, for we have been obliged to return all of them to him for a full report on the whole. We would remind you of what we have already writ to you on this subject. Mr. Penn and others in Pennsylvania have complained much of the laws imposing a duty of 10 per cent. on European commodities exported from Maryland, as not only injurious to them but an obstruction to the exportation of goods from England. We have deferred answering until the law itself is before us. We send you a paper of the objections, which by the style of it seems to have been sent from Pennsylvania to yourself. Whether this be so or not, some of the reasons contained therein, and the suggestion that the exportation of goods from England is hindered, seem to us to have weight in them, and that in any case partiality in the execution of the law should especially have been avoided. We notice an entry in the Journal of the Council of 28 May, 1697, that a letter from Mr. Povey was read, saying that he had not been wanting to solicit us about Maryland coins. No such application was ever made to us about that matter. A few
loose papers on the subject were indeed handed to us on our first entry upon a commission, as matters depending before the late Committee, but we did not propose to move therein till the laws came regularly for consideration before us. Your information and suggestions in your letter of 13 July as to the Acts of Trade are very useful, and we desire you to continue them; but in future you will write on a distinct paper of all matters that lie under the conduct of the Commissioners of Customs, and inform us what portion of them you have communicated directly to the Commissioners. We approve your zeal in issuing proclamations and directions against pirates; but we must point out that the informations of Thomas Robinson and Francis Jones, as to the conduct of the Pennsylvanian Government respecting pirates, is of the less weight because it is not on oath. We suspend our judgment thereon until we have seen their defence. The peace has led us to enquire as to the encouragement that can be proposed in any of the Colonies for disbanded soldiers to transport themselves thither; and it has been some inconvenience to us that there is no Agent here for Maryland as for other Colonies. We fear that the want thereof may be prejudicial to Maryland on some occasions, owing to delays and loss of opportunities. Your remarks as to the want of negroes and servants makes us desire more particular information as to what ordinarily becomes of the white servants sent thither, and you will report to us thereon. Your doubts about trials for breaches of the Act of Trade have been submitted to the Attorney and Solicitor-General. Signed, Ph. Meadows, Jno. Pollexfen Jno. Locke, Abr. Hill, Geo. Stepney. [Board of Trade. Maryland, 9. pp. 165–171.] |
| Nov. 17. |
50. William Popple to the Attorney and Solicitor General. Forwarding extracts from Governor Nicholson's letter of 13 July 1697, reporting his doubts about trials for breaches of the Acts of Trade. [Board of Trade. Maryland, 9. p. 170.] |
Nov. 18.
St John's,
Newfoundland |
51. Major Handasyd to William Blathwayt. I give you an account of the fortifications here and of the great mortality among us since the fleet sailed hence on 8 October last. Eighty seven of the soldiers and two of the train of artillery are dead; the rest I hope may recover. In King William's Fort the guard houses, store-houses and barracks are finished, except the officers houses, which are unfinished for want of boards. The palisades round the fort are set up, the gates and draw-bridges made, and we are mounting the guns in the batteries, but shall want a great deal of plank to finish them. I could not possibly get the boom across the harbour's mouth for want of dry-timber, but I have taken card to procure some, and shall have it laid across as soon as the frost in gone. I am credibly informed that the enemy are in no condition to make an attempt on us this winter, without more forces from France. If they do come, I hope we shall shew ourselves to be Englishmen and faithful servants of the King. I send home three French deserters, from Placentia by their own account, by H.M.S. Dreadnought, which after being shattered severely in several storms came into the Bay of Bulls on the 6th inst. Three of the convoy came in here, but four are missing, which makes me doubt
they have miscarried. Signed, Tho. Handasyd. 1¼ pp. Endorsed, Recd. 13. Read 17 Jan., 1697–8. Communicated by Mr. Blathwayt. [Board of Trade. Newfoundland, 3. No. 89.] |
| [Nov. 19.] |
52. Copy of an anonymous letter addressed to the Agents of Barbados. Since the arrival of the last fleet I have been much concerned to hear, in discourse, of the languishing condition of Barbados. I am satisfied that the Island has made a worthy choice of Agents in you; but your many affairs may not have allowed you leisure to think of everything that deserves your consideration. The two great evils from which Barbados suffers I take to be (1) the maladministration of justice, (2) the diminution of the number of white men. As to the first I need not tell you how the five Courts of Common Law for the five precincts are governed each by a judge and four assistants. It is notorious that instead of being conversant with Coke and Lyttelton these gentlemen have spent most of their time in perusing journals, ledgers and waste-books. Far be it from me to arraign their honesty and honour, but the learning of Westminster Hall is not to be acquired in a boiling-house; and the result is that great trouble and vast expense is caused to litigants by the necessity of appealing to England. I would suggest that five persons, approved of for their learning in the law, should be chosen by the Chief Justice, Lord Chief Baron and the Lord Keeper, and sent out to the island, that one of them should be appointed to the Court of each precinct, and that the whole five should sit in each Court together, under the presidency of the judge of that particular Court. Their salaries should be £400 a year; and their places should be filled up in like manner as they fall vacant. In the Court of Error the Governor should always associate two of the Judges with him. I now come to the diminution of the white men, whose numbers are said to have sunk in twenty-five years from twenty thousand to three or four thousand. The country has endeavoured to remedy this, but servants more readily resort to places where land can be given them at the end of their term, which cannot be done in Barbados. I would suggest that, after a reasonable time prefixed, all persons there should be obliged to have their attendance of white men and boys as in England. This would force the negroes from the houses to the fields, and by enforcing the Act to prohibit negroes from engaging in trades, employment would be thrown open to the poor white servants. The evil has proceeded not a little from the covetous desires of persons in the greater plantations to engross all the little ones and lay them to their own. These little plantations were provision-plantations, and in them consisted the strength of the Island, but they are now all swallowed up in the great ones. It would be well for the country to purchase 2,500 out of the 120,000 acres in the Island, and dispose of them in lots of five acres. This would support 500 families, but looking to the prospect of their increase it might be advisable to purchase 5,000 acres, and a quit-rent might be taken to reimburse the country. The militia is now so weak that it would be worth consideration whether it would not be better to encourage a competent strength of whites instead of crowding the country with negroes. A very lengthy
paper. 11 pp. Endorsed, Brought to the Board by the E. of Bridgewater, 19 November, 1697. [Board of Trade. Barbados, 7. No. 51.] |
| Nov. 19. |
53. Minutes of Council of Maryland. Thomas Tench and William Dent produced the journal of their journey to Virginia about the Piscattaway Indians, and their proceedings therein. They started on the 2nd of November and reached Jamestown on the 4th, when Sir Edmund Andros asked for a statement of their business in writing. Owing to Tench's illness they could not meet the Governor and Council of Virginia till the 10th, when they laid their business before him. Here follow Copies of the documents exchanged between the two parties. A special summons to a meeting of Council was then sent out. [Board of Trade. Maryland, 13. pp. 381–388.] |
| Nov. 20. |
54. Minutes of Council and Assembly of Nevis. A letter from the Governor was read as follows. I am surprised to hear that your letters to me have miscarried; if you had told me by whose hand they were sent I could have punished the offenders. You cannot have read my Commission, though it is on record with you, or you would not dispute the Council's power to vote in issuing a writ for election of an Assembly man. I cannot notice any comparisons between you and the House of Commons, and I regret that you should quarrel at trifles. Since you have declared Philip Browne's commission to be void I hope you will support your own Treasurer's credit in England, which Captain Perrie would have done had you assisted him. You have no one to blame for the failure to collect arrears of taxes but yourselves. As to the sending home of Acts to be confirmed, you must first prepare some to which I can assent. If you have no laws, it is only because you flatter yourself that you can pass them without I arrive to confirm them. This letter is of great length. Order for negroes to be provided to cut lignum vitæ, the Governor having sent H.M.S. Jersey to protect them. [Board of Trade. Leeward Islands, 64. pp. 439–442.] |
