restraint, soon deserted the impoverished Spaniards; and, impelled by hunger and their natural savage ferocity, murdered the English wherever they found them in small parties exploring the country either from motives of curiosity or interest. They had sometimes the temerity to fall upon the soldiers in their quarters suddenly in the night; and even at St. Jago, the capital, they succeeded so far as to set fire to several houses; and in the confusion to plunder and carry off a considerable booty in provisions and clothes. These depredations and cruel excesses obliged the three commissioners whom Cromwell had sent out to assist Penn and Venables, to subject the whole island for a limited time to martial law.

The negroes thus driven, or absconding with some of their original masters, to the mountains and forests of Jamaica, secured themselves by those impassable ramparts which nature had provided for them in these solitary retreats. In these recesses they found a mode of life congenial to their primitive views; and, after encountering those hardships which are inseparable from all sudden changes, they subdued the inconveniences which would have proved fatal to Europeans, and claimed for themselves that independence which their original masters had lost.

The progress of time which accomplishes events by slow and imperceptible degrees, confirmed them in their notions, habituated them to their mode of life, and considerably enlarged their numbers. From this circumstance sprang the ferocious Maroon negroes, who afterwards became so formidable to our settlers. In their early state depredations were rather incidental than customary; but their excesses increased with their augmented power and numbers, till a treaty between them and us defined their rights, and acknowledged their independence. But the circumstances of their case will best appear, when we come to view them in a subsequent part of the history.

Nor were these the only obstacles to the early establishment of the island as one of our regular colonies. The state of public affairs at home contributed in some respects to the discords, which followed close upon the emigrations from thence of persons of different religious persuasions and opposite political principles during the remainder of Cromwell's administration. Allowance being made for the partiality of a French historian, the Abbé Raynal's account of the first arrival and settlement of the emigrants, whom Cromwell, desirous of peopling the island with British subjects, invited and encouraged to repair to it from Great Britain, Ireland, and New England, may be relied on as approaching nearest to the truth; our own historians of these times being still more misled by party zeal,

VOL. I.

Ii

The army itself was formed of a heterogeneous mass. It was a compound of royalists and republicans, men who hated each other with the most invincible animosity, and who acted in con ́cert more from necessity than choice. They however accorded with one another in the profligacy of their manners, in their hope of conquest and general hatred of the Spanish name.

"It is pretended (says Hume) that Cromwell was obliged to hurry the soldiers on board when they first embarked on the expedition, in order to prevent the execution of a conspiracy which had been formed among them in favour of the exiled family. The soldiers were the refuse of the whole army. The forces enlisted in the West Indies were the most profligate of mankind; Penn and Venables were of incompatible tempers; the troops were not furnished with arms fit for such an expedition, and their provisions were defective both in quality and quantity." (History of England, p. 96. vol. xi.)

From this unfavourable picture our expectations of future harmony cannot be raised to any considerable height; and we have more reason to be surprised at their success in the conquest of Jamaica, than to be astonished at their failure before Hispaniola. As there was a mixture of Irish Roman Catholics, of members of the established church, and of Presbyterians, the divisions, which had so long and so cruelly tormented the contending parties at home, followed them beyond the seas. One side insolently triumphed in the protection of Cromwell, who had been by their party exalted to the protectorship upon the ruins of the throne: the other relied on the governor of the island, a royalist in his heart, though forced to bend to the authority of Cromwell; who, after a short suspension, continued him in the office of governor, to which he had succeeded by the command devolving on him after the return of Penn and Venables to England.

The difficulties which D'Oyley the first governor had to encounter, were of a most serious nature, and required a combination of superior talents to preserve the distracted state from falling to pieces by its intestine broils and that complication of dangers which threatened it with destruction. But these talents happily met in the person of D'Oyley.

His army was torn by political and religious animosities, and the whole country was placed under military law. The Spaniards were in a similar condition with the Portuguese. They both viewed our countrymen with detestation. At the same time multitudes of the negroes had revolted, and retired to the mountains, from whence they had begun to issue in depredatory excursions. The island in the mean while was in a comparatively defenceless state, and lay open to the return of the Spa

niards who were scarcely expelled from their ancient habitations. These, it was natural to expect, would report the condition of the island, and invite their countrymen to recover it with the sword.

But these dangers were not sufficient to shake the dauntless spirit of D'Oyley.* They were difficulties to which he was

• Though we have represented D'Oyley as actually the first governor of Jamaica, there are some circumstances connected with the fact, which ought not to be passed over in silence. They are events of which the reader should be apprised, that he may be able to reconcile this account with some relations which appear superficially to have a different aspect. Thus Mr. Edwards introduces a series of movements between the departure of Penn and Venables and the appointment of D'Oyley to the government of the island. But Raynal says, "that Penn and Venables gave the command of the island to the wisest of their men who happened to be the oldest officer. His name was Dudley (D'Oyley,) and he was a friend of the Stewarts." That Dudley here means D'Oyley, is evident from the following particulars which are applicable to D'Oyley, and to none but him. "Twice (says Raynal) did Cromwell appoint some of his own party in his stead, and twice did Dudley come again." This was actually the case with D'Oyley; but the name of Dudley is quite unknown in these early memoirs. And though there seems to be a disagreement between the accounts of Edwards and Raynal, yet their relations are easily reconcileable with each other. The whole affair stands thus:

The island of Jamaica, for reasons which we have already assigned, was placed under military law by Cromwell, in which state it continued until the restoration of Charles II. After its capture, Cromwell sent out three men, Winslow, Serle, and Butler, in the character of commissioners, to act in concert with Penn and Venables who had subdued the island. These five men constituted a kind of court of equity, and had in all probability the power of deliberating on all affairs, and of softening the rigours of martial severity.

They had not long been in this new situation, before Penn, Venables, and Butler, without leave returned to England, leaving Winslow and Serle behind. During their absence the command of the fleet devolved on admiral Goodson, and that of the army on general Fortescue. By this action of Penn, Venables, and Butler, Winslow and Serle were deprived of the power of acting; and nothing but military law, operating in all its rigour, directed the island for some time without any assuasive to mitigate its force.

On the arrival of Penn and Venables at home, they were committed to the tower; and major Sedgewicke was immediately dispatched to fill the vacancy which Butler had made by his elopement. Sedgewicke reached Jamaica in October 1655, but unfortunately found that both Winslow and Serle had fallen victims to the climate or the diseases which ravaged the island.

Sedgewicke was now alone, and found himself in an unpleasant situation. He felt much reluctance in acting without instructions from Cromwell, which could not be obtained without a considerable delay, while the situation of the island required a promptitude of exertion to which he found himself inadequate. In this predicament he summoned the principal officers, and after some deliberation they drew up an instrument, by which they constituted themselves a supreme executive council for transacting the important affairs of the island, until some new instructions should reach them from home.

As military law had been established, and the command of the army on the removal of Venables had devolved on major-general Fortescue, he was chosen president of this executive council. In this state affairs continued to move for

fully adequate. He was well acquainted with his resources, and he knew how to apply them for the preservation of the island, and the accommodation of those intestine commotions which shook his army with a mutinous spirit. Though a royalist at heart, his attachment to the real interests of his country rose superior to the factions which embroiled his native home, and he determined to defend the island to the last extremity against all assaults.

He was however at present no more than a temporary governor. The death of his superior officer since the departure of Penn and Venables, had invested him with his power, which he had but little reason to expect that Cromwell would confirm. His political principles were well known at home; they were such as Cromwell hated; and he had every reason to expect that as soon as Cromwell knew the office to which he had been exalted, he should be immediately superseded. His apprehensions did not deceive him.

Holding his government on this precarious tenure, and being unable to attach stability to his power, his measures were retarded in their operations, and deprived of that vigour which his intrepidity and talents so naturally inspired. In this state of suspense he waited the arrival of dispatches from home, which should either confirm him in his office, or dismiss him from it; and, confident of his own integrity, he felt a dignified resolution to yield obedience to the mandate of Cromwell without solicitude or remonstrance, though it should direct him to resign.

Oliver, who well knew the political sentiments of the present

some time, till death that had before taken away Winslow and Serle, called Fortescue to pay the debt of nature.

On the death of Fortescue the command of the army devolved on Edward D'Oyley, who sustained prior to that period the rank of colonel, and was next in command to Fortescue deceased. With the command of the army he also took possession of the presidental chair, and continued in that office till he was superseded by another officer from England, whose name was Brayne, which is stated in the text.

Of these minute particulars Raynal takes no notice. He only looks at D'Oyley who continued some time in office; was then superseded; was again reinstated, and finally confirmed by Cromwell notwithstanding his political creed. In each of his exaltations his talents rendered him conspicuous; and the lustre which his actions diffused, so far eclipsed that of his predecessors, that their names are almost forgotten, and their actions quite unknown. It was the death of his superior officers that called him to the command, and his abilities and unshaken integrity that confirmed him in it. And as D'Oyley was the first man who shone in that office, or who was established in it by Cromwell, though not the first time that he held it, he may with much propriety be called the first governor of Jamaica.

governor, would not place any confidence in him; but sent out a colonel Brayne, governor of Lachabar in Scotland, with a regiment of infantry, to supersede him: this officer arrived at Jamaica in the month of December 1656. He had not long been in possession of his government, before he discovered that the veteran troops who had captured the island under Penn and Venables, as well as the majority of our settlers, were affectionately attached to D'Oyley, not Dudley, as he is erroneously named by Raynal; and this mortifying circumstance, combined with the unhealthy climate to new comers, and a failure of provisions, as well as of money to pay his men, made him weary of his station. He solicited soon after for leave to return home; but before he could receive any answer, fell a victim to his own improper management, in being too often blooded, as a preventive against a fever that was daily carrying off numbers of his soldiers. He expired after a short residence of ten months; and the government once more as a matter of course reverted to D'Oyley.

Cromwell, previously to the appointment of colonel Brayne, had fixed in his mind a firm resolution to keep possession of the island, to people it, and to use all exertions to call forth those powers of the soil which the Spaniards had so much neglected. Barbadoes and other of the Windward Islands were at that time thickly peopled: he wrote therefore to the governor of Barbadoes, commanding him to encourage a spirit of emigration among the planters, and to prevail upon as many as possible to remove to Jamaica, promising them at the same time an assurance of lands and such other immunities as were best calculated to excite and reward industrious enterprise. To New England he dispatched an agent with similar proposals. And to his son who then commanded his forces in Ireland, he gave instructions to enlist if possible some thousands of both sexes, who were young in years, and were likely to apply themselves to cultivation. To Scotland he held out the same temptation, and multitudes emigrated from every part. This influx of people soon supplied the deficiencies which the articles of capitulation had occasioned, and stocked the island with more inhabitants than had pressed its shore since the extermination of the natives.

D'Oyley, who again found himself invested with authority on the death of Brayne, reluctantly took upon him the ungrateful office pro tempore, till Cromwell's will and pleasure could be known; to whom he wrote upon this occasion a firm and manly letter, breathing a spirit of noble resolution, and of gentle reproach for the indignity he had suffered in being superseded. To Fleetwood he more confidently expresses his desire to re