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was created in the eighteenth century by the growing demand for mahogany. About the middle of that century a certain Colonel Robert Hodgson took possession of the Mosquito shore as agent of the Governor of Jamaica, of which colony it was then a dependency, and formed some kind of settlement there. And the Duke of Albemarle, when when Governor of Jamaica, went through the farce of investing one of the Indians as King of the Mosquitos under the protection of England. But a treaty made between England and Spain in 1783, and confirmed in 1786, only recognised the right of England, "without derogating from his Catholic Majesty's right of sovereignty," to cut timber over a certain strip of territory. The Poyais country was included in this strip.

With this bogus King of the Mosquitos the shipwrecked M'Gregor ingratiated himself, and obtained from him a grant of some fifty million acres, or 76,000 square miles, to which the king had no real title. He undertook to colonise this territory, and assumed the title of Cazique of Poyais. He issued a proclamation that he was sailing for Europe for the purpose of securing religious and moral instructors, the implements of husbandry, and persons to assist in the cultivation of the soil. "No person," he wrote, "but the honest and industrious shall find an asylum in the territory."

He now proceeded (1821) to England to float his scheme

for a colony. He obtained the services of a certain Thomas Strangeway, K.G.C., whom he called captain of the native Poyais regiment and aide-decamp to his Highness the Cazique. He commenced with a campaign of literary advertisement. Messrs Blackwood published in 1821 an old manuscript by Colonel Hodgson, written in 1757, and in 1822 'A Sketch of the Mosquito Shore,' written by Strangeway as a bait to lure the public into the net that was being spread for them. It was a compilation of the most glowing description of the agricultural possibilities of the West Indies transferred to the swamps of the Honduras coast.

Strangeway's

statements

were challenged in 'The Quarterly Review' for October 1822. The impudent author and his fictitious titles were soundly castigated; the project was held up to derision. But none the less M'Gregor succeeded in obtaining money (Dr Douglas says £16,000) for his shadowy land titles, and the purchasers organised a company for the purpose of colonisation, establishing offices at 1 Dowgate Hill, with a Secretary to the Government of Poyais in attendance.

Thus far we have followed the careful narrative of the editor of the Journals. We now take up the thread of the story from an account read before the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec many years later by the author of the Journals.

canoes.

On his return from India, to sails and rigging, and in the autumn of 1822, James where many of the passengers Douglas received an appoint- were laid up with sore feet ment as assistant surgeon in due to the deposit of the the Bengal Presidency. While eggs of the chigoe under the in London waiting for a vessel skin, in consequence of going to take him to Calcutta, he without shoes or stockings. filled up his spare time by Returning to the mouth of attending the lectures and the Black River, they found a practice of Sir Astley Cooper tremendous surf on the bar, in Guy's and St Thomas's Hos- but landed safely in large pitals. One day he saw on the notice board an open letter addressed to Sir Astley Cooper by the Secretary to the Government of Poyais, requesting him to recommend a wellqualified surgeon to accompany a party of settlers to the Mosquito Shore. He went to the office in Dowgate Hill, where he found three or four portly gentlemen, directors, who induced him to give up his appointment in India and enter their service, on a salary of £1 per diem, with a furnished house, servant, horse, medicines, &c. He sailed on 22nd November his fellowpassengers being Colonel Hall, the commandant; a secretary, and a commissary. In the fore cabin were twenty-seven young men, three of them married; and in the steerage forty-six men and women and a few children.

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In February 1823 they arrived on the Mosquito Shore, and anchored off the mouth of the Black River. The natives, who came off in a large canoe, objected to their landing; and, a hurricane arising, they were driven off, and bore away for the Island of Bonacca, where they remained ten days to repair damages

From the Regulations of the Poyais Land Office, these unfortunate people-most of whom had paid in advance for their land grants-were entitled to find "a remarkably healthy climate, agreeing admirably with the constitution of Europeans," an "extremely rich and fertile soil," a "country beautifully varied by hill and valley, with fine savannahs and plains,' and "ready and profitable markets," together with "many very rich gold mines."

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"The native Inhabitants are a brave and independent Race, who to the British. Most of them speak esteem and are affectionately attached English, are considerably advanced in Civilisation, and their Labour can be had on very moderate terms."

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Thomas

Nor is this all. Strangeway, in the book to which we have already referred, had, as a frontispiece, a picture of a number of good looking buildings, surrounding a church with a respectable steeple, as though that were the existing settlement. What did they find? "We looked in vain for the church and the houses which we had been led to believe existed. The unbroken forest

reached down to the water's the huts and carried away

edge. The tents having been left on board, we were fain to make fires of the driftwood and sleep on the beach."

Next day, guided by the Indians, they selected a site for a settlement on the bank of a lagoon, and commenced clearing away trees and brushwood, bringing ashore tents and baggage and provisions. Tents were pitched; but many preferred, owing to the intense heat, to build wigwams of trees, spare blankets, and branches. On the third day they were visited by a party of Caribs, the aborigines of the West Indian Islands, who had been deported by the British to the mainland. With them, whom he found superior to the Mosquito Indians, Mr Douglas established a good understanding, and engaged a party to build him a house, having corner-posts and door-posts of pine, with cross ties, walled in with wild sugarcane, thatched with leaves of the palm-tree, and with sugarcane doors and windows that swung from the posts. the fourth day two puncheons of rum and some casks of pork, beef, and flour were brought ashore.

On

On the fifth day the captain of their ship, fearing another hurricane, sailed away, taking with him the arms, spirits, merchandise, medicines, and five of the settlers, leaving word that he would not return, but would land the goods at Cape Gracios a Dios. That night the hurricane levelled

the tents, leaving the wretched settlers exposed to the full violence of the storm and a deluge of tropical rain. On the following day and for some days subsequently they lived on peccary, venison, fish, and fruits supplied to them by the Indians in exchange for rum, powder, and shot. But when the rum gave out, the

Indians disappeared. There were several cases of bilious remittent fever, which changed to an obstinate intermittent. The doctor had nothing to combat them with but his lancets and a phial of tartar emetic. At the end of March there were ten such cases, but no deaths as yet. The supply of tea, sugar, biscuit, and flour was exhausted; nothing remained but salt beef.

Colonel Hall now set off in a canoe with two settlers and some Indians, hoping to find their vessel, the Honduras Packet, at Cape Gracios a Dios.

Early in April the Kenealy Castle arrived from Leith with 160 more settlers, who were safely landed with their baggage; but she brought no provisions for the colony. All that could be obtained from her were such surplus stores as had been laid in for the voyage and remained pended, and a very small supply of medicines. On the 11th April Douglas's earthly

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was nearly closed. Upset in 8 canoe in the breakers, half a mile from shore, he was saved by some

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"26th. To-day, three of the men, while crossing the lagoon in front of my house, in a pitpan, upset. One of the party, a good swimmer, struck out for the shore; he had only proceeded a few yards when he shrieked out and suddenly sank. He had evidently been seized by one of the alligators, which were numerous in the lagoons. Alligator was shot the next day.

"27th. To-day a highly respectable and very worthy man committed suicide. He had been ill, but was recovering, though still unable to rise. He insisted that he was going to die, and wished me to take charge of his little property, and a letter to his wife. Last evening I had given him a little wine; this morning, when on my way to visit him, I heard a shot fired, and, on entering his hut, found that he had loaded a horsepistol to the muzzle, and had literally blown himself to pieces. Not being able to get any one to dig a grave, collected some brushwood, which I piled in his hut, and set fire to it. To-day five men and a woman took a large dory, got safely through the surf, and off to the northward.

The fate of the unhappy settlers who tempted fate at sea rather than remain amidst the miseries of Poyais had better at once be told. Of the six who left on the 27th, two were brought in later by a Spanish turtling boat to Balize. Their canoe was wrecked on 8 rock; they saved some salt-beef but no water. After lingering for several days, two died from thirst. Two more died board the Spanish boat which brought in the two survivors. Of these, one was the woman, who had suffered least of all.

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The three young men who left the settlement on the 28th were

seized by the

Indians and thrown overboard about a mile and 8 half from shore. Two were drowned, the third swam to shore, reached Omon, and was sent to Balize.

On the 1st May Colonel Hall returned, bringing some medical and other stores from the Honduras Packet, but he had been unable to induce the master of that ship to bring her back to the settlement. The journal of the 6th says: "Every one sick and helpless, excepting Colonel Hall, myself, and a

rascal

named M'Gregor." Rascal this M'Gregor may have been, but not so great a one as his namesake, Sir I Gregor, who, after pocketing his £16,000, had allowed his lying statements to be used to lure these unhappy souls to this death-trap.

"28th. The two young men who had been upset with me in the surf and another left the settlement with some Indians who were going to Balize."

On the 7th, George Frederick Augustine, the King of the Mosquito nation, arrived,

accompanied by several of his one escaping. He told the

surgeon that his hut was
erected on the site of the
Spanish hospital, which ac-
counted for the square tiles
and broken glass that had been
found when levelling his floor.
He pointed out the site of the
church, and took him to see
the house
house of the Spanish

chiefs. This bogus king's arrival appears to have been caused by the advent, at the same time as Colonel Hall's return, of one Marshall Bennett, who had been sent by the Governor of the Balize British settlement with the king's annual present, and to gather information as Governor. Cutting a way to the settlement. King through the bush with maGeorge had in March issued chetes, they found the remains at of what had once been a good stone dwelling. This satisfied Douglas that the frontispiece of Strangeway's book was not purely mythical, but had probably been taken from an old Spanish print.

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Cape Gracios a Dios proclamation declaring his grant of land to Sir Gregor M'Gregor to be null and void, and repudiating his right to the title of Cazique of Poyais, and the claim that Poyais was an independent State.

King George Frederick Augustine stayed for eight days, during which he caused his people to hunt and fish for the settlers-a perfect godsend to them in the state to which they were reduced. "He was a tall and handsome-looking man, but a most debauched character. He drank excessively, swore a good deal, and was extremely fond of playing at all fours. He spoke and read English remarkably well." One of his staff was very communicative, and related to Douglas, "with diabolical glee," the story of the final destruction of the Spanish settlement, more than thirty years previously, in which he had taken part. He told how on a dark night the Indians had surrounded the entire place, and, while the inhabitants were asleep, had set fire to the buildings and massacred every man, woman, and child, not

On the 15th May King George and his Court suddenly departed in great wrath. He had offered to guarantee possession of their lands such lands!-to the settlers on condition of their taking the oath of allegiance to him. To this demand Colonel Hall would not listen. Angry words ensued; the king and his following went off in their canoes to Cape Gracios a Dios, taking away all the Indians, thus stopping the supply of game, fish, and fruit, upon which the settlers were dependent for existence.

On the 20th May Marshall Bennett returned to the settlement in a small schooner, and took away as many of the worst cases among the sick as his vessel would hold. In his evidence before an inquiry held by Major-General Codd, H.M. Superintendent and Commander-in-Chief of Balize, he says that he took away sixty

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