Читать книгу The Life of Sir Henry Morgan. With an account of the English settlement of the island of Jamaica онлайн

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Being in ill health, Lyttleton had obtained permission to return to England, and was instructed to invest the Council with authority to administer the government in his absence. Colonel Thomas Lynch, a wealthy planter in the parish of St. Thomas-in-the-East, already one of the most populous and best cultivated parts of the island, was elected president. He had come to the country as an officer under Venables, had held the responsible office of provost marshal, and then commanded the largest regiment of the militia. Lyttleton gave him a commission on his departure to command all the military and naval forces and to act as Chief Justice "with some assistance".

The Privy Council in England made sincere, though perhaps in some respects, ill-judged efforts to encourage immigration. At one session it recommended that "every person, who shall have land allotted to him upon Jamaica shall have the same by grant from his Majesty rent-free and without payment for the space of seven years, but after the said seven years hath expired, shall pay unto his Majesty five per cent, for all native goods whatsoever exported, and in case any shall fail to pay the said five per cent., he or they so failing or defrauding his Majesty of the same or any part thereof, shall forfeit twenty times so much in value of the same commodities as he failed to pay as aforesaid and this to be expressed in every such grant to be paid by way of rent, such rent and forfeitures to be gathered, collected, and levied in such manner as shall be thought fit and declared."[58]