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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"The Designs of a Free Trade can hardly be effectual but by order from Spain nor the Privateers called in but (and that difficultly) by Frigates from England, the English being grown so hateful to the Spaniards in those parts, they would scarce receive the very Friars and other Prisoners [who] were sent home to them. We had then in their coasts about fourteen or fifteen sail of Privateers, in them 1,500 or 2,000 Seamen, few of which take Orders but from stronger Men of War, and as it hath been always their trade and livelihood, and they being of several Nations, if we forbid them our Ports they will go to others, to the French or Dutch, and find themselves welcome enough.

"The Government of the Island was plain and agreeable, so were the Laws and Execution thereof; neither Merchants nor Planters seemed dissatisfied, every Cause or Law suit being determined in six weeks with 30s. or 40s. charges.

"The People were generally easy to be governed yet rather by Persuasion than severity. The attempts by Captain Mings upon the Spaniards and Privateering had lett out the many ill Humours, and those that remained were in ways of thriving, and by that made peaceable and industrious."[61]