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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To this overture the Spanish governor returned a courteous but evasive reply, which Cary brought to Jamaica before Modyford arrived. When it was shown to Colonel Lynch he made cynical comments upon its terms in an official memorandum.

"It is improbable Jamaica will be advantaged by it, for it is not in the power of the Governor to have or suffer a commerce, nor will any necessity or advantage bring private Spaniards to Jamaica, for we have used too many mutual barbarisms to have a sudden correspondence. When the King was restored the Spaniards thought the manners of the English changed too, and adventured two or three vessels to Jamaica for blacks, but the surprises and irruptions of C. Mings, for which the Governor of San Domingo has upbraided the Commissioners, made the Spaniards double their vigilance, and nothing but an order from Spain can gain us admittance or trade, especially while they are so plentifully and cheaply supplied by the Genoese, who have contracted to supply them with 24,500 negroes in seven years, which the Spaniards have contracted to receive from the Dutch at Curacao, on which cursed little barren island they have now 1,500 or 2,000. You may judge whether the Royal [African] Company had not best sell their negroes by contract to the Genoese, and whether the best way to get the trade and silver of America is not to seclude the Flemings out of Africa. The calling in of the privateers will be but a remote and hazardous expedient and can never be effectually done without five or six men-of-war. If the Governor commands and promises a cessation and it be not entirely complied with, his and the English faith will be questioned and the design of trade further undone by it. Naked orders to restrain or call them in will teach them only to keep out of this port, and force them (it may be) to prey on us as well as the Spaniards. What compliance can be expected from men so desperate and numerous, that have no other element but the sea, nor trade but privateering? There may be above 1,500 in about twelve vessels, who if they want English commissions can have French or Portugal papers, and if with them, they take anything they are sure of a good reception at New Netherlands and Tortugas. And for this we shall be hated and cursed, for the Spaniards call all the rogues in these seas, of what nation soever, English. And this will happen, though we live tamely at Jamaica, and sit still and see the French made rich by the prizes, and the Dutch by the trade of the West Indies. We hope at last to thrive by planting, and are sure none of our inhabitants will now go to sea or follow another C. Mings. Those that were so disposed are long since gone and lost to us."[77]