Introduction
Cette pièce est une résolution du Conseil de la Jamaïque, passée au début de 1666, dans le contexte de la deuxième guerre contre les Pays-Bas, à un moment où la Couronne anglaise demeurait réticente à permettre à l'administration jamaïquaine d'émettre des commissions pour faire la guerre aux Espagnols. Cette résolution contient douze raisons justifiant l'emploi des flibustiers dans une colonie naissante, souvent négligée par la métropole, qui, faute de ressources, ne peut lui fournir une protection efficace contre ses voisins et potentiels ennemis. La flotte anglaise mentionnée à la fin de la résolution consistaient en une dizaine de corsaires commandés par le vieux flibustier Mansfield.
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Minutes of the Council of Jamaica February 22, 1666 [4 mars 1666]. Presents: Governor Sir Thomas Modyford, Major General thomas Modyford, Lieutenant Colonels John Cope, Robert Bindloss, William Ivy, Robert Freeman, and Thomas Ballard, Major Thomas Fuller, and Colonel Henry Archbold. Resolved that it is in the interest of the island to have letters of marque granted against the Spaniard: 1. Because it furnishes the island with many necessary commodities at easy rates. 2. It replenishes the island with coin, bullion, cocoa, logwood, hides, tallow, indigo, cochineal, and many other commodities, whereby the men of New England are invited to bring their provisions and many merchants to reside at Port Royal. 3. It helps the poorer planters by selling provisions to the men-of-war. 4. It hath and will enable many to buy slaves and settle plantations, as Harmenson, Brimacain, and many others, who have considerable plantations. 5. It draws down yearly from the Windward Islands many an hundred of English, French, and Dutch, many of whom turn planters. 6. It is the only means to keep the buccaneers on Hispaniola, Tortuga, and the South and North Quays of Cuba from being their ennemies and infesting their plantations. 7. It is a great security to the island that the men-of-war often intercept Spanish advices and give intelligence to the Governor, which they often did in Colonel D'Oyley's time and since. 8. The said men-of-war bring no small benefit to his Majesty and his Royal Highness by the 15ths and 10ths. 9. They keep many able artificers at work in Port Royal and elsewhere at Extraordinary wages. 10. Whatsoever they get the soberer part bestow in strengthening their old ships, which in time will grow formidable. 11. They are of great reputation to this island and of terror to the Spaniard, and keep up a high and military spirit in all the inhabitants. 12. It seems to be the only means to force the Spaniards in time to a free trade, all ways of kindness producing nothing of good neighbourhood, for though all old commissions have been called in and no new ones granted, and many of their ships restored, yet they continue all acts of hostility, taking our ships and murdering our people, making them work at their fortifications and then sending them into Spain, and very lately they denied an English fleet, bound for the Dutch colonies, wood, water, or provisions. For which reasons it was unanimously concluded that the granting of said commissions did extraordinarily conduce to the strengthening, preservation, enriching, and advancing the settlement of this island. source: P.R.O. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series: America and West Indies, 1661-1668: no. 1138. |
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