Sir Thomas Lynch to Lords of Trade and Plantations [extrait]

Jamaica, August 29, 1682 [8 septembre 1682].

(...) We have much money, and a great quantity of hides, cacao, etc., imported by our trading sloops. We have about twenty of these, from fifteen to forty-five tons; they are built here, admirable sailers, well armed and treble manned, some carrying twenty or thirty hands, who receive forty shillings a month. They carry from here some few negroes, and dry goods of all sorts, and sell them in the islands, and all along the coast of the Main in bays, creeks, and remote places, and sometimes even where there are Governors, as St. Jago, St. Domingo, etc., for they are bold where they are poor. But at Carthagena, Portobello, Havana, etc., the Spaniards admit no one. This trade were admirable were we not undersold by great Dutch ships that haunt the coast of the Main and islands, and were we not fearful of pirates, which is the reason why the ships are so strongly manned. These and other expenses and hazards carry away much of the profit. This trade employs all the privateers that are come in, and would bring in the rest had I your Lordships' order to connive at it. I beg you therefore to give it me if you think it reasonable.

I have had dreadful apprehensions of Governor Clarke's letters of marque, so on my arrival sent you the commission he gave Coxon, who came in and lived honestly under Lord Carlisle's or Sir Henry's Act of Oblivion. That Governor has since sent me the clause in the Lords Proprietors' patent, which he thinks justifies his illegal commissions. I send you not only his letter, commission, and the clause, but my answer, may possibly be judged too aigre or imperious, considering him as an independent Governor and preacher, but I hope that it may stop his granting these commissions, which might ruin us before you could give any orders thereon. Besides, these Bahama Islands were once under this Government and must return to the King's, or they will remain nests of robbers. Since I wrote to him, his most considerable subject, a Quaker, tells me that the first outrage was done by his order, and by his subjects, on a Spanish barque that came to fish for silver at the wreck. They still continue at it, and often get ten or twelve pound weight a man, mostly by the ingenuity of a Bermudian, who has a tub that puts perpendicularly into the sea so that it does not fill, but he can put his head into it when he wants breath, by which means he stays three-quarters of an hour under water.

I have forbidden our cutting logwood in the Bay of Campeachy and Honduras, your Lordships having justly declared that the country being the Spaniards' we ought not to cut the wood. There is not the least pretence or reason for it. It is now become a greater drug than fustic, and is almost all carried to Hamburgh, New England, Holland, etc., which injuries us and the customs and trade of the nation. I have, therefore, sent to order the men up, and to tell them that I permit no more vessels to go that I can hinder. We have lost abundance of men, and suppose two or three hundred of them to be now in Yucatan and Nueva España. I have had a lamentable petition from some of them, and a young fellow the other day gave me the narrative that I now send. I gave him no favourable answer, for I could not seem to encourage unlawful acts, and I think that what is done against the Spaniards is to our own prejudice. However, I think that the men should not be made slaves, and that the capitulation at Trist should be kept. When I have a frigate or other ship and the season is fiting, I think of sending to Vera Cruz; but the simple and short way is for our ambassador at Madrid to procure an order for their delivery and send me an aithentic copy, or they will prentend that they can do nothing without an order from Spain. (...)

Our French neighbours... are the most rapinious and unpracticable people of that nation. They have piratically taken two or three of our vessels and a sloop the other day, but the ship stopping at Petit Guavos to deliver a letter was confiscated. The French are settled all round Hispaniola, but thinly, and plant only tobacco. They intend cruising chiefly, and are so mated that one stays and plants while the other goes abroard to seek booty. I cannot speak certainly of their numbers, but reckon them about three thousand. If they take St. Domingo, in a short time they will ruin the West Indies and us. I have already suggested that it would but well to find out whether the French King allows these commissions.

Shortly before my arrival the ship Trompeuse, belonging to the King of France, sailed hence. She came laden with clayed sugar, and wasbrought by one Paine. He pretended he was Protestant and come to settle, that the goods were his own, and that the King had security in France for his ship. Believing this, they let him unload and sell his cargo custom free. Two merchants, Mr. Banks and Mr. Ward, hired the ship and sent her to the Bay of Honduras to load logwood, sail for Hamburgh, and then be delivered to the French Agent. A French pirate hearing of it followed her in a sloop, invited first the master and the mate aboard him, and then sent and seized the ship. He has carried her to some creek or bay where he is fitting her for a men-of-war. I hope this may be the last we hear of the Governor's intriguing us in disputes with the King of France, which I think was very ill considered.

By my former report of two sloops being taken and their men murdered by pirates you will judge it necessary to have a frigate here. If one is not come I hope you will move the King to sen one; otherwise we can neither awe the pirates or check the interlopers. Last week came into port one Daniel, who had landed one hundred and twenty negroes to eastward. I sent to seize the ship, but they say he came to me under twenty-four hours after he landed the negroes. The Royal Arican Company's factors would not seize, because they have a great trial going forward this sessions and most people judge that they will be cast. I fear judges and jury will not allow seizure after the negroes are landed and marked, and the property has changed hands. I have done and shall do my best to serve the Company, but if the interlopers cannot be brought into the Admiralty Court nothing more can be done here than in England or Barbados. I suppose that is the reason why they have a frigate there. We want a frigate for both pirates and interlopers. They tell me there are seventy interlopers on the coast of Africa. (...)

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source: P.R.O. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series: America and West Indies, 1681-1685: no. 668.