Earl of Craven to Lords of Trade and Plantations

May 27, 1684 [6 juin 1684].

I have read what Sir Thomas Lynch has written you about the reception of privateers at Carolina. On inquiry I learn that one Jacob Hall did touch there to wood and water on his way from Vera Cruz, but he did not belong to the place, and had no inhabitants of Carolina with him. After a very few days stay he sailed for Virginia. Hall acted under Vanhorn, who had a commission from the French, and the King's order that his subjects should not receive commissions from foreign princes, being not known in Carolina accounts, I conceive, for his not being secured. I never heard of but one more there, and he, having no commission, was indicted, found guilty and was executed, he and his two principal accomplices being hung in chains at the entrance to the port, where they hang to this day. At Providence, which Sir T. Lynch has complained of before now for harbouring pirates, all imaginable care was taken to suppress them, and no attempt upon the Spaniards was made except by the instigation of a person [Tho. Paine] whom Sir Thomas Lynch had sent to take pirates. We have sent to Carolina the King's proclamation of neutrality and against pirates, and I doubt not but that a law like that of Jamaica against pirates will be speedily passed.