Colonel Hender Molesworth to William Blathwayt [extrait]

Jamaica, November 15, 1684 [25 novembre 1684].

(...) Captain Tennant sailed for Nevis a fortnight ago under orders for the Admiralty.

Captain Mitchell has lately been at Cuba to relieve some of our sloops that were blockaded by Spanish periagos. He went out yesterday to look for a great Spanish ship that is bound hither for negroes. As she may fallen to leeward, he has orders to cruise as far as Point Negril and convoy her if he meets with her.

Captain Stanley on his way to Trinidad with my letter to the Governor was forced by foul weather into a bay twenty-five leagues short of it, when a boat that he sent ashore was captured. (...)

At the same time Captain Stanley rescued four of our turtlers' sloops from a French privateer, and finally brought away with him nine or ten turtlers or traders which had been driven away by the perpetual pursuit of the same galleys and periagos. The galleys are what are called half-galleys in the straits, and carry eighty to a hundred and twenty men; the periagos carry fifty to seventy. They are two galleys and seven periagos in all. Captain Stanley thought it better, therefore, to leave the coast before any more of them united; so he did not deliver my letter, nor does he know what is become of his seven men and the pilot, who was the person in whose favour my letter was written. I made the owners of his sloop pay for an additional fifteen men on the Bonito, or it might have gone hard with her. Captain Stanley must careen her before he can go out again.

The turtling trade being thus lost for a while, Port Royal will suffer greatly. It is what masters of ships chiefly feed their men on in port, and I believe that nearly two thousand people, black and white, feed on it daily at the point, to say nothing of what is sent inland. Altogether it cannot easily be imagined how prejudicial is this interruption of the turtle trade. We must inevitably set ourselves to remove the existing obstructions; it may be difficult, but our own galley must be the chief engine, with two or three vessels to attend her. But meanwhile the Treasury is empty and people away weary of contributing, so that I cannot quickly resolve what is to be done. It is lawful, I hope, to beat from our doors the wolves that lie in wait for our sheep. We seek to harm no others. The Spaniards who took Providence sacked a whole country for the robberies of a few that belonged to it, but we seek only to make the guilty suffer. Three of these periagos are the same that plundered Providence the second time without a commission. It is said that they had a commission the first time, and that the Governor of Havana took all the spoil into his own hands for his own security, in case the King of Spain should be forced to pay damages to the King of England.

A gentleman of quality in Cuba has given information that they design an invasion of the north side of this Island, in the hope of getting negroes. It is not likely, and I have instructed the officers in that quarter to be very vigilant. I have ordered depositions to be taken as to our recent losses, but several of the most material evidences are not in port and must follow by my next. Thses galleys and periagos are mostly manned by Greeks, but they are of all nations, rogues culled out for the villanies that they commit. They never hail a ship; and, so they can but master her, she is certain prize. They lurk in the bushes by the shore, so that they see every passing vessel without being seen. When our sloops are at anchor they set them by their compasses in the daytime, and steal on them by night with so little noise that they are aboard before they are discovered.

The Greek was captain of a Spanish vessel, and was condemned for piracy in Sir T. Lynch's time but reprieved, has since been accused of further piratical acts. I set the law in motion, and he will be executed on the 17th [27 novembre]. The delay in hanging him was the occasion of so much strickling for Banister. (...)

November 16 [26 novembre]. - If my Lords think that our turtlers and traders should be protected, I hope they will procure us a small sixth-rate frigate in lieu of the Guernsey that is gone. For unless these galleys and periagos are discouraged there is no safety for trade or plantations on the north side of the Island. The Ruby is but enough to awe the greater sort of rogues, ans is too big for the ordinary ones who find protection in shoals-water. The Bonito does good service by crushing the little rogues before they grow bigger, but there is still a middling sort which she cannot deal with, and for which a sixth-rate would be most proper. I hope therefore that our solicitors will procure us substitutes for the Ruby and Bonito, when they are ordered home, and a sixth-rate. (...)

Hender Molesworth.

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source: P.R.O. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series: America and West Indies, 1681-1685: no. 1938.