Instructions of Lieutenant-Governor Molesworth to Captain David Mitchell

Jamaica, March 13, 1686 [23 mars 1686].

The Ruby being dismantled you will impress the ship Sancta Rosa for the King's service, and fit her out, which done you will sail to the isle of Ash, taking H.M.S. Bonito in your company, or wherever else you may understand the pirate Banister to be, and endeavour to take or destroy him.

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source: P.R.O. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series: America and West Indies, 1685-1688: no. 598.

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Lieutenant-Governor Molesworth to William Blathwayt [extrait]

Jamaica, July 17, 1686 [27 juillet 1686].

Since my last the frigates are returned to seek Banister where they left him. (...)

The privateers in the South Seas, notwithstanding the Spanish boasts that they are conquered, still hold ports from which they intercept and disturb trade. They have lately intercepted a ship of four hundred negroes belonging to the Assiento. They have two or three settlements where they plant and till the ground and keep the negroes to work for them. Unless speedily suppressed, these pirates will be the ruin of the chief trade of the Christendom as they are already of the Assiento. But I cannot expect that the Spaniards will do it, nor will they trust others to do it for them. The French fleet, after lying a long time in the Bay of Honduras, is now for the most part dispersed. Such as could make shift to get themselves ready separated from them, leaving the rest in great distress for want of victuals. Grammont is one these last, he and his people being very sickly. Unless relieved he must probably perish there. Laurens passed our north coast the other day, bound for Tortugas, but not in command, as he himself told to the master of one of our sloops. So their design of going to the South Seas is at an end for the present.

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source: P.R.O. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series: America and West Indies, 1685-1688: no. 778.