able to the Earl. The extent of these exactions caused some murmuring, but it was now too late to resist, and Wolverston made an example of some of the malcontents by confiscating their goods and keeping them in prison under threat of execution. Shortly afterwards there arrived two commissioners clothed with authority from Carlisle to adjust the affairs of the colony. They confirmed all that Wolverston had done, and then sailed on to the Leeward group to assist Warner in establishing the proprietor's authority there. News of the Barbados revolution came to the ears of the Courteen syndicate at the close of 1628. They took action in two directions-the Earl of Pembroke complaining to the King, and Henry Powell fitting out an armed expedition for the reconquest of the island. Pembroke got little satisfaction from Charles I., who inclined to the Carlisle interest and sent a letter to Barbados recognising Wolverston as governor. But Henry Powell arrived in advance of the royal missive. He took Wolverston by surprise, and made him a prisoner without any difficulty, the inference being that the planters were already disgusted with the Carlisle régime. They had reason so to be, for one of its features was a levy of 5 per cent on the gross produce of the plantations, in addition to various other dues. Henry Powell then reinstated his nephew as governor, confis cated the property of Carlisle and and the Rawden syndicate, and sailed for home with full cargoes of tobacco and with Wolverston in irons on board his ship. He reached England in the midsummer of 1629. During his absence the King had been made to realise that the matter was too serious for an offhand decision such as he had attempted. In the spring of 1629 Charles had therefore commissioned the Lord Keeper, the Earl of Coventry, to hold an investigation, and make a report upon the validity of the rival claims. It was common ground that the inclusion of Barbados in the first Carlisle patent was based upon its appearance in Warner's commission of 1625, Warner's interests having been made over to the Earl. Warner was now again in England, and he gave evidence that he had always intended Barbados and not Barbuda as the island of his claim; and he produced witnesses who said that he had spoken to them in that sense at the time. All this was very likely true, but it does not absolve Warner of duplicity, for it is reasonably certain that neither he nor his convenient witnesses had opened their mouths in public before the time was ripe; and even had he been candid throughout, he would still have been engaged in a barefaced attempt to jump another man's claim to an island which he himself had never seen. Warner's evidence proved decisive, and on the strength of it Lord Coventry broke could do nothing further, reported, with obvious regret, for the King's decision had that Barbados was intended killed their claim, and all the to be conveyed to the Earl of money the syndicate had inCarlisle by his first patent of vested in Barbados had been 1627, and that consequently thrown away. Carlisle struck the Earl of Pembroke's patent hard and swiftly. Wolverston of 1628 was invalid. had failed him, and he did not make the mistake of employing him again in the same way as his opponents had reinstated the younger Powell after a similar failure. Dropping Wolverston, the Earl picked Captain Henry Hawley, the ablest scoundrel in early West Indian history, to conquer Barbados for the second time. Hawley justified the choice. He reached Barbados in August 1629, and was forbidden by Powell to land. He dissembled, sending in a friendly message and an invitation to the young governor to dine aboard his ship. Powell walked trustfully into the trap, and was at once seized and chained to the mast. Hawley went on shore, knowing that he would find support there in Wolverston's party. His triumph was easy, for there was no concerted resistance, and within a week he was the unquestioned ruler of Barbados. State business, even at that time, made it impossible for the most industrious monarch to supervise personally every transaction in which his name was involved. Charles I. cannot therefore be blamed for the trickery which entered into the early stages of the Barbadian affair. But in the final decision he cuts a poor figure. From the day on which Pembroke appealed to him for justice he was personally in control of the dispute. He first attempted to smother an investigation, and then permitted one upon terms of reference which excluded the whole question of equity, the inquiry turning solely upon a pettifogging quibble. Even with the Coventry report in his hands, he could still have done justice, for the prerogative in such matters was absolute. But Charles was one of those unhappy men who are technically honest but seldom just. lost not a moment in acting upon the report, and, not knowing that Wolverston was already overthrown, addressed to him a new letter confirming his governorship of the island. He Henry Powell thus came home victorious, only to find that his victory was in vain. Courteen and the Earl of Pem Hawley's conquest was final, and thenceforward the colony belonged to the proprietary domains of the Earl of Carlisle. The new governor stayed only a few days, and then, leaving one Robert Wheatly as his deputy, sailed on to the Leeward Islands, taking with him the unhappy unhappy Powell, still chained to his mainmast. At Nevis, Hawley purposed to kidnap another obnoxious governor who was not judged to be sufficiently devoted to the Carlisle interest. But ere he could take any steps he was surprised by a powerful Spanish fleet, which captured not only his ship but also the islands of Nevis and St Christopher, and most of their English inhabitants. There for the moment we leave Hawley, a prisoner of the Spaniards, although Barbados was yet to see him again. John Powell the younger seems to have perished at this time, dying of the hardships inflicted on him or perhaps killed by a Spanish shot in the action. His father is last traceable in England in 1629, and the date of his death is unknown. Henry Powell survived for many years. He was certainly alive in 1657, but was dead three years later. For Sir William Courteen the loss of Barbados was but the beginning of troubles. The Dutch branch of his firm defrauded him of a great sum, and an attempt to retrieve his fortunes by an East Indian venture failed miserably. died bankrupt in 1636, having been in his day one of the richest men in England. He As subjects of the Earl of Carlisle, the men of Barbados had no easy time. Hawley had been sent out in 1629 merely to gain possession of the island, and the Earl had already appointed a man of higher rank, Sir William Tufton, as its permanent governor. Tufton is one of the few sym pathetic characters of the Carlisle régime. He took up his post in September 1629, and at once showed himself to be a man of principle and humanity. He found the social condition of the colony deplorable, the planters brutally ill treating their indentured servants, whilst drunkenness and immorality were rampant. Various witnesses of the period enlarge upon these matters. Sir Henry Colt, an old-fashioned Catholic knight who was smitten with a desire to see the West Indies, travelled thither in 1631. In a long letter to his son he drew a very unflattering picture of the brutality and indolence of the Barbadians. Nicholas Leverton, a Puritan clergyman, was so shocked by the social tone that he gave up his cure in despair, and went off to venture his life among the Caribs of Tobago. Thomas Verney, a member of the Buckinghamshire family, wrote in 1639 that people were commonly to be seen lying dead drunk upon the highways, where they were often disfigured and even killed by the land-crabs. And Richard Ligon some ten years later declared, "Truly, I have seen such cruelty there done to servants as I did not think one Christian could have done to another." Sir William Tufton tackled these abuses to the best of his ability, establishing a system of parishes and paid clergy, and threatening to remove the servants from the charge of the worst oppressors. But the proprietor ship had been founded on violence and contempt of right, and these forces were too strong for the well-meaning governor. His opponents intercepted his correspondence, wrote complaints about him to the Earl, and rose in rebellion under Richard Pierce, Hawley's brother-in-law. Tufton put down the revolt, but forbore to execute the ringleaders, sending them instead to England, where they swelled the clamour against him. The Earl, to whom tobacco production appealed more strongly than philanthropy, soon concluded that Tufton must be removed, and selected Henry Hawley as his successor. Hawley, who had persuaded the Spanish raiders of St Christopher to release him, had reached England by the opening of 1630. In March he sailed for Barbados with a governor's commission, which, with his usual cunning, he did not show until he had gained the support of the faction which hated Tufton. Then, having consolidated his party, he assumed office. Tufton submitted without demur to the proprietor's choice, and remained in the island as a private planter. This was not enough for Hawley, who was bent upon compassing the death of a man to whom all the oppressed must have looked to advocate their cause. The chance soon came. In 1631, during a time of time of scarcity, a ship arrived with supplies. Hawley forbade all but his own licencees to pur chase the goods. Tufton put himself at the head of the unprivileged, and petitioned for an equal distribution. There is no real evidence that he did so in a disrespectful manner, nor would such a course have been consonant with what we know of his character; but Hawley seized him on a charge of sedition, and brought him to trial before what was virtually a court-martial. And after the inevitable verdict of guilty, Tufton was shot and three of his co-petitioners hanged. In the judgment of those who knew the circumstances, and who gave their opinions in later and safer years, the execution was sheer murder. The proceeding illustrates one of the chief grievances of the colonists under proprietary rule, for the Earl's letters patent, besides giving him the ownership of the soil, made him Captain - General within his dominions, with the right to exercise, even through his subordinates, the jurisdiction of a commander in the field. thing was necessary in case a colony was being attacked, but in time of peace it was a violation of English liberty, of a kind that had quite recently been declared illegal in the Petition of Right. Hawley habitually preserved order in Barbados by martial law, hanging, flogging, cropping ears, and branding at the least sign of disaffection, besides fining and confiscating to a merciless extent. The In spite of harsh government and heavy taxation, the de velopment of Barbados pro- to over-production in all the ceeded rapidly, a fact which suitable colonies. Barbados must in justice be set against then tried cotton as an alterthe tyranny of the proprietor's native, but did not achieve rule. Hard-headed men, the much success with it, for the commercial backers of the Earl, cotton manufacture in Engwere in control of policy, and land never became important pioneers would not have con- until the days of the Industrial tinued to emigrate without some Revolution. About 1640 the prospect of advantage to them- island found economic salvaselves. Hawley may may have tion in the introduction of killed individuals unjustly, but sugar- planting from Brazil. at least there were no whole- Within ten years sugar effected sale public calamities such as a great social change. The those which had marred the small tobacco holdings were record of early Virginia. Fig- consolidated into large sugar ures of population are ques- estates, their owners financed tionable, but it is clear that by Dutch capitalists who traded by 1637 the whole of the useful openly in the colonies as soon land had been taken up. At as the English Civil War rethat date there were 766 holders laxed the Government's conof ten acres or more apiece, trol. The new sugar planters with, of course, a much larger became very wealthy, although number of indentured servants. fewer in numbers than the The roll of master planters was tobacco growers, many of whom also greater than that shown drifted off to try their luck in above, for already there was newer colonies. The white sermuch sub-letting by the larger vants ceased to be voluntary owners, such as the 10,000 emigrants, being recruited inacres syndicate. A Restora- stead from transported contion writer, in fact, Colonel victs and prisoners taken in John Scott, whose reputation the wars; and for the first for accuracy is not good, says time the negro slave from that in 1645 Barbados had Africa was extensively imported 11,200 master planters and by the Barbadians. In the 18,300 men fit to bear arms. course of the next generation The former figure, taken in he displaced the white servant conjunction with the area of as the standard unit of labour. the island, would give an average holding of a little less than ten acres, and is hardly credible. Tobacco was at first the staple crop, and the sale of fustic wood helped to pay the expense of clearing the ground. After a few years the price of tobacco fell heavily owing The first Earl of Carlisle died in 1636, leaving a swarm of creditors and an only son, who was not legally of age. The Caribbean proprietorship, like the rest of his property, came under the control of trustees who were instructed to satisfy the creditors and |