were Catholic—a fact never publicly mentioned by Bermudians, but one that could not have escaped their notice. Coney secured a royal commission after the Company’s fall, overcoming Francis Burghill’s attempts at the office. The fact that the last Company governor stayed on as the first royal governor only exacerbated the crisis, as some Bermudians questioned the validity of Coney’s commission. More than that, Coney seemed to inspire great passions in people. Even before the royal commission arrived, he faced an armed mob in front of his house, narrowly escaping death, or so he claimed, by the heroic appearance of one of his slaves.39
As Bermudians simultaneously learned of unrest at home and the dissolution of the Bermuda Company, they challenged the governor over the issue of defense. As for many English plantations, Bermuda’s defenses consisted of a few aging fortifications and a small cache of arms and ammunition, and when word of the Company’s demise reached the island the governor and his enemies began to argue about who controlled these resources. Local militia officers claimed they did, and proved willing to support their claims with force, occupying the forts and demanding that Coney give up any pretensions to control the colony’s stores of arms. In the meantime, Coney set out to strengthen the fortifications on his own, actions that he assumed to be prudent, but that worried his opponents, who believed Coney to be an illegitimate governor with Spanish sympathies. One Bermudian suggested that it was “treason” to build fortifications without the king’s direct order. Over the course of 1685, further rumors of Coney’s treasonous nature circulated, mostly reports that the governor intended to “betraye the Island” to Spain.40
The tension led to a confrontation between the governor and militia leaders in October 1685. Seven leading officials appeared before the governor demanding powder from the governor’s store, noting “The nakedness, distres, & necessity of that Country, for want of arms & ammunition.” He refused, leading to a sustained argument, as the militia leaders complained that Coney had turned out qualified militia officers and claimed supplies that rightfully belonged to “the Country.” In the heat of argument, two of the officers said, “clapping their hands uppon their brests, That they believ’d in their conscious, That the Govor intended to betray the Island.” They added that if Coney did not name them to his council, they would refuse to recognize his authority—leading to a constitutional crisis on the island not unlike the one that Cranfield faced in New Hampshire.41
In Coney’s view, the rebellion he faced in 1685 was just like the one at home—a treasonous combination of preachers and other radicals intent on subverting the king’s authority and ultimately handing Bermuda to England’s enemies. The governor and his few allies—almost exclusively ship captains passing through Bermuda—made great note of the timing of the Bermudians’ actions, just as news of Monmouth’s rising reached the island, and of the Whig, anti-Catholic rhetoric they used to justify their actions. Coney noted that one opponent claimed he had “noe power to Governe but by the Duke of Yorke who is a Papist,” and questioned whether “a papist” should “comand this country”—a dangerous statement, since Monmouth justified his rebellion in much the same terms. Indeed, in another letter Coney claimed to hear one of the rebels proclaim that “The Right of the Crown was in the Duke of Monmouth; and that hee was noe Papist; that the Protestant Religion now profest in England was Popery; and that the Pope was the Whore of Babilon and drunk with the bloud of the Saints.” At times, Coney even suggested that his enemies had secret knowledge of the risings at home, especially the minister Sampson Bond, the island’s most prominent divine and a man with longtime links to the dissenting interest in England.42
Beyond their specific links to Monmouth, Coney and his allies noted the Whig rhetoric the colonists used to justify their conduct. Indeed, they seemed to be intent, as the visitor from New England William Phips observed, “to sett up for a free Comon wealth & to follow piracy.” The people were devoid of any natural loyalty to their sovereign, but served only their own interest, which meant they would freely give up the island to the highest bidder. They justified their actions, naturally, by the disloyal rhetoric in English opposition literature. Captain George St. Lo, a visiting naval officer (see below) who sided with Coney against the Bermudians, noted that one opponent of the governor showed him “a Booke entituled the Liberty of the Subjects of England, by which he would make it appear, that they had the power to send the Governor home prisoner, but not the Governor them.” St. Lo eventually came to the conclusion that they were “a mutinous turbulent, hypocriticall people, wholly averse to Kingly Government.”43
The governor’s response to the plot against him surpassed even Cranfield’s actions in sheer foolishness. Since he had virtually no allies on the island, and no support from the crown, Coney deputized the captains and crews of passing ships to serve as councilors and provide assistance against the rebellion. His foremost ally was Bartholomew Sharpe, who sailed into St. George Harbor to purchase provisions for a return voyage to the Leeward Islands. A zealous defender of the king’s prerogative, Sharpe was only too happy to devote his ship and crew to the cause of defending the new royal colony against the rebels. Sharpe was less than an ideal lawman, however, since he was also one of the most notorious pirates in the Caribbean. In fact, he came to Bermuda after a lengthy romp around the West Indies, in which he had threatened the provost marshal of Jamaica, plundered a New England merchant ship, and sacked a Spanish settlement at Campeche, capturing thirty Indian slaves he intended to sell at Bermuda. Despite his Toryism, in other words, Sharpe was an unlikely agent of empire.44
Over the next few months the colony verged on civil war. On Coney’s orders, Sharpe imprisoned Richard Stafford, an elderly leader of the local opposition. Stafford quickly played the role of Joshua Moodey in New Hampshire, becoming the symbol of Coney’s oppression, locked in irons in the hold of Sharpe’s ship and not allowed to venture outside. Meanwhile, Sharpe’s men—many of them escaped servants from the West Indies—ranged around the island intimidating the governor’s opponents. One petition to Coney gave a sense of how the people viewed Sharpe, begging “That there bee no more rude men sent arm’d into the Country swearing & threatening to kill the Kings Subjects putting them in fear & takeing w[ha]t they please wch by the law is no less than robbery under the pretence of Authority.” In response, many Bermudians turned their homes into garrisons, hunkering down in anticipation of an impending strike from the tyrannical governor, his pirate sidekick, or even their possible Spanish allies. In an incendiary letter to local justices of the peace, William Peniston virtually called for armed resistance against Coney and Sharpe, protesting that the people’s “lives & estates” had been “vilely prostituted to the rage & fury of pirate Roags” who ran roughshod over the country. He urged the justices to act unilaterally against Sharpe, whom he defined as an enemy of the king, and noted how the pirate had imprisoned Richard Stafford “wth Irons on both leggs.”45
Undoubtedly Sharpe’s actions did more than anything else to dampen enthusiasm for royal government in Bermuda. He combined a thirst for power and authority with an almost fanatical opposition to dissent. In a brief letter to the Lords of Trade—his sole statement of his role in Bermuda’s political crisis—Sharpe wrote that “the Islands here are all in Rebellion agt his Majtie, and will nowaies believe that there is any other King than Monmouth Living.” All their complaints about Coney’s tyranny were mere pretenses; they really hated him because he represented the king, “for they are so contentious that they will alwaies be kettling against Monarchy.” For Sharpe, zeal for monarchy and distrust of dissenters went together; one witness said Sharpe “Swore Severall times that he … would bee … a plague to the New England men and the Burmudians.” And a plague he was: aside from imprisoning Stafford and confiscating arms from unruly subjects, he also hounded merchants, confiscating the sails of one ship that refused to lower them in recognition of the king’s standard, which Sharpe confidently displayed on his own ship. Such actions did allow Coney a measure of control, but at the cost of his legitimacy. As word circulated around the country that Sharpe was suspected of piracy, the governor’s reputation among his people dipped even lower. One opponent called him “the pitifullest Domineeringst rascall in the world”—a description that most of the island seemed to endorse.46
The
