Rogers.Jonath: Denniss.
Rt. Honble. Lord Townshend,
London, 10 of Nov. 1726.
In the meanwhile things were going from bad to worse in the Bahamas. Phenney, Rogers’s successor, had failed in his efforts to bring about a stable form of government, and he appears to have been without the commanding and organising abilities of his predecessor. At the beginning of 1726, he wrote complaining of the difficulties of government, stating that he had been unable to get sufficient of his Council together to form a quorum, and that many of them were “very illiterate.”[63] Phenney himself was not above reproach. It was reported that he and his wife had grossly abused their office. The governor’s wife and her husband monopolised “all the trade,” so that the inhabitants could not have any provisions “without paying her own exhorbitant prices,” and it was reported that she sold “rum by the pint and biscuits by the half ryal.”[64] Added to this she had “frequently browbeated juries and insulted even the justice on the bench,” while Phenney himself was stated to have dismantled the fort, and sold the iron for his own benefit.[65] If half the misdemeanours attributed to Phenney and his wife are true, it is not to be wondered at that his recall was demanded by the principal inhabitants, and that a strong desire was shown by the Council and others to have Rogers re-instated, as the following petition and its annexed paper dated 28 February, 172⅞, clearly shows[66]:—
INTRODUCTION
To the King’s most Excellent Majesty.
The humble Petition of Captain Woodes Rogers, late Governor of the Bahama Islands in America, and Captain of the Independent Company there,
Sheweth:—The Petitioner had the honour to be employed by your royal Father to drive the Pirates from the Bahama Islands, and he succeeded therein. He afterwards established a settlement and defended it against an attack of the Spaniards. On your Majesty’s happy accession he humbly represented the state of his great losses and sufferings in this service, praying, that you would be graciously pleased to grant him such compensation for the same as might enable him to exert himself more effectually in your Majesty’s services having nothing more than the subsistence of half pay as Captain of Foot, given him, on a report of the Board of General Officers appointed to inquire into his conduct; who farther recommended him to his late Majesty’s bounty and favour.
The Petitioner not having the happiness to know your royal pleasure, humbly begs leave to represent that the Bahama Islands are of very great importance to the commerce of these Kingdoms, as is well known to all concerned in the American trade; and the weak condition they now are in renders them an easy prey to the Spaniards, if a rupture should happen; but if effectually secured, they will soon contribute very much to distress any power which may attempt to molest the British Dominions or trade in the West Indies.
Your Petitioner therefore humbly prays that your most sacred Majesty would be graciously pleased to restore him to his former station of Governor, and Captain of an independent Company of these Islands, in which he hopes to give farther proofs of zeal for your Majesty’s service. Or if it is your royal pleasure his successor be continued there, he most humbly relies, that through your great compassion and bounty he shall receive such a consideration for his past sufferings and present half pay as will enable him to be usefully employed for your Majesty’s and his country’s advantage, and in some measure retrieve his losses, that he may support himself and family, who for above seven years past have suffered very much by means of this employment wholly for the public service.
And your Majesty’s petitioner, as in duty bound, shall ever pray, etc.
At the same time, a petition,[67] bearing twenty-nine influential names, among whom was Sir Hans Sloane, Samuel Shute, ex-Governor of Massachusetts, Alexander Spotswood, Deputy-Governor of Virginia, Benjamin Bennett, ex-Governor of Bermuda and Lord Montague, was sent to Sir Robert Walpole, in favour of Rogers, stating “we never heard any complaint against his conduct in his duty there, nor that he behaved otherwise in that employ, than with the utmost resolution and fidelity becoming a good subject, though to the ruin of his own fortune.”
It is evident from this petition that at the time the Government were considering the question of the Bahamas, and the policy to be pursued there. The influential support which Rogers had received, and the general desire shown by the colonists for his return, were factors which could not be ignored in the situation. By the end of the year it was decided to recall Phenney and send Rogers out for a second tenure of office. His commission, drawn up in December, 1728, gave him among other things, “power and authority to summon and call General Assemblies of the said Freeholders and Planters in our Islands under your Government, which Assembly shall consist of twenty-four persons to be chosen by a majority of the inhabitants,”[68] instead of the previously nominated Council. As Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief he was to receive a salary of £400 a year.[69] Just prior to sailing he had a family picture painted by Hogarth, which represents him, with his son and daughter, outside the fort at Nassau. On the wall is a shield, with the motto “Dum spiro, spero.”[70]
In the early summer of 1729 Rogers, with his son and daughter, sailed for New Providence, and among other things it is interesting to note that he took with him “two little flagons, one chalice, one paten, and a receiver to take the offerings for the use of his Majesty’s Chapel there,”[71] the building of which had commenced a few years earlier. One of his first duties on arrival was to proceed with the election of an Assembly, which met on the 30th of September in that year. In its first session no less than twelve Acts were passed which it was judged would be beneficial to the welfare of the colony, and efforts were made to encourage the planting of cotton and the raising of sugar canes. Praiseworthy as these endeavours were they were fraught with considerable difficulties. The settlers which it was hoped to attract from the other islands in the West Indies and from the American Colonies were not forthcoming in sufficient numbers, principally owing to the poverty of the colony. In the October of 1730 Rogers wrote: “I found the place so very poor and thin of inhabitants that I never mentioned any salary to them for myself or any one else, and the fees annexed to all offices and places here being the lowest of any part in America, no one can support himself thereon without some other employment.” Nevertheless the spiritual needs of the colony, as we have seen, were not neglected, and Rogers says that they were “in great want of a Chaplain,” and that the whole colony had requested him “to get an orthodox divine as soon as possible.”[72]
To add to his other embarrassments Rogers had considerable difficulty with the members of his Assembly, and the opposition, led by the Speaker, did all in their power to wreck the various schemes that were brought before them. In a letter to the Lord Commissioners of Trade, dated February 10th, 1730/1, he mentions an incident which caused him to dissolve the House[73]:—“During the sessions of the last Assembly I endeavoured (pursuant to his Majesty’s instructions) to recommend to them the state and condition of the Fortifications, which much wanted all the assistance possible for their repair … to which I did not find the major part of the Assembly averse at first, but since, they have been diverted from their good intentions by the insinuations of one Mr. Colebrooke, their Speaker, who imposed so long on their ignorance, that I was obliged to dissolve them, lest his behaviour might influence them to fall into schemes yet more contrary to the good of the Colony and their own safety. Another Assembly is lately elected, and [I] still find the effects of the above Mr. Colebrooke’s influence on the most ignorant of them, who are the majority.” He added that the present ill-state of his health, “which has been lately much impaired, obliges me to have recourse to his Majesty’s permission of going to South Carolina for change of air, from which I hope to return in three weeks or a month.”
The growth of constitutional government in the colony, and the moulding of the powers and procedure of the legislature on similar lines to the home Government, are vividly brought out in the official reply to Rogers’s despatch. This reply is dated 29th of June, 1731, and it is
