and were of good repute.”[36] Within a week of landing Rogers assembled this Council, and among other business the following appointments were made:—Judge of the Admiralty Court, Collector of Customs, Chief Justice, Provost Marshal, Secretary to the Governor, and Chief Naval Officer.[37] Having appointed his Council and administrative officers, Rogers next turned his attention to the inhabitants and the condition of the islands generally. It was a task which required a man of strong and fearless disposition, and Rogers did not shrink from the responsibility. The secret of his success was that he found and made work for all. The fort of Nassau, in ruins and dismantled, was repaired and garrisoned. A number of guns were also mounted, and a strong pallisade constructed round it. All about the town the roads were overgrown with brushwood and shrubs and rendered almost impassable. A proportion of the inhabitants were therefore mustered and employed in clearing the ground and cleansing the streets, while overseers and constables were employed to see the work carried out in an efficient manner. Those not employed on cleansing and scouring were formed into three companies of Militia whose duty it was to keep guard in the town every night, to prevent surprise attacks. The neighbouring islands were not forgotten, and various members of the Council were appointed Deputy Governors of them. A militia company was also formed in each of the principal ones, and a fort constructed and provided with powder and shot. As an extra method of precaution the Delicia was retained as the Governor’s guardship and stationed off the harbour of Nassau. A scheme of settlement was also devised, and in order to attract settlers to New Providence and the other islands, a plot of ground 120 foot square was offered to each settler, provided he would clear the ground and build a house within a certain time. As there was abundance of timber on the island which was free to be taken, this stipulation was not difficult to fulfil.[38]
Unfortunately the difficulties which Rogers had to contend with bid fair to wreck his almost Utopian scheme. Before many months had elapsed the pirates found this new mode of life less remunerative and much more irksome to their roving dispositions. As Captain Charles Johnson, their historian, tersely puts it, “it did not much suit the inclinations of the Pirates to be set to work.” As a result many of them escaped to sea at the first opportunity and resumed their former trade. One of their number, John Augur by name, who had accepted the royal pardon, was appointed by Rogers to command a sloop despatched to get provisions for the island. Captain John, however, soon forgot his oath of allegiance, and meeting with two trading vessels en route, he promptly boarded and rifled them. With booty estimated at £500, he steered a course for Hispaniola, little knowing that he had played his last card. Encountering a severe storm he and his comrades were wrecked on one of the uninhabited Bahamas, where Rogers, hearing of their fate, despatched a ship to bring them back to Nassau. Here they were quickly dealt with by the Court of Admiralty, and ten out of eleven of them were convicted and hanged “in the sight of their former companions.” A contemporary records that these trials were marked by “Rogers’s prudence and resolution, and that in the condemnation and execution of the pirates he had a just regard of the public good, and was not to be deterred from vigorously pursuing it in circumstances which would have intimidated many brave men.”[39]
Whenever the occasion offered, Rogers tempered justice with mercy, and the human side of his character comes out well in the case of the man who was pardoned. His name, Rogers informs us, was George Rounsivell,[40] and “I reprieved him under the gallows,” he wrote in a letter to the Secretary of State, “through a desire to respite him for his future repentance. He is the son of loyal and good parents at Weymouth in Dorsetshire. I hope this unhappy young man will deserve his life, and I beg the honour of your intercession with his Majesty for me on his behalf.”[41]
One of the greatest difficulties which Rogers had to encounter was the smallness of the force at his disposal for the preservation of law and order. The discovery of a conspiracy among the settlers to desert the island, and their friendship with the pirates, were matters of urgent importance which he brought to the notice of the home Government. From first to last his great ambition was to make the colony worthy in all respects of the British Empire, and amidst frequent disorders we find him busy about this time with plans for the development of the whale fishery, and for supplying Newfoundland and North America with salt.[42]
The failure of the Admiralty to send out ships for the protection of the colony against the swarms of pirates who still infested the West Indian seas caused Rogers to complain bitterly, and in a very interesting letter to his friend Sir Richard Steele, he regrets that several of his letters have fallen into the hands of the pirates.[43] In it he also gives an amusing account of a lady whose fluency of speech caused him considerable annoyance.
“To the Hon. Sir Richard Steele; to be left at Bartram’s Coffee-House in Church Court, opposite Hungerford Market in the Strand, London. Via Carolina.
Nassau, on New Providence,
Jan. 30, 1718/9.
Sir—
Having writ to you by several former opportunities, and not hearing from you, I have the greater cause to inveigh against the malice of the pirates who took Captain Smyter, lately come from London, from whom I have since heard that there were several letters directed to me and Mr. Beauchamp, which the pirates after reading tore.
Every capture made by the pirates aggravates the apparent inclinations of the Commanders of our men-of-war; who having openly avowed that the greater number of pirates makes their suitable advantage in trade; for the Merchants of necessity are forced to send their effects in the King’s bottoms, when they from every part hear of the ravages committed by the pirates.
There is no Governor in these American parts who has not justly complained of this grand negligence; and I am in hopes the several representations will induce the Board of Admiralty to be more strict in their orders. There has not been one here almost these five months past; and, as if they wished us offered as a sacrifice both to the threatening Spaniards and Pirates, I have not had influence enough to make our danger prevail with any of them to come to our assistance because of their greater occupations in trade. I, however, expect to be sufficiently provided, if the Spaniards, as believed, defer their coming till April.
At my first arrival I received a formal visit from a woman called Pritchard, who by her voluble tongue, and mentioning some of our first quality with some freedom, and, withal, saying that she was known to you, Mr. Cardonnel,[44] and Sir William Scawen, next to whom she lived, near the Storey’s Westminster, that I gave her a patient hearing. She dressed well, and had charms enough to tempt the pirates; and, when she pleased, could assume an air of haughtiness which indeed she showed to me, when I misdoubted her birth, education, or acquaintance with those Noblemen and others, whom she could without hesitation call over, and indeed some very particular private passages. She had often a loose way of speaking, which made me conjecture she endeavoured to win the hearts of her admirers to the Pretender’s interest, and made me grow weary of seeing her.
This my indifference, and a little confinement, provoked her to depart hence for Jamaica, saying that she would take passage for England to do herself justice, and did not come abroad without money to support her. She talked much of Sir Ambrose Crawley and his son, from whom she intends to provide a good quantity of iron-work; and, with a suitable cargo of other goods, she says she will soon make another turn this way; and seldom serious in her talk. I thought fit to say thus much of a woman who pretends to such a general knowledge of men, particularly of you and Mr. Addison. If our carpenters had not otherwise been employed, and I could have spared them, I should have been glad to have made her first Lady of the Stool.[45] She went hence, as I thought, with resentments enough; but I have heard since from Jamaica, that she has not only forgot her passion, but sent her friendly service to me; and, as I expect, she now is on her way home, designs to do me all the good offices that she can with all the numerous gentlemen of her acquaintance. But I can’t believe it; and I beg if you see her soliciting in my behalf, be pleased to let her know I don’t expect her company here, and she can’t oblige me more than to let me and my character alone.
Captain
