PREFACE.

Ixxxvii

hurrycane was forced ashore upon one of the Carebee islands, near or inthe French possession, and (as the captain afterwards made report to thenavy board) was driven so farr up into the land that he thought it impossibleto digg her out, and therefore left (or sold) her, and matterialls, to theFrench, who afterwards gott her off, and sent her, in l6'6‘6, for all thegovernours and gentlemen in other islands, to helpe take St. Christophersfrom the English. In her way back, (full of French gentry) she was mettby the Colchester friggott, comanded by captain Morgan, (son to the majorgenerall, a compleat gentleman for courage and sobriety) who outsaylingthe Coventry, and being a bigger shipp, of more force, and well manned,in health, lately come from England, might easily have taken the Frenchshipp had hee fought her a shipp’s length distance, but captain Morganboarded the Coventry forthwith, and was put off. Before the secondboarding, to make it uneasy to the Colchester, or fright him from boardingthem, the Frenchman shodd the inner flook of his sheat anchor, and hungit a cock bill over that side on which the Colchester approached them.Upon the Colchester’s second boarding, this sheat anchor flook runn intothe Colchester’s bow, and made so great a hole as to sink her, and drownevery man and mother’s son. No other account but from the French evereame to hand of that shipps’ loss.

Upon this St. Christophers came to be taken by the French, and thelord Willoughby was comanded to raise an army, and press all the shippsat Barbadoes to recover that island. In their passage thither, a hurrycanesunk the shipp the generall was in, and also many others, with soldierson board never heard off. The residue being too weak for the French atlanding, were most part of them cut off, and the English of this island (bythe consequences attending that expedition) were undone.

Which certainly would have been prevented, had a seaman commandedthe Colchester, for then the French shipp (the Coventry) had been taken, andin her the governors and best gentry of the other places held by the French

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