168 HISTORY OF THE | [COOK n. 



They pleaded that they were born in the island, and 

 had neither relations, friends, nor country, elsewhere, 

 and they declared that they were resolved to perish 

 in the woods, rather than beg their bread in a foreign 

 soil. This was their final answer to the propositions 

 of Venables, the English general, nor could they be 

 brought again to enter into any treaty. The resist- 

 ance thev afterwards made against the efforts of our 



j o 



troops to expel them from the island, may furnish 

 this important lesson to conquerors- -that even victo- 

 ry has its limits, and that injustice and tyranny fre- 

 quently defeat their own purpose s.J 



\ The articles of capitulation first agreed on, which may be seen in 

 Burchet's Naval History, are sufficiently liberal. By these all the inha- 

 bitants (some few individuals excepted) had their lives and effecls grant- 

 ed them, and permission to remain in the country ; but on the /{.th of 

 June, Venables informs the Lord Protector, that the inhabitants having 

 broken their promises and engagements, he had seized the governor and 

 other chief persons, and compelled them to subsciibe new articles. 

 What those were he does not say. It appears however, that it was sti- 

 pulated by one of them, that the Spanish part of the inhabitants should 

 leave the island j and it seems probable, that this measure was promoted 

 by the intrigues of the Portuguese j for, in a subsequent letter, Vena- 

 bles writes thus : " The Portugueses we hope to make good subjects of; 

 the Spaniards we shall remove." The particulars related in the text, 

 concerning the effect of this determination on the minds of those poor 

 people, are given on the authority of a paper signed, J. Daniel,, dated 

 Jamaica, 3d of June, and preserved among ThurJoe's State Papers, vol. 

 iii. p. 504. 



