CHAP. 111.3 WEST INDIES. 173 



greater variety of horrors are accumulated than in the 

 Jetters addressed on this occasion by Sedgewicke, 

 and the other principal officers, to the government at 

 home, which are preserved among Thurloe's state 

 papers. Such was the want of food, that snakes, 

 lizards and other vermin, were eagerly eaten, together 

 with unripe fruits and noxious vegetables. This un- 

 wholesome diet concurred with other circumstances 

 to produce an epidemic dysentery, which raged like 

 the plague. For a considerable time one hundred 

 and forty men died weekly, and Sedgewicke himself 

 at length perished in the general carnage. 



The protector, as soon as he had received informa- 

 tion of the distracted and calamitous state of the colo- 

 ny, exerted himself, with his usual vigour, to afford it 

 relief. Provisions and necessaries of all kinds were 

 shipped without delay; and Cromwell, distrustful it 

 is said of D'Oyley's attachment, superseded him, by 

 granting a commission of commander in chief of Ja- 

 maica, to Col. Brayne, governor of Lochabar in Scot- 

 Jand. This gentleman, with a fleet of transports, and 

 a reinforcement of one thousand recruits, sailed from 

 Port Patrick, the beginning of October 1656, and ar- 

 rived at Jamaica in December following. Col. Hum- 

 phreys with his regiment, consisting of eight hundred 

 and thirty men, had landed, some time before, from 

 England; and Stokes, governor of Nevis, with one 

 thousand five hundred persons collected in the Wind- 

 ward islands, had reached Jamaica, and begun an 

 establishment near to the Port of Morant, where some 

 of Stoke's descendants, of the same name, pos5ess at 



