36 SOME DORSET PRIVATEERS. 



port, and therefore, leave us, for the most part, in the dark 

 as regards any personal details of their proceedings. One 

 solitary instance occurs of a trader in an inland town being 

 also the owner of a privateer namely, in the case of John Hill, 

 of Dorchester, who fitted out the Pilgrim, of 200 tons, and her 

 pinnace, the Friendship, in 1627, with a view to pirate hunting 

 as well as reprisals on the Spaniards. 



It is to be feared that the confusion resulting from the 

 coming and going of these vessels led to irregularities of 

 another kind, for one reads on a Memoranda roll of Mich. 

 Term 10 Chas. I. that Thos. Gyear and Thos. Waltham, of 

 Melcombe, and John Blachford, of the county town (each 

 of whom was concerned in the subject of this paper), were 

 heavily fined for confederating together to avoid payment of 

 customs at Poole and Wey mouth, several of the implicated 

 ships having previously received Admiralty commissions. 

 The penalties then inflicted were not, however, paid for many 

 a long day, if ever, as the Sheriff in 1651 mentions these fines 

 (one of 3,000 and two of 2,000) as being still outstanding, 

 and certifies " no property in bailiwick." Evasions may 

 be suspected. 



After the treaty of peace with Spain in 1630 the rush for 

 Letters of Marque abated, and comparatively few were issued 

 in the later years of Charles's reign. The Civil War afforded 

 the Weymouth firebrands an opportunity of doing some 

 fighting ashore, one ex-privateersman, Gabriel Cornish, being 

 master of ordnance during the siege, and another, Gregory 

 Babbidge, serving as ensign in the same operations ; about 

 the same time George Scutt, ex-Mayor of Poole, and owner 

 of privateers, was appointed governor and commander of the 

 troops in that town. 



To touch for a moment upon Lyme Regis, the Bonadventure 

 was sent to sea by Wm. Kirridge, who had been chief magis- 

 trate of the borough in 1621, his ship being licenced to " lay 

 aboard four mynyons and five falckons " as armament. 

 Subsequently Richard Alford, another ex-Mayor of the 

 Western port, took out Letters of Reprisal, and achieved 



