THE STORY OF THE BETTISCOMBE SKULL. 187 



sugar estate containing a large number of acres, and to which 

 he had, apparently, given his name.* 



Hutchins states, as we have seen, that Azariah Pimiey left 

 his estate in Bettiscombe (he does not allude to the exodus to 

 the West Indies, the story being apparently unknown to him) 

 on his death to his cousin, John Frederick Pinney, M.P. for 

 Bridport, who, dying in 1762, left it again to his nephew 

 (it should be cousin), John Pretor, who assumed the name of 

 Pinney and was sheriff of Dorset in 1764. 



But the identification of this Azariah Penney of Hutchins 

 with Azariah Pinney of Nevis is very convincing to my mind. 

 I am in possession of evidence obtained in Nevis that estates 

 there became the property of this John Frederick Pinney, 

 which, on his death in 1762, passed to a John Pinney, who came 

 out to Nevis in 1764, the date Hutchins gives as that of his 

 shrievalty of Dorset, and whose son, John Frederick (the 

 second), parted with the Nevis estates to Edward Huggins, of 

 Nevis, in 1810 or 1811. 



In an old " Plantation Book," kindly lent to me whilst I was 

 in Nevis by Miss Huggins, appears an inventory of slaves and 

 other chattels taken from time to time belonging to the Pinney 

 Estates in the parish of St. Thomas, Lowlands, in the Island of 

 Nevis. He gives a list of those slaves born since the death 

 of John Frederick Pinney, Esq., who died November 2nd, 1762, 

 and who were living on the 23rd of June, 1793, consisting of 

 about 40 boys and girls. At the same date (1783) occurs a 

 list of negroes " and other slaves " (!) purchased by John 

 Pinney, and now living, since his first arrival iri Nevis, 

 December the 23rd, 1764. Then follow the names of these 

 new purchases in 1765-7, amongst which occur the names of 

 " Weymouth," '' Bridport," and if anything further was 

 necessary to show where their owner John Pinney came 

 from " Bettiscombe " ! 



* Many estates in the West Indiett are to this day called after the names of 

 their former owners. 



