THE STORY OF THE BETTISCOMBE SKULL. 193 



So far as I know Azariah had no brother named John then 

 living, though Mr. Oliver tells me that there was a John 

 Pinney, possibly an elder half-brother, living at Bristol 

 in 1685, and surely it was only in September that he was 

 tried and convicted in Dorchester. As Mr. Oliver observes, 

 this John Pinney can hardly be identical with the John 

 Pinney, or Penny, in Dorchester gaol in Sept. 1685. This 

 latter, possibly a relation of Azariah and already alluded 

 to by me (pp. 310-313), was, we learn from Mr. Oliver (p. 

 344), also respited, put on board the " Happy Returne " 

 at Weymouth, and was sold on arrival at Barbados to Capt. 

 George Perwight before the 8th of the following January. I 

 wonder if there are any records of his future life or descendants 

 in Barbados ; but I imagine that he had not the same 

 opportunities allowed him of doing so well for himself as 

 Azariah had in Nevis. 



This matter of the respite of Azariah Pinney is further 

 alluded to in H. B. Irvings' recent " Life of Judge Jeffreys " 

 (1898), p. 307, where he mentions that " Mr. Prideaux was 

 given to Jeffreys, as Azariah Primly (Pinney) was given to 

 Mr. Nepho, and the Taunton maid to the Queen's maids of 

 honour, that is to say as a prisoner, whose friends could 

 ransom him by paying the money to the person to whom 

 he had been ' given.' ' 



Azariah Pinney, of Nevis, we may take it then, was the 

 founder of the family fortunes in the West Indies, and having 

 attained to some influence in Nevis probably purchased the 

 estates which afterwards bore his name,* and which were 

 sold by the representative of the family and then owner 

 of those estates to the Huggins family about a century ago, 

 as I have already mentioned. 



Mr. Oliver's extracts from the will made in 1718 by Azariah 

 Pinney, of Nevis, described therein as a merchant, show that 



* What is now known as " Pinncy's Estate," was, I am informed, formerly 

 known as " Sharlows " or " Charloe's " the name, probably, of a former 

 possessor of the property. 



