422 HISTORY 



the small band of Englishmen was captured and carried away. The place was 

 then taken possession of by the Spaniards and held for about twenty years. 



In the meantime,, while the Spanish were still in possession of New Provi- 

 dence, a band of religious exiles, driven out from Bermuda, sailed southward 

 to the Bahamas in 1649 and founded a settlement on the island of Eleuthera. 



The colony at New Providence did not attract a large number of settlers. 

 It had a small force of defenders, generally less than fifty in number, and was 

 consequently a prey for the spoiler. It was taken from the Spaniards in 

 June, 1666, and Major Samuel Smith was sent from Jamaica with a small 

 force to hold and govern it in the name of the King of England. The Span- 

 iards assailed it again but without success and it continued in the hands of 

 the English. Sir James Modyford, a brother of the Governor of Jamaica, was 

 commissioned as Governor of the Bahamas in 1666. 



The efforts to colonize these Islands had thus far had meager results. 

 Little had been done to secure peace and safety. A more dignified effort 

 was authorized by Charles II in 1670 when he granted the Lords Proprietors 

 of the Carolinas a charter for the establishment of a government in the 

 Bahamas and charged them to give these Islands the same kind of government 

 as the Carolinas. Captain John Wentworth was made Governor in 1671 with 

 instructions to choose a Council which should propose bills to the local parlia- 

 ment for passage. He was further instructed to permit no person either to 

 cut braziletto wood without license except on his own estate, or to coast for 

 ambergris or wrecks, or fish for whales without license. In the following year 

 the new Governor complained to the Governor of Jamaica that his colony of 

 five hundred souls had been left without the means of protection, and that the 

 Proprietors had issued no commands to him about it. He also asked for sup- 

 plies from Jamaica. The need of more adequate defenses was shown in Janu- 

 ary, 1684, when a number of Spanish ships from Havana under Juan de Larco 

 captured and plundered the town of Nassau. 



It would seem that the Spanish were not without provocation for this 

 descent upon Nassau, for one Robert Clarke, who was Governor at the time, 

 acting without authority from London, had issued commissions to privateers 

 to prey on Spanish commerce. As soon as this insubordination was discov- 

 ered in London, a successor was sent out with instructions to arrest Clarke and 

 send him back to England for trial. But England was too late. Lilburne, 

 the new Governor, was attempting to check the evils resulting from the con- 

 duct of his predecessor when the Spanish appeared and sacked the town. The 



