FREXrH AN'D SPAN-TRTT T]SrYASION"S. 319 



deputy Croveriior, who held his office for two years, when the 

 French and Spaniards surprised, captured, and burned Nassau, 

 plundered its inhabitants, destroyed the fort, and carried the 

 president and a number of prisoners to Havana. Shortly after- 

 wards these formidable enemies returned to Nassau and captured 

 and carried away all the inhabitants and negroes they could find. 



The few who remained fled to Carolina and Virginia, and the 

 island for a short period was uninhabited. The pirates then for 

 a number of years made it their general place of rendezvous, and, 

 it is said, buried their booty in its woods. 



Soon after the last invasion, Burch was appointed Governor 

 by the proprietors, but, uj)on his arrival at Providence, he dis- 

 covered that subjects and ruler were all consolidated in his own 

 person. Like a horseless rider, he could perambulate his capital 

 on foot and alone, with the useless and unused whip and spurs 

 of his high office, but a few thousands of subjects would have 

 been extremely handy and desirable as a source of supply for his 

 empty exchequer, for even upon small islands a man cannot get 

 fat or exist long upon his titles, although, as in this instance, 

 they may enable him to live in history. So this Governor with- 

 out subjects, i)Ocketed his formidable credentials, packed his 

 trunks with the gilded insignia and baubles of his high office, 

 and soon exchanged the new world for the old — a Aviser if not a 

 better man. He appears to have had no desire to play the part 

 of Robinson Crusoe, and possessed so little of the ambition that 

 inspired poor Sancho Panza, that he was not satisfied to be the 

 Governor even of a whole archipelago of unoccupied islands. 



The lord proprietors became fully satisfied at last, that they 

 had upon their hands a good sized Bahama elephant. Had their 

 royal master been pleased to have given them, in lieu of the Isles 

 of Summer, an equal number of square miles of volcanic moun- 

 tains in the moon, which some English astronomer had falsely 



