11 MEMOIR OF COLONEL 



Belfast delivered to him. His actions in the sister 

 kingdom, are recited in an excessively rare book, en- 

 titled 'A History, or Briefe Chronicle of the Chief 

 Matters of the Irish Warres,' printed at London, in 

 1650, 4to. 



From this period no trace of him is discoverable, 

 and it is probable that he was unemployed, until Crom- 

 well, at the instigation of Cardinal Mazarine, fitted out 

 a fleet for the conquest of Hispaniola, in 1654, when 

 Colonel Venables, and Admiral Penn, were invested 

 with the command of that armament. It appears how- 

 ever, to have been undertaken in an evil hour, and a 

 contemporary manuscript in the Editor's possession, and 

 which has not been printed till now, furnishes the most 

 valuable information respecting the disasters which 

 they underwent. The manuscript is evidently ad- 

 dressed to some one, and it commences : 



Sir, 



The opinion I was of, in that 



discourse we had at , touching the Western 



Voyage of the English in 1654. I have been since 

 abundantly confirmed in, by the perusal of some 

 Papers and Memoirs of a Person of no mean character 

 throughout that action, whose employment gave him 

 opportunity to know all, at least the most consider- 

 able of its transactions, and I have reason to be- 

 lieve, by the account I have had of him, he was 

 sufficiently able to take his measures of them aright. 

 The substance of what I gathered from his notes, and 



