A. D. 1655. 46f 



136 chaldrons of Newcaflle meafure are equal to 217 chaldrons of Lon- 

 don meafure. 



To what this author fo plaufibly alleges we need only to add, that 

 the enhanced price of coals fmce his time is really become a great bur- 

 den to our commercial and manufacturing people, and to all the in- 

 duflrious poor in and near London, and that it would be doing very 

 great fervice to trade, if a method could be found out for reducing it, 

 and even for fixing them to a ftandard price if poflible ; which, with 

 certain necellary regulations therein, fome have been of opinion might 

 be effeded in peaceable times at leaft. It feems indeed worthy of our 

 legiflature's confideration, that two millions at leaft, of people fnould no 

 longer have fo grievous a monopoly lying upon them, and on com- 

 merce, merely for aggrandizing a few families : and this of late years a 

 fhamefully-increafing monopoly too. 



While Cromwell was deliberating on the different propofals of France 

 and Spain to gain him to their fide (fays the author of his life, publilh- 

 cd in 1 741), one Gage, who had been a Romifh prieft, but now was 

 become a proteftant, returned from the Spanifli Weft-Tndies, where he 

 had refided many years, and gave the protector fo particular an account 

 of the wealth, as well as feeblenefs, of the Spaniards m thole parts, as 

 ir^duced him to determine on an attempt to conquer both the iflands of 

 Hifpaniola and Cuba; as his fuccefs therein, according to Gage, would make 

 the reft of Spanifti America an eafy conqueft : and as, moreover Simon 

 de Cafferes, a Spaniard, had alfo been confulted in it. Vice-admiral Penn 

 was thereupon fent out with 30 fliips of war and about 4000 land forces ; 

 but neither France nor Spain could penetrate into its deftination. The 

 troops landed on Hifpaniola, near St. Domingo, but in an improper part 

 of the ifland ; and marching without proper guides through thick woods, 

 &c. 600 of our men were llain by the Spaniards, with Major-general 

 Holmes; whereupon they embarked v/ith the remainder, and failed for 

 Jamaica ; ' a place, as Colonel Modyford writes from Barbados, {T^burloe, 

 ' V. iii, p. 565J far more proper for our purpofes by fituation than either 

 ' Hifpaniola or Porto-Rico ; far more convenient for attempts on the 

 ' Spanifti fleets, and more efpecially for the Carthagena fleet.' Crom- 

 well's intention was not abfolutely fixed to any particular place in the 

 Weft-Indies : his inftrudions to General Venables being difcretionary. 

 It was even left to his judgment, whether to attempt Carthagena, the 

 Havannah, or Porto-Rico, or to fettle on fome part of the Terra Firma 

 to the windward of Carthagena. They arrived at Jamaica on the 3d of 

 May i6<;6, and marched diredly to its capital St. Jago, from whence 

 the Spaniards fled to the mountains and other inacceflible places with 

 their beft effeds, and after fome time retired to the ifland of Cuba, 

 leaving their flaves in the woods to harafs the Englifli, till they ftiould 

 return and relieve them. But the Englifta at Jamaica being recruited 



