152 Timehri. 



colony, but that the English would gladly withdraw if they could dis- 

 entangle themselves of their debts ; he believed that the blacks would 

 soon make the colony theirs. 



In July, 1670, the Governor, Lichtenberge, received letters and 

 papers from the Government of the United Netherlands encouraging 

 him to give the English the liberty of departing without exacting 

 anything for transportation. At the same time he was instructed to 

 take care that the English Commissioners did not use any persuasions or 

 threats to induce any to depart. 



As it was evidently intended that the bulk of the immigrants should 

 go to Jamaica, Banister was, on the 6th November, 1670, appointed 

 Major-General of all the forces in the island of Jamaica, under the orders 

 of the Governor and Lieutenant Governor. He left London in the 

 America on the 15th November, 1670, but lost the company of the other 

 two ships (one of which, the Joanna had been hired at a cost of £90 a 

 month) on the way out, and arrived at Surinam on the 9th of January, 

 and landed on the 12th. Lichtenberge put all the obstacles that he could 

 in the way of the British settlers, giving only a time limit in which to clear 

 themselves of debt, and prevented Banister from having an interview with 

 them ; sending a Dutch man-of-war to accompany the America, when 

 Banister went up the river to his plantation. However, the America with 

 Banister on board yot away, with the Joanna, on the 28th of February, the 

 latter going to Barbados to land three families, the former to Jamaica, 

 which she reached, at Port Royal, on the 12th of March, 1671. Sir 

 Thomas Modyford, the governor, received them with all possible respect 

 and friendship, and ordered shallops with provisions to carry the people 

 to proper places on the island, with a surveyor to lay out their lands. 

 The Joanna, missing Barbados, arrived five days later. There came 105 

 families, numbering in all 517 persons; "the two ships were so filled 

 that they had scarce room to lodge in." 



The place to the leeward in St. Elizabeth, where they landed was 

 called Banister's Bay, and it so appears on the rare map of Jamaica, 

 published by Edward Slaney in 1678, of which a copy is in the West 

 India Library of the Institute of Jamaica and also on the map which 

 accompanied the rare first edition of " The Laws of Jamaica" published 

 in London in 1683, a copy of which is also in the West India Library, but 

 it occurs on no other map, and the name is now unknown in the neigh- 

 bourhood. By a comparison of Slaney's map with the present govern- 

 ment map, supplemented by a visit to the spot, one is led to conclude 

 that Banister's Bay was what is now known as Whitehouse Bay. It is 

 some eight miles east of Bluetields, and the coast in the neighbourhood 

 on Slaney's and all subsequent maps is marked " Surinam Quarters," and 

 this name exists till to-day. 



Banister wrote home urging that something, especially the sending 

 of shipping for their transport, should be done for those left at Surinam, 

 detained by the Dutch on account of their debts. 



