340 Timehri. 
these were God-fearing, if needy, Puritans, but many were mere tarry-breeked 
followers of the “Jolly Roger” without any special pretentions to sanctity. 
In those days the Irish seas swarmed with pirates. They had plundered 
Wentworth’s baggage on his first crossing and one magnamimous sea- 
wolf named Nutt even offered to escort him in view of the scarcity of gov- 
ernment vessels, but the superior fiend did not accept. Some plied their trade 
with the yell of Allah and would as soon take a Roundhead as a Papist and 
Baltimore which they sacked in 1630 was a plantation town. The greater 
number appealed to Jehovah and the Lord of Hosts. The land was a 
drifting corpse and the sharks were hard at hand. The Roundhead garrisons 
gave active assistance. A night raid by Colonel Stubber, Governor of Galway, 
produced a thousand of every rank and condition and he had many predecessors 
and many imitators. The praises of God were in their mouths and the 
two-edged sword and theslave-whip were in their hands. It was not dangerous 
work as nearly all the fighting men of the pacified districts (35,000 at an early 
date) had marched far away under treaty, and were in Poland or Sweden or 
Venice or France or Spain, anywhere but at home. A curse was onthe wasted 
island—the curse of Cromwell. 
Orders were also issued that when any Cromwellian soldier or settler suffered 
outrage four of the neighbouring inhabitants were to be seized and sent to the 
West Indies. In some cases the punishment included the natives of the whole 
district. Most of these unfortunates were landed at ‘‘ Indian Bridge’ which 
we know now as Bridgetown. But Jamaica was also favoured in a special way. 
It had been captured in 1655 from the Spaniards and the new British colony 
suffered from a lack of feminine society. The English Government wrote 
enquiringly to the Irish Cromwellian Council. Its President, Henry Cromwell, 
the saintly and youthful son of the Protector, no doubt “in a very manful, 
simple, noble way, ” as Carlyle describes his general conduct, sent the follow- 
ing reply :— 
“Concerning the young women, though we must use force in taking them up» 
“* vet it being so much for their own good, and likely to be of great advantage to 
“the public, it is not in the least doubted that you may have such numbers of 
“them as you think fit.” 
The English Committee of Council had no doubt of it and promptly indented 
for a thousand girls andas many boys. After two hundred and sixty years 
we can hear these godly and thrifty grey-beards and this simple, noble 
youth discuss barracoon quotations and refer each other to Joshua 7. 13. 
Meanwhile the Commissioners for the transplantation were fasting and inviting 
their Christian friends and the army “ to join them in lifting up prayers with 
strong crying and tears to Him to whom nothing is too hard, that His servants 
whom He hath called forth in His day to act in these great transactions, 
might be made faithful, and carried on by His own outstretched arm against 
all opposition and difficulty, to do what was pleasing in His sight. ”’ 
A RerrosPecr. 
I am however anticipating, and perhaps before entering in detail into the 
history and fate of the various shipments of slaves and bond-servants (for not 
