An Old Book Upon Barbados. 21 



At the time of our arrival, and a month or two after, the sick- 

 ness raign'd so extreamly as the living could hardly bury the dead ; 

 and for that this place was near to them, they threw the dead car- 

 casses into the bog, which infected so the water, as divers that 

 drunk of it were absolutely poysoned and died in a few hours after ; 

 but others, taking warning- by their harms, forbear to taste any 

 more of it. 



The ground on either side of the Bay (but chiefly that of the 

 Eastward) is much Firmer, and lies higher ; and, I believe, they will 

 in time remove the Town upon that ground, for their habitations, 

 though they suffer the Store-houses to remain where they are, for 

 their convenience. But the other scituation may be made with some 

 charge as convenient as that, and abundantly more healthful. 



About the end of 1649 the old Royalist suffered from a grievous 

 illness, and even more so from the " Quacksalvers " who tried to remedy 

 it. He has his revenge upon those gentlemen by hitting them hard in 

 his book. Upon recovery, he thought it as well to depart the Island, once 

 more to ' ; suck in some of the sweet air of England." The air of Barba- 

 dos at that time — there being divers bogs, and much high wood, breed- 

 ing fevers and calentures — was not particularly wholesome. Upon the 

 loth of April, 1650, at midnight, — sailing at that dark hour, he tells us, 

 the better to evade an Irish Pirate (one PlungnetJ* who had for many days 

 hovered about the Island — Richard Ligon left the West Indies for ever 

 He had been there for two years and six months. By daybreak <"hey had 

 lost " the Barbadoes." 



We turn now to the genesis of the Exact History. It is evident that 

 Dr. Brian Duppa, Bishop of Salisbury, inspired the book. His name 

 deserves to be kept green by all Barbadians. Upon Ligon's return the 

 Bishop was pleased to enquire about Barbados, an island he was " much 

 interested in. But there was little time to tell much when so much was 

 to be told, so the Bishop imposed the task — "very unfit for me to under- 

 take," says Ligon, ••being one altogether unlettered" — to deliver in 

 writing " the sum of all I knew, concerning that Hand.' 7 The Bishop 

 then read the notes, and advised, for the benefit of those who intended to 

 adventure upon plantation, they be published as a book. 



It is just possible that Ligon may have had some idea of a book, 

 while in Barbados. Worthy of the most inveterate bookmaker was the 

 way he worried and harassed Surveyor Captain Swan, to " rub up his 

 memory, to try and take a little paines in the survey of his Papers, to 

 try what could be found out there, that might give me some light in the 

 extent of the Hand." 



Be that as it may, the Bishop's advice settled the matter. The 

 Royalist falls to re-reading his notes, falls like Surveyor Swan, to " rub- 

 bing up his memory." 



*Plunkett {Ed.) 



