ST. HELENA 193 



take so large a step, but an apprehension of his own despotick 

 power as if he were above all law. As to the present case, we are 

 sorry for the occasion, let him take the consequence when he returns 

 to England and finds that our mild laws will suffer no man to stretch 

 his authority at this rate. The Governor's carriage towards Mr. 

 Jones (mentioned in our last letter) has made such a general ill im- 

 pression upon people's minds here, that we cannot hitherto get a 

 Chaplain to be sent to you. 



Seales Flat, a small plain at the upper part of Sharks 

 Valley now forming part of Amos Valley, the original 

 allotment in 1682 of Benjamin Seale. In 1695 Seale was 

 accused by John Long (before referred to) of having said 

 that godfathers and godmothers lied, when for a child they 

 renounced the devil and all his works, and for this, Mr. 

 Harewood the minister ordered him to appear in Church 

 on August 25, and there openly confess his guilt in a form 

 drawn up by Mr. Harewood in which form he styles the 

 Church of England, " new part of God's Catholic Church." 

 Penance of this kind may be good for some, but in Benjamin 

 Seales' case the thought of it acted on body instead of on 

 mind. When the Sunday arrived he was compelled to stay 

 at home instead of going to church, and on the following day 

 he appeared before the Council and " in a humble manner 

 craved forgiveness and declared he could not possibly come 

 to church.being then much troubled with ' grips in ye gutts.' " 



Thompson's Wood should be Tomstones wood. Men- 

 tioned first in September, 1678, that Peter Williams' land 

 of twenty acres in Tomstone wood is in a remote and 

 desolate place far from neighbours, and it is ordered he is to 

 share with Smoult at High Peak till some other inhabitant 

 shall have land allotted, in or near Tomstones wood. A 

 part of this land is called the Churchyard, for the huge 

 boulders scattered over the ground are worn into a shape 

 closely resembling at a distance, Tombstones — hence the 

 name Tomstone which has been modernized into Thomp- 

 son's. 



There is an entry of May, 1717 shewing that a planter 

 could not then cut down his own trees with impunity. 



Ripon Wills was summoned for wilfully destroying forty lemon 

 trees. The complaint was "about fifteen days since, two of his 

 neighbours walking by his upper grove of lemon trees picked off 

 some of the fruit and eat them, which the old man seeing, fell into 



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