CAPTURED AND PUNISHED BY SPANTARDS 314 
breech-loading cannon, have driven the freebooters from the sea. 
But while history and tradition still preserve their memory, their 
blood, to some extent, courses down to our times in the channels 
of descent. The motto upon the Bahama Coat of Arms, and 
which is engraved upon its Great Seal—‘‘Ezpulsis Piratis, Res- 
titutia. Commercia”’—is an official and durable testimonial of 
the power which the pirates possessed, and the terror they in- 
spired in former times. 
The proprietors in 1670, appointed one Collingworth (or Chil- 
lingworth), Governor of the Bahamas, but the inhabitants con- 
cluded they had no need of him, and therefore took forcible 
possession of his person, and shipped him off to Jamaica. 
In 1677 the proprictors conferred the vacant gubernatorial 
crown upon one Clark, whose great exaltation was purchased at 
the price of his life. is piratical subjects, by their filibuster- 
ing excursions, had so exasperated their Spanish neighbors, that 
the latter invaded New Providence, destroyed the houses upon 
it by fire, took all the inhabitants captive who did not find refuge 
in the woods, carried Governor Clark to Cuba, and, it is said, 
tortured him to death and roasted him. 
In 1684, the Spaniards again surprised the people upon the 
island, and, after destroying the improvements which had been 
made, they carried off some of the inhabitants. After the inva- 
- ders left, such of the inhabitants as survived, emerged from their 
hiding places in a forlorn and necessitous condition, again started 
a settlement, and in 1687 chose a Presbyterian minister by the 
name of Bridge, their governor—a rather heavy and cumbrous 
title considering the limited number and poverty of the people. 
Ae held his high office three years. 
In 1690 the proprietors sent out one Jones to be Governor 
‘in and over” the Bahamas. He tyranized over the people with 
a high and unscrupulous hand, being aided by the pirate Avery 
