i6 HISTORY OF THE [book hi. 
It was found without occupants or claimants. The 
Charaibes, for reasons altogether unknown to us, 
had deserted it, and the Portuguese, satisfied with 
the splendid regions they had acquired on the con¬ 
tinent, seem to have considered if as of little value. 
Having furnished it with a breed of swine for the 
benefit of such of their countrymen as might navi¬ 
gate the same track, they left the island in all other 
respects as they found it. 
Of the English the first who are known to have' 
landed in this island, were the crew of a ship called 
the Olive Blossom , bound from London to Surinam,, 
in 1605 , and fitted out at the expense of Sir Olive 
Leigh, whom Purchas styles- * a worshipful knight 
of Kent.’ , Finding it without inhabitants, they 
took possession of the country, by fixing up a Cross 
On the spot where James-town was afterwards built, 
with this inscription, “ James King of England 
and this Island;” but they began no settlement, 
nor made any considerable stay in a country en¬ 
tirely uninhabited and overgrown with woods; yet 
it furnished them with fresh provisions. They 
found pigs, pigeons, and parrots, and the Sea 
abounded with fish. 
Some years after this, a ship of Sir William 
Courteen’s, a merchant of London, returning from 
Brazil, was driven by stress of weather into this 
island, and finding refreshments on it, the master 
and seamen, on their arrival in England, made so 
favourable a report of the beauty and fertility of the 
