GOVERNOR
SEARLE'S LETTER.
19
The extract from Governor Searle's letter, dated from Barbados, Nov. 7th, 1655, and addressed to Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector, &c, is as follows :— " Some addresses have likewise been made unto me, by Mr. Jos. Lee, Mr. Benjamin Langham, and Richard Farley, inhabitants of Antego, in behalf of themselves and the people of that colony, concerning some distractions among them, and the present unsettled and desturbed condition of that colony. But finding I have no power to tak< cognizance of anything of that nature, without the bounds of this colony, without a special order from your Highness, I have transmitted their complaints, and the state of the matter in difference betwixt them and the governor going off, which your Highness will here receive." In 1665, Antigua joined with Barbados, St. Christopher's, and Nevis, in levying troops to join the intended expedition of Admiral Pen and General Venables, (of which accounts had been received from England,) in their projected attack upon St. Domingo—an island at that period under the power of Spain, but which Cromwell was very desirous of obtaining. From the copy of a State paper, it appears, however, that upon the arrival of the Commonwealth fleet, the Governor of Antigua, Christopher Reynall, represented to the commanders of the expedition, the disastrous state of the island, from the frequent, and particularly the late, molestations of the Caribs ;—a fact so clearly presented to Pen and Venables, that they would not lessen the force of the place, by impressing any of its inhabitants for soldiers. They, therefore, remained only two days at Antigua, during which period they proclaimed the Protector with great pomp ; and then proceeded to St. Christopher's, and the other leeward islands, where they procured a sufficient complement of men. I am sorry, however, that an historian of great fame states, " the troops raised in the West Indies were the most profligate of mankind."