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LIEUTENANT-GENERAL BY AM.
would not then, perhaps, be so frequently shocked as they are liable to be at every hour of the day by the passers-by. Regulations were also made for establishing a public treasury in the island, and regard paid to the martial bearing of the inhabitants, by exercising them in the science of arms. Among the settlers who came' to Antigua with Francis Lord Willoughby, of Parham, was William Byam, a distinguished royalist, at that time major, but who afterwardacquired the rank of lieutenant-general. In 1G44, Mayor Byam was among the officers in garrison at Bridgewater, and being on guard when an attempt was made by the parliamentary army to take the tow n by surprise, he defeated the forces with great slaughter, thereby averting for some time the fate of that important fortress. On the following year, Cromwell and Fairfax coining against Bridgewater with an overwhelming power, after a gallant and desperate resistance, the town was taken, and quarter only given to the garrison. The officers were immediately sent to London, and put at the disposal of the Parliament, whence they were despatched to the Tower, and other public prisons. After remaining in the Tower for some months, Major Byam accepted a pass " to go beyond the seas," (as the term then was,) and, with some of his military friends, he accordingly left the home of his fathers, and sought in Barbados—that last asylum for royalists — a retreat from the Oliverian power. Soon after his arrival, the important post of " treasurer of the island," as well as " master of the ordnance," was conferred upon him, together with large grants of land; but the number of refugees increasing in the colony to such a surprising height, the Parliament became alarmed, and, in 1651, sent a fleet and armament, under command of Sir George Ayscue, to reduce the island. There being a defection in the garrison, owing to the withdrawal of Colonel Thomas Modiford from the side of the king, after a resistance of six months, the governor, Lord Francis Willoughby, of Parham, was compelled to