Note 109 — BARTHOLOMEW SHARP AND OTHERS.

The allusion is apparently to the mandate of the Danish West India Company, February 22, 1675, described in Westergaard, The Danish West Indies under Company Rule, pp. 43-44. The governor, next mentioned, was Nicholas Esmit [Schmidt?], a Holsteiner. On St. Thomas as a refuge of buccaneers, neutral to Spanish-English-French warfare and jurisdiction, see ibid., pp. 47-58. Professor Westergaard, p. 48, quotes from a letter of Governor Esmit, May 17, 1682, in the Danish archives at Copenhagen, regarding our seven remaining pirates: "There arrived here February 8 a ship of unknown origin, some two hundred tons in size, without guns, passport, or letters, and with seven men, French, English, and German. On being questioned they replied that they had gone out of Espaniola from the harbor of Petit Guava with two hundred men and a French commission to cruise on the Spaniards.... [Summary of adventures on the Isthmus and in the South Sea.] I bought what little cacao they had; the rest of their plunder they brought ashore and divided among our people. The ship was no longer usable. I have decided not to confiscate it, in order to avoid any unfriendliness with sea-robbers. The inhabitants of St. Thomas have decided that the said seven men shall remain among them". Later, Captain Sharp himself came and spent his last years at St. Thomas.