Note (return) — Chapter VI

Even with the success of this act, however, the path of the governor was not all roses. Buccaneering had always been so much a part of the life of the colony that it was difficult to stamp it out entirely. Runaway servants and others from the island frequently recruited the ranks of the freebooters; members of the assembly, and even of the council, were interested in privateering ventures; and as the governor was without a sufficient naval force to deal with the offenders independently of the council and assembly, he often found his efforts fruitless. In the early part of 1677 a Scotchman, named James Browne, with a commission from M. d'Ogeron and a mixed crew of English, Dutch and French, seized a Dutch ship trading in negroes off the coast of Cartagena, killed the Dutch captain and several of his men, and landed the negroes, about 150 in number, in a remote bay of Jamaica. Lord Vaughan sent a frigate which seized about 100 of the negroes, and when Browne and his crew fell into the governor's hands he had them all tried and condemned for piracy. Browne was ordered to be executed, but his men, eight in number, were pardoned. The captain petitioned the assembly to have the benefit of the Act of Privateers, and the House twice sent a committee to the governor to endeavour to obtain a reprieve. Lord Vaughan, however, refused to listen and gave orders for immediate execution. Half an hour after the hanging, the provost-marshal appeared with an order signed by the speaker to observe the Chief-Justice's writ of Habeas Corpus, whereupon Vaughan, resenting the action, immediately dissolved the Assembly.392