Note (return) — Chapter VI

The reprisals of the Spaniards on the score of logwood-cutting were not the only difficulties with which Lord Vaughan as governor had to contend. From the day of his landing in Jamaica he seems to have conceived a violent dislike of his lieutenant, Sir Henry Morgan, and this antagonism was embittered by Morgan's open or secret sympathy with the privateers, a race with whom Vaughan had nothing in common. The ship on which Morgan had sailed from England, and which was cast away upon the Isle la Vache, had contained the military stores for Jamaica, most of which were lost in the wreck. Morgan, contrary to Lord Vaughan's positive and written orders, had sailed before him, and assumed the authority in Jamaica a week before the arrival of the governor at Port Royal. This the governor seems to have been unable to forgive. He openly blamed Morgan for the wreck and the loss of the stores; and only two months after his coming to Jamaica, in May 1675, he wrote to England that for the good of His Majesty's service he thought Morgan ought to be removed, and the charge of so useless an officer saved.371 In September he wrote that he was "every day more convinced of (Morgan's) imprudence and unfitness to have anything to do in the Civil Government, and of what hazards the island may run by so dangerous a succession." Sir Henry, he continued, had made himself and his authority so cheap at the Port, drinking and gaming in the taverns, that the governor intended to remove thither speedily himself for the reputation of the island and the security of the place.372 He recommended that his predecessor, Sir Thomas Lynch, whom he praises for "his prudent government and conduct of affairs," be appointed his deputy instead of Morgan in the event of the governor's death or absence.373 Lord Vaughan's chief grievance, however, was the lieutenant-governor's secret encouragement of the buccaneers. "What I most resent," he writes again, "is ... that I find Sir Henry, contrary to his duty and trust, endeavours to set up privateering, and has obstructed all my designs and purposes for the reducing of those that do use this course of life."374 When he had issued proclamations, the governor continued, declaring as pirates all the buccaneers who refused to submit, Sir Henry had encouraged the English freebooters to take French commissions, had himself fitted them out for sea, and had received authority from the French Governor of Tortuga to collect the tenths on prize goods brought into Jamaica under cover of these commissions. The quarrel came to a head over the arrest and trial of a buccaneer named John Deane, commander of the ship "St. David." Deane was accused of having stopped a ship called the "John Adventure," taken out several pipes of wine and a cable worth £100, and forcibly carried the vessel to Jamaica. He was also reported to be wearing Dutch, French and Spanish colours without commission.375 When the "John Adventure" entered Port Royal it was seized by the governor for landing goods without entry, contrary to the Acts of Navigation, and on complaint of the master of the vessel that he had been robbed by Deane and other privateers, Sir Henry Morgan was ordered to imprison the offenders. The lieutenant-governor, however, seems rather to have encouraged them to escape,376 until Deane made so bold as to accuse the governor of illegal seizure. Deane was in consequence arrested by the governor, and on 27th April 1676, in a Court of Admiralty presided over by Lord Vaughan as vice-admiral, was tried and condemned to suffer death as a pirate.377 The proceedings, however, were not warranted by legal practice, for according to statutes of the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth years of Henry VIII., pirates might not be tried in an Admiralty Court, but only under the Common Law of England by a Commission of Oyer and Terminer under the great seal.378 After obtaining an opinion to this effect from the Judge of the Admiralty, the English Council wrote to Lord Vaughan staying the execution of Deane, and ordering a new trial to be held under a proper commission about to be forwarded to him.379 The Governor of Jamaica, however, upon receiving a confession from Deane and frequent petitions for pardon, had reprieved the pirate a month before the letter from the council reached him.380 The incident had good effect in persuading the freebooters to come in, and that result assured, the governor could afford to bend to popular clamour in favour of the culprit. In the latter part of 1677 a standing commission of Oyer and Terminer for the trial of pirates in Jamaica was prepared by the attorney-general and sent to the colony.381