Note (return) — Chapter VI

After the trial of Deane, the lieutenant-governor, according to Lord Vaughan, had openly expressed himself, both in the taverns and in his own house, in vindication of the condemned man and in disparagement of Vaughan himself.382 The quarrel hung fire, however, until on 24th July when the governor, in obedience to orders from England,383 cited Morgan and his brother-in-law, Colonel Byndloss, to appear before the council. Against Morgan he brought formal charges of using the governor's name and authority without his orders in letters written to the captains of the privateers, and Byndloss he accused of unlawfully holding a commission from a foreign governor to collect the tenths on condemned prize goods.384 Morgan in his defence to Secretary Coventry flatly denied the charges, and denounced the letters written to the privateers as forgeries; and Byndloss declared his readiness "to go in this frigate with a tender of six or eight guns and so to deal with the privateers at sea, and in their holes (sic) bring in the chief of them to His Majesty's obedience or bring in their heads and destroy their ships."385 There seems to be little doubt that letters were written by Morgan to certain privateers soon after his arrival in Jamaica, offering them, in the name of the governor, favour and protection in Port Royal. Copies of these letters, indeed, still exist;386 but whether they were actually used is not so certain. Charles Barre, secretary to Sir Henry Morgan, confessed that such letters had been written, but with the understanding that the governor lent them his approval, and that when this was denied Sir Henry refused to send them.387 It is natural to suppose that Morgan should feel a bond of sympathy with his old companions in the buccaneer trade, and it is probable that in 1675, in the first enthusiasm of his return to Jamaica, having behind him the openly-expressed approbation of the English Court for what he had done in the past, and feeling uncertain, perhaps, as to Lord Vaughan's real attitude toward the sea-rovers, Morgan should have done some things inconsistent with the policy of stern suppression pursued by the government. It is even likely that he was indiscreet in some of his expressions regarding the governor and his actions. His bluff, unconventional, easygoing manners, natural to men brought up in new countries and intensified by his early association with the buccaneers, may have been distasteful to a courtier accustomed to the urbanities of Whitehall. It is also clear, however, that Lord Vaughan from the first conceived a violent prejudice against his lieutenant, and allowed this prejudice to colour the interpretation he put upon all of Sir Henry's actions. And it is rather significant that although the particulars of the dispute and of the examination before the Council of Jamaica were sent to the Privy Council in England, the latter body did not see fit to remove Morgan from his post until six years later.