Note (return) — Chapter VII

The Bahamas, however, were a favourite resort for pirates and other men of desperate character, and Lilburne soon discovered that his place was no sinecure. He found it difficult moreover to refrain from hostilities against a neighbour who used every opportunity to harm and plunder his colony. In March 1683, a former privateer named Thomas Pain439 had entered into a conspiracy with four other captains, who were then fishing for silver at the wreck, to seize St. Augustine in Florida. They landed before the city under French colours, but finding the Spaniards prepared for them, gave up the project and looted some small neighbouring settlements. On the return of Pain and two others to New Providence, Governor Lilburne tried to apprehend them, but he failed for lack of means to enforce his authority. The Spaniards, however, were not slow to take their revenge. In the following January they sent 250 men from Havana, who in the early morning surprised and plundered the town and shipping at New Providence, killed three men, and carried away money and provisions to the value of £14,000.440 When Lilburne in February sent to ask the Governor of Havana whether the plunderers had acted under his orders, the Spaniard not only acknowledged it but threatened further hostilities against the English settlement. Indeed, later in the same year the Spaniards returned, this time, it seems, without a commission, and according to report burnt all the houses, murdered the governor in cold blood, and carried many of the women, children and negroes to Havana.441 About 200 of the inhabitants made their way to Jamaica, and a number of the men, thirsting for vengeance, joined the English pirates in the Carolinas.442