Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 2, 2025
On 17th May the buccaneers returned to Port Royal. These events in the West Indies filled the Spanish Court with impotent rage, and the Conde de Molina, ambassador in England, made repeated demands for the punishment of Modyford, and for the restitution of the plate and other captured goods which were beginning to flow into England from Jamaica.
He may have made the claim to justify his actions on the Main, which were considerably in excess of the commission Modyford had given him. On the other hand, a Spanish attack may have been preparing, as he stated; but the preparations could not have gone far, for had the Spaniards been prepared for such an expedition Morgan's Panama raid could never have succeeded. Authorities. Cal.
Modyford, meanwhile, greatly disappointed by the miscarriage of the design against Curaçao, called in the aid of the "old privateer," Captain Edward Mansfield, and in the autumn of 1665, with the hope of sending another armament against the island, appointed a rendezvous for the buccaneers in Bluefields Bay.
Half an hour after the dismissal of the court, Johnson "came to drink with his judges." The baffled governor thereupon placed Johnson a second time under arrest, called a meeting of the council, from which he dismissed Colonel Modyford, and "finding material errors," reversed the judgment.
Moreover, the difficulties of the situation, which Modyford had repeatedly enlarged upon in his letters, seem to have been appreciated by the authorities in England, for in the spring of 1665, following upon Secretary Bennet's letter of 12th November and shortly after the outbreak of the Dutch war, the Duke of Albemarle had written to Modyford in the name of the king, giving him permission to use his own discretion in granting commissions against the Dons.
By such means, he thought, these "soldiery men" might be kept within peaceable bounds, and yet be always ready to serve His Majesty in event of any new rupture. When Sir Thomas Lynch replaced Modyford, he realized that this logwood-cutting would be resented by the Spaniards and might neutralize all his efforts to effect a peace. He begged repeatedly for directions from the council in England.
Modyford writes concerning the booty got at Porto Bello, that the business cleared each privateer £60, and "to himself they gave only £20 for their commission, which never exceeded £300."
Orders seem to have been sent to Modyford, however, to stop hostilities, for in May 1669 Modyford again called in all commissions, and Beeston writes in his Journal, under 14th June, that peace was publicly proclaimed with the Spaniards.
He despatched Major Samuel Smith, who had been one of Mansfield's party, with a few soldiers to reinforce the English garrison; and on 10th November the Council in England set the stamp of their approval upon his actions by issuing a commission to his brother, Sir James Modyford, to be lieutenant-governor of the new acquisition.
Governor Modyford, therefore, seeing the French very much increased in Hispaniola, concluded that it was high time to entice the buccaneers from French service and bind them to himself by issuing commissions against the Spaniards.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking