avowed by their own government, could now be regarded as British subjects; and if so, whether they could be said to "hold or possess " their points of advantage on the eastern shore.1 the East Coast of Central The English freebooters had by this time come to recognize that their government was in earnest, and had lost no time, accordingly, in doffing $ 37. Engtheir piratical garb. They never thought ish Settleof abandoning their positions along the ments along shores of Central America, however, but, now that their more exciting occupation had to be abandoned, they transformed themselves into peaceful lumbermen, and soon built up a fine trade in the mahoganies and rich dye woods which grow in such profusion on this coast. Concerning this log-cutting trade Sir T. Modyford, Governor of Jamaica, reported in 1670, that: America. "about a dozen vessels ply only this trade and make great profit, selling the wood at £25 to £30 a ton; they were privateers, but will not leave the trade again; they go to places either inhabited by Indians or void, and trespass not at all upon the Spaniards, and if encouraged the whole log-wood trade will be English and very considerable to His Majesty, paying £5 per ton customs. The places they now trade at are Cape Gracias à Dios, Darien, Mosquito, and many deserted places in Campeché, Cuba and Hispaniola." This report practically decided the Home government in its course, and Lord Arlington, then Secretary of State under Charles II., accordingly wrote 1 Treaty of Madrid, 1670, Article VII. U. S. Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 194, p. 72; 47th Cong., 1st Sess. to Godolphin about the matter in order to learn. how Spain would regard a fresh claim to the shore. Sir William, anxious as he was to secure the rights of his countrymen under the treaty he himself had negotiated in their behalf, was still not very encouraging as to their immediate success, as his reply to Lord Arlington shows. He admitted therein: "the Crown of Spain to have as well too much right as advantage in these woods, not to assert the propriety of them, for though, perhaps, they are not all inhabited (which is not to be admired) or distinguished into particular tenements, but remain in common, yet they are in general possessed by these people, who may as justly pretend to make use of our rivers, mountains, and other commons, for not being inhabited or owned by individual proprietors, as we can to enjoy any benefit of those woods. And this is the sense of all the Spaniards, who esteem themselves in full possession of every part of that Province (Yucatan), notwithstanding that it containeth. much territory unpeopled, since, as I have said, to inhabit and possess are distinct, neither is the former essential to the latter." Goldolphin's opinion was soon justified; for in 1672 the Spanish government issued a cédula to the effect that "such as should make invasion or trade without license in the ports of the Indies should be proceeded against as pirates." Acting upon this decree the naval forces of Spain then made a vigorous assault upon the woodcutters, and succeeded so far as to confine them in their future operations, to the district of Belize and the eastern shores of Nicaragua. The English government, on the other hand, 1 Sir William Godolphin to Lord Arlington, May 18, 1672. still persisted in maintaining the rights of the woodcutters under the treaty of 1670, and openly lent them its support. The Spanish ambassador thereupon laid a formal complaint before the Court of St. James, and the matter was finally turned over by the Crown to His Majesty's Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, for further examination.1 Indians, and the First Steps toward the In the meantime, other strangers had come to the eastern seaboard of Nicaragua and found a welcome among the Moscoes. About the year 1650 $ 38. The a Dutch slave ship, homeward bound Origin of the from Senegambia and freighted down Mosquito with negroes, had, it appears, been driven from her course and finally wrecked on the Costa Rican coast. Many of the blacks, thus liberated by chance from their Protectorbonds, escaped to the shore on the breaking up of the vessel, and, after wandering north in search of food, they came finally to the abode of the Moscoes. Here they were taken in by the good-natured aborigines, and given a tract of land for their own, along the Sandy river. poor English ate over their Shore. The Moscoe tribe had already received a vein of Caucasion blood, through its intercourse with the English freebooters. The Indians now began to amalgamate very freely with the negroes who had thus come to their shores, and, from this strange mixture of races, 1 U. S. Sen. Ex. Doc. 194, loc. cit., p. 72. British Accounts and Papers, loc. cit., Appendix B. Sir Hans Sloane, loc. cit., P. 76. Lucas, loc. cit., pp. 304-305. negro there sprang a mongrel people who have ever since been known as the Mosquito Indians. With the more permanent settlement of the English in the character of peaceful settlers, fresh Indo-European strains were added to the hybrid race, and from this time the on, element was also continually aug mented by blacks coming from Jamaica, until in the end the negroid became the prevailing type. As a result of these accessions and interminglings, the Mosquito Indians increased very rapidly in numbers, and e'er long came to spread over the whole shore from Cape Honduras in the north, to the Bluefields lagoon in the south, where the Cordillera slope off to the sea, a strip of coast which henceforth came to be rather indefinitely known as the Mosquito shore, or Mosquito land. From the outset the whites had been determined to assert and maintain their supremacy over the natives, and upon settling definitely in the land, the English took further steps to establish their prestige. Upon the death of the Moscoe chief, Oldman, his heir had, it appears, been brought back from England and invested by the settlers with royal dignities shortly after the British conquest of Jamaica. This done, the new monarch was easily persuaded to abdicate his sovereignty over the country in favor of Charles II., and become an ally of England. In return the English settlers then conferred upon King Oldman a crown and a royal commission, which was supposed to have come direct from King Charles. True, the crown was but an old cocked hat, and the commission only a bit of paper drawn up by the settlers themselves, setting forth that the Mosquito chief would treat well all Englishmen coming that way. Oldman and his people were thoroughly satisfied with the arrangement, however, and seemed to prize very highly these marks of royal condescension from the brother monarch across the seas. Their diplomacy had thus far succeeded in securing for the English the real power over the Mosquito shore and nation, but it had not as yet brought them officially under the protection of their own government, nor secured for them its formal approval of their acts. This was the next card to be played, and the settlers were prepared. Oldman having died, his son Jeremy succeeded to the crown, and this young monarch the settlers now bundled off to Jamaica, in 1687, to beg from the Earl of Albemarle, the English Governor there, that he, like his father Oldman, be taken under the protection of His Majesty's government. In the suite of the Mosquito monarch came a committee of the English settlers, and in the memorial they had drawn up for him to present to His Lordship, the Governor, it was set forth how the Earl of Warwick had come to these shores during the reign of King Charles I. of ever blessed memory, and how on Oldman's return from England he had abdicated in favor of King Charles II., and received a crown and commission from His Majesty's own hand. But Jeremy failed to play his royal part with proper dignity, for, becoming frightened in the midst of the scene, he stripped off |