[309] Exquemeling says: “A l’heure que je parle il est élevé aux plus éminentes dignitez de la Jamaique; ce qui fait assez voir qu’un homme, tel qu’il soit, est toujours estimé & bien receu par tout, pourveu qu’il ait de l’argent.” Histoire des avanturiers, ii. 214.
[310] Ringrose’s MS. Narrative, British Museum, Sloane collection, No. 3820.
[311] See Hughson, “The Carolina Pirates and Colonial Commerce,” Johns Hopkins University Studies, xii. 241-370.
[312] See Watson’s Annals of Philadelphia, ii. 222.
[313] In Kidd’s case there were many extenuating circumstances; he was far from being such a scoundrel as most of the pirates.
[314] See the cases of Mary Read and Anne Bonny, in Johnson’s History of the Pirates, London, 1724, 2 vols.
[315] Burton’s History of Scotland, vi. 403.
[316] In writing to James Stanhope, secretary of state, Spotswood says: “Such is the unaccountable temper of the People that they have generally chosen for their Representatives Persons of the meanest Estates and Capacitys in their Countys, And as if the House of Burgesses were resolved to copy after the patern of their Electors, of the few Gentlemen that are among them, they have expelled two for having the Generosity to serve their Country for nothing, w’ch they term bribery.” Official Letters, ii. 129. This reminds one of the language applied by Sherwood and Ludwell to Bacon’s followers (see above, p. 102); and suggests the presence among the burgesses of a considerable party which felt it necessary to contend against aristocratizing tendencies. To establish the principle that representatives might serve without pay would tend to disqualify poor folk from serving in that capacity.
[317] There is evidently a slip of the pen here; Letters must have been the word intended.
[318] Spotswood to the Lords of Trade, June 24, 1718. Official Letters, ii. 280, 281.