I hope Mrs. Ker and Roach who I sent hence has been often with you, and that this will keep your hands in perfect health and that you have thrown away your great cane, and can dance a minuet, and will honour me with the continuance of your friendship, for I am, good Sir,

Your most sincere humble servant,
Woodes Rogers.

Be pleased to excuse my writing to you in such a hurry, as obliged me to write this letter in two different hands. My humble service to Mr. Addison and to Mr. Sansom.[46] This comes enclosed to Mr. G. with whom I hope you will be acquainted.

W. R.

In a subsequent letter he writes regretting that his Majesty’s ships of war have “so little regard for this infant colony,”[47] and he certainly had just cause to complain. His statement about the Admiralty, and the representations of other colonial governors, is borne out by the following letter from the Governor of South Carolina, written on the 4th of November, 1718[48]:—“’Tis not long since I did myself the honour to write to you from this place (S. Carolina) which I hope you’ll receive, but having fresh occasion grounded upon advice received by a Brig; since that arrived from Providence I thought it my duty, after having so far engaged myself in that settlement once more to offer you my opinion concerning it. My last, if I forget not, gave you account of the mortality that had been amongst the Soldiers and others that came over with Governor Rogers and the ill state of that place both in regard to Pirates and Spaniards, unless speedily supported by a greater force than are yet upon the place; and especially the necessity that there is of cruising ships and Snows and Sloops of war to be stationed there, without which I do assure you it will at any time be in the power of either Pirates or Spaniards at their pleasure to make ’emselves masters of the Island, or at least to prevent provisions or other necessaries being carried to it from the Main, and without that it’s not possible for the King’s garrison or inhabitants to subsist. The Pirates yet accounted to be out are near 2,000 men and of those Vain,[49] Thaitch,[50] and others promise themselves to be repossessed of Providence in a short time. How the loss of that place may affect the Ministry, I cannot tell, but the consequence of it seems to be not only a general destruction of the trade to the West Indies, and the Main of America, but the settling and establishing a nest of Pirates who already esteem themselves a Community and to have one common interest; and indeed they may in time become so, and make that Island another Sally but much more formidable unless speedy care be taken to subdue them.... I should humbly propose that two ships of 24 or 30 guns and 2 sloops of 10 or 12 guns should be stationed there, one ship and sloop to be always in harbour as guard.”

In these days of rapid transit and wireless communications, it is difficult to realise what this isolation meant to a colonial Governor, with the perpetual menace of the enemy within his gates, and the risk of invasion from outside. The existence of the settlement depended entirely on his initiative and resource, and at times the suspense and despair in these far-flung outposts of empire must have been terrible in the extreme.

The difficulties which Rogers had to contend with are vividly shown in the following letter from him to the Lords Commissioners of Trade[51]:—

Nassau on Providence,
May 29, 1719.

My Lords,—

We have never been free from apprehension of danger from Pirates and Spaniards, and I can only impute these causes to the want of a stationed ship of war, till we really can be strong enough to defend ourselves.... I hope your Lordships will pardon my troubling you, but a few instances of those people I have to govern, who, though they expect the enemy that has surprised them these fifteen years thirty-four times, yet these wre(t)ches can’t be kept to watch at night, and when they do they come very seldom sober, and rarely awake all night, though our officers or soldiers very often surprise their guard and carry off their arms, and I punish, fine, or confine them almost every day.