Among other things Rogers had represented to the Crown the necessity of taking out a number of soldiers to protect the colony, and on the 14th of October, 1717, Addison wrote to the Secretary of War stating that the company should consist “of a hundred men at least,” and that as the season was too far advanced to procure these forces from any part of America, he proposed that they should be “draughted out of the Guards, or any other regiments now on foot, or out of His Majesty’s Hospital at Chelsea.”[28] This garrison Rogers had proposed to victual at the rate of 6d. per head per diem, and the Treasury were asked to provide the sum of £912 10s.—the cost of a year’s victualling—“provided your Lordships shall find the same to be a cheap and reasonable proposal.”[29]
On the 6th of November Rogers duly received his commission as “Captain of that Independent Company of Foot which we have appointed to do duty in our Bahama Islands in America.”
While in London Rogers had an opportunity of renewing his friendship with Steele, whom he met in the Tennis Coffee House in the Cockpit, Whitehall, on which occasions we are told the conversation “turned upon the subject of trade and navigation,” a subject which we may be sure was eagerly discussed, for Steele at the time was full of his idea for the “Fish Pool,” a scheme for bringing fish alive to London.[30]
On Friday the 11th of April, Rogers sailed from England to take up his appointment.[31] His commission gave him full power to employ whatever means he thought fit for the suppression of piracy, and he also carried with him the royal proclamation of pardon, dated 5th of September, 1717, to any pirates who surrendered before the 5th of September, 1718.[32] At the same time a determined effort was made by the Government to stamp out piracy in the whole of the West Indian Islands, and several ships were despatched to Jamaica, Barbadoes, and the Leeward Islands for that purpose.
After a voyage of three and a half months Rogers arrived at his destination, and on the 25th of July the Delicia, with the Governor and his retinue on board, escorted by H.M. ships Rose and Milford, anchored off Nassau, the principal town of New Providence, and the seat of government of the Bahamas. Owing to the lateness of the evening the pilot of the Delicia decided that it was unsafe to venture over the bar that night, and in consequence it was resolved to wait till the morning.[33] From information received it was learnt that nearly all the pirates are anxious to avail themselves of the royal clemency. Two notable exceptions, however, were Teach, the famous “Blackbeard,” and Charles Vane. The latter swore that “he would suffer no other governor than himself” except on his own terms, and these he embodied in the following letter to Rogers:—“Your excellency may please to understand that we are willing to accept His Majesty’s most gracious pardon on the following terms, viz.—That you will suffer us to dispose of all our goods now in our possesion. Likewise, to act as we think fit with everything belonging to us.... If your Excellency shall please to comply with this, we shall, with all readiness, accept of His Majesty’s Act of Grace. If not, we are obliged to stand on our defence. We wait a speedy answer.”[34]
Rogers promptly replied by sending in the Rose and the Shark sloop, and after a desultory cannonade—Vane set fire to a French prize of 22 guns—and during the confusion and danger which followed he and about 90 of his crew succeeded in escaping to sea.[35]
The morning following Vane’s escape Rogers went on shore and was enthusiastically received by the principal inhabitants. The pirates who had availed themselves of the royal pardon, were not to be eclipsed in their desire to show their loyalty to the new governor, and on the way from the beach to the Fort, Rogers passed between two lines of reformed pirates, who fired their muskets in his honour. On arriving at the Fort the royal commission was opened and read, and Rogers was solemnly sworn in as Governor of the Bahamas. The next procedure was to form a Council, and for this purpose Rogers nominated six of the principal persons he had brought with him from England, and six of the inhabitants “who had not been pirates, and were of good repute.”[36] Within a week of landing Rogers assembled this Council, and among other business the following appointments were made:—Judge of the Admiralty Court, Collector of Customs, Chief Justice, Provost Marshal, Secretary to the Governor, and Chief Naval Officer.[37] Having appointed his Council and administrative officers, Rogers next turned his attention to the inhabitants and the condition of the islands generally. It was a task which required a man of strong and fearless disposition, and Rogers did not shrink from the responsibility. The secret of his success was that he found and made work for all. The fort of Nassau, in ruins and dismantled, was repaired and garrisoned. A number of guns were also mounted, and a strong pallisade constructed round it. All about the town the roads were overgrown with brushwood and shrubs and rendered almost impassable. A proportion of the inhabitants were therefore mustered and employed in clearing the ground and cleansing the streets, while overseers and constables were employed to see the work carried out in an efficient manner. Those not employed on cleansing and scouring were formed into three companies of Militia whose duty it was to keep guard in the town every night, to prevent surprise attacks. The neighbouring islands were not forgotten, and various members of the Council were appointed Deputy Governors of them. A militia company was also formed in each of the principal ones, and a fort constructed and provided with powder and shot. As an extra method of precaution the Delicia was retained as the Governor’s guardship and stationed off the harbour of Nassau. A scheme of settlement was also devised, and in order to attract settlers to New Providence and the other islands, a plot of ground 120 foot square was offered to each settler, provided he would clear the ground and build a house within a certain time. As there was abundance of timber on the island which was free to be taken, this stipulation was not difficult to fulfil.[38]
Unfortunately the difficulties which Rogers had to contend with bid fair to wreck his almost Utopian scheme. Before many months had elapsed the pirates found this new mode of life less remunerative and much more irksome to their roving dispositions. As Captain Charles Johnson, their historian, tersely puts it, “it did not much suit the inclinations of the Pirates to be set to work.” As a result many of them escaped to sea at the first opportunity and resumed their former trade. One of their number, John Augur by name, who had accepted the royal pardon, was appointed by Rogers to command a sloop despatched to get provisions for the island. Captain John, however, soon forgot his oath of allegiance, and meeting with two trading vessels en route, he promptly boarded and rifled them. With booty estimated at £500, he steered a course for Hispaniola, little knowing that he had played his last card. Encountering a severe storm he and his comrades were wrecked on one of the uninhabited Bahamas, where Rogers, hearing of their fate, despatched a ship to bring them back to Nassau. Here they were quickly dealt with by the Court of Admiralty, and ten out of eleven of them were convicted and hanged “in the sight of their former companions.” A contemporary records that these trials were marked by “Rogers’s prudence and resolution, and that in the condemnation and execution of the pirates he had a just regard of the public good, and was not to be deterred from vigorously pursuing it in circumstances which would have intimidated many brave men.”[39]
Whenever the occasion offered, Rogers tempered justice with mercy, and the human side of his character comes out well in the case of the man who was pardoned. His name, Rogers informs us, was George Rounsivell,[40] and “I reprieved him under the gallows,” he wrote in a letter to the Secretary of State, “through a desire to respite him for his future repentance. He is the son of loyal and good parents at Weymouth in Dorsetshire. I hope this unhappy young man will deserve his life, and I beg the honour of your intercession with his Majesty for me on his behalf.”[41]
One of the greatest difficulties which Rogers had to encounter was the smallness of the force at his disposal for the preservation of law and order. The discovery of a conspiracy among the settlers to desert the island, and their friendship with the pirates, were matters of urgent importance which he brought to the notice of the home Government. From first to last his great ambition was to make the colony worthy in all respects of the British Empire, and amidst frequent disorders we find him busy about this time with plans for the development of the whale fishery, and for supplying Newfoundland and North America with salt.[42]