Apocalypse 1692 by Ben Hughes

Author:Ben Hughes
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781594166211
Publisher: Westholme Publishing

THE EXPEDITION RECEIVED mixed reviews. Inchiquin’s official version of events, relayed to William Blathwayt in a letter dated August 12, 1691, was decidedly upbeat. “Ye expedition my son was gone upon . . . was attended wth . . . good fortune,” he began. “Tho they came a day or two too late to overtake two of ye French Kings men of warr & 2 or three St. Malos men homeward bound yet were they time enough to meet wth three of their small men of warr a mercht man of 22 guns & two other small ones wch they have all brought into this place after landing at Nipo & destroying that settlement . . . wth little opposition.”74 Others viewed the expedition with more skepticism. “They did nothing there but got broken hands for there paynes,” remarked the planter John Helyar in a letter written that July, while Walter Ruding, the resident factor for the Royal African Company, noted that “the ships had not the hoped for success on Hispanola.”75 Another indicator of the expedition’s relative fortunes is the amount of prize money awarded. Once the captured ships had been condemned and auctioned by the Admiralty Court overseen by Reginald Wilson, captains Oakley and Neville were awarded £150 each to split among themselves and their crews. Although the precise division of prize money had not yet been formalized, the captains would have received roughly £36 each. Each man aboard received a diminishing portion according to rank, with able seamen Jonathon and Andrew Hodge of the Swan awarded about ten shillings. Lieutenant Moses of the Guernsey did significantly better. Singled out for special praise for the part he played in the capture of one of the prizes, Moses was awarded “the sume of fifty pounds as a gratuity over & above his share in the one hundred and fifty pounds given to his capt and ships company for his good service.”76

On July 11, more good news reached Port Royal. While the Swan and Guernsey were provisioning for their next cruise, the sloops Inchiquin had sent out in search of the French vessels lying in wait for the Bristol-bound convoy returned. To “ye great satisfaction of this island,” the governor recorded, “[they had] all ye success I could reasonably expect having brought wth them ye sd Calapache . . . that being ye vessel [whose loss] . . . gall’d [us] most of any, they have likewise brought another man of warr sloop . . . & three prizes they had taken.” The only downside was that the barcolongo that had taken the Calapatch when it had been out turtling off the Caymans in June 1690 had escaped due to “her prime sailing” though only after “a short recounter in wch the . . . [sloops] killed her Capt & seven of her men.” The news prompted Inchiquin to claim that his recent successes “[had] been almost incredible . . . having not left our neghbors ye French of St Domingo any more than one embarcation from Port du Paix to ye Isle of Ash [Vache].

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