was made in 1624 by Sir Thomas Warner and his
associates, who were an offshoot of Raleigh’s “ Company
of Noblemen and Gentlemen of England for
the Plantation of Guiana.” T h e y first took possession
of the island of St. Christopher, extending their
claim to Nieves, which was close by, and which was
Anglicised into Nevis. A t this time there was one
of those French adventurers generally called corsairs,
by the name of Esnambuc, prowling around ;
and in a tussle with a Spanish galleon which he had
failed to capture, his vessel was crippled, and he
put in at St. Christopher for repairs. The English
and French were then on friendly terms, and as
Warner was having a hard time with the intractable
natives, he struck a bargain with Esnambuc for a
combination against the Caribs and an equitable
division of the island. This was in 1625. T hey
had a hard struggle with the pagans, who persisted
in trying to hold their own, but finally succeeded in
quelling, killing, and driving them out. In 1629,
the Spanish from Hispaniola, who regarded this as
an intrusion upon their neglected preserves, made
an unexpected visit and broke up the settlements,
driving the colonists away. St. Christopher was
always called the “ Mother Colony ” by the English
and the “ Mère d’A ntilles ” by the French; but
when colonists returned after the first expulsion,
England and France were having a quarrel, and
each claimed exclusive possession. T he island
passed from one to the other several times, and
was finally confirmed to Great Britain.
T he French refugees of 1629 from St. K i t t ’s, as it
came irreverently to be called, joined with other
outcasts and adventurers to seize upon the small
island of Tortuga near the north-western extremity
of Haiti, and were the means of finally wresting all
the western part of Hispaniola from Spain. Sir
Thomas Warner’s'colonists, who were recruited from
time to time, had strayed over to Barbuda in 1628,
and some who were associated with him were among
the settlers of Barbados even earlier, though the
main colony there came out from England in 1625.
In 1632, Warner took possession of An tigua and
Montserrat, but a formidable rival was looming up.
A fte r the death of James I ., the sham alliance with
Spain was ended, and in 1627 K in g Charles assumed
to grant the whole range of the Caribbees to the
Earl of Carlisle, and this led to conflicting claims,
till the Cromwell régime intervened to suspend
them. Antigua, Barbuda, and some of the other
northern islands were uninhabited when first taken,
and others were the resort of smugglers and freebooters
with whom these waters were infested. The
infant colonies first planted here did not thrive, and
after the Restoration a new settlement was made in
An tigua under Lord Willoughby, to whom the
island was granted by Charles II. and the Earl of
Carlisle. In 1680, Barbuda was given to the
Codrington family.
Dutch settlers took possession of St. Eustatius in
1635, and, although it did not escape attack in the
contentions which followed, that and the neighbouring
island of Saba were finally confirmed in the
possession of Holland. Dutch smugglers were the