16
CAPTAIN-GENERAL APPOINTED.
the ''Nonsuch," which proceeded to Antigua alone.
The
" Achilles,'' after being out at sea for many weeks, put into Barbados in distress, being infected with a disease which
caused great mortality among the men. During Colonel Modiford's stay at Barbados, it was represented to him how far more advantageous it would
be to purchase an
estate in that island, already planted, and from which immediate emolument might be derived, than to proceed to an infant colony, where he would have to undergo all the fatigues and privations incident upon establishing a plantation. Colonel Modiford, listening to this advice, purchased the half of an estate for 7000/., an immense sum at that day, and thus constituted himself a Barbados planter, instead of adhering to his first resolution,
Antigua.
of becoming a settler of
Sir Thomas Modiford
afterwards
removed to
the' new ly-gained English colony of Jamaica, of w hich island he was appointed governor in 1663, and where he resigned his breath in 1679.
The Earl of Warwick had been ap-
pointed captain-general of all the West Indies in 1643, but he does not appear to have assumed the command ; for, in 1618, after the demise of Sir Thomas Warner, we find Colonel Rich become governor of St. Christopher's, Colonel Lake* of Nevis, and Colonel Edward Warner of Antigua. How long this latter gentleman retained his situation is uncer-
tain ; but, about the year 1651-2, a Mr. Everard is mentioned as holding the government of the leeward W est India islands. An official document, however, written in the year 1655, speaks of a gentleman of that name as governor of St. Kitt's only. Antigua, among most of the? other colonies in this quarter
* The proper appellation of this gentleman (according to the authority of E. S. B , Esq.) is Colonel Luke Stokes; but, from an orthographical error of the French historian, Du Tertre, he has been handed down to posterity as Colonel Lake. He afterwards removed to Jamaica at the head of a small party of English settlers, where he died in 1659, universally esteemed for his virtues and honourable actions.