FINAL CONQUEST

25 fled into the mountains in the north. I see those frightened women and children, toiling along through the mountain passes, perhaps taking it in turns to ride a mule or donkey, afraid of the hunting slaves, savage men with little clothing and yet thankful for the meat and wild fruits they gave them. And they said that in the first three years they had killed nearly 2500 of the enemy's men, "while on our side very few were lost. The enemy also suffered from a pestilence from which more than 6000 died." And so they buoyed themselves up with false hopes. But whether they were killed or wounded or died of pestilence these persistent English came on and pushed them farther and farther towards the north. Even the mountains were no refuge, and we read how sick men, women and children, Spanish colonists and slaves, "embarked in one of his Majesty's smacks," that made several trips by order of the Governor of Cuba who charged (the wretch! to take such advantage of their desperate straits) "for each person removed from Jamaica, even infants, at the rate of ten and twelve pesos" (about thirty shillings). One family even paid him more than three times that, so evidently there were pickings attached to a Spanish Governorship.

And at last in February 1660 even brave Ysassi must have seen, and seen thankfully, I should think, that the end was approaching. He was defeated at Manegua (Moneague)—it is a pleasure resort up among the hills nowadays, where the tourists come from England and America—and at a Council of War the abandonment of the island was recommended.

Slowly, slowly, it had come to that, after all the hopes, all the sacrifices, all the fighting, all the long, long struggle and suffering, after nearly five years of it they must go. The English offered terms, but

the Spanish were proud and haggled, and though the English seem to have been more than kindly and courteous the Spaniards were loth to give in, and finally we find D'Oyley, the English Governor, writing "the time for capitulating has expired." The English would have sent them to Cuba, sent them with all honour, but the Spanish Governor, who had never been more than the shadow of a Governor of Jamaica, could not give in. He complains that the English only undertook to send away the Spaniards to Cuba, "as the greater part of the force were Indians, Negroes, and Mulattos, without counting Slaves and Coloured domestic servants. . . . I determined to die sooner than abandon or leave the meanest of those who had been with me . . . the troops," he goes on pathetically, he had advised the Governor of Cuba, were very dejected and weak from want of food and eaten up with lice, for not even the Captains had more clothes than what they wore.' So he decided to build two canoes and in fifteen days they were finished and provided with sails, "from some sheets belonging to the hunters who had escaped." We can see those canoes building, the careful watch that had to be kept lest the English should catch them, the subdued triumph when they were all complete, the despair when it was found they would only hold seventy-six people, and so, after all his protestations, "I was obliged to leave in the island thirty-six under the charge of one of the Captains who was assisting me.

And they call the cove where he embarked Runaway Bay. It is a misnomer, and a slur on the memory of a brave man. Surely no man ever turned his back on the enemy more reluctantly.

They came in safety to Cuba and no mention is ever made of the thirty-six left behind and the

RELICS OF THE SPANIARDS

27

captain who stayed with them. I like to think that Ysassi sent for them when he could.

The road that runs right round the island passes close to that little bay now, and the waters of the blue Caribbean, calm and still, mirror the blue skies above as they did on that long ago May day when the last Spanish Governor of Jamaica embarked in a frail canoe and waving his hand to those he left behind set sail for Cuba to the north. This was the end of the high adventure. The very end! The Spanish rule was over, the valued island that lay right in the fairway of commerce- it lies so still-was lost for ever to the Spanish Crown and its last Governor was going away a broken and discredited man.

And bitterly the Spaniards regretted the loss. Pedro de Bayoha, "Governor of the City of Cuba," wrote to the King setting forth its many advantages, "any fleet however large can lie and careen its ships, and any army can march, as food is very plentiful and the island abounding in tame and wild cattle as well as swine, the quantity of which is so great that every year twenty thousand head are killed for the lard and fat and no use is made of the meat." So we gather that Ysassi was not very good at the commissariat. Perhaps the English harried him too much.

It has been said with some surprise that there are few relics of the Spaniards in the island. For me, I marvel that there is after all these years still so much. The oranges and the limes, the pomegranates and the coconut palms are a monument to them, and still at Montego Bay is to be seen the outlines of a dark stone fort that overlooked the beautiful bay and guarded the town. And though Indian corn has been sown in the court

yards for many a long day, some of the old cannon that belonged to his Spanish Majesty still lie about. The climate of Jamaica is against the preservation of relics of the past. ""Tis a very strange thing," says Hans Sloane, accustomed to the slow growth of Northern climes, "to see in how short a time a plantation formerly clear of trees and shrubs will grow foul, which comes from two causes; the one not stubbing up the roots, whence arise young sprouts, and the other the fertility of the soil. The settlements and plantations of not only the Indians but even the Spaniards being quite overgrown with tall trees, so that there is no footsteps of such a thing left were it not for the old palisadoes, buildings, orange walks, etc., which show plainly the formerly cleared places where plantations have been." And Sloane, who was physician to the Duke of Albemarle, the Governor, writes of 1688, not thirty years after the last Spanish Governor had fled.

Even now in Jamaica there are tales of buried treasure. In 1916 the "Busha" or superintendent of an estate in Westmoreland was engaged in pulling down a stout stone wall, evidently built in the old days by slave labour. Each stone was well and truly laid, and tradition said the wall was Spanish. One of the workmen said he had come to a hollow place. And sure enough there was a large jar stuffed full of old Spanish gold and silver coins, hidden I suppose when the Spanish owner of the hato fled before the incoming of the English. Tradition says there are many more, but within the last year or two the Crown, I hear, has insisted on its right of treasure trove, so that it is exceedingly unlikely anyone finding such will proclaim the fact aloud. The Spanish colonists it is true were but a poor people, but even the poorest have need of

THE LITTLE GOLD SOLDIER

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some little money, and in the days when banks were not much in vogue, cash that would not go into the breeches pocket had to be kept somewhere.

Bridges tells how "a miniature figure of pure gold representing a Spanish soldier with a matchlock in his hand was lately found in the woods of the parish of Manchester. How it came there remains a mystery; for those extensive forests bear no marks of having ever been opened, or even penetrated until lately." And Bridges wrote about 1828.

But gold is not to be lightly worn or washed away. I can imagine the young Spanish wife who owned that little golden soldier and counted him a very precious possession. And so, when she fled with her baby in her arms and her little daughter clinging to her skirts, she carried it with her. And then came the day when the English pressed them hard, and perhaps her husband, perhaps the head slave, called to her to hurry, they must get away, and the baby cried because she had so little to give it, and the little maid whimpered when she fell among the leafy thorns and rough stones on the steep mountain path, and her mother bending over to comfort her dropped the little golden Spanish soldier that was her treasure from her bundle and never knew of her loss till it was too late to go back to look for it, and there he lay for close on one hundred and sixty years till some Englishman found him and reported the find to verbose, moralising, Bridges.

The author of Old St James too tells a tale of Spanish treasure. He says that sometime in the eighteenth century two Spaniards visited "Success," an estate in the north of the island not far from the sea-shore. They showed a plan said to have been copied from one held by a Spanish family locating