So Cromwell
sent out a great fleet under command of Admiral Penn,--father of William
Penn, the settler of Pennsylvania,--with a land force commanded by General
Venables. The first attempt was made upon Hispaniola. Failing here, the
fleet sailed to Jamaica, where the Spaniards surrendered on the 11th of
May, 1655. They tried to take it back again shortly before Cromwell's
death, but did not succeed, and Jamaica has remained an English island
from that day to this.
This is about all we need say by way of preface, except to remark that
many settlers were sent to Jamaica, and the island soon became well
peopled and prosperous, Port Royal, its principal harbor, coming to be the
liveliest city in the West Indies. It was known as the wickedest city as
well as the richest, and when an earthquake came in 1692, and Port Royal,
with the sandy slope on which it was built, slipped into the sea with all
its dwellings, warehouses and wealth, and numbers of its people, the
disaster was looked upon by many as a judgment from heaven. There is one
thing more worth mention, which is that Morgan, the buccaneer, whose deeds
of shameful cruelty at Panama we have described, became afterwards deputy
governor of Jamaica, as Sir Henry Morgan, which title was given him by
King Charles II.
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