They looked, indeed, with apprehension upon recourse
to any vigorous measures which must result in driving many of the
buccaneers to seek new hunting-grounds in the South Sea.
To satisfy King James's anxiety to conciliate Spain, and in response
to the Spanish Ambassador's constant and grievous expostulations,
my Lord Sunderland, the Secretary of State, had appointed a strong
man to the deputy-governorship of Jamaica. This strong man was that
Colonel Bishop who for some years now had been the most influential
planter in Barbados.
Colonel Bishop had accepted the post, and departed from the
plantations in which his great wealth was being amassed with an
eagerness that had its roots in a desire to pay off a score of his
own with Peter Blood.
From his first coming to Jamaica, Colonel Bishop had made himself
felt by the buccaneers. But do what he might, the one buccaneer
whom he made his particular quarry - that Peter Blood who once had
been his slave - eluded him ever, and continued undeterred and in
great force to harass the Spaniards upon sea and land, and to keep
the relations between England and Spain in a state of perpetual
ferment, particularly dangerous in those days when the peace of
Europe was precariously maintained.
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