The Puritan Colonists


ing also used to trade to Boston. Scipio Caye took her name
from the "Scipio" of London, a vessel of 300 tons burden,
which brought out merchandise from England for trading.
The name Scipio was then used as a reminder of the struggle
between Rome and Carthage. Sloops Caye, at the Sloops
Caye channel, was another trading post where their vessels
were safe when anchored between the two cayes called "Tom
Owens." Then many of these cayes had more land, and the
erosion by the sea only began after the great quantity of
stones were removed for the building of the Castle of San
Fernando de Omoa by the Spaniards. The Queen Cayes, to
the south of the Gladden Entrance, got their name from the
pinnace "Queen of Bohemia," named after the daughter of
James the First of England. In Governor Butler's Diary,
Providence, February to March 1639, this vessel was "sent
out about 5 weeks before to look out for purchase upon the
coast of the Main." In 1638 Captain W. A. Blewfield and
others were commissioned to purchase two pinnaces in Hol-
land for the defence of Providence.
 The company was very much interested in plants and herbs
for medicinal purposes and the colonists were told to plant
certain ones like mulberry, to search for new ones, to gather
a wild potato vine called "mecoachan" for its drug content.
This activity gave the northern and southern Samphire Cayes
their name from the wild parsley or St. Pierre weed which
grew there when there was less erosion of the beaches. Tobac-
co Caye was the place where the tobacco was stored on account
of less dampness, and where it grew beautifully in the fresh
soil. Tons of it were shipped from the colonists' plantations
at 10 to 14 cents per pound. It was the main agricultural
crop. Cotton was next, at a minimum of 6 pence per pound.
Bugle Caye derived its name from the bugle or black coral,
which was gathered like the alabaster coral and the pater-
noster coral. The Dutch West India Company and the Puri-
tans of the Earl of Warwick took them to Europe where they
were made into beads and other forms of trinkets, which with