The Puritan Colonists


sand pounds sterling which would be returned by the ad-
venturers in cotton, woods, tobacco, and so forth, within one
year.
 Twice a place called "dettee" is mentioned in 1636 as suit-
able for the laying out of a new plantation and the planting
of silk-grass. This could only be the Settee River which is
between the two Stands, where the bar is deep and sloops
can go up to where good places were available for the plant-
ing of cotton, tobacco, silk-grass, and sugar-cane for making
rum. There are still numerous people who write a capital
"S" in a way that resembles an old English "d." Fresh water
turtle and fish, wild turkey and deer were then abundant in
this river. Food was right at hand and Moskito Indians were
living there as they were when Pinzon and Solis came in 1506.
 In June 1637, Captain W. A. Blewfield, then mate of the
"Expectation," made a personal report in England about es-
tablishing a colony where the town of Blewfields now stands
in Nicaragua. Old Providence was in regular relations with
several West India islands and the North American Colonies.
The "Seaflowere" which traded to Virginia in 1623 was a
sister ship of the "Mayflower" of the New England colonists
and the "Gillyflower" of the Somers Isles. In 1638 the Provi-
dence Company granted land on the island of Ruatan to
William Claiborne, a Virginia planter, and of which the
name "Culkitt's Hole" is a survival. The "Blessing" which
had brought colonists in 1613 to the Somers Isles, took letters
in 1633 from the English governor of Boston to Governor Van
Twiller of New Amsterdam. In 1634 the seamen were to
pay ten shillings for every parrot brought to England "that
so your ships may not be unnecessarily pestered," and in the
next year they were forbidden to truck for any commodities
at the Main. In 1638 shoes and shirts were sent out in hun-
dreds of dozens and colonists were arriving in groups of 150
or so per ship. In 1636 they were to expect 500 to 600 within
a few weeks. To be sure famine and sickness compelled a
separation of such numbers.