In 1644, Mayor Byam was among the officers in garrison at Bridgewater, and being on guard when an attempt was made by the parliamentary army to take the town by surprise, he defeated the forces with great slaughter, thereby averting for some time the fate of that important fortress. On the following year, Cromwell and Fairfax coming against Bridgewater with an overwhelming power, after a gallant and desperate resistance, the town was taken, and quarter only given to the garrison. The officers were immediately sent to London, and put at the disposal of the Parliament, whence they were despatched to the Tower, and other public prisons. After remaining in the Tower for some months, Major Byam accepted a pass “to go beyond the seas,” (as the term then was,) and, with some of his military friends, he accordingly left the home of his fathers, and sought in Barbados—that last asylum for royalists—a retreat from the Oliverian power. Soon after his arrival, the important post of “treasurer of the island,” as well as “master of the ordnance,” was conferred upon him, together with large grants of land; but the number of _refugees_ increasing in the colony to such a surprising height, the Parliament became alarmed, and, in 1651, sent a fleet and armament, under command of Sir George Ayscue, to reduce the island. There being a defection in the garrison, owing to the withdrawal of Colonel Thomas Modiford from the side of the king, after a resistance of six months, the governor, Lord Francis Willoughby, of Parham, was compelled to think of terms; and accordingly he appointed, along with three other commissioners, Major Byam to negotiate a surrender. This gentleman and his coadjutors performed their parts so ably, that they obtained from the admiral terms allowed by all historians as alike “comprehensive and honourable.” Indeed, when they were reported to England, though the Parliament did not refuse to ratify them, yet, considering them much too favourable, they never afterwards countenanced Sir George Ayscue. The very first act of the Parliament possession, contrary to the tenor of some of the articles, was to banish Mayor Byam and the other commissioners, and about ten more of the royalists, including Lord Willoughby himself. Major Byam retired to the then newly-founded settlement of Surinam, which being composed chiefly of the refugee followers of Charles, they, in those times of turmoil, elected him, by united suffrages, governor of the colony in 1654. In this situation he continued for six successive years, although Cromwell had despatched an officer of his own to take the command, being elected by universal voice, until the Restoration, when, in virtue of the proclamation at that time issued, he became governor for the crown. He was afterwards more formally confirmed in this appointment, in which he remained until the removal of the colony (or at least a large portion of it) to the island of Antigua, in virtue of the treaty of Breda, in 1667. Of