The London ship above mentioned was one commanded by Thomas Hunt, and formed part of Smith’s expedition for the carrying of fish, furs and oil from New England to Virginia and Malaga. Smith took the first ship to Virginia and left Hunt to take the other to Spain with a cargo of dry fish. But a cargo of slaves seemed to offer greater gain than one of fish. Twenty-seven Indians were taken captive off the Massachusetts coast and sent to Spain. Among this number was Tisquantum (called Squantum by the English), who had formerly been captured by Weymouth, and who had been returned to America. Some of the Indians were sold in Spain for £20 apiece. By the interference of some monks the further sale of the Indians was prevented, and Squantum, at least, was carried off to England. When Gorges sent out Captain Hobson to America two of Hunt’s captives accompanied him, but, on arrival, they escaped and so aroused their friends that a settlement by Hobson was prevented. This feeling of suspicion and hatred toward the English must have found expression, if it had not been prevented by the deadly pestilence of 1616 which weakened the Indians of New England, and by the intercession of Squantum who proved a firm friend of the English in arranging a treaty with the Indians.[560] Hunt’s act was done entirely on his own responsibility and without the knowledge or sanction of Smith who denounced it as a vile deed, since it ever afterward kept him from trading in those parts.[561] The evidence of kidnapping in the southern colonies seems very meagre. The existing records deal chiefly with other modes of obtaining Indians for slaves. There were undoubtedly many cases of kidnapping pure and simple, if we may judge by the general attitude of the colonists toward the Indians; but kidnapping, considered as distinct from any sort of warfare, was not a suitable means of producing the number of Indians needed or desired by the Carolina colonists. Trade and war were more prolific means, and hence were more largely used. Kidnapping was a process of obtaining slaves suited only to a locality, or to an occasion when but few Indians were desired. Yet certain incidents show the custom was practiced here as elsewhere. An event of 1685 is probably only one of many such which occurred on the southern coast and in the interior at the time of the Indian disturbances in that section, before war had actually begun. In that year a vessel from New York kidnapped four Indians in the locality of Cape Fear, North Carolina, and carried them to New York for sale.[562] That there was a certain amount of kidnapping carried on in the other southern colonies, as Virginia and Maryland, is shown by the colonial legislation regarding the matter, which will be discussed later.