Since the events related in the foregoing chapters nearly two years had gone by. Jersey had been saved from intrigues of the Queen and Lord Jermyn. Charles had gone to France, and thence to Holland, followed by the Duke of York, his brother, and later by Sir Edward Nicholas and the other members of his council and court. The lieutenant-governor, freed from even the slight control afforded by their presence, had given full scope to the worse parts of his peculiar and complicated character. More than ever was his administration of his native island marked by unblushing egotism. Oppressive, grasping, unguarded in speech, and almost unrestrained in action, he seemed, from one point of view, the model of a sordid, short-sighted despot, making hay while the sun shone. But he had a fund of caution which kept him from proceeding quite to extremes, and his energy and ability were undeniable, as was also his attention to business. Hence, while feared and even hated, he was still respected and obeyed. Most of the militia officers were his creatures, as were also--as we have already seen--the civil, judicial, and legislative officers of the little republic. The seat of his government was at S. Helier, while S. Aubin, on the opposite point of the bay, was filled with his skippers and their crews, and the traders who profited by their piratical proceedings. Hardly a week passed but some rich prize--usually an English merchantman--was brought in there, to be condemned by Carteret's court, and sold, together with her cargo, while the unfortunate mariners who had manned her were left to their own resources. Adventurers from all parts flocked to Jersey, to share the gains of this new and irregular trade, while the lawful commerce of England was menaced as with a cancer. With the resources derived from his maritime enterprise, joined to what he drew from his fines, taxes, exactions, compositions, and confiscations within the limits of the island, the unscrupulous governor was founding a sort of Christian Barbary, and becoming a hostile power no less than a public scandal. Nevertheless, he could on occasion make a generous use of his ill-gotten gains.[_v._ Appendix.] He sent money more than once to the necessitous court in Holland, continuing to do so until the king departed thence to Scotland. And he kept up such a stream of supplies for Castle Cornet, in Guernsey, as enabled Sir Baldwin Wake, the commandant, to hold out against all the force of the Parliamentary power in that island, and against all attempts by sea. Indeed this remarkable siege lasted longer than the fabled one of Troy, and the feat, however creditable to the handful of men by whom it was performed, and to Osborne and his successor Wake, was only rendered possible by the constant aid of Sir George Carteret. Most of all, however, did that energetic officer enrich himself, laying in fact the foundation of that greatness which afterwards culminated in his descendant, the famous Lord Granville, the