Next a Father Maloney offered himself, but was kept in Belgium; finally, however, Father Christopher Bathe or Stritch arrived. The missionary found there a very great multitude of enslaved Irish exiles, for on April 1, 1653, the London Council gave "license to Sir John Clotworthie to transport to America 500 _natural_ Irishmen." On September 6, 1653, he asked leave to transport 400 Irish children. Ten days later liberty was granted to Richard Netherway of Bristol to transport from Ireland one hundred _Irish tories_. When Jamaica was captured by the English in 1655, one thousand Irish girls and a like number of Irish boys were sent there. The earlier throngs had been sent first to Virginia, but had been driven over to the islands, as we learn from White's "Narrative." The English authorities in Ireland wrote to Lord Thurlow: "Although we must use force in taking them up, yet it being so much for their own good and likely to be of great advantage to the public, it is not the least doubted but that you may have as many as you wish." He offers to send 1500 or 2000 boys. "They will thus," he said, "be made good Christians." The first of these "good Christians" were found by Father Bathe when he arrived in Saint Kitts in 1652 and they eagerly came to the little chapel which he built on the dividing line between the English and French settlements. For three months he was busy from dawn till nightfall saying Mass, hearing confessions, baptizing babies and preaching. After that he started for Montserrat which was entirely under English control and hence he was compelled to go there disguised as a lumber merchant who was looking for timber. As soon as he landed he passed the word to the first Irishman he met and the news spread like wildfire. A place of meeting was chosen in the woods where every day Mass was said and the people went to confession and communion. That took up the whole morning, and in the afternoon they began chopping down the trees so as to carry out the deception. Unfortunately, the Caribs found them one day, and killed some of them, but we have no more details of the extent of the disaster.