The vindictive animosity displayed by Admiral Lord Nelson while in the West Indies against the Americans and their sympathizers excited the bitterest indignation among the people there. Nelson—whose feeling toward the Americans, trading with these islands, may be judged from an expression in one of his letters, “I hate them all,” and his declaration in another, “I, for one, am determined not to suffer the Yankees to come where my ship is”—did his utmost to ruin American commerce in that quarter, and even went so far as to complain to the English government of his superior officers because they failed to encourage and abet his malignant efforts. His bitterness against the Irish may be easily inferred from one of his letters written from the island of St. Kitts, on March 18, 1785, in which he says: “Yesterday being St. Patrick’s Day, Irish colors with thirteen stripes on them were hoisted all over town. I was engaged to dine with the president, but sent an excuse, as he suffered those colors to fly.” It is not to be wondered at that numbers of the West Indian Irish sought a home under the flag with the “thirteen stripes,” to which they had so patriotically shown their attachment. It may be remarked here that Seaman, referring to the period just before 1790, says that “the proportionately rapid increase of the population of the Southern states proved that they had received considerable accessions of immigrants from the West Indies.” The great majority of these were no doubt descendants of the transported victims of Cromwell’s despotism. The able historian of South Carolina, Dr. Ramsay, tells us that in 1791 a number of Catholics, “chiefly natives of Ireland, associated themselves together for public worship, and put themselves under the care of Bishop Carroll,” and adds that “The troubles in France and the West Indian islands soon brought a large accession to their numbers.” A considerable number of Irish immigrants arrived here between 1800 and 1815 from the remnant of North American territory still subject to England, and especially from Newfoundland. From a very early period, Irish fishermen had been accustomed to visit the shores of that island, and not seldom did they bring with them proscribed and persecuted priests, who sought shelter there from the fanatical “priest hunters” employed in enforcing the English penal laws in Ireland. But even there were they harassed and hounded and the exercise of their faith prohibited, and it was not until after the achievement of American Independence that Catholics were permitted to openly profess the principles and practice the duties of their religion. In 1784, the then governor, Vice-Admiral Campbell, issued an order allowing “All persons inhabiting the island to have full liberty of conscience and free exercise of all such modes of religious worship as are not prohibited by law.”