And I think we may count these men from Nevis the very first agriculturists who did make good, and find a living in the soil of an island that is certainly one of the assets of the Empire. I am lost in admiration of these pioneers. They lived to themselves, they were entirely dependent upon themselves. Were they sick? They must see things through, die, or get well. As the crow flies, help might be near enough, but the steep mountain paths were cut by impassable torrents or blocked by dense vegetation. Their slaves might rise--probably they did--for slavery either for the white man or the black is not conducive to contentment, and they had to face it and bring them to a sense of their wrongdoing without outside aid. And then there was that other danger from the corsairs or pirates who swept the seas and made descents upon the lonely plantations, looking for meat, or rum, sometimes for women, and always for any trifles in gold or silver or jewels that might be picked up, and they were as ruthless as a Sinn Feiner in their methods. No wonder the houses were built stern and strong with thick walls loop-holed for defence. They might reckon on the slaves to help them here, for the slaves would not have much to hope for if they fell into the hands of the pirates. A slave's lot was probably hard enough anyway, but I think it was perhaps better to belong to a settler, to whom his services were of value, than to a pirate who evidently in those days counted a man's life about on a par with that of a beetle. They must have been a narrow, capable, self-centred people those settlers who came from Nevis and made good at Port Morant. Cromwell was very anxious that the island should be peopled and both he and Charles II. gave patents for land freely, and though there does not seem to have been much competition for these patents, still some men did come and were planted over the colony. The need of the island, of course, was women. Some of the old Spanish settlers gave in their submission and they probably had daughters and young sisters to be wooed by the rough English soldiery. I don't know if any of those who took out patents married in this way. Probably they did, especially in the north, but sometimes they brought their wives from the Old Country.