sty's
command," directed the Assembly to pass an Act "to prevent all
clandestine releasements or buying out of their time," so that their
punishment should not be evaded. But it was after the Monmouth
rebellion, in 1685, that the greatest deportation took place. The
miserable followers of the duke were executed by Judge Jeffreys until
even his thirst for blood was somewhat slackened, when the remainder
were sent to the plantations. The story of one of these unfortunates
gives such a graphic picture of the life of a bond-servant that we
cannot do better than give an outline of the "Relation of the great
sufferings and strange adventures of Henry Pitman, surgeon to the late
Duke of Monmouth."

Having been taken prisoner after the battle of Sedgemoor, he was
committed to Ilchester Gaol, had his pockets rifled, his clothes torn
off his back, and was remanded until the Wells assizes. While in gaol he
was inveigled into telling all he knew, by promises of pardon, and then
his acknowledgments were treated as a confession. Those who pleaded not
guilty on the first day of the trial were convicted and executed the
same afternoon; others who confessed were equally condemned. After two
hundred and thirty had been hanged the remainder were ordered to be
transported to the Caribbee islands, of whom Pitman was one. With some
others, including his brother, he was disposed of to an agent who took
L60 from his friends to set him free on his arrival at Barbados.

The Legislative Assembly of that island, however, in consequence of the
"most horrid, wicked, and execrable rebellion," lately raised, and
because many of the rebels had been transported for ten years, passed a
special Act, under which they were bound to serve, notwithstanding any
bargain to the contrary. If they attempted to escape they were to be
flogged, and burnt in the forehead with the letters "F.T.," meaning
"Fugitive Traitor."

By this law Pitman's hopes were frustrated, and, utterly disheartened,
he was not inclined to work at his profession for the master to whom he
had been sold. Although the status of a surgeon was not then as high as
it is now, it was yet a great downfall to practise the profession on
rations of five pounds of salt beef or fish per week, with nothing else
but corn meal. As for the fees, which were large, the master pocketed
them, leaving Pitman to endure the discomforts of a tropical residence
and semi-starvation as best he could. On one occasion