English, were killed. After that the main body of the French arrived,
driving before them a confused mob of women and children, who ran
shrieking to their friends for help. Nothing remained for the English
now but to fly or sue for quarter, and the French became masters of the
whole island, with a body of prisoners twice as numerous as themselves.

In 1667 a petition was forwarded to Charles the Second on behalf of
several thousand distressed people, lately inhabitants of St.
Christopher's. In this it was stated that the island had been one of the
most flourishing colonies--the first and best earth that ever was
inhabited by Englishmen among the heathen cannibals of America. They
prayed that a colony so ancient and loyal, the mother island of all
those parts, the fountain from whence all the other islands had been
watered with planters, might not remain in the hands of another nation.
Since the surrender they had been continually oppressed, until thousands
had left for other parts. Many had sold their estates for almost
nothing, and had been stripped and plundered at sea of the little they
had saved. If the inhumanities of the French nation were examined, their
bloody and barbarous usage of the Indians, their miserable cruelties to
prisoners of war, all nations would abhor their name. They would make
Christians grind their mills instead of cattle, leave thousands to
starve for want, and send other thousands to uninhabited lands.

In 1666 Lord Willoughby, who had gone back to Barbados on the
restoration of Charles the Second, fitted out an expedition to recapture
St. Kitt's, but his fleet encountered a hurricane, and neither his
vessel nor one of his company was ever heard of again. The following
year his nephew, Henry Willoughby, made an unsuccessful attempt for the
same object. On the 10th of May of the same year a fight took place
between the English and French fleets off Nevis. On the English side
were ten men-of-war and one fire-ship, while the enemy had more than
double that number. One of the English vessels was blown up, but,
undaunted by this disaster, they drove the enemy before them to the very
shores of St. Kitt's, where they took shelter under the guns of
Basse-terre.

Peace was signed at Breda in July, 1667. The gains of territory by any
one of the three nations were not considerable, and the result went to
prove that England could hold her own against the only two powers who
were able to dispute her sup