“But smiling he takes me by the hand and leading me aside he told me he wanted to speak with me, and now he showed himself in his own colours a second time and made his last attempt to bring me over to him; he told me he would comply with all the orders of our council of war, and assist me with all the men he could spare, and do everything he could to forward the service if I would but join with him in one thing, and allow a second. The first was I should consent to his having an equal share of the plunder with me in case the fort should be taken.
“To this I made him no answer but asked him what was his second proposal. ‘Why,’ says he, ‘if you will join with me when the fort is taken and all done that can be done on the island we will carry these three Spanish men-of-war away with us to Jamaica, for,’ says he, ‘the dogs have got a great many of the negroes, and other plunder, and if you will consent,’ says he, ‘we’ll make them pay us well before we part with them.’ [Lillingston objected that this would be dishonest and would certainly get them into trouble at home.] ‘’Tis no matter for that,’ says the commodore, ‘we are a great way off England, and it may be long enough before the news of it will come there. We may make it worth our while and may easily make it up when we come home.’ I told him I could not concern myself in such a thing unless the Spaniards gave us some just occasion. ‘Occasion,’ says he, ‘there is occasion enough, for they have got away our negroes, and it is easy enough to pick a hole in their coats on that account, and answer it at home.’”
Wilmot’s confidence that news took a long time to come home from the West Indies, and that accusations were easily answered by people who had money in their pockets, was not unfounded. Strange things happened in those waters. It may well have been within the commodore’s memory that in the reign of Charles II. a man-of-war sent out to suppress the buccaneers had gone over to them, after her captain had run his master through the body, and had then fled.
It is unnecessary to dwell much more on this story. Port de Paix fell, and then the fever broke out among the sailors and soldiers, both the allies separated and returned to their own ports. Lillingston became very ill, and while in bed, and as he thought dying, was pestered by several of the captains, William Moses being one of them, to sign certain papers which were meant, he supposed, to exculpate the commodore. The military officer asserts that Wilmot stopped on the north side of Jamaica, and there sold the negroes he had plundered, for twenty pounds a head, putting the money into his pocket. Lillingston remained ill in Jamaica, and the ships returned home by the Straits of Florida. The fever went with them. One vessel was lost on the Florida shoals from want of men to handle her sails. Some of her crew were brought off. Others were left to perish in the surf because they had broken into the spirit-room, and were hopelessly drunk. Wilmot died of fever, and so did Captain Lance who succeeded him. The command fell to Captain Butler who brought the squadron home. In England the commodore’s widow, Ruth Wilmot, accused Butler of having broken into her husband’s desk, and of having stolen his plunder. A lawsuit followed which ruined both. In the course of the suit affidavits were produced by both sides, and one of these, made on behalf of Captain Butler, for the purpose of discrediting the witness of Ruth Wilmot, gives a curious picture of the discipline of the navy at that time. It deals with the moral characters of one Theophilus Buxton and others.
