and entered customs-free. The ship was then hired
by two Jamaican merchants and sent to Honduras to load logwood, with
orders to sail eventually for Hamburg and be delivered to the French
agent.[425] The action of the Council had been very hasty and
ill-considered, and as it turned out, led to endless trouble. It soon
transpired that Paine did not own the cargo, but had run away with it
from Cayenne, and had disposed of both ship and goods in his own
interest. The French ambassador in London made complaints to the English
King, and letters were sent out to Sir Thomas Lynch and to Governor
Stapleton of the Leeward Isles to arrest Paine and endeavour to have the
vessel lade only for her right owners.[426] Meanwhile a French pirate
named Jean Hamlin, with 120 desperadoes at his back, set out in a sloop
in pursuit of "La Trompeuse," and coming up with her invited the master
and mate aboard his own vessel, and then seized the ship. Carrying the
prize to some creek or bay to careen her and fit her up as a man-of-war,
he then started out on a mad piratical cruise, took sixteen or eighteen
Jamaican vessels, barbarously ill-treated the crews, and demoralized the
whole trade of the island.[427] Captain Johnson was dispatched by Lynch
in a frigate in October 1682 to find and destroy the pirate; but after a
fruitless search of two months round Porto Rico and Hispaniola, he
returned to Port Royal. In December Lynch learned that "La Trompeuse"
was careening in the neighbourhood of the Isle la Vache, and sent out
another frigate, the "Guernsey," to seize her; but the wary pirate had
in the meantime sailed away. On 15th February the "Guernsey" was again
dispatched with positive orders not to stir from the coast of Hispaniola
until the pirate was gone or destroyed; and Coxon, who seems to have
been in good odour at Port Royal, was sent to offer to a privateer named
"Yankey," men, victuals, pardon and naturalization, besides L200 in
money for himself and Coxon, if he would go after "La Trompeuse."[428]
The next news of Hamlin was from the Virgin Islands, where he was
received and entertained by the Governor of St. Thomas, a small island
belonging to the King of Denmark.[429] Making St. Thomas his
headquarters, he robbed several English vessels that came into his way,
and after first obtaining from the Danish governor a promise that he
would find shelter at St. Thomas on his return, stood across for the
Gulf of Guinea. In May 1683 Hamlin a