Hutchins (3rd Ed., Vol. II., p. 276-s.v." Bettescombe ") states as follows:

"A farm here of about £150 per annum was leased to the Pinneys. Azariah Penney, Esq., built a handsome house here, and on his death was succeeded by his cousin, John Frederick Pinney, Esq., M.P. for Bridport. He died 1762, without issue, and his estate descended to his nephew, John Pretor, who assumed the name of Pinney and was Sheriff of this county, 1764."

Further, a brass plate on the wall of Bettiscombe church gives (amongst others) the name of "Azariah Pynney of Nevis, Esq. (youngest son of John Pynney, of Bettiscombe, Clerk, sometime Vicar of Broadwindsor), Ob. 1719, age 58, buried in London."

But how did Azariah Pinney come to be described as of Nevis? It is true that the result of the troubles which ensued between King and Parliament, and later, when religious factions became so intolerant and bitter, was that many estates in these new Colonies were granted out to English settlers, and that many emigrants came out to commence life anew in what was then a new world. But there was still another way. Before the great negro expatriation began, so as to afford labour for the American and West Indian plantations, we hear of numbers of convicts being sent out from England to cultivate those plantations, the victims of harsh laws and harsher judges, the common respite from or alternative to execution. The Puritan name "Azariah" might almost have prepared one for the sequel, for no doubt could be felt upon which side he would be found in any conflict of creeds.

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Accordingly one is not surprised to find the name of Azarias Pinney, of Axminster," occurring amongst those 251 persons who were convicted of high treason at Dorchester on September 16th, 1685, at the conclusion of the Monmouth rebellion, and who was sentenced by Judge Jeffreys to be executed at Bridport with twelve others, the sheriff to see execution done according to his orders." It is interesting to note that amongst those who were sentenced as above, but

as to whom neither place nor time of execution had been ordered-" all which were carried back to be kept in safe Custody till further Orders are taken for their disposal "appears the name of "John Pinney."*

Whatever might have become of John Pinney it would seem from the above extract that the fate of Azarias Pinney was sealed and the death sentence carried out.

Shortly afterwards I mentioned the result of my discoveries to Miss Julia Huggins, an old lady who lives at " Montravers," the mansion or big house of the sugar plantation of " Pinneys -and who is the sole surviving grand-daughter of Edward Huggins, who had purchased the estate, as already mentioned, about a century ago, from the Pinney family, who evinced great interest in the inquiry which I was making, and sent me later the following extract from a book entitled "Under the Blue Flag, or the Monmouth Rebellion," by Mary E. Palgrave:

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1688, James II.

Azariah Pinney, to Mr. Jerome Nipho, who shipped him to Nevis to work on his plantation on board the Rose Pink.' "A. Pinney was from Bettiscombe, nr. Lyme Regis."

It would seem, therefore, as if the death sentence on Azariah Pinney had been commuted, for it was no uncommon thing, I believe, for judges in those days-and for Judge Jeffreys in particular to make large sums of money by disposing of their convicts to persons who would send them to work on their plantations abroad. If this story from Miss Palgrave's book be true it would account for the fact that an Azariah Pinney was living in Nevis at the end of the seventeenth century. But he must soon have emerged from the condition of a white slave" in Nevis to that of a landowner-and a landowner of some means-to have been able to purchase a

* See "A further account of the Proceedings against the Rebels in the West of England, September 11th, 1685. (Reprinted from a contemporary broad-sheet in the possession of Mr. A. M. Broadley in S. and D. N. and Q.,” Vol. VIII., p. 226 (1903).

sugar estate containing a large number of acres, and to which he had, apparently, given his name.*

Hutchins states, as we have seen, that Azariah Pinney left his estate in Bettiscombe (he does not allude to the exodus to the West Indies, the story being apparently unknown to him) on his death to his cousin, John Frederick Pinney, M.P. for Bridport, who, dying in 1762, left it again to his nephew (it should be cousin), John Pretor, who assumed the name of Pinney and was sheriff of Dorset in 1764.

But the identification of this Azariah Penney of Hutchins with Azariah Pinney of Nevis is very convincing to my mind. I am in possession of evidence obtained in Nevis that estates there became the property of this John Frederick Pinney, which, on his death in 1762, passed to a John Pinney, who came out to Nevis in 1764, the date Hutchins gives as that of his shrievalty of Dorset, and whose son, John Frederick (the second), parted with the Nevis estates to Edward Huggins, of Nevis, in 1810 or 1811.

In an old "Plantation Book," kindly lent to me whilst I was in Nevis by Miss Huggins, appears an inventory of slaves and other chattels taken from time to time belonging to the Pinney Estates in the parish of St. Thomas, Lowlands, in the Island of Nevis. He gives a list of those slaves born since the death of John Frederick Pinney, Esq., who died November 2nd, 1762, and who were living on the 23rd of June, 1793, consisting of about 40 boys and girls. At the same date (1783) occurs a list of negroes "and other slaves" (!) purchased by John Pinney, and now living, since his first arrival in Nevis, December the 23rd, 1764. Then follow the names of these new purchases in 1765–7, amongst which occur the names of Weymouth," "Bridport," and-if anything further was necessary to show where their owner John Pinney came from-" Bettiscombe "!

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* Many estates in the West Indies are to this day called after the names of their former owners.

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This John Pinney could be, of course, no other than John Pretor,* who assumed the name of Pinney, as stated by Hutchins, on succeeding to the estates of his cousin, John Frederick Pinney, M.P. for Bridport, in 1762. That he was living in 1795 is evident from the fact that the "Plantation Book" records a list of slaves who in that year were conveyed by him to his son, John Frederick Pinney, whilst there also occurs a list of those retained. This second John Frederick Pinney would seem, however, to have presently parted with the Nevis estates, for I find in the same book a list of slaves on the estate of the late John Pinney, Esq., purchased by and now belonging to Edward Huggins, taken on the 1st of January, 1811," the period at which, no doubt, the estates also passed into the hands of Mr. Huggins, whose sole surviving grand-daughter, whom I have already mentioned, still occupies the old and roomy house at Montravers (where some of the old mahogany furniture may still be found†), picturesquely terraced by lichen-covered and moss-grown steps flanked by old iron railings, with the solidly-built stone

*This is corroborated by a copy of a letter (no date) which appears at the end of the above-mentioned Plantation Book," evidently written from one member of the Pinney family to another, in which mention is made of “our uncle Pretor," and invoking the assistance of Mr. Nelson" towards obtaining some appointment which the writer desired.

Planta

Miss Huggins has kindly sent me a couple of old leaves from the tion Book " upon which an inventory of the furniture, taken in the year 1794, has been made. It is surprising to see what a quantity of handsome furniture the well-to-do sugar planters of the West Indies must have had out there in those days, though there is very little of it to be found out there now. Miss Huggins tells me that it appears that it was intended to take the inventory in 1783, but it was not done; and she alludes to the fact that a picture of Azariah Pinney mentioned therein had been taken away by a Miss Weekes, and says― what I endorse-" a pity she did not leave it !" No doubt this lady was a relation of the family, as John Pinney (Pretor) had in 1742 married Jane, a daughter of W. B. Weekes, of Nevis. Probably this was done when the Pinneys left Nevis for good and settled in England. Is nothing known of this portrait amongst the Pinneys of Somerton Erleigh, in Somerset ?