I was also at the plantation on the other side, when there was some public correction of two or three negroes, and breaking the necks of a mutiny among the white men by Mr. Gibbs, and through his vigilance it is now in good order. The crime of the negroes is reported to be so natural to them, which was both stealing and receiving stolen goods.

Worthy sir.

Your most dutiful

Humble servant,

Matthias Nicoll. ^ The Governor presents you his kind respects and service.

Col. Lewis Morris,

At the Island of Barbadoes.

'' Letters of administration of the estate of Captain Richard Morris, brother of Colonel Lewis Morris, were granted to Mr. Matthew Nicolls Major, Captain Thomas De Lavall, Mr. Come-

288 HISTORY OF THE

lins Steenwycl?, Captain John Berry, and Mr. Thomas Gibb?, trustees, in 1672."^

'•Lewis Morris," (continues Mr, Dunlap,) "tells us in the preamble to his will, that his 'mother died when' he 'was about six months old,' and his father not long after, in New York, where he was left an orphan entirely in the hands of strangers, who were appointed by the government to take care of him." He thus lost his parents, (wlio were probably English, avoiding the restoration of kingly government in that country,) when Francis Lovelace was governor of New York, and between the years 1667 and 1673, when the province was again surrendered to the Dutch, and the boy "put by their magistrates into the hands of the trustees, by thern appointed to take care of him, and of what efiects their soldiers had left unplundered ; and after the surrender of New York to the English," by the peace of 1674, his "uncle came to these parts of America, and kindly took care of him, until he came to man's estate."''