on the 8th of November, at a meeting on board the ship Bahamas Merchant, moored in the Thames, and ready for sailing. A good deal of money must have been spent in so promptly fitting out this vessel. But, as only the first minute-book of the Bahamas company is extant, there is not much to be said about the sequel to Locke's enterprise in colonial trade.

“I find I am your partner in the Bahamas trade," Sir Peter Colleton wrote to him from Barbados in May, 1673, "which will turn to account if you meddle not with planting; but if you plant, otherwise than for provision. for your factor, you will have your whole stock drowned in a plantation, and be never the better for it. Planting is my trade, and I think I may, without vanity, say I understand it as well as most men; and I am sure I am not deceived in this particular. If other men will plant there (I mean the Bahamas), hinder them not: they improve our province. But I would neither have you nor my lord engage in it."2 Colleton evidently meant to say that planting, however profitable if prudently conducted by a resident proprietor, was a hazardous speculation for an adventurer to carry on by deputy at a distance of some thousands of miles; and it is probable that Locke followed his very wise advice.

It is clear, however, that he took considerable interest in Bahamas affairs during these years, and long afterwards. One of his correspondents in New Providence was Isaac Rush, a quaker who had sought in the new

1 Additional MSS., no 15640.

2

Shaftesbury Papers, series ix., no. 25; Colleton to Locke, 28 May, 1673. In Barbados, in 1673, there were 29050 acres in cultivation by seventy-two planters. Sir Peter Colleton was one of these planters, and held 700 acres. Shaftesbury Papers, series x., no. 3.

. 40-42

colony more religious freedom than he could get at home. Locke obtained for him some office, and in July, 1673, he sent a letter of humble thanks to "Doctor Locke," with something more substantial than thanks. "I have sent thee," he wrote, "two sugar loaves as an earnest of my future gratitude, which I shall by all opportunities take advantage to signify."

Besides following his own Bahamas venture and attending to his duties as secretary of the council of trade and plantations, Locke watched over the affairs of Carolina and the other colonial speculations of Lord Shaftesbury, when Shaftesbury was too busy about state concerns to attend properly to them himself. "I desire you would speak with Mr. Hawkins about the ships at Hudson's Bay, and what hopes there is of either of them returning this year," the earl wrote to him in November, 1674, from St. Giles's, where at that time he thought it safer to reside than in London; "and pray let me know what you hear of the Bahama ships." 2

The council of trade and plantations was dissolved by royal mandate on the 12th of March, 1674-5,3 and Locke was relieved from his responsible duties as its secretary. At some time after his appointment in October, 1673, his salary appears to have been raised, on paper, from 500l. to 6007.; but, if he ever received any of it, it cannot have been for more than fourteen years after his appointment had lapsed. Early in 1689 he tendered to King William a petition representing that "King Charles the Second having conferred on him the secretary's place to

1 Shaftesbury Papers, series x., no. 5; Rush to Locke, 15 July, 1673. In the same bundle there is another letter from Rush, dated 10 August, 1674. 2 Christie, vol. ii., p. 61; Shaftesbury to Locke, 23 Nov., 1674.

3 Colonial State Papers, Entry Book, 97.

the then council of trade and plantations, with the salary of 600l. per annum, under the privy seal, and he having attended the said council till 1674"-March 1674-5 would at that time be reckoned the last month of 1674"without any payment of his salary, he humbly desired payment of the same."1 The petition, however, was apparently withdrawn by him.

Locke's visit to France in the autumn of 1672 was a very short one, but he found time in it to make acquaintance with one of the most remarkable works that had lately appeared in that country; and, soon after his return, heavy and various as were the duties that devolved upon him, he found time to put into English what were to him. the most interesting portions of it.

The work was the 'Essais de Morale,' or so much of the series as had then appeared, by Pierre Nicole, the friend of Pascal. Born in 1625, Nicole had been trained for the church, and was completing his studies at the Sorbonne, and preparing to take his doctor's degree, when previous leanings towards Jansenism became so strong that he abandoned his intended career and retired to Port Royal, five years before Pascal and his yet dearer friend Arnauld went thither. When, in 1655, Arnauld and the other Jansenist doctors were expelled from the Sorbonne, Nicole took an important share, anonymously, in the pamphlet war that ensued. In the following year he helped Pascal and Arnauld in the 'Lettres Provinciales,' which, in 1658, he translated into Latin. He assisted in all the other work of the famous school of catholic reformers, and especially, being like Arnauld a thorough Cartesian,

1 Domestic State Papers, Reign of William and Mary, Petitions, 1688.

in the 'Logique de Port Royal.' The first two volumes of the Essais de Morale,' containing ten discourses, were published in 1670 and 1671, and excited an interest only, though greatly, surpassed by that aroused by the 'Pensées and the 'Lettres Provinciales.' "I read M. Nicole with a pleasure that carries me away," wrote Madame de Sevigné in 1671. "Above all, I am charmed with the third treatise, on the means of preserving peace among men. Read it, I pray you, with attention, and see how clearly he displays the human heart. This is what I call searching the heart to the bottom with a lantern. That is just what he does: he reveals to us what we feel every day, though we have not the wit to distinguish nor the sincerity to confess it. In one word, I never saw such writing as that of these messieurs." Stronger praise came afterwards from a stronger critic. "Pierre Nicole,"

said Voltaire," was one of the best of the Port Royalist writers. What he wrote against the Jesuits is little read. now-a-days; but his moral essays, which are useful to the human race, will never perish. Above all, the chapter on the means of preserving peace in society is a masterpiece unequalled, in its kind, in ancient literature." Few modern readers will quite agree with Voltaire; but Locke thought so well of these essays that he translated three; one On the Existence of God and the Immortality of the Soul,' one' On the Weakness of Man,' and the famous one 'On the Way of Preserving Peace with Men.'

Locke does not seem to have ever had any thought of publishing these translations. He probably began them merely as an exercise in the study of French, though he was doubtless quite truthful in adducing another reason in a letter which he sent, with the completed translations, to the Countess of Shaftesbury.

This letter, which is undated, but may be referred to the early part of 1673, albeit rather too full of compliment, is a graceful tribute to the worth of a lady about whose goodness there can be no doubt, and for whom it is clear that Locke felt very genuine respect. She had lately become a peeress, and was now wife of a lord chancellor. All her friends were making her presents in token of their affection. Locke's present was very characteristic.

"It was a bold thing," he said in this letter, "for one that had but begun to learn French to attempt a translation out of it, and it is yet bolder to design it to you. Fashion, which takes the liberty to authorise whatever it pleases, must be my excuse; and, since one is allowed to bring vanity with one out of France, and with confidence to present as marks of respect at home any sort of toys one hath picked up abroad, I now have to make use of my privilege of a traveller, and to offer to your ladyship a new French production in a dress of my own making. This is, I think, to be sufficiently vain; but so must he necessarily be who ever, having obligations like mine beyond all acknowledgment, hopes to make any return; and, since all I can aim at will in this respect amount to but a trifle, there remains no more but that I endeavour to make choice of such a trifle to express my gratitude as may have something in it peculiar and proper to recommend it. When I was at a loss what to pitch on for this purpose, this book came happily into my hands; wherein I found so many characters of your ladyship, that methought, at first view, it bore your mark and did of right belong to you; and when I observed in it so many lively representations of that virtue which is so eminently seen in your ladyship, I thought I could not meet in all France