Charles Jeaffreson, Warner, with his wife and son Edward, and some thirteen others, chiefly from Suffolk, sailed for Virginia. Having rejected Barbados, ‘for the great want of water was then upon it naturally,’ the expedition landed in St. Kitts (St. Christopher's) on 28 Jan. 1623–4. The misgovernment of the Amazon settlement and the suitability of St. Christopher's for a tobacco plantation were the motive causes of the expedition. They were welcomed by the Carib chief Tegramund, and allowed to make a settlement at Old Road, where water abounded. By September the colonists had raised their first tobacco crop, but it was destroyed by a hurricane immediately afterwards. On 18 March 1624–5 Jeaffreson arrived from England in the Hopewell, bringing men and provisions, and soon afterwards Warner went home in the Black Bess of Flushing to beat up more recruits and to take over tobacco (cf. Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1625–6, p. 156).
Warner was commissioned on 13 Sept. 1625 king's lieutenant for the four islands of ‘St. Christopher, alias Merwar's Hope, Mevis [Nevis], Barbados, and Monserate,’ of which he is described as the ‘discoverer.’ In case of his death Jeaffreson was to succeed him. This was the first patent relating to the West Indies which passed the great seal. On 23 Jan. 1626 a letter of marque was issued to the Gift of God, forty tons, owner R. Merrifield, captain Thomas Warner, and during the year Warner and a Captain Smith made prizes of vessels from Middelburg and Dunkirk (ib. 1625–6 pp. 322, 327, 1628–9 p. 286).
In the autumn of 1626 Warner returned to St. Kitts ‘with neere a hundred people,’ having on his way made a bootless attempt upon the Spaniards ‘at Trinidada.’ In the ensuing year the settlement underwent great privations, but on 26 Oct. 1627 Captain William Smith brought food and ammunition in the Hopewell, and other ships came in later. In the same year the few Frenchmen under d'Esnambuc, a protégé of Richelieu, who had arrived soon after Warner's first landing, had also been reinforced; and in May a treaty was concluded between Warner and d'Esnambuc for a division of territory and mutual defence against the Spaniards and Caribees. The Caribees were now driven completely off the island.
In 1629 Warner paid another visit to England, in the course of which he was knighted (27 Sept.) at Hampton Court. James Hay, first earl of Carlisle [q. v.], had received in June 1627 a grant of the Caribean Islands and Barbados, in spite of Warner's patent of 1625; but on 29 Sept. Carlisle appointed Warner sole governor of St. Christopher's for life (Cal. State Papers, Amer. and W. Indies, 1574–1660, p. 101). On 4 Nov. 1643 Warner received a third patent—from the parliamentary commissioners of plantations—under which he was constituted ‘governor and lieutenant-general of the Caribee Islands under Robert [Rich], earl of Warwick [q. v.], governor in chief of all the plantations in America’ (ib. p. 324).
The success of the plantation at St. Christopher's, which seemed now assured, excited the jealousy of the French. In August 1629 d'Esnambuc, having returned from France with three hundred colonists and six sail of the line, summoned Warner to retire within the treaty limits, and to give up the land occupied since his departure. Soon after matters had been settled somewhat to the advantage of the French, a Spanish expedition under Don Frederick de Toledo appeared. The French deserted the English, who, overpowered by superior force, seem to have made some sort of cession. The chief settlers, however, retired to the mountains; and when, in a few months, the Spanish abandoned the island, both the English and French colonies in St. Kitts were re-established. Henceforth they were always at open or secret enmity. In 1635 d'Esnambuc, who obtained the aid of the negroes by a promise of freedom, wrung further concessions from Warner; and four years later a report that De Poincy, the French governor of St. Kitts, had had a design of poisoning Warner nearly produced open war. In September 1636, on his return from a voyage to England, Warner complained to Secretary Windebank of being ‘pestered with many controversies of the planters.’ During the voyage his crew had been decimated. He had intended to send a colony to Metalina under his son-in-law, but, having touched at Barbados to raise volunteers, had been opposed by the governor, Captain Henry Hawley (cf. ib. 1574–1660, p. 240).
In 1639 Warner estimated the amount of annual duties derived from the island at 12,000l. (ib. p. 295). So rapid had been the growth of the colony at St. Christopher's that in 1628 Warner was able to send settlers to colonise the isle of Nevis. Four years later religious dissensions in St. Kitts induced him to despatch another body of planters to found a colony on the island of Antigua, and a second, chiefly composed of Irishmen and Roman catholics, to settle Montserrat. These undertakings were successful, but the settlers sent to St. Lucia about 1639 were
