Chapter D: O. M (10)

(_f_) Storia dell’ Isola di S. Domingo ricavata dalla Storia civile e
del commercio delle Antille. Del. Sig. Bryan Edwards, e continuata
sino agli ultimi avvenimenti, che minutamente rappresentano quanto ê
succeduto in quella importante Colonia pendente la rivoluzione.
Tradotta dall’ Inglese da J. B. Breton, autore del Viaggia nel Belgio,
e trasportata dal francese in italiano da Giammichele Briolo.
_Torino._ Anno XI., 1803. 12mo.

(_g_) The History of the Island of St. Domingo. Abridged from the
History of Bryan Edwards, Esq., and continued to the present time.
Illustrated with a Map. _Edinburgh_, 1802. 6mo.

3. (_a_) Proceedings of the Honourable House of Assembly relative to
the Maroons; including the Correspondence between the Right Honourable
Earl Balcarres and the Honourable Major-General Walpole, during the
Maroon Rebellion, with the report of the Joint Special Secret
Committee, to whom those papers were referred. _St. Jago de la Vega_,
1796. 4to.

(_b_) The Proceedings of the Governor and Assembly of Jamaica, in
regard to the Maroon Negroes: Published by order of the Assembly. To
which is prefixed an Introductory Account, containing observations on
the disposition, character, manners, and habits of life, of the
Maroons, and a Detail of the origin, progress and termination of the
late war between those people and the white inhabitants. _London_,
1796. 8vo.

4. (_a_) Thoughts on the late Proceedings of Government respecting the
Trade of the West India Islands with the United States of North
America. By Brian [_sic_] Edwards, Esq. ... _London_, 1784. Small 4to.

(_b_) Thoughts on the late Proceedings of Government respecting the
Trade of the West India Islands with the United States of North
America. The Second Edition, corrected and enlarged. To which is now
first added a Postscript addressed to the Right Honourable Lord
Sheffield. By Bryan Edwards, Esq. _London_, 1784. Small 4to.

5. (_a_) A Speech delivered at a Free Conference between the
Honourable the Council and Assembly of Jamaica, held the 19th
November, 1789, on the subject of Mr. Wilberforce’s propositions in
the House of Commons concerning the Slave Trade. By Bryan Edwards,
Esq., Member of the Assembly of the said Island. _Kingston, Jamaica_,
1789. Small 4to.

(_b_) A Speech ... on the Subject of Mr. Wilberforce’s propositions in
the House of Commons concerning the Slave Trade. _London_, 1790. 8vo.

6. A Vindication of the Conduct and Proceedings of the English
Government towards the Spanish Nation in M.D.C.L.V., in reply to the
Misrepresentations of some late Historians. Also some account of the
State of Jamaica, its inhabitants and productions, on its surrender.
By Bryan Edwards, Esquire. _In_ “An Abridgement of the Laws of
Jamaica.... _St. Jago de la Vega, Jamaica_, 1793.” 4to.

7. Poems written chiefly in the West Indies. _Kingston, Jamaica_,
1793. Small 4to.

[Contains a translation of the Second Epode of Horace, by his brother
Nathaniel Bayly Edwards.]

8. Abstract of Mr. Park’s Account of his Travels and Discoveries,
abridged, from his own minutes. By B. Edwards, Esq. _In_ “Proceedings
of the Association for promoting the discovery of the interior parts
of Africa.” Vol. 2, 1798. 4to.

9. Travels in the interior districts of Africa; performed under the
direction and patronage of the African Association in the years 1795,
1796, 1797, with an appendix containing geographical illustrations of
Africa by Major Rennell. Edited by Bryan Edwardes. _London_, 1799.
4to.

His writings evoked the following publications:

10. A letter to Bryan Edwards, Esq., containing Observations on some
passages of his History of the West Indies. By William Preston,
M.R.I.A. _London_, 1795.

11. Lettre à M. Bryan Edwards, membre du parlement d’Angleterre et de
la Société Royale de Londres, colon propriétaire à la Jamaïque, en
réfutation de son ouvrage, intitulé Vues Historiques sur la Colonie
Française de Saint-Domingue, etc., etc., publié en Mars dernier, Par
M. le Colonel Venault de Charmilly, chevalier de l’ordre royal et
militaire de St. Louis, colon propriétaire à St. Domingue, ancien
membre de l’Assemblé générale de cette colonie: chargé par les
Ministres de sa Majesté Britannique, et par les Habitans de la
Grande-Anse de régler, accepter et signer la capitulation pour la
reddition de la partie Française de Saint-Domingue avec M. le
lieutenant-general Adam Williamson, lieutenant-gouverneur de la
Jamaïque, etc., etc. _Londres_, juillet, 1797. Small folio.

(_b_) Answer, by way of letter to Bryan Edwards, Esq., M.P., F.R.S.,
Planter of Jamaica, etc., containing a Refutation of his Historical
Survey of the French Colony of St. Domingo, etc. By Colonel Venault de
Charmilly.... _London_, 1797. Small folio.

12. An Address to Brian [_sic_] Edwards, Esq.; containing remarks on
his Pamphlet entitled “Thoughts on the late Proceedings of Government
respecting the Trade of the West India Islands with the United States
of America.” Also Observations on some parts of a pamphlet, lately
published by the West India Planters and Merchants, entitled
“Considerations on the present State of the Intercourse between His
Majesty’s Sugar Colonies and the Dominions of the United States of
America.” By John Stevenson. _London_, 1784. Small 4to.

In a copy of No. 12 from the library of Lord Sheffield is a note on the title page in Sheffield’s handwriting:

Is this the John Stevenson who is included in the list of persons
restored to grace and pardon within the State of New York by an Act of
that State passed 12th May, 1784?

At Rio Bueno is =Fort Dundas=, dated 1778 and taken over as an Island fort in 1800. At =Mayfield= are the tombs of John Spence (d. 1785) and Anne Blake, the wife of John Hodges (d. 1787); at =Roslyn Castle= tombs of Minto and Virgo; at =Golden Grove= that of Rebecca, wife of Colonel Thomas Reid (d. 1747); at =Orange Valley= tombs of Mrs. Ann Jarrett (d. 1769) and of William Rhodes James (d. 1795); at =Weston Favell=, the tomb of Thomas Harding (d. 1766). In the old slave village on =Hyde Hall= Estate is the rare example of a monument erected to a slave, rare at least in Jamaica, though not so rare in the smaller islands. It is inscribed:—

In memory of
Eve
An honest, obedient and
faithful Slave, by her affectionate
and grateful master,
Henry Shirley
1800.

Tradition has it that Eve was the woman in charge of the children of the slaves who went out to work during the day, and that she met her death by being drowned in a pond on Hyde Hall.

Arawâk kitchen middens are to be found at =Stewart Castle=, the locality being known as Indian Town to this day, and at _Wales_; while at =Pantrepant= are Arawâk rock-carvings. =Kettering= was named about 1840 by the well-known Baptist missionary William Knibb after his birthplace in Northamptonshire.

John Kenyon, the poet and philanthropist (1784–1856), was born in Trelawny, where his father owned extensive sugar plantations. His mother was a daughter of John Simpson of Bounty Hall in the same parish. Both died while he was a boy at Fort Bristol School, Bristol. He it was who first introduced Browning to Elizabeth Barrett, a distant relative and _soi-disant_ cousin.

To Kenyon Browning dedicated his “Dramatic Romances and Lyrics”; and Mrs. Browning dedicated to him “Aurora Leigh.”

X
ST. JAMES

The parish of St. James, which was one of the second batch of parishes formed in Jamaica (the others in the batch being St. George, St. Mary, St. Ann and St. Elizabeth), was so named by Sir Thomas Modyford in 1664–65, probably after James, Duke of York; and he may at the same time have intended, as Roby suggests, to perpetuate the memory of his brother, Sir James Modyford. The parish of Hanover was made out of parts of Westmoreland and St. James in 1725–26, and Trelawny was made out of parts of St. Ann and St. James in 1770. In this parish is the site (probably at Spanish Quarters) of the first town built by the Spaniards in the island, Melilla; and from this parish, from Cabo del Buen Tempo, sailed with Columbus the first Jamaican who ever went to Europe—probably the first willing emigrant from the New World to the Old. The origin of the name of the chief town, Montego Bay, has been variously ascribed, firstly to the bay in Portugal into which the Mondego river falls; secondly to Francisco de Montego (or Montijo), who assisted Grijalva in his discoveries in New Spain; and thirdly, with the greatest probability, by Long to _manteca_, the Spanish word for butter. He adds, “This part abounding formerly with wild hogs, the Spaniards probably made here what they called hog’s butter (lard) for exportation.”

At the time of the formation of St. James’ parish (1665) the “north side” was represented in the Assembly by Abraham Rutter and Samuel Jenks. In 1673, jointly with St. Ann, St. James returned a member, Captain Richard Guy. In that year, when there were in the twelve inhabited parishes of Jamaica 17,268 persons, the parish of St. James had only 146, of whom 22 were negroes. In 1675 St. James returned two members on its own account, Richard Guy and Samuel Jenks.

Four years later, when the Assembly decided that £1300 should be raised for the fortifications of the island, St. James was asked to contribute £5 only. In 1711–12 the parishes of St. James and St. George were exempt from taxation, “they having no towns, few inhabitants and little commerce.” In 1724 the first Road Act for the parish was passed, the road going from The Cave in Westmoreland to the west end of St. James; and a court of quarter sessions was established four years later.

At =Montego Bay= was printed the third known book printed in Jamaica—an almanack for the year 1776. St. James remained a poor parish till about the middle of the eighteenth century, but by 1782 Montego Bay was called “next to Kingstown the most flourishing town in the island.”

In 1733 a bill was passed “for appointing a proper plan for building a church.” This church was probably built, but all traces of it are now lost. In 1738 barracks were built, and were supplied by the churchwardens with a pack of hounds, to be used in defence and offence against revolted slaves. In that year Montego Bay was made a free port. In March 1738–39 articles of pacification were signed at Trelawny Town by Cudjoe, the Maroon chief.

In 1795 the Legislature passed an Act incorporating a company to be formed by subscription under the title of “The President, Directors and Company of the Close Harbour of Montego Bay,” with power to raise £10,000 capital, and to make a harbour at “Meagre Bay, being a part of Montego Bay,” for the protection of shipping and to create rules and regulations for its management; which company, said to have been the first formed in the West Indies for the execution of any public undertaking, existed for about half a century, and for a time paid dividends.

In January 1800 (to quote from the “Columbian Magazine,” Kingston, 1800):

one of those dreadful swells of the sea from the N.W. did much damage,
although the misfortune has been greatly decreased, by the extent of
the Moles erected, yet it has been very considerable.

Of the two channels through the reef, which were intended to be filled
up by the Moles, the largest only is made, and the other is hardly, as
yet, commenced. Vessels lying immediately behind the Mole, and not
near to the Southern channel, which is still open, lie secure and
easy; but the vessels moored near the South channel into which an
immense sea poured, and the small craft near the shore, round which
the waves coming in at the South channel washed, were, and still are
in the greatest danger.

There were twenty-four vessels of all sizes in the Close Harbour; of
these the ship _Clyde_, belonging to Kingston, which was anchored near
the Southern channel, is totally lost; but a brig still nearer,
fortunately escaped the first day, and has since been able to shift to
a safer birth (_sic_). Five small vessels from the great action of the
swell near the shore, or from bad tackling are also lost.

In the Outer Harbour were two vessels, one a Spanish schooner, prise
to the _Experiment_ lugger, is lost; and the other, an American brig,
after losing an anchor, and driving some hundred yards, has got into a
situation where the undertow gives her a more easy birth.

It is certainly a distressing consideration to the community that
after the expense of upwards of 16,000_l._ in building the Moles, so
much damage has happened to the shipping, within them, and this danger
cannot be completely guarded against, so as to protect the whole of
the harbour, until the Southern Mole is finished, or nearly joins to
the shore; but there is this consideration, that a great number of
valuable lives were saved, not a seaman having lost his life, and
upwards of 250 negroes being safely landed on Tuesday evening, from
the Thomas Guineaman.

Reference to the Close Harbour ceases in the Jamaica almanacks after 1848.

In 1798 two thirds of the town of Montego Bay was destroyed by fire, the loss being estimated at £500,000. And in 1831–32 the parish was the scene of one of the worst outbreaks of slaves recorded in the island’s history. On one night sixteen incendiary fires took place, and many lives were lost in quelling the outbreak. Martial law was declared, and the commander of the forces, Sir Willoughby Cotton, took the field in person.

The foundation stone of the present parish =Church of St. James=, was laid on May 6, 1775, and the building was opened for public worship in 1782. It is Georgian in character, and typical of many churches erected in the West Indies by those who, probably doing the best they could with the money and knowledge at their disposal, considered that a building was rendered ecclesiastical by putting rounded heads to ordinary domestic windows, and did not hesitate to combine the Classic and Gothic styles. In this case, however, the building, which is one of the best of its kind, is helped by a tower, its most pleasing feature. Hakewill called it the handsomest church in the island. The church is dedicated to St. James the Great, the patron saint of Spain, whose name was given to the Spanish capital of the island. The parochial seal, or seal of the churchwardens, in establishment days, is—Argent, a palmer’s staff erect; from its rest, dependent by a leathern thong, a gourd bottle, all proper. On a bordure gules, five pineapples of the second. The circumscription is “Sigill Aedilium Sancti Jacobi in Jamaica.”

The earliest baptism recorded in the existing register of St. James is dated January 1, 1771; the earliest marriage, May 5, 1774, and the earliest burial July 6, 1774.

The rectors have been, so far as they can be traced:

1771–74. Rev. Joseph Stoney.
1774–87. Rev. J. Grignon.
1787–95. Rev. Francis Dauney.
1795–1805. Rev. Francis Rickard.
1805–13. Rev. David Duff.
1814–27. Rev. Henry Jenkins.
1827–47. Rev. John M’Intyre, M.A.
1847–62. Archdeacon Thomas Price Williams, D.D.
1862–81. Rev. David R. Morris.
1881–85. Rev. W. H. Williamson.
1885–87. Rev. George Whyte.
1887–97. Rev. F. H. Sharpe.
1897–1904. Rev. J. W. Austin.
1905. Rev. J. Messiah, B.A.

Of the monuments in the church, the best is that of =Mrs. Rosa Palmer=, by John Bacon, R.A., of the year 1794. It is, after the Rodney and Effingham monuments at Spanish Town, the best work by Bacon in Jamaica. She to whose memory it was erected, the wife of John Palmer, custos of the parish, died in 1790, aged 72 years. This monument has been for years connected with the legend of Rose Hall, about ten miles to the east of Montego Bay. Into this legend, of cruelty to slaves and murder of her several husbands by a certain Mrs. Palmer, it is not necessary to enter. Controversies have raged having for their object the identity of the figure on the monument; some maintaining that it was the good, others the bad Mrs. Palmer. As a matter of fact it represents neither, but is merely an emblematic figure, such as Bacon was very fond of putting into his memorials, and in all probability the head on the vase represents the features of Rosa Palmer. Mr. Joseph Shore, in his work “In Old St. James” in 1911, solved the mystery. The good Mrs. Palmer was Rosa Kelly, daughter of the Reverend John Kelly of St. Elizabeth, who married John Palmer as her fourth husband, and was his faithful wife for twenty-three years; her other husbands being Henry Fanning of St. Catherine, George Ash of St. James, and the Honourable Norwood Witter of Westmoreland. The wicked Mrs. Palmer was Annie Mary Paterson, who married in St. James in 1820 John Rose Palmer, grand-nephew and successor at Rose Hall and Palmyra of John Palmer. She ended her ill-spent days in 1833.

Other good monuments in the church are to Dr. George Macfarquhar, also by Bacon (1791), to Dr. William Fowle, an early work of Sir Richard Westmacott (1796), and to Mrs. Sarah Newton Kerr, by Henry Westmacott (1814). The works by John Bacon the younger are hardly worthy of mention.

In 1911 a handsome three-light window by Jones and Willis was erected at the east end of the church. The centre light represents the Crucifixion, the side-lights the Resurrection and the Ascension. One of the side-lights was presented by Mr. W. F. Lawrence, whose family owned Fairfield and other estates on the north side for many years.

Space will not permit of more than a brief _résumé_ of the history of a people in Jamaica around whom much romance has sprang up. This romance is, however, apt to be a little modified by a closer acquaintance, for the modern representatives show little of that physical enterprise and endurance for which their ancestors were famous.

BLOCK HOUSE, MAROON TOWN
]

The term Maroon—said to be a corruption of the Spanish _Cimarron_, wild, untamed, and applied to those negroes, originally fugitive slaves, who lived and still live in the mountains and forests of Guiana and the West Indies—first occurs in the English language in 1628, in “Sir Francis Drake Revived”: “The Symerons (a blacke people, which about eightie yeeres past, fled from the Spaniards their Masters).” So, too, in 1655, when Penn and Venables arrived, the negroes left their masters and betook themselves to the mountainous parts of the island, with a natural desire to escape from serving alien owners; and when the Spaniards vacated the island, assumed to themselves, as they had every right to do, not the _rôle_ of rebels, but of a people resisting to the utmost of their power the invasion of the island by the English. And thenceforward, their forces swelled from time to time by runaway slaves of the newcomers, they were for many a long year a source of anxiety to the planters living in their neighbourhood, and, indeed, to the colony in general. It may be mentioned that Bridges, in his History, gives a different origin to the Maroons, but he quotes no authority in support of either of the following statements, and the first is certainly untrue. He says:

It has been supposed that the present race of Maroons derive their
origin from the Spanish slaves who remained in the fastnesses of the
island after its conquest; but these were all disposed of and
accounted for to a man in less than eight years after that event. The
Maroons of Jamaica owe their peculiarity of feature to the mixture of
the Malay caste, which they derived from the crews of a Madagascar
slave-ship wrecked upon these shores.

That the Maroons of Jamaica were a real menace in the early days is evident from the fact that General Robert Sedgwick, in writing home to Thurloe, more than once referred to them with apprehension.

The name of their first chief known to history still lives in Juan de Bolas, in the St. John district of St. Catherine, round which hill the Maroons were scattered in Doyley’s time; but de Bolas in time surrendered to the English, and was made colonel of the black regiment, and trouble ceased for the moment. The next Maroon chief of whom we read is Cudjoe. In 1690 there was an insurrection, in the parish of Clarendon, of negro slaves who found a secure retreat in the interior of the country, contenting themselves for a time with predatory excursions against neighbouring estates. When later an armed force was sent against them, they elected as their chief Cudjoe, who appointed his brothers, Accompong, whose name still lives in =Accompong= in St. Elizabeth (Akjampong was the name of an Ashantee chief who figured in the Ashantee War of 1872) and Johnny, as leaders under him, the greater part of his men being Coromantees. He was, in about 1730, joined by a party of Cottawood negroes from St. George (now merged in Portland), and later by a party from St. Elizabeth. From the similarity of their mode of life, Cudjoe and his followers about this time became known as Maroons, the same as the original Spanish runaway slaves. Up to this time forty-four Acts of the Assembly, Long tells us, had been passed, and £240,000 expended for the suppression of the Maroons. On the commencement of hostilities against them, their mere wish for plunder became a desire for revenge. In 1733 the Government resolved to establish advanced posts to hold the Maroons in check, one at Cave Valley being intended to guard Cudjoe. These posts were garrisoned by independent companies, confidential negroes (termed black shot), mulattoes, and some two hundred Indians specially imported from the Mosquito Coast, who, fighting the Maroons with their own weapons, destroyed their provision grounds. Dogs, provided by the churchwardens of the parishes, were also used for defence and for tracking purposes. Realising that his quarters were accessible to the rangers, Cudjoe removed into Trelawny, on the north-west side of the Cockpits. Finding them difficult to subdue, and fearful of the risk of defeat of an organised attack on them, the Governor, Edward Trelawny, was persuaded—at a time when, though he was ignorant of it, the Maroons were prepared to surrender—to offer terms of peace to the Maroons, the offer being made through Colonel Guthrie, of the militia, and Captain Sadler, of the regulars, who had been placed in command of the troops it had originally been intended to send against them. Dr. Russell was selected as delegate to represent the English. In order to placate Cudjoe he exchanged hats with him. Later, Colonel Guthrie came forward, and under Cudjoe’s tree in Guthrie’s defile were concluded “Articles of Pacification with the Maroons of Trelawny Town, March 1, 1738,” by which the Maroons received full pardon, with privilege to possess for ever 1500 acres between =Trelawny Town=, which was then so called after the Governor, Edward Trelawny, and the Cockpits, with right to hunt; the Maroons on their side undertaking to take part in any action of the Government against rebels, and to hand over runaway slaves to their masters. A similar treaty was made with Quao and the Windward Maroons in July 1739, and the five Maroon settlements of Jamaica were established—Trelawny Town, Accompong, Scott’s Hall, Charles Town and Moore Town, the last three being in the eastern part of the island. Later, some of the land was alienated from Trelawny Town, and 1000 acres were attached to Accompong. It was really this treaty, which kept the bodies of Maroons as a distinct tribe in the strongest parts of the country, instead of encouraging their being merged in the general negro population, that was the cause of all the subsequent trouble.

We next in the history of the Maroons come to the rebellion in 1795, by the Trelawny Town Maroons—sometimes spoken of as the Maroon War—when James Montague was their leading chief. Their neighbours at Accompong sided with the Government.

The immediate cause of (or rather excuse for) the rebellion was the flogging at the workhouse at Montego Bay by a runaway negro (whom the Maroons themselves had captured) of two Maroons who had been convicted of stealing pigs. Previous to this the Maroons had become discontented through the removal of their superintendent, which removal they themselves had helped to bring about, and disapproval of his successor; and they also desired new land in place of that allotted to them, which they said was both worn out and insufficient. But Balcarres, the Governor, always held that the origin of the war lay “in French principles and the unjustifiable mode of warfare adopted in these islands by the ruling power in France.”

At the first outbreak the whole island was put under martial law, and the Governor himself, a veteran of the American war, went to the seat of war and took command—his headquarters being first at Vaughan’s Field and later at Montego Bay and Castle Wemyss—only leaving the scene of operations to meet the Assembly from time to time in Spanish Town. Of a nature prone to show his military prowess, and moved by fear of the influence of the rebellion taking place in Haiti hard by, and the presence of a number of questionable immigrants in Jamaica from that island, as well as by his prejudice against the _imperium in imperio_ which the Maroons possessed under the treaty of 1738, he gave the rebels, the Maroons of Trelawny Town (1660 in number all told) only four days in which to surrender. Thirty-eight did so; but on August 12 hostilities commenced by a detachment of dragoons falling into an ambuscade, five officers and thirty men being killed. It is said by some that the Maroons chose their time for rising when they did, as they knew that with the departure of the July fleet but few troops would be left in the island; and it was only by the prompt action on the part of the Governor in stopping the _Halifax_ packet for three weeks and in detaining a convoy of troops on its way from England to St. Domingo (where it was sadly needed), which had actually sailed from Port Royal, that forces were available to meet the rebels. These forces numbered some four hundred men of the 13th, 14th, 17th, and 18th Light Dragoons, the 83rd Foot, and the recently raised 130th Foot. A tiresome campaign then followed, in which twenty actions were fought, the seat of the struggle being the wild Cockpit country. By another ambuscade Colonel Fitch and two other officers lost their lives.

At the time of the meeting of the Assembly in September the rebellion was not so near quelled as the Governor had hoped.

Lieutenant-Colonel Walpole, of the 13th Light Dragoons, who on the death of Colonel Fitch had succeeded to the command of the forces, and was made a major-general by Balcarres and given very full powers, altered the whole plan of campaign, teaching the troopers of the 17th Light Dragoons, who had had experience in colonial warfare with Tarleton in America, to fight on foot and to work in twos, so that each could hold the arms of the other while climbing had to be done—and by fighting the Maroons in their own way paved the way for their surrender. But the difficulty of the operation may be judged by the fact that Walpole, after months of experience, wrote to Balcarres that there was “little chance of any but a Maroon discovering a Maroon.”

When “cultivation was suspended, the courts at law had long been shut up, and the Island seemed more like a garrison under the power of the martial law than a country of agriculture and commerce,” one hundred bloodhounds and forty chasseurs were imported from Cuba to aid in tracking the Maroons. The news of the arrival (on December 14) of the hounds had such an effect that without seeing them the Maroons sued for peace a week or so later, only stipulating that they should not be executed or transported. The treaty was ratified on December 28, but they were only given till January 1 to come in and deliver up the runaways. In the end they were transported on the grounds that they had not surrendered by the date named (the last did not come in until March 21) and that they had not surrendered up the runaway slaves that had joined them; and Walpole, considering that the Governor and House of Assembly had broken faith with the Maroons, whom he had promised should not be expatriated, refused a sword of honour offered him by that body and resigned his commission in the army, which, however, he had contemplated selling before the trouble with Balcarres began. That being so, it is odd to read in the “Account of Expenses incurred in the late Martial Law” “Present of swords to Lord Balcarres and General Walpole, £1950.” The regard one feels for Walpole’s indignation at what he terms “this guilt and infamy,” and his skill in quelling the rebellion, is marred when one learns that he Wrote to Balcarres on December 24, 1795: “Two Maroons (Smith and Dunbar) have come in from Johnstone’s party, to beg the King’s mercy, and the whole are to be here on Saturday, to construct their huts within our posts. I have allotted them a spot between Cudjoe Town and the Old Town; there they are to remain until the Legislature shall dispose of them. If I might give you an opinion, it should be that they should be settled near Spanish Town, or some other of the large towns in the lowlands; the access to spirits will soon decrease their numbers, and destroy that hardy constitution which is nourished by a healthy mountainous situation.” It is evident that his indignation was aroused by the false position in which he had been placed, and not by any humanitarian feeling towards the Maroons. It is also evident that Balcarres was satisfied in his own conscience that his action was right.

Parkinson was one of the last to surrender, about three months after the date fixed. He and Palmer, who had both surrendered on August 11, 1795, had been sent to the Maroons to try and persuade them to come in. Instead, they had rejoined their companies. That General Walpole had a high opinion of them as leaders is evident. He says in a letter to Lord Balcarres, “If Palmer or Parkinson should refuse the terms, which I think they will, you will never conquer them.”

In addition to the regular foot soldiers and militia employed, the 13th, 14th, 17th, 18th and 20th Light Dragoons and the York Hussars, as we have seen, took part in the struggle, and =Horse-guards= in St. James’s probably owes its name to their having been quartered there. Of the Dragoons, the 20th (or Jamaica) were raised in the West Indies. On the whole about 1520 chosen European troops, aided by twice that number of colonial militia, were opposed to less than three hundred undisciplined Maroons, who were, however, physically brave men, and fighting under conditions very favourable to themselves and most unfavourable to their adversaries. They had a system of horn-signals so perfect that there was a distinct call by which every individual man could be hailed. The cost of the war was about £350,000 sterling. In addition £49,400 was voted to defray the expatriation expenses.

Under date December 22, 1795, General Walpole wrote to Lord Balcarres as follows:

I have the honour to enclose to your Lordship the proposals of the
Maroons to which I have acceded.

The whole detachment behaved to their credit. I must not omit to
mention to your Lordship, that to the impression made in the action by
the undaunted bravery of the 17th Dragoons who were more particularly
engaged on the 15th, we owe the submission of the rebels: The Maroons
speak of them with astonishment. Mr. Werge was particularly signalized
with the advance guard; and the sergeant-major of that regiment is
strongly recommended, for his spirit and activity, by the commanding
officer Mr. Edwards, who is every way deserving your Lordship’s good
opinion.

On February 11, 1796, General Walpole wrote to Lord Balcarres as follows:—

... I am preparing to move the 13th Dragoons through the cockpits,
from One-Eye.

On February 20 Lord Balcarres wrote to General Walpole:

... I think it will take a considerable force to guard the Maroon
prisoners. The 17th Light Dragoons and the 62nd Regiment may occupy
Montego-Bay, Falmouth and St. Ann’s.

The 17th are to hold themselves in readiness to embark for St.
Domingo, when they send shipping to receive them; of which no
requisition is as yet made.

I should be glad to know your wish as to the quartering of the 13th
Light Dragoons on their arrival.

The 14th regiment of Light Dragoons are not to remain in this country
if quiet is restored. If, however, the banditti of runaway slaves have
gone down to Old Woman Savanna, they must occupy posts in that
neighbourhood; the country that lies behind it I believe never was
explored.

The “XX (or Jamaica) Regiment of Light Dragoons” was formed in 1792 and is last mentioned in the year 1802, when it was transferred to the English establishment.

Major-Gen. Robert R. Gillespie, who was one of the first lieutenants appointed when the regiment was raised in 1792, entered the army in 1783. When in the following year the French planters in San Domingo applied to Jamaica for aid, he volunteered for service with the infantry, and in the campaign there distinguished himself for bravery, returning home at the fall of Port-au-Prince. On being appointed in 1795 major of brigade to General Wilford, he accompanied him to San Domingo, and soon afterwards, though small in stature, killed six men single handed. Returning to Jamaica, he assumed command of the regiment, and in 1799 was recommended by the lieutenant-governor and House of Assembly for the rank of lieutenant-colonel and was so gazetted. He was offered by Lord Hugh Seymour the military command at Curaçoa; but Lord Balcarres said he could not spare him. At the Peace of Amiens in 1802, when the 20th Light Dragoons were transferred to the English establishment, Gillespie returned home in command, and the House of Assembly, glad to be rid of the regiment, voted one hundred pounds for a sword of honour for him. He subsequently had a brilliant career in the East, and in 1812 he received the thanks of the commander-in-chief in India, Sir George Nugent, for services in connection with the Palimbang expedition.

With regard to the unfairness to them in expatriating them, it is only just to those who did it to add that those few Maroons to whom was offered liberty to stay in Jamaica elected to go with the rest, on the grounds that “they feared they could never live in security and quiet with the free people of colour and negroes in this island.” Balcarres was severely attacked in England for the use he made of the dogs from Cuba; but he, it would seem, fully justified his action in that matter.

On June 6, 1796, the Maroons left Port Royal in three ships with the 96th Regiment as guard, and under convoy of H.M.S. _Africa_. The arrival of the exiles in Halifax is thus described in “Maroons of Jamaica and Nova Scotia, by J. C. Hamilton, LL.B.” in “Proceedings of the Canadian Institute, April 1890”: “Four years after this (_i.e._ in 1796) three ships entered the harbour of Halifax, laden with the most extraordinary cargoes that ever entered that port. Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, then in command at Halifax, boarded the _Dover_, was met by Colonel W. D. Quarrell, commissary-general of Jamaica, with whom Mr. Alexander Ouchterlony was associated, and a detachment of the 96th Regiment drawn up on board to receive him. Black men of good proportions, with many women and children, all in neat uniform attire, were mustered in lines. Other transports, the _Mary_ and _Anne_, were, his Highness was informed, about to follow, and the main cargo was six hundred Maroons exiled from Jamaica, with soldiers to guard them and meet any attacks from French vessels on the voyage.

“The Prince was struck with the fine appearance of the black men, but the citizens had heard of how Jamaica had been harried by its black banditti, and were unwilling at first to have them added to their population.”

They worked at the fortifications that were being erected to meet the threatened attack of the French fleet under Richery; and Maroon Hill, near Halifax, still bears their name. But the settlement of the Maroons in Nova Scotia was ill-conceived and ill-controlled, and they, being themselves unwilling to work, and both Jamaica and Nova Scotia unwilling to keep them in idleness, followed in 1800 those “loyal negroes” of the United States who had migrated first to Canada and then to Sierra Leone. In the transport _Asia_ 550 of them reached Sierra Leone, where, as no particular place could be secured for their location, efforts to obtain an island having failed, they were allotted a place in Granville Town, under a superintendent, Lieutenant Odburn. The “Settlers’ Rising” was in progress when they arrived, and they assisted in quelling it.

Soon after the Trelawny Town Maroons were transported from Jamaica, barracks were erected on the site of their old town, and regiments of British troops were maintained there until the middle of the nineteenth century, when they were withdrawn at the time of the Crimean war. Trelawny Town was for a time the headquarters of the troops stationed in the county of Cornwall, but it later was superseded by Falmouth. The barracks at Trelawny Town have fallen into ruins, but the evidence of the residents in the neighbourhood of a number of white soldiers in the past exists in some of the peasantry there to-day.

In 1839 Maroon Town was made the site of a sanatorium for European troops, and huts were erected there for the purpose, and the 68th Regiment was stationed there.

On a visit made to the Cockpit country in 1905 by the present writer and a friend, on entering the neighbourhood of Trelawny Town, or Maroon Town as it is now called, we came across the remains of a block-house which had loopholed chambers at three corners and evidently had had an upper storey, now disappeared, for dwelling purposes. Being now in the heart of the Cockpit country we could study its formation in detail. At one time it gave the impression of a number of stunted cones rising from a plain; at another the feeling was one of a number of basins like the Devil’s Punch-bowls of England; at all times, except where there was a clearing for corn, bananas or bread-kind, it appeared thickly wooded—mahogany, cedar, mahoe, Santa Maria, and broadleaf being prominent; and mosquito wood and red shingle wood, and other lesser known woods, being pointed out by our guide. As the bridle path now runs at some distance from the rocks, which here and there crop out of the overhanging foliage and assume the form of solid masonry, tending to deceive one into thinking that one is in front of the ruin of some fort, it cannot be by it that the troops travelled when the Maroons hurled stones on them from above. As one rides along these defiles the mournful note of the solitaire, suggests the nervousness which might have fallen on the soldiers marching through a thickly wooded, rocky, unknown country, every crag of which might conceal a foe, to whose foot such mountain paths were familiar. At Maroon Town itself we found a clearing on which cattle were grazing, and a police station (just abandoned) built on the site of the officers’ quarters of half a century ago. Near by was the well which supplied the settlement with water, and a barracks, some 130 ft. long by 30 ft. broad, which had once possessed an upper storey of wood, little now remaining of the stoutly built lower walls of limestone quarried in the neighbourhood. There also were the powder-house and the cells, the hospital and the kitchens and the mess-house, which, placed on an immense rock open to the sea breeze from the east, commanded a view over Trelawny to the sea by Falmouth miles away. It was once a substantial building of three storeys, the solid steps leading up to the second floor being still usable. Opposite the mess-house rise two large conical hills calling to mind the twin Pitons of St. Lucia—the one called Gun Hill (because a gun had been placed in position there, possibly the howitzer with which Walpole did great execution), the other Garrison Hill. Then we saw the tank some thirty feet long, fed by a clear stream in which the soldiers were wont to bathe; then, saddest of all, a few tombs—one recalling the death in 1840 of a coloured sergeant of the 68th (or Durham) Regiment, another to the wife of a quartermaster of the 38th Regiment who died in 1846, and a third to the paymaster of the 101st Regiment who died in 1810; while a nameless tomb, the oldest inhabitant told us, belonged to a Colonel Skeate, who, being ill when his regiment left, was buried by the incoming regiment. The wood behind the police station was, we were told, almost impassable. For miles the thick woods lie untrodden by man, except when a few Maroons or other negroes go hunting the wild hogs which abound, or “fowling,” _i.e._ shooting pigeons.

After leaving Maroon Town we visited the chief settlement of the Maroons in the west end of the island, Accompong, and experienced rough travelling. In places there was nothing but the bare limestone rock for yards, without a scrap of earth. Nothing but a pony bred in the district could have negotiated it successfully. But once on the main path riding was easy. One was struck by the amount of cultivation on either hand; here and there a patch of bananas, here and there yams, and so on. On reaching the town of Accompong we saw a number of houses scattered about and a small church nearing completion. Across a “pit” stood the “Colonel’s” house on the opposite side. There was a schoolhouse, presided over by a teacher trained in the elementary school at Retirement hard by; but the Maroons apparently did not set much store by education, and only about a fourth of their children attended school.

The “Colonel’s” brother told us he knew more of their old language (Coromantyn) than any one else, but all we could get out of them was pig = bracho, bull = aboukani, cow = aboukress. From a philological point of view one views them with suspicion, although the late Major J. W. Powell, of the Bureau of Ethnology of the United States, assured the writer that when he visited these Maroons a year or two ago, he had discovered them talking their native language. Bryan Edwards tells us that in his day their language was “a barbarous dissonance of the African dialects with a mixture of Spanish and broken English.”

To the ordinary observer there is little or nothing to differentiate the Maroons from the ordinary “bush-negroes,” although they seem to possess more than an ordinary share of suspiciousness—a suspiciousness which was engendered by the treatment which their brothers of Trelawny Town received from Balcarres, and has been kept alive at odd times by subsequent actions. This curious group of people numbering about 800 dwelt, each family in its own house, in the centre of their 1200 acres, which they hold in common.

The following technical description of the Cockpit country, wherein Maroon Town and Accompong are situated, is taken from Mr. F. C. Nicholas’s paper on the subject in the “Journal of the Institute of Jamaica,” 1897.

A marked feature of the geology of the West Indies is found in the
extensive deposits of massive white limestone common to all this part
of the world. This formation, though hard and compact, disintegrates
freely; tall cliffs and broken rocks are honeycombed with openings and
pit-marks, presenting a rough jagged surface, which is sometimes
almost impassable.

The Cockpit country where this formation is typical is situated in the
west central part of Jamaica, and comprises an area some ten by
fifteen miles in extent, and for the greater part one vast labyrinth
of glades among rough cliffs, with here and there patches of smoother
ground, and at other places, coming one after the other, a general
collection of impassable sink-holes, called cockpits.

The impression one gets in first visiting this region is that it is of
little interest; just a path between a few not very high cliffs. There
is such a sameness about it all that one is constantly expecting the
next turn to lead out into the open country, or to a cultivated
estate. After a few hours’ hard scrambling one realises that here in
truth there is a wilderness of rocks.

A large part of the Cockpit country has never been explored, nor is it
probable that it ever will be, because the land is useless. One can
cross the district from north to south, and east to west, and go all
round it; sufficient to show that there is nothing to compensate for
the effort, and that one part is quite similar to all the others. The
elevations averaged from 1400 ft. to 1500 ft. In the glades I noted
aneroid readings as low as 800 ft.; while on some of the ridges which
cross this district N.E. and S.W., bending at times N. and S., I took
readings as high as 2300 ft. These are the extremes, the average
variation is about 200 ft.; but these elevations are abrupt and almost
precipitous over nearly all the region.

In 1898 there arose, owing to a not unfrequent source, disputes about land, some slight trouble amongst the Maroons of Charles Town, which was, however, effectually suppressed by the prompt action of the general commanding the forces. It, however, gave to the late Phil Robinson, who was in the island at the time, an opportunity to write an article for the “Contemporary Review,” entitled “A Dress Rehearsal of Rebellion among the Maroons at Annotto Bay, Jamaica.”

In 1796 “The Proceedings of the Honourable House of Assembly relative to the Maroons; including the correspondence between the Right Honourable Earl Balcarres and the Honourable Major-General Walpole, during the Maroon rebellion; with the report of the Joint Special Secret Committee, to whom those papers were referred,” edited by Bryan Edwards, was published at St. Jago de la Vega; while in the same year was published in London “The Proceedings of the Governor and Assembly of Jamaica, in regard to the Maroon negroes: published by order of the Assembly. To which is prefixed an introductory account, containing observations on the disposition, character, manners, and habits of life, of the Maroons, and a detail of the origin, progress and termination of the late war between those people and the white inhabitants.” This was published in great measure as an answer to the attack made by Fox in the House of Commons on the action of the Assembly of Jamaica with regard to the Maroons. The same “Account of the Maroon Negroes in the Island of Jamaica” was included in Bryan Edwards’ “Historical Survey of the Island of St. Domingo,” published in 1801.

In the “Lives of the Lindsays,” published in 1858, is an account of “The Rise, Progress and Termination of the Maroon War.” Accounts of the Maroons will also be found in the histories of Long (to whom Edwards owns his indebtedness) and Bridges. The story of the Maroon War, from a military point of view, is told in the 7th chapter of the “History of the 17th Lancers,” by the Honourable J. W. Fortescue, and in a briefer form in the same writer’s “History of the British Army.” “The Maroon,” the work of the well-known novelist, Captain Mayne Reid (first published in 1862), described a sugar estate named “Welcome Hall” near Montego Bay, and a neighbouring pen, and the scene is laid entirely in St. James and Trelawny. The time is shortly anterior to the passing of the Emancipation Act in 1833, and the story, which incidentally imparts much information about local natural history and social life at the time, is, as might be expected from its author, full of exciting adventures.

In 1898 Lady Blake contributed an article on “The Maroons of Jamaica” to the “North American Review.”

The published accounts of the Maroon War are all more or less of a partisan spirit. Bryan Edwards holds a brief for the planters, Dallas for the Maroons, the writer of the “Lives of the Lindsays” for Balcarres, and even Mr. Fortescue shows a slight partiality for Walpole.

An account of the cantonment of Maroon Town in 1848 is given in “Memorials of Captain Hedley Vicars, 97th Regiment,” 1881.

A brief account of the Maroons in Sierra Leone is given in “The Rise of British West Africa,” by Claude George (1904).

The wife of William Scarlett (the second), who has been alluded to in the chapter dealing with St. Andrew, had the Lecount estate in the parish of St. John, which she parted with to Francis Morgan, mariner, her brother-in-law, he being the husband of her sister Elizabeth. This William (the second) had a son William, baptized in St. Andrew’s parish church on January 17, 1711, but he is the only child so recorded. His (William the second) second son, James Scarlett, had estates in St. James, which by his will, proved in 1777, he left amongst his eleven children, and this James’s second son was the Robert Scarlett of =Duckett’s Spring=, alluded to above.

Robert Scarlett was born in 1737, probably in St. James. He died in 1798, and was buried in Montego Bay on March 18. He owned Duckett’s Spring, Success estate and Forest pen in St. James. Scarlett’s Hall (not far from Rose Hall and Palmyra) was a property of the family.

Elizabeth Anglin, daughter of Philip Anglin, of Paradise estate, was born on June 25, 1747, and married firstly one John Wright, a planter, who was killed in her presence by revolted slaves in 1763 or 1764, in the month of March, on the estate of a Mr. Griswold. In 1765 she married Robert Scarlett, of Duckett’s Spring, and had by him thirteen children, but only four sons and three daughters survived their father, the four sons being Philip Anglin Scarlett, custos and member of Assembly for Hanover from 1816 till his death in 1823; James Scarlett, “Silver-tongued Scarlett,” afterwards Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer and first Lord Abinger; Robert Scarlett, M.D. of Edinburgh 1795, member of the Assembly for St. James in 1803–07, and later of the Council; and Sir William Anglin Scarlett. Elizabeth Anglin died in 1828 at Montego Bay, and was buried there on August 28.

Mary, daughter of John Lawrence, and wife of Philip Anglin, of Paradise estate, was the mother of the above mentioned Elizabeth. She was born in 1713 and died in 1797.

Philip Anglin Scarlett, member of the Assembly for Hanover, was the eldest son of Robert Scarlett, of Duckett’s Spring, and the owner of Cambridge estate, where the railway now runs on the way to Montego Bay, and near the road to Duckett’s.

William Anglin Scarlett was born on June 24, 1777. He died at Grove pen in Manchester on October 9, 1831, and lies buried at Mandeville. The following is the inscription on his tombstone: “Here rest the mortal remains of the Honourable Sir William Scarlett, Knight, ten years Chief Justice of Jamaica. He died October 9, 1831, aged 54. ‘The memory of the just is blessed.’” He married in July 1809 Mary, daughter of Joseph Williams, of Luana estate in the parish of St. Elizabeth; in that year he was member of the Assembly for St. James. He became chief justice of Jamaica in 1821. He was knighted in 1829. His widow survived him for one year, dying at Worthing in Sussex, England, in 1832. In 1823 he presided over the trial of Augustus Hardin Beaumont, the proprietor of a somewhat scandalous paper called “The Trifler,” first published in that year, for a libel on the Governor, the Duke of Manchester. The trial was the first to take place in the new court house, Kingston, which, wrecked by the earthquake of 1907, was only pulled down recently. The trial lasted for fourteen hours, finishing at 12.30 A.M., and ended in a verdict of “Not Guilty.” On leaving the court house the chief justice and attorney-general (Burge) were hissed and pelted with stones.

In the rebellion of 1831 the great house and works on both Cambridge and Duckett’s Spring were destroyed. On the former were 196 slaves, on the latter 221. At the time of Emancipation nine Scarletts owned properties in Hanover, Trelawny, St. James, St. Ann, St. Thomas-in-the-Vale and Kingston, with an aggregate of 327 slaves.

At Cambridge is still to be seen a family burial vault. At Duckett’s are the remains of the works and the great house. The latter was a square building of stone, with two loopholed circular towers at diagonally opposite corners. A similar arrangement is observable at The Cottage, on Cow Park, hard by in Westmoreland.