Chapter C: L. Robertson engraved (1)

[this plate].

The accompanying list copied from an old bible once in the possession of a former beadle, W. Robertson, gives the following rectors:

Rev. John Dickson From 1739 Died July 23, 1747 Rev. John Pool From 1747 Died Dec. 1766 Rev. Thomas Pollen From 1767 Died 1768 Rev. William Bartholomew, A.M. From July 1768 Died Sept. 15, 1780 Rev. Hanford Left Dec. 1793 Rev. Thomas Stewart From Dec. 17, 1793 To Sept. 15, 1815 Rev. Edmund Pope, LL.D. From Sept. 15, 1815 To July 9, 1820 Rev. James Dawn, A.M. From July 16, 1820 Died Jan. 25, 1822 Rev. W. W. Baynes Left Jan. 25, 1823 Rev. John McIntyre Left Dec. 1, 1827 Rev. Thos. Stewart, D.D. Left Dec. 6, 1847 Rev. Wm. Mayhew, M.A. Left Nov. 13, 1860 Rev. Daniel Fidler, B.D. Died Apr. 11, 1863 Rev. Josias Cork Left Sept. 21, 1870 Rev. Henry Clarke } To Oct. 1872 Rev. Edward Clarke } Rev. Henry Clarke Till April 1894 Archdeacon Henderson Davis, F.K.C. Died Jan. 1915

The new building is a stone structure with a clerestory of wood. It is in length 105 ft. 3 in.; width 56 ft., with an apse 13 ft. 6 in. by 23 ft. It is dedicated to St. George. The foundation-stone was laid on St. George’s Day, 1903, and the building was consecrated St. George’s Day, 1904.

Where =Bluefields= now stands once stood probably the township of Oristan, one of the three principal early “cities” formed by the Spaniards in Jamaica, named after a town in Sardinia when that island was under the crown of Spain. Except for Sevilla (St. Ann’s Bay), Bluefields was the only town mentioned in the description of Jamaica supplied by Gage to Cromwell. It was connected by road with Mellila (near Montego Bay) on the north, and with Esquivel (Old Harbour) to the east. It had been deserted by the founders as a place of settlement prior to 1655, although it was adopted as a temporary place of residence by a number of Spaniards in 1657, before they were finally driven off the island. Of it Blome writes in his “Description of the Island of Jamaica, with other Isles and Territories in America” (1672):—

“_Orista_ reguards the _South-Sea_, in which are many _Rocks_, and
amongst their _Banks_, some _Isles_, as _Servavilla_, _Quitosvena_ and
_Serrana_, where _Augustin Pedro Serrano_ lost his _Vessel_, and saved
onely himself, and here in a solitary and lone Condition passed away 3
Yeares; at the end of which time he had the company of a _Marriner_
for 4 _Years_ more, that was likewise there _Ship-wrackt_, and also
alone saved himself.”

The Serrano above mentioned was a Spanish hidalgo, a passenger in one of the plate fleets during the reign of Charles V, whose ship was wrecked on the island. When, after his sojourn there, he reached Spain, Serrano was sent into Germany to tell his experiences to the Emperor, who gave him an order on the mines of Peru for four thousand eight hundred ducats, but he died on his way to Panama.

Ruins of Oristan existed when Leslie wrote in 1739. In the Assembly convened in October 1664, Bluefields was represented by James Perkman and Christopher Pinder; but at the next election (January, 1671–72) the district was called St. Elizabeth.

Whether Bluefields owes its name, as does its namesake Blewfields in Nicaragua, to the use made of it by Bleevelt, the buccaneer, is merely conjecture. In the map accompanying Blome’s “Description of Jamaica” it is called Blew Fields.

In later days Bluefields has been chiefly noted as the temporary home of the celebrated naturalist Philip Henry Gosse, well known as the inventor of the marine aquarium, whose writings have done much to bring the charms of Jamaica to the notice of students of natural history. While on the one hand he was, as Huxley called him, an “honest hodman of science,” on the other the unacademic freshness of his early habit of mind, which met with the hearty approval of Darwin and Owen, remained through life, and gave, as his son points out in his Life, its pleasant tincture to all his subsequent works; and this is especially noticeable in his “Naturalist’s Sojourn,” “one of the most valuable and best written of his books.” He was not a true biologist; his real work in life was the practical study of animal forms in detail, and his chief attempts at theorising, “Life” and “Omphalos,” were failures. In these days of nature study it may be interesting to quote the following passage from the preface to the “Naturalist’s Sojourn,” written more than half a century ago:

That alone is worthy to be called _Natural History_, which
investigates and records the condition of living things, of things in
a state of nature; if animals, of _living_ animals:—which tells of
their “sayings and doings,” their varied notes and utterances, songs
and cries; their actions, in ease and under the pressure of
circumstances; their affections and passions towards their young,
towards each other, towards other animals, towards man; their various
arts and devices to protect their progeny, to procure food, to escape
from their enemies, to defend themselves from attacks; their ingenious
resources for concealment; their stratagems to overcome their victims;
their modes of bringing forth, of feeding and of training their
offspring; the relations of their structure to their wants and habits;
the countries in which they dwell; their connexion with the inanimate
world around them, mountain or plain, forest or field, barren heath or
bushy dell, open savannah or wild hidden glen, river, lake or
sea:—this would be indeed _zoology_, _i.e._ the science of _living_
creatures.

Dr. Duerdon, in his article on Gosse, which appeared in the “Journal of the Institute of Jamaica” in 1899, says:

There is no writer who has thrown such a charm around the natural
history of Jamaica, or who has contributed in the same degree to make
known the various representatives of its topical fauna, as Philip
Henry Gosse. Probably no other country possesses such a strictly
accurate and entertaining account of the nature and activities of its
leading animals, such as they were fifty years ago, as is found in the
pages of “A Naturalist’s Sojourn in Jamaica.” With its minute and
attractively written observations and descriptions of almost
everything which could appeal to the eye of a naturalist, Gosse has
accomplished for Jamaica what Gilbert White, in his letters of last
century, performed for Selborne.

Born in 1810, Gosse was from 1827 to 1835 in an office in Newfoundland; from 1835 to 1838 in Canada. In 1836 he wrote his “Entomology of Newfoundland” (which still remains unpublished); after a sojourn in Canada and Alabama he returned to England in 1839 and sold the MS. of his “Canadian Naturalist,” which had been written on his homeward voyage. He published his “Introduction of Zoology” in 1843. In 1844 he started for Jamaica, where he remained for eighteen months at Bluefields as the paying guest of a Moravian minister and his wife, and collected and sent home specimens of many rare animals. In 1847 he published his “Birds of Jamaica,” and in 1849 a folio volume of plates in illustration. In 1851 he produced his “Naturalist’s Sojourn in Jamaica,” in which he was much assisted by Richard Hill, one of Jamaica’s most talented sons. Several other works followed and added to his reputation. In 1856 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, to the Transactions of which he contributed numerous papers. He died in 1888, after many years of seclusion, at St. Mary’s Church, Devonshire. Gosse’s main purpose in visiting Jamaica was the collection, for dealers at home, of the animals and plants, particularly in such popular groups as insects, birds, shells and orchids. That he was an eminently successful collector in every department may be gathered from the number of objects which he gives in the “Sojourn,” namely: “Mammalia, 41 specimens; Birds, 1510; Reptiles, 102; Fishes, 94; Nests and Eggs, 34; Shells (marine), 1276; (terrestrial and fluviatile), about 1850; Crustacea, 100; Insects (including Arachnida and Myriapoda), about 7800; Echinodermata, 57; Zoophytes, &c., 42; Sponges, 550; Dried plants, about 5000; Living plants (Orchideæ), about 800; Bulbs and Suckers, 932; Cacti, 32; Ferns, 222; other Living Plants and Young Trees, &c., 117; large Capsules and Seed-vessels, 383; Seeds of Flowering Plants, 170 packets; Palm seeds, 14 boxes; Gums, 24 specimens; Woods, 50 blocks.”

The Bluefields of to-day differs but little from its condition of fifty years ago. The actual property to which the name is applied was in Gosse’s time in a very advanced ruinate condition, having been thrown up as an estate years before. When he was there the prospect of planters was by no means bright. “In 1844,” he says, “the beautiful sugar estates throughout the Island were half desolate, and the planters had either ceased to reside in their mansions or had pitifully retrenched their expenses.”

A tinted lithograph of Bluefields House and its immediate surroundings forms the frontispiece to the “Naturalist’s Sojourn”; but various alterations have been effected in the house since the drawing was made, and the internal re-arrangements have been so numerous that the actual room used by Gosse—a naturalist’s workroom—cannot now be identified. A view of Bluefields, entitled “The Torch was lying in Bluefields Bay,” also forms the frontispiece to one of the many editions of “Tom Cringle’s Log,” _i.e._ the third volume of “Blackwood’s Standard Novels,” published in 1842. Gosse gave a copy of this work to his young son on his request for information regarding the West Indies. Bluefields River—the “romantic little stream,” as he fondly terms it—still glides and tumbles down to the sea, its waters as pure and fresh as ever and as well stocked with mullet, crayfish, and crabs as when the naturalist wandered along its banks, turned aside its stones or searched its crevices for specimens, or bathed in its enticing pools. The Bluefields hills behind stretch upwards, their sides as thickly wooded as when Gosse first gazed upon them from Bluefields Bay, or, as he himself says of the Peak, “in the rude luxurious wildness that it bore in the days when the glories of those Hesperides first broke upon the astonished eyes of Europeans.”

In August 1694 Sir William Beeston sent home to the Duke of Shrewsbury “A Brief Account of what passed in Jamaica during the preparations and duration of the French attacks on it in 1694.” In it, while telling of the French predatory attacks along the coast before the final landing at Carlisle Bay, he says: “On the Thursday after their arrival at Cow Bay, the wind blew hard and the Admiral’s ship and another were blown off shore to Blackfield Bay at the west end of the Island, where they landed sixty men. Major Andress, who had been left there with a few men, engaged them and there was a small encounter in which we had one man killed and two wounded, and they lost some; but the Admiral firing a gun to recall them they hurried on board, leaving their food and captured cattle behind them, and sailed away.”

Although the word is Bluckfield or Blackfield in the original manuscript (it is printed Blackfield in the “Calendar of State Papers”) there is no doubt that Bluefields is referred to. The Major Andress is evidently identical with Lieutenant-Colonel Barnard Andreiss, who was custos and member of the Assembly for St. Elizabeth, and died at Lacovia in 1710.

Matthew Gregory Lewis—usually known from the title of his most famous work as Monk Lewis—though he only spent a few months in Jamaica, did much for the welfare of the negro population, both by precept and example. On both sides his ancestors had interests in the island. His uncle Robert Sewell died Attorney-General of Jamaica. Another relative and namesake, the Hon. John Lewis, was Chief Justice. The husband of one of his father’s sisters, a Mr. Blake, was a West Indian planter, and his maternal grandmother lies buried in Spanish Town cathedral, while the mausoleum which he mentions as being at =Cornwall= points to a resident proprietorship. Another aunt, it may be mentioned, was married to the ill-fated General Whitelocke, who, after commanding with distinction in 1793–94 the expedition sent by General Williamson from Jamaica to St. Domingo, and elsewhere, was cashiered in 1808 for cowardice in the Buenos Ayres expedition of the previous year.

Lewis was born in London in 1775. His father was the deputy secretary at war, and his mother the youngest daughter of Sir Thomas Sewell, the Master of the Rolls. Much of his life and his inner thoughts may be gathered from “The Life and Correspondence of M. G. Lewis,” published anonymously—by Mrs. Margaret Baron-Wilson—in 1839, based in great measure on the letters which he constantly wrote to a mother whom he adored.

A more precocious child than he was it would be almost impossible to conceive; but at the same time, though least like her in outward appearance of all her four children, he inherited much of the temperament of his mother, a timid and sensitive woman, whose constant companion he was in early life.

Young Lewis’s histrionic talents were early developed, and at Westminster he took part in the school plays. Intended by his parents for a diplomatic career, he afterwards went to Oxford, spending his vacations on the continent in the study of modern languages.

When he was nineteen, his father’s influence procured him an attachéship to the British Embassy at the Hague. He stayed but a few months in the Dutch capital, but in that time, in the short space of ten weeks, he wrote a work by the publication of which in 1795 he at once sprang into fame—“Ambrosio, or The Monk.”

The discrepancy to be noticed between the character of Lewis as a man and the opinions expressed in the book are most curious. Mrs. Baron-Wilson, evidently a close friend, says of him: “There is nothing else in English literature so wild, so extravagant, so utterly at variance with all the ordinary and received rules of art and of criticism (not to mention the recognised codes of morals), as the chief writings of ‘Monk’ Lewis. Yet we may tax the whole circle of our biographical literature to show us a man whose personal character and conduct—from his earliest youth to the close of his worldly career—were more strictly and emphatically those which we are accustomed to look for from a plain, right-thinking, commonsense view of human affairs.” Before he had passed his majority by many months, Lewis was elected Member of Parliament for Hindon in Wiltshire, in which borough he succeeded William Beckford, of Fonthill Abbey, another Jamaica proprietor. But his parliamentary career was singularly prosaic; he never addressed the House. Henceforth he devoted himself to literature. From his facile pen flowed contributions to every branch, from _vers de société_ to funeral odes—novels, dramas, lyric poems, Scotch ballads, nautical songs, imitations of classic writers, translations and adaptations from the German, Italian, Spanish and Danish.

As a reviver of old ballads he paved the way for Hogg and for Scott, the latter of whom collaborated with him in his “Tales of Terror” and “Tales of Wonder,” which however were never popular.

The acquisition of wealth and the inheritance of his father’s West Indian estates enabled him to enter on a larger sphere of philanthropic work than he had hitherto been able to undertake. His action in this respect was not a momentary impulse, but a practical outcome of firm conviction, and he took steps to ensure that its effects should endure after his death. His object was the amelioration of the condition of the slaves on his Jamaica properties.

He arrived at Black River on New Year’s Day, 1816, where he found “John Canoe” and all the rest of negro Christmastide festivities in full swing. In his first letter home to his mother he told her he was keeping a regular journal, and this was afterwards published posthumously in 1834, under the title of “The Journal of a West Indian Proprietor, kept during a residence in the Island of Jamaica,” which Coleridge in his “Table-Talk” denotes “delightful. It is almost the only unaffected book of travels I have read of late years. You have the man himself. It is by far his best work, and will live to be popular.” A new edition appeared in 1861 under the title of “Journal of a Residence among the Negroes in the West Indies.”

Lewis spent four months in Jamaica, and so much of his time did he give to the amelioration of the condition of his slaves on his estate of Cornwall, within a few miles of Savanna-la-Mar, that he left the island without having visited Hordley, an estate in the Plantain Garden River division of St. Thomas-in-the-East, in which estate he had a share. On Cornwall there were 307 slaves and 287 head of stock, and on Hordley 283 slaves and 130 stock. His friend Lord Holland, it may be mentioned, then owned Friendship and Greenwich, neighbouring estates in Westmoreland.

Lewis’s principal acts were the abolition of the lash, the acceptance of negro evidence at enquiries into offences, &c., and an endeavour to supplement manual labour by mechanical implements and improved stock. He built better hospitals for the sick, granted extra holidays to his negroes, and generally did his best to spoil them—not without success, for he writes: “The negroes certainly are perverse beings. They had been praying for a sight of their master year after year; they were in raptures at my arrival; I have suffered no one to be punished, and shown them every possible indulgence during my residence amongst them, and one and all they declare themselves perfectly happy and well treated. Yet previous to my arrival they made thirty-three hogsheads a week; in a fortnight after my landing their product dwindled to twenty-three; during this last week they have managed to make but thirteen.”

It is curious to read of the author of “The Monk,” a little lion in London society, throwing himself heart and soul into the most minute questions of domestic economy and policy at Cornwall, and adjusting differences between Cubina and Phyllis.

He drew up rules for the better security of justice for his slaves after he had left, and by his kindness he so won their hearts that when he threatened to leave them, they professed to be filled with despair.

So strongly was he impressed with the evil arising from absent landlordism that in a codicil to his will he made it a condition of inheritance that the owner, whoever he or she might be, of his estates should pass three clear calendar months in Jamaica every third year.

He made enemies for himself amongst the local magistrates, by taking upon himself the part of intercessor with their masters for slaves on neighbouring properties.

He made one more visit to Jamaica. In October 1817 accompanied by Tita, an Italian valet, he set out for Jamaica in the same ship and with the same captain as in 1815. He reached Black River in February 1818, and this time he visited Hordley, but, as we have seen in the account of St. Thomas, had hardly sufficient time to effect such drastic changes as he had done at Cornwall.

On his way he stopped at Kingston, where he saw performed at the theatre his own tragedy “Adelgitha,” whom the author meant only to be killed in the last act, but whom the actors murdered in all five.

On May 4, 1818, he left Black River for England, and ten days later he was committed to a watery grave, having succumbed to yellow fever, which had broken out on board the _Sir Godfrey Webster_. He died in the arms of the faithful Tita who was afterwards present at Byron’s death.

The following is Lewis’s description of Cornwall great house as it then was:

The houses here are generally built and arranged to one and the same
model. My own is of wood, partly raised upon pillars; it consists of a
single floor: a long gallery, called a piazza, terminated at each end
by a square room, runs the whole length of the house. On each side of
the piazza is a range of bedrooms, and the porticoes of the two fronts
form two more rooms, with balustrades, and flights of steps descending
to the lawn. The whole house is virandoed with shifting Venetian
blinds to admit air; except that one of the end rooms has sash-windows
on account of the rains, which, when they arrive, are so heavy, and
shift with the wind so suddenly from the one side to the other, that
all the blinds are obliged to be kept closed; consequently the whole
house is in total darkness during their continuance, except the single
sash-windowed room. There is nothing underneath except a few
store-rooms and a kind of waiting-hall; but none of the domestic
negroes sleep in the house, all going home at night to their
respective cottages and families.

Cornwall House itself stands on a dead flat, and the works are built
in its immediate neighbourhood, for the convenience of their being the
more under the agent’s personal inspection (a point of material
consequence with them all, but more particularly for the hospital).
This dead flat is only ornamented with a few scattered bread-fruit and
cotton trees, a grove of mangoes, and the branch of a small river,
which turns the mill. Several of these buildings are ugly enough; but
the shops of the cooper, carpenter and blacksmith, some of the trees
in their vicinity, and the negro huts, embowered in shrubberies and
groves of oranges, plantains, cocoas and pepper-trees, would be
reckoned picturesque in the most ornamented grounds. A large spreading
tamarind fronts me at this moment and overshadows the stables, which
are formed of open wickerwork; and an orange tree, loaded with fruit,
grows against the window at which I am writing.

On three sides of the landscape the prospect is bounded by lofty,
purple mountains; and the variety of occupations going on all around
me, and at the same time, give an inconceivable air of life and
animation to the whole scene, especially as all those occupations look
clean—even those which in England look dirty. All the tradespeople are
dressed in jackets and trousers, either white or of red and sky-blue
stripe. One band of negroes are carrying the ripe canes on their heads
to the mill; another set are conveying away the “trash,” after the
juice has been extracted; flocks of turkeys are sheltering from the
heat under the trees; the river is filled with ducks and geese; the
coopers and carpenters are employed about the puncheons; carts drawn
some by six, others by eight, oxen, are bringing loads of Indian corn
from the fields; the black children are employed in gathering it into
the granary, and in quarrelling with pigs as black as themselves, who
are equally busy in stealing the corn whenever the children are
looking another way: in short, a plantation possesses all the movement
and interest of a farm, without its dung and its stench and its dirty
accompaniments.

The following inscriptions occur at Cornwall:

Here lieth the Body of
Mrs. Jane Lewis
Late wife of the Honourable William Lewis Esq.
and elder daughter of Matthew Gregory Esq.
who departed this life
on the 19th day of February 1765.
Aged 39 years and 10 months.
She was married 22 years and 5 Days During which time
She devoted herself entirely to her God and her Family.
She lived the inimitable Pattern
of Conjugal Affection and Goodness,
of Filial Love and Duty,
And of Maternal Care and Tenderness.

Oh Death Thou hast Shewn thy Sting
Oh Death Thou hast Obtained thy Victory.

Also the Body of
William Lewis
who died the 27th of April 1774
Aged 53 years
His Remains were brought from England
according to His own request
and Deposited in this Place
near those of his
Affectionate and beloved Wife.

For Beckford Town, now little more than a name, the land was given by Richard Beckford, one of the family of that name, which numbered in it some of Jamaica’s most wealthy planters.

Under date January 5, 1660–61, Pepys wrote: “The great Tom Fuller come to me to desire a kindness for a friend of his who hath a mind to go to Jamaica with these two ships that are going, which I promised to do.” The friend, Peter Beckford, quitted England in search of adventures, and settled in Jamaica, where he rose to considerable wealth as a planter. He did not, as Bridges suggests, fly from Cromwell’s tyranny, for the Restoration had taken place before he left England. In 1663 the name of Beckford appears amongst the planters of St.-Thomas-in-the-Vale. Colonel Peter Beckford, a son of the immigrant, was elected member of the Assembly under Lord Carlisle, who must have been—if we are to believe Nichols in his “Herald and Genealogist” and Burke in his “History of the Commoners”—a man of somewhat humble estate in spite of his high ancestry, for they tell us that Sir Thomas Beckford, sheriff of London, and Colonel Peter Beckford, governor of Jamaica, were brothers—both sons of a tailor of Maidenhead. Lord Braybrooke, in his notes to Pepy’s Diary, says that Sir Thomas and Colonel Peter were uncle and nephew, the former being a son of the tailor. Colonel Beckford was elected member for St. Catherine in the Assembly which met on April 26, 1675. He afterwards served in several Assemblies for the parishes of St. James, Clarendon and St. Dorothy. He was then called to the Council and became its president. On the death of the Governor, Major-General Selwyn, on April 5, 1702, when the Legislature was sitting, Colonel Beckford, who had a dormant commission of old date, caused himself to be proclaimed lieutenant-governor. In his speech to the Assembly he said, “I have gone through most of the offices of this Island, though with no great applause, yet without complaint.” The manner of his death has been already narrated in the account of St. Catherine. His personal wealth, which was said to have amounted to £478,000, and his real estate to as much more, gained for him great influence with the planters. This wealth was inherited by his son Peter, the speaker of the Assembly above mentioned. His second son, Thomas, married “en secondes noces” Mary Ballard (apparently a cousin) and had three sons; the eldest, Ballard Beckford, who married a daughter of John Clark, Governor of New York, was expelled from the House “during the continuance of this Assembly” in 1739, for adultery with the wife of another member, Manning, the member for Kingston. At his death his estate was in debt, and an Act was passed to enable certain properties to be sold. The second, Thomas, married a daughter of Robert Byndloss, the brother-in-law of Sir Henry Morgan, of buccaneering fame, and their daughter and sole heiress married firstly John Palmer, and secondly Edward Long, the historian. Thomas Beckford himself, who sat in the Assembly for St. Catherine, and was elected speaker in 1727 and 1728, died in 1731, “slain, it is believed, in an encounter with one Cargill,” probably Captain Richard Cargill, member for Vere.

FORT WILLIAM—AQUEDUCT
]

Peter Beckford, the speaker, married Bathshua, daughter and co-heiress of Colonel Julines Herring, of Jamaica. He was elected member of Assembly for Port Royal in 1704, and in the next Assembly of 1705 was chosen for three parishes, St. James, Westmoreland and St. Elizabeth, but elected to sit for the last named. He continued to serve as a member in every Assembly of the island until his death—in the early part of the time generally for St. Elizabeth, in the later for St. Catherine. As member for the former parish he was five times chosen speaker—in 1707, 1708–9, 1711, 1713, 1716. At this time he applied to be deputy secretary of the island, under a deputation from William Congreve, but the Governor (Lord Archibald Hamilton) refused to accept him on the ground that he was “the chief actor in all the unhappy differences in the country.” He was comptroller of her Majesty’s customs. He died in 1735, aged 61. From the votes of the Assembly we learn that he bequeathed the sum of £1000 to the poor of the parish of St. Catherine. This sum was used in the formation of a school: it is now merged with the Smith bequest in the Beckford and Smith School at Spanish Town. In the “Gentleman’s Magazine” for December 1735 he is said to have left nearly £300,000. Besides mortgages and similar investments, he had no less than twenty-four plantations and twelve hundred slaves of his own in the island.

PORT WILLIAM ESTATE
]

He had thirteen children. The eldest, Peter, was member of the Assembly for Westmoreland in 1728, while his father was sitting for St. Catherine, and his uncle for Port Royal. He died unmarried in 1737, aged 31. On his death his fortune went to his brother William, afterwards Lord Mayor of London, whose son was the celebrated William Beckford, of “Vathek” and Fonthill fame.

A younger brother of the Lord Mayor, Richard Beckford, who was M.P. for Bristol, had a natural son, William Beckford, who visited his father’s Jamaica estates. His mother was Elizabeth Hay. He married his cousin, Charlotte Hay, daughter of Thomas Hay, formerly Island Secretary of Jamaica; and he impaled with his father’s arms those of the Hays—on a field argent, three escutcheons gules: but in preference to the bend sinister, the usual mark of illegitimacy, he added the less-known badge, the fimbria or border. Richard Beckford by his will trusted to the justice of his brother Julines to convey—to trustees in trust for his reputed son William—Roaring River and such other estates in Jamaica as had come into Julines’ possession by virtue of an agreement between them, and accordingly he bequeathed these properties to his reputed son William, who, on his coming of age, executed a deed in 1765, which was registered at Spanish Town in 1766, a deed to bar the entail in favour of another, who, however, subsequently re-conveyed it to him. He is therein described as “of Balls, in the County of Hartford (_sic_), Esq.” In a later deed, recorded in 1773, he is described as late of Balls, but now of Summerley (_sic_) Hall.

One of his earliest works was “Remarks on the Situation of Negroes in Jamaica,” 1788; and he published in 1794 a “History of France from the most early records to the death of Louis XVI,” the early part of which is by Beckford, and the more modern by an anonymous Englishman who had been some time resident in Paris. But the work by which he is best known is “A Descriptive Account of the Island of Jamaica; with remarks upon the cultivation of the Sugar-cane, throughout the different seasons of the year, and chiefly considered in a picturesque point of view; also observations and reflections upon what would probably be the consequences of an abolition of the slave-trade and of the emancipation of the Slaves,” published in two volumes in London in 1790. The title fully describes the contents. It is a work of no considerable merit, and displaying none of the genius which might have been expected of a near relative of the author of “Vathek.” From the dedication we learn that the author enjoyed the friendship of the Duke of Dorset, to whom it is addressed, and from the preface that the work was written in the Fleet prison—a strange residence for one who would claim kinship with the owner of Fonthill. His position was, he says, the consequence of “imprudences which I might have prevented, and of misfortunes which I could not foresee”—a subject which is constantly referred to throughout the book. Besides suffering from the great hurricane of 1780, he was evidently deceived by some friend for whom he had become security.

He intended to illustrate his work with engravings from “some particular views of the island that were taken on the spot” by George Robertson, but pecuniary reasons obliged him to desist. He devotes several pages to the praises of this artist’s work, comparing him—with an enthusiasm which does more credit to his kindness of heart than to his faculties as an art critic—to Claude Lorrain, Gaspard Poussin and Salvator Rosa, and he concludes: “It is a pity that more of his drawings are not engraved; of the numerous and interesting views he took in Jamaica, only six have met the public eye, although there are many that richly deserve to be removed from dust and oblivion. The names of Robertson and Earlom, to the same plate, could not fail to render them immortal.”

In 1778 John Boydell published a series of six engravings from paintings by George Robertson, by Thomas Vivares, James Mason and David Lerpiniere. They are all dedicated to William Beckford, Esq. They represent: (1) Part of the Rio Cobre, near Spanish Town; (ii) Roaring River Estate; (iii) Fort William Estate, with part of Roaring River belonging to William Beckford, Esq., near Savanna-la-Mar; (iv) Bridge crossing Cabarita River; (v) The Spring Head of Roaring River on the Estate of William Beckford, Esq.; (vi) The Bridge crossing the Rio Cobre, near Spanish Town.

Two of the original paintings are in the possession of Mrs. C. E. de Mercado, of Kingston.

As, with the exception of Hakewill and John Bartholomew Kidd, R.S.A., George Robertson is the only artist of any importance who has devoted his pencil to portraying the beauties of Jamaica, a few notes about him may prove of interest. The facts recorded about him by Redgrave are somewhat scanty. Born in London, he was the son of a wine merchant, and was brought up to that business. He studied in Shipley’s school, and in 1761 he gained a Society of Arts premium for his drawings of horses. This brought him to the notice of William Beckford, with whom he travelled in Italy, and studied, chiefly at Rome, during several years. He returned to London about 1770, and although Beckford tried to push his fortunes for him, he was not very successful, and he was induced to accompany his patron to Jamaica. He painted views in the island, and, returning to England, exhibited pictures of Jamaica scenes, twenty-six in all, with the Incorporated Society of Artists (of which body he was for some time vice-president) from 1775 to 1778. Most of them appeared as “A View in Jamaica.” The names given are =Roaring River=, =Fort William= and =Williamsfield=. These views were admired, and when engraved created some interest; but he received no better encouragement than before, and he had to have recourse to teaching and making drawings for the dealers, to support his wife and children, till a bequest from an uncle happily relieved him from anxiety. Never of robust health, a fall from a horse increased his infirmity. He died in 1788, before he reached his fortieth year. He occasionally painted subject pieces, aiming at the “grand style,” and his “St. Martin dividing his cloak” is in Vintners’ Hall, London. But his principal talents lay in the direction of landscape. “His compositions,” Redgrave says, “were too scenic, his trees, though spirited, were fanciful and exuberant in their forms, yet his works are by no means without merit.”

ROARING RIVER ESTATE IN 1774

From an engraving by Thomas Vivares after a painting by George
Robertson
]

William Beckford also employed in Jamaica the talents of Philip Wickstead, a portrait painter, a pupil of Zoffany, and distinguished by his small whole-length portraits, whose acquaintance he had made in Rome in 1773. He accompanied his patron to Jamaica, and practised his art for a considerable time in the island. He speculated as a planter, but was unsuccessful. Losses led to drink, and his life was thereby shortened. He died before 1790. Beckford said of him, his “powers of painting were considerably weakened by his natural indolence, and more than all, by a wonderful eccentricity of character. His colouring was almost equal to that of any artist of his time, and the freedom and execution of his pencil were particularly apparent in his representation of negroes of every character, expression and age.” Unfortunately many of Wickstead’s drawings perished in the hurricane of 1780.

In biographical dictionaries William Beckford is styled an historian, and, as we have seen, he wrote part of a History of France, but in his work on Jamaica he was content to reprint his historical facts from the “Jamaica Almanack” of the day, and apparently he did not know the year of the discovery of the island by Columbus, for he twice gives a wrong date, and his date for the Port Royal earthquake is also wrong. Much may be excused, however, in an historian who wrote in the Fleet prison.

One trait he had in common with his kinsman and namesake—a true love of nature and the picturesque. But his description of the natural beauties of the island is couched in the somewhat high-flown style of the eighteenth century.

The following is part of his description of the great hurricane which destroyed Savanna-la-Mar in 1780:

At Savanna-la-Mar, there was not even a vestige of a town (the parts
only of two or three houses having in partial ruin remained, as if to
indicate the situation and extent of the calamity); the very materials
of which it had been composed had been carried away by the resistless
fury of the waves, which finally completed what the wind began. A very
great proportion of the poor inhabitants were crushed to death or
drowned; and in one house alone, it was computed that forty, out of
one and forty souls, unhappily and prematurely perished. The sea drove
with progressive violence for more than a mile into the country; and
carried terror, as it left destruction, wherever it passed. Two large
ships and a schooner were at anchor in the bay, but were driven a
considerable distance from the shore, and totally wrecked among the
mango-trees upon land.

He concludes his description thus:

“Having resided for some time in that delightful country, from which
the most celebrated painters of landscape have made their principal
studies; and having always travelled with those who loved, or were
professors of the Art; and having accompanied the latter in all their
walks, and followed their imitations upon the easel, it is not
unnatural to suppose that I should catch, as it were by reflection, a
small portion of their curiosity, and endeavour to follow, at a
distance, those rays which have warmed, although they have not been
able to illuminate. As one, therefore, who has observed Nature with
more enthusiasm than taste, I must decide in favour of the rich and
magnificent scenery of the West Indies, in preference to any rural
appearances I have observed in other countries; and I should dwell
with more pertinacity upon this opinion, were they, by contrast, more
observed and better known.”

William Beckford was born in Jamaica in 1744.

In 1767 or 1768 he went abroad with “two others” (William Fullerton and Glover) under the travelling preceptorship of Patrick Brydone, traveller and author, and made a somewhat extensive tour. Fullerton, after a most successful career in India, became known, from his conduct of the first commissionership of the government of Trinidad, as “the persecutor of Picton.” Beckford spent nearly thirteen years (between 1773 and 1788) in Jamaica, on his estates, Fort William and Roaring River, near Savanna-la-Mar, now the property of Miss G. C. Hay. Of the works at Roaring River almost all that remain are two stones, one of which bears the date 1737 and the other the Beckford crest, a heron’s head with a fish in its beak, with the date 1778. On page 392 of his work he says, “When I left Jamaica in the year 1777.” This is an evident misprint for 1788 or 1789. He also owned Williamsfield, and is said to have owned the following properties, also in Westmoreland: The Crawl, Hertford Pen, Hatfield Pen and Smithfield Wharf. During all these years he apparently never visited the north side of the island. He is mentioned in the Jamaica Almanacs from 1782 to 1788 (after which date his name disappears) as a magistrate for Westmoreland. Much as he admired its scenery, the island of Jamaica evidently had for him unpleasant memories. He alludes to it as “that spot upon which it was my unhappy fortune for so many years of my life to reside.” The only records of his sojourn in Jamaica are Beckford street at Savanna-la-Mar, and Beckford Lodge, a small holding near that town, and the mark R/WB which is still used for the rum exported from Roaring River. On his return voyage to England he passed the Cayman Islands, landing at Grand Cayman. In 1788 he published his “Remarks on the Situation of Negroes in Jamaica.” He retired to his estate at Somerly in Suffolk, which he had evidently owned as early as 1773. He then spent, as we have seen, some time, about 1790–91, in the Fleet prison.

SAVANNA-LA-MAR IN 1840
]

He died on February 4, 1799, of an apoplectic fit at the Earl of Effingham’s in Wimpole street, London. His pecuniary losses had probably led him to sell his property in Suffolk, for he is described as “late of Somerly Hall.” The Earl of Effingham mentioned is Richard the fourth earl, nephew to Thomas second earl, who had married a sister of Lord Mayor Beckford in 1744, and brother to the third earl, who died while Governor of Jamaica. Beckford evidently selected his friends from those accomplished in literature and the arts. In his writings he refers to Sir William Hamilton, who was a friend of the author of “Vathek,” to Brydone, to “my friend Parsons,” the musician, to Charles Burney, nephew of Dr. Burney and Robertson and Wickstead the artists; and Dr. Burney has told us that he was the friend of Sir Joshua Reynolds and Sir Joseph Banks.

=Negril Harbour= is sometimes called Bloody Bay, said to be due to the killing of whales there in former times. In it is a tomb of George Murray (d. 1804), custos, who laid the foundation-stone of the church in 1797. At =Cross Path= is the tomb of Colonel John Guthrie (d. 1739), custos of the parish and colonel of the militia, who reduced the rebel negroes who had for many years harassed the island; at =Dryworks= there is the tomb of Colonel William Williams (d. 1723), custos of the parish, who had rendered valuable services during the hurricane of 1772, and William Lewis (d. 1774), grandfather of Matthew Gregory Lewis; On the roadside near =Kew Park= is a soldier’s tomb with the following inscription:

In the rear of this stone lie the remains of Obediah Chambers, late a
private of the Light Infantry Company W.I.R. which, on the 5th of
January 1830 fell into an ambush of rebellious slaves, near this spot,
by whom the deceased was cruelly butchered.

A brave man, & valorous in course of life here, who died a Soldier &
an honest man.

This stone is erected by the Officers & N.C. Officers of the 6th
Battn. Coy.

At =Harmony Hall= is the tomb of John Lewis (d. 1820), chief justice and custos of the parish, and also of Mary Lewis (d. 1813). At =Three-Mile River= Estate is a mausoleum with a large marble slab “to the memory of James Graham, late of this island” (d. 1795), erected by his friend John Wedderburn. =Drummond= and =Indian Head= both have caves with Arawâk remains.

XIII
ST. ELIZABETH

The parish of St. Elizabeth was probably named in honour of Elizabeth, Lady Modyford, the daughter of William Palmer, whose tombstone is in the cathedral. It is one of the largest parishes and one of the most important. In the parish church at =Black River= are memorial tablets recalling to the memory of the living the many good qualities of the departed St. Elizabeth gentry. The handsomest are those on either side of the chancel to the memory of Caleb Dickenson and Robert Hugh Munro, founders of the Munro and Dickenson’s trust, which to-day maintains two of the principal schools in the island. The Maroon township called Accompong on the northern boundary of the parish has been referred to in the account of the neighbouring parish of St. James.

Robert Hugh Munro, of the parish of St. Elizabeth, by his will dated January 21, 1797, and a codicil of May 23, 1797, bequeathed the residue of his real and personal estate in certain contingencies in trust to his nephew, Caleb Dickenson, and the churchwardens of the parish of St. Elizabeth, and their successors, to lay out the same in the endowment of a school to be erected and maintained in the said parish, for the education of as many poor children of the parish as the funds might be sufficient to provide for and maintain, and, if necessary, to apply to the Legislature for an act for the regulation of the charity and to carry out his intentions. For years after the death of Dickenson, who had bequeathed them fully to carry out his uncle’s intentions, the funds of the Charity were applied to anything but their proper purpose, and at length in 1825 an Act of the Legislature was passed for regulating the charity, which recited the history of the trust up to that date, and propounded a scheme which had been agreed upon for the management of the trust; but this commendable scheme appears never to have been carried out, and it was not until 1855 that the Act 18 Victoria, chap. 53, was passed with the object of rescuing the remains of the charity.

In 1856 a Free School for boys was opened near Black River, and early in 1857 the premises at Potsdam, in the Santa Cruz Mountains, were purchased and the school was removed thither. The Trust maintains two schools situated in the Santa Cruz Mountains—that for boys still at =Potsdam=; that for girls formerly at Mount Zion, now at =Hampton=.

At Lacovia, on the main road from Santa Cruz to Black River, precisely at its junction with the road from Lacovia to Balaclava, there are two tombs, side by side; the space between being only six feet. One, built of large squares of stones or rock commonly used for building purposes, is in the last stages of decay and ruin, and without any slab or inscription. The other is a high brick tomb, with a massive white marble slab on which is the following inscription:

Here lyes interr’d the body of
Thomas Jordan Spencer.
Born Octbr. the 14^{th}, 1723, who departed
this life Sunday morning, September the
17th, 1738.

The _Arms_ are: Quarterly argent and gules, in the second and third quarters a frette or: over all, on a bend sable, three fleurs-de-lis of the first. The _Crest_ an esquire’s helmet.

This monument is not mentioned in Lawrence-Archer’s “Monumental Inscriptions of the British West Indies.” The quartering of the shield is very much worn owing to the exposed position of the tomb.

Tradition says that at a tavern which formerly stood hard by, a friendly party was interrupted by angry words which led to a duel, in which both combatants fell, and that they were buried side by side.

At =Lacovia= estate is the tomb of Barnard Andreiss (d. 1710), custos of the parish; =Dickenson’s Run= has Jewish tombs with inscriptions in Hebrew and Portuguese. At =Pedro= is a cave with Arawâk remains, and also at =Hounslow=. =Hampstead= great house is said to have been the summer residence of former Jamaica governors.

Some one with classic taste named =Catadupa=, a word originally applied to the cataracts of the Nile, and once used both in French and English for a waterfall.

Long, after ridiculing the tale copied by many writers that the rain-drops which fall at Magotty turn into maggots, goes on to suggest the derivation of “_maga_ (an enchantress) and _oteo_ (watching on a high place); alluding probably to the pinnacle of _Monte Diablo_, over which the thunder clouds so frequently break, as together with its horrid aspect to make it seem a proper residence for a witch, under patronage of the devil, to whom the mountain was dedicated.”

=Surinam Quarters=, in St. Elizabeth, were settled in 1675 by planters from Surinam, when that colony was exchanged with the Dutch for New York.

=Culloden= and =Auchindown=, in St. Elizabeth, date from the time of the arrival of the ill-fated Darien refugees.

XIV
MANCHESTER

Manchester was separated from the adjoining parishes of St. Elizabeth, Clarendon and Vere in 1814, and was named after the Duke of Manchester, who was Governor of the island at the time; while the chief town, Mandeville, was named after his eldest son.

The parish is more noted for its agricultural than historic associations. Mandeville is much frequented by visitors from the United States and Canada and Great Britain. The court-house is said to have cost upwards of £20,000. In the churchyard is the tombstone of Sir William Scarlett, chief justice of the island from 1821 to 1832, who is referred to in the account of St. James.

Bridges, the historian, was the rector from 1817 to 1823. In that period he baptized 9547 slaves, and married 2187. In 1823 he published his “Voice from Jamaica,” written in defence of slave-owners, for which the Assembly two years later voted him £700. He valued his living at £1118 per annum. The Rev. Samuel Stewart, writing in 1840, says: “Four large schoolhouses have been erected, one-half of the expense paid by the Bishop, the other moiety by the Vestry.”

XV
CLARENDON

The parish of Clarendon was named in honour of the celebrated Lord Chancellor. The parish of Vere, now merged in it, was named after Vere, daughter of Sir Edward Herbert, Attorney-General to Charles I, and first wife of Sir Thomas Lynch, who, with her two sons, died on her passage from England to this island in 1683.

=Carlisle Bay=, the scene of the principal military engagement with a foreign foe which has taken place in Jamaica during the British occupation, is on the south-west coast of the old parish of Vere.

Much of the following account is taken from “A Narrative of the Descent on Jamaica by the French,” by Sir William Beeston, in the MSS. department of the British Museum. It is printed in “Interesting Tracts relating to the Island of Jamaica,” published at St. Jago de la Vega in 1800. A letter from the Council in England in answer to Beeston’s narrative is also in the British Museum, and a contemporary account of the occurrence sworn to at Bermuda on October 2, 1694, by Benjamin Thornton, master of the sloop _Content_, is in the Record Office at Bermuda. Beeston came to the island in 1660, was employed in various public capacities, and was lieutenant-governor from 1690 to 1700, and thenceforward Governor till 1702; he is chiefly famous for the defence, which he made, together with Colonel Long, against the attempt by Lord Carlisle to assimilate the government of Jamaica to that of Ireland.

For some time prior to the engagement at Carlisle Bay the owners of the plantations on the sea coast of Jamaica had been much distressed by descents by French privateers (aided in some cases by disaffected persons from the island itself who threw in their lot with them) from San Domingo and the Leeward Islands, who plundered and murdered as occasion offered.

Captain Du Casse—the Governor of San Domingo, perhaps best known in England as the opponent to Benbow in the engagement which ended in the latter’s death—being informed by two renegade Irishmen that the “island was easily taken; the fortifications at Port Royal were out of order and few men there, so that two hundred men would take that place, and two hundred more would march in any part of the country the people were so thin and so little used to arms,” and, being reinforced by three men-of-war from France, decided to make a descent on the island. In the meantime a Captain Elliott, of Jamaica, who had been taken prisoner into Petit Goave, on the west coast of San Domingo, by French privateers, and was probably the Captain Stephen Elliott who brought to England the news of the great earthquake at Port Royal in 1692, managed to escape to Jamaica in a small canoe, and give timely warning on May 31, 1694, that Du Casse himself, with twenty sail and 3000 men, was coming to take the island. For this he was subsequently rewarded by William III with a gold chain and medal of £100 value and £500 in money.