SIR HENRY MORGAN—LORD RODNEY—EDUCATION IN JAMAICA—CAPTAIN BAKER ON THE
BRIGHT PROSPECTS OF JAMAICA
If Jamaica was known as the white man’s grave in a bygone age, it has now
completely changed its character. Twenty-five years ago Chief-Justice
Cockburn declared that “there was not a stone in the island of Jamaica
which, if the rains of heaven had not washed off from it the stains of
blood, might not have borne terrible witness to the manner in which
martial law had been exercised for the suppression of native discontent.”
I was told only yesterday of the panic-stricken way in which the natives
learnt of the death of the late Queen Victoria. A nonconformist minister,
whose sphere of work lies amongst the mountains at the eastern end of
the island, graphically described to me how the inhabitants of those
isolated parts flocked into the nearest towns and to the parsonage
houses, chattering anxiously together about the death of the great
“Missus Queen.” Some native agitators had worked upon their ignorance and
credulity, and they quite believed with the accession “of the new young
man” slavery times would come again!
In the place of native discontent it would, at the present day, be
difficult to find a more loyal, peaceful, and law-abiding people than
this. And yet it is not more than two hundred and fifty years since
the wildest of buccaneers figured upon the scene in Jamaica. In a
biographical dictionary I note the somewhat amusing, though deeply
satirical piece of information.
“Morgan, Sir Henry John, buccaneer, born about 1637, long ravaged the
Spanish colonies, took and plundered Puerto Bello 1668; _after a life of
rapine knighted by Charles II._ and made a marine commissary, died 1690.”
This great freebooter was as politic and shrewd as he was unscrupulous
and daring. I cannot vouch for the truth of the following story, but it
is characteristic of those days.
When summoned to England to answer for his piratical excursion on the
Spanish Main, he offered King Charles such magnificent pearls for the
adornment of his favourite ladies, that any thought of punishment was
immediately banished from the royal brain. Instead, Sir Henry Morgan
returned loaded with honours to the West Indies.
But I would like to relate how, by a brilliant stratagem, he extricated
his ships from a position of great danger. In 1654, Maracaibo had been
sacked by L’Olonnais, another notorious freebooter, but in 1668 it had
regained its former reputation as one of the richest towns of Spanish
America, and Morgan determined to attack it. Like Santiago in Cuba,
it lay on the shores of a long bay with so narrow a mouth that almost
one ship was sufficient to block it. Morgan entered the bay with three
ships, stormed the town and took the fort. It seems that his victorious
companions were celebrating their success with wine in the fort, left by
their late enemies, when their indefatigable and valiant captain stepped
outside to see how matters stood. All was silent, but Morgan despatched
one hundred men into the woods to hunt up the late inhabitants, who had
betaken themselves thither with their money and treasure. They returned
with thirty prisoners, who were inhumanly tortured, to disclose the
hiding-places of their wealth.
The Inquisition had taught the English mariners of those days how to rack
and how to burn. When Morgan, after some thirty days of this cruelty,
finally sailed away, to his consternation he found the mouth of the
harbour blocked by three Spanish men-of-war, the crews of which had also
rebuilt the fort at the entrance of the harbour. Full of resource, Morgan
coolly ordered the plunder and prisoners to be removed from his largest
vessel to the smaller ships. He filled the former instead with gunpowder,
pitch, tar, and combustibles. He mounted wooden cannon upon the vessel
and dressed up posts to resemble men. Having completed his preparations,
he sent word to the commander of the Spanish warships saying, unless a
heavy ransom was paid, he would burn Maracaibo to the ground. The reply
of the Spanish Admiral was to the effect that unless Morgan surrendered
in three days he would pay the ransom in lead. At this crisis the great
freebooter next morning sailed in single file down the harbour, the dummy
ship leading, in charge of some daring men, who, at a signal from their
intrepid chief, were to light the fuses and escape in a small boat to the
other ships.
When the Spanish Admiral thus saw Morgan’s first and largest vessel
heading directly for him, he sailed into the harbour to meet him,
grappling and making fast his ship to that of his enemy, expecting to
fight hand-to-hand. Just at this moment the matches were applied, and in
the noise and confusion the Spanish ship could not unfasten sufficiently
quickly the grappling chains and irons which fastened the two ships
together in a deadly embrace. The consequence was that it caught fire,
and, in a few minutes, both were blazing from stem to stern.
Rather than fall into the hands of the buccaneers, the Spaniards jumped
overboard. The crews of the two remaining ships ran them aground, and
rushed to the woods to hide themselves. However, the fort further down
had yet to be passed, but Morgan executed a manœuvre which so alarmed the
garrison, who expected an attack in the rear, that they removed their
cannon some distance from the fort. When this was done, Morgan sailed
away out of the harbour, his crews jeering at the Spanish garrison, who
were unable to bring their ordnance back in time to fire on the bold and
resourceful pirate.
Passing on to events which took place in Caribbean waters over a hundred
years later, one’s heart swells with pride when one remembers how Lord
Rodney, of glorious memory, whose statue adorns Spanish Town, saved not
only Jamaica, but our other West Indian possessions in 1782, upholding
the honour of the nation at a most critical time in English history.
The American colonies were lost. France, Spain, and Holland, our ocean
rivals, had united to make one great effort to wrest from us our naval
superiority. At home, Irish patriots clamoured then, as now, for what
they conceived to be their rights.
Lord Rodney, who had taken the Leeward Islands from France, commanded in
the West Indies. He had already punished the Dutch for taking part in the
alliance by capturing the island of Eustachius and three millions’ worth
of stores and money. Burke, whose policy somewhat resembled that of the
little Englanders of these days, notwithstanding his successes, had him
called home to account for his actions. In his absence the French fleet
recaptured the Leeward Islands and Eustachius, and thereby became the
paramount power in these seas. Things became so desperate that Rodney
was immediately sent back to his post. After a mid-winter cruise of five
stormy weeks he came upon the combined fleets off the mountainous coasts
of Dominica. In number of ships the fleets were about equal, but in
size and men the French were vastly superior, having 14,000 soldiers on
board besides the ships’ full complement, destined for “the conquest of
Jamaica.”
For two days the rival fleets manœuvred opposite each other, but during
the night of the 11th of April 1872, Rodney signalled to the fleet to
sail southwards. The French thought he was flying. Instead, he tacked at
2 A.M. on the next day. At dawn the French were on his lee quarter. At 7
A.M. the British fleet, Rodney leading in the _Formidable_, sailing in
an oblique direction, cut the French line, thus throwing the ships into
confusion. They were unable to reform. The conflict resolved itself into
a series of separate contests. The cannons roared all day, the French
ships one by one either foundered, or hauled down their flag. The _Ville
de Paris_, De Grasses’ flagship, and the pride of the French navy, was
the last to yield. The slaughter had been frightful, 14,000 are said to
have been killed, besides prisoners. One half of the fleet was taken, or
sunk; the rest of the ships, like the Spanish galleons after the Armada,
staggered away to hide their wounds and humiliation.
Had Rodney received the hasty instructions a timorous-hearted Government
despatched to him before this engagement, which were: “Strike your flag
and come home,” the history of Jamaica would be a very different thing
to-day.
On that ever memorable occasion the combined strength of France, Spain
and Holland failed to wrest from Britannia her sovereignty of the seas.
The laurels with which the heroes of Elizabethan days had crowned her
still rested on her brow. Though sorely smitten, she could still hold
aloft in untarnished glory the sceptre of ocean rule.
It is hard to tear one’s thoughts away from the glorious scenes where
the history of the great British race has been made. I cannot, however,
draw my remarks to a close on the West Indies without referring to
another way in which we add to the glory and stability of the Empire to
which we are proud to belong. I am alluding to the education which in
Jamaica is provided by government for the younger generation of this
colony.
By a law passed in 1890, all elementary schools must be undenominational,
that is, if they are to be recognised by the Government, and special
attention is to be directed to agriculture and manual training both in
training and elementary schools. At this date, schools deemed unnecessary
were closed, others were amalgamated to render efficiency and economy
more practical. In 1900, 757 elementary schools, including infant
schools, received grants from Government. Children from six to fourteen
years attend. Grants are given according to marks gained at examinations
and on average attendances. Subjects for examinations include, besides
organisation and discipline, reading, recitation, writing, English, and
arithmetic, also elementary science, the secondary subjects being morals,
Scripture, drawing, manual occupation, geography and singing. Schools on
the Annual Grant List are examined by special standards. A registered
teacher gets in a school of 150 children £30; if certificated £36.
Forty male students are supported by Government at the Mico training
college to be trained as school-masters.
At Shortwood, in the parish of St Andrew, thirty girls are trained to be
school-mistresses, also at the expense of the Government, which pays the
manager of certain voluntary training colleges £25 a year each, for a
specified number of resident students under training.
The Mico College is one of the handsomest buildings in Kingston. Jane,
Lady Mico, widow of Sir Samuel Mico, a city knight, and member of the
Mercers’ Company, died in 1666, and bequeathed £1000 “to redeem poor
slaves.” This sum, invested by the Court of Chancery in London property,
grew to the large amount of £120,000, when, in 1834, Sir T. F. Buxton
thought the interest might very properly be applied to educating West
Indian children. Of several schools in the West Indies established for
this purpose, the only one remaining is the Mico College of Jamaica. The
Government of the island is also very liberal in the way of offering
scholarships, the best of which is one for £200 tenable three years,
granted to a candidate who shall have passed in Honour Lists in the
Cambridge Senior Examination, and who shall fulfil the rest of the
conditions attached to it.
There is a Theological College in Kingston, where students are trained
for holy orders: a very necessary institution, for about one-third of the
island clergy represent the coloured and black element of the population.
Another very useful and charitable institution in Kingston is the
Deaconess Home, where the education is specially intended for the
coloured children of a class superior to those who attend the elementary
schools, and who are not _gratae personae_ at the ladies’ schools in
Kingston. This is really a work which is much needed, since it is
unpractical to educate coloured men to fill responsible posts, if an
equivalent effort is not made with the girls of the same class to render
them companionable and helpful as wives. Nurses are trained in this Home,
and all good works, such as temperance meetings, are undertaken. I was
present myself at a service held by the Sisters, exclusively for the
sailors who come to this port of Kingston. It did one good to see how at
home these poor fellows seemed with the kindly women who addressed them.
Each asked for his favourite hymn to be sung, and they were in no hurry
to quit at the close of the proceedings. At a temperance meeting, held a
few days afterwards, I was present when eight of them signed the pledge.
Unfortunately, this good work is direfully in need of funds.
In conclusion, I cannot do better than give the gist of an article in
which the bright future of Jamaica is looked forward to confidently, by
one who must know, far better than myself, the financial attitude of
the country. The writer is Captain L. D. Baker, a Bostonian, the head
of the United Fruit Company, to whom, in company with Sir Alfred Jones
of the Elder Dempster line, Jamaica owes much of its recent return to
comparative prosperity. He says to those wanting to invest: “Investments
in this country are safe, if in land for agricultural purposes. Values
are normal; titles are as good and as well protected as any in the world.
Our Governors have been the best that Britain can give to her colonies.
By them we enjoy guaranteed safety and success.”
Speaking of the advance Jamaica has made since the days of Governor
Darling, 1868, Captain Baker reviews the benefits the island has derived
from each successive governor; he says: “To Sir J. P. Grant we owe the
irrigation of the parched lands of the Spanish Town district. He turned
them into a fertile plain. We next had Sir Anthony Musgrave. He gave
the telegraph, and he gave steamship lines and railway extensions and
general enterprise such an impetus that they have not ceased,” etc. Next
came Sir Henry Norman, whose “steady brain kept the enthusiastic and the
erratic man in check, so that there should be no regrets.” After him
came Sir Henry Blake, and the writer of this article cannot praise that
popular Governor too highly: “Ever full of indomitable enterprise and
push—exhibitions, hotels, agricultural societies, agricultural schemes,
willingly launching out his own money, riding through the country hither
and thither, stirring up everyone that had a bit of enterprise in his
nature. He left us, throwing his burden at the feet of Mr Chamberlain,
to be taken up by him.” The present Governor, Sir A. Hemming, took up
the work with equal zest and push. He presented the situation to his
“double steam-engine friend, Sir Alfred Jones, thereby inaugurating the
direct line, and consummating what may be justly termed a grand success
for the future of the island.” It is good reading to hear this successful
American business man say that neither he “nor his companies know
anything but kindness from this Government.”
Jamaica is one of our oldest colonies; she has been rich, but now
is poor; still, with patience, prosperity will revisit her shores.
What one can say best to one’s country people is, Come and make her
acquaintance; the beauty of the scenery will repay you for your trouble.
Her associations with the past will kindle your sympathy and evoke your
interest.
PRINTED AT THE EDINBURGH PRESS, 9 AND 11 YOUNG STREET.