instant, giving their Lordships an account of the violent earthquake
which happened the day before, which has been attended with frequent
shocks till within these few days and, in the opinion of the
inhabitants, done more damage than any since the great one in 1692,
particularly in the towns of Port Royal and Kingston, in the former of
which there is not a single house that has not been damaged, I find
His Majesty’s dockyard has suffered considerably. The pitch-house is
split up the middle of the arch, the chimney thrown down, the coppers
and chimney where the people cook while at the wharf are rendered
useless; the smith’s shop split in several places, and so shaken as to
be quite unserviceable. The foundations of the capstern and
mast-houses have likewise received much damage.
His Majesty’s hospital at Port Royal seems to have suffered more than
any other building, the chimneys shaken down, the walls shattered; the
partition walls and gable end of the northern wing, and a southern
wall next the dispensary greatly damaged.
As the sick men were very much alarmed, and really in danger, I found
it necessary to order the surgeon and agent to repair it with all
possible despatch. There have been nine shocks since the first, but as
each has appeared weaker, I hope we shall experience no more of them.
The most brilliant period of Port Royal’s glory was perhaps the command
of Sir Peter Parker, from 1778–1782.
Of all the forts which have been erected from time to time round the
coast of Jamaica for its protection the oldest, and most important from
an historic standpoint, is undoubtedly =Fort Charles= at Port Royal. It
was not the first fort built at The Point, for Sedgwick writing home in
November 1655, to the Commissioners of the Admiralty, said, “Are
building a fort at the harbour’s mouth, and 9 or 10 guns are mounted.”
[Illustration:
Nelson’s Quarter-deck
]
The construction of Fort Charles, named after Charles II, was commenced
in the reign of that monarch. When originally built it was washed by the
sea on two sides. In course of time Chocalatta Hole became silted up,
and is now the parade-ground. It is thus referred to in a “Journal Kept
by Colonel William Beeston from his first coming to Jamaica,” in
connection with a fear that the Spaniards, enraged by the loss of St.
Jago de Cuba, might meditate revenge, and make some attempt on the
island:
“Therefore what money was due to the King was called in, and in November
[1662] about forty men hired to work on the fort, which is now called
Fort Charles, with intent to finish it, which hitherto lay open, with
only a round tour of stone and banks of board and sand towards the
sea....”
And on May 29, 1678, he writes: “Being the King’s birthday, and all the
flags abroad upon all the forts, the great flag of Fort Charles blew
down, which we doubted was ominous, being so noted a day and on the most
noted Fort....”
The fort was “not shook down, but much shattered” by the earthquake of
1692. It was subsequently reconstructed in 1699 by Colonel Christian
Lilley, who had laid out the city of Kingston four years earlier, and
who in 1734 was captain of the fort.
From the earliest times the members of the House of Assembly were
admitted to view the forts and fortifications, and a joint committee of
the Assembly and Council used to report annually on Fort Charles.
Long, writing in 1774, says: “The Captain of the fort [Fort Charles] has
of late years been appointed by the Governor’s warrant, upon the
nomination of his Ministry. His salary is only £109 10_s._ per annum,
but the profits of this post make it far more considerable.”
In June 1779, war was declared with Spain, and on the 11th of that month
Nelson was promoted to the command of the _Hinchinbrook_, thus becoming
a post-captain while yet four months under twenty-one years of age. The
ship was then at sea, and had not returned by July 28, when Nelson wrote
from Port Royal to his friend Captain Locker, and she apparently did not
return till September 1. During this period Nelson was in command of the
batteries at Port Charles, as he twice mentions in his published
correspondence—once when writing under date August 12, 1779, to Locker,
and once in the “Sketch of My Life,” written twenty years later. At this
time Jamaica was, to use Nelson’s own words, “turned upside down” by
fear of capture of a French fleet. In his own letter to Locker he says,
speaking of the measures of defence taken:
Five thousand men were encamped between the Ferry and Kingston, 1000
at Fort Augusta, 300 at the Apostles’ Battery, and we expect to have
500 in Fort Charles, where I am to command. _Lion_, _Salisbury_,
_Charon_, and _Janus_ in a line from the Point to the outer shoal;
_Ruby_ and _Bristol_ in the narrows going to Kingston, to rake any
ships that may attack Fort Augusta; _Pomona_ and _Speke_ Indiaman
above Rock Fort, and _Lowestoffe_ at the end of the dock wall.... I
have fairly stated our situation, and I leave you in England to judge
what stand we shall make; I think you must not be surprised to hear of
my learning to speak French.
In his sketch of his life, Nelson tells us:
In this critical state [_i.e._ fear of invasion] I was by both Admiral
and General entrusted with the command of the Batteries at Port Royal,
and I need not say, as the defence of this place was the key to the
port of the whole naval force, the town of Kingston, and Spanish Town,
it was the most important place in the whole island.
The admiral was Sir Peter Parker, Nelson’s lifelong friend and patron;
the general was the Governor, Dalling.
This was Nelson’s first actual command after he was posted, though it
lasted probably but three or four weeks, and gave him no opportunity of
showing what he could do in that capacity.
Nelson’s reputation still survives in Port Charles itself, and there
still exists his wooden “quarter-deck” from which he could, while pacing
up and down, command a view to windward.
There is also an inscription to his memory in gilt letters on a white
marble tablet fixed into the brickwork of the west wall of Port Charles.
In size the tablet is 2½ feet by 1½ feet, and the following is a copy of
the inscription:
IN THIS PLACE
DWELT
HORATIO NELSON.
You who tread his footprints
Remember his glory.
Nelson’s memory was kept green in Jamaica for many years. Monk Lewis
saw, at Black River, at New Year, 1816, a “Nelson’s Car” with
“Trafalgar” written on it, which formed part of the procession of Blue
Girls in the John Canoe festivities. But there is no monument to the
great hero in Jamaica as there is at Barbados; and yet the larger island
owes just as much to Nelson as does the smaller.
[Illustration:
KINGSTON HARBOUR IN 1774
From an engraving in Long’s “History of Jamaica”
]
[Illustration:
Figure-head of the Aboukir
]
The following, amongst others, commanded at Fort Charles: Major Man
(1661–64), Major Byndloss (1664–65), Sir James Modyford (1667), Col.
Theodore Cary (1675), Col. Charles Morgan (1682), Col. Molesworth
(1683), Col. James O’Brien (1691–92), Peter Beckford (1692), Col. Knight
(1703), Major Howard (1713), Col. Joseph Delawnay (1715), Gabriel,
Marquis Duquesne (1723–25), Captain Dalrymple (1730–33), Col. Christian
Lilly (1733–35), Captain Charles Knowles (1734), Col. Philips (1737),
Captain Newton (1742), Captain Hamilton (1743), Lieut.-Col. Spragge
(1753), Captain Trower (1762), Exelbee Lawford (1776), John Dalling
(1776–77), Horatio Nelson (1777), Edward FitzGerald (1777–79),
Montgomery Mathan (1779–80), Hans Carsden (1780).
A portrait bust in wood, which formed the figurehead of the _Aboukir_,
port guardship from 1862 to 1877, and now rests in the dockyard
(alongside the figureheads of the _Imaum_, the port guardship from 1856
to 1862; the _Argent_, the port guardship from 1877 to 1903, and the
_Megaera_, wrecked on Bare Bush Cay in 1843), was until quite lately
thought to represent Nelson; but recent investigation has tended to
prove that it is a portrait of the celebrated general Sir Ralph
Abercromby, who received his death wound in the hour of victory at the
battle of Alexandria, on August 1, 1801 (when he was conveyed to
Nelson’s old flagship, the _Foudroyant_): the blind eye of the
_soi-disant_ Nelson has been removed, and the figure painted to
represent Abercromby. If this be the true version, one rather wonders
what wag had the audacity to transform it into a Nelson.
After a cruise of a few months in his ship, the _Hinchinbrook_, Nelson
wrote to Locker from Port Royal on January 23, 1780, “Our mess is broken
up. Captain Cornwallis and myself live together.... I have been twice
given over since you left this country with that cursed disorder, the
gout.” Early in 1780, Nelson went on that ill-fated expedition to
Nicaragua, originated by Dalling, the governor, in which Dr. Dancer, the
island botanist, and the unfortunate Colonel Despard took part.
This expedition, while it laid the foundation of his subsequent fame,
nearly cost Nelson his life. On his return to Port Royal he was
suffering so much from fever and dysentery that he had to be carried
ashore in his cot to the lodging-house of his former black nurse, Couba
Cornwallis, a favourite nurse with naval officers. From Couba’s hands
Nelson passed under the care of Sir Peter and Lady Parker, who first
nursed him at Admiral’s Pen, and afterwards sent him to Admiral’s
Mountain[4] (as the Admiral’s hill residence was named) to recuperate;
but there he missed their kind attention, and wished himself back with
Couba. While at Jamaica Nelson made many friends—in addition to his
naval companions, Parker, Prince William, Locker and Collingwood—such as
Simon Taylor, a wealthy sugar planter and Hercules Ross, the Navy agent,
to whose son Horatio, afterwards a celebrated sportsman, Nelson stood
godfather. A portrait of Charles II (said to have been painted in 1679
and to have been in the possession of Bishop Falconer), presented by
Hercules Ross, for many years hung in the Royal Artillery and Royal
Engineers’ mess at Fort Charles, and now adorns the former residence of
the commodores, now used as the mess room.
Footnote 4:
This was probably in the Red Hills, but has never been identified. It
was possibly Mount Salus.
Towards the close of Parker’s service at Jamaica, Rodney gained his
celebrated victory over the brave De Grasse off Dominica, on April 12,
1782. De Grasse after fighting hard all day till only himself and two
men remained unwounded, at the setting of the sun and the arrival of the
_Barfleur_ fresh to the fray, lowered with his own hands his flag on his
ship the _Ville de Paris_, the gay Lutetia’s present to Louis XV, and
thus completed the British victory which had commenced the moment that
Rodney’s flagship the _Formidable_ had broken the French line.
On April 24, news reached Jamaica from St. Lucia, that both French and
English fleets had sailed. The worst was feared, and the suspense was
intense; but on the morrow arrived the joyful news from Rodney that
Jamaica was saved from invasion.
On the morning of Monday, April 29, Rodney’s fleet with nine prizes was
seen approaching, and though it was evident that it would be near sunset
before the ships could be moored we can imagine that that would not have
restrained many from starting off from Kingston to Port Royal to witness
the triumphal entry.
Those, however, who remained behind and lined every vantage spot of
view and every housetop, witnessed a goodly sight, for a long line of
tall ships, on the tallest of which flew the lilies of France with the
Red Cross of St. George of England surmounting it, followed by ship
after ship each bearing similar signs of subjugation, and attended by
a brave show of their captors, swept in slow but stately array past
the Palisadoes with the last of the sea breeze, and rounding the point
brought up in good order, their enormous wooden anchor stocks causing
such a splash as they fell from their bows as to be visible by help of
a good glass from Kingston Church tower.
The _Ville de Paris_, was, it is said, the first first-rate man-of-war
ever taken and carried into port by any commander of any nation. A
painting by Pine, of Rodney in action aboard the _Formidable_, attended
by his principal officers, is, with a volume of charts taken from De
Grasse’s cabin, and a series of prints illustrating the engagement, in
the Institute of Jamaica. The prizes were sent home under convoy, which
was of course a special one. In those days the planters, merchants and
others interested were wont to meet and settle the rates of freight to
be paid by the fleet of merchantmen which went home four times a year,
under the convoy of a man-of-war. In war time the rates were nearly
three times as high as in peace. The merchantmen were then wont to
assemble at Bluefields in order to await their convoy for England.
The _Ville de Paris_ and the other prizes encountered a hurricane on
their way to England on September 16; and being hove to on the wrong
tack, and perhaps overladen with the captured battering train and other
stores, besides being weakened by the heavy fire to which they had been
exposed, they with the exception of the _Ardent_ foundered with 1200
men; several ships of the convoy also sank.
A series of four aquatints by Robert Dodd, published in 1783,
illustrates the fate of this convoy with special reference to the _Lady
Juliana_.
It is worthy of record that two sons of Flora Macdonald went down in the
late flagship of the Comte De Grasse.
In this connection the following extract from the Minutes of a Meeting
of the West India Merchants—now the West India Committee—held on January
29, 1782, Mr. Long presiding, may be of interest:
The following letter from the Chairman, and Deputy Chairman, to Mr.
Stephens, was read.
SIR,—We take the Liberty of desiring you to submit to the Lords of the
Admiralty, to recommend to their Commander in Chief, the request we
made at the Board some time ago, of having _early and frequent_
Convoys home, both from Jamaica and the Leeward Islands, instead of
the Ships being sent home in such large and delayed Fleets, which in
the present Situation of Affairs, is found to be attended with great
Inconveniences, and very severe losses, besides, a greater Object of
Attention to the Enemy.—Early Convoys are particularly desirable, from
the Produce being extremely wanted, on account of its scarcity, and
coming home in a favourable season for safe Passages, the Strength of
the Convoys may be regulated by the number of the Trade in each.
We decline naming the Times of the Appointment of the Convoys (as has
been usually done) in order to prevent their expected arrival in
Europe being known to our Enemies.
We are, etc.,
10th January, 1782. (Signed) BEESTON LONG.
RICHD. NEAVE.
From 1796 to 1800, Sir Hyde Parker was commander-in-chief of Jamaica,
and the cruising ships as stationed by him were exceptionally fortunate,
and brought into Port Royal a great many prizes, merchantmen, privateers
and ships of war, “by which both himself and his country were materially
benefited.”
From October 1782 to July 1783, Nelson was cruising under Hood in West
Indian waters, and more than once put into Port Royal.
In 1783, William IV, as a midshipman on the celebrated _Barfleur_, came
into Port Royal, the first prince of the blood royal of England to put
foot on Jamaica’s shore. He then made the acquaintance of Couba
Cornwallis, the _chère amie_ of the admiral of that name and the kindly
nurse of Nelson, who lived till 1848.
Lady Nugent in her voluminous Journal, does not make much reference to
Port Royal. On their arrival in July 1801, she records:
It is now seven o’clock in the evening and we have only just anchored
in Port Royal Harbour. An express is just sent off to the Governor at
Spanish Town. Colonel Ramsay of the Artillery, and Captain Coates of
the 69th Regiment, with a Navy officer from Lord Hugh Seymour, came on
board immediately. I am disappointed. I hoped to have landed
instantly, but there is so much etiquette about it, that it is settled
we are not to stir till to-morrow morning.
29th [July]. General N. landed at six o’clock under salutes from the
forts and all the ships of war in the harbour. The _Ambuscade_ fired
on his leaving the deck, and I lay down to my cot, with a pillow over
my ears, the noise was so stunning.
All this is in marked contrast to the simpler landing of a governor in
these days—even on his first arrival.
In March 1804, Lady Nugent records:
Dress by candle-light, and our whole party proceeded to Port Royal
where the Admiral gave us a grand breakfast on board the
_Hercules_.... The _lion_ for the morning for the gentlemen was a
large cannon, taken from the French, but I own it did not interest me
much.
This was probably one of those cannons which were removed to the present
King’s House on the shutting up of the dockyard.
In 1806, Port Royal saw the victorious Duckworth bring in three French
ships taken off Santo Domingo after what was called, before the days of
Togo, “one of the completest victories on record.”
In the memorable year 1805, Dacres was commander-in-chief of Jamaica,
and he detained at Port Royal for the protection of the island four of
the six ships (of Cochrane’s squadron), which had come out in chase of
Missiessy, and Nelson had hoped would reach him at Barbados, when he
sailed in pursuit of the French fleet under Villeneuve, immediately
before Trafalgar.
With Trafalgar, Port Royal’s chief importance as a naval station may be
said to have ended. Nothing of great moment, except the almost complete
destruction of the town by fire in 1815, occurred afterwards, although
Jamaica remained as a separate station for some twenty years more.
Monk Lewis writes in February 1816:
The Jamaica canoes are hollowed cotton-trees. We embarked in one of
them at six in the morning, and visited the ruins of Port Royal,
which, last year, was destroyed by fire: some of the houses were
rebuilding; but it was a melancholy sight, not only from the look of
the half-burnt buildings, but the dejected countenances of the ruined
inhabitants.
Bleby records in his “Scenes in the Caribbean Sea” (1854) having seen as
he entered the harbour in 1831, several slavers captured by British
cruisers and sent in here to be condemned and broken up.
In “The Wanderings of a Marine,” a series of letters to a friend
comprising descriptive sketches at sea and on shore, at home and abroad,
written in 1831—a manuscript volume in the West India Library of the
Institute of Jamaica, we read:
As we approached Port Royal Bay a novel and pleasing sight was again
displayed to our view. The hills now gradually gave place to gentle
slopes and green knolls till towards the entrance the land became
perfectly level. Still advancing, we found ourselves in a narrow
channel between the projecting headlands beautifully ornamented with
cocoanut trees and separated from each other by a very small distance,
scarcely sufficient to permit two large vessels to pass. At the
extremity of these headlands, where the bay begins to sweep, there are
placed two very strong forts, and there is a third at the opposite
side so that no enemy can force an entrance if a good outlook is kept.
The water in this channel is remarkably clear, and exhibits with great
distinctness the tops and chimneys of houses at the bottom. It is now
many years since a dreadful earthquake destroyed great part of the
town of Port Royal and covered it with the sea, by which means the
site of the harbour was completely changed, and what was formerly dry
land, on which stood the town, became part of the entrance of the bay.
In the “Statistical Report of the Sickness, Mortality, and Invaliding
Among the Troops in the West Indies,” published as a Parliamentary paper
in 1838, the following is the account given of Port Royal:
... The barracks stand at the very extremity of the peninsula on which
the town is built, only three feet above the level of the sea, and
frequently at high water a great portion of the parade-ground is
inundated by the tide. The hospital is in a narrow street leading from
the town to the barracks, and consists of a ground floor and upper
storey, divided into six wards, with balconies in front and rear....
... During the above period [1817–1836] the average mortality has been
about 113 per thousand of the strength annually, but it exhibits
remarkable variations at different periods. Last year it was less than
1 per cent., while in 1825 about a third part of the force was cut
off; thus demonstrating how difficult it is to form any fair estimate
of the influence of these climates, except on the average of a long
series of years. This station suffered very severely from the epidemic
fevers which raged throughout the island in 1819, 1822, and 1825. A
large proportion of the force also was cut off in 1821, when most of
the other stations were comparatively healthy....
On comparing the ratio of deaths by each of the above classes of
diseases with that which has prevailed generally throughout the
island, there appears little difference in any except fevers, which
have been rather under the average, particularly since 1830; and so
irregular has been their operation that, though in 1819 and 1825, they
cut off a third part of the force; in 1831 not a death took place from
them.
On visiting Jamaica in 1844, while the captain and the other passengers
of the ship, which was bound for Savanna-la-Mar, went up the harbour, to
see Kingston, Gosse spent his time in examining the fauna and flora of
the Palisadoes.
It is true there was little of the luxuriance or beauty that we
associate with tropical scenery here. It is a low land of sand nearly
nine miles in length; but scarcely anywhere more than a few hundred
yards in breadth, forming a natural breakwater that separates the
broad lake-like harbour of Kingston from the Caribbean Sea. I found it
barren enough; but it was all strange, and to feet which for nearly
two months had not felt the firm earth, even a run along the beach was
exhilarating. The graceful cocoanut palm sprang up in groups from the
water’s edge, waving its feathery fronds over the rippling waters that
dashed about its fibrous foot. Great bushes of prickly-pear and other
_Cacti_ were growing on the low summit of the bank, covering large
spaces of ground, with their impenetrable masses, presenting a
formidable array of spines: as did also a species of _Acacia_ that
grew in thickets and single trees. All along the line of high water
lay heaps of seaweeds drying in the sun, among which was particularly
abundant a species of _Padina_, closely resembling the pretty
“Peacock’s tail” of our own shores, though less regularly beautiful.
Sponges of various forms, and large Fan-corals with the gelatinous
flesh dried on the horny skeleton, were also thrown up on the higher
beach; and I found in some abundance, a _Coralline_, of a soft
consistence, and of a bright grass green hue, each branch of which was
terminated by a radiating tuft of slender filaments.
Shells were very scarce on the sea beach; but on the harbour side many
species were found in the crevices and pools of the low rocks, and
just within the margin of the water. All were small, and few presented
any facts worthy of being noticed: they were chiefly of the genera
_Turbo_, _Phasianella_, _Planaxis_, _Buccinum_, _Vermetus_, and
_Fusus_; the bivalves _Ostrea_, _Anomia_, _Spondylus_, _Avicula_,
_Arca_, _Cardium_, _Venus_, and _Pholas_. Several specimens of a
brilliant little _Choetodon_ were swimming and darting about the
narrow, but deep pools; they were not more than an inch in length,
marked with alternate bands of black and golden yellow. In the
vertical position in which they swim, with the eye of the observer
looking down upon them, they appear to bear the slender proportions of
ordinary fishes; and it is only by accident as in turning, or on
capturing one, that we detect the peculiar form, high and vertically
flattened, of this curious genus.
For the naturalist there is a work of lasting interest in the form of a
small rare volume published in 1855, by Richard Hill, the friend and
collaborator of Gosse, entitled “A Week at Port Royal.” Even in his day
it was “a place for the memory.”
One passage records that: