position as governor for a second term of office, suggested, in his
proposals as to the government of Jamaica, that “it would be well to
sell the old King’s House [presumably at Port Royal], and build a new
one at Spanish Town”; but in January 1690 it was ordered, as we have
seen, that a house should be built in Port Royal, and provision made for
the reception of Lord Inchiquin. There was, however, a King’s House at
Spanish Town in Beeston’s time. On July 8, 1692, it was decided by the
Lords of Trade and Plantations that “the King’s House at St. Jago de la
Vega should be sold, and the proceeds devoted to the purchase of another
house”; but on July 27, 1693, Beeston wrote home: “I hope also to get
them to raise money to put King’s House at St. Jago (where I live) in
order, for at present it only protects me from the sun and rain, having
no convenience for horses or servants, nor room for but few in a family,
and being as common as the highway. Nevertheless, my cost of living, for
the honour of the Government, is more than double what I am allowed, nor
is there money nor like to be yet awhile, to pay me what I am allowed by
their Majesty’s.”
In October 1700 he wrote home: “I am also enlarging to more than double
the King’s House, which was too little for any indifferent family, and
have taken in all the land belonging to it with a bricke wall, and have
made aditions of out houses for the reception of servants and for
offices, all which will bee finished in a short time, and will be very
comodious and useful, tho’ not so beautyfull, being built not one entire
fabricke, but by peices.”
There was a Queen’s House when Lord Archibald Hamilton arrived in 1711,
but it was in a “ruinous condition” and “could not be made tenable under
£2000,” which was voted. The Duke of Portland (1724–6) expended £1544
0_s._ 1¾_d._ over the £4000 voted on the then King’s House, but this sum
was not refunded to his widow although a committee of the Assembly
recommended it.
The original residence of the governors consisted partly of the old
Spanish edifice and partly of irregular additions made from time to time
by Sir William Beeston and other governors. The Spanish hall of audience
was demolished in 1761 to make way for the present building. Of it Long
says:
Nothing of art or elegance graced the inside of this hall: it was
lined throughout with boards, or rather planks, unequally hewn with an
adze, none of them appearing to have undergone the embellishment of
the plane; these were rudely nailed to upright posts, which supported
the roof. The posts were for the most part crooked, not even squared,
and many of them had some remnant of their bark, but they retained for
the most part their primitive solidity. The whole of the woodwork,
indeed, seemed to have passed through no other hands than those of a
clumsy ship-carpenter.
This description might almost apply to the dwellings of the native
Arawâks.
The former official residence of the governors of Jamaica, or King’s
House, as it is called, stands on the west side of the square. The plan
was designed by Craskell, the engineer of the island, and approved
during the administration of Lieutenant-Governor Henry Moore in 1759–62;
but the building was not completed until the arrival of Governor William
Henry Lyttelton in 1762.
The expense of building and furnishing amounted to nearly £30,000
currency (or £21,428 sterling), and in Long’s time (_circa_ 1774) it was
“thought to be the noblest and best edifice of the kind, either in North
America or any of the British colonies in the West Indies.” The façade
is about 200 feet long; the freestone used in the construction came from
the Hope river course in St. Andrew. The columns supporting the portico
are of Portland stone, the pavement of white marble, of which much came
out, as ballast, from time to time in the old sugar ships, and is still
seen in many a great house and town dwelling. The following is taken
from Long’s description of the interior:
Two principal entrances lead through it into the body of the house;
the one opens into a lobby, or ante-chamber; the other into the great
saloon, or hall of audience, which is well proportioned, the
dimensions being about 73 by 30 feet, and the height about 32; from
the ceiling, which is coved, hang two brass gilt lustres. A screen of
seven large Doric pillars divides the saloon from an upper and lower
gallery of communication, which range the whole length on the West
side; and the upper one is secured with an elegant entrelas of figured
iron work. The East or opposite side of the saloon is finished with
Doric pilasters, upon each of which are brass girandoles double-gilt;
and between each pilaster, under the windows of the Attic story, are
placed, on gilt brackets, the busts of several ancient and modern
philosophers and poets, large as life; which being in bronze, the
darkness of their complexion naturally suggests the idea of so many
Negro Caboceros, exalted to this honourable distinction for some
peculiar services rendered to the country. At the North end, over a
door which opens into the lobby, is a small moveable orchestra, made
to hold a band of music on festive occasions. The furniture below
consists of a great number of mahogany chairs and settees, sufficient
to accommodate a large company, the room being chiefly used for public
audiences, entertainments, balls, and the hearings of chancery and
ordinary. At the South end are three folding doors opening into a
spacious apartment, in which, by the Governor’s permission, the
Council usually meet; whence it has received the name of the Council
Chamber....
Monk Lewis, writing in 1834, says: “The Government House is a large
clumsy-looking brick building with a portico, the stucco of which has
suffered by the weather, and it can advance no pretensions to
architectural beauty.” And with this criticism one must fain agree.
In Long’s time a new governor was usually feasted for three successive
days in Spanish Town; after which he was wont to make a kind of public
entry into Kingston, where more festivities were got up in his
honour—the two towns vying the one with the other; and Lady Nugent, in
her Journal, makes many references to gay doings in King’s House,
Spanish Town.
During the reign of Queen Victoria, King’s House—in common with its
younger rival in the plain of Liguanea—remained King’s House, and did
not permanently change its name to Queen’s House, as did the official
residences of other British colonies, although in 1840 the House of
Assembly alluded to the Queen’s House.
With the removal of the seat of Government the remaining glory departed
from Spanish Town. With the exception of the year 1873, when it was
utilised for a little more than twelve months by Queen’s College, of
which Grant Allen was one of the staff, and the occupation by a
temporary tenant of recent years, King’s House has been practically
empty.
Jamaica’s former capital is like one of her bridges, which now and
again, through the change of a rivercourse, is left to span a dry
passage.
In the palmy days of old the lot of a governor and his wife could not
have been altogether a happy one. Lady Nugent writes, under date August
3, 1801, soon after their arrival in the island:
Up at six. A grand breakfast at eight and a council at ten. Lord
B[alcarres] set off immediately for his country-house, called The
Penn. A salute was fired, and all due honours paid to him, as he drove
off. General Nugent then walked in procession to the House of
Assembly, and was sworn in as Lieutenant-Governor and
Commander-in-Chief. Then another salute was fired, and he came back
and held a levee. I remained above stairs until four o’clock, seeing
all the proceedings from my windows, or the gallery round the Egyptian
Hall. I then went to the drawing-room, and received all the ladies of
Spanish Town, &c., the principal officers of the Navy and Army, the
members of Council, and a number of the gentlemen of the House of
Assembly, who had come to compliment the new Governor and his Lady;
bowing, curtseying, and making speeches, till six o’clock. The ladies
then dined with me in the Ball-room, and the gentlemen with General N.
in the Egyptian Hall. My guests were forty in number, with ten
gentlemen to carve for us. General N. had three or four times that
number with him; but we should not call them _our_ guests, as these
dinners were given to us by the public. I must remark the loads of
turtle, turkies, hams, and whole kids, that crowded my table, and
increased the heat of the climate. The room, too, was filled with
black servants; and all the population, I believe, both white and
black, were admitted to walk round the table, and stare at me after
dinner. They did General N. the same favour, being, I suppose, very
curious to see what sort of looking people we were; but their
curiosity added most exceedingly to the heat, and, indeed, I never
felt anything like it in all my life. At two o’clock all the ladies
took their leave, and some of the gentlemen; but General N. left those
that remained to enjoy their bottle, and he and I retired to our own
apartment, but not to rest, for the garrison gave us a grand serenade,
and the house was a scene of dancing, singing, and merriment almost
the whole night.
No wonder she writes on the following day “This day we have kept to
ourselves.”
=Rodney=, who was for three and a half years commander-in-chief on the
Jamaica station, crowned that service by his ever-memorable victory over
De Grasse on April 12, 1782. The early days of that April had been dark
indeed for Jamaica. The militia had been called up for the defence of
the capital, extra taxation had been imposed to meet the cost of
defensive preparations, and the roads had been rendered impassable by
the placing of large trees across them. After weeks of doubt and fear,
Rodney’s letter, written on the 14th, “between Guadaloupe and
Montserrat,” announcing his victory, was received on the 25th, and fear
was replaced by rejoicing, which received additional impetus when four
days later Rodney himself appeared with his fleet, accompanied by nine
prizes, including the famous _Ville de Paris_.
On February 20, 1783, the House of Assembly resolved to write to the
agent of the colony in England, Stephen Fuller, desiring him “to apply
to the most eminent artist in England, to prepare an elegant marble
statue of Lord Rodney, with a handsome pedestal of the same, to be
erected in Spanish Town in commemoration of the glorious victory
obtained by that gallant commander and the brave officers and seamen
serving under him, over the French fleet on April 12, 1782.”
Premiums for designs to be approved by the Royal Academy were to be
offered, and the most eminent statuary employed to carry them out.
Instead of an anonymous competition for premiums open to all English
sculptors, which would have included the young Flaxman, who had already
shown signs of genius, the Council of the Academy directed Bacon,
Carlini, Nollekens, Tyler and Wilton to prepare designs. Only Bacon and
Tyler sent models, and the work was entrusted to Bacon, who was “at the
extraordinary trouble of making two trips to Italy for the purpose of
procuring a block of marble large enough for the design.”
We read in Leslie and Taylor’s “Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds,” that the
President, “according to Barry (letter to the Dilettanti Society, 1798),
was much disappointed at the poor result, complaining that it in some
measure defeated the object of those who intrusted the commission to the
Academy.” But inasmuch as Bacon was recognised as the best sculptor of
the time, it is a little difficult to understand what Sir Joshua
expected.
The House of Assembly voted £1000 sterling for the object, but, as is
usually the case in such matters, the monument cost them considerably
more before it was completed—£5200 in fact; of which £500 was for
freight and erection.
The statue did not arrive until 1790; and in that year the inhabitants
of Kingston and Port Royal, having heard with concern a report that it
was to be erected in Spanish Town, petitioned the House that it might be
placed in the Parade in Kingston. The petition says:
Conscious that such an ornament can only be adapted to decorate a
place equally conspicuous in point of situation, and convenient with
respect to proximity to those harbours which his victory graced, they
have anticipated the public approbation of seeing his statue erected
in the centre of the first commercial town in the West Indies, and,
solicitous to improve every advantage of position as well as to add
every possible embellishment to this testimony of public gratitude,
they, some time ago, subscribed a large sum of money for the purpose
of conveying water from the Hope River to the Parade of Kingston, by
means of which they propose to form a spacious basin to surround the
statue, and have lately subscribed a further considerable sum to
assist in erecting it, but are penetrated with the greatest concern,
to find a report prevails of its being intended to be placed in
Spanish Town.
The petition was rejected by the vote only of the speaker _pro tem._
(William Blake), the House dividing equally; and a further sum of £3000
was voted for a “proper building” to contain it, in Spanish Town, making
an expenditure of £8200. The total cost of Jamaica’s tribute to the
great hero (including the public offices which form wings to the
colonnade, and £3650 for the purchase of the necessary land) was £30,918
(currency).
This grant for a “proper building” was ill-spent. Memorial statues
should be erected “plain for all folk to see.” It is difficult to get a
good view of Rodney, placed as he is beneath a low-roofed temple which,
fitting as it might be for a statue of Jupiter or Venus, ill accords
with the breezy life of a sailor; and if the good people of Kingston had
been supported by the Assembly, Rodney’s statue would certainly have
looked better in the centre of the Parade. When it was in Kingston
temporarily from 1872 to 1889 it was on that barest of bare pedestals at
the bottom of King street (to which Lord Metcalfe has once more been
relegated) and lacked subsidiary adornment altogether.
Although West, in 1771, broke through tradition in painting in the
matter of classic costume, and dared, to the great advantage of Art, to
represent Wolfe and his soldiers in their own dress; and Pine painted
Rodney himself and his officers as they appeared on board the
_Formidable_ in the dress they wore, in sculpture the result was slower,
and Rodney was clothed by Bacon in the dress of a Roman, as a matter of
course; the fondness on the part of sculptors for classic costume dying
hard. Gibson, it is said, refused in the middle of the nineteenth
century to execute his statue of Sir Robert Peel unless he was allowed
to clothe him in a toga. In general treatment Rodney’s statue is not
unlike the Augustus Cæsar of the Capitol. He is clad in a short-sleeved
tunic (of which the part that should cover the body is by artistic
licence omitted), and wears his paludamentum (or cloak) over his right
arm, He has no greaves, but wears sandals on his feet. From a torques,
or necklace (usually worn by Oriental barbarians) is suspended a
Medusa’s head. His left hand, holding a sword-hilt, rests on the
ordinary oblong shield of the Romans. His right arm is outstretched, and
in his hand is a baton.
On the front panel of the pedestal is the following inscription:
GEORG. BRYDG. RODNEY
BARON RODNEY
NAVAL. PRAEL. VICTORI
PRID. ID. APRILIS
A.D., MDCCLXXXII.
BRITANN. PACEM REST.
D.D.D. S.P.Q. JAMAICENSIS.
Which may be rendered:
TO GEORGE BRYDGES RODNEY
BARON RODNEY
VICTOR IN A SEA FIGHT
ON THE DAY BEFORE THE IDES OF APRIL
IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1782.
HE RESTORED PEACE TO BRITAIN.
THE LEGISLATURE AND THE PEOPLE OF JAMAICA
PRESENTED [THIS MEMORIAL].
On the other three panels are bas-reliefs. On the one side is a
representation of Britannia protecting Jamaica, who has a shield bearing
the arms of the colony and her foot on a crocodile. The French flag
appears to the right. On the other side is a representation of Britannia
sitting in her chariot, with her foot on the French flag, in the grasp
of a seaman. On her shield is the head of George III. On the back panel
is a well-executed bas-relief of the chief feature in the great battle,
showing the sterns of the _Ville de Paris_ and the _Barfleur_.
[Illustration:
THE “LADY JULIANA” IN TOW OF THE “PALLAS” IN 1782
From an aquatint by Robert Dodd
]
In front of the monument, typifying the spoils of war, are two handsome
brass cannons, _Le Modeste_ and _Le Précipice_, founded at Douay in
1748, by Jean Maritz, and bearing the proud legend “Nec pluribus
impar”—the motto of Louis XIV.
The initials P. R. and B. E. refer to Philip Redwood (member of the
Assembly for St. Catherine, later speaker, and afterwards chief
justice), and Bryan Edwards, the historian, who selected the passages
from Horace, cut in each side of the pedestal.
Over the front arch of the superstructure is the Rodney coat-of-arms
carved in bold relief.
Rodney’s statue is mentioned in Cecil’s “Life of Bacon” as one of his
principal works; and it was doubtless through the commission for this
work that Bacon gained the orders for the other monuments by him erected
in Jamaica—to the Countess of Effingham, Rosa Palmer, Lady Williamson,
John Wolmer and others.
In Spanish Town, streets named after governors, are Beckford street,
Nugent street, Manchester street, and Conran lane (after General Conran,
1813); the origin of Adelaide street (after the Queen of that name),
William street (after the Prince who was later King), Brunswick street
(after the Duke of Brunswick), and Nelson lane and Wellington street,
are obvious.
Canning lane and Melbourne lane tell of two English prime ministers. In
Cochrane lane we have probably a reminiscence of Sir Alexander Cochrane,
who was admiral on the Jamaica station in 1814–15. Ellis street tells of
the family of Lord Seaford who had properties in the island: the first
Lord Seaford having been born in Spanish Town.
Barrett street recalls a family long resident in the island on the
North-side.
The parish of St. John, merged in St. Catherine since 1867, dates from
the first partition of the island under Modyford in 1664. The old name
of =Guanaboa= is either Arawâk or Spanish, possibly, as Long suggests,
a mixture of both, but the prefix _gua_ is suggestive of an aboriginal
origin. It may perhaps be formed from the Cuban Indian word meaning
any kind of palm, or the native Indian word for sour-sop, guabana.
Guanaboa occurs as the name of a district in Hayti. The earliest
reference to the district in English days is under date July 15, 1661,
when the justices of peace of Guanaboa were ordered by the Governor
and Council “to nominate a person to sell drink at Cowhides,” and in
the map in Hickeringill’s “Jamaica View’d,” published in that year,
Guanaboa is one of the four inland names given. In the earlier edition
of Slaney’s map of Jamaica of 1678, published by William Berry, there
is a church marked at Guanaha, north-west of Spanish-Town, but in the
later edition, published by Morden, Guanaha has been erased from the
plate. Cowhides is marked on the map which accompanies the “Laws of
Jamaica,” of 1684, as a pen for cattle; it probably indicated the
place where the skins of the wild cattle were disposed of and possibly
survives to-day in Cowpen estate; albeit a spot near Aylmers is still
called Cowhide. On August 1 of the same year permission was given to
Captain Anthony Collier and Lieutenant Edward Morris “to pen their own
with other wild horses for one month, with the assistance of the
officers of Guanaboa, to whom half the wild horses are to be
delivered.” In 1663–64 to the first Assembly Guanaboa returned two
members. One was William Clee, of whom even the erudite Roby has
nothing to record. He was not a landowner in 1670. The other was
Thomas Freeman, who was later member for St. Thomas-in-the-East, a
brother-in-law of Colonel Cope (a member of the Council and colonel of
one of the seven regiments, and possibly a kinsman of Colonel Doyley)
who lived at Cope Place hard by.
Amongst the representatives whom St. John sent to the Assembly were
members of the most noted families in Jamaica history—Aylmer, Beckford,
Price, Ayscough, Rose, Brodrick, Kelly, Modd, Fuller, Beach and Shand.
In 1664 when Sir Thomas Modyford wrote home, St. John was one of the
seven established parishes. By the survey of the island in 1670, it was
shown to have eightythree families, and an estimated total population of
996; and a rate of one penny per acre then produced £200 in the parish.
The largest landowner was John Styles with 3200 acres. Styles, in a
letter to the principal Secretary of State in that year, states that
Jamaica “would maintain more people than the whole of England.”
In May 1675 a petition was presented by him “that his land be made a
distinct parish under the name of Styles Langley, he having left it by
will to Christ Church College, Oxford, from whence he expects it will be
supplied with preachers,” and offering to build a church. The petition
was refused on the ground that the land, which was at Magatee, was not
sufficiently extensive. It was later taken from St. John and made part
of St. Thomas-in-the-Vale. Research at Christ Church, Oxford, has failed
to reveal any trace of Styles’s bequest.
In 1671 of the four clergymen ministering in Jamaica, at St. John’s was
“Mr. Lemmings, an Englishman, lately sent by my Lord of London.” In 1675
“Mr. Lemon” (evidently the same man), “a sober young man and very good
preacher,” was minister at Guanaboa. “He has £100 per annum for the
parish, and about as much from Colonel Coape for keeping a free school
he has erected.”
In 1682 we learn from a very interesting account of the state of the
Church in Jamaica, sent to the Bishop of London by Sir Thomas Lynch, who
took a keen interest in the cause of religion, that “St. John’s parish
or Guanaboa is supplied by Mr. Lemon, who has £100 a year by law. He had
some advantages by a school built by Colonel Cope, but on the failure of
that and on his marriage to a poor gentleman’s widow he has been a
little uneasy. However, since I came he has sold some land I gave him
for £500, so that he is in a reasonably good condition. For all I have
heard he is a very honest, sober, fair-conditioned man, and esteemed the
best preacher in the island. I think he has a parsonage, but the church
is decayed, and he preaches in the schoolhouse.” This reference to the
decayed condition of the church is, curiously enough, the earliest
direct evidence of the existence of a church at Guanaboa, though it was
probably one of the six churches existing in 1675. It was presumably at
all events existing when Richard Guy was buried in 1681, the earliest
dated tombstone in the church; but it is curious that there is no mark
for a church at Guanaboa in the map of 1684 above referred to. The
existing register of baptisms, marriages and burials only goes back as
far as 1751. Part of the original fabric probably exists in the present
building, which only dates from about 1845, the older church having been
burnt down shortly before then.
Roby, in his “History of the Parish of St. James” (1849), says, “In a
wood near Aylmer’s in St. John’s, is a monument inscribed, under arms
(the colours added) sable, a chevron erminois, between three spear-heads
argent, embrued at the points, proper. Crest, a dragon’s head vert,
erased gules, holding in its mouth a sinister hand, erect, couped,
dropping blood from the wrist, all proper.”
Roby gives the inscription with, marvellous to relate, one or two
mistakes, _e.g._ _He_ for _Who_ in the fourth line; _High_ for _Hon._ in
the tenth; and he corrects the Mason’s _Pallidæ_ into _Pallida_. It runs
as follows:
Near to this Mournfull Marble lies Interr’d the Body of the Hon. Coll.
Charles Price who was divested of the Robe of Mortality on the 23d day
of May, 1730, Aged 52 years.
Who was a Loving Husband, an Indulgent Parent, a peaceable Neighbour,
and a faithful Friend; Just, Charitable, Courteous, Affable to his
Inferiors, patient of Injuries and Slow to wrath.
A Man of Integrity, and so firm to his word, that he inviolably
preserv’d the same even to the strictest Nicety of Honour; meek he was
but truly Brave, and every way fited for his Hon. station, and for a
Loyalist was second to none.
He was possessed of such a singular ingaging temper and sincerity of
mind, which render’d him a very desirable Companion to all, but more
especialy to those who had the happyness of being intimately
acquainted with him for he knew no guile neither was deceit found in
his heart. If he had any Enemies, they must have been the Sons of
Envy, and became such not thro’ any real cause by him given, but from
some invidious and Malignant seeds planted and foster’d in their own
turbulent and uneasie breasts.
To say more of him would be but still to say too little, only that he
is now gone to that place which alone knows how to reward those
vertues, of which he was here the happy possessor.