nearly three years, and caused an excitement quite unprecedented. The
Parliamentary papers relating to the case are voluminous, consisting as
they do of eight separate publications and covering in the aggregate no
less than 2336 pages. The first series of papers begins with the
celebrated letter of Dr. Underhill to Mr. Cardwell, drawing attention to
the state of affairs in Jamaica, and the subsequent despatches have
reference to it or the question which it raised.
The Commissioners appointed to enquire into the origin, nature, and
circumstances of the disturbances and the means adopted for their
suppression, and the conduct of those concerned in the disturbances and
suppression, after taking a large amount of evidence reported that the
disturbances had their immediate origin in a planned resistance to
lawful authority, which resistance was caused in manifold ways—by a
desire to obtain land free of rent, a lack of confidence on the part of
the labouring class in the tribunals before which most of their disputes
were adjudicated, and in some cases hostility towards political and
personal opponents, and a desire to attain their ends by the death or
expulsion of the white inhabitants of the island. They further reported
that, though the original design was confined to a small portion of
St.-Thomas-in-the-East, the disorder rapidly spread over an extensive
tract of country, and that praise was due to Eyre for his skill,
promptitude and vigour, which in a great degree caused its speedy
termination. The military and naval operations appeared to them prompt
and judicious, but they thought that martial law was continued longer
than necessary and that the punishments inflicted were excessive.
The reply of the Secretary of State to Sir Henry Storks stated that Her
Majesty’s Government generally concurred in the conclusions arrived at
by the commission. So far as Eyre was concerned, it gave him full credit
for his promptness in quelling the outbreak, but held him responsible
for the continuance of excessive severity, and for the method of
Gordon’s trial and execution. Eyre was recalled and was most bitterly
attacked by a large section of the English people headed by John Stuart
Mill, and defended by another led by Carlyle, whose original draft
manuscript defence of Eyre is in the West India library of the Institute
of Jamaica. Eyre successfully underwent more than one legal prosecution.
He retired on a pension into private life, and never sought, even in the
face of the greatest hostility, to justify his actions to the world. He
died at Tavistock on November 30, 1901, aged eighty-six. “He did many
good and brave things, and atoned for the one error of his life by a
silence so dignified and so prolonged.”
Behind the court house is =Mount Bay Fort=, dating from the seventeenth
century.
The present church of =Morant Bay= was built in 1881, on the site of the
church destroyed by the cyclone of August 19, 1880, and the church so
destroyed was built to take the place of the old church near the
almshouse, which is now in ruins. There are tombs in the ruined church
to Jane Ellis (d. 1763); Marmaduke Freeman (d. 1709); and to Mary, wife
of Sir Henry Lyttelton, governor (d. 1808).
The village of =Bath= contains a thermal spring of great value. An
historical account of the Bath was contributed by Dr. G. J. Neish to the
“Journal of the Institute of Jamaica” in 1895, and from it much of the
following account is taken.
Tradition says that a runaway slave hiding in the gorge came upon a
spring in which he bathed. Finding the temperature greatly to his
liking, he returned constantly to the pool, and after the lapse of some
days was astonished and delighted at the evidence of healing in a
long-standing ulcer on one of his legs. With his ulcer healed he braved
the wrath of his master to communicate the discovery of the pool.
Colonel Stanton, the owner of the land, sold his right in the spring “to
the public in the year 1699 for a valuable consideration.”
By the law passed in 1699 the land was vested in “The Directors of the
Bath of St. Thomas the Apostle.” They consisted of the governor (Sir
William Beeston), the chief justice (Nicholas Lawes), Peter Beckford,
and Peter Heywood, and seven other members of the privy council, and
five justices of the peace of St. Thomas and St. David. They were a body
corporate and had power to erect a market, and to grant licences and to
sell and retail strong liquors.
In 1731 an Act was passed for rendering the Bath more serviceable. From
the preamble it appears that there were no house or proper conveniences
for the accommodation of sick persons. £500 was voted for a house. The
leases of lands were cancelled, but land was to be granted to soldiers
and others who would settle, and who would be exempt from taxes for
seven years.
A road was made, buildings were erected, and the public began to make
use of the bath. Shortly afterwards lots were laid out and assigned, a
town sprang up. Slaves were purchased to look after the roads and the
vegetable gardens which had been planted for provisioning the hospital,
which was built on the town square. The foundation was in more modern
days utilized for supporting the present court house, and the old baths
are still to be seen on the ground floor. The bath house at the spring
was first built on the brink of the river, opposite the point of issue
of the water which was conducted across the stream by a wooden gutter.
Changes in the river bank afterwards made it possible to build the house
on the same side as the hot spring and so near that the water retained
its heat. The baths grew fashionable and the town of Bath rapidly became
a society resort. People of wealth built houses and brought their
amusements with them. Gaiety prevailed and music, dancing and
card-playing were indulged in; but fashionables wearied, quarrelled and
sought for pastures new. In 1774, Long complained of the desertion of
Bath; the decline went steadily on, and it never regained its
popularity.
There is a stone table affixed to the portico of the court house,
bearing this inscription:
This public building was erected under the inspection of the Hon.
Charles Price, Peter Valette and William Forbes, Esqrs., appointed
commissioners for carrying on the same, the foundation of which was
begun on the 10th day of March, 1747.
This tablet originally belonged to the old bath house and was many years
ago picked out of the river bed, and after lying in a yard in the town
for some time was rescued by the authorities and placed on the front of
the court house.
After 1789, the old =Botanic Garden= in Bath was placed under the
corporation. Dr. Thomas Dancer, best known as the author of “The Medical
Assistant or Jamaica Practice of Physic” (1801), and as chief of the
hospital staff on the expedition to San Juan de Nicaragua from Jamaica
in 1779, when Nelson nearly lost his life from malarial fever, was for
many years from 1781 to 1792 physician to the bath, and Island botanist
from 1797. While acting in the former capacity, he brought out in 1784
“A Short Dissertation on the Jamaica Bath Waters, to which is prefixed
an introduction concerning mineral waters in general....”
Of the rainfall he says, “above forty perpendicular inches have fallen
in about the space of six or eight hours, which is nearly double the
quantity that on a medium, falls in Great Britain through a whole year.”
The work also contained a list of the rarer plants cultivated in the
garden, of which he published a full list in 1792. Some of the plants he
owed to the interest of Sir Joseph Banks, with whom he corresponded.
Near the Johnson River to the west of Morant Bay is =Belvedere= estate,
2200 acres in extent, the original home of Colonel Thomas Freeman, the
first speaker of the House of Assembly.
There are remains of a fine aqueduct, a water-wheel, still used for
pumping water, parts of very extensive works, and higher up the hill the
great house and the overseer’s house. Now, bananas and coco-nuts usurp
the place of cane. Not far from the great house, in a logwood
plantation, is a tomb on the front of which is a massive slate slab with
the following inscription:
Here lyeth Anne Freeman who was Wife to y^e Hon. / Colonel Thomas
Freeman of Bellvedere Daughter to Richard Bellthrapp Esq. &
Grandaughter to St. John Colt / Shee left five sonns and one daughter
(viz) Thomas, / John, Charles, Richard and Howard, And Anne two
sisters /in the island Hester married to y^e Hon. Colonell John Cope /
and Margaret unmaried. Shee departed this life August y^e 3rd 1681
Ætatis Sua^o 30.
Shee liv’d a Vertuous and Religious Life
Shee was a Tender Mother and a most loveing wife.
The slab was thrown down by the earthquake of 1907, and on October 4,
1911, the writer saw in the vault two skulls and the bones appertaining.
The tomb of George Cuthbert (who governed Jamaica as senior member of
the Council in 1832 and 1834); which is said to have been here, is not
now to be found.
Dr. William Lloyd, in his “Letters from the West Indies,” wrote in 1837
of Belvedere as follows:
Belvidere is a noble estate: the great house has a balcony thirty
yards long, fronting the sea; it may be one mile from the shore; the
cane grounds descend thereto skirted by cocoanut palms; neighbouring
and distant hills form an imposing background and complete the
panoramic spectacle. The sick house is a clean, commodious, handsome
building, and the children and others confined under a prevalent
epidemic, measles, well attended to: the negroes’ cottages were like
so many harbors in bowers of ever-greens; and close at hand the
inmates had built a chapel at their own expense, spacious enough for
hundreds; neither mahogany, glass nor doors, formed part of the
structure; but there was a pulpit, and one substantial adornment,
simplicity, around and throughout; service was performed in it every
sabbath. An intelligent negro acted as our Cicerone through the
village, conducting us into his dwelling, where he waited on us with
due politeness, in handing water; from the evident air of comfort
around, I was certain that “Aristus would not be so amiable, were it
not for his Aspasia; nor Aspasia so much esteemed were it not for her
Aristus”; yet distress sits over those unaspiring seats. Count F——,
the proprietor, a French nobleman, resides in France, and he is not at
present liberally disposed. The provision grounds are in the
mountains, and the watchmen being removed, cattle and thieves destroy
the fruits of their exertions; so that instead of having provisions to
sell, they suffer scarcity themselves, only being allowed one pound of
salt fish per week; in crop time they are defrauded and overworked,
and these teasing impositions, which are beneath a proprietor’s
dignity, destroy their peace.
On =Lyssons= estate, named after Nicholas Lycence, member for St. Thomas
in 1671–72, by the works, are the remains of an old windmill with the
date 1764.
Here is the tomb to Sir John Taylor, Bt., and Simon Taylor, to the north
of the main road running through the property. It is in good condition.
The latter held many important posts and was a very wealthy planter,
leaving behind him, it is said, the largest fortune ever accumulated by
a West Indian. Both Sir John and his brother Simon were originally
buried at Vale Royal, in St. Andrew; but on the sale of that property
their bodies were removed to Lyssons.
The following are the inscriptions:
[_On the South side_]
Here lie the Remains of—Sir John Taylor, of Lissons, Baronet,—Amiable
in His Manners, Steady in His Attachments—& Exemplary in the Practice
of the Social & Domestic Duties.—He died—during a visit to His Estates
in this Island,—May 6th, 1786,—Aged 41.
[_On the North side_]
Here lie the Remains of—the Honourable Simon Taylor,—A Loyal Subject,
A firm Friend, & an Honest man.—Who, after an active life,—During
which he faithfully & ably filled the highest Offices—of Civil &
Military Duty in this Island,—Died April 14th, 1813,—aged 73.
[_On the East side_]
To the Memory of—A beloved & Honoured—Father and Uncle.
This Monument was erected—By Sir Simon Richard Brissett
Taylor,—Baronet,—1814.
[_On the West side_]
_Arms_, Two escutcheons.
1. Argent, a saltire sable, between two human hearts, in pale gules, &
2 cinquefoils in fesse, vert. Baronet’s badge in the fesse point.
_Crest_, Out of a ducal coronet, a cubit arm holding a cross crosslet.
2. The same arms with supporters—Two leopards chained & collared.
_Motto_, “In hoc signo Vinces.”
All that is left of =Hordley= are the remains of the works and
overseer’s house. Of the great house, two miles away at an elevation of
700 feet, there is now nothing left.
While on his second visit to Jamaica, in 1818, Monk Lewis paid a flying
visit to this estate.
Here (he said) I expected to find a perfect paradise, and I found a
perfect hell. Report had assured me that Hordley was the best managed
estate in the island; and, as far as the soil was concerned, report
appeared to have said true: but my trustee had also assured me that my
negroes were the most contented and best-disposed, and here there was
a lamentable incorrectness in the account. I found them in a perfect
uproar; complaints of all kinds stunned me from all quarters: all the
blacks accused all the whites, and all the whites accused all the
blacks; and, as far as I could make out, both parties were extremely
in the right.
In the week at his disposal he was not able to effect much remedy. He
found his “trustee” not cruel, but merely indolent as to the fate of the
negroes; but he dismissed one of the book-keepers and the “chief black
governor.” He gave the negroes new holdings, additional allowances of
salt fish and presents of money, &c., and “left them in as good humour,
apparently, as I found them in bad.”
[Illustration:
ALBION ESTATE
]
=Albion= estate, on the right bank of the Yallahs just before it joins
the sea, is the estate whence the white Albion sugar well known in
England takes its name. The old works and the coolie hospital, erected
in the middle of the nineteenth century, and the old-time book-keeper’s
house still exist; but the great house is now in ruins.
Dr. William Lloyd, in “Letters from the West Indies,” above quoted,
gives the following account of =Golden Grove=:
The “great house” is at a little distance on rising ground, commanding
a _coup d’œil_ of the whole plain; hundreds and thousands of acres of
canes may be seen at one glance. A school house has been erected near,
and a pleasing young man sent out by the Church Missionary Society has
charge of it. We were pleased with the good order of the children;
many were absent; at present the measles prevail, which may be one
cause. During the day we visited a very celebrated estate, Golden
Grove; attorney, Thomas McCornock, Esq., custos of the parish,
answering to our Lord Lieutenant. The extent of this estate is two
thousand acres; apprentices five hundred; and it exports near six
hundred hogheads of sugar: “_communibus annis_.” All the arrangements,
buildings, machinery, et cet, are of a very superior description. A
very neat chapel with a tower and clock close to the principal
dwelling, was built by the tradesmen of the estate during the slave
regime; and such was the interest evinced by the slaves for religion,
that they subscribed twenty pounds to buy a communion service cup; it
has been appropriately engraved; much might be said on this
occurrence.
The plate mentioned is now preserved in the offices of the Church of
England in Jamaica in Kingston. The chalice, eight inches high, is
inscribed round the foot, “Purchased for Golden Grove Chapel by the
slaves of the estate, 1830.”
At =Cambridge Hill= and at =Botany Bay= are caves in which Arawâk
remains have been found.
=Cow Bay= and =Bull Bay= recall the old days of the “cow killers” or
buccaneers; cow being by them applied to all kinds of horned cattle.
VI
PORTLAND
The parish of Portland was named after the Duke of Portland, who was
Governor of the colony at the date of its formation. It includes the old
parish of St. George and part of St. Thomas, from which it was
originally taken in 1723. St. George derived its name from the patron
saint of England. Roby thinks that the name might have received
additional appropriateness from the fact that George was the Christian
name of the Duke of Albemarle, Sir Thomas Modyford’s relative and
patron; as also of Colonel Nedham, his son-in-law.
Port Antonio, which was then established, has two of the finest and
securest harbours in the island. It is divided into Upper and Lower
Titchfield, named after the property of the Duke of Portland. Upper
Titchfield stands on a peninsula and contains Fort George, the old
military barracks.
In the year 1721, when strenuous efforts were made to induce immigrants
from the British Isles to settle in the north-eastern part of the
island, the Governor was empowered to make grants in the king’s name:
To every white person, being a protestant, thirty acres; to every white
person in the family, thirty acres; to every free mulatto Indian or
Negro, twenty acres; to every slave bought, five acres; with a proviso
that no person not having fifteen white persons in the family should
have above 400 acres in the whole. On the condition that the grantees
should settle and plant the land, or some part thereof, within six
months from the date of the patent, and should not alienate the land for
seven years from that date. Special facilities were given to intending
settlers: the lands were exonerated from all arrears of quit rent and
all grants made without fee of office, and the settlers freed from all
taxes (general or parochial) (except quit rents) for seven years.
In 1723 the receiver-general was authorised to raise a sum of £1500, to
be applied: £1000 in purchasing lands, &c., provided by Act 9 Geo. 1, c.
8, and to provide each newcomer (man or woman) that should come over and
settle within twelve months with two barrels of beef and one barrel of
flour to be delivered at Port Antonio free of all charges as a means of
support until the lands allotted to them should be planted with proper
provisions, and until the same were grown up and become fit for use—and
also to provide proper necessaries and conveniences for the newcomers
travelling to the land where they were to settle.
To encourage new settlers and on account of the distance from the
supreme court (then held in Spanish Town), persons settling were freed
from all suits, actions and arrests, and public taxes, for three years.
All these Acts and the facilities and encouragements apparently proved
ineffectual to settle the parish, and in 1725 an Act was passed and the
privileges of the previous Acts extended to all inhabitants of the
island as well as newcomers.
In 1730, the Crown having purchased the remainder of Lynch’s Island, the
twenty acres originally allotted for a town and fortifications were
vested in the Crown as they were found necessary for building wharves
and stores and for careening men-of-war.
In 1733 an Act was passed for cutting a road from the breastwork,
building a defensible house, and prohibiting the sale of rum in
Titchfield. Breastwork (about one and a half miles from Port Antonio) is
still a local name on the Golden Vale road.
In 1743 settlers in Portland were granted the same privileges as persons
settling at Manchioneal and Norman’s Valley in St. Thomas-in-the-East,
by Act 9 Geo. 2, that is; their passages were paid and that of their
slaves not exceeding twenty, and the receiver-general was to subsist
them and their slaves for twelve months on the following scale: each
white person, four barrels of beef and 400 lb. of biscuit or bread; each
slave a barrel of herrings and 400 lb. of biscuit or bread—the number of
slaves not exceeding twenty. Every settler was entitled to a grant of
land: for himself, thirty acres; for his wife, fifty acres; for each
child, twenty acres; for every other white, fifteen acres; for each
slave, ten acres; not to exceed in the whole 300 acres. He was exempted
from taxes for five years, but had to commence settlement within three
months from the date of his patent.
This Act was limited in its duration, and subsequently expired.
Long tells us that under the inducements of the laws passed between 1736
and 1752, in sixteen years, one hundred and eight families and fifteen
artificers were introduced into Portland and elsewhere at an expense of
£17,898, but that many of them failed for lack of capital.
In 1780 all the restrictions, conditions, penalties and forfeitures
imposed on settlers by the several Acts from 1721 to 1776 having failed
of their end, these Acts were repealed, and lands were to be held free
from such restrictions, &c., and thereafter grants were to be made free
therefrom—with a proviso excepting persons who had within four years
before evaded the condition of their grants.
From this date legislation with a view to settle the parish appears to
have been discontinued, as no more Acts with that object are to be found
in the statute book.
In 1722 it was enacted that fifty acres at a certain place named
Pattison’s Point and thirty acres on Ruther’s or Lynch’s Island should
be allotted for a town, and that two hundred and fifty acres adjoining
should be a common belonging to the said town or towns.
[Illustration:
PORT ANTONIO IN 1770
From an engraving
]
By an Act of 1725 (an explanatory Act for the further encouraging the
settling the parish of Portland) it was enacted that for enlarging the
said town of Titchfield which had sprung up, fifty more acres should be
added to the town and one hundred acres should be added to the common.
By 1785 it appeared that divers people unlawfully encroached on the
common of 350 acres, and the land had become of little or no use or
profit to the town and the benefit was in danger of being entirely lost
to them. Certain trustees were appointed by act 26 Geo. 3, c. 7 (an Act
for vesting the common lands of the town of Titchfield in the parish of
Portland, in trustees, for the purpose of raising a fund for erecting
and maintaining a free school in the said town; and for other purposes
therein mentioned), for the direction and management of a free school to
be erected in or near the town of Titchfield, to be maintained and
endowed from the proceeds of the 350 acres of common land. The object of
the trust was to provide instruction for youths, without charge to their
parents, in reading, writing, arithmetic, Latin, Greek, mathematics,
&c., and the masters were to be of the Church of England. The school was
open to children of the island generally, but those of the inhabitants
of the town of Titchfield were to have the preference.
The school was in active operation from its foundation to the year 1855,
when it appears to have been closed in consequence of a report made on
its “state and condition” by Henry Laidlaw, stipendiary magistrate, in
pursuance of a commission entrusted to him by the Governor, and because
of the trust having been thrown into Chancery by reason of having
incurred debts amounting to nearly £300, for which judgment was obtained
against the trustees in the Grand Court of October 1852, in the case of
“Anderson Charles _vs._ the Trustees of the Titchfield Free School
Trust.”
From the revelations laid bare in Laidlaw’s report, and from the tenor
of a resolution passed at a meeting of the trustees held on January 3,
1853, it may be gathered that the trust at this time was in a very bad
state.
In 1883 a scheme was drawn up by the Jamaica Schools Commission, by
which the management of the trust was vested in the Schools Commission
and a board of local managers appointed by the Governor on the
recommendation of the Schools Commission, and in 1903 the Titchfield
lands were vested in trustees appointed by the Governor.
=Olivier Park= in Port Antonio was named after Sir Sydney Olivier, when
he was Colonial Secretary; =Carder Park= after a benefactor to the town.
The fruit trade, which was opened up in Portland in the year 1868, has
made Port Antonio a town of considerable importance.
The Maroon settlement, called =Moore Town=, named after Henry Moore,
Governor in 1760–62, is nine miles from Port Antonio on the banks of the
Rio Grande.
There are at =Low Layton=, 150 feet above sea level, the remains of an
extinct volcano.