Part 10

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:

Admiral Sir Charles Hamilton related that in 1780 the submerged houses were plainly discernible between the town as it now stands and the usual anchorage of vessels of war. Bryan Edwards says, in 1793, the ruins were visible in clear weather from the boats which sailed over them; and Lieutenant B. Jeffrey, of the Royal Navy, states that when engaged in the surveys made between the years 1824 and 1835, he repeatedly traced sites of buildings where the depth of the water is from four to six fathoms. When there was little wind, he perceived traces of houses, especially distinct when he used the instrument called “the diver’s eye” let down below the ripple of the wave.

A later work, published in 1893 by Major M. M[artin] and others, entitled “Port Royal and its Harbour,” is of more general interest.

In 1891, at the time of the exhibition, Jamaica was visited by the present King and his elder brother, and Port Royal was not overlooked; nor was it when Prince Albert visited Jamaica in the spring of 1913.

In 1894, experimental borings were made by the military authorities with a view to obtaining a supply of fresh water, but these were abandoned when a depth of 270 feet had been reached.

By the irony of fate, the impetus given a few years since to British naval development was destined to result not in the increase in importance, but in the withdrawal of the remnants of the faded glory, of a fort which was formerly one of the principal advance guards of Britannia’s realm.

A shadow of coming events was cast in 1903 by the sale of the old depot ship, the _Urgent_, which for many years, after serving as a troop ship, had swung to the tide at the entrance to the harbour, which before the days of monster vessels boasted that it could hold the navies of the world. By a special order in council the commodore then flew for a short time his broad pennant in the dockyard instead of in the _Urgent_, which was destined to spend her last days in the inglorious capacity of a coal hulk in Boston harbour. Then the edict went forth that the office of commodore, which in 1838 replaced that of admiral, when Jamaica ceased to be an independent command, was to be abolished, and on March 31, 1905, Commodore Fisher struck his flag.

Of later years Port Royal has become most important as a military fort; if that glory were taken from it, it would sink almost into the insignificance of its neighbour Port Henderson, across the harbour’s mouth—where the old _Aboukir_, rebuilt, does duty as a storehouse, and where memory still lingers of the days when it formed a seaside resort for the gay folk of St. Jago de la Vega—and it would be without Port Henderson’s importance as a banana port.

Its ancient glory was recalled on September 10, 1914, when a large crowd assembled to see H.M.S. _Essex_ bring in as prize the Hamburg-Amerika line steamer _Bethania_ with five hundred naval reservists on board.

It is to be hoped that the completion of the Panama Canal may give to Port Royal a new era of commercial prosperity, unaccompanied by the drawbacks which attended its acquisition of wealth in the seventeenth century.

II ST. CATHERINE

The parish of St. Catherine derived its name from the queen of Charles II., who was king of England when the parish was formed. In the first act in which it is mentioned it is correctly spelled Katharine. It consists of what before the passing of law 20 of 1867 constituted the parishes of St. Catherine, St. Dorothy, St. John and St. Thomas-in-the-Vale. St. Thomas-in-the-Vale was probably named after Sir Thomas Lynch. St. Dorothy, Roby, in his “Memorials of the Cathedral Church and Parish of St. Catherine” (1831), conjectures, received its name in compliment to Dorthy Wale, who had probably a large estate there.

=Passage Fort=, at first known as The Passage, probably so called by the Spaniards as being their place of embarkation from St. Jago de la Vega (Spanish Town), situated at the west end of Kingston harbour, first appears in the annals of Jamaica as the landing-place of a predatory expedition fitted out chiefly in Barbados and St. Kitts in 1642 by a certain Captain William Jackson, of whom little is known but of whose expedition a graphic account is given in a manuscript in the Sloane MSS. in the British Museum entitled: “CXVIII—Mercurius Americanus—A Briefe Journall, or a succinct and true relation of the most Remarkable Passages observed in the Voyage undertaken by Captain William Jackson to the West Indies or Continent of America. Anno Domini, 1642, September 27,” reprinted in “The West India Committee Circular,” May 9, 1911—January 16, 1912. The date, September 27, 1642, it may be mentioned, is the date of sailing, not of the writing of the account.

Richard Norwood, who was a minister of religion and a school teacher, writing under date May 14, 1645, from Somers Islands, now known as Bermuda, to the Governor and Company of Adventurers to the Somers Islands, alluded to the time when of late the valiant and victorious General Capt. Jackson arrived after his voyage through the West Indies, and added “it was doubtful how things would go.”

After attempts more or less successful on various islands and the Spanish main, Jackson, in the _Charles_, accompanied by the _Dolphin_ and the _Valentine_, put into Port Royal harbour on March 25, 1643. After trying the west coast of the harbour, where they perceived “noe passage,” they interrogated some prisoners and were led to Passage Fort “at a place where we found an Old Trench and a storehouse of Timber, lately sett by but not fully finished,” where, after a skirmish with both horse and foot of the enemy, they took the fort and marched past “divers workes,” one of which they dismantled, into Spanish Town. Jackson’s men were so pleased that they wished “to sett by their stacon here”; but the general, bent on robbing the Spaniards, had no taste for bucolic simplicity and gave up the town for “200 Beaves and 10,000 weight of cassavi bread for ye victualling of our ships, besides 20 Beaves every day for ye general expense till our departure and 7,000 pieces of Eight.” After spending sixteen days in “salting up our Beaves” Jackson and his men sailed away, but a few days later took a Spanish frigate “in an Harbour next to that where wee had formerly ridd at ankor,” probably Old Harbour.