1703. Upon the 12th of March, the English, under General Codrington, attacked the island of Guadaloupe. Colonel Byam, with his division, who were landed at Les Petits Habitants, soon dispersed the force opposed to them, as did Colonel Whetham, who was landed to the northward of "La Bayliffe," and carried the enemy's entrenchments by the bayonet, and in an hour afterwards took the town of La Bayliffe, and the Jacobin church, which had been converted into a fortress. The next day the English got possession of the town of Basse Terre, forcing the garrison to retire to the castle and fort, which they defended until the 3d of April, and then blowing them up, retired to the mountains. The English now laid waste the island in all directions; but, by some unhappy differences between the commanders, all their successes were rendered fruitless. The French received a reinforcement of 700 men under M. Gabaret, sickness began to attack the English troops, and the island was abandoned without any thing more being done. Vice-Admiral Graydon, with the Resolution, Montague, Nonsuch, and Blackwall, arrived in the West Indies, and collecting what troops were disposable in the different islands, proceeded to Placentia, which he found too well defended for him to attempt an attack. Upon his passage out, Admiral Graydon passed Du Casse's squadron, which had escaped from Admiral Benbow. Captain Cleland, in the Montague, engaged the sternmost of the enemy for some time, but was recalled by signal from Admiral Graydon, whose orders did not allow him "to lose any time in this passage, by chasing or speaking with any ships whatsoever." An address to Queen Anne was afterwards voted by the House of Lords, stating, that Vice-Admiral Graydon meeting with four French ships in his passage to the West Indies, and letting them escape without attacking them, had been a prejudice to the Queen's service, and a great dishonour to the nation; and that Admiral Graydon, having behaved himself so ill in the West Indies, might be employed no more in her Majesty's service: and that an address be presented to the Queen, to remove him from all places of trust in the government; and that her Majesty would be pleased to order her attorney-general to prosecute him. M. Auger, the governor of Guadaloupe, succeeded M. du Casse as governor of St. Domingo. Tindal's History of England, vol. iii. book 26. pp. 594. 611. 643. Charlevoix, tom. iv. p. 206. Part of the inhabitants of St. Christopher's, who had been expelled from that island by the English, arrived at St. Domingo. They were most of them natives of America, regular in their conduct, well instructed in their religion, and contributed greatly to polish the manners of the colony into which they were incorporated. The greatest part of Port Royal, in Jamaica, was reduced to ashes by fire on the 9th of January. There were large quantities of gun-powder in the different warehouses, and the houses were covered with shingles. Most of the inhabitants removed to Kingston. Westmoreland parish (in Jamaica) was formerly a part of St. Elizabeth, and was made a separate district in 1703. By an act passed this year, every owner of slaves in Jamaica was obliged to maintain fourteen white servants for every 300 negroes, besides one for every sixty head of cattle. Every master of a ship importing thirty white men servants, was for that voyage exempted from paying all port charges. A French and Spanish army attacked New Providence, drove out the English inhabitants, carried off the Negroes, and demolished Fort Nassau. After this it became the rendezvous and retreat of pirates. 1704. The Compte de Gennes was tried at Martinico, convicted of cowardice for his conduct at St. Christopher's, sentenced to lose his cross of St. Louis, and to be degraded from his rank as a nobleman. From this sentence he appealed to the Royal Counsel, but was taken by the English on his passage to France, and died at Plymouth. His title, honours, and a handsome pension were continued to his widow and children by the French King, who thus evidently disapproved of the sentence. The Jesuits superseded the Capuchins in the cure of souls among the French in St. Domingo. Sir William Mathews succeeded Governor Codrington at Antigua. Colonel Thomas Handaside succeeded William Selwin, Esq. as governor of Jamaica. Charlevoix, tom. iv. pp. 209. 211. Campbell's Political Survey, vol. ii. p. 664 p. 381.; vol. ii. pp. 144. 299. 1705. In March, the French King issued an ordonnance, intituled, "Declaration du Roy contre les Negres libres qui retirent les manoirs, recelent leurs vols et les partagent avec eux." And another, intituled, "Ordonnance du Roy au sujet des gardiens nobles, et bourgeois usufruitiers, amodiateurs et autres." Upon the 13th of October, M. Auger, the governor of the French in St. Domingo, died at Leogane. The African Company, in eight years ending this year, imported to the British West Indies only 17,760 slaves, while the separate traders in that time imported 71,268. In an act passed this year in the Leeward Caribbee Islands, it is declared, "That the common law of England, as far as it stands unaltered by any written laws of these islands, or some of them confirmed by your Majesty, &c. is in force in each of these your Majesty's Leeward Caribbee Islands, and is the certain rule whereby the rights and properties of your Majesty's good subjects inhabiting these islands are and ought to be determined; and that all customs, or pretended customs or usages contradictory thereto, are illegal, null, and void." This declaratory law is without any exception as to slavery; and the colonial legislators maintain, that the protection given by law to English slaves, while such characters existed in England, belongs to the enslaved Negroes. They assert also that the English law of villeinage is the same, or at least resembles their own slave code. The truth of this representation will be seen by comparing the two systems. The English lord could not delegate to any one his power of arbitrary correction. The West India planter may and does delegate it to managers, overseers, and every subordinate agent, and this charge of a Negro's person always implies the right of whipping him at discretion; for the frivolous limitation of it to thirty-nine lashes with the cart-whip at one time, or for one offence, is in point of fact no limitation. Murder and mayhem were punished the same when the sufferer was a villein as when he was a free man; but in some of the colonies, the murder of a slave was punishable only by a fine of £100 currency, 57 2s. 104d. sterling; and castration or dismemberment, by a fine of from £20 to £100 currency. Parliamentary Paper, "Further Papers," 1826, p. 33. Charlevoix, tom. iv. p. 211. Atkins's Voyage to the West Indies, p. 154. Stephen on West Indian Slavery, pp. 16. 18, 19. What is far more important, the villein had civil rights and legal remedies. He could maintain all manner of actions as fully as a free person. He was a competent prosecutor in criminal cases. But a Negro slave can maintain no action whatever against any man; and can in no case be received as a witness, except in criminal prosecutions against persons of his own condition: and the colonial assemblies admit that this incapacity frustrates the effect of laws made for their protection. A villein could only be claimed by prescription, or by his own confession, or that of his ancestors, in a court of record. By the law of villeinage, the rule as to the condition of the issue was "partus sequitur patrem :" in the colonies it is "partus sequitur ventrem.” The illegitimate children of villeins could not be slaves. In the colonies, few, if any, of the slaves are married: there the attainder of African blood is purged only by impure cohabitation, and the enfranchisement of the progeny is a premium on concubinage. A female slave marrying a Negro or Mulatto attaches slavery on her offspring; but let her breed be by a white keeper, and they, if she be a mestize, will be free; if she be a Mulatto or Negro, her daughter or grand-daughter will have the same reward for prostitution. By what colonial law slavery is declared hereditary and perpetual, has never yet (1823) been shewn. Neither is there any act of parliament that has excluded the posterity of imported Africans from the birthright of British subjects, and ordained that they shall for ever be the property of the person by whom their mother or ancestress was bought. But it is a sad and opprobious truth, that British laws have sanctioned the importation and sale of imported Africans. The colonial assemblies refer to the law of villeinage, an institution obsolete before the slave-trade began, but which would invalidate every existing title to slaves, except to such as were brought from Africa before the abolition; for the issue of villeins followed the condition of the father, and not of the mother: if a female villein married a free man, the children were born free. Nor could the owners of the fathers assert a title to their issue, because none of the Creole slaves have been born in lawful wedlock, and out of it the father is not recognised as such by the law. Well would it have been for the Negroes if the law of villeinage had been the law for them: masters then would take care to provide wives for their male slaves, instead of wilfully keeping a shocking disproportion between the sexes, and married Stephen on West Indian Slavery, pp. 22. 122, 123, 124. men, or men of decent morals, would have been preferred for managers, &c. for the procreation of Mulatto children would have been an evil to the owner of the mother; whereas at present he gains by having a slave that will be in part at least maintained by its father, and for whom he may expect a large price for its enfranchisement. The father's parental feelings are often a convenient pledge for his continuance in office, and for his good conduct also. This departure, therefore, from the rule of our old common law slavery, and the adoption of that of the civil law, "partus sequitur ventrem," has been fatal to the morals of our islands, and to the interests of the native population. 1706. By a royal edict, dated the 29th of April this year, it was ordered that the governor of Santa Cruz should command in chief in St. Domingo, during the absence of the governor of Tortuga. M. de S. Andre, in Le Prince, in company with Le Fidele, La Sphere, and Le Dudlow, and several merchant vessels, to avoid an English squadron, entered into the harbour called L'Hôpital, two leagues from the Cul de Sac. S. Andre found the harbour a good one, and named it after the ship he commanded, "Le Port du Prince." A French fleet, of five sail of the line, and twenty smaller vessels, in March, made a descent in St. Christopher's: they were repulsed in their attack upon the fort, but they burnt the plantations and plundered the inhabitants. Information being given them that an English fleet was expected, they quitted the island, carrying off 300 slaves, and went to Nevis, where the inhabitants, upon their landing, fled to the mountains, and were pursued by the soldiers. After an unsuccessful resistance, they capitulated the next day, March 24th. By the capitulation the inhabitants were to be prisoners of war, but to remain on the island, and to procure a like number of French prisoners, to be released by way of exchange. The French broke the capitulation in several respects, treated the inhabitants most barbarously, and forced them to a second agreement upon the 6th of April, by which the English were in six months to send to Martinico a certain number of Negroes, or money in lieu of them. The French carried off with them Charlevoix, tom. iv. p. 212. Tindal, vol. iii. book 26. p. 791. Empire, p. 352. |