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15. The Planter at War: Codrington in the Leeward Islands

p. 180

‘[These colonies’] whole past history’: quoted in Ragatz,
Fall
, ix.

p. 180

a number of French inhabitants joined in the ‘burning and ravaging’:
Cal Col
1689–92, nos. 212, 237, 262, 312.

p. 181

‘of great estate here and in Barbados’: Johnson to Lords of Trade, 15 July 1689, ibid., no. 256.

p. 181

‘so good is the spirit of the garrison’: ibid., no. 312.

p. 181

‘We are not unprofitable appendages to the Crown … turn our mourning into joy’: 31 July 1689, ibid., no. 312.

p. 182

he knew enough about the self-interest of planters … the value of their own sugar crop: ibid., no. 789.

p. 182

‘most turbulent and ungovernable’: ibid., nos. 548, 789.

p. 182

‘We are greatly discouraged by the long neglect of us at home’: ibid
.
, no. 789.

p. 182

‘I have inspected the muskets and think them as bad as ever came to these parts’: 4 June 1690, ibid
.
, no. 927.

p. 182

‘fittest for marching and accustomed to rugged paths’: ibid
.
, no. 977.

p. 182

‘they have a grievance against you, and doubtless hope for revenge’: 18 February, 1690, ibid
.
, no. 789viii.

p. 183

‘an almost inaccessible hill … forced to use our Hands as well as our Feet in climbing up’: Spencer,
A true and faithful relation of the proceedings of the forces
, 8.

p. 183

‘pulling themselves forward by the bushes’:
Cal Col
1689–92, no. 977.

p. 183

‘made all the heels they could’: ibid.

p. 183

‘Liquors’ be ‘secured in a convenient storehouse’: Spencer,
A true and faithful relation of the proceedings of the forces
, 9.

p. 183

On 4 July, Codrington reported to London that morale in his force was excellent:
Cal Col
1689–92, no. 977.

p. 183

‘riddling the houses like sieves’: ibid
.
, no. 1004.

p. 183

‘The King and Queen’s healths were drank’: Spencer,
A true and faithful relation of the proceedings of the forces
, 8.

p. 184

‘disbursed large sums for the public service’:
Cal Col
1689–92, no. 1004.

p. 184

10 acres apiece so as to guarantee an adequate white militia and ‘middle class’: ibid
.
, no. 1756.

p. 184

He had been too kind to the French, it was alleged: ibid
.
, no. 1212.

p. 184

‘repaid only by murmuring and discontent’: ibid.

p. 185

‘At the taking of St Christophers’: ibid
.
, no. 1608.

p. 185

all this was carried on in sloops for whose use in the national interest Codrington promptly charged the English government nearly £5,000: ibid
.
, nos. 1609, 1613.

p. 185

‘run off in distraction at midnight’: ibid
.
, no. 1630.

p. 186

‘in consequence of the heavy complaint against him’: ibid
.
, no. 1623.

p. 186

‘All turns on mastery of the sea’: ibid
.
, no. 1756.

p. 186

a powerful French fleet had arrived at Martinique: ibid., no. 1993.

p. 186

‘far the richest production and most shining ornament [Barbados] ever had’: quoted in Schomburgk,
History of Barbados
, 112.

p. 186

‘Children, in these West India Islands are, from their infancy, waited upon by Numbers of Slaves’: Hughes,
Natural History of Barbados,
9–15.

p. 187

‘No spark had walk’d up High Street bolder’: quoted in Harlow,
Christopher Codrington
, 48.

p. 187

‘So early and so continued a pre-eminence’: ibid., 39.

p. 188

‘I have always thought it very barbarous’:
Cal Col
1699, no. 458.

p. 188

‘his freedom & £500 at 21, he to be sent to school in England’: Oliver,
History of the Island of Antigua
, 1:150.

p. 189

‘This heart ablaze, this spirit’s surging foam’: Harlow,
Christopher Codrington
, 81.

p. 189

He also repeated his requests for settlers from the northern colonies for St Kitts, but it appears that few were forthcoming:
Cal Col
1693–6, no. 2193.

p. 190

He had traded illegally with the French and Dutch, even during the war, and this had continued since, it was said: PRO CO 152/2, pp.205–10.

p. 190

‘minded nothing but plunder … From a Governour, planter, trader without breeding, word, honour, and religion, good Lord deliver us’: ibid.,
p. 83
.

p. 190

‘the exercise of almost unlimited authority over a turbulent community turned his head’: Harlow,
Christopher Codrington
, 36.

p. 190

‘we are not sensible of any mismanagement or irregularities’: PRO CO 152/2,
p. 75
.

p. 190

were moved to publicly chastise Codrington.
Cal Col
1697–8, no. 817.

16. The French Invasion of Jamaica

p. 192

‘the enemy daily infests our coasts’:
Cal Col
1693–6, no. 635.

p. 192

‘the people were so thin and so little used to arms’: ibid., no. 1236.

p. 193

‘in a very mean habit, and with a meagre weather-beaten countenance’: Anon.,
Interesting Tracts
, 252.

p. 193

‘into excellent order’: ibid., 253.

p. 193

Using pressed labour:
Cal Col
1693–6, no. 473.

p. 193

A system of beacons was established to warn of an approaching fleet, and Beeston announced: ibid., nos. 876, 1083, 1074.

p. 193

‘coming into sight with a fresh gale’: Anon.,
Interesting Tracts
, 254.

p. 193

‘Some of the straggling people … they suffered the negroes to violate, and dug some out of their graves’: ibid., 255–7.

p. 194

and paying for them out of his own pocket:
Cal Col
1693–6, no. 2178.

p. 194

‘here I reckon that our misfortunes began’: ibid., no. 1946.

p. 195

‘people die here very fast and suddenly, I know not how soon it may be my turn’: Amussen,
Caribbean Exchanges
, 84.

p. 195

he remarried the following year to Anne Ballard, from another wealthy planter family: Howard,
Records and Letters of the Family of the Longs
, 14.

p. 195

200 per thousand of the town’s population died every year during the first decades of the eighteenth century: Burnard, ‘“The Countrie Continues Sicklie”’, 49.

p. 195

‘Mrs Beckford has been ill but is recovered’: 15 May 1695,
Cal Col
1693–6, no. 2022 ix.

p. 195

and of his servants, only his cook survived: BL Add. Mss 28878, fol. 135.

p. 195

‘There are so many dead that it is hard to bury them’: Burnard, ‘A Failed Settler Society’, 69.

p. 195

that the island was still ‘at present sickly’: March 30 1702,
Cal Col
1702, no. 267.

p. 196

‘the mortality reigns chiefly over the new-comers’: ibid.

p. 196

reaching 42,000 by 1700: Dunn,
Sugar and Slaves
, 312; Amussen,
Caribbean Exchanges
, 94.

17. Codrington the Younger in the West Indies

p. 197

‘A British Muse disdains’ quoted in Krise,
Caribbeana
, 329.

p. 197

‘to endeavour to get a law restraining inhuman severities’:
Cal Col
1699, no. 766.

p. 198

‘Nothing will hinder me from promoting boldly’: PRO CO 152/3, no. 23, fol. 100.

p. 198

‘a long fit of sickness’: PRO CO 152/3, no. 57.

p. 198

purchase Dodington Hall in Gloucestershire from Samuel Codrington: Codrington papers, BL RP 2616, reel 8.

p. 198

very fair … well furnish’d’: Davies,
History of the Caribby-Islands
, 24.

p. 199

in a house only 90 by 16 feet, with four rooms: Dunn,
Sugar and Slaves
, 139.

p. 199

‘too fulsome’, addresses: 11 Jan 1701, PRO CO 152/4, no. 11.

p. 199

‘dispatcht more business and done more justice’: PRO CO 152/4, no. 36.

p. 199

‘universal … the very air does change him in a short time’:
Cal Col
1700, no. 751.

p. 199

‘for the Encouragement of poor settlers’:
Acts of Assembly, Passed in the Charibbee Leeward Islands,
111–13.

p. 199

more than 500 acres in St Mary, Antigua and done nothing with it: Dunn,
Sugar and Slaves
, 142.

p. 199

‘I have defended the poor against ye rich’: PRO CO 152/4, no. 36.

p. 199

attempted to take on the endemic illegal trading:
Cal Col
1700, no. 658i.

p. 199

‘There is so much Ignorance, laziness and Corruption’: 5 May 1701, PRO CO 152/4, no. 21.

p. 199

‘a young gentleman of great virtue and efforts’: PRO CO 152/4, no. 46.

p. 199

‘They are a parcell of Banditts’: Codrington to Popple, 2 March 1704, PRO CO 152/5, no. 61.

p. 200

‘idle and vagrant fellows’:
Acts of Assembly, Passed in the Charibbee Leeward Islands,
116.

p. 200

‘the only Governor that I have met’: PRO CO 152/4, no. 97.

p. 200

‘not unlike that of a Frenchman, who is as easily elevated, as soon depressed’: Beckford,
Descriptive Account
2:375.

p. 200

‘where they had washed it with rum and triumphed over it’: PRO CO 152/4, no. 73.

p. 200

‘we have lost a very useful man in Maj. Martin’: ibid.; Higham, ‘Negro Policy’, 153.

p. 201

‘got drunk together and grew Friends agen’: PRO CO 152/4, no. 21.

p. 201

‘So much ye les of ye Commodity is made, and consequently ye price is rais’d’: ibid., nos. 44, 44i;
Cal Col
1701, no. 744.

p. 201

rumours were that the Irish were preparing to hand the island over to the French:
Cal Col
1701, no. 743.

p. 201

‘I have done all yt it wd. have been possible … I have been no onely General but Engineer, Serjt. and Corporall’: BL Add. Mss 34348; PRO CO 152/4, no. 30.

p. 202

‘meet their Enemys with their Eyes open and their Swords in their hands’: PRO CO 152/4, no. 31.

p. 202

‘had very nearly captured the General one night in a raid’: Eaden,
Memoirs of Père Labat
, 211ff.

p. 202

‘far more sober than are most of his nation as a rule’: ibid., 214.

p. 203

‘My honour is much dearer to me than an employ more valuable than mine is’: June 1702,
Cal Col
1702–3 p. 654.

p. 203

‘as curious as any private one in Europe’: Codrington to Dr Charlett, 25 June 1702, quoted in Harlow,
Christopher Codrington
, 59.

p. 203

‘I am so weak and spiritless’ 28 June 1702, PRO CO 152/4, 104.

p. 203

‘Her [Majesty’s] Flag is now flying on ye French fort’: PRO CO 152/5, no.2.

p. 204

‘plant me some fruit trees and vines at Dodington’: 30 November 1702, PRO CO 239/1, no. 3.

p. 204

it could take Quebec and drive the French out of Canada:
Cal Col
1702–3, nos. 192, 193.

p. 204

there were hardly enough seamen fit to man the boats: ibid., no. 298.

p. 205

‘murdered them with Drinking’: 24 February 1703, PRO CO, 7/1, no. 3.

p. 205

The will, dated 22 February 1703: Oliver,
History of the Island of Antigua
, 1:150–1.

p. 207

‘Negroes were equally the Workmanship of God with themselves’: Klingberg,
Codrington Chronicle
, 4.

p. 208

‘afflicted with terrible pains’: PRO CO 152/5, no. 48.

p. 208

‘just when we were to reap the fruit of our hazards & fatigues’: PRO CO 152/5.

p. 208

blamed the Creole contingent for a lack of fighting spirit: Bourne,
Queen Anne’s Navy in the West Indies
, 199.

p. 208

In one month the following year, out of 108 ships that left Barbados: October 1704, Oliver,
History of the Island of Antigua
, 1:lxxiv.

p. 208

‘I still continue so wretchedly weak’: Harlow,
Christopher Codrington
, 170.

p. 208

‘security of those Islands’: ibid., 172.

p. 209

‘tho it be with a Muskett on my shoulder’: PRO CO 152/5, no. l70.

p. 209

‘I may serve Her better than an another at present’:
Cal Col
1704–5, no. 705.

p. 209

‘fine appearance and handsome bearing’:
Dictionary of National Biography
, 43:225.

p. 210

‘I heartily wish for Col. Park’s arrival’:
Cal Col
1704–5, nos. 1215, 1281.

p. 210

carrying away 600 slaves and huge quantities of sugar-making equipment.
Cal Col
1705–6, nos. 168, 195.

p. 210

The Nevis planters estimated the loss at over a million pounds sterling:
Cal Col
1707–08, no. 355.

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