Part 11

April 27, 1660. At my arrival the people were still as an Army, but without pay, commanded by General Doyley, under whom, as chief ministers, were Major Fairfax and Captain Burroughs; the government was only by a court-martial held once a month at St. Jago, and what disputes General Doyley [_gap in the print here_] self, who lived very near and private, did not by any means love planting, but hindered those that were willing to plant, by telling them they would be all called off. The people were now healthful, and provisions began to be plenty, and trade to increase; the privateering was carried on, and good prizes often brought in by them....

About this time the rump parliament being again up in England no recruits came for the Army, and they had no pay which made the soldiers deem themselves neglected, and a general expectation there was that all would be called off, and the island deserted, there being no news of His Majesty’s happy restoration; this gave occasion to one of the Regiments at Guanaboe, and formerly commanded by Colonel Barrington, but now by Lieutenant-Colonel Tyson, who being set on by a discontented reformed officer called Lieutenant-Colonel Raymond, who lived near him, began to mutiny and set up for themselves, saying, they would live no more as an Army. And accordingly, August 2, they declared they would have the Island settled in Colonies, and make constables and civil officers. These, General Doyley not being able to appease with words, drew some forces to St. Jago to appease them, but was cautious, not being certain but that those he brought if it came to the push, would fail him, and be of the mind of the others; and, therefore, he ordered a ship of Southampton, called the _Mary_, Captain Richard Tylar, Commander, to lay ready without the fort that if he saw things grow desperate he might embark and leave them; but by sending several messengers to them, and at length Major Richard Hope, of the Liguanea Regiment, he so prevailed with them, telling them the danger if they persisted, and, on the contrary, that if they delivered up the two Lieutenant-Colonels they should all be pardoned, that they promised the next morning to deliver up their officers. Accordingly, in the morning, the soldiers brought down the two Lieutenant-Colonels, and delivered them up; on whom there presently sat a Court-Martial who adjudged them worthy of death, and accordingly, in a very short time, in sight of both parties, they were shot to death. Then the soldiers were all ordered to their several quarters, but were grown so insolent, that the General was forced to give them leave to plunder the houses of Tyson and Raymond in St. Jago, which flushed them to plunder more, even any that they could pretend had any correspondence with those men; and yet after all this, and all the fair words that were given them, it was as much as the General and their Officers could do to keep them from mutinying and to get them to return to their precincts.

Tyson and Raymond were shot on August 3, 1660, tradition says, under the large tamarind tree which still stands in Spanish Town, in =Mulberry Garden=, now used as a poor-house. August 2 is the date usually given, but Beeston’s account makes it clear that they were shot on “the next morning,” _i.e._ the 3rd.

Leslie, without giving the source of his information, adds, “Raymond expressed no concern, but died with a haughty kind of Resolution. Tyson behaved in a manner more becoming, and seemed penitent for the part he had acted.” We learn from the “Calendar of State Papers,” that in May 1660 an Order in Council was made “To permit Mary Tyson to repair to her husband, Lieut.-Col. Edward Tyson, in Jamaica, in the ship _Bear_, now bound thither, with accommodation for two maid-servants and one manservant.” Her arrival must have been a sad one. She found her gallant but misguided husband laid in a rebel’s grave.

Long says that Raymond was probably encouraged in his attempt by the knowledge that Doyley was not armed with any express commission or power to punish such offence capitally; and Gardner, thus fortified, says that Doyley’s action was illegal. But Beeston tells us that “the government was only by court-martial,” and this surely implied the right to shoot a rebel. The news of the Restoration reached Jamaica twelve days after the affair, but Doyley did not receive his commission to act as a constitutional governor until February 8, 1661.

Leslie makes the outbreak a Cavalier and Roundhead affair, and Bridges and Hill concur in that view. Gardner, following Beeston, thinks it was mainly due to a desire for a simple civil life. Long says, “Raymond’s object, it has been supposed, was to seize the Government himself; but the real design is not certainly known.” In contradistinction to Beeston, Long tells us that Doyley was “a steady advocate for pursuing the cultivation of the island, to which most of the private men were disinclined.”

The outbreak was probably just as much due to a desire for a more civil form of government than that favoured by Doyley as to any feeling of loyalty to the Stuarts; and the fact that Doyley felt compelled to take precautions for his personal safety in case of defeat may have been dictated as much by fear of the soldiers’ dislike for him as a martinet, as of the antipathy of the Roundhead portion of them to him as a cavalier.

Of the ecclesiastical buildings at St. Jago de la Vega trustworthy records exist only of an abbey, and a chapel of the red cross and a chapel of the white cross. The present =Cathedral=, the oldest cathedral in the British colonies, stands on the site of the red cross chapel. The bases of two piers (Long calls them columns) 8 feet square, part of the entrance to the abbey (which stood to the south of the present parade), were, in Long’s time, standing near the south end of the public offices. They were of brickwork, strongly cemented. He says: “I have seen in this town a great many large stone mouldings for the bases and other parts of columns, which, as well as the sculptures dug out of the ruins of Sevilla Nueva, in St. Ann’s, appeared to have been executed by no mean artist. The Spanish ecclesiastics ... must be allowed some merit in having cultivated the elegances of architecture in these remote parts of the world. Some of their public structures at St. Domingo, the Havannah, La Vera Cruz, Carthagena, Panama, &c., would make a noble figure even in European cities.” Unfortunately it would seem that, judging from his comments on buildings still standing, art criticism was not one of Long’s strong points.

[Illustration:

SPANISH-TOWN CATHEDRAL ]

The original church, erected by the English, probably on the foundations and of the materials of the Spanish building, as the parish church of St. Catherine, was thrown down by the hurricane of 1712, and was rebuilt of red brick in 1714, as is stated on a tablet over the entrance door in the tower at the west end:

D. O. M.

This Church Dedicated to ye Service of Almighty God was thrown downe by ye dreadfull Hurricane of August ye 28th Anno Domini MDCCXII., and was by ye Divine Assistance, through ye Piety and at ye expence of ye Parishioners, more beautifully and substantially rebuilt upon its old foundation in ye thirteenth year of ye Reigne of our most gracious Sovereigne Queen Ann and in ye Government of his Excellency the Lord Archibald Hamilton, in the year of our Lord MDCCXIV.

Matthew Gregory, Esq^r. & Church Wardens. Mr. Beaument Pestell.

Below this on another marble slab is the following inscription:

This tower was erected, And the above Tablet removed from the inner Wall In the year MDCCCXVII. His Grace the Duke of Manchester Governor. John Lunan, Francis Smith, Churchwardens.

When Long published his History in 1774, the church being without a tower, the congregation was “summoned by a small bell hung in a wooden frame erected in the churchyard.”

Hakewill (1821), one of the few artists who have ever seen the cathedral, calls it “an ancient brick structure of no exterior beauty.” In Roby’s time (1831) the walls were wainscoted, and the roof was coved and ornamented with circles, ovals, and lozenges. In 1843 the letters patent creating Aubrey George Spencer second bishop of Jamaica, created the parish church of St. Catherine the cathedral of the diocese. The chancel was restored and extended in 1853. A chapter was formed in 1899.

The church, which had fallen into disrepair, was restored in 1901, as is duly recorded on the tower, “in commemoration of the glorious reign of her most gracious Majesty Queen Victoria, 1837–1901.” Considerable damage was wrought by the earthquake of 1907, and a further restoration was completed during the year 1908.

On state occasions, such as the burial of the governor, the House of Assembly was wont to attend in a body; and the church was, from the taking of the island till the removal of the capital to Kingston in 1866, intimately associated with all the important events in the island’s history, being near both to the House of Assembly and the governor’s residence. Nearly all its celebrated personages were at some time or another within its walls, and many of them are buried within its precincts.

Of its monuments the most important are those to the Earl and Countess of Effingham (d. 1791); the wife of Sir Adam Williamson (d. 1794); and Dr. Brodbelt (d. 1795), all by Bacon; Sir Basil Keith (d. 1777), by J. Wilton, R.A.; the Countess of Elgin (d. 1842), by Sir John Steell; Colonel John Colbeck (d. 1682), who came out with Penn and Venables; William Nedham (d. 1746), four times elected speaker of the Assembly; William Selwyn (d. 1702), governor; Henry Cunningham (d. 1735–6), governor; Sir Thomas Modyford (d. 1679), governor; Elizabeth Modyford (d. 1694), wife successively of Samuel Barry and Sir Nicholas Lawes; Sir Thomas Lynch (d. 1684), governor; Samuel Long (d. 1683), the patriot who, with William Beeston, succeeded in maintaining the privileges of the island as against the restrictions attempted to be imposed by the Earl of Carlisle, acting on instructions from home; Peter Beckford (d. 1710), lieutenant-governor; Major-General James Bannister (d. 1674), at one time governor of Surinam.

When Sir William Trelawny died, the Assembly expended 1000 guineas on his funeral, but no monument or slab marks his last resting-place. Other governors who have died in the island and are without a monument are, the Duke of Albemarle, the Duke of Portland, Sir Nicholas Lawes, General Hunter and General Haldane; the bodies of the two first-named (as was that of Sir Basil Keith) were sent across the Atlantic for interment; but portions of Albemarle’s body were buried under the altar. Inchiquin was buried in the church, but there was no memorial of him until the present Lord Inchiquin erected a brass tablet in 1912.

The earliest monument is that to Catherine, wife of Sir Charles Lyttelton (January 1662).

The following plate is in the Cathedral:

FLAGON: The Rev. John Lindsay, D.D., Rector; Samuel Howell, James Trowers, Esq., Churchwardens. From the old plate of St. Catherine, Jamaica, 1685. Refashioned 1777. Maker’s name S. W., like that of the maker of a pair of Candlesticks of the year 1759 in Trinity College, Oxford (recorded by Cripps).

2 PATENS: On each—The Gift of Susannah Butler, widow, of St. Catherine, Jamaica, 1702. Refashioned 1777. Maker’s name S. W.

2 PATENS (Small), with foot. The gift of Mrs. Jane Spencer to the Altar of St. Catherine, Jamaica. Refashioned 1777. Maker’s name S. W.

2 CHALICES: On each—The gift of Mrs. Jane Spencer to the Altar of St. Catherine, Jamaica. Refashioned 1777.

FLAGON AND 2 CUPS AND 2 PATENS: With the year mark 1789. Maker’s name, W. P.

1 FLAGON, 2 CHALICES AND 2 PATENS: On each—Presented by Sarah Cole to Trinity Chapel, St. Catherine’s, Jamaica. Christmas, A.D. 1851.

PATEN (Small): The gift of Wm. G. Macfarlane, in memory of his sister, Elizabeth E. Jackson, born October 8th, 1819, died Dec. 5th, 1854.

STRAINER SPOON: Year mark 1855. Maker’s name G. A.

It is to be regretted that the old plate of 1685 was refashioned in 1777.

The church at Spanish Town is the oldest foundation in the colony, dating from the year of the British occupation, 1655; the next oldest being St. Andrew (Halfway-Tree), dating from 1666, the Alley, 1671, and St. John’s Guanaboa Vale, which dates from 1699.

The Baptismal and Marriage registers date from 1668: the Burial from 1671.

It is interesting to note that one of the earliest bequests recorded in the island was that of Edward Morgan of July 14, 1674, of “his house for a parsonage house” in St. Jago de la Vega.

In April 1677, the Assembly gave “Thanks to Mr. Howser for his sermon; to be desired to say prayers in the House every morning between six and seven o’clock, who answered that he would give his attendance at that time. Every member not attending prayers to be fined 15d.”

In the following year the Assembly requested Mr. Howser “to say prayers every morning between 6 and 7 o’clock.”

The following is a list of the rectors. Since 1899 they have been _ex officio_ senior canons of the cathedral.

1664–1683—Rev. Henry Howser (d. Dec. 29, 1683). 1683–1700—Rev. Philip Bennett (d. Sept. 5, 1707). 1700–1702—Rev. James Cunningham. 1702–1703–4—Rev. William Alsop (d. Jan. 10, 1703–4). 1704–1720—Richard Tabor (d. April 6, 1720). 1720–1734—Rev. John Scott (d. Nov. 22, 1734). 1735–1748—Rev. Calvin Galpine (d. Aug. 20, 1748). 1748–1764—Rev. John Venn, B.A. (d. April 6, 1764). 1764–1773—Rev. Samuel Griffiths, A.M. 1773–1788—Rev. John Lindsay, D.D. (d. Nov. 3, 1788). 1789–1791—Rev. Alexander Cumine, D.D. (d. July 18, 1791). 1791–1808—Rev. Robert Stanton Woodham, M.A. 1808–1813—Rev. Isaac Mann. 1814–1822—Rev. William Vaughan Hamilton. 1823–1843—Rev. Lewis Bowerbank, A.M. 1843–1857—Rev. Samuel Paynter Musson, D.D. 1857–1864—Rev. G. J. Handfield, M.A. 1864–1868—Rev. Joseph Williams. 1869–1875—Rev. F. S. Bradshaw, LL.D. 1876–1891—Rev. Charles Frederick Douet, A.M. (afterwards Assistant Bishop). 1892–1900—Rev. Canon Edward Jocelyn Wortley. 1901–1904—Rev. Canon Reginald John Ripley. 1904–1908—Rev. Canon John Walton Austin. 1909– —Rev. Canon Samuel Purcell Hendrick, M.A.

Tabor is referred to in “The Groans of Jamaica.”

Of the Rev. John Venn, Bryan Edwards wrote an epitaph beginning:

Beneath this stone lies plain John Venn, Neither the best, nor the worst of men;

and ending:

To sum in short—yet speak in full— Our plain John Venn was blunt John Bull.

Lindsay was ordained in December 1753 in Conduit Street Chapel, Hanover Square, London; he was presented to the rectory of St. Thomas-ye-Vale, Jamaica, in 1768, and was made rector of St. Catherine in 1773; and he was made D.D. by the University of Edinburgh in the same year. He officiated at Spanish Town till his death in 1788. The sermon which he preached at the funeral of Sir Basil Keith, the governor, in 1777, was published. In 1770 he petitioned the House of Assembly to assist him in publishing his collection of “drawings of the most curious and beautiful plants, trees, fruits, birds, insects, fishes,” but received but cold comfort—the House resolving that the drawings “will merit the attention of the curious in natural history.” In 1781 and 1783 he published in “The Gentleman’s Magazine,” “An Examination of the Hypothetical Doctrine of Waterspouts, in Opposition to the Ingenious Speculations of Dr. B. Franklin, of Philadelphia, F.R.S.,” which was reprinted in “The Journal of the Institute of Jamaica,” for December 1897. It is curious that one of his illustrations represents the church of St. Catherine with a tower and spire, for it had not even a tower in 1781. In the Bristol Museum are four volumes of coloured drawings of Jamaica plants and animals made by Lindsay from 1758 to 1771, many of them accompanied by descriptive matter.

The Rev. Robert Stanton Woodham was rector in Nugent’s time, and is frequently mentioned in Lady Nugent’s Journal. She appears to have formed no very high opinion of the clergy of the island.

Dr. Musson, who died in 1857, is the only rector whose resting-place is recorded in the church.

Dr. C. F. Douet was for many years assistant bishop of the diocese—1888–1904. He died in England in 1905. The stained glass window was erected to his memory in 1914, at the same time as the Children’s window over the north door.

After the Rodney memorial, the monument in the cathedral, Spanish Town, erected to the memory of the =Earl of Effingham=, governor of Jamaica, and his countess, is the most important and the most beautiful work by Bacon in Jamaica. It is of marble, and bears the legend “J. Bacon, sculptor, London, 1796.”

On a base stands an urn, decorated with festoons of flowers, and bearing, under an earl’s coronet, the arms of Effingham: Quarterly, 1st gules on a bend between six cross crosslets fitchée argent, an escutcheon or, bearing a demi-lion rampant pierced through the mouth with an arrow within a double tressure flory counterflory of the first. 2nd gules three lions passant guardant in pale or (England) with a label of three points. 3rd checky, or and azure. 4th gules a lion rampant argent. In fess point of the shield a mullet for difference. Supporters two lions rampant. Motto, _Virtus mille scuta_. Above the urn, hanging on an obelisk which rises from the base of the monument, are represented the Chancellor’s seal, the mace and sword in saltire, and the usual emblematic scales.

On one side of the monument, clasping the urn, is an elegant female figure personifying Jamaica, bearing the crest of the colony, an alligator passant proper, on her zone. On the other side is a lovely boy, his left hand holding an olive branch, resting on a cornucopia full of tropical fruits, and his right hand upon a shield bearing the arms of Jamaica as granted by Charles II, viz,: Argent on a cross gules five pineapples proper. Dexter supporter an Indian female, in her exterior hand a basket of fruit. Sinister, an Indian warrior, in his exterior hand a bow, both plumed, all proper. Crest, an alligator. Motto, _Indus uterque serviet uni_. The epitaph, written by Bryan Edwards, the historian of the West Indies, and then member of Assembly for Trelawny, is as follows:

TO THE MEMORY OF

THOMAS EARL OF EFFINGHAM BARON HOWARD, CAPTAIN GENERAL AND CHIEF GOVERNOR OF THIS ISLAND IN THE YEARS 1790 AND 1791, AND OF CATHERINE HIS WIFE. THE LATTER DEPARTED THIS LIFE ON THE THIRTEENTH DAY OF OCTOBER, 1791, IN A VOYAGE UNDERTAKEN FOR THE BENEFIT OF HER HEALTH, IN HIS MAJESTY’S SHIP DIANA: THE FORMER ON THE 19TH OF THE FOLLOWING MONTH, THE THIRD WEEK AFTER THE MELANCHOLY RETURN OF THE DIANA WITH THE REMAINS OF HIS BELOVED CONSORT, WHOM HE SEEMED UNWILLING TO SURVIVE, AND WITH WHOM HE WAS DEPOSITED IN THE SAME GRAVE, THUS, UNITED IN THEIR LIVES BY THE MOST TENDER AND EXALTED TIES,

HE—THE FOND AND INDULGENT HUSBAND, SHE—THE CHEERFUL AND OBEDIENT WIFE— IN THEIR DEATHS THEY WERE NOT DIVIDED.

TO PERPETUATE THE REMEMBRANCE OF SO ILLUSTRIOUS A PATTERN OF CONJUGAL AFFECTION, TO MANIFEST THE PUBLIC SENSE OF THE MANY PUBLIC AND PRIVATE VIRTUES OF THEIR RESPECTED GOVERNOR, AND TO RECORD FOR THE BENEFIT OF POSTERITY THE CLEARNESS OF THAT SAGACITY, THE EXTENT OF THAT KNOWLEDGE, AND THE PURITY AND FIRMNESS OF THAT INTEGRITY, WHICH RENDERED HIS ADMINISTRATION THE BOAST AND SECURITY OF A GRATEFUL PEOPLE; THE ASSEMBLY OF JAMAICA, HAVING CAUSED THE REMAINS OF THIS NOBLE AND LAMENTED PAIR TO BE INTERR’D WITH FUNERAL HONOURS AT THE PUBLIC EXPENSE, THE WHOLE HOUSE ATTENDING EACH PROCESSION AS MOURNERS, AS A FURTHER TESTIMONY OF MERITED ESTEEM, INSCRIBE THIS MONUMENT.

By an Act passed in 1789, burying in churches had been recently prohibited, and a penalty of £500 imposed on any rector permitting such burial; but two bills, dispensing with that Act and indemnifying the Rev. Robert Stanton Woodham, the then lately appointed rector of St. Catherine, from its penalties in the special cases of the Earl and Countess were introduced in the Assembly by Bryan Edwards and passed unanimously.

On November 19 the House “resolved, _nem. con._, in order to testify the grateful respect which this House entertain of his late Excellency’s merit and virtues, his firm and independent conduct, and the sense they have of the great and universal satisfaction which his mild and equitable administration, in every department, gave to all ranks of people, and the regret which they feel at his loss, that the funeral of the late Earl of Effingham be conducted at the public expense”; and on December 7, 1791, the Assembly voted £500 sterling toward this monument. The monument, together with the two funerals, which were attended by the members of the Assembly, cost the island £8700.

The Rev. Thomas Warren, rector of St. Elizabeth, and domestic chaplain to the governor—the same Thomas Warren who ten years later disgusted Lady Nugent by his toadyism while conducting the service at Black River-preached the funeral sermons, which are given in the “Columbian Magazine or Monthly Miscellany” published in Kingston in June 1797.

The Earl and Countess of Effingham arrived at Port Royal on March 17, 1790, in the ship _Catherine Countess of Effingham_. During his short period of governorship the condition of Jamaica was the cause of some anxiety owing to the nearness of the republican movement in San Domingo; so much so, that during the Christmas holidays of 1791 two ships of war patrolled round the island. The National Assembly of France passed a decree of thanks to the King of Great Britain, to the English nation, and to Lord Effingham, governor of Jamaica, for his generous conduct in relieving the planters of St. Domingo from the horrors of famine, and in furnishing them with arms and military stores against the rebel negroes. It was during Effingham’s governorship that the bread-fruit and other trees were imported from the south seas, and a collection of Jamaica plants was sent home to Kew Gardens.

The House of Assembly addressed the governor on the subject of proposed additional duties by England on sugar and rum, but to their representations the governor made a diplomatic reply.

The Earl’s mother was daughter of Peter Beckford, speaker of the Assembly, and sister to the celebrated lord mayor of London. His wife, whom he married in 1765, was the daughter of Metcalfe Proctor, of Thorpe, near Leeds. They had no children.

Next to the Effingham monument that to the =Countess of Elgin= is the most interesting from an art point of view.