Part 14

This grant for a “proper building” was ill-spent. Memorial statues should be erected “plain for all folk to see.” It is difficult to get a good view of Rodney, placed as he is beneath a low-roofed temple which, fitting as it might be for a statue of Jupiter or Venus, ill accords with the breezy life of a sailor; and if the good people of Kingston had been supported by the Assembly, Rodney’s statue would certainly have looked better in the centre of the Parade. When it was in Kingston temporarily from 1872 to 1889 it was on that barest of bare pedestals at the bottom of King street (to which Lord Metcalfe has once more been relegated) and lacked subsidiary adornment altogether.

Although West, in 1771, broke through tradition in painting in the matter of classic costume, and dared, to the great advantage of Art, to represent Wolfe and his soldiers in their own dress; and Pine painted Rodney himself and his officers as they appeared on board the _Formidable_ in the dress they wore, in sculpture the result was slower, and Rodney was clothed by Bacon in the dress of a Roman, as a matter of course; the fondness on the part of sculptors for classic costume dying hard. Gibson, it is said, refused in the middle of the nineteenth century to execute his statue of Sir Robert Peel unless he was allowed to clothe him in a toga. In general treatment Rodney’s statue is not unlike the Augustus Cæsar of the Capitol. He is clad in a short-sleeved tunic (of which the part that should cover the body is by artistic licence omitted), and wears his paludamentum (or cloak) over his right arm, He has no greaves, but wears sandals on his feet. From a torques, or necklace (usually worn by Oriental barbarians) is suspended a Medusa’s head. His left hand, holding a sword-hilt, rests on the ordinary oblong shield of the Romans. His right arm is outstretched, and in his hand is a baton.

On the front panel of the pedestal is the following inscription:

GEORG. BRYDG. RODNEY BARON RODNEY NAVAL. PRAEL. VICTORI PRID. ID. APRILIS A.D., MDCCLXXXII. BRITANN. PACEM REST. D.D.D. S.P.Q. JAMAICENSIS.

Which may be rendered:

TO GEORGE BRYDGES RODNEY BARON RODNEY VICTOR IN A SEA FIGHT ON THE DAY BEFORE THE IDES OF APRIL IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1782. HE RESTORED PEACE TO BRITAIN. THE LEGISLATURE AND THE PEOPLE OF JAMAICA PRESENTED [THIS MEMORIAL].

On the other three panels are bas-reliefs. On the one side is a representation of Britannia protecting Jamaica, who has a shield bearing the arms of the colony and her foot on a crocodile. The French flag appears to the right. On the other side is a representation of Britannia sitting in her chariot, with her foot on the French flag, in the grasp of a seaman. On her shield is the head of George III. On the back panel is a well-executed bas-relief of the chief feature in the great battle, showing the sterns of the _Ville de Paris_ and the _Barfleur_.

[Illustration:

THE “LADY JULIANA” IN TOW OF THE “PALLAS” IN 1782

From an aquatint by Robert Dodd ]

In front of the monument, typifying the spoils of war, are two handsome brass cannons, _Le Modeste_ and _Le Précipice_, founded at Douay in 1748, by Jean Maritz, and bearing the proud legend “Nec pluribus impar”—the motto of Louis XIV.

The initials P. R. and B. E. refer to Philip Redwood (member of the Assembly for St. Catherine, later speaker, and afterwards chief justice), and Bryan Edwards, the historian, who selected the passages from Horace, cut in each side of the pedestal.

Over the front arch of the superstructure is the Rodney coat-of-arms carved in bold relief.

Rodney’s statue is mentioned in Cecil’s “Life of Bacon” as one of his principal works; and it was doubtless through the commission for this work that Bacon gained the orders for the other monuments by him erected in Jamaica—to the Countess of Effingham, Rosa Palmer, Lady Williamson, John Wolmer and others.

In Spanish Town, streets named after governors, are Beckford street, Nugent street, Manchester street, and Conran lane (after General Conran, 1813); the origin of Adelaide street (after the Queen of that name), William street (after the Prince who was later King), Brunswick street (after the Duke of Brunswick), and Nelson lane and Wellington street, are obvious.

Canning lane and Melbourne lane tell of two English prime ministers. In Cochrane lane we have probably a reminiscence of Sir Alexander Cochrane, who was admiral on the Jamaica station in 1814–15. Ellis street tells of the family of Lord Seaford who had properties in the island: the first Lord Seaford having been born in Spanish Town.

Barrett street recalls a family long resident in the island on the North-side.

The parish of St. John, merged in St. Catherine since 1867, dates from the first partition of the island under Modyford in 1664. The old name of =Guanaboa= is either Arawâk or Spanish, possibly, as Long suggests, a mixture of both, but the prefix _gua_ is suggestive of an aboriginal origin. It may perhaps be formed from the Cuban Indian word meaning any kind of palm, or the native Indian word for sour-sop, guabana. Guanaboa occurs as the name of a district in Hayti. The earliest reference to the district in English days is under date July 15, 1661, when the justices of peace of Guanaboa were ordered by the Governor and Council “to nominate a person to sell drink at Cowhides,” and in the map in Hickeringill’s “Jamaica View’d,” published in that year, Guanaboa is one of the four inland names given. In the earlier edition of Slaney’s map of Jamaica of 1678, published by William Berry, there is a church marked at Guanaha, north-west of Spanish-Town, but in the later edition, published by Morden, Guanaha has been erased from the plate. Cowhides is marked on the map which accompanies the “Laws of Jamaica,” of 1684, as a pen for cattle; it probably indicated the place where the skins of the wild cattle were disposed of and possibly survives to-day in Cowpen estate; albeit a spot near Aylmers is still called Cowhide. On August 1 of the same year permission was given to Captain Anthony Collier and Lieutenant Edward Morris “to pen their own with other wild horses for one month, with the assistance of the officers of Guanaboa, to whom half the wild horses are to be delivered.” In 1663–64 to the first Assembly Guanaboa returned two members. One was William Clee, of whom even the erudite Roby has nothing to record. He was not a landowner in 1670. The other was Thomas Freeman, who was later member for St. Thomas-in-the-East, a brother-in-law of Colonel Cope (a member of the Council and colonel of one of the seven regiments, and possibly a kinsman of Colonel Doyley) who lived at Cope Place hard by.

Amongst the representatives whom St. John sent to the Assembly were members of the most noted families in Jamaica history—Aylmer, Beckford, Price, Ayscough, Rose, Brodrick, Kelly, Modd, Fuller, Beach and Shand.

In 1664 when Sir Thomas Modyford wrote home, St. John was one of the seven established parishes. By the survey of the island in 1670, it was shown to have eightythree families, and an estimated total population of 996; and a rate of one penny per acre then produced £200 in the parish. The largest landowner was John Styles with 3200 acres. Styles, in a letter to the principal Secretary of State in that year, states that Jamaica “would maintain more people than the whole of England.”

In May 1675 a petition was presented by him “that his land be made a distinct parish under the name of Styles Langley, he having left it by will to Christ Church College, Oxford, from whence he expects it will be supplied with preachers,” and offering to build a church. The petition was refused on the ground that the land, which was at Magatee, was not sufficiently extensive. It was later taken from St. John and made part of St. Thomas-in-the-Vale. Research at Christ Church, Oxford, has failed to reveal any trace of Styles’s bequest.

In 1671 of the four clergymen ministering in Jamaica, at St. John’s was “Mr. Lemmings, an Englishman, lately sent by my Lord of London.” In 1675 “Mr. Lemon” (evidently the same man), “a sober young man and very good preacher,” was minister at Guanaboa. “He has £100 per annum for the parish, and about as much from Colonel Coape for keeping a free school he has erected.”

In 1682 we learn from a very interesting account of the state of the Church in Jamaica, sent to the Bishop of London by Sir Thomas Lynch, who took a keen interest in the cause of religion, that “St. John’s parish or Guanaboa is supplied by Mr. Lemon, who has £100 a year by law. He had some advantages by a school built by Colonel Cope, but on the failure of that and on his marriage to a poor gentleman’s widow he has been a little uneasy. However, since I came he has sold some land I gave him for £500, so that he is in a reasonably good condition. For all I have heard he is a very honest, sober, fair-conditioned man, and esteemed the best preacher in the island. I think he has a parsonage, but the church is decayed, and he preaches in the schoolhouse.” This reference to the decayed condition of the church is, curiously enough, the earliest direct evidence of the existence of a church at Guanaboa, though it was probably one of the six churches existing in 1675. It was presumably at all events existing when Richard Guy was buried in 1681, the earliest dated tombstone in the church; but it is curious that there is no mark for a church at Guanaboa in the map of 1684 above referred to. The existing register of baptisms, marriages and burials only goes back as far as 1751. Part of the original fabric probably exists in the present building, which only dates from about 1845, the older church having been burnt down shortly before then.

Roby, in his “History of the Parish of St. James” (1849), says, “In a wood near Aylmer’s in St. John’s, is a monument inscribed, under arms (the colours added) sable, a chevron erminois, between three spear-heads argent, embrued at the points, proper. Crest, a dragon’s head vert, erased gules, holding in its mouth a sinister hand, erect, couped, dropping blood from the wrist, all proper.”

Roby gives the inscription with, marvellous to relate, one or two mistakes, _e.g._ _He_ for _Who_ in the fourth line; _High_ for _Hon._ in the tenth; and he corrects the Mason’s _Pallidæ_ into _Pallida_. It runs as follows:

Near to this Mournfull Marble lies Interr’d the Body of the Hon. Coll. Charles Price who was divested of the Robe of Mortality on the 23d day of May, 1730, Aged 52 years.

Who was a Loving Husband, an Indulgent Parent, a peaceable Neighbour, and a faithful Friend; Just, Charitable, Courteous, Affable to his Inferiors, patient of Injuries and Slow to wrath.

A Man of Integrity, and so firm to his word, that he inviolably preserv’d the same even to the strictest Nicety of Honour; meek he was but truly Brave, and every way fited for his Hon. station, and for a Loyalist was second to none.

He was possessed of such a singular ingaging temper and sincerity of mind, which render’d him a very desirable Companion to all, but more especialy to those who had the happyness of being intimately acquainted with him for he knew no guile neither was deceit found in his heart. If he had any Enemies, they must have been the Sons of Envy, and became such not thro’ any real cause by him given, but from some invidious and Malignant seeds planted and foster’d in their own turbulent and uneasie breasts.

To say more of him would be but still to say too little, only that he is now gone to that place which alone knows how to reward those vertues, of which he was here the happy possessor.

O may we then like him resign our breath, In life his vertues share, and be like him in Death.

Pallidæ [_sic_] mors æquo pulsat Pede pauperum Tabernas Regumque Turres.

Lawrence-Archer, in his “Monumental Inscriptions of the British West Indies” (1875), gives the same information as Roby. Nothing is now known of such a tomb near Aylmers, and the tombstone in memory of Price, as quoted by Roby, is now on the floor of the church near the north door; but the tinctures on the arms are quite gone. There is no record of the removal from wood to church. It was evidently subsequent to 1849, but the reference in Lawrence-Archer is no certain proof that it was still in the wood in 1875.

Charles Price was the third son of Francis Price, who came to Jamaica as a captain under Venables. His eldest son, Charles, who achieved much fame in Jamaica and was made a baronet in 1768, and lies buried at Decoy, his estate in St. Mary, will be dealt with under that parish. Charles Price was member for St. John in 1713 and St. James in 1725, but was expelled for non-attendance in the same year. He was custos of St. Catherine. His two sons and six daughters, who all died between 1716 and 1727, lie buried in the church. He left three surviving sons.

Amongst other monuments in the church are those to the following: Richard Guy, who represented in the Assembly “the North-side” (1671–2), St. Ann and St. James in 1673–74, and St. James from 1675 to 1679. In 1676 he patented 1000 acres of which Latium (not Latimer as Lawrence-Archer and Feurtado—after him—have it) in St. John, formed part: George Modd, who represented St. John in the Assembly in 1718, 1719, and 1722, and St. Catherine in 1721, in which year he was speaker; and Colonel Whitgift Aylmer. The arms on his monument are: a cross between four Cornish choughs close; the crest, a Cornish chough rising out of a ducal coronet. From the title “Honourable” it is possible, Roby points out, that he was custos of the precinct of St. Catherine (which comprehended the parish of St. John with St. Dorothy and St. Thomas-in-the-Vale), as he does not appear to have been a member of the Council; and although from the arms on his monument it may be inferred that he was of the now noble family of Aylmers, of Balrath, Co. Meath, yet that family was not ennobled until 1718, seventeen years after his decease, when Matthew (second son of Sir Christopher Aylmer, who was created a baronet of Ireland in 1682), rear-admiral of the red, was created Baron Aylmer of Balrath.

The family, which had been long settled in Ireland, is said to have been descended from Aylmer, a Saxon duke of Cornwall, and Sir Gerald Alymer, who, 25 Hen. VIII (1533), was a Baron of the Exchequer in Ireland, was great-great-grandfather to Sir Christopher, the first baronet before mentioned.

The family gave an archbishop to Canterbury, and Whitgift Aylmer is supposed to have descended from Whitgift, archbishop of Canterbury. He was member of Assembly for St. John’s 1673–74, 1677, 1677 again; St. Ann’s 1680–81 and 1687–88; and for St. John’s 1701. The Christian name of his wife was Joyce, as appears from the register of St. Catherine’s, in which parish two of their children were baptized—Mary, June 11, 1669, and John, September 5, 1687. His son was also a member of the Assembly.

The following notice of his election for this parish appears under the date of June 26, 1701.

It appearing by the return of the writs, that Lieutenant-Colonel Whitgift Aylmer was elected for the parish of St. John, and Whitgift Aylmer for the parish of St. James, and it being doubted whether the said Whitgift Aylmer, elected for the parish of St. James, was Colonel Whitgift Aylmer the father or Whitgift Aylmer the son, and a debate thereon, it was put to the vote whether the House understood by the said returns, that Lieutenant-Colonel Whitgift Aylmer or Whitgift Aylmer his son were elected for the parish of St. James.

_Resolved_, that it was understood by the return to be Whitgift Aylmer the son.

The memory of the family still lives in Aylmers estate hard by.

The parish of St. Dorothy, which was formed out of part of Clarendon and part of St. Catherine in 1675, was, on the general reduction of the number of parishes in 1867, merged into St. Catherine.

=Old Harbour= bay was called by Columbus _Puerto de las Vacas_, probably because he saw a number of manatees there when he visited it on his homeward way after he had discovered Jamaica.

Bernaldez tells us that:

Thus sailing in a southerly direction they anchored one evening in a bay in a territory where there were many large villages; and the cacique of a very large village which was above the ships came and brought them a quantity of fresh provisions and the admiral gave some of the things which he had on board to him and his followers, and they were much pleased; and the cacique asked whence they came and what the admiral’s name was, and the admiral answered that he was a vassal of the mighty and illustrious sovereigns the king and queen of Castile, his masters, who had sent him to these parts to learn and discover those lands and to do much honour to good men but to destroy the bad. Now he spoke to them by means of his Indian interpreter and the said cacique was much pleased, and he asked the interpreter at great length about things in Spain, and he told him at great length at which the cacique and the other Indians were much astonished and pleased and they stayed there until night, and then took leave of the admiral. Next day the admiral departed, and as he was sailing with a light wind, the cacique came with three canoes and overtook the admiral coming in an orderly and stately manner; one of the canoes was as large as a sea-going ship and was painted all over: the cacique came and his wife and two daughters and two young lads, his sons and five brothers and others who were followers; one of the daughters was 18 years old, and very beautiful; she was quite naked according to the custom of those parts, the other was younger.

In the prow of the canoe stood the standard-bearer of the cacique clad in a mantle of variegated feathers, with a tuft of gay plumes on his head, and bearing in his hand a fluttering white banner. Two Indians with caps or helmets of feathers of uniform shape and colour and their faces painted in a similar manner, beat upon tabors; two others, with hats curiously wrought of green feathers, held trumpets of a fine black wood, ingeniously carved; there were six others, in large hats of white feathers, who appeared to be guards to the cacique.

Having arrived alongside of the admiral’s ship, the cacique entered on board with all his train. He appeared in full regalia. Around his head was a band of small stones of various colours, but principally green, symmetrically arranged, with large white stones at intervals, and connected in front by a large jewel of gold. Two plates of gold were suspended to his ears by rings of very small green stones. To a necklace of white beads, of a kind deemed precious by them, was suspended a large plate, in the form of a fleur-de-lys, of guanin, an inferior species of gold; and a girdle of variegated stones, similar to those around his head, completed his regal decorations. His wife was adorned in a similar manner, having also a very small apron of cotton, and bands of the same round her arms and legs. The daughters were without ornaments, excepting the eldest and handsomest, who had a girdle of small stones, from which was suspended a tablet, the size of an ivyleaf, composed of various coloured stones embroidered on network of cotton.

When the cacique entered on board the ship he distributed presents of the productions of his island among the officers and men.

Columbus tells us that Old Harbour was inhabited by the most intelligent and most civilized of all the aborigines that he had met in the Antilles. Later it was called Esquivel, after the Spanish governor who established it as a port for ship-building.

The land on which the =Church of St. Dorothy=, commonly called Tamarind-tree church, at Old Harbour, was built, was given as a free gift by Colonel Fuller and his wife Catherine Fuller, and also the land and glebe consisting of about 30 acres of land on which the rectory house was built. Colonel Fuller was among the foremost of the Parliamentary officers who came here with Penn and Venables, and received large grants of land, comprising Fuller’s Pen and Thetford in St. Dorothy, and Fuller’s Pen in St. John’s. At a Council meeting held at St. Jago de la Vega, May 9, 1692,

Thomas Scambler Clerke, Minister and Rector of the Parish of St. Dorothy, being at the Board tendered the oaths appointed by Act of Parliament to be taken instead of the oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance, and also to repeat and subscribe the Declaration as by the said Act is Required Peremtarily refuse to take the same ordered that he be from henceforth _ipso facto_ deprived of his said benefice as by the said Act is Directed, and that notice thereof be given to the Churchwardens of the said parish.

On May 19, at a meeting of the council, it was

ordered that the Provost Marshall forthwith take into custody the body of Thomas Scambler Clerke, late Minister and Rector of the Parish of St. Dorothy for refusing to take the oaths ... and that the Attorney-General prosecute him thereupon.

Amongst the rectors was the Rev. William Leacock, who was of the Leacock family in Barbados. He gave up the living in 1836–37 and went to America and was the leading divine of the Episcopal church in New Orleans. He was succeeded by the Rev. Charles Hall, the Rev. McAlves, and the Rev. George Wilkinson Rowe, brother of Sir Joshua Rowe, the chief justice of Jamaica, who held the rectory for upwards of 30 years, and the Rev. W. C. McCalla, who commenced the building of the chancel and organ chamber about 1890.

Up to the year 1845–46 the old church was usually called the Old Harbour “barn,” with red brick walls and wooden window shutters. The church was renovated and restored and a belfry was put on the roof by the late Alexander Bravo in the time of the Rev. George W. Rowe.

In the church are monuments to Colonel Thomas Fuller (d. 1690) and John Pusey (d. 1767).