Part 31

Bryan Edwards, the son of a gentleman of Westbury in Wiltshire, who tried not very successfully to add to his patrimony by dealing in corn and malt, was born at Westbury in 1743. On his father’s death in 1756, his widowed mother, who had great difficulty in maintaining her six children, was taken under the protection of the elder of her two brothers, Zachary Bayly, a liberal-minded man of considerable wealth, custos of St. Mary and St. George, and a member of the Council, who had come to Jamaica from Westbury. After acquiring some education and a love of letters at two schools in Bristol, and after spending a few months with his younger uncle, Nathaniel Bayly, with whom he disagreed, young Bryan was in 1759 sent out to his uncle, Zachary Bayly. The epitaph on the monument of the uncle in Halfway-Tree church is from the pen of the nephew. In Jamaica Edwards resided under the care of his “great and good uncle,” continuing his studies under the Rev. Isaac Teale, who was specially engaged by his uncle for this purpose—the T—— of Edwards’s “Poems.” They evidently lived on one of Zachary Bayly’s properties in St. Mary, on the banks of the Agua Alta (Wag Water); and the chief outcome of the instruction seems to have been a love for literature, and a propensity for writing poetry. In his “Elegy on the Death of a Friend” Edwards says:

Enamour’d echo bade each mountain hear, And pleas’d Agualta smoother flow’d along.

Oft round thy banks, sweet stream (now sacred made) Together we explor’d the classic page.

Teale, who died in 1794, was at his own request buried on its banks.

In 1769, Edwards was left heir in tail male to his uncle’s properties, and four years later he acquired by bequest the great possessions of Benjamin Hume, of Jamaica, a friend of his uncle’s, and became a merchant. Hume, it may be mentioned, had been removed from the post of receiver-general on its being proved that he had embezzled upwards of £20,000 of public money. In 1765 Edwards had been elected a member of the House of Assembly for the parish of St. George, now merged in Portland. In February 1770 he resigned his seat on the plea that his ill-health necessitated a change of climate, but he apparently did not leave the island, and in December 1771 he was again elected for St. George, but in 1772 he was called up to a seat in the Council. As a member of the Assembly he attacked the restrictions placed by the British Government on trade between Jamaica and the United States.

In 1782 he returned to England, where he tried, without success, to enter Parliament as member for Chichester against the Duke of Richmond’s nominee, losing by eight votes only. In 1787 he came out again to Jamaica, and in the Assembly which first met in the October of that year he sat as member for Trelawny. In 1788 he received in his place the unanimous thanks of the House for his reports on the slave trade.

Soon after the revolt of the negroes in 1791 he paid a short visit to San Domingo, in the welfare of which island he took a deep interest, endeavouring to obtain for it a loan from Jamaica. This was recommended by a Committee of the Assembly; but the matter met with public opposition, and the loan did not pass the House. In a long letter from his pen which appeared in the “Royal Gazette,” April 21, 1792, he says:

For myself, I propose shortly to quit the island, and probably shall never return to it; but my wishes for its happiness, freedom and prosperity shall never be suppressed, so long as I have life and recollection. I have exerted myself in its service for the last five years with unabating zeal and perseverance, and, I hope, on some occasions, with success.

In 1793 his seat in the Assembly was declared vacant, he having gone to England the previous year.

While in the Assembly he was often called upon to assist in drawing up addresses and reports, and he now and then acted as chairman of committees.

In England he settled permanently at Southampton as a West Indian merchant and banker. After contesting Southampton in vain in 1794, he was in 1796 elected M.P. for Grampound. He supported the slave trade with certain restrictions, and was admitted by Wilberforce to be a powerful opponent to abolition. He was, however, not unmindful of the great hardships done in Africa, and he had stated in Jamaica “that if all the nations of Europe would concur in a determination to relinquish the slave trade altogether, it ought to be relinquished.”

In 1797 he succeeded Sir Joseph Banks as secretary of the Association for promoting the discovery of the interior parts of Africa, and he edited some of Mungo Park’s contributions to its Proceedings. He died at his residence in the Polygon at Southampton, in July 1800. He was buried in the catacombs of the church, but there is no recording tablet. His wife, whom he married in 1774, was Martha, daughter of Thomas Phipps, of Westbury. His vast wealth was inherited by his only surviving son, Zachary Hume Edwards, who was not of age when his father died; but he died on board the _Montague_ packet on his passage from Jamaica to England in 1812. An elder son had died at Winchester College in his seventeenth year, in 1794, of a “nervous malignant fever.”

Bryan Edwards’s elder brother, Nathaniel Bayly Edwards, died in 1771, aged 19, and lies buried at Halfway Tree; his younger brother, Zachary Bayly Edwards, of Dove Hall, Jamaica, was member of the Assembly for St. Andrew in 1785–90. He married Catherine, daughter of Rowland Otto-Baijer, of Antigua and Ffarleigh Castle, Somerset, England. Their son was Sir Bryan Edwards, chief justice of Jamaica from 1855 to 1869, and their daughter Eliza married her cousin Samuel Otto-Baijer, a member of the Council of Antigua. A genealogical table of the Edwards family will be found in Mr. Oliver’s “History of the Island of Antigua.” What relation to the historian the Bryan Edwards, special stipendiary magistrate for the parish of Westmoreland, who died in 1835, aged 29, was, it is difficult to say. He could not have been a son of his brother Nathaniel Bayly Edwards (who died at Cheltenham in September 1800). He may have been a son of his cousin William mentioned below. We know that the historian was one of a family of six, and that he had two brothers; whether the remaining two were brothers or sisters is not recorded; but it would seem from his will that he left but one brother, who only survived him two months.

That Bryan Edwards was, to some extent at all events, a patron of the arts, is evident from the following extract from the second codicil to his will:

I give and devise to my wife, Martha Edwards ... the full length portrait of herself, drawn by Pine,[12] now in my drawing-room in London, if she thinks proper to accept it. I give and devise to my brother the portraits of my mother and brother, Nathaniel McHume; and my own portrait now in London and any six other pictures in my collection which he may make choice of.

Footnote 12:

Robert Edge Pine, the painter of the picture of Rodney in the Institute of Jamaica.

One wonders whether the fact that Edwards had employed Pine to paint his wife’s portrait had any influence in the purchase by the people of Kingston of that artist’s celebrated portrait of Rodney on board the _Formidable_.

In an obituary notice of him, a writer in the “Gentleman’s Magazine” said: “He exercised his literary talents in a memorable way in Jamaica; for, by the strokes of his pen, he drove Peter Pindar from the Island, and the bitter satirist never dared to attack his character while he remained in this country.”

The first time Wolcot left Jamaica it was in order to take Holy Orders, so that he might be presented to a living in Jamaica by his kinsman the governor, Sir William Trelawny; the second time he left—never to return—it was to accompany Lady Trelawny, his patron’s widow, to whom he was deeply attached. Moreover, Edwards never in his writings, at all events, gave evidence of satire equal to Wolcot’s; and the latter, one would think, was too pachydermatous to be driven anywhere by anybody against his will.

Four later members of the Edwards family have also been famous. Sir Bryan Edwards, chief justice of Jamaica, died in December 1876. Dr. William Frédéric Edwards, who was born in Jamaica in 1776, was the son of a rich English planter—William Edwards by name (a cousin of Bryan)—who afterwards settled at Bruges, where the younger William was educated. In early life he became a Frenchman, and won for himself much fame as a physiologist, dying at Versailles in 1842. William’s younger brother, Henri Milne Edwards (born at Bruges in 1800 and died in 1885), the zoologist, and Henri’s son, Alphonse Milne Edwards (born in Paris in 1835 and died in 1900), successively held the post of professor of zoology at the Jardin des Plantes, Paris.

In 1793 Bryan Edwards published in London, in two quarto volumes, “The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies,” with plates and maps, which has remained the standard work on its subject—the history of the British West Indies till the close of the last century—till to-day. A third volume was added in 1801.

He evidently took much pains to collect all the trustworthy information available, especially about current affairs. But he wrote more as a politician than as an historian, and the chief value of the work lies in the large amount of light it throws on the condition of affairs in the West Indies at his time. The arrangement, it must be admitted, leaves a good deal to be desired; and it partakes rather of a collection of essays and articles than of a connected history, and is sadly in need of editing; but the nature of the subject makes it difficult to treat it as a whole while at the same time going into details. Edwards himself only visited San Domingo, and the information about the British islands other than Jamaica is scanty. For instance, Barbados is dismissed in thirty-five pages.

The fifth edition was published in London in 1819, many years after the author’s death. It contains (as did the third and fourth editions) a “prefatory advertisement” by his friend and collaborator, Sir William Young, Governor of Tobago, and a brief “sketch of the life of the author, written by himself a short time before his death.” It also contains descriptions of colonies ceded after Edwards’s death, a “History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade,” and later particulars of the West Indies generally, which would have been more useful had they been put in their several places in the work, instead of at the end.

The following is a list of Bryan Edwards’s publications:

1. (_a_) The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies. In two volumes. By Bryan Edwards, Esq., of the Island of Jamaica. _London_, 1793. 4to. [With plates and preface to 2nd edition added afterwards.]

(_b_) The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies. In two volumes. By Bryan Edwards, Esq., of the Island of Jamaica. _Dublin_, 1793. 8vo.

(_c_) The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies. In two volumes. By Bryan Edwards, Esq., of the Island of Jamaica, F.R.S., S.A., and Member of the American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia. The second edition, illustrated with maps. _London_, 1794. 4to.

(_d_) List of Maps and Plates for the History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies. In two volumes. By Bryan Edwards, Esq., of the Island of Jamaica, F.R.S., S.A., and Member of the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia. _London_, 1794. 4to. [Issued in order that owners of the 1st edition might add to their copies the map and plates included in the 2nd edition.]

(_e_) An Abridgment of Mr. Edwards’ Civil and Commercial History of the British West Indies. In two volumes. _London_, 1794. 8vo.

(_f_) Beschreibung der Brittischen Kolonien in Westindien. [Translated from the English of Bryan Edwards by Matthias Christian Sprengel in “Auswahl der basten ausländischen geographischen und statistischen Nachrichten zur Aufklärung der Volker und Länderkunde.” _Halle_, 1794–1800. 8vo.]

(_g_) The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies: To which is added a Survey of the French Colony in the Island of St. Domingo. Abridged from the History written by Bryan Edwards, Esq. Illustrated with a map. _London_, 1798. Small 4to.

(_h_) The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies. To which is added an Historical Survey of the French Colony in the Island of St. Domingo. Abridged from the History written by Bryan Edwards, Esq. Illustrated with a map. _London_, 1799. Small 4to.

(_i_) The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies. Vol. 3. Edited by Sir William Young. [Issued to be added to the two volumes of the 1st edition of 1793.] _London_, 1801. 4to.

(_j_) The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies. By Bryan Edwards, Esq., F.R.S., S.A. In three volumes. Third edition, with considerable additions. Illustrated with Plates. _London_, 1901. [With “Prefatory Advertisement,” by Sir William Young, Bart.; a brief “Sketch of the Life of the Author, written by himself a short time before his death”; and “A Tour through the several Islands of Barbadoes, St. Vincent, Antigua, Tobago, and Grenada, in the years 1791 and 1792.” By Sir William Young, Bart., M.P., F.R.S., &c.] 8vo.

(_k_) The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies. By Bryan Edwards, Esq., F.R.S., S.A. Fourth edition, with considerable additions. Illustrated with Plates. In three Volumes. _London_, 1807. [With “Prefatory Advertisement” by Sir William Young, Bart., and a brief “Sketch of the Life of the Author, written by himself a short time before his death.”] 8vo.

(_l_) The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British in the West Indies. By Bryan Edwards, Esq., F.R.S., S.A. Illustrated by an Atlas and embellished with a portrait of the Author. To which is added a general description of the Bahama Islands by Daniel M’Kinnen, Esq. In four Volumes. _Philadelphia_, 1805–6. 8vo.

(_m_) Another edition. 4 Vols. _Baltimore_, 1810.

(_n_) Another edition. 4 Vols, and Atlas. _Philadelphia_, 1810.

(_o_) The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British West Indies. By Bryan Edwards, Esq., F.R.S., S.A. With a continuation to the present time. Fifth edition, with Maps and Plates. In five Volumes. _London_, 1819. Five Volumes of Text, 8vo, and one Volume of Plates, 4to. The title-page of the plate is as follows: “History of the British West Indies. By Bryan Edwards, Esq., F.R.S., S.A. With a continuation to the present time. Illustrated by Maps and Plates. In four Volumes. _London._ Printed for the Proprietors, 1818.”

(_p_) Burgerlyke en Handelkundige Geschiedenis van de Englische Volkplantingen in de West-Indiën. Door Bryan Edwards, Schildkn. Uit het Engelsch. _Haarlem_, 1794–99. 6 Vols. 8vo.

(_q_) Extracto do livro quinto da Historia Civil e Commercial das colonias occidentales Inglezias, por Bryan Edwards. [Translated by José Mariano la Conceicao Velloso in “O. Fazendeiro do Brazil.”] _Lisbon_, 1798. 8vo.

(_r_) Histoire civile et commerciale des Colonies Anglaises dans les Indies occidentales: depuis leur découverte par Christophe Colomb jusqu’a nos jours; suivie d’un Tableau historique et politique de l’ile de Saint-Domingue avant et depuis la revolution française; traduit de l’anglais de Bryan Edouard (_sic_), par le traducteur des Voyages d’Arthur Young en France et en Italie. Orné d’une belle carte. _Paris_, An. IX. [1801.] 8vo.

2. (_a_) An Historical Survey of the French Colony in the Island of St. Domingo: Comprehending a short account of its ancient government, political state, population, productions, and exports; A Narrative of the calamities which have desolated the country ever since the year 1789, with some Reflections on their causes and probable consequences; and a detail of the military transactions of the British Army in that Island to the end of 1794. By Bryan Edwards, Esq., M.P., F.R.S., &c., Author of the History of the British Colonies in the West Indies. _London_, 1797. 4to.

(_b_) An Historical Survey of the Island of Saint Domingo, together with an Account of the Maroon Negroes in the Island of Jamaica, and a History of the War in the West Indies in 1793 and 1794. By Bryan Edwards, Esq., Also a Tour through the several Islands of Barbadoes, St. Vincent, Antigua, Tobago, and Grenada in the years 1791 and 1792 by Sir William Young, Bart. Illustrated with Copper Plates. _London_, 1801. 4to. [Issued also as 1^i. of this list. Each sheet is marked Vol. iii.]

(_c_) Geschichte des Revolutionskriegs in Sanct Domingo; von Bryan Edwards, Esq. Aus dem Englischen. [_On title page of Vol. 2_: Nebst einem schreiben: über Europens Interesse in Beziehung auf die Wohlfahrt der Colonien in Amerika, von Herrn Malouet, und einer Rede des Admiral Villaret Joyeuse.] _Leipzig_, 1798. 2 Vols., with map. 8vo.

(_d_) Geschiedkundige Beschouwing van St. Domingo, door Bryan Edwards. Uit het Engelsch. _Haarlem_, 1802. 8vo.

(_e_) Histoire de l’île Saint-Domingue; extraite de l’Histoire civile et commerciale des Antilles, de M. Bryan Edwards, et continuée jusqu’aux derniers événemens. Contenant de nombreux détails sur ce qui s’est passé dans cette importante colonie pendant la Révolution. Traduite de l’Anglais par J. B. J. Breton, auteur du _Voyage dans la Belgique_. Orné d’une carte de Saint Domingue. _Paris_, An. XI., 1802. 12mo.

(_f_) Storia dell’ Isola di S. Domingo ricavata dalla Storia civile e del commercio delle Antille. Del. Sig. Bryan Edwards, e continuata sino agli ultimi avvenimenti, che minutamente rappresentano quanto ê succeduto in quella importante Colonia pendente la rivoluzione. Tradotta dall’ Inglese da J. B. Breton, autore del Viaggia nel Belgio, e trasportata dal francese in italiano da Giammichele Briolo. _Torino._ Anno XI., 1803. 12mo.

(_g_) The History of the Island of St. Domingo. Abridged from the History of Bryan Edwards, Esq., and continued to the present time. Illustrated with a Map. _Edinburgh_, 1802. 6mo.

3. (_a_) Proceedings of the Honourable House of Assembly relative to the Maroons; including the Correspondence between the Right Honourable Earl Balcarres and the Honourable Major-General Walpole, during the Maroon Rebellion, with the report of the Joint Special Secret Committee, to whom those papers were referred. _St. Jago de la Vega_, 1796. 4to.

(_b_) The Proceedings of the Governor and Assembly of Jamaica, in regard to the Maroon Negroes: Published by order of the Assembly. To which is prefixed an Introductory Account, containing observations on the disposition, character, manners, and habits of life, of the Maroons, and a Detail of the origin, progress and termination of the late war between those people and the white inhabitants. _London_, 1796. 8vo.

4. (_a_) Thoughts on the late Proceedings of Government respecting the Trade of the West India Islands with the United States of North America. By Brian [_sic_] Edwards, Esq. ... _London_, 1784. Small 4to.

(_b_) Thoughts on the late Proceedings of Government respecting the Trade of the West India Islands with the United States of North America. The Second Edition, corrected and enlarged. To which is now first added a Postscript addressed to the Right Honourable Lord Sheffield. By Bryan Edwards, Esq. _London_, 1784. Small 4to.

5. (_a_) A Speech delivered at a Free Conference between the Honourable the Council and Assembly of Jamaica, held the 19th November, 1789, on the subject of Mr. Wilberforce’s propositions in the House of Commons concerning the Slave Trade. By Bryan Edwards, Esq., Member of the Assembly of the said Island. _Kingston, Jamaica_, 1789. Small 4to.

(_b_) A Speech ... on the Subject of Mr. Wilberforce’s propositions in the House of Commons concerning the Slave Trade. _London_, 1790. 8vo.

6. A Vindication of the Conduct and Proceedings of the English Government towards the Spanish Nation in M.D.C.L.V., in reply to the Misrepresentations of some late Historians. Also some account of the State of Jamaica, its inhabitants and productions, on its surrender. By Bryan Edwards, Esquire. _In_ “An Abridgement of the Laws of Jamaica.... _St. Jago de la Vega, Jamaica_, 1793.” 4to.

7. Poems written chiefly in the West Indies. _Kingston, Jamaica_, 1793. Small 4to.

[Contains a translation of the Second Epode of Horace, by his brother Nathaniel Bayly Edwards.]

8. Abstract of Mr. Park’s Account of his Travels and Discoveries, abridged, from his own minutes. By B. Edwards, Esq. _In_ “Proceedings of the Association for promoting the discovery of the interior parts of Africa.” Vol. 2, 1798. 4to.

9. Travels in the interior districts of Africa; performed under the direction and patronage of the African Association in the years 1795, 1796, 1797, with an appendix containing geographical illustrations of Africa by Major Rennell. Edited by Bryan Edwardes. _London_, 1799. 4to.

His writings evoked the following publications:

10. A letter to Bryan Edwards, Esq., containing Observations on some passages of his History of the West Indies. By William Preston, M.R.I.A. _London_, 1795.

11. Lettre à M. Bryan Edwards, membre du parlement d’Angleterre et de la Société Royale de Londres, colon propriétaire à la Jamaïque, en réfutation de son ouvrage, intitulé Vues Historiques sur la Colonie Française de Saint-Domingue, etc., etc., publié en Mars dernier, Par M. le Colonel Venault de Charmilly, chevalier de l’ordre royal et militaire de St. Louis, colon propriétaire à St. Domingue, ancien membre de l’Assemblé générale de cette colonie: chargé par les Ministres de sa Majesté Britannique, et par les Habitans de la Grande-Anse de régler, accepter et signer la capitulation pour la reddition de la partie Française de Saint-Domingue avec M. le lieutenant-general Adam Williamson, lieutenant-gouverneur de la Jamaïque, etc., etc. _Londres_, juillet, 1797. Small folio.

(_b_) Answer, by way of letter to Bryan Edwards, Esq., M.P., F.R.S., Planter of Jamaica, etc., containing a Refutation of his Historical Survey of the French Colony of St. Domingo, etc. By Colonel Venault de Charmilly.... _London_, 1797. Small folio.

12. An Address to Brian [_sic_] Edwards, Esq.; containing remarks on his Pamphlet entitled “Thoughts on the late Proceedings of Government respecting the Trade of the West India Islands with the United States of America.” Also Observations on some parts of a pamphlet, lately published by the West India Planters and Merchants, entitled “Considerations on the present State of the Intercourse between His Majesty’s Sugar Colonies and the Dominions of the United States of America.” By John Stevenson. _London_, 1784. Small 4to.

In a copy of No. 12 from the library of Lord Sheffield is a note on the title page in Sheffield’s handwriting:

Is this the John Stevenson who is included in the list of persons restored to grace and pardon within the State of New York by an Act of that State passed 12th May, 1784?

At Rio Bueno is =Fort Dundas=, dated 1778 and taken over as an Island fort in 1800. At =Mayfield= are the tombs of John Spence (d. 1785) and Anne Blake, the wife of John Hodges (d. 1787); at =Roslyn Castle= tombs of Minto and Virgo; at =Golden Grove= that of Rebecca, wife of Colonel Thomas Reid (d. 1747); at =Orange Valley= tombs of Mrs. Ann Jarrett (d. 1769) and of William Rhodes James (d. 1795); at =Weston Favell=, the tomb of Thomas Harding (d. 1766). In the old slave village on =Hyde Hall= Estate is the rare example of a monument erected to a slave, rare at least in Jamaica, though not so rare in the smaller islands. It is inscribed:—

In memory of Eve An honest, obedient and faithful Slave, by her affectionate and grateful master, Henry Shirley 1800.