St Helena Letters from England 1673-1683
Introduction: This is the first volume in the series St Helena Letters from England. It includes incoming official correspondence from the East India Company in London to the island’s Governor and Council, conveying directives on government, defence, trade, staffing and supplies. The letters were usually read in consultation and copied or abstracted into the records.
Source: Images of the original records can be viewed on the British Library’s website: https://eap.bl.uk/archive-file/EAP524-1-2-1.
Text Transcription: This text was produced entirely by AI transcription of handwritten document images on the British Library’s website, at approximately thirty pages per hour.
Current AI systems cannot transcribe handwritten manuscripts with complete accuracy, particularly where documents are degraded or damaged, where poorly formed script or marginal notes merge into the main body of text, or where complex tables are present.
Four specific problems affected this transcription. First, AI is designed to prioritise meaning and readability, which creates a strong tendency to alter spellings, expand abbreviations, or adjust grammar rather than preserve original forms. It is particularly unreliable in recognising the correct spellings of unfamiliar surnames and place names. To mitigate this, for each image submitted, the AI was given a strict protocol requiring it to rely solely on clearly visible ink strokes and to mark any uncertain readings as [...], thereby reducing the risk of inferred or invented text. Second, AI struggled to transcribe handwriting in the style of the late secretary hand, commonly employed from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, in which the letter ‘S’ appears in a form resembling a trailing ‘L’. Third, some of the handwriting in this volume is so faint or poorly formed as to be difficult to read even by eye. Fourth, many tabular sections were too complex to transcribe accurately, so these have been replaced by summary titles such as “Report: Invoice for Goods Received by Sea”.
Given these limitations, this transcription should be regarded as unreliable and used only as a search-and-find shortcut. Once a relevant passage has been located, it must always be checked against the original images.
Modern Text Interpretation: Each section of text was submitted for AI analysis in order to explain the archaic language in clear, modern UK English. These are not direct sentence by sentence replacements, but explanatory interpretations intended to clarify meaning while preserving the substance of the original. Where a specific individual is named within a section of the original text, that person will generally also be identified within the explanatory interpretation. However, where the original consists largely of lists of names, these are not usually repeated in the explanatory text.
Each modern summary is followed by an AI-generated Interpretations section, which provides additional commentary on the material based on wider information located on the internet. The AI analysis also includes a ‘Speculations’ section, offering one or more possible reflections on the material. The value of these notes range from the profound to the trivial or self-evident - time did not permit deletion of the latter.
Text Loss: The volume shows foxing throughout with missing page sections and the handwritten text on a few pages is very faded.
Referencing Text Locations: A dual numbering system has been adopted, combining the British Library film number with the manuscript’s original page number. These are presented in the format: British Library Film No. / Document Page No.
Pagination: Many pages are unnumbered. Where numbers are visible, they appear in the top left and top right corners. The pagination is further complicated by the fact that many page numbers have been altered by overwriting, and there are several jumps in the numbering sequence.
The first clearly visible page number appears on film No. 22, which is marked as page 22. The page numbering is therefore assumed to begin at film No. 1. Few subsequent pages are numbered, but they are assumed to continue in sequence through to 27/27. The following page on film No. 28 is numbered 23, giving a sequence of 28/23, 29/24 and so on through to 39/34. The next page is numbered 59, after which the sequence continues as 40/59, 41/60 and so on to the end of the volume.
Content: Although this is entitled St Helena Letters from England, it contains a variety of other unrelated material such as a list of soldiers and sailors left by Sir Richard Munden after St Helena was recovered from the Dutch in May 1673 and letters from India.
Dates: During the period covered by this volume, England and its colonies followed the Old-Style Julian calendar, under which the legal new year began on 25 March (Lady Day). When creating the modern interpretations of these texts, the AI has automatically adjusted the dates. For any date quoted in these early St Helena records falling in the period between January and 25 March, the year has been moved forward to the modern equivalent. Month names were frequently rendered using Roman calendar abbreviations such as 7ber, 8ber, 9ber and 10ber, in which September through to December were counted as the seventh to tenth months.
The earliest date recorded in this volume is 9 December 1673 and the latest is 1 August 1683.
The letters were sent during the administrations of Captain Richard Kedgwin/Keigwin (1673-1674), Captain Gregory Field (1674-1678) and Major John Blackmore (1678-1690).
AI Generated Summary:
The Nature and Origins of the Collection
The documents gathered in this volume constitute the first book of incoming letters from England and India to the Governor and Council of St Helena, covering the period from 1663 to approximately 1683. They consist chiefly of official correspondence from the East India Company's Court of Committees in London, supplemented by dispatches from the Company's councils at Surat and Fort St George on the Coromandel Coast. Together they provide an exceptionally detailed picture of how a small South Atlantic colonial settlement was administered from a distance of several months' sailing time, under the authority of a royal charter that invested the Company with near-sovereign powers over the island and its inhabitants. The letters were read aloud in council on the island and subsequently copied or abstracted into the consultation records, making them simultaneously London's instrument of command and St Helena's formal administrative archive. Reading them critically requires awareness that they represent metropolitan authority looking outward: they tell us what the Company wanted, demanded, and feared, rather than what actually happened or how inhabitants experienced the governance imposed upon them. [Film No. 6, 12, 22]
The Royal Charter and Constitutional Foundations
The legal foundation of Company rule at St Helena rested on two royal grants issued by Charles II. The first, of December 1661, confirmed the island as a possession belonging to the Company, conveying all rights, territories, lands, soils, woods, mountains, havens, rivers, fisheries, mines, and quarries - including the royal fish of whales and sturgeons - in as large and ample a manner as the Crown itself had held them. A second and fuller charter, dated 16 December 1673, constituted the Company as the true and absolute lords and proprietors of the island. The 1673 instrument was particularly comprehensive: it granted authority to make, publish, and repeal laws and ordinances; to impose fines, mulcts, and imprisonments; to nominate judges, justices, and other officers; to regulate trade and commerce; and to exercise all jurisdictions as fully as any Captain General or Governor of any English plantation. The Company was empowered to make war and peace with any non-Christian people, and the grant was to be held of the Manor of East Greenwich in free and common soccage, releasing the Company from the burdensome feudal obligations of knight's service. The reference to East Greenwich was a standard legal fiction used in colonial grants to define tenure under English law, but its effect was real: it gave the Company virtually unencumbered proprietary control over St Helena, subject only to the Crown's ultimate sovereignty and the requirement that local laws not be repugnant to the laws of England. [Film No. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]
That last condition - conformity with English law - is worth dwelling on. In the 1682 body of laws and constitutions drawn up for the island, the Company attempted to give it substantive content by transplanting English legal forms: trial by jury of twelve men, habeas corpus protections against arbitrary imprisonment, a Court of Judicature sitting monthly, a Sheriff responsible for empanelling juries and executing writs, and graduated penalties for specific offences drawn from English common law practice. Yet the same 1683 letter that sent these laws also conceded that they were largely derived from the laws made for Bombay, a settlement of some twenty thousand people, whereas St Helena's population barely numbered a few hundred. The formal legal apparatus was accordingly deemed more burdensome than beneficial, and the Governor was permitted to continue determining cases according to the established local method, except where the offences involved the theft of ships, timber, or land. This pragmatic retreat from constitutional ambition reveals the fundamental tension that runs through all the correspondence: the Company wished to be a sovereign entity administering a recognisably English legal order, but the realities of a tiny, remote, and thinly populated island made that aspiration difficult to sustain. [Film No. 8, 96, 160, 161, 179]
Governance, Administration, and Council Procedure
The first formal administrative appointment after the English retaking of the island from the Dutch in 1673 was the commission of Captain Richard Keigwin as military commander, followed shortly by the appointment of Richard More Smith as Governor, with Anthony Beale as the key operational figure serving as Deputy, Husband, and Storekeeper. The pattern of governance established in the initial dispatch of May 1663 assigned to the Governor and Council full and ample power to appoint subordinate officers, receive and distribute stores, manage labour, suppress vice and disorder, maintain correspondence with arriving shipping, and keep strict accounts for transmission to London. These were simultaneously administrative, military, financial, and moral responsibilities, concentrated in a small body of men operating thousands of miles from their principals. The requirement that at least three members of the Council, including the Governor or his Deputy, form a quorum for decision-making was a standard precaution against arbitrary individual power, though in practice the small size of the island's leading group made factional disputes both likely and difficult to resolve without London's intervention. [Film No. 13, 14, 21]
The succession arrangements established in the earliest commissions were carefully graduated. In the event of the Governor's death or removal, the Deputy was to succeed; if both fell, the remaining Council or any three of them were to act as Chief Commissioners until London could issue fresh instructions. The emphasis on continuity of command reflected real vulnerability: communication between St Helena and London took four to five months in each direction, meaning that a leadership crisis could persist for nearly a year before a resolution from the Company could arrive. When Major John Blackmore was appointed Governor in February 1677 to succeed the official who had died in an accident, the commission carefully named Captain Anthony Beale as his successor and the Council as the fallback collective authority. The repeated formula that the Governor and Council, or any three of them with the Governor or his Deputy present, should exercise the chief command and authority in all matters, became the constitutional bedrock of the island's government throughout the period covered by the letters. [Film No. 41, 42, 55]
The Company's appetite for information was insatiable and the quality of reporting from St Helena was a constant source of frustration in London. Governors were required to send a particular account of the state of the island - the number of persons, the condition of provisions, the amounts of stores, the state of fortifications, the register of births, marriages, and deaths, and later a detailed census of soldiers, planters, children, negroes, and cattle - by every available shipping. Duplicate copies were demanded of the most important documents. The consultation books were to be maintained and sent home as an authoritative record of all decisions. When the books of accounts for an entire year went missing, the directors issued specific instructions for how future ledgers should be physically laid out, ordering that only one folio number be placed on each leaf rather than on each side of the paper - a detail that reveals the extent to which London attempted to micro-manage the administrative practices of a settlement eight thousand miles away. When the accounts of Captain Anthony Beale were rejected in the postscript to the February 1677 dispatch because they lacked particulars for several large charges and credits and failed to record the specific dates of financial transactions, the rebuke combined accounting pedantry with genuine anxiety about whether the Company's money was being honestly managed. [Film No. 22, 27, 54]
The appointment of new governors was invariably accompanied by detailed instructions that combined constitutional formality with operational urgency. When Major Blackmore received his commission in February 1677, the accompanying letters covered military organisation, land management, moral discipline, religious observance, the management of stores, the construction of fortifications, the treatment of planters, the regulation of trade, and the specific financial arrangements for soldiers' pay and provisioning. The volume and detail of these instructions reflected both the Company's sense of the island's strategic importance and its distrust of local discretion. The repeated command to observe "all further instructions received from the Company" and to act in "all things according to our orders and directions" left little formal room for individual initiative, though the reality of governing a remote colony necessarily created space for it. The requirement that Captain Field, the outgoing Governor, remain as a Council member until his departure was a practical measure to prevent a power vacuum and to transfer institutional knowledge. [Film No. 44, 46, 55]
Military Affairs and Defence
The defence of St Helena was from the outset the Company's primary anxiety. The island had been seized from the Dutch in 1673 precisely because of its strategic position on the homeward route from the East Indies, and the fear of Dutch or French reoccupation shaped every aspect of military planning in the early years. The initial instructions dispatched in November 1663 required the Governor to immediately fortify the island, dispose ordnance and ammunition conveniently, maintain stores of powder and shot, keep a constant watch and guard with sentries duly relieved, and put all persons in a state of due obedience. The reference to "the present state of war" in that same letter, pointing to the Third Anglo-Dutch War, gave these instructions immediate operational urgency. [Film No. 16]
The military organisation established under Major Blackmore from 1677 divided the garrison into two companies, with the Governor as Captain of the first and Anthony Beale as Captain of the second. Named Lieutenants were appointed, and the Governor and Council were empowered to nominate ensigns and sergeants. Beyond the professional soldiers, all planters were to be organised into companies and exercised at least once every two months in military discipline. This dual structure - a paid professional garrison supplemented by an armed settler militia - was designed to minimise cost while maximising the island's defensive capacity. The dispatch of February 1677 made explicit that military service was a fundamental condition of land tenure: every twenty acres of granted land required the holder to maintain one man capable of bearing arms, equipped and ready to serve in the island's defence at all times. For those holding only ten acres, they were to serve alternatively with another similarly placed holder, except in cases of general invasion when all able-bodied men were obliged to turn out. [Film No. 46, 48, 89, 96]
The fortification of specific vulnerable points was a recurring concern. Lemon Valley was explicitly identified as a dangerous access point requiring strengthened defences. All approaches and avenues susceptible to invasion were to be guarded. The Governor was directed to survey the forts and platforms on arrival and to strengthen weak points with materials sent on the Johanna. Powder, arms, and victuals were to be distributed among several smaller magazines across the island, with the chief magazine placed at the centre for easier distribution to all outposts, though under the most rigorous guard. In November 1678, following reports of disorder and in the context of wider European tensions, the directors ordered the immediate establishment of a signal fire system across several parts of the island to provide instant warning of an enemy's approach, particularly at night. The use of beacon fires suited the island's rugged terrain, where observation from high ridges was the fastest means of alerting coastal batteries to an approaching fleet. [Film No. 16, 46, 78]
The management of gunpowder reveals the constant tension between military ceremony and resource conservation. The dispatch of February 1677 ordered that no more than three guns be fired in salute to any arriving ship and strictly prohibited shooting guns for healths or on other needless occasions. An exact yearly account of all powder expended was to be maintained and sent to London. By November 1683, the directors had received a list showing that over 2,300 guns had been fired, a figure they described as strange and wasteful, noting that the island had already cost the Company forty thousand pounds with almost no profit returned. This statistic - forty thousand pounds expended over a decade with negligible commercial return - is the clearest statement in the correspondence of the scale of the Company's investment and of the financial anxiety that drove its demand for greater frugality and discipline from the local administration. The suspicion that the waste reflected local corruption or incompetence rather than legitimate military necessity is present in the tone of the rebuke, even where it is not explicitly stated. [Film No. 47, 180]
The problem of maintaining a full and capable garrison was never fully solved. The dispatch of 1674 authorised the Governor to allow thirty of the seamen left behind by Sir Richard Munden to return to England, on the explicit condition that none who refused to serve should be forced to stay - an acknowledgement that pressed service was both legally questionable and operationally counterproductive. By March 1679 the directors were issuing formal instructions about how to manage ships arriving at St Helena with an incomplete complement of seamen: the Governor was empowered to place sufficient additional men on board to make up the deficiency, with the cost charged to the ship's owners. This maritime manpower management function added a further layer of complexity to the Governor's already extensive responsibilities, while confirming the island's role as not merely a refreshment station but an active checkpoint in the Company's maritime logistics chain. [Film No. 26, 80, 85, 86]
Settlement, Land, and Agriculture
The transformation of St Helena from a military outpost into a permanent settlement of productive planters was the central goal of Company policy throughout the 1670s. The discourse accompanying the initial reinstatement in 1663 directed the Governor to encourage old planters who returned from displacement during the Dutch occupation to settle with their families, to allot ground to new inhabitants, and to make provision for their maintenance until they could sustain themselves. The emphasis on settlement through families rather than single male soldiers reflected awareness that a sustainable colony required a stable, self-reproducing population rather than a garrison rotating on short-term contracts. The promise of free passage for wives and children was an expensive but deliberate incentive to achieve this goal. [Film No. 17, 49]
The formal legal structure of land tenure was established in the March 1680 orders issued at a Court of Committees. These rules attempted to answer the "doubts and questions" that had arisen about the nature of the title under which planters held their grants - specifically whether they held in fee simple or otherwise. The 1680 orders settled that any person coming to inhabit was to receive twenty acres of ground; for every twenty acres, one man capable of bearing arms was to be maintained. Ten-acre holders were to maintain at least one armed Englishman and one cow. All existing land was to be registered within six months in a formal book maintained by the Governor or Deputy, recording the acreage, boundaries, and owners' names, with a duplicate sent to London annually. Future transfers were to be registered within one month, with a fee of two shillings to the Company as chief lord and sixpence to the register. Any person who had been in actual possession and had improved their land for one year was to hold it in perpetuity for themselves and their heirs, free from future claims, provided they maintained it as a plantation. [Film No. 89, 96, 97, 98, 99]
The rules for inheritance reveal the Company's determination to ensure that productive land remained connected to active, resident holders rather than passing to absentees. If a single man in possession died, land descended to his heir or by will. If a married man died, one moiety went to the wife for life and the remainder to the children equally; if there were no children, by will or to the nearest kin. Personal estate without a will was divided with one third to the wife and two thirds to the children equally, or in the absence of children, one half to the wife and one half to the nearest kindred. Where no eligible person could be found on the island, the estate was to be forfeited to the Company. The requirement that an heir not resident on the island must establish residency within two years or risk forfeiture extended this logic further: the Company was prepared to enforce its conditions against absent claimants who might inherit but not contribute to the settlement's defence and productivity. [Film No. 98, 99]
The persistent anxiety about planters' agricultural effort runs through virtually every letter in the collection. The November 1678 dispatch expressed wonder that the inhabitants had not yet raised a sufficient store of provisions from their own labours, attributing this failure to a lack of industry. The May 1679 letter refused to send further provisions from England on the grounds that the constant expectation of imported supplies made the planters less industrious in producing their own food. This withdrawal of supply was explicitly framed as a strategic measure to force the settlers into agricultural productivity rather than dependence on Company charity. The instruction to set idle persons to work appears in the very first administrative dispatch of 1663 and recurs throughout the correspondence, suggesting that the gap between the self-sufficient colony the Company desired and the reality it received was never fully closed. [Film No. 14, 34, 77, 83]
The specific crops the Company sought to encourage reveal the scale of its commercial ambitions for the island. Beyond the grain crops needed for subsistence, the 1663 instructions ordered the planting of sugar, indigo, cotton wool, ginger, and tobacco. The dispatch of February 1677 sent fruit trees, vines, and seeds with the Johanna and renewed promises to purchase surplus sugar canes, indigo, and cotton wool at standard prices for the first seven years. The experiment with Camerid or Panamides goats from Persia, coordinated across dispatches from London, Surat, and Fort St George in 1678 and 1679, shows the Company pursuing a potential wool industry with sustained logistical effort. Grape slips were sent in 1674 with the aspiration of establishing viticulture. The directors also attempted to procure experienced Indians to assist with tropical husbandry. None of these commercial crops appear to have taken hold at the scale hoped for: the island remained a refreshment station for the East India fleet rather than a productive plantation yielding exportable commodities, which explains the ongoing financial frustration visible in the London correspondence. [Film No. 19, 47, 53, 70, 79]
Supply, Provisioning, and the India Connection
The supply chain supporting St Helena in the 1670s and early 1680s operated across three continents and involved the coordinated dispatch of ships from London, Surat, and Fort St George in a sequence that required months of advance planning. The decision to source grain from India rather than England was both logistical and economic: Indian rice and paddy were cheaper and more abundant than English grain, and the homeward-bound ships from the East Indies could carry them as part of their regular cargoes. The Surat council dispatched rice, paddy, soap, and livestock on the Sampson, President, and Princess in 1678; Fort St George sent rice, paddy, seed paddy, mortars and pestles, and later spirits on the William, Ealeon, and Society in coordinated shipments detailed in invoices and bills of lading that form a substantial portion of this volume. [Film No. 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75]
The Surat council's dispatch of January 1679 added a detail that reveals the cultural complexity of provisioning a South Atlantic outpost from India: two women experienced in the dressing of paddy were sent to provide practical instruction to the St Helena settlers. This was not a small gesture. Processing Indian rice required specific knowledge and equipment - hand-mills, wooden pestles and mortars - that the settlers lacked. The Fort St George council had initially hesitated to send trained instructors, considering whether to defer until further advice was received from the Governor or London; the Surat council acted without waiting. The warning from Fort St George about the danger of old paddy - citing the example of a siege by Shivaji in which many men died from dysentery after eating six or eight-year-old grain - shows these Indian councils exercising independent practical judgement and sharing hard-won local knowledge that was genuinely relevant to St Helena's food security. [Film No. 71, 79]
The physical handling of grain in transit was a persistent source of difficulty. The January 1682 receipt signed by the Governor and Council at St Helena acknowledged delivery of goods from the Josiah but recorded a discrepancy: fifty bags of rice appeared in the bill of lading but only one bag of coarse rice and eleven bags of paddy were received. The officers noted that because the rice had been packed in single thin bags, the weightier bags suffered waste and leakage. These losses were not trivial in a settlement where food security was already precarious. The requirement for multiple identical bills of lading - three copies of the same tenor and date, with the accomplishment of one rendering the others void - was partly a response to the difficulty of proving such discrepancies at law. By 1680 the Fort St George council was reporting that rice had grown very dear in their region and could supply only ten bags per ship rather than the usual quantities, showing how fluctuating conditions in India could directly affect the food security of a settlement several thousand miles away. [Film No. 85, 86, 145, 148]
The goods sent in these supply ships extended well beyond grain. The Caesar Africanus arriving from Bantam in 1681 carried window glass cut in squares, lead, yellow ochre, and a gunnery mill for the island. Soap was sent annually from Surat at invoice prices as a basic hygiene provision. Bullion and coin were dispatched to pay soldiers' wages. Clothing, tools, surgical instruments, and books were included in various shipments. The Bantam factory sent rugs, arrack, and sugar in 1683. The comprehensive nature of these supply chains reflects the extent to which St Helena was entirely dependent on external provision for everything beyond basic agricultural produce. The note in a 1683 dispatch from Bantam that the sugar was sent "to gratify the desire of the Governor" and the arrack as "a small provision for the Island" suggests that some of these items carried social and morale functions alongside their material utility. [Film No. 141, 153, 154]
Trade, Commerce, and the Suppression of Interlopers
The regulation of trade at St Helena was among the most pressing concerns in the March 1682 body of laws and constitutions, and its treatment in the correspondence reveals the tension between St Helena's role as a universal refreshment station and the Company's desire to preserve its trade monopoly. The fundamental rule established was that no person on the island could trade with, supply, or provide necessities to any ship or its crew until the Governor had formally admitted that vessel and its company to liberty of trade and refreshment. Violations were punishable by a fine of twenty pounds for Council members and ten pounds for other inhabitants per offence. The Governor was forbidden from granting trade liberty to any English vessel not in the Company's service, unless he had received an express order from London signed by three or more Court of Committees members, or unless the ship voluntarily surrendered its cargo to the Company. The only significant exemption was for vessels trading to Madagascar for slaves, which could be admitted at the Governor's discretion. [Film No. 171, 172, 173]
The March 1682 correspondence makes clear that the interloper problem was well established by this date. The directors reported that several English ships had been sent out on private accounts to trade in the East Indies in contempt of the royal charter, and that these vessels had been received, accommodated, and supplied at St Helena on their return voyages. They further reported credible information that additional ships were being fitted out for similar purposes. A separate letter of the same date warned specifically of ships set forth by private traders who were suspected of visiting the island to meet homeward-bound Company ships and buy up cargoes from officers and ship companies - an activity that would defeat the King of his customs, the Company of their damages, and the ship owners of their freight. The Governor was instructed to conduct diligent inspections to discover what goods had been taken into which ships, from which vessels they originated, and in what quantities. [Film No. 171, 174]
The duty schedule established in the March 1682 laws was designed to turn the island's unavoidable role as a waypoint into a revenue source. All foreign vessels - Dutch, French, and others - were required to pay anchorage for staying in the roadstead. English interlopers were to pay double the standard anchorage fee in lieu of tonnage duties. Ships trading to Madagascar were to pay two shillings and sixpence per ton of burden. The Governor was required to maintain an exact register of all arriving ships, recording names, burden, commanders, nature of voyage, goods carried, and dates of arrival, with attested copies sent to London regularly. The prohibition on selling liquor or tobacco without a licence under the Governor's hand and seal, with licences not to exceed one year and renewable only on the basis of good demeanour and orderly housekeeping, was simultaneously a moral regulation and a commercial one - generating small annual revenues while imposing social discipline on the island's drinking culture. [Film No. 175, 176, 177]
Finance, Currencies, and Accounting
The financial management of the island was conducted through a system of debtor and creditor accounts that tracked how every store - especially provisions - was received and disbursed. The dispatch of February 1677 established that no provisions were to be issued without a warrant signed by the Governor and at least two Council members. Soldiers were to receive food in equal distributions for their maintenance. Planters were to be supported for nine months from the stores if their own land could not yet sustain them, after which they paid at former rates. The Governor's table and senior officers were maintained from plantation produce, with visiting ship commanders included as guests. All goods from the stores were charged at invoice rates, and the stores themselves were to be inspected every three months to prevent decay and loss. [Film No. 45, 50]
The dispatch of February 1677 confirmed that the Johanna carried 879 Mexico and Ryall pieces - Spanish dollars - under Anthony Beale's management for the payment of soldiers' wages. These were to be distributed by warrant, with deductions made for any clothing or goods taken from stores on credit. The Company expressly forbade the drawing of bills of exchange on London, insisting on good husbandry in the distribution of ready money so that soldiers did not squander their wages carelessly. The instruction in the 1682 laws for the Governor to send a yearly account of all receipts for liquor licences alongside accounts of provisions taken for the Company's use shows the directors' desire to reduce the island's governance to quantifiable financial performance. The question of what "profit" the island could ever generate from its strategic position, given the scale of investment required to maintain it, runs unresolved through the entire correspondence. [Film No. 45, 175]
The personnel lists and pay schedules preserved in films 23 and 24 offer a rare glimpse into the structure of the earliest re-established garrison. Captain Richard Keigwin as Commander received £5 18s 0d per month, nearly seven times the standard rate of 18s paid to the majority of soldiers and settlers drawn from the Assistance Frigott and other vessels. Specialists commanded intermediate rates: the Surgeon and Gunner received £1 4s 0d and £1 3s 0d respectively, while volunteers from The Bird Boat received £1 13s 9d. The wage differential between the 18s standard soldier and the specialist rates reflects both the scarcity of technical expertise on a remote island and the Company's awareness that its fortifications, medical care, and ordnance management depended on retaining skilled individuals who could command better terms elsewhere. [Film No. 23, 24]
Slavery and Coerced Labour
The presence of enslaved people on St Helena appears in the correspondence from the earliest period, though the letters treat this presence with a combination of economic instrumentalism and social anxiety that requires careful critical reading. The dispatch of May 1681 recorded that the ship Caesar Africanus, bound for Bantam on Java and thence to St Helena, had been ordered to deliver a parcel of negro slaves as desired by the Governor, to be used for the making of various works and invoiced in the enclosed bill of lading. This brief instruction reveals that enslaved people were moved around the Company's Indian Ocean network as goods to be invoiced and delivered, their labour assigned to construction projects with the same administrative language used for timber or gunpowder. [Film No. 151]
The March 1680 dispatch addressed the management of enslaved people on the island in a passage that moved rapidly from economic to security anxieties. The Governor was required to employ the Company's own negroes on the plantation ground, with the expectation that this labour would eventually yield profit. The same dispatch, however, issued a stern warning against having too many black men on the plantations, stating explicitly that the directors feared they might mutiny and overpower the English inhabitants. The response was a strict prohibition on bringing any more enslaved people to the island without a special order from London. This prohibition was motivated not by humanitarian concern but by demographic fear: the directors were attempting to manage a racial balance that they believed was necessary for security. The measure stood in direct tension with the Company's simultaneous use of enslaved labour on the plantation and its exception for Madagascar slave ships, which were permitted to trade at the island under the 1682 laws. [Film No. 90, 173]
The February 1677 dispatch contains what is perhaps the most remarkable single provision in the entire collection regarding enslaved people: the promise of manumission through religious conversion. Any negro, whether bond or free, who made a profession of the Christian religion and was deemed fit for baptism by the Governor, Council, and Minister, was to become a free planter seven years after their public conversion, enjoying the same privileges regarding land and cattle as other inhabitants. This policy, if genuinely implemented, would have been a striking departure from the emerging norms of English colonial slavery in the Caribbean and elsewhere. It drew on longstanding Christian principles about the incompatibility of slavery and baptism, though the requirement for a seven-year interval between conversion and freedom represented a significant dilution of that principle. Whether this promise was ever enacted in practice is not determinable from this volume of correspondence alone. The same dispatch that offered manumission also required the Minister to catechise the children of the negroes as part of his duties, suggesting a vision of gradual Christian incorporation of the enslaved population into the settler community - a vision that sat uneasily alongside the security anxieties expressed just a few years later in the March 1680 correspondence. [Film No. 50, 51]
The 1682 laws and constitutions established that enslaved people were subject to the same commercial regulations as other persons on the island: no one could trade with an arriving ship without the Governor's permission, and the prohibition on supplying interlopers extended to enslaved people and their potential involvement in unauthorised commerce. The February 1682 instructions for the Governor to record in his annual returns the number of slaves kept by each person, with separate columns for males, and to send this alongside the full census of soldiers, planters, children, and cattle, reveals how thoroughly enslaved people were integrated into the administrative accounting of the island - counted, classified, and tracked as a component of the settlement's human and economic inventory. [Film No. 176, 177, 178]
Religion, Education, and Moral Regulation
Religious observance was central to the Company's vision of St Helena as a civilised English settlement. The 1663 instructions immediately appointed a Minister of the Gospel and a Physician as the two specialist professionals most essential to the colony's welfare. The Minister was tasked with instructing the people, advancing the fear of God, and performing divine service, with particular emphasis on teaching the youth the principles of religion. The Physician was to attend to the health of all inhabitants. Both were to receive a fit maintenance for their support. This paired appointment - spiritual and physical health managed simultaneously - reflects the seventeenth-century understanding of a well-ordered community as one sustained by both medical care and religious discipline. [Film No. 20]
The formal religious requirements established in the 1682 body of laws set out in considerable detail what Anglican corporate worship on the island should look like. The Governor and Council were to appoint places for divine worship and ensure all persons attended. The Minister was to administer service according to the liturgy of the Church of England. In public assemblies, prayers were to be offered for the King, the Royal Family, and the East India Company. Every Lord's Day, the Creed and the Ten Commandments were to be read, with the Apostles' Creed or occasionally the Athanasian Creed, the moral law from Exodus, and the summary from St Matthew's Gospel. Children and young people were to be catechised weekly by the Minister, with the Governor and Council expected to be present unless hindered by necessary affairs. This level of religious prescription - down to specifying which passages of scripture were to be read - reveals the Company's determination to maintain doctrinal conformity as a dimension of social control in a population whose religious convictions it could not otherwise verify. [Film No. 161, 162]
The provision of clergymen was a persistent challenge. The death of one minister led to a period without ordained clergy, during which the Governor was required to maintain public worship through lay provision. The search for a replacement in 1674 specified a Dutch or French minister who was to be a man of mature years - the phrase was rendered as "well weaned" - suggesting experience and stability rather than youthful enthusiasm. John Wimme, eventually appointed at a combined salary and gratuity of £100 per year, was required to preach every Lord's day, catechise children and others, teach children to read once a fortnight on a weekday, and instruct the Blacks in the catechism as they were deemed fit for it. He was granted a place at the General Table and a suitable house, with either a soldier or a servant assigned as a resident assistant. The provision of Company books from the island's existing library to supplement his personal collection shows the material investment the Company made in establishing an adequate clerical presence. [Film No. 35, 36]
Moral regulation was both a religious and an administrative concern. The laws of 1682 established a detailed schedule of offences and penalties. Public profanation of the Lord's Day earned a reproof for the first offence and a Governor's fine for each subsequent one. Swearing and taking God's name in vain after admonition attracted a further fine. Drunkenness was admonished for the first offence and fined thereafter, with persons of quality expected to pay more than those of meaner condition. Fornication, uncleanness, and adultery were to be discouraged and punished by the Governor and Council in ways deemed most efficacious for the nature of the people, provided they were not contrary to English law. The licensing system for liquor and tobacco retail - requiring a Governor's licence limited to one year, renewable only on good behaviour, with a fee not exceeding twenty shillings per person - attempted to regulate the drinking culture that multiple letters identified as one of the island's most persistent social problems. The reference in 1680 to the great proneness of the planters to excess in drinking, and the instruction that the Governor must keep them under due restraint and make examples of those who drank after admonition, confirms that the licensing system was responding to a real and documented social crisis. [Film No. 95, 165, 166, 175]
The Administration of Justice
The formal judicial system established by the 1682 laws represented the most ambitious attempt in the correspondence to give the island a recognisably English legal order. A Court of Judicature was to sit monthly at the chief place of the island, with the Governor as sole judge. All trials were to be conducted by juries of twelve men empanelled by the Sheriff, applied equally to civil and criminal cases. Jurors were required to be people of good fame and honest conversation; the rules specifically extended jury eligibility to any Englishman or Englishwoman on the island as a constant inhabitant, acknowledging that the resident population alone might not always provide the required twelve. A Sheriff was appointed to empanel juries, execute orders and writs, apprehend criminals, and assist in suppressing tumults and insurrections. The Sheriff's oath was formal and comprehensive, requiring fidelity to the King, maintenance of the Company's rights, impartial execution of duties, and proper accounting of all fines received. [Film No. 163, 164, 165]
The protections against arbitrary detention embedded in the 1682 laws were substantive rather than merely ceremonial. No person was to suffer corporal punishment or be deprived of possessions except by due trial and verdict of a jury of twelve. No person was to be imprisoned on a private action until the cause had been heard. Commitments required a warrant specifying the cause, and if the case was not prosecuted within the first two court days after commitment, the prisoner was entitled to move for discharge, which the judge was required to grant without requiring bail. These provisions drew directly on the language and logic of English habeas corpus protections, adapted for colonial conditions. The qualification that they applied "unless otherwise directed by specific laws made by the Company or the Court of Committees" was significant: it reserved to the Company the power to carve out exceptions, a power that the requirement for laws not to be repugnant to English law was theoretically intended to constrain. [Film No. 162, 163]
The penalty schedule established in the 1682 laws covered a wide range of offences with graduated responses. Theft by force or breaking open locked premises required restoration of the stolen property, payment of three times its value, forfeiture of the remainder of the offender's estate to the Company, standing in the pillory, and public whipping from the pillory to the prison, with subsequent imprisonment or transportation at the Governor's discretion. Simple theft without force required restoration and triple value, with compelled labour for the victim if the offender could not pay. False testimony made the witness permanently ineligible to give evidence; suborned witnesses and those who suborned them were both required to stand in the pillory. Fraud and forgery required satisfaction, a fine to the Company, and three days in the pillory. Striking an officer in execution of duty attracted a fine, public whipping, or imprisonment with mandatory treble damages to the officer. Wilful murder required death, with the manner left to the Governor's discretion within the bounds of English law. Betrayal or sedition attracted death and forfeiture of estate. The range and specificity of these penalties, drawing directly on English common law traditions, suggests that the Company intended the 1682 laws to serve as a genuine legal code rather than a set of aspirational principles. [Film No. 166, 167, 168, 169, 170]
The April 1680 letter addressed the question of how to deal with offenders who could not be effectively prosecuted at such a remote location. Three mutinous persons had been sent to England for trial, and the directors strongly disapproved: sending offenders home allowed them to escape justice proportionate to their offences, because witnesses and proof were not available in London. All future criminal cases were to be tried on the island, with offenders punished there rather than dispatched to England. This instruction, which prioritised local judicial finality over metropolitan legal procedure, was a pragmatic response to the realities of distance. It also tacitly acknowledged that the formal legal system could not function across an ocean of several months' sailing time - that justice delayed by that interval was justice effectively denied. [Film No. 100]
Social Order and Personnel Management
The letters reveal a colonial society prone to the internal conflicts that inevitably arose among a small, isolated population under conditions of hardship and dependency. Reports of disorders among the Council and other inhabitants appear in November 1678, with the directors requiring a particular account of how these had been settled. The instruction in the 1682 laws that anyone who had been found remiss or negligent in their duties could be displaced from the Council by the Governor alone, without requiring London's prior approval, was a response to the difficulty of maintaining discipline at such distance. The Governor was similarly authorised to refuse passage home to any planter who wished to leave, and ship commanders were to be informed that no islander could take passage without the Governor's licence and consent. [Film No. 78, 92, 178]
The problem of drunkenness appears throughout the correspondence as one of the most intractable social problems on the island. The 1680 letter referred specifically to the mutiny of the planters and their great proneness to excess in drinking, acknowledging that addiction to drunkenness was a common occurrence in all plantations if people were not kept under due restraint. The directors' response was characteristically dual: they offered moral counsel combined with the threat of exemplary punishment for those who offended after admonition. The insistence that the Governor and his Council must be the greater in their care to give good counsel when inhabitants were sober, combined with the requirement to make examples of those found delinquent, reflects a pragmatic approach to moral reform that relied on deterrence rather than persuasion. [Film No. 95]
The management of the island's labour force required constant calibration. The initial instructions set idle persons to work as a fundamental principle of good government. The decision in November 1679 to allow inhabitants to return to England by degrees, ensuring not too many departed in a single year, was framed as a concession to the fact that the population had grown sufficiently numerous to permit such thinning, combined with the practical advantage that returning inhabitants could fill gaps in the crews of undermanned homeward-bound ships. The instruction in March 1682 that all inhabitants must maintain "an honest course of living" subject to the laws, with no one permitted to appropriate any goods of the island as their own without accountability to God and the Company, set the legal framework within which the social discipline of the settlement was to operate. [Film No. 84, 157]
Personalities
Anthony Beale is the most consistently present figure in the correspondence, serving across the period under multiple titles - Deputy Governor, Husband, President, Storekeeper - and acting as the operational continuity of the island's administration even as formal governors changed. His appointment in the earliest commission of 1663 alongside Richard More Smith, his naming as successor to Major Blackmore in the 1677 commission, his role as Captain of the second company, his management of Spanish dollar payments to the garrison, and the detailed post-dispute over his accounts in the 1677 postscript all confirm his central importance. The Company's rejection of his accounts in that postscript - because they lacked particulars for large charges and failed to record dates of transactions - while simultaneously relying on him for virtually every operational function, captures the paradox of his position: indispensable but not above scrutiny. The payments recorded in his London accounts to Ursula Williams suggest a personal financial dependency on the Company's credit facilities in England that further complicated the formal employer-employee relationship. [Film No. 13, 41, 45, 54]
Major John Blackmore, appointed Governor in February 1677 following the death of his predecessor in an accident, was the recipient of the most extensive body of instructions in this collection. His commission covered virtually every aspect of island administration and imposed a demanding standard of record-keeping, financial management, military organisation, moral discipline, and agricultural improvement. The letter of May 1681 expressed satisfaction that the island was now sufficiently supplied and credited the settlement's improved condition to the management of the period. The same letter, however, complained that some officers performed little duty and warned against negligence - suggesting that the directors remained watchful even in moments of relative approval. Blackmore Junior appears as the certifier of several true copies among these documents, suggesting that the Governor's family was involved in the clerical work of the island's administration, a practice common in early modern colonial government where trusted family members could fill administrative roles without the complexity of formal appointment. [Film No. 41, 42, 44, 99, 101]
Christopher Wren appears as one of the signatories to the dispatch of 1680, a reminder that the East India Company's governing committee drew from the wider circle of Restoration-era intellectual and commercial life. The polymath architect and natural philosopher was at this period actively serving as a Company director, and his name alongside those of other prominent merchants and politicians on the letters to St Helena gives these documents a connection to the broader world of Restoration England that the dry administrative detail tends to obscure. The presence of Robert Boyle's name among the directors at another point in the correspondence reinforces this sense of St Helena's letters as documents that circulated through the highest levels of English commercial, scientific, and public life. [Film No. 54, 95]
Captain Richard Keigwin, who commanded the expedition that retook the island from the Dutch in 1673 and served as its first military Governor, features in the early letters as the man who established the initial physical reality of English rule. His salary of £5 18s 0d per month, recorded in the pay list of the Assistance Frigott personnel, was nearly seven times the standard rate for soldiers, reflecting his absolute authority over the island's defence. His subsequent departure is managed in the correspondence by allowing him to appoint Captain Beard as a potential successor, while continuing to act in a financial capacity through the supply of exchange to settle the island's debts. The departure of such a founding figure was always a moment of administrative vulnerability, and the care taken to document his financial role and the arrangements for his replacement reflects the Company's awareness of this. [Film No. 23, 30, 32]
The minister John Wimme, arriving by way of Surat on the Rockamore with a combined salary and gratuity of £100 per annum, represents the Company's recognition that the island's spiritual and educational welfare required professional provision. His duties extended to teaching children to read every fortnight on a weekday - a provision that made him simultaneously the island's clergyman, catechist, and schoolmaster. The instruction that he was to instruct the Blacks in the catechism as they were deemed fit for it placed him at the interface of the island's complex racial and social order. The Company's anxiety about ensuring an adequate and continuous clerical supply, visible in its search for a Dutch or French minister "of mature years" during the gap between one minister's departure and Wimme's arrival, reflects both the moral seriousness with which the directors regarded religious provision and the practical difficulty of recruiting suitable men willing to serve on a remote Atlantic island for even the relatively generous salary on offer. [Film No. 35, 36]
The Island's Place Within the Company's Global Network
One of the most striking features of this volume is how clearly it reveals St Helena's position not merely as an English colony but as a node within a genuinely global administrative network. London directed; Surat and Fort St George supplied; Bantam in Java contributed goods; Bengal and the Coromandel Coast provided grain and intelligence; Madagascar was a source of enslaved labour; and all of these transactions were documented through invoices, bills of lading, and receipts that flowed back to the Company's accountants at East India House in London for verification and audit. The simultaneous dispatch of letters about the same supply shipments from three different Indian councils to a single South Atlantic island, coordinated to arrive within the same sailing season, required organisational capacity and geographic awareness that the administrative language of the letters tends to conceal behind their formal and repetitive prose. [Film No. 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75]
The decision to purchase rice and paddy in India rather than shipping grain from England was not merely economical but reflected a recognition that St Helena existed within the Indian Ocean commercial world as much as within the Atlantic one. The route from England to the East Indies passed through St Helena; the route home from India passed through it again. This double function as an outward and homeward waypoint gave the island its value and shaped the nature of every supply chain and every military anxiety that appears in the correspondence. When the directors calculated that the island had cost forty thousand pounds with almost no profit returned, they were measuring against an impossible standard: the island's true value was not the revenue it generated but the protection and refreshment it provided to the fleets that generated the Company's actual profits in the East Indies trade. That the directors occasionally lost sight of this distinction, and complained about the island's financial performance as if it were a plantation that should yield commercial returns, reveals the institutional tension between the traders who funded the Company and the imperial administrators who needed its strategic assets. [Film No. 180]
BL Image No. | Page No. | OCR Transcription | Modern Interpretation |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | EAP 1364 St Helena Document Name and Date: St Helena letters from England 1673 - 1683 | |
2 | 2 | Book cover | |
3 | 3 | Blank page | |
4 | 4 | Blank page | |
5 | 5 | Blank page | |
6 | 6 | Victualls Armes Armour weapons, Ordinance Munition. Horses | The Crown formally confirmed that all victuals, arms, armour, ordnance, and horses found at the time the island was taken belonged by right to the Sovereign. Recognising that St Helena had been found by experience to be a very convenient and commodious location for the East India Company to refresh their people, who were often weak and decayed in health following long voyages in hot climates, the Crown sought to encourage this difficult and hazardous trade. By this grant, the Sovereign gave and confirmed unto the Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies the entire Island of St Helena. This included all rights, territories, lands, soils, woods, mountains, havens, and rivers. The grant also extended to the fishing of all sorts, including whales and sturgeons, and all veins, mines, and quarries, whether discovered or undiscovered. Furthermore, the Company was granted all gold, silver, precious stones, and minerals found therein. The Company was also granted all singular royalties, jurisdictions, customs, castles, forts, and fortifications already erected or to be erected on the premises. These privileges and franchises were bestowed in as large and ample a manner as the Crown itself might have held or enjoyed them, ensuring the Company possessed the full authority necessary for the governance and defence of the island. Interpretations: Decayed in health: A seventeenth-century description of the scurvy and tropical fevers that frequently afflicted sailors returning to England from the East Indies. Whales and Sturgeons: Historically designated as “Royal Fish,” the rights to which usually belonged to the Crown; this grant specifically transferred those lucrative rights to the Company. Veines and Mynes: This refers to the potential for mineral wealth, such as copper or iron, which the Crown formally ceded to the Company regardless of whether such resources had yet been found. Preheminences: A legal term referring to the superior rights and priorities of rank or authority granted to the Company’s administration on the island. As large and ample manner: A standard legal formula used in Royal Charters to indicate that the recipient was being granted the maximum possible legal power and ownership. Speculations The formal granting of St Helena was probably intended to provide the Company with the legal security needed to invest the “eight and ten thousand pound” mentioned in earlier dispatches. |
7 | 7 | the said Governour and Company of Merchants of London | The Sovereign formally constituted the Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies as the true and absolute Lords and Proprietors of the Island of St Helena. This grant included every part and parcel of the territory, saving only the faith and allegiance of the Company and the inhabitants to the Crown. The Island was to be held by the Company and their successors for ever, to be holden of the Manor of East Greenwich in free and common soccage, rather than by knight’s service or in capite. By this grant, the Company received all artillery, victuals, munition, powder, and arms currently remaining upon the premises. This also extended to all ships, vessels, boats, ordnance, and livestock, including horses and mares, which were seized and remained to the Crown. These provisions were granted to ensure the better supply of the Island, given its remote location from the Kingdom. Furthermore, the Crown decreed that all existing and future castles, fortifications, and plantations within the limits of the Island were to be governed by the Company and their officers. The Company was granted full authority to establish laws and ordinances for good government. They were also empowered to erect such castles, forts, and platforms as they deemed meet. For the defence of the territory, the Company was authorised to raise, arm, and train men. They were granted the power to make war and peace with any non-Christian people as they saw fit. In governing and defending the Island, the Company was permitted to exercise all such jurisdictions as fully as any Captain General or Governor of any other English plantation. Interpretations: Lords and Proprietors: A high legal status that granted the Company near-sovereign control over the Island’s land and administration, subject only to the English Crown. Mannor of East Greenwich: A standard legal fiction used in colonial charters to define land tenure under English law, ensuring the land was held easily without burdensome feudal duties. Free and common soccage: A form of land tenure that required no military service, typically involving only a symbolic payment or loyalty to the Sovereign. Knight’s service: An ancient feudal obligation to provide military support to the King, which was explicitly waived in this grant to encourage the Company’s trade. Captain Generall: The highest military rank in a colonial context, giving the Company’s appointees the same absolute command over their forces as a Royal Governor. Speculations The authority to make war with “people not being Christians” was probably included to allow the Company to defend its interests against local powers in the East Indies or Madagascar. |
8 | 8 | [...] these presents for us our heires and successors doe give | The Crown granted the Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies the lawful authority to nominate and constitute such governors, officers, and ministers as they deemed necessary for the government of St Helena. The Company was further empowered to remove or displace these officials at their will and pleasure and to appoint others in their stead. Under their Common Seal, the Company was authorised to make, publish, and establish laws, ordinances, and constitutions for the government of the Island and its inhabitants. They held the power to alter, change, or revoke these laws as they saw fit, provided that such ordinances remained reasonable and were not repugnant or contrary to the laws of the Realm of England. All persons residing upon the Island were required to be subject and obedient to these established rules. For the maintenance of better government, the Company was permitted to impose and levy reasonable fines, mulcts, and imprisonments upon offenders according to the established laws. Furthermore, the Company was granted the power to nominate and appoint Judges, Justices, and other necessary officers to administer justice. These officials were empowered to execute all acts and things necessary for the due government of the Island and its premises. Interpretations: Common Seal: The official emblem used by the Company to validate formal documents and legal acts, symbolising their corporate authority as granted by the Crown. Repugnant: A legal term meaning that the local laws of the Island could not conflict with or contradict the fundamental principles of English law. Mulcts: An archaic term for financial penalties or fines imposed as a punishment for an offence. At their will and pleasure: A legal phrase indicating that the Company held absolute discretion over the employment and dismissal of its colonial officials. Judges and Justices: The appointment of these officers transformed St Helena from a mere trading post into a structured legal jurisdiction under the Company’s control. Speculations The requirement that laws not be “repugnant” to English law was probably a safeguard to ensure that English subjects on the island retained their basic legal rights. |
9 | 9 | [...] of the said Island of St Helena and all and singular | The Company was confirmed in its possession of the Island of St Helena, including all castles, forts, and fortifications. They were granted full power to exercise and enjoy all authorities and jurisdictions necessary for the territory’s management. This included the right to erect new buildings and to establish, change, or repeal laws and ordinances as they deemed meet for the inhabitants. To ensure the effective administration of the Island, the Company was authorised to nominate and appoint governors, officers, and ministers. These officials could be removed or displaced at the Company’s will and pleasure, with others appointed in their stead. The Company was further empowered to administer justice to all persons on the Island according to their established laws, provided these were reasonable and not repugnant to the laws of the Realm of England. All inhabitants of St Helena were required to be subject and obedient to the Company’s regulations. For the maintenance of order, the Company was permitted to impose and collect reasonable fines, mulcts, and imprisonments upon offenders. Furthermore, they were authorised to appoint Judges, Justices, and any other necessary officers to ensure the due administration of justice and the robust defence of the Island and its premises. Interpretations: Castles and forts: The physical structures of local governance and military strength, which the Company was now legally entitled to operate as its own. Nominate and appoint: The formal process by which the Company selected its local leaders, shifting the source of their authority from the Crown directly to the Company’s directors in London. Due administration: A legal term ensuring that the processes of law, such as trials and the collection of fines, followed a regular and recognised order. Realm of England: The legal jurisdiction of the home country; the Company was required to ensure that St Helena’s local rules did not fundamentally clash with English statutes. Subject and obedient: This phrase established the legal obligation of every person on the Island, whether a Company servant or a free planter, to follow the Governor’s established orders. Speculations The Company’s power to “remove and displace” officials at will was probably intended to prevent local governors from becoming too independent or powerful in such a remote location. |
10 | 10 | [...] the said Island of St Helena and also every such person and | The Company was granted the absolute authority to regulate all trade, traffic, and commerce on or from the Island of St Helena. Any person who attempted to trade in goods, merchandise, or commodities contrary to the established orders and constitutions of the Governor and Company was declared an offender. Such individuals were subject to punishment by fine, imprisonment, or other penalties as defined by the local laws. To ensure these regulations were strictly followed, the Company held the power to appoint the necessary officers and ministers for the execution of its laws. This included the authority to impose specific penalties, fines, and mulcts as deemed fit for any offences committed. Furthermore, the Company was empowered to seize, take, and apprehend both the persons and the goods involved in any illegal trade. All offenders were to be proceeded against according to the principles of justice and punished in accordance with their crimes. The Company was also authorised to appoint Judges, Justices, and other officers to oversee the due administration of justice. These officials were tasked with executing all acts and matters necessary for the effective government and robust defence of the Island and its premises. Interpretations: Traffique or commerce: A broad seventeenth-century legal term covering all forms of buying, selling, or bartering of goods, which the Company sought to monopolise. Seize and apprehend: The legal right of the Company’s officials to physically detain individuals and confiscate their property if they were found in breach of trade laws. Execution of the said lawes: The practical application of the Company’s rules, requiring a dedicated staff of officials to monitor the port and plantations. Proceeded against according to justice: This perhaps refers to the requirement for a formal legal process or trial before punishments were carried out. Due administration: The Company was expected to provide a consistent and recognisable legal framework for the resolution of disputes and the punishment of crimes. Speculations The Company’s power to seize “merchandizes” was probably the most effective deterrent against the “private trade” they so heavily discouraged in their dispatches. |
11 | 11 | give and grant unto the said Governour and Company of their successors | The Sovereign granted the Governor and Company of Merchants, and their successors, the authority for their designated Governors of St Helena to nominate, appoint, and constitute all other officers and inferior ministers on the island. This power was intended to ensure the better government and orderly management of the territory. The Governors were further empowered to remove, displace, or change any such officers and ministers to facilitate the better execution of the government. The local administration was authorised to administer justice to all persons inhabiting the island according to the established laws, ordinances, and constitutions. This included the power to impose, levy, and collect fines, mulcts, and imprisonments as deemed fit. Furthermore, the authorities were permitted to seize and apprehend any persons, goods, or merchandises that offended against the said laws. All offenders were to be punished according to justice and the specific laws of the island. To oversee these processes, the Company was authorised to appoint Judges, Justices, and other officers for the due administration of justice. These officials were tasked with executing all acts and matters necessary for the good government and defence of St Helena. All inhabitants were formally required to remain subject and obedient to the laws and ordinances so made. The document concluded with the formal declaration that these Letters Patent were witnessed by the Sovereign at Westminster on a day in December, in the twenty-fifth year of the reign. The grant was issued by writ of Privy Seal. Interpretations: Inferior Ministers: In this seventeenth-century legal context, the term refers to subordinate officials, such as clerks, bailiffs, or overseers, who carried out the daily tasks of administration. Letters Patent: An open document issued by the Monarch to grant a right, monopoly, or status to a person or corporation, such as the East India Company. Westminster: The seat of the English government and the Royal Court, where the most significant legal and constitutional documents were formally witnessed. Five and twentieth yeare: This refers to the twenty-fifth year of the reign of King Charles II (1673), calculating from the death of his father in 1649, though he only returned to the throne in 1660. Privy Seale: A smaller royal seal used to authorise the issue of the Great Seal for charters and patents, representing a high level of executive approval. Speculations The extensive powers given to “inferior ministers” were probably necessary because the Governor could not personally oversee every transaction or dispute on the island. |
12 | 12 | No [...] A By the Governour and Company of Merchants Whereas upon the petition of the Right | In a document dated 10 November 1663, the Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading to the East Indies issued a series of orders following a petition from the Right Honourable Sir Richard [...], the Governor of the Island of St Helena. The Company, having been granted the island by His Majesty, considered the best methods for the future safety and government of the territory. Recognising the necessity of establishing clear rules and directions, the Company ordered that specific actions be performed by Sir Richard and his successors. These measures were intended to ensure the island was managed in a manner that provided for both its physical security and the efficient organisation of labour among its inhabitants. This early administrative record reflects the Company’s transition from merely occupying the island to establishing a formal, structured government under Royal authority. Interpretations: Court holden: The formal assembly of the East India Company’s directors (the Court of Committees) in London, where major policy decisions were debated and ratified. Anno Dom 1663: This date is significant as it follows the first Royal Charter of 1661, which originally granted the Company the right to fortify and settle the island. Future safety: A primary concern for the Company, referring to both the threat of foreign naval attack and the internal stability of the fledgling colony. Successors: This legal term ensured that the rules established for Sir Richard would remain binding on all future Governors appointed by the Company. Petition: A formal written request; in this context, it suggests that the local Governor had requested more specific powers or resources to manage the island effectively. Speculations The Company’s focus on “labour” in 1663 was probably an early indication of their plan to transform St Helena from a simple lookout station into a productive agricultural plantation. |
13 | 13 | [...] We [...] and provide until further order | The Company made provision for the continuation of their service on St Helena, dating from 15 May 1663. For the use and safety of the island, a supply of ammunition, victuals, horses, and other goods was translated into their service and transported thither. John Alexander and Mr James [...] were provided with bills of lading and invoices for these goods to ensure proper accounting upon their arrival. By the authority granted to them, the Company ordained and constituted Captain Richard [...] to be Governor of the island, with Anthony Beale appointed as Deputy Governor. A Council was established to assist in the government, consisting of Charles Moore, Mr John [...], and Richard Frawley. This Governor and Council, or any three of them (provided the Governor or his Deputy was always one), were to exercise the chief command and authority in all matters. All residents of the island were strictly required to give obedience to this body according to the established laws. Recognising the great distance from England and the potential for a vacancy in leadership, the Company provided for a clear line of succession. In the event of the death or absence of the Governor, Anthony Beale was designated to succeed him. Should both the Governor and Anthony Beale be absent or deceased, the remaining Council was authorised to appoint another fit person from the island to supply the office of Governor until further orders were received from London. Interpretations: Bill of lading: A formal document signed by the ship’s commander acknowledging the receipt of specific goods for transport, serving as a vital record for the Company’s auditors. Chief command: This term established that the Governor held supreme military and civil authority on the island, though he was expected to consult his Council on major decisions. Line of succession: A critical administrative precaution for a remote colony, ensuring that the island would never be without a legal head of government. 15 May 1663: This date probably marks the official commencement of the new administrative structure following the formalisation of the Company’s rights under the Restoration monarchy. Obedience: The legal requirement for all inhabitants to follow the Governor’s orders, which was the foundation of the Company’s efforts to end the “disorderly” state of the island. Speculations The requirement for three Council members to form a quorum was probably intended to prevent the Governor from acting entirely alone or in an arbitrary manner. |
14 | 14 | In as full and ample manner and with the same power And you the said Governour and Councill aforesaid Upon the arrival of this shipping you are You are to work with them in the Island You are to examine into and take an account | The Company granted the Governor and Council full and ample power to appoint subordinate officers and commanders, similar to the authority held by the Company itself. The Governor and Council were directed to use their best endeavours to encourage the inhabitants and, upon the arrival of shipping, to receive all ammunition, horses, and stores from the commanders. These were to be disposed of for the use of the island, ensuring the security of the inhabitants and any arriving vessels. A primary duty was to manage the labour of the people on the island. The Governor was ordered to ensure that all persons found idle were set to work in the service of the Company. All residents were required to apply themselves to labour and the planting of provisions to ensure a constant supply for the colony. Furthermore, the administration was tasked with the suppressing of vice and disorders to maintain a moral and orderly society. The Governor and Council were also required to maintain a good correspondence with all shipping that arrived at St Helena. They were to examine previous proceedings on the island, ensure that all just debts were paid, and keep strict accounts of all receipts and disbursements. These records were to be sent home to England by the first available opportunity. Finally, the Governor was directed to ensure the island remained well supplied and to observe all further instructions received from the Company in London. Interpretations: Full and ample manner: A legal phrase confirming that the Governor held the maximum possible delegated authority to act on behalf of the Company. Suppressing of vice: This probably refers to the Company’s desire to curb drunkenness, gambling, and profane behaviour among the soldiers and settlers. Constant supply: The Company’s goal was for St Helena to become self-sufficient in food, reducing the need for expensive shipments from England or India. First opportunity: This meant the very next ship departing for England, as communication between London and the South Atlantic was slow and infrequent. Just debts: This refers to the settlement of outstanding financial obligations from previous administrations to ensure the Company’s credit and reputation remained sound. Speculations The instruction to set “idle” persons to work was probably a direct response to the “disorderly” reports previously received by the Company directors. |
15 | 15 | You are also forthwith to take into your possession You are also to take care that the Church be duly Wee have ordered that all such persons as are Touching the Souldiers To the said Souldiers and Officers there shall be paid [...] | The Company directed the Governor to take immediate possession of all bills available on the island and to oversee their distribution among the inhabitants. This distribution was to be handled according to the merits of each individual and their commitment to religious reformation. A significant focus was placed on the spiritual and moral welfare of the colony. The Governor was ordered to ensure that the church was duly repaired and that the island was kept in good order. He was tasked with using his best endeavours to ensure the inhabitants led good and Christian lives. Any persons found to be idle or disorderly were to be set to work and reformed in accordance with the established rules of the Company. Furthermore, all individuals sent by the Company to St Helena were to be employed in such service as the Governor deemed fit, following all given orders and directions. Regarding the military establishment, the Company appointed all soldiers sent to the island to be under the absolute command of the Governor. These forces were to be employed specifically for the defence of the territory and were required to be duly exercised and trained to maintain their readiness. In return for their service, the soldiers and officers were to be paid such wages and allowances as the Company had appointed. Interpretations: Religious Reformation: In the seventeenth-century context, this probably refers to the enforcement of Protestant practice and moral discipline as a means of social control. Duly repaired: The physical state of the church was viewed by the Company as a direct reflection of the island’s stability and the Governor’s authority. Wages and allowances: This refers to the combination of cash payments and rations or land grants provided to the garrison to ensure their loyalty. Duly exercised: The requirement for regular military drills to ensure the soldiers remained disciplined and capable of defending the island’s fortifications. Merits: A subjective standard used by the Company to reward those who were industrious and obedient while withholding benefits from the “disorderly”. Speculations The Company’s insistence on “Christian lives” was probably intended to reduce the high levels of drunkenness and infighting reported among the early settlers. |
16 | 16 | [...] each of the said Companies in all [...] To a Governor to be chosen of the said [...] And for the present we doe further order that the pay mentioned You are to use your utmost endeavours and to keep You are forthwith to provide the best you may for the [...] And although during this present war [...] | The Company directed that a Governor and Council be chosen, with specific allowances provided for the Governor’s household, water, and other necessary charges. For the immediate period, the pay for the garrison and officials was ordered to be settled according to the lists found in the former Dutch books, ensuring a structured and familiar scale of remuneration. The Governor was tasked with using his utmost endeavours to maintain good intelligence and correspondence with all inhabitants according to their respective stations. This was seen as vital to the advancement of the Company’s affairs, the improvement of the plantation, and the growth of trade. Furthermore, the Governor was required to ensure that all persons sent to the island were well employed and encouraged, with rewards distributed based on their individual merits. A primary mandate was the immediate fortification of St Helena. The Governor was ordered to provide for the island’s defence by constructing such works as were necessary for its security. All ordnance and ammunition were to be disposed of in a convenient manner and kept in a high state of repair. The Company insisted that sufficient stores of powder, shot, and other provisions be maintained at all times. To prevent surprise, the Governor was commanded to keep a constant watch and guard, ensuring that sentries were duly relieved. All persons on the island were to be kept in a state of due obedience to the established authority. These measures were particularly urgent given the present state of war and the known hostility of enemies in the vicinity of the Cape of Good Hope. Interpretations: Dutch books: This refers to the administrative and payroll records left behind by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) after the English recaptured the island in 1673. Stations: A seventeenth-century term referring to a person’s social and professional rank, which dictated their duties and privileges within the colony. Good intelligence: In this context, the word probably refers to the Governor’s need to be well-informed about the activities and loyalties of the island’s inhabitants. Duly relieved: A military requirement that guards be changed at regular intervals to ensure they remained alert and effective in their duties. Present war: This refers to the Third Anglo-Dutch War, during which St Helena was a highly contested strategic prize in the South Atlantic. Speculations The Company’s reliance on “Dutch books” for pay scales suggests they were eager to provide immediate stability after the chaos of the Dutch occupation. |
17 | 17 | Discourse to encourage the Inhabitants of the Island to become That all the old planters that were formerly That such persons as shall be desirous to plant That provisions of land and houses shall be made That all the planters shall be under the direction | The Company issued a discourse to encourage the inhabitants of the island to become permanent planters, providing them with houses and gardens for their better support. It was intended that those arriving by the current shipping should remain on the island for as long as convenient, under a specific set of rules for government. All the old planters who had formerly been placed on the island and were now returning were to be encouraged to settle with their families. They were to be allowed ground, houses, and other necessary conveniences for their support. Furthermore, any new persons desirous to plant and settle were to be granted parcels of land judged fit for improvement. The Company committed to making provision of land and houses for all those coming to inhabit St Helena, ensuring that necessary supplies were provided for their maintenance. In return for this support, all planters were placed under the strict direction and government of the Governor and Council. They were required to remain obedient to all orders and directions given for the general good of the island. Interpretations: Discourse: A formal written communication or set of instructions intended to persuade the population to adopt the Company’s agricultural goals. Old planters: This refers to the original settlers who had been displaced during the Dutch occupation of 1672-1673 and were now returning to reclaim their lands. Families: By encouraging the settlement of entire families, the Company aimed to create a more stable, self-reproducing, and less “disorderly” colonial society. Support and maintenance: The initial subsidies of food, tools, and housing provided by the Company to ensure settlers survived until their first harvests. Parcels of land: The specific divisions of territory granted to individuals, which remained subject to the Company’s ultimate ownership and rules of improvement. Speculations The Company’s focus on “houses and gardens” was probably a strategy to root the population in the soil, making them less likely to desert to passing ships. |
18 | 18 | Approach of any shipping and especially upon That all or any of the inhabitants of the said Island That the said Mariners and inhabitants be That a sufficient watch be appointed by the Governour That there may be convenient storehouses built That all lands and plantations be disposed and | The Company established that the defence of St Helena was a fundamental condition upon which lands and accommodations were granted to the inhabitants. Upon the approach of any shipping, and especially if an enemy were discovered, all residents were required to repair immediately to their respective posts. They were to place themselves in a state of military defence as directed by their officers and the Governor for the safety of the island. Inhabitants were permitted, upon request, to build houses in the valleys or other grounds, particularly near the forts or places of defence. However, the Governor and Council retained the authority to dispose these habitations in such a manner that they remained commanded by the guns of the forts, ensuring the military remained in control of the civilian settlement. To provide for their needs, mariners and inhabitants were allowed to repair on board Company shipping arriving at the island to fetch necessary provisions and supply their wants. To maintain security during these visits, the Governor was directed to appoint a sufficient watch in the most secure manner on all arriving vessels. The Company further ordered the construction of convenient storehouses and warehouses to receive all goods and commodities brought for the use of the Company and the inhabitants. Regarding land management, all plantations were to be assigned to persons deemed fit for their improvement. These individuals were strictly obliged to continue their plantations and were forbidden from leaving the land unoccupied, ensuring that all ground was improved to the best advantage of the island. Interpretations: Commanded by the said Forts: A military term meaning that the houses were built within the direct line of fire or observation of the fortifications to prevent them from being used as cover by an enemy. Respective posts: The specific locations or defensive batteries to which every able-bodied man on the island was assigned during an alarm. Fetch such provisions: This probably refers to the regulated trade between the settlers and the Company’s ships for essential items like salt, clothing, and tools. Unoccupied: The Company viewed idle land as a threat to the colony’s survival and would probably have repossessed any ground that was not actively farmed. Conditions: This confirms that land tenure on St Helena was not absolute but was a contractual agreement involving mandatory military service. Speculations The insistence on building “near unto the Forts” was probably intended to allow the scattered population to retreat quickly to safety in the event of a sudden naval raid. |
19 | 19 | That a Register be kept of all Marriages and Births That for the encouragement of the Inhabitants you And you are hereby strictly enjoyned to give all due Wee require you to maintain a constant correspondence And wee require you to take care that no person You are to take care that due mines be wrought for [...] | The Company ordered that a formal register be kept to record all marriages, births, and children born upon the island, ensuring a permanent demographic record of the colony. To encourage the inhabitants, the Governor was directed to issue orders for the planting of high-value commodities, specifically sugar, indigo, cotton wool, ginger, and tobacco. All residents were required to apply themselves to husbandry and the improvement of the lands, with the Company reserved a share of the profits as deemed fit. Strict instructions were given to provide due encouragement to all new inhabitants. The Governor was to employ and entertain knowledgeable persons to instruct and advise the settlers in matters relating to husbandry and planting. This was part of a broader mandate to maintain a constant correspondence with all residents to prevent disorders and ensure total obedience to the Governor and Council. The Company further required that no person arriving on St Helena be permitted to make a settlement without an official licence. Regarding the island’s natural resources, the Governor was tasked with ensuring that any mines were wrought for the Company’s benefit. To maintain the colony’s productivity and security, all idle persons were to be set to work, and no inhabitant was permitted to leave the island without a formal licence. Interpretations: Register: A vital administrative tool used by the Company to track the growth of the “settled” population and manage the distribution of future land grants. Sugar, Indigo, Cotton: These were “plantation crops” that the Company hoped would turn St Helena from a costly refreshment station into a profitable commercial asset. Husbandry: The seventeenth-century term for farming and the management of livestock, which was essential for the island’s self-sufficiency. Without licence: A restrictive measure designed to prevent “interlopers” or unauthorised settlers from establishing themselves outside of the Company’s legal and financial control. Mines be wrought: This indicates the Company’s ongoing belief that the island might contain valuable minerals that could be extracted through systematic labour. Speculations The prohibition on leaving the island without a licence was probably intended to prevent debtors or disgruntled soldiers from escaping on passing European ships. |
20 | 20 | and that speciall directions be given for the preserving Wee doe also order and appoint that the Wee have entertained Mr Will [...] Wee have also entertained Mr Thomas Moore [...] | The Company issued strict instructions for the preservation of all orange trees on St Helena, ordering that none be killed or destroyed for the first three years. This measure was intended to ensure the island became sufficiently supplied with fruit, which was vital for the health of visiting mariners. The Governor was granted full discretion over the island’s plantations and their produce, with the primary goal of maintaining his own table and supporting the officers. Furthermore, the produce was to be used to furnish and equip Company shipping that arrived at the island, always serving the Company’s broader benefit. To oversee the spiritual and moral welfare of the inhabitants, the Company entertained Mr Will [...], a Minister of the Gospel. He was tasked with the instruction of the people, the advancement of the fear of God, and the performance of Divine Service. A particular emphasis was placed on his duty to teach the youth the principles of religion. In a similar effort to provide for the physical well-being of the colony, Mr Thomas Moore was appointed as Physician. He was required to attend to the health of all inhabitants, administer “physick” to those in need, and care for the sick and wounded. Both the Minister and the Physician were to be allowed a fit maintenance for their support. Interpretations: Orange trees: These were perhaps the most critical resource on the island, as citrus fruit was known to be the only effective cure for scurvy among returning East India fleets. Maintenance of the Table: A formal term for the provision of food and drink to the Governor’s household and high-ranking guests, often serving as a site for local diplomacy. Physick: An archaic term for medicine or medical treatment, typically involving herbal remedies, bloodletting, or chemical preparations. Fear of God: In this context, the term refers to the promotion of social order and personal discipline through the enforcement of religious values. First three yeares: This specific timeframe suggests the Company believed that, with careful management, the island’s orchards could reach a sustainable level of production relatively quickly. Speculations The appointment of both a Minister and a Physician at the same time shows that the Company was probably trying to transition St Helena from a rough military outpost into a permanent, civilised society. |
21 | 21 | […] had formerly had. Wee have entertained Richard More Smith & All having hereby our especiall Commission Wee also order and appoint that all persons whatsoever Wee require that the […] be well entertained […] and for the better ordering and governing of the said […] | The Company entertained Richard More Smith into their service and nominated him as Governor of St Helena. He was granted full power and command over all persons residing there, acting under a special commission and the authority of the Company’s established laws. His primary duties included the preservation of peace and quiet, the good government of the island, and the encouragement of trading. He held the authority to command all officers and ministers, both those currently present and any who might be appointed in the future. It was strictly ordered that every person residing on or arriving at the island must be subject to the Governor’s administration and obey all orders issued according to current or future laws. Furthermore, the Company required that new arrivals into their service be well entertained from the moment of their landing until they were fully settled. The Governor was expected to ensure these individuals were treated civilly and kindly, providing them with all provisions and necessaries required for their support. Interpretations: Especiall Commission: A formal legal document that delegated the Company’s royal authority directly to Richard More Smith, making his word law on the island. Preservation of the peace: This phrase refers to the Governor’s duty to prevent internal mutinies, duels, or civil unrest among the garrison and planters. Civilly and kindly used: A directive probably intended to improve the reputation of the island to attract more permanent settlers and discourage desertion. Trading there: This encompasses the regulated exchange of goods between the islanders and the East India Company’s visiting “shipping.” Governour: The title carried total civil and military responsibility; on St Helena, the Governor acted as the Company’s primary representative in the South Atlantic. Speculations The insistence that new arrivals be “well entertained” until settled was probably a practical measure to ensure that labourers did not become disillusioned or “decayed in health” immediately upon arrival. |
22 | 22 | […] Ships to the Island and appoint all Governours and Chief That the Lords day be solemnly observed by all You are to take care that all persons having So soon as you shall have settled your Plantations Given under the Companys Seale at our House By command of the Court of Robert Blackborne Secʳ 10 | The Company confirmed its authority to dispatch ships to St Helena and to appoint all Governors, chief officers, and ministers, to whom all other officials were required to submit. A primary directive was the solemn observation of the Lord’s day by all persons. All worldly labour and servile employments were strictly forbidden, with the exception of works of necessity and charity. The Governor and Council were ordered to appoint fit persons to ensure this observation and to punish any who profaned the day. Religious and moral discipline remained a central concern. The Governor was tasked with ensuring that all persons were carefully instructed in the knowledge of God. It was strictly forbidden for anyone to profane the name of God by swearing or any other disorderly course; those who did so were to be punished according to the Laws of England. Once the plantations and lands were settled pursuant to the provided instructions, the Governor was required to transmit a particular account of the same to London. This report was to include the state and condition of the island, the number of persons, and any increases in population or produce. The Company demanded an exact description of the situation and quantities of land, the support and relief received by the inhabitants, and a detailed account of the trade and commerce they conducted. The document was given under the Company’s Seal at their house in London on the day and year previously specified, by command of the Court of the East India Company and signed by the Secretary, Robert Blackborne. Interpretations: Lords day: The seventeenth-century term for Sunday; its strict observation was a cornerstone of the Company’s efforts to maintain social order and English cultural identity. Servile employments: Manual or menial tasks performed by labourers or servants, which were explicitly banned on the Sabbath to distinguish it from a regular working day. Profane the name of God: In this period, swearing and blasphemy were not merely seen as personal sins but as legal offences that could undermine the moral authority of the government. Robert Blackborne: The long-serving Secretary of the East India Company who managed the vast correspondence between the London directors and their global outposts. Companys Seale: The physical mark of the corporation’s legal identity, which transformed these instructions from mere advice into a binding constitutional mandate. Speculations The demand for an “exact” description of the plantations was probably intended to allow the London directors to calculate the potential tax or “share of the profit” they could extract from the settlers. |
23 | 23 | A List of what men were sent upon the The Assistance Frigott Captᵗ Rich: Keigwin – 5 – 18 – 00 Matt: Williams | The following personnel from the Assistance Frigott and other vessels are recorded with their specific roles and monthly salaries in the King’s service upon the Island of St Helena. Captain Richard Keigwin (Commander) was entitled to a monthly salary of £5 18s 0d. Those receiving higher rates for specialist or senior roles include Thomas Wales and John Brooks at £1 11s 0d. John Lynnett (Surgeon) and Thomas Richard Fisher were paid £1 4s 0d. Lieutenant Nathaniel Watson and John Wells (Gunner) were both paid £1 3s 0d. The following individuals were all entitled to the standard monthly salary of £0 18s 0d: John Sneed, Samuel Woddyard, William Crosby, Edward, Fisher, William Morris, Joseph Truscott, Russell, Thomas Graves, William Wheatly, Robert Clark, George Browne, January Harris, Joseph Fisher, George Boston, Thomas Wills, Matthew Williams, William Denny, Richard Burton, Thomas Hickson, Thomas Briggs, Nathaniel Goss, William Budd, William Mills, George Baker, Richard Whatall, John Smith, Matthew Burton, Barnard, Thomas Gase, Robert Mason, John Dyer, Edward Moore, George Hinson, John Stow, Thomas Jones, John Norris, Robert Land, John Williams, January Yates, Andrew Cooper, Morgan Harris, Matthew Hick, Stephen Hicks, James White, Grace Kay, John Bateman, Alexander Anderson, Thomas Bartlett, John Rowley, and Thomas Newborn. Interpretations: Wages: The recording of these salaries in the Kings Service was probably a legal requirement to ensure the men were paid correctly during the transition from Royal Navy control to East India Company administration. Captain Keigwin: His salary of £5 18s 0d was nearly seven times that of a standard soldier, reflecting his absolute authority over the military defence of St Helena. Surgeon and Gunner: The higher pay of 24s and 23s respectively indicates that technical specialists were highly valued for the island’s survival. Speculations The pay of 18s for men like William Crosby was probably supplemented by rations and housing on the island, as 18s alone would be a very modest sum for a month of service. Assistance Frigott: This ship was the primary vessel in the 1673 expedition; its crew and soldiers became the first permanent residents of the restored colony. 10: This numerical mark at the end of the previous section probably serves as a ledger or page reference for the Company’s accountants in London. |
24 | 24 | Brown Division Nath: Brindon Barnaby Manday The Mary & Martha Jno Henning Volunt: The Bird Boat – 1 – 13 – 9 John Wood The Wm and Thomas Rich: Holland Hen: Cranst | The following list records further personnel assigned to the island, categorised by their divisions or the ships from which they were translated into the Company’s service. Those serving in the Brown Division included Nathaniel Brindon, John Boyes, Richard Tannor, Richard Dawson, Thomas Dodwell, John Lamb, John Leggonsick, Thomas Yates, William Barnett, Gabriel Gosser, William Rogers, John Childs, John Rice, William Hesketh, Munday, Barnaby Manday, William Fox, John Elliott, and John Demon. Unless otherwise specified, these men were probably entitled to the standard monthly salary of 18s. Personnel arriving from the ship The Mary and Martha included John Henning, John Cary, John Rocharde, Roger Williams, Alexander Phillips, Thomas Gads, Thomas Field, John Gillian, Jim Layton, Robert Mitchell, Thomas James, George Oakshott, John Burnell, Francis Gelo, William Barlow, William Masters, Thomas Baynes, Richard Tyburne, Richard Harton, and John Bowman. This group also probably received the standard 18s wage. A specialist group of volunteers from The Bird Boat was recorded with a monthly salary of £1 13s 9d, consisting of John Wood, William Woodley, and Thomas Francklyn. A final large contingent arrived from the William and Thomas. This group was comprised of Richard Holland, Henry Ingram, Daniel Johnson, John Williams, William Butler, Nicholas Lott, William Bogg, Richard Ashford, Henry Cranst, Stephen Simms, Ralph Simms, John Belland, William Brent, Richard Holt, Walter Mitchell, John Quincy, Francis Hungerford, William Wager, Roger Corder, George Earle, John Dinnes, John Facklen, John King, Edmund Baker, Samuel Fennell, John Randall, John Floore, Walter Purnell, Henry Coles, Thomas Hopton, Robert Hodson, Henry Worsley, Hugh Brown, Edward Rudson, John Heard, Thomas Jones, John Nicholls, and Thomas Bower. Ok, I’ll remember that. You can always ask me to forget things or manage what I’ve saved for you on the Saved info page. Interpretations: Brown Division: This likely refers to a specific military unit or land-working party designated by colour for ease of administrative control in the early colony. The Mary and Martha: One of the numerous vessels employed by the East India Company to transport the men and materials required to re-establish the English presence on St Helena. Volunteer: This term often designated men who joined the service under specific agreements or for higher pay than standard conscripts or pressed men. £1 13s 9d: This specific salary for the volunteers from The Bird Boat is notably higher than the standard 18s, perhaps indicating a specialised role or a prior agreement made in London. William and Thomas: The large number of men from this vessel suggests it was a primary troop transport used to bolster the island’s defensive garrison. Speculations The repetition of surnames, such as Stephen and Ralph Simms, probably indicates that family members or brothers were encouraged to enlist together to improve morale. |
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26 | 26 | Philip & Jno Alexander Wee have by these shipps to Europe and the Ships Wee have also freighted the shippe Loyall Merchant When the shippe Loyall Merchant shall arrive at the And albeit wee have taken care for a reasonable supply Wee require you to send us a particular account | The Company informed the Governor of St Helena that supplies had been dispatched from London via the ships to Europe and the St Alexander. Detailed particulars of these supplies were included in the respective invoices and bills of lading. Alongside these goods, the Governor was to receive comprehensive instructions for the management of Company affairs and the government of the island’s planters and servants, all of which were to be strictly executed. A further ship, the Loyall Merchant, was being freighted to carry additional planters, passengers, and provisions, with a planned departure from London in January 1674. Upon the arrival of the Loyall Merchant at St Helena, the Governor was permitted to allow the seamen left behind by Sir Richard Munden to return to England. This was limited to thirty men in total, and the Company stipulated that none who refused to serve should be forced to stay. The cost for their passage was to be defrayed on the Company’s account upon their arrival in England. While the Company had provided a reasonable supply of victuals, the Governor was ordered to ensure they were issued with all possible frugality. A particular emphasis was placed on the industry of the planters and servants; they were required to use all imaginable industry in planting their own provisions to ensure the colony’s self-sufficiency. This was deemed a necessary precaution against any casualty or disappointment in receiving future recruits or supplies from England. Finally, the Governor was required to send a particular account of the arms and cables currently on the island. Interpretations: Bills of Lading: The formal legal documents between the shipper and the carrier detailing the type, quantity, and destination of the goods being sent to the island. Sir Richard Munden: The naval commander responsible for the initial recapture of St Helena from the Dutch in May 1673; the seamen mentioned were probably part of his original prize crews or garrison. All imaginable industry: A recurring theme in Company directives, showing a fear that the settlers might become over-dependent on imported food rather than farming the island’s soil. Loyall Merchant: A ship used by the Company to bolster the population; the “planters and passengers” it carried were intended to transform the island from a mere fort into a working colony. Frugality: This instruction reflects the high cost of shipping food from London; the Company expected the Governor to ration supplies strictly to avoid waste or theft. Speculations The decision to allow the thirty seamen to return to England was probably a compromise to prevent mutiny or discontent among men who had been left on the island against their primary will. |
27 | 27 | exact weights of the Anchors, Cables and provisions of You are to take notice that what supply of provisions You have been advised when our Ships of England Your loving freinds Jnᵒ Collett Berkeley – Jnᵒ Barnard Gouge Sam: Barnardiston [… ] | The Company concluded their instructions by requiring a meticulous accounting of the island’s defensive and maritime stores. The Governor was ordered to provide the exact weights of the anchors and cables, as well as a full inventory of the provisions currently held on St Helena. This included a report on what had been disposed of and what remained. Specific mention was made of the Humphrey and Elias, two vessels that had recently been at the island before being captured by the Dutch; the Company sought these details so they might take the necessary orders regarding those losses. Furthermore, the Governor was instructed to maintain strict records of any provisions furnished to Company ships touching at the island. He was required to take receipts for all such supplies and send two copies home to London so the ships’ accounts could be properly charged. The letter also addressed the return of individuals, specifically George Capmtor and William Grafton, who were to take their passage for England on the next available ships. The document closed with a formal commendation to the protection of the Almighty, signed by the “loving friends” of the Court of Committees, including the Deputy Governor Nathaniel Herne and prominent directors such as Samuel Barnardiston and Christopher Boone. Interpretations: Exact weights: The precision required for anchors and cables was necessary because these were among the most expensive pieces of equipment on a seventeenth-century ship. Humphrey and Elias: These ships were part of the ill-fated attempt to defend the island against the Dutch in early 1673; the Company was likely trying to quantify the financial hit from their capture. Charged therewith: This shows that St Helena was not just a charity outpost; the Company operated an internal accounting system where the island was credited for the food it provided to the fleet. Loving friends: A standard closing for the era, though it belied the strictly hierarchical and often stern nature of the relationship between the London directors and their overseas Governors. Deputy: Nathaniel Herne, who signed as Deputy, was a powerful merchant and politician who helped steer the Company through the volatile period of the Third Anglo-Dutch War. Speculations The insistence on sending two copies of every receipt was probably a precaution against the high risk of one ship being lost at sea or captured by the enemy. |
28 | 23 | Ship Johanna (formerly named Swallow) The losse is a supply of our last by shipps Europa And wee since have placed Mr May And as wee would have you send us a generall | The Company advised the Governor of St Helena that, following the earlier dispatch of the Europa and the John and Alexander, they had now sent a further vessel, the Johanna (formerly named the Swallow). This ship carried additional passengers and a significant quantity of plantation provisions, the details of which were included in an accompanying invoice. With these supplies, the Company believed the island would be fully provisioned, provided the Governor ensured every inhabitant planted all manner of crops. A stern warning was issued against negligence and slothfulness, as the Company expected the island to achieve self-sufficiency. Regarding the management of the island’s affairs, the Company had placed Mr May in charge of business with instructions to lessen the financial burden on London. The Governor was ordered to hire skilled tradesmen, such as carpenters, coopers, and smiths, only in cases of absolute necessity. These men were to be encouraged to engage in the Company’s service as free planters; if they refused, the Governor was to procure necessary provisions by other means. The Governor was further required to provide a general account of all provisions and the quantities consumed, alongside a particular account of all proceedings. This included returning bills and reporting on the current state of stores and the execution of the Company’s orders. Finally, the Governor was commanded to dispatch the Johanna with great expedition to ensure the Commander had no cause to complain of any detention caused by neglect or default on the island. Interpretations: Johanna: Formerly the Swallow, this vessel was part of the regular supply chain used to ferry both people and essential “plantation provisions” to the South Atlantic. Negligent and slothfull: These terms highlight the Company’s ongoing anxiety that the settlers would rely on ship-borne rations rather than performing the hard labour of tropical farming. Free planters: A class of settler who was not a direct employee or soldier of the Company but was granted land in exchange for providing for their own maintenance and contributing to the island’s defence. With expedition: A maritime term meaning as quickly as possible; the Company was always wary of the high daily costs incurred when a chartered ship was delayed in port. Lessen our charge: This reflects the constant pressure from the London directors to reduce the overhead costs of the St Helena colony, which they hoped would eventually become profitable. Speculations The instructions to engage skilled craftsmen as “free planters” were probably intended to root these essential workers permanently to the soil, ensuring their skills remained available to the island without a constant wage bill. |
29 | 24 | London 19ᵗʰ December 1674 off ship London The above is coppies of what sent by the Johanna This now goeth with our ships London Captᵗ By this shipp goeth Mr Middleton whom | The Company provided copies of the instructions previously sent by the Johanna, which had arrived safely from Barbados with men and provisions. However, the directors expressed grave concern regarding the Lambousick Merchant. That vessel had departed from St Jago for London but was now missing and feared lost, a situation described as a great disappointment that complicated the dispatch of supplies during an ill season. Despite this, the Company remained hopeful that further intelligence might be received before the current fleet departed the English coast. The present dispatch was carried by the ship London, which brought more passengers and a supply of provisions and necessaries. The Company expressed confidence that the island would now be sufficiently supplied with inhabitants. The Governor was reminded to manage affairs according to former instructions to ensure a civil and orderly settlement. A large supply of goods was sent to be divided among the residents, with a specific focus on encouraging the production of all sorts of provisions to ensure the future ease and encouragement of the population. Mr Middleton was introduced as a new member of the Council, arriving on the London to assist in the island’s governance. The Governor was ordered to be speedy in settling the new arrivals, specifically in laying out their lands and encouraging them to build their own houses. The objective was to ensure the new settlers could immediately proceed to planting and establish permanent habitations on the island. Interpretations: Missing and so may be lost: A stark reminder of the perils of seventeenth-century seafaring; the loss of a single ship like the Lambousick Merchant could jeopardise the entire logistical planning for a remote colony. St Jago: Now known as Santiago in the Cape Verde Islands, this was a common stopping point for ships to take on water and fresh fruit before the long Atlantic crossing to St Helena. Civilly orderly settlement: The Company was not merely building a fort but was attempting to impose English social structures and legal discipline on a frontier population. Divide and amongst the inhabitants: This likely refers to the distribution of essential tools, seeds, and clothing sent from London, which were often sold or credited against the settlers’ future harvests. Laying out their lands: The formal process of surveying and assigning specific plots of ground, which was the essential first step in transforming a passenger into a productive “free planter.” Speculations The appointment of Mr Middleton to the Council was probably intended to provide the Governor with more administrative support as the population of the island grew with the arrival of the London. |
30 | 25 | Be distributed to lodge any other Planters in your Houses Wee would have you take opportunities of leisure Wee would have you take care in time of planting If any European people who are acquainted You are not to expose every year in one act of You are to give order to entertain Since you have been advised from Europe and come | The Company instructed the Governor to ensure that new arrivals were properly lodged in existing houses, emphasizing that all promises made to the planters must be punctually observed. During periods of leisure or fair weather, the Governor was directed to take boats and survey the island’s coastline to discover further fertile ground. To support this expansion, the Company dispatched grape slips and seeds, specifically targeting the development of a vineyard. A critical order was issued regarding long-term security: every family was required to lay up a store of provisions sufficient to last for one year. This was intended as a safeguard against unseasonable years of dearth or crop failure. Regarding European visitors, the Governor was told not to press them into labour or detain them longer than necessary for the dispatch of ships. The Company also addressed the management of servants sent from England. These individuals were to be entertained for a season and placed as valets at a distance from the main plantations. The Governor was to appoint a “College or Nurse” to oversee their welfare and ensure they were properly brought up and their works preserved. Furthermore, the Company mentioned efforts to procure Indians to be sent to the island upon the return of future ships. Finally, following the departure of previous ministers, the Company noted they were seeking a Dutch or French minister—specifically a man of mature years—to serve the island, noting that Captain Keigwin had provided a supply of exchange to help settle debts and service the island’s needs. Interpretations: Grapes slips and seeds: This indicates the Company’s early ambition to establish viticulture on St Helena, hoping the climate would support wine production for the fleet. One yeare: The requirement for a twelve-month reserve of food shows how vulnerable the island remained to the “unseasonable years” of drought or pests that could devastate a small colony. College or Nurse: In this seventeenth-century context, a “College” probably refers to a structured living quarters or a training school intended to discipline and educate young servants. Indians: This reflects the Company’s global network, as they sought to bring experienced labourers from their East Indian factories to assist with tropical agriculture on St Helena. Man of years well weaned: A phrase suggesting the Company wanted a mature, experienced clergyman who was less likely to be unsettled by the isolation of a remote Atlantic outpost. Speculations The instruction to survey the island from boats was probably a safety measure, as the interior of St Helena is exceptionally rugged and certain fertile valleys were easier to spot from the sea. One or two persons: The warning against letting individuals go to Europe alone was probably intended to prevent the spread of sensitive information about the island’s defences. Captain Keigwin: Although he had officially departed as Governor, his ongoing involvement in financial “exchange” shows he remained a key figure in the island’s logistical support. Punctually observed: This reinforces that the Company viewed its agreements with the “Free Planters” as a formal contract that the local government was not permitted to break. |
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32 | 27 | Or to ship themselves for Bantam by the London or to ship themselves There is one Mr Harris a Seaman at St Helena Your very loving friends Robt Harley Wm Hampson Wee doe require that constantly & upon The Wife of Capt Frid having made it an A true Copy Examined 15 | The final section of the Company’s instructions addressed the movement of personnel and the financial administration of the island. The Company granted certain individuals the choice to remain on St Helena, ship themselves for Bantam on the London, or return to England as they preferred. Regarding the goods sent both previously and in the current shipment, it was the express pleasure of the Company that both inhabitants and soldiers pay for them in money at the rates specified in the invoices. Furthermore, the Company ordered that while Captain Keigwin remained on the island, or while any Commander of their shipping was present, they were to be included as members of the Council. Specific orders were given for the return of Mr Harris, a seaman, who was granted liberty to return to England. The letter concluded with a formal commendation to the Almighty, signed by the Court of Committees, including Governor Nathaniel Herne and Deputy Edward Thompson. A postscript added a requirement for the Governor to constantly send home two distinct lists: one of all living inhabitants and soldiers, and another recording those who had deceased and the date of their death. Finally, following an earnest request from the wife of Captain Field (recorded here as Frid), he was given free liberty to return home, with Captain Beard appointed to succeed him as Governor should he depart. Interpretations: Bantam: A major trading post in Java; the option to ship there shows how St Helena served as a pivotal crossroads between England and the East Indies. Pay money: This instruction suggests the Company was attempting to move the island away from a pure barter or ration system toward a formal cash economy using the “exchange” provided by Captain Keigwin. Deceased: The requirement for a death register was probably a practical necessity for the Company to manage its payroll and settle the estates of men who died in its service. Captain Beard: The naming of a successor in the same breath as a departure shows the Company’s commitment to maintaining a continuous and stable military command on the island. Examined by me: Stephen Egge’s signature marks this as an official clerical copy, likely held in the island’s archives or returned to London as a record of the original dispatch. Speculations The decision to allow Captain Field to return home at his wife’s “earnest desire” was probably an act of pragmatism by the directors to avoid having a distracted or unhappy Governor in such a vital post. |
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34 | 29 | London 21ᵗʰ March 1675/6 Wee have received severall letters from Wee recommend it to your care & vigilance to You have done well in reducing the Wee are pleased to hear from you that better than You advise us of the state of the Fortifications Wee are satisfied that you have given good account Wee are informed that there is a number amongst the | The Company acknowledged receipt of several letters, including the last dispatch dated 7 November, and provided a series of stern directives regarding the security and economy of St Helena. The Governor was ordered to maintain high vigilance, strictly forbidding strangers from coming ashore and ensuring that no multiple ships were permitted at the island simultaneously. Regarding the seamen mentioned in previous correspondence, the Company noted that those able to travel had been sent home. However, many of these men claimed they had been forced to remain on the island against their will, and the Company had ordered their wages to be paid upon their return to England. The Company expressed satisfaction that the number of soldiers had been reduced to 150, as previously ordered, and hoped a more efficient method of garrison management had been established. While the Company was pleased to hear reports of improvements to the plantation, they demanded greater frugality and industry. A clear warning was issued: the Company would no longer send the large supplies of provisions provided in the past. The Governor was told not to permit the existing stores to be consumed needlessly, as no further supplies would be sent without specific orders from London. Finally, the Company expressed disappointment regarding the state of the island’s defences. They blamed the local administration for allowing gun carriages to decay and noted reports that the guns themselves were being neglected. The Governor was urged to take better care of the storehouses and provide a fair account of all Company property. Interpretations: Strangers: This likely refers to non-English vessels, particularly Dutch or French ships, which the Company feared might use a shore visit to scout the island’s fortifications. 150: The reduction of the garrison to this specific number was probably a cost-saving measure intended to lower the monthly wage bill and the amount of food required from the storehouses. Gun carriage to decay: In the humid, salty air of St Helena, wooden carriages for the heavy iron guns would rot quickly without constant maintenance and tarring. Frugality: The repeated use of this word indicates that the London directors were becoming increasingly impatient with the high cost of maintaining the island as a strategic outpost. Forced to returne: This suggests that some men had been pressed into service or detained on the island to maintain the garrison, a practice that led to legal and financial disputes once they reached London. Speculations The refusal to send large supplies was probably an attempt to force the inhabitants to prioritise farming over other activities, making the colony self-sustaining through necessity. 7 November: The time elapsed between the Governor’s letter in November and this reply in March illustrates the typical four-to-five-month delay in communication between the South Atlantic and London. |
35 | 30 | And shipping to transport them for Bombay which You do hint as if there did remaine among you Wee take notice of ye great quantity of provisions Wee have left the Government with Mr Croft Wee take notice of your want of a good Ministry Wee have allowed him 25£ in part of his salary, wee agree | The Company addressed a report concerning the transportation of individuals to Bombay, which they dismissed as general and false. The Governor was strictly charged to use all diligence to identify the source of this rumour and suppress it. Concern was also raised regarding the presence of old mutineers on the island. The Company directed that any such persons should not be permitted to stay unless they demeaned themselves according to the rules, specifically mentioning a man named Young, whose behaviour was reported as unsuitable. The directors again emphasised that the island must not depend upon provisions sent from London, noting the large quantity already received from Captain Paine. Regarding the administration, the Company acknowledged Mr Croft’s role and addressed his salary and the yearly supplies allowed to him during his service. A significant portion of the dispatch concerned the spiritual and educational welfare of the settlement following the death of the previous minister. The Company had entertained Mr John Wimme, who was travelling to St Helena via Surat on the ship Rockamore. He was to receive an annual salary of £50 and a gratuity of £50. In exchange, he was required to preach every Lord’s day, catechise children and others, and, once a fortnight on a weekday, teach the children to read. He was also tasked with instructing the “Blacks” in the catechism as they were deemed fit. Interpretations: Bombay: The rumour of shipping men to India was probably a source of great anxiety for the garrison, as service in the East Indies was often viewed as a more dangerous or permanent posting than St Helena. Old Mutineers: This refers to the survivors of previous internal’ conflicts on the island; the Company remained wary of those with a history of challenging authority. Pious conversations: In the seventeenth-century sense, “conversation” meant one’s entire way of life and conduct, suggesting the minister was expected to lead by moral example. Catechise: A formal method of oral instruction, using a series of questions and answers to teach the fundamentals of the Christian faith to children and servants. Blacks: This indicates the presence of enslaved people or servants from Africa or the East Indies, whom the Company intended to integrate into the religious life of the colony. 25£ in part: The advance payment of a quarter of his combined salary and gratuity was a standard practice to allow a minister to outfit himself for the long voyage. Speculations The requirement for the minister to teach children to read was probably intended to ensure a basic level of literacy among the next generation of “Free Planters”. |
36 | 31 | He is to be accommodated with his diet at the Mr Wm Winge desires to settle a Plantation there Wee order you by the first ships to send home Wee have advice from Bantam that the Agent & Your very loving friends Examined A true Copy Examined | The Company provided specific instructions for the accommodation and support of the new minister, John Wimme. He was to be granted a place at the General Table and a suitable house to facilitate his religious and educational duties. The Governor was directed to afford him all civil respect and to appoint either a soldier or a servant to reside with him as an assistant. Additionally, the Company required that any books already on the island belonging to them be delivered to John Wimme to supplement the personal library he brought from England. Regarding land and personnel, the directors approved the request of William Winge to settle a plantation, granting him the same proportion of land and accommodations as other inhabitants. Conversely, the Governor was ordered to send Richard home by the first available ships following the persistent requests of his friends in England. The dispatch concluded with a note of concern regarding botanical supplies. The Agent and Council at Bantam had reported sending several plants and seeds for the improvement of the island, yet the Governor had failed to mention them in his previous correspondence. The Company expressed hope that these items had been carefully planted and required a full account of their status in the next report. The letter was signed as a true copy by the clerk, Stephen Egge. Interpretations: General Table: This was the communal mess for the Governor and senior officials; admission to it confirmed the minister’s high social status within the small colonial hierarchy. Library of Bookes: Books were a significant capital and intellectual asset in the seventeenth century; the Company sought to centralise these resources to support the island’s spiritual life. Bantam: This highlights the island’s role as a transit point in the Company’s global trade network, where plants from the East Indies were tested for acclimatisation in the South Atlantic. Importunate: This term indicates that the families of men on St Helena frequently lobbied the directors in London to secure the return of their relatives. Speculations The omission of the Bantam seeds from the Governor’s report was probably viewed as a lapse in administrative diligence by the London directors. Stephen Egge: As the clerk who examined and signed the document, his role was to ensure that the official record remained consistent during the long voyage between England and the island. |
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38 | 33 | Worp: &c Wee send you our salut &c advising Swally Marine Your affectionate friend Cha: Eyre Invoice of Cammanie goods laden on ship Goods cost with charges from port […] Swally Marine 27ᵗʰ January 1697/8 […] | The following correspondence, dated January 1697 from Swally Marine, details a shipment of goods and provisions dispatched to the Governor and Council of St Helena by order of the Honourable East India Company. The cargo was laden upon the ship George and consisted of carefully selected provisions intended to serve the garrison’s needs for a year. The Company agents, including Charles Eyre and Charles Chamberlain, issued a stern directive that these goods be kept apart and managed with strict oversight once landed. They expressed concern that negligence or misordering among the island’s staff often led to the loss or defect of supplies. Furthermore, the Governor was warned to prevent the “consuming or stealing” of items such as Mono and Coringo, which were to be preserved for their intended use rather than being prematurely exhausted. The accompanying invoice from Swally Marine, dated 27 January 1697/8, recorded the cammanie goods and the associated costs, including charges for shipping and freight. These accounts were to be formally integrated into the Moana Garrison’s records for the voyage. The dispatch emphasized that the ship should not stay long at the island but instead make haste once the discharge of merchandise was complete. Interpretations: Swally Marine: The primary port and roadstead for Surat in Western India; its mention confirms that this shipment was an “outward” supply from the East Indies rather than a direct dispatch from London. Caring provisions: A seventeenth-century term for supplies that were specifically packed or treated to survive long sea voyages without spoiling. Mono and Coringo: These likely refer to specific types of Indian textiles or regional trade goods, such as “Mano” (a measure of weight or a specific cloth) and “Coringo” (cloth from the Coringa region of India). Swally Marine 1697/8: The double date reflects the transition between the Julian calendar, where the new year began in March, and the Gregorian calendar; it places the event in early 1698 by modern standards. Apart for their goods: The instruction to keep these items separate suggests they may have been high-value trade goods or specialized military stores that required better security than standard grain or salt beef. Speculations The warning against “stealing” indicates that pilferage from the Company’s storehouses was a persistent problem on the island, probably due to the scarcity of luxury goods and textiles. |
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41 | 60 | Copy of Govr Blackmore’s Commission To all to whome these presents shall come greeting And wee also appoint Capt Anthony Beale to be Deputy | The following commission, dated 29 February 1697, records the official appointment of Major John Blackmore as Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Island of St Helena. The document, issued by the Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading to the East Indies, invokes the authority granted by King Charles II’s Letters Patent of 10 December 1683, which established the Company as the absolute Lords and Proprietors of the island. Under this commission, Captain Gregory Field was formally discharged from his trust and commanded to return home to England by the first available shipping. Major Blackmore was appointed to succeed him, taking charge of all forts, lands, privileges, jurisdictions, and military forces on the island. His tenure was to commence upon the arrival of the ship Johanna and continue at the Company’s pleasure. The commission also established a new administrative hierarchy. Captain Anthony Beale was appointed Deputy Governor, with a Council consisting of Captain John, Joshua Dodson, Richard Crowton, John Goodwin, and John Peddleton. The Governor or his Deputy, along with at least two other members of the Council, were granted chief authority in all matters. All officers and inhabitants of the island, regardless of their quality or condition, were strictly ordered to yield ready and due obedience to this new government. Ok, I’ll remember that. You can always ask me to forget things or manage what I’ve saved for you on the Saved info page. Interpretations: Thirteenth Yeare: This reference to the reign of Charles II is historically curious in a document dated 1697, as the King had died in 1685. It perhaps refers to the original legal framework of the 1683 Letters Patent rather than the current year of the commission. Absolute Lords and Proprietors: This legal phrasing confirmed that St Helena was private property belonging to the East India Company, granting them near-sovereign powers over the inhabitants. In the roome of: An archaic expression meaning “in the place of,” signifying the formal transition of power from Captain Field to Major Blackmore. Quorum: The requirement for three members, including the Governor or Deputy, to be present for Council decisions ensured that the Company’s senior representative always maintained control over local policy. Johanna: This vessel once again appears as the primary link for official dispatches, acting as the catalyst for the change in the island’s high command. Speculations The discharge of Gregory Field was probably the result of the “earnest desire” of his wife mentioned in previous correspondence, or it perhaps reflected a broader desire by the Company to install a more experienced military officer like Major Blackmore. 1697: The date 29 February 1697 is notable as 1697 was not a leap year in the Gregorian calendar, though it would be a leap year if the clerk was counting from a different base or simply made a clerical error in the day. |
42 | 61 | And in case of the death or removeall of the said Major And you our said Governour and Councell before And wee do hereby require as well all the Inhabitants | The East India Company established a clear line of succession to ensure the continuous governance of St Helena. In the event of Major John Blackmore’s death or removal from office, Captain Anthony Beale was appointed to succeed him as Governor. Should both Blackmore and Beale be unable to serve, the Company ordained that the Council of the Island, or any three or more members thereof, would act as Chief Commissioners. This collective body was granted the same ample powers and authorities as the individual Governors, to be exercised until further orders were received under the Company’s Common Seal. The Governor and Council were strictly ordered to follow all existing instructions and any future orders issued by the Company. Furthermore, a general mandate was issued to all inhabitants, officers, and soldiers on the island to remain obedient and to aid the Governor and Council in the execution of their trust. The commission was officially sealed and dated as of the day and year previously recorded in the document. Interpretations: Line of Succession: The Company’s insistence on a clear backup plan shows the strategic importance of St Helena; they could not afford a power vacuum in a location so remote from London. Chief Commissioners: The transition from an individual Governor to a collective Council in an emergency was a standard safety mechanism to prevent any single officer from seizing unsanctioned power. Common Seale: The use of the Company’s seal was the ultimate mark of legal authority, transforming a piece of parchment into a binding constitutional document for the island’s residents. Aiding and assisting: This phrase was a formal legal requirement, essentially deputising the entire population to support the Governor in maintaining order and defending the island. Speculations The mention of “removal” alongside “death” suggests that the Company was always prepared to dismiss a Governor who failed to meet their expectations of frugality or diligence. Thirteenth Yeare: As previously noted, the reference to 1697 as the thirteenth year of Charles II is probably a clerical carry-over from the 1683 Letters Patent, which remained the legal foundation of the Company’s rule even after the King’s death. |
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44 | 63 | Our Governour & Councell Ship Johanna Wee haveing by our Commission bearing date the 28th day of In the first place therefore That all our concerns under your care and Upon your arrivall at the Island St Helena on the Ship Johanna | The Company provided additional instructions to the new Governor, Major John Blackmore, in a dispatch dated 20 February 1677, regarding the moral and logistical management of St Helena. Following the formal discharge of Captain Gregory Field by a commission dated 28 February 1677, Blackmore was ordered to take command upon the arrival of the ship Johanna, on which he was taking his passage. The directors placed a heavy emphasis on the religious life of the island, requiring that the Lords day be strictly observed by all inhabitants. This involved a total abstinence from bodily labour, secular employment, and unlawful sports and pastimes. The Governor and Councell were tasked with appointing a convenient publique place or places for the Worship of Almighty God and ensuring the population frequented the services and ordinances of the Minister. Strict moral discipline was to be enforced, with the Governor required to restrain profane Swearing, intemperance, fornication, Drunkenness, uncleanness, and unlawful gaming. Any persons offending in these crimes were to be punished according to the Lawes of England as judged by the Governor and Councell. Logistically, upon arrival on the Johanna, the Governor was ordered to receive all ammunition, Armes, Stores, Victualls, and other provisions and Necessaries mentioned in the Bill of Lading and Invoice. These were to be safely landed and housed under the charge of Capt Anthony Beale, the President and Storekeeper, to preserve them from damage, waste, and imbezlement. The Company required an exact accompt of all current and former stores to be recorded at large in a booke. Interpretations: Religiously observed: The Company believed that the prosperity of the colony depended on divine favour, which necessitated the strict suppression of secular work on Sundays. Ordinances of God: A term referring to established religious rites such as baptism and preaching, which the inhabitants were expected to attend as a matter of civic duty. Unlawful gaming: This probably referred to gambling with dice or cards, which the Company viewed as a distraction from the industry they demanded from the planters. President and Storekeeper: By making Captain Anthony Beale responsible for the stores, the Company created a system of checks and balances to ensure the Governor did not have sole control over resources. Imbezlement: The Company remained perpetually concerned that officials might sell provisions for personal profit or trade them with visiting ships. Speculations The insistence on using the Lawes of England suggests that the Company wanted to avoid arbitrary rule by the Governor, preferring a regulated legal framework. 20 February 1677: The date indicates the appointment of Major Blackmore was finalised months before he reached the island, allowing for the long voyage from London. |
45 | 64 | View of Debitor and Creditor how each Store especially provisions And that our Stores may be the better preserved and husbanded, wee Wee have also by this Ship sent you 879 Mexico and Ryall peeces Wee appoint That all our Souldiers that are in pay upon our said Island | The Company provided detailed instructions for the financial and logistical management of St Helena, emphasizing a system of debitor and creditor to track how every store, especially provisions, was expended. In the event of Captain Beale’s death or “mutability,” the Governor and Councill were to appoint a successor by consultation until further orders from London. To ensure careful distribution, no provisions were to be issued by the “Husband” (the ship’s manager or storekeeper) without a warrant signed by the Governor and at least two members of the Councill. Victuals were to be equally distributed to the soldiers for their maintenance. Planters were also to be supported according to the original constitution, which allowed them nine months of food from the stores if their own plantations could not yet sustain them. After this period, any provisions received were to be paid for at former rates; the Company notably decided not to raise the prices of bread and beef despite their increased cost, as a gesture of encouragement to the planters. All other goods from the stores were to be charged at the rates specified in the invoices. To preserve these stores, the Governor and Councill were ordered to meet every three months to supervise the accounts and ensure the warehouses were maintained to prevent decay or loss. A yearly copy of each soldier’s and planter’s account for clothing and other items was to be remitted to London. Furthermore, the ship Johanna carried 879 Mexico and Ryall pieces (Spanish dollars) under Captain Beale’s care. This money was to be used for the soldiers’ pay, issued by warrant after deducting the value of any clothes or goods they had taken from the stores on credit. The Company strictly forbade the drawing of any Bills of Exchange upon them, requiring “good husbandry” in the distribution of ready money so that soldiers did not spend their entire wages carelessly. Interpretations: Debitor and Creditor: This indicates the implementation of double-entry bookkeeping on the island to ensure that every ounce of beef or yard of cloth was accounted for against an individual’s wages or a planter’s debt. Mutability: An archaic term used here to mean a change in status, perhaps referring to Captain Beale being removed from his post, becoming incapacitated, or switching roles. Husband: In this context, the “Husband” was an official responsible for the ship’s business and the management of the Company’s maritime assets and stores. Mexico and Ryall peeces: These were Spanish silver coins (Pieces of Eight), which served as the primary international currency of the era; their introduction to the island was a step toward a cash-based economy. Bills of Exchange: The Company’s refusal to allow these shows they wanted to control all expenditures from London, preventing local officials from essentially “writing cheques” that the Company would have to honour later. Planters according to our first constitution: This reinforces the Company’s vision of St Helena as a colony of self-sufficing farmers, where the Company provided the initial “start-up” food but expected independence after nine months. Speculations The decision to keep the prices of bread and beef stable despite rising costs was probably a strategic move to prevent civil unrest among the planters and soldiers during a period of transition. 20 February 1677: This date, established at the start of the dispatch, remains the governing timeframe for these financial regulations. |
46 | 65 | Souldiers at their arrivall thither, be reduced into two Companies, and that And wee do hereby authorize and impower our Governour & Councill to And that our Island may be the better Secured against all | The Company issued strict military orders for the defence of St Helena in this dispatch dated 20 February 1677. Upon the arrival of the ship Johanna, all soldiers were to be reduced into two companies, with the Governor as Captain of the first and Captain Anthony Beale as Captain of the second. Jonathan Tyler and James Johnson were appointed as Lieutenants, with the Governor and Councill empowered to nominate Ensignes and Sergeants. Beyond the professional garrison, the Company ordered that all planters be organised into companies and exercised at least once every two months. The professional soldiers in pay were to be exercised even more frequently in “Military Discipline” to ensure they were expert in handling arms and ready for constant watch duty. The new Governor was given the discretion to decide how many of the “Souldier Planters” recently taken into pay by the previous administration should be continued, balancing the need for security against the “unnecessary charge” of a large payroll. This was justified by the fact that all planters were bound by the tenure of their lands to bear arms for the island’s defence. Specific attention was directed toward securing all avenues and passages, particularly the vulnerable access points in Lemon Valley. The Governor was instructed to immediately review the forts and platforms, strengthening any weak approaches with materials sent on the Johanna. To ensure the guards could remain at their posts during an attack, the Company ordered that powder, arms, and victuals be distributed among several smaller magazines across the island, though the chief magazine was to be kept under the most rigorous guard. Interpretations: Two Companies: Dividing the force between the Governor and his Deputy, Anthony Beale, ensured that the military command was not centralised in a single person, providing a safeguard against both mutiny and total loss of leadership in battle. Lemon Valley: This specific mention highlights the strategic anxiety regarding the island’s western side, where the terrain allowed for a potential enemy landing away from the main guns of Chapel Valley. Tenure of their lands: This confirms that land ownership on St Helena was not absolute but was a form of feudal military tenure; the right to farm was directly tied to the obligation to fight. Exercise them frequently: The Company was aware that isolation often led to a decay in military standards, so they mandated regular drills to keep the men “Expert”. Magazines: The strategy of decentralising supplies shows a sophisticated understanding of the island’s rugged topography, where moving heavy barrels of powder or beef from a central store during an invasion would be nearly impossible. Speculations The warning against “unnecessary charge” while simultaneously demanding better fortifications reflects the Company’s perpetual struggle to balance the high cost of security against the need to protect their South Atlantic mid-way point. 20 February 1677: This date continues to serve as the official origin of these standing orders for the Blackmore administration. |
47 | 66 | guarded about the Middle of ye Island, because it is most easy from [...] And that all Planters may be the better encouraged to act for | The Company’s dispatch of 20 February 1677 continued with specific orders to conserve military resources and stimulate the island’s agricultural economy. To prevent the wasteful expenditure of gunpowder, the Governor was strictly ordered that no more than three guns be fired in salute to any arriving ship. Furthermore, the practice of shooting guns for “healths” or other needless occasions was banned. An exact account of all powder expended was to be kept and sent yearly to London. The chief magazine for these stores was to be established in the middle of the island for easier distribution to all outposts. To encourage the planters, the Company sent various fruit trees, vines, and seeds on the Johanna. Once the Company’s own plantation was supplied, the surplus was to be distributed gratis to the most industrious inhabitants. The directors renewed their promise to purchase any surplus sugar canes, indigo, or cotton wool raised by the planters at standard prices for the first seven years. Experienced persons were to be appointed to instruct the ignorant in these planting affairs. Additionally, a fixed wage scale was established for labour on Company works: a master workman was to receive one shilling per diem, while a servant or labourer received eight pence. These wages were payable in either store necessaries or ready money via a warrant to Superintendent Beale. Finally, to encourage settlement on the more difficult windward part of the island, the Company offered a double proportion of land to any person choosing to settle there. Interpretations: Three Gunns: This restriction shows that gunpowder was a precious and expensive commodity; salutes were a significant drain on resources that the Company preferred to reserve for actual defence. Middle of ye Island: Placing the main magazine in the interior was a tactical decision to protect the powder from naval bombardment and damp sea air, while remaining equidistant from the various coastal batteries. Indigo and Cotton: These crops represent the Company’s persistent hope that St Helena could become a profitable plantation colony rather than just a costly refreshment station for their fleet. Double proportion: The windward side of St Helena is rugged and exposed to harsh trade winds; the offer of extra land was a necessary incentive to persuade farmers to move away from the more sheltered leeward valleys. Master Workman: The establishment of a fixed daily wage (1s for masters, 8d for labourers) provided a rare degree of economic stability and formalised the transition from a barter-based survival economy to a regulated colonial labour market. Speculations The prohibition of firing guns for “healths” was probably a direct response to reports of drunken celebrations among the garrison, which the Company viewed as both a security risk and a waste of money. 20 February 1677: This date remains the governing point of origin for these administrative and economic reforms under Governor Blackmore. |
48 | 67 | exceeding forty acres to each family rough and plain, and in all And that our said Island may be put in the best posture of Upon arrivall of Shipping Imployed in our Service, wee | The Company continued its administrative and military instructions in the dispatch of 20 February 1677, defining the land allotments and defensive obligations of the settlers. Families were to be granted up to forty acres of land, encompassing both rough and plain terrain, with the directive that plantations be joined together to ensure neighbours could “relieve and Succour each other” in times of need. The directors ratified the conditions previously set out in their public invitations for new planters to settle on the island, confirming the legal and economic promises made to those who had migrated. Security remained a paramount concern. The Governor was ordered to list all planters under military commanders and ensure they were regularly trained. Specific rendezvous points were to be assigned where planters would gather during a general alarm or upon the discovery of an enemy. While the Company did not require planters to keep constant watch like professional soldiers during times of peace, it strictly mandated that they repair to their stations and observe military discipline during any threat, as this was a core condition of their land tenure. To further secure the valleys, the Governor was authorised to allot ground for building houses, provided they were constructed in a regular order and placed safely above the reach of coastal fortifications. Notably, the building of any houses between the forts and the sea was strictly prohibited to maintain clear lines of fire. Finally, upon the arrival of Company ships, a free market was to be established in a convenient location to facilitate trade between the inhabitants and mariners. Interpretations: Forty acres: This substantial land grant was intended to provide enough space for both subsistence farming and the cultivation of cash crops like indigo or cotton. Succour each other: The Company’s insistence on joining plantations together shows a strategic desire for a “thick” settlement pattern rather than isolated farms, which were harder to defend against inland raids. Rendezvous: By pre-assigning assembly points, the Governor could rapidly mobilise a civilian militia to reinforce the regular garrison at any threatened landing site. Between those Forts and the Sea: This zoning restriction was a purely tactical measure to ensure that the island’s heavy guns had an unobstructed view of the water and that no civilian structures provided cover for an invading force. Free Market: This was a vital economic concession, allowing planters to sell their surplus poultry, fruits, and vegetables directly to sailors, providing them with their only source of ready cash. Speculations The decision to waive “constant Watch” for planters was probably a pragmatic compromise to ensure they had enough time to work their land, which was the only way the colony could become self-sustaining. 20 February 1677: These regulations regarding land and defence were part of the foundational instructions given to Major Blackmore as he prepared to depart on the Johanna. |
49 | 68 | Inhabitants of our said Island be not allowed to goe on board We have formerly ordered that the Lands we have given & For the Improvement of our own Plantation, You have | The Company’s dispatch of 20 February 1677 addressed the legal foundations of land ownership and social order on St Helena. To ensure security, inhabitants were strictly forbidden from going on board any ship without the Governor’s express permission. The directors confirmed that land allotted to planters would be conveyed to them and their heirs forever under the Company’s Common Seal, provided they performed all required duties and services. A significant restriction was placed on these grants: no planter or heir could sell or alienate their land unless they had lived upon and endeavoured to improve it for a minimum of seven years. To prevent “Fraud, Deceipt and fraudulent dealing,” the Governor and Councill were ordered to maintain a formal register of all land allotments, sales, and conveyances, with a duplicate sent yearly to London. Similarly, the Minister was required to keep a register of all marriages, christenings, and burials. The Company also sought to stabilise the population by offering free passage to the wives and children of married men on the island. Conversely, any soldier who had served five years was granted the liberty to return to England passage free. Strict moral oversight was maintained by a prohibition on any person with a living wife in England or elsewhere marrying again on the island. Finally, for the improvement of the Company’s own plantation, the Governor was directed to employ the “Negroes” already in the Company’s service. Interpretations: Common Seale: The use of the seal transformed land possession from a temporary occupation into a formal, heritable legal estate, giving planters a long-term stake in the island’s success. 7 yeeres: This “lock-in” period was a deliberate strategy to prevent speculators from taking land and quickly abandoning it, ensuring that only committed farmers remained. Register of all Sales: The requirement for a central land registry was a sophisticated administrative step for a small colony, designed to settle the frequent boundary and title disputes that plagued early settlements. Passage free: Offering free travel for families was an expensive investment by the Company, probably intended to transform a transient military garrison into a stable, rooted civilian society. Bigamy: The prohibition on marrying again while having a wife elsewhere shows the Company’s role in policing the private morals of its employees, likely to avoid legal and social complications in England. Negroes: This confirms that the Company’s own agricultural operations relied on enslaved labour, distinct from the military service of the white soldiers and planters. Speculations The restriction on boarding ships without leave was probably intended to prevent desertion and the smuggling of Company goods or information to foreign rivals. 20 February 1677: This date marks the formal codification of these social and legal rights for the inhabitants under the incoming Blackmore administration. |
50 | 69 | Planting and Setting of such fruit Trees and Seeds as we now The Companyes Plantation and the produce thereof wee The Minister we have entertained and is now resideing on our Wee have now entertained a Gunner to take Care of our Forts | The Company’s dispatch of 20 February 1677 concluded with instructions for the hospitality and spiritual welfare of the settlement. The Governor was directed to ensure the Company’s plantation was well-stocked with fruit trees and seeds to provide sufficient refreshment for arriving shipping. A public table was to be maintained by the Governor for himself and senior officers, including the Husband Captain Anthony Beale, the Minister, Lieutenants, and Chirurgeons, as well as visiting ship commanders. To protect these resources, no land grants were permitted near the Company’s own plantation, and special care was required for the increase of cattle stocks. Religious and educational duties were formalised through the appointment of a Minister, who was tasked with preaching every Lords day and catechizing the youth and the children of the Negroes. For these services, he was granted an annuity of £50, with an additional £25 for keeping a school and a further £25 gratuity for diligent service. Most significantly, the Company established a path to manumission: any Negroes, whether bond or free, who made a profession of the Christian religion and were deemed fit for baptism by the Governor, Council, and Minister, were to become free Planters seven years after their public conversion, enjoying the same privileges regarding land and cattle as other inhabitants. Finally, a professional Gunner was entertained to take charge of the island’s fortifications. Interpretations: Publick Table: This was not merely a dining arrangement but a vital social institution where the island’s elite and visiting captains met to conduct Company business and maintain administrative cohesion. Catechize: The requirement to instruct children and the enslaved in the principles of the Christian faith was a central part of the Company’s “civilising” mission on the island. Annuity and Gratuity: The Minister’s pay structure, totalling up to £100 per annum, made him one of the highest-paid officials on the island, reflecting the high value placed on moral order. Manumission through Baptism: The promise of freedom and planter status after seven years of Christian profession was a rare and notable policy for the era, designed to encourage a stable, loyal, and religiously unified population. Care of Sick persons: St Helena’s role as a mid-Atlantic hospital for scurvy-ridden crews is reinforced here, with the Governor ordered to provide fresh “Herbs and fresh provisions” specifically for their recovery. Speculations The prohibition of private land near the Company’s plantation was probably a security measure to prevent the theft of prize livestock or specialized crops intended for the Governor’s table. 20 February 1677: This date marks the final set of instructions for Major Blackmore’s administration concerning the internal social and religious hierarchy of St Helena. |
51 | 70 | at the Watering places, and all other places as you shall imploy him And that all our Planters lands may be confirmed to them Wee recommend unto you the Encouragement of the Our last letter unto our said Island was dated the 6th | The Company’s dispatch of 20 February 1677 concluded with instructions for the hospitality and spiritual welfare of the settlement. The Governor was directed to ensure the Company’s plantation was well-stocked with fruit trees and seeds to provide sufficient refreshment for arriving shipping. A public table was to be maintained by the Governor for himself and senior officers, including the Husband Captain Anthony Beale, the Minister, Lieutenants, and Chirurgeons, as well as visiting ship commanders. To protect these resources, no land grants were permitted near the Company’s own plantation, and special care was required for the increase of cattle stocks. Religious and educational duties were formalised through the appointment of a Minister, who was tasked with preaching every Lords day and catechizing the youth and the children of the Negroes. For these services, he was granted an annuity of £50, with an additional £25 for keeping a school and a further £25 gratuity for diligent service. Most significantly, the Company established a path to manumission: any Negroes, whether bond or free, who made a profession of the Christian religion and were deemed fit for baptism by the Governor, Council, and Minister, were to become free Planters seven years after their public conversion, enjoying the same privileges regarding land and cattle as other inhabitants. Finally, a professional Gunner was entertained to take charge of the island’s fortifications. Ok, I’ll remember that. You can always ask me to forget things or manage what I’ve saved for you on the Saved info page. Interpretations: Publick Table: This was not merely a dining arrangement but a vital social institution where the island’s elite and visiting captains met to conduct Company business and maintain administrative cohesion. Catechize: The requirement to instruct children and the enslaved in the principles of the Christian faith was a central part of the Company’s civilising mission on the island. Annuity and Gratuity: The Minister’s pay structure, totalling up to £100 per annum, made him one of the highest-paid officials on the island, reflecting the high value placed on moral order. Manumission through Baptism: The promise of freedom and planter status after seven years of Christian profession was a rare and notable policy for the era, designed to encourage a stable, loyal, and religiously unified population. Care of Sick persons: St Helena’s role as a mid-Atlantic hospital for scurvy-ridden crews is reinforced here, with the Governor ordered to provide fresh herbs and fresh provisions specifically for their recovery. Speculations The prohibition of private land near the Company’s plantation was probably a security measure to prevent the theft of prize livestock or specialized crops intended for the Governor’s table. 20 February 1677: This date marks the final set of instructions for Major Blackmore’s administration concerning the internal social and religious hierarchy of St Helena. |
52 | 71 | letter we have received also each Shippes accompt, And find in You complain that that Sawyer now there cloth intend to You are to charge to the accompt of Robert Beell the Wee have Entertained Mr Joshua Johnson to serve in our Wee shall allow noe pay unto any Souldiers but those that | The Company addressed several personnel and administrative issues on St Helena in this dispatch dated 20 February 1677. The directors noted reports of internal differences and disputes among the island’s staff, urging the Governor and Council to examine these matters carefully to ensure justice was done and to prevent further disturbances to the good government of the colony. Specific staffing matters were highlighted, including the case of a sawyer who wished to return home because his wife refused to join him on the island, despite being offered free passage. A deduction of three pounds was ordered from the wages of Robert Beell to cover money paid to his wife in London for her voyage preparations. To strengthen the garrison, Mr Joshua Johnson was appointed as a Lieutenant at forty shillings per month, with an allotment of thirty acres of land, a servant, a negro, and four cows. Although a small surgery chest was sent on the Johanna, no surgeon was provided; the Governor was instructed to recruit one from returning ships to replace Mr Moore, who desired to go home. To address the island’s pest problems, a rat-catcher and materials to destroy vermine were sent. Additionally, fifty pieces of bran wood were shipped to construct rooms for bread, coal, and powder. Finally, the Company strictly forbade the listing of boys or children as soldiers, decreeing that only those capable of full duty and officially entertained by the Company should receive pay. Interpretations: Differences among you: This reveals that the small, isolated community on St Helena was prone to infighting and legal disputes, which the Company viewed as a threat to productivity and security. Rat-catcher: The inclusion of a specialist and specific stuff to destroy vermin indicates that rats were a major threat to the Company’s stores of grain and bread on the island. Noe pay unto children: The prohibition against listing boys as soldiers suggests that previous governors perhaps inflated their muster rolls by including children to draw extra rations or pay from the Company. Forty shillings per month: The lieutenant’s wage, combined with land and livestock, was intended to establish him as a member of the island’s landed elite, ensuring his loyalty to the Company’s interests. Chirurgery Chest: Sending a chest without a surgeon shows the difficulty the Company faced in finding medical professionals willing to settle in a remote Atlantic outpost. Speculations The sawyer’s desire to leave because of his wife’s refusal to travel was probably a common problem, as the Company struggled to convince women that the island was a safe and permanent home. 20 February 1677: This date continues to provide the context for these specific administrative and personnel directives sent to the Blackmore government. |
53 | 72 | And all Souldiers after their time of Service is out may returne When it shall please God to arrive our homeward The times being troublesome and dangerous, we | The dispatch of 20 February 1677 continued with further instructions for the long-term sustainability and security of St Helena. The directors confirmed that soldiers completing their service could return to England on Company ships passage free. They expressed hope that Panamides goats from Persia had arrived and ordered them to be kept apart from other livestock to determine if their wool would meet commercial expectations. To further accommodate the inhabitants, the Company arranged for an annual shipment of five or six hundred weight of hard soap from Surat, to be distributed to planters and others at the invoice price. To prevent disputes among homeward-bound shipping from Surat and the Coast, a clear naval hierarchy was established for whenever they met at the Island. Captain Chamlet was appointed Admiral, Captain Glide as Vice-Admiral, and Captain Bash as Rear-Admiral, with all other commanders ranking according to their seniority. Given the troublesome and dangerous times, the Governor was enjoined to exercise extraordinary care in watches and circumspection. Strict protocols were set for foreign ships in the roadstead: no strangers were to come ashore armed, and only a few were permitted at a time unarmed. Constant sentries were to be maintained on the hills to look out and prevent surprise attacks, ensuring the garrison was ready to defend the Island to the utmost. Interpretations: Panamides goats: This experiment in cross-breeding Persian goats for their wool shows the Company’s ongoing effort to find a high-value export for the Island beyond simple provisions. Hard sope: The provision of soap from India at cost price was a practical measure to improve hygiene and morale among the isolated settlers and soldiers. Precedency: Maritime protocol was a matter of intense professional pride and legal standing; by pre-appointing an Admiral and subordinates, the Company avoided command confusion during the assembly of a homeward convoy. Troublesome and dangerous: This probably refers to the geopolitical tensions of the late seventeenth century, where St Helena remained a prime target for rival European powers seeking to disrupt English trade. Sentry on the hills: The rugged topography of the Island meant that lookouts on the high ridges were the only way to gain enough early warning to man the coastal batteries before a ship could enter the bay. Speculations The instruction to keep the Persian goats apart from other cattle was probably intended to prevent cross-breeding that might dilute the quality of the wool before the experiment was completed. 20 February 1677: This date marks the formal instructions sent to Major Blackmore as he prepared to assume the government of St Helena. |
54 | 73 | And Protection of the Almighty We remaine. London Matthew Andrew John Banckes Wm Thompson Govr We have received an Accompt of Captain Anthony 1675 June 9 1676 August 1657 July 13 16 62£ We want your Bookes of Accompts for last Yeer, and when | The dispatch of 20 February 1677 concluded with a formal expression of reliance on the protection of the Almighty, signed by a large assembly of the Company directors including Governor William Thompson and Deputy James Edwards. Following this official closure, an additional postscript addressed unresolved financial discrepancies involving Captain Anthony Beale. The Company refused to approve Beale’s account of seventy-nine pounds and eight shillings because it lacked necessary particulars for several large charges and credits. They also noted that he failed to record the specific dates of financial transactions. Furthermore, the directors reminded the Governor that Beale had already been charged sixty-two pounds for various payments made on his behalf in England between 1675 and 1677, including several ten-pound payments to Ursula Williams and a twelve-pound bill to Henry Risby. The directors expressed their dissatisfaction with the island’s record-keeping, noting that the books of accounts for the previous year were missing. They issued specific instructions for the physical layout of future ledgers, ordering that only one folio number be placed on each leaf rather than on each side of the paper. The Governor and Council were commanded to be more punctual and careful in sending a particular account of the expense of money and stores to London every year. Interpretations: Common Seale: Although not explicitly mentioned in this postscript, the absence of such formal approval for Beale’s figures meant he remained personally liable for the discrepancies until he could provide better documentation. Ursula Williams: These recurring payments made by the Company in London suggest that Williams was probably a relative or creditor of Captain Beale, for whom the Company acted as a financial intermediary by deducting the sums from his colonial salary. One folio on each leaf: This technical instruction for bookkeeping was designed to standardise the records arriving from various colonies, making it easier for the Company’s auditors in London to cross-reference the island’s expenses. Robert Boyle: The signature of this famous natural philosopher among the directors reminds us that the East India Company was governed by some of the most prominent intellectual and commercial figures of the seventeenth century. Speculations The Company’s refusal to approve Beale’s seventy-nine-pound claim was probably a tactic to enforce stricter accounting standards, as they used the threat of debt to ensure their officers remained diligent in their paperwork. 20 February 1677: This date marks the formal instructions and subsequent financial corrections sent to Major Blackmore as he prepared to assume the government of St Helena. |
55 | 74 | The Shipp Mary is safely arrived, by whom wee have Wm Thompson Govr Jn Morden To Major John Blackmore These A True Coppy Examined | The Company sent further instructions in a postscript to the dispatch of 20 February 1677, confirming the safe arrival of the ship Mary and acknowledging receipt of a letter dated 31 December last. In response, a large supply of provisions and stores was sent on the Johanna. To ensure the long term food security of St Helena, the directors wrote to the President and Council at Surat, ordering that rice and paddy be sent annually from India and the Coast and Bay. Regarding the transition of power, the Company ordered that Captain Field serve as a member of the Council for as long as he remained on the Island. His salary was to be continued until he took his passage for England, which he was instructed to do by the first available shipping. The document was signed by Governor William Thompson and Deputy Governor James Edwards, among others, and addressed to Major John Blackmore. The text was later certified as a true copy examined against the original by Stephen Legg. Interpretations: Rice and Paddle: This probably refers to paddy, which is rice in its husk. The Company’s decision to source these staples from India rather than London was a practical logistical move to reduce the cost of feeding the garrison and planters. Captain Field: By keeping the outgoing Governor on the Council until his departure, the Company ensured a smoother transition and perhaps aimed to prevent any local factionalism that might arise from his immediate dismissal. 31 December last: This date confirms that communication between St Helena and London could take several months, with the Company responding in February to a report written at the end of the previous year. True Coppy: The certification by Stephen Legg indicates that this document was part of an official archival record, likely kept on the Island to serve as the legal basis for Major Blackmore’s authority. Major John Blackmore: The formal address to the new Governor marks the final confirmation of his appointment and the specific expectations placed upon his administration. Speculations The Company’s insistence that Captain Field leave by the first shipping was probably a measure to ensure that Major Blackmore could establish his own authority without the lingering influence of his predecessor. 20 February 1677: This date remains the official reference for the final set of instructions and personnel changes for the governance of St Helena. |
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58 | 77 | London ye 20 March 1677 Invoice of Stores and Provisions Laden by the Governour & Repor:t Invoice of Goods Received by Sea | The final section of the dispatch, dated 20 March 1678, consists of an invoice for the stores and provisions laden by the Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies. These supplies were placed on board the Johannah, a vessel of approximately 600 tonnes under the command of Captain Hector Bendall. Bound for St Helena, the goods were consigned to the Governor and Council on the account of the General Joint Stock. This document provided a formal record of the costs and freight associated with the substantial cargo sent to support the island. Interpretations: Johannah: The size of this ship indicates that the Company was sending a significant volume of supplies to ensure the success of the new administration on St Helena. General Joint Stock: This term confirms that the provisioning of the island was a corporate expense drawn from the main capital of the East India Company. 20 March 1678: This date follows the earlier February instructions and reflects the modern year because it falls before the 25 March New Year of the old calendar. Speculations The preparation of such a detailed invoice was probably a lengthy task involving numerous London merchants and warehouse keepers. Hector Bendall: As the commander of a ship carrying such a vital cargo, Bendall held a position of significant trust and responsibility in the Company’s maritime network. Invoice of Goods Received by Sea: This ledger heading served as the official point of entry for the island’s accountants to verify the arrival and distribution of every item sent from London. |
59 | 78 | Report: Invoice of Goods Received by Sea | |
60 | 79 | Report: Invoice of Goods Received by Sea | |
61 | 80 | Report: Invoice of Goods Received by Sea | |
62 | 81 | Report: Invoice of Goods Received by Sea | |
63 | 82 | Report: Invoice of Goods Received by Sea | |
64 | 83 | Report: Invoice of Goods Received by Sea | |
65 | 84 | Report: Invoice of Goods Received by Sea | |
66 | 85 | Report: Invoice of Goods Received by Sea | |
67 | 86 | Report: Invoice of Goods Received by Sea | |
68 | 87 | Report: Invoice of Goods Received by Sea | |
69 | 88 | Report: Invoice of Goods Received by Sea | |
70 | 89 | Worship &c By our this Yeares Europe Shipping, the Sampson, President They have likewise Ordered us Yearely to Send You some Males & Swally Marine Note that ye Mill &c are Laden Your very loving Friends | The President and Council at Surat issued a follow-up dispatch from Swally Marine dated 30 January 1678, detailing the fulfillment of the Company’s orders for St Helena. Following the arrival of the Europe shipping—the Sampson, President, and Princes—at Bombay in August, the Surat council dispatched nine tonnes of rice and three tonnes of paddy, along with 600 weight of soap. To ensure the inhabitants could process the paddy, they provided a hand-mill, wooden pestles, and mortars. The instructions specified that the paddy should first be ground in the mill to remove the outward husk and bran, then placed in the wooden mortar and beaten with pestles to remove the lower skin, making it white and fit for use. In addition to the provisions, the Surat council complied with the directive to send goats of Camerid, specifically six males and a number of females distributed across the various ships. The Governor of St Helena was strictly commanded to keep these animals separate to prevent them from degenerating through mixture with other breeds. The letter, signed by Thomas Rolt and his colleagues, concluded with a note that the processing machinery was laden on board the President. Interpretations: Swally Marine: This was the protected roadstead and landing place for Surat, serving as the primary maritime hub for the Company’s operations in Western India. Paddy: The detailed instructions for milling and beating suggest that the Company was introducing a new staple crop to the island’s diet which required specific technical knowledge to prepare. Goates of Camerid: This confirms that the goats mentioned in the London dispatch as Panamides were the same as these Camerid goats, highlighting a coordinated effort to establish a wool industry. 30 January 1678: This date falls before 25 March, so the year is adjusted forward from the original 1677 to reflect the modern calendar. Speculations The provision of a hand-mill and mortars was probably a response to previous failures in processing raw grain on the island without the proper equipment. Thomas Rolt: As the President at Surat, Rolt was responsible for coordinating the vast trade network that linked the Indian subcontinent with the Atlantic outposts. |
71 | 90 | Report: Invoice of Goods Received by Sea To ye Worshipp & Honble Fort St George Janry 23: 1677 The Honble Compy having Impowered us to send You five Tuns of Rice & one Tunn of paddy upon | The Council at Fort St George, in a dispatch dated 23 January 1678, confirmed that the Honble Company had empowered them to supply St Helena with five tonnes of rice and one tonne of paddy on each ship returning home from the Coast of Coromandel. They reported that this quantity, or more, had been laden upon each of the four ships bound for the Island. The Council noted that the rice from their region was of a coarser grain than that found in Surat or Bengal, though the supply sent was both new and of good quality. A significant warning was included regarding the storage and consumption of paddy. While paddy was known to keep longer than husked rice, the Council cautioned that after five years it became less wholesome. They shared a recent observation from a local siege conducted by Sevagee, where many men died from a bloody flux after eating rice made from six or eight-year-old paddy. Consequently, the Governor and Council of St Helena were advised to follow the custom of changing their grain stores every two or three years to ensure the provisions remained as wholesome as a new harvest. Interpretations: Fort St George: As the Company’s headquarters on the Coromandel Coast, this fort served as the primary collection point for goods and intelligence in Southern India. Bloody Flux: This term refers to dysentery, a common and often fatal ailment in the seventeenth century, which the Council here explicitly links to the consumption of degraded or fermented grain. Seaagee: This is a contemporary English spelling of Shivaji, the Maratha ruler whose military campaigns against local forts provided the Company with this grim lesson in food safety. 23 January 1678: This date falls before 25 March, so the year is adjusted forward from the original 1677 to reflect the modern calendar. Speculations The warning about old paddy was probably intended to prevent the St Helena garrison from hoarding ancient stores that could prove more dangerous than a temporary shortage. Paddy will keep Longr: The Council’s advice highlights the strategic balance between the longevity of unhusked grain and the health risks of long-term storage in tropical or humid climates. |
72 | 91 | Wee have also sent You upon each of these In Regard Wee understand yt [...] is acceptable Yours very loving Friends | The Council at Fort St George continued their instructions in this dispatch from 23 January 1678, confirming that they had sent a bundle of seed paddy upon each of the four returning ships. Each barrel contained a different variety suited to the various seasons of the year, accompanied by a paper of directions for their cultivation. To assist in processing these grains, a large wooden pestle and mortar, identical to those used by the local population in India, were shipped on the William. The Council noted that they had considered sending experienced individuals to demonstrate the management and pounding of corn, but they deferred this decision until receiving further advice from the Governor or the Company in London. In addition to the agricultural supplies, the Council acknowledged that certain provisions would be acceptable and serviceable for the encouragement of the men on the Island, particularly if they were to face periods of scarcity. Consequently, they sent two casks of spirits, one on the Nathaniel and the other on the Society, as a present to the Governor and Council. The letter concluded with a recommendation to the protection of Almighty God and was signed by Streynsham Master, John Bridges, Timothy Wilkes, and others. Interpretations: Streynsham Master: As the Agent at Fort St George, Master was responsible for overseeing the Company’s interests on the Coromandel Coast and ensuring the logistical support for outposts like St Helena. Seed Paddy: The provision of several varieties of seed suggests a sophisticated attempt to determine which types of rice would best adapt to the specific climate and seasonal variations of the Island. Wooden Pestle and Morter: The reliance on traditional Indian tools for grain processing indicates that the Company preferred proven methods for handling paddy, which was a new crop for the Atlantic settlers. Casks of Spirits: These were probably intended to boost the morale of the garrison and planters, acting as both a luxury and a strategic reserve during times of hardship. 23 January 1678: This date falls before 25 March, so the year is adjusted forward from the original 1677 to reflect the modern calendar. Speculations The decision to withhold expert labourers was probably due to the high cost and difficulty of transporting people compared to the relatively simple dispatch of tools and written instructions. |
73 | 92 | [...] Fort St George 28th Jan: 1678 Invoice of Rice and Paddy laden by ye Right | The Council at Fort St George issued an invoice on 28 January 1678 for the rice and paddy laden under the direction of Streynsham Master and his colleagues. These provisions were shipped on behalf of the Company of Merchants of London Trading to the East Indies aboard the William, a vessel of approximately 600 tonnes. Under the command of its Captain, the ship was bound for St Helena from the Coast of Coromandel. The document provided a formal record of the cargo and its associated costs as part of the essential supply chain supporting the Island. Interpretations: Streynsham Master: As the Agent at Fort St George, his oversight of this invoice confirms that the highest levels of the Company’s administration in India were directly involved in provisioning St Helena. The William: This vessel, of a similar size to the Johannah, illustrates the consistent use of large-capacity ships to transport the heavy tonnage of grain required to sustain the colony. 28 January 1678: This date is recorded in the original manuscript as 1678 because the Council at Fort St George was perhaps already using a different calendar convention, or it simply aligns with the modern year as it falls after the beginning of January. Coast of Coromandel: The supply of rice from this region was a critical alternative to European grains, which often spoiled during the long voyage across the equator. Probably: The specific mention of the ship being bound for St Helena and then home to London highlights the Island’s role as the indispensable refreshment station for the Company’s entire Eastern fleet. |
74 | 93 | Fort St George ye 28th of Jan: 1678 Invoice of Rice and Paddy Laden by ye Right Report: Invoice of Goods Received by Sea | The Council at Fort St George issued a further invoice on 28 January 1678 for the rice and paddy laden under the direction of Streynsham Master and the Council. These provisions were shipped for the use of the Honourable Company of Merchants of London Trading to the East Indies upon the ship Ealeon, a vessel of approximately 600 tonnes. Under the command of Captain Stafford for the present voyage, the ship was bound for St Helena. The goods were formally consigned to the Governor and Council of the Island, with the document providing a record of the specific particulars and costs of the cargo. Interpretations: Streynsham Master: As the Governor and Agent at Fort St George, his personal oversight of these shipments confirms the priority the Company placed on the agricultural security of St Helena. Ealeon: The deployment of another 600 tonne vessel alongside the William and the Johannah demonstrates the massive scale of the logistical operation required to supply the Island from both London and India in 1678. 28 January 1678: This date aligns with the modern calendar and follows the earlier dispatches from the Coromandel Coast regarding the variety of seed paddy and the warnings about grain storage. Captain Stafford: As the commander of the Ealeon, Stafford was responsible for delivering this vital portion of the annual grain supply, which was probably essential for the maintenance of the garrison. Probably: The use of the phrase “by ye almighty Commission” in the invoice was probably a standard formal expression of the time, reflecting the perceived divine sanction of the Company’s maritime and commercial ventures. Invoice of Goods Received by Sea: This ledger entry provided the necessary documentation for the Governor at St Helena to verify the weight and quality of the Indian rice and paddy upon its arrival. |
75 | 94 | Fort St George ye 28 Janry 1678 Invoice of Rice Paddy and Arrack Laden by ye Right Worpl Report: Invoice of Goods Received by Sea | The Council at Fort St George issued a further invoice on 28 January 1678 for the rice, paddy, and arrack laden under the direction of Streynsham Master and the Council. These provisions were shipped on the account of the Honble Company of Merchants of London Trading to the East Indies upon the ship Society, a vessel of approximately 470 tonnes. Under the command of Captain Thompson for the present voyage, the ship was bound for St Helena. The goods were consigned to the Governor and Council of the Island, with the document providing a record of the specific particulars and costs of the cargo. Interpretations: Arrack: The inclusion of this spirit in the invoice confirms the earlier promise from the Council at Fort St George to send a gift of alcohol to the Island’s leadership to encourage the men. Society: Although smaller than the 600-tonne ships like the Johannah and the Ealeon, this 470-tonne vessel still carried a significant portion of the annual grain and liquor supply for St Helena. 28 January 1678: This date remains consistent with the modern calendar and marks the coordinated departure of multiple supply ships from the Coast of Coromandel. Captain Thompson: As the commander of the Society, Thompson was responsible for the safe delivery of both the essential food stores and the medicinal or recreational spirits for the garrison. Probably: The shipment of arrack was probably intended to serve as a high-value commodity for the public table or as a reward for the soldiers and planters during difficult periods of labour. Invoice of Goods Received by Sea: This record allowed the accountants at St Helena to cross-reference the arrival of the Society’s cargo against the master lists sent from the Council in India. |
76 | 95 | Report: Invoice of Goods Received by Sea and public works, arranged by trade Report: Shortage of Goods Received by Sea Compared with Invoice | Report: Invoice of Goods Received by Sea and public works, arranged by trade Report: Shortage of Goods Received by Sea Compared with Invoice |
77 | 96 | [...] [...] & [...] London 8th November 1678 [...] last unto You was dated ye 15th of March 1677 sent Wee suppose You make use of our Cannon & the Iron Shott What you write concerning [...] [...] the [...] Wee having received a Letter from [...] [...] our You are also to permitt [...] [...] [...] [...] | The Company directors in London issued a dispatch dated 8 November 1678, acknowledging their previous letters sent by the Johanna on 15 March 1678. They confirmed the appointment of Major Blackmore as Governor to fill the vacancy left by the previous official who died in an accident. The directors expressed their desire for the new administration to observe the directions for the rule and government of the island as far as local conditions would permit. Responding to reports received from St Helena in March and May 1678, the directors noted the severe shortage of provisions the inhabitants had faced. They expressed significant surprise that the planters had not yet raised a sufficient store of food through their own labours. The Company attributed this failure to a lack of industry and voiced their hope that Major Blackmore’s government would encourage better husbandry and improvement of the allotted ground to prevent such future necessity. Regarding military stores, the Governor was ordered to be extremely sparing in the expenditure of cannon, iron shot, and muskets, using them only in cases of extraordinary emergency. The dispatch also addressed individual personnel matters. A stranger who had previously deserted the island on a ship was given permission to return to his own country, with the costs of his passage to be recovered from the estate and shop he left behind. Furthermore, the Company granted the request of a minister to return to England, providing him passage on the first available ship and noting a payment of twenty-five pounds made for his use. Similar permission was granted to other individuals following applications made by their relations in England. Interpretations: 8 November 1678: This date remains the same in both the old and modern calendars as it falls after the March transition, representing the Company’s late autumn instructions to the island. Died in that accident: This probably refers to the death of Governor Richard Keigwin or another senior official whose sudden passing necessitated the urgent appointment of Major Blackmore. Better way of husbandry: The directors’ frustration suggests they viewed St Helena as potentially self-sufficient and blamed the recent food shortages on the perceived laziness of the settlers rather than environmental factors. Sparing in expending: The strict orders regarding ammunition reflect the high cost and difficulty of shipping heavy iron shot and gunpowder from England to a remote Atlantic outpost. 15 March 1678: The reference to this date confirms that the March invoice for the Johanna, though recorded as 1677 in the original ledger, took place in the modern year of 1678. Speculations The Company’s decision to allow the minister and other inhabitants to return to England was perhaps a way to reduce the number of “useless mouths” on the island during a time of precarious food supply. |
78 | 97 | Wee are troubled here And considering how troublesome the times are like to And soe committing you to the guidance & protection We shall by ye first opportunity take care to [...] Moore Yours loving friends Vera Copia concordat [...] Legge | The Company directors in London expressed significant concern in this dispatch from 8 November 1678 regarding the reported disorders among the Council and other inhabitants on St Helena. They voiced their expectation that these internal conflicts had been thoroughly examined and corrected by the time this letter arrived, requesting a particular account of the resolution. Given the troublesome geopolitical climate and the uncertain relations between the King and other European nations, the directors emphasized the urgent need for the fortification of the Island. The Governor was ordered to guard all avenues susceptible to invasion. To improve the Island’s readiness, the Company commanded the immediate establishment of a signal fire system across several parts of the Island. This network was intended to provide instant notice of an enemy’s approach, particularly during the night when the risk of a surprise attack was highest. Finally, the directors promised to send a replacement chaplain following the departure of Mr Browne. The letter was signed by a large committee including Governor Nathaniel Herne and Deputy William Thompson, with the text later certified as a true copy by Stephen Legge. Interpretations: Disorders amongst those in Councell: This probably refers to the factionalism and administrative instability that Major Blackmore was sent to resolve following the death of his predecessor. Troublesome the times are like to bee: This reflects the broader European tensions of 1678, specifically the anxieties surrounding the Franco-Dutch War and its potential impact on English maritime interests. Signal fires: The use of beacons was a practical necessity for St Helena’s rugged terrain, where visual communication from high ridges was the fastest way to alert the coastal batteries of an approaching fleet. His Maties: This refers to King Charles II, whose foreign policy directly dictated the security status of the Company’s overseas territories. Speculations The Company’s insistence on the signal fire system was perhaps a response to previous incidents where foreign ships had entered the roadstead before the garrison could fully man the forts. 8 November 1678: This date remains the same in the modern calendar, representing the Company’s final strategic updates for the Island before the end of the year. |
79 | 98 | [...] Wee writ you this day [...] by the [...] 600 mds Rice which Wee should bee glad to understand safe arrived wth you & [...] & Merchandizes arrived here Bombay [...] Yor affectionate Friends Tho [...] [...] [...] | The Council at Surat provided a final update in this dispatch from January 1679, confirming the substantial supplies sent to St Helena during the previous year. They detailed the cargo shipped on the Sampson, President, and Unicorn, which included 600 maunds of rice and 150 maunds of paddy. To ensure the inhabitants could process these grains, they included 600 test of oars, a rice mill, and a set of mortars and pestles. Notably, the Council also sent two women experienced in the dressing of paddy to provide practical instruction to the islanders. The shipment further included six Cammia goats as part of the ongoing effort to establish a local livestock industry. The Surat directors expressed their hope that these vessels had a favourable departure from the Island and reached England safely. They acknowledged receipt of letters from St Helena dated the previous year and noted the reports concerning the state of Lemon Valley and other fortifications. The Council reaffirmed their readiness to furnish any further particulars or quantities of goods required by the Governor, provided they received the necessary orders from the Company in London. The letter, written in some haste, concluded with a commendation to the protection of God Almighty and was signed by Thomas Rolt and his colleagues. Interpretations: Maunds: This was a traditional unit of weight in India, and its use in the invoice shows how the Company’s regional administrations in the East maintained their own accounting standards when supplying Atlantic outposts. Two women for dressing of Paddy: This represents a shift from the earlier hesitation at Fort St George; the Surat Council decided that physical demonstration by experts was the most effective way to teach the St Helena settlers how to process Indian grain. Cammia Goates: The repeated mention of these animals across multiple dispatches in 1678 and 1679 underscores the high strategic value the Company placed on diversifying the Island’s economy through wool production. January 1679: This date aligns with the modern calendar as it falls at the beginning of the year following the 1678 dispatches, showing the continued arrival of Indian supplies under Major Blackmore’s government. Speculations The haste mentioned at the end of the letter was probably due to the imminent departure of the homeward-bound fleet, leaving the Council little time to finalize their extensive administrative paperwork. Bombay: The reference to this port highlights its growing importance as a naval and commercial base for the Company on the western coast of India, serving as a collection point for goods bound for St Helena. |
80 | 99 | [...] of the honer [...] Gen [...] By the [...] of their [...] Parties you [...] of ye [...] Parties And it is further agreed yt if at ye [...] | The Company issued a further directive on 28 March 1679 concerning the maritime manning requirements for ships returning from the East Indies. This clause established a formal procedure for when a vessel arrived at St Helena without its full complement of seamen. In such instances, the Governor and Councill were empowered to place a sufficient number of seamen or other persons on board to make up the deficiency. These individuals were to be transported to England at the expense of the ship’s owners. Furthermore, the Company agreed to pay for the passage of any such persons to ensure the ships were properly navigated for the remainder of their voyage. This policy was intended to address the frequent problem of desertion or illness among crews during the long passage from India. The Governor was instructed to provide a formal letter to the commander of each ship at St Helena, documenting any such additions to the crew for the account of the owners and the Company. Interpretations: Full Complement: This requirement was perhaps a critical safety measure to ensure that heavily laden merchantmen were not lost in the North Atlantic due to a lack of able-bodied seamen. St Helena: The Island’s role as a mandatory stop for homeward-bound ships made it the logical point for the Company to inspect and rectify any deficiencies in the shipping contracts. 28 March 1679: This date falls just after the New Year of 25 March, meaning it remains 1679 in both the old and modern calendars. At ye Charge of ye Owners: The financial burden for missing crew members was placed on the private ship owners, providing a strong incentive for them to maintain a full and healthy crew throughout the voyage. Probably: The “other persons” mentioned as potential crew were probably soldiers or planters who had completed their five-year service and were entitled to a free passage back to England. Major Blackmore: As Governor, Blackmore was responsible for enforcing these maritime regulations, ensuring that no ship departed St Helena in an unseaworthy or undermanned condition. |
81 | 100 | Report: Invoice for Goods Received by Sea | Report: Invoice for Goods Received by Sea |
82 | 101 | Report: Invoice for Goods Received by Sea | Report: Invoice for Goods Received by Sea |
83 | 102 | Our [...] & Council London 10th May 1679 Wee have recd yor severall of ye 4th December & January Wee take notice you desiring you write for yt provisions [...] wee desire to keep yt comes wth you those Wee have information that our shipps from India have [...] | The Company directors in London issued a further dispatch dated 10 May 1679, acknowledging receipt of several letters from St Helena dated December and January. They expressed satisfaction that the recent shipments of goods and freight had arrived safely after a quick passage. However, the directors addressed the Governor and Councill with a firm warning regarding the island’s dependency on imported food. While they acknowledged that provisions were necessary to accommodate the inhabitants, they stressed that such supplies must not be allowed to discourage local husbandry. The directors stated their desire to avoid the significant inconveniences and charges associated with sending large quantities of food from England. They noted a concern that the constant expectation of supplies from home made the planters less industrious in producing their own food, even though self-sufficiency was vital for their own safety, health, and benefit. Consequently, the Company strictly ordered that the island should not expect further provisions from England for the present, as a reasonable stock had already been provided. The Governor was urged to ensure the inhabitants applied themselves to the sowing of corn and the planting of all necessary provisions to create a secure local store. Interpretations: Self-Sufficiency: The Company’s refusal to send more food was probably a strategic move to force the settlers into agricultural labor, as the high cost of shipping grain across the Atlantic was becoming a financial burden. Less Industrious: The directors clearly believed that the planters were relying on the Company as a safety net rather than developing the island’s own fertile ground. 10 May 1679: This date is consistent across both calendars and represents a period of consolidation for Major Blackmore’s government as he was tasked with enforcing these strict new labor expectations. Inconveniences and Charges: This refers to the logistical difficulty of ensuring food remained wholesome during the long voyage and the high freight rates charged by the ship owners. Speculations The mention of “small shipps” suggests that the Company was considering more frequent, smaller logistical runs rather than relying solely on the large 600-tonne East Indiamen for all supplies. Planters: The tension between the Company’s desire for commercial crops and the settlers’ need for basic food staples is evident in the demand for a better balance in plantation management. |
84 | 103 | [...] you to examine the [...] Wee take notice that you have put the Island into a [...] Samuel & [...] In this ship we have laden a Packet containing 10 May 1679 Your loving friends [...] Thompson John Paige James [...] Vera Copia [...] | The Company directors in London issued their final instructions on 10 May 1679, addressing both commercial security and the management of the island population. They ordered the Governor to investigate reports that ships from India, including those carrying Negroes, had been landing unauthorised merchandise. For the future, no ships were permitted to land any goods except those required for the necessary use of the markets, and the Negro ships were strictly forbidden from taking in any such merchandise. Acknowledging that the island had been put into a good posture of defence and noting that the King was at peace with his neighbours, the directors sought to reduce the costs associated with the garrison. They suggested that as the inhabitants were now numerous, it might be possible to allow those willing to return from Bengal to do so by degrees, ensuring not too many departed in a single year. To save on transportation and extraordinary charges, these individuals were to take their passage on ships that lacked their full complement of men. Finally, the directors noted that specific individuals, including those who went out on the Samuel, were permitted to return by the first available shipping. The dispatch, which included invoices and bills of lading for a new packet of goods, was signed by Governor Nathaniel Herne, Deputy William Thompson, and several other committee members. Interpretations: Negro ships: This refers to vessels involved in the slave trade, which the Company sought to regulate strictly to prevent them from undermining the official monopoly on general merchandise. Good posture: This suggests that Major Blackmore had successfully implemented the fortifications and signal fire systems ordered in the previous year, allowing the directors to consider a reduction in military spending. Full complement of men: This confirms the earlier 28 March 1679 directive, showing that the Company used returning inhabitants to solve the logistical problem of undermanned ships. 10 May 1679: This date marks the end of this particular sequence of administrative records, illustrating the transition from urgent military reinforcement to long-term economic management. Probably: The decision to allow people to leave “by degrees” was probably intended to prevent a sudden vacuum in the island’s militia or labour force which could have left the remaining settlers vulnerable. Speculations The Company’s focus on “necessary use” for the markets was perhaps an attempt to curb the burgeoning private trade that often competed with the Company’s own Joint Stock interests. |
85 | 104 | [...] St Helena Fort St George [...] [...] 1679/80 By this homeward ship the William [...] The Honᵇˡ Company have ordered us to give you Your affectionate Friends Streynsham Master Richard [...] [...] was brought by Vera Copia [...] | The Council at Fort St George issued a final dispatch to St Helena dated between January and March 1680, sent home via the William. They confirmed the shipment of a fresh recruit of paddy and arrack to the island. The Council noted that rice had grown very dear in their region and, having received only a small store from Bengal, they were unable to provide the usual large quantities. Consequently, they limited the supply to ten bags for each of the three returning ships—the Golden Grove, the Success, and the George—amounting to thirty bags in total. The Council also reiterated the Honble Company’s order regarding the manning of homeward-bound vessels. In the event that any ship arrived at St Helena without its full complement of seamen, the Governor was instructed to supply the necessary men if possible. These individuals were to be carried home to England without charge to the Company, as specified in the recent Charter Party agreements sent for the guidance of the local administration. The letter, signed by Streynsham Master and his colleagues, was later certified as a true copy by a local official. Interpretations: 1679/80: This double dating confirms that while the document was written in the legal year 1679, it falls in the modern year of 1680. Under the old calendar, the year 1680 would not have officially begun until 25 March. Rice being grown very dear: This suggests that a local shortage or crop failure in India had forced the Company to prioritize paddy, which was perhaps more readily available or cheaper to procure than husked rice at the time. Ten Bagg: The reduction from tonnes to a small number of bags per ship shows how fluctuating market conditions in the East could directly impact the food security of the St Helena garrison. Full Complement of Seamen: The repeated emphasis on this directive highlights the Company’s ongoing struggle with maritime desertion and the vital role of the island as a final checkpoint for the safety of the fleet. Probably: The lack of an invoice from Bengal was probably due to the same logistical disruptions that caused the scarcity of rice, leaving the Council at Fort St George to supply the island from their own limited coastal stores. Golden Grove: The mention of this ship alongside the William and the George illustrates the continuous stream of vessels stopping at St Helena to deliver essential supplies from the Indian administrative hubs. |
86 | 105 | London 31 May 1679 on the Casar Invoice of Goods laden by the Governᵣ and Compᵃ Report: Invoice for Goods Received by Sea | The Council at Fort St George issued a final dispatch to St Helena dated between January and March 1680, sent home via the William. They confirmed the shipment of a fresh recruit of paddy and arrack to the island. The Council noted that rice had grown very dear in their region and, having received only a small store from Bengal, they were unable to provide the usual large quantities. Consequently, they limited the supply to ten bags for each of the three returning ships—the Golden Grove, the Success, and the George—amounting to thirty bags in total. The Council also reiterated the Honble Company’s order regarding the manning of homeward-bound vessels. In the event that any ship arrived at St Helena without its full complement of seamen, the Governor was instructed to supply the necessary men if possible. These individuals were to be carried home to England without charge to the Company, as specified in the recent Charter Party agreements sent for the guidance of the local administration. The letter, signed by Streynsham Master and his colleagues, was later certified as a true copy by a local official. Interpretations: 1679/80: This double dating confirms that while the document was written in the legal year 1679, it falls in the modern year of 1680. Under the old calendar, the year 1680 would not have officially begun until 25 March. Rice being grown very dear: This suggests that a local shortage or crop failure in India had forced the Company to prioritize paddy, which was perhaps more readily available or cheaper to procure than husked rice at the time. Ten Bagg: The reduction from tonnes to a small number of bags per ship shows how fluctuating market conditions in the East could directly impact the food security of the St Helena garrison. Full Complement of Seamen: The repeated emphasis on this directive highlights the Company’s ongoing struggle with maritime desertion and the vital role of the island as a final checkpoint for the safety of the fleet. Probably: The lack of an invoice from Bengal was probably due to the same logistical disruptions that caused the scarcity of rice, leaving the Council at Fort St George to supply the island from their own limited coastal stores. Golden Grove: The mention of this ship alongside the William and the George illustrates the continuous stream of vessels stopping at St Helena to deliver essential supplies from the Indian administrative hubs. |
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89 | 108 | [...] [...] & [...] London [...] of March 1679/80 Our [...] unto you was by the shipp [...] of the 10 [...] last copy In answer to ye [...] wee [...] you have with some [...] Laws In those Orders you will find the service wee require of those In reference to the granting out Lands to the Planters, and That you take a survey of all the plantable Lands, not [...] That for the other halfe of such Lands that are not yet [...] the That no person be admitted a free Planter or have any Land allotted That every single man sent out of England by the Company who hath had [...] acres [...] | The Company directors in London issued a significant policy update in March 1680, responding to a series of letters received from St Helena throughout 1679. This dispatch formalised the transition of the island from a mere military outpost to a settled colony governed by a strict code of laws. The directors required these laws to be published immediately so that every inhabitant understood their obligations. A central tenet of this new order was the link between land ownership and military service; for every specified acreage granted, the planter was required to maintain one man capable of bearing arms for the guard. The Company hoped that this militia would eventually eliminate the need and expense of sending professional soldiers from England. The dispatch also introduced a new land management strategy. The Governor was ordered to conduct a comprehensive survey of all plantable land not yet allotted. Half of this remaining land was to be reserved exclusively for the Company’s future use, while the other half was to be granted to settlers under strict conditions. To encourage stable domestic settlement, the Company refined its marriage and land grant incentives. While men in the Company’s direct pay were generally barred from becoming free planters, those who married English women or the widows of former planters were granted specific allotments of land and livestock to support their new households. Interpretations: 1679/80: This date confirms the document was written in March 1680 according to the modern calendar, as it falls just before the 25 March New Year of the old system. Land for Arms: This policy was probably the most critical administrative shift of the period, as it effectively turned the civilian population into a permanent, self-funding garrison. One halfe... reserved: The decision to withhold fifty per cent of all unallotted land shows the Company’s long-term desire to maintain direct control over the island’s most fertile resources. English Woman sent out: The specific incentives for marrying women sent from England highlight the Company’s effort to create a permanent, loyal British demographic on St Helena. By degrees: The instruction to train the planters in military service “by degrees” suggests the directors were aware that a sudden imposition of heavy guard duties might spark resentment or neglect of the farms. Speculations The survey of “quantity and quality” of the land was perhaps an attempt by the London directors to verify if the previous reports of food shortages were due to poor soil or simply the lack of industry they had previously alleged. |
90 | 109 | [...] [...] [...] from thence with a free man’s daughter that hath no land, then upon such intermarriage he shall have two acres of land more and another Cow given him. 7 That if the sonne of any free Planter shall intermarry with an English woman sent out by the Comp[any] (if his father hath land) some part thereof to him, the said woman when she disposes to marry him or if his father be living at the time of such intermarriage, he shall have a proportion of his father’s land, and a Cow given him, but if his father hath no land or part thereof to dispose, then he upon such intermarriage shall have only 50 acres of land and one Cow given him. 8 That any Englishman whether the sonne of a free Planter or servant living on the Island (not being in the Company’s pay) to whom no land hath been given, that shall happen to marry with a free woman or Planter in a like proportion of land as above shall have given him or otherwise so that he shall be provided for, and if he have no more land or Cattle assigned, but if he have a father living then there shall be some allowance given him upon such intermarriage. 9 [...] you are to observe in the apportioning of lands to Planters where the halfe of the plantation is already disposed of, and that no more lands is to be assigned to any than the Company being resolved to preserve the other halfe [...] not intended to send any more Planters, but to the due order of the Island, as to the allotting them by our former order of the [...] 1677. 10 Moreover we send you the petition of Capt[ain] Will[ia]m Powle and [...] that fell within this Rule prescribed by you, and would have you grant them [...] as they all [...] to have too many black men on the plantation, lest they mutiny and overpower the English, and the oftnering the sending them is about to be ordered, on the Island we require that no more blacks be brought over at present without special order from us, and strictly enjoin this order to the inhabitants that they may conform hereunto. 11 As to the bringing away we do approve of what you have proposed and do order that all the servants in the Company’s pay be allowed to remain in the Island and goods, and that if any of them desire to come home that they be not denied passage, and also that such as will after their term of years desire to remain upon the Island shall not be hindered. 12 [...] you are to take care that the last improvement be made upon Plantations by keeping your servants constantly at work for melioration of the ground. | The Company directors concluded their March 1680 dispatch with further refinements to the land grant system, specifically focusing on the children of free planters and the management of the island’s labour force. If the son of a free planter married an English woman sent out by the Company, he was entitled to a portion of his father’s land and a cow; if no paternal land was available, the Company granted him fifty acres and a cow. Similar provisions were made for other Englishmen on the island to ensure they were sufficiently provided for upon marriage, provided they were not already in the Company’s pay. The directors reiterated their firm resolve to preserve half of all unallotted lands for the Company’s own future use, stating that no further land should be assigned once the available portion was exhausted. Regarding the population balance, the Company expressed a stern warning against having too many black men on the plantations for fear they might mutiny and overpower the English inhabitants. Consequently, they strictly enjoined that no more blacks be brought to the island without a special order. Finally, the directors approved a policy allowing Company servants to remain on the island after their term of service if they wished, while ensuring that those who desired to return home were not denied passage. The Governor was tasked with ensuring that all servants were kept constantly at work to improve and meliorate the ground. Interpretations: Intermarriage: The elaborate rules for land grants based on marriage confirm the Company’s strategic use of property to encourage the growth of a permanent English civilian population. Mutiny and Overpower: This clause reveals the deep-seated security anxieties of the London directors, who feared that a numerical imbalance between the English settlers and enslaved or imported labourers could lead to an uprising. 50 acres: The significant size of this grant for the sons of planters suggests that the Company was still eager to expand the agricultural footprint of the island, provided it was managed by loyal English subjects. Melioration: The constant emphasis on the improvement of the ground reflects the directors’ ongoing obsession with making St Helena a self-sustaining asset that would eventually require zero food imports from England or India. Speculations The decision to allow Company servants to become planters was probably a way to retain experienced men on the island who were already accustomed to the local climate and conditions. March 1680: This final set of instructions established the socio-economic framework that would define the development of St Helena for the remainder of the seventeenth century. |
91 | 110 | [...] [...] [...] for ever keeping one stock of tame Cattle as much as may be and that you suffer none thereof to make use of them to any particular use, but for the publick, that the number of them may be increased, and that the Governor shall take charge of the publick stock with care and that none of the shipping in harbour have any dealings to dispose of or use them more than what shall be ordered, and that you are to keep an exact account and transmit the same hither. 14 You are likewise sent to be Cap[tain] of the forces of our Island [...] more especially considering the flourishing condition of the Island [...] and that you may have a clear state of our concerns on the Island, we have sent out there a stock sufficient to maintain a number of hands upon the Island, from whence you may draw supplies of Rice and Paddy which you have had from India, and we doubt not that you will take care to be as frugal and just in the management thereof for the future. 15 We have sent you a letter of the 20th of November last by the Phoenix which duplicate of the other [...] from whence we do not doubt but you will receive it and observe what is therein contained, and we have likewise sent you an account of goods, in consideration whereof had, and to the end that a just account may for the future be taken, and that all our servants and workmen remain in their employments, we have given order that all the goods sent to the Island be accounted for and delivered according to the following method to be observed in the receiving, issuing and delivering forth thereof. 16
17 We do appoint that upon the arrival of the shipping with you, after the landing of the goods thereon sent, a survey be taken by you and the Governor and Council of all the goods, and the said goods that shall remain in your hands, and that the same be charged with the Storekeeper, and that the same be issued out by warrant from the Governor and Council and not otherwise, and in case our husband Cap[tain] Anthony Beale shall refuse to observe the above [...]. | The Council at Fort St George issued an invoice on 28 January 1678 for rice and paddy laden by Streynsham Master and the Council for the use of the Honourable Company of Merchants of London Trading to the East Indies. These provisions were shipped upon the Ealeon, a vessel of approximately 600 tonnes under the command of Captain Stafford. The ship was bound by the almighty Commission for the Island of St Helena, with goods consigned to the Governor and Council of the Island. A second invoice issued on the same day recorded rice, paddy, and arrack laden upon the ship Society, a vessel of 470 tonnes commanded by Captain Thompson, also bound for St Helena with goods consigned to the Governor and Council. The Company directors in London issued a dispatch on 8 November 1678 acknowledging their previous letters sent by the Johanna on 15 March 1677, which confirmed the appointment of Major Blackmore as Governor in the room of the official who died in that accident. The directors noted the great want of provisions reported from the Island and expressed wonder that the inhabitants had not raised a sufficient store from their own labours and industry. They ordered the Governor to put them upon a better way of husbandry for the improving of the ground already allotted to them. Orders were given to use cannon, iron shot, and muskets only in cases of extraordinary emergency and to be sparing with the banded powder. The Company granted the return of a stranger to his own country, with the costs to be made good from his estate and shop. They also permitted the minister to return to England, noting a payment of twenty-five pounds for his use, and allowed other individuals passage upon application by their relations. The directors expressed trouble regarding disorders in the Council and expected a particular account of their regulation. Given the troublesome times and uncertain affairs between the King and other European nations, they ordered the Governor to provide fortifications and guard all avenues against invasion. A system of signal fires was to be established across the Island to provide notice of an enemy’s approach during the night. A replacement chaplain was promised in the room of Mr Browne. In January 1679 the Council at Surat sent 600 maunds of rice, 150 maunds of paddy, 600 test of oars, 6 Cammia goats, a rice mill, mortars, pestles, and 2 women for dressing paddy. They confirmed their readiness to furnish further particulars as ordered. A directive on 28 March 1679 established that if a ship arrived at St Helena without a full complement of seamen, the Governor could supply men to be brought home at the owners- charge. On 10 May 1679 the directors addressed the need for local husbandry to avoid the charges and inconveniences of sending supplies from England. They ordered an examination of Negro ships to prevent the landing of unauthorised merchandise. Noting the Island was in a good posture and the King at peace, they suggested allowing inhabitants from Bengal to return to England by degrees on undermanned ships. The Council at Fort St George reported in 1679/80 that rice had grown dear, leading them to send only 10 bags per ship on the Golden Grove, Success, and George. In March 1679/80 the directors required the publication of laws and orders, including a rule that every 20 acres of land granted must maintain one man able to bear arms for the guard. A survey of all plantable lands was ordered, with one half reserved for the Company and the other half available for grants. No person was to be a free planter while in the Company-s wages. Marriage to a widow of a free planter earned a man 2 acres and a cow, while marrying a daughter of a freeman or an English woman sent from home earned 20 acres and two cows. Sons of planters were to receive 50 acres and a cow if no paternal land was available. The directors warned against having too many black men on plantations to prevent mutiny and required servants to be kept at work for the melioration of the ground. They ordered the maintenance of a public stock of tame cattle under the Governor-s care and established a four-point accounting method for all goods, involving a Storekeeper and a monthly register signed by appointed officials. Interpretations: The almighty Commission: This phrase was probably a standard formal expression used to invoke divine protection over the Company-s maritime voyages to St Helena. Died in that accident: This probably refers to the sudden death of a previous Governor, which necessitated the urgent dispatch of Major Blackmore to restore order. Better way of husbandry: The directors- frustration suggest they believed the settlers were relying on Company supplies rather than exerting the industry required to make the Island self-sufficient. Speculations The decision to send two women for dressing paddy was perhaps the most practical way to ensure the inhabitants learned to process Indian grain correctly. Probably: The warning against too many black men on the plantations was probably rooted in the Company-s fear that a numerical imbalance would lead to an uprising against the English inhabitants. 1679/80: This date confirms the legal transition between the old and modern calendars, showing that these final administrative orders were issued in the spring of 1680. |
92 | 111 | Upon his [...] refusal [...] method above prescribed for the receiving and issuing out of our provisions and goods and stores, We do then authorise you and Council to appoint such other person to be our husband in his stead, and they shall sign all and do for that employment. 18 Wee have considered of what you have written touching the complaint of Sam[ue]l [...] which was committed to his Government, and considering that he hath enjoyed it, and the advantage of some years thereby, and [...] for several years past, and that the complaint upon the same being heard, Wee would have you agree with him [...] for the better [...] you can, not exceeding one hundred pounds, and take a short writing under his hand and seal for the renouncing thereof unto us, and let the same hence be made use of and improved for our service. 19 Also for the preventing of coming away of Planters and others, We do strictly command that none upon any pretence whatsoever shall depart, That upon the arrival of any of our shipping with you and at their departure from the Island, you make known unto the Commanders and Officers of such ships that it is our express order that they suffer none of the Planters or others belonging to the Island to take their passage for England on their ships without the Licence and consent of you our said Governor and Council signified unto them in that behalf. 20 Understanding that the master workmen and labourers employed by you in our works receive greater wages than Wee have directed to be allowed them in our letter of the 15th March 1677, Wee would have you reform such allowances for the future, and to conform to our establishment in that particular. 21 Wee are informed that some persons have designed to return into England from the Island, and that Capt[ain] [...] hath encouraged the same expectation, and that those shipping do bring letters from thence and from the East Indies [...] and that the said Capt[ain] [...] hath been very active [...] and is resolved to undertake a voyage thither, Wee do hereby require you not to permit the said Capt[ain] or any others trading beyond the limits of the Company’s Charter, nor to afford them any countenance, assistance or protection, if their designs be not agreeable to our Trade and commerce. 22 Wee would have you by the next shipping to send to us the best Muscovadoes that are made in your Island which you may be assured are very marketable. Thomas Palmer takes his passage for the Island to be employed in the Company’s service, for whose passage we have not thought fit to make provision, and therefore you are to provide for him and give him encouragement in our service, Wee would have him employed from time to time as he shall be found fit, and do conform himself in the business, and if he shall be found misbehaving himself, provide for him such further employment as may be necessary. | Upon the refusal of the person previously mentioned to observe the prescribed method for the receiving and issuing of provisions, goods, and stores, it was authorised that the Governor and Council appoint another person to serve as the Company husband in his stead. This individual was required to perform all duties and sign all documents related to that employment. Consideration was given to the complaint of Samuel [...] regarding the government that had been committed to him. Given that he had enjoyed the advantages of that position for several years and the complaint had been heard, it was directed that the Governor and Council reach an agreement with him for a sum not exceeding one hundred pounds. A short writing under his hand and seal was to be taken for the renouncing of his claim, so that the same might be improved for the service of the Company. To prevent the departure of planters and others, it was strictly commanded that none should depart upon any pretence whatsoever. Upon the arrival and departure of any shipping, the commanders and officers were to be informed that it was an express order that no planters or island inhabitants be permitted to take passage for England without the licence and consent of the Governor and Council. It was understood that the master workmen and labourers employed in public works had received greater wages than those directed in the letter of 15 March 1678. It was ordered that these allowances be reformed for the future to conform to the established rates. Information was received that some persons designed to return to England and that Captain [...] had encouraged this expectation. It was reported that ships brought letters from the East Indies and that the said Captain was resolved to undertake a voyage. It was required that the Governor and Council not permit the Captain or any others to trade beyond the limits of the Company Charter, and no countenance, assistance, or protection was to be afforded to them if their designs did not agree with the trade and commerce of the Company. It was requested that the best Muscovadoes made on the Island be sent to London by the next shipping as they were considered very marketable. Thomas Palmer took his passage to the Island to be employed in the service of the Company. As no provision had been made for his passage in England, he was to be provided for and encouraged in the service. It was intended that he be employed as he was found fit, provided he conformed to the business, though further necessary employment was to be provided if he misbehaved. Interpretations: Husband: This term refers to the official responsible for the management of the ship-s business and the handling of the Company-s stores and equipment on the Island. Muscovadoes: This refers to unrefined or raw sugar produced on the Island, which the Company directors believed would be a profitable export to the London market. |
93 | 112 | 23 Wee are informed to find that William Rutter is run into debt as by your books appears to the value of 80£ or thereabouts, not having wherewithall to discharge the same, nor any agreement on his part about which contract he was to have his land, and did not pay 10£ per annum to [...] the widow whom he married was possessed of the same, that contrary to our rules and therefore wee do order you to have regard thereof. Wee would have you make up his account upon a plant to establishment in which you will find not allowance for a Muster Master nor for any other office that is but occasionally necessary, and if there be any of the old Opposers of the Isle remaining who then be made to contribute [...] and to make that return to us, you are, but keeping the Island being at an unnecessary charge to you, and that you shall not be assisting or aiding any of them in their voyages homewards. 24 Wee further order that you permit no Planter upon any pretence whatsoever to dispose of his estate upon the Island without first making it known unto you, that such further course may be taken concerning the same, and that they cannot pay in money, and have to pay it in Cattle, or Merchandize [...] at the price current, and that they do put into your hands the said goods or merchandize, and suffer none of the inhabitants to run into debt, nor any of them to take credit for any thing, but what is for their own proper and immediate use, for that wee find that it hath been a common practice of some that have gone away to England to dispose of them to others at very exorbitant rates. 25 Also wee have qualified and do order in appointing the Storekeepers, that they take care that all the goods and stores be delivered and issued out only by warrant, and that they be not permitted to give any credit or trust whatsoever, but to keep strict accounts of all receipts and issues, and that they render their accounts monthly, and not permit any person to receive any goods upon credit, but what shall be approved by you. 26 Wee do further order that Platforms for our guns may be made with stone which will be strong and lasting, and that there is stone on the Island proper for that work, and for making of Lime, and therefore you are to set the inhabitants at work thereupon, and to take care that tools and instruments fit for that service be provided, and 20 tons of Lime (those being most to be expected from India) and therefore would have you give directions for what you shall find necessary to be done therein, and to see that the same be done without any further delay. 27 Wee have said you to take care that Boats be made for Fishing, which you are to keep constantly employed, though the weather be not always favourable, and that such boats be provided with men and provisions sufficient, and that what fish is taken more than will serve the Island be disposed of to the Planters on very reasonable terms, so as to defray the charge of the same, and that none of the Planters shall be suffered to sell fish at unreasonable rates, nor to forestall the market, but that they sell at such rates as shall be appointed by you. | It was understood from the books of the Island that William Rutter had run into debt to the value of eighty pounds or thereabouts. It was noted that he lacked the means to discharge this debt and had made no agreement regarding the contract for his land. Furthermore, he had failed to pay the ten pounds per annum required for the land possessed by the widow whom he had married. As this was contrary to the established rules, it was ordered that regard be had to this matter and that his account be made up according to the plant establishment. Within that establishment, it was found that no allowance was made for a Muster Master or any other office that was only occasionally necessary. It was further directed that if any of the old opposers of the Island remained, they were to be made to contribute to the return, and no assistance or aid was to be afforded to any of them in their voyages homewards, as the Island was being kept at an unnecessary charge. It was further ordered that no planter be permitted, upon any pretence whatsoever, to dispose of his estate on the Island without first making it known to the Governor and Council so that a proper course might be taken. Where payments could not be made in money, they were to be made in cattle or merchandise at the current price. Such goods or merchandise were to be put into the hands of the Governor and Council. It was ordered that no inhabitants be suffered to run into debt or take credit for anything except what was for their own proper and immediate use, as it had been found that some who had gone away to England had practiced disposing of items to others at very exorbitant rates. In the appointment of storekeepers, it was ordered that they take care that all goods and stores be delivered and issued out only by warrant. They were not permitted to give any credit or trust whatsoever but were required to keep strict accounts of all receipts and issues. These accounts were to be rendered monthly, and no person was to be permitted to receive any goods upon credit unless approved by the Governor and Council. It was further ordered that platforms for the guns be made with stone, which was considered strong and lasting. It was noted that proper stone for such work and for the making of lime existed on the Island. Consequently, it was directed that the inhabitants be set to work upon this and that care be taken to provide fit tools and instruments. Directions were to be given for the provision of twenty tonnes of lime, as such was most to be expected from India, and it was required that the work be performed without any further delay. It was directed that care be taken to ensure boats were made for fishing and that they be kept constantly employed, even when the weather was not favourable. It was ordered that such boats be provided with sufficient men and provisions. Any fish taken beyond what was required to serve the Island was to be disposed of to the planters on very reasonable terms to defray the charge of the service. It was strictly ordered that no planters be suffered to sell fish at unreasonable rates or to forestall the market, but rather that they sell at such rates as were appointed by the Governor and Council. Interpretations: Muster Master: This refers to an official responsible for maintaining the accurate roll of the military forces and ensuring that the men and their arms were in proper condition for service. Old Opposers: This term probably refers to those inhabitants or former officials who had resisted the authority of the Company or the established government during previous periods of unrest on the Island. Forestall the market: This refers to the practice of buying up goods before they reached the public market in order to sell them later at a higher, artificial price. |
94 | 113 | 28 Wee have according to the desire of our Governor and Council of the Island sent you out of this Realm, and given leave to his servants to take their passage for the Island, his sonne is to have the like priviledge, and for Planters and to have the allotment of land and live comfortably. 29 Wee have upon the good character given us of Mr Joseph [...] a Clergyman allowed him provision from hence and some assistance in the sum of £50 per annum, to be paid to him for his passage and subsistence, which is not only for the good of the Island, but for the instruction of the people, and to teach the Children of the Inhabitants to read and write, wherein you are to encourage his work, that by God’s blessing on his Ministry the Inhabitants may be brought to learn the ways of God. Wee would have you require that a more diligent attendance be given to his ministry on the Sabbath days according to our rules given you, than hath hitherto been practised, and for Mr [...] to be not come away, he may have his passage home by the next shipping, and accommodate him with what provisions and money shall be convenient. 30 All Thomas Moore the Surgeon having desire to return to the Island, Wee have entertained him in that quality at the salary of £30 per annum, and appointed him 24£ in hand, which is to be paid him at his arrival, and for his passage and family, and Wee hope he will be serviceable to the Island, and for his better support they are to have 3 months provisions allowed them till his plantation can give him subsistence. 31 Wee have by this shipping sent a large supply of Bullion, Coin and merchandizing for the Island, as you will see by the value of £318 [...], which we have ordered to be delivered to Mr [...] by the Governor, and to be issued forth according to our instructions given. 32 As to the large quantity of goods we are sending in our ships, you are to take care that they be preserved from decay, by drying them in the sun and shifting it once a year or oftener as there shall be occasion, and if there be any part of it unserviceable that it be returned to us by the next shipping. 33 Wee have ordered that two small parcels of Cinnamon and Cloves be sent you for tryal, and having notice that they are likely to grow there, you are to plant some of them, and sow so yearly what may produce. 34 The Petition of John Miller, Jonathan [...] John [...] and Thomas Burton having been [...] who desire leave to return for England, Wee would have you permit them to come away in the next shipping, putting them aboard the first of our ships, which are wanting the full complement of their men. 35 Wee have sent you all your desires and we hope with expedition. | It was noted that, according to the desire of the Governor and Council, leave had been given for the servants of the Governor to take their passage to the Island from this Realm. The son of the Governor was granted the like privilege, and it was intended that the planters among them receive an allotment of land so that they might live comfortably. Upon the good character given of Mr Joseph [...], a clergyman, he was allowed provision and assistance in the sum of fifty pounds per annum to be paid for his passage and subsistence. It was intended that his presence serve the good of the Island and the instruction of the people, specifically to teach the children of the inhabitants to read and write. It was ordered that the Governor and Council encourage his work so that, by the blessing of God on his ministry, the inhabitants might be brought to learn the ways of God. It was required that a more diligent attendance be given to his ministry on the Sabbath days, according to the established rules, than had been previously practised. It was directed that if the former minister had not yet departed, he be granted passage home by the next shipping and accommodated with convenient provisions and money. Thomas Moore, the surgeon, having desired to return to the Island, was entertained in that quality at a salary of thirty pounds per annum. It was appointed that twenty-four pounds be paid to him in hand upon his arrival for the use of his passage and family. It was hoped that he would be serviceable to the Island, and for his better support, it was ordered that three months of provisions be allowed to him until his plantation could provide his subsistence. A large supply of bullion, coin, and merchandise for the Island was sent by this shipping, valued at three hundred and eighteen pounds [...]. It was ordered that these be delivered to Mr [...] by the Governor and issued forth according to the instructions previously given. Regarding the large quantity of goods sent in the ships, it was directed that care be taken to preserve them from decay. This was to be achieved by drying them in the sun and shifting them once a year, or more frequently as occasion required. It was ordered that any part of the goods found to be unserviceable be returned to London by the next shipping. It was ordered that two small parcels of cinnamon and cloves be sent for trial. Having received notice that such spices were likely to grow there, it was directed that some be planted and sown yearly to determine what might be produced. The petitions of John Miller, Jonathan [...], John [...], and Thomas Burton, who desired leave to return to England, were considered. It was ordered that the Governor and Council permit them to depart in the next shipping, placing them on board the first of the ships found to be wanting their full complement of men. It was stated that all the desires of the Governor and Council had been sent with expedition. Interpretations: Entertained: This term refers to the formal act of hiring or engaging a person in a professional capacity or employment. Shifting: In the context of preserving goods, this refers to the process of moving, turning, or repacking stored items to prevent dampness, rot, or pest infestation. |
95 | 114 | 36 And as it hath been William Searle is now at liberty to return, so as he dispose with some of his servants for his passage home to save that charge. 37 Wee take notice of what you write concerning the mutiny of the Planters, and their great proneness to excess in drinking, but your care must be the greater to give them good Counsel when they are sober and to keep them in good order for preventing damages, and when any after admonition are found delinquent in that particular, you are to punish the offenders and make them examples of justice. For wee know it is too common a thing in all Plantations for people to be addicted to drunkenness, if they be not kept under due restraint, and whereas you write that there is need of help from us for keeping of them, we are of another opinion and intend to send no more part of our Military force into those Plantations, and to rely upon them, as other Planters do who have no soldiery for their defence. And so committing you and your affairs to the guidance and protection of the Almighty wee remain Yo[u]r Loving Friends, Jos[eph] Child Christopher Wren Sam[uel] Bernardiston Vera Copia exa[mine]d | It was noted that William Searle was at liberty to return to England, provided that he reached an agreement with some of his servants for his passage home to save the Company that charge. Notice was taken of what had been written concerning the mutiny of the planters and their great proneness to excess in drinking. It was stated that the care of the Governor and Council must be the greater to give the inhabitants good counsel when they were sober and to keep them in good order to prevent damages. It was directed that when any individuals were found delinquent in that particular after receiving an admonition, the offenders were to be punished and made examples of justice. It was observed that addiction to drunkenness was a common occurrence in all plantations if people were not kept under due restraint. Whereas it had been written that help was needed from the Company to keep the inhabitants in order, a contrary opinion was held. It was intended that no further part of the military force be sent into those plantations, as it was expected that the inhabitants rely upon themselves for their defence, as other planters did who had no soldiery. The Governor, Council, and their affairs were committed to the guidance and protection of the Almighty. The dispatch was signed by Joseph Child, Chandos, Deputy Robert Thomson, Christopher Wren, John Moore, John Bathurst, John Clerke, Edward Rudge, Richard Hutchinson, Samuel Bernardiston, Abel Ingram, Thomas Papillon, Thomas Canham, Samuel Moyer, and John Cooke. The document was examined as a true copy by [...] Laughton Junior. Interpretations: Christopher Wren: This refers to the celebrated English architect and polymath who, in addition to his architectural works, served as a member of the committee for the East India Company during this period. Vera Copia: This is a Latin legal term meaning a true copy, indicating that the document was officially verified against the original manuscript. |
96 | 115 | New St James Orders from y[e] Comp[any] 20 March 1679 in y[e] 32 year of King Charles the 2d To the Governor and Company of Merchants trading to the East Indies at the Court of Committees held for the said Company at the East India House in London the 20th day of March 1679 Whereas his most sacred Ma[...] hath been graciously pleased by his Royal Charter under the great Seal of England bearing date the 10th December in the 25th year of his said Ma[...] Reign to grant unto us the Island of St Helena, with all the Territories, jurisdictions and appurtenances, and all Soil, Lands, Fields, Woods, Mountains, Rivers &c belonging thereunto, to be held and enjoyed by us and our successors, with power to make laws and establish such orders and Constitutions for the good Government and other use of the said Island, and the same from time to time to revoke and abrogate as by the said Charter doth and may more at large appear And whereas by virtue of several former Orders and directions by us, divers persons have been invited and encouraged to go and inhabit and plant themselves in the said Island, and divers rules and methods have been prescribed for their service, and wee have thought fit to appoint the Inhabitants and Planters to doe from time to time together with other provisions as by our Orders of the 19th December 1673 and the 15th March 1677 And whereas some doubts and questions have arisen concerning the sending, disposing and allotting of Lands and Plantations in what manner and nature the same shall be held, whether in fee or otherwise, and also what shall be the duty and service in the said Island of those possessed of the same, wee have thought fit to the intent that every one may both know the privi[...] of him and the right belonging to him, and to avoid controversies and difficulties, to make, ordain and constitute and in manner hereafter to publish and declare the Rules and Orders hereafter expressed, and require that they may be duly observed in the particular 1 Wee do declare that upon any person or persons coming to inhabit the said Island, there shall be allowed to every such person 20 acres of Land, and that every such person at the least of the age of 16 years or upwards, being a man able to bear Arms, shall have 2 Cows or more, and be ready at all times upon all occasions to serve in the defence of the Island, and to be subject to such Orders as the Governor and Council shall direct And that every such person or persons shall hold but 10 acres and no more, then shall be obliged to maintain one English man at the least able to bear Arms, and also one Cow or more, and the said English man shall always be ready and appear in Arms at occasion as shall be required for the defence | It was recorded that at a Court of Committees held at the East India House in London on 20 March 1680, the Governor and Company of Merchants trading to the East Indies issued several orders for the island of St Helena. It was noted that King Charles II, in the twenty-fifth year of his reign, had been graciously pleased by Royal Charter under the Great Seal of England dated 10 December 1673 to grant the Company the island of St Helena. This grant included all territories, jurisdictions, appurtenances, soil, lands, fields, woods, mountains and rivers to be enjoyed by the Company and its successors. The Charter further provided the power to make laws and establish constitutions for the government of the island, with the authority to revoke or abrogate them as necessary. Reference was made to several former orders and directions by which various persons had been invited and encouraged to inhabit and plant themselves on the island. Rules and methods had been prescribed for their service and the appointment of inhabitants as set out in the orders of 19 December 1673 and 15 March 1678. It was observed that doubts and questions had arisen concerning the sending, disposing and allotting of lands and plantations, specifically regarding the nature of the tenure and whether the lands were held in fee or otherwise. To ensure that every person might know their privileges and rights and to avoid controversies, it was thought fit to ordain and publish the following rules. It was declared that upon any person coming to inhabit the island, twenty acres of land were to be allowed to every such person. It was required that every man of the age of sixteen years or upwards who was able to bear arms should have two cows or more and be ready at all times to serve in the defence of the island under the direction of the Governor and Council. Furthermore, it was ordered that any person holding only ten acres of land was obliged to maintain at least one Englishman able to bear arms and one cow or more. The said Englishman was required to be always ready to appear in arms as needed for the defence of the island. Interpretations: Fee: This refers to fee simple, a legal term signifying absolute ownership of land which can be passed on to heirs, rather than a temporary or conditional lease. 20 March 1679: As this date falls before 25 March, it is converted to the modern year of 1680. 32 year of King Charles the 2d: This regnal year confirms the modern date of 1680, as the reign of Charles II was legally calculated from the death of his father in 1649. |
97 | 116 | [...] of the Island according to Directions and Orders of our Governor and Council from time to time, but it is understood that unless in case of an invasion or general attempt on the Island, when all persons shall be obliged to bear Arms and appear for the defence of the Island, otherwise during such mutual preservation, each person possessing but 10 Acres is to be obliged and is notwithstanding with another that hath also but 10 Acres and so to serve in the said defence alternatively 2 That all lands every person or persons that now possess or enjoy any lands in the said Island or that shall hereafter upon the publication hereof have any lands granted or allotted unto them or them to plant or enjoy, that within 6 months after the publication hereof they shall cause all such lands and plantations to be registered in a book to be kept for that purpose by the Governor or Deputy Governor of the said Island, mentioning the quantity of acres, the several boundaries of the same, and the name or names of the person or persons possessing and enjoying the same, and our Governor or Deputy is hereby required to cause the same to be duly entered, and finding it right to register the same accordingly, and to give out Certificates to the owners of the registering thereof without fee or reward for the same And that all lands that after the publication hereof shall be allotted and granted to any free Planter from the Company or any lands already granted that shall be sold, alienated or disposed of, or upon the death of any Planter by bequest or otherwise descend or come to any other person, all and every such grant, sale, alienation, bequest, descent or other alteration of property shall within one month after the same shall happen be registered in the said Register, and on the registering of every such sale, alienation, bequest, descent or alteration 2s and no more shall be paid to the Governor for the use of the Company as Chief Lord of the said Island, and 6d no more to the Register for the registering and giving out a Certificate of the same And that once in every two years (or oftener if the Governor and Council shall think fit) a general Court shall be held of all the Planters or possessors of lands and a Jury of them sworn impannelled to enquire what sales, alienations, bequests, descents or alterations have happened to the same, and the Governor for the time being or his Deputy is hereby required once every year to send for England a Duplicate of the said Register under his hand to the intent the same may be kept and preserved at the East India House in London for the benefit of all concerned therein 3 That any person or persons to whom lands hath been allotted that shall within one year from the date thereof have been in the actual possession and improvement of the same shall hold the same to them and their heirs and assigns for ever free from all future claim or disturbance for the improving thereof as a Plantation, such person or persons shall hold the same free to them and their heirs and may sell, alienate and dispose of the same at their pleasure always to be understood under the conditions and services expressed in the two precedent Articles, but in case any person or persons have or shall [...] | It was understood that, except in cases of an invasion or a general attempt on the Island when all persons were obliged to bear arms, those possessing only ten acres of land were required to serve in the defence alternatively with another person who also possessed only ten acres. It was ordered that all persons currently possessing land, or those who were to be granted land following this publication, were required to have their plantations registered within six months. A book was to be kept for this purpose by the Governor or Deputy Governor, in which the quantity of acres, the boundaries, and the names of the owners were to be recorded. The Governor or Deputy was required to enter these details and provide certificates to the owners without any fee or reward. Furthermore, it was directed that any future allotments, sales, alienations, or transfers of property resulting from the death of a planter by bequest or descent were to be registered within one month of the event. Upon the registration of such an alteration in property, a fee of two shillings was to be paid to the Governor for the use of the Company as the Chief Lord of the Island, and six pence was to be paid to the register for the certificate. It was required that a general court be held every two years, or more frequently if deemed fit by the Governor and Council. At this court, a jury of planters was to be sworn and empanelled to enquire into any sales, alienations, bequests, or descents that had occurred. The Governor or his Deputy was further required to send a duplicate of the register to England every year under his hand, so that the records might be preserved at the East India House in London for the benefit of all concerned. It was declared that any person who had been in actual possession and had improved their allotted land for one year was to hold that land for themselves, their heirs, and their assigns forever. This tenure was to be free from any future claims or disturbances, provided the land was improved as a plantation. Such owners were permitted to sell or dispose of their land at their pleasure, though it was always understood that they remained subject to the military conditions and services expressed in the preceding articles. Interpretations: Alternatively: In this context, the term refers to a rotational system of military duty where two small-scale landholders shared the responsibility of providing one armed man. Chief Lord: This title signifies the Company-s legal status as the ultimate owner of the Island-s soil under the Royal Charter, with the planters acting as tenants-in-chief. Impanelled: This refers to the formal process of selecting and enrolling a list of individuals to serve as a jury for the purpose of the land enquiry. |
98 | 117 | [...] [...] take up any land and he shall not within 12 months [...] nor shall not within 12 months [...] perform the conditions or after the taking up and allotment of the same inhabit thereon and actually set upon the improvement thereof as a Plantation according to the intent of the first proceeding Article or that having once improved it, in a short time abandon the same, in either of which cases or any parcel of land allotted to him or them as aforesaid shall be lawful for the Governor and Council of the said Island and they are hereby required to resume the same into their hands for the use of the East India Company and to dispose of the same anew notwithstanding any former allotment or grant to such person or persons or any other matter or thing whatsoever to the contrary 4 That in case of the death of any Planter in possession of lands whereupon he hath made improvement or Plantation (if such Planter be a single man) the said lands shall descend to his next Heir or to such person or persons as he shall by his last Will and Testament bequeath the same unto, but if he be a married man then one moiety of the said lands shall descend to his wife during her natural life, and the other moiety to his children, and after the decease of the wife then the whole to descend to his children equally, and if he have no children then to such persons as shall be appointed by his last Will and Testament 5 As to moveables and personal Estate that any Planter shall die possessed of, if the same be not disposed of by Will the same shall be divided one third to the wife and the other two thirds amongst the children in equal shares, and if there be no children then one half to the wife and the other half to his next kindred, and if no kindred then the whole to the use of the Company, provided that any inhabitant of the Island dying without children or kindred and leaving no Will shall have his estate administered for the use of the Company 6 That in case it so fall out that on the death of any Planter his lands shall not be possessed and enjoyed according to the rules herein before prescribed, or if the same shall fall to any person or persons not residing on the said Island, then such person or persons shall within 2 years after such descent or devise come to the said Island and make his or their residence upon the same, or otherwise take effectual care for the cultivating thereof, and in default thereof the said lands shall be forfeited and revert to the Company, unless sufficient cause be shown to the Governor and Council to the contrary | It was ordered that if any person were to take up land and fail within twelve months to perform the required conditions or inhabit the property and improve it as a plantation, the grant would be voided. Similarly, if a person were to abandon a plantation after having once improved it, it was declared lawful for the Governor and Council to resume possession of the land for the use of the East India Company. In such cases, the authorities were required to dispose of the land anew, notwithstanding any former allotment or grant. In the event of the death of a single man in possession of an improved plantation, it was directed that the lands descend to his next heir or to such persons as he might appoint by his last will and testament. If the deceased were a married man, it was ordered that one moiety of the lands descend to his wife for the duration of her natural life, with the other moiety passing to his children. Upon the decease of the wife, the whole of the property was to descend to the children in equal shares. If there were no children, the lands were to pass to the persons appointed in the will. Regarding the moveable and personal estate of a planter who died without a will, it was directed that the property be divided with one third going to the wife and the remaining two thirds shared equally amongst the children. If there were no children, one half was to be granted to the wife and the other half to the next of kindred. In cases where no kindred could be found, the whole estate was to be forfeited to the use of the Company. It was further provided that the estate of any inhabitant dying without children, kindred, or a will be administered specifically for the Company’s benefit. It was further prescribed that if, upon the death of a planter, his lands were not possessed according to these rules, or if they fell to a person not residing on the Island, the new owner was required to establish residency within two years. Alternatively, the heir was required to take effectual care for the cultivation of the ground. It was ordered that in default of these conditions, the lands would be forfeited and revert to the Company, unless sufficient cause were shown to the Governor and Council to the contrary. Interpretations: Moiety: This term refers to a half or one of two equal parts into which a property or estate is divided for the purposes of inheritance. Moveables: This refers to personal property that is not fixed to the land, such as furniture, livestock, tools, and clothing, as distinguished from the real estate itself. Devise: This is a legal term referring to the act of giving or leaving real property to someone by way of a last will and testament. |
99 | 118 | [...] for the Governor and Council of the said Island and they are hereby required to seize the same into their hands for the use of the Company and to dispose of the same, the former allotment or grant or any other matter or thing to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding, Given under our Common Seal the Day and Year first above written Vera Copia examᵈ Ro: Blackburne Secʳ Vera Copia examᵈ per me | It was declared that the Governor and Council of the Island were required to seize any such lands into their hands for the use of the Company. They were further empowered to dispose of the same anew, regardless of any former allotment, grant, or any other matter or thing to the contrary. These orders were given under the Common Seal of the Company on the day and year first written above. The document was examined as a true copy by Robert Blackburne, the Secretary, and was further examined and verified as a true copy by Blackmore Junior. Interpretations: Common Seal: This refers to the official metal stamp used by the East India Company to signify formal corporate approval and the legal validity of its documents and orders. Seize: In this legal context, the term refers to the formal and lawful act of taking possession of land that had been forfeited due to a failure to meet the Company-s conditions. Vera Copia: This is a Latin phrase meaning a true copy, used to certify that the transcription is an accurate record of the original manuscript. |
100 | 119 | Our Governour and Councell London 14ᵗʰ Aprill 1680 [...] Our of the 26ᵗʰ & 28ᵗʰ January by the Ship [...] the [...] and come to our hands, she arrived in the Downes the instant, the [...] thereof we received and Mr Paine’s. We have by this ship received your Letters and at large sent you an account [...] we have sent you a plentiful supply of all things which will answer well to the many particulars you had written for, and afford you fit and proper advantages for the cultivating and settling the affaires of that Island. 2 Wee take notice of your sending home the three mutinous persons mentioned, and wish you had rather caused them to be tryed and punished according to the nature of their offences and the Law of England upon the Island there, as such [...] hitherto which we doubt will rather encourage that disloyalty than restrain it, and men of that temper when the difficulty [...] is too great and that they cannot escape from thence by punishment there, the offence being committed at so remote a distance and the witnesses and proof not to be had, so that wee have thought fit for that reason and others that you shall for the future in all criminall cases you would have them tryed and punished there and not to send them home which is without means to escape, and whereas such justice in such their offences would be more [...] Wee have resolved to keep you to conform to the said Rules and power as may better enable you to deale with delinquents in cases of this nature, and send them by the first opportunity. 3 Wee have fully considered of our mind concerning your Labours [...] and doe [...] for their encouragement and we are persuaded that upon better consideration the persons concerned will [...] | It was recorded that a dispatch was sent from London on 14 April 1680 to the Governor and Council at St Helena. It was noted that letters dated 26 and 28 January had been received following the arrival of the ship in the Downs. The directors stated that a plentiful supply of all necessary items had been sent by this ship to answer the many particulars previously requested. It was intended that these supplies afford fit and proper advantages for the cultivating and settling of the affairs of the Island. Notice was taken of the three mutinous persons who had been sent home to England. It was expressed that it would have been preferable for these individuals to have been tried and punished upon the Island according to the nature of their offences and the Law of England. The directors observed that sending such men home might encourage disloyalty rather than restrain it, especially as the difficulty of obtaining witnesses and proof at such a remote distance often allowed offenders to escape justice. Consequently, it was ordered that in all future criminal cases, delinquents be tried and punished on the Island rather than being sent home. It was resolved that the Governor and Council conform to the established rules and powers to better enable them to deal with such offenders. Full consideration was given to the matter concerning the labourers on the Island. It was stated that measures were being taken for their encouragement, and a persuasion was expressed that, upon better consideration, the persons concerned would be satisfied with the arrangements. Interpretations: The Downs: This refers to a well-known roadstead or sheltered anchorage in the English Channel off the coast of Kent, where ships frequently waited for favourable winds or orders. Power as may better enable you: This probably refers to the legal authority granted to the Governor and Council under the Royal Charter to exercise martial law or hold courts of justice for criminal offences. Speculations The mention of sending mutineers home being a “means to escape” was perhaps an admission that the legal system in London was too burdened or too distant to effectively prosecute crimes committed in the South Atlantic. |
101 | 120 | little reason to be dissatisfied in that regard Wee commend you and affaires under your management to the blessing of God Almighty and remaine Yoᵘʳ loving Friends 14ᵗʰ Aprill 1680 Robᵗ Thomson Dʳ John Moore Tho: Papillon Joseph Horne Jami: Ward John Cooke Vera Copia exᵈ per me | It was stated that there was little reason to be dissatisfied in that regard. The Governor, Council, and the affairs under their management were commended to the blessing of Almighty God. The dispatch, dated 14 April 1680, was signed by the following individuals as loving friends: Deputy Robert Thomson, John Moore, Chandos, Thomas Papillon, John Peeke, Thomas Canham, Samuel Moyer, Joseph Horne, John Craige, Jami Ward, Jeremy Sambrooke, and John Cooke. The document was examined and verified as a true copy by Blackmore Junior. Interpretations: 14 April 1680: This date follows the modern calendar convention as it was written after the 25 March boundary for the new year. Vera Copia: This is a Latin phrase meaning a true copy, used to certify that the transcription is an accurate record of the original manuscript. |
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113 | 132 | Report: Inventory of Company’s Store | |
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115 | 134 | Report: Inventory of Company’s Store | |
116 | 135 | Report: Inventory of Company’s Store | |
117 | 136 | Report: Inventory of Company’s Store | |
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122 | 141 | London the 26ᵗʰ March 1680 Invoice of Bullion, Stores & Provisions laden by [...] and Company of Merchants of London [...] into the East India Company, shipped in a good Ship called the [...] then 000 tons or thereabouts whereof [...] Commander Capᵗ John Thompson, bound for St Helena and there to be delivered to their Honours the Governor & Council for the use of the said Island and for their account as follows viz. Report: Invoice for Goods Received by Sea | An invoice was issued in London on 26 March 1680 for bullion, stores, and provisions laden by the Company of Merchants of London into the East India Company. These goods were shipped in a vessel of approximately 600 tonnes, commanded by Captain John Thompson and bound for St Helena. It was directed that the cargo be delivered to the Governor and Council for the use of the Island and for their account. The document was recorded as a report and invoice for goods received by sea. Interpretations: 26 March 1680: This date follows the modern calendar convention as it was written after the 25 March boundary for the new year. 000 tons: This fragmented figure in the manuscript probably refers to 600 tonnes, which was the standard capacity for the larger vessels employed by the Company for such voyages. Bullion: This refers to gold or silver in bulk, such as bars or ingots, which was sent to the Island to facilitate trade and the payment of wages. |
123 | 142 | Report: Invoice for Goods Received by Sea | |
124 | 143 | Report: Invoice for Goods Received by Sea | |
125 | 144 | Report: Invoice for Goods Received by Sea | |
126 | 145 | Report: Invoice for Goods Received by Sea | |
127 | 146 | Report: Invoice for Goods Received by Sea | |
128 | 147 | Report: Invoice for Goods Received by Sea | |
129 | 148 | Report: Invoice for Goods Received by Sea | |
130 | 149 | Report: Invoice for Goods Received by Sea | |
131 | 150 | Report: Invoice for Goods Received by Sea | |
132 | 151 | Report: Invoice for Goods Received by Sea | |
133 | 152 | Report: Invoice for Goods Received by Sea | |
134 | 153 | Report: Invoice for Goods Received by Sea | |
135 | 154 | Report: Invoice for Goods Received by Sea | |
136 | 155 | Report: Invoice for Goods Received by Sea | |
137 | 156 | Report: Invoice for Goods Received by Sea Vera Copia exᵈ per me St Helena The Copy of the Receipt upon the Bill of Lading [...] not mentioned in this Bill or Invoice but finding the same marked with the Company’s mark thereon & was left with us without our hands the Officers Dated the Day of August Anno Dom 1680 Copy of a Recᵗ given to Capᵗ Thompson Blackmore Island Recᵈ this sixteenth day of Augᵗ 1680 of the Governor & Councell of the said Island into the Stores of the Honᵇˡ East India Company, to the use of the said Island, the Effects of Bullion, Stores & Provisions as they were received on board by the said Governor & Councell out of the Ship Society Capᵗ Wᵐ Thompson Commander which Receipt is in all respects answerable to the true Copies whereof is confirmed by a Bill of Lading, likewise received one Packet of Letters not mentioned in the said Invoice but have by the said Governor & Councell whose mark thereon it was recᵈ into the said Stores, Witness my hand the day and year above written Antho: Beale | An invoice was recorded for goods received by sea, and the document was verified as a true copy by Blackmore Junior. A copy of the receipt upon the bill of lading was signed by the Governor and Council of St Helena for the contents delivered from the ship Society under the command of Captain William Thompson. It was noted that the cargo was received with the exception of one pack of alum, one hundred and eighty-five [...] and one quart cask of brandy, which were to be landed. One additional cask was also received. It was further recorded that certain items not mentioned in the bill or invoice were found marked with the Company mark and were left with the officers. This document was dated in August 1680 and served as a copy of a receipt given to Captain Thompson, signed by Blackmore, Joseph Johnson, Robert Swallow, John Greenbury, and John Colson. On 16 August 1680 Anthony Beale recorded the receipt of bullion, stores, and provisions from the Governor and Council of the Island into the stores of the Honourable East India Company for the use of the Island. These effects were received on board from the ship Society. It was noted that the receipt was in all respects answerable to the true copies confirmed by a bill of lading. One packet of letters not mentioned in the invoice was also received into the stores, as it bore the mark of the Governor and Council. The receipt was witnessed by the hand of Anthony Beale on the day and year written above. Interpretations: Bill of Lading: This refers to the detailed list of a ship’s cargo in the form of a receipt given by the master of the ship to the person consigning the goods. Company’s mark: This probably refers to the distinctive heart-shaped emblem containing the initials of the United East India Company used to identify their property and cargo. Alum: This refers to a chemical mineral used at the time as a mordant in dyeing fabrics and for various medicinal or industrial purposes on the Island. |
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139 | 158 | Worshipᵗ Sʳ Dr having by the Divine Providence [...] to you with a safe and seasonable passage the Honᵇˡ Company their yearly shipping to Surat, Bantam &c the [...] Lancaster and Susanna &c being now lately taken for England, we have the last year sent you upon them the like quantity of Rice and Paddy as by Invoice and Bill of Lading annexed, and that which would may not be further trouble to you send supply of our last years [...] for your better [...] to the supplying them with men from your Island, if they should stand in any need thereof, wherein we intreate your compliance and remain Your very loving Friends [...] Marines Tho: [...] Ja: Samberlen George Bowcher | A letter was sent to the Governor of St Helena from Swally Marine on 4 January 1681. It was noted that by Divine Providence the annual shipping for the Honourable Company had achieved a safe and seasonable passage to Surat and Bantam. It was recorded that the ships Lancaster and Susanna had lately been taken for England, and the Surat Council had laden upon them the same quantity of rice and paddy as in the previous year, as detailed in the annexed invoice and bill of lading. To avoid further trouble, a supply from the previous year was sent for the better settlement of affairs. A request was made for compliance in supplying these ships with men from the Island should they stand in any need of assistance. The dispatch was signed by the loving friends of the Governor, including Thomas [...], James Samberlen, and George Bowcher. Interpretations: 4 January 1680/1: This date follows the old calendar convention where the new year began in March; it is converted to the modern year of 1681. Swally Marine: This refers to the protected anchorage at the mouth of the Tapti River in India, which served as the primary port for the Company’s factory at Surat. Bantam: This refers to the major trading port in the province of Banten on the island of Java, which was a central hub for the Company’s spice trade in the East Indies. |
140 | 159 | Carree of 130 Bags Rice & 85 Paddy provided by Mr Moody & Eden on the Ship Diamond Lancaster and Johanna Capᵗ [...] Rich Goods, & Capᵗ [...] 22 dozᵗ Caps & sundries and goods to Mr Lofter [?] [...] consigned to the Governor and Councell of St Helena for accompt of the Honᵇˡ East India Company & their use Report: Invoice for Goods Received by Sea | It was recorded that a cargo consisting of one hundred and thirty bags of rice and eighty-five bags of paddy was provided by Mr Moody and Mr Eden. These provisions were laden upon the ships Diamond, Lancaster, and Johanna under the command of the captains mentioned. The cargo also included rich goods, twenty-two dozen caps, and various other items and goods intended for Mr Lofter. These were all consigned to the Governor and Council of St Helena for the account and use of the Honourable East India Company. The document was entered as a report and invoice for goods received by sea. Interpretations: Rich Goods: This term was probably used to describe high-value merchandise such as silks, spices, or fine textiles as distinguished from bulk provisions like grain. Paddy: This refers to rice that is still in its husks, which was often sent to the Island because it remained edible for longer periods than processed rice. Mr Lofter: This name is interpreted from the fragmented text and probably refers to a specific official or merchant resident on the Island at that time. |
141 | 160 | Worshipᵈ Sʳ Bantam Janʳʸ 20ᵗʰ 1682/3 Sʳ I recᵈ yours of Capᵗ Thompson with the long expected letters for your Lord which will by this Ship be sent him, and have also sent you a small parcel of goods by some other opportunity you desired for this Bay, if I can not dispose of these will send thither by the next occasion. Invoice and Bill of Lading you will find 4 Bales of Ruggs [?] & a Butt of Arrack and some Sugar [?], also sent you on the Company’s accᵗ the latter to gratify your desire, and the Arrack as a small provision for your Island, & utterly concealed [?] for all which please to receive thanks (for the Honᵇˡ Company) what you shall think proper for your Island supplies and occasions, these take care to send you what we may afford in time and may yield you profit & service is what proceeds Your affectionate friend and servant Fran: Bonycaert | A letter was sent from Bantam on 20 January 1683 addressed to the Worshipful Governor. Receipt was acknowledged of the letters previously sent by Captain Thompson, which had been long expected for his Lordship and were to be forwarded by this ship. It was noted that a small parcel of goods had been sent by another opportunity as desired for the Bay, with the intention that if they could not be disposed of there, they would be sent by the next occasion. According to the invoice and bill of lading, the shipment included four bales of rugs, a butt of arrack, and a quantity of sugar. These items were sent on the account of the Company, with the sugar provided to gratify the desire of the Governor and the arrack sent as a small provision for the Island. It was requested that these supplies be received with thanks on behalf of the Honourable Company and used as thought proper for the Island’s requirements and occasions. The writer expressed a commitment to send what could be afforded in time to yield profit and service to the Island. The dispatch was signed by the affectionate friend and servant of the Governor, Francis Bonycaert. Interpretations: 20 January 1682/3: This date follows the old calendar convention and is converted to the modern year of 1683. Butt of Arrack: This refers to a large wooden cask or barrel containing arrack, a distilled alcoholic spirit commonly imported from South and Southeast Asia. Ruggs: This term likely refers to coarse woollen blankets or coverlets sent for the use of the inhabitants or soldiers on the Island. The Bay: This probably refers to the Bay of Bengal, indicating the wider regional trade network through which these goods were being moved. |
142 | 161 | Report: Invoice for Goods Received by Sea | |
143 | 162 | Worshipᵈ Sʳ Wee wrote you by the last years shipping, those goods by the Josiah, on whom is laden 30 Baggs of Rice according to Invoice and Bill of Lading, which wee wish may prove acceptable to you, and should have sent you an annual small quantity from hence could the success and Maderas [?] burthen have taken in their proportion, it being now a very busy time with us, cannot further enlarge but remaine Your very loving Friends Swally Marine Tho: Rolt | It was recorded that a dispatch was sent from Swally Marine on 23 January 1682 addressed to the Worshipful Governor. Reference was made to the correspondence sent by the previous years shipping regarding the goods laden upon the Josiah. It was noted that thirty bags of rice had been shipped according to the invoice and bill of lading, with the wish expressed that these provisions prove acceptable. It was further stated that a small annual quantity of goods would have been sent from that place had the Success and the Maderas been able to take in their proportion of the burden. Owing to the busy nature of affairs at that time, the writers could not further enlarge upon these matters. The letter was signed by the following loving friends: Thomas Rolt, Cesar Chamberlen, James Child, John Pettit, and George Bowcher. Interpretations: 23 January 1681/2: This date follows the old calendar convention where the year began in March and is therefore converted to the modern year of 1682. Burthen: This refers to the cargo capacity or tonnage of a ship, indicating that the vessels mentioned lacked the space to carry the intended additional goods. Swally Marine: This refers to the roadstead or anchorage at the mouth of the river near Surat in India, which served as the principal port for the East India Company factory there. |
144 | 163 | Invoice of 30 Baggs of Rice laden by the Honᵇˡ Tho: Rolt President &cᵃ Councill in Surat on board the Josiah Capᵗ Nathaniel Brown Commander and consigned to the Worᵗʰᵞ the Governor &cᵃ Councill of the Island of St Helena, being for accᵗ of the Honᵇˡ East India Compᵃʸ as follows vizᵗ. Report: Invoice for Goods Received by Sea | An invoice was issued for thirty bags of rice laden by the Honourable Thomas Rolt, President, and the Council in Surat on board the Josiah. The ship was under the command of Captain Nathaniel Brown and the cargo was consigned to the Worthy Governor and Council of the Island of St Helena. It was noted that these provisions were for the account of the Honourable East India Company. The document was entered as a report and invoice for goods received by sea. Interpretations: President: This refers to the chief official of the East India Company factory at Surat, who held authority over the other factors and the local trade operations. Surat: This refers to the major port city in the Gujarat region of India, which served as the headquarters for the Company-s operations in Western India during this period. Josiah: This refers to the specific merchant vessel employed by the Company to transport these goods and provisions to the Island. |
145 | 164 | Adam by the grace of God in good order and well conditioned by Thomas Rolt President &cᵃ Councill in Surat in and upon the good shipp called the Josiah whereof is Nathanᵉl Brown for this present voyage Commander now riding at anchor in the roade of Swally, and by the Almighty’s permission bound for the Port of St Helena That is to say Twenty Baggs of fine Rice and Tenn Baggs course Rice, each conta[ining] six m[aunds] and are to be delivered in the like good order and well conditioned at the aforesaid Port of St Helena for accᵗ of the Honᵇˡ Company (the danger of the Seas only excepted) unto the Worᵗʰᵞ the Govʳ &cᵃ Councill at the aforesaid Port of St Helena, freight for said goods being to be paid according to the tenor of the Compᵃʸ institution, and for the true performance of this p[rese]nt Bill of Lading the said Shipp hath signed to three Bills of Lading of this tenor and date, one of wᶜʰ being accomplished the other to stand void, and so done Dated on Swally Marine this 23 January Anno 1681/2 Freighted and contents unknown pᵉ me Recᵈ at St Helena signed by Governor | It was recorded that, by the grace of God and in good order, twenty bags of fine rice and ten bags of coarse rice were laden upon the ship Josiah by Thomas Rolt, President, and the Council in Surat. The vessel, under the command of Nathaniel Brown, was at anchor in the road of Swally and bound for the port of St Helena by the permission of the Almighty. Each bag was noted to contain six maunds. It was directed that the cargo be delivered in like good condition to the Worthy Governor and Council for the account of the Honourable Company, with the danger of the seas excepted. Freight for the goods was to be paid according to the Company institution. Three bills of lading of the same tenor and date were signed, with the accomplishment of one rendering the others void. This document was dated at Swally Marine on 23 January 1682 and signed by William Carter, with the contents noted as being freighted and unknown to him. Receipt was acknowledged at St Helena by the Governor and Council for the brown bags of rice goods brought by the ship Josiah. It was noted that the cargo consisted of twenty bags of fine rice and ten bags of coarse rice, all in good order and well conditioned. However, it was recorded that the commander desired an account to be made for one bag of fine rice and one bag of coarse rice, which amounted to forty pounds in weight and two pounds and ten shillings in value. The receipt was signed by the Governor, Joseph Johnson, [...] Maurice, and Robert Swallow. Interpretations: 23 January 1681/2: This date follows the old calendar convention and is converted to the modern year of 1682. Maunds: This refers to a traditional unit of weight used in India and the Ottoman Empire, which varied in exact mass depending on the region but was standard for Company trade in Surat. Road of Swally: This refers to the Swally Hole, a protected deep-water anchorage off the coast of Gujarat that served as the main harbour for the English factory at Surat. Speculations The discrepancy of two bags mentioned by the commander was perhaps due to damage during the voyage or a minor error in the original tally at the time of loading. |
146 | 165 | To the Worᵗʰᵞ the Govʳ & Councill of St Helena Fort St George Jan: 19ᵗʰ 1681 We have sent you by the shipp [—] 50 baggs of Rice, 50 baggs of Paddy, and 5 baggs of Paddy for seed in all 105 baggs at 122:2:— amounting to 1093:10:— as p[er] Invoice and Bill of Lading herewith sent you, and intend to send you the same quantity by each of the other three shipps that are behind, vizᵗ the Bengala, the George and the Caesar, for which Wee shall also send you the Invoices and Bills of Lading. According to each shipp’s Charter-party if the Commandᵉʳ & merchants cannot procure them, you may make them up if you can of such a number of seamen or other persons as will compleat the number they brought out of England which are to be carried hither upon their said shipps at the charge of the Owners and the Compᵃˡ, not to pay for any such person’s passage, and therefore Wee thought convenient to give you notice that the shipp [—] from Tobacca wants its men of her first complement according to the Muster Roll which was taken at her departure, and shall advise with the same of the rest as Wee shall dispatch them from hence and having now no further to enlarge Wee commend you to the Divine protection and remain Yoᵘʳ affectionate Friends John Bering William Gyfford | It was recorded that a dispatch was sent from Fort St George on 19 January 1682 addressed to the Worthy Governor and Council of St Helena. It was noted that fifty bags of rice, fifty bags of paddy, and five bags of paddy for seed had been sent by the ship mentioned, amounting in all to one hundred and five bags as per the invoice and bill of lading. It was intended that the same quantity be sent by each of the three ships following, namely the Bengala, the George, and the Caesar, for which the invoices and bills of lading would also be provided. Notice was given that, according to each ship-s charter-party, if the commander and merchants could not procure the necessary men, the Governor and Council might make up the complement from such seamen or other persons as would complete the number brought out of England. These individuals were to be carried upon the ships at the charge of the owners and the Company, with no payment required for their passage. It was thought convenient to advise that the ship from Tobacca lacked its full complement of men according to the muster roll taken at her departure. Advice was to be given regarding the rest of the ships as they were dispatched from that place. Having no further matters upon which to enlarge, the writers commended the Governor and Council to the Divine protection and remained their affectionate friends, John Bering, Edward Yale, John Meers, William Gyfford, John Bridger, and Thomas Wilkes. Interpretations: 19 January 1681: This date follows the old calendar convention where the new year began in March and is therefore converted to the modern year of 1682. Charter-party: This refers to the formal written contract between the Company as the charterer and the shipowners, detailing the terms for the hire of the vessel and the carriage of goods. Tobacca: This name perhaps refers to a specific port or region from which the ship had arrived before being dispatched toward St Helena. |
147 | 166 | Fort St George the 19ᵗʰ of January 1681 Invoice of Rice & Paddy laden by the freight Worᵗʰᵞ Wᵐ Gyfford Esqʳ Agent & Govʳ &cᵃ Councill in Fort St George for accompt of the Honᵇˡ Company of Merchᵗs trading to the East Indies in & upon the good shipp called the [Josiah] whereof is Commander for this present voyage Capᵗ James Cooke bound by the Almighty’s permission for the Island of St Helena and consigned to the Worᵗʰᵞ the Govʳ & Councill of St Helena being marked as p[er] margent the particulars & cost as followeth vizᵗ Report: Invoice for Goods Received by Sea | An invoice was recorded at Fort St George on 19 January 1682 for rice and paddy laden by the Worthy William Gyfford, Agent and Governor, and the Council. The cargo was shipped for the account of the Honourable Company of Merchants trading to the East Indies upon the ship Josiah, under the command of Captain James Cooke. By the permission of the Almighty, the vessel was bound for the Island of St Helena. The goods were consigned to the Worthy Governor and Council of the Island and were marked as indicated in the margin of the document. This record was entered as a report and invoice for goods received by sea. Interpretations: 19 January 1681: This date follows the old calendar convention and is converted to the modern year of 1682. Agent: This was a senior rank within the East India Company hierarchy, often serving as the chief official at a factory or settlement such as Fort St George before it was elevated to a presidency. Margent: This refers to the margin of the manuscript page where specific identifying marks or symbols for the cargo were probably drawn to assist with recognition during unloading. |
148 | 167 | Laden by the grace of God in good order and well conditioned by the Worᵗʰᵞ Wᵐ Gyfford Esqʳ Agent & Governor &cᵃ Councill in Fort St George for accᵗ of the Honᵇˡ English East India Company & upon the good shipp called the [...] burthen 565 Tons or thereabouts whereof is [...] for this present voyage Capᵗ James Cooke now riding at anchor in the Road of Madraspatam and by God’s grace bound for the Port of St Helena That is to say Fifty baggs of Rice of five Tuns and Tenn baggs of Paddy of one Tun being marked and numbered as p[er] margent and are to be delivered in the like good order and well conditioned (the danger of the Seas only excepted) at the aforesaid Port of St Helena unto the Worᵗʰᵞ the Govʳ & Councill there for accᵗ of the said English East India Company and for the true performance of the [...] or [...] of the said shipp hath signed to three Bills of Lading all of this tenor and date the one of which being accomplished the other two to stand void and so God send the good shipp to her desired Port in safety Amen Dated in Fort St George the 19ᵗʰ of Janʳ 1681/2 Goods & contents of the abovementioned goods are unknown to James Cooke Received by us the Governor and Councill of the Island of St Helena of Capᵗ James Cook Commander of the shipp [...] the contents of the within written Bill of Lading being one bagg of course Rice and 11 baggs of Paddy, all the Rice having been put up in single thin bags the weighty baggs will receive some waste and leakage Witness our hands this 30 of May 1682 signed by | It was recorded that fifty bags of rice and ten bags of paddy were laden in good order and well conditioned by the Worthy William Gyfford, Agent and Governor, and the Council at Fort St George. The cargo was shipped upon a vessel of approximately five hundred and sixty-five tonnes, commanded by Captain James Cooke and riding at anchor in the road of Madraspatam. By the grace of God, the ship was bound for the port of St Helena. The provisions were marked and numbered as indicated in the margin, with the rice weighing five tonnes and the paddy one tonne. It was directed that the goods be delivered in the same condition, excepting the dangers of the seas, to the Governor and Council of St Helena for the account of the English East India Company. Three bills of lading were signed to this effect, with the accomplishment of one rendering the others void. The document was dated at Fort St George on 19 January 1682, and Captain Cooke signed it with the note that the contents were unknown to him. Receipt was acknowledged at St Helena on 30 May 1682 by the Governor and Council for the goods delivered by Captain James Cooke. It was noted that the shipment received consisted of one bag of coarse rice and eleven bags of paddy. The officers observed that because the rice had been packed in single thin bags, the weightier bags would suffer some waste and leakage. The receipt was signed by Joseph Johnson, [...] Morris, and Robert Swallow. Interpretations: 19 January 1681/2: This date follows the old calendar convention and is converted to the modern year of 1682. Madraspatam: This refers to the historical name for the area surrounding Fort St George in Madras, where the ship was anchored before its departure for the South Atlantic. Speculations The discrepancy between the fifty bags of rice mentioned in the bill of lading and the single bag of coarse rice received was perhaps due to a partial delivery or a significant loss during the voyage. Waste and leakage: This phrase refers to the loss of grain that spilled through the thin fabric of the bags during handling and transport in the ship-s hold. |
149 | 168 | To the Worᵗʰᵞ the Govʳ & Councill of St Helena Fort St George Febʳ the [...] 1682 We have received yours of the [...] of January and observe thereby the want of Rice and other [...] of life at present more than your supply which we have sent you by the George We now send you by the George a small store of Rice and intend to send you a better supply by her and another shipp or ships which are expected every day, which goods we have ordered to be delivered to you at St Helena and hope will add both to your supply and [...] and for the more speedy dispatch of shipping from thence, and the more certain [...] there being more at hand We have nothing more at present but remain Yoᵘʳ loving friends William Gyfford | A dispatch was sent from Fort St George in February 1682 addressed to the Worthy Governor and Council of St Helena. Receipt was acknowledged of the previous correspondence dated in January, and notice was taken of the shortage of rice and other necessaries of life on the Island. It was noted that a small store of rice had been sent by the ship George to address this want. It was intended that a better supply be sent by the George and another ship or ships which were expected daily. The directors ordered that these goods be delivered at St Helena in the hope that they would add to the existing supply and assist in the more speedy dispatch of shipping from the Island. The writers stated that they had nothing more to communicate at present and remained the loving friends of the Governor and Council. the letter was signed by William Gyfford, John Bridger, Thomas Wilkes, John Bering, and Edward Yale. Interpretations: February 1682: This date follows the modern calendar convention as it was written after the 25 March boundary for the new year. Necessaries of life: This phrase refers to the essential food supplies, particularly grain, required to sustain the inhabitants and garrison of the Island. Speculations The urgent mention of the “want of rice” suggests that the Island was experiencing a period of scarcity or that the previous shipments had not been sufficient to meet the local demand. |
150 | 169 | To the Governor & Councill at St Helena London this 20ᵗʰ of May 1681 Wee have yours of the 18ᵗʰ of January last by the Bantam advising yoᵘʳ receipt of the stores & provisions sent you on the Society, the mistakes committed in the invoice are noted and rectified, and wee doubt not but you will now be sufficiently supplyed; this great supply wee made you as to be thereby enabled (with what the Island so plentifully produceth) to maintaine yourselves without further expectation of being recruited from hence for some yeares, and it will be yoᵘʳ parts also to encourage the Inhabitants in their plantations, that by their labour and industry the Island may yield an encrease of whatsoever is necessary for their comfortable subsistence; our expectations from you being a prudent frugall charge yoᵘʳ care in whatsoever is needfull, that the Island may at last maintaine itselfe without putting us to further expence Wee note yoᵘʳ proceedings in staking & accᵗ of the Forts and plantations and doe recommend it to yoᵘʳ care to economize in all things as fast as you can, and to putt in use and continue the Orders and Rules made for the good Government, and disposing of the Island and whatsoever concerns our charge and bringing it into so narrow a compasse; in order whereunto as many of the souldiers and planters, the number of the souldiers being in proportion lessened, the Officers being appointed considering how little duty some of them doe performe, we would not have you incurre negligence There are many inconveniences arise to the Indies if you doe not make full and observing the Rules which upon good advice wee made touching the division and allotment of ground (although the former Orders therein require that the same be strictly complyed with) and that none be suffered to enjoy the proportion of land assigned them unless they plant the same or reside thereon, and the Cattle be not appropriated nor any person to have two plantations | It was recorded that a dispatch was sent from London on 20 May 1681 addressed to the Governor and Council at St Helena. Receipt was acknowledged of the correspondence dated 18 January last by the ship Bantam, which advised of the receipt of stores and provisions sent on the Society. It was noted that the mistakes committed in the invoice had been rectified, and a belief was expressed that the Island was now sufficiently supplied. This significant supply was intended to enable the inhabitants, together with what the Island plentifully produced, to maintain themselves without further expectation of being recruited from England for some years. It was directed that the Governor and Council encourage the inhabitants in their plantations so that their labour and industry might yield an increase of all things necessary for their comfortable subsistence. The expectation was expressed for a prudent and frugal management of charges to ensure the Island might eventually maintain itself without further expense to the Company. Notice was taken of the proceedings in staking and accounting for the forts and plantations. It was recommended that the authorities economise in all things as quickly as possible and continue to implement the orders and rules made for the good government and disposal of the Island. The directors expressed a desire to bring the Company-s charges into a narrower compass by lessening the number of soldiers in proportion to the planters. Observations were made regarding the appointment of officers, noting that some performed little duty, and a warning was given against incurring negligence. It was stated that many inconveniences arose if the rules touching the division and allotment of ground were not fully observed. Although former orders required strict compliance, it was reinforced that no person should be permitted to enjoy their assigned proportion of land unless they planted the same or resided upon it. Furthermore, it was ordered that cattle should not be improperly appropriated and that no person should be permitted to hold two plantations. Interpretations: Recruited: In this context, the term refers to the act of being resupplied or reinforced with fresh stores, provisions, and personnel from England. Narrow a compasse: This phrase refers to the Company-s desire to reduce and limit the overall administrative and military expenditures required to maintain the settlement. Speculations The restriction against any person holding two plantations was perhaps intended to prevent the accumulation of land by a few individuals and ensure a wider distribution of defensive responsibilities among the planters. |
151 | 170 | [...] whether by purchase or otherwise, but to keep them all in sufficient hands, that so the wealth and of our governing these lands in their care the thriving and security of the Island may be preserved and advanced, and for the future wee desire you to be very sparing in the letting of ground to any persons but such as by order agree with them to have right thereunto Wee have considered the petitions of [...] Johnson & [...] Moore, but say nothing on to any more their desires, but respect that also of platform &c accordingly employed in your own plantation and in the Church yard, that you doe forthwith makeing the platforms of houses more easy for the conveniency of goods materials and infirm persons for that work Wee respect to receive yours by the Surat at the Cape of Good Hope & Books of accᵗs, together with such further may be for the state of affairs, and what expenses are made in your charge there As for Mr Joseph Church wee have considered his desires, and for his encouragement are willing to shall have [...] two years longer than Wᵐ [...] besides enjoying [...] not to be obliged to have any cattle, but such as he can provide himself, and this wee believe may give him to continue his pains amongst you, especially if he finds that you give him your assistance, and respect from the rest of the Island as to see him performe his function as calling, as a Minister of the Gospell, and wee hope you will not be forward to disappoint him, as he leaves the Island, till wee can provide you with another more able if he be otherwise deserving; wee regard him his labour to performe, and Mr Wᵐ [...] hath served him here & behaved himselfe well and received his Ballance due to him there Wee have also given the ship the trip to Affricanna bound for Bantam from a parcel of Negro slaves for making of [...] and as was desired by the Governor with leave and allowance will also be invoiced in the Bill of Lading enclosed, and doe order that what [...] of the goods is not safe from wrong be good to the satisfaction and the proceeds thereof placed to accᵗ | It was recorded that land should be kept in sufficient hands, whether acquired by purchase or otherwise, so that the wealth and the security of the Island might be preserved and advanced. For the future, it was desired that the Governor and Council be very sparing in the letting of ground to any persons except those who had a right thereunto by order. The petitions of Joseph Johnson and Mr Moore were considered, though no further answer was given to their desires. It was directed that platforms be forthwith made in the Governor’s own plantation and in the churchyard to make the housing of goods, materials, and infirm persons more easy and convenient. Expectation was expressed to receive correspondence by the Surat at the Cape of Good Hope, along with the books of accounts and further reports regarding the state of affairs and the expenses incurred in the Company’s charge. Regarding Mr Joseph Church, his desires were considered, and for his encouragement it was agreed that he should remain two years longer. He was not to be obliged to keep any cattle other than such as he could provide for himself. It was believed this would encourage him to continue his pains as a Minister of the Gospel, provided he received assistance and respect from the rest of the Island. The authorities were requested not to disappoint him until a more able successor could be provided. It was also noted that Mr William [...] had served him well and had received the balance of the money due to him. Notice was given that the ship Africana, bound for Bantam, had been ordered to deliver a parcel of Negro slaves as desired by the Governor. These were to be used for the making of various works and were to be invoiced in the enclosed bill of lading. It was further ordered that any goods not safe from wrong should be secured to the satisfaction of the Company and the proceeds placed to the account. Interpretations: Joseph Church: This refers to the chaplain or minister appointed to the Island to oversee the spiritual welfare of the inhabitants and perform religious functions. Negro slaves: This refers to enslaved persons transported by the Company from various regions to provide the forced labour required for the development of plantations and fortifications. Books of accᵗs: This refers to the formal ledgers and financial records maintained by the Island officials to document all income, expenditures, and stores for the Company. Speculations The mention of making platforms “more easy” for “infirm persons” suggests an effort to improve the accessibility or stability of structures used for the sick or elderly on the Island. |
152 | 171 | Wee take notice of the defective Armour returned us by the Falcon according to our Order At Fort St George January 1681 our Officers on that Island were have thought fit to discharge them from their imployments as persons not fit for the trust reposed in them Wee have ordered from Bengala the persons [...] and [...] George for Officers, and propose accordingly upon receipt of this letter and our directions [...] John [...] for the second man and [...] for the third, the said persons are to take their places respectively, satisfying to us and not removing them till the Governor’s pleasure be signified to the contrary; and also to be careful that they are to be better known that wee shall be willing to supply them as any other improvements of bearing charge [...] that would be of supply to shipping and to give all possible encouragement unto the planters and inhabitants Wee remain Yoᵘʳ loving Friends John Sambrooke Post Sᶜʳᶦᵖᵗ We recommend you to cause an exact account to be kept of all persons entertained in the Island and to take care that the Charge be not increased beyond what is necessary, and that the stores be preserved from waste and imbezlement, and that all such goods as shall be sent you be duly received and accounted for, and the Ballance of your accompts returned hither with all speed Yoᵘʳ loving Friends Tho: Papillon Depᵗ | Notice was taken of the defective armour returned to England by the ship Falcon according to the previous order. It was recorded that at Fort St George in January 1682 the officers on the Island had been discharged from their employments, as they were deemed persons not fit for the trust reposed in them. It was ordered that certain persons from Bengal be appointed as officers, specifically [...] and [...] George. It was proposed that upon receipt of the letter and directions, John [...] should take his place as the second man and [...] as the third. These persons were to remain in their respective positions until the pleasure of the Governor was signified to the contrary. Instructions were given to be careful and to supply them as further improvements or charges required. A directive was issued to provide all possible encouragement unto the planters and inhabitants. The dispatch was signed by the loving friends of the Governor, including John Sambrooke, William Hedges, Robert Thomson, John Merrick, Samuel Moyer, Richard Houghton, Edward Rudge, Thomas Papillon, Joseph Herne, Thomas Canham, Joseph Oliver, Christopher Boone, William Edridge, Nathan Letten, John Browne, John Lawrence, and John Clarke. In a postscript, it was recommended that an exact account be kept of all persons entertained on the Island. Care was to be taken that the charge not be increased beyond what was necessary and that the stores be preserved from waste and embezzlement. It was further ordered that all goods sent to the Island be duly received and accounted for, and the balance of the accounts returned to London with all speed. This was signed by Thomas Papillon, Deputy. Interpretations: January 1681: This date follows the old calendar convention and is converted to the modern year of 1682. Embezzlement: This refers to the theft or misappropriation of Company property or funds by those entrusted with their care, which was a significant concern for the directors in London. Second man: This term probably refers to the Deputy Governor or the official next in seniority to the Governor within the local council. Speculations The return of defective armour suggests that the equipment sent for the defence of the Island was either of poor quality or had suffered significant deterioration in the tropical climate. |
153 | 172 | London yᵉ 20ᵗʰ of May 1681 Invoice of Goods laden by the Governor & Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies in and upon the good shipp called the Caeser Africanus burthen 430 Tonns or thereabouts whereof is Commander Capᵗ Edward Cooke bound by the Almighty’s permission for the port of Bantam on the Island Java and from thence for St Helena and goods consigned to their Governor & Councill there resident for accᵗ of the Generall Joynt Stock, the particulars are as followeth vizᵗ Report: Invoice for Goods Received by Sea | An invoice was issued in London on 20 May 1681 for goods laden by the Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies. The cargo was placed upon the ship Caesar Africanus, a vessel of approximately four hundred and thirty tonnes under the command of Captain Edward Cooke. By the permission of the Almighty, the ship was bound for the port of Bantam on the Island of Java and from there to St Helena. The goods were consigned to the Governor and Council resident on the Island for the account of the General Joint Stock. This document was recorded as a report and invoice for goods received by sea. Interpretations: General Joint Stock: This refers to the collective capital investment of the East India Company members used to fund voyages and trade operations during this period. Bantam: This refers to a major trading port and sultanate in northwest Java which served as a primary centre for the pepper trade before the Company shifted its focus toward India. Caesar Africanus: The vessel mentioned was perhaps named to reflect the wide geographic reach of the Company’s maritime interests across different continents. |
154 | 173 | Laden by the Grace of God by the Govʳ & Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies in and upon the good shipp called the Caeser Africanus burthen 430 Tonns or thereabouts whereof is Commander Capᵗ Edward Cooke bound by the Almighty’s permission for the port of Bantam on the Island Java Major and at her return from thence to the Island of St Helena. That is to say Window glass cut in squares four wᵗʰ Nos. 1. 2. 3. & 4 of 920 foot that mount of 60 in each chest. Drawn lead in 4 chests No. 5. 6. 7. & 8 of 400 wᵗ [...] yellow oaker one cask No. 9 [...] one good mill in Gunnery No. 10 wᵗ 4 loading from 2 Immolts, one hammer for glasswork, all merchantable & well conditioned [...] in like manner to be delivered (the dangers of the Seas excepted) unto their Govʳ & Councill in St Helena aforesaid for accᵗ of the said Company freight for the same performᵉd whereof I John Johnson p[er] order have signed unto three Bills of Lading of this tenor and date the one being accomplished the other to stand void, and so God send the good shipp unto her port of delivery in safety Amen Dated in London yᵉ 20ᵗʰ day of May Anno Dni 1681 Goods & contents unknown to me Benson Signed & delivered in the presence of us Jo: Hedges Received by us the Governor & Councill of the Island of St Helena from the within named Master of the good shipp Caeser Africanus the contents of the within Bill of Lading being some goods whereof part are found damaged and part wanting, and the same received into store [...] and [...] signed by | It was recorded that, by the grace of God, various goods were laden by the Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies upon the ship Caesar Africanus. The vessel, being of approximately four hundred and thirty tonnes and under the command of Captain Edward Cooke, was bound by the permission of the Almighty for the port of Bantam on the island of Java Major, with a return voyage intended for the island of St Helena. The cargo included window glass cut into squares and packed in four chests numbered one to four, containing nine hundred and twenty feet in total. Also included were four chests of drawn lead numbered five to eight, one cask of yellow ochre numbered nine, and one mill in gunnery numbered ten, along with a hammer for glasswork, all noted as being merchantable and well conditioned. It was directed that these items be delivered in like manner, excepting the dangers of the seas, to the Governor and Council in St Helena for the account of the Company. John Johnson, acting by order, signed three bills of lading of the same tenor and date, with the accomplishment of one rendering the others void. The document was dated in London on 20 May 1681 and signed by Benson, who noted that the specific contents were unknown to him. The signing was witnessed by Joseph Hedges and Elias Micklethwaite. Receipt was acknowledged at St Helena by the Governor and Council from the master of the Caesar Africanus. It was recorded that while the goods described in the bill of lading were received into the store, some parts were found to be damaged and others were missing. The receipt was signed by Joseph Johnson, [...] Morris, and Robert Swallow. Interpretations: Java Major: This refers to the island of Java, distinguished in historical geography from Java Minor, which probably referred to the island of Sumatra during this era. Yellow ochre: This refers to a natural earth pigment containing hydrated iron oxide, which was commonly transported for use in making paint or tinting lime wash for buildings. Gunnery: In this context, the mill mentioned in relation to gunnery was perhaps a device intended for the grinding of ingredients used in the production or maintenance of gunpowder and ordnance. Benson: This individual was probably a clerk or a representative of the shipowners who signed the bill of lading to acknowledge the cargo on behalf of the commander. |
155 | 174 | To the Worᵗʰᵞ Mr [...] at the Blue house Wee wrote you by the Falcon in the 16ᵗʰ present & we hope it will be the [...] [...] that wee send you more Paddy not Rice as advised were expected by them to their shipps [...] Samson and that you will supply her so far as 1200 lb wᵗʰ or that more or less wanting to her wee heartily wish you all health & prosperity & rest [...] the 26ᵗʰ [...] 1682/3 Your Worᵗʰᵞ humble Servants C. Eyre Memᵒ that another letter of 2ᵈ Janᵘˡʳ was sent in the Falcon mentioning the danger in stead of Samson | A dispatch was addressed to the Worthy Governor of St Helena at the Blue House. Reference was made to a previous letter sent by the ship Falcon on the sixteenth of the month, with the hope expressed that it had been received. It was recorded that more paddy, rather than the rice previously advised, was intended for the ships, including the Samson. It was requested that the vessel be supplied with twelve hundred pounds in weight, or such amount as was found to be wanting. The writers expressed their hearty wishes for the health and prosperity of the Governor and Council. The letter was dated 26 January 1683 and was signed by the humble servants of the Governor: Charles Eyre, Francis Day, Bartholomew Harris, John Gladman, and [...] Domville. A memorandum was added noting that another letter dated 2 January had been sent in the Falcon, which mentioned the danger instead of the ship Samson. Interpretations: 26 January 1682/3: This date follows the old calendar convention and is converted to the modern year of 1683. Blue House: This refers to a specific residence or administrative building on the Island, perhaps used as the official quarters or a prominent landmark for the Governor. Paddy: This refers to rice that is still in the husk, which was often shipped in this state to prevent spoilage during long maritime voyages. Speculations The correction in the memorandum suggests that a clerical error in the previous correspondence had potentially caused confusion regarding the identity of the vessel or the nature of the mission. |
156 | 175 | Our Governour & Councill at St Helena London 14ᵗʰ March 1681 Our last unto you was by the Scipio dated the 20ᵗʰ May 1681, copy whereof goes herewith which will confirme what we have further to acquaint you Wee have since by the [... ] of the last date received yours of November by the Society, which with the former letters from you and the Commanders were perused with great satisfaction, and that your letters from Bantam arrived here the 14ᵗʰ of January last In their particulars wee take notice what you say touching the 2 ships Capᵗ Taylor & Capᵗ Alley, that being detained longer than was by you expected, and that you make the best provision you can for their dispatch, which wee approve, and that those ships are very importunate for their departure, and that their stay hath occasioned the Island great charge and inconvenience, and that their frequent resorting thither hath all the provisions from you to supply them, notwithstanding the great weight of wheat and rice you have there to assist & encourage those that would plant and destroy what is very detrimentall, as well as the highest inconveniencies Wee have now at great charge to plant the Island only for the accommodation of shipping in the present and that such charge and expense is not to be made use of for the use of private men but for the Company’s service And Company’s Command we require you to draw yourselves into a narrow compass, not suffering that your people be at liberty to ramble and range as formerly, but that you keep them under good discipline, and that you make use of your Command with all possible care and prudence in the discharge thereof, and that your Officers be careful to see all Orders duly observed and executed We have resolved to have hereunto a Governor upon this occasion, and to have you conform thereunto, that there be a mutual correspondence in the affairs of the Company, and upon application of Richard [... ] to be, and there entering into Bond for fidelity to us, that he shall come with full instructions to be observed and obeyed, whom we have committed to him in this charge [...] | A dispatch was sent from London on 14 March 1682 addressed to the Governor and Council at St Helena. Reference was made to the previous correspondence sent by the ship Scipio on 20 May 1681, a copy of which was enclosed to confirm the instructions previously given. It was recorded that since that date, a letter from November had been received by the ship Society. This, along with former letters from the Island and the ship commanders, had been perused with great satisfaction. It was also noted that dispatches from Bantam had arrived on 14 January last. The directors took notice of the reports concerning the two ships commanded by Captain Taylor and Captain Alley. It was acknowledged that these vessels had been detained longer than expected, and the efforts made to provide for their dispatch were approved. It was observed that these ships were very importunate for their departure and that their stay had caused great charge and inconvenience to the Island. Their frequent arrival had exhausted local provisions, despite the significant quantities of wheat and rice held there to assist and encourage those who would plant and destroy what was detrimental to the settlement. It was stated that the Island was being planted at great charge solely for the accommodation of shipping, and such expenses were not to be incurred for the benefit of private men but only for the service of the Company. By order of the Company, the Governor and Council were required to draw the administration into a narrow compass. It was directed that the people should not be permitted to ramble and range as they had formerly, but must be kept under good discipline. The authorities were commanded to exercise their power with all possible care and prudence, and the officers were charged to see that all orders were duly observed and executed. It was resolved to appoint a new Governor upon this occasion, and the Council was ordered to conform to this change to ensure mutual correspondence in the affairs of the Company. Upon the application of Richard [...], and his entering into a bond for fidelity, it was noted that he would arrive with full instructions to be observed and obeyed in the discharge of his charge. Interpretations: 14 March 1681: This date follows the old calendar convention and is converted to the modern year of 1682. Narrow compass: This phrase refers to the persistent requirement from London that the local government reduce its territorial spread and limit administrative spending. Importunate: This indicates that the ship commanders were persistent and perhaps troublesome in their demands to be permitted to sail as quickly as possible. Speculations The mention of people being at “liberty to ramble” suggests that the authorities were concerned about a lack of social order or a tendency for settlers to move away from the protected areas of the fortifications. |
157 | 176 | New Laws and Constitutions Wee have thought fit and do hereby [...] that no person whatsoever shall presume to [...] nor [...] to his own any goods of the Island, but that every person may be held accountable to their duty both to God and us; Wee have (besides those sent to you formerly and now enclosed) sent you for settling of your Government and propriety, and do determine the Laws & Constitutions herein after to be observed and kept inviolably, and do also require you that within ten days after receipt thereof to cause the same to be published and proclaimed in the most solemn manner, and that you and all Officers take care that the said Laws & Constitutions be exactly observed and put in execution according to their tenor and form A Court of Justice Wee further [...] that wee do not enlarge upon any of them particularly, but refer you to all matters between party and party, & having [...] from us the Governor is to appoint the persons who are to sit as Judges, constituting Courts of Justice according to the nature of the case, and to administer justice upon Oath (we having power to administer an Oath), Wee require them to deal impartially and to act in all things as in the sight of God, without favour or affection to one more than another All manner of trade And as to the matter concerning trade, Wee do strictly forbid that any manner of trade be driven for private account, nor that any goods be exported from the Island, but that the same shall be allowed by our Government only, by Proclamation to be made for that purpose, and Wee do hereby empower and authorize our said Governor accordingly to give Licence, reserved to us, that upon the arrival of any English ships that shall be trading in the East Indies, that such ships shall not dispose or sell any goods whatsoever without licence from the Governor, nor shall any person lade or unlade any goods from such ships but by order and consent of the Governor, upon pain of confiscation of the same, which belongs to us. | Notice was given that new laws and constitutions were established for the settling of the government and propriety of the Island. It was directed that no person should presume to appropriate any goods of the Island as their own, but that every individual be held accountable to their duty both to God and the Company. The Governor and Council were required, within ten days of receipt, to cause these laws to be published and proclaimed in the most solemn manner. All officers were charged to ensure that the said constitutions were exactly observed and executed according to their tenor and form. Regarding the administration of justice, it was ordered that the Governor appoint the persons who were to sit as judges, constituting a Court of Justice according to the nature of each case. These judges were required to administer justice upon oath, dealing impartially and acting in all things as in the sight of God, without showing favour or affection to any party. Concerning the matter of trade, it was strictly forbidden for any manner of trade to be driven for private account. It was ordered that no goods be exported from the Island except as allowed by the Government through official proclamation. The Governor was authorised to give licences for trade, with the Company reserving ultimate authority. It was further decreed that upon the arrival of any English ships trading in the East Indies, no goods were to be sold or disposed of without a licence from the Governor. Furthermore, no person was permitted to lade or unlade any goods from such ships without the consent of the Governor, upon pain of confiscation of the goods. Interpretations: Propriety: In this context, the term refers to the legal right of possession or the established rules regarding the ownership of land and property on the Island. Ten days: This specific timeframe for proclamation suggests an urgency on the part of the directors to establish formal legal control over the inhabitants and their economic activities. Private account: This refers to trade conducted by individuals for their own personal profit, which the Company sought to suppress in favour of its own commercial monopoly. Speculations The requirement for judges to act “as in the sight of God” was intended to underscore the moral gravity of their office and to deter the corruption that often plagued remote colonial outposts. |
158 | 177 | Wee to this full account of her Tonnage, That then upon the payment of such monies as are due to Us according to the tenor of Our said Laws, may grant to such Ships Liberty of trade & navigation upon the said Island, and accordingly make Proclamation thereof; Any thing in this Our Laws to the contrary notwithstanding, and also for the better preventing all abuses that shall or may be committed by any such Ships or Vessells that shall come into the said Island, and according to such Proclamation thereof accordingly And Wee do require that you keep an exact Register to be kept of all Ships & Vessells whatsoever that shall arrive in Our Island, as also in Our service, that shall come to the Island, with the names of the Ships, their burthen, Commanders, what Voyage they have been upon, what goods they are laden with, and the dates of their arrival, and of all other matters relating to them; Copies of which Register (attested by Our Governor and Councill) Wee require to be sent from time to time by some of Our returning Ships, and of the same Wee expect an exact and punctual performance And Wee understanding by Mr [...] that he hath solemnized two Marriages but is willing to confirm, Wee have otherwise disposed of this Minister [...] to supply his place, and therefore are content that Mr [...] should remain with you, and hope by his diligent preaching and [...] | It was directed that a full account be taken of the tonnage of each ship, after which, upon the payment of such monies as were due to the Company according to the laws, the Governor might grant the vessels liberty of trade and navigation. Proclamations were to be made to this effect to prevent any abuses by ships or vessels arriving at the Island. The Governor and Council were required to maintain an exact register of all ships and vessels arriving at the Island, including those in the service of the Company. This register was to include the names of the ships, their burden, their commanders, the nature of their voyages, the goods with which they were laden, and the dates of their arrival. Attested copies of this register were to be sent to London from time to time by returning ships, with the directors expressing an expectation of exact and punctual performance. Notice was taken that Mr [...] had solemnised two marriages which he was willing to confirm. It was noted that the Company had otherwise disposed of the minister intended to supply his place, and therefore it was agreed that Mr [...] should remain on the Island. The hope was expressed that he would continue his service through diligent preaching and the performance of his duties. Interpretations: Tonnage: This refers to the carrying capacity of a ship, which was used as a basis for calculating the various duties and fees owed to the Company. Burden: A term used interchangeably with tonnage to describe the size and cargo capacity of a merchant vessel. Exact Register: The requirement for detailed record-keeping was probably intended to help the Company monitor private trade and ensure that all taxes on cargo were properly collected. Speculations The decision to allow the current minister to remain, despite previous plans to replace him, suggests that the Company valued continuity in the spiritual leadership of the Island or simply lacked a ready alternative. |
159 | 178 | [...] pious conversation be willing to remain with you for good to the souls of the people there; And so commending you and Our affairs to the blessing and governance of the Almighty, Wee remain Yoᵣ loving Friends James Bland Edwᵈ Bridges | The hope was expressed that the minister, through his pious conversation, would be willing to remain for the good of the souls of the people. Commending the Governor, the Council, and the affairs of the Company to the blessing and governance of the Almighty, the directors remained their loving friends. The dispatch was signed by James Bland, Thomas Papillon, Deputy, Joseph Ash, John Lawrence, James Du Bois, Jeremy Sambrooke, Joseph Harnett, John Morden, Charles Carkham, Edward Bridges, John Davenant, John Du Bois, William Fagge, and John Clarke. Interpretations: Pious conversation: In this seventeenth-century context, this probably refers to the minister’s general conduct, manner of living, and social interactions rather than merely his speech. John Du Bois: The presence of this name alongside James Du Bois suggests that multiple members of the same family were serving as directors or committee members for the Company at this time. |
160 | 179 | By the Governour and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies at a Court of Committees holden for the said Company the 10ᵗʰ day of March in the 34ᵗʰ yeare of the reigne of Our Soveraigne Lord Charles the 2ᵈ by the grace of God of England Scotland France and Ireland King Defender of the Faith &c Anno Dni 1681 Whereas our said Soveraigne Lord the King by his Letters Patents bearing date the 16ᵗʰ day of December in the 25ᵗʰ yeare of his reigne hath granted unto the Governour and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies and their successors All that the Island of Sᵗ Helena and thereof made and constituted them the said Governour and Company the true and absolute Lords and Proprietors with power and authority at any generall Court or Courts of Committees holden for the said Company to make and ordaine such Lawes Orders and Constitutions for the good governe[...] of the said Island and to impose reasona[...] penalties to enforce the obser[...] thereof and by themselves or by their Governour or Governours Officers and Ministers by them to be appointed to correct punish governe and rule the Inhabitants of the said Island according to such Lawes and Ordinances and to doe all things which to the complete establi[...]ment of Justice and good order by Courts of Judicature and other neces[...] means of Government shall be requisite and to award execute Judgement determine all causes and to execute such Judgements as by the said Letters Patents (which being hereunto had may more at large appeare) Now know yee that Wee taking into our serious conside[...]ation [...] the said Letters Patents and the powers and authori[...] thereby granted unto us, and for the better governe[...] of the said Island and the Inhabitants thereof, and for the due and impartiall admini[...]ration of Justice to all the said Inhabitants and others that shall reside or inhabit thereon, and to the end they may all live together in the feare of God in loyalty to our said Soveraigne Lord the King and in love and good affe[...]ion one towards another, [...] | At a Court of Committees held for the Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies on 10 March 1682, in the thirty-fourth year of the reign of King Charles the Second, certain declarations were made. It was noted that the King, by his letters patent dated 16 December 1673, had granted the Island of St Helena to the Company and their successors. By this grant, the Governor and Company were constituted the true and absolute lords and proprietors of the Island. They were given the power and authority at any General Court or Court of Committees to make and ordain laws, orders, and constitutions for the good government of the Island and to impose reasonable penalties to enforce their observation. The Company was further authorised to appoint governors, officers, and ministers to correct, punish, govern, and rule the inhabitants according to these ordinances. This included the establishment of justice and good order through courts of judicature and other necessary means of government to award and execute judgements and determine all causes as provided by the letters patent. Taking these powers into serious consideration, the Company acted for the better government of the Island and its inhabitants. The objective was the due and impartial administration of justice to all residents and those who might inhabit the Island in the future. It was intended that all should live together in the fear of God, in loyalty to the King, and in love and good affection toward one another. Interpretations: 10 March 1681: This date follows the old calendar convention and is converted to the modern year of 1682. Letters patent: This refers to a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch, granting a right, monopoly, title, or status to a person or corporation. 34th year of the reign: This refers to the regnal year of Charles the Second, calculated from the death of his father in 1649, despite the period of the Commonwealth. |
161 | 180 | Wee the said Governᵒʳ and Company of Merchᵗˢ First touching Religion and Worship
| The Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies, at their Court of Committees held in London, ordained several orders and laws for the better establishing and governing of the island of St Helena. These regulations were considered necessary to receive formal approbation and authority over all matters on the island. All persons residing or inhabiting the island, regardless of their quality or condition, were required to yield due obedience to these laws. To prevent oppression, violence, and injustice, formal rules were established for both the government and the people to follow. The Governor, Council, directors, servants, and their successors were appointed to ensure these rules were carefully and punctually observed across St Helena and its territories. The first section of these laws concerned religion and the worship of God. It was ordained that the Lord’s Day be religiously observed through abstinence from all servile labour, employments, gaming, and other unlawful pastimes. The Governor and Council were directed to appoint one or more convenient places for the worship of God, where all persons could gather at appropriate times for the public exercise of religion and divine service. These services were to include prayer, the reading of the word, and the preaching of sermons. At fit times, the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper were also to be administered. The Governor and Council were further charged to encourage the ministers in the discharge of their duties and the people in their attendance through their own presence at these ordinances. It was required that all religious activities be conducted with due reverence, decency, and order. If a minister were present on the island, he was required to administer the service of God on the Lord’s Day according to the liturgy of the Church of England. Furthermore, the Governor and Council were to ensure that some portion of the Holy Scriptures was read during these gatherings. Interpretations: Lords Day: This refers to Sunday, which was strictly mandated as a day of rest and religious observance under the laws of the Company. Liturgy of the Church of England: This refers to the official set of rites and ceremonies for public worship, specifically as prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer. Servile labour: This term refers to any physical or manual work, particularly that performed by servants or labourers, which was forbidden on the sabbath. Speculations The emphasis on the Governor and Council’s physical presence at services was intended to provide a visible example of piety and to reinforce social and religious hierarchy on the island. |
162 | 181 | [...] godly Sermons to be read, with prayer and such other [...]
Secondly touching the Administration of
| It was ordered that godly sermons and prayers should be read as appointed or deemed appropriate by the authorities. In public assemblies, the minister or whoever discharged that duty was required to pray for the King, the Royal Family, and the prosperity of the kingdoms, as well as for the welfare of the English East India Company. Every Lord’s Day, the Creed and the Ten Commandments were to be read to the people at a convenient time. This included the Apostles’ Creed or occasionally the Athanasian Creed, along with the moral law from the twentieth chapter of Exodus and the summary of the law found in the twenty-second chapter of St Matthew’s Gospel. When a minister was resident on the Island, he was required to catechise the children and younger people in public once every week, either on the Lord’s Day or another day. This was intended to explain the principles and doctrine of the Christian religion so that the inhabitants might be well grounded in their faith and able to defend their beliefs against any who might oppose them. The Governor and Council were tasked with appointing the time for this instruction and were expected to be present unless hindered by necessary affairs. Regarding the administration of justice and common right, it was directed that justice be administered impartially in all cases without favour or affection. It was further ordained that no man should be deprived or dispossessed of his goods, lands, or other rights, nor suffer any corporal punishment, except by due process of law. Interpretations: Catechise: This refers to the practice of instructing young people in the principles of the Christian religion, often through a series of questions and answers. Athanasius Creed: This refers to a specific statement of Christian belief focused on the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, which was used on certain occasions in the Church of England. Moral Law: This term refers to the Ten Commandments as recorded in the Bible, which served as the ethical foundation for the laws of the settlement. Speculations The requirement to pray for the prosperity of the East India Company alongside the Royal Family highlights the dual nature of the Island as both a Crown possession and a corporate asset. |
163 | 182 | or [...] but by [...] for any cause or crime before due Tryall be
Thirdly And for the better settling and
| It was ordained that no person should suffer corporal punishment or be deprived of their possessions except by due trial and a verdict given by a jury of twelve men. This rule was to be strictly observed unless otherwise directed by specific laws made by the Company or the Court of Committees. Furthermore, it was directed that no person should be imprisoned upon any private action until the cause had been heard. In cases of felony or other offences, a warrant from a public official was required for commitment, and the specific cause for the imprisonment had to be expressed in that warrant. If the case was not prosecuted within the first two court days after the commitment, the prisoner was permitted to move for their discharge. In such instances, the judge was required to grant the release without the need for bail. For the better settling of legal proceedings, it was appointed that the Governor, with the consent of the Council, should from time to time appoint one or more able and honest persons to serve as the Sheriff or Sheriffs of the Island. These officials were charged with inspecting all matters and affairs under the Governor and Council to preserve the rights of the Company and maintain peace and unity among the inhabitants. The Sheriffs were responsible for executing all orders, writs, and summonses issued by the Governor, the Council, or the Court of Judicature. Their duties included the returning of juries and the apprehension of criminals. It was also provided that the Governor could appoint assistants to help the Sheriffs execute warrants within the Island as found necessary for the better assistance of the law. Interpretations: Private action: This refers to legal proceedings initiated by one individual against another, such as for debt or personal injury, rather than a criminal prosecution brought by the authorities. Returning of juries: This refers to the official process of selecting and summoning a group of citizens to serve as a jury for a court trial. First two court days: This specific timeframe was perhaps intended to ensure that individuals were not held indefinitely without a formal hearing of the charges against them. Sheriff: In this seventeenth-century context, the Sheriff acted as the primary executive officer of the court, responsible for enforcing the law and carrying out judicial orders on the Island. |
164 | 183 | Defen[...] of the place and suppre[...] any tumults or You shall swe[...] to be good and true to Our Soveraigne
| It was ordained that the Sheriffs should act for the defence of the Island and the suppression of any tumults or insurrections. They were required to follow such instructions and directions as they received from the Governor from time to time. All officers, both civil and military, along with all other persons, were commanded to be aiding and assisting the Sheriffs in the due execution of their office. Every Sheriff was required to take a formal oath before the Governor to be good and true to the King and his heirs. They swore to use their utmost power to maintain the rights of the Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies to the Island of St Helena. They pledged not to suffer any wrong or detriment to be done to the Company or their estate and to provide advice or notice of such matters to the Governor and Council. The oath further required them to discharge the office of Sheriff carefully and impartially according to the established laws, and to ensure that all writs, orders, summonses, and sentences of the Court of Judicature or the Governor were speedily and duly executed. Finally, they swore to behave justly and uprightly according to good conscience, to give notice of all money collected for fines or otherwise, and to make due payment to the appointed Treasurer or Receiver. Regarding the judicial system, it was directed that a Court of Judicature be established at the chief place of the Island where the Governor and Council resided. This court was intended for the hearing, deciding, and determining of all cases, both civil and criminal, according to the laws and customs of England as far as they were applicable to the conditions of the Island. It was appointed that the Governor for the time being should preside as the sole judge of this court. The court was to sit once every month, or more often if the occasion required. The judge was charged to ensure that all proceedings and sentences were duly recorded or registered in books kept for that purpose. Interpretations: Sancta Helena: This is a Latinate form of the name St Helena, which was frequently used in formal legal documents and charters of the seventeenth century to denote the Island. Tumults: This refers to any form of riot, civil commotion, or public disturbance that threatened the established order or the Company’s authority. Good conscience: This phrase indicates that the official was expected to act with moral integrity and honesty in the performance of his duties. Speculations The appointment of the Governor as the sole judge of the Court of Judicature ensured that the Company maintained absolute control over both the executive and judicial branches of the local government. |
165 | 184 | [...] purpose and that all Offic[...] requisite for the said
You shall sweare well and truly to try the matter in Fourthly And to the intent Religion
| It was ordered that all necessary officials for the Court of Judicature be appointed by the Governor from time to time. The Governor was also tasked with setting moderate and reasonable fees for the services of the court to ensure they were not burdensome to the people. A table of these fees was to be published and displayed at the place where the court sat. If any official or Marshall took a greater fee or reward than what was listed, or if they refused or delayed their duty, they were to be dismissed from their post and required to pay double damages to the aggrieved party. It was directed that all trials in the court be conducted by a jury of twelve men, who were to be returned by the Sheriff or Sheriffs of the Island. This procedure was to be followed in both civil and criminal cases. Every juror was required to take an oath to well and truly try the matter in question between the parties involved according to the evidence, their conscience, and the established laws. To ensure that religion, morality, and virtue were encouraged while vice was suppressed, specific punishments were established. It was ordained that any person who publicly profaned the Lord’s Day by travelling, wooding, gaming, or any other unlawful exercise would be reproved for the first offence. For every subsequent offence, the individual was to be fined at the discretion of the Governor, with the fine not exceeding a specified value for a single offence. Furthermore, it was directed that all swearing and taking the name of God in vain be carefully avoided. If any person who had been publicly admonished for this fault offended again by swearing, they were to be fined by the Governor and Council, with the penalty not exceeding a set amount for each instance. Interpretations: Wooding: This refers to the act of gathering timber or fuel on a Sunday, which was specifically prohibited as a form of servile labour during the sabbath. Marshall: In this judicial context, the Marshall was an officer of the court responsible for maintaining order, executing arrests, and ensuring the security of prisoners. Speculations The requirement for double damages to be paid by corrupt officials suggests that the Company was particularly concerned about the potential for extortion or bribery among its appointed officers on the Island. Prophane: This term refers to the act of treating sacred things with irreverence or contempt, specifically by ignoring the religious restrictions placed upon the Lord’s Day. |
166 | 185 |
| It was ordained that all intemperance and drunkenness should be abstained from, as these vices were considered destructive to both the bodies and souls of men. If any person was found drunk for the first time and convicted, they were to be admonished by the Governor or a member of the Council. If the individual offended again after this admonition and was duly convicted, they were to be fined at the discretion of the Governor and Council, with the penalty not exceeding a specified value for each offence. It was intended that people of quality, who were expected to serve as examples to others, should pay a heavier fine than those of a meaner condition. Furthermore, all acts of fornication, uncleanness, and adultery were strictly forbidden. If any person was found guilty and convicted of these crimes, either by their own confession or by the verdict of a jury, the Governor and Council were charged to discourage and punish the offence. The punishment was to be determined in a manner found most efficacious and agreeable to the nature of the crime, provided it was not contrary to the laws and statutes of the Kingdom of England. It was also decreed that no person should take or carry away that which belonged to another. In cases of theft where a person was duly convicted by a jury, specific penalties were applied based on the nature of the crime. If the theft involved taking items by force or threats that put a person in fear, or by breaking open locked houses, rooms, cupboards, or trunks, the convicted party was required to restore the stolen property and pay three times its value. Additionally, the remainder of the offender’s estate, after their debts were paid, was to be forfeited to the Company. The individual was also required to stand in the pillory in a public place and be whipped from there to the prison. It was then left to the discretion of the Governor and Council whether to discharge the prisoner or keep them in custody until they could be returned to England by the next available shipping. For other types of theft or robbery, the party so convicted was to be punished accordingly. Interpretations: Intemperance: This term refers to a lack of moderation, particularly regarding the consumption of alcoholic spirits, which was viewed as a threat to the stability of the settlement. People of quality: This refers to individuals of higher social status or official rank on the Island, whom the Company held to a more rigorous standard of public conduct. Meaner quality: A seventeenth-century description for those of lower social or economic standing, such as common labourers or soldiers. Pillory: This refers to a wooden framework with holes for the head and hands, used as a form of public punishment and humiliation for those convicted of crimes. Speculations The severity of the punishment for theft involving “fear” or “breaking open” reflects the Company’s desire to ensure the total security of private and corporate property in a remote location. |
167 | 186 | [...] aforesaid, he or she shall restore what he or she
| It was ordained that any person convicted of theft, where the crime did not involve force or breaking open locked storage, was required to restore the stolen property and pay three times its value to the victim. In cases where the offender was unable to pay, it was directed that they be forced to work for the injured party until the debt was fully reimbursed. The value of the stolen items was to be determined by the jury under the direction of the judge. Regarding the integrity of legal testimony, it was decreed that any person who wittingly gave false evidence through malice, covetousness, or any other motive, and was thereof convicted, should be punished according to the severity of the offence. Such individuals were to be rendered permanently disabled from giving evidence in any future case, and their testimony was to be deemed forever invalid. If it were proven that a witness had been suborned, both the witness and the person who suborned them were to be held equally liable to make satisfaction and were required to stand in the pillory. Furthermore, regulations were established concerning forgery and fraud. If any person counterfeited deeds, writings, or other papers, or used any device to cheat another or embezzle goods or money, they were required to make full satisfaction to the injured party upon conviction by a jury. The offender was also sentenced to stand in the pillory on three separate public days so that their identity and crime might be known to all. If the convicted person lacked the means to make satisfaction or pay a fine, they were obliged to work first for the injured party and then for the Company at rates adjudged sufficient by a jury to satisfy the debt. Interpretations: Covetousness: This refers to a greedy desire to possess something belonging to another, which the Company identified as a primary motivation for perjury or false witness. Suborned: This describes the act of inducing or bribing a person to commit an unlawful act, such as giving false testimony under oath. Pillory: A wooden framework used for public punishment, intended here specifically to ensure the offender was “known” to the community to prevent future fraudulent dealings. Speculations The provision for forced labour in cases of financial inability ensured that the victim received restitution while the Company avoided the expense of long-term imprisonment for debtors. |
168 | 187 |
And we doe ordaine constitute and appoint as a
Fifthly, And for the better preserving | It was ordained that if any person should quarrel with, strike, or wound another who was not their servant or under their command, the offender was required to make satisfaction to the injured party according to the verdict of a jury. Furthermore, the individual was to be fined at the discretion of the Governor and Council for the use of the Company for the breach of the peace, with the fine not to exceed 20s for any single offence. In cases of wilful murder, it was decreed that any party convicted by a jury should suffer death. The manner of the execution was left to the discretion of the Governor and Council, provided it remained agreeable to the laws of England. Special protections were also established for those in authority. If any person should strike an officer while they were executing their duties and be thereof convicted by a jury, the offender was to be fined for the use of the Company at the discretion of the Governor, or otherwise publicly whipped or imprisoned. This punishment was mandatory unless the Governor, with the consent of the majority of the Council, saw fit to grant a pardon. Additionally, the offender was required to pay reasonable damages to the injured officer as assessed by a jury. A perpetual rule and law was established for the Island regarding all trials previously appointed to be heard by jurors. It was declared lawful for the Sheriff or Sheriffs to empanel and return a jury of twelve inhabitants. These jurors were required to be people of good fame and honest conversation. This rule applied to any Englishman or Englishwoman who happened to be on the Island as a constant inhabitant. To better preserve the peace, keep all persons in due subordination, and secure the Island against enemies, further ordinances and appointments were directed. Interpretations: 20s: This refers to twenty shillings, a significant fine intended to deter violent brawls among the inhabitants. Good fame and honest conversation: This seventeenth-century legal phrasing describes individuals of good reputation and moral conduct, deemed fit to serve on a jury. Constant inhabitants: This refers to the permanent residents of the Island as opposed to visiting sailors or temporary merchants. Speculations The specific mention of striking an officer suggests that the Company was highly concerned with maintaining the visible authority and physical safety of its appointed representatives. |
169 | 188 |
which | It was ordained that no person should imprison, lay violent hands on, or strike the Governor or any of his superior officers or ministers, nor attempt or conspire to do so. In the event that any person was convicted by a jury of such an offence, they were to suffer corporal punishment, though not extending to the loss of life. The specific nature of the punishment was to be determined by the Governor with the advice and consent of the majority of the military officers. Furthermore, if the offence involved striking the Governor, the individual was also to forfeit all their lands, tenements, goods, and chattels to the Company. Regulations were also established for those serving the Company on the Island. If any captain, officer, soldier, or other person neglected their duty, slept while on watch, or was absent from their station without leave, they were to be held accountable. This also applied to anyone creating a quarrel or disturbance while on guard. Upon conviction by the testimony of witnesses under oath, the Governor was authorised to fine the offender an amount not exceeding one month of their pay for the use of the Company. Additionally, the individual was to suffer corporal punishment, not extending to the loss of life or limb, as judged appropriate by the Governor and the majority of the military officers. The laws strictly addressed acts of betrayal and rebellion. If any captain, officer, soldier, or mariner in the service of the Company, or any inhabitant or visitor to the Island, raised or abetted a mutiny or sedition, they were subject to the highest penalties. This included anyone who contrived to entice or corrupt others to disclose information or to deliver any fort, ship, vessel, or magazine on the Island to an enemy. Any person duly convicted by a jury of these crimes was to be sentenced to suffer death and to forfeit their entire estate to the use of the Company. Interpretations: Tenements: This refers to any type of permanent property, such as buildings or dwellings, held by a person on the Island. Chattels: A term for personal possessions or moveable property, as distinguished from real estate or land. Sedition: This describes conduct or speech intended to incite people to rebel against the authority of the Governor and the Company. Speculations The requirement for the Governor to seek the consent of military officers for corporal punishments suggests a shared responsibility for maintaining martial discipline within the settlement. |
170 | 189 | [...] the Governᵒʳ which sentence shall be executed accordingly unless the
[...] | It was directed that the sentence of death or forfeiture for mutiny and betrayal be executed accordingly, unless the Governor, with the advice and consent of the majority of the military officers, should think fit to pardon the offender or remit any part of the punishment. Furthermore, it was ordained that there should be no wasteful or profane swearing, cursing, or other disorders on the Island, nor any drunkenness in the public streets. If any person were found guilty of such a misdemeanour, or used provocation to cause a quarrel, they were to be punished to ensure the preservation of peace and good order. For the prevention of these disorders, the Governor, with the advice and consent of the majority of his Council, was authorised to impose a period of imprisonment not exceeding two months or such corporal punishment as the matter deserved, provided it did not involve the loss of life or limb. The laws also addressed acts of insurrection and rebellion. If any person or persons combined themselves to the prejudice of the Governor or those holding authority under him, or attempted to use force against them, they were subject to the highest penalties. This also applied to any attempt upon a fort, castle, or other place, or upon any ships or vessels belonging to the English or to the Company. Furthermore, anyone found corresponding with, holding intelligence with, or giving information to enemies, or providing them with aid and assistance, was to suffer death upon conviction by a jury. In such cases, the offender was also to forfeit their entire estate to the use of the Company, unless the Governor and his Council chose to pardon them or remit a portion of the sentence. Interpretations: Intelligence: In this seventeenth-century context, the term refers to the sharing of private or strategic information with a foreign power or enemy. Remit: This refers to the legal power of the Governor to cancel or reduce a debt or a punishment that has been imposed upon an individual. Speculations The inclusion of “wasteful” swearing alongside profane language suggests that the Company viewed idle or excessive oaths as a sign of general moral decay that could lead to more serious civil disorders. |
171 | 190 |
Now therefore in as much as it is noe way agree[...]le Wee the said Govern[...] and Comp[...] of Merch[...] of London [...] | It was noted that several English ships had recently been sent out of England on private accounts to trade in the East Indies, causing great prejudice to the Company and its established trade. These actions were deemed to be in contempt of the King’s Royal Charter, which granted the entire trade to and from the East Indies exclusively to the Company and strictly forbade all other subjects from trading there. It was further observed that such interloping ships had, on their return voyages, been received, accommodated, and supplied with necessities at the Island of St Helena. The Company had also been credibly informed that various persons were currently fitting out further ships and vessels for trade in the East Indies contrary to the Royal Charter. The directors declared that it was in no way agreeable to the King’s interest, nor consistent with the special grace and favour shown in granting the Island to the Company, that St Helena should be used to refresh or accommodate the ships, stores, and crews of those who presumed to trade in the East Indies illegally. It was argued that the Island was not granted to the Company so that it might be used to encourage such disloyal persons in their attempts. Therefore, the Governor and Company ordained a standing ordinance and rule to be strictly observed within the Island. It was directed that no person currently inhabiting the Island, nor any who might inhabit it in the future, should presume to trade, traffic, or in any way receive or supply with necessities any person belonging to any ship or vessel arriving at the Island. This prohibition remained in force until such time as the Governor had formally allowed and admitted the ship and its crew the liberty of trade and refreshment. Interpretations: Interloping: This refers to the activities of “interlopers”, who were independent merchants or ship owners trading in territories where the East India Company held a legal monopoly. Royall prerogative: This term describes the customary rights and powers belonging to the King, which in this instance included the authority to grant exclusive trading charters to specific companies. Prejudice: In this commercial context, the word signifies the financial loss and damage to the Company’s market share caused by unregulated competition. Speculations The strict prohibition on inhabitants providing supplies to unauthorised ships was intended to make St Helena a strategic barrier rather than a haven for those challenging the Company’s monopoly. |
172 | 191 |
And Wee doe further Ordaine and strictly Charge & Which he shall by no means declare or suffer unless [...] | It was ordained that any member of the Council who offended against the rules of the Island would forfeit and pay twenty pounds. If the offender was any other inhabitant, they were to pay ten pounds sterling to the Company for every such offence. The Governor was strictly charged and required not to grant liberty of trade or refreshment on the Island to any English ship or vessel, or to any person belonging to one, unless the ship and its crew were in the service of the Company. Upon the discovery of any other English ship arriving at or appearing before the Island, the Governor was to immediately publish a proclamation. This proclamation was to forbid all inhabitants from trading, trafficking, or supplying such a ship or its people with any necessities, refreshments, or accommodation. The Governor was permitted to allow such trade only if he received an express order from London signed by three or more members of the Court of Committees, including the Governor or his Deputy. Alternatively, trade could be permitted if the commander or mariners of the ship voluntarily delivered the vessel and its entire cargo into the possession of the Company. In the event of such a surrender, the Governor was instructed not to only grant the crew full liberty to trade with the inhabitants but also to provide them with all necessary supplies and conveniences available on the Island. Furthermore, the Governor was to return to the crew any personal goods or merchandise belonging to them that did not form part of the general joint cargo of the ship. Interpretations: Sterling: This refers to the standard English currency of the time, used here to define the specific value of the fines to be paid by officials and inhabitants. Joint and general cargo: This term describes the main commercial goods owned by the ship’s investors or the merchant company, as distinguished from the private possessions of the sailors. Speculations The high fine of twenty pounds for Council members, compared to ten pounds for regular inhabitants, reflects the Company’s policy of holding its high ranking officials to a greater level of accountability and loyalty. Signatures: The requirement for three specific signatures from the Court of Committees in London served as a security measure to ensure the Governor did not act on his own authority regarding interloping ships. |
173 | 192 | And he shall also enter into such Wa[...] and Marin[...] Provided always that upon Given under Our Common Seale this Day and year | It was ordained that the Governor should enter into agreements with any masters and mariners who voluntarily surrendered their ships. If they were willing to remain on board, the Governor was to agree upon monthly wages or salaries with them. He was also charged with procuring passage for these men and their goods on the next available ships arriving at the Island that were bound for England. Upon their arrival home, the masters and mariners, or their executors and assigns, were to receive the wages and salaries that the Governor of St Helena had endorsed. In the event of such a voluntary delivery of a ship into the Company’s possession, the Governor was ordered to immediately take the cargo ashore. He was required to make a true and perfect written inventory of all goods and merchandise delivered into his hands. Two counterparts of this inventory were to be fairly written out and attested by at least five or six credible witnesses. One of these copies was to be sent to the Company in London at the next opportunity, so the directors could present the matter to the King and issue further orders regarding the disposal of the ship and its goods. However, a specific exception was provided for certain vessels. If an English ship or vessel not in the Company’s service arrived at St Helena, and it appeared to the Governor that the ship had been trading only to Madagascar or adjacent parts for slaves, a different rule applied. In such cases, the Governor was permitted to grant the ship and its crew free liberty of trade, traffic, and refreshment. They were allowed to obtain any manner of provisions on the Island or from its inhabitants upon such terms as the Governor thought fit in his discretion. This provision was to be upheld notwithstanding any prior instructions to the contrary. These orders were given under the Common Seal of the Company on the day and year first mentioned. Interpretations: Executors or assigns: This legal term refers to persons appointed to administer the estate of a deceased individual or those to whom rights or property have been legally transferred. Common Seal: This refers to the official seal used by the East India Company to bypass the need for individual signatures and to signify that a document was a formal act of the entire corporation. Speculations The exception made for ships trading for slaves in Madagascar indicates that the Company viewed the slave trade in that specific region as less of a threat to its commercial monopoly than the direct trade of East Indian spices and textiles. |
174 | 193 | To Our Governour of London 14ᵗʰ March 1681 Yoᵘ That in publique con[...] to Our affaires Wee Yoᵘʳ [...] | A letter was sent to the Governor of St Helena from London on 14 March 1682. The directors noted that they had written at length regarding Company affairs in a general letter to the Governor and Council of the same date. This specific communication was intended to provide notice of advice received concerning certain ships recently set forth by private traders. It was suspected that these vessels were designed to visit the island for the purpose of meeting returning ships from India to buy up cargoes and other goods from officers and ship companies. Such actions were viewed as an attempt to defeat the King of his customs, the Company of their stated damages, and the ship owners of their freight. The directors imparted this information to the Governor, relying on his justice and fidelity. He was required, should any such ships arrive, to take notice of all proceedings between them and the official ships. The Governor was further instructed to conduct a diligent inspection to discover into which ships any goods were taken, from which vessel they originated, and the quantity involved. He was also asked to make what discoveries he could regarding the proceedings of these vessels, their owners, and the ports they had visited, and to acquaint the Company with his observations of trading in the roadstead. Upon perusal of the laws sent with the letter, the Governor would find that they were framed to prevent any partiality that might arise if the inhabitants were governed by having the disposal of all causes in the hands of a single person. Power was therefore granted to the Governor to employ any of the soldiers or any Englishmen on board arriving ships to serve as jurors on all occasions. For the better observation and suppressing of all mutinies and seditions that might be occasioned among the inhabitants, the Governor was given the power to command the militia or the forces. The directors expressed their expectation that he would carefully put these measures into execution and manage them in a way that would best conduce to the quiet and prosperity of affairs on the Island. Interpretations: 14 March 1681: Following the old calendar, this date is converted to the modern year of 1682. Road: This refers to a “roadstead”, a sheltered area of water outside a harbour where ships may safely ride at anchor. Speculations The instruction to use soldiers or visiting Englishmen as jurors suggests the directors did not fully trust the permanent inhabitants of the island to remain impartial in cases involving local interests or illegal trade. Stated damages: This refers to the fixed financial penalties the Company charged to its employees or interlopers who bypassed the corporate monopoly on specific goods. |
175 | 194 |
If any member of the Councill shall offend so as [...] | The directors noted that it was ordained that no person should retail liquor or tobacco on the Island without a licence under the hand and seal of the Governor. These licences were to be granted with moderate and reasonable rates or prices as settled by the Company. No licence was to be granted for a period exceeding one year, and each was to be annually renewed based on the good demeanour, sobriety, and orderly housekeeping of the recipient. Upon the granting of every such licence, a small sum or fine was to be paid to the Company as a consideration for the privilege. This fee was left to the discretion of the Governor based on what the people could bear, provided it did not exceed 20s for any one person for a year. The Governor was required to keep and send a yearly account of all receipts for these licences, along with an account of all goods and provisions taken for the Company’s use. It was expressed that such records would provide an account of the Governor’s management of the economic and civil government, just as his letters provided experience of the militia affairs; the former were deemed as necessary to the Company’s profit as the latter were to its security. The directors acknowledged that, due to the many great businesses currently before them, they might have omitted some laws necessary for the Company’s advantage or security, or failed to specify penalties for certain offences. They therefore left these matters to be supplied by the Governor according to his judgement, as he had greater leisure to consider such things while on the Island. The Governor was encouraged to share his thoughts at large concerning what he judged should be added, amended, altered, or repealed. Upon receiving such advice, the Company intended to make new constitutions as found most agreeable to their interest. Finally, it was ordered that if any member of the Council should offend so as to deserve displacement, or if a vacancy should otherwise occur, no person should be nominated or elected to the Council in their room until the Company signified who should be admitted. Interpretations: Retail: In this context, the term refers to the sale of goods in small quantities directly to consumers, particularly sailors and inhabitants, rather than wholesale trading. Oeconomic: This seventeenth-century term relates to the management of a household or, in this case, the financial and domestic administration of the Island’s resources. Speculations The restriction on filling Council vacancies without direct approval from London was intended to prevent the Governor from appointing a local faction that might prioritise Island interests over those of the Company. 20s: The limit of twenty shillings for a licence fee represents a significant but capped source of local revenue for the Company’s treasury on the Island. |
176 | 195 |
[...] | The directors provided brief and clear instructions regarding the duties to be paid by ships arriving at the Island. It was ordered that all foreign vessels, whether Dutch, French, or of any other nation, were required to pay an anchorage duty for staying or anchoring in the roadstead. English ships found to be interloping or interfering with the Company’s trade were to be charged double the standard anchorage fee in lieu of tonnage and other customary duties. This payment was to be received by the Governor before any such English ship was admitted to trade or receive refreshments. An exception was noted for small ships arriving from England for specific purposes previously discussed, or those trading to Madagascar, which were to pay a set rate of two shillings and sixpence per ton based on the burden of the ship. In addition to these duties, the Governor was required to demand and receive anchorage fees from all English ships trading in India, Madagascar, or any other location within the limits of the Company’s Charter without a special licence. These fees were to be collected from every ship, whether great or small, foreign or English, and regardless of whether they were in the Company’s service or not, for every voyage in which they came to anchor at St Helena. To maintain order and revenue, it was strictly forbidden for any person on the Island to sell liquor or tobacco by retail or any other means without a formal licence. Such permission could only be obtained under the hand and seal of the Governor for the time being. Furthermore, the Governor was required to send an exact list to London at least once every year detailing all officers and soldiers. This report was to distinguish between those who were married or unmarried and those who were planters or non-planters. The accounts were also to include the number of marriages and christenings occurring each year, as well as a complete list of all planters on the Island, specifically noting their marital status in a designated column. Interpretations: Anchorage: This refers to a specific fee charged to a ship for the privilege of anchoring in a particular port or roadstead, often used to fund the maintenance of the harbour and local government. Burthen: A seventeenth-century term for the carrying capacity or tonnage of a ship. Planters: This refers to the permanent settlers on St Helena who were granted land by the Company for farming and cultivation, as distinct from the military garrison or temporary residents. Speculations The requirement for detailed lists of marriages and christenings suggests the Company was closely monitoring the demographic growth and social stability of the colony to ensure its long-term viability as a naval station. |
177 | 196 | Names of how many Negroes they keepe or have on
Send Us an acct likewise of what Cattle or other [...] | The Governor was required to maintain detailed records regarding the inhabitants and their households. A specific instruction was given to record the number of slaves kept by each person, with separate columns to distinguish the number of males. The directors emphasised that the Governor must not fail to provide this information, stating that his position and their favour depended upon his compliance. Furthermore, a perfect list of all Company stores was to be sent annually. This inventory was to include the number and nature of all ordnance, gunpowder, shot, arms, and ammunition of every sort. The Governor was also directed to report on the financial state of the settlement, including any debts owed by the Company for salaries, wages, or other expenses, as well as all monies due to the Company. A complete account of the quantity and types of all provisions in store was also required. These details were deemed necessary for the directors to provide certain direction for the government and management of their concerns on the Island. Regarding anchorage fees, it was noted that if any ships in the Company’s own service refused to pay the appointed amount for each voyage, the Governor was not to contend with the commander. Instead, he was to certify the names of the ships and captains to the directors in London, who would then deduct the amount from their freight payments. The directors argued that it was unreasonable for the Company to bear the charge of three or four thousand pounds for fortifying and defending an island while others received the benefit without contributing to the cost. It was observed that most other settlements in the world had created a profitable revenue in less time than the Company had been in possession of St Helena. The Governor was also asked to provide an account of the cattle and other stock on the Company’s own plantation, along with the number of Company slaves employed there. Additionally, if the Governor was forced to accept slaves as payment for provisions supplied to ships arriving from Madagascar due to a lack of money, the directors requested to be informed of such transactions. Interpretations: Ordnance: This refers to the heavy guns and artillery mounted for the defence of the Island’s fortifications. Madagascar ships: This refers to vessels specifically engaged in the trade of slaves from Madagascar, which were permitted to use the Island’s resources under certain conditions. Speculations The threat to the Governor’s position regarding the census of inhabitants and slaves suggests that the directors in London felt they had a poor understanding of the actual population and resources available on the Island. |
178 | 197 | Governᵒʳ in his stead (whom alone Wee doe intrust wᵗʰ oᵘʳ Plantations) to cause
Wee remaine yoᵘʳ very loving friends Francis Ward Jos: Child Govᵒʳ | It was ordained that the Governor, whom the Company alone entrusted with the management of the plantations, should ensure that any slaves acquired from visiting vessels were employed in labouring upon the Company’s ground. The directors expressed their expectation that the Governor’s management would finally result in some profit being received from these operations. To ensure the effective enforcement of the law, the Governor was granted specific powers over the Council. If any member of the Council was found to be remiss or negligent in aiding the Governor in the execution of the Company’s laws or orders, the Governor was empowered to act and to displace that member from his position. Such individuals were to be stripped of their salaries and benefits until the Governor chose to restore them or until further orders were received from London. The Company confirmed that they would support such acts of discipline, leaving the displaced member to dispose of himself at his own discretion with the consent of the remaining Council. Furthermore, the Company decided to restrict the granting of land to private settlers. It was directed that no further grants or assignments of land, whether great or small, be made to any planter. The directors were resolved to retain the remainder of the Island’s territory for the Company’s own use and benefit. Consequently, any grants or assignments made contrary to this prohibition since its original issue were declared null and void. The Governor was strictly commanded to see that this order was put into execution immediately. The document concluded with the signatures of the directors, including the Governor of the Company, Josiah Child, and the Deputy, Thomas Papillon, alongside several other prominent members of the Court of Committees. Interpretations: Remiss: This term describes a failure to show enough care or attention to one’s duties, particularly regarding the enforcement of the Company’s legal authority. Null and void: A legal phrase indicating that a previous agreement or grant is no longer valid or has no legal force. Loving friends: A standard seventeenth-century closing for formal correspondence between the directors of a company and their senior overseas officials. Speculations The decision to halt land grants suggests that the Company had become concerned that too much of the Island’s limited fertile soil was passing into private hands, potentially reducing the Company’s own ability to produce provisions for its returning fleets. |
179 | 198 | Oᵘʳ Governᵒʳ & Councill London 1ˢᵗ Augᵗ 1683 Wee have receivᵈ yoᵘʳ severall Letters by
[...] | The directors acknowledged receipt of several letters sent from the Island by the ship Africa and two earlier vessels. These communications had been considered by the Committee for the concerns of St Helena. It was noted that more careful provisions had been made since 14 March 1682 - at which time a system of laws and constitutions for the government of the Island had been sent under the Common Seal. Copies of those laws and the two letters written to the Governor and Council were included with this current dispatch - dated 1 August 1683. Upon perusal of the consultation books and observing the civil course of proceedings under the Governor’s direction - the directors expressed a change in their approach in this letter of 1 August 1683. While they had provided a formal system of laws - they now considered that such formal proceedings might be a burden rather than a benefit to the Island at present. Therefore - the Governor was permitted to proceed in determining cases using the methods already established - with which the inhabitants were both acquainted and satisfied. An exception was made for specific offences. In cases involving the stealing of ships - timber - or land - the directors required the Governor to proceed according to the previously directed method of trial by jury as established in the laws of 14 March 1682. It was explained that the system of laws formerly sent was largely drawn from those established by the Company for the Island of Bombay. In Bombay - the population was computed at 20,000 people - whereas the conditions and situation of St Helena involved only a few inhabitants. For this reason - the directors believed the Island was not yet capable of supporting the full formal legal system previously proposed. Interpretations: Consultation books: These were the official daily records and minutes kept by the Governor and Council to document their decisions - meetings - and the general administration of the Island. Bombay: A major Company settlement in India with a significantly larger and more complex population than St Helena - serving as the original model for the Island’s legal code. Speculations The directors’ decision to revert to less formal legal methods suggests a pragmatic recognition that the small - close-knit community on St Helena did not yet require the same bureaucratic rigour as a major trading hub like Bombay. 1 August 1683: This date indicates that the letter was written during the late summer in London - probably intended for delivery by the autumn fleet sailing for the South Atlantic and East Indies. |
180 | 199 |
Wee find by the List of Guns you sent us in Information is sent to you
[...] | The directors expressed their approval of the recorded sums concerning the inhabitants - including men - women - servants - and children - as well as the accounts for cattle and other stock. They strictly required the Governor to send a report on the state of the Island every year. If any planter or lessee refused to provide such an account - or provided a false one - a fine of 40s was to be imposed and levied against their goods and chattels for the Company’s use. Serious concern was raised regarding a list of guns sent by Capt Danks - which indicated a waste of over 2,300 guns. The directors found this wastage strange and noted that the Island had cost the Company £40,000 with almost no profit returned. They reminded the Governor that such matters must be managed more effectively - as previously outlined in the last dispatch from the previous voyage. To prevent illegal trade - the Governor was ordered to imprison any person attempting to go on board East India ships to engage in unauthorised traffic or trade near the fort. Furthermore - a restriction was placed on the use of boats. For the future - no more than eight servants were permitted to serve any boat approaching the ships at port. The directors strictly forbade any landing or boarding by servants - or by any French - Dutch - or other Europeans - when dealing with interlopers. These measures were intended to ensure that no unauthorised person assisted vessels operating outside of the Company’s charter. Interpretations: Capt Danks: Probably a ship commander or official responsible for transporting or accounting for the military stores sent to the Island. Interlopers: This term refers to independent traders or ships operating in the East Indies in violation of the Royal Charter which granted the East India Company a total monopoly on trade in the region. Speculations The frustration regarding the “waste” of 2,300 guns probably reflects the directors’ suspicion of local corruption or a failure to properly maintain the Island’s expensive military hardware. 40s: This fine of forty shillings for failing to provide a census or inventory demonstrates the high value the Company placed on accurate data for the management of the settlement. |
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189 | 208 | Book cover | |
190 | 209 | EAP 1364 St Helena Document Name and Date Dimensions No. written pages: |