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Abstract
In the Revolutionary War the American rebels relied on supplies of munitions, especially gunpowder, from Europe. To circumvent the embargo and avoid seizure by the British, many of those supplies were routed through the neutral Dutch West Indian island of St Eustatius. To cut off supplies to the Americans, the British invaded and occupied that island. But the trade simply switched to Danish islands, while the British naval and military commanders, Admiral Rodney and General Vaughan, became deeply embroiled in litigation over the illegal seizure and sale of trade goods belonging to the island's merchants.
Notes
1 Rodney and Vaughan received their orders on 27 Jan. and the expedition set off three days later. Spinney, Rodney, 359–61.
2 London Courant, 16 May 1781; St James's Chronicle or the British Evening Post, 12–14 May 1781.
3 The National Archives, Kew (hereafter TNA): PRO 30/20/22/9, 13 is one copy of the Act of Surrender, signed by De Graaff.
4 London Courant, 16 May 1781; Spinney, Rodney, 362.
5 TNA: ADM 1/314, Rodney to Stephens, 10 Feb.
6 TNA: ADM 1/314, Rodney to Stephens, 4 Feb. 1781.
7 On 3 Jan. 1758, for example, Sir John Moore had written from Antigua to Vice-Admiral Edward Boscawen in London, ‘We have had very little success in this Country in point of profit, nor can it possibly be expected, as the French trade is wholly carry’d on in Dutch bottoms.’ TNA: HCA 32/176E no. 103.
8 Jameson, ‘St Eustatius’, 687.
9 Their names, when they were condemned in the St Kitts vice-admiralty court and commissioned into the Royal Navy, make it clear that the five privateers were American. TNA: ADM 1/314, Rodney to Stephens, 7 Mar.
10 While there was an abundance of every other commodity at St Eustatius, names were apparently in short supply, for the only two Dutch warships there were both named Mars.
11 Jameson, ‘St Eustatius’, 700; Clowes, Royal Navy, vol. 4, 61–2.
12 TNA: HCA 32/488/17, affidavit of John Harvey, captain of HMS Panther, 19 Feb. 1783.
13 TNA: CO 5/238, 292–7, Vaughan's official dispatch of 7 Feb. 1781; Jameson, ‘St Eustatius’, 700; TNA: ADM 1/314, Rodney to Stephens, 6 Feb.
14 Quoted in Jameson, ‘St Eustatius’, 700.
15 Debate on Burke's motion relating to the seizure and confiscation of private property in the island of St Eustatius, 14 May 1781, in Cobbett, Parliamentary History of England, 221.
16 Jordaan and Wilson, ‘Eighteenth-century Danish, Dutch and Swedish Free Ports’, 275–308; Abbattista, ‘Edmund Burke’, 1–39.
17 TNA: PRO 30/20/24/4, 23.
18 Spinney, Rodney, 284–5.
19 TNA: ADM 1/314, 106; Jennings, The Case of Richard Downing Jennings, appendix S, 54–5. Jennings had much to gain by discrediting Rodney, and I leave it up to the reader to judge who was the bigger fibber.
20 Rodney to General Cunningham, 17 Feb. 1781, in Mundy, Life and Correspondence, vol. 2, 29.
21 TNA: CO 5/244 fos 267–8, Germain to Vaughan, 20 Mar. 1781.
22 TNA: HCA 45/13 fo. 15.
23 TNA: HCA 45/13 fo. 16 affidavit of William Gomm, captain of the 55th Regiment, 9 May 1786. Edmund Burke put a different spin on these actions: by confiscating their records, Rodney was depriving merchants of the means to prove their innocence, or ownership (Burke speaking in the House of Commons, 14 May 1781, reported in St James's Chronicle or the British Evening Post, 12–14 May 1781).
24 Jameson, ‘St Eustatius’, 704.
25 Jameson, ‘St Eustatius’, 705; Abbattista, ‘Edmund Burke’, 2, 10.
26 Jameson, ‘St Eustatius’, 703–4.
27 £13,138 9s. 8½d. ‘Sale of Naval Stores to the Yard in English Harbour’ (TNA: HCA 42/153 part 1).
28 TNA: HCA 2/321, copy made in 1794 of Charles Kerr's original ‘Account of Sales’. I am not convinced this is a record of all the sales.
29 Jameson, ‘St Eustatius’, 700.
30 TNA: HCA 2/321.
31 There were 21 other ships and cargoes of, presumably, similar value, sent in this convoy but not included in these figures.
32 Author's estimate.
33 TNA: HCA 42/153 part 1. He was also, allegedly, the business partner of the American rebels’ agent for South Carolina. Jennings, Case of Richard Downing Jennings, 24.
34 TNA: HCA 2/321, 40.
35 O'Shaughnessy, The Men Who Lost America, 303.
36 Laforey to Middleton, 26 Apr. 1781, Laughton, Letters and Papers of Charles, Lord Barham, 121–6.
37 TNA: ADM 1/314, Rodney to Stephens 7 Mar.; HCA 42/141, affidavit of Capt. John Harvey.
38 TNA: HCA 2/321.
39 The actual valuation of the prizes by their French captors was 4,717,195 livres (£215,000). Rodger, Command of the Ocean, 348–9.
40 Both printed in the Annual Register for 1781, 161–3.
41 Breen, ‘Sir George Rodney and St Eustatius’, 199.
42 Jameson, ‘St Eustatius’, 706.
43 When, in February, Rodney detached a small force from St Eustatius to capture the Dutch colonies of Essequibo and Demerara, he offered them much more generous terms of capitulation. TNA: CO 111/1/1.
44 E.g. TNA: HCA 32/416/13, HCA 32/338/10, HCA 32/475/19, HCA 32/342/5, HCA 32/343/10, among many cases.
45 TNA: FO 148/3 fos 1–432. The British government ended up paying 2 million livres compensation to these merchants. O'Shaughnessy, The Men Who Lost America, 303.
46 TNA: HCA 2/321.
47 Selig, ‘The French Capture of St Eustatius’, 129–43; Jameson, ‘St Eustatius’, 708.
48 TNA: TS 11/658/2080; HCA 42/149–153.
49 E.g. Jarvis, In the Eye of All Trade, 431. It seems unfair to single out this otherwise excellent study, but he does say it.
50 Rodney to Laforey, 27 Feb. 1781, in Mundy, Life and Correspondence, vol. 2, 30.
51 TNA: ADM 1/314, 26 Mar.
52 Knox, Extra Official State Papers, 61–3. The accounts of merchants of other nationalities remained in the adjutant general's office on the island.
53 TNA: CO 5/244 fo. 295.
54 Knox, Extra Official State Papers, 43–4.
55 TNA: PRO 30/20/21/6, 241–2.
56 TNA: HCA 45/13 fo. 15.
57 TNA: HCA 45/13 fo.17.
58 Jarvis, In the Eye of All Trade, 272, 354, 406, 431; TNA: HCA 2/321.
59 Jennings, Case of Richard Downing Jennings.
60 O'Shaughnessy, Men Who Lost America, 418 n. 47; Knox, Extra Official State Papers, 64.
61 Not all the evidence, however: some of Curson & Gouverneur's in letters are in TNA: CO 246/1.
62 TNA: PRO 30/20/21, cited by Spinney, Rodney, 420.
63 TNA: HCA 42/153 part 1.
64 Jennings, Case of Richard Downing Jennings, 14, 22.
65 O'Shaughnessy, The Men Who Lost America, 308–10.
66 Quoted in Jameson, ‘St Eustatius', 702; Spinney, Rodney, 368.
67 Selig, ‘French Capture of St Eustatius’, 129–43.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Randolph Cock
Randolph Cock is Records Specialist, Prize Papers, at the National Archives of the UK, where he is arranging and cataloguing the Prize Papers of the High Court of Admiralty. This article developed out of the need to explain why and how that archive comes to include thousands of letters from St Eustatius dated between November 1780 and January 1781. He has previously written on science and the navy, voyages of exploration, and other mostly maritime themes.