A rich and satisfying letterbook documenting activities in the Caribbean in the aftermath of the War of 1812. Far from celebrating the new peace, the West Indies became a hotbed of piracy and residual slave trading. British ships patrolled the Caribbean Sea in an effort to suppress both.
These 110 copy letters document the services of the 6th rate 20 gun HMS Bann and the 18 gun HMS Ontario. The majority of the correspondence was written by Commander Jodrell Leigh (1790-1863), with some additional entries signed by the purser Walter Burke.
The correspondence details both ships' involvement in transporting treasure ($230,000 - about $6.2m today), an American schooner for trade violations, his assisting in the impounding of a British trade vessel in the Bahamas, investigating "piratical activity" in Antigua, and even recovering escaped labourers in Haiti.
Many letters are addressed to the commander of the Jamaica station, Sir Home Popham (1762-1820), as well as the Governor of Veracruz, Don Jose Davila, and Commodore Thomas Huskisson. They give great insight into the minutiae and daily travails of life at sea. Leigh reports the insubordination of second master Mr Thomas Young, plus the desertion of William Clark. He similarly writes to Commodore Joly of the brig Admiral Brion, stationed at Cale Henry, Virginia, seeking assurance that British sailors were properly renumerated for their services and subsequently released. On 31 May, 1820, he writes to the Commander in Chief of the Cuban navy, hoping to secure the release of British sailors imprisoned at Havana.
A letter from Lieutenant James Edgecombe to Leigh is copied in which he complains of receiving "treatment so widely different from that which I ever experienced from those officers with whom I have served and so contrary to the conduct which as an officer and agentlemen I have an undoubted right to expect ... And I have to request, if my conduct is such as to deserve such a repeated public admonition that you will give me an opportuinity of exonerating myself by trying me by a court martial."
On 6 November 1820, Leigh moved to HMS Ontario. There is a detailed description concerning the detention of the American schooner Bolivia, at Turks for trading violations on 21 February, 1821. This case drew immense attention from the press as an example of widespread allegations of American trade violations and alleged smuggling. The affair is detailed over a series of letters in this book.
Of real interest is his letter to Rear Admiral Sir Charles Rowley, who had assumed command of the West India Station after Sir Home Popham's death, on 17 August, 1821. Leigh writes that on the evening of the 28th of April at Turks, he was informed of "another desertion of slaves had taken place from that Colony. I proceeded on the morning of the 11th May to Cape Haytian with letters from the Governor demanding the runaways (His Excellency on board incognito) after receiving answers to these dispatches." Leigh was shown the reply to this letter and writes that "the Haytian Chief Boyer says, these fugitives were not there, but if they had been there and people sprung from African blood could not just give them up, but that the tribunals of Hayti were open to the parties complaining of injury; by which I conclude he alludes to any vessel; that may have been taken off by the parties deserting."
While the Haitian Revolition saw the ousting of French rule, the creation of an independent Black Republic, and the abolition of slavery, forced labour continued to be practiced. This letterbook provides a rare insight into this.
Jodrell Leigh served variously on the Dryad, the Bonne Citoyenne, the Falmouth, and the Sybille, before being promoted to command the Bann and later Ontario.
