The and the British Atlantic World, c. 1750–1820

John McAleer • Christer Petley Editors The Royal Navy and the British Atlantic World, c. 1750–1820 Editors John McAleer Christer Petley University of Southampton University of Southampton Southampton, UK Southampton, UK

ISBN 978-1-137-50764-8 ISBN 978-1-137-50765-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-50765-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016941472

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identifi ed as the author(s) of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Macmillan Publishers Ltd. London ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Most of the chapters in this book were fi rst presented as papers at a conference held during the summer of 2014 at the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth. We are grateful to the museum for hosting the conference and to all those who participated, as well as to the Southampton Maritime and Marine Institute and the Discipline of History at the University of Southampton for their fi nancial support. The Centre for Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies and the Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies, both based in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Southampton, also provided valuable support.

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CONTENTS

1 Introduction: The Royal Navy and the British Atlantic 1 Christer Petley and John McAleer

2 The Royal Navy and Caribbean Colonial Society during the Eighteenth Century 27 Siân Williams

3 Ireland and the Royal Navy in the Eighteenth Century 51 Patrick Walsh

4 Another Look at the Navigation Acts and the Coming of the American Revolution 77 Stephen Conway

5 The Royal Navy, the British Atlantic Empire and the Abolition of the Slave Trade 97 Christer Petley

6 At War with the ‘Detestable Traffi c’: The Royal Navy’s Anti-Slavery Cause in the Atlantic Ocean 123 Mary Wills

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7 Atlantic Empire, European War and the Naval Expeditions to South America, 1806–1807 147 James Davey

8 Atlantic Periphery, Asian Gateway: The Royal Navy at the Cape of Good Hope, 1785–1815 173 John McAleer

9 Epilogue: Love and Death—The Royal Navy in the Atlantic World 197 Kathleen Wilson

Index 215 NOTES ON CO NTRIBUTORS

Stephen Conway is a professor of History at University College London. He is the author of The War of American Independence (1995); The British Isles and the War of American Independence (2000); War, State, and Society in Mid-Eighteenth-Century Britain and Ireland (2006); Britain, Ireland, and Continental Europe in the Eighteenth Century: Similarities, Connections, Identities (2011); and A Short History of the American Revolutionary War (2013). He has also published scholarly articles on a variety of subjects in periodicals such as English Historical Review , The Historical Journal , and the William & Mary Quarterly . He is currently working on a book, with the provisional title, ‘Britannia’s Auxiliaries: Continental Europeans and the British Empire, c . 1740–1800’.

James Davey is a curator of Naval History at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. He is the author of The Transformation of British Naval Strategy: Seapower and Supply in Northern Europe 1808–1812 (2010) and Broadsides: Caricature and the Navy, 1756–1815 (2012). His latest monograph, In Nelson’s Wake: The Navy and the , was published by Yale University Press in 2015.

John McAleer is a lecturer in History at the University of Southampton. He is the author of Representing : Landscape, Exploration and Empire in Southern Africa, 1780–1870 (2010), Monsoon Traders: The Maritime World of the (2011), and a number of scholarly arti- cles, which have appeared in periodicals such as the British Journal for the History of Science , International History Review , and Atlantic Studies . His

ix x NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS latest monograph, Britain’s Maritime Empire: Southern Africa, the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, 1763–1820 , was published in 2016.

Christer Petley is a senior lecturer in History at the University of Southampton. Among his publications are Slaveholders in Jamaica: Colonial Society and Culture during the Era of Abolition (2009) and arti- cles in Atlantic Studies , Slavery & Abolition, and The Historical Journal . He is currently working on a study of the Jamaican planter class during the Age of Revolution.

Patrick Walsh is a teaching fellow in British History in the Department of History at University College London. Among his publications are The Making of the Irish Protestant Ascendancy: The Life of William Conolly, 1662–1729 (2010), The South Sea Bubble and Ireland: Money, Banking and Investment, 1690–1721 (2014) as well as articles in The Historical Journal , Eighteenth-Century Life and Scottish Historical Review.

Siân Williams received her PhD in History from the University of Southampton in 2015. Her thesis, ‘The Royal Navy in the British Caribbean, 1756–1815’, examined interactions between naval personnel and West Indian societies and cultures.

Mary Wills is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation (WISE), University of Hull, working on the AHRC-funded project, ‘Antislavery Usable Past’. Before taking up her current post, she held an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award based at WISE and the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. Her thesis examined themes of anti-slavery, imperialism and identity in the Royal Navy’s suppression of the transatlantic slave trade in the nineteenth century.

Kathleen Wilson is a professor of History at Stony Brook University. Her books include The Sense of the People: Politics, Culture and Imperialism in England, 1715–1785 (1995); The Island Race: Englishness, Empire and Gender in the Eighteenth Century (2003); and, as editor, A New Imperial History: Culture, Identity and Modernity in Britain and the Empire 1660– 1840 (2004). She is currently completing a project entitled ‘Strolling Players of Empire: Theatre, Culture and Modernity in the English Provinces’, which explores the politics of theatrical performances and colonial rule in sites across the Atlantic, Pacifi c, and Indian Ocean worlds. LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 1.1 Presentation sword, by Richard Teed, c. 1806 (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, WPN1121) 2 Fig. 2.1 Statue of Admiral Rodney, by John Bacon, in Spanish Town, Jamaica (photograph by Christer Petley) 28 Fig. 2.2 Thomas Sutherland after James Hakewill, ‘The King’s Square, St Jago de la Vega [Spanish Town]’, hand-coloured aquatint, in James Hakewill, A Picturesque Tour of the Island of Jamaica (London, 1825), plate 3 (Courtesy of the Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, T683 (Folio A)) 30 Fig. 2.3 ‘Lindos, ent[ra]nc[e] to Admirals pen from Greenwich, Jamaica’ by William Berryman, c. 1808–15 (Courtesy of the Library of Congress, LC–USZ62–136763) 36 Fig. 6.1 John Hawksworth and S. Croad, The Slave Ship Vigilante, engraving, 1823 (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, PAH7370) 131 Fig. 6.2 George Cruikshank, Puzzled which to Choose!! or, The King of Tombuctoo offering one of his daughters in marriage to Capt—(anticipated result of the African mission), hand-coloured etching, 1818 (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, PAG8631) 139 Fig. 7.1 Home Riggs Popham (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, PAH5888) 156 Fig. 7.2 Chart of the Rio de la Plata (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, PAH5910) 158 Fig. 7.3 Storming of Monte Video (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, PAI6994) 164

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