Theophilus Richmond the FIRST CROSSING with an Introduction by David Dabydeen, Jonathan Morley, Brinsley Samaroo, Amar Wahab & Brigid Wells

THE FIRST CROSSING being the Diary of Theophilus Richmond, ship’s surgeon aboard the Hesperus, 1837-8 i Theophilus Richmond THE FIRST CROSSING with an Introduction by David Dabydeen, Jonathan Morley, Brinsley Samaroo, Amar Wahab & Brigid Wells This edition © The Caribbean Press 2010 Series Preface © Bharrat Jagdeo 2010 Introduction © The Authors 2010 Cover design by Cristiano Coppola All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without permission Published by The Caribbean Press for the Government of Guyana This publication was made possible by the financial support of the Peepal Tree Press (Leeds), the Lord Gavron Trust and the Government of Guyana ISBN 978-1-907493-03-4 ii THE GUYANA CLASSICS LIBRARY Series Preface by the President of Guyana, H.E. Bharrat Jagdeo General Editor: David Dabydeen Consulting Editor: Ian McDonald Director of Research: Letizia Gramaglia iii iv SERIES PREFACE Modern Guyana came into being, in the Western imagination, through the travelogue of Sir Walter Ralegh, The Discoverie of Guiana (1595). Ralegh was as beguiled by Guiana’s landscape (“I never saw a more beautiful country…”) as he was by the prospect of plunder (“every stone we stooped to take up promised either gold or silver by his complexion”). Ralegh’s contemporaries, too, were doubly inspired, writing, as Thoreau says, of Guiana’s “majestic forests”, but also of its earth, “resplendent with gold.” By the eighteenth century, when the trade in Africans was in full swing, writers cared less for Guiana’s beauty than for its mineral wealth. Sugar was the poet’s muse, hence the epic work by James Grainger The Sugar Cane (1764), a poem which deals with subjects such as how best to manure the sugar cane plant, the most effective diet for the African slaves, worming techniques, etc. As John Singleton confessed (in his General Description of the West Indies, 1776), there was no contradiction between the manufacture of odes and that of sugar: “…a fine exuberant plant, which clothes the fields with the richest verdure. There is, I believe, scarcely any cultivation which yields so lucrative a return per acre as under favourable circumstances, than that of the sugar cane. So bountiful a gift of Providence seems not only calculated to call forth the activity and enterprise of the agriculturalist and merchant, but to awaken also feelings of a higher and more refined enthusiasm.” The refinement of art and that of sugar were one and the same process. The nineteenth century saw the introduction of Indian indentureship, but as the sugar industry expanded, literary works contracted. Edward Jenkins’ novel Lutchmee and Dilloo (1877) was the only substantial fiction on Guiana, and whilst it was broadly sympathetic to the plight of Indian labourers, it was certain of Britain’s imperial destiny, and rights over mineral v resources. It was not until the period leading up to Guiana’s Independence from Britain (1966) and the subsequent years, that our own writers of Amerindian, African, Asian and European ancestry (A.J. Seymour, Wilson Harris, Jan Carew, Edgar Mittelholzer, Martin Carter, Rajkumari Singh et al.) attempted to purify literature of its commercial taint, restoring to readers a vision of the complexity of the Guyanese character and the beauty of the Guyanese landscape. The Guyana Classics Library will republish out-of-print poetry, novels and travelogues so as to remind us of our literary heritage, and it will also remind us of our reputation for scholarship in the fields of history, anthropology, sociology and politics, through the reprinting of seminal works in these subjects. The Series builds upon previous Guyanese endeavours, like the institution of CARIFESTA and the Guyana Prize. I am delighted that my government has originated the project and has pledged that every library in the land will be furnished with titles from the Series, so that all Guyanese can appreciate our monumental achievement in moving from Exploitation to Expression. If the Series becomes the foundation and inspiration for future literary and scholarly works, then my government will have moved towards fulfilling one of its primary tasks, which is the educational development of our people. President Bharrat Jagdeo vi THE FIRST CROSSING being the Diary of Theophilus Richmond, ship’s surgeon aboard the Hesperus, 1837-8 Edited by David Dabydeen, Jonathan Morley, Brinsley Samaroo, Amar Wahab & Brigid Wells The Guyana Classics Library vii viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The editors are grateful to Sir William Gladstone, Bt. for permission to quote from the Gladstone papers, and to Steven Davies at the Flintshire Record Office for his help in providing access. Thanks are also due to David Prior, Assistant Clerk of the Records at the House of Lords, to the Librarian at St. Deiniol’s, Hawarden, and to Evan Persaud, Yesu Persaud and R.K. Sharma in Guyana for their invaluable help. David Dabydeen is grateful to the Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Warwick, and to the British Academy, for financial support in travelling to Guyana. Thanks also to John Gilmore and Matthew McCann for helping to identify the Latin and other literary quotations. Ziqian Chan and Lynne Macedo are to be thanked for editorial support and passionate commitment to the project. The original manuscript of the Journal belongs to Melinda Diamond (cousin of Brigid Wells) whose grandmother was Theophilus Richmond’s great-niece. Without her permission and encouragement this book could not have been published. ix NOTE ON THE TEXT Richmond’s at times idiosyncratic spellings and unusual capitalisations have been retained, but his punctuation is here regularised for readability (particularly both missing and surplus apostrophes, and the hyphens or dashes which he uses interchangeably to indicate a change of idea, presumably to save paper). Comments concerning layout (for example where a poem has been completed in an available blank space, necessitating a signpost to the reader) have been removed. Richmond’s frequent literary quotations have, wherever possible, been identified in footnotes. x CONTENTS INTRODUCTION........................................................................ xiii JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE TO THE MAURITIUS, CALCUTTA AND DEMERARA IN 1837-8................................. 1 Scenes in the Isle of France .......................................................... 31 “Isle of Beauty, fare thee well.”................................................... 49 Scenes in Calcutta ......................................................................... 59 Voyage to the West Indies ........................................................... 87 Scenes in Demerara ...................................................................... 99 Appendix I: Illustrations to Richmond’s Diary ...................... 101 Select Bibliography ..................................................................... 113 Notes on the Editors ................................................................... 117 LIST OF PLATES Plate 1: A Mohamedan, A Parsee, A Hindoo Plate 2: Indian Goddess Plate 3: CHART of the MAURITIUS or Isle of France Plate 4: CHART shewing the course of the SHIP HESPERUS to the MAURITIUS and CALCUTTA, 1837 Plate 5: CHART of the WEST INDIES and part of AMERICA Plate 6: A page from the Journal Plate 7: Portrait of Theophilus Pellat Richmond xi xii INTRODUCTION 1. Sir John Gladstone’s scheme to bring Indian labourers to British Guiana, 1837-811 After 1807, the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade put an official end to the capture and export of Africans by British traders. The institution of slavery however remained as the basis of agricultural and domestic labour in British colonies in the West Indies, as well as in the southern United States and in the colonies of other European nations. In 1823, a new anti-slavery pressure group was formed by Thomas Clarkson, William Wilberforce, Thomas Fowell Buxton and Lord Brougham. The goal of the “Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Dominions” was first to improve conditions for the slaves and then to get rid of the system altogether. With support groups throughout the country, the Society’s arguments became increasingly persuasive. As the very existence of slavery was called into question, both the British Government and, reluctantly, the West Indian plantation owners were beginning to “think the unthinkable.” In 1823, the House of Commons resolved that “the great object of emancipation” must be accomplished “at the earliest period which shall be compatible with the well being of the slaves themselves, with the safety of the Colonies and with a fair and equitable consideration of the interests of private property.”2 That same year, Lord Bathurst (the then Colonial Secretary), tried to persuade the Court of Policy of British Guiana to accept a gradual process towards the inevitable. Under his scheme, the slaves would first become indentured labourers and could then purchase their freedom from their earnings, with some compensation to owners from public funds. Lord Bathurst warned that if the colony rejected such proposals, he saw “no other alternative... than that of my humbly submitting to His Majesty the expediency of enacting them by direct Royal authority.”3 xiii In fact, Government coercion was still ten years away; there was still time for rearguard action. John Gladstone MP, (later Sir John), father of William Ewart, was a prominent member of the West

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