The British Superintendency of Mosquito Shore
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THE BRITISH SUPERINTENDENCY OF THE MOSQUITO SHORE 1749 - 1787 by William Shuman Sorsby Thesis presented to the University of London for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Arts Department of History, University College, London. January 1969 LOVDIN UIy 2 ABSTRACT After an informal relationship between the Indians of the Mosquito Shore and the governor and merchants of Jamaica that had lasted for nearly a hundred years, Robert Hodgson was sent to the Shore in 1740 to organise the scattered English settlers and Indians for military campaigns on the Spanish Main during the War of Jenkins' Ear. When the war ended, the Board of Trade established a superintendency on the Shore naming Hodgson as superintendent. His government (1749-1759) was punctuated by disputes between the Mosquitos, Shoremen and Spanish which nearly erupted into a new war. The second superintendent, Richard Jones, was replaced at the outbreak of Anglo-Spanish hostilities in 1762 by Captain Joseph Otway, when it was felt that a field officer was needed on the Shore. However, the war soon ended and the Mosquito Shore during Otway's superintendency (1762-1767) experienced peace, growth and prosperity. At Otway's death in 1767, Robert Hodgson, son of the first superintendent, was named to the office. His superintendency soon deteriorated into a series of bitter feuds with the settlers and the governors of Jamaica. In 1775 Hodgson's enemies persuaded Lord George Germain to replace him with his worst adversary, James Lawrie. Lawrie was superintendent until the evacuation of the Shore in 1787, avoiding 3 all attempts by Hodgson to force his removal from office. During Lawrie's superintendency (1776-1787) the Shore was used as a base for military operations in the Anglo-Spanish conflict of 1779-1783, and then as a refuge for American loyalists. Succumbing to constant pressure by the Spanish, England abandoned the Mosquito Shore in 1786 at the signing of the Mosquito Convention. The evacuation of British settlers was terminated in June 1787, and Spanish settlements were formed on the Shore immediately thereafter. CONTENTS Page List of Abbreviations 5 Acknowledgement 8 I. Incursions, Merchants and Marooners: Guerrilla Warfare and Trade on the Spanish Main during the War of Jenkins' Ear, 1738 - 1744 9 The Formation of British Military Rule on the Mosquito Shore, 1744 - 1749 39 III. The Superintendency of Robert Hodgson the Elder, 1749 - 1754 55 IV. Governor Knowles, Hodgson, and the Galbraith "Superintendency", 1754 - 1759 89 V. The Second Superintendency and the Mosquito Shore as a Cause of the Anglo-Spanish Conflict of 1762: Richard Jones, 1759 - 1762 113 VI. Peace and Progress in the Bay of Honduras: Joseph Otway, 1762 - 1767 124 VII. The Superintendency of Robert Hodgson the Younger, 1767 - 1771 156 VIII. The Hodgson - Settler Controversy: the First and Second Revolts, 1771 - 1775 179 IX. The Mosquito Shore and the American Revolution: James Lawrie, 1775 - 1779 198 X. The Anglo-Spanish Conflict, 1779 - 1783 251 XI. The Mosquito Convention, 1783 - 1787 291 Appendix A Article six, Anglo-Spanish Treaty of Peace, 3 September 1783 323 Appendix B The Mosquito Convention, 14 July 1786 325 Bibliography 330 5 ABBREVIATIONS ABH Burdon, Archives of British Honduras. AC Archivo Colonial, Archivo Nacional de Costa Rica. Adm Admiralty Papers, Public Record Office (London). AGS, Est Archivo General de Simancas, Estado. AGS, Guerra Archivo General de Simancas, Guerra moderna. AHN, Consejo Archivo Historico Nacional (Madrid), Consejo de las Indias. AHN, Est Archivo Historico Nacional (Madrid), Estado. AHR American Historical Review BAGG Boletn del Archivo General del Gobierno (Guatemala). BDH Biblioteca DepOsito Hidrografico... (Madrid). BM British Museum (London). BN Biblioteca Nacional (Madrid). BR Biblioteca del Palacio Real (Madrid). CC Complimentario Colonial, Archivo Nacional de Costa Rica. CDHCR Fernandez, Coleccibn de Documentos...Costa Rica. CKG Fortescue, Correspondence of King George III. CO Colonial Office Archives, Public Record Office (London). CRC Peralta, Costa Rica y Colombia. CRM Peralta, Costa Rica y Costa de Mosquitos. Cuba Isla de Cuba, Archivo General de Indias (Sevilla). DGHC Cuervo, ColecciOn de Documentos...Colombia. DNB Lee, Dictionary of National Biography. 6 DRH Hodgson, The Defence of Robert Hodgson. DRN Colecci6n de documentos...Nicaragua. EHR English Historical Review. FO Foreign Office Archives, Public Record Office (London). GH Peralta, Geographie Historique. GP Germain Papers, William L. Clements Library (Ann Arbor). GP/SDB Germain Papers/Secret Despatch Book, William L. Clements Library (Ann Arbor). Guat Audiencia de Guatemala, Archivo General de Indies (Sevilla). HAHR Hispanic American Historical Review. HA/MSL Honduras Archives/Mosquito Shore Letter Book, Royal Commonwealth Society Library (London). Ind Gen Indiferente Ceneral, Archivo General de Indies (Sevilla). JHR Jamaica Historical Review. JTCR Peralta, JurisdicciOn territorial. KP Kemble Papers. LCG Aspinall, Later Correspondence of George III. LCRC Peralta, Llmites de Costa Rica y Colombia. Mex Audiencia de Mexico, Archivo General de Indies (Sevilla). MN Museo Naval (Madrid). NLS National Library of Scotland (Edinburgh). PC 2 Privy Council Office Registers, Public Record Office (London). FCC Prerogative Court of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Somerset House (London). PTJ Boyd Papers of Thomas Jefferson. 7 RI Revista de Indias. Shel Shelburne Papers, William L. Clements Library (Ann Arbor). SP State Papers, Public Record Office (London). Sta Fe Audiencia de Santa Fg , Archivo General de Indias (Sevilla). Sto Dom Audiencia de Santo Domingo, Archivo General de Indias (Sevilla). Treasury Papers, Public Record Office (London). TCD Cantillo, Tratados, Convenios.... TS King's or Queen's Proctor Papers, Public Record Office (London). 30/8 Chatham Papers, Public Record Office (London). 30/15 Manchester Papers, Public Record Office (London). 30/47 Egremont Papers, Public Record Office (London). 30/50 Neville and Aldworth Papers, Public Record Office (London). 8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This study would not have been possible without the cooperation and assistance given to the author by numerous people and institutions. I wish to thank the of the University of London for i4e-financial support. I am grateful to Dr. Herbert Lander, Kenneth Blackwell and Rupert Wilkinson for their valuable suggestions and to Mrs. Nelson-Smith for her patience in typing this thesis. I am most deeply indebted to Professor R.A. Humphreys, who has given me invaluable assistance at every stage of this project and to my wife, Victoria, for her willingness to become an expert in Mosquito history. 9 Chapter I INCURSIONS, MERCHANTS and MAROONERS: Guerrilla Warfare and Clandestine Trade on the Spanish Main during the War of Jenkins' Ear, 1738 - 1744.1 Seizures of English merchant vessels and contraband trade on the Spanish Main, the two major issues that split the English and Spanish crowns early in the eighteenth century, in 1739 led to the conflict 2 known as the War of Jenkins' Ear. War suited the purpose and temperament of each nation. England was determined to protect and encourage her commercial interests, while Spain was anxious to preserve her official trade monopoly.3 Mere suspicion of clandestine trading activities was sufficient 1 Captain Robert Jenkins lost his ear to the commander of a Spanish guardacosta in 1731. The case was forgotten until 1738 when it was revived and became one of the culminating causes of the war, just as Jenkins' patriotic cry "I committed my soul to God, and my cause to my country" became England's wartime rallying call. DNB, xxix, 306. 2There were other important issues that helped to provoke the conflict; the asiento trade and the dispute over Georgia, for example, but they remain outside the range of this paper. For studies on the causes of the war see: H.W.V. Temperley, "The Causes of the War of Jenkins' Ear, 1739", Royal Historical Society Transactions (third series, London, 1089), iii, 197-237; Ernest G. Hildner, "The Role of the South Sea Company in the Diplomacy Leading to the War of Jenkins' Ear, 1729 - 1739", HAHR, xviii (1938), pp. 320-341; Richard Pares, War and Trade in the West Indies (Oxford, 1936), pp. 29-64. 5Benjamin Keene, British minister plenipotentiary in Madrid, was aware of Spain's willingness to fight. In June 1739 he wrote: "...in my private Opinion I thought these people had taken a kind of Pleasure to throw Affairs out of all Hopes of Remedy...." Keene to Newcastle, 29 June 1739, SP 94/133. 10 ground for the seizure of English merchantmen--no matter the composition 4 of the cargo or location and destination of the vessel. "Acts of aggression" against peaceful British traders, whose commerce in the Bay of Honduras was felt by many to be authorised by the "American" treaty (1670), and by the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), hindered the growth of 5 British trade and settlement on the logwood coast of Yucatan and on 6 the "Island of Mosquito", where British marooners settled among the irreduced and independent Zambos Mosquitos Indians° had begun to open a profitable trade throughout the provinces of the kingdom of Guatemala. 9 Spain's major concern in the West Indies was focalised in the Bay of Honduras. The English court must surely be aware, wrote oneSpanish minister, of the excesses committed by the British in their usurpations 4 See Basil Williams, Carteret and Newcastle (Cambridge, 1943), p. 111. 'Vera Lee Brown, "Contraband Trade: a Factor in the Decline of Spain's EMpire in America", HAHR, viii (1928), p. 184. Logwood cutting had long been notorious on the rivers Belize and Nuevo on the Yucatan peninsula, a region today known as British Honduras. Throughout the eighteenth century Spain grudgingly accepted in her own councils the English right to cut logwood. See Observations on Spanish interests, c. 1762, AGS, Est 8162. The hostile and unproductive country made trade almost impossible with the interior, consequently little Spanish gold, silver or other products of her colonies could filter out.