Author: colonel-fred

English still favours pulling strings to try to rescue Augustus’s army career. Rowland Hill, 1^st Viscount Hill, whom English may have known in the Peninsular and Waterloo campaigns, was now commander-in-chief of the Army. Lord Fitzroy Somerset had lost an arm at Waterloo, then served as secretary to Wellington in his capacity as Master General of the Ordnance. At this time, he was ...     Read more

Not dated at head, but begun on 14 March 1836 at Demerara. 

Powis is the local name for the black curassow, crax alector, see letter 58. 

Cuba, a Spanish colony, had abolished trading in slaves in 1818, but slavery had not been abolished, and newly captured slaves were still being delivered there illegally. The proposed deal was to transfer some of these newly captured slaves to British colonies, ...     Read more

Demerara 2d April 1836

My Dear Kate

Whenever I seat myself to write, some unforeseen interruptions occur. My desk has been open the whole morning and it’s now past 12 oclock before I could get rid of my troubles. Even now I fear a visitor or two will walk in just to perplex and take up the time I wish to occupy in writing home, for T Naghten informs me one of the vessels of their house sails this afternoon, the Underwood, ...     Read more

There is a hint here of the unpopularity of the Governor of the Windward and Leeward Islands, Sir Lionel Smith. Sturge and Harvey (see Further Reading) compare him unfavourably with his successor Sir Evan MacGregor.

Demerara 2d May 1836

It appears an age my dear Kate since I received accounts from Wickham. By the last Packet no letter arrived, occasioned doubtlessly thro the delay at Pall Mall office. Probably Sir F ...     Read more

Not dated at head, but begun at Demerara on 15 May 1836 

‘Mr Steward MP’ is John Stewart, illegitimate son and heir of John Stewart, owner of several West Indian sugar estates. His mother was Mary Duncan of Demerara, either black or of mixed race. He represented Lymington in parliament from 1832 to 1847, and is believed to have been the first person of mixed race to sit in the House ...     Read more

Not dated at head, begun at Demerara 29 May 1836 

It always so happens my dear Kate that some interruption occurs whenever I wish to get my letter prepared for you. Fortunately the Mail Boat is becalmed outside or I should have lost the opportunity. I am just returning home after closing a Court Martial that has detained its members and myself as president for two days. The heat is immensely oppressive ...     Read more

 2d July 36

You will think my dear Kate that I was lost – but no, only that the spring leg has been in motion again. Would you credit it? Since I commenced, in fact hardly had I seated myself, and it is now nearly four oclock, when in came behind me and without shoes they are at your elbow before you know a person is in the room.  First Capt Walter, ‘Massa, here em a Powis nest you to take Barbade’. ...     Read more

Maroudie: Webster’s Dictionary defines ‘maroodi’ as guan, and locates the word in Guyana. Of the three guans native to Guyana, the one that best fits the description is the blue-throated piping guan, Pipile cumanensis.

Demerara 15 Jul 1836

You all express anxiety that I shall find the Wickham letters dull and uninteresting. It always makes me smile my dear Kate. On the contrary, I devour every line from home and ...     Read more

Demerara 28^th July 1836

So sure my dear Kate as I lay out a morning to write to you, every description of interruption occurs. The Lucretia sails at four and I have been in an agony to get to this sheet of paper without success. Col Monins has just left me after nearly an hour’s chat. He must of thought me, as poor Mrs Rose use to say, rather abstracted, for my thought were at Wickham all the time. He called to offer ...     Read more

Crofton, home of the Naghten family, is at Stubbington, about six miles from Wickham and close to Catisfield. 

Capoey is a seaport up the coast to the north-west and beyond the estuary of the Essequibo. 

Mr Young’s mission to Cuba is explained in letter 52.

Demerara 11^th Augst 1836

Still here my dear Kate much to my disgust for ere this I thought to have been settled in Barbados. Capt Victor I understand reach it from ...     Read more