Authors: John Sugden
Appointed by the crown, Sir Thomas Shirley was ultimately responsible to the king for the enforcement of the navigation laws in the Leeward Islands, but his salary was voted by the Antiguan assembly, and his friends and the members of his advisory council belonged to the controlling planting class that expected him to articulate its grievances. At first Shirley doubted the navigation laws would do the islands much damage, and he had been unwise enough to say so in one of his dispatches home, but as his appreciation of the local predicament deepened he edged towards a compromise.
In February 1784 he forwarded a petition of the St Kitts assembly to ministers. It prayed that their ports be declared free and open to all. Shirley thought the measure ‘beneficial’, and pointed out that the island was well favoured; properly supported it might capture trade from the rival Dutch colony of St Eustatius with its open ports. At any rate, it merited ‘the benignity and attention’ of government ‘in a very high degree’ because of its ‘strong and steady attachment . . . to His Majesty’s service in many instances previous to, and during, its subjection to the arms of France’ during the war. Like the other islands it was, he later added, groaning under ‘a very heavy load of debt’. On 30 July Shirley even suggested that American vessels of a small tonnage be allowed into the islands, all of which ‘depend very much on America for almost all kinds of trade . . .’
7
Unfortunately, the temper and inclinations of the British government were tracing a different path. In 1783, during the dying days of Lord Shelburne’s administration, Pitt indeed proposed a bill removing the restrictions upon commercial intercourse between the new American republic and the West Indies, but the government fell and the bill with it. Fears then spread that any relaxation of the navigation laws would ravage the British carrying trade and its ‘nursery of seamen’. Lord Sheffield, a Member of Parliament, used a wealth of argument, statistics and a silver pen to rally the country behind the navigation laws in his famous tract,
Observations on the Commerce of the United States
, published in 1783. Sheffield was sure that the growth of Canada and Nova Scotia would meet the requirements of the West Indian islands, while the mother country herself would simultaneously benefit from a direct American trade. There was no need
to threaten the country’s naval resources by a hasty repeal of the navigation laws. In Antigua, therefore, Shirley found that whatever inclination to temporise had existed in Britain was evaporating. Few in London were interested in his plan for concessions.
Shirley had not given up hope, however. He received Lord Sydney’s insistence on the full implementation of the navigation laws in January 1785, and warned that ‘there is a great reason to apprehend that these islands will feel many inconveniences from the want of a regular supply of corn . . . and of some species of lumber, which last, for a time at least, our own colonies in North America [Canada] will not be able to furnish’. He asked for more directions.
8
It was amidst this exchange that Governor Shirley first heard of the young, boyish looking captain of His Majesty’s frigate
Boreas
. Horatio Nelson, bent upon a zealous self-righteous enforcement of the navigation laws, contemptuous of the islanders, whom he regarded as corrupt, self-seeking rebels, and beyond the control of his admiral, was unlikely to make a constructive contribution to the problem. A clash with him was almost inevitable.
It gathered quickly, beginning with Collingwood’s interception of the American ship the
Liberty
trying to reach St John’s in December 1784. Collingwood claimed the vessel was attempting to enter under the pretext of distress to unload its illegal cargo, and in return was accused by the islanders of blockading their port. Shirley had tried to establish an acceptable routine for handling such matters, and it was on his prompting that Admiral Hughes had revised his instructions to captains at the end of the month. As we have seen, those orders required foreign ships to be intercepted by the navy, and held in abeyance while their credentials, as well as the British captain’s report, were submitted to the governor or his representatives. Ultimately, therefore, it was the governor who decided upon the propriety of the ship proceeding.
In January 1785 Nelson refused to obey the revised order, declaring that it was for the navy alone to determine whether foreign ships be allowed into British ports. The civil authorities, and by implication, Governor Shirley himself, could not be trusted. Nelson made a candid response to Hughes on 9 January, but for some time Shirley remained ignorant of the disagreement. Naturally he presumed that Hughes commanded his own officers. It was not until mid-January, when the governor wrote directly and innocently to Captain Nelson, begging ‘leave’ to suggest the ‘surest mode’ of putting Hughes’s order into practice, that he himself came directly under fire.
Far from anticipating outrage, Shirley believed he was successfully marrying authority ashore and afloat. He had accepted that the claims of incoming foreign ships needed investigation, and that naval officers were qualified above all others to assess any alleged damage. Every foreign master seeking admission to a port would have to submit a report from the intercepting naval commander. Though the governor or his representative would be the final arbiter, Shirley promised Nelson that ‘if it shall be very manifest that there is not a necessity for such vessels coming into port to repair . . . you would send them about their business’. It was through ‘our joint endeavours’ that the navigation laws could best be implemented.
9
In fact, the day Shirley wrote his personal letter to Nelson, seeking to induct him into the new procedure, he also addressed the presidents of the councils in Nevis, St Kitts and Montserrat asking their cooperation. The Americans were now foreigners, he reminded those authorities, and enclosing copies of his letter to Captain Nelson urged them to ‘aid him as much as lies in your power to carry the several acts of parliament relative to trade with foreigners into execution’. Shirley did not approve of the navigation laws, but his government had ordered him to enforce them and it was a matter of creating a uniform approach. There is no reason to doubt his integrity, though he underestimated the extent to which merchants and officials alike were prepared to shirk their duty and evade the legislation.
10
Nelson, on the other hand, had the poorest possible opinion of the civil authorities. Most recently he had sent Wilfred Collingwood’s
Rattler
to Sandy Point at St Kitts, where four American merchantmen were found on 14 January. Investigating, Collingwood uncovered a catalogue of irregularities, evasions and illegalities. The law only admitted ships that were British built and owned, and piloted by a British master and crew. But the American master of one of the ships claimed to be British purely on account of having served in British merchantmen during the war. Another of the four ships was the
Nancy
, owned by Seth Doane of New London. She had been to St Kitts, where she was turned into a ‘British bottom’ by purchase. Her cargo was sold to the Basdens, merchants of the island, and after an alleged sale the ship itself was re-registered at the customs house as a British vessel.
All four vessels, in one or more particulars, smashed holes through the navigation laws, and Wilfred Collingwood confronted Henry Bennett, the collector of customs at Sandy Point, demanding to know why they had been given registers authorising them to trade. Bennett
was slippery. He did not defend all the illegal practices of which Collingwood complained, but was clearly at loggerheads over some important issues. The law required owners and masters to be British subjects, but Bennett was willing to accept the mere swearing of an oath of allegiance in lieu. He also had a liberal interpretation of what constituted a ‘British bottom’. According to him, only American ships built
after
1783, when the independence of the United States was formally recognised by Britain, were ‘foreign bottoms’; those built during the War of Independence itself, between 1776 and 1783, could be accepted as British because at that time the colonists were simply rebellious subjects of the crown.
Wilfred Collingwood was not a man to be put upon, especially by Bennett and a bunch of crown lawyers and customs officials. He replied crisply. During the war any American vessel captured by the navy was deemed legitimate prize. They were obviously regarded as foreign ships. In time it was Collingwood’s opinion, rather than Bennett’s, that would be regarded as the definitive interpretation of the law, and it was the experiences of both Collingwood brothers that coloured Nelson’s reaction to Shirley’s overtures.
11
Searching further afield for allies, Nelson rushed papers relating to the
Rattler
’s debacle direct to the Admiralty, without even submitting them to his commander-in-chief. The affair convinced him that the civil authorities were rotten to the core and hand-in-glove with the illegal traders. He had already thrown out Hughes’s revised order, and now he just as summarily dismissed Shirley’s plea for ‘joint endeavours’ by the navy and the governors and presidents of council.
At the end of January Nelson rocked Governor Shirley back on his heels with a furious missive from St Kitt’s. Cuthbert Collingwood, who until then had been the focus of the navy’s campaign, had responded to Shirley’s suggestions without enthusiasm, but at least obediently. Certainly, there was no indication that he would eschew the procedures outlined. But Nelson completely denied the right of civil authorities to intervene in the process, and charged them with negligence if not corruption. The navigation laws were directed to the officers of the navy, ‘well knowing that those whose profession is the sea must be the best judges of the accidents which may happen upon that element’, and their duty was to report solely to a superior professional officer. Nelson declined to hold himself accountable to any civil official, though if one of an appropriate rank enquired he would receive ‘such information as is proper he should know’. Only if no warship
was present should the presidents of council and customs officers handle the business. ‘Thus,’ said Nelson, in almost a mock parody of the governor’s letter, ‘by
our joint endeavours
will illegal trade be suppressed.’
12
Nelson hoped that when the civil authorities did act, they would ‘do their duty’ and exclude foreign commerce, but he made no bones about what he thought of the customs officers who registered ineligible ships as legitimate traders. In his final sentences Nelson went so far as to suggest that Shirley himself might want commitment. He was giving the governor this information, he said, so ‘that you may,
if you think fit
, take methods to hinder’ illegal acts; as for himself, the captain was transmitting accounts of the fraudulent trade to the home government.
13
This letter was a blow to the face of Governor Shirley. It told him that his procedures were going to be ignored, whether backed by the admiral or not, and that neither he nor any other civilian was to be trusted. Nelson’s statement that he was sending his findings direct to London sounded very much like a threat. Suddenly all Shirley’s plans to steer between the contending parties were scuttled. The governor was also ‘hurt and insulted’ by Nelson’s letter, as he lost no time in explaining. He told Nelson that he had never intended to slight the navy, and took great exception to the ‘insinuation that you thought either I connived at the malpractices of others, or was negligent of my own duty’. As for the captain reporting to government, that too was unsettling. ‘If I am at all concerned, or mentioned, in such accounts,’ Shirley demanded, ‘I make no doubt but you will have candour enough to inform me of it.’
14
Nelson’s belligerence was often founded on impulse rather than reflection, and on this occasion, as on others, he tried to take a short step backwards. Realising that he had been excessively abrupt, he tried to mollify the governor and explain himself more tactfully. He disapproved of the idea of allowing the masters of the American ships ashore, he said, because experience had taught him they ‘uniformly’ wheedled what they wanted from customs people. However, he intended no personal offence to Shirley, for whom he held ‘great respect’.
15
But the damage was done. Shirley complained to Hughes, in whom he still held misplaced faith, and on 1 March wrote again to the captain himself. ‘I must . . . observe to you, sir,’ he told Nelson, ‘that old respectable officers of high rank, long service and of a certain [time of] life are very jealous of being dictated to in their duty by young
gentlemen, whose service and experience do not entitle them to it.’ Indeed, the governor had himself reported transgressions of the navigation laws to ministers in London. ‘It will appear, I believe,’ he said sarcastically, ‘that Captain Nelson has not been the only alert, active, patriotic servant of the Crown upon this occasion.’
16
Nelson was never good at taking criticism and abandoned his brief attempt at reconciliation upon reading Shirley’s letter. He resigned himself to having made yet another enemy. He would hold no ‘further correspondence’ with ‘your Excellency’, he wrote to the governor, but ‘General Shirley and Sir Richard Hughes will understand the ideas of each other, I doubt not, and the distinction of old and young [will] be obliterated’. It was as well that Shirley remained unaware of Nelson’s low estimation of Hughes, or he would have seen the venom of this last barb from the captain of the
Boreas
.
17
Sir Thomas smarted at being sabotaged and bypassed by an upstart. Had he been privy to the letters Nelson was sending home, not only to the lords of the Admiralty but also to Lord Sydney, the home secretary, he would have regarded them as inflammatory and more calculated to excite the government’s prejudices than to illuminate. Still, there was nothing he could do. He had failed to rein Nelson in and could only remain a disapproving bystander to whatever followed. What was more, the governor was decisively outflanked.