Captain Elliot and the Founding of Hong Kong

by Captain Elliot

  Elliot could derive considerable satisfaction from this development, which was a significant step forward for the education of young people in Bermuda. The establishment of an eponymous primary school in 1848 in Devonshire parish, which continues to thrive today, is a permanent reminder of his commitment to improving education in the islands.

  1848 also marked a change of commander-in-chief of the North America and West Indies Station. After four years in the post Sir Francis Austen retired at the age of 74 and was succeeded by Vice Admiral Sir Thomas Cochrane, tenth Earl of Dundonald. As Lord Cochrane he had distinguished himself in the Napoleonic Wars, becoming much admired (and feared) by the French. Like Elliot, Dundonald was no stranger to controversy. He had been expelled from Parliament, dismissed from the Navy and stripped of his knighthood after he was found guilty of fraudulent stock exchange dealings in 1814. His conviction was vigorously disputed, Cochrane himself protesting his innocence for the rest of his life. Though he was reinstated in the Royal Navy in 1832, he declined active service until his knighthood was restored in May 1847. Like Austen, he assumed the North America and West Indies command in his seventies and retired from active service after relinquishing the post.

  Dundonald’s years as commander-in-chief, which ended in 1851, did not feature any of the heroics of his earlier career. The role of the squadron continued as it had been under Austen, the routine protection of British trade interests in the region, especially during the American–Mexican war of 1846–8, and the disruption of slave trading, notably by Brazil. Of the 159 ships of the Royal Navy on overseas duties in 1845, deployed on eight stations around the world and in ‘particular service’ task forces, the North America and West Indies Station accounted for twenty-five.29 Only eleven, however, were fighting units; the others comprised support vessels of various kinds including receiving, hospital and supply ships and, importantly, convict hulks.

  The lack of any major military operations should have allowed the fortification of the Bermuda naval base to proceed unhindered. Initially the Royal Navy had established a base at St George’s in the east of the islands, but towards the end of the eighteenth century moved its centre of activity to Ireland Island in the west, where land had been acquired for a much larger development. The project was beset in its early years by labour supply problems. Local manpower was scarce, and was more productively employed in traditional Bermudan work such as small ship construction. The solution, which was to remain in place for nearly forty years, was convict labour. In 1823 the most recent in a series of amending and consolidating Transportation Acts had permitted the employment of convicts on public works in the colonies. The fortification of the dockyard in Bermuda and the building of associated defences were deemed an entirely appropriate use of this new dispensation. In 1824 the Antelope, a former troopship, arrived in Bermuda from Britain with 300 convicts and 200 Marines on board. Progress on the development of the dockyard was painfully slow, however. It was a challenging project, involving major land reclamation and the construction of long breakwaters. To early labour shortages were added inadequate provision of the necessary machinery and frequent storm damage. After more than a decade in which very little had been achieved, the recently arrived Earl of Dundonald was typically forthright in his comments on the subject, reporting to his naval masters in London that

  there was nothing in the Yard to defend – the space enclosed by ramparts is an entire void, except the half finished Victualling Store, and 2 small wooden buildings to be pulled down. The space is incapable of holding the Dockyard and the Victualling Yard. There is not a Shed in which the Sails of the Flag Ship can be fitted, not even space for setting up a Spunyarn reel out of the rays of the Sun. Water cannot be got for the Ships; the glacis should be plastered and tanks built.30

  Dundonald was moreover highly critical of what he saw as the vast amounts of money wasted on building ever more fortifications, when what was needed were gunboats to provide a mobile defence capability. The mistaken policy so far followed had resulted from a lack of appropriate naval involvement in the planning. If there had been any, he said, savings would have amounted to ‘many hundreds of thousands of pounds, perhaps a million … I assert that gunboats not only would suffice, but are by far the most available, and easily the cheapest defensive force amongst [these] rocks.’31 The need for Bermuda, especially the naval base, to be properly defended was not in doubt, but the question of how that should best be achieved led to protracted debate between London and the colony over several years. Governor Elliot, of whom Dundonald was generally supportive, was to submit in 1851 a twenty-seven page memorandum to Earl Grey requesting various defensive improvements. Perhaps with the operations of the Nemesis in the Pearl River delta ten years earlier in mind, and in line with Dundonald’s view, he placed considerable emphasis on the provision of

  2 small iron steam boats … such rapid means of concentration and movement of troops in a country abounding with defensive positions from one end of it to the other and with the sea penetrating into all parts of it … would be a more effective as well as a much more economical reinforcement than an additional battalion of infantry without those facilities’.32

  Though Grey was sympathetic, the official response was negative, on grounds of cost and because, it was said, the navy could itself manage any critical situation that might arise.

  The frequent correspondence between Governor Elliot and the Secretary of State in the summer of 1848, other than routine business, was almost entirely taken up with convict matters. The two men had very different concerns, however. Elliot was anxious to see an improvement in prisoners’ living conditions generally, while Grey reflected the British government’s major preoccupation with Ireland and the Irish, Irishmen now comprising a sizeable proportion of the convict population of Bermuda. His focus was John Mitchel, a lawyer and journalist whose alleged revolutionary nationalist activities had resulted in a conviction for treason and a sentence of fourteen years transportation. Grey informed Elliot that Mitchel was being sent to Bermuda, and anxious to avoid any action that would risk his subsequently acquiring martyrdom status amongst his compatriots, suggested that he be housed in hospital accommodation

  since he is supposed to be of a consumptive tendency, if not already labouring under decided consumption, & that it is highly important he should be so treated as to find no ground for its being alleged hereafter, that his life has been lost owing to the manner in which his sentence has been carried into effect.33

  It was Elliot’s view, however, that if Mitchel were to be accorded this kind of special treatment – there were no prisoner patients in the hospital – there would be an even greater risk that the resentment of other prisoners could boil over into severe disorder. As he had done before, Elliot decided that as the man on the ground his own judgement should prevail; he had Mitchel accommodated not in the hospital (the newly converted convict hulk Tenedos) but in the Dromedary, one of the regular prison hulks. He was nevertheless keen to show that he understood Grey’s concern, informing the Secretary of State that Mitchel would be in the custody of ‘a firm but discreet and humane man’, and adding that he would be kept apart from the other prisoners.34 To the disquiet of Irish Protestants in Parliament Mitchel had already, in transit to Bermuda, been given what they considered unjustifiable privileges, but the fact was that he was no ordinary convict. Being careful not to go too far, Governor Elliot, along with others in authority in Bermuda, recognised his status as a highly erudite educated political prisoner and ensured, as Grey would have wished and as Mitchel himself acknowledged, that his living conditions were tolerably comfortable. Having been provided with books and various other items Mitchel wondered in his diary whether

  With all these appliances, both for bodily health and mental dissipation, with liberty to write for, and receive any books I please from home (except political periodicals), with sufficient space to exercise in the fresh sea-air, with abundance of good food, and a constant supply of fresh water, and pap
er, and pens … it would be possible to live here for some indefinite number of years, or even for the whole fourteen, should nothing happen to cut them short.35

  Unease continued to be expressed in Parliament about the undue leniency allegedly being shown to Mitchel. In July, Elliot was able give assurances to Grey’s satisfaction that his treatment was appropriate – and went further, indulging in some of the exaggeration to which he was prone: ‘With his health shattered and his spirit broken I venture to suggest whether it may not be humane and wise to send him to Australia on conditional freedom or the ticket of leave.’36 In due course Grey undertook to respond to this suggestion, but in the meantime had more pressing concerns, about security. He had alerted Elliot some weeks earlier to the possibility that an attempt might be made from the United States to kidnap Mitchel, and urged the Governor to take every precaution to prevent his escape to America. Elliot duly promised to take firm action, including if necessary the imposition of martial law, should there be any unrest amongst the Irish in Bermuda in the approach to the forthcoming US presidential election. The Democratic candidate General Lewis Cass displayed, Elliot said, ‘exaggerated hatred to England, inordinate vanity, and perfectly unscrupulous ambition’.37 The supposed threat of attempted abduction never materialised. Mitchel eventually sailed for Cape Town in April 1849 and on to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania), from where he escaped to the United States in 1853. Elliot’s proposal that Mitchel should leave Bermuda on health grounds was not primarily because he was a highly controversial figure, though that was a factor. Mitchel’s spirit was not broken, but his health was indeed in a very poor state and despite his less harsh treatment his future looked bleak.

  The conditions under which convicts were housed in the hulks were oppressive and insanitary. Elliot was concerned that the inmates’ environment should be drastically improved. Most Bermuda convicts served out their sentences, generally seven or fourteen years, in the colony with no prospect of betterment; but Elliot’s communications with London on the urgent need to ameliorate their conditions in Bermuda went further. He sought also to persuade the British government that there should be increased opportunity for onward transportation to Australia, where some hope of a better life could be offered. He was particularly concerned about the predicaments of the Irish and juvenile convicts. Of the Irish he reported, with reference to the Great Famine, that

  many of them were convicted of stealing food, and agrarian offences; the first, no doubt, chiefly attributable to the dreadful calamity which befell the poorer classes of people during the last two years, and the last in a high degree to the inflammatory practices of others, in the time of desperate need.38

  He wondered whether

  Her Majesty’s Government may be pleased (taking all these circumstances into consideration, on the return of a state of comparative tranquillity in Ireland), to permit me to appoint a Commission in this colony, for selecting individuals from the Irish prisoners, whom it may be permissible to recommend for removal to Australia, on the ticket of leave or conditional pardon. These prisoners are for the most part friendless men in humble stations of life, and your Lordship will feel that they are entitled to any extenuating considerations which I can advance on their behalf, whilst they are conducting themselves steadily and submissively at this depot.39

  Elliot made it clear, without any hope of immediate change of judicial practice, what he thought of the sentences meted out to many of the boy convicts who had recently arrived in Bermuda:

  Poor and scanty food and the hard things of their infancy have for the most part left these lads with a lower stature and more childish appearance than their age alone would suggest, though it will shock H.M. Government to learn that twelve of them are under sixteen years of age, and that of the thirteen-year-olds one has been sentenced to fifteen years transportation for sheep-stealing!40

  In November 1848, five months after submitting his request, Elliot had in place criteria for choosing 250 Irish prisoners to sail to Australia, and by 1851 was able to house some 600 convicts in a newly constructed stone jail on Boaz Island instead of on board the hulks.41 He could subsequently feel some satisfaction that he had played a key role in beginning the process of abandoning the hulks and, eventually, of discontinuing convict transportation to Bermuda.

  Family and health matters were never far from Charles Elliot’s mind. He and Clara decided to send Gibby, now aged 14, home in April 1848 to the East India Company’s college at Haileybury. He was thought by his father to be bright and well able to cope with the demands that would be made of him. A year later Clara also returned to England, with a view to going abroad for the summer. It seems probable that her plan was to travel in Europe, possibly for her health. Elliot hoped that if she did go, she would be able to take Gibby with her. In any event, Hughie (aged 18) was to accompany his mother. At this stage Elliot appears to have had great confidence in Gibby, and found no difficulty in making highly critical remarks to him about his elder brother, whose academic motivation and progress had been sadly lacking:

  It is high time that he [Hughie] should be doing something for himself. He is a good natured creature, as ever lived, but very volatile and idle. If I have any luck he will get a Cavalry Cadetship, and as I often tell him unless his horse has more brains than the animal on his outside they will come to no good … Hughie has thrown away if not a fortune at least the life of a gentleman…. Do not you play the same foolish trick for Heaven’s sake.42

  Charles Elliot was not particularly well at this time. The nature of his illness is not clear, but it seems likely that it was a recurrence of the dysentery that had dogged him in recent years, especially while he was in Texas. Whatever it was, it persisted. In May 1852 he successfully applied for leave of absence to go to England to seek medical advice. In a briefing note a colleague reminded Herman Merivale, who had succeeded Sir James Stephen as Permanent Under Secretary, that ‘Governor Elliot obtained leave of absence last year [1851] to come home on the ground of ill-health, but did not avail himself of it’, and thought that the present Secretary of State Sir John Pakington would probably ‘not refuse the same indulgence to a Governor, who has managed the affairs of his Colony so well, and who unfortunately still stands in need of medical assistance in England’.43,44 Elliot had not indicated a period for his leave, but Pakington granted it on the assumption, made clear to Elliot, that he would return to Bermuda as soon as his health allowed.

  Return he did, leaving London at the end of October 1853, after more than a year in England. Having learned with great concern of the outbreak of yellow fever in Bermuda, he was anxious to ensure that the necessary measures were taken to help end it and to relieve the suffering of the bereaved. The colony had experienced yellow fever epidemics before, but this was the most widespread to date. It claimed the lives of more than 800 in total, with the greatest concentrations amongst the convict establishment and military personnel.45

  In the weeks before he embarked for Halifax, Nova Scotia en route to Bermuda, Elliot had lobbied vigorously for authority to release convicts back to England according to the length of sentence served and subject to satisfactory behaviour. Completion of approximately one third of a man’s sentence would suffice to secure his release. Those incapable of further labour should also be returned home. Elliot conveyed his request with great urgency to the Duke of Newcastle, Pakington’s successor as Secretary of State, who lost no time in instructing his officials to proceed. Merivale wrote to Henry Waddington, his opposite number at the Home Office:

  I am directed by the Duke of Newcastle to request that you will state to Viscount Palmerston [now Home Secretary] that His Grace considers it an object of pressing importance to take some immediate and decisive steps with respect to the release of a proportion of the convicts who are now employed on public works at Bermuda. This measure, His Grace would point out … is at this moment the more essential from the fearful mortality which has been occasioned by the epidemic which now prevails in that island. The
Duke of Newcastle is of opinion that the Governor of Bermuda should be authorised to make immediate arrangements.46

  As well as seeking powers to repatriate convicts, Elliot requested funds with which to help those survivors most affected by the epidemic. Sir Charles Trevelyan, Assistant Secretary to the Treasury was asked to lay the request before the Treasury Commissioners. When Elliot reached Halifax the news from Bermuda was as bad as he had expected, prompting him to make another plea for the Treasury to grant his request for funds as soon as possible. By mid-January 1854 he was able to report to Newcastle that the sum available for the relief of yellow fever sufferers and their dependants, £1,055, had been distributed, as agreed by a small committee including the Colonial Secretary and the Mayor of Hamilton, to 183 widows and children.47

  Governor Elliot had been satisfied in December that the epidemic was at an end, declaring 4 January a ‘Day of Prayer and Thanksgiving’ for deliverance. The passing of the disease marked a decisive point for him. ‘In this state of circumstances’, he wrote to Newcastle, ‘I venture to hope that Your Grace will be pleased to consider my respectful request to be relieved from the administration of this Government as soon as the convenience of the Service may admit of such an arrangement’.48

  January was a busy month for Elliot. He already knew that his next appointment was to the Governorship of Trinidad, but there was still work to be done in Bermuda. Follow-up action after the epidemic included thanking (at great length) the commander-in-chief North America and West Indies, now Vice-Admiral Sir George Seymour, for his assistance in sending crucial medical and other aid from Halifax. He also forwarded to the Secretary of State a list of twenty-one prisoners who had worked with particular dedication as nurses during the outbreak; the remainder of their sentences was to be cancelled, and with five others specially commended, they were to return home. All was not thanks and reward, however. Convicts were aware of the less harsh approach now being taken towards them. Lest any should assume more leniency than was justified, Elliot saw fit to issue a warning. He transmitted to Newcastle