Squadron

by John Broich

  6 For Colomb’s observation of the accommodations for the Africans on Mauritius and his gloomy perceptions of their fate, see Slave-catching, 346–50.

  17. ‘False as water’

  1 For details about the day Edward Meara paid Hamed bin Sahel see National Archives ADM 53/9548 HMS Nymphe Log. Heath’s letter bearing news of promotions, received Sept. 1869, comes from Admiralty to Leopold Heath, 23 June 1869, in Slave Trade Records of the East Indian Station, National Archives ADM 127/40. For Kirk’s belief that this was important for convincing the Arabs of British justice, Kirk to the Earl of Clarendon, 8 Aug. 1869, in House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, 1870 [C.141] Class B, East coast of Africa. Correspondence respecting the slave trade and other matters, 53. Meara knew of the reminder to tow condemned ships into port if at all possible because he signed Heath’s circular on the matter: Slave Trade Records of the East Indian Station, National Archives ADM 127/40, Heath to squadron, 5 June 1869. More details of the meeting at which Meara paid the dhow owner at the British Residency come from John Kirk to Secretary of State, Foreign Affairs, 18 Sept. 1869, British Library IOR L/PS/9/48. Details of the layout of the British Residency at Zanzibar and the surrounding area come from Richard Hayes Crofton, The Old Consulate at Zanzibar (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1935), inset map. That Kirk took Meara aside to blame Bombay for ordering restitution to the slaveholder taken at Keonga comes from Edward Meara to Secretary of the Admiralty, 27 July 1870, in Foreign Office, British and Foreign State Papers, 1870–1871 (London: William Ridgeway, 1877), 361.

  2 Kirk to C. Gonne Sec. to Govt Bombay, Political Department, 21 Sept 1869 and 4 Oct. 1869, both at British Library, India Office Records, L/PS/9/48.

  3 For the period of Sulivan arriving at Zanzibar just after Meara’s paying of the allegedly aggrieved dhow owner, see Daphne’s log, National Archives ADM 53/9582. For his visit to Jumah Jin’s widow and his visit to the Zanzibar slave market, see Sulivan, Dhow Chasing, 247–54. Most details come from Sulivan’s book, but some details of Zanzibar streets outside the slave market come from slaver-hunter William Cope Devereux, assistant paymaster on HMS Gorgon in 1861. See his A Cruise in the Gorgon (London: Bell and Daldy, 1869), 100–3; generally, Devereux had a very low opinion of the honesty of the men on his ship with regard to their slave-trade policing. Other details come from Leopold Heath’s aide-de-camp Percy Scott, who was there in the same years as Sulivan: Fifty Years in the Royal Navy, 29.

  4 The period of Nymphe’s hunting off the Horn of Africa, including target practice and daily work, is described in Nymphe’s log, National Archives ADM 53/9547. Crew details come from the Nymphe’s Establishment Book, National Archives ADM 115/691. The Sept. 1869 message from Kirk to Meara is recorded in Edward Meara’s report to Commodore Heath, 26 Oct. 1869, in Slave Trade Records of the East Indian Station, National Archives ADM 127/40. For Meara’s thinking relative to Kirk’s decision that the refugees from slavery should be returned to the victor in his Vice-Admiralty court, see Edward Meara to Secretary of the Admiralty, 27 July 1870, in Foreign Office, British and Foreign State Papers, 1870–1871 (London: William Ridgeway, 1877), 360–1. There is no evidence to indicate the moment he decided to ignore D. Kirk’s order.

  5 The description of Tamatave comes from Devereux, A Cruise in the Gorgon, 291. Other details of the stop at Tamatave come from Dryad’s log, National Archives ADM 53/9913, and Colomb, Slave-catching, 350–1. Some details of the proceedings at the consul’s house come from a series of letters between T.C. Pakenham and Commander Colomb and Pakenham and the Earl of Clarendon [Foreign Office], Aug.-Nov. 1869, in House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, 1871 [C.340] Class B, East coast of Africa. Correspondence respecting the slave trade and other matters, 4–8. For Colomb’s aims in returning to Majunga to try to trap the officials there, including the hope to help Heath defend Meara by giving a counter charge, see Colomb’s report on this part of his cruise to the commodore, including his racist theory that the Malagasy race-deficiencies were in part to blame, 31 Dec. 1869, Slave Trade Records of the East Indian Station, National Archives ADM 127/40. For Colomb’s obvious delight in the surprise he would spring on Governor Ramasy at Majunga, as well as all of the other details of this incident, see Colomb, Slave-catching, 350–6.

  18. ‘The desperate tempest’

  1 For the ants – I suspect he was writing about termites – eating the ornithological collection, see Dhow Chasing, 214–15. Information about Sulivan and Daphne’s arrival at Bombay in October 1869 come from Daphne’s log, National Archives ADM 53/9582. Also from his extensive report, Sulivan to Leopold Heath, 11 Oct. 1869 in Slave Trade Records of the East Indian Station, National Archives ADM 127/40. This report reveals that he had read in that period the criticism of the squadron moving between officials. One clue is that in his Dhow Chasing (p. 259) Sulivan makes particular reference to a condemnatory April 1869 letter from the Bombay Government to the Zanzibar Resident. The details of Sulivan’s angry reaction to Bombay’s interference come from this important document. The details about Royal Navy officers being condemned to Bombay suppers, including the sights on Bombay roads, come from Colomb, Slave-catching, 89–91. But unfortunately Sulivan does not provide the date of the supper in question. It might have been late 1868, but given the comment of the official and Sulivan’s presence in Bombay then, late 1869 seems a better guess. The quote of the official comes from Dhow Chasing, 3. The direct quote from Sulivan’s report to Heath comes from the 11 October 1869 report referenced above. Abdul Sheriff reports the short supply of ivory in 1868 in Slave, Spices, and Ivory, 135.

  2 For the weather for 1 Nov. 1869, London Daily News, Tuesday 2 Nov. 1869, 7. For Clarendon’s cigarette habit, Edward Hertslet, Recollections of the Old Foreign Office (London: John Murray, 1901), 121. H.C. Vivian is pictured on a carte-de-visite from this period at the National Portrait Gallery, item NPG x13266. One of Dickens’ first jobs was court reporting from the Doctors Commons, which is both a place name and the name of the society of lawyers who practised its special law. The Dickens quote is from David Copperfield, ch. 23. On the friendship of William Wylde and Henry Rothery, see Howell, Royal Navy and the Slave Trade, 15. There is not much information on Fairfax beyond the Navy List and his service record, National Archives ADM 196/36/1115. An image of Arthur Otway is in Vanity Fair, 8 Feb. 1879. On Wylde and Rothery taking the lead on the committee, see Howell, Royal Navy and the Slave Trade, 61. Details from this section, including the meeting location, report drafts, manuscript notes on the proceedings, letters, and others, come from the file of papers generated by the committee: National Archives HCA 36/5. In this file, for Vivian warning about the interruption of hunting, see Vivian to Rothery, 16 Nov. 1869, 1. There is an 1860s portrait of Lord Clarendon at the National Portrait Gallery on a carte-de-visite, item NPG x29291, and a painting of Gladstone’s entire cabinet by Lowes Cato Dickinson, 1869–1874, item NPG 5116. Information on Clarendon’s philosophy comes from an excellent Dictionary of National Biography (2004) article by David Steele and from Huzzey, Freedom Burning, 59–60, 63 and elsewhere. The report of the Slave Trade committee that included H.C. Rothery is located in National Archives HCA 36/5, Papers and correspondence of the East African Slave Trade Committee. The section quoted here is on p. 5. For the thinking of the East African Slave Trade committee, its allegations, even thoughts revealed in the margins, see this same collection of papers. The ‘purchased at too high a price’ quote comes from an annotation that Lord Clarendon made in the margins of a memo. This is cited in Richard Huzzey, Freedom Burning, 80. In the same source see p. 78 for Clarendon’s damping down the zeal of diplomats.

  3 The letter from Lord Clarendon’s office citing the squadron for incorrectly rescuing fugitives from slavery is dated 6 Jan. 1870, in Slave Trade Records of the East Indian Station, National Archives ADM 127/40. For the Somerset trial, Steven M. Wise, Though the Heavens May Fall: The Landmark Trial that Led to the End of Human Slavery (Boston: De Capo Press, 2005). Caroline Shaw offers an excelle
nt overview of this issue and tells the story of this matter coming to a head in the mid-1870s in Britannia’s Embrace: Modern Humanitarianism and the Imperial Origins of Refugee Relief (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), ch. 7. For the Foreign Office’s official pique toward Sulivan, see the Admiralty letter conveying the news in Secretary of the Admiralty to Leopold Heath, 7 June 1870, in Slave Trade Records of the East Indian Station, National Archives ADM 127/40.

  4 For Dr O’Connor’s small stature and good company, see National Maritime Museum, William Henry Maxwell Journals, MAX/1, Section 1868. Details about the tale of Sabourri and the death of John Shilston come from Colomb, Slave-catching, 434–40. See also Dryad’s log, National Archives ADM 53/9914, Dryad’s Establishment Book, National Archives ADM 115/290, and Dr Daniel O’Connor’s service record, National Archives ADM 196/9. It seems most likely that Sabourri was a student of Bishop Tozer, among Tozer’s small group of students at Zanzibar, but I cannot find proof of this. Colomb’s family background comes from the Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 Supplement, vol. 2 (New York: Macmillan, 1901), 49–50. Little is known of Dr O’Connor’s background, but he is always mentioned as Daniel O’Connor, Esq.

  5 The appearance of the Colaba lighthouse is provided by a watercolour pasted in the log of Frank Fauwell, National Maritime Museum, LOG N/D/13. Other details of the appearances of the ships already in harbour come from Nymphe’s log, National Archives ADM 53/9548. Commodore Heath describes his captains as zealous and energetic in his 22 Jan. 1870 report on the year 1869 in Slave Trade Records of the East Indian Station, National Archives ADM 127/40. Leopold Heath’s anger at the report of the committee is evident in multiple sources, but these particular thoughts come from his official response to the revised instructions, Confidential letter, Heath to Sec. of the Admiralty, 25 Mar. 1870, in National Archives HCA 36/5, Papers and correspondence of the East African Slave Trade Committee. For Heath’s feeling that capturing ships with only a handful of captives on board was now practically outlawed, see Heath to Secretary of the Admiralty, 12 Jan. 1870, in Slave Trade Records of the East Indian Station, National Archives ADM 127/40. For Heath’s feeling that the new rules would negatively affect the activity of the captains on the squadron, even embodied a threat, see Heath’s annual report on the slave trade in the 22 Jan. 1870 document cited above, no page number, but his point no. 14. For Sulivan’s angry response to India and London, see Sulivan to Leopold Heath, 11 Oct. 1869, in Slave Trade Records of the East Indian Station, National Archives ADM 127/40. The formulation offered here reflects his prose in Dhow Chasing, 3. Colomb, Sulivan and Heath wrote that the officers on the station shared the view that the new instructions badly hamstrung their efforts, practically limiting them to capturing fully laden slavers, though experience showed that perhaps most of the trade was carried on in much smaller numbers: Colomb, Slave-catching, 453; Sulivan, Dhow Chasing, 2; Heath, Confidential letter, Heath to Sec. of the Admiralty, 25 Mar. 1870, in National Archives HCA 36/5, Papers and correspondence of the East African Slave Trade Committee. Word of the Royal Humane Society awards came from the Admiralty to Leopold Heath, 21 Sept. 1869, in Slave Trade Records of the East Indian Station, National Archives ADM 127/40. On Heath writing that the new instructions ‘will diminish the number of captures very largely’, see his confidential letter referred to above.

  19. ‘After every tempest come such calms’

  1 On the departures of Colomb, Heath and Meara and the numbers of East Africans taken from slave ships, see The Times, 9 Apr. 1870, 12; 24 Jan. 1870, 5; 20 May 1870, 12. On the rough totals of those lifted from slave ships, Howell, Royal Navy and the Slave Trade, 73, and House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, Slave trade (tonnage bounties, &c.). Return of vessels captured for being engaged in and equipped for the slave trade (411), 1870. For totals from 1870 and the fact that freed Africans were restored to slaveholders, House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, Trade; Slave Trade, LXXI (Feb.-Aug. 1875) 933–9. Dr Lindsay Doulton researched the suppression of the East African slave trade from the point of view of the navy, imagined Africans, and imagined Arabs within British popular culture in her DPhil thesis, ‘The Royal Navy’s anti-slavery campaign in the western Indian Ocean, c. 1860–1890: race, empire and identity’, University of Hull, 2010, and I found ch. 8 especially helpful; my findings might adjust her chronology a bit earlier since much, though certainly not all, of her newspaper material is from the 1880s. For a good overview on the culture of newspaper reading in this period, Mark Hampton, Visions of the Press in Britain, 1850–1950 (Champagne-Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004), ch. 1. For the rise of visual culture in newspapers of this period, see Henry Miller, Politics Personified: Portraiture, Caricature and Visual Culture in Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), ch. 7. For the ‘barbarous and backwards races’ see First Lord of the Admiralty George Goschen to Gladstone, 19 Sept. 1871, British Library, Gladstone Papers, Add MS 44161, 177–82. For a few examples of the newspapers reporting battles and tragedies, see Illustrated London News, 27 Feb. 1869, 216; Morning Post (London), 22 Nov. 1869, 5; Daily News, 25 Nov. 1869, 5, Mission Life, 1 Jan. 1870, 64; The Anti-Slavery Reporter published tales of rescues and reported their agitation aimed at the Foreign Office in Anti-Slavery Reporter, 1 Oct. 1869, 256, 271. There are many more examples and many items are reprinted in newspapers across the United Kingdom. Searching the British Library’s Newspaper Archive produces at least sixty stories on the squadron or closely related material; this does not include The Times, but that newspaper showed less interest in the squadron, at least until 1871. The publishing of the Parliamentary Papers, or ‘blue books’ containing Heath’s correspondence with London and his officers’ with him, helped motivate action: Hampshire Telegraph, 1 July 1871, 8, and a collection of press clippings in Anti-Slavery Reporter, 1 July 1871, 143. For the Anti-Slavery Reporter turning Heath’s reports into copy and for its outrage when George Sulivan was criticised by officials for having rescued runaways, see the same issue, p. 171. A commenter in 1873 wrote that Heath’s reports stirred interest; see this item, too, for the press arousing interest in Britain, generally: Ocean Highways: The Geographical Review, Oct. 1873, 290. For the ‘rebuke to Captain Sulivan’, see Anti-Slavery Reporter, 1 July 1871, 169.

  2 Reading Mercury, 25 Sept. 1869, 4. Christian Observer, Oct. 1869, 785. Morning Post (London), 22 Oct. 1869, 3. Penny Illustrated Newspaper, 4 Dec. 1869, 2 (illustration on page 1). Western Times, 24 May 1870, 2. Pall Mall Gazette, 12 May 1871, 5. Anti-Slavery Reporter: Under the Sanction of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Letter to the editor by James Haughton, Dublin, 21 July 1871, 206. Anti-Slavery Reporter: Under the Sanction of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1 July 1871, 171. Mission Life, 1 Jan. 1870. The Anti-Slavery Society wrote to MPs in advance of MP Charles Gilpin’s plans to advance a Bill for the repeal of existing treaties with the sultan of Zanzibar. Gilpin was a Quaker, abolitionist, activist for prison reform, the expansion of the franchise, and more. See evidence of the letter-writing campaign at Freeman’s Journal, 28 June 1871, 3. For the importance of the rediscovery of Livingstone to the new focus on the East African slave trade, hand-in-hand with news of the Royal Navy’s adventures, see Richard Huzzey, Freedom Burning, 152.

  3 Richard Huzzey puts this better than I do: ‘To assess the politics of Britain’s diplomatic and naval campaigns for suppression means analysing a curious mixture of imperial bombast, calculated realpolitik, economic pressure and antislavery sincerity. It would be impossible to impose a clear typology on the varied opinions of ordinary Britons.’ When it comes to how the 1871 Select Committee came into being, no easy causal calculus is possible either. ‘The Politics of Slave-Trade Suppression’, in Huzzey and Burroughs, The Suppression of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 44. See also his Freedom Burning, 89. For officials’ objections to stringent anti-slave trade efforts on grounds of expense and so on, see William Mulligan, ‘British anti-slave trade and anti-slavery policy in East Africa, Arabia, and Turkey in the
late nineteenth century’, in Brendan Simms and D.J.B. Trim, eds., Humanitarian Intervention: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 263–6. For the Treasury’s advice to Gladstone’s government, Slave Trade on the East Coast of Africa (November 1871), British Library, Add. MSS 44,617, vol. DXXXII (June-Dec. 1871), 132. For the Gladstone cabinet bowing to pressure, see R.J. Gavin, ‘The Bartle Frere Mission to Zanzibar’, 136–41. Richard Huzzey analyses Gladstone’s view on slavery and the slave trade in ‘Gladstone and the Suppression of the Slave Trade’, in R. Quinault, R. Swift and R. Clayton Windscheffel, eds., William Gladstone: New Studies and Perspectives (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012), 253–66, especially 265–6. I also draw from Roland Quinault, ‘Gladstone and Slavery’, Historical Journal 52 (June 2009): 363–83.

  4 Heath’s service record shows that he was still serving on the committee considering torpedo defence during this time; National Archives ADM 196/1. The charge for his train fare from Portsmouth is shown in the appendix of the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, 1871 (420) Report from the Select Committee on Slave Trade (East Coast of Africa). The sole other hearing taking place had to do with the disposition of new land reclaimed from the Thames with the completion of the new main drainage of London and Thames embankments, Pall Mall Gazette, 29 July 1871, 1. Weather conditions come from The Times, 21 July 1871, 11 (reporting the previous day’s weather). For Rigby’s individual efforts against the trade at Zanzibar, see Christopher Palmer [Lillian] Rigby, General Rigby, Zanzibar, and the Slave Trade (London: Allen and Unwin, 1935), 9, 141–2, and elsewhere. Gilpin is pictured in Vanity Fair, 18 Jan. 1873, and his portrait is in the National Portrait Gallery, item NPG Ax8579. Sir John Hay is pictured in Vanity Fair, 23 Oct. 1875. George Shaw-Lefevre is pictured in the Dictionary of National Biography. Russell Gurney’s portrait by George Frederic Watts is at the Tate Britain, item N01654. A portrait of Arthur Kinnaird is on a carte-de-visite in National Portrait Gallery, item number NPG Ax8643. The minutes of evidence reveal that Heath was in the hearing room during Rigby’s interview, but could not hear all that was said. House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, 1871 (420) Report from the Select Committee on Slave Trade (East Coast of Africa); together with the proceedings of the committee, minutes of evidence, appendix and index, 52. Rigby’s passionate evidence is on pp. 42–52. A description of Gurney’s soft-spoken, gentlemanly air and dark, keen eyes is related in his Dictionary of National Biography entry. Heath’s interview is transcribed in Parliamentary Papers, 1871 (420) Report from the Select Committee on Slave Trade (East Coast of Africa), 52–6.