by Alec Waugh
In those days seamen had not learned how to measure longitude. It was easy for them to miss an island; they therefore set themselves on the latitude of the island that they wished to reach. The French ships made the latitude of Martinique; the English the latitude of Barbados or Antigua. North American vessels also made for Barbados; they found it, as the most windward island, the best starting point for their adventure. This method of navigation simplified the task both of the protecting warships and the privateers.
The French and British navies worked on different systems. The French employed squadrons which they sent out when the hurricane season had ended and recalled to the Mediterranean when it was about to start. The British maintained two permanent stations, one in Jamaica, the other in the Leeward Islands. Each method had its advantages. The French could do two tours of duty, a summer one in Europe and a winter one in the tropics, while the British ships were immobilized during the hurricane months. On the other hand, it was difficult for the French to meet a sudden emergency, as happened when the British attacked Guadeloupe in 1759, though it has to be remembered that help might have come from Martinique if its governor, the Marquis de Beauharnais – Josephine’s future father-in-law – had not at that time been exclusively engrossed in the charms of Josephine’s aunt. Moreover, the defences of Guadeloupe had been consistently neglected. There were too many small garrisons. There were not enough mobile men in the hills. And the governor had bought from St Eustatius a number of muskets, of which three-quarters exploded at the first shot. They had not been intended for action, but for barter on the Guinea coast. That is the kind of incident that makes it difficult not to regard much of West Indian history in terms of a Palais Royal farce.
The French system of defence had much to recommend it. But on the whole the British system was more practical. The campaigning season was limited to the summer months, and ships could not carry more than seven months’ provisions aboard; very often the French ships carried less because their officers filled their holds with merchandise which they sold to the planters. The French were unable to obtain provisions from their colonies because the planters concentrated upon the sugar crop. The English, on the other hand, could revictual their ships with produce from their American colonies. It cannot be too often repeated that geography had decreed the interdependence of America and the West Indies.
Jamaica was to the leeward of Antigua; it was difficult for Jamaica to help the Leewards, but it was easy for the Leewards to help Jamaica, particularly as the attacking ships would be observed in the Leewards. It was Rodney’s view that Jamaica was safe as long as there was a strong force in the Leewards. The British ships in the West Indian stations were able to be of service, during the hurricane season, in North America, where many of the great ports and rivers were frozen during the winter; they could occasionally act as convoys between New England and the West Indies.
One great advantage of the French method was that the French ships came out in excellent condition, whereas there was not enough equipment in the West Indies to keep the British ships in perfect trim. Even so, after a battle the British were able to repair their ships more quickly than the French could, English Harbour and Port Royal being better equipped as dockyards than Cap Français and Fort Royal. But perhaps the chief advantage of the British system was that for certain months it had command of the sea.
In wartime – and after 1739 that was more often than not – the British station squadrons fulfilled three main functions and one subsidiary one; they attacked the enemy, defended their own island, and gave convoy service; on occasion they assisted military operations. The ships from Europe brought out the necessities for plantation life and took back the sugar, coffee, indigo, cotton and cocoa by whose sale the plantations were financed. The French relied more than the British on provisions sent from the home country because the British could draw supplies from their American colonies. The only indispensable cargoes that the British received from Europe were the salt beef, butter and candles that came from Ireland.
Flour and bread came from America. Many difficulties accompanied this trade. The independent New Englanders did not like to confine themselves to convoy; they were small dealers who went to the best market; very often that market was French. If they were intercepted they would explain that they had gone into harbour with a leak and that they had paid for repair services with their cargo. There were also the slavers from the west coast of Africa, some of which carried their rum and molasses northward to New England; others went straight back to Europe.
The merchants on both sides were more interested in having their own cargoes protected than those of the enemy attacked. Everyone put his own interests first, and governments recognized that trade had to continue, and that peace would follow war. The economists preached the theory of ‘channels of trade’. ‘A trade once lost cannot be easily retrieved. The currents of trade, like those of waters, make themselves channels out of which they are afterwards as hard to be diverted as rivers that have worn themselves deep within their banks.’
Some trade had to be continued. Insurance, for instance. It would be disastrous if French merchantmen placed their insurance in Amsterdam instead of London, so that the ridiculous situation arose of British men-of-war sinking ships whose loss would be reimbursed by Lloyd’s. Irish beef was another case in point. The French at the start of each war talked glibly about obtaining beef from Jutland and mutton from Iceland, and such talk had a diplomatic value in Copenhagen, but the meat that came from the Baltic was badly packed; the French would have been undernourished had they not received supplies from Ireland. An embargo was placed on Irish beef, but cargoes continued to arrive.
Considerable weight was attached to the theory of ‘dependence’, of making a customer rely on your services. It was at one time suggested that the French islands might be supplied with American produce from a free port in Dominica; then, if need arose, the trade could be discontinued and the French starved into submission.
There was another line of argument – was a trade harmful or beneficial? Trade was held to be a battle in which one side was the gainer, the other the loser; and the English believed that while their trade with Spain was beneficial, their trade with France was disadvantageous. In the case of Spain, badly needed cash came into the national exchequer in return for manufactured articles, while, in the case of France, money went out in return for luxuries. A high-court judge contended, in a case concerning the activities of a British ship which was trading with the enemy, that ‘to send to an enemy things that tend to the gratification of their luxury and wantonness is said to be lawful, for such supplies contribute to render them weak and effeminate and from this reason whatever debilitates the enemy may be deemed lawful
The law was therefore concerned with discovering which kinds of trade were harmful to the enemy and which were not. Right through the Seven Years’ War, tobacco was allowed free passage into France, while the French merchants, afraid that because of the British blockade their colonists would lose their taste for French luxuries, gave special permits to neutral traders. At one point the colonists were forced to eat clams and cassava – slave food. This frightened the French merchants. The colonists must not be allowed to abandon an opulent way of life.
Spain opened a free port at Monte Cristi, on the north coast of Santo Domingo, from which the British operated under a flag of truce. It was irritating to the Americans to find that, while their trade with the French islands was prohibited, the British and West Indians traded briskly with the Spaniards. It seemed to the American colonists that the burdens of patriotism imposed by the British were borne chiefly by the Irish and themselves. In wartime, Monte Cristi, St Eustatius and, to a lesser degree, the Danish islands of St Thomas and St Croix, flourished abundantly, particularly St Eustatius. Their warehouses were stacked with American goods, which were dispatched in small cargoes to the French islands. It was easy for an Irishman to acquire Dutch nationality and thus give a spurious legality to his transact
ions. Monte Cristi was of great value to the Americans who wished to trade with Cap Français.
On the whole, the English colonies were far less affected than the French in terms of trade in wartime. But figures are often puzzling. It is not easy to find an explanation of the fact that though fewer English ships sailed to Africa during the war of 1739, more Negroes were imported into Jamaica. Every lobby, and there were innumerable lobbies, considered its own interests. Everyone concerned with the war was unashamedly a profiteer; each person was convinced that the more money he earned, the more he would be fulfilling his duty to his country. It would seem to have occurred to no one that during a war soldiers and sailors are being killed and that in their interests it is desirable to bring a war to the speediest conclusion.
In 1763, once again the great powers gathered, this time in Paris, to settle their disputes. In Europe, Frederick II was in a position to dictate terms; in colonial matters Britain was. Britain had indeed regarded the war as a means to establishing her empire. She saw war as an extension of commerce, and from the attitude that she adopted at the peace table may be gauged the importance that she attached to her West Indian possessions. She retained Dominica and St Vincent, restored Grenada and St Lucia to France, and Cuba to Spain in return for Florida. She then had to decide whether she would keep Canada or restore it to France in exchange for Martinique and Guadeloupe. This was the most significant issue at stake. It had been assumed in 1759 when she captured it that Britain would retain Guadeloupe. A great deal of money was invested there. Pointe-à-Pitre was developed and slaves were introduced in large numbers, to the irritation of the Jamaican planters, who were short of slaves. In 1762, at the very end of operations, Rodney captured Martinique and stated that it was of immense strategic importance and should, if possible, be retained at the peace treaty. There is no clearer indication of the importance at that time of the sugar islands than Britain’s doubt as to whether Canada was as important as Guadeloupe and Martinique.
It is impossible to assess the exact value of a colony to a mother country. There are so many invisible exports and imports, and the value of the various currencies has changed so much that the actual figures usually have little contemporary significance. But the value of the West Indies to Britain may be gauged from these figures of 1788. The capital employed was estimated at seventy million pounds. Britain exported to the West Indies 3.8 millions; imported and exported, with profit coming to England, 7.2 millions; the duties to the government were 1.8 millions. One hundred and fifty thousand tons of shipping were employed. East Indian trade was about half that.
In the opinion of French historians, Guadeloupe was at the time of the French Revolution the richest island not only in the French group but in the whole area of the Lesser Antilles; its exports, first of sugar, then of coffee, cotton and cocoa, were greater than those of Martinique and St Lucia; exports worth twenty-seven million francs against imports valued at fifteen million francs showed an immense balance of trade in the island’s favour. Some historians argue that this prosperity was illusory, because so many landowners lived abroad, dissipating the profits that should have been ploughed back into their estates, and leaving themselves without the balances of credit that they would need to meet emergencies. In addition, the extravagance of these planters in London and in Paris drove the estates into debt. But that, surely, is a criticism not of the island itself but of its administration. An island with such a considerable credit balance of trade cannot be anything but a highly valuable possession. Britain was, moreover, better placed to make such an island pay because of her ownership of the thirteen colonies in North America. The American colonies needed the products of the sugar islands and the sugar islands needed the products of North America; an excellent triangle of trade could be maintained between New England, the Guinea coast and the Caribbean. Canada was not yet rich, enough to participate in this trade by converting the triangle into a quadrilateral. Canada had been of little use to France, and Guadeloupe had never been as prosperous as it had been during its four years under British ownership.
Under French ownership, Guadeloupe’s hands had been tied by its inability to buy the slaves and manufactured goods it needed. Guadeloupe had always had to play second fiddle to Martinique. All its produce was shipped to Europe via Martinique, labelled as Martinique rum, sugar, coffee. Martinique’s prestige stood higher. A distinction was made between les messieurs (the gentlemen) de la Martinique and les bonnes gens (the good folk) de la Guadeloupe. The only advantage to Guadeloupe of this social inferiority was that, in war, Martinique was generally attacked first. Otherwise Guadeloupe suffered. Because the governor of the islands was resident in Martinique, prizes were taken thither, so that the other islands could not recoup their losses. All arms-makers were in Martinique. All the shipping was there. Martinique was the entrepôt. Guadeloupe had a great deal to gain by being annexed by Britain. It was what lawyers call ‘a pretty point’.
Colbert’s pacte coloniale was only sound economy if the home government was in a position to supply the islands’ needs. St Domingue developed more quickly than Martinique and Guadeloupe because in its early years it was less restricted by orders from Paris. It is not surprising that the British ministers should have wondered whether Canada, if it had been of so little use to France, was going to be of much use to Britain.
One English lobby was wholly in favour of annexing Guadeloupe. The slave traders were delighted at the prospect of an enlarged market; but the West Indian lobby did not really decide in favour of annexation till Martinique was included in the deal. The price of sugar had dropped after the capture of Guadeloupe, and it was likely to fall still further if Martinique sugar as well were to be put upon the market. There was also the problem of slaves. The planters found it hard enough as it was to manage their estates with the supply they had. There had been a definite shortage when Guadeloupe was being so improvidently supplied. If England was going to take over Guadeloupe and Martinique, then the African territory must be enlarged. During the war England had captured Senegal; she should retain possession of it. There were some who favoured a scorched earth policy; retaining the French islands but destroying the crops so that there should not be a glut of sugar. In the end, however, the West Indian lobby was in favour of annexation. During the two last wars, no invasion had landed upon an English colony, but there was no reason why one should not. Martinique and Guadeloupe were uncomfortably close as neighbours. Might not Barbados, Antigua and St Kitts suffer the same fate as the French islands; had not Nevis, Montserrat and St Kitts been devastated in the war of the Spanish succession? Many of the planters had borrowed money in England to insure their properties. The premiums and the rates of interest depended on the public’s faith in their security. ‘The planters,’ Rodney wrote to Lord Lyttleton, ‘are divided between avarice and fear; they think that if Martinique is retained, they will be obliged to lower the price of their sugar. On the other hand, if it is given up, they fear that in the case of another war, the French will overrun their plantations before they can receive succour from Europe which, as I said before, may easily happen; the example of this war has taught them a lesson which I fancy they will never forget.’
To the West Indians, fear in the end proved stronger than avarice. And, in addition to the pleadings of the West Indian lobby, there were quite a number of cogent reasons why England would be as well off without Canada. The war had been started because of the threat which France and her Indian allies had presented to the New England colonies, and the North American colonists had always demanded the expulsion of the French from Canada; yet would it be altogether wise to rob the northern colonies of the threat that had kept them loyal? Might not the North American colonies grow too big and powerful? A large army would be required to protect Canada, whereas the sugar islands could be defended by the navy. There was the question of trade. Already the North American traders could not find a large enough market for their goods in the British West Indies and had to sell them, surre
ptitiously, to the French. The trade of Canada was negligible – except for the fisheries. Guadeloupe could produce a larger revenue. Who was going to pay for the war that had been waged on the colonists’ behalf? It was easier to raise revenue from the sugar islands.
The northern colonies were admittedly a better market for English goods than a sugar island. Free and white colonists bought more than slaves. But where did the eventual profit of all this trade return? The Americans made small profits and invested those profits in their own land; they had no intention of returning to England. The West Indian planter, on the other hand, always thought of ‘going home’; very often he invested his profits in Britain. The argument seemed in favour of retaining Guadeloupe rather than Canada; and yet it was Canada that was kept.
The difficulty lay in this; if Guadeloupe was to be kept then Martinique must too, and Pitt and Bute, who conducted the negotiations, did not believe that there could be peace with France if a settled colony was taken over. Martinique was truly French, in a way that Guadeloupe was not, and the French wanted it back. It was a good bargaining point. Let France keep her two main islands, let Britain have her share of the neutral ones, Grenada, Tobago, St Vincent and Dominica, and in addition let Britain keep not only Canada but the whole continent of North America as far as the north bank of the Mississippi. France would lose very few subjects and not much face; England might have acquired a number of new islands which were unprotected, but those islands offered scope for English enterprise, and the North American colonies had now an impregnable frontier. Bute, who completed the negotiations, was as prepared as Pitt to sacrifice the West Indian interest to the American. ‘Conquer in the islands and annex on the continent’ was a pretty packaged deal; it left only one question unanswered: Who was going to pay for the war? That question was to cause very soon a great deal of trouble.
