The slave-trade and the Channel Islands network - an introduction

THE SLAVE TRADE and the Channel Islands


I have been researching Channel Islands' maritime and related history for 50 years.
Since there is now a topical interest in the trade and its modern-day implications I am publishing this part chapter which deals mostly with the Guernsey connection - but there is much more already written about Jersey's involvement and how this all became the early days of the "finance sector" which dominates these Islands today.

So you are welcome to read this part and I hope it will add to your knowledge.

Slaving Contradictions

Significantly, Olaudah Equiano aka Gustavus Vassa had become a noted figure in Britain’s abolitionist campaign besides promoter of the Sierra Leone or Bulama projects. He was an ex-slave who in 1789 had published his autobiography which proved to be a best seller. Paul Le Mesurier`s name appeared as a subscriber to the first edition along with many pages of others of influence and/or status including John Wesley who had published his own powerfully critical, Thoughts Upon Slavery speech, in 1774.

Equiano had proclaimed himself a Methodist.

He was also among the brave handful who founded the London Corresponding Society in 1792.

Yet there was more because Equiano had been brought as a “slave” to Europe in 1755 on the Industrious Bee snow, captain Michael Henry Pascal, part-owner Nicholas Dobrée of Guernsey.

Although he was initially intended as a present for somebody in England, the ten years old boy was taken to Guernsey where he stayed for some months, living “happily” with a Guernsey family. He was then shipped aboard a naval vessel with his owner Pascal, achieving the rank of Able Seaman. Subsequently, he visited Pascal’s friends in London, including Maynard and Mary Guerin (who became his God-parents at his Baptism in 1759), returning to Guernsey again briefly in 1762.

 

In December he was sold to slaver James Doran then shipped to Montserrat to experience many more adventures and insults. He worked at various jobs such as hairdresser, merchant and even “slave trader” besides serving again in the navy before writing his book.

James Doran was also a privateer commander employed by Hillhouse & Co., shipbuilders and “slavers” at Bristol in 1757. He sold Equiano to a Quaker.

John-William was another "young negro boy" of about 10 years of age, born in Guiny and brought to Guernsey from Guadaloupe where he was Christened in 1761. His Godfathers were captains John and William Rivoire with Mrs. Esther Roland as Godmother "relict of Mr Simon-Peter Rivoire."

George another "negro boy" of about 12 years of age was baptised in 1770. His Godfathers were Peter Maingy and William Rivoire and  Godmother Mrs Marie Rivoire. (Source Priaulx Library).

Paul Le Mesurier was born in Guernsey in 1755. He would most likely not have met Equiano as a child, but both the Dobrée and Le Mesurier families were involved in the slave-trade as was the East India Company for which Paul was a Director and an M.P. The India Company traded slaves mostly from East Africa, Madagascar or Zanzibar to the Middle East and India but there was also trafficking from India to South Africa.

Some slaves were shipped onwards across the Atlantic too through merchant networks.

Paul’s mother was Martha Dobrée, in a complicated family network in which Nicholas Dobrée was probably Paul’s uncle.

Nicholas Dobrée (born 1732) had married Susanne Le Pelley in 1752 then in 1769 to Elizabeth Gilchrist of Southampton who died in 1770. She might have been the daughter of a naval officer.

Dobrée was linked to the radical John Wilkes family through the Nantes’ Protestant Menuret and London De Ponthrieu, merchant families. The Wilkes family had plantation interests in the West Indies.

Israel Wilkes of London had married Miss De Ponthrieu, daughter of an eminent Hamburgh merchant in 1752.

Maynard Guerin was yet another from a Huguenot ancestry with Channel Islands relatives. He was employed as a banking agent for men serving in the army or navy through Drummond’s Bank. He dealt with Michael Pascal’s affairs during his navy service.

Guerin died in May 1760 at Westminster, apparently within a few days of the death of his son, of the same name and employment.

The Guerin family had a slave-owning branch in Virginia with another in Ireland.

The name Maynard derived from a partnership with John Maynard a London merchant. A Daniel Guerin from Clairac (Gascony) probably founded the Guernsey branch of the family. His son William married Margaret Dumaresq. Daniel and James Guerin were married into the Allez families of Guernsey in the 1730s and a James Major Guerin was one of many children fathered by James Guerin (born 1734).

A Peter Guerin served on the Snugg 2 guns privateer/smuggler of Guernsey in 1757.

The Le Mesurier & Secretan owned Columbus ship of London was commanded by Daniel Guerin in 1787  and seized at Barbados for smuggling but on appeal to the High Court of Admiralty the verdict was overturned. The landmark case is discussed elsewhere.

A Daniel Guerin was reported as Commander of a Sirene brig privateer of 16 guns lost with all hands off Honduras about 1795.

Michael Pascal died in Southampton in 1786. He too had strong connections with the Channel Islands, so besides bequeathing money and property to the Guerin family he also left his uniform sword and sword belt to “my good friend” Philip Carteret, the famous Jersey-born circumnavigator. He left five pounds and “my silver mounted sword to my good friend Paul Le Mesurier.”

Pascal was Provincial Grand Master of Hampshire Freemasons in 1784. Both Carteret and Le Mesurier were Freemasons.

The involvement of the Maugers of the Channel Islands in the African trade has been referred to elsewhere. The precise relationship of Joshua, the Jersey-born Newfoundland merchant with Charles of Guernsey, is not clear but they were both active participants. Furthermore, they were also in partnerships with other Channel Islanders in this miserable business.

Hence, John Mauger commanded the Cumberland in 1749 shipping Africans to Barbados and the African in 1750. William Le Mesurier with Daniel Tupper were owners and sellers at Speight’s Town of men and women from the latter’s cargo.

The Brocks with Elisha Tupper were also involved in similar shipments.

Philip Mauger commanded the Neptune of Jersey for owner James Lempriere in 1761/2 shipping Africans from Senegal to unrecorded Caribbean destinations. This was especially significant because there was a constitutional dimension to be exploited in shipping slaves from or to territories under the control of differing nations.

Senegal had sometimes been a French domain where the Senegal Company was supposed to have a monopoly of the business in that area. Similar “monopolies” existed in different African places under British, Dutch or Portuguese control where they were set up to supply the needs of their own national or allied territories in the Americas.

James Seaborne had commanded the Charles on a slaving voyage from Guernsey via the Ivory Coast to Barbados in 1739. This might have been the second voyage for James Seaborne described as "of Guernsey" because he was at Ahimamahoe Road on 20 September 1738 in the House of Commons Journal.

He was an experienced slaver sailing out of Bristol in the 1730's usually for Barbados.

Inevitably, Channel Islanders were ideally placed to participate in a trade that required scarce or restricted commodities to be shipped to Africa to be sold or bartered for slaves. Goods such as ivory or gold were also traded at Madeira or other place for wines or brandy. There was a financial advantage to be exploited too through sailing under false flags. British goods might be passed off as French in exchange for cargoes of Africans who had no concept of such labels but whose value on earth might be determined in accordance with the scarcity of sugar or the quality of a tobacco crop.

Old World governments cooperated with the sham arrangements because it was essential to keep the distant colonies in production so that their proprietors stayed in profit and European appetites might be satisfied. Even when control changed with different flags hoisted over the various government structures, business still went on by some means or other. A few of the more worldly Channel Islanders had the expertise and the cross-border connections to assist it.

The Island of Tobago in the Caribbean Windward group had been confirmed under British sovereignty at the peace settlement in 1763 along with Grenada, St. Vincent and Dominica. Tobago was captured again by the French in 1781. It was supposed to trade only with French allies after 1783 until the British returned ten years later. In 1803 the French flag was hoisted once more – albeit briefly.

All these changes were very upsetting for the resident colonists - and no doubt created special problems for the more numerous slaves too - but some of those planters who could  left the Island altogether. Others, like Joseph Robley, stayed and prospered.

Joseph Robley, the eighteen years old son of a Lake District clergyman, was initially posted to Tobago as a navy-office clerk in 1768. Besides attending to his clerical duties he invested in a plantation too, specialising in growing cotton.

By 1789 he was a very wealthy man, owning many neat estates with windmills of his own special design and two ships – the Phoenix and the Laird – which twice each year transported his produce out and brought supplies in. The ships were impressively large. One was said to resemble a navy frigate - the other - “a ship of the line.”

Yet, in spite of their impressive size, two anchored ships including the Phoenix, out of four flying French colours at Tobago were seized by H.M.S. Venus in June 1803 and removed as prizes of war to Grenada. News that the countries were at war had not yet reached the Island so that the navy had an unfair advantage. Robley (the Island’s President) sought restitution through his London agent, nephew John Robley. The Admiralty upheld the navy action, the vessels were declared as good prizes and Robley faced a loss of £40,000.

By 1803 the Tobago plantations were at the peak of their production of sugar – which was the mainstay of the economy – at about 9,000 tons or 14,000 hogsheads each year. Other products were the sugar spin-offs of molasses and rum besides cotton, coffee, lime juice, tortoiseshell, arrowroot and hardwood. That year too Robley of Sandy Point even received a Gold Medal for his breadfruit cultivation from the London Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.

The slave population had also peaked at about 17,000, or one to work every two acres of cultivated land.

They were, according to the terminology of the time “worked rigorously” in spite of all the helpful windmills and one observer optimistically wrote that :

Next to the plantation of Sir William Young at St Vincent’s, I do not believe that there were any men in existence, employed in cultivation, more happy than the negroes of the Robley plantation in 1803.

The number of resident European proprietors to supervise the Africans was only about 500 to 800 besides about 350 “coloureds” or mulattos so that the threat of rebellion was always present. The French colonies of St. Domingo (Haiti), Guadeloupe and Martinique had all experienced serious recent insurrections.

Barbarous repression was the order of the day throughout the plantations of all countries. Tobago’s government – Joseph Robley being several times Governor – was considered progressive in 1803 when it introduced capital punishment for proprietors who were found guilty of killing a slave. Previously the Island court only imposed a £15 fine for such an act of “wanton killing.”

In Britain, the Anti-Slavery movement was already moving towards a suppression of the dreadful trade in British territories but other countries, such as Holland, were expanding their plantations in new colonies like Guiana.

By 1805 London forbade the expansion of plantations in Tobago. The annual import of new slaves was restricted to a maximum of 3% of the existing population, under a licence system.

The supply of slaves on British vessels to Guiana or other new colonies was also forbidden.

It is no great surprise therefore, that the typical price of a slave increased from £70 in 1807 to £105 by 1811. Inevitably, the incentive for traders to break the rules in the pursuit of profit was very great.

Cutting, the American merchant at Le Havre had advised Le Mesurier that slaves "can be obtained by contract in London at £32 per head" in 1791.

For the colonists of Tobago the need to create a supply network that was immune to the vagaries of war was an impossible dream but there were ways and means to achieve some degree of certainty. Ports such as Ostend and Dunkirk had a long history of accommodating rogue governments or their trading agents. Other French ports like Cherbourg, Le Havre, St Malo, L’Orient and Nantes had an important role to play, especially during times of war. The proximity of these places to the Channel Islands was also important. The presence of so many merchants and financiers with old family connections across national borders was like the lubricant in a very large engine of commerce.

Thus, Havilland Le Mesurier had commenced his commercial training with a merchant - most likely André Limozin – at Le Havre (Havre De Grace). He set up a commercial partnership with brother Paul in 1785 at that port specifically to trade with French governed Tobago in an ever-changing world.

Initially, William Collow was suggested as a partner for the new Le Havre enterprise but Joseph Robley together with Messrs King & Watson of Dunkirk, Abraham Buisson of Guernsey & London and Francois Claude Adam Delamotte were partners too by 1790.

David Watson, Guernsey-born in 1771, served as Le Mesurier's Havre agent in the 1790's assisted by one Veroillet with Delamotte and Dubuisson providing clerical services.

Le Mesurier et Cie despatched six vessels to Tobago from Havre in 1789, Limozin sent another five, the Collow Brothers a similar number and Bachelor & Faubisson one.

Several other French ports - notably Dunkirk - were used by various partnerships but Havre enjoyed a particular attraction at this time.

The Collow brothers seemed to be involved in many transactions and businesses. Their partners in 1783/5 included Irishman Corneille Donovan with Jacques Carmichael and Jean Beziers from Amsterdam and the infamous Lancaster born Miles Barber.

Bezier, Carmichael and Donovan had been commercially active during the American War and were negotiating to sell prize goods taken into L'Orient by the Comte d'Artois corsaire, among others,  in 1780.

The inducement to sail under a  foreign flag was revealed by the voyage of the Columbus.

Messrs Le Mesurier & Secretan's Columbus ship was Bahamas built and registered in London from whence she sailed in ballast for Gothenburg on 14 November 1786 under the command of Daniel Guerin.

She loaded a cargo of herrings in Sweden "for Tobago and elsewhere" but gales supposedly drove her into Madeira for repairs and fresh water.

At Madeira a consignment of local wine was bartered for some of the herrings and the voyage continued on about 7 March for Tobago, then French controlled.

The Columbus arrived there on 2 April and under a permit from the Governor sold the remaining herrings and part of the Madeira wine.

Guerin purchased a cargo of American (USA) timber there from Daniel King & Co (supposed British merchants at Tobago) and exchanged some of the Madeira for Claret (from a French ship) and paid for a few more cases "with bills drawn on Paul Le Mesurier of Havre de Grace in favour of French Captain Falaise."

Falaise being  the surname of several Guernsey captains.

Next, the plan was to sail for Barbados, sell the timber and freight with sugars for London.

Unfortunately the English government had recently approved temporary legislation, that forbade the loading of American products at Tobago and Guerin claimed to be ignorant of this when arrested off Bridgetown, Barbados.

There was no port or harbour at Bridgetown so the Columbus was anchored in the roads of Carlisle Bay, as was usual practice, when a platoon of soldiers was sent on board by Governor Parry to seize and secure the vessel on 8 June 1787.

Naval captain Barnes had previously warned Guerin of the proposed action and advised him to sail to a neutral Island but neither the Governor nor the acting customs officers would negotiate with Guerin or anybody else.

In the absence of the regular Customs Controller for Barbados it was Surveyor-General William Senhouse who had engineered the seizure with his "instrument" Samuel Deersley. The Governor was evidently integral to the plot and the condemnation of ship and cargo was duly confirmed at the Barbados Vice-Admiralty Court hearing soon afterwards.

Although Paul Le Mesurier M.P. had been present when the relevant temporary law had been "strenuously debated" in Parliament and ship-owners in London were "alarmed" at the policy, his appeal before the High Court of Admiralty in London was successful.

The four days of legal argument before James Marriott commenced on 18 December 1789 and the Judge described it as a "leading case as many others depend on it."

The judgement delivered a strong censure of the London government and almost everybody involved officially  in Barbados but praised the enterprising spirit of merchants such as Le Mesurier, "it would be well for this country if there were many such Harlequins...it is from small profits that great ones are accumulated".

Furthermore, Marriott had some interesting observations to express about the evasion of taxes and laws. He declared :

 The Law of England cannot be evaded...the law exists or does not exist...but everyman is justified in this war of private property and public revenue in this collision of interests, of attack and defence of the property of the subject and free intercourse of commerce.

The Columbus case reported in Collectanea Juridica -Tracts regarding the Law and Constitution of England. Published London 1791.

Correspondence from Paul Le Mesurier regarding this case exists in NA HO 42/12 and he wrote, presumably to the Secretary of State Lord Sydney, on 1 August 1789 - "Wednesday ½ past one" - attaching a dossier of papers. His letter started re "A ship of mine which is seized at Barbados but I understand clearly that the whole is the Act of Governor Parry."

"Hoping I am not asking anything improper in requesting you to write to him in such a manner as you shall think the law merits."..."I shall be highly obliged if through your means I may obtain a speedy liberation of my ship."

He described the Columbus as British-built, 230 tons, London registered and belonging to Paul le Mesurier.

Ship-owner Daniel King who had been resident (possibly even born) in Tobago, became naturalised as French in 1785 having settled at Dunkirk but he was arrested in October 1793 as a 36 years old “foreigner” along with his partner Peter Watson (28).

The French Convention had decreed the detention of all English, Scotch, Irish and Hanoverians (except some children) together with all their papers and effects, that same month.

Thomas Collow from Scotland was also part of the former Tobago community that had settled at Le Havre as merchants after 1783. His brother William was married to Sarah Moore of the Manx trading/smuggling family and usually maintained a London base.

Thomas had previously been a ship’s captain. In the 1750s he was delivering East India goods to the Isle of Man in the Charming Molly from Liverpool.

He too was detained in prison for several years from 1793.

In spite of having supplied grain from his warehouse when it was in short supply to residents of the French port his petitions to be liberated were not successful and he had to wait until the Jacobins fell from power.

After release he remained in Le Havre, dying there in 1803.

How M.P. Paul reconciled this business venture with his abolitionist colleagues in London is not at all obvious – but, presumably he did not shout too much about it.

Du Buisson was an unusual French name but a Huguenot Pierre Du Buisson had fled Orleans in 1685, settling in London where he was part of a family that were calico and fabric dyers (a business that a branch of the Secretan family was also involved in). By 1770 the family was wealthy enough to pay £33,000 for an extensive estate near Llandilo South Wales, which included a mansion house, woodlands, farms and pastures. Here he established an iron foundry and knife works, making everything with a blade besides cannon, shot and other war materials. He also supposedly recruited French labour, creating a self- contained industrial complex with its own brewery, laundry, slaughterhouse and mills.

In London the family also retained business interests with James Henckell & Co. of Dutch origin who were successful merchants as well as iron and copper workers at Wandsworth.

Peter Du Buisson junior married Henckell’s daughter.

There is no clear link with Le Mesurier’s partner but folklore during the Napoleonic war suggested that the South Wales enterprise was supplying armaments to the French and also engaged in espionage. This was a coincidence, bearing in mind the fate of the spy Francis De La Motte on the scaffold in the previous war.

It was also suggested that Peter Du Buisson of Hanover Square, London was a participant in Nathan Rothschild’s spying network as well as having banking interests through Landeg & Co in Swansea.

In troubled Paris, bankers Mallet Frères were also involved in various intrigues and an André Du Buisson featured there too (he was sent to the Bastille in 1790) but known links to Le Havre are tenuous.

There were several successful Delamottes in England including a London merchant named Charles (he died in 1790), besides Hull sugar refiners. Another branch allegedly included Dutch silk smugglers…

It was also perhaps just coincidental that Frederick Samuel Secretan, the Swiss financier and Le Mesurier’s ex-partner, also bought a substantial estate in South Wales when he left London.

A.J. Dubuisson was listed as a London (Cornhill) stockbroker c 1820 when Dubuisson Rougement & Teschemacher were brokers in Mincing Lane.

Following the cessation of the American war in 1783 there were many wheeler-dealers looking for their next business ventures. Some no doubt had the means to carry on with lucrative war-time scams that circumvented the restrictions of tedious legislation.

Among the many setting up shop in Le Havre was Miles Barber who had been in the slaving business for decades out of Lancaster, Liverpool and London. He traded up to 6,000 Africans each year to the Americans from his “factories” on the river Gambia, Guinea and Isle De Los at Sierra Leone. He had been shipping from Africa with vessels flying French or neutral flags since the 1760s and continued to trade during the American war through Dunkirk, Ostend or other suitable places.

His Liverpool agent and sometimes ship-master Thomas Hodgson, supplied to Boston whilst Delaye Frères of Le Havre or L’Orient shipped to French and other Caribbean destinations.

Comte Sutton Du Clonard - the ennobled Irish armateur of Dunkirk corsaires and Director of the French East India Company – was also involved.

During 1776 he was slaving to Jamaica or other places using the Wilbraham out of Liverpool, drawing upon bankers Peter Thellusson & Co and owned plantation on other islands.

Barber was just one of dozens trading from Le Havre who either evaded or avoided the regulations, using the vessels of many countries, flying various national flags delivering cargoes to and from several empires or their colonies.

Miles Barber was established at Ostend very speedily at the end of the American War.

He had contracted with Delaye in November 1782 to purchase the former French corsaire Caroline originally seized in the Seven Years war by the English. 

She had been retaken into L'Orient by an American privateer and refitted. Now she was to be renamed as Les Trois Amis of Havre and used as a "floating factory" at Barber's  Isle de Los slaving centre.

Furthermore the Arundel ship under captain White's command was also to be engaged on account of John Shoolbred the London chief of the English Africa Company in this dubious enterprise in which Robert & Thomas Hubbert of Jamaica were the likely purchasers of the human cargo.

Barber died, an exile from debt, at Le Havre during 1795 from ”an apoplectic fit,” aged 72.

Yet the family interest probably continued. A French ship carrying 200 slaves was captured off the African coast in July 1793 – her commander was listed as M. Barber junior by Lloyds.

André Limozin of Le Havre was a substantial trader too with customers and connections all over Europe and the Americas. He was well placed to provide support to the slave traders or others alongside his own grain, fabrics and other related merchandising activities. During the war he had enjoyed the American tobacco monopoly, supporting the rebels in every way possible. He and the Le Mesuriers were working together soon after the declaration of peace. They possibly colluded during the war too.

Liverpool was the dominant British home-port in the Guinea trade after the American war so that was the place to go for expertise and African contacts. The old Royal Africa Company (of which the De Carterets of Jersey were founder members) had ceased trading in 1750 - although the Africa Company still operated out of London’s Mark Lane, under long-term Secretary, John Shoolbred.

Shoolbred  owned  a fleet of about  ten armed vessels commissioned as LOM's from 1777 to 1782 all registered in London and from 100 to 400 tons and evidently engaged in the slave-trade. His Bonaventure of 250 tons curiously employed Philip Journeaux as commander in 1778 but she probably never traded as the commission was cancelled after six months.

Furthermore, there were some very rich and powerful individuals or families to call upon. Philip Sanson, London banker at 65 Lombard Street, President of the Committee of American Merchants of London, was just such a person trading too out of Le Havre (and appeared as a Proprietor of the Sierra Leone project).

There were about 500 slaving voyages from London during the years 1776 to 1807. From Liverpool there were almost 2,500 whilst Bristol’s share had decreased to “only” 261.

The international banking network was an essential part of the slaving business just as it was the enabler of so much regional and cross-continent smuggling. Access to credit or the funding of speculative ventures would have been impossible without the networks of financiers who often operated out of the prestigious trading centres in Paris, London, Rotterdam, Geneva, or Hamburg. The old Huguenot Protestant families seemed to have a particularly far reaching banking “empire.”

There were other very practical dimensions too, such as the Swiss manufactured fabrics which were of good quality and undercut French produced materials. These were an essential part of the trading/ bartering process that accompanied the human trafficking. Several Swiss manufacturers were also bankers or closely associated with financiers, usually with Huguenot origins. Mallett Frères, the Paris bankers was just such a business linked through marriage with the extensive Oberkampt Swiss banking and fabrics manufacturing enterprise. Another was the Prevost banking family.

Limozin traded extensively in fabrics through Le Havre. His many correspondents included Herries the Bankers in London, Barcelona and elsewhere, Theophilus Daubuz the Huguenot merchant of London and Cornwall, Mallett Brothers of Jersey, Isaac Dobrée of Guernsey, John & Henry Le Mesurier of London, Paul Le Mesurier & Co and Havilland Le Mesurier & Co through Jacques Mauger at Cherbourg.

Paul & Havilland Le Mesurier were also negotiating with John Tarleton of Liverpool in April 1790 regarding a "joint adventure" with St. Domingo from Le Havre.

The French bounties and the "uncommon demand for Negroes would I am persuaded turn out a most lucrative one and far superior in every manner to what we can possibly expect in any of the English Islands" John Tarleton wrote to his brother Clayton.

(Tarleton papers Liverpool PRO)

The Tarleton - Backhouse partnership already enjoyed a huge, long established slave trading business out of Liverpool but clearly wanted more.

Two years later Clayton wrote to John when the abolitionist campaign was gaining support..."there is still no certainty in the Africa Trade."

He saw that France was the place to build up a standby business base especially since the recent English imposition of a two slaves maximum per ton would encourage a removal to France. He noted that Bristol and other Liverpool ships were already  being fitted out for the French trade and that the French and Spanish were recruiting Liverpool captains.