Catalogue description Letters received from various government offices (departments), other organisations and...

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Details of CO 28/112
Reference: CO 28/112
Description:

Letters received from various government offices (departments), other organisations and individuals relating to Barbados. Correspondence from the bishop of Barbados for 1833 is bound separately [see CO 28/152]. Correspondents and subjects are as follows:

Offices:

  • Admiralty (travel of bishop within diocese; appointment of Sir Lionel Smith as governor of Barbados, St Vincent, Grenada and Tobago; memorial of Lieutenant George James Evelyn seeking promotion);
  • Agent (consolidation of governments of Grenada, St Vincent and Tobago with that of Barbados, and of those of St Christopher and Dominica with that of Antigua; request for meeting with secretary of state; address of Assembly protesting that recent UK legislation concerning shipping dues is detrimental to local arrangements [with extract from minutes of an Assembly meeting of 13 November 1832]; memorial of Assembly seeking replacement of Militia equipment destroyed or damaged by hurricane; comments on enquiry into colonial property; comments on President Skeete's recommendation that Robert James, enslaved person convicted of the rape of a white woman Margaret Higginbotham, should be pardoned, together with petition from Assembly seeking removal of President Skeete and resolutions passed by a public meeting calling for a delegation to be sent to England; acknowledgement of an 'outline of Mr Stanley's intended measures respecting slavery' and his subsequent comments on the proposed abolition of slavery; admission of slave evidence; comments on proposed compensation to slave owners with a resolution of a meeting of 'Planters and Merchants interested in Barbados' asking for details of the scheme; further comments on draft bill for the Abolition of Slavery; memorial of 24 'planters, merchants and others connected with the Island of Barbados resident in London' commenting on apprenticeship and related aspects of proposed emancipation legislation; second memorial of planters and merchants on emancipation concentrating on availability of labour, value of property and public safety; comments on the 10th clause of the draft emancipation bill prohibiting the removal of apprentised labourers from one colony to another; further comments on compensation and valuation; memorial of Council and Assembly concerning implications of a case in which three slaves were condemned to death for attempted murder and compensation paid to their owner - they were subsequently pardoned but their former owner was not allowed to reclaim them, as a result of which their alleged criminal activity had freed them [with table showing 'slave cases' brought before the Courts of Grand Sessions since passing of the Consolidated Slave Act]; forwards Assembly resolutions for the abolition of slavery; a memorial 'exhibiting the injustice of the principle proposed for the distribution of the Parliamentary Grant of £20,000,000'; policing; memorial from acting protector of slaves seeking alternative employment post emancipation);
  • Commander in Chief (brief report of state of barracks; delay of transport Wanderer at Plymouth following discovery of smallpox amongst troops en route for Barbados; subsequent re-embarkation);
  • Home Office (petition from Assembly seeking removal of John Brathwaite Skeete from the government and Council);
  • Law Officers (their opinion that the prosecution in the trial of enslaved person Robert James for rape was improperly conducted, and that the sentence of death should be commuted);
  • James Stephen, legal adviser (opinion on memorial of Council and Assembly seeking removal from Barbados of George Hackett and Joseph Denny both sentenced to death but pardoned);
  • Board of Ordnance (requested grant for militia equipment following hurricane);
  • Treasury (expenses incurred in prosecution of Mr W J Franklyn [Francklin] for illegally removing slaves from Barbados; copy of letter from the secretary to the Commissioners for the Relief of the West India Islands on the application of John Mayers to be appointed to examine the security of property; Sir Lionel Smith's salary and allowances; rejects proposal that governor of Barbados and lieutenant governors under his administration should be relieved from the charges upon their commissions; appointment of private secretaries to governors of Barbados and Antigua; expenses of governors for visiting islands within their governments; remittances of specie to Barbados and St Lucia; account submitted by bishop for hire of schooner Carib; salaries of Sir Lionel Smith and Sir Charles Marsh Schomberg, governor of Dominica; disposal of escheated property of Abraham Depiza; hire of schooner by Archdeacon Eliot; grant for replacement of militia equipment; application of E B & J Haly and other merchants for return of duties paid on lumber and flour, with an account of such duties received between 1 March and 11 April 1832; distribution of the grant for hurricane relief);
  • Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (copy of printed 'Report respecting the Negroes on the Codrington Estates'.

Individuals:

  • Major James Anton (requesting appointment as stipendiary magistrate);
  • Robert Butcher (seeking army commission);
  • Christopher Barrow (compensation to be paid to planters);
  • Thomas Belham (brig Rowena and cargo seized and condemned at Barbados in 1817);
  • George Samuel Collyer (Sir James Lyon's salary);
  • G Carter (emoluments received by him as provost marshal in 1831/1832);
  • George Capes (asks if John Sewell, a lawyer, was living in Barbados in 1815);
  • Daniel & Co (duty on warrant of appointment of R Bowcher Clarke as solicitor general);
  • George James Evelyn (application for post of harbour master at Demerara; application for post of special magistrate at Barbados [first post already filled; application for second rejected on grounds of secretary of state's decision that such appointments should not be given to persons closely connected with the community in which they were to serve]);
  • Thomas Garth (further copy of 'Negro Slavery: Plan of the Treatment of the Negroes on the Estates in Barbados' [see CO 28/110] with Garth's comment 'I only wish the Labouring and Manufacturing Poor of England were half as well off');
  • W H Grant (applies for post as special magistrate);
  • William Gollan (seeks details of crime and sentence of his son Alexander, private, 93rd Regiment);
  • Thomas W B Hendy (slave emancipation);
  • Sarah Jane, enslaved person (petition concerning her position as escheated property);
  • Bishop of London (education of emancipated slaves);
  • Samuel Lloyd (passage);
  • J W Orderson (applies for post of protector of slaves; comments on emancipation);
  • Thomas P Parkinson (considers Robert James not guilty of rape);
  • George N Taylor (plan for commutation of part of compensation grant into a loan);
  • W L Trimingham (seizure of slaves employed as seamen following refusal of Newfoundland customs officer to insert their names on clearance certificates);
  • Thomas H Walton (seizure of property);
  • Robert Baron Walton, ensign (seeks appointment as stipendiary magistrate).

Date: 1833
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Closure status: Open Document, Open Description

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