Narrative of the War in the Windward Islands.

A MAJOR WEST INDIAN DISCOVERY "A CLASSIC IN BRITISH CARIBBEAN LITERATURE" THE EDITOR'S MANUSCRIPT WITH ADDITIONS, DELETIONS & UNPUBLISHED MATERIAL FOR BRYAN EDWARDS ACCOUNT OF WAR WITH THE FRENCH IN THE WEST INDIES

[YOUNG, Sir William, 2nd baronet (1749-1815)], Governor of Tobago, politician, West Indies plantation owner. [EDWARDS, Bryan (1743-1800), of the Island of Jamaica]. English politician, Jamaica planter, and historian. AMs entitled: Narrative of the War in the Windward Islands &c &c &c. [52] pp., 4to, mostly written on rectos, the balance blank, original reverse calf (little stained and rubbed; upper joint expertly repaired), covers blocked in blind. N.p., n.d. [London? 1801?].

An important manuscript written anonymously, but in the hand of Sir William Young, 2nd baronet, editor of Bryan Edwards, and compiler of his father's Account of the Black Charaibs in the Island of St. Vincent's (London: 1795). The manuscript, complete in itself, is, to our knowledge, the only part extant of Bryan Edwards's The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies, first published in 2 vols., London: 1793, this part relating to the war with France in the Windward Islands of the West Indies. Edwards's book has been called "A classic in British Caribbean literature and probably the most famous work in the field. Standard for over a century, and still in many regards the best book on the subject up to the close of the eighteenth century..."-Ragatz (1932), p. 165. The book was many times reprinted in England, Ireland and America to 1819, and was translated into German, French and Spanish.

A manuscript prepared by Sir William Young for the second edition which was completed after Edwards's death in 1800, and published in 1801. There are additions, corrections, and deletions throughout, appearing intermittently on twenty-seven pages. We have compared the published text to our manuscript, and find that some changes were included in the published book, others were not. The last page and a half, which was not included in the published book, is about Grenada and Victor Hugues bloody influence. The first page bears two manuscript titles, one in ink the other in pencil, preliminary to settling on the title at the head of the next page, as used as the first page of the printed book.

The manuscript is complete by itself, the first title of this section being, A Narrative of occurrences and military operations in the several Islands of Tobago, Martinico, St. Lucia, Guadeloupe, Grenada, St. Vincent's & Trinidad, during the War which commenced in February 1793, with some account of the state and condition of those Islands respectively, published in History of the War in the West Indies, from its commencement in February 1793. The three-volume second edition, 1794-1801, was edited by Edwards's friend Sir William Young, 2nd baronet (1750-1815), governor of St. Vincent, later governor and captain general of Tobago, where he died in 1815. After Edward's death Young revised his manuscript despite saying in his Prefatory Advertisement that "He cannot venture to alter, or add to, the sacred deposit committed to his charge,--and now gives it to the Publick, as its Author left, and willed it, to be given." The published book as edited by Young concludes an unfinished history of the war in the West Indies, from its commencement in February 1793, to the cruelties of Victor Hugues (the "Caribbean Robespierre") in 1794, who recaptured Guadeloupe from the British, using Afro-Caribbean troops. See Sabin 21901.

"In October 1796, it was claimed in the house of commons that almost every person in the country knew someone who had died in the military campaign then being fought out in the Caribbean. In less than four years, the government of William Pitt had sent well over 60,000 soldiers to the West Indies to reinforce the 6,000 already stationed there. While fearing the threat to Britain's slave colonies of France's proselytizing revolutionaries, the ministry more particularly had hoped to profit from the political chaos in the French West Indies and to conquer extremely valuable possessions for the British Empire...a massive pandemic of yellow fever which raged throughout the Caribbean and decimated each wave of reinforcements."-David Geggus. The Cost of Pitt's Caribbean Campaigns, 1793-1798 in, The Historical Journal, 26, 3 (1983), pp. 699-706. Modern estimates put the cost to the British military at 35,000 deaths, but British forces did by 1794 reduce all the Windward Islands (see, Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution, Boston: 1918, pp. 393-395). Written in a fine, legible, hand on 1763 Glasgow paper watermarked with fleur-de-lis and "LVG/IV" (Churchill 1825).

Accompanying the manuscript is another corrected manuscript in the same hand, being three folio sheets written on rectos only, constituting text from pages 110-116 of Sir William Young's 1795 pamphlet, Account of the Black Charaibs in the Island of St. Vincent's, the primary source on the Black Caribs, and the Second Crib War. These leaves are extensively marked up, with many words and lines crossed out and new text added. Two leaves are watermarked "Gater/1798", i.e. John and Edward Gater, Isle of Wight papermakers. As Young's pamphlet was published four years before this paper was manufactured, it seems safe to assume this is part of a manuscript for a revised edition that never saw print. These sheets are designated by the author as "(a)", "(b)" and "(c)" at foot. An apparently unrelated 8vo fourth sheet in a different hand contains four lines reading, "Negroes in many respects resemble children. Their passions are easily excited. They cry one moment & laugh next and it would be absurd to attempt to make them apprehend abstract ideas", followed by four lines about Santa Cruz where there are 17,040 slaves above 12 years of age, who produced in 1788 24,000 hogsheads of sugar, "an extraordinary year."