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The sprawling story of...
The First Campbells on Jamaica

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The story of the first Campbells on Jamaica is tortuous, fretted still by lack of detail, while the certainty exists that they were closely inter-related. Till recently, their descendants have taken too-little notice of them. They compete for attention with "other Campbells on other Caribbean islands". And historians, working with different sorts of history, have strangely missed their connections with a notorious eighteenth century Campbell, the conspicuous Duncan (1726-1803), from 1776 the overseer of the Thames Prison hulks. Duncan's name by now is indelibly written in penal or criminological history in the English-speaking world - because of the transportation of convicts to Australia.

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The IGI is little help, as are many websites, still. The IGI notes the name Campbell on Barbados from 1653, chiefly women marrying non-Scottish men, but other information on Barbados before 1680 indicates the Barbados Campbells did not become moneyed or influential. Also rather mysteriously, the IGI (1988 computer version) lists no Campbells on Jamaica before about 1720.
See also, Eric Williams, From Columbus to Castro: The History of the Caribbean, 1492-1969. London, Andre Deutsch, 1970., variously. On slavery on Jamaica: Orlando Patterson, Sociology, earlier cited. The Africa Company charter was recalled in 1821 and the remaining possessions on the West African coast were given to Sierra Leone. On the anti-slavery movement, see Roger Anstey (Ed.), The African Slave Trade and Abolition. Vol. 2. Liverpool, Historical Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 1976; James Pope-Hennessy, A Study of the Atlantic Slave Traders, 1441-1807. London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1963. James Walvin, Black Ivory: A History of British Slavery. London, Harper Collins, 1992.

What of Hon. Colonel John Campbell (died 1740), who owned the sugar plantation, Black River of south-western Jamaica? He is taken to be the "first Campbell on Jamaica", settling there in 1700, and he is taken also to have encouraged his nephews to come out as planters to benefit from his initiatives.
I am grateful here for assistance with genealogical information here to the following people: Rev. Borthwick (Perth, Western Australia), the Campbell genealogist, Dr Lorne Campbell of London, who provided much information here. (See Wodrow, Analecta, Vol. IV, 69.) Miss Marion Campbell of Kilberry, (FSA Soct. (Hon)., Druim a'Bhuinne, Kilberry, by Tarbet Lochfyne, Argyll PA29 6YD, Scotland - Marion Campbell, article, Journal of Clan Campbell, USA, No. 17, 3, nd., pp. 36ff. Colin Campbell of Sefton, Sydney, (then an official with a Clan Campbell society, now deceased); Diarmid Campbell, then editor of a Clan Campbell journal in US, Alastair Campbell, formerly of Inverary Castle, Henry de Mauriac.

Perhaps surprisingly, the story can begin well outside of Scotland, in English commercial and colonisation history. Robert Brenner is an English historian producing a masterly work on English commercial history to the 1650s. Brenner emphasises that the colonising English had a certain Puritan "fire in the belly", plus a fiercely anti-Spanish prejudice that served them well for their often-piratical endeavours. Brenner also emphasises the strategic role (in the geopolitics of the day), of the area about the present site of the Panama Canal, which I'll here call "Darien". Darien, the narrow isthmus linking north and south America that Scots in the 1690s aimed to capture - unsuccessfully.
See Robert Brenner, Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and London's Overseas Traders, 1550-1653. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993.

But first, the Kent Island project, as discussed by Brenner, an ill-fated English project of about 1631, to settle an island near the coasts of colonial Virginia and Maryland, and engage in a variety of commercial activity, including the gathering of furs from the Canadian north. One of the notables associated with backing this project was a too-little-known English commercial promoter, Maurice Thomson (born 1604), governor of the East India Company in 1658, who often acted as a general manager for Robert Rich, the second Earl of Warwick (1587-1658), a Puritan-minded aristocrat who was fiercely anti-Spanish, and who is also under-rated as a promoter of expansionist English business life.

A lesser name associated with the Kent Island project was William Claiborne (1587-1677), a name however destined to loom larger in colonial Virginia.

About 28 May 1631, William Claiborne "took command" of his Kent Island venture and sailed from England on the ship Africa (hired from William Tucker, who had married a sister of Maurice Thomson) with servants and supplies. Brenner has it that in 1631, Maurice Thomson and one William Cloberry were associated with with Kent Island Project (but all the interconnections, which do not involve Scots, are too complicated to delve into here).
Brenner, Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and London's Overseas Traders, 1550-1653, 1993., variously for all concerned here.

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Colonel Leonard Claiborne (died 1693/1694) of the Virginian Claibornes married Martha (otherwise unknown) and produced two daughters; Elizabeth, who remains untraced, and Catherine (1681-1715), who in 1700 married Colonel John Campbell (died 1740) of Black River on Jamaica. Although how the two might have met is so far impossible to know.
This Catherine Claiborne was descended from Thomas Claiborne (died c.1598/1600) of King's Lynn, husband of Grace Bellingham; father of London hosier Thomas Claiborne and his brother, a colonist of Kent Island, William Claiborne (b.1587;d.1677), whose first wife was Jane Butler. This Jane Butler was mother of William Claiborne (husband of Elizabeth Wilkes); this William being the brother of Colonel Leonard Claiborne (c.1681;d.1694) and his spouse Martha Notknown, the mother of Elizabeth (untraced) and Catherine Claiborne (b.1681;d.1715), spouse of Colonel John Campbell (b.1673;d.29 Jan 1740), of Auchenbrok, Scotland, and plantation Black River of Jamaica. I am indebted to Virginian genealogist John Dorman for information here on the Claiborne family. (John Frederick Dorman, CG, FASG, 175 Hulls Chapel Road, Fredericksburg, Virginia. 22406-5218. USA.) Mr. Dorman informs that Leonard Claiborne, son of Colonel William Claiborne of Virginia, settled in Jamaica where he was a colonel in the militia of St Elizabeth's, and was killed in a repulse of the French in 1694 at Carlisle Bay. By his wife Martha he is supposed to have had two daughters, Katherine and Elizabeth. Elizabeth remains unknown. Catherine married Capt John Campbell of Inverary, Agyleshire, who went to Darien and on his return to Jamaica was one of the custos of St. Elizabeth's. He died 29 January 1740/01, and Katherine died in 1715 aged 34. The published sources available to Dorman did not indicate if Katherine Claiborne/Campbell had children.

According to Marion Campbell of Kilberry, a noted Scottish genealogist, who is a descendant of Colin, the brother of Colonel John Campbell (died 1740), Colonel John became a senior member of the military establishment of the ill-fated Scots Darien Company of the 1790s. Colonel John had probably been lucky to survive the diseases which killed so many of the Scots of the three major Darien Company expeditions.
See W. A. Feurtado, Official and Other Personages of Jamaica from 1655 to 1790. Kingston, Jamaica, 1896., giving Col. James Campbell, died Orange Bay Estate, 1744, aged 47 years. One James Campbell, Member of Assembly, Westmoreland for 1706, 1718, was noted at St Elizabeth, 1721. See H. Campbell, Notes and Queries, CLVIII, 1930. pp. 462-463. Dr. Lorne Campbell thought John of Black River died 26 January, 1740. Rev. Borthwick reports, the Will of Colonel John was dated 29 August, 1739. In his Will, Colonel John referred to Principal Neil Campbell as his nephew, and Neil's sister, Jean, as his niece. Dr Lorne Campbell has noted that Colonel John [1673-1740] mentioned in his will, his niece Jean, sister of his nephew, Neil, principal of the College of Glasgow.

The genealogy of Colonel John Campbell (died 1740) seems acceptable, but the story of his nephew Neil is not yet complete. Information on the career of Neil's son, Duncan (died 1803), gives a decided sprawl to the family history overall.

The best evidence seems to be a headstone on Jamaica regarding: Col. John Campbell, Member of Assembly Westmoreland 1711, MC 1722, died 1740 aged 66 years. Interred in St Elizabeth... the inscription reading,
"Here lies the Hon. John Campbell, born at Inverary, Argyllshire, North Britain, and descended of the Ancient family of Auchenbrock, when a youth he served several campaigns in Flanders. He went as Captain of the Troops sent to Darien and on his return to this Island, in 1700, he married the daughter of Col. Claiborne by whom he had several children (three, it appears). In 1718 John Black River married Elizabeth (now alive) relict of Col. ?Garnes. He was for many years Member of the Assembly, Colonel and Custos of St Elizabeth. In 1722 he was made one of the Privy Council. He was the first Campbell who settled in this Island, and thro' his extream generosity and assistance, many are now possessed of opulent fortunes. His temperance and great humanity have always been very remarkable. He died January 29, 1740. Aged 66 years. Universally lamented."
W. A. Feurtado, Official and Other Personages of Jamaica from 1655 to 1790. Kingston, Jamaica, 1896.

The Scottish Darien Company:

As descendant Marion Campbell of Kilberry has put it, Colonel John "served in the Scots force intended to protect the Darien Settlement."
See John Prebble, The Darien Disaster. London, Secker and Warburg, 1988. Heraldry of the Campbells, pp. 20ff; Vicary Gibbs, (Ed., real name, Cockayne), The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom. [Extinct, extant or dormant]. London, St. Catherine's Press, 1910., for Argyll, pp. 209ff; Moray, p. 189; Home, p. 558; Lothian, pp. 146ff. Also, George Pratt, (Ed.), Papers Relating to the Ships and Voyages of the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies, 1696-1707. Edinburgh, Scottish Historical Society, 1924.

As a commercial project, the Scottish Darien Company was preceded by the first Scottish Guinea Company, consisting of four courtiers of Charles 1, including Patrick Maule, first Earl Panmure; and Henry, (the son of William Alexander, first Earl Stirling), secretary of state for Scotland interested in colonising Nova Scotia. It was almost inevitable that this Guinea Company at times dealt with merchants connected with Maurice Thompson, such as William Cloberry and Samuel Vassall, plus Thomas Crispe, the "founder" of the English stronghold on the African coast, Kormantin. (This was Samuel Vassal (1586-1667), said by some to be the owner of the famed pilgrim ship to America, Mayflower, Capt. Peter Andrews, where Andrews had married Samuel's sister, Rachel, as indicated in Brenner, Merchants and Revolution.)
On William Alexander (1576-1639/40), first Earl Stirling. See Robin Law, 'The First Scottish Guinea Company, 1634-1639', The Scottish Historical Review, Vol. LXXVI, No. 202, Oct 1997, pp. 185-202. The third Earl Stirling with three others from 1634 had a right for 31 years to export Scottish goods to Africa, a monopoly. that is, to 1667. He was given a Lordship of Canada and all territory of Nova Scotia. (He died insolvent.) Gibbs, The Complete Peerage, Mount-Alexander, p. 305; Stirling, pp. 277ff. One of the Earls Stirling also had an interest in the Kent Island Project.

In brief, the 1790s Darien Company expeditions and initiatives of the Scots were imitative of earlier English colonising endeavours, but they lacked both the maritime expertise and the Puritan "fire in the belly" the English had benefited by. Some historians go so far as to suggest that the human and financial costs of the failed Darien Company propelled Scotland to its 1707 Union with Britain.
Robin Law, `The First Scottish Guinea Company, 1634-1639', The Scottish Historical Review, Vol. LXXVI, No. 202, October 1997., pp. 185-202.

Little help is offered by the chaotic state of the records of the Scots Darien Company. A long search remains - there is no easy way to explain how or why John Campbell of Black River became the first Campbell settling on Jamaica. How, for example, did he find the capital to become a planter, since he would have needed capital to buy his slave workforce?

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Earlier, how did Colonel John Black River become engaged by the Darien Company? We know, that Archibald Campbell (died 28 September, 1703, the tenth Earl of Argyll, also the first Duke of Argyll), before 1700 was a heavy investor in the Darien Company. He subscribed £1500, his brother James invested £700. Some 22 gentlemen and merchants of allegiance to this Earl of Argyll contributed a total of £9400. There is little other useful information available.
Prebble, Darien, pp. 59ff. More Campbell-Argyll supporters of the Darien scheme are listed, p. 101. John Campbell, the second Duke of Argyll, (Born 10 October, 1678 at Petersham Surrey England, died 4 October, 1743 at Petersham), commander of British forces in the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715, suppressing it with very little bloodshed. The second duke was a Scottish general, he entered the army at 16 and in 1703 became colonel of the Scottish House Guards. An ardent supporter of the Union of England and Scotland he was in 1705 created Earl of Greenwich. He fought in Spain prior to 1711, rising to commander-in-chief. Back in Scotland he actively supported the accession of Geo I. Following his suppression of the Jacobites in 1715, he was made Duke of Greenwich in 1719. He was "ambitious, but tactless and too forthright, and his later career was uneven."

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The twisted tale of the Scottish Darien Company:

As noted, Colonel John Campbell "put out a call to kin" to come settle on Jamaica. The reasons he did this are tangled in the chaotic history of the Scottish Darien Company. The Darien Company had wished to settle a Scots colony named Caledonia in an area close to the present Panama Canal - an area I shall refer to only as "Darien". Before 1700, the Darien Company had very little practical chance of succeeding, but strategic logic was at work. If British interests had been able to control the "Darien" area strategically, a base could have been created which overlooked the Caribbean, by sea and on nearby land, and out into the Pacific. (If ever sailing into the Pacific, British ships might one day have blown south of the Philippines, they might have bumped into eastern Australia, or New Zealand, decades before the time Capt James Cook?) It also remains ironic that a long-distance strategic problem such as the failure of "Darien" should have helped stimulate, as many say, the Union in 1707 of the crowns of Scotland and England.

We find that Colonel John of Black River was a soldier-uncle, in the normal sense of the word uncle, of one Principal Neil Campbell of the College of Glasgow. It is evident that other Campbells related to both Colonel John and Principal Neil settled on Jamaica. The heeding Colonel John's advice to try Jamaica included: Colonel James Campbell (1693-1744) of Orange Bay, who married Henrietta Campbell of Knockbuy; one John II Campbell (died 1808) of Orange Bay who married Grisel Campbell of Knockbuy. Also Colin Campbell, planter of New Hope who married Mary Tomlin (died 1760). Also Peter Campbell of Fish River. And notably, Dugald Campbell of Saltspring in Hanover Parish.

This Dugald was son of Colin Campbell and Bessie Campbell (sister of Colonel John of Black River. Bessie and Colin had seven children including Dugald of Saltspring. Dugald, who died 27 June, 1744, had one son John (of Saltspring, who died 2 November, 1782 in his 53rd year) and eight or nine daughters, including Rebecca.
Parish Register, Hanover, Jamaica.

This Rebecca Campbell at Saltspring on 11 March, 1753 married one Duncan Campbell of London, a son of Colonel's John's nephew, Principal Neil of the College of Glasgow.

We have then to deal with stories on the disastrous adventures of the Darien Company, and sugar planting and slavery on Jamaica. The first Campbells on Jamaica settled mostly in western, and especially south-western Jamaica. Locations they came to know well were Black River, Lucea, Green Island. Encyclopedia Britannica indicates that on western Jamaica are rolling limestone hills and plateaus, to the south are flat alluvial plains. The Black River is 44 miles long, and the longest, most important river, navigable by boat for 25 miles from its mouth. Winter is December to March, with cold winds. There is rain in October and May. Lucea is on the north-west tip of the island, Savanna-La-Mar at the north, and Bluefields Bay is on the south-west extremity. Green Island is west of Lucea at the extreme north-west of the island. Colonel John may well have anticipated some usefulness for the area about Black River as a rendezvous point for shipping, which would provide some regular ship-refreshment business for him in the future - the area became s standard rendezvous point for British ships about Jamaica. But to think that, he would probably have also had to have given up all hope that anything would come of the Scottish Darien Company.
George Pratt, (Ed.), Papers Relating to the Ships and Voyages of the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies, 1696-1707. Edinburgh, Scottish History Society, 1924; John Prebble, The Darien Disaster. London, Secker and Warburg, 1988. Spate also treats the Darien Company in his trilogy, Oskar H. K. Spate, The Pacific Since Magellan. Canberra, Australian National University Press, 1979.

In England, ideas had arisen in Whig circles to form the New or English East India Company, which was granted its charter in September 1698 (about the time the Darien Company scheme was being developed). Many ideas were getting about. One of the planners behind the Scottish Darien Company was William Paterson (1658-1719). Paterson's main claim to fame is impressive enough - he helped found the Bank of England. Paterson had spent years earlier in the West Indies. It was during this "silent period" of his life there, he may have met William Dampier, buccaneer and illegal wood cutter in Spanish territory on the Caribbean, Prebble suggests.
See H. R. Fox Bourne, English Merchants: Memoirs, p. 253. John Prebble, The Darien Disaster. London, Secker and Warburg, 1988., pp. 11-15. George Pratt, (Ed.), Papers Relating to the Ships and Voyages of the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies, 1696-1707. Edinburgh, Scottish Historical Soc., 1924., p. b, pp. 48-50ff..

"Darien" lay on the Atlantic Coast, 150 miles nearer to South America than the point where the Panama Canal now joins the oceans, present-day Puerto Bello. One of the world's treasure highways ran nearby. The Spanish had for generations carried Peruvian silver across the mountains to Puerto Bello. Everyone knew about buccaneers. Paterson et al ought to have known that those days were over - for England then was conducting delicate negotiations with Spain.

Paterson had first developed ideas of "a Darien scheme" in 1684, apparently influenced by the freebooting exploits of Drake and later pirates. Paterson took his ideas to James II, promoting a port being opened for operations against Spain from Darien, to secure an emporium (staffed by Scotsmen?) for England in the West Indies and the west of North and South America, to forge a means of enabling trade to distant India and Asia. (The Carolina colony was originally to be a refuge for Scots but became a haven for disgruntled Barbadians).

The proposed Darien colony was to be near the Spanish possessions of Cartagena and Porto Bello, that is, near the major slave markets. When he found James II too troubled to listen to his ideas, Paterson went abroad, in 1688 to Amsterdam, then to Hamburg. He had a brief interlude with the New River Company, which attempted to get fresh water into London. Then he became a speaker on the collection and arrangement of public loans.

William Paterson first became of note in 1693 when he appeared before a committee of the House of Commons on behalf of a mercantile group promoting a scheme for credit being made available on Parliamentary Security. The Bank of England was formed from 27 July, 1694 on that basis. A restless-minded entrepreneur, Paterson resigned from the Bank in 1695, to become entangled for a time with the City of London orphan's fund. Soon the Darien scheme resurfaced in his mind. Somehow he obtained a manuscript copy of surgeon Lionel Wafer's journal of travels on the Isthmus of Darien. This was Wafer, the compatriot of William Dampier.
On Dampier's advice to the Darien Co., see Pratt, Darien, p. 50. John Prebble treats William Dampier's advice on freebooting against the Spanish in the Caribbean in his Darien, p. 106.

William Dampier early in his career was employed on a Jamaican plantation. He disliked the situation, and so went buccaneering in the Caribbean. Out of this experience he was able in the mid-1690s to advise London agents of the new Scots Darien Company on conditions in "the Caribbean".
See Clennel Wilkinson, William Dampier. London, John Lane, 1929., pp. 68, 85-87, mentioning Lionel Wafer p. 89. The Darien Indians hated the Spanish, but warmed to the British due to kindness.

Dampier's associate, Lionel Wafer, once went to Scotland to talk further with agents of the Darien Company. (Some writers think that during the "silent period in his career", Paterson may have met Dampier in the Caribbean.)

There was an atmosphere... The melodrama of Scots history between the time of the whigamore raids from the Lowlands to the Highlands, the turbulence of the careers of the earls of Argyll, the 1692 massacre at Glencoe, the disasters of the Darien Company to 1701, to the Union of 1707, the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745, nostalgia about the Stuart kings. Such matters have made Scots historians introspective. They have therefore failed to consider certain extroversions in the history, by way of Scots involvement in British ventures in colonisation. The Darien Company in this sense was failed extroversion. Scots Enterprise after 1707 did become increasingly extroverted in the sense it engaged with British colonialism, in Jamaica, in the North American colonies.
John Prebble, Glencoe: The Story of the Massacre. London, Penguin Books, 1968.

Pratt writing on the Darien Company (p. 138) mentions a ledger on the supply of Darien ship(s). The 1699 ledger mentions perhaps only one merchant of Glasgow named Campbell, but mentions goods per John Sumervil and John Munro, Glasgow merchants Thomas Calder. Many merchants are mentioned, but, strangely, almost no Campbells.

At Whitehall on 30 June, 1697 was held a meeting of HM Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, regarding a "Scotch East India Company". It was ordered that Mr [William] Dampier "who hath lately printed a book of his voyages" attend regarding queries on the Isthmus of Darien. Dampier and Wafer attended again on 2 July, 1697, answering queries about the Spaniards at Panama, east to the River of Chipelo, and an island named Chipelo. Wafer in London saw Dampier, and they both met in a London coffee house with agents of the Darien directors. Then Wafer went to Scotland to be interviewed by directors there.

Paterson, who must have been a persuasive man, enlisted support for the Darien project from, among others, Sir Robert Christie the Lord Provost of Edinburgh and Lord Belhaven. The vast enterprises envisaged were as earlier described to the king in London. On 26 June, 1695 in the Scots Parliament, an Act for a Company trading to Africa and the Indies was made. London directors discussed fitting out a Scottish ship for East Indies trade, but the East India Company in London fought this plan so fiercely that the Darien Company retreated to Edinburgh.

From 26 June, 1695, William Paterson became associated with a permission from the Scottish Parliament for the Darien Company, an Act for a Company trading to Africa and Indies, constituting the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies. The Darien Company gained a capital at £600,000 sterling, half subscribed in London, half in Scotland. After conflict with London's City interests over plans for East Indies trade, the Darien Company retreated to Edinburgh. At the time, the stock of the East India Company was dropping, and as was natural, the East India Company had wanted to protect its monopoly. Difficulties for the Darien scheme set in for a variety of reasons; but the English subscribers dropped the entire plan. In retrospect, they were extremely wise.

The first Darien Company had 20 directors, with some ten in London, seven of them Scots. There was a "great need for privacy", and secrecy, due to fear of views held by the East India Company on its charter. Scottish interests tried vainly to prop up the company, promising £400,00 and raising £200,000 from over 1300 people. Some Glasgow merchants involved were Walter and Patrick Buchanan, presumably from the broad family of merchants Buchanan later to be so influential in the British-American tobacco trade.

By 1695 some Darien connections included Honble (Lt. Col.) John Erskin, son of Lord Cardross the Governor of Stirling Castle; John Haldan, Baron of Gleneagles; Messrs William Paterson and James Smyth, directors. Arrangements were made also with Scots at Hamburg (Sir Paul Ricaut) and Rhode Island. Trumbull was an early company secretary. Prebble lists other Darien principals including: Capt Robert Alliston, a buccaneer and a friend of William Paterson, who had spent some time in the Caribbean in the "mystery phase" of Paterson's career; the 10th Earl of Argyll, and Colonel Alexander Campbell of Fonabb. Campbell Fonabb (sic) was one of the Darien link men proposing a colony to be named Caledonia "on the American continent", that is, on the Isthmus of Darien.
Pratt, Darien, p. 1, p. 57, p. 188, p. 226. In Amsterdam, one Darien contact was Martin Gregory; his brother was Jonas Gregory. Pratt mentions Dr Hill Bunton's Darien Papers; a Dr John Munro was contacted; also contacted was William Dunlop, who was, in turn, an: "eminent scholar, accomplished antiquary, shrewd merchant, brave soldier, able politician, zealous divine and an amiable man". In 1698, other investors were Lord Ruthven, one John Campbell of Woodsyde, one Dinwidie, and a new director was John the Marquess of Tweeddale. See Pratt, Darien, pp. 62-64, p. 89, pp. 113ff, p. 166. Spate, Vol. 2, p. 173.

In 1696, some London merchant agents for the Darien Co were appointed, Messrs James Smith and James Campbell of London, also directors of the Co. Plus Alexander Stevenson in Edinburgh and James Gibson in Glasgow. (It is not known precisely when Campbells first began locating in London - nor is it known if they moved to London due to the influence of the Earl of Argyll - names arose only incidentally, hence no patterns can be drawn).

By 1697 the Darien promoters had £400,000 subscribed, and they intended to build ships at Edinburgh and Leith, and to occupy company offices at Milne Square, Edinburgh. By 30 June, 1697 the secretary of the Darien Co. was Roderick Mackenzie. Soon, Paterson went off to get stores at Hamburg and Amsterdam, having left money with the London merchant, James Smith.

Unfortunately, some £8000 went missing, probably due to Smith. Paterson took the blame on himself and obtained references from an Edinburgh merchant, Robert Blackwood, and William Dunlop, the Principal of Glasgow College (and therefore a predecessor there of Principal Neil Campbell). Dunlop by early 1698 was asked to recommend a minister to go out to "Darien". Or, Caledonia.

Paterson was deposed as a Darien manager by July 1698 and then the real Darien madness took firm control. The original documents of the Darien Company literally ooze news that the scheme's promoters had no idea what they were doing. Paterson tried to correct bad management, but failed. There followed three disastrous Darien expeditions.

It was proposed the Darien colony be settled with 2500 people, and a better stock of provisions was made than was provided for Botany Bay in 1788. Some 1200 people sailed for Darien on 14 July, 1698, in ships including St Andrew (which landed? in Jamaica?). Later, Caledonia and Unicorn reached New York with Thomas Drummond, losing 275 men on the way. The leadership had been uncommonly callous.

The first Darien expedition sailed in July 1698, five ships with some 1200 men and provisions, to land on "a watery morass". The Darien men reckoned they had found a harbour "capable of containing 10,000 sail of Shipps". (There is an echo here, for in January 1788 when he had sailed into Sydney Harbour, Governor Phillip made a similar remark about the sight before him. It is precisely the sort of thing a naval man says when he finds an excellent harbour!)

But within six months about two-thirds of the expedition were dead. The ships included Caledonia Capt Robert Drummond, who was a brother of Thomas Drummond of the Glencoe massacre. Other ships were Unicorn and St Andrew.

As part of the debacle, the Darien ships Speedy Return and Content got to Madagascar, at a time when New York was a haven for pirates and their plunder. (The pirate Capt Kidd is mentioned in that context). The idea of making a settlement was abandoned. Paterson was so devastated by the disaster of the first expedition he sank into a kind of second childhood, or early dotage, but recovered.
H. R. Fox Bourne, English Merchants: Memoirs, p. 271. Pratt, Darien, p. 77, p. 97, p. 107, p. 138, p. 271. Spate, Vol. 2, p. 178.

Meanwhile, one Mr Alexander Hamilton was a link man for Darien Company interests in the American colonies. And about this time is mentioned a voyage of Capt Richard Long, at the time Sir William Beeston was Lt-Gov of Jamaica, in December 1698 - while the Long family were well-known as Jamaican planters.

Sailing with one of the Darien expeditions had been Dr James Wallace, who later gave an almost-official record to The Royal Society, of Capt Pennycook's voyage. (The Royal Society printed the record in 1700-1701 as part of its transactions.) Spate suggests, the Spanish reaction to Caledonia on Darien was "almost hysterical", also that the final monument of Darien became "part of the 1707 Union" of Scotland and England.

As the ships of the second Darien expedition were outfitted, a ledger was kept at Glasgow by Peter Murdoch. The ledger mentions perhaps only one merchant of Glasgow named Campbell. Otherwise it mentions goods obtained in 1699 from John Sumervil, and John Munro, Glasgow merchants including Thomas Calder. By 20 October, 1699, costs had been incurred by William Arbuckle merchant of Glasgow, who outlaid for Speedy Return Capt John Baillie, for Caledonia on Darien. Arbuckle had laid out goods worth £1415/14/9 and one-third pennies by 23 December, 1699. (The name Sumervil may indicate Duncan Campbell's later relatives, Somervilles, when his nephews Somerville were sailing for him?
Pratt, Darien, p. 55, p. 182, p. 193.

For the second Darien expedition, two ships including Rising Sun Capt James Gibson, and 300 people arrived at a deserted place. One Mr Cragg was interested in making salt. One James Cragg was "a cunning lackey" of 1685, finding considerable money.
He was later an agent of the party which helped ruin James and held office in William III's cabinet. Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England, Vol. 6, p. 188.

Other connections included Mr Paterson, Mrs Woodrop and Mr Robert Blackwood. Another Darien ship was named Dolphin, but it is not possible using information on ship movements to backtrack usefully on other matters. Amid still-confusing tales, Don Juan Pimienta, the Governor of Cartegena, attacked and won the second Darien colony by land and sea. One date suggests that Rising Sun had been sent by February 1700. And here, the Scots Caledonia on Darien was saved by the arrival of Campbell of Fonabb, who went straight to a fight with the Spanish. Rising Sun and her consort later sailed to Charleston in South Carolina, to be overwhelmed there by a hurricane. Of 1300 people, 950 died.

At a time which remains difficult to specify, other Darien Company ships, Speedy Return and Caledonian were sent out. Capt Robert Drummond was later commander of Speedy Return on an African voyage for the Darien Company, and he sailed with his brother Thomas. These ships came to grief. Later, Capt Thomas Green of a ship, Worcester, was charged in Scotland with piracy against the Darien Company's ship, Speedy Return, and the murder of the Drummonds. Green was hanged on Leith Sands amid controversy and accusations of "a squalid judicial murder". Pratt in this midst of reporting these insanities has also claimed that the tensions all assisted the union in 1707 of the crowns of Scotland and England!
Prebble, Darien Disaster, p. 323, and pp. 1-3ff, on the hanging of Capt Green of the Worcester. Spate has also been mystified by the Darien Company and at one point mentions a "mysterious affair" and speaks of the Speedy Return, Annandale and Worcester as "too complex to be treated here", citing G. P. Insh, The Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies. London, 1932.; and F. R. Hart, The Disaster of Darien. London?, 1929.; T. B. Macaulay, History of England. London, 1872; and R. C. Temple, New light on the Mysterious Tragedy of the Worcester. London, 1930.

Worcester was managed by one Capt Bowery (died 1713). About 1698, ex-East India Company, Thomas Bowrey came ashore with a few thousand pounds which he invested in a china shop and a small group of ships he managed. About 1700 he put his ships in the temporarily free East India trade, such as Rising Sun (probably the ship of the second Darien expedition), Mary Galley, Macclesfield, Trumball Galley, Horsham, Prosperous, and Rochester. Bowery is one of the few shipowners identifiable as chartering to the Darien Company.

Bad news it is said comes in threes. The third Darien expedition also had to evacuate. Not one ship returned to Scotland. However, yet another ship, Africa Merchant, returned from the west African Coast with a profit of £3800 sterling. The total loss was horrendous - little return against the original paid-up capital, hundreds of lives, and deep humiliation. The Scots were enraged, though they had tricked themselves.

There also later sailed into never-never-land the Darien ships Speedwell, owned by Robert Blackwood Jnr a merchant of Edinburgh, Capt John Campbell and supercargo Robert Innes, to Macao. Speedwell left Batavia in July 1701 for Macao. (The chief mate was once put ashore for insubordination - before she was wrecked... an incident reminiscent of the case of Alexander Selkirk, William Dampier, Daniel Defoe and Robinson Crusoe. Defoe may well have melded all these stories?.)

In Scotland arose a plan to send yet another ship, the Annandale, which was seized by English revenue men. Another Company ship was Content, Capt Stewart to India. Speedy Return also once went across the Indian Ocean, her crew destined for grievous adventures. Content and Speedy Return went to the bottom of the Indian Ocean - it is all a very confused story. About then, the Darien Company was trying for Surat; and a link man for American dealings was Martin Gregory in Amsterdam.
Pratt, Darien, p. xxiii, p. 221.

And finally by 1700, William Paterson's reputation recovered; disasters seemed to have vindicated his earlier judgements. By 1701 he was proposing a kind of Scottish Council of Trade.

It must have been that Paterson greatly raised the enterprise-aspirations of Scotland considerably, for it is said that the disaster of the Darien Company had useful impact on talk of uniting the Scottish and English crowns. Paterson was to express many ideas when in Edinburgh as a Commissioner of the English government, by 1706. The last Scottish Parliament of all commended Paterson to the English monarch. Paterson died in 1720, in January, just as the fiasco of the South Sea Bubble was giving his Bank of England a severe baptism of fire. (Daniel Defoe, legendarily a one-time spy for England in Scotland, thought Paterson "a worthy patriot" of his country).

As Watson notes, the Union of 1707 delivered Scotland from poverty. Investment in the Darien Company had been a disaster - later some £2.4 million was given to Scotland for debt repayments and other purposes relating to money lost by the Darien Company.
Watson, The Scot of the C18th, pp. 5-10.

As well, the "Union [was] no doubt carried by corruption [of] Scots peers - "not the first time... in the pay of England, the commissioners signing the Treaty risked being mobbed, they repaired to the garden of Moray's House, to sign, 'in most unworthy circumstances' from the Kirk's point of view." Watson says, the Union of 1707 was detested at the time, both in England and Scotland, but this later forgotten and the risings of 1715 and 1745 were due more to highland restlessness than devotion to the Stuart cause. Jacobitism was merely "one symptom of the dying of feudalism". The Darien Company was dissolved by the terms of the Union of 1707. Scots from then would express themselves economically, in the military, and provide great energy for England's colonial expansions.

Given the chaos of the records on the 1697-1700 Darien expeditions, it is difficult to distinguish shipping movements between "Darien" and Jamaica or other West Indian Islands. If between 1697-1700, John Campbell, Black River, aged about 27, was captain to some Darien military squad, he may have been flitting back and forth between "Darien" and Jamaica on ships - possibly also developing a relationship with the woman he married on Jamaica? It is unknown if his wife's father was already a Jamaica settler, or not, or, if the father of this wife was a Darienite who also later went to Jamaica?

It is not known if, say, by 1696, Colonel John of Black River had already been stationed militarily on Jamaica in the ordinary course of events, and that he then became involved with "Darien". But with all the chaos and death of the Darien expeditions, he was lucky enough to get out alive and settle on Jamaica as he did.

With all the above, perhaps the most useful clues are:
(a) John Campbell of Black River, born in 1673, was the first Campbell on Jamaica, therefore highly conspicuous;
(b) As a military man he had been with the Darien Company and he married into a military circle on Jamaica about 1700;
(c) He became a plantation man, in which case he needed a supply of slaves. Therefore he had to link to existing firms selling slaves, which would probably mean he remained in debt to such a firm(s);
(d) Where did this military son of an obscure Campbell find the patrons, credit or capital to buy and fit out a plantation?

Colonel John Campbell also had a sister of the full blood, Bessie, who on 3 January, 1689 married Colin Campbell of Atichuan, her father's cousin. They were also cousins to Patrick Campbell of Kilduskland (who may have been the guardian of Principal Neil Campbell?). Bessie and Colin at Atichuan had seven children including Dugald of Saltspring, Hanover Parish.

In Scotland, meantime, on 17 June, 1706, Neil Campbell was appointed to a Synod of his Church. Later he was at Roseneath. By 25 September, 1713 Neil had received a charter of confirmation of his tenure of the lands of Auchindrain and Clenary, a charter granted by John, Duke of Argyll on 22 February, 1710. Neil is referred to as Minister of Roseneath. Neil had been licensed by 21 June 1701 by the Presbytery of Argyll; ordained to Kilmallie in the Presbytery of Abertarff on 9 September 1702; called to Rosneath in the Presbytery of Dunbarton on 13 June 1709 and translated and admitted thereto on 15 July 1709; presented by King George I to Renfrew in Presbytery of Paisley, 15 November 1715; called thereto 26 April 1716; translated from Rosneath and admitted 18 July 1716, demitted an appointment as Principal of Glasgow University on 17 January 1728; held office as Principal until his death.

Neil married (possibly on 7 June, 1705?), Henrietta, the second daughter of Patrick Campbell of Kilduskland; Henrietta died December 1764. (Neil died 1761).

***************

The Claibornes of Virginia:

Now, if Colonel John had been part of the military establishment of the ill-fated Scottish Darien Company, how did he meet Catherine? Black River, Jamaica, was a rendezvous for Darien ships to and from Scotland, and later it became a generally-used rendezvous for British naval shipping about Jamaica. (I suspect Colonel John was on the first Darien expedition - but have no proof for this.) John settled there about 1700, then married Catherine. He may well have met her on one or two Darien Company voyages to Virginia for stores?
The promoters of the Scottish Darien Company may have been aware, for example, that Maurice Thomson in 1638 had become interested in a proposed silver mine project in "the Bay of Darien". . See Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, p. 82, p. 188.

Family lore is that Colonel John refused to return to Britain, or Scotland, "after the English and Dutch East India companies had destroyed the Darien Scheme". He anyway refused to live in a country planning Union with England; he remained outraged.

His headstone informs that he had two wives. He was denoted "The Hon" as he was one of the privy council of Jamaica in 1722; and he remained as colonel of a Jamaica Regiment. He was also custos of the parish of St. Elizabeth, Jamaica. He had four children.
See J. Shakespear, John Shakespear of Shadwell and his descendants 1619-1931. Self published. Newcastle. 1931., p. 83, citing Leslie's New History of Jamaica, 1740. Colonel John is called both wealthy and "brave old" in Shakespear, p. 65 and see pp. 25-31, p. 82, p. 93. On Colonel John's headstone, see W. A. Feurtado, Official and Other Personages on Jamaica from 1655 to 1790. Kingston, Jamaica, 1896.

Of Colonel John's own children, we know he had a son William (no other information), a son, Hon. Colin who married Margaret Foster and had a son John, who was later owner of the property, Hodges. This Colin is presumably the Colin Campbell who on 22 August, 1757, from Westmoreland, Jamaica, wrote to his cousin James Campbell of Kaims, re "Cousin John of Black River left Jamaica on 18 April 1756 for N. America... owing to a bad state of health"... and Colin had been left in charge of his affairs. Meantime, nothing could be done with an unnamed ship and Collin's share in it. But evidently, "Cousin Duncan proposes to sell her [the ship] on getting home". Colin also mentioned "Cousin Saltspring" and "Distiller Dugald proposes a trip home. He's now worth very nigh £1,000 Stg. . . . " Colonel John also had a daughter Ann (1700-1783) who married West Indies merchant David Currie (d. 1771) of London.
Here, "Cousin Saltspring" was presumably Dugald (the father of "Cousin Duncan's" wife, Rebecca), the owner of Saltspring plantation. EFB 149. (Or, E. F. Bradford, "MacTavish of Dunardry". Privately published, 1991. ISBN 0 9517125 0 0.) Bradford is a title which includes a number of letters of which the extracts refer to relevant points here regarding Jamaica. Collin's property Hodges later went over to David Shakespear. Hodges was also at one time owned by John Pennant Esq. See John Shakespear of Shadwell and his descendants 1619-1931, p. 83, p. 93, citing John Roby, History of the Parish of St James in Jamaica, published in Jamaica, Part 3, nd, p. 137. Ann the daughter of Colonel John of Black River married (26 December 1720 at Glasgow) London merchant David Currie, producing children John Curie, London merchant Colin Currie and Elizabeth (1726-1807) who married John Shakespear (1718-1775) rope-maker and alderman of London. See J. Shakespear, John Shakespear of Shadwell and his descendants 1619-1931. Newcastle. 1931. Beaven, p. 133 notes Shakespear as a London alderman, Aldgate, died 18 May, 1775.

Colonel John after settling on Jamaica enticed several of his nephews to come to Jamaica as sugar planters. These Campbells - Argyllshire Scots - made their way successfully for the most part into the snakepit of English infights for dominance in the Caribbean - and survived as planters. But when mentioning the unnamed ship above, and "Cousin Duncan", Colin son of Colonel John was referring to Duncan (1726-1803, son of Neil, Principal of the College of Glasgow), lately based in London, who in the history of eighteenth century convict transportation from Britain became the most notable name, notorious; but whose biography had been strangely splintered, as we shall see.

Remaining in Argyllshire, another nephew of Colonel John, although only five years younger than the Colonel, was Neil Campbell (Colonel John being Neil's uncle on Neil's paternal side). Neil (1678-22-June 1761) became a Doctor of Divinity and principal of the College of Glasgow.
Aspects of Neil Campbell's career here are discussed in Rev H. M. B. Reid, The Divinity Professors of the University of Glasgow. Glasgow, Maclehose and Sons, 1923.

But is Colonel John in fact "the first Campbell on Jamaica", and therefore, conspicuous. He had a brother Colin (died 1715) of Knockbuy who married Margaret Graham. Colin and Margaret had five children, of whom two, Colin and Charles, died unmarried on Jamaica or in the West Indies; plus Henrietta who married James Campbell of Orange Bay plantation, Jamaica. Colonel John also had a brother Dugald (of Torblaren, Kilmorey) who married Margaret Maxwell, who also had children going out to Jamaica, Peter or Patrick (died 1739) of Fish River, who married Deborah Lewis; a brother Duncan, a Glasgow merchant, and a sister Bessie who on 3 January 1689 married Colin Campbell of Attichuan; a sister Elizabeth who in 1681 married a sheriff, Colin Campbell (died 1721); and a mysterious sister, notnamed, who became the mother (by a man difficult to identify) of Neil (1678-1761). This Neil became the father of Duncan (1726-1803) referred to above in 1757, about to dispose of a ship, as a (first) cousin of the son Colin of Colonel John of Black River.
Some children of the above siblings of Colonel John of Black River include - and Colonel James (1693-1744) of Orange Bay who married Henrietta Campbell of Knockbuy.

Neil Campbell, principal of the College of Glasgow, married Henrietta Campbell (1685-1764) on 7 June 1705. Their two notable children were Duncan (1726-1803) and Mary/Molly (1723-1767) who married the customs-receiver of the Isle of Man from 1765, Richard Betham (died 1789). Richard and Mary Betham were the parents of Elizabeth Betham, who in 1781 married Capt. William Bligh of HMAV Bounty.
On Betham genealogy, see Burke's Landed Gentry. The siblings of Duncan (born 1726) and Mary/Molly were:
Ann Campbell (b.16 Feb 1712;d.1796) who married the provost of Renfrew/Greenock, John Somerville of Park (m.1729;d.1767); surgeon Patrick Campbell, BA (b.6 Dec 1713;d.16 Nov 1739); . Archibald Campbell (b.5 Jan 1716;d.Sep 1770); Rev. Colin Campbell of Renfrew (b.16 Jul 1718;d.24 Nov 1788) of Renfrew who married Isabella Campbell (b.6 Sep 1717;d.1717) and Elizabeth Montgomerie ; Neil Campbell (b.24 Mar 1721;d.23 Feb 1790) married to Notknown; Mary Campbell (b.2 Jun 1723;d.7 Jan 1767), wife of Richard Betham, LLD, Glasgow, Judge of the Admiralty Court (m.13 Sep 1748;d.1789); Margaret Campbell (b.9 Sep 1727;d.1732); Warburton Campbell (b.1732;d.1735); John Campbell (b.27 Jun 1734;d.7 Jun 1740).

Before 1990, only one historian of Bligh has ever wondered about and raised a single qualm about Bligh's links with Campbell as overseer of convicts, rather than a West India Merchant and rich shipowner - and he was never followed up. This was D. Bonner-Smith, in Some Remarks about the Mutiny of the Bounty. In the 1930s there was a concerted burst of interest in Bligh and the Bounty in England, probably stimulated by publication of Mackaness' biography of Bligh. Bengt Danielsson wrote, but using no respectable historian's evidence, Bligh's "command was really the result of the influence of his wife's uncle Duncan Campbell, a ship-owner who had made a fortune slave-running and who also owned several large sugar plantations and a mercantile house in the West Indies." And it was he ([Campbell] "who had been chiefly instrumental in securing the support of Sir Joseph Banks for the scheme". But like every other writer, Danielsson does not suggest how, or even why, Banks knew Campbell.

No records or even opinions have even been sighted to the effect that Campbell and Banks were acquainted in such a way that led them to meet even irregularly, though Banks and Solander had helped set up a hulks hospital after 1777. Much is unclear and imprecise concerning Banks' promotion of Bligh for the voyage, as it is concerning Campbell's part in proceedings. It is also necessary to consider the not-informal business of retrieving Bligh from the West India mercantile and arranging his re-entry into the navy, whilst Bligh himself was unaware of proceedings.

The intra-family connections re-echoed, so to speak, when Duncan (1726-1803) on 11 March 1753 married Rebecca Campbell (1730-1774) as his first wife. Rebecca was daughter of Jamaican planter Dugald Campbell (1697-1744) and his wife, Anne Launce, who had the plantation Saltspring in Hanover Parish (which ended in Duncan's ownership, managed in the 1790s by Duncan's eldest son Dugald, then inherited by Dugald).
In the present context, the most important child of Bessie (the sister of Colonel John of Black River) was Dugald Campbell (1697-1744), who had Saltspring. Dugald married Anne Launce (whose family history has remained unavailable for almost 30 years to date!)

Dugald (died 1744) had nine daughters and only one son, John (born 1729, died 1782 at New London, Connecticut), who remained a good friend of Rebecca's husband. Dugald (died 1744) was brother of Peter, planter of New Hope on Jamaica, these brothers being sons of Colin Campbell of Attichuan, their mother being Bessie Campbell, as above, sister of the unnamed mother of Neil (died 1764, the father of Duncan) and sister of Colonel John of Black River.
Here, Peter on New Hope, who married Unknown, bequeathed that plantation to his son Peter 2.

Remarkably, given the literary attention given to the Bounty mutiny over centuries now, and to William Bligh's career, these family connections have escaped most writers on Bligh, and also most writers on convict transportation, concerning Duncan. The connections become inescapable, however, for anyone considering the planters on Jamaica who in the 1780s periodically promoted the idea of getting breadfruit from Tahiti to the Caribbean to provide cheap food for their slaves.
On feeding slaves more cheaply in the West Indies in 1787: Davies, Royal Africa Company, p. 332, notes that in 1684 the Jamaicans were complaining that Gambia slaves were used to eating much flesh meat, (and were expensive), and hence would not like the diet allowed them on Jamaica.

The point is that by 1789, the planters on Jamaica who might have benefited from using breadfruit as slave rations included Campbells descended from "the first Campbells on Jamaica", various relatives of Duncan (1726-1803). Bligh from 1784 sailed various voyages on Duncan's regular ships to Jamaica, though Bligh historians tend to know Duncan only as "an influential West India merchant", which he was; but it is never said how or why he was influential. In effect, Duncan operated as a sort of family-merchant-banker, tiding his relatives over during hard times, sending them necessaries to be paid for from their remittances of sugar cargo.

It is highly probable that in 1775-1776, when he raced his own ruin as a London-based convict contractor and importer of American tobacco, since he could no longer send convicts to Virginia and Maryland, when he took the contracts to become overseer of the Thames prison hulks, Duncan was extremely worried about any effect his worsening situation would have on his relatives on Jamaica. At the time, he had few other commercial options open to him in London. In this sense, unawares in 1776, the Campbells on Jamaica propelled their relative, the hulks overseer, into the notoriety, the dislike, the odium he has always had, with both British and Australia writers on convict transportation and penal history.

Bligh anyway knew many of the Jamaican Campbells well, and one of Bligh's best friends was Dugald, the eldest son of Duncan, when Duncan was always resident in London and/or at Blackheath in Kent. But I have only twice seen some of these breadfruit-promoting Campbells mentioned... . (One mention arose as a Codrington descendant of the Caribbean of today, and the past, emailed it to the present writer some years ago for research purposes - the other mention arises in the minor works of the 1930s biographer of Bligh, Mackaness.)

These breadfruit-promoters have been referred to as follows...
"... the connections with Jamaica to be noted re Bligh [and the first breadfruit voyage] and others go much farther. Initial discussions on promising botanicals as alternate provisioning or cash crops were actively initiated by several cabals of West Indian planters, most notably those hosted by the Wallen Family in Jamaica. Here, names such as Jasper Hall, various Campbells, Wests, Pattersons, Grant, French-Bogle(s) (originally of a Scots/Antiguan lineage) etc., were all familiars and enjoyed the congenial atmosphere of Wallen's botanical garden. Anyway French-Bogles had interests in Jamaica and Antigua.
Per Chris Codrington. See also, Richard S. Dunn, Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624-1730. London, Jonathan Cape, 1973., p. xvii, p. xv, 47, pp. 264-265, p. 335, pp. 300ff. Oddly, Dunn mentions no planters named Campbell on Jamaica in ways useful to this article. In his otherwise excellent book, Dunn remarks that many Jamaican matters still remain "illusive and mysterious", adding that "It is a shabby task in many ways, yet an illuminating one, to tell what these English sons of Adam did to the Garden of Eden islands they discovered and what the islands did to them..." The same applies of course to Scots in the Caribbean.

Two titles by American historians are especially relevant. That title is Richard S. Dunn, Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624-1730. (London. Jonathan Cape. 1973).
Unfortunately, Dunn does not specifically name any Campbells in his treatment. The other relevant title is Orlando Patterson, The Sociology Of Slavery: An analysis Of The Origins, Development And Structure Of Negro Slave Society in Jamaica. (London. Granada. 1967).
Orlando Patterson details considerable cruelty as part of the use of slavery on Jamaica. It is therefore surprising, and touching in its way, to find from Marion Campbell that during the 1980s, one of her young relatives touring Jamaica on a motorbike found... that the Campbell graves of interest to her had been respectfully tended by Afro-Jamaicans (presumably descendants of slaves) who had taken the name Campbell. Presumably, these Afro-Jamaicans had had some connection to the plantations managed by Campbells, probably in the Nineteenth Century.

On 22 August, 1757, when Colin Campbell (son of Colonel John of Black River) wrote about "cousin Duncan" and an unnamed ship, was about the time "cousin Duncan", now settled in London, began to compile the single-most illuminating set of original documents relating to any of this - his own Letterbooks.
Duncan Campbell Letterbooks, A3225-A3230, ML. The Duncan Campbell Letterbooks, (ML) are held as: A3225 ML Vol. 1. of Business Letter Books, March 1772-October 1776; A3226 ML Vol. 2 of Business Letter Books, 13 December, 1776-21 September, 1779; A3227 ML Vol. 3 of Business Letter Books, 30 September, 1779-9 March, 1782; A3228 ML Vol. 4 of Business Letter Books, 15 March, 1782-6 April, 1785; A3229 Vol. 5 of Business Letter Books, 1 December, 1784 -17 June, 1788; A3230 ML Vol. 6 of Business Letter Books, 20 June, 1788-31 December, 1794. Some ML Blighiana also contributes material relevant to Campbells. All Campbell letters hereafter are referred to by individual date. The breaks created between business letter books are not in all instances covered by letters entered into Private Letter Books ML A3231, comprising three volumes of same. An Australian descendant (great-grandson of Duncan died 1803) who died in Queensland, Australia, at Almaden, William Dugald Campbell (WDC 1848-1938), took copious but sometimes inaccurate notes on his family history, held as ML A3232. Reference here to these notes is denoted "Notes of WDC". The present writer has lodged with ML a copy of the Will of Duncan Campbell (1726-1803), courtesy Public Record Office, PROB/11/1388, kindly forwarded by Mollie Gillen.

Thames hulks overseer, Duncan Campbell (1726-1803)

In 1758 in London, Duncan, by now a ship's captain following his naval experience by 1748 on HM Dove, branched out from his London-Jamaica trade, already established courtesy of his relatives on Jamaica, as above, to become partner with John Stewart, the already-established London convict contractor shipping felons to Virginia and North America, backloading tobacco. But Campbell did not open his Letterbooks till 1766.
The late1740s were busy for the family. In 1746, Richard Betham matriculated at Glasgow. In 1748 Richard Betham married Principal Neil's daughter Mary/Molly. Mary's daughter Elizabeth (Betsy) married William Bligh in 1781. In 1752, Betham became a member of the Literary Society of Glasgow. By 1747, Duncan had been serving as midshipman on HM Dove, from February 1747 to 14 May, 1748. On 25 March, 1748, Duncan's brother Archibald was commissioned Ist Lt in North British Fuseliers. On 3 August, 1749, Duncan was made a Guild Brother of either Renfrew or Beufrew (the WDC original is unclear). Duncan over 1750-1751 was on voyage II on Elizabeth, as captain. (Notes of WDC). He also voyaged as captain between Jamaica and London on Mary, also in 1752-1754. (His owners then are unknown). It was on these voyages he met Rebecca Campbell, later his wife.
Meanwhile, to April 1770, Matthew Ridley (born in England in 1749), first went to America in 1770 as the manager of the Maryland branch of John Stewart and Campbell. Ridley knew Benjamin Vaughan, and by a second marriage Ridley became the brother-in-law of John Jay.

This was in fact a unique move - since except for Duncan, it is very difficult to find in eighteenth-century British commercial history, another case of a merchant regularly sending his own, wholly-owned ships, on two mostly-separate runs, to both the Caribbean, backloading sugar, and to North America, backloading tobacco. With this, the only merchant working both runs, and also shipping convicts to America, was Duncan - making him conspicuous. In 1775 when he lost his trade to America, he survived, barely, as a West Indies merchants, largely due to the circumstances of his relatives on Jamaica.
Some information on Stewart and Campbell's convict and trading ships drawn from Campbell's letterbooks will be helpful. Ships owned or operated by Stewart and Campbell are suffixed JS&C to 1772, or C* after 1772. About 1758, Thetis and Elizabeth, JS&C. 1767, the Jupiter Capt. Iain. 1767, The Carolina Merchant Capt. Wilson. 1764, Justitia (later a long-lasting Thames prison hulk), JS&C, Capt. Colin Somerville, whom A. E. Smith records as making seven voyages on her. 1764, Westmoreland, Capt. McCardell. 1769, Capt. David Mitchell. 1764, Friendship, Hereford. 1772, Thornton (named for American clients) JS&C Capt. Dobbie. 1764, Susannah. 1772, Friendship JS&C Capt. Ogilvy. During July 1772, Capt. Dougal McDougal was on Tayloe (named for American clients, the noted Tayloe family of Virginia) for them. Smith, (p. 328), records Capt. McDougal on the vessel Dolphin, sailing from London with 141 convicts on 2 June, 1764, arriving at Annapolis on 14 August, 1764. 1772, Justitia, JS&C, Capt. Neil Gillies. On 9 July, 1773, Campbell wrote to Capt. McDougal then on Tayloe. Capt. Finley Gray was on Justitia in November 1772. 1772, Union, Capt. Campbell (otherwise unknown as a Campbell). 1772, Thornton, JS&C, Capt. John Kid. 1773, Davis, Capt. Brown. 1774, Henny, Capt. Richards. 1774, Tayloe, JS&C. 1774, William, Capt. Whittle. 1774, Capt. Millar. 1775, Samson, Capt. Cooper. 1775, Ipswich, Capt. Castle. 1775, Thornton for C*. A Capt. Ratcliffe in 1772 took convicts on Campbell's Jamaica ship Orange Bay for C*, to then pick up lumber from Virginia handled by Tom Hodge. Campbell's commercial reach was to Jamaica, Europe via Bremen, Virginia, Maryland, Philadelphia, Georgia, some Scottish ports, Whitehaven at times, Newcastle, Cork, with stops at Barbados and Madeira not unusual.

Note: Duncan Campbell's correspondents, listed from the index to his business letterbook 1772-1776: included: Allison and Campbell, William Adam, Samuel Athawes, Colonel William Brockenbrough and Austin Brockenbrough, Dr John Brockenbrough, Adam Barnes and Johnson, James Bain, Rev. Mr Beauvoir, James and Robert Buchanan, George Buchanan, Robert Cockerell, Messrs. Campbell and Dickson, Colin Currie, Stewart Carmichael, Cooper and Telfair, William Dickson, Charles Eyles, Fitzhugh, Fauntleroy, Richard Glascock/Glascook, Benjamin and Charles Grimes, Henderson and Glassford, Rhodam Kenner, Abraham Lopez and Son, James Millar (of Jamaica), Daniel Muse, Hudson Muse, Hugh McLean, Joshua Newall, George Noble, Francis Randall, Major Henry Ridgely, Adam Shipley, William Snydebottom, Richard Stringer, Alexander Spiers and Co., Spiers, Finch and Co.; Dr. Sherwin, Tayloe and Thornton, William and Edward Telfair, Charles Worthington. Some of these men lived in North America, some on Jamaica.

Yet Campbell the hulks overseer and his relatives have escaped many nets, as we shall see.
Some of his own descendants are mentioned briefly in Charles Rathbone Low, History of the Royal India Navy, 1613-1863. 1877. Reprinted by Royal Navy Museum, Portsmouth, in conjunction with London Stamp Exchange, nd. 1990? Many extant references to the hulks overseer are incorrect, such as his listing in Rex Nan Kivell and Sydney Spence, Portraits of the Famous and the Infamous, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific, 1492-1970. Sydney, Batsford, 1970., where it is stated incorrectly he was born in 1741.

In 1757-1758, young Captain Duncan Campbell (the only one of his own family who went on the sea) with the help of his relatives on Jamaica was rising. He and his investors had bought a ship, Orange Bay, which would regularly sail the London-Jamaica run. Though it is not known how he made the business connections, Duncan by 1758 was also a junior partner with convict contractor John Stewart, sailing regularly to Virginia and Maryland. However, as time sailed by, Duncan always gave his Jamaican relatives great loyalty, and consistent service in business matters. It should be noted also, that he and Rebecca inherited Dugald Campbell's plantation, Saltspring. Dugald had had nine daughters, it is not known if all survived, or all married, but it seems as if Duncan was one of up-to-nine brothers-in-law - and he inherited Saltspring.
By 2002, Duncan's own career as a convict contractor is noted at length on the Internet at a website titled The Blackheath Connection at: http://www.danbyrnes.com.au/blackheath/

Two standard historical works on convict transportation to North America are: Wilfrid Oldham, Britain's Convicts to the Colonies. Sydney, Library of Australian History, 1990. [This title is a slightly modified version of Wilfrid Oldham, The Administration of the System of Transportation of British Convicts, 1763-1793. Ph.D thesis. London University. 1933] Abbot Emerson Smith, Colonists in Bondage: White Servitude and Convict Labour in America, 1607-1776. Gloucester, Massachusetts, University of Carolina Press, 1947. [Peter Smith, 1965] See also, Peter Wilson Coldham, Emigrants in Chains. Phoenix Hill, Far Thrupp, Stroud, Gloucestershire, Allan Sutton, 1992.], Eris O'Brien, Shaw, Ekirch [Roger A. Ekirch, Bound for America: The Transportation of British Convicts to the Colonies, 1718-1775. Oxford University Press. And also, importantly, Roger A. Ekirch, 'Great Britain's Secret Convict Trade To America, 1783-1784', American Historical Review, Vol. 89, No. 5. December 1984., pp. 1285-1291.; and Kenneth Morgan, 'The Organisation of the Convict Trade To Maryland: Stevenson, Randolph and Cheston, 1768-1775', William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, Vol. 42, No. 2, April, 1985., pp. 201-227.

Meanwhile, given email arriving to me as webmaster of The Blackheath Connection, it seems also in 2002 that interest is resurfacing in the United States in their 40,000-50,000 convicts arriving between 1718 and 1775 as cheap labour to Virginia and Maryland.

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Follows here a list of the said English ship managers operating 1717-1775, shipping convicts to America: 1717: Francis March, London:
1718 Jonathan Forward, London;
1720 members of the Lux family, Darby, John, and Francis (probably London before becoming colonials, (later linked to Jonathan Forward's operations) and in 1750, William Lux;
1721-1722, Jonathan Forward Sydenham of London;
1722, ? Cheston;
1731, various men named Reed, to 1771;
1737, Joseph Weld in Dublin;
1739, Andrew Reid, London, with James and Andrew Armour, London, and John Stewart of London;
1740++, Moses Israel Fonseca, London;
1740, Samuel Sedgley, Bristol;
1740, James Gildart, Liverpool;
1744, John Langley, Ireland;
1745, Reid and Armour, London;
1745, Sydenham and Hodgson, London;
1747, William Cookson of Hull;
1749, Jonathan Forward Sydenham a nephew of Jonathan Forward above;
1749, Stewart and Armour, London;
1750, Andrew Reid, London;
1750, Samuel Sedgely and Co of Bristol; John Stewart and (Duncan) Campbell, London (JS&C);
1758, Sedgely and Co (Hillhouse and Randolph), Bristol;
1759, Stewart and Armour, London;
1760, Sedgely and Hillhouse of Bristol;
1763, Andrew Reid retired;
1764, John Stewart and Duncan Campbell, London;
1766, Patrick Colquhuon, Glasgow; 1766, Sedgely and Co. at Bristol replaced by William Randolph, William Stevenson and James Cheston, Bristol;
1767, Stevenson, Randolph and Cheston, Bristol? with a colonial agent Cheston;
1768, Jonathan Forward Sydenham, London or nearby counties;
1769, Dixon and Littledale, Whitehaven;
1769, Sedgely, Bristol; 1769, any ships captain providing necessary securities could transport felons;
1770, James Baird, Glasgow;
1772, John Stewart died, Duncan Campbell carried on alone in London until 1775.

At Bristol, Stevenson, Randolph and Cheston (SRC) were active till 1776; they made ill-advised and vain attempts to transport felons to North America at the end of the American Revolution. Wisely, Duncan Campbell made no such attempt.
(The above list does not include merchant names transporting convicts from Ireland.)

People in the US have bothered little with their 1775 40,000-50,000 convict emigrants of pre-1775 days, and do not seem to find Daniel Defoe's satirical novel on a female convict determined to return to England from transportation to America at all amusing - Moll Flanders. But a feisty gal, was Moll!

These convicts formed an underclass; little is known of their lives once they had served their time as servants, or about whether they married and stayed in the colonies, returned to England, or simply worked for themselves and then died-in-exile. US historians have mostly been concerned to estimate their tendencies to recidivism, and they are mostly taken to have disappeared onto some colonial frontier. My view is that many must have had children, and that descendants of those children must now form a large number within the US population.
See Bernard Bailyn, 'The Peopling of the British Peripheries in the Eighteenth Century', Esso Lecture, 1988. Canberra, Australian Academy of the Humanities, Occasional Paper No. 5, 1988. Here, Bailyn writes, p. 19, "I have never found a single reference to a convict in any genealogy or history of an American family, nor, in any other way, does a single one of the 50,000 convicts sent to America appear as such in American history."

Coldham has done a great deal of genealogical work on shiploads of convicts, and so listed most of the convict ships used in the trade 1718-1775, at one point mis-listing one ship as Green Garland, when it was actually Green Island, a ship managed by Duncan Campbell and actually named for a location of Jamaica, Green Island.
Peter Wilson Coldham, The Complete Book of Emigrants in Bondage, 1614-1775. Baltimore, Genealogical Publishing Co., 1988. Peter Wilson Coldham, Emigrants in Chains. Phoenix Hill, Far Thrupp, Stroud, Gloucestershire, Allan Sutton, 1992.

I've claimed above that Duncan's biography has been splintered by historians, and this happened with one US historian of Anglo-American business life to 1775, Alison Olson.
See Alison Olson, 'The London Mercantile Lobby and the Coming of the American Revolution', Journal of American History, Vol. 69, No. 1, June 1982., pp. 21-41. Alison Olson, 'The Board of Trade and London-American interest groups in the eighteenth century', Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth Studies, 8, January 1980., pp. 33-50. Alison Olson, Making the Empire Work: London and American Interest Groups, 1690-1790. London, Harvard University Press, 1992. Alison Olson, 'Coffee House Lobbying', History Today, Vol. 41, January 1991., pp. 35-41. Alison Olson, 'The Virginia Merchants of London: A Study in Eighteenth Century Interest Group Politics', William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3, Vol. 40, July 1983., pp. 363-388.

Olson identified a group of London-based importers of tobacco whose views became split along pro-American or anti-revolutionary lines, as a major upheaval threatened their business, the American War of Independence. As opinions rumbled in both America and England, Duncan's opinion was pro-government, although not in any blustering way.

Before 1775, it was also clear that numerous American colonials owed substantial sums of money to merchants resident in Britain, and by 1786, Duncan would in fact be one of several sometime-chairmen of a lobby group known as the British Creditors. These creditors pressed their own government and their US debtors for repayment, a tortuous matter as the Americans had not yet established a legal system able to address such matters.

Remarkably, in 1786, Thomas Jefferson, then US' plenipotentiary minister to France, sought out a representative of the British Creditors - who it happened was Duncan Campbell, then in Mincing Lane, only months before Duncan moved his premises to 3 Robert Street, the Adelphi.

In 1786, Jefferson and Campbell not surprisingly disagreed about the debts, and any related interest charges on monies owed, and matters were not concluded till after the negotiations of the 1794 Jay Treaty.
See by date, remarks on this Jefferson-Campbell meeting in Julian P. Boyd, (Ed.), The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. Vol. 9. (1 November, 1785 to 22 June, 1876). Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1954.

This meeting happened within the diplomatic period of Jefferson's life treated so well in the movie, Jefferson in Paris. Is it significant? Jefferson mentioned this meeting in his letters, but Campbell did not mention it in his letterbooks. Although of course, Campbell in his later letters to his aggrieved British merchant brethren gave them to understand that he had had a "no" from an American who might know - he simply declined to mention the name, Jefferson.

Across decades, US historians have typically referred to these issues as "the debt repudiation question". It should be noted here that Jefferson in treating these issues, in his personal as well as his political life, behaved most honourably in the way he wrote about, or politicked about, such debts and necessary repayment, (hence the later terms of the Jay Treaty).
Samuel Flagg Bemis, Jay's Treaty: A Study in Commerce and Diplomacy. New York, Macmillan, 1923.

Here, though, arise here two problems for US culture... First problem - It can't be seen that Jefferson behaved as honourably as he actually did, unless one knows that in London, he met a senior figure of the British Creditors, as they called themselves, Duncan Campbell - and we know who Campbell was.

Second problem - the debts could not be repayed without emphasis on more tobacco production. Which involved use of slave labour, a factor which got entangled in post-1783 debates over the continuation of the use of slavery; issues which since 1803 have entangled Jefferson's reputation.

Duncan himself remained deeply preoccupied about recovering his American debts, till his death in 1803, and his estate received less than 50 per cent of amounts outstanding.

Considering events to 1775, Olson identified Duncan as a merchant-activist, who presumably knew, or knew of, other debt-worried British merchants such as:

On the pro-British side (on one side of the Atlantic or the other) were merchants such as: Governor Hutchinson (a "tea importer" and former British governor recalled to London); William Molleson (an American merchant in London), trading as William and Robert Molleson, of No 1, America Square; Christopher Court and Thomas Eden, Lyonel Lyde and Co., Dunlop and Wilson, Gale, Fear and Co., Wallace, Davidson and Johnson - and Duncan Campbell. (One of Campbell's colonial correspondents, William Fitzhugh, wrote to James Russell warning of local "incendiaries" in the colonies.) Also, Blackburn, Barclay and Champion (Barclay by now also an investor in the English South Whale Fishery of the day), Samuel Athawes, John Sargent, Brigden, Norton, and Russell, William J. Baker, a noted merchant dealing with New York. Thomas and Rowland Hunt "never signed a single pro-American petition". To 1775, some of the leading Glasgow merchants with links in the colonies were Alexander Speirs and William Cunninghame. So the lists can run.

On the American side, noted names were John Hancock (the Boston patriot merchant said to be partly-responsible for the Boston Tea Party). In London were pro-Americans such as William Lee and Josiah Quincy, and the radical London alderman, John Wilkes.

But Olson also became mystified, as in late 1774, Duncan disappeared from view, (and she did not become aware of the Jefferson-Campbell meeting in 1786 on the same issues.) Duncan did in fact almost disappear from view in late 1774, as his wife Rebecca died, possibly due to complications of child-birth, leaving Duncan with a forlorn new-born, and older motherless children.

Campbell dropped out of London-American merchant politics during a crucial period, late 1774, and apparently ignored his fellow merchants? The reason was that his wife Rebecca had died, 7 December, 1774, leaving him with a motherless new-born, Little Duncan, and other young children. (By 25 January, 1775, Duncan's brother Neil was sitting as amanuensis by Duncan's sickbed as they wrote to Rebecca's brother John on Jamaica... "the expected stop on remittances from America" would make it difficult to pay [Duncan and John's] creditors in London... Duncan wished John, and Duncan's own daughter, Henrietta, who was then visiting Jamaica, to come to London to assist following Rebecca's death.)

Very emotional with grief, Duncan also had to watch the decline of his American business. In later 1775 he became lumbered with an intractable - and official problem - the upkeep of the convicts he had penned up in two ships now on the Thames, which he could no longer send to America, a situation which hemmed him in as he was contracted.
The children of Duncan and Rebecca were: Eldest daughter Henrietta Campbell, (b.15 Nov 1754;d.1795), who married Colin Campbell, merchant of Glasgow, and also of Holland Park, Jamaica, (m.14 Aug 1776(Div)), Rebecca Campbell (b.28 May 1756;d.Sep 1781); eldest son Dugald Campbell (b.1760;d.1817), Mary Ann Campbell (b.1761) who married (against her father's wishes) a soldier, William Willox (m.Aug 1781(Div)); John "Jack" Campbell (b.5 Feb 1770), who by the late 1790s was partner with his father in contracting for the overseership of the Thames prison hulks; Ann Campbell (b.1769;d.22 Dec 1801) who married Dr. William Peele; Duncan Campbell Junior, (b.1 Dec 1774;d.22 Apr 1858) who married firstly Harriot Mylne (b.1773;m.1846;d.8 Aug 1834) (Daughter of architect Robert Mylne (1734-1811) FRS); and secondly, Elizabeth Phillips.
Except for occasional references in Duncan's Letterbooks, it remains difficult to keep track of his Jamaican relatives, for lack of comparative information. Rebecca's brother John, who frequently went to the US with ill-health, died in 1782 at New London, Connecticut.
Note: See also, A. I. B. Stewart, 'Major John Campbell (died in 1685) and Principal Neil Campbell', Journal of the Clan Campbell Society, USA, pp. 11-13. nd. [Providing also a new but still inconclusive report from Clan Campbell, Journal, USA on the paternal grandfather of Duncan Campbell (1726-1803) the hulks overseer of London]

Duncan employed many ships captains. Of them, the closest to him in family terms were his nephews Somerville, and later the husband of his niece, Elizabeth Betham, William Bligh. By June 1771, Captain Colin Somerville had died, and his brother Neil Somerville had lost Orange Bay (named for the Jamaican Campbell plantation of that name) between Blackwall and Greenwich "by a careless pilot" on the Thames. Duncan was then in the country, and had written to a brother of Colin Somerville on the death. By early June 1771, John Paterson in Glasgow had written to Duncan on the "meaning of the affairs" of Capt Colin Somerville deceased. A question arose of Capt Somerville's girl, a convict; and his [ship's] mate. By 4 June, 1771, Duncan had received news from Tom Hodge, his convict-selling agent in America, news of "Capt Somerville's writings".

With Neil's ship lost, things were worse than regrettable. Colin Somerville had betrayed his employer-uncle, with probably some shady business dealings, but certainly by falling in love with a convict girl, and keeping her on his ship back and forth on the Atlantic. In so doing, Colin was, repeatedly, returning her from transportation. If legal authorities had discovered this, it would have meant the cancellation of Duncan's contracts to transport convicts. Duncan was gravely concerned, but as it happened, he kept this contracts. Colin Somerville's betrayal was probably the worst service any of Duncan's captains ever gave him.

Duncan's sister Ann (1712-1796) had married John Somerville (died 1767), Provost of Renfrew and Greenock, of Park. Their children were Capt. Colin Somerville (b.1718;d.Jun 1771), Ann Somerville who married Alexander Campbell of Inverness; John S. Somerville, dsp (b.1731); Henrietta Somerville who married writer Hugh Snodgrass of Paisley; Captain Neil Somerville (b.1740;d.1796) who married Miss E. Scott; John Somerville (b.1743); Francis Somerville, planter of Green Island, Jamaica (b.1744); Agnes Somerville (b.1751) who married George Noble, merchant of Kingstown, Jamaica (b.14 Aug 1745;m.18 Sep 1776;d.26 Mar 1791); and Alexander Somerville.
There was also a tobacco-ferrying Capt Thomas Somerville of the 1760s, but I do not know if he was one of this Somerville family. He is noted in Jack P. Greene, (Ed.), The Diary of Colonel Landon Carter of Sabine Hall. Two Vols. Charlottesville, Virginia, Virginia Historical Society/University Press of Virginia, 1965., Vol. 1, p. 297.

By January 1774, Duncan's ships Orange Bay and Tayloe were at Green Island, Jamaica. Duncan in London on 15 January 1774, wrote to Rebecca's brother, John Campbell of Saltspring per Henny Capt Richards,
"I wrote to you the 13th of last month by the Britannia since which time I have not had the pleasure of hearing from you. As I have in my former letters been full on the head of business with CC I have now nothing further to say on that subject, having had no information from, or converse with him since my last. What I have already written will guide you in some degree as to the shipping your crop, you will no doubt consider matters with due deliberation before you take your measures which is the sure way to obviate future difficulties. I have been very open as to my Abilitys, and I trust you will not have occassion to push me beyond that line.

In my last I mentioned Mr McLachlan becoming a Planter I hope you will have before this reaches apply'd to him and to GB (?) likewise, Joe B has written to his sister .....

My poor boy Jack has been very ill for some time past, with the Dregs of the Measles. I flatter myself now from what Davison says he is out of danger he is just gone with his Mama to take a little airing, he is amazingly immatiated, but if he could get rid of a Fever which comes on every night I think he would soon pick up strength. The house had very dull holydays on his Account but thank God we have now so good a prospect

Dug is now by me. We set out for Canterbury tomorrow. He has made good progress at that School, is now in good hands and I have no doubt will answer every expectation I have formed about his education

[declining to pay Mr. Dickson's bills - ill made sugars - even Hibberts for 250 pounds I have refused - the Orange Bay and Tayloe ought to be at Green Island]"
Transcript from Duncan Campbell's Letterbooks, ML A3225, p. 221.

Oddly, then, we can find good-quality genealogical information on Duncan and his Somerville ships captains, his relatives - while information on the careers of Duncan's Jamaican relatives, as planters, remains misty. But as indicated above, Duncan from 1774 was to see the destruction of his business with North America. Picking himself up, taking his losses on the chin, Campbell from 1776 became the overseer of the Thames prison hulks used to pen the convicts that England could no longer send to America.
See Charles Campbell, The Intolerable Hulks: British Shipboard Confinement, 1776-1857. Bowie, Maryland, Heritage Books, Inc., 1994.

The prison hulks and their overseer of course are always to be mentioned in the British penal histories arising from the outbreak of the American War of Independence from 1775, due to the subsequent history of the transportation of convicts to Australia from 1786-1788, yet Duncan and his connections of the 1780s and 1790s have never been properly placed in any kind of history at all. And, this is despite the enormous historical and literary attention given since 1789 to the mutiny on the Bounty, and to Captain William Bligh, who was "a nephew-in-law" of Duncan, the hulks overseer. (As we will still not tend to find, however, indicated on genealogical or historical websites of our own day.)
Historians' works on the close of convict transportation to North America include: Peter Wilson Coldham, Emigrants in Chains. Phoenix Hill, Far Thrupp, Stroud, Gloucestershire, Allan Sutton, 1992. Roger A. Ekirch, Bound for America: The Transportation of British Convicts to the Colonies, 1718-1775. Oxford University Press. And also, importantly, Roger A. Ekirch, 'Great Britain's Secret Convict Trade To America, 1783-1784', American Historical Review, Vol. 89, No. 5. December 1984., pp. 1285-1291. Kenneth Morgan, 'The Organisation of the Convict Trade To Maryland: Stevenson, Randolph and Cheston, 1768-1775', William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, Vol. 42, No. 2, April, 1985., pp. 201-227.

Throughout the 1780s, as the children by his first wife grew older, Duncan Campbell, overseer of the Thames prison hulks, had another, younger family growing, children by his second wife, Kentishwoman Mary Mumford. (1756-1827).

Mary Mumford married Duncan on 25 January 1776. She was daughter of John Mumford (1723-1787) of Sutton Place, Sutton-at-Home, Kent, and sister of John Mumford (d.1825), High Sheriff of Kent. She and Duncan had the following children: Elizabeth Campbell (b.14 Nov 1776) who married barrister Alexander Pitcairn (of the family which gave the name Pitcairn to the island which became the refuge of Bounty mutineer Fletcher Christian); Mumford Campbell, JP, (b.Feb 1778;d.9 Feb 1855), who had two wives, a Miss Harris and also Frances Sarah Smith; William Campbell (b.Mar 1779), Launce Campbell (update, daughter of Rebecca Campbell, not daughter of Mary Mumford) who married Lt. Philip Glover of 6th Inneskilling Dragoons, married 7 Sept. 1800 at St Mary's Marylebone, London); William Newall Campbell (Unmarried), (b.22 May 1780;d.8 Nov 1856) who married Christiana Pearce (b.1793;d.10 May 1860); Colin Campbell (b.12 Jul 1783); Louisa (Loisa) Campbell (b.May 1784;d.Aug 1804); Mary Ann Campbell (b.Jan 1785;d.27 Aug 1846), Neil Campbell (b.Jan 1787;d.13 Jun 1793), and Augustus Campbell.

Mary as a younger woman, remained friends with Duncan's niece, Elizabeth Betham, wife of William Bligh, who from 1784 had sailed several of Duncan's ships on the Jamaica run. It has been tragic that this small point of family intimacy has gone unnoticed by historians of Bligh and the Bounty, since writers on Bligh have traditionally seen Duncan merely as "an influential West India merchant", and not as a senior member, almost the merchant banker, of a lively mini-clan of Campbells active between Glasgow, Arygyllshire, London, and Jamaica.
Bligh Letters, 1782-1805, p. 378, Mitchell Library, Sydney. On social life ... Elizabeth Bligh enjoyed the company of the women of the Mumford family. On 18 January, 1786 she wrote to her uncle Duncan, she was looking forward to the "pleasure of seeing Mrs Campbell & her cousins this week - tomorrow I will wait upon you. I beg Mrs Campbell may not think of sending her Coach... Your much obliged Niece, Elizabeth Bligh."
Some consideration of the descendants of Duncan Campbell (died 1803, who married Mary Mumford) who stayed about Kent, is given in Zena Bamping, West Kingsdown - The story of three villages in Kent. (2nd ed) London, 1991 Tyger Press Limited, 1991. (36 Goldington Street, London. NW1 1UE.)

Duncan Campbell's Letterbooks have been held by Australia's major archive of Australiana, the Mitchell Library in Sydney, since the early 1950s, acquired by the library from the estate of the biographer of William Bligh, writing in the 1930s, Dr. George Mackaness, once Mackaness had died. Mackaness was given the Letterbooks by an Australian descendant of Duncan, William Dugald Campbell (WDC), though it remains unexplained how WDC acquired the Letterbooks from family members then in England. (WDC made one if not two trips to England and Scotland in search of his family history). However, it remains unexplained why Mackaness as Bligh biographer failed to emphasise that the writer of the Letterbooks was in fact the overseer of the Thames prison hulks, also the promoter of Bligh as a captain for a breadfruit voyage .

See George Mackaness, The Life of Vice-Admiral William Bligh, RN, FRS. Two Vols. Sydney, Angus and Robertson, 1931.

My own observation on Mackaness' minor works on Bligh, in follow-up to his biography, which mention Campbells on Jamaica, is that with his consultation of the Letterbooks he retained for so long, Mackaness is often wrong or misleading. It seems also that the way Mackaness handled the historical information has deflected attention from the Campbells on Jamaica since the 1930s. Certainly, I have not yet seen a website on matters of Bligh or the Bounty which seems aware of the genealogical problems outlined in this article, and certainly, compilers of information appearing on websites are in an ideal position to post the latest-known information. The result is a great loss to the Pacific history of associations with the name Campbell.
George Mackaness, (Ed.), 'Fresh Light On Bligh: some unpublished correspondence', Australian Historical Monographs, Vol. 5, (New Series). Review Publications, Dubbo, NSW, Australia, 1976 (Reprint). George Mackaness, (Ed.), 'Some correspondence of Captain William Bligh RN with John and Francis Godolphin Bond, 1776-1811', Australian Historical Monographs. Reissued by Review Publications Pty. Ltd., Dubbo, NSW, Australia. Orig., 1949. I have also explained Mackaness' use of the Campbell Letterbooks in my Commentary to Oldham, Britain's Convicts, pp. 251ff.

***************

In all, it remains very odd that the genealogy of a principal of the College of Glasgow, and a professor of Divinity at that university, plus the genealogy of the first Campbell planters on Jamaica, plus information on Duncan, the promoter of the captain of the Bounty voyage, Bligh, should all be linked, and yet remain mysterious for as long as two centuries of "modern history".

Meantime, Duncan Campbell never sent a convict ship to Australia, or any ship at all, though he had every opportunity to do so if he wished - and he is incorrectly called the corrupt contractor for the First Fleet of convict ships to Australia in Robert Hughes' book, The Fatal Shore.
See Robert Hughes, The Fatal Shore: A History of the Transportation of Convicts to Australia, 1787-1868. London, Pan Books/Collins, 1988. Finding much to complain about regarding the treatment of the First Fleet convicts, Hughes writes, (p. 70): "To begin with, the fleet was undervictualled by its crooked contractor, Duncan Campbell. He had shortchanged the convicts with half a pound of rice instead of a pound of flour.." and so on. With just one sentence, Hughes disposed entirely of William Richards, and wrote him completely out of the history. Hughes however does not for example cite any references for the notion that Campbell as contractor for the First Fleet was "crooked". In fact, there are no such references available, at all, and Hughes is simply wrong here.

Follows a list of some of the London-based merchants who did take contracts to transport convicts to Australia before 1800 or were involved with the shipping: Names regarding the First Fleet included: William Richards Junior (who was not corrupt, and as far as is known, no relation of the Captain Richards once sailing for Duncan of London), London alderman William Curtis (later Sir, a baker of sea biscuits) and alderman George Mackenzie Macaulay of Blackheath, Leightons, James Mather. For the Second Fleet to Sydney, London-based slavers who were supplying slaves to Jamaica at the time, Camden, Calvert and King. The Third Fleet, the Enderby whalers (resident at Blackheath) together with Calvert's firm. Later, a London whaling investor, John St Barbe (also of Blackheath, next door but one to Enderbys).

With the first Campbells of Jamaica, it may remain debatable for a time, which area of information needs tidying first; the basic genealogies, or the history of the first sombre decades of European life in Australia after 1788. Not to speak of the story of breadfruit being taken from Tahiti to the Caribbean.

Through the 1780s, the idea warmed up, of using breadfruit from Tahiti as a cheaper way to feed slaves on sugar islands. Orthodox wisdom has it that a ship named HMAV Bounty was sent to obtain it, Capt. William Bligh. This orthodox wisdom also tends to assume that Bounty was a lone ship sent on a special, scientific mission. In fact, she was one of two ships planned to visit Tahiti from Britain in 1787-1789, the other ship being the First Fleet ship, Lady Penrhyn. The problem with dealing with this unorthodoxy is that traditionally, Bounty continues to be seen as a lone ship, not part of a burst of shipping Britain sent into the Pacific, 1786-1792, the first major burst of such shipping being of course, the First Fleet of convicts sent to Australia.

In fact, and as earlier indicated here, a majority of the shipowners putting ships into the Pacific 1786-1792 were residents of Blackheath in London, near Greenwich. The contractor of the First Fleet was William Richards Junior. Some shipowners William Richards dealt with as he gathered the First Fleet included: Leightons, Hoppers of Scarborough, William Walton and Co., the whaler James Mather and the Greenland whaler, alderman William Curtis (but most of these merchants did not continue their involvements with the Pacific).

Despite Hughes, in modern writing, in The Fatal Shore incorrectly naming Campbell as "the crooked contractor" of the First Fleet, Campbell never sent a convict ship anywhere after mid-1775. In the 1780s resident at Blackheath, Campbell could easily if he'd desired have sent convict ships to Australia; government had sought his advice several times on the likely costs of transporting convicts to Australia (New Holland), but he never sent one.

Political disturbances wracked Jamaica during 1787, and yet another hurricane caused damage of £50,000. In London, both Campbell and Sir Joseph Banks would have known of this. West India planters must have been worried, since slaves - property, not people - were starving. There was also the problem of the dispute between Britain and the United States over the West Indian carrying trade.

Walvin reports that in 1788, a leading Liverpool slave trader, John Tarleton, spent three and a half hours trying to convince prime minister Pitt that abolition of the slave trade would bring "total ruin".

The poet Coleridge described the anti-slaver, Clarkson, as "the moral steam engine... the giant with one idea" .. From 1787, three other writers besides Clarkson worked on anti-slavery, Rev. James Ramsay, Zachary Macaulay of the Clapham sect, the father of the historian, and James Stephen. (Macaulay had a personal interest in sugar being produced in India). Clarkson, who researched the slave trade, said the trade cost the lives of 2000 British sailors annually.

Historian Eric Williams asks why it took until 1807 for slavery to be abolished? He answers, because of the French Revolution and the issues ranged round around St Dominigue. Meantime, the only English poet to write anything useful against the slave trade was Robert Southey, with his 1798 ballad, "The Sailor who had served in the Slave Trade", a psycho-drama finger-pointedly set in Bristol.

In the presence of new information, speculation also visits. Lady Penrhyn was built on the Thames in 1786 for alderman William Curtis of London. Her First Fleet voyage was a maiden voyage and after it she was bought by Wedderburns and placed on a regular London-Jamaica run. She had probably always been intended for the West India run. Why did Curtis name herLady Penrhyn? Lord Penrhyn once spent £30,000 in 1790 in an unsuccessful attempt to control Liverpool, his slaving port. (Richard Pennant, Baron Penrhyn, was the chairman between 1777-1783 of a powerful lobby group of West Indies merchants and planters, and it was presumably for his lady that Curtis had named his First Fleet ship, Lady Penrhyn?
Richard Pennant (Lord Penrhyn, his DNB entry) is said to have once spent £30,000 attempting but failing to become MP for Liverpool.

By late 1786-early 1787, there had been an idea to detach a First Fleet ship and send her to Tahiti to take breadfruit to the West Indies, an idea Sir Joseph Banks would have known about.

The Institute of Commonwealth Studies at Russell Square in London holds microfilm copies of the minute books of the West India Committee, for Planters 1785-1822; and Planters and Merchants May 1785-December 1792.
See Microfilm, Reel 3, West India Committee Archives, West India Planters, 1785-1822: Planters and Merchants Minutes, May 1785-December 1792, held at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London. Douglas Hall, A Brief History of the West India Committee. Caribbean University Press, 1971., a treatment tracing the committee's change in role as it moved from promoting the interests of slavers and absentee landlords of the West Indies to examining the welfare needs of descendants of slaves.

When these merchants met (from May 1784), Lord Penrhyn was usually in the chair. Here, it is necessary to suggest that despite Bligh's fame and the notoriety of the mutiny on HMAV Bounty, Campbell's role in having his employee, Bligh, given command of Bounty, is not well understood, and indeed, has provoked too few questions. Was Campbell a powerful West India merchant? And did he know Joseph Banks?. Even if "yes" is the answer to both questions, a connection between the three camps - Campbell's, Banks', and the West India merchants - still needs to be proved.

As a West India merchant trading to Jamaica since 1753, Campbell was a loner. If his surviving correspondence is an accurate guide, he seldom dealt with other West India merchants in London; but his letters to correspondents on Jamaica itself were always effusive, for normal family reasons. His Letterbooks indicate of the buyers of his tobacco before 1775, but nowhere does Campbell ever indicate who bought his sugars, which is yet another detriment to finding more information on the commerce of the Cambpells on Jamaica.

Duncan Campbell's name does not appear in the West India lobby group's minute books as a result of his attending meetings, so the conclusion is that he was NOT influential among the London merchants who usually attended. When they met in 1787, the West Indian merchants and planters discussed business such as intercourse with America, meetings with the Privy Council's committee for trade, free ports in the West Indies, duties on rum, competition from the import of foreign sugars. Campbell would naturally have been interested in such issues, but the records of the meetings between 1786-1787 do not mention his attendance.

On 30 March, 1787, though we do not know with whom he had recently spoken, Banks informed both Lord Liverpool and Lord Sandwich that the plan of sending a vessel to Tahiti purely for breadfruit was more likely to be successful than an alternative one of detaching a Botany Bay transport.

By that date, the Botany Bay ships were only waiting for a few more convicts and official matters to be concluded. But here, the mystery of Lt. Watts and Macaulay chartering Lady Penrhyn remains. Banks was probably correct as to the inadvisability of detaching a transport, for by 30 March he could have found out the proposed routes of various ships after they would leave Botany Bay, whether they had East India Company charters to backload tea, or not. So it is probable that Macaulay, if he and Curtis had been planning to take some breadfruit from Tahiti, or been asked to do so, changed their mind about late March and decided to survey Nootka Sound, in which Curtis did continue interested. That is, if Lady Penrhyn had picked up breadfruit, the Bounty voyage may never have happened!
Hughes, , Chronicle of Blackheath Golfers, p. 4 recorded Macaulay as a member of the Blackheath Golf Club in 1787 and as club captain in 1793. February 1787: Mackay, , Wake of Cook, Ch. 5 treats breadfruit for slaves on Jamaica. Mackay conveys, Ch. 5, 30 March, 1787, Banks was pointing out the disadvantage of fitting a convict ship to go to Tahiti, citing CO/201/2/224, 9 March, 1787, after Banks in Feb. 1787 had suggested a convict transport go to Tahiti.
The initial evidence used here about Curtis and Macaulay comes partly from Arthur Phillip, The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay. Sydney, Hutchinson of Australia, 1982. (Originally published in 1789). In the section by Macaulay's employee, Lt. Watts, Ch. XX, is recorded information useful in piecing together the involvements of Macaulay and Curtis. On Macaulay's Pitt in 1792, see Jack-Hinton, Search for the Islands of Solomon, p. 318, Note 3 and p. 319.

Hinton East was a botanically-minded receiver-general on Jamaica. East, writing to Joseph Banks in July, 1784, had asserted the "infinite importance" of breadfruit to the West Indies. East hoped the Assembly of Jamaica would again take steps to re-awaken English interest in breadfruit... cloaked in botanical "motives", the search would be mounted for cost effectiveness in feeding slaves of the Caribbean.
On Hinton East and other interested parties, see Dawson, The Banks Letters, earlier cited. Also, Glynn Christian, Fragile Paradise, pp. 53ff; Owen Rutter, Turbulent Journey - A Life of William Bligh, Vice-Admiral of the Blue. London, Ivor Nicholson and Watson, 1936., pp 76ff. As noted earlier, Hinton East, writing to Joseph Banks in July, 1784, had asserted the "infinite importance" of breadfruit to the West Indies. East hoped the Assembly of Jamaica would again take steps to re-awaken English interest in breadfruit. Brief mention has been made of the receiver-general on Jamaica in the 1780s, the botanically minded Hinton East, and some matters concerning Sir Joseph Banks and the estate of Elisha Biscoe [in Jamaica]. Only one of Bligh's biographers, Hough, has suggested that Banks owned or had an interest in a Jamaican plantation, but if Banks had such land, it would have added financial incentive to his botanical motives for transplanting breadfruit to gain cost effectiveness in slave rations. Political disturbances wracked Jamaica during 1787, and a hurricane caused damage of £50,000. Both Campbell and Banks would have known of this. West India planters must have been worried, since slaves - property, not people - were starving. There was also the problem of the current dispute between Britain and the United States over the West Indian carrying trade. On Hinton East and other interested parties, see Dawson, The Banks Letters, earlier cited. Also, Glynn Christian, Fragile Paradise, pp. 53ff; Owen Rutter, Turbulent Journey - A Life of William Bligh, Vice-Admiral of the Blue. London, Ivor Nicholson and Watson, 1936., pp 76ff. Kennedy, Bligh, p. 15 mentions Hinton East meeting Banks in London in 1786.

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No records or even opinions have been sighted by the present writer to the effect that Campbell and Banks were acquainted in such a way that led them to meet even irregularly, although after 1777, Banks and Solander had helped set up a hulks hospital. Much is unclear and imprecise concerning Banks' promotion of Bligh for the voyage, as it is concerning Campbell's part in proceedings. It is also necessary to consider the not-informal business of retrieving Bligh from the West India mercantile and arranging his re-entry into the navy, whilst Bligh himself was unaware of proceedings.

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The crewing of Bounty...
Most writers on Bligh agree the seeds of the Bounty mutiny lay in the way the ship was crewed, but here, attention is needed to those close to Bligh who had an influence on the crewing, especially Campbell, Richard Betham who policed smuggling on the Isle of Man, and their associates.

In general, Bligh, although a magnificent sailor technically and practically, was a poor manager of men. On top of this, he has been badly maligned, his family history has been unresearched or misread. Bligh could not resist becoming puffed up by any authority he happened to be given, and he suffered a personality disorder, and a rigidity, expressed by his inexcusably foul mouth and losses of temper, interpersonal problems that were rooted in a gross insensitivity to the feelings and awarenesses of others. Bligh simply had no capacity for empathy.
The Bounty mutiny was largely due to the way the ship was crewed. Bligh's biographer, Gavin Kennedy, argues persuasively that Fletcher Christian became semi-suicidal, and irrational. Glynn Christian's book (Glynn Christian, Fragile Paradise, on Bounty's crewing, pp. 60-64) is elaborate on Christian's emotions as he was being driven by Bligh. A descendant of Christian, Glynn, in his book of personal discovery of the mutineer, Fragile Paradise, writes: "It is strange that Bligh, a man dogged in the pursuit of his duty to the king, allowed himself to sail with neither the muscle he needed to man the ship nor the muscle he needed for discipline". Kennedy in his biography of Bligh, makes the same point, showing that by attending to the fancies of others, as well as to some of his own, Bligh "appeared to dilute the strength of his crew". Too much attention to family concerns and linkages was just one of the reasons Bligh's crewing was inadequate. Bounty was not crewed as a naval vessel usually was, whether the king was interested in her or not. Despite Bligh's alleged liking for the extremes of naval disciplines, he had not himself been under that discipline for four years, as he had been sailing between London-Jamaica. Bligh crewed the ship with too many friends, old shipmates and acquaintances, including men recommended by his family. There was no single reason disaster could be expected, yet disaster struck.
In general, the mutiny was a minor incident in British naval history, related to a special mission on behalf of West Indian slave owners, and invested with prestige by Sir Joseph Banks, The Royal Society, and George III, who was impressed by his sugar revenues. See also, Bengt Danielsson, (Trans. from the Swedish), What Happened on the Bounty. London, Allen and Unwin, 1962. Before stepping onto Bounty, Bligh and Fletcher Christian had sailed together several times on Campbell's Jamaica ships.

Thomas Douglas (or, Hamilton-Douglas), fourth Earl Selkirk, of St Mary's Isle, a friend of the Bethams on the Isle of Man, complained on 14 September of the complement of Bounty, as Bligh had refused to take out his son, Dunbar Douglas. Bligh told Selkirk that Lord Howe had fixed the complement of the ship. Bligh's father-in-law, Richard Betham, also desired Bligh to take out Dunbar Douglas, and the fellow had just arrived from the West Indies in time to go out. Betham had written..., "and I hope my Lord Selkirk will allow him [to go], as it will give you [Bligh], the pleasure to be the means of his [Dunbar's] promotion." Betham wrote to Bligh on Dunbar Douglas on 21 September. This was an "opportunity" that Bligh forcefully declined.
Gavin Kennedy, Bligh, p. 21 indicates Bligh in September, 1787, wrote to "Lord Selkirk", who then wrote to Banks, on the subject of crewing Bounty. This fourth Earl of Selkirk thought Bligh a sad case as he might not get promotion from this command, and mentioned that Hunter, out to Botany Bay with Capt. Phillip, had received a better promotion. Selkirk's information concerning naval matters and the Pacific was keen. Selkirk also knew of Campbell as a friend of Betham, and Bligh, of course, which Kennedy may not have known. (A member of the Earl's family was later governor of the Isle of Man.) The intended Bounty sailor was Dunbar Hamilton-Douglas, (1766-1796), fourth son of fourth Earl Selkirk by Helen Hamilton, later Captain or Commander RN, who died of yellow fever about St Christophers. Dawson, Banks Letters, variously. The fourth Earl became Rector of Glasgow University not long after Duncan Campbell's father had died. GEC, Peerage, Dundonald, p. 528 ; Selkirk, pp. 618-621. Burke's Extinct for Dunbar. Burke's Peerage and Baronetage for Hamilton and also for Hope-Dunbar. Stenton, British Parliamentarians, Vol. 1, p. 253; and in Vol. 1, p. 528. Stenton registers Katherine Jane of this Hamilton-Douglas family, marrying MP Loftus Wigram, son of the convict contractor to Australia, Robert Wigram/Fitzwigram. Burke's Peerage and Baronetage for Wigram/Fitzwigram. Earl Selkirk's name is also associated with Kirkcudbrightshire. He was greatly interested in the problem of the depopulation of the Highlands and the settlement of Scots in areas of the British Empire, especially Canada. There had been a family rumour that Lord Selkirk had been in love with DC's sister, Molly, who married Richard Betham. However, Richard Betham and Molly C were married on Sept. 13, 1748 (recorded in The Scots Magazine, as noted by WDC). Lord Selkirk's name is also associated with Kirkcudbrightshire. He was greatly interested in the problem of the depopulation of the Highlands and the settlement of Scots in areas of the British Empire. Selkirk wanted his son Dunbar Douglas to go on Bligh's Bounty but was disappointed. fix note - 1771 - born, Thomas Douglas Selkirk 1771-1820, later 5th Earl of Selkirk, a Whig politician after 1799, of St Mary's Isle, Kirkcudbrightshire, in 1803-1811. Interested in the settlement of Canada, eg Manitoba. son of Dunbar Hamilton Douglas, was a friend of Sir Walter Scott, interested in question of depopulation of the Scottish Highlands, and settlement thereby of the British Empire. The family resided at St Mary's Isle, Kirkcudbrightshire.

News that Duncan Campbell was close to matters for the crewing of the breadfruit ship had perhaps gotten about in some mariners' circles! Campbell was in receipt of a request from John Sheppard at Gravesend (who may have been a mastmaker there), that Sheppard's son go on [Campbell's ship] Lynx/breadfruit ship, as gunner. Actually, whether Sheppard wanted his son to go on the breadfruit voyage, or merely wanted him on Campbell's Jamaica ship Lynx, is not clear. Campbell when Lynx had been rejected for the breadfruit voyage put her in command of Capt. Ruthven. Interpretation of Campbell's reply to Sheppard might depend on why Campbell might have needed a gunner for Lynx, if she was only to continue sailing to Jamaica.
Duncan Campbell Letterbooks: Transcript from ML A3229, p. 342: Note: Campbell to John Sheppard, Gravesend, 21 Sept., 1787. Campbell seems to have suggested that Sheppard's son be gunner on Lynx or with Bligh - on the assumption that Lynx would be accepted for the breadfruit voyage. Campbell was still prepared to see young Sheppard go on Lynx with Capt. Ruthven. Mackaness, Life of Bligh, p. 51, p. 59, Vol. 1. See also, Richard Betham to Bligh, 21 Sept., 1787. Campbell to Nepean, 22 Aug. , 1787; 30 Aug., 1787: Campbell to Dugald Campbell, 30 Aug., 1787. Campbell to his son Dugald in Jamaica. (Quoted from Mackaness, Life of Bligh, Vol. 1, p. 5). Relevant letters from Campbell's Letterbooks include: Campbell to John Sheppard, 21 Sept., 1787; Also, Richard Betham to Bligh, 21 Sept., 1787; Mackaness, Life of Bligh, p. 59, Vol. 1. [Note to the superscript: Duncan Campbell, London, to Dugald Campbell, Jamaica, 30 August, 1787, cited in Mackaness, Life of Bligh, Vol. 1, p. 51]. On 10 May, 1787, government advertised for a vessel for the breadfruit voyage. The incoming tenders were made into a short list of five ships by 16 May. Campbell on 15 May tendered his ship Lynx, 300 tons, with a third flush deck able to be put on her, new sheathed. Campbell considered her "a compleat little ship". This was all a handy idea as Bligh had sailed Lynx and knew her well.

The proposed breadfruit voyage was common knowledge to those who had recently begun thinking about the Pacific. Arthur Phillip at Rio de Janeiro on 2 September, 1787, with the First Fleet, wrote to under-secretary Evan Nepean at the Home Office, "[those] articles will, I hope, be sent out with the ship that goes for the breadfruit." The advertisement for tenders for the breadfruit voyage had only been published on 10 May, three days before the First Fleet sailed from Portsmouth.
Phillip to Nepean re items to go out in the breadfruit ship, from Rio de Janeiro, 2 Sept., 1787, Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. 1, part 2, p. 111.

By 9 September, 1787, a more complex plan had emerged for fitting up two ships ex-NSW, one for China, one for India, promoted by West India merchant Benjamin Vaughan. Vaughan was an influential member of the West India Lobby group (he had probably met Jefferson in March-April 1786). In 1784 he was a member of the Certificate Committee of the West Indian Planters and Merchants meeting at the London Tavern. Vaughan was on their select committee in May 1785, and on the standing committee in December 1787. Three other Vaughans were also associated with the standing committee about then. Given the number of Campbells on Jamaica, the absence of the name Campbell from names of the London-based West India lobby groups remains intriguing.

Bligh anyway began to crew Bounty and found in Richard Betham a "helpful" father-in-law. Peter Heywood, whose father had been steward of the Duke of Atholl and Deemster of the Isle of Man, whose uncle was Sir Thomas Pasley in the navy, had his appointment to Bounty procured by Betham. John Hallet was a brother of Anne Hallet, a friend of Bligh's wife, Elizabeth. John Hallett of Hythe, near Southampton, father of John, on 25 August wrote to Banks thanking him for procuring his son's appointment to Bounty.
The crewing of Bounty is referred to in Kennedy, Bligh, pp. 19ff; Mackaness, Life of Bligh, Vol. 1, pp. 51-59, giving Richard Betham to Bligh, 21 Sept., 1787, on Peter Heywood. Hallet to Banks, Dawson, The Banks Letters, p. 380.

The boy