Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/419

Rh coffins. Schomburgk says that such a sketch was made in 1820 (April 18), when the vault was opened by Lord Combermere, Governor of the island, and the coffins were found in wild disarray. My sketches of the coffins, in order and disorder, with Mr. "Anderson's" written account, belong to my brother-in-law, Mr. Forster Alleyne, of Porters, Barbadoes, whose father, the late Mr. Charles Thomas Alleyne, was in the island in April, 1820, when Lord Combermere opened the vault. I am not certain that Mr. Charles Alleyne spoke of the affair to his son; but Mr. Forster Alleyne tells me that he heard of it from an eye-witness named in Mr. Anderson's document. Sir Robert Bowcher Clarke. The evidence is thus better than that of Baron de Guldenstubbé, but as Christchurch was destroyed in the hurricane of 1831, I am not certain that its registers survive.

It is a curious fact that Mr. Alleyne's copy of Mr. "Anderson's" record varies from a synoptic version signed not "J. Anderson, Rector," but "Thomas Harrison Orderson, D.D., Parish of Christ Church, Barbadoes." This synoptic copy was printed by a Mr. Robert Reece, junior, who got it from Mr. Orderson (named elsewhere by him "Harrison"), and is published in a pamphlet pleasingly styled Death's Deeds (Skeet, London, 1860). A MS. note in the copy before me attributes the tract to "Mrs. D. H. Cussons." As to Mr. Orderson, Mr. Alleyne (May 20, 1907) informs me that he has examined the old record of funerals at Christ Church, Barbadoes. From the end of 1803 to 1820, Mr. Orderson signs all the records: "Harrison" is a misprint: Anderson was not Rector during the disturbances: this name is also a misprint.

The Death's Deeds version begins with what the "Anderson" version omits. "July 31, 1807, Mrs. Thomasin Goddard interred in vault which, when opened,