Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/81

 v. JAN. 27, 1906.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

61

LONDON, SATL'RDAY, JANUARY 27, 1906.

CONTENTS.-No. 109.

NOTES: A West Indian Military Burial-ground, 61 Joseph Spence, 63 'A Medley Finale to the Great Exhi- bition,' 4 Party Colours Locke Manuscript Mr. Roose- velt's Scots Ancestry, 65 " Topinambou " Link with Scott Thomas Hearne's Tomb Bream's Buildings " Hoast," 66 Election Jingle, 67.

QUERIES : Fitxmaurice Family, 67 Fleetwood of Madras Qobesius: Sheeter Hafiz, Persian Poet, 68 'Modern Universal British Traveller' Major Richard Cromwell, 164tf " Diss.": an Abbreviation' Pancharis ': ' Minerva,' 1735 Marquis of Valadi Book-Ttade Terms Peacock as a Christmas Symbol " Copperillo " A.O.R., 69 -Esther Giles : Dr. W. Carson Grantham of Goltho Family "Pin-fire" "Pin-flat," 70.

REPLIES : Lord Cromartie's Issue London Newspapers, 70 'Nicholas Nickleby ' Punch, the Beverage, 71 Amateur Dramatic Clubs Sir William H. De Lancey Caravanserai to Public House' Rebecca,' a Novel, 72 Grindleton "Smith" in Latin Ennobled Animals Pig : Swine : Hog Soubise, Black Pnge, 73 Mantegna's House Brandon, Duke of Suffolk " Bbl.," 74 -Sussex Inscription Classical Quotations Welsh Poem The King of Bath, 75 Authors of Quotations Wanted John Penhallow "Was you?" and "You was" Suicides buried in the Open Fields Napoleon's Coronation Robe, 7o "Ocean, 'mid his uproar wild" "These are the Britons, a barbarous race" Splitting Fields <f Ice Church Spoons The Condado "Passive Resister," 77 Selling Oneself to the Devil-Frances Prior: Annabella Beaumont Born with Teeth Affery Flintwinch in ' Little Dorrit' Johnson's 'Vanity of Human Wishes,' 78.

NOTES ON BOOKS:-' Early English Dramatists ' A Book for a Rainy Day' 'A Draught of the Blue' ' Proverbs and their Lessons.'

Obituary : George Jacob Holyoake.

A WEST INDIAN MILITARY BURIAL- GROUND.

SOME two years ago, when I was paying a short visit to English Harbour, in the south- east corner of the island of Antigua, I made the following notes upon an old disused burial - ground situated on the Shirley Heights* close by. I had intended to send them to ' N. & Q.' at the time, but, as I wished to verify a story connected with the -old dockyard here, I deferred doing so until a more "convenient season."

The commemoration of the centenary of the great Nelson's death and the victory of Trafalgar seems to be that more " con- venient season " to me, sitting here in Clarence House, once the abode of our Sailor King, William IV. a building still belonging to the English Government, though occa- sionally used as a temporary asylum for officers administering the government of this colony who may be in search of rest or health, for the Governor's seat at Dow's Hill, higher up the slope or "Ridge," was destroyed by the hurricane of 1848. As I sit, I see below me that now disused, but once

former Governor.
 * So named from Sir Thomas Shirley, Bart., a

important and still most interesting old dockyard of English Harbour very im- portant indeed in those days of English and French naval wars, and amongst the waters where Rodney and those under him added lustre to the naval supremacy of old England. Here, just below Clarence House, yet hang together the fragments of what is still known as "Nelson's Jetty." From here, too, is very noticeable the entrance to the inner harbour itself, across which stretched at one time a huge iron chain, the remnants of which may still be seen embedded in the sand of Freeman's Bay.

It was through this entrance and from this harbour that according to the Governor's proclamation recently issued here calling upon all loyal citizens to decorate their houses in honour of " Nelson's Day " the great sea-captain sailed on his last voyage to meet the French and Spanish fleets, a voyage which ended so gloriously in Trafalgar Bay ; so that Antigua may be said to have been the last port from which Nelson sailed.

It is much to be regretted that circum- stances amongst which may be stated the great financial depression through which these islands are still struggling have not permitted the Leeward Islands to celebrate the great centenary in any other fashion than that indicated in the Governor's pro- clamation ; for few places in the West Indies can claim a better right to share in any cele- bration of Nelson, who, as captain of H.M.S. Boreas, found his bride at the neighbouring island of Nevis in the person of Mrs. Frances Herbert Nisbet, the widow of a local doctor and a member of a well-known Nevis family. The house and residence of the bride, Mont- pelier in which the marriage actually took place (it did not take place in Fig Tree Church, as is popularly supposed) is now in absolute ruins ; but one of the huge stone balls, fallen from its pillar, yet marks where the entrance gates stood. Still in the vestry in Fig Tree Church a mile or two distant from Montpelier carefully preserved in a little wooden box, through the covering glass of which it can be easily deciphered, lies the original entry of the marriage register, which runs as follows :

[13787.

March 11. Horatio Nelson, Esquire, Captain of His

Majesty's ship the Boreas, to Frances Herbert

Nisbet, Widow.

And now from the great naval dead let us pass to those who have no less honourably laid down their lives in the sister service, which brings ine to the subject-matter of this paper.