Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/310

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. n. OCT. u,

Taut, according to Kirk's ' Supplement to Alli- bone's Critical Dictionary',' published 1848), p. 48, is a woodcut of a negro (big) drummer. HI- is wearing a much ornamented shell jacket, a large turban-like headdress with a chain, crescent, and tuft, also earrings. The drum is slung over his right shoulder. I assume that he is a drummer in a military band. The only reference to him in the letterpress (p. 47) is : " If there were no niggers, who would make sugar for us, and beat the big drum ? "

Coloured musicians in military bands were apparently not exclusively in the English and Hanoverian armies, as there is, or was recently, in the Musee Carnavalet (Paris) a small coloured drawing of a " Timbalier de la musique du regiment des gardes fran- gaises," a negro. He has cymbals in his hands. The drawing is not dated, but as it is in the Salle de la Bastille, it belongs, pre-umably, to the Revolutionary period.

It is worth mentioning that in the West- minster Tournament Roll (Tournament, Feb. 12 and 13, 1509/10, in honour of Queen Katherine of Aragon and in celebration of the birth of Henry, Duke of Cornwall) one of the six mounted trumpeters is a negro, or at least a coloured man, wearing a greoi turban, the others having no headgear, i tie trumpeters are sounding " Le son des Trompettes. A Ihostel." The roll, lent by the College of Arms, was to be seen recently in the heraldic exhibition at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in Savile Row.

The band attached to four companies of the West Middlesex Militia is described in an extract from a letter dated July 2, 1793, given at 1 S. xii. 121 :

" It consisted of five clarionets, two French horns, one bugle horn, one trumpet, two bassoons, one bass drum, two triangles (the latter played by boys about nine years old), two tambourines (the performers mulattos) ; and the clash-pans by a real blackamoor, a very active man, who walked between the two mulattos, which had a very grand appearance indeed."

There may be some true statements in The Patt Mall Gazette story, but this letter written in 1793 makes it clear that the Duke of York us Commander-in-Chief was not the originator of negro bandsmen in the English army.

Granting that The Patt Mall Gazette made the small error of writing 1783 for 1784, it is conceivable that as Colonel of the Coldstream Guards, Lieu tenant-Genera 1 ? and a son of the King, he did that which he is alleged to have done as Commander-in-Chief.

No doubt there are many pictures in which appear negro Drummers, &c., in military bands. ROBERT PIEBPOINT.

LONDON'S ENTERTAINMENT TO " FOUR INDIAN KINGS."

THERE was announced in The Public Adver- tiser for Jan. 3, 1759, as having

" just arrived from America, and to be seen at the New York Coffee-house in Sweeting's Alley, a famous Mohawk Indian warrior. .. .a sight worthy the curiosity of every True Briton."

It was added that this was " the only Indian that has been in England since the reign of Queen Anne " ; and it is curious to note how certain Indians then were welcomed.

In The Post-Man for April 20-22, 1710, it was recorded that

" The Four Indian Kings, or Chiefs, of the 5 Nations of Indians laying between New- England, New- York, Canada or New-France, who arrived here some days ago, had on Wednes- day last [April 19] their Publick Audience of Her Majesty in great Ceremony, being conducted thereunto in 2 of her Majesties Coaches by Sir Charles Cotterel, Master of the Ceremonies. They went yesterday to Greenwich and were Entertain'd on Board one of Her Majesty's Yatchs [sic]."

But this was only the beginning of their round of entertainment, which was a marked feature of London's social life during their stay; and the Queen's Theatre in the Hay- market was particularly in evidence in this direction. ' The Old Batchelor,' with Betterton in the leading part, was announced to be given there for "the Entertainment of the Four Indian Kings lately arriv'd from America," on Monday, April 24; but this was altered probably because of the serious illness of Betterton, who died a few days later to "a play call'd Macbeth," though " the Tickets deliver' d for the ' Old Batchelor ' will be taken at this Play." The manage- ment seems to have been so well satisfied with the experiment that, on the next night, it gave an opera entitled ' Almahide,' again " for the Entertainment of the Four Indian Kings," though Drury Lane had advertised for the same evening, and likewise " for the Entertainment of the Four Indian Kings lately arriv'd from North America," the play of ' Aurungzebe ; or. The Great Mogul,' presumably from some odd mental associa- tion of Red Indians with natives of India.

It is uncertain from the manner in which the advertisements were lumped together in The Daily Courant for the Wednesday April 26 whether ' Venice Preserv'd ' at the Queen's or ' The Emperour of the Moon ' at Drury Lane, though probably the latter, was designed specially to be

" For the Entertainment of Four Indian Kings lately arriv'd from Northern America, &c. Tee Yee Neen Ho Ga Bow, Emperour of the Six