St. Helena, 1502-1938

500 Pages·1938·48.409 MB·English

by  Philip Gosse

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ST. HELENA
502-1938
I
Philip qosse
With Colour Fronti1pieu and
33 lllustratiom
CASSELL
and Company Limited
London, Toronto, At! elbourne
and Sydney

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ST. HELENA
1502-1938
By the Same A11thor
PIRATES' WHO'S WHO
Siil JOHN HAWKINS
GATHEllBD TOGETHBR. (with HELEN GOSSli)
WOll~S OP CAPT. CHAllLBS JOHNSON
WY PlllATB LIBllAllY
J\EST BILLETS
HJSTOllY OP PillACY
MBHOlllS OP A CAKP POLLOWER
GO TO THB COUNTllY
T1lAV ELLRR 'S lll!ST
By courtesy of Mn. J. R. B. Atkinson
COLONEL ROBERT BROOKE
Governor, 1787-1801
from the miniature by John Smart
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First Published 1938
PRlNT&D IN CUAT BRITAIN
BY JARROLD AND SONS, LTD,, NORWICH
F. .538
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TO
GEOFFREY CHARLES KITCHING
ST. HELENA
PREFACE
P
ROBABLY no spot in the whole world has become
more closely associated with the name of one man or
with one historical event than St. Helena. It is little
exaggeration to state that to ninety-nine people out of every
hundred the name St. Helena conveys the place of incarcera
tion of the great Napoleon and nothing else. Surprisingly
few seem to know, or to be quite certain if the Island is even
a British possession.
Y ct this little, and now almost forgotten tropical isle, lying
remote and isolated in the vast expanse of the South Atlantic
Ocean, has a vivid history of four hundred and thirty-six years,
and has been in unbroken possession of Great Britain for two
hundred and fifty-five, and therefore can boast of being one
of her oldest colonies. Though to-day one of the least im
portant and most impoverished members of the British
Empire, St. Helena once was, for her size, the most important
and vital possession of them all.
Sit transit gloria S. Helenae.
In the pages which follow, an attempt has been made
to shew that without St. Helena there would be no British
possessions in the far East to-day. She has had her ups and
her downs; at present she is in a bad way, but there arc good
reasons for believing that better days for her are in sight, and
if this book should prove to be an instrument, however
humble, towards her return to prosperity, then it will not have
been written in vain.
A vast quantity of ink has been spilled over the captivity of
Vil