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Notes and Documents
A West Indian Colonial Governor's Advice: Henry Ashton's 1646 Letter to the Earl of Carlisle
Carla Gardina Pestana
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IN
1646, Antigua the governor Henry Ashton composed a long letter to
James Hay, the earl of Carlisle. Recent events in the Caribbean
had reconfigured the political situation there, and Ashton eagerly
recounted these changes to Carlisle. Carlisle's father had been
the uncontested lord proprietor of the Caribbee patent, granted
in 1627. By 1646 it encompassed the English islands of Antigua,
Barbados, Montserrat, Nevis, Saint Christopher (now Saint Kitts),
and Santa Cruz (Saint Croix). By that time, however, the younger
Carlisle was losing his grip on his inheritance. In order to stave
off this disaster, Carlisle considered making his first visit to
his proprietary colonies. Ashton applauded this idea, encouraged
the earl to make the Caribbean his permanent home, and devoted much
of his letter to advising Carlisle about this prospect. Ashton's
letter provides a blueprint for an aristocratic proprietor, caught
by events in civil war England and forced by hard times to live
in the West Indies. Nothing like it—nearly 6,000 words and
rich with detail—survives from this early period for either
the Anglo-Caribbean or the wider English Atlantic world. Both Ashton's
news and his unusual counsel make his letter a signal contribution
to our understanding of the seventeenth-century Caribbean as well
as the disruption caused by revolution in England. |
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The letter's author, Henry Ashton,
is an elusive figure, like many of the men who emerged as leaders
in early Anglo-Caribbean society. Nothing definite is known about
him before 1639, and no evidence can conclusively connect him to
the Henry Ashton (or Ashon?) who sought permission to fight for
the emperor of Muscovia in 1630.
1
In 1640, Charles I commissioned Captain Henry Ashton and others
to travel to Barbados to replace Governor Henry Hawley, sent out
by a rival claimant, with Carlisle's appointee Henry Huncks. Given
his position as lead commissioner, it is likely that Ashton either
already had West Indian experience or had been in the employ of
the earl, whose interests he represented in taking up the king's
commission, but the records are silent on this matter. After the
commissioners accomplished the removal of Hawley and the installation
of Huncks, Ashton assumed the post of Antigua's deputy governor.
He was officially under the authority of Sir Thomas Warner, the
lieutenant general over all the islands and governor for life of
Saint Christopher.
2
Ashton occupied the Antigua governor's post by November 1640 and
retained it at least until January 1651.
3
The years of his governorship encompassed the civil wars in England
and the execution of Charles I, and through it all he remained loyal
both to the lord proprietor of the islands and to the king. He may
have been removed from power in 1651 or 1652 by a pro-Parliament
coup, but it is more likely that he simply died in office.
4
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