English Harbour Archives

Nelson’s Dockyard: A Quart of Goat’s Milk Each Day

I got a lesson in British naval history while I visited Antigua. I stayed less than a mile from where one of the greatest heroes of Great Britain spent one of the quieter periods of his career. Today, the facility where he was stationed is a UNESCO World Heritage Site known as Nelson’s Dockyard.

In 1784, an up-and-coming British navy captain named Horatio Nelson took charge of the dockyard at English Harbour, Antigua. Captain Nelson was tasked with protecting the British sugar islands of the Caribbean and with enforcing the Navigation Act, which forbade foreign ships from trading with British territories. He was to stay in Antigua for about three years.

The Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolutionary War, had been signed in 1783. One of its terms declared that Britain would henceforth recognize the United States as an independent nation. This meant that as far as the British were concerned, American ships would no longer be allowed to conduct trade with Britain’s Caribbean territories.

The Navigation Act was deeply unpopular both in America and in the British Caribbean. Captain Nelson enforced the law, which made him the target of legal actions by outraged merchants and planters. Thus he spent a good bit of his time in the Caribbean ensnared in lawsuits, in which he was defended by the British government. For one eight-month period during this time, he remained sequestered on his ship, the HMS Boreas, for fear of being imprisoned by the colonial authorities. I was amused to think that the man who was to show no fear taking on the combined French and Spanish navies at Trafalgar cowered in the face of lawyers and process servers.

In his free time, Nelson courted Frances Nisbet, a widow who was the niece of a planter in Nevis. Frances’s uncle promised a lavish dowry if the two were to wed. And here Nelson committed one of the major misjudgments of his life. Frances and her uncle significantly overstated their family’s wealth. Once Nelson formally proposed, the dowry was cut to a small fraction of what had been discussed. Since it would be dishonorable to break off the engagement, Nelson went ahead and married her in Nevis in 1787.

The marriage was not a happy one and historians differ as to why. The traditional view is that Frances was infertile and “nervous,” which seems to have been a polite way of saying she didn’t enjoy sex. More recent historical appraisals, however, have suggested that Frances was in fact a devoted wife and that Nelson was a simply a cad. Whatever the causes of their discord, Nelson was living more or less openly with his mistress by the time of his death at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

According to one biographer, while stationed at English Harbour, Captain Nelson:

–Had six pails of salt water poured over his head at dawn;

–Walked a mile at night without fatigue, but was ‘housed’ all day;

–Took a quart of goat’s milk each day;

–Was “most woefully pinched” by mosquitoes in spite of his net;

–Established a mess for the officers. On August 3rd 1784, to start it off, he ordered to be sent from St. John’s by the sloop FURY, a hogshead of port and one of the best white wine, 12 dozen porter in bottles, 50 lbs. loaf sugar, a firkin of butter, 2 baskets of salt and 2 lbs. black pepper;

–Encouraged amongst his men during the hurricane season, music, dancing and cudgelling;

–Organised amateur theatricals. Some of the plays were The Orphan, King Henry IV, Lethe, The Lying Valet, King Lear, The Fair Penitent and Jane Shore.

I’ve been to 40-some UNESCO World Heritage Sites in my day. I understand that sites are chosen for their cultural or natural importance, which doesn’t always translate into grandeur. That’s certainly the case at Nelson’s Dockyard. The Georgian buildings are reasonably handsome, if a little rough-hewn, but there’s nothing about the site itself that’s all that impressive. Part of my feeling may have been due to the lack of effort on the part of the Antiguan authorities to provide explanations and context for the buildings at the site.

In other words, Nelson’s Dockyard is worth a look if you’re already on Antigua, but it’s hardly worth the trip unless you are a major fan of British naval history.

All Alone in Antigua

Last year around this time, I spent an extended Labor Day weekend in the Dominican Republic. This year, I thought I’d do something similar on a different Caribbean island. I chose Antigua because it was close and inexpensive to get to and because I’d never been to the Lesser Antilles. Having seen islands that were or are still administered by the Netherlands, Spain, and the United States, I thought I’d check out a former British colony for the sake of perspective. And I figured that any country that named its highest mountain peak after Barack Obama must be pretty cool.

After the InterCaribbean Airways Embraer 120 turboprop dropped me off at V.C. Bird International Airport in St. John’s, I rented a car and drove to the town of English Harbour. That seems like an unremarkable thing to do, but

a) it was dark out;

b) my mobile phone’s mapping and directions app didn’t work there;

c) road signs were few and far between; and

d) I was driving on the left side of the road, contrary to the laws of nature.

Miraculously, I arrived unscathed and in good time at my destination, The Waterfont Hostel, which was to be my home for four nights. At $45 a day in a locale where accommodations generally go for several times that, it was a great deal. I walked up to the entry door, punched in the key code the proprietors had sent me, and stepped inside.

There was no one else there. Literally. No other guests. No proprietors. Just me and two friendly cats, Matey and Bosun.

This was not a surprise. The proprietors, Julia and Denis, let me stay in the place with the understanding that I’d be the only one there. Their trust in a total stranger was inspiring.

The hostel itself was fine, except for the mosquitoes that tormented me at night. The front third of the hostel was a large cheerful bar/café/hang-out area that faced the sea.

Julia and Denis came by the next morning to introduce themselves, show me around the place, and take my money. They were a lovely older couple, originally from Vancouver, Canada. They stayed about half an hour and then departed and I never saw them again.

I set out to explore the neighborhood. I couldn’t help but be drawn to the house across the street, with its home-made stonework, its cheerful red and yellow paint, its Che Guevara silhouette, its inspirational messages painted here and there, and the streams of Dylan and Marley that emanated from within.

So after breakfast, I stopped by and introduced myself. The owner was a handsome native Antiguan named JB and he invited me in and showed me around. His place consisted of an enclosed courtyard, a kitchen/dining area, and an upstairs bedroom loft.

JB said that he’d built the house himself on land that had been owned by his grandmother. That his neighbors and others in the town had tried to stop him with legal actions and allegations of code violations, which required him to work on the place at night when no one could see what he was doing. That he’d been in prison on drug charges and that cocaine was evil shit but ganja was a gift from god. And that he thought I was working for the CIA or the DEA.

He was fun to talk to. His story sounded like a local retelling of the same story I’d heard all over the Caribbean, the one about outsiders coming in and taking over waterfront property, forcing the natives inland, and cutting them off from their own beaches.

Then he began to get into some paranoid talk. He showed me a conspiranoid video from the Natural News website (a Russian propaganda outlet which reads like Alex Jones for liberals). The conversation flagged a bit after that. JB was obviously very smart and I just hate to see someone with those gifts get suckered into cloud cuckooland. I bid him well and left, hoping that we’d talk later, but our paths never crossed again.

A little further down Dockyard Drive was this lovely little cottage. Almost every time I travel, I pick out some place and imagine myself living there. This was my imaginary home in Antigua.

I walked further down the street and checked in at the Skullduggery Café and was joined by a Lesser Antillean Bullfinch (thanks for the ID, Lori!) who liked croissants almost as much as I do.

I sat at the bar next to a South African named John. He admired my camera and got to talking about the old days of shooting with actual film. His legs were scabby and scarred; one of them had a bandage over an open sore. His eyes were going rheumy. He told me he’d lost over a million and a half dollars in investments and was now working at a chandlery in English Harbour to make ends meet, but this was the slow season for yachting. He also said that he was a poet but that he hadn’t actually written anything. And he admired my Leica again.

Taking the hint, I bought him a gin and tonic. And another. He recommended that I read Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, a book I’d never heard of before. It looked interesting so I bought via Kindle on the spot.

The honorary Italian vice-consul’s office was right around the corner from the café.

The honorary vice-consul himself stopped into Skullduggery and took a table. John gave him the finger and said something demeaning about Italians. The V-C responded in kind. I couldn’t tell whether this was all being done in old-timey male fun or whether there was actual bad blood between the two men.

At some point after that, John disappeared without a word. As I paid my tab, I observed to the Antiguan barman that John had seen better days. “Yes,” he replied, in a resonant Caribbean-accented baritone that conveyed boundless empathy, “he has.”

Unfortunately, all of those conversations happened on my first day in Antigua. After that, I didn’t speak to anyone except waiters and cats. And though I like and need my solitude, I got a little too much of it on Antigua. I hadn’t fully comprehended that during the low season, Caribbean tourist destinations really do close up. I thought I was going to be within easy walking distance of a number of interesting restaurants, cafes, galleries, shops, bars, and stores. In fact, in English Harbour, at least two thirds of the public and commercial establishments were closed.

The number of closed restaurants and stores and the absence of people to talk to made this a kind of lonely, isolative vacation. But it was great for contemplation, dreaming, and reading. Maybe this is what Jimmy Buffet was getting at: