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Updated: August 2, 2024
The old questions of illicit trade with the enemy and the carrying of contraband arose. The Dutch islands of St Eustatius and Curaçoa became centres of smuggling enterprise; and Dutch merchant vessels were constantly being searched by the British cruisers and often carried off as prizes into English ports. Strong protests were made and great irritation aroused. Amsterdam was the chief sufferer.
Eustatius, is open to censure for not having sent such naval reinforcements as would have enabled the British to command Chesapeake Bay, and his failure in this respect explains the inability of Clinton, an able general, to support Cornwallis in his hour of need.
Eustatius was reconquered by a French force from St. Kitts in the early part of 1667. Stedman was later in the year, after the outbreak of war with France, captured by a French frigate off Guadeloupe. With a small vessel and only 100 men he found himself becalmed and unable to escape, so he boldly boarded the Frenchman in buccaneer fashion and fought for two hours, but was finally overcome.
Probable also is Hood's solution of Rodney's persistence in remaining at St. Eustatius, and keeping the squadron under the command of his second to leeward of Martinique. He was possessed with the fancied paramount necessity of protecting St.
But the Dutch let him stay in port ten weeks and then depart in peace. This caused much irritation, and as there was also perpetual quarrelling over the plunder of Dutch ships by British cruisers, the two nations went to war in December, 1780. One of England's reasons for entering into this war was the desire to capture the little Dutch island of St. Eustatius in the West Indies.
I suspect this singular Christian name has been mistaken by the stone-cutter for Austet, a contraction of Eustatius, but the word Tod, which has been mis-read for the Arabic figures 600, is perfectly fair and legible.
Another flag-stone, yet more recently deposited, covered the body of Philip the Sacristan, eminent for his aquatic excursion with the phantom of Avenel, and a third, the most recent of all, bore the outline of a mitre, and the words Hic jacet Eustatius Abbas; for no one dared to add a word of commendation in favour of his learning, and strenuous zeal for the Roman Catholic faith.
The fleet anchored again at Spithead on the 22d of May. While Darby was returning, La Motte Picquet had gone to sea from Brest with six ships of the line and some frigates to cruise in the approaches to the Channel. There, on the 2d of May, he fell in with the convoy returning from the West Indies with the spoils of St. Eustatius.
Eustatius more benevolent, and much more useful, to the enemies of Great Britain, including the revolted colonists, than it was to the mother country. Rodney asserted that help from there was readily forthcoming to supply French and Spanish requirements, while professions of inability abounded whenever his fleet made a demand in occasional emergencies.
The chaplain's marked dislike had the effect of recommending him to the attention of Sir Halbert's brother, Edward, who now, under the conventual appellation of Father Ambrose, continued to be one of the few monks who, with the Abbot Eustatius, had, notwithstanding the nearly total downfall of their faith under the regency of Murray, been still permitted to linger in the cloisters at Kennaquhair.
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