Category Archives: France
Simon Taylor to George Hibbert, Kingston, 29 August 1804
29/08/1804
Taylor commented to George Hibbert on the failure of Wilberforce’s abolition bill to pass the House of Lords in 1804. By this time, he was fully aware that such a setback would be unlikely to deter future efforts by his political adversaries. He claimed, however, that if the British state were compelled to pay financial […]
Also posted in Abolitionism, British Government, Defence of slavery, Kingston, Revolution, Slave trade, Slave trade abolition, St Domingue/Hispaniola, The Letters, Trade Tagged Duke of Clarence, George Hibbert, Lady Stanhope, Lord Stanhope, Simon Taylor, William IV, William Wilberforce Comments Off on Simon Taylor to George Hibbert, Kingston, 29 August 1804
Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, 5 December 1792
05/12/1792
Following a petition by free people of colour seeking civil rights to the Jamaican assembly, Taylor confided to Arcedeckne that he feared that events could go the same way in Jamaica as they had in French Saint-Domingue, where clashes between free people of colour and whites had preceded a large-scale slave uprising. He was worried […]
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Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, 21 May 1792
21/05/1792
Taylor travelled from Jamaica to Britain in 1791. It is likely that he was at sea when the August 1791 rebellion by enslaved people in French Saint-Domingue broke out. He received news of it while in London in the autumn and remained in Britain until the summer of 1792. While there, he visited Arcedeckne in […]
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Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, 7 September 1790
07/09/1790
On 7 September 1790, Taylor wrote to Arcedeckne from his sugar plantation, called Holland, at the far eastern end of Jamaica. While a revolution by white slaveholders might have been an unlikely prospect for Jamaica in 1790, foreign invasion was not. And as the possibility of war with France loomed, Taylor described the outlook of […]
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Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, 24 December 1789
24/12/1789
As well as commenting on the rising abolition movement, Taylor expressed his views on other subjects. His thoughts on the early months of the French Revolution, penned on Christmas Eve, 1789, reveal his antipathy for the French, but also his admiration for a ‘free constitution’ and distaste for what he saw as the anarchical threat […]
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