Sir George Carteret - Part 1

As George de Carteret is the subject of much news of late, I thought it would be an apposite time to put something historical on him. Next week I will also post something on his connection with the slave trade, but this does not feature in this part of his life. While it is clearly important to note that connection, it is mainly his early life that led to his status and the statue being erected in St Peter. 

This extract covers the period from his birth around 1609 to the 1661 (just after the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660) when he would have been 52 years old. I should alert the reader that at this stage of his life, he was largely a man of action, mainly at sea, and only around 1660 did this start to change, and he looked for a quiter life of retirement living on investments made with his wealth.

This is from Balleine’s Biographical Dictionary of Jersey.

CARTERET, SIR GEORGE (d. 1680), Baronet, Bailiff and Lieutenant-Governor, Treasurer of the Navy. (Though a De Carteret, he dropped the De, and his descendants followed his example: so this branch of the family will be entered as CARTERET.)

Eldest son of Jurat Elie De Carteret, Lieut.-Bailiff, (who was brother of Sir Philippe. Bailiff and Lieut.-Governor), and of Elizabeth, daughter of Hugh Dumaresq. The year of his birth is unknown ; but his parents married in Sark in June 1608, and he was the eldest son. If he was born in 1609, this would make him 20, when he received his first commission, and 71 when he died. (The London Gazette said that he was then “near eighty”, but that would have made him born eight years before his parents’ marriage.)

According to Lady Fanshawe’s Memoirs he was “bred a sea-boy”. Hence his lack of culture in later life. Marvell sneered at his “ill English”. Pepys was shocked, when he asked what S.P.Q.R. meant, “ignorance not to be borne in a Privy Councillor’. But, whatever else he did not know, he understood seamanship. Hyde described him as “undoubtedly as good, if not the best seaman of England” (Clarendon Papers).

The State Papers trace his steady rise in his profession. On 20 May 1629 he received his first commission as Lieutenant of the Garland (700 tons). In 1653 he was transferred to the Bona venture (zoo tons) under Pennington, Admiral of the Narrow Seas, who remained his friend for years. When Pennington moved to the Convertine in 1632, he took Carteret with him. In March 1635 he was given his first command, that of the Eighth Lion’s Whelp, one of a group of little vessels of 180 tons designed for chasing pirates.

In 1655 he became Captain of the Mary Rose (400 tons) and in 1636 of the Happy Entrance (600 tons) with six ships under him to guard the Straits of Dover. He complained to the Admiralty that the new cords and cables supplied to the Entrance snapped when. used, that a third of the men had never been to sea, and that there were not twelve able to take their turn at the helm (S.P.). In 1637 he was given the Antelope (600 tons), and made Vice-Admiral of the expedition against the North African Pirate stronghold of Sallee. The ships proved too large to enter the harbour, but they blockaded it for three months, sending in boats at night to burn the pirate vessels. In this work Carteret gained a great reputation ; almost every ship in the port was sunk; and at last the King of Morocco made peace by the surrender of his European captives.

Carteret returned in September with 270 Englishmen whom he had rescued and a number of Dutch and Spanish sailors. In 1658 he was given command of his old ship the Convertine, and ordered to take back to Sallee the Moorish ambassador, who had come to ratify the peace-treaty. He then presented two silver Communion cups to St. Ouen’s Church as a thank-offering for his safe return. The Diary, which he kept on this voyage, has been printed in Philadelphia, “A Journall keepte by me George Carteret in His Matie’s Shippe the Convertine being bound for the Coast of Barbary”. This shows that, though he might not know the meaning of S.P.Q.R., he was able to write good, plain, straightforward, narrative English.

In 1639 he was Captain of the Leopard. He was now in love with his cousin Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Philippe De Carteret, Bailiff and Lieutenant-Governor (q.v.), and was looking for a shore berth which would enable him to marry. By a strange chance some of their love-letters are preserved among the State Papers. In March 1650 Elizabeth wrote bemoaning a quarrel between George and her father, for which she blamed their grandmother, “who hates us all”. In July Carteret wrote :— “This day I landed the Earl of Leicester at Dieppe, who has given me a chain of gold. How much it is worth I know not, but such as it is I give it to my dear Betty. If you think fit, I will sell it, and put the money in a collar of pearls’.

In December 1639 he was appointed Comptroller of the Navy with rooms in the Navy Office. On 6 May 1640 he married Elizabeth in Mont Orgueil.

In 1642, when tension between King and Parliament was near breaking-point, Parliament appointed him Vice-Admiral of the Fleet. He referred the matter to the King, who forbad him to accept. Clarendon considered this a mistake. “If Captain Carteret had been suffered to have taken that charge, his reputation in the Navy was so great, that it was generally believed he would have preserved a major part of the fleet to their duty to the King” (History.) Later in his book Clarendon continued the story :— “Captain Carteret, having, after he had refused command of their fleets, without noise withdrawn himself and his family to Jersey, and being there impatient of being quiet, while his Master was in the field, transported himself to Cornwall, purposing to raise a troop of horse. Here he was unanimously importuned by the Commanders, after they had acquainted him with their desperate need of powder, to assist them, so that the ports in their power might be of use to them in the supply of powder. Whereupon he returned to France, and, first upon his own credit, and then upon return of such commodities out of Cornwall as they could spare, he supplied them with all kinds of ammunition, so that they never found want alter”.

He now established himself as King’s Faciendary at St. Malo, selling captured Parliamentary ships, and buying munitions for the Royalists. When his uncle, Sir Philippe, was besieged in Elizabeth Castle, he kept the Castle and Mont Orgueil supplied, and made it hopeless for the Island militia to try to starve either out. In Aug. 1643 Sir Philippe died. The King had promised in 1638 that George should succeed him as Bailiff. In Oct. 1643 a-messenger from Oxford brought to St. Malo a confirmation of this, and also his appointment as Lieut.-Governor. On 19 Nov. with a small force he landed at Mont Orgueil, which his aunt, Lady De Carteret, had been defending for eight months. The Militra, weary of besieging apparently impregnable castles, laid down their arms. The Parliamentary leaders fled. Carteret gained possession of the island without fighting. He marched to St. Helier’s, and dismantled its fortifications. On 24 Nov. he called a meeting of the States in Trinity Church, and was sworn in as Bailiff and Lieut- Governor. He seldom presided over the Court or the States. His duties as Bailiff he left to his Lieutenant, Jean Dumaresq. His work as Lieut.-Governor occupied most of his time.

His first care was to secure himself against a Roundhead rising. Though the leaders had fled, more than half the islanders still sympathized with Parliament. One small incident shows the spirit with which he had to contend. A woman was put in the pillory for saying that Lady De Carteret ought to be burnt, and that she would like to be the first to set fire to the faggots. Her niece stood in front of the pillory declaring that her aunt was as true a martyr as Christ (Chevalier), Carteret imprisoned those most likely to give trouble, including Bandinel, the Dean (q.v.), and his son, the Rector of St. Mary's. A second group he banished to Normandy. From a third group he took heavy monetary security for their good behaviour. The rest of the inhabitants were collected by parishes, and made to swear allegiance to the King on a Bible lying on a drum. The castles were filled with English and Irish troops.

His next problem was to find funds to carry on his Government, for none could be expected from the King. He seized the income of the exiled Republicans, and raised a forced loan. But he did not solve his difficulty, till he turned back to the sea. He had a swift galley built at St. Malo, schooner-rigged with twelve pairs of oars ; he put on board one cannon and 36 armed seamen, and sent it out to prey on ships in the Channel. In six weeks it captured four prizes, one a fine vessel just off the stocks. Each of these was armed and turned into a privateer. By repeating this process he was soon in command of a formidable squadron. But not without protest. Etienne La Cloche (q.v.), the Royalist Rector of St. Ouen’s, expostulated from the pulpit against Jersey being made “a little Dunkirk”. . Carteret imprisoned him for eleven months, and then banished him from the island.

In Dec. 1644 the King regularized Carteret’s proceedings by creating him Vice-Admiral in Jersey. By this commission his privateers became part of the King’s Navy. What a steadily increasing danger to shipping they were can be seen from entries seven years later in Whitelock’s Memorial :— “1651 26 Feb. Two Dutchmen laden with salt anchored off Dartmouth, but two Jersey pirates cut their cables and carried them away. 1 March. Jersey pirates very bold off the Western coast. 6. Several ships taken by Jersey pirates. 17. Jersey pirates take several merchants’ ships. 19. Letters of piracies committed by those of Jersey. 17 April. Jersey pirates take two boats Jaden with corn and timber in fight off Portland. 21. More prizes taken by Jersey pirates.”

In this way Carteret not only harassed his enemies, and provided funds for his Government, but also amassed a large personal fortune. Marvell later calls him “Carteret the rich”, Dumaresq says that he made a personal profit of “about three score thousand pounds” (Survey). Pepys says that Carteret told him that at the Restoration he was worth £50,000.

One task laid on him by the King was the victualling of Castle Cornet, Guernsey, where gallant old Sir Peter Osborne was still holding out, though the whole island was Parliamentarian. He rather naturally disliked buying supplies for Guernsey out of his own pocket on the doubtful promise that the King would repay some day. “It hath not been without much difficulty”, he wrote to Osborne, “that I have sent so much provision as I have. More I cannot do, except you will oblige yourself to repay the sums I have disbursed — one half six months after the reduction of Guernsey to the King’s obedience, the other half eighteen months after the same, with interest; in case of failing payment upon the revenues of Guernsey, then your estate in England to be liable” (Chronicles of Castle Cornet).

Sir Peter’s caustic comment was:— “For a Comptroller of the Navy to misdoubt the King’s payment seems to me a presumption I should not dare be guilty of”. A violent quarrel between the two Governors ensued: but for the next three years Carteret grudgingly sent supplies to Guernsey, though protesting that “every tub should stand on its own bottom”.

About this time he was made a Knight and Baronet. The date is uncertain. Hoskins on the authority of “a private genealogy” says that he had been knighted in 1641; but this is improbable. The King in the Patent appointing him Bailiff in 1643 calls him “Captain George Carteret”. Collins in his History of the Carteret Family states that he was knighted on 21 Jan. 1644; but, if so, Lord Jermyn, the Governor, knew nothing about it twelve months later, for, when appointing him his Lieutenant on 30 Jan. 1645, he merely calls him “le Colonell George de Carteret Esqr.” Collins may be right when he dates the Baronetcy 9 May 1645 ; for soon after this we find Carteret addressed as Sir George. On 18 June Osborne refers to him as “Sir G. Carteret” (Chronicles of Castle Cornet.) A deed of 5 March 1646, by which he presented a site for a House of Correction to the Island, gives him his full title, “Messire George De Carteret, Chevalier, Baronet” (A.E.), which disproves the frequently repeated assertion that he was knighted and (or) created Baronet by Prince Charles when he came to the island, for the Prince did not arrive till a month later.

The Prince of Wales, a boy of fifteen, had been driven to Scilly for safety. It was now decided to remove him for greater security to Jersey. This threw a new responsibility on Sir George. Charles landed at Elizabeth Castle on 17 April 1646 with a retinue of three hundred, most of whom, including the Prince, were almost penniless; and Carteret had not only to maintain them, but to provide the Prince with pocket-money from which to distribute largesse. Fortunately for his exchequer this first royal visit lasted only ten weeks. The Queen was anxious to have her son under her thumb in Paris, and on 25 June he left to join his mother. Many of his Court went with him, but some remained, among whom was Sir Edward Hyde, Chancellor of the Exchequer. As the King’s cause in England grew more desperate, others joined them, and Jersey became a refuge for distinguished and destitute Royalists.

In October alarming rumours reached the island from Paris, that Lord Jermyn, the Governor, and the Queen were planning to sell Jersey to the French. Loyal though he was, Carteret could not tolerate that. On 19 Oct. he and three of the leading Royalists, Lord Capel, Lord Hopton, and Hyde, signed Articles of Association (Bull. Ill) pledging themselves to appeal to Parliament for help, rather than allow the French to take possession. Nothing more however was heard of Jermyn’s supposed plot.

Carteret was now preparing for the inevitable Parliamentary attack. He reorganized the Militia, raised a troop of Dragoons, built breastworks at all possible landing-places, strengthened St. Aubin’s Tower, and protected the approach to Elizabeth Castle by building Fort Charles.

But Parliament had other fish to fry, and the attack was postponed. In Dec. 1647 news came that the King was imprisoned in Carisbrooke Castle. Carteret planned a rather desperate stroke to liberate him. “There appeared”, writes Falle, “a zeal in many of our most resolute islanders to rescue the King by surprising the Castle. The thing though hazardous was not thought impossible, because ships going to Southampton pass close to this Castle. It was presumed that four or five vessels with a number of chosen hands concealed under hatches might come so near as to give opportunity to scale the walls“. But Cromwell was not caught napping. He wrote to the Governor of Carisbrooke:— “Sir George Cartwright hath sent three boats from Jersey under the name of Frenchmen to bring the King, if their plot take effect, to Jersey’ (Cromwell's Letters). Forewarned was forearmed, and the scheme came to nothing.

In Feb. 1649 Jersey heard of Charles’ execution. On the 17th Carteret ordered Laurens Hamptonne (q.v.) the Vicomte to proclaim Charles II as King. (Proclamation printed in Bull. IX.) - In July Sir George was summoned to meet the King in Paris. Here it was arranged that Charles should make Jersey his headquarters. On 17 Sept. he arrived at Elizabeth Castle with his brother, the Duke-of York. On 25 Sept. Carteret’s daughter Carolina was baptized with the King as godfather. This time he remained five months, most of which were spent in angry debates as to whether the safest route to the throne was via Ireland or Scotland. On 25 Feb. he left Jersey for Holland.

Carteret now embarked on his first colonial venture. Chevalier says that the King gave him an island off the coast of Virginia called Semis Eslan, to which he gave the name of New Jersey. This was not the later colony of New Jersey, which lies many miles north: of Virginia. Chevalier’s spelling is in a class by itself ; but if, as seems likely, Semis Eslan means Smith’s Island, it was not a gift of great value. The Captain Smith after whom it was named had written of it:— “Smith's Isles are a many of barren rocks. the most overgrown with such shrubs and sharp whins you can hardly pass, without either grass or wood” (Advertisement for Planters).

But Carteret prepared to occupy it with the zeal his great-grandfather had shown in the colonization of Sark. He gathered a party of Jersey emigrants under the leadership of Philippe De Soulemont, Advocate of the Royal Court, on one of his boats, which also carried the poet Davenant, the new Governor of Virginia. But on their first day at sea they were captured by a Parliamentary privateer. Whitelock writes:~ “1650. 14 May. A ship of 5 guns belonging to Sir George Carteret, bound for Virginia with many passengers, all sorts of goods and tools for husbandry for planting an island which the Prince had given him, was taken by Captain Green and brought to the Isle of Wight”

(Memorial), We hear no more of the Virginian New Jersey.

For some reason Carteret now became ‘unpopular with his fellow Royalists. In April 1650 Richard Watson, one of the leading exiled Divines in Paris, wrote:— “There is a general ill opinion of Sir George Carteret”. A few days later Hyde wrote to Secretary Nicholas, “Poor Sir George Carteret is regarded in Paris as a reprobate’. Again in October he asked. “Why do people from all quarters write so bitterly of Sir George Carteret?” (Clarendon Papers).

On 20 Oct. 1651 the long expected blow fell. The Seigneur of St. Ouen’s sent word that eighty Parliamentary vessels were in St. Ouen’s Bay. Admiral Blake himself directed the naval operations from Carteret’s old ship, the Happy Entrance. The 2000 troops on the transports were under Colonel Heane, Commander-in-Chief of Dorset. News of the Battle of Worcester and the King’s crushing defeat and flight had reached Jersey.

Even fervent Royalists felt disinclined to fight further for a cause that seemed hopeless. Sir George knew, says a contemporary account of the landing (Bull. II), “that most of his men desired nothing better than to surrender without fighting”; but he would not give in. Rough weather enabled him to reach St. Ouen’s before the troops could land; but then Blake set to work to tire the defenders out. He sailed round to St. Brelade’s, and they had to follow. Then he doubled back to St. Ouen's. He sent some of his ships to St. Clement's. He made a feint at landing at L'Etac. For two days and nights he kept the militiamen marching and countermarching. When the real attack came, they proved no match for the veterans of the New Model, who had come to Weymouth straight from their victory at Worcester. Carteret lost most of his guns, and was forced to take refuge in Elizabeth Castle.

His position now was desperate. Blake's fleet cut off all hope of help by sea. The garrison consisted largely of foreign mercenaries, who cared for little but their pay. Carteret sent word to the King that he could hold out eight months, but he was too optimistic. A great bomb from a mortar on the Town

Hill fell on the Abbey Church in which gunpowder was stored. The explosion not only destroyed the powder, but two thirds of the provisions, and the troops began to desert. On 1 Dec. Sir George received a letter from the King, saying that help was impossible, and that he must make the best terms he could.

On 3 Dec. his officers insisted on surrender. He opened negotiations with Heane, and after eight days’ haggling Articles of Capitulation were agreed on. He was always good at a bargain, and he managed to secure extraordinarily lenient terms for himself. He was indemnified for all preceding acts of war, and allowed to keep his property, provided he committed no further hostile acts against Parliament, and was given a safe-conduct either to France or America. Other persons of position in the Castle were to retain their property on paying ‘compositions’ of not more than two years’ income. The soldiers were given free transport either to France or England. On 15 Dec. The troops marched out with the honours of war. On the. 16th Sir George sailed for St. Malo.

He was far too good a seaman to remain long unemployed. He obtained a commission in the French Navy, apparently as Vice-Admiral, under the Duke of Vendéme. On 6 Sept. 1652 Hyde wrote, “Sir George Carteret hath gotten infinite reputation in the late sea-fight with the Spaniard” (Clarendon Papers). In July 1653 Cromwell's Council of State resolved:— “We permit ten ships to go to the relief of Bordeaux” (where Frondeurs were in revolt), but, adds the writer, “the Duke of Vendome with Sir George Carteret has so straitly besieged them, that it is thought our assistance will come too late”, In November Hyde wrote again:~ “Carteret in command of some French ships has captured the Vice-Admiral of Spain. He is a gallant, honest man, though Prince Rupert and the Lord Keeper cannot endure him” (ibid).

In 1637 Cromwell made an alliance with France, and began to press for Sir George's arrest, apparently on a charge of trying to seduce the English troops in Flanders. Mazarin would not surrender him, but in Aug. imprisoned him in the Bastille. On 11 Nov. Lockhart, Cromwell’s ambassador, reported an interview with the Cardinal. Carteret had petitioned to be brought to trial, and the Cardinal had demanded details of the charges against him. A stiff struggle now took place behind the scenes. On 15 Dec. Lockhart wrote:— I gave the Cardinal the substance against Carteret. He hath promised me justice, but said he would have hard work. for the Duke of Vendéme had brigued (i.e. beguiled) the Council, and the little Queen (i.e. Henrietta Maria) had begged the Queen's friendship in it. I brought him to consider how much his Highness’ (ie. Cromwell's) interests lay at stake. At last he promised his least punishment should be to be sent out of France”. On the following day he wrote:~ “Carteret is banished from France, and is going to Venice” (ibid). He went however to join Charles in the Netherlands.

In 1649 Charles had written:~ “Carteret, I] can never forget the good services you have done to my father and to me; if God bless me, you shall find I do remember them to the advantage of you and yours” (Letter in St. Ouen’s Manor).

At the Restoration he received his reward. He became Vice-Chamberlain of the King’s Household, a post promised in 1647, a Privy Councillor, and Treasurer of the Navy with a house in Deptford Dockyard, then so much in the country that he was able to take a pride in his cows and Kentish cherries. He was also given manors in Devon and Cornwall to wipe out a loan made to Charles I (S.P.). On 1 Jan. 1661 he resigned the office of Bailiff of Jersey in favour of his brother-in-law, Sir Philippe De Carteret (q.v.). When the King rode in state into London on the day before his coronation, Carteret had a prominent place in the pageant. “There followed the Vice-Chamberlain”, wrote Pepys, “a company of men all like Turks; 1 know not yet what they are for’. At the Coronation itself he acted as Almoner, the Earl of Essex being absent. In the same year he was elected M.P. for Portsmouth.