The Legacy of Slavery Part 2 - Henry Reynolds and his 'Hypocrisy of Slavery'
Historian and Dark Emu fan Professor Henry Reynolds
As we detailed in Section 2 of a previous blog-post, historian Professor Henry Reynolds appears to have adopted some of Bruce Pascoe’s ‘selective editing’ techniques in his recent book, Truth-Telling - History Sovereignty and the Uluru Statement when he introduces us to James Douglas, the 14th Earl of Morton.
Professor Reynolds almost accuses Captain Cook of a serious dereliction of duty when he claims Cook failed to follow the Earl of Morton’s ‘instructions’ with regard to the treatment of Native peoples. As Reynolds tells us,
‘Morton observed that they [the natives] should be seen as ‘the natural, and in the strictest sense of the word, the legal possessors of the several regions they inhabit’ and that even conquest of ‘such a people can give no just title’.
- (ibid., p.16)
Professor Reynolds also tells us that the thoughts, with regards to native peoples, of this aristocrat, the 14th Earl of Morton, are an ‘illustration of the contemporary standards’ and the, ‘widely accepted morality’ of this time.
Maybe they were, but as we shall show, there is another, darker side to the 14th Earl of Morton that Henry Reynolds is not disclosing to us.
For it seems that the aristocrat, James Douglas, the 14th Earl of Morton, was actually a very canny Scot who was wealthy by squeezing the most money he could out of the oppressed 'indigenous’ peasantry on his feudal estates in the Orkney and Shetland Islands, off the coast of Scotland. He then made himself a huge fortune by offloading these estates (which had been granted to his family by the Crown and Parliament) in a sale to Sir Lawrence Dundas who had slave plantations in the West Indies.
The 14th Earl of Morton was then so wealthy he could become a ‘virtue-signaller’ extraordinaire and give ‘hints’ to Captain James Cook on how to treat the ‘indigenous’ natives that he might encounter on his voyage in the Endeavour.
To our mind, it is totally misleading for Henry Reynolds to admonish Cook for following his duty as per the Admiralty’s orders, instead of following the ‘hints’ given by the clearly hypocritical Earl, whose own track record in the treatment of indigenous peoples is questionable.
Does Henry Reynolds want Australia to believe that the two Scots, Lord Dundas the slaver and James Douglas the oppressive feudal aristocrat and 14th Earl of Morton, represent a higher source of morality when dealing with ‘indigenous’ peoples than James Cook, a working class officer dutifully following the orders of the British Admiralty, the most Enlightened and Progressive country of the Age?
Sorry Henry, ordinary Australians are not buying your argument.
Cook was correct to follow his duty and the instructions of the British Admiralty in taking possession of New South Wales under a right of first discovery. It would have been, as you say, a ‘serious dereliction of duty’ if in fact he had heeded the contradictory advice from a virtue-signaller such as the 14th Earl of Morton and pretended to strike a ‘treaty’ with Aboriginal people, who clearly were not capable of treaty making.
Thank God for Australia that Cook was a man of integrity and followed his official orders.
Further Reading
New Evidence about James Douglas the 14th Earl Of Morton.
During our research we think we may have uncovered some information about James Douglas, the 14th Earl of Morton, that is not widely known, if at all, in Australian history circles (But one is never quite sure if historians, like Henry Reynolds, know of the Earl’s background but don’t publish it because it is ‘problematic’ to their anti-Cook arguments?)
The Reverend George Barry published, The History of Orkney Islands, in 1805 (2nd Edition 1867 by Kirkwall Publishers) in which he details the history of the Orkneys under the successive Earls of Morton.
Map of Orkney and Shetland Islands off the NW tip of Scotland
Reverend Barry tells is that,
‘King Charles the First…granted these islands, with the whole jurisdictions and royalties that belonged to them, to William [7th] Earl of Morton…in the form of a mortgage…in 1643…[However], His family suffered a sad reverse of fortune under the usurpation of Cromwell. He stripped them of these possessions, on account of their attachment to the royal cause….
As soon as the Restoration took place [of Charles II in 1660], an Earl of Morton [William Douglas the 9th Earl] of the same family resumed the possession of the earldom, of which his ancestors had been so unjustly despoiled, and was in due time reinstated in all its privileges. Apprehensive, however, that these islands might devolve on the Crown by the general act of revocation, he exerted all his interest to obtain a new grant; and was so fortunate as to succeed in procuring one in the form of a mortgage…But both this and the former grant were contested [in 1662] by his majesty's advocate ; and…the islands were once more, by act of parliament, annexed to the Crown [in 1669]…’ - (ibid., p.253-4 here)
And so the islands were once again lost to the Earl of Morton and his heirs. Nevertheless the family persevered to recover their estates. Reverend Barry continues,
‘About the time of the union of the kingdoms [1707], James [the 11th] Earl of Morton repeatedly stated to Parliament the hardships which his family had suffered in consequence of the reduction of the grant to his predecessor; and…he made express application to have the grant renewed. To carry a point…he represented the islands as in an uncultivated state, though in many respects highly improvable, and declared his intention, provided his request was granted, to apply himself instantly to their improvement by draining lakes and marshes, cultivating waste lands, dividing commons, and promoting different kinds of fisheries.
By this representation he obtained a new grant of the islands from Parliament…to himself and his heirs…This mode of holding them, however, did not continue long; for, in the space of little more than thirty years, the grant was not only confirmed by an act of the Legislature, but rendered absolute and irredeemable,…in [1742] in his favour of the whole earldom of Orkney and lordship of Shetland. The Earl of Morton, [Henry Reynolds’ very own James Douglas the 14th Earl] having thus got entire possession of what his family had long aimed at, advanced still farther, and was so fortunate as to obtain, in addition, a temporary lease of the rents of the bishopric, and a donation of the rights of Admiralty, which, in these isles, had always been considered as distinct from those of the Admiralty of Scotland.
The revenue resulting from all these sources was very considerable, being upwards of three thousand pounds sterling, independently of all the advantages that arose from the heritable jurisdiction. To give some ground for estimating these advantages, it may be observed that, when the Act in the reign of his Majesty George the Second abolished these jurisdictions in the north, the earl received seven thousand two hundred pounds sterling as a remuneration for the benefits of which that Act had deprived him’.
After some canny lobbying with the government and promising his ‘indigenous’ peasant tenants that he would modernise the islands, James Douglas the 14th Earl then ‘pulls a shifty’ and undertakes no improvements and continues the oppressive demands for his ‘rightful’ feudal dues from his vassals, as the Reverend Barry tells us,
‘The proprietors of land, trusting to the promises that had been made in his applications to Parliament, now fondly expected that they would be fulfilled ; the people rejoiced in the prospect of employment ; and the whole inhabitants were elated with the thoughts of having such a nobleman [the 14th Earl of Morton] at their head, who had a permanent interest in the place that would probably induce him to make such improvements as would both meliorate their condition and enhance the value of the islands.
Their expectations, however, were disappointed; for, instead of the alterations, which they had good reason to expect, the old system was retained, and the rents [and] feu-duties…were exacted in the same way, and with the same rigour as formerly. Much indignation was roused against him on that account; and complaints were made against the conduct of their new master, who, they alleged, had not only disappointed their hopes, but increased their burdens…’
The ill-feelings against Morton’s demands to extract dues from the ‘indigenous’ Orkney population is also described by the Oxford Dictionary of Biography :
‘In 1739 Morton travelled to Orkney to survey his estates there…These lands had been held under form of mortgage from the crown since 1707, by which Morton was sheriff and steward of Orkney and Shetland. During the 1739 visit he was assaulted by Sir James Steuart of Burray, [Baronet], one of the principal Orkney lairds, during a dispute over the amount owed by Orkney landholders to Morton in feudal duties…and [by] Morton's investigation as sheriff into Steuart's alleged intimidation of his tenants on South Ronaldsay…Steuart was fined and imprisoned.
In 1742 Morton obtained an act of parliament which made the grant of Orkney and Shetland absolute to himself. Morton eventually defeated Steuart's party in court in 1759, but the failure of the campaign left several landholders in Orkney out of pocket. Their hostility, combined with Morton's wish to concentrate on natural philosophy, and increasing prosperity in the islands which encouraged a younger generation of lairds to assert their independence from Morton's authority, contributed to his decision to sell the islands in 1766 to Sir Lawrence Dundas for £63,000’. - See Oxford Dictionary of Biography here. [our emphasis].
The Reverend Barry also writes of this final sale in his History,
‘…embroiled in quarrels and lawsuits that were troublesome and expensive, the earl grew weary of an estate from which he reaped little personal or political advantage, and therefore disposed [in 1766], for a valuable consideration, of every right he had in these islands to the Right Honourable Lord Dundas.’
- Reverend George Barry , The History of Orkney Islands, 1805 (2nd Edition 1867 by Kirkwall Publishers) - p.259 (Whole relevant pages 254 - 259 quoted above here)
14th Earl of Morton and his family
Scottish peasant women
Scottish peasant weaver’s cottage
So James Douglas, the 14th Earl of Morton (1702 – 1768), was the recipient of an income stream of several thousand pounds per year extracted as feudal dues from the hard work of the Scottish peasants on his estates.
He then pockets a handy £63,000 pounds when he sells the estates to Lord Lawrence Dundas. This means he will never have to worry about money or work again. This wealth allows him to become a ‘virtue signaller extraordinare’.
He can very publicly pursue his scientific studies in astronomy and preside over the Royal Society, while scribbling notes to James Cook on how to treat the ‘indigenes’.
Professor Reynolds tells us that The Royal Society under the Earl of Morton ‘sponsored’ Cook’s ‘voyage into the southern seas’. As we have shown in a previous blog-post, Reynolds’ claim here is misleading. The Earl did not sponsor it with his own money, or that of the Royal Society, but rather Morton was able to use his considerable business skills to cadge the £4,000 required for the cost of the scientific expedition from His Majesty King George III, and so ultimately the poor British (and Colonial?) taxpayer footed the bill.
The Earl obviously wasn’t going to dip into his own £63,000 fortune and chip-in something for the cost of the voyage. (Unlike Sir Joseph Banks, who paid his own way on the Endeavour, to the tune of £10,000).
Now, where was this £63,000 actually from? What was the real source of this wealth for James Douglas, the 14th Earl of Morton, who is presented to our Australian school children by Henry Reynolds, and even our National Museum of Australia (See also Reference 1 below), as being representative of a high moral standard?
And how much was £63,000 actually worth in 1766? Using a calculator which estimates the present-day value of historical amounts of currency, the Earl’s fortune would probably ‘feel’ like, say, £100million in income (say, A$200million) today. In terms of the wealth effect, the Earl would be a billionaire twice over in Australian dollars at about A$2billion.
- Source
Portrait of Sir Lawrence Dundas by Thomas Hudson (1701-79). Oil on canvas, 127x101cm. Collection of the Marquess of Zetland, Aske, Yorkshire.
Being the good old-style double entry bookkeepers that we are at Dark Emu Exposed, we have been able to balance the ledger by confirming from another independent source where James Douglas the 14th Earl of Morton got his £63,000 from when he sold his estates in 1766.
Scottish businessman, Sir Lawrence Dundas, was known as the ‘Nabob of the North’, in recognition of his vast number of commercial ventures and his massive wealth. In 1766 he acquired the Earldom estate, Orkney, and the lordship of Shetland for £63,000, according to his entry in the Oxford Dictionary of Biography here.
Now, amongst the assets and businesses that Sir Lawrence owned, there were two slave estates in the West Indies; one in Dominica and the other in Grenada (See Reference 3 below). To our mind, this transaction by the Earl of Morton must be a little ‘problematic’, to say the least, for those Australians who wish to promote James Douglas, the 14th Earl of Morton as a Progressive, caring member of British society in 1770, whose ‘moral’ advice to Cook on how to treat natives should be admired by Australians today.
We have checked far and wide, but so far haven’t been able to find any documentary evidence as to what Cook’s attitude to slavery might have been. If any of our readers know of any examples of Cook’s writing with regard to slavery, we would be very interested to find out. Perhaps it is impossible to know, but we just wonder what Cook might have been thinking when the 14th Earl of Morton presented Cook with his ‘hints’ on how to treat the natives.
These ‘hints’ were coming from an Earl whose own massive wealth had come from the sale of his estates to a ‘slaver’, and whose own track record on the treatment of the poor Scottish ‘natives’ on those estates in the Orkneys appears to be far from exemplary.
If we had to guess, we think James Cook would be firmly in the Progressive camp along with the likes of Arthur Phillip, future Governor of the Colony of New South Wales, who was ahead of his time in condemning the slave trade.
Soon after British Secretary for Home Affairs, Lord Sydney, appointed Phillip governor of New South Wales in September 1786, Arthur Phillip drew up a detailed memorandum of his plans for the proposed new colony. In one paragraph he wrote:
‘…the laws of this country [England] will, of course, be introduced in [New] South Wales, and there is one that I would wish to take place from the moment his Majesty’s forces take possession of the country: that there can be no slavery in a free land, and consequently no slaves’.
Phillip wrote his memorandum before the abolitionist movement gained public momentum. At the time, to take a stand for this moral cause put him decidedly on the Progressive side of politics. The abolitionists’ parliamentary leader, William Wilberforce, only decided to take up the issue in May 1787, eight months after Phillip declared his own attitude (Reference here ).
Maybe Cook knew the history of how the Earl had acquired his massive fortune? If he did, maybe Cook thought to himself, ‘I am not taking advice from this hypocrite!’
So, from now on, whenever commentators, or historians for example like Professor Henry Reynolds, push the notion that Cook perhaps wilfully ignored the supposedly ‘moral’ advice of the 14th Earl of Morton, we will take a few sniffs to test the amount of hypocrisy in the air and politely point out that there is more to this story than the commentator or historian is telling us. Are these people raising a legitimate critique of Cook, or are they selectively using Morton’s ‘hints’, despite his hypocrisy, as a way of delegitimising Australia’s sovereignty in the twenty-first century?
To ordinary Australians like us here at Dark Emu Exposed, it appears that Henry Reynolds is willing to use the Pascoesque technique of selecting those parts of the 14th Earl of Morton’s pronouncements to support his argument, while conveniently forgetting to inform his readers of the Earl’s darker side regarding his actual treatment of indigenous peoples.
Modern Australians might ask themselves, ‘should we believe and follow the directions of an Earl who says indigenous peoples are the ‘legal possessors of the several regions they inhabit’, while behind the scenes he is extracting punitive feudal dues from the indigenous peasants in the ‘region they inhabit’, the estates of the Orkney Islands. Or selling those same estates to a slaver who runs his plantations with enslaved indigenous Africans?’
Modern Australia was built by ordinary working and middle class people who gave the ‘finger’ to the ideas of a ruling elite that tried to oppress them with their nonsense. Professor Reynolds, we give your, ‘Cook should have followed the Earl of Morton’s instructions’ idea the finger as well.
References
Reference 1 : The National Museum of Australia interactive website leads our school children to only one conclusion - that Cook was wrong in taking possession and claiming Australia for the British Crown without the formal consent of the natives, and also wrong in treating New South Wales as being ‘uninhabited’ by a population that could negotiate a treaty.
Reference 2 : Similarly, consider the website of our National Library of Australia, which tells us (misleadingly in some instances), that,
‘Hints’ (Revisionist historians say ‘Instructions’) Letter from James Douglas 14th Earl of Morton to James Cook - Source
‘Preserved in the National Library of Australia’s Manuscripts Collection, along with Cook’s handwritten journal, are another set of instructions. These were ‘hints’ provided to Cook by the president of the Royal Society, James Douglas, 14th Earl of Morton. These hints related to how the people of the lands that Cook and his crew encountered should be treated.
Morton was Scottish, a peer and product of the Enlightenment. Like other Enlightenment figures, he elevated reason and science as the most rational method for achieving understanding. In keeping with this, Morton was committed to the philosophy of securing greater autonomy and freedom for ordinary people. [1] He was president of the Royal Society from 1764 until his death, a few weeks after the Endeavour set sail from Plymouth.
In taking possession of the east coast of Australia in the name of the English Crown, Cook contradicted the advice offered by Morton. By doing so, he proved that his primary duty was to King George III and the colonial ambitions of the British government and Admiralty.
Morton’s hints advise ‘the utmost patience and forbearance with respect to the Natives of the several Lands where the Ship may touch’. They continue with a set of recommendations that firmly assert Indigenous occupants’ ownership rights to such lands:
They [the natives] are the natural, and in the strictest sense of the word, the legal possessors of the several Regions they inhabit.
No European Nation has a right to occupy any part of their country, or settle among them without their voluntary consent. Conquest over such people can give no just title; because they could never be the Aggressors’.
Australia’s children are then asked to do some Activity questions such as,
‘Reading his instructions, it could be said that Morton was ahead of his time as far as intercultural relations are concerned. What motives might have been behind the writing of these hints? [2]
Cook was effectively serving two masters. On one hand, he was the commanding officer of a ship belonging to the King, under the control of the Admiralty. On the other, his expedition was commissioned and funded by the Royal Society, under the presidency of the Earl of Morton [3].
Both organisations gave Cook goals to reach on his first voyage. In your opinion, how well did Cook serve two masters? Did he ignore one in favour of the other? Did he address both missions concerned equally?’
Dark Emu Exposed Editor Notes
[1] - ‘Morton was committed to the philosophy of securing greater autonomy and freedom for ordinary people.’ - Was he? If so why didn’t he sub-divide the titles to his Orkney Island estates and give small, free-hold land titles to the ‘ordinary’ people, the peasants, and so release them from a feudal system? Instead, he sold his estates to one of Scotland’s most ruthless and successful businessmen, who also owned slave plantations in the West Indies.
[2] - Was he ahead of his time with regard to the ‘intercultural relations’ between his aristocratic Scottish family and the feudal peasants of the Orkney’s, or the negro slaves of the West Indies? We don’t think so.
[3] - As we showed in a previous blog-post many people think, including Professor Henry Reynolds and the National Library of Australia that Cook’s ‘expedition was commissioned and funded by the Royal Society. No it wasn’t. It was paid for by his Majesty King George III and ultimately the British taxpayer.
So, in our opinion, the National Library of Australia is also misleading our children by promoting this political narrative that James Cook was ‘wrong’ in not following to the letter the advice, or ‘hints’ of James Douglas, the 14th Earl of Morton.
But we hear you say, who really cares about the opinions of some Earl, far away in 18th century England?
It seems the revisionist historians of the Republican Progressive-Left in Australia do! - They seem to think that they can rely on a British aristocrat to prop up their lame Aboriginal sovereignty arguments.
Henry Reynolds and the other history revisionists lament that fact that the Earl of Morton gave Captain Cook some ‘hints’ which were partly ignored. Whereas, if he had just bloody well followed them exactly, Aboriginal people of today might have a Treaty(s) and/or Sovereign title to their land, the modern Australia.
Here are a couple of Progressive-left commentators lamenting that working class James Cook failed to listen to a British aristocrat - strange times indeed!
Author and Guardian columnist, Paul Daley
Guardian columnist Paul Daley, writing in Meanjin in 2019 , bows so low in deference to the Earl that we are surprised he can get up off the floor, when he writes,
Cook was also in possession of other advice—‘hints’ from James Douglas, the 14th Earl of Morton and president of the Royal Society in London. In February 1768 the Royal Society successfully petitioned King George III to support the passing of Venus and ‘discovery’ expedition. Douglas, a Scot, was a rare authentic progressive—a natural philosopher, humanitarian and political iconoclast, and a truly enlightened product of the Enlightenment.
Douglas advised the expedition to treat with kindness and understanding any Indigenous people encountered. He urged the scientists aboard Endeavour to show ‘the utmost patience and forbearance with respect to the Natives of the several Lands where the Ship may touch’ and to proceed with an understanding that asserted, unambiguously, the Indigenous ownership of the land.
Douglas urged them:
To check the petulance of the Sailors and restrain the wanton use of Fire Arms. To have it still in view that sheding [sic] the blood of these people is a crime of the highest nature—They are human creatures, the work of the same omnipotent Author, equally under his care with the most polished European, perhaps being less offensive, more entitled to his favour. They are the natural, and in the strictest sense of the word, the legal possessors of the several Regions they inhabit. No European nation has a right to occupy any part of their country or settle among them without their voluntary consent. Conquest over such people can give no just title; because they could never be the Aggressors.
The contradictions in Cook’s treatment of Indigenous peoples were stark on the first Pacific voyage (and on the subsequent two). That he cravenly acted contrary to the orders from the Admiralty—knowing he did not have permission to possess the land and, indeed, that he was encountering people living idyllically, environmentally and economically who just wanted him gone—is well established. That he also ignored Douglas’s recommendations, less so. [our emphasis].
Dark Emu Exposed Editor’s Notes
If Cook, ‘cravenly acted contrary to the orders from the Admiralty’, why did they give him the command of two subsequent voyages?
Daley says Cook acted cravenly (contemptibly lacking in courage; cowardly) on his voyage. That’s a bit rich coming from a scribbler whose greatest threat to life and limb is a paper-cut.
Next we have academic, Shino Konishi, who relies on the Earl Of Morton’s ‘hints’ to bash Cook’s legacy over the course of his three voyages in her article for The Conversation, where she tells us,
Shino Konishi, ARC Research Fellow, University of Western Australia
‘For his first expedition on the Endeavour, Cook received a document called Hints prepared by the Earl of Morton, president of the Royal Society, providing advice on how to deal with Indigenous people.
The earl reminded Cook’s crew that Indigenous peoples were the “legal possessors of the several regions they inhabit” and No European Nation has the right to occupy any part of their country … without their voluntary consent.
Most, significantly, through his administering of rough justice against Indigenous people for apparent thieving, Cook forgot Morton’s edict that,
‘shedding the blood of these people is a crime of the highest nature’.
[our emphasis].
Reference 3 : Slavery
During the research for this blog post we came across a number of interesting items regarding slavery and how many Scots were deeply involved.
James Douglas, the 14th Earl of Morton
Sir Lawrence Dundas, Nabob of the North and ‘slaver’ who paid the Earl of Morton £63,000
Grandson, Lawrence Dundas, 1st Earl of Zetland who was compensated for the emancipated slaves
For example, although we could find no direct ownership by James Douglas the 14th Earl of Morton in any slaves or slave plantations, we did find information concerning the involvement of Sir Lawrence Dundas, who paid the Earl £63,000 for the Earl’s estates in the Orkney islands.
Sir Lawrence Dundas, known as the ‘Nabob of the North’ due his vast wealth and business interests which included two slave sugar plantations in the West Indies, provided the £63,000 in payment to the Earl, funds which were therefore indirectly the proceeds of the slave economy. Not a ‘good look’ for those modern Australian champions of the Earl of Morton, such as Henry Reynolds, who want us to take the Earl’s views on the treatment of indigenous peoples, or ‘natives’, seriously.
There is currently a concerted effort to research the links between families and institutions in the United Kingdom today with any past involvement they may have had with the institution of slavery in the past.
For example, some information is readily available on the slavery links of Sir Lawrence Dundas, the purchaser of the Earl of Morton’s estates. His ‘summary of the legacy of slave ownership’ is here.
One of Sir Lawrence Dundas’ slave plantations was on the West Indian island of Dominica and was known as “Dominica 576A & B (Castle Bruce).” In 1836, a successful claim of compensation was made by Sir Lawrence’s grandson, Lawrence Dundas 1st Earl of Zetland (1766-1839) for his share of the emancipation of ‘162 Enslaved’ which cost the British taxpayer £3317 4s 0d. (The British Government took out a £15 million loan plus interest (worth £1.43 billion in 2021) to provide all slave-owners with compensation, from Nathan Mayer Rothschild and Moses Montefiore. The loan was paid off finally by the British taxpayers in 2015 - Source Wikipedia).
The claim summary by Lawrence Dundas can be read here, which also gives a hint of the horrors of the lives of the enslaved,
‘…the authors state that the number of enslaved persons on the (absentee) Castle Bruce sugar estate fell from 281 to 162, with 224 deaths and 51 births: 'The reader will not fail to observe the fewness of the births as well as the fearful number of deaths on these estates'.
Royal Society of London
In its early days, the Royal Society of London did profit from the slave trade by owning shares in the Royal African Company (RAC). The RAC operated a very large slave trade from the west coast of Africa.
The Royal Society disposed of their shares in the RAC in 1699. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, we hope this was for moral reasons. Nevertheless, we do note that the RAC became insolvent in 1708, so perhaps the shares were wisely sold early for business reasons?
Our understanding is that, after this date, the Royal Society, including when it was under the presidency of James Douglas, the 14th Earl of Morton did not directly profit from the slave trade. A paper on the history of this period is here.
