For two days the rival fleets manœuvred opposite each other, but during the night of the 11th of April 1872, Rodney signalled to the fleet to sail southwards. The French thought he was flying. Instead, he tacked at 2 A.M. on the next day. At dawn the French were on his lee quarter. At 7 A.M. the British fleet, Rodney leading in the Formidable, sailing in an oblique direction, cut the French line, thus throwing the ships into confusion. They were unable to reform. The conflict resolved itself into a series of separate contests. The cannons roared all day, the French ships one by one either foundered, or hauled down their flag. The Ville de Paris, De Grasses’ flagship, and the pride of the French navy, was the last to yield. The slaughter had been frightful, 14,000 are said to have been killed, besides prisoners. One half of the fleet was taken, or sunk; the rest of the ships, like the Spanish galleons after the Armada, staggered away to hide their wounds and humiliation.
Had Rodney received the hasty instructions a timorous-hearted Government despatched to him before this engagement, which were: “Strike your flag and come home,” the history of Jamaica would be a very different thing to-day.
On that ever memorable occasion the combined strength of France, Spain and Holland failed to wrest from Britannia her sovereignty of the seas. The laurels with which the heroes of Elizabethan days had crowned her still rested on her brow. Though sorely smitten, she could still hold aloft in untarnished glory the sceptre of ocean rule.
It is hard to tear one’s thoughts away from the glorious scenes where the history of the great British race has been made. I cannot, however, draw my remarks to a close on the West Indies without referring to another way in which we add to the glory and stability of the Empire to which we are proud to belong. I am alluding to the education which in Jamaica is provided by government for the younger generation of this colony.
By a law passed in 1890, all elementary schools must be undenominational, that is, if they are to be recognised by the Government, and special attention is to be directed to agriculture and manual training both in training and elementary schools. At this date, schools deemed unnecessary were closed, others were amalgamated to render efficiency and economy more practical. In 1900, 757 elementary schools, including infant schools, received grants from Government. Children from six to fourteen years attend. Grants are given according to marks gained at examinations and on average attendances. Subjects for examinations include, besides organisation and discipline, reading, recitation, writing, English, and arithmetic, also elementary science, the secondary subjects being morals, Scripture, drawing, manual occupation, geography and singing. Schools on the Annual Grant List are examined by special standards. A registered teacher gets in a school of 150 children £30; if certificated £36.
Forty male students are supported by Government at the Mico training college to be trained as school-masters.
At Shortwood, in the parish of St Andrew, thirty girls are trained to be school-mistresses, also at the expense of the Government, which pays the manager of certain voluntary training colleges £25 a year each, for a specified number of resident students under training.
The Mico College is one of the handsomest buildings in Kingston. Jane, Lady Mico, widow of Sir Samuel Mico, a city knight, and member of the Mercers’ Company, died in 1666, and bequeathed £1000 “to redeem poor slaves.” This sum, invested by the Court of Chancery in London property, grew to the large amount of £120,000, when, in 1834, Sir T. F. Buxton thought the interest might very properly be applied to educating West Indian children. Of several schools in the West Indies established for this purpose, the only one remaining is the Mico College of Jamaica. The Government of the island is also very liberal in the way of offering scholarships, the best of which is one for £200 tenable three years, granted to a candidate who shall have passed in Honour Lists in the Cambridge Senior Examination, and who shall fulfil the rest of the conditions attached to it.
There is a Theological College in Kingston, where students are trained for holy orders: a very necessary institution, for about one-third of the island clergy represent the coloured and black element of the population.