Harlequin Empire: Race, Ethnicity and the Drama of the Popular Enlightenment

HARLEQUIN EMPIRE: RACE, ETHNICITY AND THE DRAMA OF THE POPULAR ENLIGHTENMENT

The Enlightenment World: Political and Intellectual History of the Long Eighteenth Century

Series Editor: Series Co-Editors:

Michael T. Davis Jack Fruchtman, Jr Iain McCalman Paul Pickering

FORTHCOMING TITLES The Cosmopolitan Ideal in the Age of Revolution and Reaction, 1776–1832 Michael Scrivener Writing the Empire: Robert Southey and Romantic Colonialism Carol Bolton Adam Ferguson: History, Progress and Human Nature Eugene Heath and Vincenzo Merolle The Evolution of Sympathy in the Long Eighteenth Century Jonathan Lamb Adam Ferguson: Philosophy, Politics and Society Eugene Heath and Vincenzo Merolle The Scottish People and the French Revolution Bob Harris

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HARLEQUIN EMPIRE: RACE, ETHNICITY AND THE DRAMA OF THE POPULAR ENLIGHTENMENT

by David Worrall

london PICKERING & CHATTO 2007

Published by Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited 21 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2TH 2252 Ridge Road, Brookfield, Vermont 05036-9704, USA www.pickeringchatto.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior permission of the publisher. © Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited 2007 © David Worrall 2007 british library cataloguing in publication data Worrall, David Harlequin empire : race, ethnicity and the drama of the popular Enlightenment 1. English drama – 18th century – History and criticism 2. English drama – 19th century – History and criticism 3. Enlightenment – Great Britain 4. Ethnicity in literature 5. Culture in literature 6. Aliens in literature I. Title 822.5’09355 ISBN-13: 9781851968510 ISBN-10: 1851968512 e-ISBN: 978-1-85196-536-6

∞

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

vi

Introduction 1 The Theatrical Network 2 The Representation of Race on the Georgian Stage 3 James Hewlett, Ira Aldridge and The Death of Christophe, King of Hayti 4 Islamic India Restored: El Hyder and Tippoo Saib at the Royal Coburg Theatre 5 The North African Islamic States on the British and American Stage 6 Pacific Pantomimes: Omai, or, A Trip Round the World and The Death Of Captain Cook 7 Colonists, Convicts, Settlers and Natives: La Perouse, Pitcairn’s Island and Van Diemen’s Land! Conclusion

1 11 23 57

171 189

Notes

191

Works Cited

231

Index

257

81 107 139

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Although far from being a critical trilogy, the present book follows on from my studies, Theatric Revolution: Drama, Censorship and Romantic Period Subcultures, 1773–1832 (2006) and The Politics of Romantic Theatricality, 1787–1832: The Road to the Stage (2007). I began writing Harlequin Empire with a Stanley J. Kahrl Fellowship in Theatre History at the Houghton Library, Harvard University, and I finished writing it with a Huntington Library Fellowship at San Marino, California. I am grateful to both institutions for their support for individual research. Equally, Nottingham Trent University provided me with a sabbatical semester and a wonderful set of colleagues. Mei-Ying Sung has been throughout my loving companion.

INTRODUCTION

Harlequin Empire: Race, Ethnicity and the Drama of the Popular Enlightenment will explore the presentation of other cultures on the British stage during the long eighteenth century, with emphasis on the period after 1750. It will particularly concentrate on popular or plebeian forms of drama such as harlequinade, pantomime, burletta and spectacle which developed outside London’s royal theatres, Covent Garden, Drury Lane and the Haymarket. The popularity of theatre is not in doubt. As far as the British context is concerned, the mechanism for the distribution of theatrical performance was enabled by the networks of metropolitan and provincial playhouses, theatrical circuits and groups of strolling players which are the subject of Chapter 1. Some overall idea of the scale of Georgian period theatricality can be briefly stated. Audience sizes for George Colman the Younger’s Inkle and Yarico (1787) in the decade following its first performance at the Haymarket probably approached around one million. Performed at least fourteen times at the 1,800 capacity Haymarket (which was limited by its short summer season), Inkle and Yarico was quickly taken up by the 3,000 seat Covent Garden and, by 1788, had reached the English provincial theatrical circuits where seating capacities probably averaged around 1,000 persons. It was still being performed in Scarborough, Yorkshire, in 1830.1 In just two seasons at Covent Garden, 1788–90, it was performed twenty-four times. Assuming two-thirds full houses, this implies audiences at that theatre of around 48,000 persons.2 By 1794, it had been performed and printed in Boston, Massachusetts.3 For most people, Inkle and Yarico would have been their primary point of contact with literary expressions of anti-slavery sentiment. In provincial England it was immediately recognized ‘as capable of writing a petition for the abolition of the slave-trade as any of those associated bodies who have taken so much pains for that laudable purpose’, although its place as a vehicle for disseminating abolitionist sentiment has been ignored by modern historians of slavery.4 A different version of this story of a native American woman threatened with slavery, Jean François Arnould-Mussot’s ‘grand serious Pantomime Entertainment’, The American Heroine (sometimes also given the Colman title), was performed at both the Haymarket and at London’s Royal

–1–

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Circus, a venue seating around 2,000 people, before similarly crossing the Atlantic to reach the even larger Lailson’s Circus in Philadelphia where its cultural context and reception history must have been markedly transformed.5 As will be discussed below, both of these dramas amount to test cases for how race was represented on stage. For Arnould Mussot’s The Death of Captain Cook (1789), the subject of much of Chapter 6, its twenty-eight Covent Garden performances during the 1789–90 season alone imply an audience of 56,000, although, again, it was quickly taken up by both the provincial and transatlantic theatres.6 However, the practice of having a mainpiece and an afterpiece means that audience figures tend to compound. On some nights, such as 3 November 1789, Covent Garden paired Inkle and Yarico with The Death of Captain Cook. If one includes productions on both sides of the Atlantic (The Death of Captain Cook had reached Canada by the late 1790s), this originally Parisian production was also probably seen by about a million people in the decade following 1788. In all cases, literacy was not required. For The Death of Captain Cook and The American Heroine, neither was an understanding of English. Studies such as Richmond Barbour’s Before Orientalism: London’s Theatre of the East, 1576–1626 (2003) and Bridget Orr’s Empire on the English Stage 1660–1714 (2001) have demonstrated the persistent fascination for portraying other cultures on the English stage. Within a shorter temporal parameter, Daniel O’Quinn’s Staging Governance: Theatrical Imperialism in London, 1770–1800 (2005) has recently deployed a Foucauldian framework to argue that London theatres were designed to de-individuate audiences into a subagential collective disciplined to spectate stage plays imbricated with Britain’s imperial motives. All three critics stress that drama provided important ways through which other cultures and races were mediated to British popular audiences. Although it encompasses the same period, my own approach has been rather less ambitious than O’Quinn’s, particularly in acknowledging that the texts of spoken dramas performed in Georgian London were subject to direct intervention by the state and that any mechanism for promoting imperialist theatrical agendas would inevitably have been connected to these official regulatory processes.7 Since stage censorship was clearly available as a mechanism capable of prohibiting allegedly deviant cultural behaviours, such as black advocacy, interracial marriage or racial civil equality, the absence of such deletions by the Lord Chamberlain is worthy of note and, on the face of it, appears to compromise O’Quinn’s thesis. Although my study makes frequent reference to native Americans, Tahitians, Australian Eora, Islamic Indians and north Africans, ethnicity itself was imperfectly understood on the Georgian stage. Of course, except for the dramas in which Ira Aldridge performed at the Royal Coburg Theatre, discussed in Chapter 3, all of these groups were invariably represented on stage by white actors who may (or may not), have elected to wear blackface or one the range of colour-

Introduction

3

ing possibilities discussed in Chapter 2. In the eighteenth century, as Roxann Wheeler’s important study, The Complexion of Race: Categories of Difference in Eighteenth-Century British Culture (2000) has shown, it was the perception of social rank or class which dictated the signifying blackness of the ethnically African. As will be argued in Chapter 6, a traveller from Tahiti in O’Keefe and de Loutherbourg’s Omai; or, A Trip round the World (1785) could be counterfeited to look like an African. Perhaps the best way of understanding the inclusions and omissions in representations of ethnicity in the theatre is to consider a speaker in ‘a New and Splendid Equestrian and Pedestrian Romantic Melodrame’, performed at the newly built Olympic Pavilion theatre in Wych Street, off the Strand near Drury Lane. George Male’s One Foot by Land, or One Foot by Sea, or the Tartars Tartared (1811) was performed at Philip Astley Jr’s plebeian, illegitimate, theatrical space which aimed both to provide a more comfortable winter season for Astley’s horse dramas and also to discomfort Covent Garden’s success with Matthew G. Lewis’s hippodrama, Timour the Tartar (1811). Set vaguely in ‘upper Tartary’, it had to quickly establish its regional location, requiring one of its characters to describe both Russia (‘every Mothers Soul of ’em is whisker’d up to the Eyes like a Muscovy Cat’) and China: the land of China, where the Men have no Snouts to their Mugs & the Women, sweet dears, no feet to their Legs, and tho’ they’ve their heads shaved from the day of their birth every living Creature of ’em, from the Prince to the Shoe black, wears a great big strapping Tail as long as the handle of a Broom so he does. Och! Says I to myself, if I had but the docking of you, what a charming Periwig Shop I could set up with a beautiful Bow window in Bond Street.8

Noticeably, Chinese people are minimally described through the physical results of the genetic codes which have delivered their ethnic appearance (‘Men have no Snouts’). Instead, the description of the Chinese is dominated by their customs of head shaving, pig-tail wearing and feet binding, to which the joke about Bond Street ‘Periwig Shop’ is a rapid attempt at domestication. Colour and other physical Chinese racial characteristics do not signify. It was racial confusion about Chinese people which probably led James Gillray in his caricature print etching, A Sale of English Beauties in the East (1786), to unconvincingly portray an Indian merchant with a long drooping moustache, which, in turn, was sufficient to prompt two Chinese characters, Nankeen and Japan, to appear in Edward Topham’s Covent Garden farce, Bonds without Judgment; or, The Loves of Bengal (1787).9 Bonds without Judgment makes a number of allusions in its dramaturgy to Gillray’s print, but Topham’s farce is otherwise bewildering in its designation of ethnicity. Indians are ‘blacks’ (‘stand away you black Beetles’) yet Japan says ‘my Complexion is a little upon the Tawny’, the colour in which

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Othello was then played (as Rede, below, records). When one of the incoming English ‘outward bound Venuses’ arrives in Topham’s very topical Warren Hastings-impeachment-era narrative of white women seeking rich husbands in the east, her comments describe India in a manner completely unexpected: Sophy: … I am not over fond of the Complexions of this Country: black & yellow are the reigning Colors [sic] I see, Mr. Nankeen. Nankeen: Psha! Black or white makes no difference.10

Apart from Sophy’s startling omission of whiteness, guided by Roxann Wheeler’s The Complexion of Race (2000), one can begin to make some sense of this scene, but, quite clearly, Georgian notions of Chinese ethnicity in drama simultaneously encompassed ‘yellow’, ‘a little upon the Tawny’ and no apparent signifying colour. Indeed, what signifies ethnically in Bonds without Judgment are the social or cultural positions of Japan and Nankeen, who are superior in their local cultural power to the Indian ‘black Beetles’. Both of them are closely involved with the East India Company’s role in Bengal and Nankeen is quite specifically a Company agent (‘An’t I the Company’s Officer at Calcutta’). How this was performed on stage, whether in yellowface, for example, is uncertain, but then much of the era’s theatricality remains obscure. Of my own assumptions, I take it as axiomatic that by the mid-1810s, London’s theatres can no longer be defined as places exhibiting stable relationships between actors and their audience catchments. Instead, new playhouses such as the Adelphi, Royal Coburg, and Royalty Theatre frequently became the sites of contested encounters with organizations including Christian evangelical groups, the Society for the Suppression of Vice and the patent theatres, with their sporadic litigious forays. Outside the more regular theatrical venues, central London became increasingly populated by fugitive ‘spouting clubs’ and urban private theatres, venues which not only presented a culturally dominant popular or plebeian theatricality, but which also significantly unsettled conventional relationships between spectating and acting.11 A crucial matter for my discussion, as outlined in Chapter 2, is the role of blackface make-up for white actors in both public and private theatres. Barbour, Orr and O’Quinn have largely neglected this theatrical convention despite Eric Lott’s powerful study, Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (1993) which implies that minstrelsy endures as an endemic presence within modern America’s cultural politics.12 In O’Quinn’s study, it is not clear whether actors performing in dramas which represented Indian or Pacific characters blacked up or not – or whether it matters. These potentially explosive problems about the theatrical representation of race, together with the role of persistent regulatory intervention, comprise the two central issues around which any study of Georgian drama needs to be resolved. In the former case, for the issue of race, the defining cultural moment

Introduction

5

was when the black American Ira Aldridge stepped onto the stage of London’s Royal Coburg Theatre in October 1825. In the latter case, on the issue of regulation, the pivotal point was the Report from the Select Committee on Dramatic Literature: With The Minutes of Evidence … 2 August 1832. It is arguable that eighteenth and early nineteenth-century British drama was continuously restructuring or reinventing itself to accommodate these two events. Nevertheless, as with the implications of theatre audience sizes discussed above, the sheer volume of writing for the stage makes generalization difficult. The Larpent collection of texts sent for licensing to the Lord Chamberlain’s Examiner of Plays (covering prologues through to five-act dramas) lists nearly 2,400 items between 1737 and 1824, which equates to a rate of one new text for stage performance every fortnight, a figure excluding the important category of non-speaking pantomime (which did not require a license). Given these huge numbers, together with the great diversity of audience cultures and the multiplicity of venues, sudden reversals in what appear to be overt and stable ideological meanings can be expected. While it would be natural to assume that pantomimes such as O’Keefe and de Loutherbourg’s Omai (1785) or Arnould-Mussot’s The Death of Captain Cook – both discussed in Chapter 6 – celebrate British imperial power, any interpretation of their empire-building role needs to be congruent with The Caffres; or, Buried-Alive!, a Covent Garden comic opera produced in 1802 and attributed to Edmund John Eyre.13 The licensing text’s intention (with the deletions struck through here) was to call its comic hero ‘Captain Byron’, an allusion to the explorer and naval officer, Admiral John Byron (1723–86), but this name was deleted throughout and replaced by ‘Captain Circuit a Navigator’. In other words, as part of a regulatory misadventure resulting from the Lord Chamberlain’s objection to the naming of a distinguished deceased naval officer, the principal comic dupe of The Caffres is even more clearly referenced to Captain Cook. When shipwrecked off ‘Natal; a Country on the East-Coast of Africa’, Captain Circuit and ‘Dr. Chimera’ – an apparent allusion to Dr. Daniel Solander (1733–82), who had had an island named after him in 1768 – show no sympathy for the drowned sailors and, indeed, the entire scene comprehensively parodies voyaging narratives, feats of exploration and the acquisition of imperial domains: Enter Captn Byron Circuit & Dr. Chimera. Byron Circuit: I take possession of this Country in the Name of his BrittanicMajesty! Chimera: Now do call it after my name; for what a pleasure it will be to all my friends in England, to see in every Map and Chart, Dr. Chimera’s Land. Byron Circuit: This is a discovery that will immortalize my name, Oh what an entertaining narrative, of perils, & escapes; Every one will inquire for Byron’s Circuit’s

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Harlequin Empire Voyage round the World, where they will read, how that, adventurous Circumnavigator, accompanied by the learned, and philanthropic Dr. Chimera, Explor’d the utmost Limits of the Ocean.

There could hardly be a more explicit subversion of the imperial ideology alleged to lie behind the ‘British sword’ Omai receives ‘from mighty George our sovereign lord’ discussed in Chapter 7, notwithstanding that this performance took place at one of London’s royal theatres. Given that there already existed an established mechanism for censorship, and that it had operated here to interdict a possible reference to a particular naval hero, stage representations undermining Britain’s supposedly pervasive imperial ideology were not prohibited. Suppositions concerning anxieties of racial miscegenation in Georgian drama are similarly belied if one examines a broad cross-section of plays. In Robert Jephson’s The Campaign; or, Love in the East Indies (1784), first produced at Dublin’s Smock Alley, and then at Covent Garden, much of the plot is concerned with a young Indian sepoy officer’s courtship of a white woman.14 As the licensing copy made clear: ‘Saib … [is] An East Indian, in love with Miss Seymour … / Miss Lucy Seymour … [is] A rich & beautiful Heiress in love with Saib’. Significantly, given the climate of misgiving over Warren Hastings, the only racism Lucy encounters concerning her forthcoming marriage comes from her guardian, a Commisary of the East India Company: Commisary: In short have you so little British blood in your veins, that you wou’d consent to be of a seraglio. Lucy: Such ideas never entered into the thoughts of the person you refer to – nor can they have a moments place in my imagination. Commisary: You are ignorant of the Laws and Customs of different climes, Nations and Countries – I know more of the world – therefore from this moment, I prohibit any further intercourse beween you and this Luxurious profligate, and abandon’d East Indian.

The Commisary’s comments run the predictable gamut of orientalist constructions (confirming their availability within the contemporary lexicon) but they feature as targets of satire. Both in London and Dublin, audiences were obviously comfortable with representations of interracial marriage, an outcome even blessed at the end by the comically misogynistic General Howitzer (mischeviously assigned to the actor Ralph Wewitzer (1748–1825): ‘Well young gentleman you are resolv’d to be noos’d …’. Of course, in the eighteenth century, what defined race was class, and Saib was obviously deemed to be socially equal to the English heiress. The currency of such popular and positive cultural attitudes towards India in the mid-1780s is particularly important to establish because – if they ever disappeared – they had clearly returned by the late 1810s.

Introduction

7

As will be shown in Chapters 4 and 7, which discuss William Barrymore’s El Hyder; or, The Chief of the Ghaut Mountains (1818), H. M. Milner’s Tippoo Saib; or, The Storming of Seringaptam (1823) and William Thomas Moncrieff ’s Van Diemen’s Land! Or, Settlers and Natives (1830), playhouses such as the Royal Coburg and the Surrey Theatre – which were situated beyond the Lord Chamberlain’s regulation – produced plays which allowed their Islamic Indian and aboriginal Tasmanian characters to definitively articulate protests against British invasion, British hostage taking and the genocide of native people. Moncrieff ’s speeches for his character in Van Diemen’s Land! who is based on the historical Bennelong (c. 1764–1813) – actually a New South Wales Eora – presents a remarkable theatrical caveat to Deirdre Coleman’s discussion of British encounters with Australian Aboriginals in her study, Romantic Colonization and British Anti-Slavery (2005).15 The ability of such playhouses to mount this counter-narrative to the dominant imperial ideology is crucial to confirm. However, while my study implies that dramas were less, rather than more, likely to be co-opted into normative cultural attitudes – and that British theatre was remarkably assimilative of the different ethnicities portrayed on stage – there were some world regions much more turbulently debated. The most notable of these regions were the north African Ottoman regencies, or Barbary states, the British and American dramas about which are the subject of Chapter 5. The longevity of Barbary piracy, which made southern Mediterranean sailing passages dangerous for fear of interception and enslavement, ensured that cultural attitudes to this region were neither progressive nor even predictable. Despite continued diplomacy, safe passage for international shipping was not guaranteed until the French occupation of Algiers in 1830. Attitudes to the north Islamic African states were particularly fractured in contemporary American writing. James Ellison’s The American Captive, or Siege of Tripoli (Boston, 1812) clearly envisaged the destructive American occupation of the entire region. Running in tandem as a fault line in these American dramas were a set of contradictory attitudes towards the issue of white enslavement in north Africa and black slavery in America. However, the framework for any discussion of British Georgian drama must begin with the regulatory system, which was complex, contradictory and fraught with provisions necessitated by censorship, customary practice, ancient privilege and commercial and legal pressure. While these conditions are not capable of easy summary, they were structural, persistent, and directly affected all writing for the stage and all modes in which drama could be performed. Arguably, the formidable complexity and intrusiveness of regulation was such that, to contemporaries, a ‘mental theatre’ of unperformed or so-called ‘closet’ dramas appeared an attractive alternative.16 Interpreting the contemporary regulatory system will be a continuing theme paralleling this book’s main argument that Geor-

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gian drama was the culturally dominant mode for providing representations of national identity, war, discovery, changing relationships with other cultures and the complexities of an ever-growing empire. Chapter 7’s discussion of a moving ‘peristrephic’ panorama featured within a Pacific drama and performed in one of south London’s illegitimate playhouses, gives an indication of how theatre became such a culturally dominating presence. Beyond the individual playhouse, the physical vehicle for the transmission of these ideas and images was the Georgian network of theatrical circuits, private playhouses and strolling players. The regulatory environment and physical structures of these theatres, together with their players and repertory, form the basis on which this book is founded. The structural conditions of contemporary drama fall into two categories. The first is the system of theatrical regulation, the patchwork of laws, monopolies and commercial activities which formed the drama into its generic shapes. The second category is the national network of Georgian playhouses which delivered plays to audiences. While the royal theatres (with their patent monopoly), were free to perform any type of genre, the non-patent houses in London were confined to pantomime or burletta. These rules were primarily enforced by the Lord Chamberlain’s Examiner of Plays, the censor. The Examiner had control over the textual content of all stage dramas within the City of Westminster (effectively, the majority of London north of the Thames) together with the provincial royal theatres outside Ireland. As well as objecting to new London playhouses, including those outside the Westminster boundary, the patentees also rejected attempts to encroach upon their perquisite of spoken drama. An important legal judgement in 1821 ruling against the Royal Coburg Theatre maintained the patentees’ monopolistic power throughout the period covered by this book.17 A further level of complexity was that, while the Westminster playhouses and the provincial royal theatres were licensed by the Lord Chamberlain, the others came under the control of local magistrates. In addition, while censorship tended to erase blasphemy, political innuendo or unwarranted social satire, such interceptions of literary text were unpredictably implemented. When coupled to the vigilantly litigious tendencies of the royal theatres, these were harsh circumstances under which to write for the stage. The material consequences of such a regulatory environment were considerable. For example, drama in London until the late 1830s was scarcely able to support (on any one winter’s night) eight speaking actresses or eighteen to twenty speaking male actors. For new entrants to the profession, such as Ira Aldridge, who wanted to specialize in the speaking repertoire, the more interiorized and reflective roles for black men such as Othello or Zanga in Young’s Revenge were only available in the provinces. The imposition of burletta as the dominant category of vocalized dramatic performance in London at the non-patent theatres meant that music and song were pervasive. Genres such as melodrama, the

Introduction

9

gothic, romance or pastoral were only permissible on the London non-patent stage if they were rendered into burletta or pantomime. As far as verbal expression was concerned, musicality was the key element defining legality.18 When, in 1813, James Lawrence’s Dramatic Emancipation, or Strictures on the State of the Theatres (citing an article in The Morning Chronicle) noted that London’s theatres had an estimated audience capacity of 29,500, he was well aware that less than 20 per cent of those people would witness a spoken drama and much less than that number during the summer months.19 Inevitably, as a result of this regulatory regime, burletta and pantomime – marginally supplemented by the royal theatres’ spoken plays – became the principal generic vehicles for the drama discussed in this book. If the royal patent houses, with their close links to the Lord Chamberlain and the protection of the royal prerogative, dominated the London scene, by 1800 there had concurrently developed a national network of theatres. These playhouses provided the means by which drama could circulate. Any one of the plays discussed in this book should be considered as potentially capable of being propelled along this theatrical network as the provincial playhouses took up the London hits. Leman Thomas Rede’s manual for actors, The Road to the Stage; or, The Performer’s Preceptor (1827), with its elaborate instructions for how to obtain employment, was itself an indication of the viability – for both sexes – of a provincial acting career. Rede made his first acting appearance in 1819 at the theatre in Stafford in the English Midlands, playing Wilford in George Colman the Younger’s, The Iron Chest (1796), a Drury Lane adaptation of William Godwin’s novel Caleb Williams; or, Things as They Are (1794).20 William St Clair’s The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period (2004) notes that Godwin’s novel had reached four printed editions by 1816, priced at around 18 shillings, but far more people would have seen its adaptation into The Iron Chest than ever read the novel. Even its first night performance placed it in a theatre capable of holding around 3,000 people and, as Rede’s testimony shows, it clearly became a provincial repertory staple.21 With a box seat costing 3 shillings, diminishing to 1 shilling in the pit (half-price after the mainpiece), The Iron Chest must have seemed far more tempting than buying the expensive Caleb Williams, yet Colman’s play had also reached five printed editions by 1819 when Rede performed in it.22 Notably, within such a politically regulated stage, Colman took care to distance himself from Godwin’s radicalism, steering clear of the ‘Politicks; with which, many have told me, Caleb Williams teems’ and, true to his later post as Examiner of Plays from 1824, adding that ‘The stage has, now, no business with Politicks: and, should a Dramatick Author endeavour to dabble in them, it is the Lord Chamberlain’s office to check his attempts, before they meet the eye of the Publick’.23

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Neither was performance the only cultural intervention provoked by drama. The Iron Chest was augmented by Colman’s pamphlet quarrel with Drury Lane’s manager, John Philip Kemble, about the latter’s professional inefficiency.24 Once one adds to such pamphleteering the publication of theatrical music (the Songs, Chorusses, &c. in The Iron Chest (1796) were sold directly at the theatre), there unfolds a further level of literary production not covered by St Clair. Indeed, the cultural role of drama percolated deep into society. Stephen Storace’s setting of ‘Down by the river there grows a willow tree’ from The Iron Chest was scored for two voices and the newly popular piano. The significance of such musical arrangements is that they were clearly aimed for performance, often by women, within the domestic household.25 This propensity for drama to invigorate new social contexts of performance and dissemination provides the structural basis for the theatrical transmission routes described in this book. A description of this theatrical network is the subject of the next chapter.

1 THE THEATRICAL NETWORK

The network of theatres in Georgian English market towns, cathedral cities and newly industrial regions is indicative of the pervasive presence of drama. It represents the tangible physical infrastructure providing the precondition for drama’s dissemination. Unlike the circulating libraries, the playhouses could influence those who were illiterate or, in the case of pantomime, didn’t understand English. Outside of London, the provincial playhouses and players accumulated exponentially larger audiences. The social and built environment of towns and cities provided the means by which actors could engage in their profession and present the contemporary dramatic repertoire to the general population. By 1800, in Georgian England a network of provincial playhouses had developed, often in places now little visited by drama. It is important to remember that, certainly as far as the built environment is concerned, there were probably far more Georgian playhouses than there are regular theatrical venues in Britain today. Very few of today’s market towns can boast a theatrical season of between one and three months entirely dedicated to live drama performed by a regular company. However, the vestiges of these theatrical environments are fairly easy to find. In a few cases, such as Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, Stamford in Lincolnshire and Richmond in North Yorkshire, much of the Georgian interior or exterior – and even some scenery – has survived intact. Elsewhere, as at Grantham, Lincolnshire, the basic structure of the building survives but has been adapted to a modern purpose. The towns named thus far indicate some of the main differences between the modern and the Georgian dramatic world. Playhouses existed not only in the principal cities and embryonic conurbations, but also – overwhelmingly – in the English market towns. The single most comprehensive record of these playhouses comes in the form of an unpublished manuscript at the Houghton Library, Harvard University: a commonplace book compiled by James Winston, later manager of the Haymarket and Drury Lane. Shortly before he became involved with the Haymarket, Winston assembled two volumes of prints and drawings plus a substantial commonplace book, probably put together between 1802 and 1805, listing and annotating provincial theatres – mainly covering England but with some remarks on Scotland, Wales

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and Ireland.1 Winston probably compiled this document as part of a project to establish (or purchase) a provincial touring circuit, an idea he abandoned when his London career flourished. The immediate published outcome was the part work, The Theatric Tourist (1805), a series of etchings portraying a number of provincial theatres accompanied by notes describing the playhouse buildings, their history, ownership and current circumstances.2 As well as being a book of theatrical topography, Winston intended it to be a guide wherein ‘Theatrical Professors … May Learn How To Chuse And Regulate Their Country Engagements’ and it should be considered as a precursor to Rede’s more functional, The Road to the Stage. Crucially, Winston’s commissioning of the topographical artist, Daniel Havell (d. c. 1826) produced a series of watercolours and prints which, together with Winston’s manuscript, provides a remarkable archive moving beyond the playhouses featured in the Theatric Tourist.3 Winston’s manuscript amounts to a ‘Domesday Book’, or census, of Georgian theatre. Not only did he carefully note the existence of theatrical circuits and touring companies moving between towns, he also recorded how and when theatres had been built, their current state of repair, admission prices and social environment. Winston was probably targeting Thomas Robertson’s circuit for purchase, which ranged from East Anglia up to North Yorkshire. Winston’s manuscript provides a comprehensive overview not only of Georgian theatre in provincial England but also of its economic and social background. The picture he presents illustrates the extraordinary distribution and tenacity of provincial theatricals. He notes that Lewes, Sussex, was a ‘Bad Town. Mostly Methodists’, and that in 1802 there had been ‘an execution on the Prem[i]s[es]’ of the theatre. If Lewes’s Methodists represented drama’s traditional enemies, at Yarmouth in Norfolk, English dissent was sufficiently varied for the seasonally rented theatre to be located in ‘A Chapel of or merely belonging to the Dutch Congregation’.4 Clearly, anti-theatrical religious sentiment was unevenly distributed across the country and possibly regionally differentiated. Elsewhere in Norfolk, Norwich’s White Swan playhouse, when superseded by a new theatre in 1758, was thereafter licensed by the Diocese of Norwich for use as a Dissenting meeting house.5 Audience enthusiasm varied too. Although the Rochdale theatre in Lancashire was housed ‘in a Woolpack Room at the Bottom of the Bridge’, Winston noted that the populace were ‘A[ll] theatre mad here’ and he similarly recorded that in Scarborough, Yorkshire, ‘Theatricals [are] much folld [sic] here’.6 The comedian Joe Cowell, recalling his career in England before his emigration to America, also remembered ‘Scarborough[’s] exclusively fashionable’ audience.7 On the other hand, although Winston thought Leeds in Yorkshire, ‘well situated for a summer Theatre’, it was ‘not hitherto (the Leeds people) [have] been used to a Decent Theatre’, and visits by touring companies were clearly unevenly spread.8 Louth in Lincolnshire was visited only ‘Once in two years’ (but with

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‘Good Business’) while further up the coast at Whitby there were gaps of a year or more between visits.9 Perhaps the only features common to all these provincial playhouses were the comprehensive attempts at theatrical provision and the unpredictable patterns of its delivery. However, the cumulative picture presented by Winston’s manuscript is one of a theatrical presence in every reasonably sized town able to boast a regular fair, marketplace or racecourse. The theatrical season was an enduring feature of provincial life. Fairs, markets and horse racing schedules were major factors deciding the provision of drama. Croydon in Surrey, now a London suburb, had a ‘Regular season [which] opens on the fair day – [for] about Two months’, while at Stamford in Lincolnshire, Winston commented ‘business at Races & fair is very good’ but not as lucrative as York recorded as taking ‘[£]518–10–6’ during one 1792 race week.10 Nevertheless, the York season was long, from the 1760s running from the first week of January until the third week of May and only contracting slightly in the 1790s, perhaps as a consequence of war.11 While the York races and its Theatre Royal still thrive today, the agricultural fairs have disappeared from Croydon and Stamford, but they were important in starting theatrical careers. The tumbler or acrobat James Pack, who later played pantomimes at venues as varied as Drury Lane, Astley’s Amphitheatre, Richmond (Surrey) theatre and London’s Royalty Theatre, learned his trade in equestrian troupes visiting fairs across the whole of southern England, from Sudbury in Suffolk across to Nottingham, Bristol, Birmingham, Norwich and Worcester, as well as London’s Bartholomew Fair.12 However, if the players at the agricultural fairs were transient, by the end of the eighteenth century provincial theatrical seasons were more regular and of longer duration. In a context where the two London patent houses ran so-called ‘winter seasons’ lasting from September to the end of June, even by the early 1800s, at the height of the war with France, seasons at some of the provincial playhouses were quite substantial.13 Croydon’s two-month season was at the upper end, but Huntingdon’s was for six weeks beginning in May, Boston’s for six weeks from the end of January, Peterborough’s for ‘7 weeks com[mencin]g in June’ and Spalding’s for one month in August. Wisbech’s ran for six weeks beginning from March but ‘theatre mad’ Rochdale accommodated a three month season.14 However, in parallel with these established circuits, including Tate Wilkinson’s substantial Yorkshire circuit based on York and Hull, there were concurrent layers of less formally organized theatrical enterprise.15 The existence of strolling players, a phenomenon persisting from Elizabethan England, substantially increased the availability of drama in Georgian England. At the lowest level were the puppeteers. In the late 1730s, a young adventurer such as James Wyatt could join a puppet-show in Plymouth merely on the promise of learning the trumpet, travelling all over England for four years before

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leaving to work in a touring menagerie and, thereafter, joining a naval privateer.16 But perhaps the most itinerant of all the performers were the troupes who aimed to coincide with the pattern of agricultural fairs. Leman Thomas Rede omitted ‘theatrical troops [sic], such as Richardson’s, Scowton’s, Holloway’s, &c. that visit fairs’, although Richardson’s show, at least on its visits to Bartholomew Fair, performed Tom, Logic, and Jerry, one of many adaptations of Pierce Egan’s Life in London (1820), and presented it together with a painted ‘panorama of the metropolis’.17 In embryonic form, Richardson’s company fulfilled the two main contentions of this book in that it disseminated the dramatic repertoire and coupled it to a simple didacticism. Such touring companies played a considerable role in introducing rural audiences to contemporary drama. One of their rare surviving playbills shows them playing ‘an entire new Melo Drama’ called The Italians; or Days of Yore (probably an adaptation of Richard Cumberland’s Days of Yore of 1796) played in tandem with Harlequin and the Dwarfs; or, Giants Castle and a ‘Grand Panorama’ of Lake Como.18 A caricature print from 1815 of Fairlop Fair, a boisterous gathering in Hainault Forest, Essex, founded in 1683 and continuing until its suppression in the nineteenth century, shows a booth belonging to ‘[?Richa]rdson’ with a playbill announcing the ‘new grand Farce L’Operatical … Pantomime call’d Hot Roll or Harlequin Dumplin [sic]’, illustrating the harlequin (complete with his slapstick) on the stage alongside the traditional pantomime Chinese character.19 However, perhaps a more reliable idea of the repertoire of the theatrical fairground companies is provided by the testimony of the comedian Peter Paterson who recalled his time playing Mathew Lewis’s, The Castle Spectre (1798) in a fairground booth near a ‘manufacturing town’, playing it as ‘the shape of an essence [of the original]… in twelve or thirteen minutes’, scenes which ‘in regular play-house … [would] take nearly three hours’.20 It is clear from Paterson’s account that, although The Castle Spectre was heavily abridged, the company repeated it throughout the day, enormously multiplying the audiences encountering at least a smattering of Lewis’s Gothic. That such shows were important in the formation of actor’s lives and careers is confirmed by the actor Paul Bedford who was taken as a child to Lansdown Fair, Bath, where, he later wrote, ‘I first beheld the wonders of Richardson’s Show, and I believe it was then I imbibed the love of the art dramatic’.21 Like James Pack, Bedford’s first encounter with drama occurred at England’s rural fairs. A level below the touring companies were the ‘Sharing Companies’, troupes who simply assembled under a manager and went ad hoc strolling. Although the scale of their presence is impossible to recover, they were clearly a widespread feature of the mid-Georgian cultural landscape. Rede observed that by the1820s, such outfits ‘once numerous in England … are, happily, becoming extinct’.22 Rede had misgivings about the lack of security and uncertain touring routes of such troupes, but these companies were perfectly adaptable to players’

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needs since their ‘shares’ were simply proportions of the takings.23 Mark Moore, an ex-naval officer who had served extensively overseas and returned to civilian life, married a woman who ‘sung well, and [had] … an excellent figure’, realized ‘the stage would be the best means of support’ and promptly joined a sharing company in Sudbury, Suffolk, with his ‘share’ designated in the proportions of ‘one for my music, one for my wife’s singing and acting, and one for my own acting’.24 A memoir of one of these companies run by a manager called Lace comes in the form of a poem, William Johnson’s, The Effects of Strolling Playing; or, A Lesson to Dramatic Maniacs (1797), based on the author’s own experience of being a stroller or ‘mumper’. Although laid out as a poetical warning to others about the hardships of this way of life, particularly about privation and hunger, Johnson recalls its camaraderie with affection. The hardships were real enough. James Pack related that the company he was with was once so destitute ‘Our dog was starved, and his skin was taken off and sold to pay the turnpike on our way to Billericay Fair’.25 Mark Moore’s shares only earned him and his wife four shillings a week (‘We endeavoured, however, to vegetate [sic] on this scanty allowance for the space of six weeks’).26 At one point the company was forced to dine together on ‘one hearty feast – a sheep’s head boiled’.27 The actress Ann Catherine Holbrook’s The Dramatist; or Memoirs of the Stage (Birmingham, 1809) recounted the effects of the incessant ‘journies’ necessitated by touring, the costs of which were borne by the players rather than by the manager. She reckoned that her own and her actor-husband’s salaries were reduced from £2.10s. a week to £1.6s.8d. because of the necessity of travelling in a post-chaise. Holbrook toured accompanied by her children, causing her to remark that ‘An Actress can never make her children comfortable; ill, or well’. Incredibly, at the beginning of their careers, the Holbrooks undertook ‘a very fatiguing voyage of six weeks’ from Bristol to a new engagement at Lancaster.28 William Johnson’s fellow players were ‘tailors, cobblers, weavers, and the like’, several working under aliases, and if they arrived at a town without playbills, they simply got the local bell-man to announce their performances ‘“At the New Theatre,” perhaps a barn, / Or antique stable, built a century back, / Now ruinous, and crumbling into dust’.29 Amongst the repertoire identifiable in Johnson’s account are Shakespeare’s Richard III, George Colman the Elder’s Haymarket play, The Manager in Distress: A Prelude (1780), Robert Dodsley’s Drury Lane farce, The King and Miller of Mansfield (1737) and John O’Keefe’s Haymarket comedy, The Prisoner at Large (1788), a piece whose date implies that Johnson was recollecting experiences as recent as the early 1790s.30 Of course, such touring companies often encountered resistance from the authorities. While the theatrical network was comprehensive, drama was a cultural form local magistrates and religious ideologues were often quick to oppose. The Methodist minister, Alexander Kilham, personally challenged the visits of theatrical troupes in both Aberdeen and Malton, Yorkshire, in the latter case

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successfully ensuring that ‘the town-officers got warrants from the magistrates, and took fourteen of them up’ for incarceration in ‘the house of correction’.31 It is little wonder James Winston carefully noted Lewes as a ‘Bad Town. Mostly Methodists’. In 1803, Thomas Thirlwall of the Society for the Suppression of Vice not only wrote a pamphlet arguing for the suppression of the Royalty Theatre in London’s Tower Hamlets, but also personally attended magistrates’ licensing meetings to object that it was an ‘incentive to vice, impiety, fornication, adultery, thievery, robbery [and] burglary’.32 Mark Moore encountered a more complex opposition in Tewkesbury when he tried to erect a temporary theatre, claiming exemption from normal local licensing by virtue of his military service. Although there had been no theatrical troupe visiting Tewksbury for a number of years, Moore ‘found that the magistrates intended to hurt me’. Extraordinarily, their strategy was to invite into the town a rival theatre company, allowing them ‘to erect a temporary theatre, at the other end of the town, by the permission of the magistrates’. His response was to invite a third theatre company, Roger Kemble’s troupe at Warwick, whose success drew away the rival company’s audience.33 Ann Catherine Holbrook’s memoir of arriving at Tewksbury ‘during the annual races’ may possibly refer to the same incident, her recollection being that while her own company ‘had the pleasure of playing to full houses’, the other was ‘nearly deserted’.34 Winston’s careful notation of each town’s theatrical history, the building of its theatres and visits by famous actors was all part of accumulating a database of precedence and custom which might assist his negotiations with magistrates and anti-theatrical zealots. Unfortunately, by the time Winston compiled his inventory and had commissioned Daniel Havell to take drawings (c. 1802–5), the Tewksbury theatre was still shown as a barn despite the fractious competition to build the two temporary theatres. The Tewksbury incident draws attention to the extremely varied physical infrastructure of Georgian England’s playhouses. However, it is clear from Winston’s inventory that the pace of theatre building was quickening. In Andover, Hampshire, until the late 1780s the theatre was in ‘a large malt-house’, eventually moving only to a thatched barn in the yard of the Angel Inn.35 Developments were uneven and unpredictable. In London, in Wych Street, close to Drury Lane, Philip Astley’s newly built Olympic Pavilion Theatre of 1806 was constructed using the timbers of a dismantled warship and only later improved by a tin-plate roof.36 While the theatre in Bridgenorth, Shropshire, was merely ‘A Cockpit’ used for fighting birds, the small Suffolk town of Bungay had a theatre ‘neatly fitted up & [able to hold] between 60 & 70£’, a substantial audience capacity in the higher range of values Winston records.37 Even in royal Windsor, Berkshire, until 1793 the Theatre Royal was ‘literally a barn’ holding some 250 people situated a mile from the town ‘in a dirty farm yard’.38 Winston noted that the ‘Woolverhampton [sic]’ theatre, where Edmund Eyre’s Death of the Queen

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of France may have been illegally performed in 1794, remained ‘small & incommodious’ although his record of its holding a house to value of £50 ‘when full’ is consistent with a curious lack of hesitation on the part of English audiences concerning uncomfortable theatres.39 In the Lake District town of Ulverston, as late as 1782, the theatre was ‘Over a Stable – entrance thro the Stable – the Horses in at the time’.40 The situation was similar in remote Penzance, Cornwall, where Havell’s watercolour of c. 1802–5 (with textual inscriptions in pencil) shows the extraordinarily inappropriate tavern outbuilding used as a theatre. The theatre was housed in an ‘Attached Stable and Granary loft [belonging] to the Principal Inn’ of Penzance. As at Ulverston, ‘The Theatre is above the Stabling’, but the actor’s ‘Dressing Room’ was above the ‘Hostelry’ (or ostler’s) room, while, at the other end of the building there was garaging for carriages. Havell drew a vehicle in situ and added ‘Carriages go in the End’. However, perhaps the most remarkable feature of Penzance’s theatre was that the audience’s ‘Entrance’ was up a steep, open-rung, wooden ladder without a handrail, and through a door at loft hoist height.41 Hardly more salubrious was the theatre in Powderham, Devon, which was a stone built barn reinforced with substantial buttresses and with two wooden lean-to’s serving as ticket booths.42 Facilities were clearly hardly any better at Powderham than they had been back in the 1770s, ‘two miles from London bridge’, at the China-Hall theatre, a booth in a pleasure garden owned by ‘a dealer in china, … wines, cider, ales &c’. The actor Edward Everard Cape, who played three-handed excerpts from King Lear there, remembered it was ‘full almost every night’, although the ‘play-house was built of wood, only bricks a yard high … with a wooden kind of sentry-box for the money-taker’.43 The comedian Jacob Decastro remembered a similar three player arrangement at The Three Hats, Islington, where the tavern’s Jubilee Gardens were fitted with ‘boxes for refreshments … painted with different scenes from Shakespeare’s plays’.44 However, theatres were also being modified and newly built. Daniel Havell captured Deal’s playhouse in Kent in the very act of being repainted.45 Newbury in Berkshire had its ‘New Theatre. Finshd about Nov 1802’, boasting ‘Pillars & Pillasters in the portico … brought from S. Johns College Oxford’.46 While Winston was writing, the theatre at Newark in Nottinghamshire had similarly ‘this year … undergone total alteration & enlargement’ and Winston recorded Bristol’s theatre as being in ‘1800 New fitted up … [lighting] lustres added additional Boxes’.47 There were also the beginnings of provincial theatre’s move out of its barns and inn outbuildings and into the civic centres of commerce and domestic consumption. At Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, there was an attempt to emulate London with Seward’s Theatre housed in ‘Sadler’s Wells House’, although Havell’s watercolour only shows it advertising a ‘Fantoccini Exhibition’ of puppets.48 Another unidentified theatre pictured by Havell shows a playhouse with an unmarked entrance door flanked by a signboards displaying ‘Printing Office /

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Lee’, ‘Wallis’s Wine Vaults’, and ‘Edridge Hairdresser’, a full integration of drama with the local economy.49 The sense of integration with the civil administrative structure is shown by the willingness of the theatres to display the town’s coat of arms. Such emblemature was incorporated into the theatres of Andover, Reading, Newbury, Newcastle, Windsor and Plymouth as well as at Exeter where a new semi-circular window had to be specially built because the refurbished theatre was found to be too dark for rehearsals on account of the coat of arms displayed on the frontage.50 More grandly, some playhouses sought aristocratic or royal patronage. Winston was at a loss to account for how the theatre at Richmond, Surrey, had appropriated ‘the epithet of Royal, other wise than by courtesy of its vicinity to Kew [Palace]’.51 At Stamford, Lincolnshire, the Earl of Exeter kept a ‘private Box [with] his arms under it’, while at Keswick theatre in 1783, ‘The Duke of Norfolk prompted one night’.52 In the midst of these improvements there were extraordinary and unpredictable developments. In London the pace of technological innovation was swift enough for the East London Theatre in Tower Hamlets (a playhouse which shortly afterwards reverted to its former name of the Royalty) to be put up for sale in 1820 complete with its own gasworks which, as well as lighting the theatre, claimed to provide an additional income of £1,000 per year.53 By 1817 it had produced, as a ‘Grand Equestrian Melo Dramatic Burletta’, an extraordinary version of John Fawcett’s The Secret Mine (1812) with the new ‘Gas Lights … transferred to the heads of 30 horses’.54 Although such developments in the metropolis were perhaps to be expected, it is more surprising that even the remoter areas of the country were scattered with theatres. Despite his vagueness about dates, Edward Cape Everard’s Memoirs of an Unfortunate Son of Thespis (1818) indicates that he found at Carmarthen in Wales in the early 1800s, ‘no theatre, nor any thing like one’ and that his company performed there ‘in a paltry public-house … in a paltry room up two stories high, with a few seats put down, miscalled pit and gallery’.55 However, at the equally remote town of Hexham in Northumberland after 1815, Cape’s troupe turned up to find ‘many … plays had been performed … by a small company in this small town, who had staid [sic] here above two months, till the town was tired and drained … nobody came; the town, for the present was surfeited, and could not bear to look at any thing like a play-bill’.56 The Lake District and its environs, long considered to be one of the more isolated of the English regions, was populated by playhouses, even if their local communities were only intermittently served by touring companies. As well as Ulverston – with its theatre in the stable block – elsewhere in Cumbria there were theatres at Cartmel, Kirby Lonsdale, Maryport, Cockermouth, Keswick and Bowness (‘on the borders of Windermere Lake … the players were … an unusual gratification in this part of the Country’). Even the Isle of Man in the middle of Irish Sea boasted two theatres located in barns at Douglas and Castle Town.57

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By way of comparison with other forms of literary writing, William St Clair’s analysis of commercial circulating libraries during the Romantic period gives a figure of around 1,500 metropolitan and provincial libraries with 100,000 members and about 1,500 book clubs with about 30,000 readers or subscribers.58 By contrast, a fairly average, middle-of-England playhouse such as the one in Peterborough, which had the capacity to earn £50 on a full house and probably played at least three nights per week over the city’s seven week season in June and July, might have been visited by audiences numbering 10,500 people. Estimating the audience number can be approximated by taking Winston’s indication of the total house capacity as a monetary figure, and dividing it by the average of the admission price (on the assumption that the distribution of the audience was equally divided between boxes, pit and gallery) over the length of the season. Winston’s records show that theatre prices, which he records in the recurrent formula of ‘3-2-1’ or ‘3-2-1 half ’, were extremely stable and nationally uniform at three shillings for box seats, two for the gallery and one shilling for the pit, with ‘half ’ referring to half-price admission after the mainpiece. When taken together with Sybil Rosenfeld’s Strolling Players and Drama in the Provinces 1660–1765 (Cambridge, 1939), it is evident that theatre admission prices scarcely fluctuated during the eighteenth century.59 In London, which had very similar prices to the national average, it is easier to estimate the nightly audience (at least during the winter season) by multiplying the known capacity of the theatres by the number of venues. James Lawrence’s 1813 estimate of some 29,500 places – not all available throughout the year – would have been supplemented in 1818 by the newly built Royal Coburg’s capacity of some 3,800 seats.60 For example, in 1817, the Lyceum Theatre, a few hundred yards down Bow Street from Covent Garden, had an estimated capacity of 1,750, while the Olympic Theatre, Wych Street, a stone’s throw away from the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, was offered for sale in 1820 with its Particulars and Conditions of Sale registering a size of some 1,320 places.61 Unexpectedly, pantomime – one of the formats to be studied more extensively in this book – had the potential to attract unusually large sustained audiences. David Mayer in Harlequin in his Element: The English Pantomime, 1806–1836 (1969) estimated that about 105,000 people, or an eighth of London’s population, would have seen some of Joseph Grimaldi’s harlequinades during their runs.62 As far as London is concerned, taking a median point of around 1818, even when taking into account seasonal closures, a nightly figure of 10,000 persons witnessing some form of dramatic entertainment seems a conservative estimate, although this does not take into account the unquantifiable growth of London’s urban private theatres after 1815.63 The size of the Georgian repertoire and its circulation in the provinces is also capable of being partially quantified. Tate Wilkinson’s Yorkshire circuit based

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itself at York but toured to Doncaster, Hull, Leeds, Pontefract, Wakefield, Beverley, Halifax, Newcastle, Sheffield and, for a couple of seasons, toured northwards as far as Edinburgh. Between 1766 and 1803, nearly forty years, they performed over eight hundred separately titled theatrical pieces – excluding such entertainments as ‘Senior Scaglioni and His Dancing Dogs’.64 The quantity of repertory plays and pantomimes is important because, while it may be lower than the number of volumes in individual circulating libraries, the audience numbers were likely to have been amplified by low entry prices and accessibility by the illiterate. Theatre’s role in continuing and disseminating traditional Enlightenment values can also be indicated. The civic function of drama and the way theatre related to the local community was well understood. In part, managers were always wary of their relationship with magistrates or other powerful people in their locality. When the new theatre opened in Bristol in 1766, the management felt it advisable, because the playhouses had yet to receive a licence, to dedicate the first night’s production for the benefit of the Bristol Infirmary. However, at Bristol’s earlier Jacob’s Well Theatre in 1764, the owners had become entangled in a local dispute over a defaulting bond holder for whose relief they had allowed a benefit night performance, only to find the creditor also demanding a similar favour.65 The comedian James Cawdell, in the north-east of England, spoke ‘in [the] character of a delegate from the Poor of Sunderland’, at a ‘Charity Play’ (‘I come with thanks from POVERTY reliev’d’), performed at Sunderland’s theatre in 1784 and he had already appeared dressed ‘as a Blue Coat Boy’ at a similar benefit at Durham’s theatre in 1774.66 National charitable giving was also memorialized in the provincial theatres. At Stamford, Lincolnshire, within six weeks of the event, there were performances of Thomas Franklin’s tragedy, The Earl of Warwick (date unknown) and James Kenney’s farce, Raising the Wind (1803), ‘For the Benefit of the Sufferers at the Battle of Waterloo’.67 However, in London during the bad winter of 1816 ‘every thing in the shape of a profit’ stayed away from Thomas John Dibdin’s Surrey Theatre, with his ‘six charity benefits’ ‘very indifferently attended’.68 The range of formal and informal commitments to the benevolent activities outlined above, in their local, national and even personal manifestations, tells us much about the deeply embedded customs and practices of theatrical charity encountered in Georgian England. All of this was borne along on an expanding print culture and appetite for self-improvement. In one week in January 1819, the Inspector, A Weekly Dramatic Paper, could announce that a ‘Mr. Smart, a professor of Elocution, commenced a series of readings from the plays of Shakespeare on Saturday last, at Shade’s Concert Room in Soho Square … [and] Mr. Hazlitt, Mr. Coleridge, and Mr. Thelwall are giving lectures on the plays of Shakespeare – but on a very opposite system to the readings of Miss [sic] Smart’.69 Indeed, The Inspector, was itself

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symptomatic of a quickening pace of journal production supporting the theatre. In 1816 the Covent Garden Theatrical Gazette had been published three times weekly at threepence per copy. A year after the Inspector, during the summer of 1820, Keene’s Theatrical Evening Mirror ran for several months proving that London could – more or less – support a theatrical daily newspaper, one giving prominent attention to the non-patent theatres.70 The theatrical circuits, supported by a growing theatrical print culture, multiplied many times over the reception of the dramas popular in London and brought to much wider and more diverse audiences some of the more complex moral and political issues, including that of slavery. Colman’s Haymarket Inkle and Yarico (1787), with its complex and apparently contradictory representations of race and slavery, had reached York Theatre Royal by the following season. York’s Theatrical Register ‘indulg’d’ its readers ‘with a few primary animadversions’, noting that Yarico and Wowski, ‘tho’ different in complexion from the British Fair, are yet capable of the same susceptibility!’ To the people of York, Inkle and Yarico’s influence must have been far-reaching and the drama, as The Theatrical Register noted, ‘as capable of writing a petition for the abolition of the slave-trade as any of those associated bodies who have taken so much pains for that laudable purpose’.71 This is clear evidence that, in provincial England, Inkle and Yarico was directly perceived as an abolition text. Indeed, for a mid-1790s performance in Edinburgh, a broadside flyer introduced it as Inkle & Yarico. Or, the slave-trade exposed (Edinburgh, c. 1795). By 1789, if not earlier, it had reached the Theatre Royal, Norwich, and also featured in that company’s Kings Lynn season a year later when it was also taken to Ipswich and Bungay.72 Despite the presence of Addison’s story in many conduct books and scholastic primers, far more people – both literate and illiterate – are likely to have first encountered anti-slavery sentiment through seeing Inkle and Yarico than through any other medium.73 The performance dimension makes Felicity Nussbaum’s reference to ‘the demise of the Inkle and Yarico story at the end of the eighteenth century’ appear erroneous.74 On the American stage, as noted below, Jean-François ArnouldMussot’s American Heroine, an adaptation of the Inkle and Yarico story, gathered significant new audiences. Although not published until a Philadelphia edition in 1797, it had been performed in Paris in March 1786 and was produced at both the Haymarket and the Royal Circus in the early 1790s, reaching not only the illiterate but those who understood no English. It was being played at least up until 1811. Rede’s inclusion of a make-up commentary for Wouski in 1827, plus his book’s several reprints, also suggests Inkle and Yarico’s strong dramatic following. The one-penny Liverpool Theatrical Investigator noted in 1821 that Colman’s ‘Inkle and Yarico is generally a favourite with strolling companies’ (albeit while declaring they had seen it ‘more effectively represented in a barn’

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than at that year’s Liverpool production).75 Such continuing provincial popularity is also evidenced by Inkle and Yarico’s playing at Stamford in 1823 and 1827 (when it was also shown at Birmingham), and its featuring at Scarborough, Yorkshire, as late as 1830.76 If Colman’s play, however notorious in its depiction of race, reached a wide provincial audience, another of Arnould-Mussot’s productions, the ‘Grand Serious-Pantomimic-Ballet’ of The Death of Captain Cook, also brought to many audiences a dramatization of one of the first British encounters with the South Seas. Originally performed in Paris in 1788, Covent Garden’s The Death of Captain Cook (1789) quickly reached the East Anglian circuit.77 It was performed in Norwich in July 1789, and was produced there again the following season, but also travelled to Ipswich, Yarmouth and Bungay as well as Astley’s Amphitheatre Royal, Dublin.78 By 1797–8 a version of Captain Cook in which the dancer, actor and horseman John Durang performed had reached Montreal, Canada.79 That Durang retained some essence of the original is evidenced by his general working methods for adapting play texts for performance. It was Durang’s practice, his ‘regular symtum [sic]’ or system, to make the adaptations for performances himself, for which purpose he kept ‘a library of such dramatic plays which I knew would please best in the country … I curtail’d them, but still preserved as much as possible the plot and incidents compactly to be performed’.80 Considerations of the impact of such dramas will be the focus of much of this book, especially as their narrative effects tended to compound. For example, if the Theatre Royal, Norwich, was playing The Death of Captain Cook to enthusiastic audiences, how might that relate to Norwich productions that season of Dryden and Davenant’s adaptation of Shakespeare, The Tempest; or, The Enchanted Island (1676), a repertory staple further adapted by John Philip Kemble and edited by Elizabeth Inchbald?81 And how too were such dramas made more complex by their interaction with other texts? At the Norwich performance of The Enchanted Island, the evening ended with the first act of Sheridan’s pantomime, Robinson Crusoe; or, Harlequin Friday, with Princess Emaï of Hawaii, Caliban and Friday all presented to the theatre’s audience within a few days of each other.82 Wherever one looks, in provincial England as much as London, contemporary theatre-goers in even the humblest market towns could have encountered for the price of one shilling in the pit (sixpence at half-price) a wide section of the Georgian dramatic repertoire, much of it dedicated to representing the progress of war, politics, race and discovery. Potentially, any of the dramas discussed in this book could be propelled along this network, not just within England but across the Atlantic.

2 THE REPRESENTATION OF RACE ON THE GEORGIAN STAGE

The representation of race on the Georgian stage is something of a minefield in the midst of the quest to reconstruct contemporary stage practices and textual meaning. Only with the black American Ira Aldridge’s appearance at the Royal Coburg Theatre in 1825 would a coloured actor publicly perform before a London audience.1 Of course, the regulatory system supporting litigation by the patentees excluded the Coburg from spoken drama, with the result that Aldridge could not perform Shakespeare’s Othello or, indeed, any other spoken drama at that playhouse.2 However, the issue of black performers and their relationship to the blackface makeup used by white Georgian actors has a much more extensive context than simply recording the first coloured Othello. For the reasons set out below, many white actors probably avoided blackface as much as they could. James Fennell, who acted in England, Scotland and America from the 1780s onwards and who made a speciality of performing Othello, provides two fascinating anecdotes in his Apology memoir. When he was about to play the role for the first time, he asked advice from an older actor who replied ‘I have been forty years on the stage, and have never blacked my face, or passed through a trap-door’.3 On another occasion, he recalled a ‘delicate actor’ in an unnamed English country town who refused to play the role of Othello ‘with a black face, unless there should be seven pounds in the house’. Finding too few in the audience, he declined to perform blacked-up.4 The presence of people of colour at theatrical events is suggested by some areas of the popular culture. In a caricature print of 1811, a black man associated with a comic disturbance at a pair of competing theatrical fair ground booths (Richardson’s and ‘Saunderss’ [sic]) flees the mêlée of Harlequins, ‘big heads’ and Clowns, clutching either a stage prop or some other device apparently connected with the shows.5 Such marginal performance venues for coloured actors probably prefigured Ira Aldridge’s appearance at the Coburg. In 1795, Benjamin Handy’s short-lived New Circus, Lyceum, in the Strand, featured a horserider billed as ‘The Famous African’.6 Presumably, this unnamed rider was a black man who, along with Handy’s infant daughter, perished at sea when his troupe – 23 –

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embarked for Russia in 1797.7 With the same pragmatism as John Durang, his American contemporary, Benjamin Handy may have simply concluded that equestrian showmanship such as the Taylor’s Ride to Brentford or the Pyramids of Egypt (which they both performed) required the most talented riders available, regardless of their colour. On different sides of the Atlantic, Durang and Handy were following their own best interests, but the issue of colour and performance already had an intricate dramatic heritage. In an age when the convergence of drama and circus was marked, the semi-theatricalized skills of Handy and Durang represented an important route for talent potentially transferring to the regular stage, particularly in the non-canonical dramatic forms. For example, black mask performance was a staple of the British pantomime with Harlequin’s mask being just one of the ways in which performance conventions problematize issues about the role of blackface minstrelizing on the contemporary stage. With the important exception of O’Brien, below, black mask has been neglected by modern scholars. Nussbaum’s discussion of the ‘masking and unmasking of white actors’ through their removal of blackface noticeably confuses the issue through its wayward introduction of a metaphor otherwise alluding to a specific performance practice.8 Virginia Mason Vaughan’s Performing Blackness on English Stages, 1500–1800 (2005) provides little more than a passing comment on the conundrum of black mask and blackface, yet pantomime dominated much of the Georgian repertoire.9 Half-price admission for the after-piece meant that pantomimes were probably seen by more people than those who saw the full priced mainpiece. Pantomime in Britain was almost inevitably performed within a genre derived from the Anglicization of its Commedia dell’Arte original and would have presented to the audience the black-masked harlequin transformational role virtually universal to Georgian pantomime. However, Arnould-Mussot’s Death of Captain Cook and American Heroine – both discussed below – were important exceptions to this tradition. On occasion, blackface and black mask co-existed side-by-side in the same production. In just a few pantomimes, blacked-up white actors were transformed into a black mask Harlequin. In the Royalty Theatre’s Harlequin Mungo; or, A Peep into the Tower (1787), before his transformation into a black-masked Harlequin, the slave Mungo – and all of his fellow slaves – would have been represented by blacked-up white actors. After the transformation scene, Mungo’s reincarnation as Harlequin would have followed the convention of the actor wearing the black mask. Playlists for Harlequin Mungo confirm that both the original roles of Mungo and Harlequin were played by the same comic actor, Charles Lee Lewes. As David Mayer has described, the role of Harlequin needed ‘an extraordinarily agile dancer and tumbler’ capable of ‘quick quasi-balletic turns, leaps and gymnastic tricks’ and by the ninth performance forty-seven years old Lewes had decided to relinquish the Mungo role.10

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Nor was blackface into black mask a feature restricted to London playhouses or to a few pantomimes. Assuming that Defoe’s Friday was played blackface, his transformation into Harlequin may also be present in R. B. Sheridan’s Drury Lane pantomime adaptation, Robinson Crusoe, or Harlequin Friday (1781) which became a staple of both the metropolitan and provincial repertoire.11 A 1797 Drury Lane revival had Friday played by ‘Signor Gentili’ before switching to ‘Friday, (when Harlequin) [played by] Mr. Male’, probably the co-deviser of Furibond, or, Harlequin Negro (1807) which similarly featured blackface-intoHarlequin transformation.12 With adaptations of Sheridan’s Robinson Crusoe, or Harlequin Friday quickly passing into the provincial repertory, for example playing as a ‘favourite Pantomime’ at the Theatre Royal Norwich in 1790, it is likely that blackface Friday and black mask Harlequin Crusoes were fitted out to suite specific local conditions.13 At Newcastle upon Tyne in 1791, a more extensive printed text makes it clear Harlequin Friday marries Columbine while an early twentieth-century commentator on a Jamaican production of 1785 wondered whether Harlequin Friday drew its ‘“Dance of Savages” … off the streets and lanes of Montego Bay?’, possibly referring to a more racially deviant production given the contemporary associations between Harlequin and African identity suggested by John O’Brien.14 O’Brien’s thoughtful discussion in Harlequin Britain: Pantomime and Entertainment, 1690–1760 (2004) about the theatrical masking of harlequin in the first half of the eighteenth century argues that ‘an African identity was clearly available as a referent for Harlequin’s black mask’, a transformation into a racial specificity that O’Brien traces back to David Garrick’s Harlequin’s Invasion (1759).15 While the transformation of blackface into black mask evidently occurred in some English pantomimes, it is far from clear how, or with what meaning, the ubiquitous black-masked harlequin came to signify this African association. However, by 1785, the East India Company employee and playwright James Cobb could refer to Harlequin as the ‘Blackamoor Gallant’ in his Drury Lane ‘speaking Pantomime’, The Hurly Burly; or, The Fairy of the Well.16 Nevertheless, the contemporary cultural and social acceptability of black mask in English pantomime performance appears to have be at least on a par with the practice of the white women in the Caribbean plantations noted by Deirdre Coleman donning masks to preserve the differentiating European pallor.17 The cultural signification of a masked appearance, even with its implications of racialized representations, clearly co-existed within an array of contemporary practices for presenting the public self, quite apart from their theatrical manifestations. English pantomimes were particularly noted for their black mask and occasional speaking roles. As one French writer put it, ‘every … Frenchman of Sense, must be shock’d at the unnatural absurd Entertainment of a Speaking Harlequin with a patch’d Coat, and a black Face’ but black masked Harlequins

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were also common to America and problematize notions of the development of minstrelsy.18 A watercolour drawing made by the American actor, dancer and horseman, John Durang (1768–1822), clearly shows him in the traditional lozenge patterned harlequin costume wearing a black mask and carrying the traditional slapstick, a scene probably picturing his performance in The Birth of Harlequin or the Witches Frolic, a piece he had devised or adapted himself for his first benefit night in Philadelphia.19 In both Britain and America, the black mask of harlequin forms part of a spectrum of theatrical and cultural practices whose meanings are not at all easy to recover. Even for the astute twentiethcentury theatre historian, Joseph W. Donohue Jr, blackface was a stage practice bearing no significant cultural meaning.20 However, not only do blackface and black mask present extraordinary complications for understanding how race signified on the contemporary stage, these practices also existed within a spectrum of conventions for representing race, including the multiple possibilities of stage make-up and use of skin coloured textiles. The current dominant critical mode for discussing stage blackface is within the context of North American minstrelsy, as laid out by Eric Lott’s influential Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). Lott argues that white people blacking up is both a comic appropriation and a controlling subjugation of black people, a practice denying racial authenticity and displaying blackness as counterfeit. Not only did the working-class taste for minstrelsy, from the 1830s onwards, affirm racial difference, it reaffirmed the exclusion of black people from a place within that class. Exactly how profound Lott’s theoretical insight has proved in its impact on modern criticism is evidenced by contrasting his work with an essay by Patrick Schmitt in a 1994 special issue of Theatre Symposium: A Journal of the Southeastern Theatre Conference dedicated to ‘Theatre in the Antebellum South’. Schmitt argued that ‘The stereotype may have provided a device for the assimilation and accommodation of the Black presence in majority American culture’ and asked ‘Where did the Black clown come from, if not from actual Blacks?’21 Lott’s analysis has effectively disabled such approaches as culturally and racially inept. However, setting aside the issue of the harlequinade black mask common to both late eighteenth-century British and American theatre, neither Eric Lott in Love and Theft nor William J. Mahar, in Behind the Burnt Cork Mask: Early Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture (1999), provide any more than a perfunctory comment on the physical basis of blackface theatrical make-up and do not refer to the conventions outlined by Leman Thomas Rede in The Road to the Stage (1827) discussed below. While Mahar makes the fascinating comment that one of American minstrelsy’s principal progenitors, Thomas Dartmouth Rice, had written Jim Crow in London (1837) as a ‘burlesque’ of William Thomas Moncrieff ’s Tom and Jerry (1823), the implications

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of this English Georgian legacy are not discussed.22 Such historical misprision of the performance context has compounded the problems of understanding its contemporary role. Eric Lott’s work has been enthusiastically extended by a number of cultural historians. For example James P. Byrne has argued that the nineteenth-century Irish in the United States of America were appropriated in much the same way and with similar racial implications.23 Mikko Tuhkanen insists that ‘the minstrel mask perhaps continues to be a central figure in how “racial” visibility functions in the United States’, attributing to Lott’s work the wider claim that minstrelsy is a current cultural practice in that country.24 By contrast, Sean X. Goudie has historicized these mistrelizing modes more specifically by discussing the function of blackface in J. Robinson’s farce, The Yorker’s Stratagem, or, Banana’s Wedding (New York, 1792). Robinson’s play was produced in New York and Philadelphia but never in the southern states. It has been claimed that in the southern towns such as Charleston, South Carolina – much to the surprise of the contemporary British visitor John Lambert – blackface was prohibited and no black people allowed into the theatre, ‘lest the negroes in Charleston should conceive, from being represented on the stage, and having their colour, dress, manners, and customs imitated by the white people, that they were very important personages’.25 However, as will be shown below, there are a number of complications, suggesting that Lambert’s testimony, and the inference drawn from it by Goudie, may be erroneous. Such historical misunderstandings compound the problems with other claims about the politics of minstrelsy. While Goudie discusses a play written in North America which was very much the product of a dialogue with local racial conditions, Felicity A. Nussbaum migrates minstrelsy to an origin in eighteenth-century Britain. Nussbaum argues that Isaac Bickerstaff ’s popular comedy The Padlock (1768), and Henry Bate’s The Blackamoor Wash’d White (1776), were ‘precursors of minstrelsy … an example of what Eric Lott has called “minstrelsy’s mixed erotic economy of celebration and exploitation” and of a white culture’s fascination with black skin’.26 Bate’s Blackamoor Wash’d White, the denouement of which shows how the blacked-up white suitor, Frederic, takes ‘off his Cap discovers his face partly White’, is at least partly embedded in a disguised lover convention although one which provokes the emergence of latent anxieties about miscegenation (‘he shan’t have a nest of Black-a-moor Devils hatch’d under his Roost, if I can help it’).27 However, this embryonic minstrelizing – if that is really an apt description – was highly contested in the British setting. It is easy to see why one might wish to trace the heritage of minstrel shows as a theatrical import datable to the last colonial phases of British sovereignty, but they were a phenomenon of nineteenth-century American popular culture much less obviously important in Britain. Eric Lott particularly cites working-class American melodrama playhouses in the 1830s and 1840s as premier

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arenas for the emergence of minstrelsy, places of ‘antebellum “racial” production, inventing or at least maintaining the working-class languages of race’ and moving from ‘solo songs and dances in legitimate theaters’ as ‘an art of brief burlesque and comic relief through much of the 1830s’ through to ‘partial absorption into the Uncle Tom’s Cabin melodramas in the early and mid-1850s’ as a ‘major part of urban popular culture’.28 However, the precise historical circumstances appear to be rather more complicated than expected. In 1838, the Charleston theatre staged Charles Dance’s burletta farce, The Bengal Tiger (1838). Again, the speed of textual transmission along the theatrical network is significant. With the drama’s first London performance at the Olympic Theatre occurring only in December 1837, it had been produced on the South Carolina stage – and possibly elsewhere in the United States – in less than one year. The Charleston playbill records that The Bengal Tiger was cast complete with its two ‘Black Attendants’ roles (played by actors who had just performed in William Leman Rede’s Faith and Falsehood; or, the Fate of a Bushranger (1825)). Dance’s farce, set in Putney on the western outskirts of London, included in its Charleston production these two ‘Black’ roles, characters who are the Indian servants of Sir Paul Pagoda, a returning ‘East Indian’ or ‘old Bengal Tiger’ who is ‘immensely rich’ (‘Miss Yellowleaf: I am not going too far, I believe, in saying immensely rich[?] Sir Pagoda: Not a bit’).29 With Sir Paul having adopted the Indian practice of smoking from a hookah (S.D. ‘Enter Attendants with hookers, etc., which they arrange, giving one to each, and then retire’), the drama’s comedy at least partly revolves around Sir Paul’s demands upon his black servants: S.D.: [Sir Paul enters, leaning on the arms of his two Attendants; approaches the great chair, and seats himself; the Attendants stand behind the chair, one with his handkerchief, the other with his snuff-box.] … Sir Paul: (without turning round.) Snuff-box – (aloud, and instantly, without allowing time for it to be given to him) – Snuff-box. [Servant hands it to him].30

Not only would the two Charleston actors, Mr Clifford and Mr Barber, have presented ‘Black’ characters as Sir Paul’s employees, rather than his slaves, The Bengal Tiger was at least partly concerned with demonstrating the workings of appropriate relationships between master and servant through its loyal character of David: ‘I’m not one of your new-fangled chaps of servants. I know whose bread I eat, and when I’m well used; and I’d rather be kicked out, than stand by and see my master imposed upon’.31 How such dramas were interpreted by Charleston’s audiences, it is difficult to imagine but, contrary to Goudie and Lambert, it seems certain that they were comfortable with watching blackedup actors on stage in the late 1830s. While Charleston had imported a British

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drama, this American slave-owning town clearly showed no sensitivity – or fear – about blacking up white actors in front of the black people in the theatre. That both slaves and free coloured people were present in southern state American playhouse audiences of this period is definitively demonstrated by the mute testimony of the dead at the 1811 Richmond, Virginia theatre fire that occurred during a performance of Matthew Gregory Lewis’s The Bleeding Nun, or, Agnes and Raymond; here the deceased included ‘Pleasant[,] a mulatto woman belonging to Mr. Wm. Rose … Betsey Johnson, a woman of colour free’ and a ‘mulatto’ boy who died a few days later. On that night, it was alleged most of the coloured people present escaped with their lives because they were in the gallery and had a clearer escape route than the congested ground floor exit where the white people were seated.32 The presence of servants and slaves in the Richmond gallery follows the English practice where servants sat close to, yet apart, from their employers. However, such demarcations between black and white members of the audience, both watching the blacked-up characters in The Bengal Tiger, did not mean that other cultures were not also present. In the case of Charleston, it is even more difficult to imagine what black people made of that night’s performance because the playbill announced ‘the arrival of the Bedouin Arabs. They Will Appear Immediately’.33 Whatever the actual social and cultural conditions obtaining in Charleston, they clearly encompassed the possibility of blacked-up white performers and real Bedouin Arabs appearing in its theatre. The case, well publicized in America, of the capture and maltreatment by ‘Bedowen [sic] Arabs’ of the white Italian woman, Viletta Laranda, after a shipwreck less than ten years earlier, together with the Bedouin’s well-understood association with slaving (including the possibility of slaves in the Charleston theatre’s gallery), truly complicates our understanding of the frisson contemplated by the manager commissioning the Arabs’ presentation.34 At the very least, contrary to contemporary and modern claims, it seems certain coloured characters were represented on the Charleston stage. Interestingly, although Dance’s text alludes to the two Indians as ‘Black’ in the stage directions, or in character asides (as in David’s aside, ‘Blackey must have a pleasant time of it with that Mulligatawney gentleman’), this is never done directly to the two men, and the racial issues are complicated by David’s reference to Sir Paul Pagoda as ‘Mulligatawney’ which, like his taste for the hookah, may refer to a non-white appearance.35 Whatever the case, assuming that The Bengal’s Tiger’s two attendants were blacked up, even in the slave-holding town of Charleston the audience would have been presented with a drama – albeit only a farce – which approached race, and professional master–servant relations between races, with some degree of complexity. If Charleston’s actual theatre practices are somewhat less straightforward than has been argued by some of Eric Lott’s followers, then it is not difficult to

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find similarly complex cultural conditions surrounding performances of other contemporary dramas. As will be argued in a later chapter dealing with William Barrymore’s El Hyder (1818) and H. M. Milner’s Tippoo Saib (1823), on the British stage some of the roles which may have been played racially counterfeited often looked determinedly eastwards to the Indian empire as much as they did to the slaving west Atlantic. The modestly significant Bengal Tiger with its ‘Mulligatawney’ gentleman supports such an interpretation. The absence of any strongly perceptible tradition of minstrelizing Asian roles, beyond Dance’s two ‘Black’ servants, is a limitation to the relevance of Lott’s thesis to the British model and, quite clearly, performance practices in the early nineteenth-century United States are not as to easy reconstruct as they first appear. Neither were performance circumstances in London much easier to predict. The cultural specificity of Georgian theatre makes it difficult to reconstruct meaning solely on the basis of analyzing the texts. Drama’s meaning was located at the site of the playhouse venue in a cultural relationship with a larger social environment. In some cases, as will be argued with respect to El Hyder and Tippoo Saib, these surroundings could be specific to individual playhouses. Nevertheless, some plays repeatedly provoked responses which could not have been predicted through analysis of their language alone. The reception of James Townley’s Drury Lane farce, High Life Below Stairs (1759), provides a rich example of the cultural complexity of blackface comic drama in a storyline which sets a white West Indian landowner against his black servants. The plot features Lovel, the ostentatiously rich white Jamaican landowner (‘I have seen it delight your Soul, when the People in the Street have stared at your Equipage; especially if they whispered … “That is Squire Lovel, the great West Indian”’) who exposes his servants’ laziness and high living at his expense.36 The farce was the subject of a series of well-documented riots by servants on account of the play’s portrayal of their aping of their master’s ways and consuming his food and drink.37 Disquiet at Townley’s farce was sufficient to provoke at least one servant, Oliver Grey, to write a pamphlet about the riots, An Apology for the Servants (1760), drawing attention to the economic anxieties underlying the rioting ‘Occasioned by the Representation of the Farce called High Life below Stairs’, and contemporary proposals aimed at withdrawing the customary practice of ‘vails’, payments (like modern tipping) made to servants.38 Vails were paid at theatres where servants controlled access to their employers by charging this unofficial fee. Grey reckoned the practice was common in Germany, but there were also similar riots, again centred around performances of High Life Below Stairs, in Edinburgh, London and Bristol (‘No sooner was the piece begun, than a prodigious noise was heard from the footmens gallery’).39 Black servants later participated in the 1780 Gordon Riots and the possibility that High Life Below Stairs disturbances were partially motivated by anti-blackface sentiment cannot be ruled out.40

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Black, ethnically African, servants were much more prevalent in eighteenth-century England than during the nineteenth century when an expanding number of Indian subcontinent servants became available. Since the city had a substantial number of black servants, the most likely playhouse for such grievances to have surfaced was at the Jacob’s Well Theatre, Bristol, production of High Life Below Stairs (a playhouse owned by the comedian John Hippisley whose daughter played in the first Drury Lane production).41 Bristol’s Caribbean traffic would have brought with it slaves who absconded on arrival in England and, indeed, such a scenario formed the basis of a London private theatrical evidentially performed by two Jamaican plantation families, The Fancy or, A Voyage to London (1744). Certainly, a contemporary painting reproduced in Madge Dresser’s study of Bristol slavery, Slavery Obscured: The Social History of the Slave Trade in an English Provincial Port (2001) shows liveried black servants on the quayside.42 Slavery was such a prominent part of Bristol’s economy that it even touched on the Jacob’s Well. Around the same time as Townley’s High Life Below Stairs, Hippisley’s son (also called John) was working as an administrator in the English Company of Merchants’ West African fortresses on Cape Coast, writing a set of Essays (‘On the Populousness of Africa … There we shall find desire unchecked by the dread of want’). He only obliquely narrates slavery’s cruelty (‘To declaim upon the horrors of this trade would have been beside the question …’) before concluding on ‘The necessity, the absolute necessity … of carrying it on’.43 High Life Below Stairs’s black servants rendered more complex both the behaviour and the racial dimension of relations between masters and servants. Contemporary conduct literature aimed at servants warned them to ‘Beware … dressing above your rank or station’, but Townley’s play had made obsolete the moral elevation implicit in the injunction that servants should ‘Shun … that foolish affectation of imitating your superiors, whom Providence hath placed in an higher state of life’.44 By counterfeiting both servant behaviour and complexion on stage, Townley’s play invalidated the employers’ patrician role of moral responsibility and, in doing so, disabled a further claim made by employers about servants, that their situation in domestic service was preferable and distinct from that of a slave: ‘have you never heard of the Slaves in the Plantations …[?] And what Servant in England dares repine at their State, who has ever known the Condition of their own Countrymen, when Slaves in Algiers, and other Places?’45 White actors blacking up to ridicule black servants not only made such injunctions less influential, they also drew attention to the logical redundancy of claiming that servants, at least minimally defended by common law, ought to be grateful they were not slaves. The vestiges of the vocabulary of this conflict can still be recovered. An innuendo, written many years later, in York’s Theatrical Register (1788) relating specifically to the Edinburgh High Life

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Below Stairs riots, remarked on the role of the ‘gentlemen of the party-colour’d regiment’.46 As well as referring to servants’ liveries, it is possible such a phrase encoded an allusion to the colour of their complexion, as in the playwright Miles Peter Andrew’s contemporary but enigmatic reference to how ‘Othello …with a Black face … had not the good, or the ill Fortune, to have a Party-colour’d Jacket’.47 In any event, as will be shown below, while High Life Below Stairs quickly established itself not only as a drama occasionally performed away from the sight of rebellious servants, plays were sometimes performed by the rebellious servants themselves. The text and production history of High Life Below Stairs makes clear it was often perceived as a drama with a racial dimension, an element now largely subsumed beneath the visibility of the economic dispute about phasing out vails. There were two specific blackface roles amongst a number of comic servants prominent in High Life Below Stairs. Lovel, the white ‘young West-Indian of Fortune’, recently returned to England is the employer of seven servants, two of whom – Kingston and Cloe – are black (‘Why, Man, in Jamaica, before I was ten Years old, I had an hundred Blacks kissing my Feet every Day’).48 In the first London production, the Kingston role had been established by the actor John Moody (1726/7–1812), an Irish actor who had earlier built a theatre in Jamaica, allegedly returning – like Lovel – with ‘property of consequence’ (ODNB).49 No doubt Moody’s portrayal of Kingston benefited from the actor’s satirical observation of coloured people in Jamaica. Returning in disguise to the servants’ hall, Lovel witnesses their laziness and extravagance at first hand. At the Bristol production, the theatre’s contemporary historian recorded the ‘violent hissing, hooting, and pelting, which continued unabated until a favourite comedian of the name of [Robert] PALMER (who played the Duke’s Servant), took occasion, during the supper-scene, to drink, “To the confusion of all masters and mistresses who refuse to give vales [sic]”’, allowing the play to proceed. However, the performance afterlife of High Life Below Stairs had other cultural resonances marking it as a text where race, rather than vails, came to the forefront. Oliver Grey’s protests notwithstanding, Townley’s farce was popular with the employers of servants who performed it at their country house theatricals. Predictably enough, it was enthusiastically taken up for the patrician class’s private theatres. The Governor’s gardens in Madras, India, were the setting in 1788 for amateur productions of Isaac Bickerstaff ’s Padlock (1768) and Townley’s High Life Below Stairs, both staged by European women and white army officers in aid of a local charity for female orphans (presumably Indian girls).50 In Madras, the blackface roles of The Padlock’s Mungo and High Life’s Kingston were played by British army captains, but, more remarkably, the latter’s female black servant, Cloe, was played by one Lieutenant Grant. Some years earlier around 1774, at Cassiobury House, Hertfordshire, the seat of the Earl of Essex, the amateur actor

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Thomas Orde-Powlett (1746–1807) made a souvenir print etching, probably for fellow players, of the servants’ hall scene in High Life Below Stairs which had been played at a Cassiobury country house party. Unique impressions of this print in the Lewis Walpole Library show that players endorsed copies with own recollections of their roles in the private theatricals (‘Blackee you go! … Cookey you go! … Sambo = Answer the Door’). While Lovel peremptorily summons his servant Kingston by one of these names (‘What Blackey, Blackey’), the derogatory term ‘Sambo’ is not present in Townley’s published text, implying a private theatrical interpolation specific to Cassiobury. Indeed, in Orde-Powlett’s print, the drunken stupefied black manservant, slouched in a wooden chair in the servants’ hall, is a prominent figure in the composition.51 Similarly, the Earl of Barrymore, who built one of the most extravagant private theatres in England at Wargrave in Berkshire, sometimes played with his friends Sheridan’s Robinson Crusoe; or, Harlequin Friday, transforming the presumably blacked-up Captain Wathen’s Friday into Harlequin.52 Within the seclusion of the English country house private theatrical, or the Indian colonial garden party, it is clear that blackfaced white gentry delighted in counterfeiting coloured people, perhaps in performances where complicated nuances of rank and authority were mixed with transgressive sexualities. Gradually, the performance context of Townley’s piece was transformed by its changing cultural moment. High Life Below Stairs was still being performed at the Edinburgh Theatre Royal in 1850. When playing there in tandem with Little Boy Blue!!! Or Harlequin and the Goblin Gnome of the Californian Gold Mines, it was presumably construed as part of the evening’s American theme and that country’s taste for Jim Crow.53 In British Georgian public theatres, however, the depiction of minstrelized ‘blacks’, especially when contextualized within perceived threats to servants’ financial perquisites, was perceived as unacceptable, and sometimes provoked rioting. The depiction of vocal and resistive coloured people on the British stage (played by white actors) was also gradually increasing. While the Lord Chamberlain’s Examiner of Plays didn’t censor plays on the grounds of race, because of its references to the sensitive issue of grain forestalling Thomas John Dibdin’s musical entertainment written for Covent Garden, The Two Farmers (1800), was withdrawn amidst heavy censorship. A particularly fractious exchange was represented in its confrontation between a hoarding farmer, Locust, and his black farm labourer, Caesar. Set in England, Caesar is remarkably self-sufficient and assertive of his legal rights of entitlement to protection under the law. When threatened with a beating by Locust, the black man affirms his rights in a remarkable passage:

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Harlequin Empire Top, Massa, top! Slave once, not now … No Slave here – You pay, I worke – You kick, I tell Massa Kenyon – he speak twelve men in a Box – dey take poor Negerman’s part, & you kick black man nor more, I warrant, Massa.54

Caesar’s allusion is to Lord Chief Justice Keynon’s currently impending judgement about grain forestalling (a reference which no doubt contributed to its suppression).55 Like the Chinese plaintiff at the Old Bailey, discussed below, Dibdin’s unperformed and intercepted drama seems to accurately reflect knowledge and awareness of how black people were empowered to access the legal system of judge and jury (‘twelve men in a Box’).56 Although The Two Farmers was suppressed, Dibdin’s drama clearly envisages their recognition and inclusion within the English legal system. The social polarities evident in High Life Below Stairs in the 1760s, from riotous Bristol servants to the kind of exclusive securities implicit in private theatricals of white men blacked up as coloured male and female servants, implies a complex cultural context where racial denigration was present but socially contested. Blacking up for High Life Below Stairs tended to take place either as a prelude to riot or else under conditions where the possibility of rioting had been deliberately excluded. The intricate cultural complexity of Townley’s farce survived for many years. Peter Cunningham’s New Jest Book; or, Modern High Life Below Stairs (c. 1781) not only carries in its title an allusion to Townley’s farce but is also scattered with references to all kinds of misrule involving theatricality.57 Peter Cunningham’s New Jest Book is unusual in that it contains numerous references to the Lord George Gordon riots of 1780, events which not only appeared to mark aristocracy’s association with civil disturbance but also the participation of black people.58 The frontispiece etching of the jest book alluded to the playhouse ‘Sadlegs [sic] Wells’, but one of its principal ‘wild pranks’ particularly details how a master returns to find his ‘servants all at high life below stairs … determined to perform part of the Revenge that evening’.59 Whether Cunningham’s New Jest Book’s potential audience were masters or servants it is difficult to judge, but this particular joke was constructed around the servants’ intended performance in the servants’ hall of Edward Young’s Drury Lane tragedy of The Revenge (1721).60 The jest revolves incomprehensibly around a disputed leg of mutton but Young’s Revenge, which long continued as a staple of the Georgian repertoire, contained a prominent role for a character called Zanga, a Moor who revenges his capture on his master, Don Alonzo. As Leman Thomas Rede records (see below), Zanga’s player usually wore the ‘tawny tinge’ of Othello and, indeed, the association of Young’s Zanga with Shakespeare’s tragedy was readily understood by writers such as William Hazlitt who thought Zanga a ‘vulgar caricature’ of Iago.61 Although the exact contemporary cultural resonances of Young’s Revenge and Cunningham’s New Jest Book are probably beyond recovery,

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it is likely that the servants’ riposte to the satirized black servants in Townley’s High Life Below Stairs may have been played out by their theatricalization of Zanga’s revenge on his master, the ‘Modern High Life Below Stairs’ of the jest book’s subtitle. The triumphalism and racial assertiveness of Zanga’s exultation over Don Alonzo’s death is unmistakable: If Men shall ask who brought thee to thy End, Tell them, The Moor, and they will not despise thee. If cold white Mortals censure this great Deed, Warn them, they judge not of superior Beings Souls made of Fire, and Children of the Sun62

In other words, the Revenge theatricals embedded in Peter Cunningham’s New Jest Book; or, Modern High Life Below Stairs, suggests that there existed a contrarian popular dramatics, the satirized black servants of Townley’s original being transformed in the servants’ hall production into the coloured Zanga, a black man killing his master. Certainly, the fictional dispute arose not about who should play Zanga but, rather, ‘the butler and one of the under-servants falling out who should perform Don Alonzo’.63 The precision of the allusion strongly suggests that, although Young’s five act spoken tragedy may appear moribund now, it had deep and well-understood cultural meanings in the late eighteenth century. However, if blacking up was deeply assimilated into contemporary cultural behaviour within intricate social contexts, in the regular playhouses it also took place within a further spectrum of similar representational practices. Although blacking up was invariably accepted as a legitimate performance technique, it was not immune from criticism. At the Catherine Street private theatre, Strand, the reviewer of their production of John Brown’s, Barbarossa. A Tragedy (1755) in 1831, observed of the actor playing Othman that ‘his countenance was coloured ridiculously’.64 In the mid-eighteenth century, James Quinn was ‘accustomed to play Othello in a large powdered major wig which, with the black face, made such a magpye appearance as tended more to make the people laugh than cry’.65 As with the Indian locations of El Hyder and Tippoo Saib or Pacific settings of Omai, the ex-actor Leman Thomas Rede made it clear in his advice to aspiring players that black African roles were to be differentiated from Arab, east Asian or Indian sub-continent roles. Crucially, Rede’s The Road to the Stage gave detailed advice to new performers about preparing skin colour, white as well as non-white. The main reason he gives for Othello’s brown ‘coloured countenance’ (rather than black ‘sables’), was that such blackface was ‘destructive of the effect of the face, and preventing the possibility of the expression being noted, [and] has become an obsolete custom’. The need to increase Othello’s expressivity transposed his portrayal from black ‘sables’ to what Rede described as ‘a tawny tinge’, an effect produced by applying to the face a compound known as ‘Spanish

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brown’, a dark reddish brown pigment whose principal colouring ingredient was usually sesquioxide of iron.66 By the first decades of the nineteenth century, particularly in the English provincial theatres where Rede had worked, Othello may well have been represented more red than brown, and certainly not black. While blackface minstrelsy appears to be a clear cut category, there is an issue concerning the degree of skin colouring used in roles for stage actors and whether or not colouring the face was always related to the specific representation of different races. There are certainly many pitfalls for modern commentators following an unqualified minstrelizing theory of white actors in blackface. The Road to the Stage serves as a reminder of the extent (and modern unfamiliarity) with the range of the coloured roles in the standard dramatic Romantic period repertoire. First published in 1827, Rede’s guide was posthumously revised by his brother in 1836 and re-published in revised New York editions of 1858, 1859, 1861, 1864 and 1868. Rede confirms that, as well as being the colour for Othello and Young’s Zanga in Revenge (1721), Spanish brown was used for the roles of Bajazet in Nicholas Rowe’s, Tamerlane (1702); Sadi in John Brown’s, Barbarossa, A Tragedy (1755); Bulcazin in George Colman the Younger’s, The Mountaineers (1794); Muley in Charles Isaac Mungo Dibdin’s, The Wild Man (1809) and Rolla in R. B. Sheridan’s, Pizarro (1799). Although the ‘Muley’ in this list may refer to a character in Matthew Gregory Lewis’s The Castle Spectre (1797), a role of the same name is more prominent in Dibdin’s The Wild Man where the text describes him as a ‘Black Moor’ (discussed further below). As with Othello, in the eighteenth century a ‘Black Moor’ might be brown. Another character in The Wild Man, Allahmar (whose name may sound Arabic to modern ears), is also described in Dibdin’s cast list as a ‘Black Moor’. That is, there may have been many ‘Black Moors’ appearing on the eighteenth-century stage who were actually coloured a reddish ‘Spanish brown’. The point at issue about these performance practices is that, while they directly counterfeited race and provided a continuity of cultural reasons for denigrating coloured people, they were not racially specific and existed within a spectrum of other theatrical conventions. Rede advised actors of the 1820s that Wowski, a female native American role in George Colman the Younger’s Inkle and Yarico (1787), ought to be coloured the same ‘sables’ black colour as Mungo in Isaac Bickerstaff ’s, The Padlock (1768) or the ‘African’ Sambo, in Frederick Reynolds’s, Laugh When You Can (1799).67 To complicate matters further, Rede related that the character of Hassan (almost certainly referring to the character in Lewis’s The Castle Spectre), was played as a blackfaced negro even though (as with Dibdin’s Muley), the name may sound Arabic to modern readers.68 Lewis commented in the printed text of The Castle Spectre that many of his contemporaries had compared his Hassan to the character of Zanga in Young’s The Revenge: if Zanga wore Spanish brown (as

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Rede suggested), it means Hassan’s blackface was no particular obstacle to the audience transposing Arabs into blackface roles and vice-versa.69 Oddly, Rede doesn’t comment on The Castle Spectre’s character of Saib, Hassan’s confidant, but the absence of comment implies Saib was not played blackface. Out of all of these bewilderingly coloured-up characters, it is perhaps the ‘sables’ black native American, Wowski, in Inkle and Yarico who is the most disturbing to modern minstrelizing interpretations because, although Colman’s drama is specifically set in ‘in the wilds of America’, Rede confirms she was played as a black woman, suggesting theatre managers and actors were following the original 1711 Spectator narrative (reprinted in The Times in 1787 when the drama first appeared) rather than working from the hints contained in Colman’s text.70 One reason for playing Yarico uncoloured and Wowski blacked up is possibly the confusion Roxann Wheeler has indicated about the hybridized native Americans and Africans known to the British as the Black Caribs, but it is not clear to what extent this understanding was still pertinent in a 1780s London increasingly absorbed in the abolition debate.71 Nevertheless, a mid-1790s Edinburgh performance described how ‘the Characters of Yarico and Wowski will wear the Habits and Complexions of the Natives in the most Remote Parts of America; Being very rarely to be seen in this Kingdom’, a description which suggests a non-white appearance without specifying what was considered the normative colouring.72 Whatever the case, Rede’s performance testimony of 1827 (which he clearly intended to be passed to successive generations of actors) establishes Yarico as quite different from her appearance in late eighteenth-century prose editions of the story.73 However, to complicate matters further, Rede claimed that in all the roles referred to above, ‘it is very common … to use only an extraordinary quantity of vermillion or carmine spread over the whole of the face’, which implies a reddish hue derived from mercuric sulphide and red iron oxide.74 The darker face was achieved by first applying ‘a thin coat of pomatum’ (‘or what is better, though more disagreeable … lard [animal fat]’) topped off by burnt cork soaked with ‘beer’ – ‘which will fix the colouring matter’ – and all applied ‘with a hare’s-foot, or a cloth’.75 As Fennell’s memoir confirms, considering the crude pigmentation methods used, true ‘sables’ blacking up may well have been quite widely avoided by many actors and, if they needed to add pigmentation at all to their natural skin colour, they could more accurately be described as having ‘reddened up’ for their roles. However, these weren’t the only colouring agents and counterfeiting devices employed by contemporary actors. Commenting that ‘Wigging is a science in itself ’, Rede remarked that many contemporary practices of theatrical costume and colouring had become so stylized as to be arbitrary as signifying referents, particularly where they referred to supposed national or ethnic appearances:

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‘Custom has established red wigs for countrymen, and black ones for Roman and all tragic characters, though it would be difficult to assign a reason for either practice. The English rustic is not generally seen with carroty locks … and the Romans were not partial to raven ringlets.’76 In other words, blackface as a theatrical signifier existed within a spectrum of contemporary expedient theatrical practices selected to approximate various tangible and intangible qualities in the text and the contemporary culture relative to race, nationality and skin colour. Face colour and dyed wigs were complemented by a further bewildering battery of devices counterfeiting physical appearance which similarly complicate our attempts to understand the signifying role of colour if it is insisted that it should be construed as unambiguously relating solely to the politics of race. Where the physical figure of actors fell short of contemporary ideals of contour and outline, the players turned to counterfeiting their appearance during performance. For deficiently shaped legs, Rede’s posthumous edition recommended recourse to ‘Mr. Sheldrake … celebrated as the maker of false calves, full shoulders, &c’. and noted that, instead of older practices of actors making up these false outlines from ‘old silk stockings’ (a process he describes in some detail) a variety of newly produced leg ‘paddings regularly woven to order are to be had of Mr. Tresher’. He also swore that ‘one of the greatest tragedians of the day always plays in a dress completely padded from the shoulder to the heel … made with the most scrupulous accuracy, to fill up the voids (he being extremely thin)’.77 Variant body types due to genetics, poor diet or birth abnormalities were probably more commonly encountered than today and may have even been more frequently presented in the theatrical profession where a distinctive physical presence or vocal timbre were valued above all else. In 1785 John Durang was pleased to take lessons from the New York German dwarf, Mr Hoffmaster, ‘a good musician’, who taught him the violin and composed a highly successful dance melody known as ‘Durang’s Hornpipe’.78 It was not difficult or challenging for Durang to find value in a range of different people. Where counterfeiting bodily appearance could be done, although clearly impossible in the case of Hoffmaster, actors needed to continue with their working lives. According to the nineteenth-century theatre historian, Dutton Cook, when the comic actor Charles Mathews was recovering from a serious carriage accident, ‘he reappeared leaning upon a crutch stick and personating a lame harlequin in a comic extravaganza entitled “Hocus Pocus, or Harlequin Washed White”, designed especially for his re-introduction to the public’.79 Given that one of Felicity A. Nussbaum’s key texts for the explanation of the politics of blackface in British drama is Henry Bate’s The Blackamoor Wash’d White (1776), it may be the case that there were other contingent factors at work in naming or playing dramas such as these, factors whose problematics are multiplied in the conjectural case of Mathews’s unpublished extravaganza because harlequin was normally played

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black-masked rather than blackfaced.80 Cook also records the case around 1840 of the actor George Vandenhoff at the Leicester Theatre who gripped the arm of his fellow actor during a performance only to find it come away, Vandenhoff not having realized that his amputee colleague was wearing a cork prosthetic limb.81 Apart from the use of wigs to denote supposed national characteristics, while none of the above practices relate to the representation of race, they demonstrate that counterfeiting appearance was an accepted practice supported by a vigorously enterprising commercial economy which readily recognized the role of theatricals in modern cultural consumption. Nevertheless, there were some specific techniques, in addition to facial blacking up, which Georgian actors employed when called to present characters they had designated into coloured racial categories. For example, Rede refers with distaste to the ‘unnatural’ effect of ‘wearing black gloves’ to represent ‘sables’ roles, ‘for the colour is too intense to represent skin, and negroes invariably cover themselves with light clothing’.82 Blackfaced renditions were not only sometimes complemented by gloves but also by ‘armings’, sleeves coloured to approximate the colour of the character represented. Rede relates that Hassan in The Castle Spectre was often played costumed with ‘Arms of black silk’ which he considered had ‘a very bad effect’. These ‘armings’ were ‘dyed with a strong infusion of Spanish annatto’, a red seed actually tending to give a yellow or reddish colour.83 Virginia Mason Vaughan cites the remarkable example of the white actor James Quinn whose representation of Othello was noted for how he dramatically removed his white gloves to reveal the blacked-up skin beneath.84 However, the use of coloured textiles in the Georgian theatre also extended to white European roles. The great Edmund Kean disastrously played Macbeth in Dublin wearing ‘flesh-coloured arms, and gloves of one piece’ fixed to the rest of his costume which, in the short interval after the murder scene, ‘did not allow him to disengage himself from his flesh-coloured arms and gloves, and he entered with his hands as bloody as before’.85 The introduction of coloured textiles to represent skin appears to have been the sort of counterfeiting which drew attention to its own impossibility – and yet it was obviously a sufficiently widely distributed contemporary theatrical technique for Rede to feel obliged to warn against it. If Hassan’s ‘sables’ blacked-up face and black silk ‘armings’ were visually differentiated from Zanga’s facial ‘tawny tinge’, audiences clearly classified them as equivalent characters and absorbed the convention of their representation without difficulty, yet it would necessitate invoking yet another category of theatrical practice to be able to include wigs and coloured textiles, such as those worn in Kean’s Dublin Macbeth. Kean tearing off his ‘flesh-coloured arms, and gloves of one piece’ revealed the native whiteness of his own skin, yet its technology was merely a variation of Hassan’s ‘armings’ or, arguably, a dramaturgical development of James Quinn’s technique of removing his white

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gloves while playing Othello. Within the context of a set of performance practices which included several types of counterfeiting, it is difficult to judge the precise role of colour. Despite the racial politics of blacking, browning or reddening up, the actual practice of what actors put on their skins appears not to have been an exactly defined deployment of racial definition. While the roles of Othello and Hassan fell into identifiable theatrical conventions as to how they might be expected to appear during performance, Rede’s advice to players reminds us that in the actors’ colouring for the roles mentioned above, from the Moorish Zanga through to the native South American Rolla, facial colour was in any case often simply a question of the degree of intensity to which normal stage make-up was deployed. As Rede reports, many of the roles he mentions were in any case commonly played using ‘only an extraordinary quantity of [the] vermillion or carmine’ of the type ordinarily used for all theatrical performances.86 Rede’s reference to how Wowski, a female native American role in George Colman the Younger’s Inkle and Yarico (1787), was usually coloured ‘sables’ black on the Georgian stage demonstrates the unpredictability of contemporary stage practices in relationship to apparently stable racial textual referents.87 Wowski’s relationship to Yarico is never precisely established, yet it is clear from her deference, as well as from the plot’s structural parallelism of her relationship with Trudge (Inkle’s servant), that she is what he loosely designates as Yarico’s ‘chambermaid’.88 On first meeting her, Trudge describes Wowski as ‘an angel of rather a darker sort’, although this comparison with Yarico may simply imply that her servant role has made her skin more weatherbeaten than that of her mistress.89 However, in the drama’s finale he sings ‘My fortune’s fair, tho’ black’s my wife’.90 These references underline the paradox that, at least in performances in England, Colman’s Inkle and Yarico represented its two native American women with different skin colours. As with Omai and the Otaheitean Traveller discussed below, Yarico’s and Wowski’s representation on stage was determined by the convention of representing colour as an attribute of class contained within the category of race. Indeed, the presentation of the Inkle and Yarico tale on the stage presents something of a test case in how race was mediated in Georgian theatre, with its reception in the United States of America being quite different to that in England. Rede’s lack of commentary on Yarico’s stage appearance, together with her absence from his list of the late Georgian repertoire’s prominent ‘Spanish brown’ characters, probably means that she was played without specific racial colouring other than through the actress’s own natural skin pigmentation overlaid by the base make-up of vermillion or carmine. Of course, it is possible other staging conventions prevailed from time to time, even at the Haymarket. A manuscript ‘Prologue to Inkle & Yarico. 1789’, sent by the Haymarket that summer relates

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that ‘Our Ladies lay by Rouge, & black their faces’, but this may simply allude to the scene on the quay at Barbadoes with ‘People employed in unloading Vessels, carrying Bales of Goods’, requiring male and female slave labourers to be blacked up.91 But there were also other factors at work in determining facial colouring. By the time of the posthumous edition of 1836, Rede’s Road to the Stage was advocating that all actors – both male and female – adopt a generalized stage make-up of ‘Chinese vermilion boiled in milk … afterwards mixed with about half the quantity of carmine’ because ‘the late introduction of gas into our theatres has rendered a more powerful colouring than that formerly used decidedly necessary’. Commenting that rouge was not effective under gas lighting, a generally reddening of all Georgian players must have been experienced through the use of vermilion and carmine by the late 1810s when gas lighting came to London theatres.92 While this reddening was not used to counterfeit race, it is clear that there was a continuum of make-up practices for actors, merging carmine and vermilion with Spanish brown. In other words, the skin colour that actors actually presented to the audience was determined by technical factors as much as a desire, conscious or unconscious, to fix a racial type to a character. Nevertheless, in the mid-Georgian period of Colman’s Inkle and Yarico, in productions at both the Haymarket and in provincial centres such as York, the paradox remains that the native American Yarico was played in a format approximating to natural skin colour while the actress playing opposite her as her fellow native American was performed blacked up, ‘sables’. As well as presenting further complexity to the issue of racial representation on stage, Colman’s two female native Americans, Yarico and Wowski, played as both white and black, also provide a profound commentary on the British conception of race in America. Although Acts II–III are set in Barbadoes, the opening scenes of the drama, when the principal protagonists first meet, are located in ‘An American Forest … in the wilds of America’, or, as the licensing copy put it, ‘on the Main of America’.93 The threat of Wowski’s or Yarico’s enslavement doesn’t arise until after the first act, yet the drama seems to equate the natural presence of black people on that continent with their automatic propensity to be considered for slavery. As was similarly the case for the black servants in High Life Below Stairs, the servant role is automatically designated as a black representation except that, in the case of Wowski and Yarico, their status is complicated by them living as ‘savages’ amongst ‘the wilds of America’ in ‘A Cave, decorated with skins of wild beasts feathers, &c’. The tradition of playing Wowski as black perhaps indicates that Georgians assumed all American servants were black, almost as an unconscious by-product of European ideas about the expected role of black people in America.94 Given these stage practices, it is perhaps little wonder people in the United States welcomed an alternative version of the Inkle and Yarico story in the form of Jean-François Arnould-Mus-

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sot’s serious pantomime, The American Heroine (Philadelphia, 1797), which first played in Paris in March 1786.95 Arnould-Mussot’s silent drama, a significant performance text discussed below, entirely spurned the Colman template of two white actresses played with one of them blacked up. Whether Lailson’s Circus, probably the first American venue for The American Heroine, blacked up all of its Caribbee characters, it is difficult to know; however, what is not at issue is that dramatists, playhouse managers and actors were making culturally sophisticated decisions about the American reception of the same basic narrative. Actors were used to making judgements about people solely on the basis of the value they placed on their talent. In 1798, working with a tightly organized touring company in Canada, John Durang employed a native American to replace one of his horsemen. Durang was then effectively in semi-partnership with the equestrian theatre owner, John Bill Ricketts, and together they developed elaborate horse-riding exhibitions touring north eastern America and Canada. One of their exhibitions required a man – often Durang himself – to ride two horses simultaneously with Ricketts on his shoulders and a further individual (usually the hapless ‘Master Hutchins’) standing on top of Ricketts and positioned ‘in the attitude of Mercury’, the whole ensemble forming a visual apex they entitled The Pyramids of Egypt. Durang – who was primarily a dancer – had already observed native American dance movements from the Chipeway and Naudowessie tribes, but he employed a native American for the horsemanship crucial to their act after advertising for a suitable person in the Canadian village of ‘Lorette’ (L’Ancienne Lorette). Such equestrian dramatics were at the core of Durang’s performances and ensured their continued economic viability. Retaining an open mind about their repertoire and their personnel was essential to Durang’s survival. His frequent allusions to how he ‘rode the Tailor’ or rode ‘the Tailor to Brentford’ are references to the comic horse sketch of that name which had originated in London, devised by Philip Astley in 1768 for his Amphitheatre near Westminster Bridge. This attraction the Society for the Suppression of Vice argued drew workmen away from their work but it evidently had rapidly travelled to America. Ricketts’s company also included the Englishwoman Sussana Haswell Rowson, whose success with Slaves in Algiers; or, A Struggle for Freedom (Philadelphia, 1794) came shortly after she provided ‘the ballets’ for Ricketts. Durang relates that after Ricketts’s Chesnut Street theatre burned down, Rowson was instrumental in providing work for Ricketts in Philadelphia.96 Durang’s cosmopolitan willingness to embrace other cultures (his father originated in Strasbourg and he himself could speak French, German and English) was perhaps typical of the practicality of those men, hard pressed enough to have to live by their wits, and is a reminder that both actors and playwrights – although inhabiting many of their society’s other cultural norms – were forced

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to accept people for what they could do rather than for what they perceived to be their race or creed.97 It is possible that both John Durang, with his fluent French, and Sussana Haswell Rowson, with her experience of writing for the stage, brought their individual skills and interests in ballet and dance together to help stage Philadelphia’s production of Arnould-Mussot’s Inkle and Yarico tale, The American Heroine, first performed at the little Théâtre de l’Ambigu-Comique in Paris.98 Ironically, Rowson had played Columbine in Omai; or, A Trip round the World (1785), much of the scenery for which was recycled for Covent Garden’s Arnould-Mussot pantomime, The Death of Captain Cook, a work Durang toured.99 Without apparently being aware of The American Heroine, Steven Epley has made an extended analysis of the relationship between Rowson’s novel, Charlotte: A Tale of Truth (1791, later republished as Charlotte Temple) and Colman’s Inkle and Yarico, valuably noting that in 1796 Rowson acted in a number of Boston theatre afterpieces programmed to follow directly after Colman’s mainpiece.100 Lailson’s Circus, the venue for The American Heroine, eventually suffered the catastrophic collapse of its giant ‘hemispherical’ domed roof due to snow (luckily on a Sunday when there was no performance) and Durang’s manager, Ricketts, went on ‘to hire the ruins of that once elegant circus build [sic] by Monsieur Lelson [sic]’ with Durang eventually renting the space himself when he set up on his own. Durang notes that Lailson’s company was ‘too numerous and the expense of the building too great’, and it may have been these factors which curtailed The American Heroine’s initial run.101 After this debacle, Lailson seems to have formed an itinerant company, travelling to Jamaica around 1800 where he established an equestrian circus at Spanish Town in the riding school of the local dragoon soldiery, charging a lower admission price for coloured people.102 With these cross-currents of professional contact and sociability between significant theatrical figures such as Ricketts, Rowson and Durang, the staging of Arnould’s pantomime was the outcome of a series of factors related to contemporary context, audience and venue. In Arnould-Mussot’s version of the Inkle and Yarico story, the role of Yarico’s proposed sale into slavery is diminished and her unquestionable physical and moral superiority over Inkle emphasized. Its presence on the American stage forms a remarkable extension of the original narrative. Yarico’s eventual marriage to a Caribbee Indian chief (this tribe is specifically designated throughout) is made to appear the natural outcome of her nobility, a portrayal enabled by The American Heroine’s omission of Colman’s Wowski and Trudge comic subplot. By contrast, the comic possibilities of the servants roles were favourites in the British context, with the actor Thomas Knight – the man who turned down The Borderers – writing an unpublished prelude, Trudge and Wowski (in which he also performed) for the Bristol theatre in 1790 (ODNB), presumably exploiting

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its blackface role to the full.103 When it was programmed at the beginning of the first season of the Frenchman Philip Lailson’s Circus at 5th and Prune Street, Philadelphia, The American Heroine would have been performed in a theatrical venue opened in April 1797 with an auditorium holding somewhat in excess of 2000 people. The pantomime’s longevity with American audiences was such that it was still being performed at the Circus in New York in 1811, although even its run during its first Philadelphia season would have introduced it to some 12,000 people.104 Referring to her throughout as the ‘young American’, the descriptive sketch of the pantomime stresses the assertiveness and bravery of Yarico in confronting the Caribbee Indians who have pursued the cowardly Inkle: Yarico is not intimidated by their threats. The savages brandish their sword over their head: ready to receive the mortal blow, rather than betray her lover, she falls on her knees, covers her eyes with her hands, and courageously awaits the fate that is preparing for her. Inkle appears at the entrance of the grotto. Frightened at the sight, he re-enters into the hollow of the rock.105

In another episode Yarico single-handedly disarms one of the ‘savages’, whereupon she shields the shrinking Inkle with her body (‘Yarico falls into a violent passion, rushes upon one of the savages, takes away his tomahawk, and joins Inkle, whom she screens with her body’).106 Ultimately, Yarico is rescued by the Caribbee Indian leader before Inkle’s plan of selling her into slavery can be implemented, ‘The chief arrives, holding the young American in one hand and a sabre in the other; he takes off her chains, generously restores her her [sic] liberty, and puts her into the hands of some savages, to keep her safe’.107 Indeed, with its playbill announcing The American Heroine as a ‘Grand Historical and Military Pantomime – Ornamented with Military Evolutions and Fights … Indian Savages’, its main emphasis appears not to have been the issue of her proposed sale into slavery but, rather, the celebration of her marriage to the native American chief, subsequent to her decisive rejection of Inkle: She pushes him [Inkle] away with disdain, letting him see what difference she makes between his infamous conduct and the noble generosity of the Indian chief. She vows an eternal hatred to him, and offers her hand to the chief, who receives it with a glow of gratitude, and coolly orders Inkle to begone [sic].108

The American Heroine tells us much about how the Inkle and Yarico story could be adapted in an American context and how it was quite distinct from Colman’s alternative use of the narrative, even though the United States was currently importing large amounts of the contemporary British dramatic repertoire. To what extent Lailson’s Circus was able to emphasize Yarico’s role specifically as a ‘young American’ it is not certain, although, quite conceivably, the produc-

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tion might have used the expedient of signboarding or placarding. Scrolled texts carrying principal information about the direction or meaning of the plot let down at the side of the stage in view of the audience, was a strategy often used in the London illegitimate playhouses to circumvent the restrictions on speech. London’s Royal Circus – a space probably very similar to Lailson’s Circus – sometimes adopted quite elaborate scrolling, including politicized messages such as ‘“May the law of HUMANITY abolish the law of CUSTOM.”’109 The scheduling of The American Heroine at Charleston in 1806, featuring its ‘Two Warriors, Indians, Yarico [and] Inke [sic]’, would clearly have obviated any necessity to black up in the Wowski convention of the Colman version. The American Heroine’s Charleston performance may be definitive in signalling an American preference in America for the pantomime over Colman’s prose drama.110 Indeed, the ability to avoid Colman’s blackface character may have propelled its cultural acceptability in the southern American states. Colman’s and Arnould-Mussot’s native Americans, inconsistently portrayed as they were, were not the only portrayals of Americans featured on the stage. Representations of Americans could be quite unpredictable. As a point of comparison with other representations of American women in the 1780s, Frederick Pilon’s Drury Lane comic opera, The Fair American (1785) set in England in the aftermath of the British defeats at the Battle of the Chesapeake and Yorktown (1781), presents Angelica, the white ‘fair’ American, arriving in England after having been rescued in an ill-defined skirmish in South Carolina involving British and French forces en-route to Charlestown where she was to have embarked for England. The Fair American only grudgingly accepts Angelica’s American status, the drama alluding to vague concerns about her safety which have prompted her father to arrange her flight. However, Angelica’s rescue by a British officer (‘… when a trance relieved me from the agony of my fears. The first object my eyes afterwards encountered was an officer in the British uniform, who looked tenderly in my face’), seals their eventual marital union (‘the first toast after supper shall be, The union of England and America!’). This is celebrated as an epitome of a proposed national reunion of Britain and America in the piece’s sung finale: ‘That’s a union ev’ry heart / Pants to see compleat again! …/ And the Parent State enfold / All her children to her breast!’111 Amidst such post-imperial angst, by contrast The American Heroine presents a vigorous inclusion of native Americans, with much more concentration on their moral courage, nobility and resourcefulness than had been the case with Colman’s Inkle and Yarico. Pilon’s, Colman’s and Arnould-Mussot’s dramas all indicate how divergent the representation of Americans could be on the Georgian stage, how precarious were British notions of America citizenship and how diverse the account of their dominant national characteristics. Pilon’s swooning white American Angelica was clearly less robustly independent, courageous and assertive than Arnould-Mussot’s Car-

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ibbee Yarico, and while Pilon rehearses the trauma of the loss of the American colonies, Arnould’s pantomime decisively celebrates its native Americans. If Pilon articulated the British political agenda of imperial reunion, symbolized in the marriage of the American Angelica and the British officer Colonel Mountford, Colman’s Inkle and Yarico unconsciously problematizes such a reconciliation by drawing attention to the unresolved and paradoxical issue of slavery. Some of the female native American roles, such as Colman’s and Arnould-Mussot’s Yarico, were probably played by actresses using only normal stage make-up but, as has been argued above, to signal the double racial propensity of this group, Wowski was played on the British stage black enough as if to be a slave. Certainly, The American Heroine takes American nativity as its central dramatic motif and celebrates it without equivocation. Whether this was diminished by the possible blacking up of Arnould-Mussot’s Yarico, it is difficult to ascertain. For audiences, the role of their own expectations about what they might witness on stage about America must have been quite bewildering. One wonders what audiences expected from the Parisian and Royalty Theatre, London, actor Pierre-Toussaint Mercerot (who may well have been an associate of Arnould), who was the author of a now lost Royalty Theatre drama called The American Heroine, or Spanish Ingratitude (1800).112 While it borrows Arnould-Mussot’s title, its historical moment suggests that Mercerot’s drama was quite likely to have been associated with the Royalty theatre’s attempts to mount a piece to challenge the success of the various spin-offs of Sheridan’s highly successful adaptation of Kotzebue, Pizarro (1799). Again, the multiplicity of venues and the diversity of possible acting texts makes defining the extent of any single stage practice quite daunting. In turn, Kotzebue’s Pizarro became the site of a multiplicity of theatrical texts, once again presenting its characters racially counterfeited but heroic. Rolla, the native south American Peruvian of Sheridan’s 1799 Pizarro adaptation, was played – according to Leman Thomas Rede’s testimony – coloured in the same ‘Spanish brown’ used for Othello, or using the ‘vermillion or carmine’ which intensified normal stage make-up.113 Rolla became a familiar character to Georgian audiences, with one later Times reviewer describing William Charles Macready’s portrayal of Thomas Morton’s The Slave (1816) as ‘something of a negro Rolla’, incidentally confirming that Rolla was not played ‘sables’.114 Paradoxically, Rolla was also one of the first roles played by the black American actor Ira Aldridge (ODNB), his English performances possibly becoming the subject of a London published toy theatre print captioned under his stage name of ‘Mr. Keene as Rolla in Pizarro’.115 Aldridge’s portrayal of Rolla draws attention to the sheer volume of theatrical interpretations of this role preceding the black American’s appearance on the London stage and the meagre evidence surrounding the dominance of specifi-

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cally blackface roles. Such was Pizarro’s success in 1799 that, within a year, there were several versions of the story competing on the London stage, some based on Sheridan’s version of Kotzebue and others based on Jean François Marmontel’s The Incas: or, The Destruction of the Empire of Peru (1777). John Cartwright Cross’s spectacle of Cora; or, The Virgin of the Sun (1799) for the Royal Circus was well received but had thinned out its Spanish parts to just Don Alonzo and his two servants compared with about fifteen named Peruvian roles, all played together with a similar number of sundry unnamed Caciques, warriors and ‘Virgins of the Sun’.116 It seems unlikely some thirty performers bothered to apply themselves uniformly with ‘Spanish brown’. There are also other problems with attributing the widespread use of theatrical blackface. Apart from Wowski, none of the characters mentioned by Rede are female roles, although there were obviously plenty of Peruvian women in Cross’s Cora and, although it seems likely Rolla himself wore brown, two contemporary scene designs for a production of Pizarro do not show any characters wearing coloured-up faces.117 In other words, the actual performance practices are difficult to ascertain and were probably inconsistently applied. A further complication to defining the role and extent of British blackface is that, as with Townley’s High Life Below Stairs, the strong private theatrical following of Pizarro meant that quite distinct and alternative performance practices may have arisen beyond the sight of most reviewers. By 1822 Pizarro was being performed at the private Minor Theatre, Catherine Street, paired with Thomas John Dibdin’s farce, Past Ten O’Clock, and a Rainy Night (1815) – a sure sign not only of its cultural longevity but that it had been enthusiastically taken up by amateurs.118 Further evidence of Pizarro’s popularity amongst the practitioners of private theatricals comes in the sumptuous costume designated as the ‘Peruvian dress for Rolla’ offered for sale at an auction in 1819 of the theatrical wardrobe of an anonymous ‘distinguished Amateur’. Rolla’s costume comprised ‘a white kerseymere chemise … two tiger’s head [sic] and sun in burnished gold … [and] a cloak of leopard-skin’. In the same amateur actor’s sale there was also offered for auction ‘A Moorish dress for Othello (‘a pair of trowsers [sic] … jacket of crimson velvet, lined with blue satin’) together with ‘a real Moorish sword and Marmeluke dagger’, all hinting that actual performance practices were far more fluid and contingent when representing race than simply depending on stage make-up.119 Costuming was at least as important in signifying race and, almost certainly, much pleasanter for the actor. A Boston, Lincolnshire, performance of Othello was thought tedious because the actor who played Othello ‘in a number of his characters … is particularly fond of the Algerine costume’. In this example, it was actually the costume and his hair style (‘unfortunately … dressed in the very best trim and top of fashion, to represent more naturally the sable hero’) which most visibly signified their meaning to this commentator who

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also added that ‘his features and figure are exactly compatible with that race’. The ‘sable’ make-up and much-used provincial actor’s favourite ‘Algerine costume’ existed amidst a spectrum of theatrical appearances, the player’s ‘trim and top of … fashion’ hairstyle only accidentally, it seems, echoing the close-cropped hair of a north African. Only one feature, the ‘sables’ blacking up, represented race, but the critic’s enigmatic comment that ‘his features and figure are exactly compatible with that race’ leaves some room for the implication that this particular ‘Mr. Musgrave’ (‘from Manchester’), who ‘looked Othello very well’, was of mixed race.120 As described in Chapter 1, the sheer volume of players on the Georgian theatrical circuits suggests it is highly unlikely that English players from this period were uniformly of unmixed white European origin. Although Rede solemnly describes the use of burned cork for blacking up, its amateur usage was ridiculed in Arthur Murphy’s The Apprentice (1756) , the plot of which concerns wastrel apprentices with an appetite for dramatics (‘Stand out of the way Lads, and you’ll see me give a Touch of Othello my Dear (takes the Cork and burns it and blacks his Face)’).121 However, Murphy’s Apprentice was intended to ‘repress, by timely ridicule, a passion then growing to excess among the younger branches of the commercial community; that of assembling in spouting clubs’.122 John O’Keefe’s The Toy; or, the Lie of the Day (1798) similarly used its prologue to ridicule an amateur actor taking up the role of Mungo in Bickerstaff ’s The Padlock (1768). He ‘locks his door, and smears his face with cork / … dances, sings, and all so like a black’, but merely confounds his friends trying recognize him in performance, ‘We scan each tone and trace the sooty phiz. / It’s Mr. this – Lord that – conjecture, doubt, / Not one of us can make the younker out’. However, the denouement of O’Keefe’s Prologue (‘Poor Mungo meeting with deserv’d success, / Now wipes his face, puts on his real dress, / Speaks in his natural voice, and Oh! surprize! / An old acquaintance stands before our eyes’), like the intention behind The Apprentice, is focused on the context of amateur theatrical sociability.123 For amateurs, as with the country house performances of Townley’s High Life Below Stairs, blacking up clearly existed within a variety of cultural practices surrounding the popularity of amateur dramatics. Murphy’s Apprentice, like O’Keefe’s Toy, marks out such practices of blacking up as socially inept with their cultural meaning only obliquely referring to race. The counterfeiting of race through blacking up in ‘sables’ or bearing the ‘Spanish brown’ of Othello is an affront to the integrity of racial identity but the actual relationships between race, drama and contemporary Georgian culture were complex. With their awareness of how dramas could fluidly embody both public and private discourses, some of the more prolific dramatists were capable of moving fluently between parody and carefully engineered political polemic. In The Highland Reel (1789), O’Keefe has the parodic character of the laird’s steward M’Gilpin practicing an imaginary parliamentary speech about

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the slave trade while at the same time berating his fellow servants (‘There had I got into my fine speech on the African slaves – painting the distresses of the poor Blackamoors – (You damn’d dog, you shall live on bread and water for this.) … describing, in the most pathetic – the most feeling manner, the cruelty of the planters to the unhappy Negroes … (I’ll cut the flesh of your ugly bones, you miscreant!)’, but elsewhere O’Keefe took a more sober view of slavery.124 While the unlikely context of The Highland Reel reiterates how fully the discourses of abolition had become embodied into the popular culture of the 1780s, when O’Keefe was recalling another incident over forty four years later, he tells of writing into his Dublin comedy, The Young Quaker (1784), an entirely new piece of dialogue specifically tailored for one of the more popular actor’s benefit nights (‘when I knew the Theatre would be full’) in order to specifically express ‘my opinion of the Slave Trade’.125 If O’Keefe’s testimony is a reminder that the stage could be used as a setting for the public declaration of personal politics (his Recollections state very clearly O’Keefe had ‘a motive for wishing’ to use the benefit night for this purpose), theatres were also, in a more general sense, sites where different discourses about slaving competed.126 At its starkest, slaving economies built new theatres when the price of human beings rose. As has been noted, the slave economy of Bristol contributed to theatre building in that city and the historian of the drama of Charleston in South Carolina, W. Stanley Hoole, has shown that the record high price of slaves was a significant factor allowing the re-build of the theatre in 1837.127 In turn, the 1811 theatre fire at Richmond, Virginia, was immediately interpreted in provincial England not only within the predictable framework of the immorality of theatre (‘Do those who encourage theatrical performers, or do the performers themselves properly consider, that time and talents are loans from Heaven[?]’) but also as a specific indictment of ‘the town of Richmond, and many others in the Southern States of America … notorious for their traffic in negroes’.128 Evangelical movements actively engaged against theatre often combined their causes with abolition.129 The evidence presented above suggests that stage blackface was constructed within a bewildering and often contradictory set of social and theatrical practices. Indeed, the dramas themselves were the product of a competing array of national, moral and political discourses, and could also be remarkably sophisticated in their analysis of race. The dramatist and soldier Archibald Maclaren, who served as a sergeant with the Dumbartonshire Highlanders in New York, Philadelphia and Ireland, published two versions of his one act entertainment set in America, The Negro Slaves (1799), the first version of which was performed at the popular Astley’s Amphitheatre, just south of the Thames at London, under the title The Blackman and Blackbird.130 Maclaren’s drama is a useful reminder of the extent to which rationalist ideas about colour and race had been assimilated even amongst non-commissioned Scottish soldiers. Unlike Colman’s constant quibbling about

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the ‘smutty’ permeability of coloured skin, in the last years of the eighteenth century, Maclaren had a clear understanding that skin colour was an indelible quality, while nationality, and even language, were moveable social discourses open to mutation and reformation. Maclaren’s text is itself the embodiment of a fractured set of national and cultural allegiances emerging from his own range of experiences as a soldier and dramatist. In particular, given his background, it is perhaps not surprising that the example of Maclaren appears to make even more complex the implications of Roxann Wheeler’s comments about the role of the Scottish Enlightenment in creating a view of Scotland as the primitive antithesis of English commerce, governance and civility.131 For the second edition of The Negro Slaves, Maclaren modulated the drama’s original partial Scottish dialect (‘they told us how we should have goud [sic] in gowpins [sic] in America’) into a more standardized English, a revision which nevertheless implies it had been performed in its Scottish format (Blackman and Blackbird) at Astley’s in London.132 Although some dialect was retained (including the former passage), lines such as ‘Wae worth that loon of a shoemaker, I’ll wad he has na’ finish’d the scabbard of my durk’ were deleted for the version performed at the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh.133 Although many contemporary authors would have written a London piece in Scots dialect as part of a recognizable convention of theatrical national stereotyping, contrarily Maclaren allowed himself to be co-opted into the sort of standardized Scottish Enlightenment forms of English noted by Roxann Wheeler for the drama’s Edinburgh production.134 The conclusion to be drawn is that class rather than nationality provided the principal determinant of whether Maclaren’s drama was performed in standard or regional dialect versions of English. While dialect was deleted for the Edinburgh royal patent theatre it was retained for the more plebeian Astley’s. In this respect, it conforms to the principles of the relationship between race and class outlined by Eric Lott Blackman and Blackbird’s use of a regional or national dialect, and its conscious editing by the author to suit varying audiences, is a reminder of Maclaren’s fundamental willingness to shift between national and racial categories and to explore the meaning of a series of national and racial dislocations. The play’s slave-owning plantationers are dialect speaking Scots who, when they were in Britain, were subject to the dominant English culture. In America, however, they find themselves speaking Scots dialect surrounded by native American ‘Indians’. No doubt drawing on Maclaren’s own experience of fighting in a Scottish regiment on behalf of the British in America, his play makes much of the political and moral contradictions of Scottish slaving plantation owners, comically inept English migrants and near-comic native Americans. The English settlers, Hobbs and Clumps, are completely out of their depth (‘Oh Hobby! Hobby! what the murrain made us leave Farmer Threshwell’s barn … we wur [sic] never happy

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till we left ould England, now wou’d I give all the teeth in my head to be back again’). Far from gaining ‘goud [sic] in gowpins [sic]’, at the play’s conclusion Hobbs and Clumps end up as indentured workers on a ‘baccar’ (tobacco) plantation.135 Maclaren’s characterization of the incompetent duo provides an effective parody of English empire building. Compared with George Colman’s Inkle and Yarico (1787), Maclaren’s play fixes the connection between colour and slavery rather more critically and foregrounds the complexity of the various competing nationalities and dialects. In Inkle and Yarico, in conformity with Lott’s general theory of minstrelsy, blackness is exclusively treated as a trope, much as if skin colour equalled clothing (‘I myself saw three … all dancing about in black buff ; just like Adam in mourning’) and is often described transmuted into another commodity or quality (‘every inhabitant here is not only as black as a pepper corn, but as hot into the bargain’; ‘toss’d up for a dingy duke … or stew’d down for a black bonnet, or eat raw by an Inky commoner’).136 The commodification of blackness into physical materials (‘Trudge: Yes, all the fine [white] men are like me: As different from your people as powder and ink, or paper and blacking’) ultimately mirrors Inkle’s plan to sell Yarico into slavery (‘I’ve been comparing the land here … and calculating how much it might be made to produce by the acre … if so many natives cou’d be caught, how much they might fetch at the West India markets’).137 But even the language of colour fluctuates uncertainly as to what it might signify (‘Planter: I mean is she for our sale of slaves? Our Black Fair? Trudge: Black Fair! Ha! ha! ha! You hold it on a brown green, I suppose’).138 In Colman, race is always edging against the permeable and transmutable qualities of the complexions described: Patty: Faugh! I wou’dn’t let him kiss me for the world: he’d make my face all smutty. Trudge: … I’d have you to know, Madam Patty, that Blackamoor Ladies, as you call ’em, are some of the very few, whose complexions never rubb off !139

Colman’s Inkle and Yarico typifies many of the period’s cultural attitudes to blackness as represented on stage although it should be remembered that the author himself was deeply reactionary, declaring by 1796 (as noted above) that ‘The stage has, now, no business with Politicks’ and that ‘it is the Lord Chamberlain’s office to check’ political comments ‘before they meet the eye of the Publick’.140 By 1825, newly settled into his Government office of Examiner of Plays, he continued to warn leading parliamentarians against loosening censorship, fearing the consequences should ‘the Stage, instead of an engine directed by the hand of Government, for defence, would become a catapult, to batter it to pieces’.141 Although Colman was a successful and prolific playwright, he was hardly representative of English drama’s most progressive aspects.

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At many points, the language of Maclaren’s play appears confused as to how directly it designates the relationship between race and colour. At the end, the character McSympathy refers to the black female slave Sela’s ‘sooty colour’, a term common enough for referring to black people – as in Richard Cumberland’s Drury Lane comedy, The Wheel of Fortune (1795), ‘As you have been governor of the blacks, I wish you would put the sooty slaves to death’ – yet Henry Fielding’s The Covent-Garden Tragedy (1732) uses ‘sooty’ specifically to refer to Jews (‘The Mistress of a Jew shall envy thee, / By Jove, I’ll force the sooty Tribe to own, / A Christian keeps a Whore as well as they’).142 As with the differentiated theatrical blacking up practices of Yarico and Wowski, stage usage of the tropes concerned with a black complexion varied immensely. David Garrick and George Colman the Elder’s Clandestine Marriage (1766) uses the phrase, ‘There is no washing the Blackamoor white’, as if it were a maxim or proverb, normally a sure indication of its universal cultural comprehension, yet William Macready’s Covent Garden farce, The Irishman in London; or, The Happy African (1793) illustrates how the material social context could be unexpectedly complex. When the black woman Cubba, the paramour of Murtock Delany the Irishman, denies their love (‘but me no want you love me – dat be very wrong – Your face white, me poor negro’), the talk predictably comes round to the facial washing away of blackness (‘I wish she was not sooty’) yet the allusion Murtock makes is to a soap used for blanching into whiteness the hands and faces of the general population: ‘Troth it’s a shame your mistress never found out that fellow, that advertises to white ladies hands and faces, the limping Jew, he’d make you fair as a daisy. Och! If you had ven [sic] a bit of the violent soap, honey’.143 The ‘violent soap’ is one of the astringent agents commonly associated with the practices of bleaching coloured skin, noted by Deirdre Coleman as already commonplace amongst eighteenth-century black people, but Macready’s play appears to refer to this ‘violent soap’ as a substance removing not only racial difference but also the distinguishing colouration of class and religion – it being sold to blanch the hands of all who need it, with the Jewish vendor’s transformational whitening making all ‘ladies’ fit to ‘be a wife for a pope’.144 Whitening agents for English skins were common throughout this period, marketed under names such as ‘Cyprian wash-balls, that whiten and soften the hands’, ‘Polish Vegetable Soap Paste’ for ‘Admirers of a Fair Skin’ and Wittman’s ‘Turkish Wash for Whitening the Skin’.145 Their marketing names are even suggestive of the underlying consumer desirability of foreign, outlandish goods, even when – as in the case of ‘Cyprian wash-balls’ – their branding deployed a term then strongly associated with prostitution or, as in the case of Wittman’s wash, possibly being sold by Jewish vendors similar to the one memorialized in Macready’s text. While a pale skin was obviously prized, its cultural reception took place within a wide variety of practices linked to notions of ‘Cyprian’, ‘Polish’, ‘Turkish’ and Jewish. In other

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words, a whole range of implicit colours and religions were insecurely defined against absolute standards of whiteness or blackness. For wig-makers, who had to suit women’s hair to their complexions, the ‘African head dresses’ of black people even appear to have sometimes been adopted by whites but, in order to cater for this fashion, it was simply a practice necessitating hairdressers or wigmakers gratifying such occasional whims by fashionably darkening the skin.146 Contrasting with blanching products for the skin, Maclaren’s Negro Slaves or Blackman and Blackbird opens with an important and definitive exchange about colour between Captain Racoon, the plantation owner, and his slave, Quako. Apart from its resistive features (‘Quako: I did not think you spoke to me; rogue and villain is not my name’), Maclaren’s drama quickly establishes the difference between colour and race in his eponymous and digressionary parable about the pet blackbird Quako has released from its cage to the consternation of Racoon: ‘Villain! Would any body but a black savage rob a poor blackbird’s nest?’ In Quako’s updating of the well-worn trope about liberating caged birds, the blackbird’s meaning rests securely on the grounding indelibility of its colour, ‘Because I think that too many of their colour are slaves already’.147 Although elsewhere Maclaren’s drama flirts between whimsy and sentimentality (‘Sela: Ah, my dear Missie Phoebe, you always good lady! You always pity when the white-man’s [sic] lash poor negros [sic]’), his choice of title, Blackman and Blackbird, ensures the equivalence of native animal colouring between man and bird, defining it as something not to be washed-off.148 By comparison, Maclaren leaves the drama’s native Americans more uncertainly designated, equivocated between their nocturnal savagery, linguistic anachronism and transient colouration: ‘First Indian: Retire, and mix your painted bodies with the trees … at night we’ll sally forth, and seize both young and old. Prepare your tomohawks [sic] and scalping knives’.149 Exactly how ‘painted’ Maclaren’s Indians were at Astley’s, it is difficult to judge. Other performance practices at Astley’s Amphitheatre suggest that, like Colman’s Inkle and Yarico, direct racial fixing was accompanied by potentially uncertain make-up categories even within the same performance piece. For example, Astley’s summer season for 1788 featured their ‘new Comic Dance called, The Ethiopian Festival’. In one manifestation, ‘The Ethiopian Festival’ presented its two leading performers ‘in the character of an Indian Prince and Princess’ but only a few weeks later Astley’s played the same piece as an event ‘representing the whimsical Actions and Attitudes made use of by the Negroes’.150 In other words, while there can be little doubt that Maclaren’s drama blacked up Quako and Sela (the play’s ‘sable pair’), and that Astley’s blacked up its ‘Ethiopian’ comic dances, The Negro Slaves and Blackman and Blackbird present the fundamental uncertainties of establishing direct linkage between race, colour and class or between competing realms of language and nationality.

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Deploying Scottish dialect in an American setting, the drama’s abstracted principles of Scottish Enlightenment are corroborated with reference to the English anti-slavery movement, but also made simultaneously equivocal by reference to subjugated Ireland (where Maclaren had recently been stationed during the 1798 rebellion): ‘I ha’e seen in England and Ireland too, many a fair bosom heave a sigh, when the suffering of your sooty colour ha’e been related; and shame fa’ me gin I think there was a single grain of false humanity in a’ their feelings’.151 These incongruities and paradoxes of slave ownership abound, even amidst the legacy of Scottish Enlightenment’s theory of moral sentiments, to which the standardizing removal of the original Scots dialect in the second edition seems to draw attention: ‘MacSympathy: Poor fallow! were I master of your sensibility, I wa’d na’ exchange it for a’ your maister’s plantations’.152 Adam Smith’s notion of benevolent moral sentiment, treated here as if they were a type of transferable property, appears to be extended into satire. When they are surrounded by hostile (if, in reality, comic) Indians, Quako is cautioned ‘ye maun take care of your black callans [children]’, but the call for him to defend the plantationers and place himself in danger is declined, again within terms of rational Enlightenment and the dignity of his own subjectivity: ‘Quako: I’m my master’s property, and must not be us’d to his disadvantage … My heart would prompt me to revenge, but I’ve been taught to read, and the books bid me love my enemies’.153 Maclaren’s Negro Slaves is remarkable in parading these liminal qualities but without defining or declaring solutions to the problems portrayed. In this drama, with its unenlightened Scots plantationers, militant native Americans, bumbling English and morally challenging slaves, the meaning of Quako’s parable of the blackbird’s blackness is forgotten and the two slaves continue to the end as merely ‘sooty’ beings. Freed by Captain Racoon, and with Quako and Sela soon to depart for England and liberty, the end of the entertainment turns to the Captain’s fears of being publicly shamed (‘And I suppose, Mr. and Mrs. Blackamoor, you’ll not lessen the reports that fly there, of the planter’s bad usage of their negroes?’). Indeed, his decision to free them appears to have been slow, truculent and devoid of any personal commitment, his usage of slaves self-excused because ‘custom has a wonderful effect upon our manners … my father left them as slaves, and as slaves I kept them till … aye, egad, till I cou’d keep them no longer; for you all seem’d so interested … Miss Phoebe was their chief advocate … Such eloquent lectures’.154 With national and racial morality unexpectedly pushed to their limits, Maclaren’s drama presents a cautionary example of the intricacies of the representation of race on the Georgian stage around 1800. Although replete with blackface, the central structural narrative of The Negro Slaves presents a fairly sophisticated critique of slavery and one which appears to have reached a popular or plebeian audience at the illegitimate Astley’s Amphitheatre, Westminster Bridge.

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Although Maclaren’s Negro Slaves or Blackman and Blackbird portrays something of the complexity within British representations of race and empire on the stage, reflecting Maclaren’s own liminal position as a wounded lower ranked Scottish ex-soldier serving the British government in America and Ireland, and while the Astley’s Amphitheatre venue was one of the largest then available in London outside of the patent theatres, the play could not match the sheer longevity in the Georgian dramatic repertoire of Colman’s Inkle and Yarico which was still playing in provincial England into the 1830s. Just as it had been perceived as a contribution to the debate about the slave trade in 1780s York, or early 1790s Norwich and Bungay, so too in Scarborough in 1830 Inkle and Yarico may still have been perceived as relevant to the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act. For the citizens of Philadelphia, the racial implications inherent in the awkward English tradition of playing native Americans as both ‘sables’ and smeared in the generic vermillion or pomatum of the acting profession, were alleviated by removing Wowski in order to reveal the physically courageous native American woman, Yarico, of The American Heroine.

3 JAMES HEWLETT, IRA ALDRIDGE AND THE DEATH OF CHRISTOPHE, KING OF HAYTI

Meanwhile, some of the Georgian playhouses, and the dramas performed in them, were moving into a position where, in October 1825, they could accommodate Ira Aldridge onto a British stage.1 There can be no doubt as to the historical significance of a coloured man’s repeat appearances in a London playhouse. Of course, as Donald M. Morales has argued, black American actors and playwrights – perhaps with the sole exception of the New York African Theatre of the early 1820s – have failed to prosper within their own country in comparison to poets or novelists.2 What has not been commented on before is the significance of Aldridge having elected to perform in one of London’s most progressive non-patent theatres, even if it was, inevitably, within a regulatory system excluding him from performing Shakespeare and spoken drama. Overviews of Aldridge’s appearances in Britain, including the evidence afforded by contemporary reviews and the significance of his performing Oroonoko, the Royal Slave, have been given by Hazel Waters and Felicity Nussbaum.3 Waters’s analysis of the first Times review gives a clear indication of its racist language, how it was replete with references to a monkey and a crossings’ sweeper, and condemnation for his having a skin lighter than the colour of his black worsted stockings (‘little darker than the dun cow’). Indeed, the constant allusion in the review to his ‘complexion’ emphasizes important aspects of contemporary attitudes about race amongst the patrician class.4 One of the terms repeated by The Times reviewer is that Aldridge was a ‘theatrical novelty’, a ‘novelty of … spectacle’. However, far from this being a specialist role, Oroonoko was capable of being performed by actors, like himself, who were relative newcomers to the profession. At the Theatre Royal Norwich in 1790, the role of Oroonoko had been performed by ‘a Gentleman (Being his Second Appearance on the Stage)’.5 Paradoxically, The Times’s venture south of the river was also in itself something of a novelty because the newspaper was an infrequent reviewer of Coburg productions. Although the newspaper reported the steady stream of criminal incidents occurring in the theatre’s highly variable environs, only the

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monopolistic Covent Garden, Drury Lane and Haymarket playhouses received regular reviews. The Coburg audience on Aldridge’s first night were volatile but not unusually so. The reviewer reported that ‘the audience laughed at him all the way through the play until he stabbed his wife, and then they applauded him loudly’. Clearly, misogyny was more prevalent amongst the Coburg’s audience than racism. That the Coburg audience could be disruptive, and even physically violent, is beyond doubt. In July 1824, ‘a ruffian threw a large stone ginger-beer bottle with the greatest violence into the pit’ where it injured an elderly woman and the perpetrator was lucky to escape the wrath of the audience.6 Even elaborately presented novelties sometimes failed to engage. When the Royal Coburg’s expensive glass mirror curtain reflecting the audience was introduced in 1821, it provoked little enthusiasm. After five minutes The Times reported a member of the audience stood up and said, ‘“Well! Now take that away and bring us something else”’.7 In other words, contrary to The Times review, Aldridge’s first appearance had really gone off rather well. The Coburg’s playbill seven days later for Aldridge’s next appearance, ‘Unprecedented Success of the African Tragedian!!!’, contained only the usual degree of puffery.8 The circumstances of the Coburg as the first venue for a coloured actor in Britain need to be analysed further. What hasn’t been discussed before are Aldridge’s reasons for coming to England in the first place, risking unfamiliar audiences in a new country and performing in theatres of much greater size and prestige than he was used to. It is also necessary to try and disentangle his career at the African Theatre from that of another black actor there, James Hewlett, who seems to have preceded him across the Atlantic. Peter Buckley’s essay, ‘Obi in New York: Aldridge and the African Grove’, has done much to review the drama and politics of that crucial period around 1820–3 when a black theatre opened in New York.9 Buckley’s work follows on from George A. Thompson Jr’s A Documentary History of the African Theatre (1998) which provides the empirical basis for the circumstances surrounding the inauguration, survival and dispersal of the New York African Theatre in the early 1820s, together with the collation of every known contemporary reference to both Hewlett and Aldridge. Thompson’s comment that their ‘story has generally been told for its pathos, portraying the men and women of the company as victims of injustice, hostility and mob violence’ is replaced by what he describes as ‘a different version … throwing the emphasis on the boldness of their undertaking and the artistic creativity and business enterprise it showed’.10 Aldridge’s appearances at the Royal Coburg should be viewed with a similar sense of his success in facing the professional and personal challenges of the London stage. However, Hewlett’s and Aldridge’s association with the shortlived African Theatre of New York and its productions needs to be examined before analyzing Aldridge’s position as a Royal Coburg player.

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James Hewlett wrote an important letter published in The Times in July 1824 complaining about the satirical mimickry of Charles Mathews’s hit sketch, ‘Opossum up a Gum-Tree’, a comic scene contained within his larger entertainment known as the ‘Trip to America’ and apparently based on Mathews’s experience of having seen the Mercer Street African Theatre in New York in which a black actor was performing Hamlet.11 While George A.Thompson Jr records this letter as first published in the American National Advocate on 8 May 1824, he does not notice that the London Times carried it a few months later.12 Alongside Thompson’s fascinating identification of the possibility of Hewlett’s acquaintance with Stratford Canning, first Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe (1786–1880), a diplomat based in Washington from 1820–3, it is significant that there appears to have been an English dimension to the American actor’s career. Thompson’s further identification of a reference to Hewlett in the correspondence of Charles Mathews, written in January 1825, makes it very likely Hewlett visited both Liverpool and London around that time, performing an At Home in Liverpool in imitation of Mathews’s successful series of comic sketches.13 If true, this would make Hewlett, and not Aldridge, the first black actor to work on an English stage. But Hewlett’s letter is also important not least because the specificity of its historical moment can now be seen to have been erroneously narrated in Eric Lott’s Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (1993). Samuel A. Hay’s African American Theatre: A Historical and Critical Analysis (1994) has since corrected Lott’s surmise but its implications need to be set out.14 Lott concluded that Aldridge had been the target of Mathews’s sketch and relates how he ‘coolly disavowed the imitation: “The truth … is that I never attempted the character of Hamlet in my life, and I need not say that the whole of the ludicrous scene so well and so humourously described by Mr. Mathews never occurred at all.”’ As Lott points out, Aldridge was subsequently besieged by requests to perform ‘Opossum up a Gum-Tree’ and he soon incorporated it into his performances, ‘one of Mathews’s most profitable caricatures becoming one of Aldridge’s most profitable performances’. Lott concludes that ‘Its influence is a foretaste of the way the minstrelization of black practices helped to obscure them’.15 In this example of Mathews’s clear-cut minstrelizing, it may matter little that his own reputation was based on the observation and, ultimately, commodification by caricature, of the human types he thought might be comically recognizable to his audiences. Surging public interest in actors and all things theatrical meant he knew this was a rich vein of comedy to exploit and he had long included imitations of British actors in his shows, giving his ‘Hamlet’s advice to the Players in IMITATION of several celebrated Performers!!!’ at the conclusion to one of his benefit nights as early as 1814.16 Far from being a one-

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off targeting of the New York African Theatre performers, Mathews was doing something he had done many times before. The Hewlett letter not only gives credibility to Aldridge’s disavowal of never having played Hamlet but it also complicates, without invalidating, the lesson Lott draws from it – that this was the simple minstrelizing victimization of a black actor (Aldridge) by a white man (Mathews). Not only does it appear Aldridge appropriated Mathews’s caricature of a black performance, Aldridge also appropriated James Hewlett’s original performance on which the sketch was based. However, more important than any of this is the insurgent voice of Hewlett’s address to Mathews in his letter to The Times. Far from remaining a hapless victim, a passive minstrel, it is now clear that Hewlett mounted an immediate counter-attack and achieved publication for his views in both the American National Advocate and the London Times. Hewlett’s dignified and elegant riposte contained not only an important critique of American racism, it was also a defence of British interracial practices as perceived by Hewlett in the early 1820s. When illuminated by Hewlett’s probable presence in Liverpool and London around 1824, and Aldridge’s determination to visit England, his comments comprise a remarkable re-evaluation of attitudes towards colour in the two countries. Lott provides much of the background to Mathews’s visit to America but does not make it clear that the punch-line of Mathews’s sketch lay in transposing the last phrase of the black American’s rendition of Hamlet’s words, ‘Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, / And by opposing end them?’ into a song, ‘Opposum up a gum-tree’.17 Mathews’s sketches were invariably pirated and unauthorized, but Hewlett seems to have been personally offended upon receiving details of the sketch, strongly implying that he believed it was his own performance Mathews had witnessed.18 His letter clarifies much which has otherwise remained obscure about the incident. Hewlett accused Mathews of having ‘burlesqued me with the rest of the Negro actors, as you are pleased to call us – mimicked our styles – imitated our dialects – laughed at our anomalies – and lampooned, O shame! our complexions’. It is not certain whether Mathews blacked up for the sketch, which was quite short, but it is certainly a straightforward example of the type of minstrelizing Lott has identified and not comparable in its racial specificity to Mathews’s closely contemporary parodying of the imaginary white Yankee yeoman, Jonathan W. Doubikin, similarly included in the ‘Trip to America’ entertainment.19 However, mustering some dignity, Hewlett’s letter continued: In our free and happy country, custom and a meridian sun have made some distinctions and classifications in the order of society relative to complexions, ‘’tis true, ’tis pity, an pity ’tis, ’tis true;’ but in England, where these anomalous distinctions are unknown, nay, where international marriages and blending of colours are sometimes seen, what warrant can you have of lampooning our complexion?20

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His ironizing about ‘our free and happy country’ apart, Hewlett’s comments about the United States’s ‘distinctions and classifications in the order of society relative to complexions’ are contrasted to that of ‘England, where these anomalous distinctions are unknown, nay, where international marriages and blending of colours are sometimes seen’. From Hewlett’s point of view, it was ‘our complexions’, the signifying skin colour, which had fixed him ‘relative’ to the American ‘order of society’ and which he feared was now being reiterated and affirmed in Mathews’s ‘Opossum up a Gum-Tree’ sketch. The ‘Trip to America’ was certainly taken up enthusiastically by British audiences although this episode formed only a small part of the overall entertainment. As Lott points out, Mathews frequently performed the ‘Opossum’ song himself until his death in 1835, but the ‘Trip to America’ passed blithely even into Richard Carlile’s Newgate Monthly Magazine, or Calendar of Men, Things and Opinions, and found provincial adaptations such as Mr. Mathews’ Trip to America even in rural Stamford, Lincolnshire.21 Hewlett’s experience of London caused him to differentiate between racial practices in America and Britain, crucially acknowledging that, ‘in England … anomalous distinctions are unknown … international marriages and blending of colours are sometimes seen’. The comment gives an authoritative verdict, by a black actor with experience of both countries, about the differences in prevailing attitudes towards race and colour. Additionally, it also embodies an extraordinary and immediate expression of how minstrelsy affected actors of colour. Although the letter is not referred to by Lott in its Times context, its ending precisely defines Hewlett’s nascent awareness of the minstrelizing predicament of the black player that Love and Theft has done so much to define: Let me not be considered as censuring your course of entertainments. I am so much the servant of the public, as office-holders would say, that I am even proud to be laughed-at; and certain I am that no man on earth can raise a laugh at others’ expense equal to yourself. In short, you have my entire good wishes; but, my dear Mathews, remember when you next ridicule the ‘tincture of the skin’, do not forget the texture of the mind.

Here, Hewlett seems to exactly identify the paradox of a minstrelized man, ‘even proud to be laughed-at’, aware that his calling as a player makes him ‘the servant of the public’, and that his audience will criticize, sometimes admire, but very often caricature his performances. Hewlett’s riposte to one of the most famous white comic actors of the day seems to fix both of them below the par of the tragedians, including Ira Aldridge, who was billed in England as ‘the African Tragedian!!!’ A fascinating aspect of this prickly distant relationship between the Englishman and the black actor is that some years earlier Mathews had commissioned his own portrait painting by Samuel de Wilde, Charles Mathews

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as Somno in The Sleepwalker, showing him in a scene from Walley Chamberlain Oulton’s Haymarket comedy of that name (c. 1813, The Garrick Club, London).22 Portraying him open-mouthed and blankly staring, dressed in the sleepwalker’s unconscious selection of odd and contrasting garments, de Wilde’s portrait hinted at traditional pantomime harlequin figures as well as looking forward to Mathews’s rapidly developing career as a modern comedian. Considering this disarming self-understanding on the part of Mathews, his denigration of Hewlett and the African Theatre players is all the more revealing for what it tells us about both men. As far as its secondary publication is concerned, the precise location of Hewlett’s letter to The Times can only be circumstantially placed because he provides no address other than his status as the ‘Chief performer’ of the African Theatre, Mercer Street, New York. However, it has long been held that Hewlett was in England in 1824, possibly working as the dresser of the American actor Henry Wallack, possibly also acting himself at an unidentified theatre, possibly in Liverpool.23 By 1825 Hewlett was back in New York, billed as ‘the New York and London Coloured Comedian’, but while he is covered fairly extensively in the relevant volume of George C. D. Odell’s Annals of the New York Stage (1928), no reference is made there to Ira Aldridge – although the Coburg playbill for his first night states quite explicitly that he was ‘from the African Theatre, New York’.24 Situating both Aldridge and Hewlett in the context of their roots in the New York African Theatre helps define what they had achieved to date and also sets the context for their English experiences. As George A. Thompson Jr and Peter Buckley have noted, the African Company production in June 1823 of William Thomas Moncrieff ’s Tom and Jerry: or, Life in London in 1820 (1823) inserted an entirely new extra scene, ‘Life in Limbo, Life in Love; on the Slave market, Vango Range in Charleston’, almost certainly conceived as a daring commentary on Denmark Vesey’s recent abortive slave insurrection in South Carolina.25 The African Theatre production of Tom and Jerry, or, Life in London, was significant in a number of ways. As referred to above, William J. Mahar’s finding that Thomas Dartmouth Rice’s minstrelized Jim Crow in London (1827) was itself a burlesque of Moncrieff ’s Tom and Jerry is a reminder of the contemporary significance of this highly successful Georgian burletta as a dramatic vehicle whose controversial morality, popular songs, fast moving and urban slang dialect, all contributed to making it the source of numerous versions and piratings.26 While Buckley remarks on the significance of the black male actor who played the cross-dressed figure of African Sal, in the context of the minstrelizing debate it is also relevant that William Brown’s production of Tom and Jerry omitted one of its original London Adelphi theatre favourites, the black one-legged sailorfiddler character, Billy Waters. In doing this, they appear to have been following

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the example of the Park Theatre, New York production of 3 March 1823 which had similarly omitted Waters.27 Paul Edwards and James Walvin have claimed that the historical Waters, at that time a well-known street musician in the environs of London’s Strand, had sometimes appeared in Moncrieff ’s burletta at the Adelphi playing himself, but this has yet to be substantiated.28 In England, Billy Waters’s popularity was such that – because of the impact of the Tom and Jerry plays adapted for the stage from Pierce Egan’s Life in London (1820) – he was commemorated in a porcelain figure mass-produced at one of the Derby pottery factories.29 Dusty Bob and African Sal were similarly produced as Derby porcelain figouriness.30 While the New York Park Street and African Company versions included Dusty Bob and African Sal in their cast lists, paradoxically, the original racial differentiation or international marriages intended in the London productions (in which, depending on the version, Dusty Bob was variously designated as a coal heaver or a garbage collector) would have been virtually incomprehensible in New York’s African Theatre, while remaining clear in the Park Street production. In London and in Park Street, Dusty Bob was a white man playing opposite a blacked-up male African Sal; at Mercer Street both men would have been black actors. Both Hewlett and Aldridge appreciated that England presented a more welcoming and professionally informative environment than America. As Odell notes, there was little left for them in the USA. By early 1822 the New York police had issued a closure notice on the African Theatre (which was defied), but the audience were already throwing fire-crackers onto the stage, despite the theatre’s attempts to segregate white and black members of the audience.31 Although neither Hewlett nor Aldridge seem to have played in the African Theatre’s production of Tom and Jerry, like its producer they would have immediately realized the satirical possibilities of its portrayal of loutish white gentry drunkenly rampaging through a city on their ‘sprees’ and ‘larks’. They may also have noticed the scenes showing the vigorously communal life of the London poor as typified by Dusty Bob and African Sal. White urban delinquency was a rising phenomenon popularized in Egan’s original Life in London and it provided much of the moral context for the plays. Charles Isaac Mungo Dibdin’s songs written for the November 1821 Olympic production had been dropped by the time of its 1822 printed version but the Larpent copy neatly summarizes Tom and Jerry’s gentrified immorality: We three jolly boys be Rovers that range the Streets for a spree Which costs us our money and liberty But no matter as long as we’ve money.32

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At another point in the licensing copy, Jerry says: ‘Oh, there’s a Row! I must be in that – this is Life in London, Oh! its glorious fun –’. By the time of the 1822 printed edition, this has become ‘Oh, there’s a row! I must be in that, because it’s Life in London’. The slight alteration in the printed version makes Jerry’s participation far more celebratory and affirmative, losing a degree of his detachment. As it happens, the scene takes place in the box lobby (or ‘the Fruit-Room’ in the first printed edition) of one of London’s theatres, and concerns a contrived scuffle in a public place, ensuring that the drama’s self-theatricalization doubly validates the disruptive actions of those involved.33 The context of such theatricalized representations of white behaviour, which they no doubt witnessed at the Park Theatre production, must have been attractive to the African Company, although it is unlikely they were aware of how narrowly the play had escaped being censored in London.34 Tom and Jerry’s Regency beaus and dandies had long been satirized on stage. Moncrieff ’s own Giovanni in London (1817) had described their dress in one of the burletta’s songs: And [to] be complete a Beau, Sir, … You must get a pair of stays, Like the ladies, like the ladies, Through an eye-glass still must gaze, And stare at all you meet, Sir! With sham collar hide your nose, Wear false calves like other beaux, And still a brazen front disclose, With brass heels on your feet, Sir. Tol de rol, &c.35

The counterfeiting of ‘false calves’ or ‘stays’ to disguise the outline of the body, and a ‘sham collar’, were not only manifestations of stage practices – a counterfeiting which ran seamlessly into real life – but they also provided an opportunity for the black actors of the African Company Tom and Jerry to satirize white manners. As the second Olympic Life in London put it in a scene where the upper-class beaus run off without paying the owner of a coffee stall: Coffee Woman: Come, come – that won’t do – you Gentlemen? A pair of dandies, with collars sticking out about your necks & the devil a shirt to your backs, and I tells you once for all, if I don’t get my money from that green spectacle, blinking fellow there, I’ll fetch my husband, to mill his glaze & the Flue Faker to thump you all round, – that’s vat I vill. (Exit Coffee Woman in a rage).36

Quite clearly, white Regency fashion when appropriated by black actors could create a further level of commentary on their own subjection to the minstrelizing representations they had experienced at the hands of Charles Mathews. Black

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New York actors playing the white dandies of the day, replete with their ‘false calves’, ‘sham collars’ and ‘Cossack’ trousers, would not only have been highly satirical, it would also have presented a significant riposte to the counterfeiting of blackness in American minstrelsy. The New York African production of Tom and Jerry provided an explicit opportunity for black actors to satirize white behaviour with impunity. The drama’s complicated London development, moving from south London Amphitheatres to the illegitimate Olympic and Adelphi, and its near-miss with the Examiner of Plays, all testify to its deeply embedded plebeian origins.37 Its further adaptation by the African Company is a remarkable example of the international transfer of a Georgian burletta and how the reception and meaning of drama are situated at its performance location. Not least, the African Company production of Tom and Jerry, with its black men playing English minor gentry, provides a suggestive original for the later American nineteenth-century minstrels who developed into the Zip Coon, ‘broadway swell’ or Dandy Jim memorably illustrated in Hans Nathan’s formative study, Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Negro Minstrelsy (1962).38 In other words, Pierce Egan’s Georgian London urbanites, Corinthian Tom, Jerry Hawthorne and Bob Logic, dramatized by Dibdin and Moncrieff as caricatures of metropolitan culture, and redefined by New York’s Mercer Street black actors into satires on white behaviour, were adapted into America’s later nineteenthcentury minstrelized caricatures of fashionable black men. Again, the most likely transmission route for the popularity of such figures was probably Thomas Dartmouth Rice’s Jim Crow in London (1837).39 In the same way that black actors found themselves counterfeited, the white English beaus of the 1820s –with their sham collars, stays and false calves – could be counterfeited in turn. It is this complex interaction between different performance practices, developed for precise cultural contexts, which allows us to understand both the origin of American minstrelsy and its intricate relationship to English drama. Indeed, the Mercer Street Tom and Jerry is only one example in an important series of interactions. Samuel A. Hay in African American Theatre: A Historical and Critical Analysis (1994) noticed that the minstrels’ caricatured rolling eyes and flashing teeth also featured as part of the black actor James Hewlett’s imitations of the white actor Edmund Kean. Quoting Manuel Noah’s 1821 National Advocate review of Hewlett playing scenes from Richard III (‘the agony of the appalled Richard, the rolling eye, white gnashing teeth, clenched fists, and phrenzied looks, were all that the author could have wished’), Hay comments that Hewlett had ‘adopted Kean’s romantic acting style ... Hewlett was simply Kean with a coloured face’.40 In other words, as Hay has perceptively demonstrated, the characteristic Zip Coon and Broadway Swell derive from black men imitating white men, perhaps specifically James Hewlett imitating Edmund Kean.

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However, it is the African Company’s insertion of the newly written scene, ‘Life in Limbo, Life in Love; on the Slave market, Vango Range in Charleston’, which provides the most profound satirical commentary on white manners. Moncrieff ’s Tom and Jerry had featured a scene in Tattersal’s, the premier horse dealer in London (probably equating, in the African Company version to the scene entitled ‘Life on Foot’, in which Tommy Green acquires a horse). Moncrieff ’s scene is predicated on the commercial value of intermingled blood stock and horse-flesh (‘he was got by Blackleg out of Greenhorn – what shall I say, gentlemen, for this beautiful and most serviceable animal?’) with the scene’s comedy arising from the duping of the naive Jemmy Green into buying a substandard steed. It is not difficult to see that the valuation of horseflesh made into comedy by Moncrieff is in New York equated with the valuation of human flesh. The slave market in Charleston was the equivalent of the horsemarket in London. The African Company’s new scene ‘on the Slave market’ of Charleston would have made a very clear point about that equation. There were probably other quite specific allusions present between black and white cultures. The African Company’s Tom and Jerry also included a character called Crib who, in Moncrieff ’s version, is Tom Crib, the master of a boxing hall. Pugilism was of great importance not only in Moncrieff ’s drama but also to Pierce Egan, the originator of the Life in London novella. Egan was a notable boxing journalist and author of the successful, Boxiana: or, Sketches of Ancient and Modern Pugilism; from the Days of the Renowned Broughton and Slack to the heroes of the present Milling Era (1812). Such was the interest in boxing, Moncrieff ’s Tom and Jerry also had another scene (Act I Scene IV) set in Tom’s own private ‘Chaffing Crib in Corinthian House – Table, Boxing Gloves … &c. &c’. while a third episode alludes to how ‘the black miller’ (i.e. boxer) had been ‘floor’d’ by his opponent.41 Moncrieff made an unusually precise reference to two famous boxing matches which took place between the ex-Virginian slave, Tom Molineux, and the white pugilist, Tom Crib, between 1810 and 1811 at Thistleton Gap in Rutland, England. That Ira Aldridge would have been aware of this allusion seems confirmed by a later nineteenth-century claim that he was once apprenticed as a ship’s carpenter and learned his trade in the same ship-yard as ‘Molyneux [sic], the celebrated negro pugilist’, an etching of whom was included in Egan’s Boxiana.42 It is quite conceivable that Crib’s character in the African Company adaptation took advantage of these allusions, particularly as their boxing contests had been long fought and, for the most part, equally contested. They would certainly have had a personal resonance for Aldridge. In any event, the African Company’s Crib would have been played by a black man, a neat way of alluding to Molineux’s importance in black culture. The African Theatre production of its adapted Tom and Jerry must have signalled to Aldridge the professional potential of gaining London theatrical

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experience, and, by the time he arrived in England, he must have felt at least passingly familiar with metropolitan trends. He had probably also benefited from an established tradition of American theatre owners visiting England to find new texts and new performers. It was not just a case of chancing one’s fortune but also of learning the English repertoire still holding sway in America. Watching and listening to how it was done, the disposition of entrances and exits, observing the stage and property business created for the roles, were important professional acquisitions for anyone contemplating a career in acting. For both Hewlett and Aldridge, their English experience was an important stage in their development as actors and, in making such expeditions, they followed recognized practices for working in the American theatre. John Durang recalled that the theatre owners Thomas and Joseph Henry Wignell made visits to England as early as 1793, bringing back with them not only ‘good’ actors ‘of great talent’ but also an ‘extensive wardrobe and library of dramatic and musical books’.43 In 1818, Edmund Shaw Simpson, the manager of the Park Theatre, New York, had journeyed on a similar expedition, including visiting the newly opened Royal Coburg Theatre where Aldridge would act seven years later. Visiting it within a few weeks of opening, Shaw Simpson thought the Coburg ‘a very pretty Theater, but [with a] poor Company’.44 However, as will be outlined in a later chapter, the Coburg quickly established itself as a highly innovative theatre, developing not only a distinctive reputation for producing drama dealing with topical affairs, but also one for its increasing adeptness at exploiting the otherwise unpromising stipulation of burletta and pantomime. It was the Coburg’s restriction to burletta and pantomime, rather than his acting ability or inexperience, which stopped Aldridge appearing in Othello. It would be wrong to assume Aldridge was not good enough or experienced enough to play Othello in London in late 1825. Like most playhouses in London, the Coburg lacked the royal patent for performing Shakespeare and recent historians have underestimated the longevity of this theatrical regulation.45 It is not the case that ‘Juggling, music, dancing, opera, pantomime, entr’act, tragedy, and comedy were all lumped together on the London stage’.46 Indeed, the Royal Coburg had been the subject of a landmark legal judgement made against it in 1821 which upheld the privileges of the patentees.47 This was a significant legal ruling which one contemporary barrister described as ‘truly the bathos of legislation’, marvelling how – because the monopoly meant no further licenses for legitimate performance could be issued – ‘a man is convicted under an act for not having in Surrey, what the same act declares cannot be granted to him, out of Westminster’.48 If Aldridge had escaped the American racial discrimination described by Hewlett and the segregated theatres of New York, he now had to navigate London’s irksome theatrical regulatory environment.

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However, the Royal Coburg was probably the most exciting and innovative playhouse in London at that time. Forced to produce only burletta and pantomime, it quickly learned how to adapt and exploit the theatrical forms to which it was restricted. Aldridge could hardly have created a better professional opportunity for himself. Right from the beginning, the Coburg performed topical or ‘local’ drama, as it was termed. On its opening night in May 1818 the Coburg presented a drama which provided a commentary on the complex legal aftermath of the murder of a gardener’s daughter, Mary Ashford, in 1817. The ensuing controversy over whether medieval trial by combat was still permissible in the English courts had caught the popular imagination.49 The play written and produced by the Coburg’s manager, William Barrymore, was entitled, Trial by Battle; or, Heaven Defend the Right (1818), ‘In which will be poutrayed the ancient mode of decision by Kemp Fight, or Single Combat’, and was clearly aimed at responding to topical interest in the case.50 This willingness to take on topical issues is also reflected by melodramatic burlettas such as the (now lost) Lazaria the Greek! Or, the Archon’s Daughter (1823) performed in November 1823. The production was supported ‘under the Immediate Patronage’ of the Greek Committee founded that spring by Jeremy Bentham and Sir John Bowring, and which went on to sponsor Lord Byron’s expedition. Billed in support of the ‘Greek Cause!’ the playbill proclaimed ‘Greece is fighting for Liberty’, with the piece including ‘A Grand Allegorical Ballet, Dedicated to Liberty’.51 Preceding Aldridge’s engagement by almost two years, Lazaria the Greek! is a good indicator of the Coburg’s confidence that audiences would be attracted by the liberal and progressive politics of such productions. Nor were these merely strategies adopted by opportunistic managers. According to the comedian Joe Cowell, nearly all of the Coburg’s staff and actors were supporters of Queen Caroline, a radical stance maintained in opposition to the Prince Regent and his government. On the night of Caroline’s acquittal in November 1820 after her arraignment before the House of Lords for adultery, Cowell went on stage for his first role and ‘without thought, in the fullness of my feeling, I proposed “Three cheers for the queen!” which was instantly given, with due dramatic precision, and responded to nine times by the audience, in a voice of thunder! All the actors rushed upon the stage, dressed and undressed’.52 Scarcely a year later, in November 1821, Cowell sailed for New York where he joined the Park Theatre company and played Jerry Hawthorne in their production of Tom and Jerry in March 1823 (ODNB). Although communication between black and white actors in New York would have been tempered by locally prevailing attitudes to racial difference, Cowell – as much as anyone – presents a likely transmission route for Aldridge to have learned more about the Coburg.53

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However it came about that Aldridge obtained his opening, he was entering a theatre which was not only topical, politicized and technically innovative (as demonstrated by its glass drop curtain), but also of considerable size, its audience capacity of 3,800 exceeding that of either Covent Garden or Drury Lane.54 Charles Isaac Mungo Dibdin corroborates that the Coburg had an unusual extra tier of boxes, more akin to the (self-proclaimed) Theatre Royal, Windsor, or the Theatre Royal, Margate, which also accommodated extra numbers.55 Although it would not affect Aldridge directly, as far as the regulatory regime was concerned, the Coburg was also beyond the jurisdiction of Lord Chamberlain – although not, of course, beyond the litigious patent theatres or the episodic power of the licensing magistrates. This was the context in which Ira Aldridge performed at the Coburg and it suggests a different role for him than that assigned by Nussbaum, who, based on his performance of repertoire pieces such as Thomas Southerne’s Oroonoko (1696), designates him with a curious lack of agency, claiming his position as a token symbolic beginning which was also an ending: ‘a new racial realism slowly makes a place for the first black actor whose dark skin and specifically African origins become a crucial part of his appeal on the English stage’.56 Although Oroonoko was a familiar repertoire piece, which no doubt the Coburg’s players would have felt comfortable with whatever the unquantified skills of their new lead player, it would be wrong to underestimate its contemporary political purchase or how it might have been adapted, textually or subtextually, to accommodate late Georgian anti-slavery sentiment. Bridget Orr, in Empire on the English Stage 1660–1714 (2001) has noted that although its modern reception has often been negative, even by seventeenth-century standards Southerne’s play ‘supports [Charles] Gildon’s call [in Miscellaneous Letters and Essays (1694)] for a drama which ignores “accidents of complexion” in order “to do justice to nations as well as to persons”’.57 While Virginia Mason Vaughan has emphasized how contemporary ‘audiences … seem to have been moved by the pathos of Oroonoko’s enslavement’, Nussbaum neglects to consider that later eighteenth-century receptions of Oroonoko included at least one attempt to modify some of its outmoded presentations.58 Manchester’s interest in theatricals, indicated by publications such as its journal, The Thespian Review … Performers on the Manchester Stage, Pro & Con (Manchester 1806), was evident in the local physician and medical writer, John Ferriar’s adaptation of Southerne’s original into The Prince of Angola, a Tragedy, Altered from the Play of Oroonoko. And Adapted to the Circumstances of the Present Times (Manchester, 1788).59 Ferriar was clearly not only aware of Southerne’s text but also how it had been adapted in 1753 by John Hawkesworth.60 Although The Prince of Angola does not appear to have been performed, the specific ‘Circumstances of the Present Times’ alluded to in Ferriar’s title are those surrounding the movement for the abolition

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of the ‘African Slave Trade’, Ferriar regarding himself, with many in ‘Manchester … active friends of the cause’.61 As has been shown above with regard to the general manner in which playtexts and performances sharpened the critical acumen of provincial theatregoers, his rationale for adapting Oroonoko implies an astute reading of the original text’s political narrative: Although the incidents appeared even to invite sentiments adverse to slavery, yet Southern, not contented with refusing them, delivered by the medium of his Hero, a grovelling apology for slave-holders, which Hawkesworth has retained.62

Ferriar had perceived that Southerne was an apologist for slavery who, ‘if he suspect[ed] his plot, of any tendency to create a horror of slavery … took effectual methods to correct it’ and Ferriar’s Prologue goes on to describe how ‘lost in Southern’s Dross …/ Deform’d and rude, the Royal Image lay’.63 He was particularly sensitive to those who thought the rapidly industrializing town only expressive of ‘“the unfeeling Spirit of Trade”’.64 Once again, it seems, the politics of race had returned to the politics of class. Ferriar’s Prince of Angola and its attention to ‘the Resolutions of the Manchester society for procuring the final Abolition of the Slave Trade’, provides definitive evidence for how plays accumulated enough critical dissatisfaction to provoke modification while still remaining valued for their dramatization of difficult topical subjects.65 That Ferriar accurately reflected local concerns about race is corroborated by the decision of Manchester City Art Gallery to make, as one of its first acquisitions, Royal Academician James Northcote’s striking oil portrait of Ira Aldridge, entitled ‘Othello, the Moor of Venice’ (1826). It is probable that, at a subtextual level, drama continued to be contingently modified in the playhouses as attitudes to both race and politics changed. This suggests a rather more gradual and evolutionary set of transitions than is implied by the ‘new racial realism’ suggested by Nussbaum who implies that the space vacated to admit black actors was created by Britain’s engagement with its Indian empire.66 As will be discussed in a later chapter, performance practices show that the Royal Coburg was already engaged in powerfully representing the national and religious heritage of Islamic India, apparently immune to two decades of propaganda put out by the East India Company. Indeed, only seven days after Aldridge’s second (and final) Coburg performance in The Death of Christophe, King of Hayti (1821), the theatre once again programmed William Barrymore’s drama of Indian patriotism, El Hyder, or, The Chief of the Ghaut Mountains (1818).67 J. H. Amherst’s Death of Christophe, King of Hayti demonstrates how difficult it is to judge where dramas were placed within their contemporary cultural context and, therefore, exactly what role such a drama played in facilitating Aldridge’s introduction to London theatre. Interest in the region is signalled by Horace Twiss’s moderately successful Drury Lane tragedy, The Carib Chief

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(1819), set in St Dominigo in 1595 when Sir Francis Drake and John Hawkins engaged the Spanish off Guadeloupe. The Coburg Death of Christophe may have been aimed at supplementing this success. News of the suicide in July of Henri Christophe (1767–1820) and the successful insurrection of General Jean-Pierre Boyer (1776–1850), didn’t reach England until The Times report of 8 December with the first night of the Coburg’s Death of Christophe occurring on 29 January 1821. This was a fairly rapid rate of production, but not unusually so, and it possible the production was even delayed by the traditional harlequinade pantomimes or traditional Christmas pieces such as George Lillo’s The London Merchant, or, The History of George Barnwell (1731). J. H. Amherst had only a slender association with the Coburg but he had worked for a number of other theatres, sometimes concurrently, writing spectacles such as the Fatal Coral Rock! Or, the Loss of the Bangalore East Indiaman (1823) for the Surrey Theatre before going on to specialize in writing equestrian dramas such as Napoleon Bonaparte’s Invasion of Russia, or, The Conflagration of Moscow: a Military and Equestrian Spectacle in Three Acts (1825) for Astley’s Amphitheatre in April 1825 (a few months before Aldridge’s engagement at the Coburg).68 News in any great quantity about Christophe’s overthrow, including learning the names of those involved, had yet to reach London at the point Amherst must have started working on the piece. Nevertheless, certain contemporary attitudes towards Haiti were already well formulated in some quarters. The modern historian of Haiti, Carolyn E. Fick, has noted that commentators such as Sir James Barskett, in his History of the Island of St. Domingo from its first discovery by Columbus to the present period (1818), were sympathetic to Haitian independence.69 The anonymous Poetical Epistle to the King of Hayti (1817) betrays little specific information about Haiti, but used the symbolism of its black ruler to explore the themes of abolition and emancipation. Dramatizing part of the Poetical Epistle into a Miltonic figure of Satan, its author satirized the anti-abolitionists: I am convinc’d, and, doubtless, you are, That drams of blood, yield tons of sugar; – Let the whole race of negroes die, Rather than friend of you or I Should eat unsugar’d apple-pie! –70

That anti-abolition sentiment was engaged seems corroborated by allegations which also surfaced that year in The Times that William Wilberforce preferred to drink toasts to King Christophe rather than George III.71 The Poetical Epistle even envisaged a kind of poetic regeneration of Haiti, described within an elegantly satiric enjambment: Let Haytians chaunt the sacred song, To the Most High, their strains belong …

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Whoever wrote the Poetical Epistle to the King of Hayti, the poem shows very clearly that attitudes to Christophe at the end of the 1810s could be very positive amongst the affluent readers likely to have purchased the poem. The poetic self-consciousness (‘the raphsodies [sic], the ego – / Tism [sic] of any rhyming negro’), and the implicit address to abolitionists, also indicate that its British readership were envisaged to have been aware that Christophe’s reign from 1811 had reinforced the dilution of French Caribbean influence during the Napoleonic war, and that plantation slaves had been freed. It was into this context that news arrived of the King’s death. The first Times report about Christophe’s overthrow, only a short paragraph, had reflected that ‘The natural hatred existing between the blacks and mulattoes will, however, render their amalgamation into one state a work of some difficulty’. This awareness of the divided nature of Haiti between the Southern Republic and Christophe’s Northern Province impelled the basic dramatic structure of The Death of Christophe, presenting Boyer’s overthrow of the King. Exactly how The Death of Christophe was normally played as far as the blacking up its characters was concerned, it is difficult to be certain. That Christophe usually blacked up is confirmed by the playbill for Aldridge’s first night, declaring that ‘Interest cannot but be considerably heightened by the Personation of the principal Character by an Actor of the same complexion as the sable hero himself ’. Invariably, the term ‘sable’ meant that this role was normally blacked up, but actors may have preferred to play the other roles uncoloured. Although events in St Domingo had been regularly reported over a number of years, Amherst himself probably didn’t have much idea about the exact identity of Boyer’s followers or even of many of Christophe’s supporters (although he did correctly name the Duke of Marmalade).73 The sole surviving text of the Death of Christophe is a manuscript held in the Harvard Theatre Collection, and the play has lacked modern critical attention. Many of the other dramas in which Aldridge performed are lost and similarly little-known, although Nussbaum, discussing Aldridge’s performance in the Ethiopian, Or, the Quadroon of the Mango Grove – as she comments, almost certainly a re-titling of Thomas Morton’s Covent Garden musical drama, The Slave (1816) – valuably notes that its character, Gambia, envisages ‘a state worse than slavery – [where] liberty [is] engendered by treachery, nursed by rapine, and invigorated by cruelty’, an indication of Morton’s acknowledgement that the existence of slavery implies the guilt of the enslaver.74 One Aldridge vehicle, the Negro’s Curse! Or, The Foulah Son has disappeared completely, except

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for the information that it was written by H. M. Milner, a successful adaptor of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) as Frankenstein: or The Man and the Monster (1824–6). However, it is possible it was a reworking of William Barrymore’s The Foulahs! Or, A Slave’s Revenge, a Surrey Theatre production of 1823 known to feature a ‘A Characteristic Negro Ballet’.75 It is possible to be more confident about another drama in which Aldridge performed, The Libertine Defeated; or, African Integrity!, because it was probably an adaptation of Frederick Reynolds’s successful Covent Garden comedy, Laugh When You Can (1799) with Aldridge in the role of Sambo, servant to the eponymous libertine, Deville. Thomas Leman Rede confirms that this was normally a ‘tawney’ – rather than ‘sables’ – role for white actors.76 However, Reynolds’s play could not have been legally performed in its original format at the Coburg because it was written in spoken prose dialogue without songs. Although the playhouse did not have to send its plays to the Examiner for licensing, the recent legal judgement against the Coburg in 1821 (referred to above) meant that, in order to avoid litigation from the patentees, it needed to ensure it restricted itself to pantomime and burletta. Colman, as Examiner from 1824, was unwavering in imposing this restriction on the playhouses within his remit. Two years after Aldridge’s Coburg appearance, when another non-patent house manager sent the Examiner the manuscript of William Bayle Bernard’s Casco Bay or the Buccaniers [sic] containing, as Colman put it, ‘only one song in Two Acts of Dialogue’, his verdict was that it ‘is not, therefore, a drama of that description which your Theatre is permitted to act’. He added by way of explanation that, ‘Although there is a question whether a Burletta should be wholly musical there is no doubt of it’s [sic] being a musical Piece – which “Casco Bay” decidedly is not’.77 To avoid confrontation with the Lord Chamberlain, there is every likelihood that the drama in which Aldridge performed was an adaptation of Reynolds’s Laugh When You Can which had been re-written or ‘versified’ into rhyme and with musical accompaniment, much along the same lines as the 1811 the Surrey Theatre’s ‘versified’ adaptation of Colman’s The Mountaineers referred to above. If the Coburg was searching for songs to put into The Libertine Defeated, it might even have drawn on the tradition, if not exactly the material, of Ann Lemoine’s printing of Laugh When You Can; or, The Monstrous Droll Jester …To Which is added, The Benevolent Jew, as Recited at The Royalty Theatre (c. 1800). Although probably not contemporaneous, Lemoine’s song book suggests that there was a popular culture of comic songs – including C. F. Barrett’s racially conciliatory ‘Benevolent Jew’ – lending themselves to adaptation.78 The addition of songs would have made it difficult to prosecute The Libertine Defeated, although it is likely the Coburg simply ‘versified’ most of the Reynolds original and acted it to music. Again, these localized restrictions on vocalization would have presented another obstacle for Aldridge to surmount.

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The new title for Reynolds’s play, The Libertine Defeated; or, African Integrity!, signalled this de facto re-writing as much as it represented a marketing attempt by the Coburg to puff Aldridge’s presence. With no text of The Libertine Defeated having been printed (and, of course, none archived with the Lord Chamberlain), one must turn to Reynolds’s original text to gather some distant inkling as to its content. In Laugh When You Can, when Sambo is verbally threatened (‘Mr. Negro – let me remind you, that people of your complexion are often bought and sold’) his facetious reply gives some idea of the character’s innate wit: ‘And so are people of yours. Black men are not the only men that are bought and sold. Every body has their price; particularly chambermaids.’79 Of course, absent from Reynolds’s text is the reality of the difference between slavery and domestic service, but the exchange offers some idea of the comedy’s potential and how the Coburg might have developed it. Similarly, Sambo’s defence of himself at another point in the play (‘they call’d me an outlandish monster, and wonder’d where such a savage could get any legal knowledge! – on which I pointed to my face – “Look”, says I, “don’t you see by my complexion that Nature designed me for one of the profession?”’) perpetuates a long theatrical tradition of attacks on lawyers. However, the tenor of Sambo’s response is also in keeping with the riposte by Thomas John Dibdin’s character, Caesar, in The Two Farmers (1800) in claiming knowledge about, and the ability of coloured people to access, the English judicial system as plaintiffs.80 The Death of Christophe, King of Hayti can now be placed more firmly in the context of the other dramas in which Aldridge performed at the Coburg. Aldridge had come to a politically liberal, even radical, playhouse, programming a varied and adaptable repertoire. However, it was also a theatre generically restrained by the prevailing theatrical legislation and, therefore, it was not in a position to offer him speaking pieces such as Othello with its reflective, interiorized tragic hero, or even Edward Young’s spoken tragedy, Revenge, with its empowered and intransigent role of Zanga. However, there are indications that the Coburg had thought carefully about how Aldridge might be accommodated. Apart from the consistent – if frail – underlying themes of black advocacy in their adaptations of Morton’s The Slave or Reynolds’s Laugh When You Can, what is noticeable about The Death of Christophe, a drama developed specifically for that playhouse at a time when its theatrical style had matured, is the absence of any racially marked presentation for Christophe other than the convention (when not played by Aldridge) of its being a blacked-up role. The Coburg’s commissioning and production of The Death of Christophe reflects that playhouse’s interest in non-white cultures. The first two acts of the Harvard Theatre Collection manuscript of The Death of Christophe are transcriptions from the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, re-written in ink on lined paper, but the third and final act is a rare

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contemporary manuscript survival, appearing to be one of the Coburg’s prompt copies (c. 1821). Even printed texts for the non-patent theatres outside of Westminster are rarer than those for Covent Garden, Drury Lane or the Haymarket, and, with no requirement for licensing by the Examiner, there was no reason to keep performance copies – making this a possibly unique, survival.81 The main differences between this manuscript and a normal printed edition are the descriptions of the actions to be performed by specific Coburg actors: ‘[Charles] Sloman kills one of the soldiers who falls … set to with [William] Blanchard and other soldiers’. There are also present other general stage directions for performance, including references to the disposition of the actors on stage. As well as the ‘set to’ between Blanchard and the ‘other soldiers’, the piece called for ‘A Fortress. Music … General discharge of both parties – the stage well filled’ (factors which make it clear that it is a prompt copy). The reference to ‘Music’ is another reminder that productions at the Coburg were performed with large amounts of music. Elsewhere, the stage directions call for (‘Tis the King approaching’), ‘– Music. March become forte – suddenly break off Flourish of Drums & Trumpets’. The increasing volume of the march music (‘forte’), and the exact directions given for breaking off, indicate this crucial role for music at playhouses subject to the Coburg’s regulatory conditions. Elsewhere, the manuscript provides important, possibly unique, evidence for contemporary stage practices regarding music about which Leman Thomas Rede had commented: ‘Act III Scene 1st Christophe enters in, in a most superb night gown (Music Forte, Speaks through music) [Christophe:] Save me, save me, mighty powers of justice …’. The Death of Christophe manuscript corroborates Rede’s testimony in The Road to the Stage (1827) that the sheer quantity of music in these dramas made acting difficult. Whilst music in provincial productions was not subject to London’s stringent regulatory conditions, those playhouses subject to the same licensing as the Coburg had to make conscious, litigation-proof, attempts to provide constant musical accompaniment. Having an indifferent ear for music himself, when working in the provinces in the 1820s, Rede found it hard to judge his entrance cues and records that this was particularly a problem with ‘melo-drame, and serious pantomime’ where ‘the cues … for entrances and exits are frequently only the changes of the air [melody]’.82 With the London theatres providing the bulk of new writing for the stage (which necessarily meant that this writing was in the form of burletta), musicalized drama became widespread in Georgian England. Rede warned newcomers that, ‘unless the ear is cultivated … performers will be led into error’. His own solution to hearing his cues was the extraordinary expedient of having his younger brother, the playwright William Leman Rede, ‘attend me behind the scenes to tell me when my music was on’. When William gave him the signal, Thomas could walk on at the right moment

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but, as he warned others, ‘nothing but learning the music, or counting the time, can insure [sic] correctness’83 The Death of Christophe, with its entrances noted as ‘(Music Forte, Speaks through music)’ provides conclusive proof that actors – and in this case specifically Ira Aldridge – were required to speak during the music and to match their language to musical sound in order to adhere to the current regulatory requirements. The Death of Christophe manuscript is unique in recording Georgian stage practices otherwise only corrobated by Rede’s Road to the Stage. Quite apart from having new texts to assimilate, and to perform before much larger audiences, with the dramas more or less swamped by music Aldridge had to rapidly acquire new skills and present them with extraordinary confidence. Disappointingly, it is clear from the manuscript that Amherst’s drama failed to make any profound or even topical commentary on Henri Christophe’s reign and demise. However, it was also devoid – at least as far as its text was concerned – of any racial denigration of Haiti’s ruler. It is quite noticeable in The Death of Christophe that the racist language present in Colman’s Inkle and Yarico, or even in Maclaren’s more linguistically and philosophically complex Negro Slaves or Blackman and Blackbird, has completely disappeared. Indeed, The Death of Christophe might be said to be concerned with the universal theme of the overthrow of tyranny. In this respect it was probably quite different from the New York African Company production of William Brown’s King Shotaway (c. 1823), the untraced drama marking the beginning of black writing for the stage in the United States of America which was based on the St. Vincent insurrection of the Carib chief, Chatoye, in 1795.84 By comparison with Brown’s King Shotaway, Amherst’s Death of Christophe must have seemed primitive and reductive in its presentation of recent Caribbean political and military developments. Just occasionally, dramas written and produced in London written by white playwrights, such as the John C. Cross’s Royal Circus ‘Grand Spectacle’, King Caesar; or the Negro Slaves (1801), attempted – at least to judge by the ‘Prospectus of the Action’ and simplified dialogue which remains – to portray something of the historical reality of the 1752 rebellion of the Haitian maroon leader, François Mackandal. Mackandal’s status as a houngan, or voodoo priest, is memorialized during the healing of his lover, Ada, in the drama’s curious attempt to reproduce quasi-indigenous dialect, which, in the printed text, is supplied with translations (‘Mackandal: Ning borri ameen,* [*Drink this medicine] – Ada try,– / All kissi* [*It will do you good]—’twill health impart’).85 If Aldridge knew of King Caesar or the Coburg productions of El Hyder and Tippoo Saib, it is quite likely he would have recognized them as generically related to Brown’s King Shotaway, typifying the more positive British attitudes to race signalled in Hewlett’s letter to The Times.

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However, The Death of Christophe, King of Hayti presents none of the thoughtful responses to other cultures which are present in King Caesar, El Hyder or Tippoo Saib. Instead, Amherst chose to introduce a fair degree of comedy into the piece. For example, a central comic device revolves around ‘A Torture Box the height of a Man’, introduced by one of Christophe’s henchman, Count filli Fanchon (‘I am ever vigilant in the Royal cause. I’ve invented a torture box to contain disaffected rascals who shall dare oppose or perplex our measures’). Some of the Coburg’s earlier playbills (which played Henry Stephen Kemble as Christophe), promised Fanchon as ‘A West Indian exquisite and Inventor of the Torture’.86 Fanchon is little more than an extreme version of the conventional stage villain. Turning from announcing his torture box, he says ‘Now how shall I amuse myself – Had I but a Lady to trifle with …’ whereupon the ‘Valiant Grandmother’ (and follower of Boyer) Fan Fireproof appears from the behind the sofa to trick him. Indeed, most of the play’s business, including that concerned with the torture box, revolves around the followers of Boyer infiltrating Christophe’s citadel. That Boyer’s followers were probably played white seems confirmed not only by considerations about how to dramatize the difference between Christophe and his opponents, but also by the names of Boyer’s followers. Instead of figuring these as Haitians, Amherst absorbed Boyer’s soldiery into a set of comic characters by simply transposing old Royal Coburg comic favourites, particularly Fan Fireproof and Jerry and Jemmy Heartmouse, from other Coburg dramas and writing new material for them. On one Death of Christophe playbill from 1822, the character Fan Fireproof is described as ‘an Old Campaigner’, and indeed she was. Fan had appeared in the Coburg’s The Greeks and the Turks! Or the Intrepidity of Jemmy, Jerry, and a British Tar! where she was described as ‘Fan Fireproof, ardent in the cause of Greece and universal Liberty’. There, she was ‘the Valiant Grandmother’ of Jerry and Jemmy Heartmouse.87 Greeks and the Turks! is itself an interesting production since, first staged in November 1821, it preceded by two years their Lazaria the Greek! Or, the Archon’s Daughter (1823) sponsored by Bentham and Bowring’s prestigious Greek Committee.88 If Ira Aldridge knew of the Coburg’s pro-Hellenic activism, he would certainly also have been aware that in January 1823 the New York African Theatre had presented James Hewlett performing ‘Imitations of Matthews at Home’, ‘Scenes from the [S. J. Arnold’s] Devil’s Bridge [1812]’ with the proceeds pledged ‘For the Benefit of the Greeks’.89 In other words, there is every reason to think that Aldridge, the African Company and the Royal Coburg shared similar ideological beliefs. The description of Fan Fireproof as the ‘Valiant Grandmother’, together with the names of Jemmy and Jerry Heartmouse, provide the key to their likely representations.90 For most of the audience, Jemmy and Jerry would probably have appeared to be cowardly British soldiers (‘beside they say the Black King

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Christophe our enemy is the very devil and every good Christian turns his back on the Devil and all his works’) but they were already much-loved characters. The Harvard manuscript’s prompted description for the players, including the actor William Blanchard, gives the stage directions for their storming of Christophe’s citadel at the end of the play: Jerry fights soldiers Jemmy holloaing all the time, go it Jerry! Go it Jerry! … [they] beat [Christophe’s] soldiers off. [William] Blanchard: (Staring at Jerry) I’ll be damned but you’re a brave fellow. Jerry: I’ll be dammed but I am.

Jerry’s sudden comic burst of valour, and his encouragement by Jemmy (‘go it Jerry! Go it Jerry!’), were enshrined as the catch-phrases of popular songs. Charles Sloman sung the ‘Comic Song’ ‘Go it Jerry’ and, with another actor called Beverley, performed the piece in a duet presentation of Jemmy and Jerry Heartmouse. Indeed, the duet was specifically puffed as ‘their first Meeting, since they parted at Hayti, on the Death of Christophe’. The collection in which these songs are contained, J. M. Bennett’s Thirteen Year’s Labour Lost; or The Force of Nature (1822), also provides the name of Joseph Ebsworth, the composer who probably collaborated with Amherst on The Death of Christophe and who was also a successful dramatist himself.91 In other words, although surviving only as a manuscript in the Harvard Theatre Collection, there can be little doubt about the popular potential of Amherst’s drama or that it provided a reasonable vehicle for Aldridge. The picture of The Death of Christophe which emerges is of a popularly successful burletta, one which was coherent with the Coburg’s long term programme of commenting on topical events. However, it was also a drama handicapped by its inability to respond to the implications of political developments in the Caribbean. With the drama having been played in the past with the Christophe character blacked up, Aldridge’s entry into the role allowed him to appear in a drama which was popular with the often unpredictable Coburg audience. Of course, it didn’t quite live up to the Coburg’s playbill promise for Aldridge’s first night that The Death of Christophe was a commentary on ‘those terrible commotions which attended … [Haiti’s] first organization as an Independent Nation’ and the ‘struggle made by a negro Population for a municipal Freedom’.92 Nevertheless, it was a production perfectly consistent with the Royal Coburg’s mission of programming topical and politically progressive dramas. This chapter has tried to argue for a contextualized appraisal of Ira Aldridge’s first appearance on the London stage, tracing the role of developments at the New York African Theatre and the testimony of James Hewlett as to the contrast between American and English racial attitudes. Most of all, it has sought to analyze the theatrical environment in which Aldridge performed. Rather than being

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haplessly borne along upon the structures of racism supposedly permeating London’s theatrical culture and repertoire, he can be seen as a young actor who arrived – after many difficult experiences in New York – at one of the capital’s most progressive and politically responsive playhouses. Quite clearly, the cross-cultural transfer of Moncrieff ’s Tom and Jerry into its African Company adaptation provides a significant example of how stage dramas derive their cultural meaning from the context of their performance venue. Aldridge’s knowledge of its African Company production must have been a formative experience. What had been in London a burletta about class, in New York had become a drama about race. For its part, the Royal Coburg was prepared to write, or rewrite, its existing repertoire in order to accommodate him. Beyond any doubt, Ira Aldridge rose to the occasion.

4 ISLAMIC INDIA RESTORED: EL HYDER AND TIPPOO SAIB AT THE ROYAL COBURG THEATRE

Seven days after Aldridge’s second (and final) Coburg performance in Amherst’s The Death of Christophe, King of Hayti (1821), the theatre programmed William Barrymore’s drama of Indian patriotism, El Hyder, or, The Chief of the Ghaut Mountains (1818).1 El Hyder, together with H. M. Milner’s Tippoo Saib; Or, The Storming of Seringapatam (1823), contextualizes the Royal Coburg’s commitment to exploring issues concerning Britain’s gradually extending empire. Whereas The Death of Christophe was an example of a drama popular both in terms of its performance longevity and the ‘Go it Jerry!’ songs it spawned, it failed to engage with the longer term implications of developments in the Caribbean region – although it had the beneficial effect of providing an effective training vehicle for Ira Aldridge. There was no monolithic reception of Islam on the British Romantic period stage. Curiously, the representation of different ethnicities and cultures was probably more frequently encountered by London playgoers than is the case today. Instead of crude generalizations about religion or ethnicity, there were nuanced receptions specific to different regions. These receptions include the subject of this chapter, that of Indian (Moghul) Islam typified by Hyder Ali (Haidar-Ali) and his son, Tippoo Saib, and their fight against the British in the thirty years up to 1799. The issue concerning these rulers of Mysore is the stark contrast between the extent of the British vilification of the pair up to Tippoo’s death in 1799 and their recuperation on the London stage scarcely a generation later.2 The smouldering problem of Hyder Ali’s history of loose alliances with France came to a head under Tippoo’s reign in the late 1790s when Britain was at a particularly difficult stage of the war against the French. Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798 appeared to signal the further possibility of a strategic link-up with India. Until the matter was ultimately resolved by Tippoo’s defeat and death in his fortress at Seringapatam, the military threat to East India Company resources and British strategic interests remained a con-

– 81 –

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tinuing source of anxiety. What was all the more surprising about Hyder and Tippoo’s heroic stature on the late Georgian stage is that the East India Company had set up a series of publications during and after their reign specifically aimed at disseminating information about the suffering of British prisoners and influencing their reception amongst the public. For example, the anonymous Authentic Memoirs of Tippoo Sultaun. Including his Cruel Treatment of English Prisoners (1799), written by ‘An Officer in the East India Service’, was reprinted in Calcutta in 1820, as was James Bristow’s Narrative of the suffering … during Ten Years Captivity with Hyder Ally and Tippoo Saheb (1793), which had first appeared in Calcutta, being reprinted in London that same year and subsequently reprinted again in Calcutta in 1828. Such captivity narratives made important contributions towards influencing the climate of contemporary opinion, yet representations of Indian Islam on the Georgian stage run contrary to what one might have predicted from reading the examples discussed in Linda Colley’s influential Captives: Britain, Empire and the World 1600–1850 (2002). This chapter will show that the social context of late Georgian drama made it possible not only for Milner’s Tippoo Saib to present Tippoo’s struggle against the British as heroic, but that Barrymore’s El Hyder, a drama based upon Hyder Ali’s early career which presents a positive image of the ruler, was successfully played at a theatre close to the East India Docks, the exclusive London importation facility of the East India Company. Barrymore’s El Hyder and Milner’s Tippoo Saib, both originally produced at the Royal Coburg Theatre, presented these Islamic Moghul rulers as heroic figures who affirmed their sovereignty and delivered rousing speeches to their subjects. In Tippoo Saib’s case, this included the inevitable portrayal of Tippoo’s military defiance of the British invasion. In both El Hyder and Tippoo Saib, the eponymous Islamic leaders fight to rescue children, in Milner’s Tippoo, Tippoo’s two sons who have been abducted by British hostage takers. Meanwhile, both rulers outwit internecine treachery and articulate national integrity. El Hyder and Tippoo Saib were remarkable representations to put before British audiences, especially when one considers that Hyder Ali and Tippoo Saib had pretty consistently defeated the British over a thirty-year period and had killed or physically maltreated thousands of prisoners. Indeed, the Mysore ruler Tippoo Saib continued to be demonized long after his death for his defence of the Seringapatam fortress in 1799.3 If, as Colley argues, there was an attempt to present Tippoo as the Asiatic Napoleon, then these dramas are profoundly counter-intuitive.4 Barrymore’s El Hyder announces a surprising phase in the representation of Moghul India. Its popular success of 1818 at the Coburg, on the south side of the Thames, did not preclude its continuing appeal deep inside the English rural provinces a full decade later. The Theatre in Stamford, Lincolnshire, a venue which opened in order to coincide with the town’s horse-racing calendar, played

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‘the Grand Melo Drama of El Hyder, The Chief of the Gauts [sic] Mountain’ paired with James Robinson Planché’s Merchant’s Wedding Or, London Frolics of 1638 (1828). The final scene’s ‘Terrific Effects’ included ‘the Storming and Bombarding the Fortifications and Out works’ which, in Stamford’s promiscuous mismatch of architectural sources, included a ‘Tower, Pagoda, and Mineret’. By the end of the 1820s, the Stamford production mixed the Islamic ‘Mineret’ with a ‘Hindoo Cottage’ and ‘Hindoo Bridge’ but still retained the authenticity of Barrymore’s original setting, by showing ‘A Panoramic view of the City of Delhi’.5 The presence in Stamford of Planché’s recent comedy, billed together with El Hyder as an accompanying repertoire staple, is a sure sign of the piece’s popularity and ability to command an audience both in the metropolis as well as in England’s rural hinterlands. What was so compelling about El Hyder? The Coburg’s original playbill had summarized the principal protagonists and their action as ‘El Hyder, (the Warrior of Hindoostan)’ and his struggle against ‘Hamet Abdulcrim (Usurping the Throne of Hindoo-stan)’. Far from being concerned with the British struggle against Hyder Ali, this was a drama exclusively concerned with Indian dynastic matters. The storyline was based on an episode early in Hyder Ali’s life when, although allegedly intent on securing his own ‘secret design’, he had sought to reinstate the Rajah of Biddenoor’s son, Chinavas Appiah, as a puppet ruler.6 In Barrymore’s play, the juvenile prince’s name is changed to Chereddin (a young breeches role), presumably for easier vocalization and projection. The early playbills identify, amongst other roles set out for the cast, a group designated as ‘Leaders of the Patriotic Band’. This designation of Indian patriotism must have been doubly confusing to those London theatre-goers aware of late eighteenth-century India’s military encounters with the East India Company. Hyder Ali had usurped the throne of Mysore in 1761 yet here he was being portrayed as ‘the Warrior of Hindoostan’, assisted by this ‘Patriotic Band’ of soldiers fighting off the ‘Usurping’ Hamet, a role played by Barrymore himself. Given that the historical Hyder Ali and his son, Tippoo Saib, had fought the British since 1767 until 1799, it was a surprising turnaround. Georgian theatre-goers familiar with the captivity narratives studied by Colley, recording stories of maltreatment, malnourishment, enforced circumcision and harsh incarceration, must have felt it strange to witness El Hyder’s finale in which the usurper’s citadel is overthrown (the playbills promised, ‘Investment & Capture of Fortress! – Destruction of Arsenal! By the Springing of a Mine, With Burning Ruins!!!’) and its denouement where Hyder Ali is reinstated as the de facto Islamic regional ruler.7 A reviewer in, the Inspector, A Weekly Dramatic Paper, particularly commented on ‘the last act where the Castle is stormed and destroyed by fire … There was a grand and gradual conflagration, and the partial light which the flames threw on the agonized countenances of the per-

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ishing soldiers, portrayed a melancholy delineation of the horrors of war’.8 This spectacular ending was perhaps made rather less sensational in subsequent years in order to emphasize the extraordinary role of two British sailors, Harry Clifton and Mat Mizen, who assist Hyder Ali’s ascendancy. Although even the name of their shipwrecked vessel (HMS Tiger) echoes the legendary ferocity of ‘Tippoo’s Tigers’, Harry and Mat collude in Hyder’s success by waving a statutory British flag at his victory, creating a moment of dramaturgy which fails to compromise the decisive nature of the military outcome: Hyder … and Soldiers return to the assault – ‘Hurrahs’ are heard, and Clifton, Mat, with Sailors, dragging in two pieces of artillery, enter – they blaze away – the Portcullis is beaten down – Hyder’s cavalry gallop on, and enter the breach – the Sailors and others follow … – general conflict ensues – Horse and Foot – … – El Hyder and Hamet – Clifton and Sailors clear the ramparts – the Usurpers party are defeated – Chereddin is brought on upon a shield raised on the shoulders of four men – Mat waves the British Flag upon the ramparts – red fire – shouts and – Curtain.9

With one dramatic stroke, Barrymore’s El Hyder at the Royal Coburg completely reversed a generation of East India Company propaganda. El Hyder also sharply diminished the masculine implications of the British military. The heroic Clifton (like the reinstated Indian prince Chereddin) was played by a woman. In the sailor’s case, this was Barrymore’s wife. While the Inspector had commented on the closing scene’s ‘agonized countenances of the perishing soldiers …[and] melancholy delineation of the horrors of war’, the review confirms that Clifton’s role was played by ‘Mrs. W. Barrymore who speaking technically is one of the best breeches figures we ever saw, and one of the prettiest women; she gave a peculiar force and interest to the part so natural in a young sailor and the manner in which she fought and vanquished her adversary, was surprising’.10 The Inspector’s comments strongly suggest that it was the reversal of gender roles and the pleasure of seeing Mrs Barrymore cross-dressed, rather than the implicitly treacherous device of Clifton’s alliance with Hyder Ali, which were amongst the most striking aspects of this performance in 1818. Of course, even though they are mysteriously thrown up in Mysore, Mat Mizen and Harry Clifton readily articulate ideals of English liberty despite the enormous disjunctions between the utterances of the chirpy duo and the historical reality of Hyder’s reign. As early as 1780, a small British naval squadron was engaged against Hyder Ali on behalf of the East India Company. Although initially successful in capturing the Dutch controlled port of Negapatam and destroying Hyder Ali’s fleet off Mangalore, even a half-hearted French attempt the following year to reinforce the ruler of Mysore’s naval power was sufficient to make a decisive outcome impossible.11 By 1782 Hyder Ali had received 400 British sailors and sixty Royal Navy officers as prisoners captured by the French

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during these skirmishes: very few of them survived.12 What makes El Hyder’s ending even more surprising is that, just before the storming of Hamet’s fortress, Mat and Clifton handily bump into a number of able-bodied English sailors, apparently similarly conjured up from nowhere, who freely assist them in storming the ramparts. Apart from stressing Britain’s exclusive command of freedom (‘here’s a compass that always points to one port, liberty; and dam’me if we an’t the only nation that knows how to steer by it’), Clifton and Mat also affirm that ‘British lads espouse the cause of all who are oppress’d … England is the first to combat in the cause of liberty’.13At one point, Mat even makes the far-reaching claim that ‘We Englishmen know too well the blessings of liberty – their houses are their castles, and never will they infringe on the rights of others, which they would die to maintain themselves’.14 This conventional loyalist discourse, promoting freedom through an essentially imperialist programme of influence, is predictable enough and consistent with much of the Georgian stage, but in El Hyder it is already deconstructed by the patriotism and martial prowess of El Hyder himself, a facet of the narrative which the play establishes from the outset. El Hyder’s dramaturgy does little to undermine the impact of the Moghul Indian victory, Mat and Harry’s British flag-waving notwithstanding. El Hyder’s heroic stature is established right from the start. At the very beginning of the play, on the outskirts of Delhi, he is introduced as an embattled leader suffering defeat at the hands of the usurping Hamet, a beleaguered figure surrounded by his troops and the senior aides, Kozzan and Moloc (designated as ‘patriot chieftains’). Hyder’s first appearances, coming very early during the performance, are crucial in immediately establishing his moral stature as Islamic patriot and resourceful military leader: Kozzan: Welcome, noble chief ! Thy presence gives fresh courage to our almost drooping spirits. Say, when shall we forth again and meet our bold oppressors? Lead us to the embattled plain, and there, by conquest, revive our faded laurels. Moloc: Aye, to the fight, great chief ! defeat sits heavy at our hearts. To the fight! and with blood-stained swords, warm from our enemies’ breasts, wipe away our late disgrace! El Hyder: Disgrace! What tongue gives utterance to so foul a word? Disgrace! – were not their numbers treble ours? Did we not dispute each inch of ground? Nor, e’er gave way till their overwhelming myriads swept us from the field: and then, no trophy did we leave – no! naught but tattered standards – gasping, mangled heroes, who, with their last breath did cry, ‘Allah protect the right – our cause is just – we die content!’ Disgrace, indeed!15

Despite incongruent hints of medieval classicism, these speeches – El Hyder’s in particular – project an unequivocal sense of personal integrity, sacrifice, patriotism, leadership and allegiance to the Islamic faith. Significantly, this is a purely

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Indian exchange: Mat and Clifton have yet to appear. Already jettisoned is any implication that El Hyder is scheming against Cherredin or his mother, Zada. At the play’s beginning, El Hyder’s dignity and resolution is partially emphasized by his grief at the capture of the legitimate Hindoo successors (‘El Hyder: No, no! Hyder’s heart is too well known. The – the – the Princess and her son are prisoners’).16 Within the piece’s melodramatic plotting, in order to save Cherredin and Zada, El Hyder is forced to give himself up as a prisoner to Hamet (‘though my interest requires their death, (but Hyder’s submission most), their lives are saved on Hyder’s yielding himself a prisoner’) to which he unflinchingly responds, ‘I must then to the city, and, for the first time, yield myself a captive. Comrades, the brand of fierce destructive war must be extinguished! Each then to his home – partake of peaceful happiness, and when again my flag you see, I’ll lead to death or victory’.17 This switching of historical roles is aimed at thoroughly instating El Hyder’s selfless heroism. By contrast, instead of establishing the Hyder Ali figure as the play’s despotic ruler, instead it is the usurper Hamet who takes on this role, as the imprisoned Zada affirms: Zada: See contempt and scorn of thee and of thy power! … thou mighty tyrant … the soul of Zada disdains to parley with thee farther. Hamet: Beware, Princess! my angry temper will not brook these taunts. Reflect on your present situation.18

In the melodrama’s use of unexpected contrasts of perspective as dramatic devices, the presence of the two British sailors, Clifton and Mat Mitzen, act as a point of relativism against which to figure the difference between El Hyder and Hamet. They first make an undignified comic entrance by literally poking their heads into the action (‘[S. D.] opens cottage window … Clifton: Yeo, ho, there, my hearty! What breeze is blowing now?’).19 Their subsequent naïve comic presence in El Hyder simply serves to emphasize the conventional aspects of Hamet’s oriental despotism. After Hamet confines Zada to ‘the northern chamber of my harem’, Clifton’s exchange with Abensellah, the governor of the harem, points up this area of the play’s stereotypical orientalism: Clifton: Women! what do none but women live inside these walls Aben.: None: the choicest beauties of the East – the – Clifton: That’s quite enough. I’ll be among them in a twinkling: come along Mat.20

Quite apart from his harem, the usurping Hamet is also made an unsympathetic figure in several other ways. His status as a conquering ruler is emphasized in the dramatic spectacle of his entry in ‘A splendid Procession’, where Hamet (rather than El Hyder) arrives as an oriental despot mounted ‘on a splendidly caparisoned Elephant’, surrounded by ‘Banners, six Bengal Seapoys … six Warriors

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of Behaleea … six Warriors of the Hircarrah Tribe … six Soldiers of the Brighasis Tribe; three Choobdars – Artillery – Seapoys – Prisoners – Sepoys – Artillery – Officers of State – Officers of the Household Military Band … Ladies of the Harem veiled, escorted by Black Slaves’. Hamet’s ultimatum to the captured princess reinforces his villainous role. As he explains to Princess Zada, ‘imperious necessity’, ‘right of conquest and the people’s choice’ require her to be ‘my consort … and sit as sovereign, or, as a captive, remain my bonded slave’.21 In other words, the contrast between the heroic determination of El Hyder and Hamet’s despotic power could hardly be greater. By comparison, the play’s dramatic structuring of El Hyder as an Islamic patriot, uniting his country against internal treachery and selflessly seeking to reinstate the thrones of the junior Rajah, is a remarkable rejection of East India Company influence as well as a decisive reconstruction of the conventional stereotypes of orientalist mythology. This occurred despite Hyder Ali’s usurping habits having been stressed amongst the contemporary British in India, who, upon Tippoo’s fall in 1799, urged their Governor to seek ‘The restoration of the injured race of Princes, whose dominions their rebellious subject Hyder Alli had usurped’ and welcomed ‘the liberal provision your Lordship has bestowed to the family and chiefs of our implacable and cruel Enemy, the late Sultaun of Mysoor’.22 This address, delivered at the theatre in Calcutta, aimed to ‘secure to the [East India] Company’s possessions the blessings of internal tranquility [and to] increase, beyond calculation, the resources, strength and stability of the British Empire in the East’.23 Despite the British Calcutta residents’ condemnation of a ‘rebellious’ usurper, Barrymore’s El Hyder reverses this portrayal and depicts Hyder Ali as the victim of usurpation. Not only does El Hyder pledge fealty to Princess Zada (‘And with our lives we will guard the sacred trust!’), the play consistently portrays ‘the tyrant Hamet’ as a stereotypical eastern despot, someone who arrives on stage in arrogant Islamic splendour (‘a vaunting banner rears its head – ‘tis the brilliant crescent’).24 Right from the start, El Hyder stresses that Zada and prince Chereddin are ‘prisoners to Hamet! – prisoners to that tyrant, who, by shedding the blood of sweet innocence, seeks to gain a throne, which, when he sits there, will become a throne of infamy – the seat of base pollution’ and that Zada considered him ‘a base usurper’.25 In other words, Barrymore’s El Hyder consistently displaces the tyrannic associations of Hyder Ali’s recent historical reputation. Arguably, the drama even glances at a potentially treasonous role for the two irrepressibly cheery British sailors. The orchestrated denigration of the historical Hyder Ali continued long after his son Tippoo’s death in 1799. Even an apparently innocuous work such as Charles Stewart’s A Descriptive Catalogue of the Oriental Library of the Late Tippoo Sultan of Mysore. To which are Prefixed, Memoirs of Hyder Aly Khan, and

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his Son Tippoo Sultan (Cambridge, 1809), produced at the East India Company College in Hertford, England, reminded its readers that, ten years earlier, ‘The month of May 1799 was rendered memorable in the East, by the capture of Seringapatam, and the downfall of its Sovereign, the inveterate enemy of the British Nation’. Stewart’s inclusion of ‘Memoirs of Hyder Aly Khan’ in the volume took care to remind readers of his ‘unrestrained ambition’, ‘absolute dominion’ while also exploiting latent sexual fears in relating how ‘the English prisoners [captured in 1780] … were not only … also circumcised, and every means used to make them embrace the Mohammedan religion. The [English] girls were either married to the young soldiers or distributed as slaves’.26 It is remarkable that this emphasis on Hyder and Tippoo’s barbarity was continued through the unpromising medium of a library catalogue. The Descriptive Catalogue of the Oriental Library of the Late Tippoo Sultan even appears to have been aimed at spreading disinformation about Tippoo’s literacy. Without referring to the inevitable damage to the books caused by the heavy British assaults at Seringapatam, Stewart claimed that ‘of nearly 2000 volumes, of Arabic, Persian, and Hindy (or Hindūstāny) Manuscripts … a great portion were in bad condition; and several having lost both the first and last pages, it was extremely difficult to discover the Author, or the period in which they were composed’. He went on to say that ‘Very few of these books had been purchased either by Tippoo or his father. They were part of the plunder from Sanoor, Cuddapāh, and the Carnatic … and were taken by Hyder in the fort of Chitore, during the year 1780’. Stewart carefully phrased his supplementary comment that, although ‘the Sultān was ambitious of being an Author … we have not discovered any complete work of his composition’ (my italics).27 If the portrayal of Hyder Ali in El Hyder reversed much of the East India Company’s carefully laid programme of negative information, the treatment of his son in H. M. Milner’s, Tippoo Saib; Or, The Storming of Seringapatam. A Drama, in Three Acts (1823) is even more unexpected because Tippoo’s contemporary vilification was far more comprehensive and systematic. The key reasons for the substantial differences between British perceptions of Hyder Ali and of his son, Tippoo Saib were the acute anxieties raised by the protracted war with France together with the sheer effectiveness of an increased print culture disseminating news about the various campaigns against Tippoo. The nightmare scenario for the British in the 1790s was the possibility of an effective military alliance between Tippoo and the French. In the years leading up to Tippoo’s death, Seringapatam had held a garrison of the French republican army. At the fortress’s fall, Tippoo’s captured diplomatic papers were translated with amazing rapidity and published within the year at the behest of the East India Company as Official Documents Relative to the Negotiations Carried on by Tippoo Sultaun, With the French Nation, and Other Foreign States, For Purposes Hostile to the

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British Nation (Calcutta, 1799). Despite their undoubtedly biased provenance, the impounded documents reveal beyond any doubt that Tippoo’s diplomacy was completely conducted within an Islamic political discourse. The papers also make clear that Tippoo carefully balanced seeking the potential support of the French with his own independence. Tippoo’s tactics were to keep the British simultaneously fearful and yet also appeased. During his immensely literate conduct of this diplomacy, he ordered his scribes to write to tell ‘the infamous English’ to ‘know, and tremble, that in India, in the midst of the earth, there are Republicans, who have sworn their destruction’.28 Whatever the practicalities of the military forces available, the rhetorical meaning of this statement was not exaggerated. The French garrison observed not only the official ideology of the French republic but also regulated time according to the Revolutionary calendar, all helpfully translated in the East India Company’s book (for example, ‘The Quintidi of the 3d Decade of the month of Floreal, the fifth year of the French Republic, one and indivisible, (answering to May 14th 1797)’.29 For their part, the French vowed ‘hatred to all things, except Tippoo Sultaun the Victorious, the Ally of the French Republic. War against Tyrants; and Love to our Country, and that of citizen Tippoo’.30 In return, ‘citizen Tippoo’ acquiesced in allowing them to plant a ‘Tree of Liberty … surmounted with the Cap of Equality’ in the middle of the Seringapatam fortress.31 For one tantalizing moment in the late 1790s, there stood the possibility that an Islamic military theocracy in India would combine with a republican, de-Christianized, Western power and that both of them would ally against the East India Company and their British supporters. However, Tippoo Saib’s diplomatic papers also strongly suggest that he never ceased considering the French both atheistical and infidel. The French invasion of Egypt in July 1798 provoked a vituperative response which was included in a letter addressed to the British during the final stages of Tippoo’s increasingly beleaguered negotiations aimed at staving off attack. In the letter, written almost exactly a month to the day before he was killed, Tippoo invokes the ‘holy theology’ of his ‘Brethren Musselmans’ while castigating ‘the irruption of the French Nation, those objects of divine anger, by the utmost treachery and deceit, into the venerated region of Egypt … of the views of the irreligious people; of their denial of God and his prophets’.32 It was fear of the possibility of such alliances which had induced London-based East India Company employees to sing their (over-optimistic) anniversary duet, Tippoo’s Defeat (to the tune of ‘Rule Britannia’), at their meeting in August 1792: When Tippoo with insidious hand, Dar’d Britain’s Sons on Indian plains; The guardian Angels of our land, Appear’d and sung Prophetick strains.

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The destruction of Tippoo’s ‘golden fanes’ (or temples) is a reminder that both sides were aware of the Islamic dimension of this conflict. The East India men’s song came hard on the heels of an initial defeat for Tippoo’s forces in 1792 at the end of the Third Mysore War, upon which setback Lord Cornwallis demanded as hostages Tippoo’s two sons, Abdul Khalik and Moiz-Ud-Din. In London, a news story announcing that Tippoo was dead was quickly discredited but not before the stock market rose sharply (‘The Stocks were forc’d up five per cent by the flam / Of our having taken Seringapatam’), an event recorded in the caricature print, Wonderful News from Seringaptam.34 The financial implications are also implicit in James Gillray’s Scotch-Harry’s News, or Nincumpoop in High Glee. Vide. News from India, a print showing Home Secretary Henry Dundas bringing the news to George III and Queen Charlotte that ‘Seringaptam is taken! Tippoo is wounded! & Millions of Pagodas secured’, a pun on the Indian wealth repossessed.35 Although it was only a tactical defeat, the event was immediately theatricalized in Sadler’s Wells’ ‘Musical Entertainment’ Tippoo Saib (1792), a piece by Mark Lonsdale with music by William Reeve. Perhaps unexpectedly, the Sadler’s Wells Tippoo Saib included a song with a refrain in Irish Gaelic, transliterated as ‘Buac ‘aill lion deoc’. As Linda Colley notes, there were many Irish mercenaries fighting on the British side in India but what the song particularly draws attention to is the challenge to concepts of masculinity and racial supremacy made by Tippoo’s military resolve.36 The song recounts the ubiquitous Irish soldier Dennis O’Neal’s bravado (‘There in the Thickest was Dennis O’Neal’) but his glorifying is also explicitly racist: Tippoo take it from Dennis he speaks to your face. Tis’nt’ your Black looks do make him turn pale: Put a Sword in his hand and he’ll die like a Man. But you won’t make a Judy of Dennis O’Neal. With your Jumping. [sic] Jungling. [sic] grinning. [sic] mouthing. [sic] Clout headed. [sic] thick headed. [sic] brazen nos’d copper fac’d Ill looking Thief ! Who made you a Chief. I wish. For your sake I had an Oak Stake For a Dev’l of a Fellow is Dennis O’Neal. Arrah.Buac’ aill lion deoc’ for Dennis O’Neal.37

This stream of racism during the 1792 Tippoo Saib was not repeated in the rejoicing following Tippoo’s death in 1799. Indeed, the Sadler’s Wells production marks the high-point of the expression of such raw anti-Tippoo sentiment.

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From then on, his reception in the theatre would be much more circumspect with regard to his role as an enemy of the British. In 1792, however, fears of defeat and implied feminization at the hands of Tippoo (‘you won’t make a Judy of Dennis O’Neal’) were rife in the popular culture. Hannah Humphrey had published a print the previous December entitled, The Coming-On, of the Monsoons, or the Retreat From Seringapatam, a scene showing Tippoo in his fortress urinating on dead or fleeing British above a caption from Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part I where Falstaff exaggerates the numbers of his assailants.38 The print is a fascinating indicator of how certain parts of the population (at least before the outbreak of war with France in 1793) were not automatically convinced about British ambitions in India. Fears of the reality of Tippoo’s powers were stimulated by captivity narratives such as Henry Oakes, Authentic Narrative of the Treatment of the English, Who Were Taken Prisoners On the Reduction of Bednore, by Tippoo Saib (1785) and Francis Robson’s, The Life of Hyder Ally … To which is annexed, A Genuine Narrative of the Sufferings of the British Prisoners of War, Taken by His Son, Tippoo Saib (1786). Such anxieties at the foe in the east impelled bravado in the songs at Sadler’s Wells (‘Come, Soldiers, chear, now the danger’s past, / And the Tyrant Tippoo flies at last’) but always alongside an explicit awareness of the risks he posed (‘Since here we are, a courageous Band, / All alive on the Plains of Indostan; / Let us not forget our Throats to wet / In a health to all the Slain’).39 Relief at the apparent settlement of the conflict is typified in Alexander Dirom’s, Narrative of the Campaign in India, which terminated the War with Tipu Sultan in 1792 (1794). Subsequent captivity accounts, such as Henry Becher’s Remarks and Occurences … During his Imprisonment of Two Years and a Half in the Dominions of Tippoo Sultaun, from Whence He Made His Escape (Bombay, 1793) and James Bristow’s Narrative of the Sufferings of James Bristow, Belonging to the Bengal Artilley [sic], During Ten Years Captivity with Hyder Ally and Tippoo Saheb (Calcutta and London, 1794), appear to have further reinforced fears of Tippoo and may help explain the immediate euphoria which greeted his overthrow seven years later. When Tippoo was killed in May 1799, the effect on the national temperament was immediate. Publications sponsored by the East India Company, such as the Official Documents Relative to … Tippoo Sultaun, were one way of influencing the reception of British control of Indian territories, particularly as it raised the spectre of collaboration with the French, but there were also more widely dispersed cultural forms which betray both the relief and animosity Tippoo’s death elicited. At the plebeian Royal Amphitheatre, Dublin, ‘Goodbye Mr. Tippoo’ was sung.40 In London, elite forms of music were also drafted. Harriet Wainwright’s score of a Chorus in Commemoration of the Conquest of Seringapatam (c. 1800), had a Preface celebrating ‘the glorious conclusion of a War, which exterminated Tyranny,

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added Power, and Importance, to the British Empire, and diffused throughout all Asia the blessings of Peace’. Wainwright’s chorus sang of how ‘Oppression dies! / The Tyrant falls! / The golden City bows her walls’. These pieces, encompassing the entire musical spectrum from popular to elite, are excellent indicators of Tippoo’s reception in Britain since, at that date, music-making was necessarily a communal rather than a solitary activity. And there were also other forms of social celebration. In July 1800 the Theatre Royal, York, which was habitually sponsored and supported by local army regiments and Volunteer militias, restaged an adaptation of Sadler’s Wells’ Tippoo Saib; or, The Plains of Hindostan and promised to show ‘Pantomime Action, An East India Campaign; With the Death of Tippoo’ and ending with an uplifting ‘Indian Dance, [and] … Eastern Divertissement of Parasols’.41 Four days later they appear to have re-deployed their Tippoo Saib scenery once again for a revival of James Cobb’s Covent Garden Ramah Droog, or, Wine Does Wonders (1798), a comic opera whose scenic devices required ‘an Ambassador from Tippoo Sultaun, in a Palanquin’, a sure sign of the pomp perceived as a requisite of the ruler of Mysore’s status.42 Someone in London even produced The New Game of Tippoo Saib (c. 1800), a board game played with dice, almost an unconscious emblem of the precarious nature of the campaign.43 If these were all indicators of the extent of public interest in Tippoo’s fate, this taste was further catered for by a panoramic painting of The Grand Historical Picture of the Storming of Seringapatam, By the British Troops and their Allies. Painted by Robert Ker Porter (1777–1842) and over 2,500 square feet in size, the panorama (now destroyed) was exhibited in the Exhibition room of the Lyceum, Strand, together with a proposal to publish three prints, at least one of which survives as a woodcut with a numbered key and ‘Descriptive Sketch’ explaining the figures and places represented in Porter’s painting.44 Not only did the panorama format invite communal viewing on a mass scale, the Lyceum building at that time was also evolving into the Lyceum Theatre by the time of its enlargement in 1816.45 The woodcut explanatory key provides a very clear schema of the principal action: ‘11. Citizen Chapuy, the French Commander / 12. Tippoo Sultaun / 13. The Sally Port Gate where he fell’. The French presence was just as explicit in the panorama as Tippoo’s Islamic religion, depicted as ‘37. Principal Mosque of Seringapatam’, a gathering of minarets over the fortress’s skyline. Different versions of the battle quickly followed such as a coloured aquatint, The Assault of Seringapatam dedicated to Maj. Gen. David Baird in 1799 (1802), after a painting by Sir Alexander Allan (1764–1820) etched by the celebrated engravers, Cardon and Luigi Schiavonetti. The East India Company also struck a medal (minted by Matthew Boulton), showing a scene of the fortress under attack on the reverse and the British Lion grappling with the Tiger of Mysore on the obverse. To clinch the Company’s message, the date on the Lion side was

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given in Roman numerals while the Tiger side had a Persian inscription, praising Allah and giving the date in accordance with the Islamic calendar. Although the medal was issued to both British and native Indian combatants fighting on their side, the choice of Persian is a reminder that the striking of the medal was an expression of power and subjugation as much as of a celebration. However, the naturalization of public antagonism against Tippoo Saib in the period around 1800 is nowhere better typified than in an extraordinary anonymous poem included in a Warwickshire printed pamphlet entitled, Four Theatrical Addresses (Alcester, c. 1801). Although the pamphlet states that the addresses were intended for delivery at both Drury Lane and Wolverhampton Theatre, it is not clear whether they were all actually delivered at these venues. The writer’s, ‘Upon the Preliminaries of Peace, 1801’, rather disingenuously glanced back at how ‘Reluctant Britain, but unus’d to fear, / … Through Asia’s plains triumphant armies led’. However, a reference to lines about how ‘[Britain’s] threats in vain the indignant Saib braves’, also has a footnote to carefully explain that ‘Tippoo is a word, in English ears, of so undignified and unpoetical sound, that the less appropriate one of Saib, has been adopted as sufficiently so, in this country, to describe the person it is here intended to represent’.46 The writer’s specific designation of ‘Tippoo’ as an ‘unpoetical’ word is a good indicator for how deeply antipathy towards the Mysore ruler had entered into British cultural discourse. Tippoo Saib had become a figure not only vilified in conquest and in representations in playhouses and concert halls but one also verging on exclusion from the contemporary expressive register of language. From the convivial song-making of the East India Company gentlemen through to elite choral works and theatrical addresses, British public discourse connected to the issue of India throughout the 1790s and into the early 1800s was dominated by antipathy towards Hyder Ali and Tippoo Saib. These reactions consisted of both institutionalized discourses, even such immensely divergent ones as Official Documents Relative to … Tippoo Sultaun and A Descriptive Catalogue of the Oriental Library of the Late Tippoo Sultan, but the contemporary economy of representation also included many individual responses such as Harriet Wainwright’s Chorus and the anonymous provincial author’s sentiments in Four Theatrical Addresses. Both of the latter, like the drama at Sadler’s Wells Tippoo Saib or Porter’s panorama, were noticeably intended for communal reception. In other words, the availability in the national public culture of anti-Hyder Ali and anti-Tippoo messages in the years around 1800 was overwhelming. If this was the case in the early 1800s, within twenty years Tippoo Saib was not only once more re-incorporated into the discourses of popular entertainment, but his entire status had been rehabilitated. This was an amazing turnaround. William Barrymore had incorporated El Hyder into the opening 1818 season of the Royal Coburg, a playhouse which, as argued above, quickly

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established a reputation for its treatment of topical affairs. El Hyder itself had been preceded by so-called ‘local’ dramas such as North Pole; or, The Arctic Expedition, a ‘Melo-Drama … partly founded on the present EXPEDITION TO THE ARCTIC REGIONS’.47 Given this context, it is perhaps less surprising that five years after El Hyder the Coburg staged Milner’s, Tippoo Saib; or, The Storming of Seringapatam, although the play text now survives only in an edition Adapted to Hodgson’s Theatrical Characters’ (c. 1825), a version aimed at children’ s toy theatres. While the Coburg’s repertoire didn’t noticeably favour plays with Indian settings, its audiences were obviously familiar with such references. Crockery’s Misfortunes; or, Transmogrifications (1821) had presented its eponymous Crockery to the Coburg audience as a servant returning to England after thirty years in ‘Hingy’ (India). Although clearly retaining his cockney-dialect transposition of vowels, he complains about London’s ‘halteration’ into a gas-lit metropolis (‘Oh, dear, there vasn’t no gash afor[e] I vent to Hingy’).48 It was the Coburg’s confident sense of its audience’s tastes which permitted them to successfully stage both El Hyder and Tippoo Saib. Linda Colley’s brief comment in Captives (2002) about Milner’s play (to which she does not attribute authorship or a playhouse) accurately assesses that late Georgian parents buying Hodgson’s juvenile (or toy theatre) edition of Tippoo Saib ‘must have been somewhat taken aback by the opening speech allocated to Tipu himself ’.49 It is worth quoting a little more of speech than Colley allows: Tippoo: ’Tis well, my brave people! I know your loyalty, and dread not the tyrannic power that even now threatens us with destruction. Let your hearts warm in the cause, and our arms will not lack strength sufficient to crush your presumptuous enemies. When your sultan calls upon you, it will be to save yourselves from a miserable degradation; it will be to triumph over oppression, and to enjoy what they come here to despoil you of. Be firm, my people, and a million such powers will crumble into nothingness, before a people fighting for their Sultan and their native land.50

Remarkably, the Coburg play affirms not only that Tippoo is threatened by a ‘presumptious’ ‘tyrannic power’ but that India will ‘triumph over oppression’ and restore to the Indian people ‘what they come here to despoil you of ’. The syntax of this sentence is perfectly crafted to suit the masculine, declaratory style of contemporary acting. As with El Hyder, the play’s opening immediately and unequivocally establishes Tippoo’s role as a beleaguered patriot at the head of ‘a people fighting for their Sultan and their native land’. In other words, Milner’s play situates Tippoo Saib within British ideals of selfless patriotic valour and righteous resistance. He follows Barrymore’s Hyder Ali figure in displaying statesman-like presence in front of his troops, but Tippoo Saib also reminds the audience that in 1792 the sultan’s two sons, Abdul Khalik and Moiz-Ud-Din

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(Mirza and Morad in Milner’s text), were taken as hostages by Lord Cornwallis: Tippoo: Are not my children in bondage? May they not, ere this, have become the victims of tyranny, and shed their innocent blood to gratify the vengeance of the oppressive English? … Were my children once more restored to me, I should possess a strength sufficient to contend with my haughty foes; but one effort on my part to save them, should they still exist, may hurl my poor boys into a gulph of misery.51

These opening speeches confirm Tippoo not only as a sovereign ruler resisting conquest by an invading alien power, an accomplished politician, orator and statesman, they also establish him as a dutiful father forced to contend with British hostage-taking. Tippoo Saib also unequivocally identified the avaricious nature of the East India Company. In an attempt to obtain the restoration of his sons, one of Tippoo’s advisors, Achmed Ali Kawn, recommends that the enemy are bought-off with treasure sufficient ‘to gratify the avarice of the English, and restore the Rajahs to a father’s arms’.52 This specific accusation of British avarice is also repeated in later negotiations when Achmed offers them ‘a store of wealth, equal to every thing your avarice can require’.53 At several other points the play balances, within a remarkable neutrality, the conventional claims and counter-claims of the two sides. Set against the popular knowledge of the maltreatment of prisoners still trickling from the published captivity narratives, Tippoo Saib also introduces an equivalent British immorality in Abdul Khalik and Moiz-Ud-Din’s confinement as hostages. Lady Emily, the sister of the Lord Mount Alford character (a figure presumably representative of Lord Cornwallis), enters the play in a broken dialogue addressed to Tippoo’s son, Mirza, in which she is pacifying his fears of maltreatment, ‘Believe me your doubts are misplaced; have I not endeavoured to sooth your sorrows, and make this place as agreeable as possible to you. You mistake my brother, and the English nation, if you imagine the one capable of cruelty, or the other base enough to sanction it’.54 Mirza’s response, while not denying the civility of his treatment, notably serves to validate his role as a young but dignified prisoner obedient to filial emotions: Mirza: Good lady, we cannot feel dissatisfied with the treatment we have receieved; indeed your kindess has been every thing to us, but we cannot forget the father and mother who, perhaps, are this moment, grieving to think that their children are captives.55

After Lady Emily sings a song following this exchange, there is even a hint of an inappropriately incestuous dimension accompanying Alford’s vainglory:

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When Tippoo’s minister, Achmed Ali Kawn, arrives to negotiate for the release of the hostages (‘bringing a store of wealth … they bear overtures from the Sultan … [S. D.] Treasure borne by Indians’) the answer he receives seems to verify Tippoo’s earlier description of the British as his ‘haughty foes’ yet this term is here reversed and leveled at the Sultan: Alford: Indian, we scorn you wealth, and therefore will not accept it. Let this be our answer to your haughty master: – Unless he abandons every fort and strong hold, and withdraws his troops to some distant place that he may fix upon, we shall retain his children as hostages. – Away! For we have no other answer to return.57

Meanwhile, Alef Achbar, one of Tippoo’s own courtiers, is plotting to murder the hostages. This aspect of the plot significantly increases Tippoo’s association with heroic fortitude since he must not only defeat the hostage-taking, invading British but also fend off internal treachery. During Alef ’s attempt to murder the two boys in the British tent, Achmed Ali Kawn outwits him and ‘Tippoo’s party escape with the children – the English troops enter, headed by Lord Monut Alford, who orders them to fire – several musquets are discharged, and a general alarm is heard as the curtain drops’.58 This immediate presentation of Tippoo’s patriotic nobility and his courageous followers, especially when set against the dubious morality of British hostage taking and reckless firing, makes a dramatic contrast with the ideological assertions of Alford’s rallying call to his troops prior to their assault on the fortress: ‘Now, by brave lads, we must on to the heights of Malavelhi, where true English courage must triumph over Indian despotism, and lay every proud foe in the dust who dares oppose us in our career of glory’.59 Of course, the reallife victors of Seringapatam were Richard Marquess Wellesley (1760–1842), the Governor General of Bengal, and Arthur Wellesley, later first Duke of Wellington (1769–1852) who also took part in the attack (ODNB). In Milner’s play, it is probably Arthur Wellesley’s name which is transposed into the heroic figure of Arthur Fitz-Henry, Alford’s aide-de-camp. Wellington’s popular reputation was such that the Coburg handled it deferentially but, quite remarkably, Milner created in Tippoo’s narrative an incident where, after the rescue of his sons by Achmed Ali Kawn, Arthur Fitz-Henry and Tippoo briefly unite to rescue Mirza and Morad: ‘Arthur: … never shall be said than Englishman and a soldier destroyed the innocent, to please a guilty wretch like thee. A struggle, in which Tippoo Saib throws off his disguise, and rescues one of the Children – Arthur

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saves the other – Guards enter, Alef is secured, and Picture is formed’.60 In Milner’s narrative, the Wellington figure’s British bravery is balanced by that of Tippoo’s Moghul courage and filial devotion. For Tippoo Saib’s final scene, Milner imported the device of the exploding mine which seems to have been sometimes used in El Hyder. There appears to have been no contemporary printed edition of Barrymore’s drama, but the 1852 Lacy’s Acting Edition of El Hyder provides in its cast list for there to be sappers or mine-layers in its list of ‘Cannoniers, Miners, Seapoys of Bengal, Captives, Slaves …’.61 Certainly, the first night’s playbill at the Royal Coburg promised ‘Destruction of Arsenal! By the Springing of a Mine, With Burning Ruins!!!’ and a reviewer for The Drama; or, Theatrical Pocket Magazine who went to the Royalty Theatre production in 1821 commented on how, amidst an ‘[S. D.] Extensive Military Position’, ‘the springing of the mine, with burning ruins, had a fine effect’.62 However, the 1852 edition ends only with ‘red fire – shouts and – Curtain’.63 Such a exploding mine version of El Hyder should not be taken to imply the death of its hero: Isaac Pocock’s popular The Miller and His Men (1813) for Covent Garden ended with a device where the heroine uses a bottle of phosphorus to light the fuse-train of a powder magazine, but only the villains perish. By contrast, Milner’s Tippoo Saib not only establishes the possibility of its hero’s self-immolation, but carefully sets up its rationale. Of course, for the audience, there could be no self-destruction. Historical events at Seringapatam in 1799 could not be discarded because it was well known Tippoo had died in the fortress during combat. In the penultimate scene set in ‘[S. D.] the Citadel of Seringapatam’, ‘ several Scaling-ladders are placed – the English Troops ascend – they storm the Bastion, and drive off Tippoo Saib’s Forces’.64 Mirroring the beginning of the drama, Tippoo once more sets out to rouse his troops for a final struggle which is when he also announces that the fortress is mined with ‘a store of combustibles’: Tippoo: My brave comrades in arms, do not repine; although we have lost the Citadel, we have still one fort left; there we can still defy our enemies. And heard ye, Abdoul: should they be victorious, as you know where I have placed a store of combustibles, let not your Perizade and my children become their captives, but fire the train, and let us all be buried together in the ruins. Remember my orders. [Exeunt]65

Not only is this speech dignified by Tippoo emphasizing equality with his ‘comrades in arms’, but his planting of the mine to save his wife, Perizade, and his two sons from becoming ‘captives’ echoes something beyond the hostage-taking of the earlier scenes. As Linda Colley points out, within some parts of popular culture, rejoicing at the fall of Seringapatam had always been tempered with

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condemnation of British atrocities. Colley’s reprinting of a Thomas Rowlandson caricature print, The Death of Tippoo or Besieging a Haram!!!’ (1799), with its scenes of mass rape by redcoats – amidst what she calls its ‘complex and broadly distributed’ racism – appears to figure an anxiety resurrected over twenty years later in the final scene of Milner’s Tippoo Saib.66 In other words, the borrowing of a familiar ending from El Hyder is rather more than a dramatic device: the apparent recklessness of Tippoo’s decision is not only ameliorated by the drama’s earlier demonstration of his love for his wife and children, but Tippoo’s anxieties about rape and captivity by British soldiers were already embedded in this representation of the history of the British in India. Milner’s Tippoo Saib decisively aligns itself with these allegations of sexual violation. In ‘[S. D.] Scene the Last. The Fort’, Tippoo fights with Lord Mount Alford. The Wellington figure, Arthur Fitz-Henry, ‘fights with the English Ensign in his hand’, but he is apparently not directly engaged in combat with Tippoo, the play’s reminder that they had both united to save the children from the treacherous Alef Achbar. Inevitably, when ‘Tippoo Saib is slain … [Arthur’s] Ensign is lowered over him, and a grand picture formed’.67 Given the triumphalism noted in most parts of British cultural life subsequent to Tippoo’s death in 1799, this 1823 portrayal is muted. Contemporary visual depictions, Ker Porter’s panorama most notably, had emphasized the confusion of his final hours. An engraving by J. Rogers after Henry Singleton’s The Last Effort and Fall of Tippoo Sultaun, in 1799 (c. 1802) shows the mêlée underneath a part of the Seringapatam rampart known as the Water Gate, although the scene in Milner’s Tippoo is much closer in tone to Arthur William Devis’s oil painting, Major-General Baird and Col. The Hon. Arthur Wellesley Discovering the Body of Tippoo Sultaun at Seringapatam on 4th May 1799 (1799–1802, National War Museum of Scotland). Both Devis and Milner present quite different portrayals of Tippoo’s death compared with the triumphalist emblems in Sir David Wilkie’s iconic oil, General Sir David Baird Discovering the Body of Sultan Tippoo Sahib after having captured Seringapatam on the 4th May 1799 (1839, National Gallery of Scotland) which shows Baird, sword in hand, only metres away from the prison grating where he had once been incarcerated by the man now slain at his feet. If Milner’s scene stands somewhere between Devis’s reflective Baird and … Wellesley Discovering the Body of Tippoo Sultaun and Wilkie’s 1839 icon of Indian defeat, the drama’s implicit reference in its final lines to the Rowlandson print of The Death of Tippoo or Besieging a Haram!!! is a reminder of the complex popular visual iconography of Hyder Ali, Tippoo and of Islamic India in general. It is worth exploring these visual discourses because they reveal something of how both Barrymore’s El Hyder and Milner’s Tippoo Saib mark important interventions against elite modes of orientalism in the visual arts.

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Both Wilkie’s painting and Milner’s Tippoo Saib refer back to one specific account of Tippoo’s death, a notice originating in 24 August 1799 issue of the Bombay Courier. The facet of Tippoo’s reign which Wilkie chose to emphasize was the hubris of an oriental despot and the poetic justice of his replacement by a victorious British soldier, once his prisoner: He, who had left his Palace in the morning a powerful, imperious Sultaun, full of vast ambitious projects, was brought back a lump of clay, his kingdom overthrown, his capital taken, and his Palace occupied by the very man (Major General Baird) who about fifteen years before had been, with other victims of his cruelty and tyranny, released from near four years of rigid confinement in irons, scarce three hundred yards form the spot where the corpse of the Sultaun now lay.68

By contrast, Milner had chosen to emphasize a different part of the Bombay Courier’s report: Here he exerted himself to rally the fugitives, and uniting them with his own guard, encouraged them by his voice and example to make a determined stand. He repeatedly fired on our troops himself, and one of his servants asserts, that they saw him bring down several Europeans near the top of the breach.69

Milner’s and Wilkie’s decisions are part of a consistent pattern in the portrayal of Moghul India, not just that aspect concerned with Hyder Ali and Tippoo Saib. At its simplest, Milner portrays Tippoo alive while Wilkie depicts him dead. However, beyond this rather reductive view, there were huge differences which have as much to do with the medium of their portrayal as the temperament of the discursive cultures in which they were represented. Elite visual art, that is the studio or gallery painting, tended to ‘orientalize’ Moghul India as an distant and demilitarized empire, whose ruins were rapidly being naturalized into a Western ideal of silent picturesque. By contrast, the Moghul dramas shown at the Royal Coburg represented a martial, defiant and ideologically resourceful India. Recent commentators, even those concerned with cataloguing the two-way trafficking of ideas and commodities between Europe and Asia, have tended to promote the dominance of modern orientalist perspectives ultimately derived from the work of Edward Said: ‘The psychological demilitarizing of the East was crucial in forming eighteenth-century European views of Oriental exoticism and its decorative and literary potential.’70 Despite their location in the second and third decades of the nineteenth century, Barrymore’s El Hyder and even the more historically constrained action of Milner’s Tippoo Saib, were hardly pieces lacking militaristic tension and martial uncertainty. The scant evidence afforded by scenic properties produced to accompany William West’s ‘toy theatre’ characters for Tippoo Saib shows two turbaned Indians fighting each other, presumably an allusion to Alef Achbar’s and Achmed Ali Kawn’s struggle over the fate of

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Tippoo’s hostage sons.71 West’s figures were intended to accompany not only his own children’s printed figures and wooden theatres sets for Tippoo Saib, but also to be used in the rival Hodgson’s Juvenile Drama series from which the printed edition of Milner’s Tippoo Saib uniquely survives. West’s premises at the Theatrical Print Warehouse, No. 57 Wych Street, Strand, placed him and his wares directly opposite the Olympic Theatre and close to Drury Lane. The importance of West’s and Hodgson’s involvement with the Tippoo play texts is that, by virtue of their location, Georgia toy theatre became widely disseminated when parents bought such amusements for their children. These texts and educational toys possibly ran counter to other forms of representation. While something of the triumphalism of Western ascendancy over Mughal India is clearly seen in Wilkie’s oil of 1839, it is even more evident in J. M. W. Turner’s Study of the Fortifications of Seringapatam, (c. 1801, Tate Britain). Never having visited India himself, Turner’s pencil and watercolour sketch was probably based on a visit to Ker Porter’s panorama at the Lyceum. While Ker Porter’s gigantic picture showed clashing armies engaged in dramatic action, Turner’s study, probably executed within a year or two of the panorama, shows deserted ramparts already eroding back into the landscape, much like the British medieval castles in his similar pencil study, Carreg Cennen Castle in a Stormy Landscape (1798, Tate Britain). Milner’s Tippoo Saib is a complete reversal of the latent orientalism of these elite paintings. Indeed, these extraordinary scenes in Tippoo Saib; or, The Storming of Seringapatam run counter to what one might have expected from the diverse but systematic demonization of Tippoo which took place within a whole spectrum of British official and popular public discourse from the 1790s onwards. What had brought about this change? Part of the reason was the radical disposition of the playhouse itself. The Royal Coburg, in defiance of the royal patent theatres of Covent Garden and Drury Lane, positioned itself as an anti-prince regent playhouse, choosing to support the memory of the Prince of Wales’s deceased daughter, Princess Charlotte, husband of the Belgian prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg. This allegiance was announced on the masthead of its playbills and a portrait of Charlotte was hung inside the theatre.72 However, what may have been more important was the presence of servants within the theatre’s audience. At contemporary playhouses, servants often kept seats for their employers, arriving before the start of the performance. In some theatres there was even a specific ‘footmens gallery’, an area known to occasionally erupt into rioting as when, during James Townley’s satire on servants, High Life Below Stairs (1759), real-life servants objected to how they were portrayed. In Edinburgh during a performance of this play (which servants thought ‘a farce, reflecting on their fraternity’), the masters finding that servants ‘would not submit to authority’, were forced to invade the gallery until ‘the servants were fairly overpowered, and thrust out

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of the house’.73 The presence of black or coloured servants at the playhouses is exceedingly difficult to recover although the modern historian of British servant portraiture, Giles Waterfield, has noted that ‘the number and the visibility of Indian servants rose’ after the abolition of the slave trade in 1807.74 However, the presence of servants of Indian origin in London during this period can be inferred from an Old Bailey case of 1795, occurring at the height of the twin antagonisms caused by Tippoo’s continued insurgency and threat of alliance with France. The case was brought to court by a plaintiff named Tippoo Saib, a person who gave his occupation as a servant at Lord Mac Donald’s townhouse in Westminster. This Tippoo Saib had been robbed of a £3 gilt watch by Jane Cartwright near to his employer’s house in Great George Street. There is nothing to categorically determine Tippoo Saib’s ethnic origin (he swore his oath on the Bible) but his presence in court not only confirms the forcible Anglicization of whatever was the servant’s real name, but also his denigration.75 It may have been deference towards the playhouse’s servant-populated audience, mixed with an existing predisposition towards radical thinking, which ensured that the Coburg presented their own perspective on the Moghul Tippoo Saib rather than the version disseminated by the propaganda of the East India Company and their captivity narratives. However, the ultimate confirmation for how dramas such as El Hyder and Tippoo Saib were perceived amongst the ethnically mixed plebeian sections of the London population comes from the events surrounding Joseph Glossop’s (then the Coburg’s owner) purchase of The Royalty Theatre, Tower Hamlets, in 1821, a playhouse holding 1,600 people in 1813 but which may have been expanded by the early 1820s.76 The Royalty Theatre in Wellclose Square was close to London’s docklands.77 In the late eighteenth century this district had moved from being an area associated with the manufacture of armaments to one in which the milling, refining and warehousing of sugar from the West Indies had become increasingly important. A study of Old Bailey court cases throws up the example of two Wellclose Square sugar-refiners, the plaintiffs in a theft case of 1821, another indicator of the continuing importance of this trade.78 The vicinity of The Royalty Theatre was immersed in both the Caribbean and the Indian trades and their associated shipping, berthing and warehousing. For nearly forty years The Royalty had a fraught history with intermittent but strenuous attempts at its suppression. In the 1780s, the patentees of Covent Garden and Drury Lane had tried to close it down in order to protect their monopoly.79 Around 1803, the Society for the Suppression of Vice (in what must have been one of its first organized campaigns) had sought the Royalty’s closure on the grounds of how the playhouse was promoting idleness amongst the workforce.80 That the Royalty was situated in an area which had long been multi-racial and multi-lingual is evidenced by their Harlequin Mungo; or, A Peep into the Tower (1788), a (silent) pantomime

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featuring Harlequin as a slave on a West Indies sugar plantation who elopes with the (white) slave owner’s daughter before they secure freedom and marriage in London. Despite the efforts of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, the playhouse had survived into the 1820s. By that time the area had prospered into ‘a new and elegant neighbourhood’ subsequent to the building of the East India Company’s East India Dock, one of whose access roads led directly into Wellclose Square.81 As an indicator of the enormous changes being wrought in this area (as also in other parts of London), by 1820, the Royalty Theatre was not only gas-lit but had its own gas works.82 However, the most important piece of infrastructural change which allied the Caribbean trade to the Indian, was the construction of the East India Docks which opened in 1806, built upon an anti-pilfering pattern of secure berths similar to those introduced in the nearby West India Docks. Such a dockyard design was aimed at preventing the customary culture of pilfering cargo and goods from ships being unloaded by dockyard workers.83 With their development of a secure rectangular walled harbour which was easy to patrol and isolate, the West and East India docks were important civil engineering innovations both in terms of the built infrastructure of London’s docklands and because of their impact on the social culture of the area. Ironically, in 1813, it was the playwright James Cobb who edited the East India Company’s resolutions defending their monopoly, in which reference was made to ten thousand ‘industrious artificers’ between London Bridge and Gravesend who would be ‘in danger of beggary’ if it did not continue.84 Two thousand armed men formed into three regiments constantly patrolled the East India Docks as part of the Company’s security system. This climate of the visible intimidation of the local population in the vicinity of The Royalty Theatre was repeated in the law courts. Scores of Old Bailey records from this period show that the East India Company was intensely litigious in prosecuting anyone stealing its property, however trivial the goods pilfered. To take only one example from many, William Ingram, a labourer, was transported for seven years for stealing ‘five fathoms of rope, value 5s.; one spike-nail, value 1s., the property of the East India Dock Company’, in 1818.85 In turn, other Old Bailey cases such as that of George Meek, a drunken sailor from the schooner Nimble accosted by a prostitute (‘about eleven o’clock on that evening, I fell in with the prisoner opposite the Royalty Theatre – I was rather the worse for liquor’), definitively reveals that seamen were in the theatre’s vicinity.86 In 1821 Glossop was in the position of requiring a suitable opening-night production for this vividly sited playhouse. Instead of a piece specifically written for the occasion, the Royalty staged the ex-Coburg production of El Hyder; the Chief of the Ghaut Mountains. Glossop would clearly have chosen for the first night’s mainpiece a drama he anticipated would receive a warm reception from

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the local audience. Contemporary commentators were well aware of the racial and cultural heterogeneity of the Royalty’s maritime hinterland. A first night review of the Royalty’s El Hyder in the Drama; or, Theatrical Pocket Magazine, slyly noted that ‘Mr. Glossop … has perfectly “astonished the natives” of Rag Fair, Rosemary Lane, Tower Hill, Wapping, and Wellclose Square’. As well as confirming the Royalty’s East End hinterland, the reviewer’s reference to the local ‘“natives”’ is implicitly meaningful because the notice went on to remark how ‘The manager, [being] well aware of the company he had to deal with, opened with a gallimaufry, calculated to please the palates of his customers; he therefore presented them with The Sailor’s Frolic, which set the tars of Wapping Old Stairs in ecstasies; after which, came El Hyder, with all its paraphernalia of “gun, trumpet, blunderbuss, and thunder”, and the whole concluded with a treat for the “Mr. Sholomons of Duke’s Place” – “The Benevolent Jew”’87 That night’s playbill for the Royalty’s first night under Glossop’s ownership is extremely revealing. All three of these first-night entertainments were geared towards accommodating a multi-cultural audience. The Sailor’s Frolic was a popular song dating from the early 1800s with a mid-nineteenth century version subtitled ‘or, Life in the East’ (c. 1850). The innuendo about the ‘“Mr. Sholomons”’ appreciative of ‘The Benevolent Jew’ is a reference to C. F. Barrett’s long established ‘patter’ song for spoken accompaniment which the Spitalfields presswoman Ann Lemoine had included as a specifically Royalty Theatre favourite at least twenty years earlier in her collection, Laugh When You Can; or, The Monstrous Droll Jester (c. 1795–8). Although Barrett gave the Jewish figure in his song the stereotypical identity of a wealthy trader on the stock exchange, the benevolent Jew celebrated in its verse was someone orphaned at the age of nine and forced to live by selling pencils, sealing-wax and ‘pomatum’ cosmetics in order to make his ‘money galore’. The song ends with a deferential reversal of religious stereotypes by having the Jew explain through the song’s title that, after acquiring his wealth, ‘I made that my plan, / To be honest and just to mankind, sirs, / Altho’ I’m a Jew’.88 In other words, the whole of the Royalty Theatre’s first night programme was calculated by Glossop to be deferential, courteous and politically respectful to an audience who were as likely to be formed from East India Company Lascar seamen as from London Jews trading the Company’s eastern commodities.89 Glossop’s choice of El Hyder, with Henry Stephen Kemble (1789–1836), the son of George Stephen and Elizabeth Kemble, in the title role was a carefully judged positioning of the newly managed Royalty playhouse within the local community. Between 1794 and 1814, two thousand five hundred Lascar sailors are said to have visited England.90 By 1814–15 there had been a Parliamentary Report from the Select Committee respecting Lascars and other Asiatic Seamen, intended to gather information on procuring and providing for East

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Indies sailors while they were in England (and ensuring their return to their home country).91 The racial mix of the Wellclose Square area simply reflected the increasing connections between east and west where the ships tying up at the East India Docks required multi-lingual English officers to crew them.92 Glossop had carefully calculated his audience: while the officers might be reluctant to see Hyder Ali celebrated, there is little doubt the Lascar sailors would have enjoyed the affirmation of an Indian leader. The Royalty’s production of El Hyder provides a definitive example for how sections of the London theatregoing audience not only welcomed pro-Indian nationalist dramas but were also actively targeted by responsive theatre managers. The positive reception of The Royalty production of El Hyder in 1821 may even have prompted The Royal Coburg to return to a comparable theme and perspective on recent Indian history by staging the Milner Tippoo Saib two years later. Indeed, there is every reason to think that Tippoo Saib was considered a potentially dangerous re-evaluation of the Moghul leader and that the East India Company became alarmed at the pro-Indian stance of El Hyder staged so close to their premises. The year after Tippoo Saib’s first performance, the publisher H. Fisher (who also produced The Imperial Magazine (1822–34)) brought out James Scurry’s narrative of his Captivity, Sufferings, and Escape … Detained A Prisoner During Ten Years, In the Dominions of Hyder Ali and Tippoo Saib (1824). Scurry had died in 1822 but his Captivity, Sufferings, and Escape was published with a Preface reminding the reader – long after the fact – that ‘Hyder Ali Cawn, and his son Tippoo Saib, have long been distinguished, and not less detested, throughout every part of the civilized world, for the cruelties which they practiced on their prisoners of war, during their dominion of India’.93 Extraordinarily, the contemporary drama appears to have responded directly to this attempt to invoke these memories of Tippoo and his father. That there was some level of an antithetical dialogue between the publishers of the Indian captivity narratives and the contemporary London stage can be judged by a further theatrical response which seems specifically aimed at captivity narratives emanating from the experiences of those imprisoned in Islamic lands. The American John Howard Payne’s opera The Fall of Algiers (1825) for Drury Lane included a character called Timothy Tourist, a prisoner of the Dey of Algiers, who specifically mocks captivity narratives: If I should but live … what a great man I shall become; what a figure I shall cut in the literary world with a published account of my travels – title page, narrative of a captivity among the Algerines – author, Timothy Tourist – size, imperial, with a whole-length portrait-paper hot pressed – price six guineas – edition twenty first – to be had of all booksellers from Whitechapel to Chelsea. By great good luck I have preserved my memorandum-book, and so to add a few observations, that I don’t remember to have seen made in any other work on the same subject.94

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The Fall of Algiers was popular enough for another edition to be printed by Thomas Dolby, one of a small group of radical pressmen highlighted by Iain McCalman to have been turning away from the risky business of selling antiPrince Regent satires and trying to find safer markets in the burgeoning area of theatrical imprints.95 That it was Scurry’s captivity narrative which had attracted Payne’s attention is confirmed by this passage having been a late (technically illegal) insertion, not part of the text delivered to George Colman the Younger, the Lord Chamberlain’s Examiner of Plays, for licensing.96 Barrymore’s El Hyder, Milner’s Tippoo Saib and, not least, John Howard Payne’s Fall of Algiers, all testify to a sceptical reaction to the East India Company’s role in expanding its commercial empire. The anti-regent Royal Coburg Theatre between 1818 and 1824 was part of a critical mass of progressive, mainly plebeian, sentiment which was in the process of redefining, in its own terms, the exact nature of an appropriate response to Britain’s role in India. The unexpected nuances of this popular response are only fitfully glimpsed. Something of its nature can be judged by a newspaper report of an outdoor ‘Radical Reform’ meeting held outside Glasgow in the months after the Peterloo Massacre. An unidentified speaker, his words occasionally interrupted by alarms of an impeding cavalry attack upon the crowd (‘Here another cry arose of cavalry coming’), warmed to his subject by reminding his listeners of ‘the gallant Tippoo Saib and several others, among whom were the descendants of Tamerlane the Great, who held such a respectable situation in the pages history’. According to the speaker, they ‘had enthralled a great portion of Asia, commonly called the East Indies, in a military despotism’ but ‘what, he would ask, had all these victories brought to the country? The proceeds had been pocketed by [a few] individuals’.97 Such intricacies, of histories whose words are torn away like on this windswept Glasgow common, are meanings to which we should truly attend. Barrymore’s El Hyder and Milner’s Tippoo Saib were remarkable interventions in re-writing the history of British involvement in India.

5 THE NORTH AFRICAN ISLAMIC STATES ON THE BRITISH AND AMERICAN STAGE

John Howard Payne’s The Fall of Algiers (1825) for Drury Lane, with its captivity narrative sceptic, Timothy Tourist, was staged towards the end of a discrete phase of dramas in Britain and America written about Islamic north Africa. In one way or another, they were all concerned with the continuing problem of Barbary coast piracy. While, as discussed in the previous chapter, a long period of warfare leading up to Tippoo Saib’s demise in 1799 produced quite distinctive phases of response and eventual reversals of sentiment in the 1810s, Britain and America’s relationships with Barbary were subject to intermittent, inconclusive and often unpredictable military and diplomatic skirmishes, and consequently had different results. Whereas British drama developed a certain equanimity or comic fatalism with regard to piracy and enslavement, for the newly independent United States the experiences were much more profound, vigorously debated as aspects of foreign policy as well as in the theatre and other works of fiction.1 In particular, American dramas about Barbary became vehicles for a number of patriotic registers concerning natural rights, while remaining immune to the rights of black slaves. The result is an untidy sequence of dramas and spectacles, quite distinctive according to their location on either side of the Atlantic, but presenting a considerable body of evidence as to the role of drama in reflecting contemporary opinion. Not least, in American writing about Barbary, including the performed dramas, arise embryonic notions of military intervention and occupation. Although the American dimension of this problem was beyond the scope of her study, Linda Colley’s influential Captives: Britain, Empire and the World 1600–1850 (2002) has shown that the problem of corsairing pirates had continued to threaten sea travellers sailing through the Mediterranean from at least the seventeenth century. Despite overshadowing events such as the American War of Independence, the French Revolution or even the Napoleonic War, relationships and interactions with north African piracy were an enduring international phenomenon. Although the pervasive image of the seraglio, so common as a setting in contemporary drama, is not discussed here, historians have reminded – 107 –

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us of how visitors to Algiers noted that, ‘the inhabitants have a rather white complexion’, as the local gene pool became mixed with European sources resulting from corsairing.2 The history is complex in its unpredictable turnings but the main movements can be readily summarized.3 In 1798, the United States Congress began making tribute payments to Tripoli (as it had also done to Algiers and Tunis from 1795) in order to allow safe passage of its ships through the Mediterranean. However, America and Tunis declared war on each other in 1801. There then followed a series of naval and land-based engagements by United States forces in the Tripoli area during the period 1803–5 before the signing of a peace treaty in 1806. In 1815 the United States declared war on Algiers before a further series of treaties, along with parallel agreements with Tunis and Tripoli, brought an end to this particular period of warfare. However, in response to its own experience of continuing piracy, in 1816 a British force led by Lord Exmouth carried out a separate bombardment of Algiers using, amongst other things, Congreve rockets. Although these are the chief diplomatic and military events, throughout this time there were regular political and military skirmishes – some of which are outlined below – involving the European powers, America and the Barbary states, until the issue of the piracy expeditions mounted from the north African regencies was finally quashed by the decisive French invasion and occupation of Algiers in 1830. Inevitably, over such a long period of time, a number of varied responses in the popular culture had arisen to the Barbary problem and it was inevitable that these would be portrayed on the stage. However, British and American responses were quite distinct and subject to different immediate sets of impulses. American naval engagements off the Libyan coast in the period 1803–5 were both prefigured and reflected in a series of thoughtful dramas, but while British theatres produced a wide range of popular spectacles and panoramas about Barbary, these lacked the depth of discussion about its implications for nationhood and slavery. America’s north African conflicts also helped to define its relationship with the established European powers, a relationship based upon mistrust and conspiracy theory, yet with a paradoxical attitude to slavery. Mathew Carey’s pocket-sized A Short History of Algiers, With a Concise View of the Origin of the Rupture Between Algiers and the United States (New York, 1805) referred to ‘the naval despotism of England’, claiming that Britain ‘adopted the miserable expedient of turning loose the Algerines, that these execrable ruffians might plunder our property, and plunge our fellow-citizens into slavery’.4 As far as the development of late eighteenth-century American drama was concerned, the body of plays on north African themes were important interventions: firstly, because they countered the dominance of the British Georgian dramatic repertoire in American playhouses and, secondly, because they furthered the development of

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a distinctively American drama, debating themes not covered in British theatre. This chapter will set out something of these intricacies, firstly by relating popular British responses to Barbary and then by moving on to contrast how these issues were considered in American playwriting. Some idea of the degree of sophistication of theatrical events, and how they interrelated with other modes of discourse, can be judged from how the Royalty Theatre, Tower Hamlets, in October 1801 combined ‘A representation of Mr. Porter’s Picture of Seringapatam’ with an ex-Astley’s Amphitheatre piece called The Pirate, or Harlequin Victor which included ‘a View of the City of Algiers’ and ‘Captive Slaves’.5 The Royalty’s two spectacles indicate how the London theatres were concerned with both the north African and the Indian Islamic regions. The Royalty’s version of Robert Ker Porter’s Lyceum panorama (referred to in the previous chapter) is a reminder not only of how the playhouses served to amplify contemporary imagery associated with Tippoo and Seringapatam but also how this imagery could be accessed at ever cheaper entrance charges. Pit seats for this night were advertised as one shilling but, as with the Royal Circus Copenhagen bombardment spectacle referred to below, the Royalty almost certainly observed the widespread convention of half-price entrance after the mainpiece. For British audiences, the issue of Barbary slavery was merely a component in a continuum of issues connected with British overseas involvements concerning both India and Africa. Exactly how responsive these productions were to contemporary events can be determined from the context of Porter’s picture of Seringapatam and The Pirate, or Harlequin Victor set in Algiers. The Pirate, or Harlequin Victor had first been performed at Astley’s Amphitheatre on 25 August 1800, advertised as a ‘Serio-comic Pantomime’ written and produced by the manager, Philip Astley Jr. A year later, the Royalty Theatre seems to have borrowed the Astley production in its entirety, complete with its Seringapatam picture. The plot of the piece would have followed the customary harlequinade narrative of a maligned or misused male who comes to attention of Columbine and, after the intervention of a guardian spirit, is transformed into the magically endowed Harlequin. In company with Columbine, the couple would have escaped from her forbidding father, Pantaloon, and eventually – after customary tribulations – found marriage and reconciliation with Pantaloon. In the case of The Pirate, or Harlequin Victor, judging by the scenic effects it advertised, it is very probable that before his transformation into Harlequin, the male role was designated under the name of Adonis (perhaps an English sailor), who has been captured by the Algerine Pirate and brought back to the Dey of Algiers (played by the playwright and actor, Mr Mercerot). These scenes at Astley’s were probably staged alongside the ‘View of the City of Algiers’ in a spectacle which included the ‘Triumphal Entry of the Pirate, and Captive Slaves’ into the city. The Royalty appears also to have borrowed The Pirate’s scenic painting of the

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‘View of the City of Algiers’ by recycling it from a ‘Pantomime Dance’ called The Marauder; or, A Peep at Algiers, an Astley’s piece dating from the 1780s which Astley had advertised as featuring ‘a striking View of Algiers’.6 This reuse of paintings and theatrical scenery continues the practices discussed below surrounding Covent Garden’s staging of Omai, or, A Trip round the World. The retention of the paintings and scenery illustrating Algiers over a nearly twentyyear period is testimony not only to Barbary’s continual topical interest (and, therefore, the economic rationale for retaining such objects in theatrical property inventories), it also serves as a reminder of the exponential way the images of theatrical spectacles reached wide contemporary audiences, moving far beyond the confines of their original productions. After The Pirate, or Harlequin Victor’s scenes in the ‘Grand Haram’, and following enigmatic assistance from some ‘Enchanted Faggots’, Adonis is transformed into Harlequin. No doubt aided by his newly magic powers, Harlequin and Columbine escape to England. In London, one of the scenes showed the ‘Exterior of the Lyceum, Strand’ which becomes the transitional episode for introducing a ‘Representation of the Historical Picture of Mr. Porter’s Siege of Seringapatam’. According to the advertisement, which assured spectators that the picture was ‘executed by the same Artists as assisted him in painting that celebrated production’, the movement of the Porter image to the Royalty playhouse is a demonstration of how London’s professional artistic microcultures circulated around the capital’s theatrical industry, reproducing images from one site and relocating them to another.7 That The Pirate, or Harlequin Victor chose to represent the Lyceum building itself, as well as a version of the panorama exhibited within it, is a reminder that both Astley’s and the Royalty were in parts of London which might not ordinarily have found Porter’s original panorama accessible. The dissemination of Porter’s Seringapatam, therefore, was much more extensive than its display at the Lyceum might suggest. In addition, Astley had smoothly incorporated – notwithstanding the audience’s suspension of disbelief – Algerine piracy as an aspect of a complex, but highly differentiated, representation of Britain’s relationship with the global Islamic regions. The sophistication with which this imagery and theatricality could be deployed to reinforce national and diplomatic ends is evidenced in other uses of theatre and spectacle in London’s playhouses. The Royalty’s decision to borrow Astley’s Pirate, or Harlequin Victor, together with its painting of the siege of Seringapatam, was probably inspired by the arrival in London in November 1800 of the Dey of Algier’s Ambassador, Hodge Ibrahim Candiot, who stayed until the following summer.8 The Ambassador was immediately introduced to King George as part of delicate and sustained attempts by Britain, in common with other European states, to maintain an equable relationship with the corsairing Barbary regencies. In May 1801 the Algerine Ambassador visited Astley’s

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rival equestrian space, the Royal Circus in St George’s Fields, where he saw The Iron Tower or Cell of Mystery (a ‘Caledonian Spectacle’) together with another spectacle advertised as ‘The Danish Defeat off Copenhagen’, alluding to Nelson’s controversial engagement with the Danish fleet in the Copenhagen roads on 2 April 1801. The Ambassador (who also held the post of Admiral) is said to have received ‘peculiar pleasure’ from this ‘correct and beautiful representation of the late Naval Victory’.9 The Ambassador’s trip to the Royal Circus may not have been innocently intended, assuming it was arranged by his British hosts rather than as a private initiative. Nelson’s attack on Copenhagen had arisen because of Denmark’s increasing alliance with Russia and its resistance to Britain’s insistence on searching Danish naval convoys. The initiation of the bombardment of the city was delayed by the Admiralty’s uncertainty as to whether it was preferable to attack the pro-French Russian Baltic fleet directly or to deal with the Danes first. These hesitations over tactics ensured that when the decision was made to attack the Danish fleet anchored near Copenhagen, Nelson had to contemplate bombarding positions which were much better fortified and reinforced. Nelson had little other alternative than to engage the Danish ships in close proximity to Copenhagen and within range of both of its fixed and floating batteries of guns. It was at the Battle of Copenhagen that Nelson famously ignored a countermanding signal to withdraw from the attack, putting his telescope to his blind eye and declaring, ‘I really do not see the signal’. With Nelson’s ship not repeating this withdrawal signal to the rest of the squadron, they continued with the engagement until the Danish forces negotiated an armistice. As far as the Royal Circus spectacle was concerned, the Algerine Ambassador would have been forcibly struck by Nelson’s ability to successfully engage Copenhagen’s heavily fortified coastal positions and would have drawn the conclusion that Britain was militarily capable of mounting a similar attack on Algiers. Although Nelson was dead by the time of Exmouth’s militarily successful 1816 bombardment of Algiers, whoever manoeuvred the Ambassador towards viewing the Royal Circus spectacle had provided him with a highly prescient indication of the British navy’s capability of mounting a successful attack on his city.10 Despite these attempts to influence the Algerine Ambassador through a combined strategy of diplomacy and theatrical intimidation, at a time when the British crucially needed to guarantee naval passage through the Mediterranean, it is very likely popular London sentiment was running strongly against the Ottoman deputation. In August 1801, during the Ambassador’s stay, a Royal Navy deserter, Thomas Jones, was brought before Bow Street magistrates charged with ‘assaulting Captain Pass, the Captain of an Algerine frigate, and another of the Turkish Ambassador’s suite’ in the Strand.11 While this man’s motives cannot be reliably ascertained, no doubt the unsettled relations with Barbary, together with

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tales and experiences of Barbary captivity, continued to provide tensions on the streets as well as stimulating audience curiosity to see other spectacles on similar themes – including such productions as the Royal Circus’s Renegadoes or, Algerine Corsair (1804), the ‘New, Grand, Serious Pantomime, Spectacle’ of Seven Islands; or, the Pirate of Algiers (1808) and Arab; or, the Freebooters of the Desert, a ‘Progressive Adventure’ showing the ‘Actions of the inhabitants of Egypt’ with ‘Arabian Banditti; Together with the Mode of their Traffic [in] Slaves’.12 The sailor’s assault on the Algerine captain in the Strand was probably symptomatic of widespread popular ill-feeling against representatives of the Barbary regencies. Fears of north African piracy, enslavement and the necessity to pay money either as tribute (the appeasement of north African rulers in return for safe passage), or as ransoms for the redemption of captured sailors and travellers, were commonplace. Anxieties about Barbary piracy reached down through many levels of society. At a time when the development of politically progressive ideologies was a prominent feature of popular print culture, it is noticeable that this theme helped define the limits of international solidarity. The prolific radical pressman William Hone, who was that year publishing adultery trials and accounts of the Spa Fields rising of December 1816, also published The Cruelties of the Algerine Pirates, Shewing the Present State of the English Slaves, and Other Europeans, At Algiers and Tunis; With the Horrid Barbarities Inflicted on Christian Mariners Shipwrecked On the North Western Coast of Africa and Carried Into Perpetual Slavery (1816), in support of Lord Exmouth’s successful naval bombardment of Algiers that August in company with a fleet of Dutch vessels.13 That Hone favoured such an attack on the city seems borne out not only by the publication of this work but also by his agility in transposing feelings about the Dey of Algiers’s ruthless control and enslavement of international travellers into anti-government and anti-Prince Regent satire. Hone’s A Political Catechism. Dedicated (without Permission) to this Most Serene Highness Omar, Bashaw, Dey and Governor of the Warlike City and Kingdom of Algiers; the earl of Liverpool; lord Castlereagh, & Co (1816), a publication which went through numerous twopenny editions in London, Manchester and Bristol (with a copy also being retained by the Home Office as part of its surveillance of the radical movement) made an effective allusion to the Barbary power.14 That the Dey of Algiers was technically the appointed regent of the Ottoman Sultan, and that Algiers was a regency state, made Hone’s satiric equivalence between the Algerine ruler and Britain’s Prince Regent that much easier to comprehend. That this was all part of the sentiment of popular culture, one which rapidly equated Barbary despotism with the suppression of emerging democracy, is borne out by repeated discussions on both sides of the Atlantic, both in the period’s performed and unperformed drama, as well as in poetry and novels. Like William Hone’s publications in England, Caleb Bingham’s Columbian

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Orator (Boston, 1817) was aimed at reaching large audiences. In Bingham’s case this was achieved by employing stereotype printing which made long print runs cheap and feasible. Using such technologies, anti-Ottoman sentiment and democratic politics could be economically combined. David Everett’s two-act unperformed drama (although intended for elocutionary rendition), Slaves in Barbary published in Bingham’s volume, ended with the sentiment voiced by an incongruently reformed Bashaw of Tunis that ‘there is no luxury so exquisite as the exercise of humanity, and no post so honorable as his, who defends THE RIGHTS OF MAN’.15 The author’s specific invocation of natural rights, accompanied by blindness on the issue of American black slavery, is a recurrent feature of these works. The notion of inimical Barbary despotism was deployed in a number of contemporary public discourses and invariably linked to the issue of piracy; it became quickly absorbed into linguistic registers on both sides of the Atlantic. When the USS Chesapeake was stopped by HMS Leopard and searched for deserters in 1807, American pamphleteers rapidly made connections between ‘the now [sic] monarch of England’ and his intention to ‘degrade his subjects to the level of the slaves of the Dey of Algiers’, adding a warning about the vigour with which any ensuing ‘war with America will be prosecuted’.16 Indeed, not only was the principle of sovereignty during the Chesapeake incident a contributory factor in the Anglo-British war of 1812–14, the mobilization of such discourses characterizes the prevailing state of relations between Britain and America where the recognition of mutual interest in securing safety of passage through the Mediterranean was abandoned in favour of independent action and separate negotiation with the Barbary states.17 At the level of the popular culture, images and awareness of the role of British relations with the Barbary powers would have been experienced by many citizens. By 1823, Madame Tussauds’ touring waxworks featured ‘The Celebrated Dey of Algiers’ exhibited alongside likenesses of the actors John Phillip Kemble and Sarah Siddons.18 Depicting the bombardment of 1816, Henry Aston Barker’s panorama, Lord Exmouth’s Attack Upon Algiers, On the 27th of August, 1816, was exhibited in 1818 in a building in Leicester Square specially constructed in 1793 to simultaneously exhibit two fully circular panoramas. Barker’s panorama was supplemented by James Jennings’s accompanying ‘Description’ (‘Long had these marauders, the ALGERINES, disturbed the peace of the civilized world’) which made the theatrical nature of the painting quite explicit, declaring it portrayed, ‘a story, around which no historical or mythological halo hovers … where the LIVING SCENE, the vivid drama of REALITY, has just passed before us’.19 There also seems to have been a plan in Manchester – not certainly linked to Barker – to issue a set of prints based on a similar panorama.20 A moving version of Barker’s painting was toured around the country a few years later when

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Charles Marshall’s Grand Marine Peristrephic Panorama of the Bombardment of Algiers (c. 1823) was constructed as a moving image and a forerunner of the Van Diemen’s Land! panorama discussed below. Marshall’s Algiers panorama was shown at Bury St. Edmunds in 1823 and Bristol in 1824 before touring to the Swan Tavern, Exeter, and then on to the theatre in Teignmouth.21 In 1827, a Parisian puppet company showing at a theatre in Hull, ‘opposite the Vittoria Tavern’, included what was probably yet another version, billed as ‘a magnificent Maritime View of the Bombarding of Algiers!!! Under the command of Lord Exmouth’ and featuring ‘The Destruction of the Mole, The City in Flames, Boats loaded with Slaves released to freedom’.22 The exhibition catalogue accompanying Marshall’s Bombardment of Algiers – apparently a copy of Jennings’s text – was prefaced, ‘British Valour displayed in the Cause of Humanity’ and reminded viewers that the fate of Algiers was crucial to ‘The Interests of Great Britain, And the Maritime World at Large’. A special section of the painting was given over to ‘Algerine Cruelties’ and both versions of the catalogue were accompanied by long extracts from Abraham Salarmé’s eye-witness Narrative of the Expedition to Algiers In the Year 1816, Under the Command of the Right Hon. Admiral Lord Viscount Exmouth (1819).23 Both the ‘vivid drama’ of the bombardment scene, and its eventual exhibition across several towns and taverns – as well as in Teignmouth theatre – are reminders of how widely dispersed within the popular national culture this particular set of conflicts had become, and how the imagery associated with them endured within public spaces. In addition to the harrowing account given in Hone’s Cruelties of the Algerine Pirates, detailing the hidden shoals and dangerous currents which swept sailors onto the north African shore where Arab bandits simply waited until their water and food ran out before carrying them off into slavery, there would also have been present in London many veterans of such conflicts, shipwrecks and imprisonments. One such person may have been the sailor referred to above who assaulted the Algerine captain in the Strand. Abraham Salamé, author of Narrative of the Expedition to Algiers In the Year 1816, had himself been shipwrecked on the Barbary coast and provided inside information to Lord Exmouth about Algiers’s military positions and defences. The evidence of the existence of other Barbary survivors within the population also crops up intermittently in court reports, their fragmentary accounts testimony to the resilience of obscure individuals whose contemporaries must have been scattered throughout Britain and the eastern ports of America.24 One man sentenced to death at the Old Bailey in 1820 claimed to have served in the Royal Navy at the Battles of Trafalgar (1805), Copenhagen (1801/7) and at the bombardment of Algiers (1816).25 More bizarrely, a man accused of theft with violence in 1819, only to be acquitted, could prove his mistaken identity by being quite plainly, contrary to his accuser’s

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testimony, mute on account of having ‘lost his tongue at Algiers’, a circumstance as likely to have arisen from incarceration and maltreatment as participation in a battle.26 Salamé’s own reports seem to have been widely reproduced: as well as accompanying the panoramas, they were repeated in provincial journals such as the Liverpool published Imperial Magazine of 1819, headed as ‘Instances of Algerine Cruelty’.27 Inevitably, real or fictional captivity narratives of ex-prisoners repeated much of the violence of the white encounter with north Africa. The flagellation ‘Inflicted by the Arabs on a Female Christian Captive’, the reverse motif of the whipping of black male slaves in north America, was depicted in the crude woodcut frontispiece accompanying the Interesting Narrative of the Captivity and Sufferings of Miss Viletta Laranda, A Native of Naples (New York, 1830), whose memoir was published in a number of editions, her punishment picturing her riding semi-naked on a camel. However, in contrast to accounts detailing violent encounters, there was also a perhaps more surprising stream of quietist literature prompted by the potential symbolism of redeemed Christian slaves. While the reality was that white Europeans and white Americans were redeemed from Barbary captivity upon the payment of substantial sums of money raised by their countrymen, accounts of preservation, pacifistic reasoning, sudden deliverance and struggling redemption persisted. Thomas Lurting’s early eighteenth-century Quaker pamphlet, The Fighting Sailor Turned Peaceable Christian (Leeds, 1816), republished in the year of Lord Exmouth’s raid, appears to have been aimed at countering much of the bellicose anti-Algerian sentiment promoted by the likes of Hone and the contemporary spectacles and panoramas, but its testimony recorded the remote narrative of one George Pattison, a sailor born in 1632. In Pattison’s account, dated 1709, when his ship was captured by pirate ‘Turks’, incredibly, he ‘persuaded them all down to sleep; and when asleep, I got their arms in possession: and all this was done by fair means and persuasions’. Returning home up the Thames, welcoming river craft were said to have cried out ‘“There was a Quaker’s katch [sic] coming up the river, that had been taken by the Turks, and had redeemed themselves, and had never a gun [sic]”’.28 From a similarly provincial English perspective, the Frome writer John Kingdon’s Redeemed Slaves: Being a Short Narrative of Two Neapolitans Redeemed from Slavery on the Coast of Barbary, And carried Home to their Friends at Naples on the Christian Shore (Bristol, c. 1780) may have been at least partially aimed at engaging with the local slave trade but it followed a similar narrative to Lurting’s, fixing upon the captives’ return home to Naples amidst joyful recognitions (‘one of these two redeemed slaves … remembering the names of some of the fishermen who used to fish hereabout, seven or more years before, hailed the fishermen … and one of them that heard his voice, had followed the fishing trade there all the abovementioned [sic] time, and answered to his name’), all peppered with realistic-sounding anec-

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dotes about the ship having to lie quarantined ‘opposite the burning mountain of Vesuvius’ for fourteen days because of the risk of plague. As Kingdon’s homily concluded, ‘These Italians had only their bodies redeemed, but you Christians have both your bodies and your precious souls redeemed’.29 From the above accounts, it is easy to see, certainly from the 1810s, that not only was information about Britain’s relations with north African Barbary widely disseminated to the national population through the circulation of pamphlets, prints, paintings, panoramas and theatrical spectacles, but that there also subsisted surprisingly contrarian discourses placing the issue of piracy amidst other quite distinctive moral or religious frameworks. Compared with the raw and unexpected experiences to be outlined below concerning the United States’s contact with Barbary, and how this was reflected in its drama, the longevity of Britain’s encounter with north Africa evolved quite differently. Perhaps typical was James Cobb’s Drury Lane comic opera, Strangers at Home (1786), which, based around a story of redeemed Barbary captives returning to Florence, opened with ‘A Procession of Captives redeemed from Slavery … the crowd come forward with flasks of wine; they appear to congratulate the Captives, who drink with them’ – the plot mechanism enabled by the returning Montano, turbaned and disguised as an ‘Algerine captain’, who has brought them back to Italy.30 The separate Songs, &c. In … Strangers at Home (1786) makes the ‘Chorus of Captives redeemed from Slavery’ even more explicit (‘Welcome once more our native land!’).31 Cobb, who was a senior figure in the East India Company, would certainly have been aware of the threat of piracy. As noted in the previous chapter, the issue of captivity was one to which Cobb returned in his opening scene showing ‘the Prisons of the British Captives’ in his Covent Garden comic opera set in India, Ramah Droog, or, Wine Does Wonders (1798).32 Strangers at Home quickly reached the English provinces. Aided by the Georgian infrastructure of provincial theatres noted in the Introduction, as well as the touring panoramas described in this chapter, Cobb’s Strangers at Home (first staged in December 1785) reached York theatre by March 1788, while John Adolphus records it ‘reproduced many years afterward, with little change in the plot … under the name of “Native Land”’.33 While York’s Theatrical Register was decidedly lukewarm (‘we have no desire to see it brought forward again’), it thought any ‘success which met with, must certainly be attributed to his [Cobb’s] great connections in the India-House’ plus ‘Mrs. [Dorothy] Jordan’s excellent performance of Rosa’. However, even the Theatrical Register had to admit it had been performed ‘three or four and twenty times during the first season’, evidence of its having reached some 56,000 people in London alone during its first couple of seasons.34 The various tropes of dramatic comedy make paradoxical vehicles for narrating the excesses of Barbary captivity, yet the imagery of Ottoman captivity permeates Georgian drama. Isaac Bickerstaff ’s Haymarket comic opera, The

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Captive (1769), adapted from Dryden, although not as successful as Strangers at Home, featured the love-struck enslaved Spaniard, Ferdinand: ‘If this be captivity, who would not be a captive? What a lucky day was it for me when I was set to work upon my master’s terras in Algiers, where I was seen from the windows of her father’s house by this charming infidel, who singled me from the rest of my companions!’35 However, the returning captive theme continued into the nineteenth century. William Dimond’s revival of Cobb in the Covent Garden opera, Native Land; or, the Return from Slavery (1824), with music by Henry Rowley Bishop and first performed 10 February 1824, appears to have coincided with the international pressure put on Tunisian corsairs to free their captive Christians. The licensing copy of Dimond’s opera had been submitted on 7 January under the title of Manumission; or, The Soldier’s Welcome Home.36 It is likely that the last-minute change of title not only made it more accessible, but also acknowledged the news, outlined below, of the series of political and military incidents linked to the contemporary situation in Algiers and Tunis. Dimond’s opera sketched out more fully than its Strangers at Home original the picture of repatriated Italian Barbary slaves, one of them bearing the wounds of an engagement in Tunis: an invalided soldier, with a wooden leg, a loose sleeve, and a black band over one of his eyes; he hobbles upon a crutch, keeping military time, and singing – … I shook the vengeful steel aloft, and Mahomet trembled in his hiding place! – just then, a shell exploded from the ‘crocodile’, and shattered this leg … the Moors shouted ‘Victory’, and Genoa lost the day!37

Whatever its shortcomings, Dimond’s Native Land; or, the Return from Slavery was extremely prescient. In early February 1824, as the opera must have been going into production, British naval forces were involved in a Tunisian campaign, with a squadron of allied ships assembled at Malta to sail to Tunis and demand, as The Times put it under a headline ‘The Slave Trade at Tunis’, the release of ‘Greek and other Christian captives’.38 Almost simultaneously, on 24 February 1824, the United States signed a Convention at Bardo with Tunis amending their Treaties of August 1797, and March 26, 1799. The first performance of Dimond and Bishop’s Native Land on 10 February came in the middle of these British and American actions. Even though Dimond’s Native Land was mainly a reworking of Cobb’s Strangers at Home, with its plot of a redeemed captive returning ‘disguised with the complexion and costume of Othello’, and with Bishop’s music augmented by borrowings from Rossini, it is a good example of the rapidity with which London’s theatres could mirror international events.39 Whereas British drama, always aware of the country’s powerful navy, could treat the perennial problem of north African piracy with a certain degree of equanimity (hence the goading by Hone at perceived inaction), and with even

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a sense of what it might mean within the structure of less tangible moral frameworks such as Quakerism, the same issue brought the newly independent United States into contact with the limits of its military reach. As Robert J. Allison’s The Crescent Obscured: The United States and the Muslim World 1776–1815 (1995) points out, as early as the mid-1780s, the British had tried to spread fear amongst Americans of the possibility of Algerine grain piracy off the Virginian coast and, indeed, Algiers had declared war on the USA in July 1785.40 A modern historian of the Philadelphian stage, noting its spectacles on Barbary themes, refers to the hanging of three such pirates on an island opposite the Market Street pier in May 1800.41 What is perhaps surprising is the extent of the discussion of Barbary piracy within American fictional discourses, and the degree to which drama, both performed and ‘closet’, became a premier vehicle for much of this debate. However, in addition to dramas and spectacles, many visitors to American theatres would have become aware of the Barbary situation through other means. It seems to have been a fairly regular practice to hold benefit night performances where the box office receipts were used to help fund the redemption of American prisoners in Barbary. In 1794, the theatre in Newport, Rhode Island, presented, ‘For the benefit of the unfortunate Americans, now held in bondage, in Algiers’, a production of John Brown’s Covent Garden tragedy, Barbarossa (1755) – here subtitled as the ‘tyrant of Algiers’ – paired with the appositely chosen Charles Dibdin song, ‘Thomas and Sally; or, The Sailor’s Return’.42 That same year, the French Theatre in Charleston, South Carolina, ‘opened for the benefit of the American Prisoners in Algiers’.43 Quite a different sort of spectacle was offered for several successive nights at the Park Street New Theatre in New York in March 1805. What were described as ‘Turkish’ prisoners of war were exhibited in the theatre. Survivors from the crews of a captured ‘Gun Boat’ and ketch – almost certainly Tripolitans – were seated in the theatre in a stage box where, on the first night, they witnessed performances of George Colman the Younger’s Drury Lane comedy romance, Blue-Beard, or, Female Curiosity (1798) featuring the eponymous oriental tyrant, Abomelique.44 A few weeks later, a benefit night was organized, by ‘several Gentlemen’, on behalf of ‘the Turkish Captives, for the purpose of accommodating them with additional cloathes; they have … no other apparel than what they had on them at the time they were made prisoners of war’.45 On the benefit night (when the prisoners were once again seated in a stage box), the piece performed before them was Thomas Morton’s Covent Garden history play, Columbus: or, A World Discovered (1792). As a precursor of Sheridan’s Pizarro in self-consciously adapting Jean François Marmontel’s The Incas: or, The Destruction of the Empire of Peru (1777), Morton’s Columbus not only conjured up its hero’s surprising confidant, Harry Herbert (‘an English yeoman; but … altho’ King Henry was deprived of the honour of this enterprize, that did not preclude his subjects; so I shipped

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myself off for Castille’), but also trailed European violence against non-Christians.46 This included dissident Spaniards who declare, ‘are not we Christians superior beings? and have not we a right to murder as many Indians as we think fit?’ and threaten, ‘if they won’t become Christians quietly, we must broil them till they do’.47 What the Tripolitan prisoners of war made of this, and whether they found it threatening, bewildering or merely amusing, it is not recorded and is impossible to conjecture. What is certain is that, with some of its citizens confined abroad, America began to rapidly develop strategies of ridding itself of the problem the north African regencies presented. Royall Tyler’s extraordinary novel, The Algerine Captive; or, the Life and Adventures of Doctor Updike Underhill: Six Years a Prisoner Among the Algerine (1797), presents Underhill’s memoir not only as one of the most comprehensive sets of fictionalized explorations and encounters examining the margins of America’s new spheres of interest, but it also manages to give solidity to those experiences. Underhill’s meeting with Tom Paine and the discussion of his Age of Reason (1794), his meeting with the London radical publisher Joseph Johnson (1738–1809), his fictionalized account of his role as a ships’ surgeon on a slaving vessel at the mouth of the Zaire, all present a remarkably wide narrative of America’s global position after its independence.48 However, the centrality of the Algerine dimension of the novel reflects its contemporary importance. Remarkably, Tyler’s narrator suggests that ‘A permanent conquest of the city and port of Algiers cannot be effected, without the subjection of the interiour [sic] country’.49 Tyler’s Algerine Captive marks one of the earliest formulations of a persistent element in American foreign policy with regard to the Islamic regions. The idea of occupying Islamic north Africa was sometimes discussed in England but it was most consistently put forward as a strategy by American writers. The author of the London published Historical Memoirs of Barbary, As Connected with the Plunder of the Seas (1816), noted that ‘Political opinions on the subject of the line of conduct which ought to be pursued towards the piratical states, are extremely numerous and diversified’.50 Like Royall Tyler, the British author agreed that the corsairs comprised a fluid series of threats, ‘not residing on a single spot’, but presented right across the Barbary coast ‘on the borders of an immense continent’.51 It argued that ‘the destruction of their political existence would be an act of justice’, and suggested that extreme measures should be contemplated, noting that ‘if benevolence revolt at the bloodshed of extermination, prudence puts little faith in castigatory annoyance, which the half civilized inhabitants of Barbary have always received with furious repugnance, and returned with most implacable resentment’.52 Shortly after the bombardment of Tripoli, Stephen Cleveland Blyth’s History of the War Between the United States and Tripoli, and Other Barbary Powers (Salem, 1806), described the background

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of how ‘Before the revolution, Americans were universally considered as Englishmen’ but that ‘Independence at once annihilated these advantages’ (‘accruing from the terror of their name, and the security of their commerce’). The result was that America ‘had to encounter in the Mediterranean … a new enemy’ which took advantage of ‘their late separation and present weakness’.53 There can be little doubt that, as Jonathan S. Smith put it in the introduction to his closet ‘Tragi-Comedy’, The Siege of Algiers; or, The Downfall of Hadgi-Ali-Bashaw (Philadelphia, 1823), the United States was acutely aware that it remained ‘a minor maritime power’.54 In addition, underlying continuing anxieties about Barbary piracy and America’s maritime weakness, were fears that the hinterlands of the regency states harboured ‘some thousands of Christian slaves in the interior of Africa … never permitted to visit any of the towns on the sea coast’.55 It was within these contexts that occupation was proposed. James Ellison’s The American Captive, or Siege of Tripoli (Boston, 1812), performed at the Boston theatre, presented the enslaved Jack Binnacle putting forward the following proposition, ‘Why not blow Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli up, and put an end to these nest of pirates?’ Ellison’s drama marks the first theatrical representation of such ideas, ideas whose incorporation into explicit American foreign policy would have to wait until the twentieth century. His superior officer, Anderson, cautions him: These marauders possess a vast interior: lay their cities waste, and thither they retire. To hold their cities would be useless; nay, ’twere impossible, so numerous are these people, we may destroy their sea-board towns, but cannot do them farther harm. Thus maritime nations have ever found it best to buy their favour with an annual tribute.56

Like Tyler’s identification twenty years earlier that America’s problems with the north African states could not be resolved without ‘the subjection of the interiour country’, Ellison’s introductory ‘Advertisement’, emphasizing that his drama was ‘of a national cast’ with ‘party reflections … studiously avoided’ shows that he had fully appreciated the political import of his play.57 Indeed, Ellison’s drama stresses the overall national unity of American captives who, in one episode, are discovered confined in the Dey’s castle singing a song: UNITED rally ’neath your stars, And brave the storms that blow: From civil broils and discord cease, ’Tis PARTY wrecks a nation’s peace; Like MESSMATES join in UNION’S band, YOURSELVES protect – your NATIVE LAND.58

However, within this framework of a clear and undivided national ideology, there arises not only the embryonic idea of the American occupation of the

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north African states, the ‘subjection of the interiour country’ and of their ‘vast interior’, but also the denial of any suggestion that the conditions of white captives in Algiers was paralleled by that of black slaves in America. The paradox of the recognition of the horrors of white enslavement in Barbary, and the acceptance of black slavery at home, was a continuous feature of many of the captivity narratives and of the fictional discourses complementing them. By contrast, specifically referring to the conditions of ‘Christian slaves in Morocco’, typical abolitionist sentiment in England in the 1780s had recognized that the ‘slavery endured in Guinea, and other parts of Africa and in Asia, is by no means so grievous as that in our colonies.59 At one point in The American Captive, when ‘the American prisoners [are shown] at work in the back ground’, their overseer, El Hassan, allows them a break and strikes up a conversation with the jovial ordinary seaman, Jack Binnacle, about his homeland (Hassan: Are the American girls handsome, Jack?’): Jack: And the country too, it’s a charming place, Mr. Overseer; no slavery there! All freeborn sons! Hassan: No slavery, hey? Go where the Senegal winds its course, and ask the wretched mothers for their husbands and their sons! What will be their answer? Doom’d to slavery, and in thy boasted country too! Jack: Ohoa! avast there! I’m a Yankee – no slaves with us; why, a black gentleman, in our part of the country, is the very paragon of fashion! But holla! A sail!60

The ‘holla!’ from Jack Binnacle announces the entry of the American sailor, Juba, a black cook. There then follows an extraordinary exchange about slavery. One cannot be certain whether Ellison knew, as Robert J. Allison has shown, that very few black prisoners taken by the Barbary pirates ever returned to America. Although the name was common, even stereotypically attached to black Americans at that time, Juba, the cook named in Ellison’s American Captive (1812), is almost certainly based on a real person. A black ship’s cook named Juba Hill of Boston is mentioned by Allison as having been captured in 1792. Out of thirty-four other sailors taken, he was the only one sold into slavery by their Arab captors. Having immediately segregated him from the white sailors, the Arabs were surprised that Hill spoke English, but quickly sold him on to another group of Bedouin before robbing the white sailors and abandoning them in the dessert (only eight survived). As Allison argues, black men were automatically judged to be slaves by the Arabs and treated differently amongst the dominantly white prisoner communities, ‘the color line runs throughout American captivity narratives … Captivity did not break down the barrier of race, even as it reinforced for the white captives their common identity as Americans’.61 Yet, exactly as Allison describes, Ellison’s American Captive showed the reinforcement of an otherwise communal national ideological identity amongst

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the sailors in the words of their song, ‘UNITED rally ’neath your stars … / Like MESSMATES join in UNION’S band’. In the light of Allison’s commentary on the normal fate of black captives, together with the specific case of the real Juba Hill and the issue of slavery in America in general, Juba the cook’s entry during The American Captive begins an extraordinary section of dialogue: Jack: Ha! Cook, where are you steering? Juba: To find Massa, Jack – dat’s all. Jack: Well, I was just telling this copper-colour’d gentleman, that the black gentlemen in my part of the country are all free; he says they are all slaves! Juba: O Massa, no, no; we brack [sic] gentlemen be all free! 62

Because this exchange is intended as an answer to Hassan’s rebuttal of Jack’s assertion that America has ‘no slavery there!’ Juba’s arrival and support of Jack’s claim is to be understood without irony. David Everett’s Slaves in Barbary, collected in Caleb Bingham’s Columbian Orator (Boston, 1817), has a similar comic fantasy of slavery where Kidnap, a slave-owning white captured by Tunisians, is put up for sale, beaten, yet treated by his own former slave, Sharp, with a mixture of fear and ill-deserved admiration (‘Dat a man my masser. [Pointing to Kidnap]’): 3d. Purchaser: Let me look at their hands; they are the index of the slave. A good hard hand is worth more than a dozen bloated cheeks and barrel bodies. Let me see how they are put together. [Shaking them by the shoulders] Kidnap: Stand off ! Base ruffian. [Officer strikes him] Sharp: Dat larn you strike poor negur. Me wish he killa you! [Aside] Kidnap: Black imp! Be silent.63

Like the sympathetic daughter of the gaoler in Rowson’s Slaves in Algiers, this fantasy of harmonious solidarity between white captives and coloured people ran in parallel with the capacity to both recognize the injustice of the white experience of slavery and yet reject the emancipation of black slaves at home. Such attitudes are a commonplace of the American captivity narratives. A persistent feature of the treatment of slavery in both factual and fictional writings about the white American experience of Barbary is their ability to cite the discourse of eighteenth-century natural rights ideology, yet fail to apply it to the American situation. Although not about Barbary, this can be exemplified by James Workman’s Charleston performed, Libery in Lousiana; A Comedy (1804) which prefixes its ‘Finale, to be Sung by the American Characters’ (‘Hail Liberty … / For while upon yon tower, her banners wave, / This land no tyrant ever shall enslave’) with an extended exordium on the dangers of ‘oppression’, ‘despotic rule’, and how ‘populous and once powerful nations ...[can fall] to the abased condition of subject provinces’ – entirely ignoring, despite its ‘New-Orleans’ setting ‘on the banks of the river Missisippi’, the practice of slavery.64 In a poem reprinted in A Short History of Algiers (‘There the red crescent leads the coming

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war … / Woe to proud Algiers; to your princes woe!’) ‘liberated slaves’ returning to ‘Columbia’s happy strand’ are also noticeably acknowledged by ‘raptur’d nations [who] hail the kindred race’.65 Within America’s precisely articulated ideologies of natural rights ran the indelible fault line of their application only to ‘the kindred race’. Yet the fact the equivalence of white and black slavery was recognized by contemporaries is implicit in several of the authentic captivity accounts. William Ray, in his Horrors of Slavery: or, the American Tars in Tripoli (Troy, NY, 1808), a narrative ‘Written during Upwards of Nineteen Months Imprisonment and Vassalage Among the Turks’, uses identical terminology to describe his own imprisonment and the condition of black slaves. According to Ray, both were states of ‘vassalage’: ‘And are citizens of this free country to be to be treated with as much contempt, as great barbarity, and as villainous injustice as the sable vassals of the West-Indies?’66 When James Riley, a Hartford, Connecticut, ship’s master was redeemed from slavery he claimed his body weight had dropped from 240 lbs to 90 lbs.67 Yet at the end of Riley’s Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the American Brig Commerce … With an Account of the Suffering of her Surviving Officers and Crew … Enslaved By the Wandering Arabs on the Great African Desart, or Zahahrah (New York, 1817), he appended an extraordinary conclusion impossible to be reconciled with his steady, graphic, descriptions of the hardships of his own enslavement. While recognizing that ‘my proud-spirited and free countrymen still hold a million of the human species in the most cruel bonds of slavery’, and vowing to ‘exert all my remaining faculties to redeem the enslaved’, Riley immediately qualified his remarks with the important caveats that he was ‘far from being of opinion [sic] that they should all be emancipated immediately’. This he believed ‘would not only prove ruinous to great numbers of my fellow citizens … to whom this species of property descended as an inheritance … it would also turn loose … a race of men incapable of exercising the necessary occupations of civilized life’.68 There is little doubting Riley’s ability to rationally equate the plight of America’s black slaves with his own experiences as ‘a wretched slave, under the stripes inflicted by the hands of barbarous monsters’, yet his capacity to perpetuate that feeling once repatriated seems to have faltered. After his return and following commiserating meetings with the then Secretary of State (and future President), James Monroe, Ray’s interest in emancipation seems to have waned.69 Even away from the realities depicted in the captivity narratives, other American dramas exhibited a clear sense of the relevant ideological positions, yet most either sentimentalize or evade realistic commitments with regard to domestic black slavery. Elizabeth Maddock Dillon has emphasized the unifying bond of feminism promoted in Sussana Haswell Rowson’s drama, Slaves in Algiers; or, A Struggle for Freedom (Philadelphia, 1794) and, indeed, the mixing of a number

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of ideologically framed expressions of liberty within that play throws further light on the cultural distance between American political idealism and the international problem of north African piracy.70 Rowson’s Slaves in Algiers may have only had one Philadelphia performance (for the author’s benefit night) – albeit in a theatre holding around 2,000 people – but it is an interesting example of the ways in which ideological positions about natural rights were promoted in relationship to the Barbary problem.71 Like Ellison’s drama, which may have been similarly limited in its number of performances, Rowson’s play tells us much about how America saw its relationship with north Africa. As Dillon points out, Slaves in Algiers visibly promoted globalized feminine commonality. However, there can be little reliance placed on the idealism of the author of its Prologue, the actor and occasional playwright and salt trader, James Fennell. Fennell’s Prologue had referred to how ‘The reigning virtues she has dar’d to scan, / And tho’ a woman, plead[ed] the Rights of Man’.72 Fennell, who had recently arrived in Philadelphia from England, had worked in London before his departure for America as secretary to the ultra-reactionary Association for Protecting Liberty and Property Against Republicans and Levellers, an organization headed by John Reeves, ‘an old schoolmate of mine’, dedicated to suppressing and prosecuting Paineite radicalism. Fennell was happy to sign the Association’s documents (which still survive) disguised, as he admitted, ‘under the name of “Moore”’ in order to remain covert.73 The disingenuous nature of Fennell’s contribution to Rowson’s Slaves in Algiers, although an impeccably formulated presentation of natural rights ideology, is a revealing example of how the nomination of freedoms failed to translate into equivalent political action. Indeed, Slaves in Algiers specifically presents idealized views of international or racial harmony. Rowson’s Fetnah, the daughter of an Algerian commander of corsairs, boasts a multi-cultural identity (‘I was not born in Algiers, I drew my first breath in England’) having a Jewish father who converted to Islam and educated her ‘in the Moorish religion, tho’ I always had a natural antipathy to their manners’. Due to the teachings of the white American captive, Rebecca, ‘who nourished in my mind the love of liberty’, Fetnah has learned that ‘woman was never formed to be the abject slave of a man’, and these teachings appear to have provided the grounding for her ‘natural antipathy’ towards some aspects of Islamic culture.74 This fictionalized, multi-cultural, ideal is consistently presented. However, the blindness towards black slavery in America which is apparent in Ellison’s drama, can also be seen in Rowson’s Slaves in Algiers when Fetnah remarks of her mother, ‘She came from that land, where virtue in either sex is the only mark of superiority. – She was an American’.75 Like Juba’s claim ‘we brack [sic] gentlemen be all free!’, Rowson’s drama makes America the normative abode of liberty, irrespective of the conditions of its black population.

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These disparities between American ideologies of natural rights and the practice of the slave trade relative to north Africa were not confined to Ellison or Rowson, although other contemporary commentaries could be more critical of prevailing practices on occasion. The first part of the anonymous two canto poem, The American in Algiers, or the Patriot of Seventy-Six in Captivity (New York, 1797), was written from the perspective of a white captive: So was Columbia’s son to market bro’t, [sic] And by a Moor at public auction bought… Naked and hungry, days, and months, and years, I’ve serv’d this thankless tyrant in Algiers

In the work’s second part, however, with the writer now adopting the persona of ‘a sable bard’, the experience of captivity in Algiers is contrasted with slavery in America and expressed in some memorable lines, ‘Look o’er your fields, and see them black with slaves, / Where freedom’s flag in boasted triumph waves’.76 Whereas the poet of The American in Algiers makes the paradoxes of the parallel slavery experiences of black and white Americans quite explicit, Ellison and Rowson’s dramas obscure these differences and, indeed, obscure the black experience but, even amongst contemporaries, their sentiments did not go unchallenged. Although written in his usual pugnacious manner, and apparently without ever having seen it performed, William Cobbett seems to have sensed something of the paradoxical nature of Rowson’s play, writing comments on Slaves in Algiers in his pamphlet, A Kick for a Bite; or, Review upon Review: with a critical essay on the works of Mrs. S. Rowson (Philadelphia, 1795). Replying to him in a similarly robust style in defence of Rowson, John Swanwick’s A Rub from Snub; or, A Cursory Analytical Epistle (Philadelphia, 1795) charged Cobbett with having ‘denied the existence of charity, friendship and philanthropy, as attributes of the American character, for which libel upon our national dignity, you merit a little salutary correction with a good tough hickory’.77 Questions about the political acuteness of Slaves in Algiers must remain. Rowson’s drama, albeit a comedy, is rather unrealistic in presenting an uprising of slaves to precipitate the play’s denouement: ‘the slaves throughout Algiers have mutinied … they say, if all the Christian slaves are not immediately released, they’ll raze the city’.78 The mutiny, revolt or insurrection of Barbary coast Christian slaves was a continuing fantasy. This idea of regime change is a theme not unique to Rowson’s play. The ending of David Everett’s closet drama, Slaves in Barbary (Boston, 1817), fantasizes about Hamet, a reformed Bashaw of Tunis newly released from imprisonment in Venice and ‘emancipated’. Restored to freedom, he frees all captives in Tunis with the extraordinary declaration, ‘A ship shall be prepared to convey you to your native land, and restore you to your friends. Let it be remembered, there

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is no luxury so exquisite as the exercise of humanity, and no post so honorable as his, who defends THE RIGHTS OF MAN’.79 James Ellison’s The American Captive, or Siege of Tripoli (Boston, 1812), similarly featured a Tunisian leader, Ali-Ben-Mahadi, whose usurping older brother Abdel Mahadi is overthrown by Ali working in co-operation with the principal, and newly liberated, American captive, Anderson: Ali: Where’s our leader, the valiant Anderson[?] Enter Anderson, in a rich suit of American uniform. Ali: (eagerly) Give me your hand, my friend, my preserver! Anders: Call me not the latter, Ali, till with the aid of our brave comrades, here, I’ve humbled your perfidious brother, and amid the acclamations of an injured people, led you in triumph to the throne. Ali: Generous man!80

The theatricality of Ellison’s American Captive was quite effective in having the cornered Ali-Ben-Mahadi saved from his brother’s fury by Anderson’s melodramatic intervention: Abdel: Now, Dastard, feel thy Brother’s mercy! (he is in the act of running him through, when Anderson rushes in and buries his sword in the heart of Abdel.) Anderson: This to thy heart! Not from thy Brother! ’tis thy Slave has done the deed. A Slave has power to strike a Tyrant dead.81

In the same way that in Everett’s Slaves in Barbary the figure of Hamet had proclaimed ‘THE RIGHTS OF MAN’, so too in The America Captive, Ali-BenMahadi declares that ‘my first act shall be to liberate … [Anderson’s] countrymen, and place COLUMBIA first in my esteem’.82 In such moments of liberty and national unity, America’s self-image is reinforced by recalling her recent past and how ‘in arms, she dared Britannia’s might, / And roused her dearest blood to brave the fight’.83 Similar sentiments were common to the poetry of the time, such as The American in Algiers, or the Patriot of Seventy-Six in Captivity (New York, 1797), where the narrator of the first canto places himself at the crucial battles of American independence (‘I saw that day Britannia’s warlike son, / Routed by sticks, by clubs and pebble-stones … / On Bunker’s Hill I brav’d the bolts of war’).84 As in the drama, the Barbary experience related in The American in Algiers is one which helps define and shape American ideals of liberty, both as a formulation to be set against ideologies of natural and civil rights but also in contrast to national independence, ‘Nor dream’d, I serv’d my country eight long years / To end my days in slavery in Algiers. / When bravery broke the British tyrant’s chains’.85 This drama ‘of a national cast’ is pervasive in its attempts at directing a sense of American unity underpinned by a common ideology and defined against a loose and alien set of enemies who range from unappeased enemies to Jewish manipulators.

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As The Times of London reported during one of the many diplomatic incidents disrupting relations between Barbary and America, ‘The Bey of Algiers, in consequence of not receiving the stipulated presents from the United States, is reported to have directed his cruisers to capture all American vessels’.86 The necessity of buying-off or appeasing the Barbary rulers, the ritual of paying tribute in order to pass safely along their coastal waters, was a practice invoking a deep sense of national injury amongst the newly independent Americans. Ellison’s The American Captive, or Siege of Tripoli had opened amidst the setting of ‘A splendid apartment in the Bashaw’s Palace’ where Abdel Mahadi declares ‘PLUNDER, alone, can prop our sinking realm; PLUNDER her coffers fill … Already do my corsairs, mann’d with brave and flinty hearts, beset the coast around’ and ready to attack ‘A ship deeply laden, from America’.87 The inability of the European powers to confront the Barbary states and, indeed, the breadth of the analysis of American relations with these nations, is best seen in Jonathan S. Smith’s closet drama, The Siege of Algiers; or, The Downfall of Hadgi-Ali-Bashaw. A Political, Historical, and Sentimental Tragi-Comedy (Philadelphia, 1823) based upon events surrounding the British bombardment of 1816. With its extraordinary ectoplasmic figure of ‘Christian Monitor, an invisible agent, who, in the shape of conscience, issues timely monitions’, Smith’s drama presents a critique of how the ‘the Christian maritime powers of Europe … made their national honour subservient to their well known character for speculative monopoly in their relations with Barbary powers … to the … injury of all defenceless Christian nations’.88 In this fantasy of Islamic despotism, European indifference and American morality, the ‘United Christian Brotherhood in the West’ (the USA) is shadowed by the discriminatory agency of the protean character, Christian Monitor, who exposes the schemings of Consul Bullyrock (France) and Consul Bullycan (Britain) until the drama reaches its resolution, when Algiers is attacked by a combined force of the Bullycan ships and vessels commanded by ‘Myn Heer Van Splutter Box’ of the Dutch contingent. Beneath the crudely caricatured names, the British are portrayed as devious and self-serving (‘Admiral Thunder: This Musselman madman fights hard … (aside) We have lost many men, and I have gotten a small hit myself – no matter for that, it will add a pension to my ribbon as lord Wexmouth’).89 Britain is particularly criticized for its scheming and manipulation (‘John Bull, you have long balanced in the scale of Barbarian wrongs … wanting to kick the beam your own way’) until the moment when – as Christian Monitor explains – America, a ‘constellation … arisen in the West, whose independent banner … pointed out the true way’.90 Indeed, The Siege of Algiers’ ‘United Christian Brotherhood in the West’ must represent one of the earliest claims for American’s moral supremacy in ordering the world’s responses to the Islamic regions.

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For all of its sense of national moral destiny in dealing with Islamic piracy and European indolence, The Siege of Algiers combines the specifics of recent history (its Consul Tribute is based upon the American consul of 1815, Tobias Lear, while Commodore Intreprid amalgamates Commodores Stephen Decatur Jr and William Bainbridge) alongside enduring racial stereotypes such as the anti-semitic presentation of the Dey’s confidant, David Brokereye, ‘well set, black beard, penetrating eye … black silk scull cap, and iron bound slip shods’.91 Smith’s Brockerye continues the anti-semitism evident in Rowson’s Slaves in Algiers where the cynical Mohammedan convert ex-Hebrew, Ben Hassan, sings: Ben: So, having cheated the Gentiles, as Moses commanded, Oh! I began to tremble at every gibbet that I saw … Frederick: And so to complete the whole, you turn’d Mahometan. Ben: Oh ’twas the fastest way.92

Indeed, the consistent presentation of the involvement of Jewish brokers, noted above in Royall Tyler’s Algerine Captive, but also common to Hone’s Cruelties of the Algerine Pirates (1816) – which refers to ‘Jew traders … who purchase [captives] … upon speculation’ – is symptomatic not only of the perceived depth of the Barbary problem but perhaps also of American anxieties concerning shifting ethnicities. Learning rapidly about the manipulative and scheming Europeans unwilling to co-operate in forming a united Christian front against Barbary, both Rowson’s and Smith’s plays include Jewish figures who are either the Dey’s spies (as in Tyler’s novel), have changed religion (‘my father, Ben Hassan, as he is now called, was a Jew’) or else, as in the case of Smith’s Brokereye, live ‘sanctioned by the Dey and Regency of Algiers’ having developed ‘some strong predilections to remain’ despite ‘self-evident marks of tyranny’.93 It is not difficult to see that the Jews of these dramas have been deemed to have taken upon themselves the displaced fractures of Islamic intransigence and European disunity. The exasperated nature of America’s reactions, as outlined above, can be further illustrated by the contrasting lack of widespread enthusiasm in Britain for Barbary conflict dramas. A few, such as Eyles Irwin’s Dublin Crow Street theatre, The Bedouins, or, Arabs of the Desert (Dublin, 1802), set in the ruins of Palmyra, are warmly recuperative of Arab culture, despite warning that ‘the sentiments of the [play’s] Arab characters appear to differ from their conduct to travellers’ although its larger context lies in the French defeat in Egypt (‘Who knows, messmates, but we may live to see the day, when the British colours shall fly triumphant on the Pharos of Alexandria’).94 Paradoxically, American writers sometimes adopted British theatrical celebrations of naval succeses to illustrate their own triumphs at sea during the Tripolitan wars. Joseph Hanson’s, The Mussulmen Humbled; or, A Heroic Poem, In Celebration of the Bravery, Displayed by the American Tars, in the Contest with Tripoli (New York, 1806), provides

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an interesting example for how specific incidents in the American engagements came to be memorialized. Hanson’s centred on the fate of the American frigate, USS Philadelphia, which had been scuttled in Tripoli harbour and her crew captured (‘’mongst this much degraded race, the Philadelphia’s hapless crew, are fated to be slaves: and through the streets of Tripoli, the loaded carts, like horses they are forc’d to draw’).95 The allusion in Hanson’s subtitle to how America’s Commodore Prebble (the hero of Tripoli) was ‘like the glorious Baron of the Nile!’, is a reminder that Nelson’s victory at the Battle of the Nile (or Aboukir) in 1798 could still hold resonance with the new maritime American power. In Philadelphia in 1803, during one of the many military crises in American relations with Barbary, the Chesnut Street Theatre had shown a representation of the Battle of the Nile.96 Indeed, the series of American engagements off Tripoli not only led to admiring references about the British naval hero but also served to indicate how rapidly sentiments could change. Hanson’s Mussulmen Humbled appeared only a year before the Chesapeake incident hardened anti-British sentiment. However, growing confidence in American naval potential was reflected in other Philadelphia performances of The Tripolitan Prize (1802 and 1804) as well The Corsair or The Tripolitan Robbers of 1803.97 The example of Nelson’s naval victories had been portrayed in the April 1800 Philadelphia Chesnut Steet Theatre’s reworking of Thomas John Dibdin’s Covent Garden musical entertainment, The Naval Pillar; or Britannia’s Triumph (1799), transformed into an ‘apotheosis of the late illustrious Lt. General Washington designed by Mr. Holland’, very shortly after the original piece’s licensing at London the previous September.98 Instead of celebrating British naval heroes such as Admirals Howe and Nelson, the Philadelphia theatre had transposed the piece to suit American circumstances. Such practices continued as late as 1806 when the young actor and playwright John Howard Payne’s New York based theatrical journal, The Thespian Mirror, carried a review of the afterpiece, Tars from Tripoli … altered from Dibdin’s “Naval Pillar”, localised by Mr. Charnock of the Theatre’. Payne commented that it ‘went off with tumultuous applause’.99 However, Payne’s judgment of the piece’s ephemeral attraction was wrong. American adaptations of Dibdin’s Naval Pillar continued for over a decade. Not only had The Naval Pillar (probably in unadapted form), been staged in Philadelphia in 1800, Charnock’s version – retitled as The American Naval Pillar – was performed as late as 1812 at the time of the Anglo-American war.100 This use of British dramatic templates to represent the Barbary wars to American audiences continued for some time. Versions of The Naval Pillar – one assumes in Americanized formats – were also performed at Washington in 1812 and Philadelphia in 1814.101 An August 1803 Philadelphia drama about the Battle of the Nile had been followed one year later by the theatre’s American Tars in

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Tripoli, featuring a ‘grand Panorama of the exact situation of the Engagement with the Tripolitans’ showing ‘three spires of Mosques, one of which [is] shot away by the Constitution frigate’.102 In 1813, with the war with Britain under way, Philadelphia also staged The Constitution; or American Tars Triumphant, a patriotic reworking of The Naval Pillar with Dibdin’s commemorative column now inscribed with names of Hull, Rogers, Decatur and other American naval leaders.103 Nevertheless, with a disarming candour about America’s military failures, in March 1804 the Theatre in Charleston, South Carolina, had staged a spectacle of the Burning of the Frigate Philadelphia in the Harbor of Tripoli, referring to the capture of United States ship that February (followed by a spectacle entitled Bombardment of Tripoli, by the American Fleet).104 By contrast, in the wake of Exmouth’s successful bombardment of Algiers in 1816, the London theatres were decidedly muted in their responses to a significant – albeit interim – victory against Barbary piracy. In part, this may have been due to the poor general economic conditions which, the next year, resulted in widespread civil unrest and the Suspension of Habeas Corpus. Demobilization of the armed forces at the end of the Napoleonic war, together with a disastrous harvest, all combined to depress theatrical entertainment. Thomas John Dibdin, manager of the Surrey Theatre, recalled in his Reminiscences (1837) how he devised his production of (what he remembered as) Slaves in Barbary, or the Bombardment of Algiers in the summer of 1816 – but, on the very next page, went on to give details of that year’s winter season, with its ‘heavy rainy weather’ followed by ‘intense frost’ which ‘kept every thing in the shape of a profit away from us’, with even his six charity benefit nights to help the poor, ‘very indifferently attended’.105 Nevertheless, Dibdin staged his piece as Slaves in Barbary, or, British Vengeance, ‘a new Spectacle, founded on interesting national events’ featuring ‘a Grand View of the Town, Citadel, Shipping, and Bombardment of Algiers’, and this ran for around twenty performances from late July or August 1816 until the end of September. Slaves in Barbary ran in tandem with (the now lost) Who’s the Murderer! but admission to the Surrey’s ‘Algiers Bombarded’ was at half-price, potentially maximizing the numbers in the audiences who saw it.106 The role of the Surrey Theatre is significant, suggesting how large audiences (the Surrey seated 2,500 in 1813) could be reached by means of half-price spectacles such as Slaves in Barbary. By contrast, that season’s greatest hit was November’s Covent Garden production of Thomas Morton’s The Slave (1816), set in Surinam although the theatre had taken the precaution of first titling it in the licensing copy as ‘Freedom and Slavery’, perhaps a guarded allusion to the Algiers situation.107 A series of greater or lesser disputes and skirmishes involving the Barbary states became the occasion for John Howard Payne’s Drury Lane opera The Fall of Algiers (1825) first performed on 19 January 1825. At some time before

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the beginning of March 1824, the English consul’s house in Algiers had been attacked, and, on arriving, the the brig HMS Camelion found in the harbour a captured Spanish ship with its crew enslaved. This was a provocative example of the ‘Christian slavery’ it was assumed Lord Exmouth’s expedition of 1816 had finally eliminated. In the British attempt to free the Spaniards, artillery fire was exchanged between the city and the Camelion. The Adelphi Theatre was quick off the mark in staging, on the first day of March, ‘the moving Panorama of the Bombardment of Algiers’, presumably a resuscitated version of Charles Marshall’s Grand Marine Peristrephic Panorama of the Bombardment of Algiers (c. 1823) referred to above but, of course, a painting actually portraying the 1816 engagement of eight years earlier.108 By April 1824, plans were in place for a Royal Navy blockade of Algiers along with, reportedly, recalling Lord Byron from his intervention into the Greek insurrection amidst Turkish demands that interference with Algerine ships be halted. By the middle of August, the dispute had been settled, but renewed tensions demonstrated that that no long term solution allowing safe international passage along the southern Mediterranean coast had been secured.109 Although Payne was an American, he seems to have adopted British equanimity in response to these intermittent skirmishes, making The Fall of Algiers a decidedly breezy operatic comedy. Despite the presence of an overseer, the opening finds a group of British prisoners, Timothy Tourist included, working in the Bey’s garden, with ‘Some digging – others raising walls’. Timothy’s comic role is played off against that of the increasingly melodramatic, theatrically distraught, prisoner Algernon Rockwardine: Algernon: Cursed was the hour when we first reached this country! Timothy: Yes; we put our foot in it then, didn’t we, sir?110

The Times referred to The Fall of Algiers as Drury Lane’s ‘new tiresome opera’, and there are plenty of indications that it received substantial last-minute revision.111 At the end of the opera, Algernon’s father, cast in Lord Exmouth’s role as Admiral Rockwardine, arrives with a fleet of ships to bombard Algiers and free his son. In the licensing copy sent to George Colman the Younger, the scene had shown: A view of the Sea – British Frigates. – City on Fire Battle &c. – Algernon Strikes Down the Bey. Alg: Now Moslem – This to thy Heart Enter Tim; Amand; [sic] & Laurella &c. Amanda: Spare him! Be the Christians triumph Mercy All the Characters fill the stage &c FINALE.112

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In the performed version, there is no longer a direct confrontation between the Bey of Algiers (Orasmin) and Algernon but the details of the final scene are composed more fully into an elaborate spectacle: A view of the Sea with the British Frigates. – On one side the Mole of Algiers in ruins, with fire breaking at intervals from various parts. – Heavy pieces of cannon are disposed about the Stage, which represents a portion of the battlements. – The British flag is conspicuous from above. – Several Sailors are seen landing from Boats. – The Admiral is in the front. – As the Scene draws, a loud huzza is heard from the Sailors. – Algernon, in his naval uniform, rushes [on] … with a party of Sailors. Admiral: Enough – enough: their bulwarks blaze! – our British flag floats proudly o’er their battlements! and hither crowd our rescued friends to greet us! – suspend then the further rage of conquest, and be the Christian’s nobler triumph – mercy!113

The modulation from the manuscript copy’s melodramatic display of mercy, announced by one of the female characters, and its transformation into Admiral Rockwardine’s magnanimous command for mercy, belies the language of the final chorus. The ending, particularly with regard to how its musical text was performed (and made clear in the surviving Henry Rowley Bishop manuscript), repeats the phrase four times, ‘The Koran or the sword!’, and emphasizes through repetition ‘That England conquers but to save’ while the Bey sings in reply, ‘My sword I lay at England’s feet’.114 Whatever the dramatic shortcomings of Payne’s Fall of Algiers, it clearly took the opportunity to set out a political agenda to which both Britain and the USA could have subscribed. Notwithstanding its appropriation of the genre of comedy, The Fall of Algiers is perhaps best considered as a drama exemplifying the longevity of contemporary British and American anxieties about Barbary. Despite the opinion of The Times, within two months The Fall of Algiers and Freedom to the Slaves – billed with Richard Brinsley Peake’s farce, The Duel, or, My Two Nephews (1823) – was being performed at the New Theatre, Bridgenorth, Shropshire, a venue which twenty years earlier had been described by James Winston as merely ‘A Cockpit’.115 Such dramas reflected concerns about a particular global region which persistently resurfaced and were represented in productions as varied as Astley’s The Pirate, or Harlequin Victor (1800), the Royal Circus’s Renegadoes or, Algerine Corsair (1804), Seven Islands; or, the Pirate of Algiers (1808) and Astley’s Arab; or, the Freebooters of the Desert (1809). The Royal Coburg’s Abdellac The Barbary Corsair or, The English Fisherman of Algiers, performed as a post-Christmas entertainment in December 1824, appears to have relished the possibility that corsairing and Christian slavery might cease after the military exchanges of that year. It showed the ‘town & almost invulnerable Fortifications, Batteries, &c of Algiers’ but as part of a demonstration of the ‘Overthrow of Tyranny & Oppression and the complete and decided superiority of British Valour’.116 By

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the end of the 1820s, with much of the Barbary situation still not resolved, the French invasion and occupation of Algiers was even welcomed by the British. The French had landed in overwhelming force west of Algiers at Sidi Ferruch on 12 June 1830. The loss of HMS Rattlesnake a few days earlier during a storm in the bay of Algiers, is a good indicator as to how closely British officials took an interest in the action but, as The Times commented after the conquest was secured, ‘Algiers being taken, what is to be done with it?’117 A sense of this political context, and the momentous nature of the final resolution of the Barbary piracy problem, can be judged from the anonymous, Letter to Henry Brougham, Esq. M.P. Upon the Fall of Algiers, And the Civilization of Africa (1830), which noted that ‘France … is raising a civilized state upon the ruins of the frightful tyranny which is dethroned’, and that ‘the fall of Algiers … will soon be known … throughout all northern Africa to the [Equatorial] Line … France stands before the whole civilized world, bound … to turn her conquest to beneficient results’.118 Against this background, in which ‘the just influence of England can now be put forth … to promote the civilization of Africa, and … check the career of all who do her wrong’, the drama responded with its usual rapidity.119 With the winter season royal theatres closed, Astley’s Amphitheatre quickly staged Charles A. Somerset’s two-act The Fall of Algiers! By Sea and Land! (1830), billed as ‘an entire new Afterpiece, founded on recent events’.120 Again, the speed with which popular culture could arrange, produce and display entertainments based upon topical events is surprising. The presence of a mass, national, audience for the end of Barbary piracy should not be underestimated: despite its place as a new piece of writing, the designation of Somerset’s Fall of Algiers! By Sea and Land! as an ‘Afterpiece’ meant that it was available at half-price, exponentially increasing both its audience numbers and its accessibility. News of the French expedition was also available through other means. At some point in Edinburgh around 1830, a broadsheet advertised Messrs Marshall’s, French revolution of 1830, a panorama which also included views of ‘Sydney, Botany Bay, and the late French seige of Algiers’.121 This was almost certainly yet another resurrection of Charles Marshall’s Grand Marine Peristrephic Panorama of the Bombardment of Algiers (c. 1823). Besides this Edinburgh display, by end the end of July Astley Amphitheatre’s Somerset Fall of Algiers! was itself supplemented by another production, sharing exactly the same title, showing at the Surrey Theatre.122 Unlike the earlier dramas and spectacles, Charles Somerset’s Fall of Algiers! was remarkable in illustrating the new rapprochement with the French, especially in the conclusion to the piece. Whereas earlier productions, including the 1827 French puppeteers’ painting at Hull displaying the ‘Naval Engagement and final surrender of Algiers to the BRITISH FORCES’, had exclusively depicted British successes, the 1830 French conquest brought about more reconciliatory sentiments.123 At the end

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of Somerset’s drama, the inevitable bombardment of Algiers was accompanied by ‘Battle Music’ during which ‘the Christian Fleet appears’ rather than the British squadrons shown in the panoramas of Exmouth’s 1816 attack. No doubt in order to also make the best use of Astley’s horses, ‘During the naval attack, parties of Arab Horsemen are seen skirmishing in various directions’.124 The ‘Christian Fleet’ is the term used to cover all of the combatants and their allies and, indeed, the play quickly establishes that French and British relations were fully mended from their post-Napoleonic position. Harry Helm declares that while ‘’tis the dread of British thunder’ that protects the British Consul in Algiers, ‘Old England, and France … are enemies no longer – (shakes hands with La[fluer].) and, together, they ‘will avenge … and punish these rascally pirates as they deserve’.125 To show the extent to which Anglo-French relations had changed, Somerset even makes explicit reference to Verdun, one of the largest of the fortresses where English servicemen had been held during the Napoleonic war, ‘Harry: I shall never forget when I was a prisoner myself, at Verdun, in France; where I first got acquainted with you, Lafluer. Your kindness to me there, is all put down in the log-book of my memory’.126 However, in contrast to its redefinition of changed international relations, Somerset’s play did little to promote reconsiderations of racial or gender stereotypes. Peter Pounce, clerk to the British Consul in Algiers, buys – with the intention of freeing, but also marrying – two female slaves: ‘Here’s a couple of Hottentot Venuses for a gentleman to be married to – Oh, I shall faint!’127 Indeed, The Fall of Algiers! constantly oscillates between cruelty and comedy: Lafluer is at one point about to be broken on a wheel yet Pounce’s embarrassment at the two female slaves he has bought is intended to be comic: ‘After a hard scuffle I’ve locked my two beauties up in the powder magazine, where I hope some friendly bomb-shell or Congreve rocket will soon blow them up to the moon’.128 The continued recourse to comedy was part of the growing absorption of these Barbary coast narratives into more familiar, less aggressive dramatic forms as the perceived threat to seamen appeared to diminish. Perhaps the clearest indicator of the domestication of these dramas is the production of Picken’s Edition: an Entire New Christmas Play, Entitled the Battle of Algiers (Devonport, c. 1830). Picken was a Devonport supplier of ‘Childrens Books; Street Songs, Scripture Pieces, etc’., whose broadside ballad of The Battle of Algiers helps mark the domestication of Barbary drama within a local context of a town whose dockyard facilities and naval associations dated back to Elizabethan times. The genre Picken’s … Entire New Christmas Play … the Battle of Algiers inhabited was that of the seasonal mumming play, the traditional house visiting or tavernbased entertainment of rural England.129 Picken’s role as a wholesaler, supplying ‘Travellers and Country Shopkeepers’, strongly suggests the degree to which his publications penetrated rural areas. Mumming plays similarly took up Tippoo

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Saib and memorialized him as a harmless, comfortably vanquished, distantly remote enemy of the British. Tippoo Saib, as well as the Barbary conflict, were deeply incorporated into domestic and tavern based traditions of playing. The manuscript of a Silverton, Devon, mummers’ play, which would have been collected at some time towards the middle of the nineteenth century, incorporated the characters of Tippoo Sultan, Lord Cornwallis (Governor of General of India, 1786–92, 1805), Admiral Nelson and Bonaparte: Tippoo: Tippoo is my name, & India is my right … I have 80,000 fleet [sic] that will fight at my command. And eighteen of them now will before me stand – Soon will I let Cornwallis know That India’s hills with English blood shall flow – Cornwallis: Why, Tippoo, why, dost thou so vainly boast Or make mention of thy mighty host – What’s all thy force when English blood is heated And by the English thou always wast defeated. Tippoo: Me! defeated! Don’t talk so fast Not a dog like thee shall my honour blast – As long as I have strength to lift this point of steel I’d rather die a hero, than live a coward still –

Before being recalled to Britain in 1793 to take up duties against the French in Europe, Cornwallis had been heavily involved with the campaigns against Tippoo Saib (he returned to India once again in 1805 but died within a few months of arrival). Like the harlequinades where the escape of Harlequin and Columbine always ends in marriage, mumming play conventions demanded that Tippoo (a reconfiguration of Saladin) fight with Nelson, the British champion (‘Here comes I, brave Admiral Nelson / … I have but one arm, & a good one too / With my mighty arm I make both men & fleets to fall’).130 In the Silverton mumming play – which inevitably reflected something of the sequences of history rather than replicating incidents accurately – Nelson is slain by Tippoo: {They fight. Nelson falls} St. George: Is there a doctor to be found That will try to cure this champion of his deep & deadly wound? Doctor: Yes, yes, S[t.]. George &c – Ah! Nelson! British hero! How art thou fallen Thine is a deep and deadly wound

Within the conventions of the mumming plays, which miraculously resuscitate Britain’s dead enemies, Nelson’s role is taken over by Admiral Collingwood

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(‘{He takes the crown off Nelson’s head, and puts it on his own.}’) but the Doctor’s restorative intervention neutralizes Tippoo’s threat.131 Picken’s … Battle of Algiers, probably printed around 1830, stands at the beginning of the process of the domestication and cultural assimilation of the Barbary issue which was obviously paralleled by Tippoo Saib’s role in the Silverton mumming play.132 With both works associated with Christmas time performance, they were clearly engaged with domestic and other informal pastimes. Featuring common formulaic introductions of familiar characters, the verbal similarities between the Silverton mumming play and the Battle of Algiers can be readily discerned: Here’s poor Jack Tar, he’s boldly entered in, Will you a favour grant to hear poor Ben? Ben Block I mean, with heart both sound and true, Just come to introduce a play quite spanking new: Christmas being here, I know you’ll not refuse To hear this piece, & may it much amuse, Since from the same you very soon shall see, That British seamen, shall, for ever rule the sea.133

In the same way that the Silverton mumming play featured Cornwallis and Nelson, so too Picken’s … Battle of Algiers introduced the Dey of Algiers (‘Here guard – come take this Christian to a dungeon strong, / And there in chains his days shall not be long’) together with Lord Exmouth, the hero of the 1816 bombardment: Ben Block, with an Algerine: Here is a Turkish vagabond my Lord … And now your Lordship shall I make so bold, As throw him like a Slave down our Ship’s hold. Lord Exmouth: Avast! There, Ben, this Algerine let go, For we would wish to let them plainly know That British Seamen never yet would have A conquer’d enemy become a Slave.134

While the Devonport drama made no reference to the recent French conquest, Exmouth’s magnanimity towards the Algerine prisoner was part of the recuperation of Britain’s enemies also to be found in the Silverton mumming play. The transposition of the bombardment of Algiers dramas from their initial context in London’s popular equestrianized amphitheatres to a Devon Christmas-tide mumming play, like the similar transposition of the various spectacles and dramas associated with Tippoo Saib, charts the domestication of Britain’s enemies and, above all else, their rendering into harmless and peaceful forms.

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The distancing effect of time, already discernible in the Devonport Fall of Algiers but similarly present in the Silverton mumming play, marks the assimilation of Barbary dramas and Tippoo Saib deep into popular English culture, and particularly into its rural manifestations. Unlike American dramas about Barbary slavery, with their appeal to precisely articulated ideologies of natural rights too often devoid of practical implementation with respect to non-white slaves, the British spectacles, panoramas and dramas all characteristically lack political urgency and prefer to passively reflect the passage of topical events. Certainly the picture of blackface put forward in the British context by Virginia Mason Vaughan that, ‘over time, the actor’s blackened face hardened into a marker of racial difference’, seems to be at its most unlikely at the time when blackface minstrelsy was at its most prevalent as a popular entertainment in America.135 Unexpected cultural divergencies, which disable comparisons with contemporary stage practices, may have abounded. For example, in the Silverton mumming play, the rationale for playing its late nineteenth-century Tippoo Saib as a blackface role resulted from the implications of the mummers’ conventions of visiting local well-to-do houses and farms in order to seek payment for performance. Disguise under a black face was requisite for those mummers who thought their anarchic and highly improvised comedy was likely to result in retribution from the owners of the big houses and farmers on their circuit. As Alan Brody, the historian of mumming has pointed out, practices of blacking-up amongst mumming performers conferred safe anonymity. With this heritage in mind, Brody reminds us that Cornish mummers continue to be known as ‘guizers’.136 As with the diplomacy surrounding the Algerine Ambassador’s carefully choreographed visit to witness the Royal Circus spectacle of the Battle of Copenhagen, pragmatism could combine with the dissemination of news but the eventual absorption of both Tippoo and the Dey of Algiers into the perpetuities of nineteenth-century rural mumming practices reveals much about their domestication. As late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century photographs show, village festival representations of Tippoo and the Dey would almost certainly have featured bizarrely dressed, black-faced, burned cork roles for these characters, yet the dramas out of which they arose had done little to directly advance explicit policies of conquest and occupation. Milner’s Tippoo Saib reflected an important episode in the extension of Britain’s Indian empire, but not without querying Britain’s relationship to hostage-taking, India’s national legitimacy or the commercial role of the East India Company. William Hone’s willingness to publish anti-Algerine pamphlets, and his later interest in publishing his popular series, The Every-Day Book: or, Everlasting calendar of popular amusements, sports, pastimes, ceremonies, manners, customs, and events (1826), are consistent with the Devonport mumming play of 1830. By contrast,

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the 1794 Charleston benefit night for ‘American Prisoners in Algiers’, and that city’s 1804 spectacle of The Bombardment of Tripoli, by the American Fleet, were located in a context where the possibility of the American occupation of Islamic north Africa was being formulated. Nevertheless, sympathy for the harsh circumstances of white American captives in Barbary failed to engage as a cultural incongruity in a playhouse where black American slaves were present in the galleries.

6 PACIFIC PANTOMIMES: OMAI, OR, A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD AND THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN COOK

Although Philip de Loutherbourg’s and John O’Keefe’s Omai, or, A Trip Round the World (1785) has received greater critical attention, it was the ‘Grand Serious-Pantomimic-Ballet’ of The Death of Captain Cook (1789) which became the dominant theatrical entertainment mediating the British encounter with the South Seas. The Death of Captain Cook was the most popular of the Pacific dramas, with the largest audiences and, for this reason, it will be examined first. The chapter will then proceed to subdivide the sequence of Covent Garden’s Omai productions in order to discuss the implications of its licensed and unlicensed texts, and then to arrive, finally, at the minimal copy as licensed (without its subtitle), which was the format performed before the fewest number of people. The chapter will discriminate between stage business and scenery specific to Omai and that which was common to other pantomimes, including previous productions at Covent Garden and Drury Lane. Just as Covent Garden’s Death of Captain Cook used scenery recycled from Omai, so too Omai had borrowed scenery from earlier productions. Despite its enthusiastic uptake in the provinces and in circus-like arenas, The Death of Captain Cook probably represents the purer generic form, since Omai was not only produced at Covent Garden in the midst of censorship, but was also situated within rapidly developing conventions of English pantomime, distanced from its Commedia dell’Arte origins. Not only were Omai and The Death of Captain Cook the outcome of this intricate series of theatrical considerations, European voyagers’ experiences of Pacific theatricality may also have been formative in attracting Western playwrights to the subject. There were around fifty-four Covent Garden performances of Omai by the end of 1786, a quantity which translates into an audience size of around 110,000 people (assuming two-thirds full houses), and although initial runs of The Death of Captain Cook were not on quite the same scale (twenty-eight performances, implying an audience of 56,000), it nevertheless stayed in Covent Garden’s

– 139 –

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repertoire for many years (reviving, for example, in 1799 when it ran in tandem with Thomas John Dibdin’s Naval Pillar).1 Easily adaptable for multiple performance venues, it was also readily taken up on the theatrical circuits, receiving nine performances in Norwich alone in 1790.2 Judith Milhouse notes that James Byrn, a dancer, established his reputation with Covent Garden’s Death of Captain Cook and it seems likely its ballets were important in securing its popularity.3 Indeed, although Covent Garden probably recycled Omai scenery from its final 1786 performances, The Death of Captain Cook production imported its original French music. However, such was The Death of Captain Cook’s longevity in the Covent Garden repertoire that by 1804 the original Omai scenery had clearly become decrepit enough for the playhouse to require new scenery. A rare watercolour sketch by their scene painter, John Hodgins, has survived showing the design for the morai scene.4 Its longevity and dissemination should not be underestimated. Without text, The Death of Captain Cook required no Lord Chamberlain’s licence. With no speech or song, it remained intelligible to those who spoke no English and it is clear from its provincial and transatlantic productions that it could be adapted to suit even the most basic theatrical venues. Unlike the several elegiac poetic tributes to Cook, such as Anna Seward’s poem of 1780, published in the immediate aftermath of his death, Jean-François Arnould-Mussot’s 1788 devised pantomime of The Death of Captain Cook, was rapidly performed to audiences not only in Paris and Covent Garden but also in Dublin, across eastern and northern provincial England, and deep into America and Canada.5 Its Parisian origin categorically repudiates any notion that the Cook story was a simulacrum of British imperialist desire, while successful productions in post-colonial north America imply that it continued to hold meaning for non-European populations, including those who had no understanding of the dominant colonial languages of French nor English, nor of the national cultures from which the pantomime had derived. Presumably its cultural reception was also quite different at the New Theatre, Greenwich Street, New York, in 1797 than when it was performed in 1806 at the slave-holding town of Charleston, South Carolina.6 Unlike Omai, Arnould-Mussot’s pantomime did not stem from the Commedia dell’arte harlequinade tradition, which in England had developed an important, and popular, transformation scene for Harlequin. Until Grimaldi’s success in developing the Clown role in the early 1800s, Harlequin’s transformation from mortal to magically endowed hero continued to be an essential aspect of this British incarnation of the pantomime tradition. With the drama set into a didactic and consciously ethnographic mode, such was its extensive dissemination that for most people – the illiterate included – The Death of Captain Cook would have been the principal, possibly the only, vehicle through which they would have learned about this formative British encounter with Pacific people.

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Its cultural influence reached far beyond northern Europe and was instrumental in developing new directions in theatricality. There is every possibility that John Durang’s touring version of The Death of Captain Cook performed in Canada and America during the 1790s included a native American performing one of its islander roles.7 The Cook piece was already a part of Durang’s repertoire when he began employing a native American horserider near Quebec during his tour of 1797–8.8 In Durang’s tiny company, where he was habitually obliged to perform across a range of theatrical skills, it seems very likely this unnamed native American would have been drawn into performing in The Death of Captain Cook since Durang must have found in him at least some thespian talent worthy of development. With Arnould-Mussot’s Death of Captain Cook portraying the sudden violence of Cook’s death, and with Durang’s version possibly incorporating the native American into the role of one of his murderers, the unwitting legacy of this pantomime probably lies in perpetuating negative images of native savagery and European civility even though it originated from a different national context. Paralleled by his American Heroine, discussed above, and with their popular reception similarly traceable along America’s eastern seaboard, Arnould-Mussot’s pantomimes played a considerable role in drawing huge, multi-lingual audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. Arguably, both The Death of Captain Cook and The American Heroine should be considered drama’s founding fictions of European encounters with native populations. The Death of Captain Cook was originally a Parisian production of 1788 but was quickly taken up by Covent Garden and Norwich in 1789, and had reached the East Anglian circuit by the following year.9 It is worth tracing its production history since its passage through the theatres exemplifies not only the efficiency of the theatrical network, but also gives some intimation of the mass public contact made with the Cook story through the agency of this pantomime version. By July 1789 The Death of Captain Cook had reached the Theatre Royal Norwich, was produced there again in 1790, and quickly travelled to Ipswich, Yarmouth and Bungay.10 It obviously lent itself to performance in circus-like arenas as well as conventional theatres. Jacob Decastro’s contemporary history of Astley’s Amphitheatre reproduces the contents of a Dublin playbill from January 1793 which shows that they performed The Death of Captain Cook in tandem with Arnould-Mussot’s pantomime, La Foret Noire; or, the Natural Son.11 The Death of Captain Cook’s journey from France can also be partially reconstructed. Decastro relates that in the late 1780s Philip Astley Sr, who had opened a Parisian version of his Lambeth Amphitheatre, on his ‘return from France, brought over a little spectacle, which he had got translated, and entitled “Sailors and Savages”’.12 It is likely that this was an earlier variation of the Captain Cook piece. In other words, its transmission route from France to the London stage was probably via Astley, but one can speculate that this was part of a general

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emigration of French theatrical personnel initiated by the Revolution. There can be little doubt about Captain Cook’s success at Astley’s Dublin premises, with Decastro relating that his ‘historical production of Captain Cook … was crowded to that degree, that the audience occupied the principal part of the stage’.13 The dissemination of the pantomime was on an international scale. In addition to Durang’s, no doubt, minimalist 1797 version, it was also twice performed at Philadelphia between 1800 and 1810.14 Indeed, some idea of this near-saturation of the Georgian theatrical circuit by Arnould-Mussot’s pantomime can also be judged by the frequency of its production on Tate Wilkinson’s Yorkshire circuit. Between January 1790 and March 1791, it was played a number of times at Hull and York as well as at Wilkinson’s playhouses in Pontefract, Leeds, Wakefield and Doncaster.15 The original Parisian production, like the London versions, stressed its Pacific location (‘La Scène est dans l’Isle d’O-Why-e’) although, with Astley’s Dublin playhouse crowded out for its performances, Jacob Decastro recollected it was sometimes played ‘without the actual display of the necessary scenic department, except that of “Three Huts”’.16 Decastro’s reproduction of this playbill with its description of The Death of Captain Cook’s scenic features, provides a useful summary of the pantomime’s action comprising, an Internal View of the Island of O-Why-Ee. In Part the 2d. a View of the Sea Shore, on the Island near Karrakooa. With the Arrival of the Resolution; – Captain Cook’s Reception by the Natives; the treacherous Designs of Koah prevented by the Captain’s preparation for Battle; – the Manner in which Captain Cook fell a sacrifice; concluding with A Beautiful Picture’. In addition, some element of a didactic purpose is implicit in its promise to ‘Exhibit … the Manners, Customs, Marriages, Implements of War, Combats, &c, of the Islanders of O-Why-Ee, in the South Sea.17

Of course, by the early 1780s there was plenty of published information available about the Cook expeditions, but the reasons for the pantomime’s success almost certainly stemmed from its strong dramaturgy. In this respect, it was quite different to de Loutherbourg and O’Keefe’s Omai, or, A Trip round the World (1785) and, indeed, they should properly be thought of as stemming from quite different traditions of pantomime. Given the muddled motives and circumstances surrounding Cook’s death, Arnould-Mussot markedly simplified the various local factions and backgrounds by introducing the simple narrative device of two islanders, Pareea and Koah, who compete for the attention of the princess, Emaï. With Captain Cook drawn into the lovers’ conflicts, there are fatal results. The pathos of Cook’s death and funeral is escalated by staggering the stage business of his murder over three distinct scenes. In the first of these scenes, Cook chivalrously saves Emaï from physical harm:

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Captain Cook appears: incensed at the violence offered to Emaï, he orders Koah to release her, who refuses to obey, and threatens to stab her instantly; but the Captain seizes his arm, and lays hold of Emaï. Koah, in a rage, attacks the Captain with his axe; the Captain makes Emaï quickly pass to his left side, draws his sword, parries off the strokes of his adversary, and disarms him, who falls at the Captain’s feet. The four warriors re-enter, and attacks [sic] the Captain, till Pareea returns with assistance.18

Whatever the local courtship practices of south-seas tradition, Cook’s action quickly re-establishes Western decorum as normative. However, Koah’s role as villain was probably also meant to be contrasted with the more comic characterization of Pareea played by Carlo Antonio Delpini (c. 1740–1828), a player one knowledgeable contemporary, the barrister John Adolphus, called ‘the prince of pantomimic clowns’.19 In a significant piece of theatrical continuity, Delpini had also played the English pantomime role of Clown in Covent Garden’s Omai in 1785. The second of the sequence of scenes is directly concerned with Cook’s death. Cook’s chivalrous martial dexterity (‘the Captain makes Emaï quickly pass to his left side, draws his sword, parries off the strokes of his adversary, and disarms him’) and his shielding of Emaï are shown to have infuriated Koah, and the action moves towards the confusion of the murder: The King and Pareea go to assemble their friends, leaving the Captain behind, who draws to defend himself against Koah and his party, who attack him; he retires fight with them, but soon returns without his hat, still fighting, and making his enemies give way, some of whom prostrate themselves before him, and receive his pardon; but Koah, at this moment, treacherously steals behind the Captain, an with the poniard (he wrested from the king’s hand in the preceding encounter) stabs him in the back, and flies. The Captain (though mortally wounded) fires his pistol at Koah and kills him, then reels and falls against a tree. One of Koah’s party takes advantage of this situation, and stabs him in the side, and this is repeated by each warrior with a savage eagerness, snatching the dagger from each other, and shouting and exulting his fall.20

Anne Salmond’s magisterial The Trial of the Cannibal Dog: Captain Cook in the South Seas (2003) reveals that both of these figures are based on real people. Koah was the warrior priest Koa’a who also Anglicized himself as ‘Britanee’, while Pareea may have been founded on Palea, the male ’aikane or lover of Kalan’opu’u, the high chief of Hawai’i.21 While the pantomime clearly erases this example of local customary sexuality, it remains unclear to what extent the voyagers’ understood such things themselves – although, arguably, the employment of a competitive heterosexual plot, presumably chosen to continue the conventional plot mechanisms of European drama, at least carries the advantage of referring to the presence of some elusive sexual component within the Otaheitian crisis.22 Whether by default or not, The Death of Captain Cook presented something of the sudden savagery of Cook’s murder and of the underlying cross-cultural

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antagonisms which accompanied it. However, in the third and final sequence of the drama, Cook’s funeral, it is clear that European horror about the fate of the captain’s body dictated quite a different spectacle. The scenic description makes much of official solemnity at the occasion with a ‘Funeral march heard – The marines enter with arms reversed, preceded by two drums, covered with black crape; they march round the ground, and deposit the body of their Captain in the middle’.23 However, the real circumstances of Cook’s death were rather different, in that the body, lying where it fell beyond the control of the Europeans, was quickly dismembered by the islanders and its portions ritually dispersed amongst local chiefs. Some of Cook’s remains, including the legs (but not the feet), the separated hands and arms and parts of the skull, were returned a few days later, put into a coffin and formally buried at sea by the Resolution’s crew. If the funeral scene in The Death of Captain Cook provides a significant memorialization or communal spectacle of mourning for Cook, it was clearly a sympathy which crossed many national and cultural boundaries. One can only speculate whether, beyond mourning for a naval celebrity, there were any larger impulses, perhaps even internationally perceived, such as commemorating all hostile encounters with alien peoples. In the Covent Garden production, the scene showing ‘a Morai, or Burying Place. Mountain behind’ would almost certainly have recycled de Loutherbourg’s scenery from Part I Scene I of Omai, which was probably based on engravings from contemporary accounts such as Sydney Parkinson’s A Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas, in his Majesty’s Ships, The Endeavour (1773) or John Hawkesworth’s Account of the Voyages … in the Southern Hemisphere (1773) (although de Loutherbourg had also collaborated directly with John Webber, the draughtsman on Cook’s voyages).24 Here, as elsewhere, de Loutherbourg and Arnould-Mussot appear to have closely followed contemporary accounts when devising the scenery and stage properties for their pantomimes. In Arnould-Mussot’s version, Cook on his arrival ‘gives axes to the warriors, and nails, knives, &c. to the other inhabitants’, very much in keeping with Hawkesworth’s Account of the Voyages … in the Southern Hemisphere (1773) which related that, on Tupia, ‘the best articles for traffick here are axes, hatchets, spikes, large nails, looking-glasses, knives, and beads’.25 Parkinson’s Journal also contained an engraving of ‘A Morai, or Burial Place, in the Island of Yoolee-Etea’, and described how it was fronted by a ‘sort of amphitheatre, of large rough stones; and, among these … a great many long boards set up, carved in various figures, according to their fancy’.26 Similarly, The Death of Captain Cook’s funeral scene required that ‘Four Islanders (carrying long perches, to which sculptured figures of human heads are fastened, one above another, declining gradually in size, as a reversed pyramid) enter, make a tour round, and fix their perches at each corner of the tomb, and then retire back’.27 The vertical ‘boards’ on the morai described by Parkinson and pictured in his

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engraving (if not the sculpted heads), appear to have become Arnould-Mussot’s ‘perches’ carried by the islanders, and reappear in Hodgins’s sketch for the new scenery of 1804. Comparison with contemporary eighteenth-century Western paintings of death in classical landscapes strongly suggests that, like Parkinson, Arnould-Mussot’s confidently referenced existing iconographies of Arcadia.28 The pantomime’s third scene required a ‘Marriage Altar’ (around which the troubled rivalry of Pareea and Koah for Princess Emaï revolves). This marriage altar, when enlarged, would probably have formed the base for the stage property which comprised the final morai or burial place. Accounts such as Hawkesworth’s made it clear that altars and burial morai were closely associated.29 At Covent Garden, the set would probably have used or adapted de Loutherbourg’s 1785 Omai set from Scene I. Indeed, the Dublin playbill whose contents Jacob Decastro reproduces, with its allusion to ‘the Manner in which Captain Cook fell a sacrifice’, may represent an equivocation between the nobility of Cook’s fall and some retention of the morai’s role as both altar and memorial.30 Similarly, Decastro’s recollection that the pantomime was sometimes played ‘without the actual display of the necessary scenic department, except … “Three Huts”’, may refer to the simple, semi-cylindrical habitations shown in Parkinson’s engraving of the ‘House and Plantation of a Chief of the Island of Otaheite’ and pictured in his Journal.31 Again, for the Covent Garden production, the playhouse might simply have recycled de Loutherbourg’s original Omai scenery from Part II Scene IV, ‘A Village in Tongataboo’. This oscillation between factual fidelity and the requirements of theatrical creativity and practical exigency was probably also present in The Death of Captain Cook’s music, and dance, and James Byrn’s role as pantomime master has already been referred to. Unlike in Omai, Arnould-Mussot’s description makes it clear that some attempt was made to represent the music of the Pacific. When ‘A troop of female natives … come down two and two, dancing … Two other islanders enter, the one playing the nose flute’.32 The ‘nasal flute’ had been described by Hawkesworth as an instrument which ‘sounded like our German flutes, except that the performer, instead of applying it to his mouth, blew into it with one nostril’ and one of these instruments had been included in the book’s engravings.33 Hawkesworth’s picture, together with his suggestion that the nose flute sounded like a German or traverse flute, was probably sufficient for Covent Garden and its successor productions to imitate the instrument by using a conventional flute from their standard orchestral complement, since the traverse flute is also played while being held close to the nose, parallel with the line of the mouth. Indeed, as with other details, The Death of Captain Cook’s musical descriptions suggest a production which was more, rather than less, ethnographically oriented than Omai. Of course, such was the dissemination of the many Captain Cook productions, including that of Durang’s tiny company in Canada, it is unlikely any two

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productions carried similar stage properties. However, as well as the eccentric textual fidelity of the nose flute, The Death of Captain Cook probably also took more exploitative advantage of Hawkesworth’s account of Pacific island dancing, including the one he ‘called Timorodee … performed by young girls, whenever eight or ten of them can be collected together, consisting of motions and gestures beyond imagination wanton’.34 The didacticism of Arnould-Mussot’s Death of Captain Cook, together with its enthusiastic uptake by national and transatlantic audiences, had developed from the background of the complexity of European reactions to the Pacific discoveries. The Death of Captain Cook’s elaborate printed scenic description helps focus many aspects of production which are less obviously apparent in Omai. However, beneath these layerings of European fascination with the Cook story, there probably also lingered other considerations attracting pantomime devisers, authors, actors, lyricists and theatrical scene painters. What O’Keefe, de Loutherbourg and Arnould-Mussot must all have individually recognized in the narratives of the returning voyagers was that many of their accounts repeatedly referred to the theatricality of the island cultures they had encountered. While Christopher B. Balme has studied theatricalized sexual encounters between Tahitians and early European voyagers, the extent of the theatrical reciprocity between the two groups has not been discussed. In recognizing Pacific theatre as a persistent communal or cultural acitivity practised by the islanders, the Europeans often acted as both observers and actors within such performances, wittingly or unwittingly supplying a theatricality of their own.35 The voyagers found that the language of European theatre could easily be transposed to describe what they witnessed about the culture of Pacific performance. Descriptions of a ‘troop of female natives’ dancing to the music of the nose flute, ended by relating how their ‘long petticoats … [were] managed with as much dexterity as our opera dancers’.36 The comparison of the Tahitian troupe to ‘opera dancers’ was typical of the voyagers’ accounts, with European terms such as ‘interlude’ or ‘Entr’acte’ (entertainments between plays or scenes) also being used to describe Pacific dancing.37 That the islanders had independently developed their own dramatic art forms was fully appreciated. When, during the second voyage, Cook and his friends were entertained by King Otoo of Tahiti, the account they rendered was simply a transposition of the vocabulary of European dramatics into the Pacific context: ‘We received an invitation to the theatre, where we were entertained with a dramatic piece, consisting of comedy and dance. The subject we could not well find out; though we heard frequent mention of Capt. Cook’s name during the performance ... The whole entertainment was well conducted, and lasted about two hours’.38 On another occasion, ‘Mr. Banks, Dr. Solander and some other gentlemen, were present at a more regular dramatic entertainment … The performers … in brown, acted the

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parts of a master and his servants, and the party in white, a gang of thieves’.39 It is clear from this account that the travellers recognized that they were audiences in a type of ‘theatre’ and understood they were watching role-playing within a specific plot narrative. In this respect at least, the voyagers were considerably more sensitive to their surroundings than George, Lord Macartney, the emissary to the Chinese emperor Qianlong in 1793. Macartney’s gift of an elaborate telescope to the emperor, and his misunderstanding that court rituals of courtesy did not imply Chinese subservience to Britain’s political and economic goals in the region, led him to imagine the court to be as insignificant as the King Solomon in all his Glory puppet pageant of his youth.40 The Pacific islanders’ propensity for dramatic play, and the Europeans’ appreciation that the conventions of viewing and fictionality were required if the diplomacies of their reception were to succeed, were powerful underlying structures governing the behaviour and cultural responses of both sides. Significantly, George William Anderson’s A New, Authentic, and Complete Collection Voyages Round the World, Undertaken and Performed by Royal Authority (1784) was published in time for both O’Keefe and de Loutherbourg to have fully absorbed its perspectives before they came to devise Omai. Anderson’s edition included an account of ‘a sort of pantomime’ or ‘drama’ on the Tongan island of Annamooka involving prize-fighters, together with ‘some laughable story’ followed by a ‘songster’. This was deemed a ‘farcical exhibition’, but, nevertheless, it immediately prompted a much more profound response, with comments ‘marking a similarity of manner among mankind, at the distance of half the globe’.41 In Anderson’s volume, the appreciation of the existence of a universal taste for playmaking and play-acting came to be markers for a commonality which problematized seventeenth-century, pre-Enlightenment, accounts based on the literal interpretation of Noah’s flood: To a contemplative mind, these islands present a mortifying spectacle of the ruins of a broken and desolate portion of the earth; for it is impossible to survey so many fragments of rocks, some with inhabitants and some without, and conclude with the learned Dr. Burnet, that they are the effects of some early convulsion of the earth, of which no memory remains.42

In acknowledging that the travellers themselves shared a similar enthusiasm for music and play-acting to the Pacific islanders, Anderson’s edition of voyages connected Europe with the South Seas and specifically distanced itself from Thomas Burnet’s Sacred Theory of the Earth (1684–90). The significance of the repudiation of Burnet lay not only in the voyagers’ embrace of an Enlightenment perspective as opposed to the speculative deductions of scriptural analysis, but in their openness to other cultures and regions which, although geographically

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remote, shared similar anthropologies of play and dramatics. The European travellers immediately recognized this to be the case. What may have particularly struck the Europeans was that the Tahitians were capable of drafting and performing entire impromptu dramas which clearly served specific social and communal purposes. Of equal significance in this dialogue is that the voyagers felt it incumbent to both acknowledge and reciprocate in the provision of island dramatics. That the voyagers took with them some rudimentary repository of conventional English literature is evidenced by Sydney Parkinson’s manuscript library inventory carried on the Endeavour. The books listed included Macpherson’s Ossian forgeries, Akenside’s Pleasures of the Imagination (1754), Jean François Marmontel’s ‘tales’ (presumably an edition containing the eventual source for Sheridan’s Pizarro), Chaucer’s poems and, as the single item of dramatic writing, ‘Shakespear’s Works’.43 In other words, along with a copy of William Hogarth’s Analysis of Beauty (1753) and a collection of his prints, the voyagers travelled with a miniature cross-section of the European literary heritage and modern aesthetics. The role of drama on these voyages is important in that, through play and playmaking, the European stance of the proto-anthropologist was unconsciously subsumed into one which combined not only spectating and recording but also an element of participation in reciprocal dramatic discourse. Not only did some of the island dramas refer to Cook by name, they also referenced incidents in their negotiation of the Europeans while also performing their theatricals for consumption by their fellow islanders. In these dramas, the Europeans are marginalized spectators, attentive yet in awe of the dramatic skills set out before them. A number of the essays in David Philip Miller and Peter Hanns Reill’s collection, Visions of Empire: Voyages, Botany, and Representations of Nature (1996), address these issues of the Europeans’ fluctuating recognition of what they undertook to observe. Sometimes they were observers examining the natural world of the Pacific in scientific detail, sometimes they acted more in the manner of general taxonomists and classifiers, but their passage through the islands, and their interaction with the islanders, raises the complex consideration of the role of these explorers or scientists in recording and, thereafter, disseminating the results of their inquiry.44 For example, Alessandro Duranti’s essay about videotaping three modern Samoan dinners ends with him reflectively concluding, unaccountably, ‘The “best dinner” was thus the one that looked the most like an American dinner’, when he realizes that he and his wife have brought Los Angeles values of dining, rather than those of Samoa, to the table.45 The recognition of their complicity, yet also of their oblique role as presences within the narratives of Tahitian drama, was something about which the voyagers only gradually became aware. On the second voyage, they witnessed a performance warning islanders about the temptation of travelling to the west:

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In the evening a dramatic entertainment was exhibited. The subject of the piece was that of a girl running away with us from Otaheite. This was not wholly a fiction, for a girl had taken her passage with us from Ulietea, and was at this present time present when her own adventures were represented: she could hardly refrain from tears while the play was acting; and it was with much difficulty we persuaded her to stay out the entertainment. At the conclusion of the piece, the girl’s return to her friends was represented; and the reception she met with was not a favourable one. It is very probable that this part of the comedy was designed to deter others from going away with us.46

The reception of this drama amongst the crew, in its affective display of sensibility in the responses of the girl and the intention of promoting cultural fidelity to her island home, must have been a striking illustration of the sophistication of Pacific dramatics. That the drama was understood and appreciated by the Europeans within the context of the notions of sensibility they had brought with them is clear, but the passage also records that the episode occurred within a performance during which the islanders were clearly primarily addressing each other. In this Tahitian drama, the European presence was incidental. These Pacific dramatics were a dialogue or dialectic, a discourse of reciprocity where actors and audience obscurely merge and interact at various levels of comprehension and self recognition. For their part, the voyagers understood that drama formed a key component in their dialogue with the islanders. During Commodore John Byron’s voyages near the Straits of Megellan, he had been ‘very desirous to entertain’ local dignitaries and had arranged that ‘one of the midshipmen played upon the violin, and some of my people danced’, although given the limited resources available on board the ships, the Europeans tended to restrict their performances to fireworks and military displays.47 At its simplest, Captain Cook once ‘entertained’ King Otoo ‘with a shew of fire-works’ but the shipboard ‘great guns’ or cannons were also demonstrated before him.48 However, displays of fireworks were also the staple of London’s Marylebone and Vauxhall pleasure grounds and part of a recognizable eighteenth century theatrical repertoire.49 Nor was their diplomatic use confined to exclusively European attempts at persuasive international relations: in 1794 the Turkish Ambassador commanded ‘a Grand Fire-Work’ at Ranelagh Gardens as part of an intricate diplomacy of fete and counter-fete aimed at securing Anglo-Turkish security during the war with France.50 On another occasion, with a local chief ‘having expressed a desire to see the marines perform their exercise, Captain Cook ordered them ashore … They went through their military manoeuvres, surrounded by thousands of natives’.51 Again, staged demonstrations of military exercises were popular Western entertainments during this period, particularly in America. At Philadelphia’s South Street Theatre in 1800 the author and actress Susanna Haswell Rowson performed the manual military exercise of arms in the character of an American volunteer, while Deb-

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orah Sampson, who had actually lived and worked disguised as a soldier, also demonstrated ‘the Manual Execise … in complete uniform … during the Soldier’s Festival’ at the Federal Street Theatre, Boston, in 1802.52 Cook’s theatricalized military manoeuvres were part of a recognizable contemporary dramatic repertoire. The reciprocity of the travellers in providing entertainments, as well as watching performances, was thoroughly understood within the language of drama and theatre, but, within this intricate dialectic, Pacific dramatics and European playwatching were also part of a larger programme of cultural negotiation. Drama provided occasions when, notwithstanding the Europeans’ military exercises and firing of ‘great guns’, islanders could demonstrate their dominance in the cultural semiotics of dramatic exchange. One event (followed by ‘a female ballet’), it was described, ‘would have been applauded even on [sic] a European theatre. It far exceeded any attempt that we had made to entertain them; insomuch that they seemed to plume themselves on their superiority over us’. The setting or ‘theatre for these … performances was an open space among the trees, bordering on the sea, with lights placed at small intervals, round the inside of the circle’ with the arena seating around 5,000 persons. In other words, both the ways in which this dramatic space was laid out, with a circle of footlights and a regularized performance area, and the islanders’ successful dramaturgy performed within it, were comprehended as representing a cultural defeat for the Europeans. In an attempt not to be outdone – in itself an indicator of the Europeans’ immediate understanding of their competitive complicity in the cultural politics of drama on the island – and ‘To give them a more favourable opinion of the amusements, and superior attainments of the English, Captain Cook ordered some fire-works to be prepared’.53 Given this elaborate cross-cultural dramatic, even simple artefacts connected with theatre could become metaphors of the current state of relationships. The loss of Dr Solander’s ‘opera glass in a shagreen case’, stolen on Tahiti, came to symbolize the strained relationships between the travellers and the islanders. Banks and Solander’s insistence on the glass’s return became a competition between the local chief ’s ability to command his subjects and the Europeans’ capacity to enforce their authority.54 The theft of the opera glass (probably spectacles mounted on a folding handle rather than the more familiar late nineteenthcentury miniature binoculars) was symptomatic of the islanders’ reception of the almost talismanic power of the enhanced optical viewing instruments carried by the travellers, which enabled the surveillance of the peoples they travelled amongst (‘We were very attentive to what happened on shore … keeping a constant watch with our glasses’).55 As Anne Salmond points out, the theft of the unwieldly but hugely important astronomical quadrant shortly before the time when it was needed to observe the crucial Transit of Venus, a primary objective

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of the Cook voyage, was a severe blow ‘but the Tahitians regarded this as a great coup, thinking this was some kind of ritual treasure’.56 Such reciprocal interactions, where both groups were beguiled by each others’ apparent powers, covered many aspects of life on the islands. If the islanders thought the Europeans’ optical instruments held near-mystical powers, so too the Europeans thought the islanders had superhuman physical skills. Apart from the dramas and mystical optics, the apparent energetic playfulness of the islanders also provoked meditation. When they witnessed a form of impromptu surfboarding, using ‘the stern of an old canoe’, it provoked reflection upon how what ‘These Indian effected … appeared to be supernatural’ yet it was ‘merely … the application of such powers as they possessed in common with us’.57 The ability of some Europeans to empathize with the condition of the South Sea islanders should not be underestimated and it is crucial for understanding the initial motives impelling de Louthebourg and O’Keefe to devise Omai; or, A Trip round the World. That there existed highly variant receptions and cultural meanings about Cook’s death is demonstrated by the trans-national but dominant cultural presence of The Death of Captain Cook. Even within England there were misgivings about his career. The anonymous poet of The Cave of Neptune (1784), found he ‘cannot but justify the blow which felled him [Cook] to earth’, recognizing that it was wrong to ‘punish a man for theft, in a country where every thing was held in common’.58 This is a rather different emphasis than that put forward in Daniel O’Quinn’s study of theatrical imperialism, where Omai is treated as ‘an example of imperial pedagogy’ incorporating ‘a subtle form of dehumanization … To render the Pacific islanders as natural objects designed for visual observation’ ‘in a highly racialized triangle of desire whose ultimate aims are entwined with the emergent sexual economy of the [English] middle classes’.59 Indeed, Omai, whose scenes were devised by Philip de Loutherbourg and complemented by John O’Keefe’s songs, may represent a more sensitive portrayal of the Pacific people than O’Quinn would allow, primarily because of de Loutherbourg’s own non-normative personal spiritual beliefs. Indeed, there are a number of caveats one would wish to raise before advocating Omai as an example of racist proto-imperialism. Many of these reservations are concerned with Omai’s distinctiveness (or lack of it) within contemporary practices of English pantomime. While the basic synoptic premise of Omai is based on the unpredictabilities of contact between different cultures, the piece’s context within the capital’s traditions and practices of pantomime rather complicates the distinct political and civic messages O’Quinn proposes are encoded within it. Mai’s consistent wariness of English society was a noticeable feature of his behaviour. Given the embedded nature of theatricality in Tahitian culture outlined above, it is clear that he quickly realized the differences between London’s theatres and could socially calibrate its playhouses in relationship to

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his social rank both in England and Tahiti. As one contemporary reported, Mai quickly realized that Sadler’s Wells was not often frequented by the English nobility: ‘the 2d time he asked if Ld Sandwich ever went? no I believe not: does any of the Nobility go? sometimes but seldom: I will go no more says Omai’.60 Analysis of Mai’s visit should bear in mind that he was not always a passive visitor and neither was the cult of Cook uninterruptedly impelled by his representation in Omai. Again, the comparison with The Death of Captain Cook is instructive. The painted apotheosis of Cook memorably lowered onto the stage at the end of the Covent Garden Omai seems not to have been regularly adopted for The Death of Captain Cook. By 1793, Astley’s Amphitheatre Royal in Dublin was simply showing the pantomime ‘concluding with A Beautiful Picture’, perhaps a picturesque landscape painting similar to that also preferred by the touring Norwich Theatre Royal production of 1789–90 which ended with ‘a View of A Burning Mountain’ (although billed ‘As performed at Paris, and … Covent-Garden’).61 The representation of other cultures was the stock-in-trade of the devisers of Georgian pantomime, with cultural incongruity the rule rather than the exception. In particular, contrary to Joppien and O’Quinn, Omai’s relationship to the curiosities of Sir Ashton Lever’s contemporary Holophusicon museum of South Seas exhibits never functioned simply as a handy ethnographic emporium of Pacific life from which pantomime devisers could draw.62 By the time O’Keefe and de Loutherbourg collaborated on Omai, the Leverian had already featured as a scene in a Covent Garden pantomime: ‘Harlequin waves his sword, and the scene changes to Sir Ashton Lever’s Museum’.63 This anonymous Choice of Harlequin; or, The Indian Chief (1782) had shown ‘harlequin waving his sword, animates all the beasts, &c. in the room’, with one of the ‘monkies’ then being involving in comic business for several scenes (‘The monkey … puts on the clothes, and mimicks … the old beau’).64 As with the pantomimic function of harlequin’s magic sword, discussed below, The Choice of Harlequin’s Leverian museum (like the four members of the cast who went on to perform in Omai), was already incorporated in a complex set of intersections between London’s various pantomimes where remote settings, illusions and eccentric transformations had become a staple of these seasonal entertainments. For the devisers of pantomime, taxidermy was more important than taxonomy. Thomas John Dibdin’s Drury Lane Harlequin Harper; or A Jump from Japan (1813) even attempted to portray something of Edo era Japan, a country which had consciously chosen almost entirely to exclude itself from Western contact and which can hardly have been the target of British imperial ambition, or even economic collaboration. With both of its Harlequin and Colombine roles being represented as Japanese characters (Ki-o and San-zu-man), the conventions of their escape from ‘A splendid Japanese Banquet Gallery’ and the Japanese Pantaloon, Bud-so, also included a flight so devised that, incredibly, they could land at

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an English ‘Country Public-House’ and witness a ‘Dance of Female Cricketters’.65 Such unexpected cultural juxtapositions were normal in contemporary pantomimes which already incorporated bewildering sets of conventions. For some in the audience, the black masked, lozenge suited Harlequin of Harlequin Harper – whose Japanese identity would probably have been represented by costuming rather than counterfeiting skin colour – may also have carried with it, as John O’Brien has argued, a latent African identity, but it seems more probable the audience simply enjoyed watching a non-racially specific ex-Japanese Harlequin encountering dancing ‘Female Cricketters’ in an English public house.66 With only the text of O’Keefe’s songs to rely on, plus the barest of scene descriptions in the Short Account, close readings of Omai need to be wary of differentiating between these pre-existing pantomime conventions and new stage effects. For example, the scene in which ‘Omai gets back his Talisman’, whereupon a ‘Magic Odour’ produces strange ‘Effects’ (which then transforms into a stage business of feathers ‘fit for the knob of a King’ containing a ‘magical spell’ with an entrancing scent (‘This perfume, good Sir, let me try … A perfume indeed worth having’)) was a redeployment of well-established stage business.67 Magic perfumed headgear also occurred in two Harlequin Harper’s scenes set in ‘a Perfumery Warehouse … Inside. Wonderful proofs of virtue in modern Nostrums for the Growth of Hair, &c’.68 In other words, far from comprising ‘specters of metropolitan decay’ in multiple ‘mimetic registers’, such scenes reflect Omai’s emergence from a number of specific contingent dramatic conventions which were the property of eighteenth-century pantomime tradition.69 Omai had also been the outcome of O’Keefe’s personal contacts. According to O’Keefe’s Recollections, when devising Omai he held ‘much conversation’ both with John Webber, the artist assigned to Cook’s third voyage and with ‘Commodore [Molesworth] Phillips’, the wounded officer of marines who repelled the attack on Cook (and who had very recently married the daughter of the socially well connected musician, Charles Burney).70 Of course, it was Webber’s plates in the abridged Cook’s Voyage to the Pacific Ocean (1784) which almost certainly provided the immediate occasion for the Omai pantomime. In other words, although O’Keefe had not been on the last Cook voyage himself, he spoke at length with people who had. While this hardly amounted to a scientific ethnographic inquiry, he took steps to research his subject. O’Keefe also seems to have met at least one non-European aboriginal, Duwa’li or John Bowles (c. 1756–1839), the North Carolina born, half-Scottish, Cherokee chief, who visited London in 1782 – describing how Duwa’li (‘the Cherokee-Englishman [sic], whose name was Bowles’) attended a morning rehearsal at Covent Garden and went up and down on the trap door with his companions.71 By contrast, when as a young teenager, George Colman the Younger, whom O’Keefe would certainly have known as the playwright-

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manager of the Haymarket, recalled, fifty years later, swimming in the sea with Mai at Scarborough, his principal memory was only of the ‘curiously veneeer’d’ ‘cutaneous gloss’ of ‘the tawny Priest’s’ skin, like ‘a specimen of pale moving mahogany’.72 This description, with its vivid recollection of Mai’s tattoos, is redolent of the racialization and commodification of the Tahitian, consistent with Colman’s own confusions about race made so apparent in Inkle and Yarico (1787). However, even here the contingencies of production and programming make interpretation difficult. O’Keefe claimed that his comedy for Colman’s Haymarket, The Basket-Maker (1790), was based on his meeting with Duwa’li.73 Indeed, its narrative of an Iroquois chief whose native lands are captured and colonized by France (the source of play’s eponymous basket-making reeds) may be both a complex displacement of O’Keefe’s own Irish background and also a topical critique of the French aristocracy at the time of its August 1790 performance (the effete Count Pepin is satirically reduced by the Iroquois to wearing ‘a Bear skin, his hair still in dress’).74 Unpredictably, O’Keefe’s performance version differed markedly from the licensing copy with O’Keefe actually disabling a narrative that had rendered the Duwa’li figure (King Simon) ‘a Briton born’ who resolves to ‘Enter a Volunteer, Fight under Royal William, in the British Navy’ if forced to ‘Abdicate my Indian Throne’.75 In other words, O’Keefe may have been a playwright who, by the standards of the day, was unusually sensitive to nuances of race and nationality. While these theatrical and personal backgrounds do little more than provide a context for Omai’s composition, they are all part of that vigorous London dramatic environment in which pantomime performances of the 1780s took place. Displaced travellers were not unusual in O’Keefe’s dramas. As with Archibald Maclaren’s Blackman and Blackbird, changes in Britain’s relationship with the world were provoking representations of unprecedented national and racial combinations on the English stage. In O’Keefe’s Basket-Maker, the eponymous Wattle finds himself ‘a poor wandering Englishman, in the French American Colonies … surrounded by nations and tribes; iron men cased in copper, Abbenaquis [Abénaquis], Illenois, and Iroquois’.76 Morever, as with Omai three years later, for The Lord Mayor’s Day; or, A Flight from Lapland, a pantomime O’Keefe had written for the Christmas season of 1782, he had included a magical flight for Harlequin and his companion, Whalebone, facilitated by a Lapland ‘wise Rosycrucian … A Wizard! … a famous Gymnosophist’ whose ‘stick’ of ‘Magic knots command the different winds’.77 The Lord Mayor’s Day is a significant theatrical precursor to Omai because, paralleling the ambitious scenic devices created by de Loutherbourg for Omai, the earlier pantomime had opened with an elaborate ‘view in Lapland, wild and romantic … high mountains cover’d with Snow, hanging Cliffs with large Icicles, a Lake of Ice interspers’d with Islands of Frost … The sky illuminated by the Aurora Borealis’. Harlequin and Whalebone’s meeting

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with the magician (‘Sage Ulan Shmolenski Czernsdorft’) is heralded by ‘Thunder – Trap Door opens and Ulan comes up’. As with Omai, the stage business rapidly revolved around Harlequin possessing Ulan’s ability for ‘for making Talismans’, the business of the ‘Magic knots’ which ‘command the different winds’ and empower them to fly to London on a sledge. While even the comic business of choosing the right cord is freighted with topical, even radical, political innuendo (‘Harlequin: What wind is this? / Ulan: That for America, if you want to fight / Harlequin: Har: No – We don’t want to fight’), the introduction of a ‘potent talisman’ in Omai as a magical portent heralding ‘Thunder – Britannia … Britannia speaks’, re-uses a dramatic device traceable back at least as far as de Loutherbourg’s A Christmas Tale (1773), also present in O’Keefe’s Lord Mayor’s Day.78 O’Quinn’s neat paradox that ‘Tahitian magic must give way to the magic of British might’ in a ‘middle-class fantasy of colonial governance through military domination’ is not credibly supported simply by the pantomime’s juxtaposition of the South Seas and England.79 How would such an interpretation work where the scenic contrast is with some other remote magical spot, such as the Lapland featured in O’Keefe’s Lord Mayor’s Day? Political terminologies which today seem to carry specific meanings were interchanged freely in 1780s pantomime. In Omai, Londinia’s noticeable equation with British ‘Liberty’ (‘Britannia: … this British maid / Be thine, and Love … Shall fix / Firm as my rock, where sits bright Liberty’) was itself a commonplace of the Colombine role, as is made clear in Omai’s rival pantomime of the Christmas 1785 season, Drury Lane’s Hurly Burly, or, The Fairy of the Well (‘Your British Harlequin … Liberty is his Colombine’), a drama which, although not nearly so successful as Omai, played well into February 1786.80 Politics were consistently recognized as signifying in pantomime. Unlike Omai, which had no excisions and was licensed for its first performance on 20 December 1785, Hurly-Burly had been held back by the Examiner of Plays on account of a single objectionable allusion to shop-keepers. It had to be resubmitted on Christmas Eve along with Drury Lane’s ‘hopes the alteration made … will do away [with] whatever may have been thought exceptionable’.81 Hurly-Burly had been described by Drury Lane in its licensing submission as a ‘speaking Pantomime’ and, like Omai, it is representative of a type of theatrical hybridity rapidly evolving for these seasonal entertainments in the 1780s. Innovatively, it featured two harlequins, Harlequin Clack (who can speak) and Harlequin Dumb whose speech is spellbound by the magician, Nordin, but who possesses Clack’s transformative ‘Magical Weapon of Wood’, the pantomime sword which can be so troubling for proto-imperialist interpretations of Omai.82 As ever in pantomime, Hurly-Burly’s national themes are both figured and confused by Harlequin Clack’s arrival, ‘from foreign Shores’ flying in a (very topical)

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balloon ‘o’er our Channel’ – yet another reminder of the increasing permeability of contemporary conceptions of nationhood and how they impacted on pantomime. Indeed, if one were looking for an author to study on the grounds of the context of that season’s representations of nation and class in pantomime, a suitable subject might be Hurly-Burly’s deviser, East India Company secretary, James Cobb.83 As even York’s Theatrical Register noted two years later, ‘Mr. Cobb[‘s] … great connections in the India-House’ were well known.84 In later years, Cobb became senior enough in the East India Company to be lobbied on behalf of those who ‘believ[e] … the nations of India, both Mohammedan and Hindoo, to be in a state of mental and moral degradation’.85 However, if Cobb’s Ramah Droog; or, Wine Does Wonders (1798) portrays the ‘containment of colonial anxiety’ in a ‘suturing of British ascendancy and sexual normativity’, his Hurly-Burly finds the white maidservant, Colombine, inevitably marrying her ‘patch-coated Fellow with the black Face’, in a transgressive union promoted by her mistress, Angelica (‘Hold up a little longer Colombine … don’t give it up now’).86 In the riotous sexual politics of Hurly-Burly, ‘Country Girl big with Child’ advertises to work for ‘a single Gentleman’ (‘She can have an undeniable Character from her last Place’) while a husband-seeking ‘Formal Old Woman’ (‘just turn’d of thirty’) states ‘N.B. No objection to any particular Nation or Religion’.87 Indeed, much of the stage business which appears specifically designed for Omai turns out simply to have been pantomime convention. This also extends to Omai’s scenery. O’Quinn’s differentiation between de Loutherbourg’s extant scenic models for the interior of a quasi-Kamchatkan jourt (following Webber), and another for Scene V in Kensington Gardens, proposes that the former is a deformed space, contrasting Pacific nature with Western culture.88 Under this analysis, London’s metropolitan space is meant to be contrasted with its rude opposite: ‘Hence, the interior space in the “Kamchatkan” scene is structured much like the exterior space of Kensington gardens, and religious objects in the former are viewed much like trees in the latter’.89 However, that Christmas the simple act of walking across the street from Covent Garden to Drury Lane would have located a similar London setting in Hurly-Burly. Since there was only a slight delay caused by the censoring of its shopkeeper passage, one can be sure that – as most probably with Omai – Hurly-Burly’s comparable scene set in ‘Sheppard’s Ice-Creams &c. A Distant view of a Tea Garden near Kensington’, would have drawn on stock scenery. Indeed, Hurly-Burly’s ‘Tea Garden near Kensington’ had been carefully set up, preceded by a ‘Gardeners House’ set (‘Peter Pumpkin, Gardener & Florist’). Far from being merely picturesque landscape or leisure grounds, contemporary Kensington was noted for its market gardens supplying London’s foodstuffs: this is why Peter Pumpkin’s scene moves directly into another set showing ‘Garden, Hot Wells – [cold] Frames

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&c’. (surmounted by, ‘Written in large Letters[:] Vegetation quick as thought’). While the Doctor is occupied ‘viewing Grounds’ and ‘back Grounds’, there is much comic business in the Kensington tea garden as the characters ‘look with Astonishment at the Melon!’, but even these apparently exotic fruits imply local meanings. In England, melons had been forced in ‘Frames’ since the sixteenth century, but works such as the much re-printed John Abercrombie’s Every Man His Own Gardener (1767), were blurring the distinction between exotic foreign produce and fruits which could be grown at home.90 Omai’s Kensington gardens scene, ‘where Omai and Harlequin meet with Londina and her Maid Colombine, and effect their Escape together’, also involved comic stage business alluding to carrots and turnips, prosaically similar to that moment in Hurly-Burly when ‘The Mouths of Countryman and Taylor water at the Melon’.91 Nor was Kensington gardens the only scenic property which turns out not to be so unique to Omai. Part II Scene III of Omai, ‘A dreary Ice Island’, probably imported the ‘Lake of Ice interspers’d with Islands of Frost’ from the opening set of O’Keefe’s Lord Mayor’s Day of three years earlier.92 And there were others recyclings. Any one of Omai’s scenes from Part II Scenes I, III, IV or VI could have re-used sets or stage properties from Charles Dibdin’s Covent Garden comic opera, The Islanders (1780), located in ‘An Island in America’.93 One year later (although it may already have been in use), Omai’s Part I Scene V set, ‘The Justice Room’, probably became ‘A Court of Justice’ in Covent Garden’s pantomime, Castle of Wonders, and the same pantomime probably redeployed Omai’s ‘Magic Palace’ for its ‘Mystic Temple’ scene.94 It is also probable Castle of Wonders reused other less readily identifiable scenery from Omai. When in Castle of Wonders Harlequin and Zany are shipwrecked on a ‘strange ill-looking Coast’, unable to decide whether it is ‘Nova Scotia, or Jerico, or Botany Bay’ (‘I hope not, for we’re both old Offenders’), such a scenic medley suggests that Omai’s sets for Kamtschatka, the Sandwich and Friendly Islands had also been arbitrarily redeployed. In other words, if one wants to look for the ethnographic specificity of Omai, then it does not lie in its use of scenery, since at least some of its scenic effects comprised properties common to pantomime business found at both the Royal theatres, or otherwise simply redeployed old Covent Garden stock. Neither were the nearly conflated roles of Omai / Harlequin or Londinia / Columbine unique since devices of magically-empowered travel with doubled sets of characters had already been explored by O’Keefe in The Lord Mayor’s Day, and were also present in Omai’s rival Hurly-Burly’s two Harlequins (Clack and Dumb), with their Columbine figured as Angelica’s maid. Omai’s racial specificity has also to be largely discounted. Thanks to Leman Thomas Rede’s 1820s description of Georgian blacking-up conventions, the contemporary understanding that Mai was of aristocratic status in Tahiti and had been welcomed by the English nobility would have ensured Omai was

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not a blacked-up role. If Omai does contain a racialized character, it is likely to have been the Otaheitean Traveller (as discussed below) or Omai’s companion, Harlequin, a figure whose role held a residually racialized meaning similar to Hurly-Burly’s ‘patch-coated Fellow with the black Face’ or ‘Blackamoor Gallant’. However, as so often in the eighteenth century, race on the stage is usually figured as an attribute of class. Old Fairy’s song addressed to Harlequin designates him as a servant or ‘valet’, the social equivalent of the blacked-up ‘sables’ maidservant, Wowski, in Inkle and Yarico written by Colman two years later. Even Old Fairy’s relationship to Harlequin was part of a current convention. Old Fairy’s instructions emanating from Omai’s father, Towha – ‘His charge “take care of Harlequin”’ – leads to his injunction to Harlequin, ‘Be still Omai’s valet, [and] he …/ Shall well reward / Thy care and strict fidelity’, suggesting not only the topos of the faithful servant rewarded, but also that Omai’s Old Fairy was an incorporation of pantomime’s conventional benign protector or enchanter, a convention which clearly encompassed the protection of characters played blackface.95 In Harlequin Mungo (1787), the presumably blacked-up character of the West Indian Slave is similarly protected by a Wizard before his transformation into Harlequin (prior to his transatlantic journey with Colombine) while in James Powell’s Furibond; Or, Harlequin Negro (1807), Fair Benigna also protects the Slave character. In other words, if one were looking for a racialized character in Omai, apart from the Otaheitean Traveller role discussed below, then it would probably have to be located in Harlequin rather than in Omai but such an interpretation would first have to discount disparate English pantomimic traditions which, quite clearly, could readily envisage both black slaves and white freemen magically transformed into heroic harlequins. Teasing the racial specificity out of Omai is bewilderingly complicated and even its apparently visible differentiation between Western culture and Pacific nature is made problematic by scenery and comic business borrowed from, or common to, other contemporary pantomimes. Indeed, the cornerstone of eighteenth-century pantomime was its vivid and abrupt scenic juxtapositions between global and local settings. In Covent Garden’s Castle of Wonders, a work which clearly re-used Omai sets, scenes located both on ‘Boston High street’ ([tune: Yankee Doodle] ‘Boston is a silly Town, & if I’d my desire / First I’d knock the Rulers down, & then I’d kick the Crier’) and at ‘Boston Harbour’, obviously mark a resurfacing of Britain’s collective angst over the loss of the colonies but its magic functions to provide a restorative resolution. When Harlequin inquires for ‘any Ship lading for Old England’, the harbour master ignores him and carries on singing: Zany: Zounds! what’s the fellow deaf ? Why you! Any Ships lading for England, ha? Master: Lading for England! No, Fool! the English are kind enough to send lading enough here, without our returning any – Oh, we are a rich people! Tol, lol, de rol., etc.

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With no passage available by ship, Harlequin simply declares: ‘One touch of my stick shall whirl us into Guildhall & shew Mr. Riches here, a little of that poverty he has help’d to bring others to. So here goes – Hold him fast!’, and the scene changes to ‘The Commissioners of Bankrupts sitting at Guildhall’. However, far from being a critique of imperial loss, the London Guildhall scene rapidly turns into Zany’s song condemning ‘these Creditor’s clients’, in the pantomime’s devastating analysis of mercantile mismanagement: Ye wise-noddled Merchants so eager to trade Come here, & I’ll cast up the sums you have made Tho’ a Fool strike the balance, it still is a true thing, Add nought unto nought, it makes nought & go nothing Sing Tantararara. Fools all –

With the Guildhall scene devolving into Rabelasian confusion, a ‘caterwauling’ pandemonium, the message is clear: ‘State-men! … Great men! Hold your prate, men!’ Once again, pantomime had unerringly turned its focus on local, rather than imperial, topics. In Castle of Wonders, the reiteration of the British trauma at the loss of the American colonies and the consequent financial impact on London’s capital markets, was made lucid to both Covent Garden’s literate and illiterate theatre-goers. However, its depiction of Boston’s high street and harbour hardly amounted to a post-colonial critique, excepting, of course, for the tantalizing possibility that its black masked Harlequin seeking refuge in England carried a subliminal message about American slaving commodities: ‘[tune: Yankee Doodle] Boston is a Yankee Town – so is Philadelphia / You shall have a Sugar dram, & I’ll have one myselfy’. Indeed, slaving may be the dominant subtextual meaning behind the Boston harbour master’s retort to Harlequin’s companion, ‘Fool! the English are kind enough to send lading enough here, without our returning any’. Although the subtextual stage business and topical commentaries of both Omai and the Castle of Wonders are difficult to reconstruct and should promote a cautionary hermeneutic, they clearly worked most readily within localized rather than globalized frameworks of meaning. However, the sheer volume of borrowed, re-used or imitative scenes and subtexts taken from the age’s vigorous popular pantomime tradition makes it difficult to be specific about how such representations signified to contemporary audiences. In following the trail of Omai’s comic business, it soon becomes clear that extended parts of the production were focused on local issues as much as on representing cultures on the other side of the globe. In particular, the significant scene concerned with the Margate ‘Raffling Toy-Shop-Man’ shows that Omai’s ethnography is as much Cockney as Tahitian.

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At the conclusion of this Margate scene, along with the other mimed participants, ‘Omai and Harlequin with Londina and Colombine leave Europe, and are pursued, which closes the First Part’. That is, they exit Europe and the West from the newly fashionable seaside resort of Margate. Within the construction of the pantomime, Margate is a simulacrum of Cook’s voyages. The location even helps specify a contemporary seagoing vessel, the Margate hoy, the generic name for the sloop-rigged coasting vessels acting as ferries. As Omai reflects, Margate swiftly became a resort associated with the cultural mixing of classes, a circumstance lending itself to extensive comic treatment in the theatre. William Dimond’s Covent Garden opera, The Sea-Side Story (1801), illustrated the seasonal influx of holiday trippers travelling on the Margate hoy: ‘Good, sir! Another Hoy has just brought to, with a fresh cargo of cockney livestock’.96 This was a familiar vessel: for example, a song was performed in the character of a ‘Margate Hoy-Man’ in the Covent Garden pantomime Harlequin’s Tour; or, The Dominion of Fancy (1800), a lyric whose puns emphasize how all classes were not only mixed together on the hoys but also in the resort town, ‘Crowding together all stations and quality, / Margate-a-hoy!’97 Or, as another popular song put it in the early 1820s, with ‘Steam Boats … preparing to go all the way to Hingy [India], / Watering places will soon be deserted quiet and dingy; / Fashionables will not go to Margate, but incline, ah! / To spend the summer months at Madras, Bengal, or China!’98 The socially chaotic, sickness-inducing sea passage on the Margate hoys later provided rich material for the impressionist Charles Mathews as the resort swiftly careered downmarket with ‘Deputy Marrowfat and his fat fubsy wife … followed by Solomon Simons the slop-seller’ until Lord Dablincourt ‘summons a council of Peers, who vote, Margate and Ramsgate vulgar, plebeian, and insufferable for the reception quality’.99 As noted below, by the late 1820s, the Royal Coburg would show a D. W. Jerrold seaside melodrama alongside a ‘moving Panorama, representing a voyage by Steam from London to Margate’. And as with Omai, conventions of an abruptly changing global picturesque were well established in the pantomimes, including a number of recurrent Margate scenes. In Charles Isaac Mungo Dibdin’s Sadler’s Wells, Jan Ben Jan; or, Harlequin and the Forty Virgins (1807), a ‘Picturesque View in China’ was directly followed by a ‘Scene at Margate, with the exterior of Hubbard’s Bathing Room’.100 For Omai’s audience, as with later theatre-goers, the experience of the Margate hoy was their nearest equivalent to Cook’s voyages. When Omai, Harlequin, Londinia and Colombine ‘leave Europe’ from Margate, they are simply extending their journey as part of a breed of very recognizable tourists (as Thomas Hudson’s song envisaged it, ultimately steaming to ‘Madras, Bengal, or China!’), and all as part of the pantomime convention of Harlequin’s Tour; or, The Dominion of Fancy. For Omai’s audience, a voyage to Tahiti was simply a more daring extension of voyaging to Margate on the hoy.

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By following the representations within these pantomime conventions, together with the popular songs and comic sketches they engendered, it can be seen that Kensington and Margate, far from being stable indicators of an aspirant middle class in harmony with British imperial ambition, were rendered as subjects already subverted by characterizations of chaotic native plebeian incomers. This is nowhere more apparent than in Omai’s scene of the Margate ‘Raffling Toy-Shop-Man’ and where it is possible to reconstruct some of the scene’s subtextual elements. Omai’s ‘Raffling’ man is a ‘Master’ not only of his shop selling nostrums (‘Sal-Volatile … [for] when your lover gets ranting’) and trinkets (‘a ‘twee’), but also of a circulating library (‘Sir, a wise book to read in, that’s – if you know how’).101 Additional verses sung by John Edwin (1749–90) as the ‘Raffling’ man, unique to William Shield’s printed musical score, imply not only that this scene was larger than that published in the Short Account of … Omai (1786), but also that his patter about his shop (designed to make all those who sought ‘Dissipation health Air exercise or pleasure … / … at my Shop stop’) more clearly specifies that it included a ‘full Library circulating’ and ‘easy chit chat’.102 The contemporary inflected meaning of ‘raffling’ implies that the toy shop man was also a lottery keeper (OED) and that he not only supplied items such as boxed sets of dice but also facilitated gambling (‘Miss, here’s the dice-box, what think you of that a bit? / I don’t mean to gamble, or each other fleece, / You shall only put in five and three pence a piece’). Again, gambling was a recurrent moral motif of contemporary pantomime. At Covent Garden’s, The Choice of Harlequin; or, The Indian Chief (1780), such moral messages are even found framed within this pantomime’s noticeable oriental motifs.103 However, not only do these intricate eruptions of pantomime serve to highlight Omai’s local settings, this particular section of the production was part of a significant attempt by the playhouse to avoid interception by the Examiner of Plays. Far from being simply representative of a dysfunctional metropolitan economy, the ‘Raffling’ man scene needs to be studied in its context of being a late, and unlicensed, insertion into Omai. The immediate topical political locus of the ‘Raffling’ man scene is the Shop Tax of 1785, one of the fiscal by-products of the disastrous war to retain the American colonies. By July 1785, the ‘Retail Shopkeepers of Westminster’ had petitioned Parliament against the tax, complaining that ‘many families, who now are barely able to procure a livelihood by keeping a retail shop, will be ruined’.104 By September, this organization of the middling classes was probably already under challenge by the populist Westminster Forum debating club who met at the One Tun tavern, Strand, to discuss, ‘Would the retail Shopkeepers be justifiable in refusing the Payment of the Shop Tax?’ With a sixpenny entrance fee (but with ‘beer included’), the One Tun meeting was half the price of the cheapest London theatre seat.105 As further evidence of this exact political conjunction, at an unknown date that year, someone submitted to the Examiner of

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Plays an unperformed satiric one act prelude, The Inquiry; or, Cause of the Present High Price of Provisions (with an internal date of August 1785), which was an extended satire on the Livery Feasts of the Corporation of London.106 The role of this strand of topical debate in both the 1785 midwinter pantomimes at the patent playhouses is instructive. For Omai’s rival, the single reference in Drury Lane’s Hurly-Burly to the shopkeeper issue was enough to have the license refused and for the playhouse to be required to resubmit a revised copy. The passage (struck through here to show the cut) was spoken in the character of a quack Doctor reading aloud advertisements he had inserted in the ‘Papers:’ Doctor Reading: ‘A respectable shopkeeper drown’d Below Black Friars – Under water Twenty four Hours – quite recover’d’. But why a Shopkeeper Dash? Dash: I don’t know Sir – We might as well drown him as any body else – Besides the Shopkeepers complain that what with one thing and another – Many of them can scarcely keep their Heads above Water.

The precision of the topical commentary can now be reconstructed in the context of the petitioning distressed Westminster shopkeepers and, of course, the implicit lack of sympathy with their plight which Hurly-Burly’s East India Company author took as normative. The middle-class shopkeepers, far from being the addressees of the pantomime, were its objects of satire. However, what is equally remarkable is that, when Hurly-Burly was resubmitted, the piece patched in was about lottery keepers: Doctor Reading: ‘An eminent Lottery Officer keeper, drown’d below Black Friars – under water twenty four hours – quite recover’d’ – but why a Lottery Office keeper[?] Dash: I don’t know, Sir, – we might as well drown him as any body else – Besides I heard one of them declare that the drawing [?unless] deferd [sic] ‘till February, he should not be able to keep his head above water.

In other words, perhaps as much by good luck as good judgment, Omai’s Margate lottery man provided a more oblique satire on shopkeepers which managed to avoid interdiction by emphasizing the toy man’s ‘Raffling’ qualities. With his circulating library alongside his quack nostrums, the ‘Raffling’ man’s role as a lottery keeper made it less easy to define him as a (politically sensitive) shopkeeper. Indeed, its post-licensing introduction into Omai may have been a circumstance which directly benefited from what Covent Garden had heard about how Drury Lane’s Hurly-Burly had fared. That Larpent would, on occasion, license de facto during performance is indicated by one of his later manuscript record books which notes that Moncrieff ’s Giovanni in London; or, The Libertine Reclaimed (1817) was ‘not retd by Elliston’.107 Lottery men were permissible satirical targets in 1785 but not, it seems, shopkeepers. Within the context of the shopkeepers’

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tax and the Margate location, the raffling man’s patter song, ‘Londoners, who would sling sorrow and cash away … / Welcome to Margate … / Clean as a penny we’ll souse, sop and pickle ye / Our of your gold, neat as Brighton we’ll tickle ye’, removes any direct allusion to London’s shopkeepers while retaining an implicit satirical allusion.108 Certainly, one contemporary visitor to Margate thought ‘the genius of the place to be Extortion’, claiming to be subjected to higher prices on account of being ‘a foreigner’ from London.109 This satire on the middle classes became more extended in Covent Garden’s Castle of Wonders one year later, which featured a scene where Harlequin and Zany encounter ‘a Worshipful Justice of the Peace’, ‘an East-India Director’, ‘a great Attorney’, a ‘fine Lady’ and ‘a Box Lobby Lounger’, all transformed into a ‘Chorus of Animals’ and turned into an ass, turtle, woodcock, ostrich and boar.110 What is clear from the Castle of Wonders is that those who classified themselves as socially inferior to professionals and minor gentry represent the social group economically squeezed between the rapacious shopkeepers and the nobility. As the duo leave this scene set in a ‘Gloomy Gallery’, Zany is suddenly pulled back by ‘a large cold hand’ which Harlequin cuts off with his magic sword (‘… Master; – Cut it off – (Hand tumbles down) A bloody hand! Belongs to some Baronet, I warrant, they seem as plentiful here as in England’). In Omai, it is this new and uneasy middle class, the early adopters of the vogue for healthy bodies and bourgeois family life (‘Says spousey to dear, to Margate we’ll trip / In the dog-days, and give little Jacky a dip’) who are the victims of the raffling man, yet it is also this class who most deplore Britain’s economic imperialism. In Castle of Wonders, the inclusion of the ‘East-India Director’ turned ‘plump Turtle’ decisively satirizes someone who ‘did theirs & my own business at the London Tavern’, the perennial dubious City dealer and broker of oriental imports, living ‘with a Napkin under my chin, & sinking under the weight of Calipash & Calipee, I dropt into this Shell that I had just emptied’. In other words, both Omai and Castle of Wonders embody extraordinary recognitions of the subtle stratifications of class present in late eighteenth-century London. English pantomime’s recurrent moral binaries, often residually linked to traditional morality figures representing scarcity and plenty, feast and famine, luxury and poverty, continually function in Omai. In Castle of Wonders, the gorging ‘East-India Director’ represents not merely a satire on the exploitation of oriental riches, his role also embodies a critique of metropolitan capitalism. In Omai the perennial fear of English scarcity is rapidly established in the Plymouth setting of the ‘old Water-cress Woman’, whose cry of ‘Cold and hungry tho’ I sing’, marks an abrupt problematization of the previous chorus’s injunction to ‘dear Omai, glady receive / That true and kind welcome that Britons can give’.111 In the Larpent copy, the Clown paralleled this perennial pantomime theme of scarcity by singing, in the scene set in Kamtschatka, about his ‘Belly

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/ And empty too’, a significant rebalancing of the transnational theme of global hunger.112 Between provincial hunger and the profligacy of City grandees, pantomimes such as Omai and Castle of Wonders – and even the unperformed Inquiry; or, Cause of the Present High Price of Provisions – provided a continuing critique of London’s rapidly evolving social and economic culture. In the same way that Margate became a simulacrum for Cook’s voyage, the Otaheitean Traveller, who is ‘supposed to have accompanied Omai to England’ (as described in the printed list of ‘Characters’), functions not so much as a parody of Mai’s travels to England, but as the binary of the ‘Raffling Toy-Shop-Man’. Indeed, the roles were played by the same actor, John Edwin, a doubling which audiences would have immediately recognized when he came on again to sing.113 At this point, the implications of contemporary theatrical representations of race become much more problematic because Omai’s scene located on the Sandwich Islands, where the ‘Natives are entertained, by an Otaheitean Traveller’, probably featured the Otaheitean Traveller as a blackface ‘Negar’ role. As a blacked-up commentator, Omai’s Otaheitean Traveller markedly adds the extra dimension of a figure much more familiar than Mai to London audiences, the ubiquitous Afro-Caribbean black servant whose presence would have been evident even in the footmen’s gallery of Covent Garden. In performance, the presence of an Africanized, blacked-up, racial counterfeit is a significant incursion into a pantomime about Britain and the Pacific. O’Quinn reprints the whole of his song and, although noting ‘Edwin’s hyperembodiment of racial otherness’, does not comment on the possibility of blackface or that this lyric and the Margate ‘Raffling’ song were unlicensed texts.114 With Omai probably being played uncoloured (on account of his supposed high birth), the Otaheitean Traveller, whose song ends with him being told to ‘get out dam Negar’, may have been played as an ethnically African blacked-up servant, analogous to performance practices for Wowski in Colman’s Inkle and Yarico two years later.115 In terms of considering Omai’s dramaturgy, this would have enabled the actor John Edwin to have first appeared as the ‘Raffling’ man in Part I Scene VII, then to black up as the Otaheitean Traveller for Part II Scene VI, to sing his ‘Negar’ song (‘In de big canoe …’), and then, as one of the company’s strongest voices – still blacked-up – join the ‘CHORUS of Indians’ (‘Mourn, Owhyee’s fatal shore / For Cook, our great Orono, is no more!’). This unnumbered final scene (following Scene IX) then moved directly into a ‘View of the Great Bay of Otaheite at Sun-set’, the descent of the ‘Grand Painting’ and the singing of the English Captain’s eulogy.116 In other words, some performances of Omai ended with the English and Tahitian characters being accompanied by a blackface role. However, such were the steady stream of adaptations Covent Garden made to Omai during its initial production phase, not every performance would have

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ended in this way. At the point at which Edwin’s third song was introduced, around 10 January 1786, the new piece performed ‘in the Character of an English Sailor’, was clearly intended to form a new finale for Omai. At this point, Edwin may have had to retrospect his whole make-up strategy so as to incorporate the new song (‘When I come back to bonny Shadwell Dock’). Blacking-up practices have been discussed above in Chapter 2, but racialized colouring, if it did not use the burnt cork option, could also employ what Leman Thomas Rede describes as the widespread practice of using ‘only an extraordinary quantity of vermillion or carmine’, that is, the basic make-up for most Georgian actors.117 Citing the instance of the trunk scene in Colman’s (ex-Godwin) Iron Chest (in which Rede himself had played) and Wilford’s ‘suddenly removing the colour’ to show his change in pallor due to fright, was an effect achieved by pre-placing a ‘greased napkin’ in the trunk which the actor uses to wipe off make-up while turned away from the audience. Rede had also related that in Richard III’s ‘dreaming scene’, ‘a celebrated tragedian … always removes his colour’.118 In other words, although Wilford and Richard were not blacked-up roles, their degree of pallor could be modified by removing their regular make-up. If Edwin discarded burnt cork blackface for the performances after 10 January 1786 when he had to play both the Otaheitean Traveller and English Sailor roles, he could have simply played the former role, ‘tawney’, with an ‘an extraordinary quantity of vermillion or carmine’, and wiped it off for the English Sailor. Once one appreciates that the Otaheitean Traveller probably started as a blacked-up role for John Edwin, the cultural meaning of the song shifts from being a rendition by a Tahitian to something far more akin to a performance by a theatricalized blacked-up servant, a characterization already familiar to Georgian audiences through roles such as Mungo in Bickerstaff ’s Padlock (1768). Under this interpretation, the Otaheitean Traveller’s verses about being taken ‘Up de stair’ by ‘dis lady fine’, become less to do with the circumstances of Mai’s visit and more to do with conventional stereotypes of white wives taking black servants as their lovers, the key lines in the song being ‘In her spousy jump / As of kiss I beg her’.119 By the mid 1790s, as Hans Nathan has shown, the songwriter, playwright and actor-manager, Charles Dibdin the Elder, was devising fully minstrelized, ‘banjer’ playing, blacked-up white actors for London audiences.120 Omai’s Otaheitean Traveller, entertaining the islanders with his song, must be considered a forerunner of the blackface minstrel and Jim Crow. Once again, the ethnographical parameters of Omai have turned out to be wider than expected. The principle determinant for contemporary audiences would have been their perception that the Otaheitean Traveller was Omai’s black servant, someone coloured by virtue of their class rather than by their racial group. In Omai’s dramaturgy, the Otaheitean Traveller would then function as a companion figure, additional to Harlequin, accompanying Omai on his journey to

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England. If so, Omai’s racial specifics became even more intricate with the black masked Harlequin (arguably representing a residually racialized African figure) played in parallel with the black faced Otaheitean Traveller. However, in order to figure the Otaheitean Traveller into Omai’s dramaturgy it is necessary to consider that O’Keefe may also have been aware of the role of drama in South Seas ethnography. The Otaheitean Traveller scene is located on ‘Another Part of the Sandwich Islands, where the Natives are entertained’ by his singing.121 As has been argued above, by the time O’Keefe, de Loutherbourg and Arnould-Mussot came to devise their pantomimes, they must have been well aware that the Pacific islands had long ago evolved dramatic cultures or, as one of the voyagers already referred to put it, the ability to mount ‘Such a performance [as] would have been applauded even on [sic] a European theatre’.122 What might look like a straightforward piece of minstrelizing by a blacked-up John Edwin, a song portraying uncivilized naivety, was more likely a satiric commentary on Western culture and a recognition that – as when the voyagers watched the ‘dramatic entertainment’ (‘not wholly a fiction’) warning girls about running away from Tahiti – the islanders themselves had used drama to critique European behaviour.123 If played blacked-up, the Otaheitean Traveller becomes a commentator independent of the supposedly high-bred Mai, one who – while not in any sense representing a coloured man’s point of view – provides a satirical commentary on upper-class behavioural codes. In this case, his racial counterfeiting, as both servant and outsider, enables such a comically alienated critique. Indeed, the whole cultural moment of Omai was deeply involved in this complex set of recognitions of its own theatricality, where pantomime, with its highly developed sets of conventions and innovations, had become an intricate vehicle of theatrical structure and counterpoise. Even something as obvious as Omai’s acceptance of a ‘British sword’ ‘from mighty George our sovereign lord’, part of the spectacle preceding the lowering of the Captain Cook painting, which is discussed and – in its later variant – reproduced by Daniel O’Quinn, is a part of these polarities of pantomime convention.124 Prominent among such conventions, although the Short Account Of … Omai is insufficiently detailed to mention it, was Harlequin’s wooden sword, what Hurly-Burly across the road invoked as Harlequin Clack’s ‘Magical Weapon of Wood!’125 Even though it is a subtextual device, this stage property would have been given to Harlequin to protect Omai on his journey to England. It would be the weapon he wielded, for example, in Part I Scene VI, where ‘Harlequin effects an Entrance into the House, and escapes with Londina and Colombine’.126 Its customary presence in pantomime complicates all appearances of other swords within this drama since it had an inviolable status. In Hurly-Burly, ‘Harlequin Dumb touches … [a lame man] with his Sword, he drops his Crutches and begins Dancing – seems mightily obliged to Harlequin’.127 When, during Covent Garden’s Volcano, or The Rival

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Harlequins, Harlequin’s wooden sword failed to protect him from four ‘infernal’ furies, Thomas Dutton’s Dramatic Censor; or, Weekly Theatrical Report called it a ‘violation of all the laws of pantomime … an outrage of propriety’.128 Harlequin’s sword was an important component of English pantomime, remaining a magical wooden weapon whose presence during Omai’s textual and subtextual narrative subverts the political agency of Omai’s gifted ‘British sword’. Harlequin’s role as a supranational device of pantomime renders the British sword less potent. Unlike the dramaturgy’s wooden sword, it remains an untested weapon, an emblem of a martial power rendered all too doubtful by Cook’s murder. That Omai’s ‘British sword’ cannot be simply equated with Georgian imperial ambition, what O’Quinn describes as ‘the saturnalian world of Tahiti … literally transformed into a space of imperial normavity’, is no better seen than by examining how Harlequin’s sword had functioned in O’Keefe’s earlier Covent Garden pantomime, Lord Mayor’s Day; or, A Flight from Lapland (1782).129 Whereas Omai upholds Cook’s individual naval heroic, in Georgian Britain such affinities did not extend unreservedly to the British navy as a whole where Harlequin’s wooden sword could spectacularly disarm the much feared navy pressgangs. Such an incident occurs in Lord Mayor’s Day, a scene portraying the exercise of a (noticeably all female) local moral economy, where a ‘Press Gang’ are prevented by a group of ‘Servant Maids’ from impressing a ‘handcuff ’d’ sailor: Arm’d with Brooms, Mops, Spits, Knife boards, Pokers, Tongs, Fire Shovels, & dress’d as Cooks, House Maids, Fat Landlady, &c &c. they assault the Press Gang furious Har[lequin] waves his Sword, the Gang drop their Pistols, Swords & Bludgeons. Great Confusion.130

Harlequin’s rescue of a maidservant’s sweetheart, and the defeat of the pressgang, is affected by his wooden sword. That Harlequin’s wooden sword sometimes functioned in an overtly political role, as well as being a device of riotous intervention, can also be demonstrated as far back as Harlequin Incendiary: Or, Columbine Cameron (1746), a dramatically risqué anti-Jacobite pantomime written in the aftermath of the 1745 rebellion. When Harlequin Incendiary’s stock figures of a Justice of the Peace, a Beau, a Miser and a ‘Scotch Laird’ (the laird perhaps a new addition, topical to post-1745) try to arrest Columbine ‘by Force’, ‘Harlequin charms all their Swords out of their Hands; while they stand amaz’d the Pretender &c. enters, and Harlequin promises to restore all they have lost, provided they’ll join the Pretender’s Cause’.131 In this case, Harlequin’s sword has not only disarmed the ‘Scotch’ but tricked them into treachery, with their downfall coming about when they are led into ‘An English Palace’ (accurately memorializing the successful penetration of Jacobite troops into the English Midlands), where the ‘Party of Scotch, headed by the Pretender, rush in Sword in Hand’ only to find the ‘Palace immediately changes into a Prison’.132

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Using the conventions of its dramaturgy to stage a treasonous conspiracy, Harlequin Incendiary relied on the audience’s recognition that the conventions of harlequinade dictated a politically harmonious outcome. Once one discounts the amount of stage business in Omai which simply followed pantomime convention, or where scenery had been reused from old productions, or even sets common to Drury Lane’s rival production, and when one further discounts scenery in Omai insufficiently localized as to be capable of recycling for other Covent Garden productions, the amount of specifically Pacific ethnography in the pantomime is markedly reduced. Indeed, even some of Omai’s central propositions about Cook’s daring circumnavigation are somewhat undercut by the Margate scene operating as a domesticized simulacrum of global voyaging. And although Omai can be counted as a considerable success for Convent Garden, Arnould-Mussot’s Death of Captain Cook was performed before much larger audiences within a demography of reception far more culturally diverse and less obviously inclined to accept either Cook or British seamanhip as causes worth celebrating. Once reduced from its performance texts, which included both licensed and unlicensed materials, the actual Omai licensing copy, limited to what manager Thomas Harris’s enclosed letter of submission from Covent Garden described as ‘the Air, Recitatives & Chorusses’, takes on quite a different perspective, but one which must be deemed closest to de Loutherbourg and O’Keefe’s original intentions.133 Whether it is a significant matter of not, the submission manuscript of Omai lacked its subtitle and, because it was not a necessity of the licensing process, there were no scenic descriptions included and, therefore, no action specified for Harlequin or Columbine and, of course, none for the ‘Raffling’ man or Othaheitean Traveller. What stands out immediately is that most, if not all, of the supposedly Tahitian words were present and intended for inclusion. Some idea of how important they were to the production – that these were primary textual materials requiring licensing – can be judged by examining the potential consequences of the ‘Raffling’ man and Othaheteian Traveller songs not being licensed. As late as 1820, in a rebuke to Drury Lane about performing non-licensed pantomime material, Larpent insisted to James Winston that ‘any Theatrical Piece, in which there is the smallest Variation, requires a Licence’.134 It is clear that these songs were a desperate measure to supplement a pantomime which was originally too much dedicated towards ethnographic verisimilitude, despite most Omai audiences not being aware of these intentions and, indeed, not experiencing the pantomime in this form. In production, it is possible that the meanings of these words, as was the pantomime convention, could have been transliterated onto written scrolls visible to the audience, much after the fashion in which they are supplied as the striking set of footnotes included in the Short Account. The 1799 Astley’s Amphitheatre

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adaptation of Sheridan’s Pizarro drew favourable comment on its use of ‘perspicuous scrolls’ carrying surprisingly lengthy maxims and, as referred to above, John C. Cross’s Royal Circus King Caesar; or the Negro Slaves (1801) may also have used scrolling.135 O’Keefe had also used similar devices in his earlier Covent Garden pantomime, Lord Mayor’s Day; or, A Flight from Lapland (1782), during which ‘Harlequin waves his Sword & the Words of the Shew boards become revers’d’.136 Such devices were well within pantomimic convention and it is unlikely any reviewer bothered to comment on their usage in Omai. Shorn of its considerable harlequinade stage business and prolific unlicensed insertions, the text O’Keefe and de Loutherbourg worked with overwhelmingly emphasized its South Seas qualities, reproducing Tahitian language in a theatrical pastiche. As has been mentioned above, O’Keefe had already met the native American Duwa’li and later wrote The Basket-Maker (1790) with him in mind. For de Loutherbourg, however, the newly published voyaging accounts, together with his own spiritual leanings almost certainly contributed much towards his wish to produce Omai. Far from being a piece of British proto-imperialism, de Loutherbourg had a well attested and intense interest in the Cook voyages, probably receiving a voyage drawing of the prow of a New Zealand canoe directly from Sir Joseph Banks, and certainly exchanging pictures, drawings and conversation with William Hodges and John Webber. Indeed, as well as prompting the new scenery, where it can be identified as not having been recycled from earlier Covent Garden productions (that is, Part I Scene I–II and nearly all of Part II), de Loutherbourg’s careful drawings of the clothing of the peoples encountered on Cook’s voyages almost certainly contributed enormously to Omai’s costuming.137 De Loutherbourg’s apparent personal investment and fascination in Pacific peoples are most likely to have been the result of his sympathy with their spirituality. Anne Salmond’s The Trial of the Cannibal Dog: Captain Cook in the South Seas has explained very lucidly the nuances of belief, custom and ritual observations practised by the peoples Cook encountered and, since his personal contact with the Cook voyagers was clearly mediated through expert participants such as Banks and Webber, it seems inconceivable de Loutherbourg did not enquire closely about this aspect of South Seas culture. In turn, de Loutherbourg had already himself developed a distinctive alternative spirituality the dominant role of which in his life can be deduced from the extraordinary sale catalogue of his library auctioned after his death in 1812. De Loutherbourg owned, for example, copies of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s Cabalistarum selectiora, obscuriora’ que dogmata (Venice, 1569), a Paris printed Artis kabbalisticæ, sive Sapientiæ divinæ academia (1621), a Northampton printed edition of The Divine Visions of John Engelbrecht (1780), as well as William Law’s sumptuously illustrated translation of Jacob Boehme’s Works

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(1764) and a copy of his Mysterium Magnum, or an Exposition on the book of Genesis (1654). De Loutherbourg’s interest in occult healing practices was also represented by at least two books by the seventeenth-century medicinal alchemist Paracelsus (Theophrastus von Honheim) and one by Ebenezer Sibly, a late eighteenth-century medicinal mystic, herbalist, astrologer and medico-sexual writer.138 At this time de Loutherbourg was also associated with the Swedenborgian church in London, having been one of its founder members in 1778.139 De Loutherbourg, like his fellow Royal Academician Richard Cosway (whose library grew to be even more spectacularly involved with arcane spiritualities), was part of a generation of artists and artisans who combined an enthusiasm for specialist religious beliefs accompanied by a facility to move with profitable ease through London’s cultural life.140 Although obviously absorbed in his mystical interests at this time, when he moved to Hammersmith Terrace in 1785 (the year of Omai) de Loutherbourg seems to have taken care to situate his home in a neighbourhood popular with successful theatrical people, the sort of local constituency mirroring the substantial proportion of Royal Academicians living in the vicinity of Covent Garden by 1783 and where connectives between theatricality, thespian celebrity and painting could be profitably exploited.141 On one side of him at No. 5 lived the actress Mrs Mountain of Sadler’s Wells and Covent Garden, while on the other side, at No. 15, lived one of the most prolific playwrights of the era, Arthur Murphy.142 In the mid-1780s he would also have known the Swedenborgian violinist, composer and Covent Garden theatre orchestra conductor, François-Hippolyte Barthélémon (and his composer daughter, Cecilia Maria), who had already been involved in Oithóna: A Dramatic Poem (1768), a Haymarket production adapted from James Macpherson’s Ossian forgeries. Carefully positioned amidst the turbulent spiritualities and professional connections of the 1780s London theatre scene, de Loutherbourg continued to follow his interests in regimens of prophetic healing and, quite clearly, also had access to the latest information about Cook’s voyages. This chapter has demonstrated how the reception of ideas about the Pacific, and Captain Cook in particular, amongst the European and north American general populations, both literate and illiterate, was predominantly mediated through the agency of pantomime. For most people, The Death of Captain Cook pantomime, whether staged in a provincial English town or produced by itinerant companies such as Durang’s in Canada, would have been their primary source of contact with the Cook narrative. For de Loutherbourg and O’Keefe, their Omai probably began under an ethnographic impulse connected to their own interests in native peoples; but, produced within London’s frenetic pantomime environment it quickly acquired overwhelmingly localized satiric agendas.

7 COLONISTS, CONVICTS, SETTLERS AND NATIVES: LA PEROUSE, PITCAIRN’S ISLAND AND VAN DIEMEN’S LAND!

If everything suggests that de Loutherbourg and O’Keefe were happily following their conjunction of personal interests in producing Omai, subsequent Pacific dramas following The Death of Captain Cook were largely noticeable by their absence from the London stage; the ones which were produced illustrate the transition of the region from a site of exploratory voyaging to the destination of penal and emigrant settlement. In less than fifty years, audiences were transferred from the compromised ethnography of Omai to Moncrieff ’s Surrey Theatre Van Diemen’s Land! Or, Settlers and Natives (1830), a burletta complete with moving panorama of Hobart and intransigent aboriginal leader. In the interim, Kotzebue’s Pacific-located La Perouse (1799) was probably subject to self-censorship at the two London royal theatres (who ultimately declined even to attempt to stage it) while a prospective production at Norwich Theatre Royal – even with Norwich’s censored conclusion – was refused a license. As with Omai, once again pantomime became the preferred route to circumvent such state regulation as the censor suppressed any representation of Kotzebue’s ideal Pacific colony with its remodeled social family. Nevertheless, the prospect of colonization and emigration quickly gave rise to misgivings about the region’s suitability exclusively as a destination for penal transportation. Thomas John Dibdin’s Drury Lane ‘Ballet of Action’, Pitcairn’s Island (1816), with its resuscitated and mellowed figure of Fletcher Christian, was an important transitional drama, at once rehabilitating a mutineer but also making it clear that the Pacific contained viable sites for settlement. The onset of the French Revolution probably helped initially stifle Covent Garden’s production of The Death of Captain Cook, whose last performance on 13 May 1789 at the close of the patent houses’ winter season almost coincided with Astley’s Royal Grove Amphitheatre summer productions turning to views of the Bastile (from 30 July).1 One of the stranger casualties of the French Revolution, the Terror and the subsequent war between France and Britain was the lack of

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information about the true fate of the disastrous Pacific voyage of Jean-François de la Perouse (1741–88), a venture at least partly intended to emulate Captain Cook (and which may help explain the Parisian origin of The Death of Captain Cook). The disappearance of La Perouse’s flotilla became a recurrent symbol not only of the remoteness of the south seas but also of their inherent dangers. With La Perouse and his two ships, Astrolabe and the Boussole, foundering with the loss of all hands at some time during 1788 at an uncertain Pacific location, subsequent voyages ordered by the French National Assembly to mount a rescue (or seek remains) initiated a tantalizing and elongated naval quest whose inconclusive results were the subject of a play by Augustus von Kotzebue, a drama quickly translated into English well before the London printing of the French official Account of a Voyage in Search of La Pérouse … Performed in the Years 1791, 1792, and 1793 (1800).2 The dramas arising from the La Perouse incident reveal not only changing attitudes to the Pacific but also much about the continuing role of censorship in England, and how this was related to pantomime’s role in the Georgian repertoire. Pantomime was a refuge when licensing failed. The edition of Kotezebue’s La Perouse translated by Benjamin Thompson in1799 was not printed to coincide with a performance history and neither was Anne Plumptre’s translation, La-Peyrouse [sic], published the same year. Despite the presence of two workable translations, Kotezebue’s La Perouse was censored from the English stage and unperformed except in a highly variant pantomime adaptation. With no knowledge of his true fate reaching Europe until the inconclusive outcome of the French rescue expedition, Kotezebue had imagined La Perouse safe but shipwrecked on a remote island. Far from home, and with little hope of ever seeing Adelaide his wife again, Perouse forms a relationship with the islander Malvina, who bears their son, Charles. When the rescue party of Adelaide and her brother, Clairville, arrive on the island together with Henry, the child of Perouse and Adelaide, the conclusion becomes somewhat complicated. Clairville relates that ‘An Englishman, who was taking petty thieves to Botany Bay … has related to me strange events. We no longer have a native land. Anarchy has devoured it. The rich are become beggars, and we – why, we were rich’.3 In other words, Kotzebue’s drama provides an extraordinary updating of the circumstances and consequences of French history during the 1790s, the time elapsing during La Perouse’s absence. Adelaide’s brother having become an émigré, he resolves to sail for England, vowing to return to ‘found a colony, like the Greeks, when they fled from Egypt, and who knows whether, after the expiration of a few thousand years, we may not be as famous as Inachus or Cecrops?’4 However, Kotzebue’s startling denouement was that, with Perouse fearing being ‘butchered in the land which gave him birth’, Adelaide and Malvina – who both

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have sons by him – propose resolving the situation by creating a celibate maternal ménage à trois and remaining on the island: Yes. Sisters let us be, if this man will be our brother. As we cannot share him, neither of us must possess him. We, as sisters, will dwell in one hut – he, as our brother, in another. He will assist us in educating our children. During the day we will form one happy family, and the evening shall part us. The mothers shall remain with their children – the father in his hut. Do you consent to this, Malvina – and you, Perouse?5

Given Larpent’s strict policing of the moral boundaries of drama, it appears that neither Covent Garden or Drury Lane sought to directly produce either Thompson’s or Plumptre’s translation. However, a performance edition based on Plumptre’s text and sent to him from Norwich in 1801 is highly revealing of their perception of the censor’s prevailing attitudes and why this drama was excluded from representation. In an entry for April 1801 made in one of his surviving manuscript account books, Larpent marked as ‘Rejected La Perouse, a Drama in 2 acts, Norwich’.6 A printed copy of Plumptre’s 1799 La-Peyrouse is filed with Larpent’s papers but otherwise unaccompanied by a licensing application, submission date or prospective venue.7 The insertion into this printed copy of a manuscript song entitled, ‘“La Perouse”, or “The Desolate Island Song by Mr[s]. Mills[”]’, identifies this as a submission made some time after John Fawcett’s ‘Grand Historic Pantomime Drama’, with ballet, Perouse; or, The Desolate Island, a Covent Garden production of March 1801.8 It now seems certain that the Norwich Theatre Royal ‘La Perouse’ which Larpent entered into his account book as ‘Rejected’ refers to this copy of Plumptre’s La-Peyrouse, fitted out with new manuscript material from the Norwich management, some of it derived from Fawcett’s pantomime. Fawcett’s Perouse; or, The Desolate Island had commented that Kotzebue’s ‘denouement is by no means likely to satisfy an audience of this or probably any country’, leading him into ‘defacing and altering altogether those parts … not suited to an English taste’.9 Although it was at first an indifferent theatrical success for Covent Garden in 1801, like The Death of Captain Cook and The American Heroine, Fawcett’s Perouse was a comparatively rare London production in being a non-harlequinade pantomime. However, contemporary interest was sufficient to spawn a Life of La Perouse, the celebrated and unfortunate French Navigator (1801), to which was added a full scenic sketch of the Fawcett piece. With the enormous popularity of Joe Grimaldi in the late 1800s, Perouse; or, The Desolate Island seems to have been revived once more in 1811 with the great clown playing Kano, the native suitor to Umba.10 Fawcett drastically changed Kotzebue’s original by introducing a new native female islander, Umba, and specifically relocating the action to ‘an uninhabited Island, North of Japan’, actually in a different hemisphere to where La Perouse had

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last been sighted.11 When La Perouse’s wife arrives on the island, the ‘jealousy of Umba … ends in her vowing to destroy Pérouse’, by leading hostile natives to his hiding place.12 Extraordinarily, in Fawcett’s version, La Perouse’s interest in Umba appears to have been sublimated by his initial rescue by ‘A Chimpanzee (an animal something resembling a large monkey)’ who after the shipwreck, Caliban-like, leads him to food and water.13 Of course, Fawcett’s Chimpanzee (played by the child actor, ‘Master Mènage’) is itself a forerunner of Charles Isaac Mungo Dibdin’s The Wild Man (1809) which, in turn, was a precursor of the Frankenstein adaptations.14 However, the various gyrations Fawcett undertook to stage Perouse were undoubtedly geared at avoiding censorship. The most direct means Covent Garden took was to not to include any dialogue or song, or anything which would have entailed licensing by Larpent – although, at some point, George Colman the Younger seems to have written Umba a song set to music by John Moorhead. This (unlicensed) piece, following Colman’s success with Wowski in Inkle and Yarico – and Omai’s Otaheitean Traveller – seems to have been written as a blacked-up role (‘My name is Umba … / My native Island Parents dear, / Me leave, to watch white Man in danger’).15 Like the additional songs in Omai, Umba’s song may have been a desperate (and risky) way of assisting a flagging production. However, the degree of sensitivity about Kotzebue’s original ending can be inferred by the Norwich offering up to Larpent a new ending affixed to Anne Plumptre’s translation which they had, in an act of anticipatory self-censoring, already re-written so as to include a dialogue which itself contains fascinating sexual politics. In the proposed (glued in) Norwich ending, Clairville and Malvina, ‘allured by odour of a citron grove of yonder island’, sail to an adjacent island to see her father. Remarking that through ‘this good man I have learned resignation – through his instruction I have obtained pardon from my father’, Malvina decides ‘To the neighbouring island I shall retire with my father to comfort his age’, pledging to ‘dress up a hut with … choicest shells’ and visit Perouse and Adelaide, ‘often’.16 The production circumstances surrounding Norwich Theatre Royal’s attempt to stage Plumptre’s La-Peyrouse, together with the context of Fawcett’s Perouse; or, The Desolate Island, provide cautionary examples for how dramatizations of Pacific incidents, however remote in distance and disconnected through national involvement they seemed, could still present insurmountable problems for stage representation.17 The naturalized sexual politics of white men taking native islander mistresses, together with the reproach for their conduct presented by Kotzebue’s determinedly voyaging Adelaide, was raised in the original drama but in England could only be read in the closet. Self-censorship by Norwich Theatre Royal on the grounds of the unacceptability of its celibate ménage à trois correctly anticipated Larpent’s refusal of a licence. In the Norwich re-write, LaPeyrouse’s return of Umba to her father on his nearby island, together with the son fathered by Peyrouse, reinstates patriarchal guidance and a normative disap-

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proval of female conduct which can only be recompensed by self-knowledge of her guilt: ‘the sacrifice I make … is a proof of repentance of the error I was guilty of ’.18 Of course, Norwich’s manuscript insertion may not be attributable to the theatre’s own moral or aesthetic wishes but, rather, to the circumstances of the regulatory framework. Forewarned by Covent Garden’s choice of an uncensored, all-pantomime, format for Fawcett’s Perouse; or, The Desolate Island produced a month earlier, Norwich had valiantly attempted to retain the innovative motif of a the shipwrecked sailor rescued by his wife, but had compromised Kotzebue’s orginal by avoiding the island ménage à trois. While Kotzebue’s (and the proposed Norwich) productions contemplated La Perouse, Malvina, Adeladie and Clairville living on the island in a founding ‘colony, like the Greeks’, possibly for ‘a few thousand years’, Fawcett’s Perouse; or, The Desolate Island ends with their leaving for home. Fawcett’s ending had Perouse, Adelaide and their son dramatically rescued by the Chimpanzee from a precarious bridge where they are surrounded by hostile natives, causing a dramatized collapse of the bridge which falls away to reveal ‘a vessel … discovered at anchor’.19 However, underlying Kotzebue’s original, as well as the proposed Norwich production, was the concept of a South Seas colony where white males sustained interracial relationships while accepting the responsibilities of parenthood. Indeed, if Kotzebue’s primary focus, like Colman’s in Inkle and Yarico, lay in examining the consequences of white male relationships with native populations, he differed markedly from Colman in his ability to envisage the establishment of a colony. The idea of a mixed European and South Seas islander colony, a recognition of changing attitudes towards the Pacific, was later presented in Thomas John Dibdin’s Drury Lane ‘melo Dramatic Ballet of Action’, Pitcairn’s Island (1816). It makes a transitional stage towards Moncrieff ’s Van Diemen’s Land! Or, Settlers and Natives (1830). With news of the discovery of a ‘demi-British colony’, having reached London by December 1816, Dibdin Pitcairn’s Island was in production by the middle of April 1817.20 Interest in the event was sufficiently sustained as to produce at least one provincial narrative relating the discovery.21 Although Fletcher Christian was known to have been dead for many years, Dibdin’s Pitcairn’s Island resurrected him. Otherwise, the drama was very much in keeping with what the expeditionary naval force of the ships Briton and Tagus had found, except that it unexpectedly produces Christian as both a British patriot and a colonial patriarch: Christian enters, escorted by several attendants, as he approaches the Centre of the Stage every one bows to him and he extends his arms as giving them a general Benediction his picturesque Dress and venerable Beard form a contrast to the lively colours and graceful draperies of his descendants. He speaks. Christian[:] May heaven bless ye all my Childrens Children your thanks are one with mine for this Day’s fortune for long may the rude form’d harp thy father made

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Contemporary reports had noted that, of the young people on Pitcairn, ‘all of them, both male and female, had the marked English features’.23 Indeed, it is noticeable that Dibdin’s Pitcairn’s Island accepts racial miscegenation as a natural accompaniment of British loyalty and colonization. When a British ship arrives, its Captain learns how the Bounty mutineers ‘fled with their ill gotten acquisition to Otaheite intermarried with the Natives who at length drove them to this Island, where with their families they are constantly in fear of British Justice on the one hand & the ferocity of Savage Tribes on the other’.24 This homily on errant and disloyal sailors apart, Pitcairn’s Island markedly departs from The Death of Captain Cook template. Although hostile natives threaten Christian’s children, they are successfully beaten off by the combined forces of the patriarch’s followers and the English sailors: Scene 2nd Characteristic Musick A grand display of the Allied force of intermingled English and friendly Natives headed by the Captain and the Songs of Christian they are met by the Women [, who] while the Warriors perform their Manoeuvres, accompanied by a double March, encourage them by the following [:] Chorus.25

Noticeably, any cultural preconceptions about the fate of Captain Cook are sublimated by the medium of this ‘Ballet of Action’, where, to ‘Musick – a small party of Adverse Indians steal softly on … seem to threaten vengeance for their late defeat – form a compact … then … perform a short Exercise with their Clubs and march silently off ’. Whereas the pantomimes of Omai and The Death of Captain Cook had touched on murder and violence in the Pacific, the ‘Ballet’ of Pitcairn’s Island set in a similar ‘sequestered Corner of the World’ is conciliatory, the ‘Exercise’ of war clubs now theatrically modulating into the exercises of arms Cook has performed on his voyages to impress native islanders. With Christian experiencing repentant ‘grief and shame’, he decides to remain on Pitcairn, an island implicitly now colonized by his own half-English descendants and those of his fellow mutineers but with the English Captain promising that ‘When I return home I have no doubt of procuring your pardon … Song[:] Captain: Britannia’s Legions nobly seek / Against the strong to guard the weak’.26 Dibdin’s only surviving reference to Pitcairn’s Island is the comment in his Reminiscences (1827) that it ‘passed without dissent’.27 While this may simply be a remark on its indifferent success, it may also allude to his knowledge of the licensing fate of Kotzebue’s La Perouse because Dibdin’s own Covent Garden Two Farmers had been severely cut by Larpent (and withdrawn) in 1800 on account of its references to grain forestalling, while his Drury Lane Orange Boven; or, More Good News (1813) had also been heavily censored on the grounds of being too

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insulting to ‘Mister Boney’, as a phrase in a censored song put it.28 Pitcairn’s Island concealed its moral equivocation over the fate of a British ex-mutineer by shifting its emphasis to the sailors on station in this ‘sequestered Corner of the World’. The comic characters of Warrant Officer Pipes, Boatswain and Midshipman (‘I’ve a safe guard here (drawing his Sword) and here another (shewing his Whistle) this never faild me yet when Man to Man’) experience little of the sexual libertinism associated with Cook’s voyagers. When they land, the inhabitants run off, ‘where can these people have been brought up, they [?run] away at the sight of [a] smart, decent, gentlemanly looking Warrant Officer as if they had never seen a blue Jacket in their Lives’. Ultimately, fraternization is precluded by the swift departure of the naval vessel in the final ‘Grand Ceremony of Embarkation the Natives following in the Water and clinging to the Boats, throwing wreaths of Flowers after them’. Far from the South Seas islands being figured as places of desire, the sailors’ songs of home turn to celebrate their own colonization of London. Dibdin’s Pitcairn’s Island Boatswain of spring 1817 is representative of that class of confident Cockney who, as I have argued elsewhere, was a new phenomenon on the post-war London stage, someone for whom the capital city represented territory far more appealing than that on offer in the remote South Seas with its hostile natives and indifferent females.29 Indeed, precisely because of Christian’s teaching, the two female islanders, Obera and Otaherine, similarly share the sailors’ affection for Britain. The contents of the song Christian has taught them, and which Otaherine sings, ‘is the Theme of his Discourse all Day and the Burthen of his Song at Night … [Song] Dear Native Land! alas for me / Doom’d ne’er again thy Cliffs to see’. If Christian and the Pitcairn islanders long for England, the sailors’ Cockney ownership of London is similarly signalled by the piece’s dialogue and song implicitly contrasting the undiscovered and remote Pitcairn Island with the Boatswain’s streetwise pride in the British capital: Boatswain: … I was born in the finest Country in the World, in the finest Town in that Country calld London, and in the finest Parish of that Town calld St. Catherines. Otaherine: I don’t know where that Places are …

The Boatswain’s origins denote him as quintessentially Cockney, born in St Katherine’s parish, an ancient area east of the Tower on the north side of the Thames swept away in the early 1830s to provide dock facilities. In response to Otaherine’s indifference to them, the Boatswain’s song introduces an entire topography and streetscape of London: Boatswain: Why don’t you really. Why lookyer [sic] now – if you was a top o’ Tower Hill and took the first turning to …. [Song] Westminster is full of Wigs Lawyers Heads, and Briefs and Bags,

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The song is striking in its proud modernity of ‘Gas’, ‘Crouds and Shops’ and ‘Pidcocks’, a famous menagerie in Exeter Change. Far from being a site of proto-imperialist ambition, Dibdin’s Pitcairn’s Island distances itself back to the metropolis. In one sense, the Boatswain’s song presents the triumph of the mapped over the unmapped. This ‘sequestered Corner of the World’ is no match for London’s ‘Crouds and Shops’ and, as the Boatswain realizes, the local girls are unimpressed. As with Omai’s introduction of a Margate scene and an English Sailor, dramas about the Pacific quickly transmuted to become vehicles for exploring Britain. Such a perspective is nowhere better seen than in William Thomas Moncrieff ’s Van Diemen’s Land! or, Settlers and Natives (1830) produced at the Surrey Theatre and billed as an ‘entirely new Serio-Comical, Operatical, Melo Dramatical, Pantomimical, Characteristical, Satirical, Tasmanian, Australian Extravanganza’. One of its most important theatrical features was its construction around a staged moving panorama of Tasmania. With theatres on the south of the Thames not required to submit texts to the Lord Chamberlain, no playhouse licensing manuscript is extant, but of the two contemporary printed texts of Van Diemen’s Land!, it is probably Thomas Richardson’s edition of c. 1831 which contains Moncrieff ’s own extremely valuable prefatory ‘Remarks’.31 By the time he wrote Van Diemen’s Land!, Moncrieff was a dramatist of considerable experience, with successes dating back to the Olympic Theatre’s Giovanni in London, or, the Libertine Reclaimed (1817) and the Adelphi’s Tom and Jerry (1822).32 Indeed, in the wake of his success with Giovanni in London, Moncrieff had produced a number of sequels, including the Olympic’s one act ‘Extravaganza’, Giovanni in Botany! Or The Libertine Transported! (1822). Moncrieff was an early experimenter with scenic stagings and attempted to give some authenticity to his Australian settings, cognizant as he was of both their penal and colonial manifestations. At the beginning of Giovanni in Botany!, ‘the Curtain rises and discovers a picturesque view of New South Wales with the arrival of a Convict Ship in the Bay’, although the second scene showed a rather less specific ‘Perspective view of the Governors House – cultivated pros-

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pect, with Plantations in the foreground’.33 The Drama; or, Theatrical Pocket Magazine commented favourably that ‘The Scenery is pretty, particularly the view of Botany Bay, with the ship firing a salute’.34 Moncrieff ’s growing awareness of the popularity of drama’s visual aspects is nowhere better seen than in his 1820 Royal Coburg drama, Shipwreck of the Medusa; or, The Fatal Raft which, with Moncrieff then the Coburg’s manager, was written and produced within a few days of the opening London exhibition at the Egyptian Hall of Théodore Géricault’s giant painting of Raft of the Medusa (1819).35 Not only was Moncrieff reacting to Géricault’s picture, he would also have known of another raft of the Medusa image at Marshalls’ revolving ‘Peristrephic’ panorama, comprised of sixteen scenes and exhibited at Dublin, Glasgow and other Scottish cities during 1820 and 1821.36 As with the Peristrephic Panorama of the Bombardment of Algiers (c. 1823) discussed above, Moncrieff appreciated the close relationship between panoramas and drama. As far as Van Diemen’s Land! was concerned, he envisaged from the beginning that it would incorporate a moving, ‘peristrephic’ panorama, stating on the first night’s playbill that ‘The peculiar nature of this Piece precluding the Author from the usual division of Acts, it will be presented in Two Parts ... Part the First Scene 1, Port and Bay of Hobart’s Town ... Scene 2, commencement of Panoramic Journey Through the Island of Van Diemen’s Land’.37 In other words, the role of the panorama dictated the entire dramaturgy of Van Diemen’s Land! The inclusion of such theatrical panoramas, particularly in their moving ‘peristrephic’ versions, was already considerably advanced in dramas produced in London at the end of the 1820s. The Royal Coburg had shown a ‘Grand moving Panorama, representing a voyage by Steam from London to Margate’, between October and December 1828, running it to accompany D. W. Jerrold’s Ambrose Gwinett, or A sea-side story (1829) in yet another manifestation of the afterlife of Cockney journeyers to that popular resort.38 Moncrieff had also unsuccessfully experimented at Drury Lane with an ambitious ‘peristrephic’ Egyptian diorama for Zoroaster; or, The spirit of the star (1824) painted by the nautical artist, Clarkson Stanfield.39 Four years later, with ‘the house crowded to inconvenience in every part’, over Christmas 1828 the Surrey Theatre showed Moncrieff ’s pantomime of The Golden Goose, or, Harlequin and the Goblet of the Mine complete with Marshalls’ ‘grand moving panorama’ of the Russo-Turkish war of 1828–9 incongruously incorporated into the action.40 The role of the Marshalls as devisers of scenery in Van Diemen’s Land! presents a further complex interaction between the illegitimate drama of the late 1820s and panorama. For Richardson’s edition, Moncrieff claimed that ‘Marshall’s [sic] Panorama … was a master-piece of art, painted with … rare fidelity’ but with its ‘peculiar nature ... precluding … the usual division of Acts’, confirming that Van Diemen’s Land! was structured around the panorama’s incorporation.41 The specific pano-

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rama Moncrieff and the Marshalls used was almost certainly derived from an initial watercolour Panorama of Hobart (c. 1826) by Augustus Earle (1793– 1838).42 Some of Earle’s sketches had been developed by Robert Burford (the Marshalls’ rival) for a panorama of Sydney exhibited in the Strand from December 1828, about which The Times commented that ‘one of the finest spots in the universe is appropriated, by a strange inconsistency, to the reception of the very dregs of society’.43 While Burford does not appear to have immediately altered the painting to include Tasmania, Moncrieff would have been aware that the theatrical use of panoramas was increasing, making it likely that Moncrieff and the Marshalls co-operated to create a specifically theatrical panorama. By the time of Van Diemen’s Land!, the Surrey Theatre would have already have been experiencing competition from the newly opened Royal Pavilion Theatre in Whitechapel Road whose pantomime The Queen of the Butterfly Bower, or, Harlequin and Old Bogie featured P. Phillips’ ‘splendid moving Panorama of the Banks of the Thames, from the Tower to the Nore’.44 The Times’s earlier comment notwithstanding, the increased frequency of passages to Tasmania (evident in newspaper listings of sailings), together with the changing perspective of emigration literature available in Britain, was transforming the island’s older image as a penal colony and replacing it with a reputation as an migrant destination.45 London’s panoramas undoubtedly contributed towards this change of attitude. Not only were panoramas now turning towards Australia for their subjects, playhouses such as the Royal Pavilion, the Surrey and the Royal Coburg were bringing an audience familiarity with these panoramas to those parts of London beyond the reach of the West End exhibits. Quite apart from the double impact of a dramatic text combining with a set moving visual images, the importance of the role of the playhouses in disseminating panoramic imagery should not be underestimated. Unlike the attendance at the panoramas situated in the Strand or in provincial towns and cities, the approximate numbers of people seeing theatrical panoramas can be calculated by multiplying the number of performances by the size of the theatres (and allowing for half-full houses etc.). In 1813, the Surrey Theatre held 2,500 people, but by 1830 it would probably have been enlarged and refurbished to compete with the Royal Coburg’s opening in 1818.46 Although the exact number of performances of Van Diemen’s Land! cannot be reliably ascertained (although there were 13 by 1 March), with the first night starting on 11 February 1830 and ending on 20 March, assuming half-full houses based on the Surrey’s 1813 capacity at a rate of around two performances per week, Moncrieff ’s drama would have been seen by around 18,000 people. Much of this audience would have been drawn from the Surrey’s working class hinterlands of Lambeth, Southwark and the Borough. The costs and inconvenience of travel to the West End were noted in Horace Foote’s Companion to the Theatres (1829) who gave the hackney carriage fare

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from Blackfriars Road (where the Surrey was located) to Astley’s Amphitheatre as one shilling and sixpence compared to three shillings to reach Drury Lane.47 Many would have paid only sixpence at half-price (when the mainpiece gave way to the afterpiece), half the charge for entrance to the Lyceum panoramas. In addition, the Marshalls’ panorama for Van Diemen’s Land! notably pre-empted the panorama of Hobart Town, Van Diemen’s Land, and the surrounding country displayed by Robert Burford in the Strand from March 1831.48 Moncrieff ’s own awareness of Tasmania is exemplified as early as 1824 when, in his Drury Lane farce Frank-in-Steam or, the Modern Promise to pay, he had incorporated an allusion to his popular Adelphi hit, Tom and Jerry (‘Logic has forsook his Studies in the Fleet [prison] to study Colonization in Van Diemans Land’), a reference to Tasmania as both convict colony and emigrant opportunity.49 Significantly, although both printed editions titled it Van Diemen’s Land: an Operatic Drama, the Surrey Theatre performed it as Van Diemen’s Land! Or, Settlers and Natives and, with the addition of convicts, this subtitle is an apt description of the narrative. Far from presenting a fixed cultural and racial economy between settlers and natives, however, Van Diemen’s Land! extends the complexities of the island’s social structure by including not only the convicted transportees labouring under indenture for white settlers but also escapee renegade Bush-Rangers led by the near-legendary Michael Howe (1787–1818). Moncrieff ’s Australian sources are set out in his ‘Remarks’. He read about Howe in Thomas E. Wells’s Michael Howe, the last and worst of the Bush Rangers of Van Diemen’s Land (Hobart, 1818) and consulted Widowson’s Present State of Van Diemen’s Land (1829) and David Collins’s, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales (1798). For the criminal underworld slang of the ex-British convicts and Bush-Rangers, he cited Pierce Egan’s Grose’s Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1823) and James Hardy Vaux’s, Memoirs of James Hardy Vaux (1819), which contained ‘A new and comprehensive vocabulary of the flash language’ as well as ‘the works of Jon Bee’ (e.g. Sportsman’s Slang; a new dictionary (1825), A living picture of London, for 1828, and stranger’s guide through the streets of the metropolis (1828).50 In addition, because the dramatis personae facetiously describes the namesake convict character, Hardy Vaux, as a ‘pupil in the Barrington School’, it seems likely he would have read George Barrington’s The History of New South Wales including Botany Bay … with the Customs and Manners of the Natives and an Account of the English Colony (1802).51 Moncrieff ’s amalgam in Van Diemen’s Land! of ex-London tradesmen settlers together with Irish or Cockney transported burglars, ‘fences’ and poachers not only drew on his exploration of these various metropolitan subcultures in Giovanni in London, Giovanni in Botany and Tom and Jerry but probably also profited from his own experience of a spell in King’s Bench debtors’ prison around 1819, which resulted in his poetry collection, Prison Thoughts (1821).

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Indeed, whatever modern critical insights into Van Diemen’s Land! may elucidate, and whatever its structures of racial or colonial fracture, it seems highly likely Moncrieff ’s prison experiences and financial problems, evidenced by desperate letters to Drury Lane complaining about ‘not having a shilling’ and needing ‘£100 on Acct’, would have often made him consider emigration or fear transportation.52 He was twice arrested for debt in 1829 and appeared at the insolvent debtors’ court the year Van Diemen’s Land! was performed (ODNB). One of the convicts, Manifold, ‘was sent here for being a little too literary’, that is, a forger (‘the bankers don’t like plagiarism’) but Moncrieff ’s main structural accomplishment is to arrange the drama so that a convict hulk and an emigrants’ transport ship arrive in Hobart harbour at the same time. The different personalities involved and their reflections about England, together with the circumstances of their reception on the island, provide a major part of Van Diemen’s Land!’s narrative strategy. Amongst the settlers, James Gooseberry is an ex-Covent Garden grocer whose ambitions to become a landowner (‘five hundred acres! – it would make me lord of the manor in England’) contrasts sharply with his comic naivety in bringing a cargo of bedwarming pans, stair carpets (‘Stair-carpeting, when we’ve no stairs!’) and pianos to sell.53 Another settler, the priggish John Hardy, was a cutler at Exeter Change (‘… wasn’t it high time to leave it, when they began to pull down Exeter Change; to dislodge a tradesman of forty years’), a topical reference because the building was demolished in 1829.54 Both Hardy and Gooseberry are representatives of an awkward social station as middle-class tradesmen either fallen on hard times or else inconclusively aspirant and turning to emigration as a solution. While Hardy sympathizes with Robin Wildgorse, a convict poacher (‘Another victim of aristocratic avarice, and over-weening [sic] power!’), he disowns his son, Frederic, for seeking out in Hobart his wrongly convicted and transported sweetheart, Eliza White (‘espouse an outcast’s cause, you are an outcast from my house and heart for ever! – you know I am inflexible’).55 In terms of its dramaturgy, the parading of convicts in the first scene (showing ‘Port and Bay of Hobart’s Town; – Government House’) echoes slave-market scenes in dramas such as Harlequin Mungo (1787) or Inkle and Yarico (1787) but in Tasmania (‘stand regular, you rogues’) the Governor offers them gratis for indenture (‘make your choice at once – there’s plenty … Provide yourself with servants while you can’).56 With the Irishman Darby Ballylaggan (‘transported by mistake’) and Sweetman (‘polly-bigamy … the nation got jealous and sent me here’), together with the poacher, Robin Wildgorse, all tending to emphasize the abrupt fragility of the sentencing system, Moncrieff ’s Van Diemen’s Land! sets out to explore the colonial situation in its particular Australian manifestation by exhibiting both legitimate and illegitimate colonists.57

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Adding to the chorus of the pre-existing settlers greeting their arrival (‘Heaven grant the next cargo of condemned live stock our mother England, [sic] sends … may be females … my store terribly wants a mistress’) and the presence of longstanding convict transportees such as Vaux and the Jewish ‘fence’ Ikey Solomons (‘I had as pretty a crib in the mace and fence line, as any in all Rosemary Lane, – used to speak to twenty parcels of swag a day’), are the island’s Bush-rangers (‘run-away convicts – out-and-out thieves!’) together with the remarkable presence of Tasmania’s aboriginals.58 Within Moncrieff ’s dramatic structuring of Van Diemen’s Land!, the mechanism enabling these four groups of new settlers, new and old convicts, Bush-rangers and aboriginals to interact is the implementation of the ‘peristrephic’ panorama. With the opening scene set at Hobart harbour, the settlers choose their indentured convicts and then set off walking ‘in procession’ into the interior (the ‘Convicts with luggage’): ‘Commencement of Panoramic Tour through Van Diemen’s Land; from Hobart’s Town, through romantic country to Squashmoor Village; – River Derwent, and Herdsman’s Cove Settlement ; – Blue Hills; – Emu Bottoms, by moonlight; and Forest of Gum Trees’.59 The way this probably worked on stage was for the panorama to move while the actors stood more or less still, giving the effect of a group or file of people in motion while the background scenery was pulled from one side to the other behind them. Notably, the stage directions require the first actors who leave the stage at the end of Act I Scene I (before the panorama) to arrive on stage in Scene II ‘in the same order as at the conclusion of the previous scene’ where they pause (‘Now, gentleman settlers, five miles further and we reach Squashmoor’), sing a song (‘Oh, ’tis sweet to think in Van Diemen’s Land’) before the ‘Panorama continues’ and they arrive at the beginning of Scene III at the ‘Village of Squashmoor, and Hemp Plantations’.60 With the romantic subplot material of Frederic’s wrongly transported sweetheart, Eliza, having been established – together with stage business about the good-hearted Blithe’s settlement – the panorama continues again in Scene IV ‘from Squashmoor Village to the Swampum Settlement’ with ‘Blithe and Convicts seeing them off’ and the party once again singing ‘Oh, ‘tis sweet to think in Van Diemen’s Land’. The panorama moves once more to show a ‘Series of Romantic views … Break O’Day Plains; – Lake Echo; – Emigrants’ Rest Village’, probably ending here with conventional scenery being introduced to show ‘Swampum Settlement. Convicts discovered erecting [a] hut … Soldiers and Serjeant guarding and directing’, as the action passed from Scene IV to V.61 As far as Moncrieff ’s dramaturgy is concerned, the introduction of a moving panorama allowed the action to move credibly into the Tasmanian interior (which is where the settlers’ first hear of the Bush-rangers), with much fun being made of the interior’s comic topography of ‘Crocodile Creek’, ‘Quagmire Meadows’ and a fantastical ‘Wild Beast Wood’ (‘lions, tigers … and herd or two of hyaenas … Swallow me up!’).62 However, rather than Van Diemen’s Land!

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immersing itself in a simple bi-polar narrative of European settlers encountering natural savagery, the panorama’s propulsion of the settlers into Tasmania’s interior becomes the occasion for the longest, and probably the most striking of the piece’s songs. Bearing in mind that playhouses such as the Surrey were confined to burletta and pantomime, and despite the probable diminution in the policing of the patentees privileges in the late 1820s, it was advisable for Moncrieff to optimize his drama’s musicality. The song which ends Act I is a poaching song performed by Wildgorse, the transported poacher. Hardy’s reference to Wildgorse as a ‘victim of aristocratic avarice, and over-weening [sic] power!’ establishes a motif in Van Diemen’s Land! concerned with poaching and the ownership of land, but Wildgorse is also given a certain amount of specificity by stating his origins as ‘Hackfall Oaks’, ‘Rippon [sic]’, a reference to an increasingly popular Yorkshire beauty spot painted by J. M. W. Turner in 1816 and already the subject of travel guides.63 Unusually, Moncrieff provided a note stating that he ‘first heard the old part of this song … at a small road side [public] house, in the little village of Lillishul, Warwickshire’.64 Despite the apparent incongruity of a Warwickshire folk song performed in a theatricalized Tasmania, Moncrieff ’s drama incorporates the lyric as part of Van Diemen’s Land’s presentation of several kinds of natural, racial and civil liberty present on the island. The Governor’s facetious comment to the convicts that ‘you have all the privileges of the mother country here! – freedom of the press, magna charta, bill of rights, and glorious trial by jury!’ – although it falls on deaf ears (‘we’ve had quite enough of trial by jury’) – is explored more thoroughly in Wildgorse’s song. Tasmania provides a chance to rehearse different types of liberty where misplaced notions of criminality are criticized and natural freedoms celebrated. At one point Wildgorse says, ‘I’ve a natural dislike for authority’, while – concerning the situation of Eliza – Frederic declares ‘Juries are not infallible!’, but it is his song which best expresses this libertarianism: Then here’s success to powching, Vor a does think it feare, And here’s look to ere a gentleman Az wants to buy a here, Bad look to ere a geamkeeper, Az woona zell iz deere … Vhat made me vond of powching vurst, If you vould wish to hear, It was because I vound that beef And mutton were zo dear. While I get geame and venzon cheap, Which iz reason clear …65

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By the end of the 1820s, the agricultural distress which resulted in Captain Swing incendiarism was being reflected in drama’s such E. W. Elton’s Paul the Poacher (1828) and C. A. Somerset’s Shakespeare’s Early Days (1829) – where the young Shakespeare is arrested as a poacher. Moncrieff had already touched on it for Harlequin’s Holyday; or, Who Killed the Dog (1822), an Adelphi pantomime produced when he was one of their most valuable assets.66 As with his innovative use of the ‘peristrephic’ panorama, the positioning of Wildgorse’s song – by far the longest within the drama – should be considered as integral to the author’s sense of its dramaturgy. Although Moncrieff didn’t compose music himself, he was highly accomplished as an arranger of songs and a collector of traditional melodies. In the 1850s, towards the end of Moncrieff ’s life, the composer Sir Henry Rowley Bishop, who was acquainted with the playwright through their common employment at Vauxhall Gardens in the 1820s, corresponded with him to archive his song collection. It is clear from these letters that he had been lifetime collector of ‘old country ditties … picked up in my rambles’ and even claiming to have ‘one or two North country airs … which have been never yet been committed to paper’.67 This placing of a rural decriminalized idyll within Van Diemen’s Land!, where poaching has been rendered rendundant (‘hum! … there be game enough, but there be no game laws to break … yet, still a shiny night … there’s no delight to equal it’), is structured so as to prefigure the drama’s most surprising intervention, the introduction of displaced aboriginals. Moncrieff ’s Ben-ni-long was based on the historical figure of Bennelong (c. 1765–1813), an aboriginal Eora kidnapped and brought to England from New South Wales (ODNB). A London produced print of c. 1798 by J. Neagle was captioned, ‘Portrait of Bennilong, a native of New Holland, who after experiencing for two years the luxuries of England, returned to his own country and resumed all his savage habits’, and Moncrieff further reprised his history in the ‘Remarks’ to the Richardson edition.68 While the treatment of race in Van Diemen’s Land! exhibits the cultural fractures and discontinuities typical of the Surrey’s public sphere, it does so while articulating a surprisingly advanced attitude towards the aboriginal condition. Ultimately, Ben-ni-long, and his sister, Kangaree, will be reformulated as passive recipients of colonialist benevolence through patronage and intermarriage, but there are a number of incidentals sufficiently recurrent in Moncrieff ’s text to render their straightforward colonialist domination less secure. While Darby Ballylaggan’s marriage to Kangaree pacifies Ben-ni-long and establishes him as the ally of the settlers (and therefore the adversary of the outlaw Bush-rangers), its celebration continues to equivocate between the loss of native identity and the dubious benefits of marriage, perhaps perceived as being more comical through rendition by the drama’s stage Irishman.

186

Harlequin Empire

Nevertheless, racial fractures remain embedded throughout Van Diemen’s Land! There are sufficient references to Kangaree’s colour to denote that all the aboriginals were played as blacked-up roles (‘White man fear, Black man near, / Him take dark revenge’) and these visual discontinuities are clearly minstrelized for their racist comic effect, such as when Kangaree appears in her marriage dress: Darby: There is she; – come here, you little black devil do! Enter Kangaree in marriage dress, L. Come here, you Princess of Tea Pot Beauties; let me have a kiss! Kan: Good white chief … Brother Ben-ni-long coming with yams and magpies – swans and fern roots – emus and corn, for marriage present …

While there are no shortage of references within the text to Western culture as the civilized Other, or to climatic racial determinants (‘Ah, England fine country! – white lady, very fine lady – finer than black girl;’ ‘pale-faces’ country cold, but black girl have sun in her heart—warm, warm!’), nevertheless the stability of such roles are sometimes significantly undermined. 69 Before their passivities allow the aboriginals to become embedded as colonial subjects in Moncrieff ’s text, Van Diemen’s Land! provides Ben-ni-long with sufficient dramatic space to articulate a comprehensive critique of native sovereignty in the midst of white oppression, one whose dramaturgy was reinforced by his opening speech: Aye, let the colourless strangers fear! that have usurped our plains, and would fain extirpate our race! – let them beware the Caffre’s just revenge! – These white men can speak fair and promise well; but what has the dark chief ever found from them, save this? – that they have striding legs and grasping hands – have over-run our isle, and seized our all; because we wore not the same hue with them!70

What is noticeable here is not only the draining of a whitened supremacy, but also the realization of the existence of specifically genocidal colonialist objectives. Not only do the white settlers aim to ‘extirpate our race’, they have ‘over-run our isle’ and displaced the original inhabitants through unwelcome immigration. With some of the audience possibly aware that the historical Bennelong had rejected European civilization, the credibility of the speech is founded in the historicity of his experience, at least as understood from the contemporary travel narratives. As with the opening speeches of El Hyder and Tippoo Saib discussed above, the extent of the comprehension of imperial objectives and the articulation of native ideologies of resistance in the 1820s popular dramas could be powerfully presented. Not least, Moncrieff had carefully structured the dramaturgy of Van Diemen’s Land! so as to present the audience with figures much more demonized than the aboriginals, whose ‘War-hoop’ [sic] and ‘Warriors war

Colonists, Convicts, Settlers and Natives

187

dance’ serves only to ritualize a presence.71 The Tasmanian group most demonstrably situated as the Other are the white ex-convict Bush-rangers. The first appearance of the Bush-rangers occurs at the end of Act II as a startling introduction of people who are ‘dressed partly in Kangaroo skins, have long beards, and present a wild and terrific appearance’.72 They mark a significant intervention into the narrative, provoking a staple of melodramatic narrative reversal in that Wildgorse proves to be Michael Howe’s lost henchman (and for whose crime the innocent Eliza had been transported). The depth and criminality of this friendship is quickly established by the text’s abrupt transition into ‘flash’ language as they plot to murder and rob John Hardy: Howe: … wait till the old man is safe in his dab, … draw his barking irons, unbetty the lock … snap the swag, and you can be off …. Wild: Give us your fam – as soon as ever it’s darkey … I’ll send the cutler off sweet to his snooze …

In other words, both in terms of their appearance, their criminal subculture argot (made doubly alien within its Tasmanian bush setting) and their status as outlaws, Van Diemen’s Land! noticeably structures the white Bush-rangers as savages, a role reinforced not only because they live in a cave wearing kangaroo skins but which is also defined when Howe ‘snaps [his] pistol at Agatha’, his girlfriend (who is narrowly saved by Wildgorse) when he thinks she has betrayed him.73 Their kangaroo skin clothing and unkempt appearance distinctly unbalances the polarities between white civilization and aboriginal savagery traced by Deidre Coleman concerning early encounters with Eora, which had included the kidnapping of Bennelong.74 The marauding and lawless nature of the Bush-rangers is not only emphasized within the play’s dramaturgy by these changes of appearance, location, language and the transgression of conventional gender relationships (Agatha eventually shoots the Bush-ranger Geary), but Moncrieff even incorporates into the drama an extended dream reverie for Howe. This traditional theatrical convention (‘(dreaming …) They pursue us! shoot the women! they’ll only lumber us’) not only serves to make the audience aware of Howe’s troubled unconscious, it also allows the drama to celebrate Darby and Kangaree’s interracial marriage as normative while reuniting Frederic with the vindicated Eliza.75 As has been argued with reference to El Hyder and Tippoo Saib, playhouses like the Royal Coburg (where Moncrieff had also worked) and the Surrey Theatre were sometimes capable of a remarkable awareness of how Britain’s imperial experiences had created new structures of relationship between incoming settlers and native inhabitants. With its ‘peristrephic’ panorama portraying a picturesque and uncrowded South Seas landscape, Van Dieman’s Land presents a Pacific region which has ceased being inhabited by the magic of Omai’s pantomime but which was now en route to becoming an emigrant destination.

CONCLUSION

This book has been at pains to demonstrate both the diversity of the Georgian repertoire’s treatment of race, and the extent of its cultural presence. In London, despite a hostile regulatory regime, the burletta houses’ separation from the canon of spoken drama created persistent counter-narratives concerning Britain’s contacts with other nations and peoples. Belatedly, such transformations provided the pre-conditions which permitted the first black actor to perform on a British stage. However, despite the daunting scale of Georgian theatricality, and the extent of the networks along which its texts flowed, it is necessary to insist that the cultural meaning of drama is primarily located at the site of the performance venue and only secondarily present in the hermeneutics of reading. The sheer volume of contemporary theatre engendered unpredictable environments of performance which often had clear bearings on race and nationality. In John Henry’s, A School for Soldiers; or, the Deserter. A Dramatic Piece in Four Acts. Performed in the Island of Jamaica (Kingston, Jamaica, 1783), the entire cultural context of slavery is completely eliminated as Mrs Mildmay, one of the white residents, celebrates how ‘our inveterate enemies the French, have been obliged to leave this city’ as ‘our very friendly allies the English’ enter Kingston. Hector, her male friend’s unobliging reply is, ‘For my part, I do not like the English; I am a good patriot, you understand me madam?’ With the mid-1780s abolition movement in Britain preparing to render traffic in slaving less straightforward, if far from suppressed, Hector’s patriotism is firmly directed towards the United States of America. In the author’s copy at the Huntington Library, the volume is inscribed with John Henry’s manuscript note that ‘This piece is now performing in America (with many alterations) adapted to the Meridian of the U.S. and the Scene laid in Philadelphia’. With several British army officers and officials in the subscription list, it was time to move one’s patriotism towards a nation more at ease with slavery.1 In Britain, theatres never ceased being political spaces where negotiations with other countries were carefully monitored and controlled. During the long war with France, the Lord Chamberlain’s powers of censorship ensured that the Turks, along with their vassal Ottoman regencies along the north African coast,

– 189 –

190

Harlequin Empire

were kept mollified. When the Turkish Ambassador visited Britain for a diplomatic visit during the summer and autumn of 1794, he made a point of attending London’s entertainments, ordering a ‘Grand Gala’ at Vauxhall Gardens, ‘a Grand Fire-Work’ at Ranelagh and going to see a play at Sadler’s Wells.2 In the middle of August 1794, John O’Keefe – the author of Omai – wrote a farce for the Haymarket, Jenny’s Whim or The Roasted Emperor, a piece loosely based on Isaac Bickerstaff ’s The Sultan, or, A Peep into the Seraglio (1787). Its licence was refused. John Larpent, who has been a persistent presence throughout this book and whose excisions are struck through below, warned the Lord Chamberlain that, ‘the inclosed Farce being a low Ridicule or Sarcasm upon the Emperor of Morocco, & containing besides some Allusions to titles & Persons … I have thought it necessary to … delay the Representation of it’. Fantastically, O’Keefe had intended to show the Emperor of Morocco roasting a duck, ‘The Emperor discovered sitting on a stool and turning the Spit’. With O’Keefe portraying the Emperor in the midst of one of his diplomatic engagements (‘I woudn’t for a Kingdom that even the meanst of my Slaves was to see me in this Ridiculous situation I must prepare to receive the Spanish Ambassador Spain’s a proud Nation I must Strike him with an Idea of my Magnificence’), Larpent could easily visualize its impact at the Haymarket if the Turkish Ambassador were present.3 Years later, as noted above, the Algerine Ambassador’s visit to the Royal Circus to see the spectacle of ‘The Danish Defeat off Copenhagen’ was rather better managed. The sheer volume of Georgian drama ensured that it remained a powerful medium, the social and political impact of which could not be underestimated. Its texts and subtexts are imbricated with changing ideologies of nation, race and class. While it was possible to stop The Roasted Emperor, there were no cultural or political mechanisms available to deter Ira Aldridge as he stepped for the first time onto the boards of the Royal Coburg.

NOTES

Introduction 1. 2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

Playbills, Theatre, Scarborough, 13 August 1830. Judith Milhouse, ‘The Economics of Theatrical Dance in Eighteenth-century London’, Theatre Journal, 55:3 (2003), pp. 481–508. George Colman the Younger, Inkle and Yarico, An Opera. As Performed at the Theatre in Boston (Boston, MA, 1794). 1788. The Theatrical Register. Containing Candid and Impartial Strictures on the Various Performances at the Theatre-Royal, York Interspersed with Occasional Remarks by Obliging Correspondents (York, 1788), pp. 12–13; James Walvin, ‘The Rise of British Popular Sentiment for Abolition, 1787–1832’, Christine Bolt and Seymour Drescher (eds), Anti-Slavery, Religion, and Reform: Essays in Memory of Roger Anstey (Folkestone: Wm Dawson; Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1980), pp. 149–62; J. R. Oldfield, Popular Politics and British Anti-Slavery: The Mobilisation of Public-Opinion Against the Slave Trade, 1787–1807 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995). Playbills, The Royal Circus, 21 June 1790. Milhouse, ‘The Economics of Theatrical Dance in Eighteenth-century London’, pp. 481–508. This is a central topic of my Theatric Revolution: Drama, Censorship and Romantic Period Subcultures, 1773–1832 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). Larpent 1695, Huntington Library, California. 16 May 1786, British Museum 7104. Larpent 772, Huntington Library, California. On all of these issues, see my Theatric Revolution and The Politics of Romantic Theatricality, 1787–1832: The Road to the Stage (Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). Eric Lott, Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). Larpent 1352, Huntington Library, California. Larpent 703, Huntington Library, California. Deidre Coleman, Romantic Colonization and British Anti-Slavery (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 164–97. Alan Richardson, A Mental Theatre: Poetic Drama and Consciousness in the Romantic Age (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988); William Jewett, Fatal Autonomy: Romantic Drama and the Rhetoric of Agency (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997).

– 191 –

192

Notes to pages 8–13

17. Public Record Office, Lord Chamberlain 5/ 164. fol. 75–6. 18. See my Politics of Romantic Theatricality. 19. James Henry Lawrence, Dramatic Emancipation, or Strictures on the State of the Theatres, And the Consequent Degeneration of the Drama; On the Partiality and Injustice of the London Managers; on Many Theatrical Regulations; And on the Regulations on the Continent For the Security of Literary and Dramatic Property, Particularly Deserving the Attentions of the Subscribers for a Third Theatre (1813), p. 380. 20. Leman Thomas Rede, The Road to the Stage; or, The Performer’s Preceptor. Containing Clear and Ample Instructions for Obtaining Theatrical Engagements; With a List of All the Provincial Theatres, The Names of the Managers and all Particulars as to Their Circuits, Salaries, &c. With A Description of the Things Necessary on an Outset in the Profession, Where to Obtain Them, and A Complete Explanation of all the Technicalities of the Histrionic Art! (1827), p. 62. 21. William St Clair, The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 600–1. 22. There were two editions in 1796, plus further editions in 1798, 1808 and 1819. 23. George Colman the Younger, The Iron Chest: A Play; in Three Acts. Written by George Colman, the Younger. With a Preface. First represented at the Theatre-Royal, in DruryLane, On Saturday, 12th March, 1796 (1796), p. xxi. 24. Sylvester Daggerwood [psued.], The Preface to the Iron Chest. A Satirical Poem. Written by Thinks-I-to-Myself-Who? (1796); anon., Remarks on Mr. Colman’s Preface: Also, a summary Comparison of the Play of the Iron Chest with the novel of Caleb Williams (1796). 25. George Colman the Younger and Stephen Storace, Down by the river there grows a Green Willow: A Favourite Song, Sung by Sigra. Storace, in the Iron Chest (1796).

1 The Theatrical Network 1.

2.

3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

8. 9.

For Winston’s background, see Alfred L. Nelson and Gilbert. B. Cross (eds), Drury Lane Journal: Selections from James Winston’s Diaries 1819–1827 (London: Society for Theatre Research, 1974), p. xi. James Winston, The Theatric Tourist; Being A Genuine Collection Of Correct Views, With Brief And Authentic Historical Accounts Of All The Principal Provincial Theatres In The United Kingdom. Replete With Useful And Necessary Information To Theatrical Professors, Whereby They May Learn How To Chuse And Regulate Their Country Engagements; And With Numerous Anecdotes To Amuse The Reader (1805). James Winston and Daniel Havell, The Theatric Tourist, 2 vols, water colours and prints, Houghton Library manuscript, Harvard Theatre Collection, call no. TS 1335.211. James Winston, The Theatric Tourist, MS, c. 1802–5, fols 60, 67. The MS has a variety of numbering systems, some of which are repeated. Sybil Rosenfeld, Strolling Players and Drama in the Provinces 1660–1765 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1939), pp. 64, 91–2. Winston, Theatric Tourist, MS, c. 1802–5, fols 54, 57. Joe Cowell, Thirty Years Passed Among The Players In England And America: Interspersed With Anecdotes And Reminiscences Of A Variety Of Persons, Directly Or Indirectly Connected With The Drama During the Theatrical Life Of Joe Cowell, Comedian. Written By Himself (New York: 1845), p. 30. Winston, Theatric Tourist, MS, c. 1802–5, fol. 78. Ibid., fols 30, 37.

Notes to pages 13–15

193

10. Ibid., fols 8, 9, 15. 11. Linda Fitzsimmons and Arthur W. McDonald (eds), The Yorkshire Stage 1766–1803: A Calendar of Plays, Together with Cast Lists for Tate Wilkinson’s Circuit of Theatres (Doncaster, Hull, Leeds, Pontefract, Wakefield and York) and the Yorkshire Company’s Engagements in Beverley, Halifax, Newcastle, Sheffield and Edinburgh (Metuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, 1989), pp. 998–1002. 12. James Pack, Some Account Of The Life And Experience Of James Pack, Late A Celebrated Actor, In The Pantomime Department, At The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, And Other Places: But Now, By The Grace Of God, A Disciple And Follower Of The Lord Jesus Christ (1819), pp. 18–26. 13. By the time, Leman Thomas Rede’s brother was revising, The Road to the Stage; or, The Performer’s Preceptor. Containing Clear and Ample Instructions for Obtaining Theatrical Engagements; With a List of All the Provincial Theatres, The Names of the Managers and all Particulars as to Their Circuits, Salaries, &c. With A Description of the Things Necessary on an Outset in the Profession, Where to Obtain Them, and A Complete Explanation of all the Technicalities of the Histrionic Art! (1836), he could report that theatres such as the Adelphi had seasons of six months, while the Royal Coburg managed to open all year (pp. 12–13). 14. Winston, Theatric Tourist, MS, c. 1802–5, fols 18, 20–3, 54. 15. Tate Wilkinson, Memoirs of His Own Life (York, 1790); The Wandering Patentee; or, A History of the Yorkshire Theatres, from 1770 to the present time, interspersed with Anecdotes Respecting Most of the Performers … from 1765 to 1795 (York, 1795). 16. James Wyatt, The life and surprizing adventures of James Wyatt … sixth edition (1755), pp. 8–9. 17. Thomas Frost, The Old Showmen, and the London Fairs (London: Tinsley Brothers, 1874), pp. 256–7. 18. Playbills, Richardson’s Theatre, n.d, c. 1820. 19. Fairlop Fair, 7 July 1815, Thomas Tegg, Harvard Theatre Collection. 20. Peter Paterson, Behind the Scenes: Being the Confessions of a Strolling Player (Edinburgh: D. Mathers, 1859), pp. 74–88. 21. Paul Bedford, Recollections and Wanderings of Paul Bedford. Facts, Not Fancies (London: Strand Printing and Publishing, 1867), p. 9. 22. Rede, Road to the Stage (1827), p. 14. 23. On the practices of sharing in the first half of the eighteenth century, see Rosenfeld, Strolling Players and Drama in the Provinces, pp. 28–32. 24. Mark Moore, The Memoirs And Adventures of Mark Moore, Late and Officer in the British Navy, Interspersed With a Variety of original Anecdotes, selected from his Journals, when in the Tuscan, Portuguese, Swedish, Imperial, American, and British Service, in each of which he bore a commission … As the Author has been at Intervals the Manager of a respectable Company of Comedians, in several of the principal Towns of England, France, and Flanders, he has also added some original Sketches of several Theatrical Characters, who now rank high in the Thespian Corps … (1795), p. 86. 25. Pack, Some Account Of The Life And Experience Of James Pack, p. 16. 26. Moore, Memoirs And Adventures of Mark Moore, p. 86. 27. Ibid., p. 91. 28. Ann Catherine Holbrook, The Dramatist; or, Memoirs of the Stage. With the Life of the Authoress, Prefixed, and Interspersed with, A Variety of Anecdotes, Humourous [sic] and Pathetic (Birmingham, 1809), pp. 15, 36–7, 60.

194

Notes to pages 15–19

29. William Johnson, The Effects of Strolling Playing; or, A Lesson to Dramatic Maniacs. A Poem (1797), p. 5. 30. Ibid., p. 9. 31. Alexander Kilham, The Hypocrite Detected And Exposed; And The True Christian Vindicated And Supported: In a Sermon Preached From A Passage In A Play-Bill, December 15, 1793, In The Methodist Chapel In This City. With A Reply, In an Appendix, To A Paper Signed Civis, Concerning Dancing. And A Postcript, With Remarks, On Mr. Lee Lewes’s Answer (Aberdeen, 1793), pp. 47–8. 32. Thomas Thirlwall, Royalty Theatre. A Solemn Protest Against The Revival Of Scenic Exhibitions And Interludes, At The Royalty Theatre; Containing Remarks On Pizarro, The Stranger, And John Bull; With A Postscript (1803); unidentified newspaper clipping, 19 October 1804, Royalty Theatre clippings etc, Harvard Theatre Collection. The piece refers to ‘Dr. Thelwall’ [sic]. Thirlwall’s petition was rejected. 33. Moore, Memoirs And Adventures of Mark Moore, pp. 122–3. 34. Holbrook’s recollection was that the other company came from Cheltenham, and styled themselves ‘his Majesty’s servants’. The account may not refer to the same incident but merely shows how common such practices were (The Dramatist; or, Memoirs of the Stage, p. 20). 35. Winston, Theatric Tourist (1805), p. 9. 36. Joseph Donohue, Theatre in the Age of Kean (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1975), pp. 38–9. 37. Winston, Theatric Tourist, MS, c. 1802–5, fols 19, 22. 38. Winston, Theatric Tourist (1805), p. 54. 39. Winston, Theatric Tourist, MS, c. 1802–5, fol. 14. 40. Ibid., fol. 38. 41. Winston and Havell, Theatric Tourist, watercolours and prints, vol. 1, fol. 10. 42. Ibid., vol. 1, fol. 8. 43. Edward Cape Everard, Memoirs Of An Unfortunate Son Of Thespis; Being A Sketch Of The Life Of Edward Cape Everard, Comedian (1818), pp. 74–6. 44. R. Humphreys, The Memoirs Of J. Decastro, Comedian … Accompanied By An Analysis Of The Life Of The Late Philip Astley, Esq. … Also An Accompanying History Of The Royal Circus, Now The Surrey Theatre (1824), p. 29n. 45. Winston and Havell, Theatric Tourist, watercolours and prints, vol. 1, fol. 2. 46. Winston, Theatric Tourist, MS, c. 1802–5, fol. 11. 47. Ibid., fols 15, 53. 48. Winston and Havell, Theatric Tourist, watercolours and prints, vol. 1, fol. 3. 49. Ibid., vol. 1, fol. 22. 50. Winston, Theatric Tourist (1805), p. 42. 51. Ibid., p. 27. 52. Winston, Theatric Tourist, MS, c. 1802–5, fol. 15, 53. 53. Royalty Theatre cuttings, bill of sale, 13 June 1820, Harvard Theatre Collection. 54. Royalty Theatre cuttings, unidentified clipping, c. November 1817, Harvard Theatre Collection. 55. Everard, Memoirs Of An Unfortunate Son Of Thespis, p. 189. 56. Ibid., p. 261. 57. Winston, Theatric Tourist, MS, c. 1802–05, fols 21, 38, 52–3, 59. 58. St Clair, Reading Nation in the Romantic Period, table 13.2. 59. Rosenfeld, Strolling Players and Drama in the Provinces, pp. 92–3, 150, 258, 288.

Notes to pages 19–22

195

60. The source for this figure is not cited in St Clair, Reading Nation in the Romantic Period, pp. 369, 369n. 61. Charles Beecher Hogan, The London Stage 1660–1800: Vol. 5, 1776–1800 (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1968), pp. ccix–ccx; Görel Garlick, To Serve the Purpose of the Drama: The Theatre Designs and Plays of Samuel Beazley 1786–1851 (London: Society for Theatre Research, 2003), p. 24; Particulars and Conditions of Sale of the Olympic Theatre … 13th June, 1820. 62. David Mayer III, Harlequin in his Element: The English Pantomime, 1806–1836 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969), p. 385n.9. 63. The role of these are discussed in my previous books Theatric Revolution and The Politics of Romantic Theatricality. 64. The repertoire is indexed in Fitzsimmons and McDonald (eds), The Yorkshire Stage 1766–1803. 65. Richard Jenkins, Memoirs of the Bristol Stage, from the Period of the Theatre at Jacob’s Well, Down to the Present Time; With Notices, Biographical and Critical, of some of the Most Celebrated Comedians who have Appeared on its Boards (Bristol, 1826), pp. 57–9, 76. 66. James Cawdell, The Miscellaneous Poems of J. Cawdell, Comedian: … to which is annexed An Answer to a late libellous Compilation called The Stockton Jubilee (Sunderland: 1785), pp. 5, 33–5. 67. Playbills, Theatre, Stamford, 4 August 1815. 68. Thomas John Dibdin, The Reminiscences of Thomas Dibdin, 2 vols (1837), vol. 2, p. 166. 69. The Inspector, A Weekly Dramatic Paper, 3 (16 January 1819), p 6. 70. Keene’s Theatrical Evening Mirror, 1:1–6, 8–25, (18 June–27 September, 30 September–24 October 1820). 71. 1788. The Theatrical Register. Containing Candid and Impartial Strictures on the Various Performances at the Theatre-Royal, York Interspersed with Occasional Remarks by Obliging Correspondents (York, 1788), pp. 12–13. Without access to complete records of the York performances, it can only be claimed for certain that Inkle and Yarico was performed at least on the dates of 5 and 8 February, and 1and 14 March 1788. Other performances at York, and in other years, are highly likely to have occurred. 72. Playbills, Theatre, Ipswich, 28 June, 11 July 1789; Theatre, Kings Lynn, 23 February 1790; Theatre, Bungay, 19 June 1790. 73. Histories, fables, allegories, and characters, selected from the Spectator and Guardian; peculiarly adapted to form young minds to a love of ... fourth edition (1753), pp. 1–3; Mr Cresswick, The female reader; or miscellaneous pieces in prose and verse; selected from the best writers, and disposed under proper heads; for the Improvement of Young Women ... (1789), pp. 29–31; Mary Pilkington, A mirror for the female sex. Historical beauties for young ladies. Intended to lead the female mind to the love and practice of moral goodness. ... (1798), pp. 172–6; J. B. Webster, The domestic instructor. Selected principally from celebrated authors, with original pieces. Enriched with 60 wood cuts after the manner of Bewick. Adapted for Private Families and Public Schools (c. 1800), pp. 22–5. 74. Felicity A. Nussbaum, ‘The Theatre of Empire: Racial Counterfeit, Racial Realism’, Kathleen Wilson (ed.), A New Imperial History: Culture, Identity, and Modernity in Britain and the Empire, 1660–1840 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 71–90, p. 87. 75. There were two Liverpool stagings of Inkle and Yarico that year; see the Liverpool Theatrical Investigator (17 August 1821), p. 263; (11 October 1821), p. 423. 76. Playbills, Theatre, Stamford, 4 July 1823, 12 September 1827; Playbills, 14 June 1827, Theatre Royal, Birmingham; Playbills, Theatre, Scarborough, 13 August 1830.

196

Notes to pages 22–5

77. Jean François Arnould-Mussot, La Mort du Capitaine Cook … pantomime en quatre actes, etc. (Paris, c. 1788); The Death of Captain Cook; a grand serious-pantomimic-ballet in three parts, etc. (1789). Details of the mid-century configuration of the Norwich circuit, which varied from year to year, can be found in Rosenfeld, Strolling Players and Drama in the Provinces, pp. 74–8. 78. Playbills, Theatre Royal, Norwich, 2, 8 July 1789; 8, 12, 14, 19, 21, 22, 24 April, 1 May 1790; Theatre, Bungay, 12 June 1790; Theatre, Yarmouth 9 August, 1790; 25 January, 1793, Dublin; see Humphreys, Memoirs Of J. Decastro, pp. 54–5. The dates should be considered as a minimum list of performances. 79. Reese Davis James records two performances of The Death of Captain Cook in Philadelphia during the period covered by his study, Cradle of Culture 1800–1810: The Philadelphia Stage (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1957), p. 129. 80. Alan S. Downer (ed.), The Memoir of John Durang: American Actor, 1785–1816 (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1966), pp. 70, 116. 81. William Shakespeare, The Tempest … Adapted to the Stage, with Additions from Dryden and Davenant by J. P. Kemble. As Performed at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. Printed … from the Prompt Book. With Remarks by Mrs. Inchbald. (1807); Playbills, Theatre Royal, Norwich, 28 April 1790. 82. R. B. Sheridan, A Short Account of the Situations and Incidents Exhibited in the Pantomime of Robinson Crusoe at the Theatre-Royal, Drury-Lane … Taken from the Original Story (1781).

2 The Representation of Race on the Georgian Stage 1. 2.

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

The principal biography is Herbert Marshall and Mildred Stock, Ira Aldridge: The Negro Tragedian (London: Rockliff, 1958). Three weeks after his Royal Coburg appearances, Aldridge played Othello at the theatre in Brighton (where he seems to have collapsed on stage during the performance) where the restriction to burletta did not apply. See The Times (22 December 1825). James Fennell, An Apology for the Life of James Fennell. Written by Himself (Philadelphia, PA: Moses Thomas, 1814), p. 195. Ibid., pp. 276–7. Untitled etching, Laurie & Whittle, 53 Fleet Street, London, 30 January 1811. Playbills, Days of Performing This Week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday, Handy’s New Circus, Lyceum, Strand, This Present Monday, Feb. 2, 1795. Humphreys, Memoirs Of J. Decastro, Comedian, pp. 140–1. Nussbaum, ‘The Theatre of Empire: Racial Counterfeit, Racial Realism’, p. 84. Virginia Mason Vaughan, Performing Blackness on English Stages, 1500–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 31–3. David Mayer III, Harlequin in his Element, pp. 38–9. Sheridan, Short Account of the Situations and Incidents exhibited in the Pantomime of Robinson Crusoe. Ibid., p. 3. Playbills, 28 April 1790, Theatre Royal, Norwich. Robinson Crusoe; or, Harlequin Friday. A Grand Pantomime, in Two Acts, As performed at the Theatre-Royal, Newcastle upon Tyne, in 1791 (Newcastle, 1791); Richardson Wright, Revels in Jamaica 1682–1838 (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1937), p. 213.

Notes to pages 25–9

197

15. John O’Brien, Harlequin Britain: Pantomime and Entertainment, 1690–1760 (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), pp. 127–37. 16. Larpent 715, Huntington Library, California. 17. Deirdre Coleman, ‘Janet Schaw and the Complexions of Empire’, Eighteenth-Century Studies, 36:2 (2003), pp. 169–94. 18. William Chaigneau, The history of Jack Connor ... second edition (1753), vol. 1, p. 205. 19. Reproduced, ‘Mr J. Durang in Character of Harlequin. Animation Scene, In five Positions’, in Downer (ed.), Memoir of John Durang, p. 29. 20. Neither black face nor black mask are touched on in Joseph W. Donohue’s Dramatic Character in the English Romantic Age (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970) or Theatre in the Age of Kean (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1975). 21. Patrick Schmitt, ‘The Black Clown: Strategies of Representation and the Making of Majority Culture in Antebellum America’, Theatre Symposium: A Journal of the Southeastern Theatre Conference: Vol. 2, Theatre in the Antebellum South (Alabama: Southeastern Theatre Conference and The University of Alabama Press, 1994), pp. 74–81, pp. 77, 79. 22. William J. Mahar, Behind the Burnt Cork Mask: Early Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture (Urbana and Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1999), p. 102. 23. James P. Byrne, ‘The Genesis of Whiteface in Nineteenth-Century American Popular Culture, Melus, 29:3/4 (2004), pp. 133–49. 24. Mikko Tuhkanen, ‘Of Blackface and Paranoid Knowledge: Richard Wright, Jacques Lacan, and the Ambivalence of Black Minstrelsy’, Diacritics, 31: 2 (2001), pp. 9–35. 25. Quoted in Sean X. Goudie, ‘The West Indies, Commerce, and Play for U.S. Empire: Recovering J. Robinson’s “The Yorker’s Stratagem” (1792)’, Early American Literature, 40:1 (2005), pp. 1–35. 26. Nussbaum, ‘The Theatre of Empire: Racial Counterfeit, Racial Realism’, p. 79. 27. Larpent 400, Huntington Library, California. 28. Lott, Love and Theft, pp. 72–3. 29. Charles Dance, The Bengal Tiger. A Farce In One Act, by Charles Dance ... As performed at Madame Vestris’s Royal Olympic Theatre (1838), pp. 3, 14. 30. Ibid., pp. 10, 12. 31. Ibid., p. 21. 32. Calamity at Richmond, Being a Narrative Of the affecting circumstances attending the Awful Conflagration of the Theatre, in the city of Richmond, On the Night of Thursday, the 26th of December, 1811. By which, more than Seventy of its valuable Citizens suddenly lost their lives, and many others were greatly injured and maimed … And Accompanied with a Preface, Containing appropriate Reflections, calculated to awaken the attention of the public, to the frequency of the destruction of Theatrical Edifices (Philadelphia, 1812), pp. 19, 39–40; A Concise Statement of the Awful Conflagration of the Theatre, in the City of Richmond; Which Happened on the Night of Thursday The 26th December last, Wherein the Governor, and upwards of seventy of its most respectable inhabitants were consumed, and many others very much injured (1812). 33. W. Stanley Hoole, The Ante-Bellum Charleston Theatre (Tuscaloose: University of Alabama Press, 1946), playbill, theatre, Charleston, 24 December 1838, reproduced p. 42. 34. Neapolitan Captive. Interesting Narrative of the Captivity and Sufferings of Miss Viletta Laranda, A Native of Naples, Who, with a Brother, was a passenger on board a Neapolitan vessel wrecked near Oran, on the Barbary Coast, September 1829, and who soon after was

198

35. 36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42. 43.

44. 45. 46.

47.

48.

Notes to pages 29–32 unfortunately made a Captive of [sic] by a wandering clan of Bedowen [sic] Arabs, on their return from Algiers to the Desserts … Third Edition (New York, 1830). Dance, Bengal Tiger, p. 12. Townley, High Life Below Stairs. A farce of two acts. As it is performed at the TheatreRoyal in Drury-Lane (1759), p. 4. The play is sometimes erroneously attributed to David Garrick. See also, Gillian Russell, ‘“Keeping Place:” Servants, Theater and Sociability in Mid-Eighteenth-Century Britain’, Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation, 42:1 (2001), pp. 21–42. The playwright John O’Keefe recalled during a performance of High Life Below Stairs, the ‘hisses and groans, and even many a handful of halfpence … flung on the stage’ by irate servants in the footmen’s (or upper) gallery, John O’Keefe, Recollections of the Life of John O’Keefe, 2 vols (1826), vol. 1, p. 162. Oliver Grey, An Apology For The Servants…. Occasioned by the Representation of the Farce called High Life Below Stairs, and by what has been said to their Disadvantage in the Public Papers (1760), pp. 5–6. Ibid., p. 17; John Jackson, The History Of The Scottish Stage, From Its First Establishment To The Present Time; With A Distinct Narrative of Some Recent Theatrical Transactions. The Whole Necessarily Interspersed With Memoirs Of His Own Life (Edinburgh, 1793), pp. 376–8. See the evidence of the witness Saville in the case of John Glover, riot, 28 June 1780, Proceedings of the Old Bailey, Ref: t17800628–94. Demonstrating London’s ethnic diversity, the witness Sheppard, a turnkey, carefully distinguishes between ‘Blacks’, ‘Tawnies’ and ‘a copper coloured person … a different kind of Black’. David Richardson, The Bristol Slaver Traders: A Collective Portrait (Bristol: Bristol Branch of the Historical Assocation, 1985). Servant is one of the chief occupations of Bristol blacks listed in Madge Dresser’s Slavery Obscured: The Social History of the Slave Trade in an English Provincial Port (London and New York: Continuum, 2001), pp. 72–81 and Table 5. Dresser notes that Robert Southey recollected in the 1770s, that there were ‘a good many Creoles’ at his school in Bristol, cited p. 76. As late as 1831, after three nights of riots sparked by the Reform debate, it was noted how the Bristol’s ‘societies for … emancipating the slaves in the West Indian Colonies’ had contributed towards an ‘acrimonious’ atmosphere, The Bristol Riots, Their Causes, Progress, and Consquences (Bristol, 1832), p. 6. Philip Vandyke [attrib.] Broad Quay (c. 1785), Dresser, Slavery Obscured, fig. 7. Dresser, Slavery Obscured, pp. 32, 134–5; John Hippisley, Essays … On the Populousness of Africa … On the Trade at the Forts on the Gold Coast … On the Necessity of erecting a Fort at Cape Appolonia (1764), pp. 6, 17, 18. Thomas Broughton, Serious Advice and Warning to Servants, More especially Those of the Nobility and Gentry (fourth edition) (1763), p. 21. A Present for Servants, From their Ministers, Masters, Or other Friends (eighth edition) (1768), pp. 58–9. 1788. The Theatrical Register, p. 46. High Life Below Stairs had reached York very rapidly, being performed there in the 1759–60 season (Rosenfeld, Strolling Players and Drama in the Provinces, p. 151. Miles Peter Andrews, The songs, recitatives, airs, duets, trios, and chorusses, introduced in the pantomime entertainment, of The enchanted castle, as performed at the Theatre-Royal, Covent-Garden … the music by Mr. Shields (1786), p. iv. Townley, High Life Below Stairs, p. 4.

Notes to pages 32–7

199

49. James Winston’s notebook records ‘Mr Moody from Jamaica’, in what was possibly his first engagement on his return, playing at Portsmouth in William Congreve’s tragedy, The Mourning Bride (1697): see Winston, Theatric Tourist, MS, c. 1802–5, fol. 61. For the context of Moody’s career in Jamaican theatre, see Wright, Revels in Jamaica, pp. 26–8. 50. ‘Madras Theatricals of Ton’, The Times (Monday 11 August 1788). 51. Giles Waterfield, Anne French and Matthew Craske (eds), Below Stairs: 400 Years of Servants’ Portraits (London: National Portrait Gallery Publications, 2003), pp. 128–9, Cat. 67. Two impressions of the print ‘High Life below Stairs’ dated to 23 February 1774, signed by Orde, but with variant handwritten inscriptions, are at Call no. 774.2.23.1.1 and 774.2.23.1.2., Lewis Walpole Library, Farmington, Connecticut, USA. 52. John Williams, The Life of the Late Earl of Barrymore. Including A History of the Wargrave Theatricals, and Original Anecdotes of Eminent Persons (third edition) (1793), p. 19. 53. Playbills, Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, 24 January 1850. 54. Larpent 1301, Huntington Library, California. 55. Douglas Hay, ‘The State and the Market in 1800: Lord Kenyon and Mr Waddington’, Past and Present, 162 (1999), pp. 163–94. 56. For a black plaintiff, see Joshua Muns, theft, 2 July 1766, The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, Ref. t17660702–26. 57. Theatrical anecdotes and thespian bon mots also occur in Peter Cunningham [pseud.?], The New London & Country Jester; or, Fun for the Parlor & Kitchen (c. 1795). 58. Peter Cunningham’s New Jest Book; or, Modern High Life Below Stairs (c. 1781), pp. 13– 14, 18–20. 59. Ibid., pp. 35–6. 60. For a discussion of Young’s Revenge in its context, see Vaughan, Performing Blackness on English Stages, pp. 152–5, 157–9. Vaughan does not comment on Cunningham’s New Jest Book. 61. William Hazlitt, Characters of Shakespear’s Plays (1817), p. 60. Nussbaum briefly discusses the text of Young’s Revenge and the role Zanga but without being aware of its continuation into the popular culture represented by Cunningham’s jest book (‘The theatre of empire: racial counterfeit, racial realism’, pp. 85–7). 62. Edward Young, The Revenge: A Tragedy. As it is Acted at the Theatre-Royal in DruryLane. By His Majesty’s Servants (1721), p. 61. 63. Peter Cunningham’s New Jest Book, p. 35. 64. The Acting Manager; or, The Minor Spy. A Weekly Review of the Public and Private Stage, 3 (4 June 1831), p. 31. 65. James Thomas Kirkman, Memoirs of the life of Charles Macklin, Esq. principally compiled from his own papers and memorandums; which contain his criticisms on and Characters and Anecdotes of Betterton, Booth ... and most of his contemporaries; together with his ... observations on the drama, science of acting, etc. (1799), vol. 1 p. 328. 66. Rede, Road to the Stage (1827), p. 38. 67. Frederick Reynolds, Laugh When You Can: A Comedy, In Five Acts. As Peformed at the Theatre Royal, Covent-Garden (1799), p. 5. 68. Rede, Road to the Stage (1827), p. 38. 69. Matthew Gregory Lewis, The Castle Spectre: A Drama. In Five Acts. First performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury-Lane, on Thursday, December 14, 1797 (1798), p. 100.

200

Notes to pages 37–42

70. George Colman the Younger, Inkle and Yarico An Opera. In Three Acts. As Performed at the Theatre-Royal in the Hay-Market (Dublin, 1787), p. 3; ‘The Story of Inkle and Yarico’, The Times (Monday, 6 August 1787). 71. Roxann Wheeler, The Complexion of Race: Categories of Difference in Eighteenth-Century British Culture (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), p. 83. 72. Inkle & Yarico. Or, the slave-trade exposed. Description of this opera. (Edinburgh?, c. 1795). 73. See the plate to ‘Inkle and Yarico’ in, The new novelist’s magazine; or, Entertaining library of pleasing and instructive histories, ... romances, and other ... exemplary little novels (1786–7), vol. 2. 74. Rede, Road to the Stage (1827), p. 38. 75. Ibid., p. 38. 76. Ibid., pp. 33–4. 77. Ibid., pp. 31–2. 78. Downer (ed.), Memoir of John Durang, p. 23. 79. Dutton Cook, On the Stage. Studies of Theatrical History and the Actor’s Art (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington, 1883), vol. 1, p. 175. 80. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 175. 81. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 176. 82. Rede, Road to the Stage (1827), p. 38. 83. Ibid., pp. 38–9. The Othello specialist, James Fennell, described his first amateur appearance in that role using a ‘superadded … black wig’, but makes no mention of black armings, An Apology for the Life of James Fennell. Written by Himself (Philadelphia: Moses Thomas, 1814), p. 184. 84. Vaughan, Performing Blackness on English Stages, p. 98. 85. John Finlay, Miscellanies. The Foreign Relations of the British Empire: The Internal Resources of Ireland: Sketches of Character: Dramatic Criticism, etc.etc.etc. (Dublin, 1835), pp. 247, 282. 86. Rede, Road to the Stage (1827), p. 38. 87. Reynolds, Laugh When You Can, p. 5. 88. George Colman the Younger, Inkle and Yarico: an opera, in three acts. As performed at the Theatre-Royal in the Hay-Market, On Saturday, August, 11th, 1787 (Dublin, 1787), p. 16. 89. Ibid., p. 15. 90. Ibid., p. 68. 91. Larpent 782, Huntington Library, California; George Colman the Younger, Inkle and Yarico: an opera, in three acts. As performed at the Theatre-Royal in the Hay-Market, On Saturday, August, 11th, 1787 (Dublin, 1787), p. 22. 92. Rede, Road to the Stage (1836), p. 32. 93. Colman the Younger, Inkle and Yarico (Dublin, 1787), p. 3; Larpent 782, Huntington Library, California. 94. Colman the Younger, Inkle and Yarico (Dublin, 1787), pp. 11, 14. 95. Lawrence Marsden Price, discusses Arnould-Mussot’s American Heroine but not its American popularity. Marsden also notes an unsuccessful London Haymarket performance in March 1792 where it was slightly retitled as The American Heroine, or Ingratitude Punished. The Haymarket had been the original venue for Colman’s Inkle and Yarico in 1787, Lawrence Marsden Price, Inkle and Yarico Album (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1937), pp. 69–74. See also, Jean-François Arnould-Mussot, L’Héroïne

Notes to pages 42–5

201

Américaine, Ou Inkle et Zarika, Pantomime en trios actes, de Mr. Arnould, remise au Théâtre, avec des additions, par Mr. Corsse, le mardi 12 avril 1808 (Paris, c. 1808). 96. Downer (ed.), Memoir of John Durang, pp. 44, 68, 79, 95–6; Thomas Thirlwall, Royalty Theatre. A Solemn Protest Against The Revival Of Scenic Exhibitions And Interludes, At The Royalty Theatre; Containing Remarks On Pizarro, The Stranger, And John Bull; With A Postscript (1803), p. 9; A Rub from Snub; or, A Cursory Analytical Epistle: Addressed to Peter Porcupine, Author of the Bone to Gnaw, Kick for a Bite, &c.&c. Containing, Glad Tidings for the Democrats, and a Word of Comfort to Mrs. S. Rowson (Philadelphia, 1795); Sussana Haswell Rowson, Slaves in Algiers; or, A Struggle for Freedom: A Play, Interspersed with Songs, in Three Acts … As Performed at the New Theatres, In Philadelphia and Baltimore (Philadelphia, 1794). 97. Downer (ed.), Memoir of John Durang, p. 68. 98. With the clear connections between Paris and Astley’s, it is interesting that the French name was also adopted in London, see B. Walwyn, The ridiculous courtship: or, reasonable fool. A new musical piece, as performed at the amphitheatre, and ambigu comic, Westminster-bridge (1784). 99. A Short Account Of The New Pantomime Called Omai, or, A Trip round the World; Performed At The Theatre-Royal In Covent-Garden. With the Recitatives, Airs, Duetts, Trios And Chorusses; And A Description Of The Procession. The Pantomime, and the Whole of the Scenery, designed and invented by Mr. Loutherbourg. The Words written by Mr. O’Keeffe [sic]; And the Musick composed by Mr. Shields (1785), p. 1. 100. Federal Street Theatre, Boston, 7 November, 2 December 1796, cited in Steven Epley, ‘Alienated, Betrayed, and Powerless: a Possible Connection between Charlotte Temple and the Legend of Inkle and Yarico’, Papers on Language & Literature, 38:2 (2002), pp. 200–22. 101. Downer (ed.), Memoir of John Durang, pp. 101–2, 105. 102. Wright, Revels in Jamaica, pp. 303–4. 103. There is no record of Trudge and Wowski being submitted for licensing to the Lord Chamberlain. This may mean that either Knight re-arranged Colman’s (previously licensed) dialogue with no new additions or that the Bristol theatre simply failed to submit a copy. 104. Thomas Clark Pollock, The Philadelphia Theatre in the Eighteenth Century Together with the Day Book of the same period (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1933), p. 61, 335, 338, 341, 342, 361; George C. D. Odell, Annals of the New York Stage: Vol. 2, 1798–1821 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1927), p. 375. 105. Jean François Arnould-Mussot, The American Heroine, A Pantomime, In Three Acts … Originally performed at the Theatre of L’Ambigu-Comique (Philadelphia, 1797), p. 10. 106. Ibid., p. 13. 107. Ibid., p. 17. 108. Ibid., p. 17. 109. John Britton, Sheridan and Kotzebue. The Enterprising Adventures of Pizarro, Preceded by a Brief Sketch of the Voyages and Discoveries of Columbus and Cortez: To which are Subjoined The Histories of Alonzo and Cora, On which Kotzebue founded his two celebrated Plays of The Virgin of the Sun and The Death of Rolla. Also Varieties and Oppositions of Criticisms on The Play of Pizarro: With Biographical Sketches of Sheridan and Kotzebue. The Whole Forming a Comprehensive Account of those Plays and the Grand Ballads of Cora, – and Rolla and Cora, At the Royal Circus, and Royal Amphitheatre (1799) 127–3, 138, 140.

202

Notes to pages 45–9

110. Charleston Theatre, 11 April, 1806, cited in Richard P. Sodders, ‘The Theatre Management of Alexandre Placide in Charleston, 1794–1812’, 2 vols (Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, unpubished PhD dissertation, 1983), vol. 2, p. 615. 111. Frederick Pilon, The Fair American: a comic opera, in three acts; as it is performed, with universal applause, at the Theatre-Royal, Drury-Lane. Written by F. Pilon. Dedicated to the Right Hon. Lord Camden (1785), pp. 13–14, 78. 112. Royalty Theatre, unidentified newspaper clipping, 31 December 1800, Harvard Theatre Collection, Harvard University. 113. Rede, Road to the Stage (1827), p. 38. 114. The Times, (13 November 1816). 115. Keene was Aldridge’s stage name in London in 1825. There was another contemporary actor called Arthur Keene but, in any event, ‘Mr. Keene as Rolla in Pizarro’ (published by Dyer of 55 Bath Street, undated) looks very similar to ‘Mr. Wallack as Rolla in Pizarra’ [sic] (published from 13 Fetter Lane, Holborn, undated), Harvard Theatre Collection, Harvard University. 116. James C. Cross, Circusiana, or a Collection of the most favourite Ballets, Spectacles, MeloDrames, &c. Performed at the Royal Circus, St. George’s Fields, 2 Vols (1809), vol. 1, p. 48; John Britton, Sheridan and Kotzebue. The Enterprising Adventures of Pizarro (1799), pp. 138–40. 117. ‘[?]A scene in Pizarro’s tent;’ ‘[?] The temple of the sun scene in Pizarro’, watercolour, Harvard Theatre Collection, Harvard University. 118. The Rambler’s Magazine; or Fashionable Emporium of Polite Literature ( January 1822), p. 31. 119. Valuable Theatrical Wardrobes of a distinguished Amateur, and a celebrated Comedian, retiring. A Catalogue of a Valuable Collection of Theatrical Dresses, Stage Ornaments, and Properties, Of the most costly and useful Description; The Property of An Amateur, Who spared no Expence in their Formation; Some Costly Court Dress Suits, And The Private Dresses of Celebrated Comedian, Who has no further occasion for them, including Thirty fine Character Wigs. The Whole will be found well worthy the Attention of Amateurs, Provincial Managers, the Profession in general, and the Masquerade Warehouses: Which Will be Sold by Auction: By Messrs. Robins, At their Spacious Rooms, Great Piazza, CoventGarden, On Wednesday, the 12th May, 1819 … (1819), lots 44, 64, 74. 120. Second Edition. An Impartial Critique, or a Peep into the Boston Theatre, During the Season of 1813; Being, a Comprehensive View of the Corps Dramatique (Boston, 1813), p. 7. 121. Arthur Murphy, The Apprentice. A farce, in two acts, as it is Perform’d at the Theatre-Royal, in Drury-Lane (1756), p. 22. 122. John Adolphus, Memoirs of John Bannister, Comedian (1839), p. 25. John A. Thieme notes that London spouting clubs declined in popularity after the 1770s although he does not note their transmogrification into working class private theatres of the ‘songand-supper’ clubs of the 1820s and 1830s, ‘Spouting, Spouting-Clubs and Spouting Companions, Theatre Notebook, 29 (1975), pp. 9–18. 123. John O’Keefe, The Toy; or, the Lie of the Day. In Five Acts. Performed at the Theatre-Royal, Covent-Garden, in 1788 [sic] (1798), prologue, n.p. 124. John O’Keefe, The Highland Reel: A Comic Opera. In Three Acts. As It Is Performed At The Theatres-Royal In London And Dublin (1789), p. 53. 125. There are noticeable discrepancies (including the names of the speakers) between the dialogue reprinted in the Recollections and the same exchange as published in The Young

Notes to pages 49–51

203

Quaker but the overall sentiments (about freeing slaves in the American plantations) are the same; John O’Keefe, The Young Quaker; a comedy. As it is performed at the Theatre Royal in Smoke Alley, with great applause (1784), p. 36, O’Keefe, Recollections of the Life of John O’Keefe, vol. 2, pp. 55–6. The actor O’Keefe identifies is William Lewis who was not an actor listed in the first Dublin production. 126. O’Keefe, Recollections of the Life of John O’Keefe, vol. 2, p. 55. 127. Hoole, The Ante-Bellum Charleston Theatre, p. 38. 128. Ann Tuke Alexander, Remarks on the Theatre and on The Late Fire at Richmond, in Virginia (York, 1812), pp. 10, 24. 129. James D. Essig, The Bonds of Wickedness: American Evangelicals Against Slavery, 1770– 1808 (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1982). 130. Maclaren’s Memoir repeats the title page details of the first edition of Negro Slaves in stating that it was performed at the ‘Amphitheatre Westminster Bridge’ under the title of The Blackman and Blackbird. It is clear that Maclaren, who had been wounded more than once during his military service, relied on subscriptions for his published plays as a major means of subsistence. While there is no reason to think Negro Slaves was not performed at Astley’s, the Memoir reminds us that ‘two of his interludes were in preparation at different benefits, but by some fatality he was disappointed in both’, Memoir of Archibald Maclaren, Dramatist; with a List of his Works (Edinburgh, 1835), p. 3. However, while Maclaren had experience as both a performer and a prompter, the records of Astley’s Amphitheatre for 1799 are incomplete and a playbill for the Negro Slaves or Blackman and Blackbird has not yet been located by the present writer. Plays of Maclaren’s which were performed include, The Coup de Main, or, the American Adventurers; a musical Entertainment. As it was acted at the New Theatre in Dundee (Perth, 1784), The Humours of Greenock Fair: or, the Taylor Made a Man. A Musical Interlude. As it was performed at the Theatre in Greenock (Greenock, 1790) and What News from Bantry Bay: or, the Faithful Irishman. A Comic Opera … As it was Performed at St. Peter’s, Guernsey, by Mr.Bernard’s Company, from Covent-Garden. To which is added a Copy of Mr. Daly’s Letter (Dublin, 1798). 131. Wheeler, Complexion of Race, pp. 177–208. 132. Archibald McLaren, The Negro Slaves, A Dramatic Piece, of One Act, With Songs, Performed by his Majesty’s Servants, of the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh; Being the Original of the Blackman and Blackbird, Performed at the Amphitheatre, Westminster Bridge (1799), p. 16. 133. The third edition prints a dramatis personae, probably for the Edinburgh production. 134. Wheeler, Complexion of Race, pp. 197–8. There is no record of Maclaren’s drama, under either title, having being submitted for licensing for performance at the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh. A production at Astley’s Amphitheatre would not have required submission to the Lord Chamberlain. It may simply be the case that, knowing there had been a previous performance at Astley’s, the Edinburgh manager may have assumed no licensing was necessary. For a similar confusion amongst managers of provincial royal theatres, see BL Add MS 42865. fol 431, 432, 4 and 8 March 1824. 135. Archibald MacLaren, The Negro Slaves, Performed by his Majesty’s Servants, of the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh; and at the Amphitheatre, Westminster Bridge, 2nd edn (1799), pp. 15, 23. 136. Colman the Younger, Inkle and Yarico (Dublin, 1787), pp. 4, 7. 137. Ibid., pp. 6, 30. 138. Ibid., p. 33.

204

Notes to pages 51–8

139. Ibid., pp. 49–50. 140. Colman the Younger, The Iron Chest, p. xxi. 141. George Colman the Younger, Observations On The Notice Of A Motion To Rescind Certain Powers Of His Majesty’s Lord Chamberlain. (1829), p. 2. Colman’s pamphlet was written in 1825, apparently circulated in manuscript and not printed until 1829. 142. MacLaren, The Negro Slaves, p. 24; Richard Cumberland, The Wheel of Fortune: A Comedy. Performed At the Theatre-Royal, Drury-Lane (1795), p. 27; Henry Fielding, The Covent-Garden Tragedy (1732), p. 11. 143. William Macready, The Irishman in London; or, The Happy African. A Farce. In Two Acts. Performed at the Theatre-Royal, Covent-Garden (1793), p. 38. 144. Coleman, ‘Janet Schaw and the Complexions of Empire’, pp. 169–94. 145. The Times (10 January 1785), (24 March 1788), (8 March 1809). 146. A Dissertation Upon Head Dress; Together with a Brief Vindication of High Coloured Hair, and of those ladies on whom it grows: the whole submitted to the connoisseurs in taste whether Antient Or Modern, of what Nation or Kingdom soever [sic] (1767), pp. 36–8. 147. MacLaren, The Negro Slaves, p. 9. 148. Ibid., p. 23. 149. Ibid., p. 15. 150. Astley’s Amphitheatre playbills, unidentified newspaper cuttings dated in hand, 16 June, 2 August 1788, Harvard Theatre Collection, Harvard University. 151. Maclaren, The Negro Slaves, pp. 23–4. 152. Ibid., p. 12. In the second edition, the text becomes, ‘Poor fellow! were I master of your sensibility, I wou’d not exchange it for all your master’s plantations’, The Negro Slaves, 2nd edn, p. 11. 153. Maclaren, The Negro Slaves, p. 12. 154. Ibid., p.. 23.

3 James Hewlett, Ira Aldridge and The Death of Christophe, King of Hayti 1.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Accounts of Aldridge’s life are patchy but date as early as the anonymous, A Brief Memoir and Theatrical Career of Ira Aldridge, The African Tragedian (c. 1854). The standard biography remains Herbert Marshall and Mildred Stock, Ira Aldridge: The Negro Tragedian (London: Rockliff, 1958) which can be supplemented by Aldridge’s entry in Bernard L. Peterson, Jr, Profiles of African American Stage Performers and Theatre People, 1816–1960 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001). For a modern overview, see Hazel Waters, ‘Ira Aldridge and the Battlefield of Race’, Race & Class, 45:1 (2003), pp. 1–30. Donald M. Morales, ‘Do Black Theatre Institutions Translate into Great Drama?’ African American Review, 31:4 (1997), pp. 633–8. Hazel Waters, ‘Ira Aldridge and the Battlefield of Race’, pp. 1–30; Nussbaum, ‘The Theatre of Empire: Racial Counterfeit, Racial Realism’, pp. 71–90. The Times (Tuesday, 11 October 1825). Playbills, Theatre Royal, Norwich, 7 January 1790. The Times (Wednesday, 28 July 1824). The Times (Thursday, 27 December 1821). Playbills, Royal Coburg Theatre, 17 October 1825.

Notes to pages 58–62 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18.

19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

24.

25.

205

Peter Buckley, ‘Obi in New York: Aldridge and the African Grove’, Charles Rzepka (ed.), Obi, Romantic Circle Praxis Volumes (2002), http://www.rc.umd.edu/praxis/ obi/buckley/buckley.html [accessed 22 December 2005]. For a useful overview of the critical and historical background see, Nicholas M. Evans, ‘Ira Aldridge: Shakespeare and minstrelsy’, American Transcendental Quarterly: 19th Century American Literature and Culture, 16:3 (2002), pp.165–187. George A. Thompson Jr, Documentary History of the African Theatre (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1998), p. ix. For a discussion of the possibility of Hewlett’s having appeared at the Coburg about a year prior to Aldridge, see Marshall and Stock, Ira Aldridge, p. 46. Thompson Jr, Documentary History of the African Theatre, pp. 147–8 and Document 61. Ibid., pp. 140–1, 292 and Document 67. Samuel A. Hay, African American Theatre: A Historical and Critical Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 136–7. Lott, Love and Theft, p. 46. Aldridge’s denial of having played Hamlet is in Ira Alridge, Memoir and Theatrical Career of Ira Aldridge, the African Roscius (1850), p. 11. Playbills, Theatre Royal, Haymarket, 5 September 1814. On the context of Mathews’s search for black voices, see Lott, Love and Theft, p. 45; The London Mathews; Containing An Account of this celebrated Comedian’s Trip to America … To Which Are Prefixed, Several Original Comic Songs, Viz. Travellers All … Mrs. Bradish’s Boarding-House. Opossum up a Gum-Tree. Militia Muster Folk. Boston Post-Office. Ode to General Jackson. Illinois Inventory. The American Jester’s Song. And The Farewell Finale. Embellished with Six Copper-plate Engravings (1825), p. 10. See also, Christine C. Mather, ‘Acting (Each) Other: J. Hewlett, Charles Mathews, and Ira Aldridge’, Text & Presentation: The Journal of the Comparative Drama Conference, 24 (2003), pp. 69–77. The London Mathews, p. 13. The Times (Saturday, 10 July 1824). Richard Carlile (ed.), The Newgate Monthly Magazine, or Calendar of Men, Things and Opinions, p. 231; Playbills, Theatre, Stamford, 12 July 1826. Waterfield, French and Craske (eds), Below Stairs, pp. 131–2, cat. no. 70. Marshall and Stock, Ira Aldridge, pp. 45ff. Marshall and Stock claim there were performances by Hewlett at the Royal Coburg but a search of the extant playbills from 1823 to 1825 has revealed nothing. It is possible he appeared under a stage name or he appeared anonymously (an occasional practice for newcomers to the stage both in London and the provinces). Quoted in Odell, Annals of the New York Stage: Vol. 3, 1821–34 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1928), pp. 34–7, 59–60, 70–1, 224, 228; Playbills, Royal Coburg Theatre, 10 October 1825. George A. Thompson Jr notes that Moncrieff ’s Tom and Jerry was not available in print until the late 1820s but, while the history of Moncrieff ’s imprints is not straightforward to corroborate, there were a number of other versions available, many of which overlap in their main scenes. For example, Charles Isaac Mungo Dibdin’s successful Life in London; or the Larks of Logic, Tom, & Jerry; an extravaganza in three acts of wit and whim, replete with high goes, prime chaunts, and out-and-out sprees (1822) was a popular Olympic Theatre version and there were also early piratings in Dublin and Edinburgh; Documentary

206

26. 27. 28.

29.

30. 31. 32. 33.

34.

35.

36. 37. 38.

39. 40. 41. 42.

43. 44. 45.

Notes to pages 62–7 History of the African Theatre, p. 133 and Doc 54. Given these circumstances, there is no particular reason to suppose the oral transmission route Thompson cautiously suggests. Mahar, Behind the Burnt Cork Mask, p. 102. Odell, Annals of the New York Stage: Vol. 3, 1821–34, pp. 59–60. Paul Edwards and James Walvin, Black Personalities in the Era of the Slave Trade (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1983), p. 164. Some of the Tom and Jerry promptbooks in the Harvard Theatre Collection show cast lists which also omit Billy Waters but it is difficult to apportion to them either a venue or a reliable date although it is obvious the piece was frequently played at least up to the end of the nineteenth century. Peter Bradshaw, Derby Porcelain Figures 1750–1848 (London: Faber and Faber, 1990) Cat. No. G10, pp. 412, 418019. The factory figures were produced by the craftsman Edward Keys who is known to have worked c. 1812–1826. Ibid., p. 417. Odell, Annals of the New York Stage: Vol. 3, 1821–34, p. 36. Larpent 2257, Huntington Library, California. Larpent 2257, Charles Isaac Mungo Dibdin, Life in London a Burletta in three Acts Intended for representation at the Olympic Theatre (1821); Life in London; or, The Larks of Logic, Tom, and Jerry, An Extravaganza, in Three Acts, … as performed at the Olympic Theatre … Second Edition (1822). The pagination of the first edition (1822), which was re-presented to Larpent (Larpent 2257), is slightly different, Huntington Library, California. Enclosures, one undated, signed ‘P.W’. and 17 December 1821, signed Thomas Twigg, Larpent 2262 William Thomas Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, or Life in London, Huntington Library, California. William Thomas Moncrieff, Giovanni In London: or The Libertine Reclaimed, A Grand Moral, Satirical, Comical, Tragical, Melo-Dramatical, Pantomimical, Critical, Infernal, Terrestrial, Celestial, in one word for all, Gallymaufrical-ollapodridacal Operatic Extravaganza, In Two Acts, As Performed At The Theatres Royal Drury Lane And Covent Garden. (1825), p. 21. Larpent 2313, Huntington Library, San Marino, California. See my study, The Politics of Romantic Theatricality, 1787–1832. Hans Nathan, Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Negro Minstrelsy (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962), pp. 57–8, Illustration 12; Mahar, Behind the Burnt Cork Mask, pp. 208–9. Mahar, Behind the Burnt Cork Mask, p. 102. Samuel A. Hay, African American Theatre: A Historical and Critical Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 17. William Thomas Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry: or, Life In London In 1820. A Drama. In Three Acts. From Pierce Egan’s Celebrated Work (1825), pp. 14, 33. Unidentified newspaper clipping in extra illustrated copy of anon., Memoir and Theatrical Career of Ira Aldridge, the African Roscius (c. 1850), TS 931.6, Harvard Theatre Collection, Harvard University. Downer (ed.), Memoir of John Durang, pp. 35, 37, 106. 20 May 1818, Diary of visit of Edmund Shaw Simpson, manager of Park Theatre, New York, Folger T.a. 5, Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC. John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century (London: Harper Collins, 1997), pp. 388–9. The use of arguments over the monopolistic theatres being proxies for the reform debate is discussed in my Theatric Revolution.

Notes to pages 67–9

46.

47. 48.

49.

50. 51. 52.

53.

54. 55.

56.

57. 58. 59.

207

Occasionally, non-patent houses tried to perform spoken drama, but they were doing so at considerable risk of financial penalty. Shakespeare was sometimes adapted as ‘burletta’. See, ‘a Burletta founded on the Tragedy of Hamlet’, Playbills, Royalty Theatre, 28 January 1818. See also the testimony of Charles Isaac Mungo Dibdin, Professional and Literary Memoirs of Charles Dibdin the Younger, Dramatist and Upward of Thirty Years Manager of Minor Theatres, ed. George Speaight (London: The Society for Theatre Research, 1956), pp. 112–3. John Brewer, ‘“The Most Polite Age and the Most Vicious”: Attitudes towards Culture as a Commodity, 1660–1800’, Ann Bermingham and John Brewer (eds), The Consumption of Culture 1600–1800: Image, Object, Text (London: Routledge, 1995), pp. 341–61, 348. Public Record Office Lord Chamberlain 5/ 164. fol. 75–6. A Letter to a Member of Parliament on the impropriety of classing Players with Rogues and Vagabonds in the Vagrant Act. By the Author of ‘The Vagrant Act in relation to the Liberty of the Subject’. (1824), pp. 17–18. A description of the contemporary search for legal precedent is given in Full Report of the Trial of Abraham Thornton for the Wilful Murder of Mary Ashford, at Penn’s Mills, Near Sutton Coldfield, in the County of Warwick (Birmingham, c. 1817). Trial by Battle played for fifteen nights from 11 May 1818, ten nights in the initial run and then with further performances in July, August and September. Playbills, Royal Coburg Theatre, 24 November 1823. Joe Cowell, Thirty Years Passed Among The Players In England And America: Interspersed With Anecdotes And Reminiscences Of A Variety Of Persons, Directly Or Indirectly Connected With The Drama During the Theatrical Life Of Joe Cowell, Comedian. Written By Himself (New York: 1845), pp. 48–9. The more usual suggestion is that Aldridge travelled to England as the dresser of James William Wallack (1795–1864) who became the stage manager at Drury Lane (and not, as ODNB suggests, Henry John Wallack). The source for this figure is not cited in St Clair, Reading Nation in the Romantic Period, pp. 369, 369n. Dibdin suggests box prices in London c. 1826 were 4s. with the Coburg’s extra tier sold at 3s. with the pit 2s. and gallery 1s., making a slightly different pricing formula to the one referred to by James Winston, see Charles Isaac Mungo Dibdin, History and Illustrations of the London Theatres: Comprising an Account of the Original and Progress of the Drama in England: With Historical and Descriptive Accounts of the Theatres Royal, Covent Garden, Drury Lane, Haymarket, English Opera House and Royal Amphitheatre (1826), pp. 87–8. Oroonoko was an established repertoire piece which was sporadically, rather than regularly, performed. See the provincial England broadsheet, Not Acted here these Twenty Years, on Wednesday Jan. 14th. 1807. will be Performed Southern’s celebrated play in 3 acts, called Oroonoko or The Royal Slave (Barnard Castle, 1807). Bridget Orr, Empire on the English Stage 1660–1714 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 276. Vaughan, Performing Blackness on English Stages, p. 162, see also her well contextualized discussion of Oroonoko at pp. 149–2, 155–7, 161–3, 166–7. Virginia Mason Vaughan also notices Ferriar’s Prince of Angola as an attempt to ‘arouse abolitionist sentiment, but does not comment on Ferriar’s participation in an organized Manchester movement. Ibid., p. 163.

208

Notes to pages 69–75

60. John Hawkesworth, Oroonoko: a tragedy, as it is now acted at the Theatre-Royal in DruryLane. By His Majesty’s Servants. By Thomas Southern. With alterations (1753). 61. John Ferriar, The Prince of Angola, a Tragedy, Altered from the Play of Oroonoko. And Adapted to the Circumstances of the Present Times (Manchester, 1788), p. i. 62. Ibid., p. ii. 63. Ibid., p. ii, 1. 64. Ibid., p. viii. 65. Ibid., p. ixn. 66. Nussbaum, ‘The Theatre of Empire: Racial Counterfeit, Racial Realism’, pp. 90, 90n. 67. Playbills, Royal Coburg Theatre, 14, 21, 28 November 1825. 68. Playbills, Surrey Theatre, 7 April 1823. The Fatal Coral Rock! was probably based on, Narrative of the Wreck of the Bangalore, Captain Lynch, on a coral bank, in the Indian Sea, April 12th, 1802. To which is added, A Narrative of the Loss of His Majesty’s ship Litchfield, of 50 guns, on the Coast of Barbary, 1758 (c. 1802). 69. Carolyn E. Fick, The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990), p. 2. 70. A Poetical Epistle to the King of Hayti (1817), p. 74. 71. The Times (12 May 1817). 72. A Poetical Epistle to the King of Hayti (1817), p. 34. 73. For references to the Duke of Marmalade and Count Limonade (who Christophe is alleged to have shot), see The Times (3 January, 12 May 1817). 74. Thomas Morton, The Slave; a Musical Drama, in Three Acts; as Performed at the TheatreRoyal, Covent-Garden (1816), p. 5, partially cited in Nussbaum, ‘The theatre of empire: racial counterfeit, racial realism’, pp. 86–7; William St Clair notes that Milner’s Frankenstein adaptation had a name change before settling to the one given here, The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 370; playbills, Royal Coburg Theatre, 17, 24, 31 October 1825. 75. Playbills, Surrey Theatre, 25 August 1823. Barrymore had been the first manager of the Royal Coburg so it is not inconceivable that The Foulahs! may be a piece written by him dating from that period and to which the Coburg held some kind of right or retained a copy. 76. Rede, Road to the Stage (1827), p. 38. 77. BL Add MSS 42, 887, 22 November 1827. 78. Laugh When You Can; or, The Monstrous Droll Jester … To Which is added, The Benevolent Jew, as Recited at The Royalty Theatre (c. 1800), pp. 59– 60. 79. Reynolds, Laugh When You Can, p. 9. 80. Larpent 1301, Huntington Library, California. For specimen black and Indian plaintiffs accessing the legal system, see the cases against Joshua Muns, theft, 2 July 1766; Joseph Leidman, theft with violence, 29 March 1792; William Price, Richard Riggins, theft with violence, 14 January 1801, The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, Refs. t17660702–26; t17920329–38; t18010114–10. 81. There is no reason to think The Death of Christophe is an authorial manuscript. John Payne Collier bought all of Larpent’s licensing manuscripts, hoping to find authorial texts, before realizing they were the work of the playhouses scribes, An Old Man’s Diary, Forty Years Ago; For The First Six Months Of 1832 (London: Thomas Richards 1871), p. 49. 82. By ‘serious pantomime’, Rede probably means the semi-illicit form of ‘spoken pantomime’.

Notes to pages 76–84

209

83. Rede, Road to the Stage (1827), pp. 62–3. 84. For the British version of events, see The Times (16 May 1795). For the pedagogic importance of Brown’s King Shotaway, see Jacqueline Wood, ‘Enacting Texts: African American Drama, Politics, and Presentation in the African American Literature Classroom’, College Literature, 32:1 (2005), pp. 103–28. 85. James C. Cross, Songs, Choruses, &c. In King Caesar; or, the Negro Slaves: A New Grand Spectacle, In Two Parts Performed at the New Royal Circus, for the first Time, On Wednesday, September 16, 1801 (1801), p. 11. 86. Playbills, Royal Coburg Theatre, 3 June 1822. 87. Ibid. 88. Playbills, Royal Coburg Theatre, 20 November 1821. 89. Thompson Jr, Documentary History of the African Theatre, Doc 59 p. 144. 90. Playbills, Royal Coburg Theatre, 20 November 1821. 91. J. M. Bennett, Thirteen Year’s Labour Lost; or The Force of Nature: (From the French) as Performed at the Royal Coburg and Royalty Theatres … to which is added The Comic Duet of ‘Jemmy and Jerry’, Also, the popular Song of ‘Go It Jerry’ (1822), pp. 18–22. Joseph Ebsworth, The Two Prisoners of Lyons; or, the Duplicate Keys. A Melo-Drama, in Three Acts. Altered from the French of M.M. Benjamin, Saint Amant and Paulyanthe (1824); Joseph Ebsworth Ourika, the Orphan of Senegal. A … Drama, in One Act translated from the French (Edinburgh, 1828); Joseph Ebsworth Rouge et Noir: or, Whigs and Widows. A Farce in Two Acts (c. 1841). Ebsworth is sometimes also attributed as the author of Crockery’s Misfortunes; or, Transmogrifications. A Burletta, In One Act. Performed for the First Time, on Monday, July 11th, 1821, At the Royal Cobourg Theatre (1821) but William Thomas Moncrieff may have been a major collaborator in this piece. 92. Playbills, Royal Coburg Theatre, 14 November 1825.

4 Islamic India Restored 1. 2.

3.

4. 5.

6.

7. 8.

Playbills, Royal Coburg Theatre, 14, 21, 28 November 1825. For another account of Hyder Ali and Tippoo Saib, see Daniel O’Quinn, Staging Governance: Theatrical Imperialism in London, 1770–1800 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), pp. 312–48. The most comprehensive introduction to this period, with a wealth of visual material, is Anne Buddle, with Pauline Rohatghi and Iain Gordon Brown, The Tiger and the Thistle: Tipu Sultan and the Scots in India, 1760–1800 (Edinburgh: National Gallery of Scotland, 1999). Linda Colley, Captives: Britain, Empire and the World 1600–1850 (London: Jonathan Cape, 2002), p. 297. El Hyder was sufficiently popular in Stamford to receive two performances in 1828 and another the following year, playbills, Theatre, Stamford, 22, 29 August 1828, 6 April 1829. Francis Robson, The Life of Hyder Ally: With An Account of His Usurpation of the Kingdom of Mysore, And Other Contiguous Provinces. To which is annexed, A Genuine Narrative of the Sufferings of the British Prisoners of War, Taken by His Son, Tippoo Saib (1786), p. 28. Playbill, Royal Coburg Theatre, 16 November 1818. The British Stage, and Literary Cabinet, 4 December 1818, p. 292; The Inspector, A Weekly Dramatic Paper, 9 January 1819, p. 7.

210 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

23. 24. 25. 26.

27. 28.

29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

34. 35. 36. 37.

Notes to pages 84–90 William Barrymore, El Hyder: The Chief of the Ghaut Mountains. A Grand Eastern Melodramtic Spectacle, in Two Acts [1818], Lacy’s Acting Edition of Plays (1852), vol. 6, p. 25. The Inspector, A Weekly Dramatic Paper, 9 January 1819, p. 7. N. A. M. Rodger, The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain 1649–1815 (London: Allen Lane, 2004), p. 356. Colley, Captives: Britain, Empire and the World, p. 276. Barrymore, El Hyder, pp. 16, 25. Ibid., p. 7. Ibid., p. 3. Ibid., p. 4. Ibid., p. 5. Ibid., pp. 8–9. Ibid., p. 6. Ibid., pp. 10, 13. Ibid., p. 8. Addresses presented by the Inhabitants of Madras, Bombay and Calcutta to the Governor General, congratulating him on the Successful Termination of the fourth Mysore War (Calcutta, 1799), p. 8. Ibid., p. 8. Barrymore, El Hyder, p. 22. Ibid., pp. 4, 9. Charles Stewart, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Oriental Library of the Late Tippoo Sultan of Mysore. To which are Prefixed, Memoirs of Hyder Aly Khan, and his Son Tippoo Sultan (Cambridge, 1809), pp. 1, 33–4. Ibid., p. v. Official Documents Relative to the Negotiations Carried on by Tippoo Sultaun, With the French Nation, and Other Foreign States, For Purposes Hostile to the British Nation; To Which is Added, Proceedings of a Jacobin Club, Formed at Seringapatam, by the French Soldiers In the Corps Commanded by M. Dompart: With a Translation (Calcutta, 1799), p. 190. Ibid., p. 187. Ibid., p. 192. Ibid., p. 188. Ibid., p. 171. Tippoo’s Defeat, Duet & Chorus sung at the Anniversary Meeting of the Gentlemen of the East India House, Aug: 13, 1792 Written by Ephraim Epigram, Esq. The Music by Dr. Arne. (1792). Anon, Wonderful News from Seringaptam, 18 May 1792 (Lewis Walpole Library, Connecticut). James Gillray, Scotch-Harry’s News, or Nincumpoop in High Glee. Vide. News from India… 23 May 1792. Colley, Captives: Britain, Empire and the World, pp. 310, 323. Mark Lonsdale, The Overture Favorite Songs & Finale In the Musical Entertainment of Tippoo Saib as performed with universal applause at the Sadlers Wells Theatre The Words by Mr. Lonsdale The Music Composed by W. Reeve (1792), pp. 14–15; for a picture of Dighton in the role O’Neal, see the extra illustrated R. Humphreys, Memoirs Of J. Decastro, Comedian … Accompanied By An Analysis Of The Life Of The Late Philip Astley, Esq.

Notes to pages 90–9

38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

43. 44. 45. 46.

47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68.

211

… Also An Accompanying History Of The Royal Circus, Now The Surrey Theatre (1824), Huntington Library, California, Call no. 16130. The Coming-On, of the Monsoons, or the Retreat From Seringapatam, 6 December 1791. Mark Lonsdale, The Overture Favorite Songs & Finale In the Musical Entertainment of Tippoo Saib, pp. 18–19. From sweet Tipperary to pick up some honor. Good bye Mr. Tippoo. A favorite song sung by Mr. Johannot at the Royal Amphitheatre Peter Street (Dublin, 1800) Playbills, Theatre Royal, York, 29 July 1800. James Cobb, Songs, Duets, Trios, and Finales in Ramah Droog, or, Wine Does Wonders; A Comic Opera in Three Acts. As Performed at the Theatre-Royal, Covent-Garden (1798), p. 17. BL, Shelfmark: P1054. At the end of its London showing the panorama went on to Edinburgh, The Times (25 August 1800). Edward Wedlake Brayley, Historical and Descriptive Accounts of the Theatres of London (1826), pp. 41, 43. Four Theatrical Addresses: Upon the Providential Preservation of His Majesty’s Life, At Drury-Lane Theatre. Upon the Preliminaries of Peace. Upon the Opening of the New Theatre at Warwick. And a Farewell Epilogue (Alcester, 1801), p. 11. Playbill, Royal Coburg Theatre, 22 June 1818. Crockery’s Misfortunes; or, Transmogrifications. A Burletta, In One Act. Performed for the First Time, on Monday, July 11th, 1821, At the Royal Cobourg Theatre (1821), pp. 2, 4. Colley, Captives: Britain, Empire and the World, p. 300. H. M. Milner, Tippoo Saib; or, The storming of Seringapatam : A drama, in three acts: adapted to Hodgson’s theatrical characters and scenes in the same (c. 1825), p. 5. Ibid., p. 6. Ibid., p. 6. Ibid., p. 12. Ibid., pp. 9–10. Ibid., p. 10. Ibid., p. 11. Ibid., pp. 11–12. Ibid., p. 13. Ibid., p. 14. Ibid., p. 22. Barrymore, El Hyder, p. 2. Playbills, Royal Coburg Theatre, 16 November 1818; The Drama; or, Theatrical Pocket Magazine. For October 1821 p. 303. Barrymore, El Hyder, p. 25. Milner, Tippoo Saib, p. 24. Ibid., p. 24. Colley, Captives: Britain, Empire and the World, Fig. 60, pp. 294–5. Milner, Tippoo Saib, p. 24. Copies and Extracts of Advices To and From India, Relative to the Cause, Progress, and Successful Termination of the War with the Late Tippoo Sultaun, Chief of Mysore; the Partition of his Dominions in Consequence Thereof; and the Distribution of the Captured Property Found in Seringapatam … Printed for the Use of the Proprietors of the East-India Stock (1800), p. 277.

212

Notes to pages 99–103

69. Ibid., p. 275. 70. Ming Wilson, ‘Chinese Fantasies of Europe’, Anna Jackson and Amin Jaffer, Encounters: The Meeting of Asia and Europe 1500–1800 (London: V&A Publications, 2004), p. 353. 71. David Powell, William West and the Regency Toy Theatre (London: Sir John Soane’s Museum, 2004), p. 44. 72. The Inspector, A Weekly Dramatic Paper (9 January 1819). 73. John Jackson, The History Of The Scottish Stage, From Its First Establishment To The Present Time; With A Distinct Narrative of Some Recent Theatrical Transactions. The Whole Necessarilu Interspersed With Memoirs Of His Own Life (Edinburgh 1793), p. 376–8. 74. Waterfield, French and Craske (eds), Below Stairs, p. 149. 75. Jane Cartwright, 16 September 1795, The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, Ref. t17950916– 43. The 28-year-old Cartwright was convicted and transported. 76. James Henry Lawrence, Dramatic Emancipation, or Strictures on the State of the Theatres, And the Consequent Degeneration of the Drama; On the Partiality and Injustice of the London Managers; on Many Theatrical Regulations; And on the Regulations on the Continent For the Security of Literary and Dramatic Property, Particularly Deserving the Attentions of the Subscribers for a Third Theatre (1813), p. 380. 77. For the earlier history of the Royalty Theatre, see Watson Nicholson, The Struggle for a Free Stage in London (London: Archibald Constable, 1906), ch. 5, ‘The Royalty Theatre’, pp. 98–123; Jane Moody, Illegitimate Theatre in London, 1770–1840 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 21–5; Worrall, Theatric Revolution. 78. Andrew Newman, George Wiggins, burglary, 5 December 1821, The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, Ref: t18211205–5. 79. A Very Plain State of the Case, or The Royalty Theatre Versus the Theatres Royal (1787). 80. Thomas Thirlwall, Royalty Theatre. A Solemn Protest Against The Revival Of Scenic Exhibitions And Interludes, At The Royalty Theatre; Containing Remarks On Pizarro, The Stranger, And John Bull; With A Postscript (1803); John Percival, A Few Observations in Defence of the Scenic Exhibitions at The Royalty Theatre, and on the Intolerant Censure of The Drama in General; Contained in the ‘Solemn Protest’ of The Rev. Tho. Thirlwall, M.A. (1804). 81. Edward W. Brayley, ‘ Historical View of the Rise and Progress of the East India Company … together with a Description of East India House, and Accounts of the Company’s Warehouses, and of the East India Docks’, E. W. Bramley et al., A Topographical and Historical Description of London and Middlesex, 5 vols (1814), vol. 2, pp. 771–2. 82. Bill of sale, 13 June 1820, East London Theatre, and East London Gas Works, Royalty Theatre Clippings, Harvard Theatre Collection. 83. These developments are beyond parameters of Peter Linebaugh’s The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1991). 84. Resolutions of the General Court of Proprietors of East-India Stock, Relative to An Application to Parliament For a Renewal of Their Exclusive Privilege (1813), p. 10. 85. William Ingram, theft, 9 September 1818, The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, Ref: t18180909–305. 86. Diana McFall, pick pocketing, 6 April 1826, The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, Ref: t18260406–168. 87. The Drama; or, Theatrical Pocket Magazine. For October 1821, pp. 302–3.

Notes to pages 103–9

213

88. Laugh When You Can; or, The Monstrous Droll Jester … To Which is added, The Benevolent Jew, as Recited at The Royalty Theatre (c. 1795–8), pp. 59–60. 89. For Jews in the vicinity of The Royalty Theatre, plus the occupations of several Royalty staff appearing as witnesses, see Jacob Cohen and Nathan Nathan (alias Phillips), burglary, 10 January 1816, The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, t18160110–62. 90. Lascars and Chinese. A Short Address to Young Men, of the Several Orthodox Denominations, of Christians, Pointing out to them a sphere of great utility, probable usefulness, and where their services are much wanted (1814), p. 4. 91. Report from the Select Committee respecting Lascars, and other Asiatic Seamen, 1814– 15, vol. 3, 471/217. 92. Thomas Roebuck, English and Hindoostanee naval dictionary of technical terms and sea phrases, as also the various words of command given in working a ship, &c. with many sentences of great use at sea : to which is prefixed a short grammar of the Hindoostanee language : the whole calculated to enable the officers of the Hom. East-India Company’s and county service, to give their orders to the lascars with that exactness and promptitude, which upon many occasions, must prove of the greatest importance (1813). 93. James Scurry, Captivity, Sufferings, and Escape, of James Scurry, who was Detained A Prisoner During Ten Years, In the Dominions of Hyder Ali and Tippoo Saib (1824), n.p. 94. John Howard Payne, The Fall of Algiers. A Comic Opera, In Three Acts … As now Performed at the Theatres-Royal, London (1825), p. 6. 95. John Howard Payne, The Fall of Algiers, A New Opera, In Three Acts. The whole of the Music composed by Mr. H. R. Bishop. First Performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, January 19, 1825 (1825). Iain McCalman, Radical Underworld: Prophets, Revolutionaries and Pornographers in London, 1795–1840 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 213–15. 96. British Library Add MS 42869. 97. The Times (6 November 1819).

5 The North African Islamic States on the British and American Stage 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Louis B. Wright and Julia H. Macleod, The First Americans in North Africa: William Eaton’s Struggle for a Vigorous Policy Against the Barbary Pirates, 1799–1805 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1945). Quoted in Robert C. Davis, Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500–1800 (Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), p. 25. Office of Naval Records and Library, USA, Naval documents related to the United States wars with the Barbary powers ... : Naval operations including diplomatic background ... Published under direction of the ... Secretary of the Navy / Prepared by the Office of Naval Records and Library, Navy Department, under the supervision of Captain Dudley W. Knox, U.S. Navy (ret.), 6 vols (Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1939–44); Richard Bordeaux Parker, Uncle Sam in Barbary: A Diplomatic History (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2004). Mathew Carey, A Short History of Algiers, With a Concise View of the Origin of the Rupture Between Algiers and the United States. Third Edition, Improved (New York, 1805), p. 74. Royalty Theatre clippings, unidentified newspaper clipping, 19 October 1801, Harvard Theatre Collection, Harvard University.

214 6. 7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17.

18.

19.

20.

Notes to pages 110–13 Humphreys, Memoirs Of J. Decastro, Comedian, p. 50. The Times (25 August 1800). The Times (20 November 1800). The Times (9 May 1801). See also, Douglas Castle, or, The Cell of Mystery: A Scottish Tale. On which was founded the popular spectacle of The Iron Tower, performed, with unbounded applause, at Astley’s Amphitheatre, Westminster Bridge (c. 1805); James Sanderson, The Gen’rous Robber, sung … in the Grand Caledonian Spectacle Romance called The Iron Tower or The Cell of Mystery the poetry by Mr. Upton (c. 1805). Rodger, Command of the Ocean, pp. 468–71. The Times (19 August 1801). Playbills, Royal Circus, 9 April 1804; Astley’s Amphitheatre, 1st October 1808, nd 1809. In the BL there are two editions of this work, suggesting – ironically – that Hone may have pirated this work himself. PRO Home Office 40/9. David Everett, Slaves in Barbary. A Drama in Two Acts, in Caleb Bingham, The Columbian Orator: Containing a Variety of Original and Selected Pieces; Together with Rules Calculated to Improve Youth and Others in the Ornamental and Useful Art of Eloquence (Boston, 1817), pp. 102–118, 118. An Essay on the Rights and Duties of Nations, Relative to Fugitives of Justice; Considered with Reference to the Affair of the Chesapeake (Boston, 1807), p. 61. There were many attempts at reconciliation between the United States of America and the Barbary powers, many of which led to Acts of Congress, see Treaty with Morocco, 28 June and 15 July 1786; Treaty with Algeria, 5 September 1795; Treaty with Tripoli, 4 November 1796 and at Algiers 3 January 1797; Treaty with Tunis 28 August 1797; Treaty with Tripoli 4 June 1805; Treaty with Algieria 30 June and 3 July 1815; Treaty with Algeria, 22 and 23 December 1816; Treaty with Tunis, 24 February 1824; Treaty with Morocco 16 September 1836, Hunter Miller (ed.), Treaties and Other International Acts of the United States of America (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1931), vol. 2. Documents 1–40. Biographical and Descriptive Sketches of the Whole Length Composition Figures, and other Works of Art, Forming the Unrivalled Exhibition of Madame Tussaud, (Niece to the Celebrated Courcis of Paris,) And Artist to Her late Royal Highness Madame Elisabeth, Sister to Louis XVIII (Birmingham, 1823), pp. 14, 24. James Jennings, Description of Lord Exmouth’s Attack Upon Algiers, On the 27th of August, 1816; Painted by Henry Aston Barker; Now Exhibiting In His Panorama, Leicester-Square (1818), p. 3. The Triumph of Justice; Or British Valour Displayed In the Cause of Humanity. Being an Interesting Narrative of the Recent Expedition to Algiers: Comprehending A faithful account of every circumstance connected with that Victorious Enterprise; So glorious in itself, and so Important in its consequences to the Feelings and Interests of Great Britain, and the Maritime World at large. Illustrated with A Geographical Description of the kingdom of Algiers; and Interspersed with many affecting relations of the cruelties exercise by those barbarians on their unfortunate captives (Manchester 1816), p. iv. See also what appears to be a separate edition, The Triumph of Justice; Or British Valour Displayed In the Cause of Humanity. Being an Interesting Narrative of the Recent Expedition to Algiers: … Illustrated with a Geographical Description of the kingdom of Algiers; … Embellished with two … engravings (Manchester, 1816).

Notes to pages 114–17

215

21. Trevor Fawcett, The Rise of English Provincial Art: Artists, Patrons, and Institutions outside London, 1800–1830 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), pp. 154–5. 22. Playbills, Theatre, Hull, 2 July 1827. Details of the ownership and identity of this company are written in hand on the BL copy of the playbill for 25 June 1827. The owner, Mr. Maffey, then took over the Argylle Room in London where it is likely the same spectacles were shown again. 23. British Valour displayed in the Cause of Humanity: Being a Description of Messrs. Marshalls’ Grand Marine Peristrephic Panorama of the Bombardment of Algiers: Illustrative of the most Interesting Events of that Victorious Enterprise So Glorious In Itself, and so Important in its Consequences to The Interests of Great Britain, And the Maritime World at Large. Now Exhibiting at [sic] Painted under the Direction of Capt. Sir J. Brisbane, K.B. from Drawings made on the Spot by eminent Naval Officers … Sixteenth Edition (Bury St Edmunds, 1823), pp. 22–4, 27–31. 24. Abraham Salamé, A Narrative of the Expedition to Algiers In the Year 1816, Under the Command of the Right Hon. Admiral Lord Viscount Exmouth (1819), pp. xli–xlvi. 25. Thomas Brown, theft, 18 September 1820, Proceedings of the Old Bailey, Ref. t18200918– 81. 26. James Thompson, theft with violence, 13 January 1819, Proceedings of the Old Bailey, Ref. t18190113–85. 27. The Imperial Magazine (Liverpool) (30 June 1819), pp. 346–50. 28. Thomas Lurting, The Fighting Sailor Turned Peaceable Christian: Manifested in the Confinement and Conversion of Thomas Lurting. With a Short Relation of many great Dangers, and wonderful Deliverances, he met with First Written for Private Satisfaction, and Now Published for General Service (Leeds, 1816), pp. v, 26, 32. Linda Colley notes the several eighteenth and nineteenth-century reprints of Lurting’s work but fails to observe that much of the account is Lurting’s narrative of Pattison’s alleged experiences, Captives: Britain, Empire and the World, pp. 89, 382. 29. John Kingdon, Redeemed Slaves: Being a Short Narrative of Two Neapolitans Redeemed from Slavery on the Coast of Barbary, And carried Home to their Friends at Naples on the Christian Shore (Bristol, c. 1780), pp. 7, 8, 13. 30. James Cobb, The Strangers At Home; A comic opera, in three acts. As performed at the Theatre Royal, in Drury Lane (1786), pp. 9–11; see also Nandini Bhattacharya, ‘James Cobb, colonial cacophony, and the Enlightenment’, Studies in English Literature 1500– 1900 41:3 (2001), pp. 583–603. 31. James Cobb, Songs, &c. In the Strangers at Home: A Comic Opera, In Three Acts. As performed at the Theatre-Royal, Drury-Lane. (1786), p. 3. 32. James Cobb, Songs, Duets, Trios, and Finales in Ramah Droog, or, Wine Does Wonders; A Comic Opera in Three Acts. As Performed at the Theatre-Royal, Covent-Garden (1798), p. 3; for a passing reference to Cobb’s work in the East India Company office, see William Wynne Ryland, deception: forgery, 26 July 1783, Proceedings of the Old Bailey, Ref. t17830706–1. 33. John Adolphus, Memoirs of John Bannister, Comedian (1839), vol. 1 p. 131. 34. Assuming about two thirds full Drury Lane houses at around two thousand five hundred persons per night. 35. Isaac Bickerstaff, The Captive, a Comic Opera; As it is Perform’d At the Theatre-Royal in the Hay-Market (1769), p. 5. 36. Larpent 2396, Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

216

Notes to pages 117–20

37. William Dimond, Native Land; or, the Return from Slavery. An Opera in Three Acts, As Performed at The Theatre-Royal, Covent-Garden … February 10, 1824 (1824), pp. 31, 33. 38. The Times (5 February 1824). 39. The Times (11 February 1824). 40. Robert J. Allison, The Crescent Obscured: The United States and the Muslim World 1776– 1815 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 3. See also Glenn Tucker, Dawn Like Thunder: The Barbary Wars and the Birth of the U.S. Navy (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1963); Frank Lambert, The Barbary Wars: American Independence in the Atlantic World (New York: Hill and Wang, 2005). 41. James, Cradle of Culture 1800–1810, p. 49. 42. Playbill, Theatre, Newport, Rhode Island, 29 May 1794; Charles Dibdin, Blow High Blow Low. The Words. And Music … As Sung by Mr. Rheingold. In the Seraglio. & Mr. Bannister. In Thos. & Sally (1776). 43. Charles S. Watson, Antebellum Charleston Dramatists (Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1976), pp. 7–8. 44. The ketch was almost certainly the armd ketch, Mastico, sold to the Tripolitans by France but captured by Lt Stephen Decatur on 23 December 1803 which was then converted and entered into US Navy service as the USS Intrepid. 45. Cited in Odell, Annals of the New York Stage: Vol. 2, 1798–1821 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1927), p. 229. 46. Thomas Morton, Columbus: or, A World Discovered. An historical play. As it is performed at the Theatre-Royal, Covent-Garden (1792), pp. i, 5. 47. Ibid., p. 33. The last play the Tripolitans were taken to was another performance of Blue Beard paired with Isaac Jackman’s farce, All the World’s a Stage (1777); Odell, Annals of the New York Stage: Vol. 2, 1798–1821, p. 230. 48. Royall Tyler, The Algerine Captive; or, the Life and Adventures of Doctor Updike Underhill: Six Years a Prisoner Among the Algerine (Walpole, New Hampshire: 1797), vol. 1, pp. 175, 182–5, 189–93. 49. Ibid, vol. 2, pp. 163. 50. Historical Memoirs of Barbary, As Connected with the Plunder of the Seas; Including a Sketch of Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis, An Account of the various Attacks made upon them by several States of Europe; Considerations of the Their Present Means of Defence; and the Original Treaties Entered into with them by King Charles II. (1816), p. 98. 51. Ibid., p. 98. 52. Ibid., pp. 98–9. 53. Stephen Cleveland Blyth, History of the War Between the United States and Tripoli, And Other Barbary Powers. To which is Prefixed, A Geographical, Religious and Political History of the Barbary States in General (Salem, MA, 1806), p. 3. 54. Jonathan S. Smith, The Siege of Algiers; or, The Downfall of Hadgi-Ali-Bashaw. A Political, Historical, and Sentimental Tragi-Comedy, In Five Acts (Philadelphia, 1823), p. 4. 55. Blyth, History of the War Between the United States and Tripoli, p. 66. 56. James Ellison, The American Captive, Or Siege of Tripoli. A Drama in Five Acts (Boston, 1812), pp. 18–19. 57. Ibid., n.p. 58. Ibid, p. 18.

Notes to pages 121–5

217

59. Anthony Benezet, Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Dispositiion of Its Inhabitants. With An Inquiry into the Rise and Progress of the Slave Trade, Its Nature, and Lamentable Effects (1788), pp. 59, 60. 60. Ellison, The American Captive, p. 37. 61. Robert J. Allison, The Crescent Obscured: The United States and the Muslim World 1776– 1815 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 121–3. 62. Ellison, The American Captive, pp. 37–8. 63. Everett, Slaves in Barbary, p. 111. 64. James Workman, Libery in Lousiana; A Comedy, Performed at the Charleston Theatre (Charleston, 1804), pp. 5, 102–3. 65. Mathew Carey, A Short History of Algiers, With a Concise View of the Origin of the Rupture Between Algiers and the United States. Third Edition, Improved (New York, 1805), pp. 102–3, 106. 66. William Ray, Horrors of Slavery: or, The American Tars in Tripoli … Written during Upwards of Nineteen Months Imprisonment and Vassalage Among the Turks (Troy, NY, 1808), p. 61. Similar fault lines also run through Ray’s Poems, On Various Subjects, Religious, Moral, Sentimental and Humorous (Auburn, 1821), several of which relate his Tripoli captivity experiences. The Troy published, Humanity in Algiers: or, The Story of Azem. By an American, Late a Slave in Algiers (Troy, NY, 1801), although it is a fictional redemption narrative, refers to ‘our former depradations on the coasts of Africa’, implying the end of trafficking in slavery while acknowledging ‘the cruel manner in which we at present treat the offspring of those whom we brought from thence’ (p. 3). 67. James Riley, An Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the American Brig Commerce, Wrecked on the Western Coast of Africa, in the Month of August, 1815. With an Account of the Suffering of her Surviving Officers and Crew, Who were Enslaved By the Wandering Arabs on the Great African Desart, or Zahahrah (New York, 1817), p. 302. 68. Riley, Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the American Brig Commerce, pp. 532–3. 69. Ibid., pp. 530–1 70. Elizabeth Maddock Dillon, ‘Slaves in Algiers: Race, Republican Genealogies, and the Global Stage’, American Literary History, 16:3 (2004), pp. 407–36. 71. Thomas Clark Pollock, The Philadelphia Theatre in the Eighteenth Century Together with the Day Book of the same period (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1933), pp. 61, 221. 72. Sussana Haswell Rowson, Slaves in Algiers; or, A Struggle for Freedom: A Play Interspersed with Songs, in Three Acts. As Performed at the New Theatres, in Philadelphia and Baltimore (Philadelphia, 1794), pp. 3–4. 73. James Fennell, An Apology for the Life of James Fennell. Written by Himself (Philadelphia, 1814), p. 330. Several documents signed by ‘Moore’ can be seen in BL Add MS 16,922. For the context of Reeves, see A. V. Beedell, ‘John Reeve’s Prosecution for a Seditious Libel, 1795–6: A Study in Political Cynicism’, The Historical Journal 36:4 (1993), pp. 799–824. Perhaps understandably, Fennell makes no reference to the Rowson prologue in his memoir. 74. Rowson, Slaves in Algiers, pp. 8–9. 75. Ibid., p. 9. 76. The American in Algiers, Or the Patriot of Seventy-Six in Captivity. A Poem, in Two Cantos (New York, 1797), pp. 15, 25.

218

Notes to pages 125–30

77. John Swanwick, A Rub from Snub; or, A Cursory Analytical Epistle: Addressed to Peter Porcupine, Author of the Bone to Gnaw, Kick for a Bite, &c. &c. Containing, Glad Tidings for the Democrats, and a Word of Comfort to Mrs. S. Rowson (Philadelphia, 1795), p. 78. 78. Rowson, Slaves in Algiers, pp. 68–9. 79. Everett, Slaves in Barbary, p. 118. 80. James Ellison, The American Captive, Or Siege of Tripoli. A Drama in Five Acts (Boston, 1812), p. 44. 81. Ibid., p. 51. 82. Ibid., p. 51. 83. Ibid., p. 51. 84. The American in Algiers, pp. 7, 9. 85. Ibid., p. 9. 86. The Times (9 June 1800). 87. Ellison, The American Captive, p. 12–13. 88. Jonathan S. Smith, The Siege of Algiers; or, The Downfall of Hadgi-Ali-Bashaw. A Political, Historical, and Sentimental Tragi-Comedy, In Five Acts (Philadelphia, 1823), pp. 3, 8. 89. Ibid., p. 138. 90. Ibid., pp. 139–40. 91. Ibid., p. 23. 92. Rowson, Slaves in Algiers, p. 17. A printed note in the text announces that Rowson did not compose Hassan’s song. 93. Ibid., p. 8, Smith, Siege of Algiers, p. 25. 94. Eyles Irwin, The Bedouins, or, Arabs of the Desert. A Comic Opera, in Three Acts. As It was Performed at the Theatre-Royal, Dublin (Dublin,1802), pp. vi, 58. 95. Joseph Hanson, The Mussulmen Humbled; or, A Heroic Poem, In Celebration of the Bravery, Displayed by the American Tars, in the Contest with Tripoli … The undaunted PREBLE; (like the glorious Baron of the Nile!) leads on the WESTERN TARS (New York, 1806), pp. 28–9. See also, S.S. Sandhu, ‘Ignatius Sancho and Laurence Sterne’, Research in African Literatures, 29:4 (1998), pp. 88–103. 96. James, Cradle of Culture 1800–1810, p. 60. 97. Ibid., pp. 48, 55–6, 65; Sodders, ‘The Theatre Management of Alexandre Placide in Charleston, 1794–1812’, vol. 2, pp. 579, 615. 98. James, Cradle of Culture 1800–1810, p. 17; Larpent Manuscript 1267, Huntington Library, San Marino, California. 99. The Thespian Mirror (New York) No. X 1st March 1806 pp. 77–8. 100. Reese D. James, Old Drury of Philadelphia: A History of the Philadelphia Stage 1800– 1835 Including the Diary or Daily Account Book of William Burke Wood, Co-Manager with William Warren of the Chesnut Street Theatre, Familiarly know as Old Drury (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1932), pp. 2, 19. 101. Ibid., pp. 655, 677. 102. Quoted in James, Cradle of Culture 1800–1810, pp. 60, 67–8. 103. James, Old Drury of Philadelphia, p. 116. 104. Sodders, ‘The Theatre Management of Alexandre Placide in Charleston, 1794–1812’, vol. 2, p. 615. 105. Dibdin, Reminiscences of Thomas Dibdin, vol. 2 pp. 132–3. 106. For representative advertising, see The Times (8, 12 August, 21 September 1816). 107. Larpent MS 1942, Huntington Library, San Marino, California; The Slave; A Musical Drama, in Three Acts; As Performed at the Theatre-Royal, Covent-Garden (1816); Tho-

Notes to pages 130–4

219

mas Morton, Airs, Duets, Chorusses, &c. In The Slave; A New Musical Drama, In Three Acts; First Performed at the Theatre-Royal, Covent-Garden, Tuesday, November 12, 1816 (1816). Ira Aldridge performed in a version of The Slave re-titled as Ethiopian, or the Quadroon of the Mango Grove at the Royal Coburg in 1825. 108. The Times (1 March 1824). 109. The incoming flow of news and information to which Payne would have had access, is available in The Times (1, 8, March, 14, 24 April, 18 August 1824). 110. John Howard Payne, The Fall of Algiers. A Comic Opera, In Three Acts … As now Performed at the Theatres-Royal, London (1825), p. 7. 111. The Times, wrongly, attributed The Fall of Algiers to Charles Edward Walker (21 January 1825). Payne’s first biographer also missed this piece from his census of his works, only including it in the second edition, Gabriel Harrison, John Howard Payne Dramatist, Poet, Actor and Author of Home, Sweet Home Life and Writings (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1885), vol. 2, p. 396. 112. BL Add MS 42869. 113. Payne, The Fall of Algiers, p. 46. 114. BL Add MSS 27716, Sir Henry Rowley Bishop, The Fall of Algiers: Grand Opera, in Three Acts; Performed at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane January 19th 1825. 115. Playbills, 17 March 1825, New Theatre, Bridgenorth; James Winston, Theatric Tourist Manuscript, Harvard Theatre Collection, Harvard University, Folio 19. 116. Playbills, Royal Coburg Theatre, 27 December 1824. 117. The Times (7, 14 July 1830). 118. A Letter to Henry Brougham, Esq. M.P. Upon the Fall of Algiers, And the Civilization of Africa (1830), pp. 3, 5. 119. Ibid., p. 7. 120. The Times (22 July 1830). 121. Will soon close, French revolution of 1830. Original largest rotunda, upper end of the Mound. Messrs. Marshall ... intimate to the nobility and the public, that they will soon close their new panorama of a correct representation of the late revolution in Paris ... together with their highly interesting panorama of Sydney, Botany Bay, and the late French seige of Algiers (Edinburgh, c. 1830). 122. Both are advertised in The Times (30 July 1830), and both ran for some weeks. 123. Playbills, Theatre Du Petit Lazary De Paris, Hull, 2 July 1827. 124. C. A. Somerset, Duncombe’s Edition: The Fall of Algiers! By Sea and Land! A Drama, In Two Acts (1830), p. XX. 125. Ibid., p. 10. 126. Ibid., p. 10; for prisoner experiences, see James Forbes, Letters from France written in the years 1803 and 1804, including a particular account of Verdun (1806); John Henry Lawrence, The Englishman at Verdun; or the Prisoner of Peace, a drama in five acts (1813); R. B. Wolfe, English Prisoners in France, containing observations on their manners, and habits principally with reference to their religious state, during nine years’ residence in the depots of Fontainebleau, Verdun, etc (1830). 127. C.A. Somerset, Duncombe’s Edition: The Fall of Algiers! By Sea and Land! A Drama, In Two Acts (1830), pp. 3, 7. 128. Ibid., pp. 22, 25–6. 129. For the role of visiting performances at farmhouses, see Alan Brody, The English Mummers and their Plays: Traces of an Ancient Mystery (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), pp. 14–17.

220

Notes to pages 135–41

130. H. E. Fox Strangways, The Silverton Mummers’ Rhymes, Thomas Fairman Ordish Collection, Folklore Society, The Warburg Institute, University College London, 1889 or 1900. 131. Ibid. A shamanistic role for the mumming play Doctor has been put forward, see E.T. Kirby, Ur-Drama: The Origins of Theatre (New York: New York University Press, 1975). 132. Picken was also the printer of the firmly dated, Thomas Unwin, Facts and observations of the dangers and difficulties attending the loss of a ship’s rudder : together with a description of an improved plan of a temporary rope rudder, and for removing the existing difficulties, and affording ships the means, within themselves, of making this temporary rope rudder at sea (Devonport, 1833). 133. Picken’s Edition: an Entire New Christmas Play, Entitled the Battle of Algiers (Devonport, c. 1830), p. 3. 134. Ibid., pp. 5, 10. 135. Vaughan, Performing Blackness on English Stages, pp. 8–9. 136. Brody, English Mummers and their Plays, pp. 23–8 and plate 8.

6 Pacific Pantomimes 1. 2. 3.

The Times (22 October 1799). Playbills, Theatre Royal, Norwich, 8, 10, 12, 14, 19, 21, 22, 24 April, 1 May 1790. Milhouse, ‘The economics of theatrical dance in eighteenth-century London’, pp.481– 508. 4. Sybil Rosenfeld, Georgian Scene Painters and Scene Painting (Cambridge: Cambridge Univerity Press, 1981), p. 87, plate 38. 5. Anna Seward, Elegy on Captain Cook. To which is added, an Ode to the Sun (1780), (?) Alexander Schomberg, An Ode to the Memory of Captain James Cook … By a sea officer (Dublin, 1780), William Fitzgerald, An Ode to the Memory of the late Captain James Cook (1780), Michelangiolo Gianetti, Elogio del Capitano G. Cook letto da M. G. nella pubblica Adunanza della Reale Accademia Fiorentina. (Elegy of Captain James Cook ... translated into English by a member of the Royal Academy of Florence R. M. (Firenza, 1785); The Death of Captain Cook’s first Covent Garden performance was 16 March 1789 with twenty one performances by 13 May 1789. 6. Playbills, New Theatre, Greenwich Street, New York, New York, 2 October 1797; Sodders, ‘The Theatre Management of Alexandre Placide in Charleston, 1794–1812’, vol. 2, 12, 17 March 1806. 7. Downer (ed.), Memoir of John Durang, p. 70. Reese Davis James records two performances of The Death of Captain Cook in Philadelphia during the period covered by his study, Cradle of Culture 1800–1810 (p. 129). 8. Downer (ed.), Memoir of John Durang, p. 87. 9. Jean-François Arnould-Mussot, La Mort du Capitaine Cook … pantomime en quatre actes, etc. (Paris, 1788); Jean-François Arnould-Mussot, The Death of Captain Cook; a grand serious-pantomimic-ballet in three parts, etc. (1789). The first Covent Garden performance was 16 March 1789. Details of the mid-century configuration of the Norwich circuit, which varied from year to year, can be found in Sybil Rosenfeld, Strolling Players and Drama in the Provinces 1660–1765, pp. 74–8. 10. Playbills, Theatre Royal, Norwich, 2, 8 July 1789; 8, 12, 14, 19, 21, 22, 24 April, 1st May 1790; Theatre, Bungay, 12 June 1790; Theatre, Yarmouth 9 August, 1790. The dates should be considered as a minimum list of performances.

Notes to pages 141–5 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16.

17. 18.

19. 20. 21.

22.

23. 24.

25.

26.

27. 28.

221

R. Humphreys, Memoirs Of J. Decastro, Comedian, p. 55. Ibid., pp. 40–7. Ibid., p. 53. James, Cradle of Culture 1800–1810, p. 129. 26, 29 January, 2 February, 26 November, 1 December 1790 Theatre Royal Hull; 11, 20, 26 March, 8 May 1790, 11 March 1791 Theatre Royal, York; 2, 9,10 July 1790 Theatre, Leeds; 16, 20, 26, August 1790 Theatre, Pontefract; 21, 24 September 1790 Theatre, Wakefield;16, 20 October 1790 Theatre, Doncaster, see Fitzsimmons and McDonald (eds), The Yorkshire Stage 1766–1803. Jean-François Arnould-Mussot, La Mort Du Capitaine Cook, A Son Troiseme Voyage Au Nouveau Monde. Pantomime en Quatres Actes; Par M. Arnould. Représenté, pour la première sois sur let Théâtre de l’Ambigu-Comique, au mois d’Octobre 1788 (Paris, c. 1788), p. 4; Humphreys, Memoirs Of J. Decastro, Comedian, p. 53. Humphreys, Memoirs Of J. Decastro, Comedian, p. 55. Jean-François Arnould-Mussot, The Death of Captain Cook; A Grand Serious-Pantomimic-Ballet, In Three Parts. As now Exhibiting in Paris with uncommon Applause With The original French Music, New Scenery, Machinery, and other Decorations. As Performed at the Theatre-Royal, Covent-Garden (1789), pp. 12–13. John Adolphus, Memoirs of John Bannister, Comedian (1839), vol. 1, p. 157. Arnould-Mussot, Death of Captain Cook, pp. 15–16. Anne Salmond, The Trial of the Cannibal Dog: Captain Cook in the South Seas (London: Allen Lane, 2003). References are to the Penguin edition (London: Penguin, 2004), pp. 395–414. Anne Salmond summarizes the various versions of the background concerning the reasons for Cook’s death before concluding that ‘It was a cross-cultural combination of foreces that killed him’ (Ibid., pp. 414–16). Arnould-Mussot, Death of Captain Cook, p. 17. Rudiger Joppien, ‘Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg’s Pantomime “Omai, or, a Trip round the World” and the Artists of Captain Cook’s Voyages’, T. C. Mitchell (ed.), The British Museum Yearbook: Captain Cook and the South Pacific (London: British Musuem Publications, 1979), pp. 81–137. Arnould-Mussot, Death of Captain Cook, p. 10; John Hawkesworth, An Account of the Voyages Undertaken By the Order of His Present Majesty For making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere (1773), vol. 2, p. 183. Sydney Parkinson, A Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas, in his Majesty’s Ships, The Endeavour Faithfully transcribed from the papers of the late Sydney Parkinson, draughtsman to Joseph Banks, Esq. on his late expedition, with Dr. Solander, round the world (1773), pp. 100–1. Arnould-Mussot, Death of Captain Cook (1789), p. 18. ‘Perches’, is a term used for any long pole or stake. Rüdiger Joppien and Bernard Smith point out that Parkinson’s drawings adopted in the ‘Morai … in the Island of Yoolee-Etea’ plate, much of the Western mid-eighteenth century pictorial iconography of death in Arcadia seen in paintings such as Richard Wilson’s Ego fui in Arcadia (Earl of Strafford, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1755) where Parkinson’s wooden boards echo the positioning of a distant turret in a classical landscape in the Wilson picture, The Art of Captain Cook’s Voyages: Vol.1: The voyage of the Endeavour, 1768–1771 with a descriptive catalogue of all the known original drawings ... and the

222

29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

38. 39. 40.

41. 42.

43. 44.

45.

46.

47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

Notes to pages 145–9 original engravings associated with them (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1985), pp. 32–3, plates 31, 32, 33. Hawkesworth, Account of the Voyages Undertaken By the Order of His Present Majesty, vol. 2, p. 166. Humphreys, Memoirs Of J. Decastro, Comedian, p. 55. Ibid., p. 53; Parkinson, Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas, plate 6. Arnould-Mussot, Death of Captain Cook , p. 7. Hawkesworth, Account of the Voyages Undertaken By the Order of His Present Majesty, vol. 2, p. 97 and plate IX. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 206. Christopher B. Balme, ‘Sexual Spectacles: Theatricality and the Performance of Sex in Early Encounters in the Pacific’, Drama Review, 44 (2000), pp. 67–85. Hawkesworth, Account of the Voyages Undertaken By the Order of His Present Majesty, vol. 2, p. 270. ‘For want of a sufficient knowledge of their language, we could not learn the subject of this interlude’, George William Anderson, A New, Authentic, and Complete Collection Voyages Round the World, Undertaken and Performed by Royal Authority (1784), p. 41. Ibid., p. 136. Ibid., p. 41. James L. Hevia, ‘Diplomatic Encounters: Europe and East Asia’, Anna Jackson and Amin Jaffer, Encounters: The Meeting of Asia and Europe 1500–1800 (London: V&A Publications, 2004), p. 95 and Cat. No. 7.3. Anderson, New, Authentic, and Complete Collection Voyages Round the World, pp. 447– 8. Ibid., p. 478; see also, John Rickman, Journal of Captain Cook’s last voyage to the Pacific Ocean, on Discovery; performed in the years 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779 … second edition (1781), pp. 100–1. Joppien and Smith (eds), The Art of Captain Cook’s Voyages: Vol. 1, pp. 51–2, 67. See the following chapters which usefully summarize problematics within the earlier essays in the volume, Peter Hanns Reill, ‘Seeing and understanding: a commentary’ and Ingjerd Hoëm, ‘The Scientific endeaor and the natives’, David Philip Miller and Peter Hanns Reill (eds), Visions of Empire: Voyages, Botany, and Representations of Nature (1996), pp. 293–301, 305–25. Alessandro Duranti, ‘Mediated encounters with Pacific cultures: three Samoan dinners’, David Philip Miller and Peter Hanns Reill (eds), Visions of Empire: Voyages, Botany, and Representations of Nature (1996), pp. 326–34. John Hamilton Moore, A New and Complete collection of Voyages: containing all that have been remarkable from the earliest period to the present time; ... with an account of the rise and progress of navigation among the various nations of the earth ... comprehending an extensive system of geography, describing, in most accurate manner, every place worthy of notice in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America (1778), p. 161. Hawkesworth, Account of the Voyages Undertaken By the Order of His Present Majesty, vol. 1, p. 117. Anderson, New, Authentic, and Complete Collection Voyages Round the World, p. 153. Kevin Salatino, Incendiary Art: The Representation of Fireworks in Early Modern Europe (Los Angeles: Getty Institution for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1997). The Times (1 July 1794). Anderson, New, Authentic, and Complete Collection Voyages Round the World, p. 431.

Notes to pages 150–3

223

52. James, Cradle of Culture 1800–1810, p. 27; Deborah Sampson, An Address, Delivered with Applause, At the Federal-Street Theatre, Boston, Four Successive Nights of the Different Plays, Beginning March 22, 1802; And After, At Other Principal Towns, a Number of Nights Successively At Each Place … Published at the Request of the Audiences (Dedham, MA: 1802), pp. iii–iv. See also the ‘grand historical spectacle’ of The Soldier’s Festival, or, Night Before the Battle, Playbills, Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, 13 May 1800, and Deborah Sampson, The Female Review: or, Memoirs of an American Young Lady; Whose Life and Character are Peculiarly Distinguished – Being a Continental Soldier, for nearly Three Years, in the Late American War. During Which Time She Performed her duties of every department, into which she was calle,d with punctual exactness, fidelity and honor, and preserved her chastity inviolate, by the most artful concealment of her sex (Dedham, MA: 1797). 53. Anderson, New, Authentic, and Complete Collection Voyages Round the World, p. 452. 54. Hawkesworth, Account of the Voyages Undertaken By the Order of His Present Majesty, vol. 2, pp. 87–8. 55. Ibid., vol. 2 p. 295. 56. Anne Salmond, The Trial of the Cannibal Dog: Captain Cook in the South Seas (London: Allen Lane, 2003). References are to the Penguin edition (London: Penguin, 2004), p. 72. 57. Hawkesworth, Account of the Voyages Undertaken By the Order of His Present Majesty, vol. 2, pp. 135–6. 58. ‘If any islands yet remain undiscovered, the author of this poem hopes they will continue so; or, at least, until the morals of Europe shall be changed for the better’, The cave of Neptune: with notes (1784), pp. 63, 64. 59. O’Quinn, Staging Governance, ch. 2: ‘As Much as Science Can Approach Barbarity: Pantomimical Ethnography in Omai; or, A Trip round the World, pp. 74–114; see pp. 77, 98, 103. 60. Cited, E. H. McCormick, Omai: Pacific Envoy (Auckland: Auckland University Press, Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 118. 61. R. Humphreys, The Memoirs Of J. Decastro, Comedian (1824), p. 55; Playbills, Theatre Royal, Norwich, 2 July 1789. 62. Joppien, ‘Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg’s Pantomime “Omai, or, a Trip round the World” and the Artists of Captain Cook’s Voyages’, pp. 81–137; O’Quinn, Staging Governance, pp. 92, 96. 63. The Choice of Harlequin; or, The Indian Chief. A Pantomimical Entertainment; in Two Parts; As it is Acted with the highest Applause, at The Theatre Royal, Covent Garden (1782), p. 20. 64. Ibid., pp. 21–3. 65. Thomas John Dibdin, Prospectus, &c. of the New Splendid Pantomime Called Harlequin Harper; Or A Jump from Japan; As Performed at the Theatre-Royal, Drury-Lane (1813), pp. 12, 17. 66. O’Brien, Harlequin Britain, pp. 127–37. 67. A Short Account Of The New Pantomime Called Omai, or, A Trip round the World; Performed At The Theatre- Royal In Covent - Garden. With the Recitatives, Airs, Duetts, Trios And Chorusses; And A Description Of The Procession. The Pantomime, and the Whole of the Scenery, designed and invented by Mr. Loutherbourg. The Words written by Mr. O’Keeffe [sic]; And the Musick composed by Mr. Shields (1785), pp. 8–9. 68. Dibdin, Prospectus, &c. of the New Splendid Pantomime Called Harlequin Harper, p. 21.

224

Notes to pages 153–60

69. O’Quinn, Staging Governance, pp. 93–4. 70. O’Keefe, Recollections of the Life of John O’Keefe, vol. 2 p. 115. 71. O’Keefe also saw, but did not meet, Cherokees in London in 1762 (Recollections of the Life of John O’Keefe, vol. 2, pp. 45–6); see also Mary Whately Clarke, Chief Bowles and the Texas Cherokees (Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1971). 72. George Colman the Younger, Random Records (1830), vol. 1, p. 163. 73. O’Keefe, Recollections of the Life of John O’Keefe, vol. 2, p. 115. 74. John O’Keefe, The Dramatic Works, 4 vols (1798), vol. 2, p. 366. 75. Larpent 880, Huntington Library, California. The performance text probably escaped prosecution by virtue of its apparently being a reduction of the licensed copy. 76. O’Keefe, Dramatic Works, vol. 2, p. 339. 77. Larpent 608, Huntington Library, California. 78. A Short Account Of The New Pantomime Called Omai, p. 4. 79. O’Quinn, Staging Governance, p. 101. 80. Larpent 715, Huntington Library, California. 81. Ibid. Hurly-Burly’s first performance was 26 December 1785. 82. Larpent 715, Huntington Library, California. 83. That Cobb was by then in a senior Company office, probably an Assistant Secretary, is evidenced by his role in counter-signing bills, see William Wynne Ryland, forgery, 26 July 1783, The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, Ref. t17830726–1. 84. 1788. The Theatrical Register. Containing Candid and Impartial Strictures on the Various Performances at the Theatre-Royal, York Interspersed with Occasional Remarks by Obliging Correspondents (York, 1788), p. 45. 85. John Bebb, Two Letters: One to the Honourable Court of Directors of the East-India Company; Dated 22April, 1813; And One to James Cobb, Esq. Dated 23rd April, 1813 (1813), p. 48. 86. O’Quinn, Staging Governance, pp. 340–1. 87. The Examiner deleted the ‘Country Girl’ passage, Larpent 715, Huntington Library, California. 88. Their three-dimensional nature are best shown in Rüdiger Joppien, ‘Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg’s Pantomime “Omai, or, a Trip round the World” and the Artists of Captain Cook’s Voyages’, pp. 81–137, plates 55 and 56. 89. O’Quinn, Staging Governance, p. 98, figs. 2.6, 2.7. 90. As with Abercrombie, melons were still sometime classified as cucumbers. 91. A Short Account Of The New Pantomime Called Omai, p. 10; see the review from the Town and Country Magazine of December 1785 quoted in O’Quinn, Staging Governance, p. 102. 92. A Short Account Of The New Pantomime Called Omai, p. 14; Larpent 608, Huntington Library, California. 93. In The Islanders, Dibdin’s shipwrecked Spanish colonists survive by ‘driving out some of the Savages, and making Slaves of the rest’, Larpent 537, Huntington Library, California. 94. Larpent 752, Huntington Library, California. 95. A Short Account Of The New Pantomime Called Omai, p. 8. 96. William Dimond, The Sea-Side Story, An Operatic Drama … Covent Garden (1801), p. 9. 97. Thomas John Dibdin, Songs, Chorusses, &c. In the New Pantomime of Harlequin’s Tour; or, The Dominion of Fancy …, Covent-Garden (1800), p. 9.

Notes to pages 160–6

225

98. Thomas Hudson, Hudson’s Comic Songs (c. 1825), p. 5. 99. Mathews’s Trip to Paris; or, the Dramatic Tourist; … and Delivered by him at the English Opera House … Taken in Short-hand, and Dedicated to Dandy Cockney, Esq (1819), p. 13. 100. Charles Isaac Mungo Dibdin, Songs and Other Vocal Compositions, in the Pantomime, called Jan Ben Jan; or, Harlequin and the Forty Virgins. Performing at the Aquatic Theatre, Sadler’s Wells (1807), p. 9. 101. The meaning of a ‘twee’ is either a tweezer (‘a twee that won’t leave a grey hair in your brow’) but also implying a ‘twee’, a box for fine or small instruments (i.e. tweezers in a box), see OED. 102. William Shield, Omai or a Trip round the World: a pantomime performed … at the Theatre Royal Covent Garden set to music by Wm. Shield; NB. The words written by J. O’Keefe Esqr (1786), p. 29. 103. The gambling scene is set on Covent Garden piazza, with Harlequin ending up in Bridewell, The Choice of Harlequin; or, The Indian Chief (1780), pp. 12–15; Larpent 580, Huntington Library, California. 104. The Times (6 July 1785). 105. The Daily Advertiser (8 September 1785). 106. Larpent 716, Huntington Library, California. 107. HM 19926, vol. 2, folio 5, verso, Huntington Library, California. 108. A Short Account Of The New Pantomime Called Omai, p. 11. 109. Hardwick Lewis, An excursion to Margate, in the month of June, 1786: interspersed with a variety of anecdotes of well-known characters (1787), pp. 22–3. 110. Larpent 752, Huntington Library, California. 111. A Short Account Of The New Pantomime Called Omai, p. 7. 112. Larpent 713, Huntington Library, California. 113. Anthony Pasquin [i.e. John Williams] makes no comment on Edwin’s Omai role, The Eccentricities of John Edwin, Comedian. Collected from His Manuscripts, and enriched with Several Hundred Original Anecdotes, 2 vols (1791). 114. O’Quinn, Staging Governance, p. 99; Larpent 713, Huntington Library, California. 115. For a recognition of the Otaheitean Traveller as a ‘nigger’ minstrelsy song, see Roger Fiske, ‘A Covent Garden Pantomime’, The Musical Times, 104 (1963), pp. 574–6. 116. A Short Account Of The New Pantomime Called Omai, pp. 16, 20, 23. 117. Rede, Road to the Stage (1827), p. 38. 118. In both examples, the intention was to provide the paler appearance of fright: see Rede, Road to the Stage (1827), p. 39. 119. For a typical case then going through the courts, see John Nicholson Inglefield, New Annals of Gallantry: containing a complete collection of all the genuine letters which have passed between Captain Inglefield and Mrs. Inglefield (1785), Ann Inglefield, Mrs. Inglefield’s Justification, containing the proceedings in the Ecclesiastical Court … 1785 (1787), Ann Inglefield, The Aguments in Counsel in the Ecclesiastical Court, in the Cause of Inglefield (1787); A Short Account Of The New Pantomime Called Omai, p. 16. 120. Hans Nathan, Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Negro Minstrelsy (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962), pp. 25–7. 121. A Short Account Of The New Pantomime Called Omai, p. 15. 122. Anderson, New, Authentic, and Complete Collection Voyages Round the World, p. 452. 123. Moore, New and Complete collection of Voyages, p. 161. 124. O’Quinn, Staging Governance, pp. 83–5, Fig. 2.1.

226

Notes to pages 166–173

125. Larpent 715, Huntington Library, California. 126. A Short Account Of The New Pantomime Called Omai, p. 10. 127. Larpent 715, Huntington Library, California. 128. The Dramatic Censor; or, Weekly Theatrical Report, 4 January 1800, p. 13. 129. O’Quinn, Staging Governance, p. 101. 130. Larpent 608, Huntingon Library, California. 131. Harlequin Incendiary: or, Columbine Cameron. A Musical Pantomime. As it is Perform’d at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane (1746), p. 19. 132. Ibid., p. 23. 133. Larpent 713, Huntington Library, California. 134. HM 36695, John Larpent to James Winston 29 December 1819, Huntington Library, California. 135. John Britton, Sheridan and Kotzebue. The Enterprising Adventures of Pizarro (1799), p. 130. 136. Larpent 608, Huntington Library, California. 137. For a full discussion and reproductions of the drawings, see Joppien, ‘Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg’s Pantomime “Omai, or, a Trip round the World” and the Artists of Captain Cook’s Voyages’, pp. 81–137. 138. Abrege de la Doctrine de Paracelse (Paris 1724), Aureum Vellus et Theophrasti Paracelci (Hamburg, 1708), Ebenezer Sibly, A Key to Physic, and the Occult Sciences. Opening to mental view, the System and order of the Interior and Exterior Heavens; the Angalogy betwixt Angels and Spirits of Men … To which are added Lunar Tables, etc. (c. 1800), Peter Coxe, A Catalogue of the all the Valuable drawings & c. of James Philip de Loutherbourg Esq R.A. , 18 June 1812 … And Extensive Library of Scarce Books. 139. Christopher Baugh, Garrick and Loutherbourg (Cambridge and Alexandria, VA: Chadwyck-Healey, 1990) 48. 140. A Catalogue of the Very Curious, Extensive, and Valuable Library of Richard Cosway, Esq. R.A. … at Mr Cosway’s late Residence, No. 20 Stratford Place, on Friday 8th June …1821. 141. Marcia Pointon, Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formatioin in EighteenthCentury England (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993) Fig. 5, p. 41. 142. Henry Austin Dobson, At Prior Park and Other Papers (London: Chatto & Windus, 1912) 95.

7 Colonists, Convicts, Settlers and Natives 1.

2.

3. 4. 5. 6.

George Taylor, The French Revolution and the London Stage, 1789–1805 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Worrall, Theatric Revolution; The Times (30 July 1789). Augustus Von Kotzebue, La Perouse, A Drama, in Two Acts. From the German of Augustus Von Kotzebue; by Benjamin Thompson, Translator of The Stranger, As Performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane (1799); Houtou De La Labillardière, An Account of a Voyage In Search Of La Pérouse, Undertaken by Order of the Constituent Asembly of Fance, and Performed in the Years 1791, 1792, and 1793, In the Recherche and Espérance, Ships of War, Under the Command of Rear-Admiral Bruni D’Entrecasteaux, 2 vols (1800). Von Kotzebue, La Perouse, p. 37. Ibid., p. 39. Ibid., p. 40. HM 19926 vol. 1 folio 3 recto, Huntington Library, California.

Notes to pages 173–8 7. 8. 9.

10. 11.

12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17.

18. 19. 20. 21.

22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

227

Larpent 1313, Huntington Library, California. The second performance of Perouse; or, The Desolate Island was announced in The Times (2 March 1801). John Fawcett, Songs, Choruses, &c. in Perouse: Or the Desolate Island. A Pantomimical Drama in Two parts, Performed a the Theatre Royal Covent Garden. To Which is Prefixed, A Prospectus of the Action (1801), p. 3. Cf. Playbills, Covent Garden, 30 May 1811 et al. W. Mercier, The Life of La Perouse, the celebrated and unfortunate French Navigator. Containing an Account of his Voyage, Shipwreck, & subsequent Adventures in a Desolate Island, on the Northern Coast of Japan; where he was discovered by Madame La Perouse, Who embarked on board a Vessel which was sent in search of him by the French Government … On which is founded, the popular pantomimical Drama of Perouse; or, The Desolate Island, Performing, with unbounded applause, at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden; An Accurate Description of Which, Including the Song, Duet, Chorusses, &c. is also added (1801), p. 59. Fawcett, Songs, Choruses, &c. in Perouse, pp. 11–12. Mercier, The Life of La Perouse, p. 60. Fawcett, Songs, Choruses, &c. in Perouse, p. 4. John Moorhead and George Colman the Younger, The Favourite Indian Ballad … in La Perouse … arranged for the harp or piano forte (1801). Larpent 1313, Huntington Library, California. The insertion of Umba’s song into the licensing copy is presumably Norwich’s recognition that it had not yet been licensed for performance. Conversely, contemporary reviewers such as Thomas Dutton, editor of The Dramatic Censor, knew and cared little about Fawcett’s production or its precarious source in Kotzebue, his tell-tale quibbles about narrative probability and its vague recommendations of various actors probably signalling he worked from the printed sketch and playbills without seeing it, The Dramatic Censor; or, Monthly Epitome of Taste, Fashion, and Manners, April 1801, pp. 133–9. Larpent 1313, Huntington Library, California. Mercier, The Life of La Perouse, p. 64. The Times (16, 29 December 1815). Interesting Narratives and Discoveries, Including the Life of James Bruce, Esquire; Travels in South Africa, by J. Barrow, Esq. Discovery of an English Colony on Pitcairn’s Island, in the South Sea; Maurice Griffiths Discovery of a Nation of Welshmen in the Interior of America; and an Original Description of the Island of St. Helena, From the Journal of a Naval Officer (Shrewsbury, 1817). Larpent 1918, Huntington Library, California. Interesting Narratives and Discoveries, Including the Life of James Bruce, Esquire, p. 53. Larpent 1918, Huntington Library, California. Ibid. Ibid. Dibdin, Reminiscences of Thomas Dibdin, vol. 2, p. 91. Larpent 1301, Larpent 1788, Huntington Library, California. Worrall, Politics of Romantic Theatricality. Larpent 1918, Huntington Library, California. The anonymous editor’s ‘Remarks’ for the Richardson edition of Van Diemen’s Land! are dated 10 May 1831. Moncrieff had edited another Richardson edition dating his notes,

228

32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

40. 41. 42. 43.

44. 45.

46.

47. 48.

49. 50.

Notes to pages 178–81 9 August 1832, cf. George Almar, The Rover’s Bridge; or, The Bittern’s Swamp! A Drama, in Two Acts … With Copious Remarks, Critical and Explanatory, By W. T. Moncrieff (c. 1832). All textual references are to the Cumberland edition unless otherwise noted. On Giovanni in London and Tom and Jerry and their spinoffs, see my Politics of Romantic Theatricality, 1787–1832. Larpent 2281, Huntington Library, California. The Drama; or, Theatrical Pocket Magazine, March 1822, p. 208. The Times advertised the Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa exhibit on 15 June 1820 and the opening of Moncrieff ’s Shipwreck of the Medusa on 19 June 1820. Stephan Oeettermann, The Panorama: History of a Mass Medium (New York: Zone Books, 1997), pp. 131–2. Playbills, Surrey Theatre, 11 February 1830. The Times (6 October 1828). The Times (20 April 1824). On Stansfield’s Drury Lane career, see P.T. van der Merwe, The Spectacular Career of Clarkson Stanfield, 1793–1867: Seaman, Scene-Painter, Royal Academician (Gateshead: Tyne and Wear County Council Museums, 1979). The Times (27 December 1828). William Thomas Moncrieff, Van Diemen’s Land! An Operatic Drama, In Three Acts (London: Thomas Richardson, c.1831), p. vi. Augustus Earle (1793–1838), Panorama of Hobart (c. 1826) watercolour and pencil, Library of New South Wales. The Times (20 December 1828); Robert Burford, Description of a view of the Town of Sydney, New South Wales … Now exhibiting in the Panorama Painted by the Proprietor (1829). The Times (5, 19 January 1829). William Kingdom, Jr, America and the British colonies : An abstract of all the most useful information relative to the United States ... Canada, the Cape of Good Hope, New South Wales, and Van Diemen’s island (1820); Thomas Reid, Two Voyages to New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land, with a Description of the Present Condition of that Interesting Colony: Including Facts and Observations Relative to the State and Management of Convicts of Both Sexes. And Reflections on Seduction and Its General Consequences (1822); Robert Mudie, The Picture of Australia: Exhibiting New Holland, Van Diemen’s Land, and all the Settlements, From the First at Sydney to the Last at the Swan River (1829); Henry Widowson, Present State of Van Diemen’s Land; … comprising an Account of its Agricultural Capabilities … and … Important Matters connected with Emigration (1829). James Henry Lawrence, Dramatic Emancipation, or Strictures on the State of the Theatres, And the Consequent Degeneration of the Drama; On the Partiality and Injustice of the London Managers; on Many Theatrical Regulations; And on the Regulations on the Continent For the Security of Literary and Dramatic Property, Particularly Deserving the Attentions of the Subscribers for a Third Theatre (1813), p. 380. Horace Foote, A Companion to the Theatres; and Manual of The British Drama (1829) 148. The Times (19 March 1831); Burford, Description of a View of Hobart Town, Van Diemen’s Land, and the Surrounding Country. The pamphlet contained an engraved frontispiece key to the panorama. BL Add MS 42869. Moncrieff, Van Diemen’s Land!, pp. viii–x.

Notes to pages 181–90

229

51. Although The History of New South Wales cannot with certainty be ascribed to Barrington, his name appears on its title page and Moncrieff would have aware of his links to theatricality, including his appearance as Jaffeir in Thomas Otway’s Venice Preserv’d. 52. BL Add MS 33, 964 fol. 299. 53. Moncrieff, Van Diemen’s Land!, p. 11–12. 54. Peter Cunningham, Hand-Book of London (1850). 55. Moncrieff, Van Diemen’s Land!, p. 18. 56. Ibid., p. 10, 13. 57. Ibid., p. 8, 10, 13, 14. 58. Ibid., p. 9, 22, 31. 59. Ibid., p. 20. 60. Ibid., pp. 20–1. 61. Ibid., pp. 28–9. 62. Ibid., pp. 30. 63. J.M.W. Turner, Hackfall, near Ripon, watercolour and gum varnish on paper (Wallace Collection, (c. 1816); The River Ure at Hackfall, near Ripon, watercolour on paper (Private Collection, c. 1816); The Tourist’s Companion; Being a Concise Description and History of Ripon … Hackfall … &c. Intended as a Guide to Persons Visiting those Places … Fifth Edition (Ripon, 1828). 64. Moncrieff, Van Diemen’s Land!, p. 36n. 65. Ibid., pp. 17, 36, 46, 49. 66. Larpent 2325, licensed as Who Kill’d the Dog; or, Harlequin’s Triumph, Huntington Library, California. 67. BL Add MSS 29905, 3, 22, 28 January 1852. 68. Moncrieff, Van Diemen’s Land!, p. viii. 69. Ibid., pp. 37, 57. 70. Ibid., p. 37. 71. Ibid., pp. 38, 42. 72. Ibid., p. 52. 73. Ibid., p. 52. 74. Coleman, Romantic Colonization and British Anti-Slavery, pp. 194–8. 75. Moncrieff, Van Diemen’s Land!, p. 61.

Conclusion 1.

2. 3.

John Henry, A School for Soldiers; or, The Deserter. A Dramatic Piece in Four Acts. Performed in the Island of Jamaica (Kingston, Jamaica: 1783), p. 10, MS Huntington Library copy. The Times (23 June, 1 July, 6 October 1794). Larpent 1037, Huntington Library, California.

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Manuscripts British Library, Additional Manuscripts: 27716; 29905;33,964; 42869; 42,887. Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC: Folger T.a. 5. Harvard Theatre Collection and Houghton Library Manuscripts; James Winston and Daniel Havell, The Theatric Tourist, 2 vols, call no. TS 1335.211. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, California: Huntington Manuscripts 19926, vols 1 and 2; 36695. Larpent Collection, Larpent 400, 537, 580, 608, 703, 713, 715, 716, 752, 782, 880,1037,1267, 1301, 1313,1352, 1695,1788,1918,1942, 2257, 2262, 2281, 2313, 2325, 2396. Public Record Office, Kew, Home Office 40/9; Lord Chamberlain 5/164. Warburg Institute, University College, London, Thomas Fairman Ordish Collection, Folklore Society.

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—, The American Heroine, A Pantomime, In Three Acts … Originally performed at the Theatre of L’Ambigu-Comique (Philadelphia, 1797). —, L’Héroïne Américaine, Ou Inkle et Zarika, Pantomime en trios actes, de Mr. Arnould, remise au Théâtre, avec des additions, par Mr. Corsse, le mardi 12 avril 1808 (Paris, c. 1808). Barrymore, William, El Hyder: The Chief of the Ghaut Mountains. A Grand Eastern Melo-dramtic Spectacle, in Two Acts [1818], Lacy’s Acting Edition of Plays (1852). Bebb, John, Two Letters: One to the Honourable Court of Directors of the EastIndia Company; Dated 22nd April, 1813; And One to James Cobb, Esq. Dated 23rd April, 1813 (1813). Bedford, Paul, Recollections and Wanderings of Paul Bedford. Facts, Not Fancies (London: Strand Printing and Publishing, 1867). Benezet, Anthony, Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Dispositiion of Its Inhabitants. With An Inquiry into the Rise and Progress of the Slave Trade, Its Nature, and Lamentable Effects (1788). Bennett, J. M., Thirteen Year’s Labour Lost; or The Force of Nature: (From the French) as Performed at the Royal Coburg and Royalty Theatres … to which is added The Comic Duet of ‘Jemmy and Jerry’, Also, the popular Song of ‘Go It Jerry’ (1822). Bickerstaff, Isaac, The Captive, a Comic Opera; As it is Perform’d At the TheatreRoyal in the Hay-Market (1769). Biographical and Descriptive Sketches of the Whole Length Composition Figures, and other Works of Art, Forming the Unrivalled Exhibition of Madame Tussaud, (Niece to the Celebrated Courcis of Paris,) And Artist to Her late Royal Highness Madame Elisabeth, Sister to Louis XVIII (Birmingham, 1823). Blyth, Stephen Cleveland, History of the War Between the United States and Tripoli, And Other Barbary Powers. To which is Prefixed, A Geographical, Religious and Political History of the Barbary States in General (Salem, MA, 1806). Bramley, E.W., et al., A Topographical and Historical Description of London and Middlesex, 5 vols (1814). Brayley, Edward Wedlake, Historical and Descriptive Accounts of the Theatres of London (1826). A Brief Memoir and Theatrical Career of Ira Aldridge, The African Tragedian (c. 1854). The Bristol Riots, Their Causes, Progress, and Consquences (Bristol, 1832).

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British Valour displayed in the Cause of Humanity: Being a Description of Messrs. Marshalls’ Grand Marine Peristrephic Panorama of the Bombardment of Algiers: Illustrative of the most Interesting Events of that Victorious Enterprise So Glorious In Itself, and so Important in its Consequences to The Interests of Great Britain, And the Maritime World at Large. Now Exhibiting at [sic] Painted under the Direction of Capt. Sir J. Brisbane, K.B. from Drawings made on the Spot by eminent Naval Officers … Sixteenth Edition (Bury St Edmunds, 1823). Britton, John, Sheridan and Kotzebue. The Enterprising Adventures of Pizarro, Preceded by a Brief Sketch of the Voyages and Discoveries of Columbus and Cortez: To which are Subjoined The Histories of Alonzo and Cora, On which Kotzebue founded his two celebrated Plays of The Virgin of the Sun and The Death of Rolla. Also Varieties and Oppositions of Criticisms on The Play of Pizarro: With Biographical Sketches of Sheridan and Kotzebue. The Whole Forming a Comprehensive Account of those Plays and the Grand Ballads of Cora,– and Rolla and Cora, At the Royal Circus, and Royal Amphitheatre (1799). Broughton, Thomas, Serious Advice and Warning to Servants, More especially Those of the Nobility and Gentry, 4th edn (1763). Burford, Robert, Description of a view of the Town of Sydney, New South Wales … Now exhibiting in the Panorama Painted by the Proprietor (1829). —, Description of a View of Hobart Town, Van Diemen’s Land, and the Surrounding Country, Now Exhibiting at the Panorama, Strand, painted by the Proprietor. Painted from drawings by Augustus Earle (1831). Calamity at Richmond, Being a Narrative Of the affecting circumstances attending the Awful Conflagration of the Theatre, in the city of Richmond, On the Night of Thursday, the 26th of December, 1811. By which, more than Seventy of its valuable Citizens suddenly lost their lives, and many others were greatly injured and maimed … And Accompanied with a Preface, Containing appropriate Reflections, calculated to awaken the attention of the public, to the frequency of the destruction of Theatrical Edifices (Philadelphia, 1812). Carey, Mathew, A Short History of Algiers, With a Concise View of the Origin of the Rupture Between Algiers and the United States. Third Edition, Improved (New York, 1805). A Catalogue of the Very Curious, Extensive, and Valuable Library of Richard Cosway, Esq. R.A. Consisting of A numerous Collection of early Works on Divinity, History, Poetry, Fine Arts, an unusual assemblage of Treatise on Magic, Necromancy, Apparitions, Vampires, &c. &c. a variety of Miscellaneous Literature, and about 50 Lots of most excellent Manuscript Music.

Works Cited

235

Among the same will be found, a fine copy of Lavater, in russia [sic]. – Macklin’s Bible, fine impressions of the plates, – Mauntfaucon’s Anitiquities, 7 vols. folio. – Bowyer’s Hume. – Comforte agasnste trybulacyon Wynkyn de Worde, 1499. – Prediche di Savanarola 1496, etc etc … Mr Stanley at Mr Cosway’s late Residence, No. 20 Stratford Place, on Friday 8th June … 1821. The cave of Neptune: with notes (1784). Cawdell, James, The Miscellaneous Poems of J. Cawdell, Comedian: … to which is annexed An Answer to a late libellous Compilation called The Stockton Jubilee (Sunderland: 1785). Chaigneau, William, The history of Jack Connor ... second edition, 2 vols (1753). The Choice of Harlequin; or, The Indian Chief. A Pantomimical Entertainment; in Two Parts; As it is Acted with the highest Applause, at The Theatre Royal, Covent Garden (1782). Cobb, James, Songs, &c. In the Strangers at Home: A Comic Opera, In Three Acts. As performed at the Theatre-Royal, Drury-Lane. (1786). —, The Strangers At Home; A comic opera, in three acts. As performed at the Theatre Royal, in Drury Lane (1786). —, Songs, Duets, Trios, and Finales in Ramah Droog, or, Wine Does Wonders; A Comic Opera in Three Acts. As Performed at the Theatre-Royal, CoventGarden (1798). Collier, John Payne, An Old Man’s Diary, Forty Years Ago; For The First Six Months Of 1832 (London: Thomas Richards 1871). Colman, George, the Younger, Inkle and Yarico: an opera, in three acts. As performed at the Theatre-Royal in the Hay-Market, On Saturday, August, 11th, 1787 (Dublin, 1787). —, Inkle and Yarico, An Opera. As Performed at the Theatre in Boston (Boston, MA: 1794). —, The Iron Chest: A Play; in Three Acts. Written by George Colman, the Younger. With a Preface. First represented at the Theatre-Royal, in DruryLane, On Saturday, 12th March, 1796 (1796). —, Observations On The Notice Of A Motion To Rescind Certain Powers Of His Majesty’s Lord Chamberlain. (1829). —, Random Records (1830). Colman, George, the Younger and Stephen Storace, Down by the river there grows a Green Willow: A Favourite Song, Sung by Sigra. Storace, in the Iron Chest (1796).

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A Concise Statement of the Awful Conflagration of the Theatre, in the City of Richmond; Which Happened on the Night of Thursday The 26th December last, Wherein the Governor, and upwards of seventy of its most respectable inhabitants were consumed, and many others very much injured (1812). Cook, Dutton, On the Stage. Studies of Theatrical History and the Actor’s Art, 2 vols (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington, 1883). Copies and Extracts of Advices To and From India, Relative to the Cause, Progress, and Successful Termination of the War with the Late Tippoo Sultaun, Chief of Mysore; the Partition of his Dominions in Consequence Thereof; and the Distribution of the Captured Property Found in Seringapatam … Printed for the Use of the Proprietors of the East-India Stock (1800). Cowell, Joe, Thirty Years Passed Among The Players In England And America: Interspersed With Anecdotes And Reminiscences Of A Variety Of Persons, Directly Or Indirectly Connected With The Drama During the Theatrical Life Of Joe Cowell, Comedian. Written By Himself (New York: 1845). Coxe, Peter, A Catalogue of the all the Valuable drawings &c. of James Philip de Loutherbourg Esq R.A., 18 June 1812 … And Extensive Library of Scarce Books. Cresswick, Mr, The female reader; or miscellaneous pieces in prose and verse; selected from the best writers, and disposed under proper heads; for the Improvement of Young Women ... (1789). Crockery’s Misfortunes; or, Transmogrifications. A Burletta, In One Act. Performed for the First Time, on Monday, July 11th, 1821, At the Royal Cobourg Theatre (1821). Cross, John Cartwright, Songs, Choruses, &c. In King Caesar; or, the Negro Slaves: A New Grand Spectacle, In Two Parts Performed at the New Royal Circus, for the first Time, On Wednesday, September 16, 1801 (1801). —, Circusiana, or a Collection of the most favourite Ballets, Spectacles, MeloDrames, &c. Performed at the Royal Circus, St. George’s Fields, 2 vols (1809). Cumberland, Richard, The Wheel of Fortune: A Comedy. Performed At the Theatre-Royal, Drury-Lane (1795). Cunningham, Peter, The New London & Country Jester; or, Fun for the Parlor & Kitchen (c. 1795). —, Hand-Book of London (1850). Daggerwood, Sylvester [psued.], The Preface to the Iron Chest. A Satirical Poem. Written by Thinks-I-to-Myself-Who? (1796). Dance, Charles, The Bengal Tiger. A Farce In One Act, by Charles Dance ... As performed at Madame Vestris’s Royal Olympic Theatre (1838).

Works Cited

237

Days of Performing This Week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday, Handy’s New Circus, Lyceum, Strand, This Present Monday, Feb. 2, 1795. Dibdin, Charles Isaac Mungo, Songs and Other Vocal Compositions, in the Pantomime, called Jan Ben Jan; or, Harlequin and the Forty Virgins. Performing at the Aquatic Theatre, Sadler’s Wells (1807). —, Life in London; or, The Larks of Logic, Tom, and Jerry, An Extravaganza, in Three Acts, … as performed at the Olympic Theatre … Second Edition (1822). —, History and Illustrations of the London Theatres: Comprising an Account of the Original and Progress of the Drama in England: With Historical and Descriptive Accounts of the Theatres Royal, Covent Garden, Drury Lane, Haymarket, English Opera House and Royal Amphitheatre (1826). —, Professional and Literary Memoirs of Charles Dibdin the Younger, Dramatist and Upward of Thirty Years Manager of Minor Theatres, ed. George Speaight (London: The Society for Theatre Research, 1956). Dibdin, Thomas John, Songs, Chorusses, &c. In the New Pantomime of Harlequin’s Tour; or, The Dominion of Fancy …, Covent-Garden (1800). —, Prospectus, &c. of the New Splendid Pantomime Called Harlequin Harper; Or A Jump from Japan; As Performed at the Theatre-Royal, Drury-Lane (1813). —, The Reminiscences of Thomas Dibdin, 2 vols (1837). Dimond, William, The Sea-Side Story, An Operatic Drama … Covent Garden (1801). —, Native Land; or, The Return from Slavery. An Opera in Three Acts, As Performed at The Theatre-Royal, Covent-Garden … February 10, 1824 (1824). A Dissertation Upon Head Dress; Together with a Brief Vindication of High Coloured Hair, and of those ladies on whom it grows: the whole submitted to the connoisseurs in taste whether Antient Or Modern, of what Nation or Kingdom soever [sic] (1767). East London Theatre, and East London Gas Works [13 June 1820]. Ebsworth, Joseph, The Two Prisoners of Lyons; or, The Duplicate Keys. A Melo–Drama, in Three Acts. Altered from the French of M.M. Benjamin, Saint Amant and Paulyanthe (1824). Ellison, James, The American Captive, or Siege of Tripoli. A Drama in Five Acts (Boston, 1812). An Essay on the Rights and Duties of Nations, Relative to Fugitives of Justice; Considered with Reference to the Affair of the Chesapeake (Boston, 1807).

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Everard, Edward Cape, Memoirs Of An Unfortunate Son Of Thespis; Being A Sketch Of The Life Of Edward Cape Everard, Comedian (1818). Everett, David, Slaves in Barbary. A Drama in Two Acts, in Caleb Bingham, The Columbian Orator: Containing a Variety of Original and Selected Pieces; Together with Rules Calculated to Improve Youth and Others in the Ornamental and Useful Art of Eloquence (Boston, 1817), pp. 102–18. The Fancy [or, A Voyage to London]. A Comedy As it was Acted between Two Jamaica Families, During the Time they resided in London, until they returned into their own Country (1744). Fawcett, John, Songs, Choruses, &c. in Perouse: Or the Desolate Island. A Pantomimical Drama in Two parts, Performed a the Theatre Royal Covent Garden. To Which is Prefixed, A Prospectus of the Action (1801). Fennell, James, An Apology for the Life of James Fennell. Written by Himself (Philadelphia: Moses Thomas, 1814). Ferriar, John, The Prince of Angola, a Tragedy, Altered from the Play of Oroonoko. And Adapted to the Circumstances of the Present Times (Manchester, 1788). Fielding, Henry, The Covent-Garden Tragedy (1732). Finlay, John, Miscellanies. The Foreign Relations of the British Empire: The Internal Resources of Ireland: Sketches of Character: Dramatic Criticism, etc. etc. etc. (Dublin, 1835). Foote, Horace A Companion to the Theatres; and Manual of The British Drama (1829). Four Theatrical Addresses: Upon the Providential Preservation of His Majesty’s Life, At Drury-Lane Theatre. Upon the Preliminaries of Peace. Upon the Opening of the New Theatre at Warwick. And a Farewell Epilogue (Alcester, 1801). From sweet Tipperary to pick up some honor. Good bye Mr. Tippoo. A favorite song sung by Mr. Johannot at the Royal Amphitheatre Peter Street (Dublin, 1800). Frost, Thomas, The Old Showmen, and the London Fairs (London: Tinsley Brothers, 1874). Full Report of the Trial of Abraham Thornton for the Wilful Murder of Mary Ashford, at Penn’s Mills, Near Sutton Coldfield, in the County of Warwick (Birmingham, c. 1817). Grey, Oliver, An Apology For The Servants … Occasioned by the Representation of the Farce called High Life Below Stairs, and by what has been said to their Disadvantage in the Public Papers (1760). Hanson, Joseph, The Mussulmen Humbled; or, A Heroic Poem, In Celebration of the Bravery, Displayed by the American Tars, in the Contest with Tripoli …

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239

The undaunted PREBLE; (like the glorious Baron of the Nile!) leads on the WESTERN TARS (New York, 1806). Harlequin Incendiary: or, Columbine Cameron. A Musical Pantomime. As it is Perform’d at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane (1746). Hawkesworth, John, Oroonoko : a tragedy, as it is now acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane. By His Majesty’s Servants. By Thomas Southern. With alterations (1753). —, An Account of the Voyages Undertaken By the Order of His Present Majesty For making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere (1773), vol. 2. Hazlitt, William, Characters of Shakespear’s Plays (1817). Henry, John, A School for Soldiers; or, The Deserter. A Dramatic Piece in Four Acts. Performed in the Island of Jamaica (Kingston, Jamaica: 1783) Huntington Library, California, copy with author’s MS inscriptions. Hippisley, John, Essays … On the Populousness of Africa … On the Trade at the Forts on the Gold Coast … On the Necessity of erecting a Fort at Cape Appolonia (1764). Historical Memoirs of Barbary, As Connected with the Plunder of the Seas; Including a Sketch of Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis, An Account of the various Attacks made upon them by several States of Europe; Considerations of the Their Present Means of Defence; and the Original Treaties Entered into with them by King Charles II. (1816). Histories, fables, allegories, and characters, selected from the Spectator and Guardian; peculiarly adapted to form young minds to a love of ... fourth edition (1753). Holbrook, Ann Catherine, The Dramatist; or, Memoirs of the Stage. With the Life of the Authoress, Prefixed, and Interspersed with, A Variety of Anecdotes, Humourous [sic] and Pathetic (Birmingham, 1809). Hudson, Thomas, Hudson’s Comic Songs (c. 1825). Humanity in Algiers: or, The Story of Azem. By an American, Late a Slave in Algiers (Troy, NY, 1801). Humphreys, R., The Memoirs Of J. Decastro, Comedian … Accompanied By An Analysis Of The Life Of The Late Philip Astley, Esq. … Also An Accompanying History Of The Royal Circus, Now The Surrey Theatre (1824). An Impartial Critique, or a Peep into the Boston Theatre, During the Season of 1813; Being, a Comprehensive View of the Corps Dramatique (Boston, 1813). Inglefield, Ann, The Arguments in Counsel in the Ecclesiastical Court, in the Cause of Inglefield (1787).

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—, Mrs. Inglefield’s Justification, containing the proceedings in the Ecclesiastical Court … 1785 (1787). Inglefield, John Nicholson, New Annals of Gallantry: containing a complete collection of all the genuine letters which have passed between Captain Inglefield and Mrs. Inglefield (1785). Inkle & Yarico. Or, the slave-trade exposed. Description of this opera (Edinburgh?, c. 1795). Interesting Narratives and Discoveries, Including the Life of James Bruce, Esquire; Travels in South Africa, by J. Barrow, Esq. Discovery of an English Colony on Pitcairn’s Island, in the South Sea; Maurice Griffiths Discovery of a Nation of Welshmen in the Interior of America; and an Original Description of the Island of St. Helena, From the Journal of a Naval Officer (Shrewsbury, 1817). Irwin, Eyles, The Bedouins, or, Arabs of the Desert. A Comic Opera, in Three Acts. As It was Performed at the Theatre-Royal, Dublin (Dublin, 1802). Jackson, John, The History Of The Scottish Stage, From Its First Establishment To The Present Time; With A Distinct Narrative of Some Recent Theatrical Transactions. The Whole Necessarily Interspersed With Memoirs Of His Own Life (Edinburgh, 1793). Jenkins, Richard, Memoirs of the Bristol Stage, from the Period of the Theatre at Jacob’s Well, Down to the Present Time; With Notices, Biographical and Critical, of some of the Most Celebrated Comedians who have Appeared on its Boards (Bristol, 1826). Jennings, James, Description of Lord Exmouth’s Attack Upon Algiers, On the 27th of August, 1816; Painted by Henry Aston Barker; Now Exhibiting In His Panorama, Leicester-Square (1818). Johnson, William, The Effects of Strolling Playing; or, A Lesson to Dramatic Maniacs. A Poem (1797). Kilham, Alexander, The Hypocrite Detected And Exposed; And The True Christian Vindicated And Supported: In a Sermon Preached From A Passage In A Play-Bill, December 15, 1793, In The Methodist Chapel In This City. With A Reply, In an Appendix, To A Paper Signed Civis, Concerning Dancing. And A Postcript, With Remarks , On Mr. Lee Lewes’s Answer (Aberdeen, 1793). Kingdon, John, Redeemed Slaves: Being a Short Narrative of Two Neapolitans Redeemed from Slavery on the Coast of Barbary, And carried Home to their Friends at Naples on the Christian Shore (Bristol, c. 1780). Kirkman, James Thomas, Memoirs of the life of Charles Macklin, Esq. principally compiled from his own papers and memorandums; which contain his criticisms on and Characters and Anecdotes of Betterton, Booth ... and most of his con-

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temporaries; together with his ... observations on the drama, science of acting, etc. (1799), vol. 1. Kotzebue, Augustus Von, La Perouse, A Drama, in Two Acts. From the German of Augustus Von Kotzebue; by Benjamin Thompson, Translator of The Stranger, As Performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane (1799). Labillardière, Houtou De La, An Account of a Voyage In Search Of La Pérouse, Undertaken by Order of the Constituent Asembly of Fance, and Performed in the Years 1791, 1792, and 1793, In the Recherche and Espérance, Ships of War, Under the Command of Rear-Admiral Bruni D’Entrecasteaux, 2 vols (1800). Lascars and Chinese. A Short Address to Young Men, of the Several Orthodox Denominations, of Christians, Pointing out to them a sphere of great utility, probable usefulness, and where their services are much wanted (1814). Laugh When You Can; or, The Monstrous Droll Jester … To Which is added, The Benevolent Jew, as Recited at The Royalty Theatre (c. 1800). Lawrence, James Henry, Dramatic Emancipation, or Strictures on the State of the Theatres, And the Consequent Degeneration of the Drama; On the Partiality and Injustice of the London Managers; on Many Theatrical Regulations; And on the Regulations on the Continent For the Security of Literary and Dramatic Property, Particularly Deserving the Attentions of the Subscribers for a Third Theatre (1813). A Letter to a Member of Parliament on the impropriety of classing Players with Rogues and Vagabonds in the Vagrant Act. By the Author of ‘The Vagrant Act in relation to the Liberty of the Subject (1824). A Letter to Henry Brougham, Esq. M.P. Upon the Fall of Algiers, And the Civilization of Africa (1830). Lewis, Hardwick, An excursion to Margate, in the month of June, 1786: interspersed with a variety of anecdotes of well-known characters (1787). Lewis, Matthew Gregory, The Castle Spectre: A Drama. In Five Acts. First performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury-Lane, on Thursday, December 14, 1797 (1798). The London Mathews; Containing An Account of this celebrated Comedian’s Trip to America … To Which Are Prefixed, Several Original Comic Songs, Viz. Travellers All … Mrs. Bradish’s Boarding-House. Opossum up a GumTree. Militia Muster Folk. Boston Post-Office. Ode to General Jackson. Illinois Inventory. The American Jester’s Song. And The Farewell Finale. Embellished with Six Copper-plate Engravings (1825).

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Lonsdale, Mark, The Overture Favorite Songs & Finale In the Musical Entertainment of Tippoo Saib as performed with universal applause at the Sadlers Wells Theatre The Words by Mr. Lonsdale The Music Composed by W. Reeve (1792). Lurting, Thomas, The Fighting Sailor Turned Peaceable Christian: Manifested in the Confinement and Conversion of Thomas Lurting. With a Short Relation of many great Dangers, and wonderful Deliverances, he met with First Written for Private Satisfaction, and Now Published for General Service (Leeds, 1816). Maclaren, Archibald, The Negro Slaves, A Dramatic Piece, of One Act, With Songs, Performed by his Majesty’s Servants, of the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh; Being the Original of the Blackman and Blackbird, Performed at the Amphitheatre, Westminster Bridge (1799). —, The Negro Slaves, Performed by his Majesty’s Servants, of the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh; and at the Amphitheatre, Westminster Bridge, 2nd edn (1799) —, The Negro Slaves; or, The Blackman and Blackbird, A Musical Entertainment, Performed by his Majesty’s Servants, of the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh and At the Amphitheatre, Westminster Bridge, 3rd edn (1799) —, Memoir of Archibald Maclaren, Dramatist; with a List of his Works (Edinburgh, 1835). Macready, William, The Irishman in London; or, The Happy African. A Farce. In Two Acts. Performed at the Theatre-Royal, Covent-Garden (1793). Mathews’s Trip to Paris; or, the Dramatic Tourist; … and Delivered by him at the English Opera House… Taken in Short-hand, and Dedicated to Dandy Cockney, Esq (1819). Mercier, W., The Life of La Perouse, the celebrated and unfortunate French Navigator. Containing an Account of his Voyage, Shipwreck, & subsequent Adventures in a Desolate Island, on the Northern Coast of Japan; where he was discovered by Madame La Perouse, Who embarked on board a Vessel which was sent in search of him by the French Government … On which is founded, the popular pantomimical Drama of Perouse; or, The Desolate Island, Performing, with unbounded applause, at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden; An Accurate Description of Which, Including the Song, Duet, Chorusses, &c. is also added (1801). Milner, H. M., Tippoo Saib; or The Storming of Seringaptam (1823). Moncrieff, William Thomas, Giovanni In London: Or The Libertine Reclaimed, A Grand Moral, Satirical, Comical, Tragical, Melo-Dramatical, Pantomimical, Critical, Infernal, Terrestrial, Celestial, in one word for all,

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243

Gallymaufrical-ollapodridacal Operatic Extravaganza, In Two Acts, As Performed At The Theatres Royal Drury Lane And Covent Garden. (1825). —, Tom And Jerry: or, Life In London In 1820. A Drama. In Three Acts. From Pierce Egan’s Celebrated Work (1825). —, Van Diemen’s Land! An Operatic Drama, In Three Acts (London: John Cumberland, c. 1831). —, Van Diemen’s Land! An Operatic Drama, In Three Acts (London: Thomas Richardson, c. 1831). Moore, John Hamilton, A New and Complete collection of Voyages: containing all that have been remarkable from the earliest period to the present time; ... with an account of the rise and progress of navigation among the various nations of the earth ... comprehending an extensive system of geography, describing, in most accurate manner, every place worthy of notice in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America (1778). Moore, Mark, The Memoirs And Adventures of Mark Moore, Late and Officer in the British Navy, Interspersed With a Variety of original Anecdotes, selected from his Journals, when in the Tuscan, Portuguese, Swedish, Imperial, American, and British Service, in each of which he bore a commission … As the Author has been at Intervals the Manager of a respectable Company of Comedians, in several of the principal Towns of England, France, and Flanders, he has also added some original Sketches of several Theatrical Characters, who now rank high in the Thespian Corps … (1795). Moorhead, John, and George Colman the Younger, The Favourite Indian Ballad … in La Perouse … arranged for the harp or piano forte (1801). Morton, Thomas, Columbus: or, A World Discovered. An historical play. As it is performed at the Theatre-Royal, Covent-Garden (1792). —, Airs, Duets, Chorusses, &c. In The Slave; A New Musical Drama, In Three Acts; First Performed at the Theatre-Royal, Covent-Garden, Tuesday, November 12, 1816 (1816). —, The Slave; a Musical Drama, in Three Acts; as Performed at the TheatreRoyal, Covent-Garden (1816). Murphy, Arthur, The Apprentice. A farce, in two acts, as it is Perform’d at the Theatre-Royal, in Drury-Lane (1756). Neapolitan Captive. Interesting Narrative of the Captivity and Sufferings of Miss Viletta Laranda, A Native of Naples, Who, with a Brother, was a passenger on board a Neapolitan vessel wrecked near Oran, on the Barbary Coast, September 1829, and who soon after was unfortunately made a Captive of [sic] by

244

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a wandering clan of Bedowen [sic] Arabs, on their return from Algiers to the Desserts … Third Edition (New York, 1830). Not Acted here these Twenty Years, on Wednesday Jan. 14th. 1807. will be Performed Southern’s celebrated play in 3 acts, called Oroonoko or The Royal Slave (Barnard Castle, 1807). Official Documents Relative to the Negotiations Carried on by Tippoo Sultaun, With the French Nation, and Other Foreign States, For Purposes Hostile to the British Nation; To Which is Added, Proceedings of a Jacobin Club, Formed at Seringapatam, by the French Soldiers In the Corps Commanded by M. Dompart: With a Translation (Calcutta, 1799). O’Keefe, John, The Young Quaker; a comedy. As it is performed at the Theatre Royal in Smock Alley, with great applause (1784). —, The Highland Reel: A Comic Opera. In Three Acts. As It Is Performed At The Theatres-Royal In London And Dublin (1789). —, The Dramatic Works, 4 vols (1798). —, The Toy; or, the Lie of the Day. In Five Acts. Performed at the Theatre-Royal, Covent-Garden, in 1788 [sic] (1798). —, Recollections of the Life of John O’Keefe, 2 vols (1826). Pack, James, Some Account Of The Life And Experience Of James Pack, Late A Celebrated Actor, In The Pantomime Department, At The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, And Other Places: But Now, By The Grace Of God, A Disciple And Follower Of The Lord Jesus Christ (1819). Parkinson, Sydney, A Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas, in his Majesty’s Ships, The Endeavour Faithfully transcribed from the papers of the late Sydney Parkinson, draughtsman to Joseph Banks, Esq. on his late expedition, with Dr. Solander, round the world (1773). Particulars and Conditions of Sale of the Olympic Theatre … 13th June, 1820. Paterson, Peter, Behind the Scenes: Being the Confessions of a Strolling Player (Edinburgh: D. Mathers, 1859). Payne, John Howard, The Fall of Algiers. A Comic Opera, In Three Acts … As now Performed at the Theatres-Royal, London (1825). —, The Fall of Algiers, A New Opera, In Three Acts. The whole of the Music composed by Mr. H. R. Bishop. First Performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, January 19, 1825 (Dolby’s Edition,1825). Percival, John, A Few Observations in Defence of the Scenic Exhibitions at The Royalty Theatre, and on the Intolerant Censure of The Drama in General; Contained in the ‘Solemn Protest’ of The Rev. Tho. Thirlwall, M.A. (1804).

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INDEX

The playwright’s name, where known, is given after the title of the work in parenthesis. Abdellac The Barbary Corsair or, The English Fisherman of Algiers 132 Abdul Khalik 94 Abercrombie, John 157 Account of a Voyage In Search of La Pérouse 172 Addison, Joseph 21 Adelphi Theatre, London, 4, 63, 65, 131, 178, 181 Adolphus, John 116, 143 African Theatre and Company, Mercer Street, New York 57–60, 62, 64–66, 76, 77, 78, 79 Akenside, Mark 148 Aldridge, Ira 2, 5, 8, 23, 46, 57–60, 66–79, 81, 190 Allison, Robert J. 118, 121 Ambrose Gwinett, or A sea-side story (D.W. Jerrold) 179 American Captive, or Siege of Tripoli, The ( James Ellison) 7, 120–2, 126, 127 American Heroine, or Spanish Ingratitude (Pierre-Toussaint Mercerot) 46 American Heroine, The ( Jean François Arnould-Mussot) 1, 2, 21, 42–5, 55, 141, 173 American in Algiers, or the Patriot of SeventySix in Captivity, The 125, 126 American Naval Pillar, The (Charnock) 129 American Tars in Tripoli 129–30 Amherst, J. H. 70–1, 76–8, 81 Anderson, George William 147 Andover, Hampshire, theatre 16

Apprentice, The (Arthur Murphy) 48 Arab; or, the Freebooters of the Desert 112, 132 Arnould-Mussot (or Arnould), Jean François 1, 2, 5, 21, 24, 41, 45, 140, 144, 145, 146, 166 Ashford, Mary 68 Astley, Philip 16, 42, 109, 141 Astley’s Amphitheatre, London 13, 42, 49, 53, 55, 71, 109, 110, 132–3, 141, 168, 171, 181 Astley’s Amphitheatre, Paris, 141 Astley’s Amphitheatre Royal, Dublin 22, 141, 142, 145, 152 Bainbridge, William 128 Balme, Christopher B. 146 Banks, Joseph 146, 150, 169 Barbarossa. A Tragedy ( John Brown) 35, 36, 118 Barbour, Richard 2, 4 Barker, Henry Aston 113 Barrett, C. F. 73, 103 Barrington, George 181 Barrymore, Earl of 33 Barrymore, Mrs 84 Barrymore, William 7, 30, 73, 81, 94, 97 Barskett, James 71 Barthélémon, Cecilia Maria 170 Barthélémon, François-Hippolyte 170 Bartholomew Fair 13, 14 Basketmaker, The ( John O’Keefe) 154, 169 Bate, Henry 27 Bates, William 24

– 257 –

258

Harlequin Empire

Becher, Henry 91 Bedford, Paul 14 Bedouins, Or, Arabs of the Desert, The (Eyles Irwin) 128 Bengal Tiger, The (Charles Dance) 28, 30 Bennelong 185 Bennett, J. M. 78 Bentham, Jeremy 68, 77 Bernard, William Bayle 73 Beverley, Yorkshire, theatre 20 Bickerstaff, Isaac 27, 32, 116, 190 Bingham, Caleb 112, 113, 122 Birmingham, West Midlands, theatre 22 Birth of Harlequin or the Witches Frolic, The ( John Durang) 26 Bishop, Henry Rowley 117, 132, 185 Blackamoor Wash’d White, The (Henry Bate) 27, 38 Blackman and Blackbird (Archibald Maclaren) see under Negro Slaves blackface 137, 164, 165, 166 black mask 166 Blanchard, William 75, 78 Bleeding Nun, or, Agnes and Raymond, The (Mathew Gregory Lewis) 29 Blue-Beard, or, Female Curiosity (George Colman the Younger) 118 Blyth, Stephen Cleveland 119 Boehme, Jacob 169 Bombardment of Tripoli, by the American Fleet 130, 137 Bombay Courier 99 Boston, Lincolnshire, theatre 13, 47 Boston, Massachusetts, theatre 1, 43, 150 Bowles, John, see under Duwa’li Bowness, Cumbria, theatre 18 Bowring, Sir John 68, 77 Boyer, Jean-Pierre 71, 72, 77 Bridgenorth, Shropshire, theatre 16, 132 Bristol Infirmary 20 Bristow, James 82, 91 Britanee 143 Brown, John 35, 118 Brown, William 62, 76 Buckley, Peter 58, 62 Bungay, Suffolk, theatre 16, 21, 22, 141 Burford, Robert 180, 181 Burnet, Thomas 147

Burney, Charles 153 Burning of the Frigate Philadelphia in the Harbour of Tripoli, The 130 Bury St Edmunds, theatre 11 Byrn, James 140, 145 Byrne, James P. 27 Byron, Admiral John, 5, 149 Byron, George Gordon 68 Caffres; or, Buried-Alive!, The (Edmund John Eyre) 5 Caleb William; or, Things as They Are 9 Campaign; or, Love in the East Indies, The (Robert Jephson) 6 Captive, The (Isaac Bickerstaff ) 116–17 Carey, Mathew 108 Carlile, Richard 61 Caroline, Queen, of Brunswick 68 Cartmel, Cumbria, theatre 18 Casco Bay or the Baccanier’s [sic] (William Bayle Bernard) 73 Castle of Wonders, The 158, 159, 163, 164 Castle Spectre, The (Mathew Gregory Lewis) 14, 36, 37, 39 Castle Town, Isle of Man, theatre 18 Cawdell, James 20 Charleston Theatre, South Carolina 27, 28, 29, 49, 118, 122, 130, 137, 140 Charlotte, Princess 100 Charlotte, Queen 90 Charnock, Mr (Philadelphia theatre manager) 129 Chatoye (Carib chief ) 76 China-Hall Theatre, London environs 17 Chinavas Appiah 83 Choice of Harlequin; or, The Indian Chief, The 152, 161 Christian, Fletcher 171, 175 Christmas Tale, A (David Garrick and Philip de Loutherbourg) 155 Christophe, Henri 71, 72 Clandestine Marriage, The (David Garrick and George Colman the Elder) 52 Cobb, James 25, 92, 102, 116, 117 Cobbett, William 125 Cockermouth, Cumbria, theatre 18 Coleman, Deirdre 7, 25, 52, 187 Coleridge, S. T. 20

Index Colley, Linda 82, 94, 97, 98, 107 Collins, David 181 Colman, George, the Elder, 15, 52 Colman, George, the Younger, 1, 9, 21, 22, 36, 44, 45, 49, 51, 73, 76, 105, 118, 153, 174, 175 colouring in performance amateur blackface performance 32, 33, 35 anti-blackface rioting, possibility of, 30–2, 34 black ‘armings’ 39 blackface 2, 4, 23–7, 30, 32, 33, 35–9, 44, 45, 47, 49, 54, 137, 158, 164, 165; see also ‘sables’ roles black gloves to counterfeit black skin 39–40 black mask 24, 25, 26, 39, 153, 159, 166 burnt cork 37, 48, 137, 165 carmine 37, 40, 41, 46, 165 coloured textiles 26, 39 gas light, effects of 41 ‘magpye’ appearance of James Quinn as Othello 35 ‘Mulligatawney’ 29, 30 ‘Negar’ role in Omai 164 rouge 41 ‘sables’ roles 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41, 46–8, 53, 55, 72, 73, 158 Spanish annatto 39 Spanish brown 35–6, 40, 41, 46, 47, 48 Tawney, see also ‘Mulligatawney’ 73, 165 white flesh coloured sleeves 39 wigs 38, 39 Columbus; or, A World Discovered (Thomas Morton) 118 commedia dell’arte 139 Constitution; or American Tars Triumphant, The 130 Cook, Dutton 38, 39 Cook, James 5, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 148, 149, 151, 152, 153, 160, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 176 Copenhagen, Battle of (1801) 111 Cora; or, the Virgin of the Sun ( John Cartwright Cross) 47 Cornish ‘guizers’ 137 Cornwallis, Lord Charles 95 Corporation of London 162

259

Corsair or the Tripolitan Robbers, The 129 Cosway, Richard 170 Covent Garden, Theatre Royal 1–3, 5, 6, 22, 33, 52, 69, 72, 75, 97, 100, 110, 116, 118, 130, 139–70 Covent Garden Theatrical Gazette 21 Covent-Garden Tragedy, The (Henry Fielding) 52 Cowell, Joe 12, 68 Crib, Tom, pugilist 66 Crockery’s Misfortunes; or, Transmogrifications 94 Cross, John Cartwright 47, 76, 169 Crow Street, Dublin, theatre 128 Croydon, Surrey, theatre 13 Cumberland, Richard 52 Dance, Charles 28, 29 Davenant, William 22 Days of Yore (Richard Cumberland) Deal, Kent, theatre 17 Death of Captain Cook, The, ( Jean François Arnould-Mussot) 2, 5, 22, 24, 43, 139, 140–46, 168, 170–3, 175, 176 Death of Christophe, King of Hayti, The ( J. H. Amherst) 70, 74–8, 81 Death of the Queen of France, The (Edmund John Eyre) 16 Decastro, Jacob 17, 141, 142, 145 Decatur, Stephen, Jr 128 Defoe, Daniel 25 De Loutherbourg, Philip 3, 5, 139, 142, 144, 145, 146, 147, 151, 156, 166, 169, 170, 171 Delpini, Carlo Antonio 143 Devis, Arthur William 98 De Wilde, Samuel 61, 62 Dibdin, Charles 118, 165 Dibdin, Charles Isaac Mungo 36, 63, 65, 69, 174 Dibdin, Thomas John 20, 33, 74, 129, 130, 139, 152, 171, 175, 176 Dillon, Elizabeth Maddock 123, 124 Dimond, William 117, 160 Dirom, Alexander 91 Dodsley, Robert 15 Doncaster, Yorkshire, theatre 20, 142 Donohue, Joseph W., Jr 26

260

Harlequin Empire

Douglas, Isle of Man, theatre 18 Drake, Sir Francis 71 Drama; or, Theatrical Pocket Magazine 103, 179 Dramatic Censor; or, Weekly Theatrical Report 167 Dresser, Madge 31 Drury Lane, Theatre Royal 1, 13, 15, 19, 25, 30, 45, 52, 69, 75, 100, 118, 139, 155, 171, 179 Dryden, John 22, 117 Duel, or, My Two Nephews, The (Richard Brinsley Peake) 132 Dundas, Henry 90 Durang, John 22, 24, 26, 38, 42, 43, 67, 141, 142, 145, 170 Duranti, Alessandro 148 Dutton, Thomas 167 Duwa’li 153, 154, 169 Earl of Warwick, The (Thomas Franklin) 20 Earle, Augustus 180 East End Theatre, see Royalty Theatre East India Company 4, 6, 25, 70, 82–4, 88–93, 95, 102, 105, 116, 137, 156, 162, 163 East India Dock 102, 104 Ebsworth, Joseph 78 Edinburgh, theatre 20, 33, 50, 100 Edwards, Paul 63 Edwin, John 161, 164, 165 Egan, Pierce 14, 63, 66, 181 El Hyder; or, The Chief of the Ghaut Mountains (William Barrymore) 7, 30, 35, 70, 76–7, 81–8, 94, 186, 187 Ellison, James 7, 120, 124, 125, 126, 127 Elliston, R. W. 162 Elton, E. W. 185 Eora 185 Epley, Steven 43 Ethiopian, Or, The Quadroon of the Mango Grove, The (after Thomas Morton) 72 Everard, Edward Cape 17, 18 Everett, David 113, 122, 125, 126 Examiner of Plays 5, 8, 9, 33, 73, 105, 161 Exeter, theatre 18 Exmouth, Lord 108, 111, 112, 114, 115, 131, 136 Eyre, Edmund John 5, 16

Fair American, The (Frederick Pilon) 45 Fairlop Fair, Essex 14 Faith and Falsehood; or, the Fate of a Bushranger (William Leman Rede) 28 Fall of Algiers and Freedom to the Slaves, The (Payne [?]) 132 Fall of Algiers! By Sea and Land!, The (Charles A. Somerset) 133, 134 Fall of Algiers, The ( John Howard Payne) 104, 105, 107, 130 ‘Famous African, The’ (anonymous circus horse-rider) 23 Fancy or; A Voyage to London, The 31 Fatal Coral Rock! Or, The Loss of the Bangalore East Indiamen ( J. H. Amherst) 71 Fawcett, John 18, 173, 174, 175 Fennell, James 23, 37, 124 Ferriar, John 69, 70 Fick, Carolyn E. 71 Fielding, Henry 52 Fisher, H. 104 Foote, Horace 180 Foret Noire; or, the Natural Son, La ( Jean François Arnould-Mussot) 141 Foulahs! Or, A Slave’s Revenge, The (William Barrymore) 73 Four Theatrical Addresses 93 Frankenstein: or the Man and the Monster (H. M. Milner) 73, 174 Frank-in-Steam Or, the Modern Promise to pay (William Thomas Moncrieff ) 181 Franklin, Thomas 20 French puppeteers at Hull 133 Furibond; or, Harlequin Negro ( James Powell) 158 Garrick, David 25, 52 George III 90, 110 Géricault, Théodore 179 Gildon, Charles 69 Gillray, James 3, 90 Giovanni in Botany! Or The Libertine Transported (William Thomas Moncrieff ) 178, 181 Giovanni in London, or, The Libertine Reclaimed (William Thomas Moncrieff ) 64, 162, 178, 181 Glossop, Joseph 101, 102, 103, 104

Index Godwin, William 9 Gordon Riots (1780) 30, 34 Goudie, Sean X. 27, 28 Grantham, Lincolnshire, theatre 11 Greeks and the Turks! Or the Intrepidity of Jemmy, Jerry, and a British Tar! 77 Grey, Oliver, 30, 32 Grimaldi, Joseph 19, 140, 173 Halifax, Yorkshire, theatre 20 Handy, Benjamin 23, 24 Hanson, Joseph 128, 129 Harlequin and the Dwarfs; or, Giants Castle 14 Harlequin Harper; Or A Jump from Japan (Thomas John Dibdin) 152, 153 Harlequin Incendiary: Or, Columbine Cameron 167, 168 Harlequin Mungo; or, A Peep into the Tower (William Bates) 24, 101, 158, 182 Harlequin’s Invasion (David Garrick) 25 Harlequin’s Tour; or, The Dominion of Fancy (Thomas John Dibdin) 160 Harris, Thomas 168 Harvard Theatre Collection 72, 74, 78 Hastings, Warren 4, 6 Havell, Daniel 12, 16, 17 Hawkesworth, John 69, 144–6 Hawkins, John 71 Hay, Samuel A. 59, 65 Haymarket theatre, London, 1, 11, 15, 21, 41, 62, 75, 154, 170 Hazlitt, William 20, 34 Henry IV Part One (William Shakespeare) 91 Henry, John 189 Hewlett, James 58–63, 65, 67, 76 Hexham, Northumberland 18 Highland Reel, The ( John O’Keefe) 48, 49 High Life Below Stairs ( James Townley) 30, 31, 34, 35, 41, 47, 48, 100 Hill, Juba 121 Hippisley, John, the elder 31 Hippisley, John, the younger 31 Historical Memoirs of Barbary 119 Hodge Ibrahim Candiot 110 Hodges, William 169 Hodgins, John 140, 145

261

Hodgson’s Juvenile Drama 94, 100 Hoffmaster, Mr (German musican) 38 Hogarth, William 148 Holbrook, Ann Catherine 15, 16 Holophusikon 152 Hone, William 112, 114, 115, 117, 128, 137 Hoole, W. Stanley 49 Houghton Library, Harvard University 11 Howe, Admiral 129 Howe, Michael 181 Hull, Yorkshire, theatre 13, 20 Humphrey, Hannah 91 Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, theatre 13 Huntington Library 189 Hurly Burly; or, The Fairy of the Well, The ( James Cobb) 25, 155–7, 162, 166 Hutchins, Master, (juvenile horse rider) 42 Hyder Ali (Haidar-Ali) 81–8, 93, 99 Imperial Magazine 115 Inchbald, Elizabeth 22 Ingram, William 102 Inkle and Yarico (George Colman the Younger) 1, 2, 21, 22, 36, 37, 40, 41, 45, 46, 51, 55, 76, 164, 174, 175, 182 Inquiry; or, Cause of the Present High Price of Provisions, The 162, 164 Inspector, A Weekly Dramatic Paper 20 Ipswich, Norfolk, theatre 21, 22, 141 Irishman in London; or, The Happy African, The (William Charles Macready) 52 Iron Chest, The (George Colman the Younger) 9, 10, 165 Iron Tower or Cell of Mystery, The 111 Irwin, Eyles 128 Italians; or Days of Yore, The 14 Jacob’s Well theatre, Bristol 20, 30 Jan Ben Jan; or, Harlequin and the Forty Virgins (Charles Isaac Mungo Dibdin) 160 Jennings, James 113, 114 Jenny’s Whim Or the Roasted Emperor ( John O’Keefe) 190 Jephson, Robert 6 Jerrold, D. W. 160, 179 Jim Crow in London (Thomas Dartmouth Rice) 62, 65

262

Harlequin Empire

Johnson, Joseph 119 Johnson, William 15 Jones, Thomas 111 Joppien, Rüdiger 152 Kalan’opu’u 143 Kean, Edmund 39, 65 Keene, Mr (stage name of Ira Aldridge) 46 Keene’s Theatrical Evening Mirror 21 Kemble, Elizabeth 103 Kemble, George Stephen 103 Kemble, Henry Stephen 77, 103 Kemble, John Philip 10, 22, 113 Kenney, James 20 Kenyon, Lloyd (1st Baron) 34 Keswick, Cumbria, theatre 18 Kilham, Alexander 15 King and the Miller of Mansfield, The (Robert Dodsley) 15 King Caesar; or the Negro Slaves ( John Cartwright Cross) 76, 77, 169 Kingdon, John 115, 116 King Shotaway (William Brown) 76 Kings Lynn, Norfolk, theatre 21 Kirby Lonsdale, Cumbria, theatre 18 Koa’a 143 Kotzebue, Augustus von 46, 171, 172, 174, 175 Lailson, Philip 44 Lailson’s Circus, Philadelphia 2, 42–5 Lambert, John 27, 28 La Perouse (Augustus von Kotzebue) 171, 176 La Perouse, Jean-Francois de 172 La-Peyrouse (Anne Plumptre translated from Kotzebue) 173 Laranda, Viletta 29 Larpent, John 162, 163, 168, 173, 174, 176 Laugh When You Can (Frederick Reynolds) 36, 73 Law, William 169 Lawrence, James 9, 19 Lazaria the Greek! Or, the Archon’s Daughter 68, 77 Leeds, Yorkshire, theatre 12, 20, 142 Leicester, theatre 39

Lemoine, Ann 73, 103 Leopold of Saxe Coburg, Prince 100 Letter to Henry Brougham … Upon the Fall of Algiers 133 Lever, Ashton 152 Lewes, Charles Lee 24 Lewes, Sussex, theatre 12 Lewis, Mathew Gregory 14, 29 Libertine Defeated; or, African Integrity!, The (after Frederick Reynolds) 73, 74 Liberty in Louisiana ( James Workman) 122 Life of La Perouse, the celebrated and unfortunate French Navigator 173 Lillo, George 71 Little Boy Blue!!! Or Harlequin and the Goblin Gnome of the Californian Gold Mines 33 Liverpool Theatrical Investigator 21 London Apprentice, or, The History of George Barnwell, The (George Lillo) 71 Lonsdale, Mark 90 Lord Chamberlain 2, 5, 8, 9, 51, 69, 73, 74, 105, 140, 178, 189, 190 Lord Mayor’s Day; or, A Flight from Lapland, The ( John O’Keefe) 154, 155, 166, 169 Lott, Eric 4, 26, 27, 29, 30, 51, 59, 61 Louth, Lincolnshire, theatre 12 Lurting, Thomas 115 Lyceum Theatre, London 19 McCalman, Iain 105 Macartney, George, Lord 147 Macbeth (William Shakespeare) 39 Mac Donald, Lord 101 Mackandal, François 76 Maclaren, Archibald 49, 50–5, 76 Macpherson, James 148, 170 Macready, William Charles 46, 52 Mahar, William J. 26 Mai 151, 152, 154, 164, 165, 166 Male, George 3, 25 Manager in Distress: A Prelude, The (George Colman the Elder) 15 Manumission; or, The Soldier’s Welcome Home (William Dimond) 117 Marauder; or, A Peep at Algiers, The 110 Margate and Margate hoy 160

Index Margate, Theatre Royal 69 Marshall, Charles 114, 131,133, 179, 180, 181 Martmontel, Jean François 47, 118, 148 Marylebone Gardens 149 Maryport, Cumbria, theatre 18 Mathews, Charles 38, 59, 60, 61, 64, 160 Mayer, David 19, 24 Meek, George 102 Mènage, Master (juvenile actor) 174 Mercerot, Pierre-Toussaint 46, 109 Merchant’s Wedding Or, London Frolics of 1638 ( James Robinson Planché) 83 Milhouse, Judith 140 Miller and his Men, The (Isaac Pocock) 97 Miller, David Philip 148 Mills, Mrs (actress and singer) 173 Milner, H. M. 7, 30, 73, 81, 82, 137 Minor, Catherine Street, private theatre, London 35, 47 Mirandola, Giovanni Pico della 169 Moiz-Ud-Din 94 Molineux, Tom 66 Moncrieff, William Thomas 7, 26, 62, 64, 65, 79, 162, 171, 175, 179–87 Moody, John 32 Moore, Mark 15, 16 Moorehead, John 174 Morales, Donald M. 57 Morning Chronicle 9 Morton, Thomas 46, 72, 74, 118, 130 Mountain, Rosamund 170 Mountaineers, The (George Colman the Younger) 36, 73 Mumming plays 134–7 Murphy, Arthur 48, 170 Musgrave, Mr., Manchester actor 48 Napoleon Bonaparte’s Invasion of Russia ( J. H. Amherst) 71 Nathan, Hans 65, 165 National Advocate 60 Native Land; or, the Return from Slavery (William Dimond after James Cobb) 117 Naval Pillar, The (Thomas John Dibdin) 129, 130, 139 Neagle, J. (artist) 185

263

Negro Slaves or Blackman and Blackbird, The (Archibald Maclaren) 49, 50, 76 Negro’s Curse! Or, The Foulah Son (H. M. Milner) 72–3 Nelson, Admiral Horatio 111, 129, 135 Newark, Nottinghamshire, theatre 17 Newbury, Berkshire, theatre 17 Newcastle Upon Tyne, theatre 20, 25 New Circus, Lyceum, London 23 New Game of Tippoo Saib, The 92 Newgate Monthly Magazine 61 Newport, Rhode Island, theatre 118 New Theatre, Greenwich Street, New York 140 Noah, Manuel 65 Northcote, James 70 North Pole; or, The Arctic Expedition 94 Norwich, Norfolk, theatre 12, 21, 22, 25, 57, 141, 171, 173–5 Nussbaum, Felicity A., 21, 24, 27, 38, 57, 69, 70, 72 Oakes, Henry 91 O’Brien, John 24, 25, 153 Odell, George C. D. 62, 63 O’Keefe, John 3, 5, 15, 48–9, 139, 142, 146–7, 151, 153–5, 166–7, 169, 170, 171, 190 Old Bailey, The 34, 101, 102, 114 Olympic Theatre and Olympic Pavilion Theatre, London, 3, 16, 19, 28, 63–5, 100, 178 Omai; or, A Trip round the World (de Loutherbourg and O’Keefe) 3, 5, 35, 43, 110, 139, 140, 142–71, 174, 176, 178, 187, 190 One Foot by Land, or One Foot by Sea, or the Tartars Tartared (George Male) 3 O’Quinn, Daniel 2, 4, 151, 152, 164, 166, 167 Orange Boven; or, More Good News (Thomas John Dibdin) 176 Orde-Powlett, Thomas 33 Oroonoko, the Royal Slave (John Hawkesworth after Thomas Southern) 57, 69, 70 Orr, Bridget, 2, 4, 69 Othello (William Shakespeare) 4, 8, 23, 35, 36, 39, 40, 46, 47, 48, 67, 74 Otoo, King, of Tahiti 146, 149

264

Harlequin Empire

Oulton, Walley Chamberlain 62 Pack, James 13, 14, 15 Padlock, The (Isaac Bickerstaff ) 27, 32, 36, 48, 165 Paine, Tom 119 Paintings used in performance 110, 133, 152, 164, 166 Palea 143 Palmer, Robert 32 Panoramas 8, 14, 92, 93, 98, 100, 108–10, 113–16, 130–1, 133–4, 137, 160, 178–81, 183–5, 187 Paracelsus (that is, Theophrastus von Honheim) 170 Parkinson, Sydney 144, 145, 148 Park Theatre, New York 63, 64, 67, 68, 118 Past Ten O’Clock, and a Rainy Night (Thomas John Dibdin) 47 Paterson, Peter 14 Pattison, George 115 Paul the Poacher (E. W. Elton) 185 Payne, John Howard 104, 107, 129–32 Peake, Richard Brinsley 132 Penzance, Cornwall 17 Perouse; or, the Desolate Island ( John Fawcett) 173, 174, 175 Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, theatre 13 Philadelphia, theatre 26, 42, 129, 130, 142, 149 Phillips, Molesworth 153 Phillips, P. (panorama painter) 180 Picken’s … Battle of Algiers 134, 136, 137 Pilon, Frederick 45 Pirate, or Harlequin Victor, The 109, 110, 132 Pitcairn’s Island (Thomas John Dibdin) 171, 175–8 Pizarro (R. B. Sheridan after Augustus von Kotzebue) 36, 46, 47, 118, 148, 169 Planché, James Robinson 83 Plumptre, Anne 172, 173 Pocock, Isaac 97 Poetical Epistle to the King of Hayti 71, 72 Pontefract, Yorkshire, theatre 20, 142 Porter, Robert Ker 92, 98, 109, 110 Powderham, Devon, theatre 17 Powell, James 158

Prebble, Commodore Edward 129 Prince of Angola … Altered from … Oronooko, The ( John Ferriar) 69, 70 Prisoner at Large, The ( John O’Keefe) 15 Qianlong, Emperor 147 Queen of the Butterfly Bower; or, Harlequin and Old Bogie, The 180 Quinn, James 35, 39 Raising the Wind ( James Kenney) 20 Ramah Droog, Or, Wine Does Wonders ( James Cobb) 92, 116, 156 Ranelagh Gardens 190 Ray, William 123 Rede, Leman Thomas 4, 9, 12, 14, 21, 26, 34–7, 39, 40, 41, 46, 47, 73, 75, 76, 165 Rede, William Leman 28 Reeve, William 90 Reill, Peter Hanns 148 Renegadoes or, Algerine Corsair 112, 132 Revenge, The (Edward Young) 8, 34, 36, 74 Reynolds, Frederick 36, 73, 74 Rice, Thomas Dartmouth 26, 62, 65 Richard III (William Shakespeare) 15 Richardson’s troupe 14, 23 Richmond (Surrey) theatre 13, 18 Richmond (Yorkshire) theatre 11 Richmond (Virginia) theatre 29 Ricketts, John Bill 42, 43 Riley, James 123 Robertson, Thomas 12 Robinson Crusoe; or, Harlequin Friday (R. B. Sheridan) 22, 25, 33 Robinson, J. 27 Rochdale, Lancashire, theatre 12, 13 Rogers, J. 98 Rosenfeld, Sybil 19 Rossini, Gioacchino 117 Rowe, Nicholas 36 Rowlandson, Thomas 98 Rowson, Sussana Haswell 42, 43, 123–5, 128, 149 Royal Amphitheatre, Dublin 91 Royal Circus, London 1–2, 21, 45, 47, 109, 111, 112, 132, 169, 190

Index Royal Coburg Theatre, London 2, 4–5, 8, 19, 23, 57–8, 62, 67–79, 81, 93–101, 132, 179, 180, 187 Royal Pavilion Theatre, Whitechapel Road 180 Royalty Theatre, London 4, 13,15, 24, 46, 97, 109, 110 Sadler’s Wells Theatre 90, 91, 92, 152, 160, 170 Said, Edward 99 St Clair, William 9, 19 Salamé, Abraham 114, 115 Salmond, Anne 143, 150, 169 Sampson, Deborah 149–50 Scaglioni and His Dancing Dogs, Senior 20 Scarborough, Yorkshire, theatre, 1, 12, 22, 55 Schmitt, Peter 26 Scurry, James 104 Sea-Side Story, The (William Dimond) 160 Secret Mine, The ( John Fawcett) 18 Seven Islands; or, the Pirate of Algiers 112, 132 Seward’s Theatre, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire 17 Shade’s Concert Room, Soho Square 20 Shakespeare’s Early Days (C. A. Somerset) 185 Shakespeare, William 20, 22, 148 Sheffield, Yorkshire, theatre 20 Sheldrake, Mr (maker of theatrical clothing) 38 Shelley, Mary 73 Sheridan, R. B. 22, 25, 33, 36, 118, 148 Shield, William 161 Shipwreck of the Medusa; or, The Fatal Raft (William Thomas Moncrieff ) 179 Shop Tax (1785) 161 Short History of Algiers, A 122 Sibly, Ebenezer 170 Siddons, Sarah 113 Siege of Algiers; or, the Downfall of HadgiAli-Bashaw, The ( Jonathan S. Smith) 120, 127, 128 Silverton, Devon, mumming play 135, 136 Simpson, Edmund Shaw 67 Singleton, Henry 98

265

Slaves in Algiers; or, a Struggle for Freedom (Sussan Haswell Rowson) 42, 123–5, 128 Slaves in Barbary (David Everett) 113, 122, 125, 126 Slaves in Barbary, or the Bombardment of Algiers (Thomas John Dibdin) 130 Slave, The (Thomas Morton) 46, 72, 74, 130 Sleep-walker: or, Which is the lady?, The (Walley Chamberlain Oulton) 62 Sloman, Charles 75 Smart, Mr, teacher of elocution 20 Smith, Adam 54 Smith, Jonathan S. 120, 127, 128 Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin 6 Society for the Suppression of Vice 4, 16, 101, 102 Solander, Daniel 5, 146, 150 Somerset, Charles A. 133, 134, 185 Spalding, Lincolnshire, theatre 13 Spectator 37 Stamford, Lincolnshire, theatre 11, 13, 18, 20, 22, 61, 82, 83 Stanfield, Clarkson 179 Stewart, Charles 87, 88 Storace, Stephen 10 Strangers at Home ( James Cobb) 116, 117 Stratford Canning, Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe 59 Sultan, The (Isaac Bickerstaff ) 190 Sunderland, County Durham, theatre 20 Surrey Theatre, London 20, 71, 73, 130, 133, 171, 179, 180, 187 Swanwick, John 125 Tamerlane (Nicholas Rowe) 36 Tars from Tripoli (after Dibdin’s Naval Pillar) 129 Teignmouth, Devon, theatre 114 Tempest; Or, The Enchanted Island, The (Shakespeare adapted by Davenant and Dryden) 22 Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, theatre 16 Theatrical Register (York) 21, 31, 156 Thelwall, John 20 Thespian Mirror 129 Thirlwall, Thomas 16 Thompson, Benjamin 172, 173

266

Harlequin Empire

Thompson, George A. 58, 62 Three Hats tavern, Islington, site of theatre 17 Times, The 37, 46, 57, 58, 60, 61, 71, 76, 117, 127, 131–3, 180 Tippoo Saib 81, 82, 93, 99, 107, 135 Tippoo Saib, Old Bailey plaintiff 101 Tippoo Saib; or, The Plains of Hindostan 92 Tippoo Saib; or, The Storming of Seringapatam (H. M. Milner) 7, 30, 35, 76, 77, 81, 82, 94–101, 137, 186, 187 Tom and Jerry (African Theatre, New York, version) 62–6, 68 Tom and Jerry (Charles Isaac Mungo Dibdin version) 63, 64 Tom and Jerry (William Thomas Moncrieff ) 26, 62, 64, 66, 79, 181 Tom, Logic, and Jerry (Richardson’s troupe version) 14 Topham, Edward 3 Townley, James 30–2, 35, 100 Toy; or, the Lie of the Day, The ( John O’Keefe) 48 Tresher, Mr (theatrical wig maker) 38 Trial by Battle; or, Heaven Defend the Right (William Barrymore) 68 Tripolitan Prize, The 129 Trudge and Wowski (Thomas Knight) 43 Tuhkanen, Mikko 27 Turkish Ambassador 149 Turner, J. M. W. 100 Tussaud, Madame 113 Twiss, Horace 70 Two Farmers, The (Thomas John Dibdin) 33, 74, 176 Tyler, Royall 119, 128 Ulverston, Cumbria, theatre 17, 18 Vandenhoff, George 39 Van Diemen’s Land! Or Settlers and Natives (William Thomas Moncrieff ) 7, 114, 171, 175, 178–87 Vaughan, Virginia Mason 24, 39, 69 Vaux, James Hardy 181 Vauxhall Gardens 149, 190 Vesey, Denmark 62 Volcano, or The Rival Harlequins 166–7

Wainwright, Harriet 91, 92 Wakefield, Yorkshire, theatre 20, 142 Wallack, Henry 62 Walvin, James 63 Washington, DC, theatre 129 Waterfield, Giles 101 Waters, Billy 62, 63 Waters, Hazel 57 Webber, John 144, 153, 156, 169 Wellesley, Arthur 96 Wellesley, Richard Marquess 96 Wells, Thomas E. 181 West, William 99 Westminster Forum 161 Wewitzer, Ralph 6 Wheel of Fortune, The (Richard Cumberland) 52 Wheeler, Roxann 3, 4, 50 Whitby, Yorkshire, theatre 13 Who’s the Murderer! 130 Widowson, Henry 181 Wignell, Joseph Henry 67 Wignell, Thomas 67 Wilberforce, William 71 Wildman, The (Charles Isaac Mungo Dibdin) 36, 174 Wilkie, David 98, 99 Wilkinson, Tate 13, 19, 142 Windsor, Berkshire, theatre 16, 69 Winston, James 11, 12, 16, 18, 19, 132, 168 Wisbech, Lincolnshire 13 Wittman, soap maker 52 Wolverhampton, West Midlands, theatre 16 Workman, James 122 Wyatt, James 13 Yarmouth, Norfolk, theatre 12, 22, 141 York, Yorkshire, theatre 13, 20, 92, 116 Yorker’s Strategem, or, Banana’s Wedding, The ( J. Robinson) 27 Young, Edward 8, 34, 74 Young Quaker, The ( John O’Keefe) 49 Zoroaster; or The Spirit of the Star (William Thomas Moncrieff ) 179