Posts Tagged ‘gold’

Botany Bay – Lord Sydney, Arthur Phillip & ‘Hush Christopher Robin’ – Mark 2

Wednesday, August 12th, 2020

Rio de Janeiro – 3 September 1787: ‘Dear Nepean, this is my last letter, as I hope to sail [for Botany Bay] tomorrow. You know how much I was interested in the intended expedition against Monte Video [1783], and that it was said that the Spaniards had more troops than I supposed’. Arthur Phillip to Evan Nepean Under Secretary to Lord Sydney, Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. 1, Parts 1 & 2.

Brazil – September 1787: As the First Fleet ‘bound for Botany Bay’ prepared to sail from Rio for New Holland (Australia) via Cape Town, Captain Arthur Phillip RN ‘Sailor Mercenary Governor Spy’ was able to supply Evan Nepean, his long-time ‘handler’ at the Home Office, with vital information.

Skin in the game; to further understand Phillip’s ‘interest’  – not only had he drawn up Mark 1, the strategic plan for the failed Monte Video expedition, he captained HMS Europa in the 1783 expedition under overall command of Sir Richard Kingsmill.

‘The combination of French and Spanish naval power had proven fatal for Britain in the American War 1775-1783]…as Lord Sandwich admired frankly’. Lord Sandwich cited R.J. King, The Secret History of the Convict Colony, Sydney, 1990

Kingsmill’s ‘failure to act’ in 1783 had robbed the Royal Navy of much needed ‘glory’. That failure rankled. Phillip was determined to make amends. The conquest of New Holland would go a long way to restoring ‘lost glory’.

If Phillip succeeded he knew he would have an opportunity to prove Spain’s ‘treasure’ colonies on the Pacific Coast of  South America would be vulnerable to attack by the Royal Navy.

Rio – September 1787:  Phillip went on to provide Evan Nepean with up-to-date intelligence ‘obtained from a person who was there [Monte Video] all of the war [1775-1783] on the number and disposition of troops, ‘and I am certain that the account is exact’. Phillip to Nepean, 3 September 1787. Historical Records. op.cit.

New Holland – Sydney Cove 26 January 1788 – was about invasion, dispossession of a Sovereign Peoples and stealing stuff.

New Holland strategically was about global warfare. See: Why New Holland – Britain + America + India + France + Spanish South America = European Australia

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Monte Video – Lord Sydney, Arthur Phillip & ‘Hush Christopher Robin’ Mark 1

Wednesday, August 12th, 2020

London – 4 July 1782: Lord Sydney inherited the office of Home Secretary from William Petty, Lord Shelburne, along with a mountain of unfinished business.  Included were the bare bones of what became known as the Dalrymple Plan. See: Proximity not Tyranny of Distance

Whitehall – House of Commons:  In March 1782 Lord North had resigned as Prime Minister. He was succeeded by Lord Rockingham who died in July 1782 when the position  passed to Lord Shelburne. He held the office for a year, until July 1783.

The Dalrymple mission aimed to launch marauding hit and run raids on Spain’s colonial possessions firstly Monte Video, present-day Uruguay, then  Buenos Aires, present-day Argentina,  on the Atlantic Coast of South America.

Brazil: Lord Sydney tasked Lieutenant Arthur Phillip RN design a strategy that would achieve this end. Phillip had spent nigh on three (3) years in Brazil seconded to the Portuguese Navy.

Rio: Phillip was an exceptionally effective spy. Based in Rio, fluent in French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Hebrew and Portuguese, he had access to a myriad of anti-Spanish dissenters ripe for rebellion and reported directly to Lord Sandwich at the Admiralty.

1783: Britain, driven by the humiliation that followed on from her defeat in the War of American Independence and loss of her ‘Empire in the West, the thirteen (13) American ‘middle colonies’, was determined to penetrate Spain’s ‘treasure‘ colonies in South America.

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STEALING STUFF

Wednesday, August 12th, 2020

‘Since the Age of Elizabeth 1, the British had had global ambitions in which possession of Central America offered the prospect of opening a path between the Atlantic and Pacific’. Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy, The Men Who Lost America, Yale University Press, New Haven, London 2013

Spanish South America: From the time of Tudor Elizabeth 1558-1603, despite determined efforts by the Queen’s buccaneers – Sir Jack Hawkins, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh and, a myriad privateers, England failed to oust Spain from her conquered territories, strung tantalisingly along the Pacific and Atlantic Coasts of South America.

England: To fill Elizabeth’s dwindling coffers Treasury came to rely on loot taken at the point of the sword by swarms of English pirates as they hit ‘treasure laden  galleon’s en-route from Peru, Panama and Chile to Spain.

New Holland: When the ‘First Fleet’ sailed from Portsmouth for New Holland, now Australia in May 1787, Governor Captain Arthur Phillip RN took with him ‘secret plans’ to attack Spain’s fabled ‘treasure’ colonies in Central and Southern America. See: Botany Bay – Lord Sydney, Arthur Philip & ‘Hush’ Christopher Robin’ Mark 2

London: The plans were Phillip’s own, drawn up in 1782 at the behest of Thomas Townshend Lord Sydney, the newly minted Home Secretary, while Britain was actively engaged in the America’s Revolutionary War of Independence 1775-1783. See: Monte Video – Lord Sydney, Arthur Phillip & ‘Hush’ Christopher Robin’ Mark 1 

Jamaica: Phillip’s ‘secret‘ plan had its genesis in the failed 1779 San Juan Expedition the brain-child of John Dalling the military Governor of Jamaica.

Canada: Earlier, in the North American theatre of the Seven Years’ War 1756-63, Governor Dalling served under General James Wolfe. Despite his wounding in the scaling of the Heights of Abraham from where the British bombarded the French General Joseph Montcalm’s men camped on the Plains below, Dalling was present when Britain captured Quebec from the French in 1759

No doubt driven by that past glory Dalling devised a plan to attack Spanish Nicaragua.  If successful he hoped to break Spain’s domination of Central and South America.

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