Henry Langley, artillery storekeeper.

A group of three manuscript memoirs, recording his remarkable adventures in the Caribbean during ಞthe Napoleonic wars, t🔥ogether with typescripts:

i) “Statement of the Services of H. Langly [sic] esq. from 1st April 1792 to 30^th April 1845 including his captivity and escape from France”, including a summary of his career in the Ordnance from 1792 to 1845, copy letters, a “Note regarding the capture of the Colony of Surinam by HM Forces under the command of Major General Green in May 1804”, and a “brief account of Mr Langley’s captivity in France and his escape thence to England”, initialled at various places by Langley, 108 numbered pages, plus blanks, folio (323 x 205mm, Britannia watermark paper dated 1827), c. 1845, half red morocco on marbled boards, gilt lettering piece on upper cover, lacking spine, boards and final gathering of text block detached

ii) “Accurate Accounts of the Eruption at St. Vincent the fall of dust at Barbadoes, & the earthquake in Caracas 1812”, with diary entries and notes relating to Barbados, Suranim, St Vincent, and Caracas, manuscript in pencil with some revisions and erasures, signed and initialled at various places by Langley, with a pencil note on the front free endpapers (“The following is an Original Manuscript taken by Mr H. Langley on the spot. HL”), 71 numbered leaves, plus blanks, folio (323 x 210 mm, Coles Britannia watermark dated 1846), c.1840s, half red morocco on marbled boards, gilt lettering piece on upper cover, covers detached, worn

iii) “Memorandum of Mr Langley’s voyage from the West Indies his capture & arrival at Vurdun”, in ink, with a note at the end initialled by Langley, 129 pages, plus blanks, quarto (256 x 205mm), half red Morocco on red cloth, gilt lettering on upper cover, binding worn with loss at spine

iv-vii) Typescripts of all three manuscripts (including two copies of item (i)), probably early 20^th century, blue wrappers

“…I approached close to the edge; its appearance was truly terrific – it had the form of an inverted cone, of about three miles and a half in circumference – and, at the depth of about three hundred feet there appeared a boiling liquid, resembling in colour and brilliancy quicksilver. Close to the surface of which, all round the crater, the fire continued to issue with great fierceness, and every two or three minutes, large columns of black nauseous smoke attended with a most dreadful noise was thrown up, the𒈔 smoke was so much impregnated with sulphur, that a small silver mug which I had taken with me, for the purpose of taking refreshment, was turned entirely black…” (Description of the crater of La Soufrière, two months after the major eruption of 30 April 1812)

Henry Langley (1767-1859) was a career officer in the Ordnance who rose to become Ordnance Storekeeper of HM Gunwharf, Portsmouth. These memoirs of his extraordinary adventures during the Napoleonic Wars were written after his retirement in 1845, although♈ his account of the aftermath of the 1812 eruption of La Soufrière on St Vincent appears to derive in large part from a contemporary diary.

Langley first travelled to the Caribbean as was part of the 1795 military expedition to the West Indies commanded by Ralph Abercromby. In 1800 he was appointed Ordnance Storekeeper in Surinam, then to the same position in Barbados in 1802 when Surinam was relinquished to the Dutch. In 1803 he was responsible for superintending the ordnance needed for the ongoing British campaign in the Caribbean, and in 1804 (being familiar with the colony) he was appointed Commissary and Paymaster to the Ordnance for the invasion of Surinam led by Sir Charles Green. In his memoirs, Langley claims to have played a critical role in advising the best location for the landing party in Surinam’s treacherous and shallow coastline, and remembers with some bitterness the lack of recognition he received for this service. He was finally able to return to Britain on HMS Ganges in August 1805 but was captured by the French on his return journey after his ship was damaged in a gale; the ship’s surrender was largely as a result, according to Langley, of failures by the ship’s captain. The months that followed his capture were perhaps the most difficult of Langley’s life. The French naval squadron was trapped at sea by British blockades of French ports (this was, of course, the time of the Battle of Trafalgar) and all those aboard suffered very badly from scurvy. There followed six years of captivity in the officers’ camp at the fortress of Verdun. After several failed attempts, described in the memoirs in some dramatic 📖detail, Langley eventually escaped across the Channel to England in a small boat dressed as a fisherman in February 1811. He had lost all his possessions so was forced to return to the West Indies to obtain duplicates of papers proving his service – it was during this trip that he witnessed the dramatic eruption of La Soufrière on St Vincent, which he describes in compelling detail.

Lan෴gley was on Barbados on 30 April 18🎃12. As the morning advanced, the island was cast into complete darkness and ash began to fall from the sky:

“[at noon] from the total darkness burst forth that sort of light which is produce🤪d by a most tremendous fire burning with the greatest fury at no great distance, on a very dark night; and the atmosphere by degrees, became red like blood with an effect which I am certain the pencil of the most able artist could not deline♋ate; and in that state continued for nearly half an hour though the fall of the dust had much diminished, and the buildings which were about 100 feet distant from me became in a certain degree visible…”

Daylight returned by 1pm but the entire island was covered in some two inches of dust, choking the harvest (“…for more than six weeks after the inhabitants were obliged to wear glasses fixed in a particular manner for the safeguard of their eyes – and from the dust which settled upon their clothes, they appeared now like millers than any other description of persons...”). When Langley travelled on to Surinam on 9 May he discovered that the locals, who had not suffered from the dust cloud, did not know there had been a volcanic eruption – they had taken the noise and flashes of light ♒to be a naval battle. Curiosity then drove Langley to the island of St Vincent itself, where he arrived on 26 June 1812. He provides a vivid account of his trek to the crater itself (led by enslaved guides) and the state of the island in the aftermath of the eruption, as well as transcribing two eyewitness accounts of the eruption itself. Mssrs Cruickshank and Grant were both plantation owners, and the latter describes how 47 of the enslaved workers on his land had been killed in the eruption.

Langley remained in the Caribbean for some time, and in 1813 travelled to Caracas. This, once again, was a dangerous journey: Venezuela was in the middle of a revolutionary war against Spanish rule, and Caracas itself had been devastated by an earthquake in March 1812 (“…In many parts of the remains of churches we perceived considerable quantities of bones, which has been collected of the unfortunate sufferers by the earthquake, scarcely was there a house remaining perfect, and more than three quarters of the city were destroyed, including the large barracks, and several churches; with the Cathedral the spire only of which was about 10 feet above the surface and in a leaning position…”) Langley dined with Governor Monteverde, who had temporarily defeated Miranda and re-established Spa🦩nish rule, and appears to have had extensive conversations with the Governor’s secretary, Gomez. He describes the febrile political atmosphere in the ruined city and observes the unpopularity of Monteverde’s authoritarian regime.

Following his return to Europe, Langley was appointed Storekeeper and Paymaster to the Ionian Islands in 1817, then became Ordnance Storekeeper at Dover (1821-1835), and finally Ordnance Storekeeper at Portsmouth (1835-45). He wrote these memoirs to ensure that his services were remembered (he did not believe that his pension 𓄧properly reflected the sacrifices he had made for his country) and wished for them to be passed down in his family together with a portrait (now lost). THESE MEMOIRS APPEAR TO BE UNPUBLISHED.