101 
THE SERVICES 
OP 
LIEUT.-COLONEL FRANCIS 
DOWNMAN, R.A., 
IN 
FRANCE, NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDI 
BETWEEN THE YEARS 1758 AND 1784. 
EDITED BY 
COLONEL F. A. WHINYATES, late R.H.A. 
__ v l- 
CHAPTER II. Continued. X ^ 1898 
- " ^ rm, 0 ■ 
- - ■■ • 
Lieutenant Downman’s occupation and amusements. A canoe voyage. 
The peace of 1763. Return home. Voyage to America. A violent 
storm. Le tters on the outbreak of the American War of Lndependence . 
On the 12th August, 1764, a large detachment of Artillery under 
the command of Major James/ embarked and went down to Gravesend. 
1 Kane’s List No.73. Major James and Lieutenant Downman were connected by marriage; Mrs 
Downman being a daughter of Mr. Francis Day of Pontefract, Yorkshire, whose sister married 
Major James. Major James served many years in North America, he was a man of taste and 
good private fortune and owned a beautiful house and garden with a valuable library in New York, 
which was burnt by the mob during the stamp act riots whilst the owner was on leave in England. 
Among the Downman papers is a little note-book which belonged to James, in which he accurate¬ 
ly describes the features of the country and scenery in a passage down the Hudson from Alba n y 
to New York. We will quote his entry for Tuesday June 30th, 1767. 
“Northward of Butter-milk fall, twenty yards from the shore, in 39 feet water, muddy 
bottom, landed, ascended up an uneven rocky path, but continued through a maze and winding 
way under the sylvan umbrage, but sultry hot; the top a little cultivated by an old Cornishman, 
whose sons have two other farms on each side and within half-a-mile of him. On the opposite 
shce lives Beverley Robinson. 2 The Cornubrian was at the taking of Gibraltar, in the year 1704, 
then 23 years old. This old man has 1000 acres for which he and children pay a quit rent of half-a- 
crown a hundred. They raise grain for themselves, though not sufficient; with sheep, pork, cows, 
etc. They are wood cutters. The boats fetch it for market at New York, and pay nine shillings 
dear, and six or seven, cheap, a cord, market price sixteen cheap, thirty dear, oak. Think of a 
man, a helper in the taking of Gibraltar! one of the jewels in His Majesty’s Crown! to be 
imbosomed in these high lands, where from the top, a ship, a skiff, a buoy, is almost too small for 
sight.” 
That James had a fellow feeling towards any one connected with Gibraltar, we can well 
understand for in 1771. he wrote his most learned and exhaustive book, in two volumes, “ The History 
of the Herculean Straits, now called Straits of Gibraltar ,” a work of much excellence. He also 
mentions on his way down the Hudson, passing Ducking Island, reckoned midway between Albany 
and New York and so called because unless passengers pay a bottle of wine they are ducked as in 
passing the tropics. Major-General James died a Colonel Commandant in 1782. 
2 Beverley Robinson’s house still stands, from whence General Benedict Arnold conducted his 
correspondence with Sir Henry Clinton, and where he met Major Andrb, on September 22nd, 
1780, to arrange the final terms of his treacherous proposal. 
3, Voe. xxv. 
14 
