Patrick Maxwell of Grenada

With J. Balfour, an early purchaser of land in Tobago and also mortgagee-in-possession of the Preference estate in Grenada. In Tobago, the two men were shown c. 1773 as the Present Proprietors of Rockly Bay division (St Andrew parish) Lots no. 4-7, which had originally been bought by John Dumaresq and Michael Croker 19/05/1767, and which became Spring Garden and Burleigh Castle, and also of Rockly Bay division Lot no. 10. In Courland Bay division (St David parish) the two men were by c. 1773 owners of Lot no. 7 which had originally been purchased by James Hamilton 19/03/1767 and which became part of Orange Hill and Amity Hope.

1. 'Patrick Maxwell [a Scott] at Grenada, an old Virginia acquaintance' appears in a web of patronage activated c. 1772 by Charles Steuart on behalf of Thomas Ruddach. Maxwell in turn recommended Ruddach to 'a Cousin of his, a Mr Balfour, who he thinks is one of the best in Those Islands.'

2. Will of Patrick Maxwell, of the Island of Grenada, at present residing in London (made 19/10/1787, with a codicil describing him as 'now on board the ship General Matthew bound to London') was proved 07/05/1790. By the will, Patrick Maxwell left annuities of £25 p.a. each to his sisters Janet Markwrght [?] widow and Margaret Maxwell spinster; £1000 to his nephew Thomas Markwright [?]; and all the rest and residue of his estate to William Maxwell of Carriden near Linlithgow; if William Maxwell died without issue before becoming the heir of Patrick Maxwell, then the estate was to pass to Patrick Maxwell's nephew John Maxwell, subject to him paying £1000 each to his brother Patrick Maxwell and his sister Jane Maxwell.

3. In the codicil, dated 06/07/1789, Patrick Maxwell also bequeathed the Preference (late Mary's) estate in Grenada to his nephew William Maxwell, after rehearsing 'whereas I am and have for some years past been mortgagee-in-possession of the estate or plantation called Preference (late Mary's) in the Island of Grenada as well under original mortgage to myself as under another security by me taken up last year and then vested in trustees for my benefit subject to the payment of certain bills of exchange drawn by me on William Tod & Sons for the purchase of that incumbrance, and whereas I have left power and instructions with my attornies in Grenada to purchase the equity of redemption of the said mortgaged premises now outstanding in the heir at law or devisees of Thomas Tracey [?] deceased...' and which he instructed should also be conveyed to William Maxwell.

4. Death of Patrick Maxwell, Secretary to the Island of Grenada, 09/08/1789.

'Tables showing the Lots in each Parish, numbered as originally granted - the original Grantee - the name of the Lot, or lots, if one has been acquired, and the present Possessor where there is one' and 'A Table, showing the Estates in cultivation in 1832, and their Owners, in 1832, copied from the list appended to Byres' map of that date, with those in cultivation in 1862', Henry Iles Woodcock, A History of Tobago (Ayr: Smith and Grant, 1867; new impression London: Frank Cass and Company Limited, 1971); John Fowler, A summary account of the present flourishing state of the respectable colony of Tobago in the British West Indies illustrated with a map of the island and a plan of its settlement, agreeably to the sales by his Majesty’s Commissioners (London: A Grant, 1774) pp. 56-57 and pp. 36-37.

1. Alan L. Karras, Sojourners in the sun: Scottish migrants in Jamaica and the Chesapeake, 1740-1800 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), p. 163.

2. PROB 11/1192/44.

3. ibid.

4. European Magazine and London Review vol. 16 p. 231 (September 1789).