¹ The subtitle of the influential collection edited by Brendan Bradshaw and Morrill, John, The British Problem, c. 1534–1707, is “State Formation in the Atlantic Archipelago” (Houndsmill, 1996)Google Scholar; quotation from Morrill's introduction, 1.

² Younger, Neil, War and Politics in the Elizabethan Counties (Manchester, 2012), 240 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³ Early studies on state building put war making at the center of the process. See Charles Tilly's important early work, Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990–1992 (Oxford, 1990)Google Scholar. More recent research emphasizes the negotiation of state power between central authority (or the nascent state) and various elites whose support was necessary for furthering the process. For England, see especially the work of Braddick, Michael J., State Formation in Early Modern England, c. 1550–1700 (Cambridge, 2000)Google Scholar. In her article on Cromwellian state building in Ireland, Jennifer Wells helpfully reviews the historiographical split between political studies focused on the central state and social histories interested in the process in the locales. See Wells, Jennifer, “English Law, Irish Trials and Cromwellian State Building in the 1650s,” Past and Present 227, no. 1 (2015): 77–119 Google Scholar. On the local, see Hindle, Steve, The State and Social Change in Early Modern England, 1560 to 1640 (London, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴ Games, Alison, The Web of Empire: English Cosmopolitanism in an Age of Expansion, 1560–1660 (New York, 2008), 289 Google Scholar. Braddick, State Formation, 7, rejects the idea of state building favoring state formation; he discusses the colonial case, pairing it with Ireland. See ibid., chap. 9. In early American historiography, the classic authority to emphasize negotiation between a central state that lacked resources or coercive power and colonial outposts that expect local elites to retain some control is Greene, Jack P., especially Peripheries and Center: Constitutional Development in the Extended Polities of the British Empire and the United States, 1607–1788 (Athens, GA, 1986)Google Scholar and idem, Negotiated Authorities: Essays in Colonial Political and Constitutional History (Charlottesville, 1994)Google Scholar. Seventeenth-century scholarship on early America currently highlights transatlantic exchange and colonial adaptation. See, for instance, Zahedieh, Nuala, The Capital and the Colonies: London and the Atlantic Economy, 1660–1700 (Cambridge, 2010)Google Scholar.

⁵ Doyley (1617?–1675), after studying law, fought for parliament's cause in his home county of Wiltshire and went to Ireland in 1647, part of a small force sent before the second civil war erupted in England. Remaining until 1654, shortly before his departure he gained a potentially lucrative position distributing seized lands. His personal history can be pieced together from references in key letters, cited below; from the biography in Cundall, Frank, The Governors of Jamaica in the Seventeenth Century (London, 1936), 1–9 Google Scholar; and from Bayley, William D'oyly, A Biographical, Historical, Genealogical and Heraldic Account of the House of D'Oyly (London, 1845)Google Scholar. For the start of his Irish service, see Firth, Charles Harding, The Regimental History of Cromwell's Army, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1940), 2:713Google Scholar. For an apparent reference to his appointment as a commissioner of transplantation, see Doyley to Oliver Cromwell, 20 June 1656, in Birch, Thomas, ed., A Collection of the State Papers of John Thurloe, Esq., 7 vols. (London, 1742)Google Scholar, 5:138 (hereafter SPT); Dunlop, Robert, ed., Ireland under the Commonwealth (Manchester, 1913), 387–89 and 387nGoogle Scholar. For the context, see Gardiner, Samuel R., “The Transplantation to Connaught,” English Historical Review 14, no. 56 (October 1899): 700–34Google Scholar, at 710–15. My thanks to John Cunningham for helping to track Doyley through the relevant Irish sources. The probable year of his birth can be deduced from the statement that he was in his fortieth year in September 1657. See Doyley to [Charles] Fleetwood, 12 September 1657, SPT, 6:512–13.

⁶ Glete, Jan, War and the State in Early Modern Europe: Spain, the Dutch Republic and Sweden as Fiscal-Military States, 1500–1660 (London, 2002), 214 Google Scholar.

⁷ Webb, Stephen Saunders, The Governors-General: The English Army and the Definition of the Empire, 1569–1681 (Chapel Hill, 1979), 151–210 Google Scholar, treats Jamaica as an early case of managing England's empire using a military model.

⁸ For a survey, see Andrews, Charles McLean, British Committees, Commissions and Councils of Trade and Plantations, 1622–1675 (Baltimore, 1908), 1–3 Google Scholar, and 24–48 for the interregnum.

⁹ The National Archives, Kew (hereafter TNA), CO1/33, 164, no. 67, Doyley to Commissioners of the Admiralty and Navy, 1 February 1659/60. William Blackstone deemed England a maritime state, to explain the prominence of laws relevant to its functioning, in Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769), book 1, chap. 13, “Of the Military and Maritime States.”

¹⁰ For a discussion of interim level officials in empire, see Benton, Lauren, “Just Despots, the Cultural Construct of Imperial Constitutions,” Law, Culture and the Humanities 9, no. 2 (June 2013): 213–26Google Scholar.

¹¹ For Jamaica's role in England's long-term reconceptualization of empire, see Leslie Theibert, “Making an English Jamaica, 1650–1688” (PhD diss., Yale University, 2013).

¹² Treating Jamaica as Ireland formed the logic behind the constitutional crisis of the 1670s. See Whitsun, Agnes M., The Constitutional Development of Jamaica, 1660 to 1729 (Manchester, 1929)Google Scholar.

¹³ For Fortescue's death, see Robert Sedgwick to Oliver Cromwell, 5 November 1655, SPT, 4:153; for Brayne, see Doyley to Oliver Cromwell, 12 September 1657, SPT, 6:512.

¹⁴ The three-man commission originated in the initial planning for the Design. See Taylor, S. A. G., The Western Design: An Account of Cromwell's Expedition to the Caribbean (Kingston, 1965)Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Doyley to the council of state, 27 February 1657[/8], SPT, 6:833–34.

¹⁶ Doyley to John Thurloe, 20 June 1656, SPT, 5:139.

¹⁷ Doyley to Oliver Cromwell, 20 June 1656, SPT, 5:138.

¹⁸ Ludlow, Edmund, Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow, 2 vols., ed. Firth, C.H. (Oxford, 1894), 2:365–66Google Scholar.

¹⁹ Doyley to Oliver Cromwell, 20 June 1656, SPT, 5:138.

²⁰ For a discussion of the politics of these changes, see Worden, Blair, God's Instruments: Political Conduct in the England of Oliver Cromwell (Oxford, 2012), 260–312 Google Scholar.

²¹ Andrews, British Committees, 44–47.

²² Fortescue's sole letter went to Thurloe, 16 July 1655; Sedgwick addressed nine letters, three each to Cromwell and Thurloe, the others to other governmental units; Brayne wrote seventeen surviving letters, between December 1656 and August 1657, to five correspondents.

²³ Thomas Povey's patron Martin Noell got him appointed to the Jamaica committee in July 1656. Andrews, British Committees, 45–46. He was insufficiently prominent to earn a mention in Brenner's, Robert Merchants and Revolution (London, 2003)Google Scholar, although Noell did. For the extent of his influence, see Bliss, Robert M., Revolution and Empire: English Politics and the American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century (Manchester, 1990), 69–71 Google Scholar.

²⁴ Swingen, Abigail L., Competing Visions of Empire: Labor, Slavery, and the Origins of the British Atlantic Empire (New Haven, 2015)Google Scholar, chap. 2.

²⁵ Povey is arguably better known now than his influence warranted due to the survival of his correspondence, a trove of letters treating his interests in the colonies. For his papers, see Egerton MSS 2395, British Library, London (hereafter Egerton 2395).

²⁶ Doyley to Thomas Povey, 12 July 1658, Egerton 2395, 169.

²⁷ Of the fourteen surviving letters, that dated 19 January 1659[/60] captures well the range of issues a patron (who also worked in the Admiralty) could address: see TNA CO1/33, no. 60, 150–51, Cornelius Burrough to Robert Blackborne.

²⁸ Doyley to John Thurloe, 6 October 1656, SPT, 5:476.

²⁹ TNA CO1/33, 164, no. 67, Doyley to Commissioners of Admiralty and Navy, 1 February 1659/60.

³⁰ Doyley to Oliver Cromwell, 12 September 1657, Cagway, Jamaica, SPT, 6:512; Doyley to Fleetwood, 12 September 1657, SPT, 6:512–13.

³¹ Doyley to Fleetwood, 12 September 1657, SPT, 6:513.

³² For a few who succeeded in getting money, see “Second Report of [the committee of America],” 29 October [1657], vol. 41, Folder 7, Reel 9, The William Blathwayt papers at Colonial Williamsburg, 1631–1722.

³³ Doyley to the council of state, 27 February 1657[/8], SPT, 6:833

³⁴ For a detailed treatment, see Pestana, Carla Gardina, “Mutinies on Anglo-Jamaica, 1656–1660,” in Rebellion, Repression, Reinvention: Mutiny in Comparative Perspective, ed. Hathaway, Jane (Westport, 2001), 63–94 Google Scholar; for ship stationed, see ibid., 75.

³⁵ “Coll. Edward D'Oyley's Journal of his proceedings during the time he held the chief Command in the island of Jamaica. It begins 19th November. 1655 and with (some interruptions) is carried on to 27th day of May 1662.” BL Add. MSS 12423, August 1660 (hereafter “Doyley's Journal”).

³⁶ Pagden, Anthony, The Uncertainties of Empire: Essays in Iberian and Ibero-American Intellectual History (Aldershot, 1994), 13 Google Scholar.

³⁷ Edward Doyley to Commissioners of the Admiralty and Navy, 28 April 1659, Box 1, Frederick L. Gay Family Papers, 1374–1822, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston (hereafter Gay Family Papers).

³⁸ Doyley to the council of state, 27 February 1657[/8], SPT, 6:833.

³⁹ Graham, Aaron, Corruption, Party, and the Government in Britain, 1702–1713 (Oxford, 2015), v, 249Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ Thomas Povey to Daniel Searle, 8 June 1659, BL Add. MSS 11411, 85–86v.

⁴¹ Doyley to Thomas Povey, 12 July 1658.

⁴² TNA, CO1/33, 164, no. 67, Doyley to Commissioners of the Admiralty and Navy, 24 January 1659[/60].

⁴³ Brayne to Thurloe, 9 June 1657, SPT, 6:391. On his earlier effort, see Taylor, Western Design, 19.

⁴⁴ For prizes, the journal contains a reference to his tenths, which postdates Charles's commission; it is not clear what had been the practice before that date. See “Doyley's Journal,” Orders 29 May 1660, 89v.

⁴⁵ TNA, CO1/33, 164, no. 67, Doyley to Commissioners of the Navy, 1 June 1660.

⁴⁶ See, for instance, “Lt. Generall Doyleys’ Answer to or desires about Capt Phemy,” 3 January 1660/1, BL 320, Blathwayt Papers, Huntington Library.

⁴⁷ Most of his insults are self-explanatory. “Self-ended” meant selfish; “bufflehead” denoted a fool; the definition of “shaclebraine,” although not listed in the Oxford English Dictionary, seemingly refers to someone closed-minded or of limited intellect. The final reference to Colonel Clark's cowardly role at the capture of Jersey in 1651 (under James Heane and Robert Blake) is not clarified by the surviving newsletter accounts of that engagement, which have him more active in any case at Guernsey; he later became an Admiralty commissioner. Firth, Regimental History, 2:450.

⁴⁸ Doyley to [unknown], 24 January 1659/60, Gay Family Papers. This letter, addressed merely “Right Honorable,” was probably directed at either the Admiralty or navy commissioners (or both). It was written on the same day as another, directed to both. By Major Bourne, he probably intended Nehemiah, a naval commissioner. Which Thompson he deemed a “shaclebraine” is unclear: possibly Bourne's fellow commissioner George.

⁴⁹ Doyley to [unknown], 24 January 1659/60, Gay Family Papers.

⁵⁰ It appears from the notation in Abbott, Wilbur Cortez, ed., The Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, 4 vols. (Cambridge, MA, 1945), 3:874Google Scholar, that Cromwell named Luke Stoakes (governor of Nevis who led colonists to relocate in Jamaica) as the civilian commissioner after Sedgwick died. He, too, along with most of the Nevis settlers, died in Jamaica.

⁵¹ Webb, Governors-General, 183–210. Webb stood on firmer ground when he underscored the significance of the title and powers granted to William Brayne.

⁵² “A Brief Survey of Jamaica,” Jamaican Historical Society 9, nos. 14–15 (1988): 209–21, at 217Google Scholar.

⁵³ [To Commissioners of the Admiralty and Navy], 22 January 1660[/1], HCA 1/9, pt. 1, no. 2, 3.

⁵⁴ See below, the case of the Diamond.

⁵⁵ Proclamation dated 31 May 1659, “Doyley's Journal,” 62. Merchants no doubt thought seamen better potential credit risks than the land-bound (and unpaid) soldiers.

⁵⁶ To Commissioners of the Admiralty and Navy, 1 February 1659/60, Jamaica, TNA, CO1/33, 164, no. 67.

⁵⁷ He also engaged them in other areas outside of their usual brief, e.g. to support his actions related to prize money. See TNA, CO1/18:91, no. 43, Doyley et al., “The Results of y^e Council held Concerning severall prizes,” [24 February 1658].

⁵⁸ Doyley to the council of state, 27 February 1657[/8], SPT, 6:834.

⁵⁹ Ibid.

⁶⁰ Ibid.

⁶¹ “The Relation of Colonell Doyley upon his returne from Jamaica directed to the Lord Chancellor,” BL Add. MSS 11410, n.d., 13, 13v.

⁶² TNA, CO1/14, no. 5, Doyley to the Commissioners of the Admiralty, 1 June 1660, 7.

⁶³ Ibid.

⁶⁴ TNA, CO1/18:91, no. 43, Doyley to Secretary [Edward] Nicholas, 11 September 1660.

⁶⁵ Instruccons for Captiane Thomas Wilkes comander of his Majesties shipp Convertive, “Doyley's Journal,” 20[?] August 1660, 94v.

⁶⁶ [Instrument declareinge their obedience], “Doyley's Journal,” 21 August 1660, 95v; the untitled entry is characterized as titled here on the previous page (95).

⁶⁷ Of course, on both sides of the royalist/revolutionary divide, strong partisans upheld their positions, even in the latter case in the face of being identified as seditious fanatics; a recent doctoral dissertation offers excellent evidence in support of this phenomenon for England and Wales: see Edward James Legon, “Remembering Revolution: Seditious Memories in England and Wales, 1660–1685” (PhD diss., University College of London, [2015]). Yet some not only eagerly embraced that Act of Oblivion that claimed to put the past behind everyone, but also revised their personal histories to conform to the persecuted royalist narrative. This complicated phenomenon is difficult to study directly, but it may have been more common among those in the colonies who had not faced stark choices that required that they declare their allegiances. Some men in English America had stood by their king throughout. See Pestana, Carla Gardina, The English Atlantic in an Age of Revolution, 1640–1660 (Cambridge, MA, 2007)Google Scholar, epilogue.

⁶⁸ For his apparent role in digging up graves, see Legon, “Remembering Revolution,” 69–70.

⁶⁹ TNA, CO1/18:91, no. 43, Doyley to Secretary Nicholas, 11 September 1660.

⁷⁰ Tim Harris presents the Restoration project in this light, in Politics under the Later Stuarts: Party Conflict in a Divided Society, 1660–1715 (London, 1993), 33–39 Google Scholar. As far as I have been able to determine, the Doyley family genealogist's assertion that he was originally a royalist officer, taken prisoner and then entered parliament's service, arose from his reading of this comment (and possibly his wish for loyal ancestors) rather than from any evidence. See Bayley, A Biographical Account of the House of D'Oyly, 46.

⁷¹ Doyley to Nicholas, 11 September 1660.

⁷² Their petition to the king names the ship incorrectly (as the St. Peter) and gives the date as 21 February 1661/2. Charles's response, ordering that Doyley redress their complaint, properly names the ship the Martin Van Rosen. See TNA, CO1/17:246 [100].

⁷³ TNA, CO140:40, Council Order, 16 January 166[1/]2.

⁷⁴ The oft-cited and reprinted document “A partiqular Narrative off y^e buying, & forfeiture of y^e ship of Negroes—Jamaica” exists in an undated copy in the TNA, CO1/15:123–24v. Written in 1663, it gives the date incorrectly (or was copied incorrectly) as 14 June 1661. On the basis of that dating, an otherwise undocumented voyage of a Dutch slave ship has been entered in the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database (as #21568), but in fact, evidence internal to that document makes clear that the date is wrong. For instance, Windsor had not yet been named in June, therefore Doyley could not have known he was on his way. The number of slaves on the Martin Van Rosen (#21996) was identical to that in the petition. The “Narrative” was presumably associated with a petition dated sometime before 2 December 1663 (on which date Secretary Bennett noted that Charles ordered they be given satisfaction); in it the Diamond crew references the Flemish vessel St. Peter of Middleborough, Peter Johnson, master, stating they seized it on 21 February 1661/2, and that they seek their share of the prize. No such vessel is known to have traded for slaves; Leonard Johnson [Leendert Jansen] was the captain of the Martin Van Rosen. He apparently died while in Jamaica or shortly before arriving, as his widow (who was present) is mentioned as conducting the trade. See TNA, CO140:40, Council Order, January 1661/2.

⁷⁵ Doyley's grandmother was Ursula Cope, and the resulting branch of the Doyley family tree included Cope as a first name. John, who may have been a relative, first appeared in Doyley's order book at a Council meeting on 24 June 1656, a Captain.

⁷⁶ TNA, CO140:40–42, Council Meeting, 16 April 1662.

⁷⁷ William Beeston, “A Journal kept by coll. William Beeston from his first comeing to Jamaica,” BL Add. MSS 12430, 27 April 1660–6 July 1680, 22–40; published in Interesting Tracts relating to the Island of Jamaica (St. Jago de la Vega, 1800), entry dated 24 April 1662 (275).

⁷⁸ TNA, CO1/18:91, no. 43, Petition to the king, n. d. [1664]. Guy Molesworth petitioned for permission to collect the money owed for the slaves in question, offering to give £100 of it to the king and keep the rest for himself. Petition to Charles II, 1663. Archibald Henderson had earlier proposed Molesworth to sit on a committee he suggested for the collection of colonial prize money; see TNA, CO1/15:98, 99, no. 46-I, petition to the King, n.d. (1661?).

⁷⁹ Doyley, Petition to the king, n.d. [1664].

⁸⁰ Tilly, Coercion, Capital.

⁸¹ Wells, “English Law,” 79–80, notes that as both a kingdom and a colony, Ireland merged the domestic and the imperial (a situation that Jamaica did not replicate); despite the continuing efforts to equate Ireland with other colonies, the situation in the Irish kingdom differed.