Daniel Messervy, shipowner
Jurat's privateering fleet
Daniel Messervy was a highly respected member of Jersey’s ruling class in the 18th century, appointed a Jurat at the age of only 32. He was also a shipowner, holding shares in a fleet of vessels which doubled as merchantmen and privateers. And he also left behind a diary which provides us with valuable information about life in Jersey at the time
Family
He was the elder son of Daniel Messervy, of Mont an Pretre, and Anne, daughter of Jurat Josue Pipon of La Moye. Born in St Helier in 1721, and baptized in the Town Church on 4 August, he was extremely well connected, being able to trace his family’s time in Jersey to the 13th century.
One of his grandfathers had been Attorney-General, the other Lieut-Bailiff. His uncle was Vice-Dean, his grandmother a De Carteret of St Ouen. So Daniel was soon drawn into public office. When 22 he became Churchwarden of St Helier; when only 32 he was sworn in as Jurat, on 9 February 1754.
A collection of his papers in the Société Jersiaise Library, gives an intimate view of the life of a well-to-do man of the period.
Although his father died when he was only eight years old, his mother was left well provided for, and when Daniel came of age he did not hesitate to make good use of his inheritance, determined to make even more money for himself.
Biography
Extracts from A Biographical Dictionary of Jersey by the Rev George Balleine
- ”When Daniel came of age he was at first pretty lavish with his money. He ordered, from London, presents for his lady friends, earrings for one; silver teaspoons for another; a silver cream jug for a third; for a fourth a shagreen case, ‘silver at both ends, wherein be sizars, penknife, bodkin, and a scale’; for a fifth he sent a little box "to be encased in pinchbeck with Bristol stones, and a little Cupid to be painted on the top".
- ”He ordered also a portrait of himself: "Have it done prettyly, and don't spare cost". He bought his clothes from a Cannon Street tailor. His barber's bill shows that he had a man in to shave him every day. His pots of pomatum and the dressing of his wigs cost him over a pound a month.”
Privateers
- ”On the other hand he had schemes for gaining money. He took shares in more than one privateer and he sent boats to the Newfoundland fisheries.”
Although it is not clear just what proportion of the following ships was owned by Messervy, they are frequently referred to as ‘his vessels’; but they must have involved him in a very substantial investment because in 1756, within two years of his appointment as Jurat he had acquired all or part of Dalvarde and Molly, to which no fewer than 13 ships were added the following year, and a further four soon after.
The Seven Years War with France started in 1756, so Messervy must have moved very quickly to take advantage of the opportunities presented for privateering. The fleet was reduced substantially in 1763 when the war with France ended and privateering was brought to an abrupt halt.
Messervy vessels
- Active, 80 tons, cutter, 1757-1763, 6 2-pounders
- Aubin, 1757-
- Balthide, brigantine, 1757-1763
- Boscawen, 1757-1763, 8 guns, 2 swivel
- Burnet, 1759-1763, took two prizes 1759
- Defiance, 30 tons, 1757- (shown also as 67-ton schooner)
- Delvarde, 1756-1763, 4 guns
- Duke of Cumberland, 70 tons, brigantine, 1757-1758, taken by French into Morlaix 1758
- Earl of Granville, 1757-1758, took two prizes with Revenge of Guernsey 1758
- Elizabeth, 115 tons, brigantine, 1763- , 2 guns
- Minerva, 180 tons, brig, 1757- , 14 2-pounders, 6 swivels and 70 crew
- Molly, 130 tons, schooner, 1756-1772, 10-plus crew, British plantation built
- Phoenix 1757- , 4 prizes taken in 1757
- Prince of Wales, 1758
- Revenge 150 tons, lugger, 1763, 14 guns and six swivel. Prize taken 1757. British plantation built
- Roy de Prusse, 1757- .
- Rozel
- Sarah, 1757- .
- Tartar, 100 tons, 1757- , American built
Defiance
A record exists of the activities of one Messervy vessel.
- "Capt Le Cronier of the Defiance returned to the island on 30 June 1757 accompanied by two large prizes which he had taken on their voyage from Bordeaux to America. Defiance sailed again and surprised a Swedish vessel valued at £8000. Altogether no fewer than nine prizes valued at £486,440 fell to Le Cronier that year."
Other enterprises
- ”He exported Jersey-knit stockings to England, and trounced his agent if he sold them at too low a price. He constantly invested in lottery tickets, and grumbled because he drew nothing but blanks.
Marriage and court case
On 7 June 1742 he married Jeanne, only daughter of Daniel Valpy dit Janvrin of St Brelacle, and by doing so became involved in a long, vexatious law-suit.
- ”26 years before his bride's great-grandfather had died, and his two sons quarrelled over the division of his property. The Court sent the matter before the Greffier for arbitration; but, when a preliminary award was given, the loser appealed to the Privy Council on technical points. The Council dismissed the appeal, and the case went back to the Greffier. So many new documents were then produced, that the Greffier sent the parties back before the Royal Court. The Court's decision was appealed against to the Council, and reversed, and the Court ordered to finish the case quickly, and finally to determine the accounts.
- ”Both sides then became obstructive, and refused to produce evidence. Meanwhile the original litigants died and their children inherited the quarrel. Messervy's bride represented one side, and a Mrs Mary Melvil the other; "that clamorous woman", Messervy called her, apparently with justice, for the Court remarked that the case would make more progress if she would "proceed to business, instead of breaking out into injurious invectives, as she hath too often done, and if she would
be guided by her counsel".
- ”In 1748 the matter went again before the Greffier, and again reached a deadlock. In 1757 she complained to the Privy Council that she could not get justice, and the Court was ordered to come to a decision. In 1760 it decided in Messervy's favour, but in 1765 the Council reversed this judgement. This did not end the matter. Mrs Melvil now claimed interest on the money out of which she had been kept. Messervy fought this to the Privy Council but again lost. The case had lasted 48 years.
Politics
- ”When Messervy became a Jurat in 1754, he joined the party of Charles Lempriere and remained a good party man. He chiefly distinguished himself by persistently pressing for the fortification of the Town Hill, where Fort Regent now stands; ‘your favourite hill’, Charles Lempriere calls it in one of his letters.
- ”In 1758 Messervy wrote: ‘I am glad our friends have cast a favourable eye on the Town Hill, as this will make some impression on those who found it ill that I spoke so much in its favour’.
- ”But his public work was hampered by ill-health. He seems to have been subject to periodical nervous breakdowns and he was obviously a valetudinarian. The amount of drugs that he swallowed is incredible. We have several of his doctor's bills. One for 1752 runs:
- Jan 5 - a bottle of anodyne
- Jan 6 - a vomit
- Jan 7 - a bolus
- Jan 8 - a bottle of cordial
- Jan 9 - a bolus
- Jan 10 - a bolus
- Jan 11 - 12 pills
- ”And so the record goes on for weeks, varied only with an occasional bleeding or blistering. Sixteen years later the story is still the same:
- January 15 - 4 stomachic pills
- January 16 - a nervous julep
- January 17 - stomachic mixture
- January 18 - purgative pills
- January 19 - A dozen nervous pills
- ”He writes to England for ‘Dr Lowther's Nervous Powders with directions, also a bottle of Mrs Holt's Elixir for the Palsy, and seven packets of Major's Cephalic Snuff with a book of its cures’. He paid long visits to Bath and Dinan to take the waters.
- ”Through ill-health he was absent from Court for most of 1760, and so missed the famous revolt of 28 September, when his fellow Jurats fled for refuge to Elizabeth Castle; but the Trinity rioters called at his house on their way to Town, and demanded cider ‘which one could not refuse at a time when a crowd of nearly 300 was passing every moment’.
- ”The excitement stimulated him to start a diary which he kept for almost three years (Published by La Société Jersiaise in 1896). He claimed a sick man's privilege, and took no part in public events, but sat at home recording the rumours and reports that were brought to him. He wrote with the contempt of an oligarch for la popupallace, ‘men of low degree, day labourers, common people’: but he recognized that the trouble was due to the failure of the States to regulate the sale of corn fairly.
- ”He managed to secure copies of all the petitions and counter-petitions that were circulating. Everyone came to see him, members of what he calls the Party of the Grumblers (Grondeurs) as well as his own colleagues, even Thomas James Gruchy, leader of the Trinity revolt:
- "He said that the people were like devils, openly clamouring for four lives. I asked whether mine was one of them. He answered: ‘No. You need not be nervous. It is the Lieut-Bailiff, Mons Pipon of La Moie, the Seigneur of St John, and the Deputy-Vicomte (George Benest)’.
- ”Colonel Bentinck, commander of the newly landed troops, called on him. So did Philippe De Carteret just back from his voyage round the world. So did David Le Vavasseur dit Durell, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, released from a French prison.
- ”Among others, a young Ensign of the Scottish troops came to dine and stay the night: ‘He is a great genius. He brought us a book of his own poems, of which he may well be proud. He recited one that he wrote when only 13". This was Thomas Erskine, the future Lord Chancellor.
- ”The Diary gives a graphic picture of the life of three eventful years”.
Death
On 19 December 1770 an Order in Council permitted Messervy to resign his Juratship on the ground of ill-health. In 1775 he died, and he was buried in the Town Church on 5 March. He lived in the house on Mont au Pretre, later called Linden Hall from the avenue of linden trees that he planted in 1751. He had five children, Daniel, who on the death of Earl Granville, became through his great-grandmother one of the Seigneurs of St Ouen. Francois, who worked under the Duke of Bouillon as director of the operations of the naval flotilla protecting the Channel Islands, Philippe, an officer in the 18th Foot, Jeanne, the Janneton of the diary, and Anna Elizabeth.
Further article
Family tree
