The Gibraltar Magazine


	Readers with long memories will recall that in September 2004, the Gibraltar Magazine told the story of John Montresor, undoubtedly the greatest engineer to have been born in Gibraltar. Montresor’s achievements as an engineer and a map-maker of genius were particularly impressive in North America where, among other things, he created the world’s first practical elevator to haul supplies from the Niagara river to the clifftop over which its famous falls cascade.
	Born in Gibraltar in 1736, Montresor was taken to the new world by his father, James, in 1754. By the time the first shots of the American revolution were fired, in April 1775, he had become successful enough to buy himself a private island in the East River near Manhattan, where he lived with his family. As a map-maker and builder of fortifications he was invaluable to the British in their ill-fated attempts to put down the revolt and set history back on the rails, but when the British Commander-in-Chief, Viscount Howe, gave way to General Henry Clinton in 1778, Montresor decided enough was enough. Clinton was an arrogant, obnoxious idiot, and Montresor found him impossible to work with. He resigned his commission and returned to England, where he died in 1799. His life, not long by today’s standards, but long enough by those of his time, was one of adventure and achievement. He had done more than enough to merit a place in posterity’s Hall of Fame and died fulfilled and, we must hope, happy. But if his cousin Susanna Rowson was right, Montresor had at least one dark stain on his character that shows him in a totally different light. Susanna was born Susanna Haswell in Portsmouth in 1762. Her mother, after whom she was named, died within days of her birth while her father, William, was on active service as a customs officer with the Royal Navy in Boston, Massachusetts. He was clearly a plain-speaking, practical man. With one wife dead, he needed another, and lost little time in appointing a certain Rachel Woodward to the post. He sailed to England, collected his semi-orphaned daughter, and carried her back to Boston, where their arrival almost turned to disaster. The ship ran aground on Lovells Island in Boston Harbour, and the passengers spent several perilous days aboard before being rescued. When the revolution broke out, the Haswells were not as fortunately placed as cousin Montresor on his private Manhattan island. William Haswell’s family was placed under house arrest, before being forcibly moved inland to the town of Hingham. Haswell’s health was not good, and three years later, as part of a prisoner exchange, the family was handed over to the British and made their way to England, where they settled in Kingston-upon-Hull. Their American property had been confiscated, and they arrived home with little more than the clothes on their backs. To help support the newly impoverished household, 13-year old Susanna took work as a governess. Most people know the word “governess”, and have at least a vague idea of its meaning, but few know precisely what the work of an 18th Century governess entailed. Ostensibly, a governess was employed by wealthy families to give their children private home tuition. In effect, the governess was often little more than a surrogate mother, expected to be on hand around the clock to spare the lady of the house the tedious irritations of motherhood. It is therefore surprising that with so much on her plate, young Susanna somehow found the time and the energy to write. In 1786, she published her first novel, Victoria, dedicated to the Duchess of Devonshire. That same year, she escaped the drudgery of disciplining others’ unruly brats by marrying William Rowson, hardware merchant and sometime trumpeter in the Horse Guards. It wasn’t enough, either for him or his new wife. They yearned for the limelight, and became actors. In 1793, as part of the touring company of Thomas Wignell, they sailed to America and performed in Philadelphia. Susanna’s energy and invention seemed endless. Alongside her acting, she was writing so much that “prolifically” seems an inadequate adverb to use. In just three years she produced a musical play, a farce, a novel, and a heap of songs for her fellow actors. Nor was she reticent in expressing her views. In response to a critical comment by the writer and parliamentarian, William Cobbett, she called him a “loathsome reptile”. In 1796, she and Thomas moved to Boston. It must have been a bitter-sweet return for a girl who had spent her happy, formative years there with her father before the revolution washed their world away. For a year they performed at the Federal Street theatre. Then, in 1797, she abruptly retired from the stage and opened a school for girls. But through it all she continued writing, even editing the Boston Weekly Magazine between 1802 and 1805. She and Thomas had no children of their own, but Thomas found time to father at least one illegitimate son, who the forgiving Susanna took into the household, where he joined two adopted daughters, plus the widow and daughters of her half-brother, Robert. He had drowned at sea in 1801. If that wasn’t enough, she also founded a charity for fatherless children. Suddenly “remarkable” joins “prolifically” in the list of inadequate descriptions.She retired in 1822, and died on March 2nd 1824. She was buried in Boston’s Forest Hills Cemetery, and her tombstone notes her as the creator of Charlotte Temple. Finally we are back with Gibraltar’s greatest engineer, John Montresor. The road has been long, but those who have stayed aboard the bus hoping for a juicy bit of tittle-tattle will not be disappointed. Susanna Rowson wrote an awful lot of stuff, but her biggest hit by far was, Charlotte Temple, published in England in 1791, and America in 1794, where it became a sensation, and remained the best selling novel in America for more than sixty years. In essence, the tale it tells is a trite and sentimental one. A young girl is seduced by a soldier who takes her to New York, gets her pregnant and abandons her. But there is more to it than meets the eye. Susanna teasingly subtitled her book, A Tale of Truth, and the name of the unspeakable cad who treats Charlotte Temple so badly is “John Montraville”, a barely veiled reference to her first cousin, John Montresor. Susanna never denied that “Montraville” and Montresor were one and the same, and claimed that the true story on which her novel was based had been told to her by a lady who appears in the book as Mrs Beauchamp. According to this mysterious informant, in 1774, while serving in the British army, Montresor had courted Miss Charlotte Stanley, beautiful granddaughter of the Earl of Derby. As related in the novel, he took her to New York, where his regiment was serving, impregnated and then callously abandoned her. Brokenhearted, she died at the age of 19, and was buried in New York’s Trinity Churchyard. There are problems with the story. In 1774, John Montresor was 38 years old and had been married to his wife, Frances, for ten years. In 1772 he had bought the private island where he and his family were living at the outbreak of the American revolution in 1775. He was wealthy and successful. Unless he was in the grip of a powerful and premature mid-life crisis, it is surely inconceivable that he would abandon everything and in a fit of madness run off to New York with a young mistress before coming to his senses, leaving her to her fate and returning home with a sheepish sorry-about-that grin on his face. Move the story back in time by twenty years, however, and it is suddenly more plausible. In 1754 the 18-year old Montresor was certainly in New York, no doubt sowing his wild oats with the feckless abandon of youth. In doing so, he may well have impregnated an equally young and carefree girl, perhaps even Charlotte Stanley. But at 18, and with a career to build, he might decided that he was far too young to marry and assume the responsibility of a family, and cruelly walked away. In 1754, a young, unmarried pregnant girl was in a far more difficult situation than she would be today. It was the worst kind of double standard. While the man or boy who impregnated her would be considered “a sport”, and his philanderings proof of his manhood, the unfortunate girl would be disgraced. She would be “soiled goods”, and her chances of finding a respectable husband would be destroyed. She would more than likely be shunned by her family, particularly if that family was socially prominent, and would often have nowhere to turn but to prostitution or the convent. So if John Montresor was indeed the real-life counterpart of “John Montraville”, and the story of “Charlotte Temple” essentially true, it must have occurred while both were adolescents. This does not excuse Montresor’s callous behaviour, but it is a far cry from the impression of a young, innocent girl being seduced and cynically abused by an experienced, worldly soldier. There is some indirect support for the veracity of the tale in Montresor’s reaction. The novel appeared in 1791, and the fact that its main character was based on John Montresor was never disguised. John Montresor died in 1799. He had the best part of a decade to deny the story, and institute proceedings for libel against its author. He apparently never did so. Lawyers will say that an accused person has the right to remain silent and that his silence cannot be held against him. Common sense will say “baloney”. It is natural, if regrettable, that silence in the face of rumour, innuendo or outright accusation is all too often taken as a sign of guilt. John Montresor spent the final twenty years of his life in England. Details are sparse, but in speaking of him, Susanna Rowson said a curious thing. Claiming to have knowledge of his life “from his marriage to within a very few late years”, she added that “retribution treads on the heels of vice, and yet though not always apparent, yet even in the midst of splendour and prosperity, conscience stings the guilty and puts rankles in the vessels of their peace”. It may be so. But if John Montresor really did spend his final years wrestling with the dark demons living inside his head, there can be little doubt that the fuel that drove them was provided by a mega-selling book that laid bare a best-forgotten folly of his youth