On John Courtenay (or Tribal Puritanism, Part II)
The excellent historical materialist blog Histomat, recently featured some excerpts from James Boswell’s pro-slavery love poem, No Abolition of Slavery, or the Universal Empire of Love. One section of Boswell’s poem on the beauty of slave-based civilization, caught my attention (especially after reading another fascinating post at Lenin’s Tomb about Baudrillard’s skepticsm) was this one:
Let COURTENAY sneer, and gibe, and hack,
We know Ham’s sons are always black;
On sceptick themes he wildly raves,
Yet Africk’s sons were always slaves;
Who, I wondered, was this latter-day Montaigne, raving on “skeptic themes” against slavery? I’d never heard of him, and it was harder than I imagined to find out. But the DNB and ECCO helped me finger John Courtenay (1738-1816), secretary of Geroge III’s Master of Ordinance, and occasional pornographic revolutionary, at least in the sense that he was, like Samuel Johnson but unlike James Boswell, an staunch opponent of slavery. I’m still not sure what works of Courtney’s Boswell was mocking in his slavery/love poem, but a good guess might be Courtenay’s 1774 An Epistle from an Officer at Otaheite, a short humorous piece on “savagery,” sexuality, and empire.
The Epistle describes sexual practices in Tahiti (ones which Boswell presumably found horrific and incompatible with his notion of “civilized” monogamous love), and records Courtenay’s boundless enthusiasm for ceremonial sexual practices, quoting Milton in a way that seems a surprisingly appropriate invocation of a Puritan who was indeed an early admirer of an imagined pre-civilization sexuality. Courtenay writes:
Experienc’d dames, then led the smiling maid
To the sweet umbrage of the plantain’s shade.
Her bed, like Eve’s, with choicest flowers blooms,
And hov’ring Cupids shed divine perfumes.
With tuckt–up shifts, the fairest damsels sing [. . .]
Their brilliant bums in rapid circles seen,
With dazzling lutstre shine, before the Queene;So said he, and forborne no glance nor toy
Of amorous intent; well understood
Of Eve, whose Eye darted contagious fire:
Her hand he seized, and to a shady bank
He led her nothing loth; flowers were the couch,
Pansies and violets, and asphodel,
And hyacinth, earth’s softest, freshest lap. (Paradise Lost)The Virgin’s eyes in light luxuriant swim,
Her mantling blood glows thro’ each brighting limb.
A vigorous youth soon clasps the beauteous prize,
Lusty and brown (almost your C—ny’s size).
Whilst over the rites, the Queen herself presides,
And in mild accents, Otheothea guides.“Now Gently heave, in wanton fields entwine,
To aid his bliss, let every nerve combine;
See his lips tremble and his eyelids roll,
Suck the last breath, and catch his flying soul.”
She hears; obeys, in speechless transports drown’d,
Whilst sympathetic murmurs float around,
Meetee Attira! murmurs every lass,
And thousands fall, extended on the grass.O blest employment of a Sovereign’s time,
How seldom seen in Europe’s barbarous clime!
Well. Quite a bit’s going on here, to put it mildly. Courtenay’s discussing the South Pacific, not Africa, but I’m guessing that Boswell was willing to over look that minor detail. It doesn’t seem like Courtenay’s work is very well-known (or perhaps I’m mistaken?), and I suppose he’d be an interesting character for some enterprising student of Georgian English literature and politics. He didn’t write too much, but I’m sure he’d also make for a very manageable article or two, or perhaps something longer, if manuscript materials are findable.