Transcribed from the 1901 Charles Scribner’s Sonsedition ,
BY
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
NEWYORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1901
On the death of Fleeming Jenkin,his family and friends determined to publish a selection of hisvarious papers; by way of introduction, the following pages weredrawn up; and the whole, forming two considerable volumes, hasbeen issued in England. In the States, it has not beenthought advisable to reproduce the whole; and the memoirappearing alone, shorn of that other matter which was at once itsoccasion and its justification, so large an account of a man solittle known may seem to a stranger out of all proportion. But Jenkin was a man much more remarkable than the mere bulk ormerit of his work approves him. It was in the world, in thecommerce of friendship, by his brave attitude towards life, byhis high moral value and unwearied intellectual effort, that hestruck the minds of his contemporaries. His was anindividual figure, such as authors delight to draw, and all mento read of, in the pages of a novel. His was a face worthpainting for its own sake. If the sitter shall not seem tohave justified the portrait, if Jenkin, after his death, shallnot continue to make new friends, the fault will be altogethermine.
R. L S.
Saranac, Oct., 1887.
The Jenkins of Stowting—Fleeming’sgrandfather—Mrs. Buckner’sfortune—Fleeming’s father; goes to sea; at St.Helena; meets King Tom; service in the West Indies; end of hiscareer—The Campbell-Jacksons—Fleeming’smother—Fleeming’s uncle John.
In the reign of Henry VIII., afamily of the name of Jenkin, claiming to come from York, andbearing the arms of Jenkin ap Philip of St. Melans, are foundreputably settled in the county of Kent. Persons of stronggenealogical pinion pass from William Jenkin, Mayor of Folkestonein 1555, to his contemporary ‘John Jenkin, of the Citie ofYork, Receiver General of the County,’ and thence, by wayof Jenkin ap Philip, to the proper summit of any Cambrianpedigree—a prince; ‘Guaith Voeth, Lord ofCardigan,’ the name and style of him. It may suffice,however, for the present, that these Kentish Jenkins must haveundoubtedly derived from Wales, and being a stock of someefficiency, they struck root and grew to wealth and consequencein their new home.
Of their consequence we have proof enough in the fact that notonly was William Jenkin (as already mentioned) Mayor ofFolkestone in 1555, but no less than twenty-three times in thesucceeding century and a half, a Jenkin (William, Thomas, Henry,or Robert) sat in the same place of humble honour. Of theirwealth we know that in the reign of Charles I., Thomas Jenkin ofEythorne was more than once in the market buying land, andnotably, in 1633, acquired the manor of Stowting Court. This was an estate of some 320 acres, six miles from Hythe, inthe Bailiwick and Hundred of Stowting, and the Lathe of Shipway,held of the Crown in capite by the service of six men anda constable to defend the passage of the sea at Sandgate. It had a chequered history before it fell into the hands ofThomas of Eythorne, having been sold and given from one toanother—to the Archbishop, to Heringods, to theBurghershes, to Pavelys, Trivets, Cliffords, Wenlocks,Beauchamps, Nevilles, Kempes, and Clarkes: a piece of Kentishground condemned to see new faces and to be no man’shome. But from 1633 onw