About the middle of the year died the Right Honourable Ralph Lord Lavington, Baron of Lavington, one of his majesty’s most honourable privy council, knight companion of the most honourable order of the Bath, captain-general and commander-in-chief of his majesty’s Leeward Caribbee Islands. His lordship, it is said, was a very hospitable man, and very fond of splendour; his Christmas balls and routs were upon the highest scale of magnificence; but he was a great stickler for etiquette, and a firm upholder of difference of rank and _colour_. It is asserted, that he would not upon any occasion, receive a letter or parcel from the fingers of a black or coloured man, and in order to guard against such _horrible defilement_, he had a golden instrument wrought something like a pair of sugar tongs, with which he was accustomed to hold the presented article. In his household he was also very particular. He had, of course, an immense number of attendants, but he would not allow any of the black servants to wear shoes or stockings, and consequently his ebon footmen used to stand behind his carriage as it rolled along, with their naked legs shining like pillars of jet, from the butter with which, in accordance to his excellency’s orders, they daily rubbed them. Lord Lavington entered upon his government the latter end of January, 1801, and resided at Antigua, with the exception of a short visit to Monserrat, until the day of his death. He died regretted by the “magnates of the land:” his tomb may still be seen at an estate called Carlisle’s,[54] but the garden in which it stands is overgrown with weeds, and the surrounding walls are falling to ruins. Were I the possessor of Carlisle’s, this should not be the case. If only in respect to the old and noble family of the Paynes, Lord Ralph’s last resting-place should not be thus dishonoured; a few flowers should shed their sweets around; a few trees should shade that old grey tomb. There is a very handsome monument erected to his memory in the church of St. John’s, which will be further mentioned in the description of that edifice. Lord Lavington’s family, on his father’s side, had long been resident in St. Christopher’s, where they were of great eminence and distinction, having filled some of the highest offices in that island. They originally came from Lavington, in the county of Wilts, from whence the title, and are said to have been of great antiquity, tracing their descent from Ralph de Payne, a follower of William the Conqueror, who took his name it is said from Payne in Normandy. His lordship’s intimate connexion with Antigua is derived from his mother, Alice Carlisle, of a family originally from the neighbourhood of Bridgewater, in Somersetshire, and whose lineage will be found in the Appendix, where it is given from the same source I have derived other genealogical information.