George Glas

George Glas(1725 – 30 November 1765) was aScottishseamanandmerchantadventurer inWest Africa.

The son ofJohn Glas,thedivine,Glas was born atDundeein 1725, and is said to have been brought up as a surgeon. He obtained command of a ship which traded betweenBrazil,the northwest coasts of Africa and theCanary Islands.

During his voyages he discovered on theWestern Saharaseaboard a river navigable for some distance inland, and here he proposed to found a trading station. The exact spot is not known with certainty, but it is plausibly identified withGueder,possibly the haven where the Spaniards had in the 15th and 16th centuries a fort called Santa Cruz de Mar Pequeña.

Glas made an arrangement with theLords of Tradewhereby he was granted £15,000 if he obtained free cession of the port he had discovered to the British crown; the proposal was to be laid beforeParliamentin the session of 1765. Having chartered a vessel, Glas, with his wife and daughter, sailed for Africa in 1764, reached his destination and made a treaty with theMoorsof the district. He named his settlementPort Hillsborough,afterWills Hill,earl of Hillsborough (afterwards marquis of Downshire), president of the Board of Trade and Plantations (1763–1765). In November 1764, Glas and some companions, leaving his ship behind, went in the longboat toLanzarote,intending to buy a smallbarquesuitable for the navigation of the river on which was his settlement. From Lanzarote he forwarded to London the treaty he had concluded for the acquisition of Port Hillsborough. A few days later he was seized by the Spaniards, taken toTenerifeand imprisoned atSanta Cruz de Tenerife.In a letter to the Lords of Trade from Teneriffe, dated 15 December 1764, Glas said he believed the reason for his detention was the jealousy of the Spaniards at the settlement at Port Hillsborough because in a time of war the English might ruin their fishery and effectually stop the whole commerce of theCanary Islands.

The Spaniards further looked upon the settlement as a step towards the conquest of the islands. They therefore contrived how to make out a claim to the port and forged old manuscripts to prove their assertion (Calendar of Home Office Papers, 1760-1765). In March 1765 the ships company at Port Hillsborough was attacked by the natives and several members of it killed. The survivors, including Mrs and Miss Glas, escaped to Tenerife. In October following, through the representations of the British government, Glas was released from prison. With his wife and child he set sail for England on board the barqueEarl of Sandwich.On 30 November British mariners George Gidley, Richard St. Quinton, Peter McKinlie and a Dutchman Andres Lukerman,who had learned that the ship contained much treasure, mutinied, killing the captain and passengers. Glas was stabbed to death, and his wife and daughter thrown overboard. The murderers were afterwards captured and hanged atDublin.There is some evidence to suggest thatRobert Louis Stevensonbased his novelTreasure Islandin part on the murders of the Glas family.He grew up in the shadow of the Glasite church in Edinburgh. After the death of Glas theBritish Governmentappears to have taken no steps to carry out his project.

In 1764, Glas published in LondonThe History of the Discovery and Conquest of the Canary Islands,which he had translated from the manuscript of anAndalusianmonk namedJuan de Abréu Galindo,then recently discovered atLa Palma.To this Glas added a description of the islands, a continuation of the history and an account of the manners, customs, trade, etc., of the inhabitants, displaying considerable knowledge of thearchipelago.

References

• History Scotland

Attribution:

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain:Chisholm, Hugh,ed. (1911). "Glas, George".Encyclopædia Britannica.Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 79.

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