d
at an English school and then at a university would not equal in
intellectual attainments a white youth similarly educated.[218] The
links that would explain how it was that the choice for this
experiment fell on Francis Williams are missing, but there it did
fall. He must certainly have been, as Gardner suggests, "a lively,
intelligent lad,"[219] but that by itself would not fully explain his
being chosen. Someone fairly high up in Jamaica must have been taking
a special interest in the Williams family, and that interest, in view
of the collateral facts, must have been based on something of note in
John Williams, Senior.

Francis received preliminary training in Jamaica, and then was sent to
an English grammar school. Thence he went to Cambridge University.
Only the bare facts of his story remain, like a skeleton, but we can
safely argue that he did not disappoint the expectations of his patron
to any serious extent, for, when the time came for Francis to return
to Jamaica, the Duke of Montague used his influence with some
determination to get his protege appointed to a seat in the Council,
that his abilities might be fully put to the test. The Governor of
the island with whom the Duke had to do was Edward Trelawny, and this
shows that Williams returned to Jamaica between 1738 and 1748, for it
was between those years that Trelawny held sway. They were stormy
times, and Trelawny was a man with anything but a placid temper or
compliant views. The famous war of "Jenkin's ear," between Britain and
Spain, began in 1738. Porto Bello was destroyed by Vernon and
Cartagena was attacked with troops whose base was Jamaica. In fact,
Trelawny added a Negro detachment to the army employed.[220] In the
quarrels that followed the disastrous failure at Cartagena, Trelawny
had even more than his fair share of the cursing, and it is hardly
surprising to find that a man of such temper, and amid such storms of
fate, was anything but malleable to the Duke's request. The Governor
knew his mind, and it was that setting a black man in the Council
would excite restlessness among the slave population. The Duke's
experiment with Williams was, therefore, not completed as the Duke
himself intended it should be.[221]

Williams settled down in Spanish Town (St. Jago de la Vega), the then
capital of the island, and conducted a school for imparting a
classical and mathematical education. He became known also in the
island, and to some extent abroa