William Burke and Guadeloupe

William Burke gained the very desirable office of Secretary in the new regime established in the French island of Guadeloupe after the British conquest of 1758. The autonomy guaranteed to the French population under the terms of Guadeloupe’s surrender, however, limited the pecuniary advantages which he could obtain there. For much of his tenure he was in Britain, where he orchestrated a vigorous campaign for Guadeloupe to be turned into a permanent British colony. In his pamphlets, William, assisted by Edmund, argued cogently for greater value to be attached to gains in the Caribbean than to territorial aggrandizement on the North American continent. He was opposed by Benjamin Franklin among others. Whatever their merits, William’s arguments could not overturn long-established strategic priorities, in which new acquisitions in the West Indies did not feature highly. Guadeloupe went back to France in 1763 and William lost his office.