Robert Charles Dallas

Robert Charles Dallas (1754 – 1824) was a Jamaican-born British poet and conservative writer. He is known also for a contentious book on Lord Byron, and a history of the Second Maroon War.

Family Robert Charles Dallas was born in Kingston, Jamaica, where his father, Robert Dallas, M.D., of Dallas Castle, Jamaica, was a physician; his mother was a daughter of Colonel Cormack or Cammack. His will left his estate to his wife Sarah. Dr. Dallas bought the Boar Castle estate on the Cane River, Jamaica in 1758, changing its name to Dallas Castle. He left the island in 1764, having mortgaged the estate and put it in a trust.

Early life Robert Charles Dallas was educated at Musselburgh, in Scotland, and under James Elphinston at Kensington, London. He entered the Inner Temple, but on coming of age went to Jamaica to take possession of the estates which he had inherited, and became an official there. After three years he visited England and married. He returned with his wife to Jamaica. He subsequently resigned his post and left Jamaica for the sake of his wife's health. He had sold the Dallas Castle estate on Jamaica by 1810. He died in autumn 1824 at Sainte-Adresse, Normandy, France, and was buried at Le Havre. the book concentrated on the Second Maroon War and the subsequent deportations of the Jamaican Maroons of Cudjoe's Town (Trelawny Town) to Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone. Dallas had accounts from William Dawes Quarrell, who accompanied Maroons to Nova Scotia, and may be the plantation owner of Hanover Parish of that name; and William Robertson, who had served in the war. James Robertson the surveyor and cartographer made a map of the Cockpit Country for the book.

This work was published in a period when much public attention had been given over to the revolutionary events in Europe. The matter had previously been treated by Bryan Edwards in an account first published in 1796. Dallas expressed disapproval of slavery, but defended some government positions. The Monthly Review commented that the author was cashing in on public interest in the slavery question, and had exaggerated the hardships. James Stephen, who was aware of Dallas's authorship of A Short Journey, regarded The History of the Maroons as a defence of slavery against his own book The Crisis of the Sugar Colonies (1802).

Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron Dallas is best known for a connection with Lord Byron, and his Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron from the year 1808 to the end of 1814 appeared posthumously, by a tortuous route. His sister Henrietta Charlotte was married to the Hon. George Anson Byron, an uncle of Byron.

When Byron died in April 1824, Dallas proposed to publish the Recollections. On the grapevine (via Byron's aunt Julia Heath) Augusta Leigh, Byron's half-sister who was dealing with a number of would-be biographers, heard of the plan and objected strongly. Dallas won over George Anson Byron, his brother-in-law. John Cam Hobhouse and John Hanson, Byron's executors, obtained an injunction from Lord Eldon against the publication of the letters.