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From
Humble Beginnings | The
Young Captain | Le
Lacheur & Co | Costa
Rica – The Early Years Costa Rica – Building a Nation At the request of the Costa Rican government, William used the profits from selling the coffee on subsequent voyages to buy goods such as furniture, sewing machines, farm machinery, coffee production items and textiles, which improved coffee production and raised the overall standard of living. When William first arrived in Puntarenas he found what he described as a ‘poverty stricken and superstitious’ society. The country was nominally Roman Catholic but William decided that one way of helping to defeat the superstition was to take Protestant Bibles to the country. In 1844 the Reverend Wild, William’s minister at Eldad Chapel, sent a letter of recommendation to the headquarters of the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS), now known as The Bible Society, in London. He wrote: “Captain Le Lacheur is a member of my church … he is about to return to Costa Rica … I know of no man in this Kingdom of Great Britain to whom you may with more confidence entrust … Spanish bibles”. William’s next voyage to Puntarenas was in the schooner LAVINIA, which arrived on 26 January 1845, possibly carrying the first consignment of 200 - 300 Bibles. He continued to take Protestant scriptures to Costa Rica, selling the books at cost and remitting the money first to London and then to the Guernsey Branch of the BFBS. Faith played an important part in William’s life. In 1838 a Dr Richard Brealey, thought to have been a Methodist lay preacher, settled in Cartago, a small town to the south of San José. He devoted himself to the spiritual life of the growing Protestant community and in 1846 William bought a house in the capital, which was probably used for Sunday services. Dr Brealey became a valued friend of the family, and William's son John named his first son after him. William also opened an agency in San José at this time, which may have operated from this house. In 1850 the COSTA RICA, the first of Sebire’s purpose built coffee trading ships, was launched. The country’s agricultural economy went from strength to strength, thanks to William’s cargoes of agricultural and engineering tools. This, in turn, allowed him to operate bigger and bigger ships, to cope with the ever-increasing coffee crop. The fortunes of William’s company and the country were now inextricably linked. In 1851 William spent the considerable sum of 4,000 pesos on a second house in San José, which may also have been used for the burgeoning Protestant congregation. William himself never lived in Costa Rica. The coffee trade had always been centered in London, and William and his family now moved to a house in Camden Town, London. His children were grown up and his son, John, already had several years’ experience working with his father in the coffee trade. In 1856, a year before William retired, an army of American military adventurers led by William Walker, the self-appointed president of Nicaragua, set out to plunder and conquer Costa Rica. William had set sail for England two to three weeks earlier in the AMERICA, but was probably aware of the situation and appears to have left instructions for his other captains to help the Costa Rican Government in every way. They immediately suspended the loading of the coffee cargo in Purtarenas and put their ships, the TIMES, the COSTA RICA and the ESPERANZA, at the disposal of the government. The ships transported the army from Puntarenas to Guanacaste in the north of the country where it defeated Walker and his militants at the Battle of Santa Rosa on 20 March 1856. The local newspaper, the Boletin Oficial, said: “The distinguished Captain Le Lacheur deserves not only the recognition of the Government but of all the Costaricenses”. In 1857, at the age of 55, William Le Lacheur retired from the sea.
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