CHAPTER VIII

GRENADA AND ST. DOMINGO, 1796

[Sidenote: 1795.]

While these two troops of the Seventeenth were making a name for the regiment in Jamaica, the remainder were very differently engaged. On the 6th August four troops embarked at Cork, 189 men being present and 194 absent in Jamaica and elsewhere, and sailed to Portsmouth, where they joined the cavalry camp at Netley, under Lord Cathcart. On the 21st September (according to the official record) they embarked for St. Domingo. From that date, if it be correct, it is extremely difficult to trace them. They formed part of the great expedition for the reconquest of the West Indies beyond all doubt; but that expedition did not sail until November, when the huge fleet of transports, under the convoy of Admiral Christian’s squadron, was one of the most wonderful sights ever seen by Englishmen. The ships were not clear of the Channel before they were dispersed, many of them being lost, with appalling loss of life, by a storm. The fleet, all that was left of it, sailed again on the 9th December, and was again met by a storm, greatly damaged, and compelled to return to Spithead on the 30th. On the 26th December 100 transports were missing, of which no one knew whether they were afloat or gone to the bottom. It was not until the following March that Sir Ralph Abercromby, the Commander-in-Chief of the expedition, after having been a third time driven back to England by gales in February, contrived finally to reach Barbados, the headquarters of the British forces in the West Indies.

The Seventeenth, or at any rate some of them, appear to have reached the West Indies earlier than this. [Sidenote: 1795.] Two troops were employed, we are told, as marines on board H.M.S. _Hermione_, the ill-fated ship which in 1797 was the scene of one of the most disgraceful mutinies in the history of the British navy. Fortunately the Seventeenth had no share in the massacre of officers and delivery of the ship to the Spaniards, which make the name of the _Hermione_ a byword. The two troops were landed at Martinique; but in order to understand why they were needed there it is necessary to glance at the history of the West Indies during the year 1795.

It has already been said that Mr. Pitt made early attack on the French Antilles. In addition to the expedition to St. Domingo, he in 1794 sent General Grey and Admiral Jervis to reduce the French islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe, which object they successfully accomplished. The adjacent islands of Grenada and St. Vincent had already been surrendered to us by France in previous wars, and were known as the French Ceded Islands. In 1795, however, the French contrived to stir up revolt against the English in the whole of these islands; and as in those days the French Revolutionists stuck at nothing, they did not hesitate to rouse the whole negro population, free and slave, against the British and ally themselves with it. The result was a quasi-civil war of the most barbarous kind--in fact, a turning loose of all the worst characters in the West Indies on the track of massacre and plunder. The garrisons of the British islands were so weak that in some cases, as in St. Lucia, they were overpowered and in others pressed to extremity. Grenada being the island wherewith the Seventeenth was engaged, it is necessary to glance at the course of the revolt therein.

Grenada, like most of the West Indian Islands, is simply a rugged, confused mass of volcanic hills, rising at their highest to three thousand feet. For the most part it is covered with jungle, but in the valleys and on the less precipitous ground the soil is fertile, and grows fine crops of sugar-canes and cacao. In shape the island is elliptical: it measures at its longest, from north to south, about twenty miles; at its broadest, from east to west, about ten miles. [Sidenote: 1795.] There are two little ports, St. Andrews and Grenville, on the windward or east side; another at the north point, Sauteurs; and two more on the leeward or western side, Charlottetown and St. George’s, the capital. The garrison in 1795 consisted of 150 men of the 58th Foot, quartered in the barracks at St. George’s, and in the old fort, called Fort George, which still commands the entrance to the harbour.

It was on the 2nd March 1795 that the revolt broke out in Grenada. None of the English had the least idea that it was coming. The Governor himself had gone away on a trip to the leeward side of the island, unconscious of any mischief. Before the morning of the 3rd of March had dawned the negroes had massacred the whites at Grenville Bay to windward, captured those at Charlottetown to leeward, and held forty-two of them, including the unlucky Governor, as prisoners in their hands. The civilian next in rank to the Governor at once took command of the island, sent to Martinique, Barbados, and Trinidad for assistance, and called out the local militia. This done he sent the 150 men of the 58th, together with the militia, to attack the insurgent post at Charlottetown. But when it came to the point the militia was not to be found--every man had fled on board the coasting vessels. The insurgents’ position being very strong, the 58th could not attack it, and were compelled to return to St. George’s.

[Sidenote: 12th Mar.]

On the 12th March General Lindsay arrived from St. Lucia (which as yet was still quiet) with 150 men of the 9th and 68th Foot, and on the 17th attacked the insurgents, who forthwith retired to an impregnable position. Then the tropical rain came down and put a stop to all further operations. There are not many roads in Grenada now, and there were still fewer then--mere narrow, cobble-paved tracks, hardly wide enough for any wheeled vehicle. In fact these West Indies are miserable places to fight in, as this poor handful of British soldiers now discovered. Soaked with rain, exhausted by the stifling heat, and broken down by fever, the men had to tramp back as best they could. [Sidenote: 1795.] General Lindsay in the delirium of fever committed suicide, and his successor saw that without a stronger force it was useless to attack the rebels. Meanwhile the head of the insurgents, a ruffianly mulatto named Fédon, issued a proclamation threatening death to all who helped the English, and announcing openly that he would retaliate for any measures of repression by slaughtering his prisoners. As a natural consequence the negroes flocked to his standard in thousands, and laid the whole island waste.

[Sidenote: 1st April.]

On the 1st of April there arrived a weak reinforcement of the 25th and 29th Foot, probably about 400 men, from Barbados. With these and a few blue-jackets Brigadier Campbell attacked the insurgent stronghold on the 8th, but was repulsed. The rebel position was of extraordinary strength, well chosen, well fortified by abattis and other obstacles, and strongly manned. The British troops did all that men could do, with everything--numbers, climate, and tropical rain--against them; but they were compelled to retreat with the loss of 100 killed and wounded. Fédon then brought out his prisoners and cut the throat of every one.

Then, as usual, together with the rains came the yellow fever. The British troops suffered frightfully. “The 25th and 29th begin to fall down fast,” says the General in a letter of 11th May. “Twenty died last week and six were carried off yesterday.” So things went from bad to worse. No reinforcements could be obtained from the other islands, for one and all (excepting Barbados) were in a worse position than Grenada. St. Lucia had been evacuated; St. Vincent, after desperate fighting, was at the last gasp. In fact it seemed as if the West Indies were lost to England. By December the insurgent force in Grenada amounted to 10,000 men, well armed, furnished with artillery, and led by trained white French officers. The British troops, outnumbered on every side, were compelled to abandon the ports which they had tried to hold on the coast, and retire to St. George’s. The rebels, or brigands as they were called, threatened to attack them even there. [Sidenote: 1795.] Nothing but the capture of the capital was wanting to give them absolute possession of the whole island.

[Sidenote: 1796.]

But at last the tide began to turn. The long-awaited reinforcements from England had arrived at Barbados, and the relief of Grenada was at hand. On the 4th March 588 men from the 10th, 25th, and 88th Foot, under Brigadier Mackenzie, arrived at St. George’s. They had lost 45 men in the course of a two days’ passage; but their arrival was timely, for it compelled the insurgents to retire from before the capital. A week later further reinforcements from the 3rd, 8th, and 63rd Foot and the Seventeenth Light Dragoons landed at Sauteurs, at the extreme north point of the island. What were the numbers of the Seventeenth I have not been able to ascertain. One account says two troops, and I am inclined to think that this is correct. Whence these troops came, whether from England or Martinique, it is impossible to say. On the 24th March, pursuant to the designs of Brigadier Campbell, the forces at Sauteurs, 700 men in all, and those from St. George’s, converged--the former by land, the latter by sea--upon the new position which the rebels had entrenched at Port Royal or Grenville. The troops, having been landed, worked during the night at the construction of a three-gun battery, and opened fire at daybreak next morning. But before attacking the main position on the principal heights, it was necessary first to clear some secondary heights adjoining them. [Sidenote: 25th Mar.] For this duty the detachment of the 88th was detailed; but such was the difficulty of the ground that it was two hours before the 88th could even get near the enemy, and when they reached them it was only to be driven back. With great reluctance Campbell, who had made his dispositions not only to drive the rebels out, but to cut them off on every side, was compelled to bring up the 8th Foot to support their attack. Just at that moment a few of the rebels sneaked round to the rear of the British and set fire to the stores on the beach; and the conflagration was hardly extinguished when two French schooners anchored in the bay and began to land troops under cover of their artillery fire. Campbell saw that no time was to be lost. [Sidenote: 1796.]Under a heavy cross fire from the rebel batteries ashore, and the guns of the schooners afloat, the Seventeenth charged down the beach and swept it clean, cutting down every soul. They then rallied and took post under cover of a hill. Meanwhile Campbell, quickly concentrating his infantry, led them straight to the assault, and, not without a severe struggle, carried the entrenchments by storm. The insurgents fled in all directions, but they did not get off scot free; for, as they emerged upon the low ground, the Seventeenth swooped upon them and did great execution. Three hundred brigands, mostly _sans-culottes_ from Guadeloupe, are said to have met their fate at the hands of the regiment that day. No prisoners were taken: it was not a time for taking prisoners; and the survivors of the pursuit took refuge in their original stronghold opposite Charlottetown. The total British loss was 12 officers and 135 men killed and wounded. The Seventeenth lost but 4 men wounded, one horse killed, and two horses wounded; but the detachment, together with its commander Captain John Black, was highly commended both in orders and despatches for its behaviour in the action.

After this engagement nothing more was done for a time, owing to the general confusion caused by the revolt. The Seventeenth was moved to St. George’s and quartered in Government House, much to the disgust of the new Governor, who arrived in April and wanted the house to himself. [Sidenote: 17th Mar.] Meanwhile the main expedition under Sir Ralph Abercromby had at last arrived from England and was concentrating at Barbados. He turned his attention first to St. Lucia, which was recaptured on the 24th May, and then to St. Vincent, which was finally relieved on the 10th June. [Sidenote: 19th June.] A few days later he sent a force to Grenada, which landed at Charlottetown and advanced upon Morne Quaqua, the great rebel stronghold, from the west, while a second column moved against it from the east. This Morne Quaqua was a remarkable position. The rebel camp was on a height at a considerable elevation, and above it rose a rocky precipice accessible only by a narrow path, which path, together with the lower ground beneath it, was commanded by a field-gun and several swivels and wall-pieces. Above this rose another bluff with another gun in position, and finally above this again, at the head of a very steep ascent, came the summit. Felled trees and abattis made good any points that nature might have left unstrengthened. Nevertheless, the French commandant, when he saw the advance of the British columns, lost heart and surrendered. Fédon and the desperate faction thereupon led out their English prisoners, some twenty in number, stripped them, bound them, and murdered them. They then fled to the jungle, where they were hunted down by the troops and hanged in twos and threes. Fédon alone, most unfortunately, was never caught.

So ended the relief of Grenada, wherein the Seventeenth took decidedly a leading part. How long the detachment remained in the island it is impossible to discover, but probably not for very long; for by August, so far as can be gathered from scattered notices, five troops of the regiment were at St. Domingo and three at Jamaica. It is to these three latter that a muster-roll taken in December 1796 most probably refers,--a ghastly document wherein, unfortunately, the place of muster is not mentioned. It shows that between 25th June and 24th December 1796, of--

12 sergeants 7 died, 116 privates 76 died, 2 trumpeters both died.

Thirty-seven men out of 130 died in a single week, and but forty-five were left alive when the muster was taken. Captain John Black, who had done so well in Grenada, was dead by July; one of the Lieutenant-Colonels, George Hardy, had died a month before him. Such was yellow fever in the West Indies a hundred years ago.

Of the services of the regiment in St. Domingo it has been extremely difficult to gather any information, owing to the absence of all St. Domingo despatches from the Record Office. It would appear, however, that the Seventeenth was quartered at Jeremie under the orders of General Bowyer. [Sidenote: 1796.] The French, under the command of the coloured man Rigaud, were very active, in the spring of 1796, in attacking the various scattered posts occupied by the British on the south-eastern promontory of St. Domingo, round about Jeremie. [Sidenote: 8th Aug.] In August, General Bowyer being apprehensive of further attack on these posts, sent Captain Whitby with two subalterns and sixty rank and file of the Seventeenth, dismounted, eastward to Caymites, _en route_ for the two posts named Fort Raimond and Du Centre. [Sidenote: 10th Aug.] At this latter place they arrived on the 10th. Whitby had hardly time to send a small detachment of the 13th Light Dragoons to Raimond, when that post was attacked by the French, who were repulsed with severe loss. Whitby then reinforced Raimond still further by a detachment of twenty men of the Seventeenth under Lieutenant Gilman, who took post in the block-house. On the 12th the enemy were still before the block-house, keeping up a heavy though not very effective fire, when Gilman at last grew tired of it, sallied out with his twenty men of the Seventeenth and a few Colonial irregulars, and drove them off into the jungle. The French left a small field-gun behind them, and sixty-three dead on the field, sixteen of whom were whites. Many more dead and wounded were found dead in the jungle afterwards. “I am happy to say,” wrote General Bowyer, “that in this gallant affair the Seventeenth had only two privates wounded. Lieutenant Gilman’s[9] cool conduct and intrepidity on this occasion seem to me so praiseworthy that I should not do justice to my own feelings if I did not recommend him for promotion.”

Simultaneously Bowyer was under the necessity of raising the siege of Irois, another post, which Rigaud had besieged for eighteen days with 4000 men. Then hearing that the French had taken up a strong position on a mountain called Morne Gautier, to cut off communication between Irois and Jeremie, he resolved to attack it. He therefore marched in three columns at daybreak on the 16th August, and opened fire at long range. [Sidenote: 1796.] Seeing that the men of the Seventeenth, who formed part of his force, were falling fast, he determined to carry the position by assault, and had formed the Seventeenth for the purpose, when he was disabled by a bullet which struck him in the left breast. None the less the attack was made; and though the British were driven back the French retreated in the night, and Irois was saved. In the course of these operations the Seventeenth lost about thirty men killed and wounded, seven having been killed and fifteen wounded in the attack on Morne Gautier alone. As only half the regiment was in St. Domingo, and that half terribly reduced by sickness, these losses cannot but represent at least a third, if not more, of the numbers engaged.

With this the record of the Seventeenth in St. Domingo comes to an end. What further work it may have done is buried in the lost despatches and the lost regimental papers. [Sidenote: 1797.] There is a complete muster-roll of the regiment dated Port Royal, 4th March 1797, showing that 126 men died in the course of the year 1796; but whether the regiment was moved thither from St. Domingo before its return home, or whether it sailed home direct, must remain uncertain. In any case it left the West Indies, and arrived in England in August 1797. The bad luck at sea which had marked the departure from England attended the passage home. The head-quarter ship, the _Caledonia_, foundered at sea, and though the men were saved the baggage and regimental books were lost. Hence the scantiness of information respecting the first forty years of the life of the regiment.

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