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.