THE WEST INDIES, 1793-1810.
Among the leading objects contemplated by the British ministry in
this war was the control of the East and West Indies, particularly of
the latter, as among the most important sources as well as markets
of British trade. In the present day, the value of the West India
islands, and of all positions in the Caribbean Sea, is chiefly military
or maritime; due less to the commerce they maintain than to their
relations, as coaling ports or fortified stations, to the commercial
routes passing through that region. It is scarcely necessary to add
that whatever importance of this character they now possess will be
vastly increased when an interoceanic canal is completed. During the
French revolution, however, the islands had a great commercial value,
and about one fourth the total amount of British commerce, both export
and import, was done with them. This lucrative trade Great Britain
had gathered into her hands, notwithstanding the fact that other
nations owned the largest and richest of the islands, as well as those
producing the best sugar and coffee. The commercial aptitudes of the
British people, the superior quality of their manufactures, their
extensive merchant shipping and ingenious trade regulations, conspired
to make it the interest of the foreign colonists to trade with them,
even when by so doing the laws of their own governments were defied;
and to a great extent the British free ports engrossed the West Indian
trade, as well as that to the adjacent South and Central American
coasts, known as the Spanish Main.
In war, the control of a maritime region depends upon naval
preponderance. When the opposing navies are of nearly equal strength,
it is only by open battle, and by the reduction of one to a state of
complete inferiority, that control can be asserted. If the region
contested be small and compact, as, for instance, the immediate
approaches to the English Channel, the preponderance of the fleet alone
will determine the control and the safety of the national commerce
within its limits; but if it be extensive, the distance between centres
great, and the centres themselves weak, the same difficulties arise
that are felt in maintaining order in a large and sparsely settled
territory on land, as has till very lately been the case in our western
Territories. In such circumstances the security of the traveller
depends upon the government putting down nests of lawlessness, and
establishing, at fitting stations, organized forces, that can by their
activity insure reasonable safety in all directions.
In the War of the French Revolution, it soon, though not immediately,
became evident, that the British navy could everywhere preponderate in
force over its enemy; but it could not be omnipresent. The Caribbean
Sea offered conditions peculiarly favorable to marauders, licensed or
unlicensed; while its commercial value necessitated the preservation,
and, as far as possible, the monopoly, of so fruitful a source of
revenue. The presence of hostile cruisers not only inflicted direct
loss, which was measured by their actual captures, but, beyond these,
caused a great indirect injury by the friction and delays which the
sense of insecurity always introduces into commercial transactions. The
ideal aim of the British ministry was to banish the enemy's cruisers
absolutely from the region; but, if this was impossible, very much
might be effected by depriving them of every friendly anchorage to
which they could repair to refit or take their prizes,—in short, by
capturing all the French islands. This would put an end to the myriads
of very small craft, which, being able to keep the sea but for a few
days, depended absolutely upon a near base; and would greatly cripple
the operations of the larger vessels by throwing them, for supplies
and refuge, upon the United States, which then extended a benevolent
partiality to French cruisers and their prizes.
The French islands had vividly reflected during the past four years
the movements and passions of the mother-country; but only in Haïti
did the turbulence, extending through all classes of society until it
ended in a servile insurrection, result in destroying the control of
the home government. The disorder, amounting often to anarchy, which
prevailed through the French part of the island, somewhat simplified
the problem before Great Britain. It was the only base of operations to
the westward then available for French cruisers; and, though too large
to admit the thought of conquest under the climatic conditions with
the force that could be spared for such an attempt, it was possible,
without serious opposition, to occupy many of the ports commanding the
principal trade routes. Such occupation deprived the enemy of their
use, converted them into harbors of refuge for British commerce, and
made them centres for the operations of British cruisers. Unfortunately
the government, misled by the representations of French planters who
saw their property threatened with destruction, conceived the hope of
an easy conquest, or rather transfer of allegiance in the colony. In
pursuance of this idea, several places were taken into possession,
being either delivered or captured with an ease that showed how
readily, in the then disorganized state of the island, most of the
seaports could have been secured; but the motive being conquest, and
not merely maritime control, the choice of objectives was decided
by political or military, instead of maritime, considerations. The
expected local native support followed the general rule noted in the
last chapter, and proved futile; while yellow fever wasted the troops
condemned to excessive exertion and exposure in so sickly a clime.
Had simple maritime advantages guided the British counsels, it would
have been sufficient to note that Jamaica was the great centre of
British interests in the western Caribbean; that outward-bound ships,
entering the Caribbean through the eastern, or Windward, Islands, ran
down with the trade wind along the south side of Haiti, where were two
harbors, Aux Cayes and Jacmel, favorable as bases for privateers; and
that the homeward trade passed through the Windward Passage, between
Haïti and Cuba, which was flanked by two Haïtian ports, Tiburon to the
south and Mole St. Nicolas on the north. These four were, therefore,
particularly dangerous to British trade, and consequently, so far as
position went, particularly advantageous if in British occupation. It
is true that the topographical conditions of the ground about a seaport
in an enemy's country may make the occupation very hazardous, except by
the employment of more men than can be had; as was the case at Mole St.
Nicolas, where the fortifications of the place itself were commanded by
the surrounding heights. Yet it remained in the hands of the British
from 1793 to 1798; and it may be believed that their interests would
have been well served by strongly garrisoning these ports.[72] At
the least they would so be lost to French cruisers. Instead of this,
with the idea of conquest, the wholly insufficient forces sent were
pushed down to the bottom of the bight of Gonaives, and the southern
coast of the island was left in the enemy's hands. It is not desirable
to give in detail the history of these petty military operations, nor
of the civil commotions with which they were connected. Suffice it to
say, that the course of events finally threw the government into the
hands of a pure negro, Toussaint L'Ouverture. He continued to hold
it till the Peace of Amiens, in 1802; and with him the British, in
1798, concluded a treaty by which they finally abandoned the island.
Though the scheme of conquest had failed, their interference had opened
the country to British trade and caused the loss of Haïti to France,
by contributing to the rise of Toussaint, the negro most capable of
leading his race. He still professed fidelity to the mother-country,
but he acted as one possessing independent power. The British, by the
treaty, recognized the island as a neutral territory, and Toussaint, on
his part, permitted them as well as neutral ships to trade with it.[73]
He also prohibited the sailing of privateers from ports of Haïti, as
they seriously interfered with its commerce.[74] Under his strong and
wise administration the prosperity of the island greatly revived,
though without attaining the proportions of former days.
The islands known as the Lesser Antilles, which extend from Porto Rico
in a southerly direction to Trinidad and form the eastern boundary of
the Caribbean, are, from their small size, much more dependent than
is Haïti or Cuba upon the control of the sea. Though the aggregate
commercial value of the whole group was far inferior to that of the
French part alone of Haïti, they had a distinct military advantage
which made them, in that point of view and to the West Indies, more
important than Haïti itself. They were to windward of the whole
Caribbean with reference to the trade winds, which blow unceasingly
from east to west; and hence were much nearer in time, that supreme
factor in military combinations, to the great western islands than the
latter were to them. The same circumstance of the trade wind threw
them across the path of vessels bound from Europe to all parts of the
Caribbean, and thus facilitated the intercepting of supplies essential
to the support and industries of the islands, for much of which they
depended upon the mother-countries.
The largest, by far, of these islands, Trinidad, belonged in 1793 to
Spain, at that time the ally of Great Britain. Its nearness to the
South American continent gave it, as a distributing centre, marked
commercial advantages, of which the unenterprising Spaniards made
little use; but, as the trade winds blow from the north of east, it
was not favorably placed for a naval station. The two next in size,
and among the most fertile, Guadaloupe and Martinique, were French
islands. Being in the centre of the chain and to leeward of none,
except the outlying English Barbadoes, they were admirably situated
for military control, and the strategic advantage of position was
supplemented by the defensive strength of Fort Royal (now Fort de
France), the principal harbor of Martinique; which was then, as it is
now, by far the most powerful naval position in the eastern Caribbean.
Besides them, France owned Santa Lucia, next south of Martinique,
and Tobago. The military importance of these islands, combined with
a distinct though minor commercial value, and the experience in past
wars of the injury done to British commerce by privateering based
upon them, made their reduction advisable to Great Britain; to whom
belonged most of the other Lesser Antilles as well as the trade of the
Caribbean. One of the first acts of the war, before sending a vessel
to the Mediterranean or increasing the Channel fleet, was to despatch
a squadron of seven sail-of-the-line to the West Indies, where there
were at that time, except a few small cruisers, but two fifty-gun
ships, one at Jamaica and one to windward,—a thousand miles apart. No
fact shows more strongly how unprepared Great Britain was for war than
the naval destitution of this region, at a time when France had three
or four ships-of-the-line continually in her colonies. This British
squadron sailed under the command of Admiral Gardner on the 24th of
March, 1793; and there was a strong expectation that Martinique and
Guadaloupe, which had hoisted the old royal standard of France upon
learning the deposition of Louis XVI., would place themselves under
British protection. This hope was disappointed, they having already
resumed their republican allegiance, and Gardner returned to England in
the fall, leaving a part of his squadron behind.
It was then decided to reduce the French islands by force, and on
the 26th of November Sir John Jervis, afterwards Earl St. Vincent,
sailed with a small force of ships-of-war carrying seven thousand
troops destined for this service. Reaching Barbadoes in January, the
expedition appeared off Martinique on the 5th of February, 1794, and
after a series of successful operations the island capitulated on the
22d of March. A detachment was next sent against Santa Lucia, which
was surrendered on the 4th of April. On the 10th of the same month the
combined naval and military forces anchored off Guadaloupe, and on
the 20th this island, with its off-lying dependencies, Marie-Galante,
Desirade and the Saints, also submitted. Tobago having been seized with
slight resistance in April, 1793, Great Britain was now in possession
of all the hostile Windward Islands, except the petty St. Martin, part
of which belonged to France. A considerable detachment of troops
was next sent to Mole St. Nicolas to assist the undertaking against
Haïti; a reduction of the force in the Windward Islands which led to
disastrous consequences, felt throughout the war by the islands and
commerce of Great Britain. For on the 3d of June, when the British
commanders had departed leaving a garrison in Guadaloupe, there
appeared off the coast a division of ships, two being frigates and the
others transports, which had left France in April, before the loss of
the colonies was known. Landing without opposition, they established
themselves firmly and gained possession of half the island before
Jervis and Grey could appear. The struggle continued with varying
fortunes during the following six months, but the British continually
lost ground and wasted with yellow fever. This dire disease told
likewise severely on the new French arrivals, but these found a native
Creole population of nearly six thousand, the larger part of whom
were faithful to the republic; whereas their enemies, out of a total
original force of seven thousand, had, besides losses in battle and
by disease, been obliged to spare garrisons for the captured islands
and a detachment to Haïti. These causes alone would seem sufficient to
account for the recapture of the island; but the utmost credit must
at the same time be allowed to the French officers concerned, and
especially to the commissioner of the Convention, Victor Hugues, who
accompanied the expedition. This man, who had at Rochefort filled the
rôle of public accuser, which in Paris gained for Fouquier Tinville a
hideous immortality, seems to have embodied in himself the best and
worst features of the men of the Terror, whose fate he escaped by
leaving France betimes. In his report to the Convention he boasted of
having put to death twelve hundred royalists in Guadaloupe. This horror
partakes doubtless of the evident exaggerations discernible in the
French accounts of a military operation which, not so adorned, would
have been brilliant enough. Hugues's brutality is unquestionable, but
to it he joined the vigor, audacity, and unscrupulous determination to
succeed which carried the French armies to victory in all parts. The
British were forced to evacuate their last port in Guadaloupe on the
10th of December, 1794.
Upon receiving news of Hugues's success the Directory hastened to
send re-enforcements, and on the 6th of January, 1795, a number of
ships-of-war and transports reached Guadaloupe and landed troops
variously stated at fifteen to twenty-five hundred. Hugues, who had
meantime organized a respectable territorial army, used the land and
naval forces now at his disposal with great energy. Santa Lucia was
retaken on the 19th of June, and insurrection fomented and maintained
in Dominica, St. Vincent and Grenada, among the negroes, aborigines and
old French inhabitants, to the great distress of the British. National
vessels and privateers, having once more a secure base of operations,
swarmed throughout the seas and inflicted great losses on the trade.
All this disaster, which continued throughout the year, arose from not
having quite enough men in Guadaloupe to put Hugues down before he had
a foothold; and the British government was now compelled to send a far
larger force to repair in part an evil, which a smaller number, at the
proper moment, would have wholly prevented.
The disastrous result of the campaign of 1794 in Belgium and Holland,
resulting in the conquest of the latter by the French, the overthrow
of the House of Orange, and the alliance of Holland with France under
a republican government, had both released the British troops employed
on the Continent and thrown open the Dutch colonies to British attacks.
Sir Ralph Abercromby, who had distinguished himself in the recent
operations, was appointed to the command in the eastern Caribbean, and
sixteen thousand troops were assigned to the expedition, which was
to be convoyed by eight ships-of-the-line under Admiral Christian.
They were to have sailed in September for a campaign in the drier and
cooler winter months; but the usual difficulty in moving large bodies,
particularly of sailing ships, delayed their departure until the
15th of November. Two days later the Channel was swept by a gale of
hurricane violence, which caused the loss of many ships and lives, and
forced all that survived to return to Portsmouth, a single transport
alone reaching the destination at Barbadoes. On the 3d of December a
second start was made, but almost equal bad fortune was met. After
battling the ocean for seven weeks, Christian and Abercromby returned
to England with part of the convoy, the remainder finding their way
by driblets to Barbadoes; several, however, were taken by Hugues's
cruisers. Abercromby then took passage in a frigate, reaching the
island on the 17th of March, 1796; and was followed by the admiral,
who arrived on the 21st of April with a fleet of transports. Santa
Lucia was at once attacked, and on the 25th of May the French garrison
capitulated. On the 11th of June, St. Vincent, and a few days later
Grenada, which were in possession rather of insurgents than of enemies,
likewise submitted. Prior to the arrival of Admiral Christian,
Abercromby had sent a detachment of twelve hundred men against the
Dutch colonies on the mainland, Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice, which
surrendered without resistance in April and May, and were laid open to
British trade.
Great Britain had now resumed tranquil possession of all the eastern
islands, except Guadaloupe. The strong organization which this had
received from Hugues, and the re-enforcements that had been thrown
in, indicated that prolonged operations would be needed to effect
its subdual. The sickly rainy season was at hand, during which also
hurricanes prevail, so that all reasons combined to postpone the
attempt to the healthier months,—a decision which was amply justified
by the great mortality from yellow fever which ensued among the troops,
despite all the immunity from exposure that care and the cessation of
campaigning could give. By the time that operations could begin, Spain
had declared war against Great Britain; and the prospect of easily
seizing her large and far more valuable islands diverted attention from
Guadaloupe. The latter continued throughout this and the following war,
until 1810, a thorn in the side of British trade. The recapture of
Guadaloupe by the French, and the consequent evils, remain a pregnant
warning against the folly of sending a boy to do a man's work; but
underlying that miscalculation appears to have been the fatal error of
relying upon local support to troops inadequate by themselves to the
task before them. Desirous of doing many things at once, the British
government easily accepted the assurances of a few royalists, as to
the political dispositions of a most excitable and changeable race and
the re-enforcements that could be raised among them. It was an exact
repetition of the blunder which led to the invasion of the Southern
colonies during the American Revolution; and the gist of the mistake is
in the dependence upon unorganized forces to supplement the weakness
of the organized force, which is not by itself alone sufficient to its
undertaking.
It will not be denied that at times a diversion under such conditions
may be attempted, if it does not take away force needed for serious
enterprises. Upon this ground may perhaps be justified the attempted
French invasion of Ireland in December, 1796, which, though on a
somewhat larger scale, essentially resembled the expedition of Jervis
and Grey against the West Indies. It also depended upon a local rising
in favor of an insufficient force, upon the support of practically
unorganized masses without military antecedents; but it was undertaken
at a period when the tide of affairs elsewhere was running strongly
in favor of France, and, whatever hopes may have been entertained of
possible ultimate results, was essentially a diversion. The immediate
aim was not a direct gain to France, but an indirect advantage,
by accumulating embarrassments for Great Britain. A state entirely
inferior at sea could not count upon lasting military control of a
large island with an alien population; but it could hope that the
insurrection of Ireland, concurring with disaster upon the Continent,
might force a disadvantageous peace upon the arch enemy. The conquest
of the smaller Antilles, on the contrary, was not properly a diversion,
but an object of real importance to a great British interest. It was
feasible for the greater naval power to take and hold them, being
small; and their tenure, by relieving the navy of part of its work,
would have facilitated the protection of Jamaica and its trade, as well
as the general control of the western Caribbean. Haïti was too large
and too populated for conquest; but its power for injury could have
been confronted with more substantial force had Guadaloupe remained a
British garrison.
The alliance of Spain and Holland with France much increased the
difficulties of Great Britain, by throwing open their colonial ports to
French privateers. The extensive sea-coasts of Cuba and Haïti became
alive with them. In 1807 it was estimated that there were from two to
three hundred depending upon these two islands, and unfitted, from
their size, to go far from them.[75] The number testifies to the extent
and value of British trade in that sea, although the privateer did not
confine his depredations to the enemy, but preyed lawlessly on neutrals
as well. The same authority illustrates the annihilation of French and
Spanish commerce by stating that not more than two or three British
privateers were sailing from Jamaica.
General Abercromby went for a short time to Europe in the fall of 1796.
Upon his return a strong military and naval expedition was sent against
Trinidad, but did not meet the resistance expected from the size and
importance of the island. It capitulated on the second day, February
18, 1797, and with it the Spaniards lost four ships-of-the-line. Thence
Abercromby moved, in April, against Porto Rico; but upon reconnoitring,
the defences were found too strong, and the troops were re-embarked
after losing two hundred men. This ended the colonial expeditions
in the West Indies for the first war. Quiet possession was taken of
the Dutch colonies of Surinam and Curaçoa in 1799 and 1800; and in
1801, when Sweden and Denmark became involved in hostilities with
Great Britain, their West India islands were also given up without
resistance, but no further fighting took place.
NOTE. As it does not enter into the author's plan to give in
detail the naval history after Trafalgar, it may be well to state
here, in brief, the subsequent events in the West Indies. At the
Peace of Amiens in 1801, Great Britain restored all her West India
conquests except the Spanish Trinidad. When war broke out again in
1803, Tobago, Santa Lucia, Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice were
at once seized without difficulty, as was Surinam in 1804. There
matters rested till 1807, when Curaçoa and the Danish islands
fell, followed in 1809 by Martinique, and in 1810 by Guadaloupe.
Spain having become again the ally of Great Britain in 1808, the
latter had now no open enemy in the Caribbean; but the long habits
of lawlessness left numerous pirates infesting Cuba, whom the weak
Spanish government failed to control.