[Sidenote: 1757.]
[Sidenote: 1758.]
[Sidenote: Feb. 15.]
[Sidenote: March 31.]
The reader will probably have been struck during the narrative of
the American campaign of 1758 with the inferiority of the French
in numbers to the British at every point. The French colonies
were in fact allowed to take their chance, while French soldiers
were poured by the hundred thousand into Germany to avenge King
Frederick's sarcasm against Madame de Pompadour. A Pitt was hardly
needed to perceive that the more employment that could be found
for French armies in Europe, the fewer were the men which could
be spared for the service of France's possessions beyond sea; and
Pitt resolved accordingly to keep those armies fully occupied.
By the convention of Klosterzeven, as has already been told, it
was agreed that the Hanoverian army should be broken up; but even
before Cumberland's return to England, the question of repudiating
that convention had been broached, and a fortnight later a message
was despatched to Frederick announcing that the army would take the
field again, and requesting the services of Prince Ferdinand of
Brunswick as General-in-Chief. Frederick assented; and on the 24th
of November Ferdinand arrived at Stade, fresh from the victory of
Rossbach in which he had taken part three weeks before, to assume
the command. The whole aspect of affairs changed instantly, as if
by magic. Setting his force in motion at once Ferdinand by the end
of the year had driven the French back to the Aller, and renewing
operations after six weeks spent in winter-quarters pressed the
enemy still farther back, even across the Rhine.
[Sidenote: June 5.]
[Sidenote: June 7.]
[Sidenote: June 29.]
[Sidenote: July 1.]
It is said that even before Ferdinand had achieved this success
Pitt had resolved to reinforce him with British troops, but for
the present the minister reverted to his old plan of a descent
on the French coast, which might serve the purpose of diverting
French troops alike from America and from Germany. The first sign
of his intention was seen in April, when the officers of sixteen
battalions received orders to repair to the Isle of Wight by the
middle of May. Such long notice was a strange preliminary for a
secret expedition, for the troops themselves did not receive their
orders until the 20th of May; and it was the end of the month
before the whole of them, some thirteen thousand men,[296] were
encamped on the island. The Duke of Marlborough was selected for
the command, and, since his military talent was doubtful, Lord
George Sackville, whose ability was unquestioned, was appointed
as his second, with the duty of organising the whole of the
operations. Two squadrons, comprising twenty-four ships of the
line under Lord Anson, Sir Edward Hawke, and Commodore Howe, were
detailed to escort the transports, and on the 1st of June the
armament set sail, arriving on the 5th at Cancalle Bay, about eight
miles from St. Malo. A French battery, erected for the defence of
the bay, was quickly silenced by the ships, and on the following
day the entire army was landed. One brigade was left to guard the
landing-place, and the remainder of the force marched to St. Malo,
where the light dragoons under cover of night slipped down to the
harbour and burned over a hundred privateers and merchant-vessels.
The Duke of Marlborough then made dispositions as if for the siege
of St. Malo, but hearing that a superior force was on the march
to cut off his retreat, retired to Cancalle Bay, re-embarked the
troops, and sailed against Granville, a petty town some twenty
miles to north-east of St. Malo. Foul weather frustrated the
intended operations; and on the 27th the expedition arrived off
Havre de Grace. Preparations were made for landing, but after two
days of inactivity Marlborough decided against an attack, and the
fleet bore up for Cherbourg. There once more all was made ready for
disembarkation, but the weather was adverse, forage and provisions
began to fail, and the entire enterprise against the coast was
abandoned. So the costly armament returned to Portsmouth, having
effected absolutely nothing. It is, however, doubtful whether blame
can be attached to the officers, either naval or military, for the
failure. Pitt had procured no intelligence as to the dispositions
of the French for defence of the threatened ports; so that a
General might well hesitate to run the risk of landing, when he
could not tell how soon he might find himself cut off by a superior
force from the sea.
[Sidenote: June 23.]
[Sidenote: Aug. 21.]
Meanwhile Ferdinand following up his success had pursued the French
over the Rhine and gained a signal victory over them at Creveld.
This action appears to have hastened Pitt to a decision, for within
four days he announced to the British Commissary at Ferdinand's
headquarters the King's intention to reinforce the Prince with two
thousand British cavalry. The troops were warned for service on
the same day; but within three days it was decided to increase the
reinforcement to six thousand troops,[297] both horse and foot, and
a week later the force was further augmented by three battalions.
The first division of the troops was shipped off to Emden on
the 11th of July, and by the second week in August the entire
reinforcement had disembarked at the same port under command of the
Duke of Marlborough, joining Prince Ferdinand's army at Coesfeld
on the 21st.[298] There for the present we must leave them, till
the time comes for Ferdinand's operations to engage our whole
attention. Meanwhile the reader need bear in mind only that the
British Army is definitely committed to yet another theatre of war.
[Sidenote: August.]
Even so, however, Pitt remained unsatisfied without another stroke
against the French coast. While the troops were embarking for
Germany he had formed a new encampment on the Isle of Wight and
was intent upon a raid on Cherbourg. So intensely distasteful
were these expeditions to the officers of the Army that the Duke
of Marlborough and Lord George Sackville used their interest to
obtain appointment to the army in Germany, so as to be quit of them
once for all. The result was that when Lieutenant-General Bligh,
who had been originally selected to serve under Prince Ferdinand,
arrived in London from Ireland to sail for Emden, he found to his
dismay that his destination was changed, and that he must prepare
to embark for France. He accepted the command as in duty bound,
the more so since Prince Edward was to accompany the expedition,
but he was little fit for the service, having no qualification
except personal bravery and one great disqualification in advanced
age. Accordingly, obedient but unwilling, he set sail on the 1st
of August with twelve battalions[299] and nine troops of light
dragoons, escorted by a squadron under Commodore Howe. Not yet had
the gallant sailor learned of his succession to the title through
the fall of his brother Lord Howe at the head of Lake Champlain.
[Sidenote: Aug. 16.]
[Sidenote: September.]
The expedition began prosperously enough. The fleet arrived
before Cherbourg on the 6th and at once opened the bombardment
of the town. Early next morning it sailed to the bay of St.
Marais, two leagues from Cherbourg, where the Guards and the
grenadier-companies, having landed under the fire of the ships,
attacked and drove off a force of three thousand French which had
been drawn up to oppose them. The rest of the troops disembarked
without hindrance on the following day and advanced on Cherbourg,
which being unfortified to landward surrendered at once. Bligh
thereupon proceeded to destroy the docks and the defences of the
harbour and to burn the shipping, while the light cavalry scoured
the surrounding country and levied contributions. This done, the
troops were re-embarked; and after long delay owing to foul winds
the fleet came to anchor on the 3rd of September in the Bay of
St. Lunaire, some twelve miles east of St. Malo. There the troops
were again landed during the two following days, though not
without difficulty and the loss of several men drowned. Bligh's
instructions bade him carry on operations against Morlaix or any
other point on the coast that he might prefer to it, and he had
formed some vague design of storming St. Malo from the landward
side. This, however, was found to be impracticable with the force
at his disposal; and now there ensued an awkward complication.
The weather grew steadily worse, and Howe was obliged to warn the
General that the fleet must leave the dangerous anchorage at St.
Lunaire, and that it would be impossible for him to re-embark the
troops at any point nearer than the bay of St. Cast, a few miles
to westward. Accordingly he sailed for St. Cast, while Bligh, now
thrown absolutely on his own resources ashore, marched for the same
destination overland.
[Sidenote: Sept. 9.]
The army set out on the morning of the 7th of September, and after
some trouble with small parties of French on the march encamped
on the same evening near the river Equernon, intending to ford it
next morning. It speaks volumes for the incapacity of Bligh and of
his staff that the passage of the river was actually fixed for six
o'clock in the morning, though that was the hour of high water. It
was of course necessary to wait for the ebb-tide; so it was not
until three in the afternoon that the troops forded the river,
even then waist-deep, under a brisk fire from small parties of
French peasants and regular troops. Owing to the lateness of the
hour further advance on that day was impossible; and on resuming
the march on the following morning the advanced guard encountered
a body of about five hundred French troops. The enemy were driven
back with considerable loss, but their prisoners gave information
of the advance of at least ten thousand French from Brest. Arrived
at Matignon Bligh encamped and sent his engineers to reconnoitre
the beach at St. Cast in case he should be compelled to retreat.
Deserters who came in during the night reported that the French
were gathering additional forces from the adjacent garrisons; and
in the morning Bligh sent word to Howe that he intended to embark
on the following day.
[Sidenote: Sept. 11.]
Constant alarms during the night showed that the enemy was near at
hand; and it would have been thought that Bligh, having made up
his mind to retreat, would in so critical a position have retired
as swiftly and silently as possible. On the contrary, at three
o'clock on the morning of the 11th the drums beat the assembly as
usual, to give the French all the information that they desired;
while the troops moved off in a single column so as to consume the
longest possible time on the march. It was nine o'clock before the
embarkation began, and at eleven, when two-thirds of the force
had been shipped, the enemy appeared in force on the hills above
the beach. For some time the French were kept at a distance by
the guns of the fleet, but after an hour they found shelter and
opened a sharp and destructive fire. General Drury, who commanded
the rear-guard, consisting of fourteen hundred men of the Guards
and the grenadiers, was obliged to form his men across the beach
to cover the embarkation. Twice he drove back the enemy, but,
ammunition failing, he was forced back in turn, and there was
nothing left but a rush for the boats. The French bringing up their
artillery opened a furious fire; and all was confusion. So many of
the boats were destroyed that the sailors shrank from approaching
the shore and were only kept to their work by the personal
example of Howe. In all seven hundred and fifty officers and men
were killed and wounded, General Drury being among the slain, and
the rest of the rear-guard were taken prisoners. The fleet and
transports made their way back to England in no comfortable frame
of mind, for the French naturally magnified their success to the
utmost; and so ended Pitt's third venture against the coast of
France.
There can be little doubt but that Bligh must be held responsible
for the failure. It should seem indeed that he was ignorant of
the elements of his duty, even to the enforcing of discipline
among the troops, who at the first landing near Cherbourg behaved
disgracefully. The Duke of Marlborough had met with the same
trouble at Cancalle Bay, but had had at least the strength to hang
a marauding soldier on the first day and so to restore order. But
after all Pitt was presumably responsible for the selection of
Bligh; or, if he was aware that he could not appoint the right man
for such a service, he would have done better to abandon these
raids on the French coast altogether. The conduct of Marlborough
and Sackville in shirking the duty because it was distasteful to
them does not appear commendable; but Sackville at any rate was
no fool, and Pitt might at least have recognised the military
objections that were raised against his plans. The truth of the
matter is, as Lord Cochrane was to prove fifty years later, that
sporadic attacks on the French coast are best left to the Navy; for
a single frigate under a daring and resolute officer can paralyse
more troops than an expedition of ten or fifteen thousand men,
with infinitely less risk and expense. Pitt had not yet done with
his favourite descents, but his next venture of the kind was to
be directed against an island instead of the mainland, when the
British fleet could interpose between his handful of battalions
and the whole population of France. Meanwhile Cherbourg had at any
rate been destroyed, so like a wise man the minister made the most
of this success, by sending some of the captured guns with great
parade through Hyde Park to the Tower.
[Sidenote: April 30.]
[Sidenote: Oct. 26.]
[Sidenote: Dec. 29.]
The operations already narrated of the year 1758 were of
considerable scope, embracing as they did the advance of three
separate armies in America, two raids on the French coast, and
the despatch of British troops to Germany; but these by no means
exhaust the tale. There were few quarters of the globe in which
the British had not to complain of French encroachment, and to
this insidious hostility Pitt had resolved to put a stop once for
all. Five years before, the merchants of Africa had denounced the
unfriendliness of the French on the Gambia, who were building
forts and stirring up the natives against them. The Royal African
Company also, with its monopoly of the slave-trade, was anxious
for its line of fortified depôts on the West Coast, and prayed to
be delivered from its troublesome neighbours at Senegal and in
the island of Goree.[300] One of Pitt's first actions in 1758 was
to order an expedition to be prepared against Senegal, a duty for
which two hundred marines and twenty-five gunners were deemed a
sufficient force. On the 23rd of April Captain Marsh of the Royal
Navy sailed into the Senegal river, and by the 30th Fort Louis
had surrendered and was flying the British flag. Two hundred men
of Talbot's regiment[301] were at once sent to garrison the new
possession, and then for some months there was a pause, while
the troops for Germany and Cherbourg were embarking for their
destinations. But no sooner was Bligh's expedition returned than
a new enterprise was set on foot, and Captain Keppel of the Royal
Navy received secret instructions to convoy Lieutenant-Colonel
Worge with Forbes's regiment[302] and two companies of the
Sixty-sixth to the West Coast.[303] Within three weeks the troops
were embarked at Kinsale, and by the 28th of December Keppel's
squadron was lying off Goree. On the following day the ships
opened fire on the French batteries, and at nightfall the island
surrendered, yielding up over three hundred prisoners and nearly an
hundred guns. So with little trouble were gained the West African
settlements of the French.
[Sidenote: 1759.]
[Sidenote: Jan. 13.]
[Sidenote: Jan. 15.]
But even before Keppel had received his instructions six more
battalions[304] were under orders for foreign service; and his
squadron had hardly sailed before another fleet of transports was
gathering at Portsmouth. Major-General Peregrine Hopson, who had
been Governor at Nova Scotia in the difficult years that preceded
the outbreak of war, was appointed to the chief command, and
Colonel Barrington, a junior officer, was, despite the honourable
protests of his brother, the Secretary-at-War, selected to be his
second. The expedition was delayed beyond the date fixed for its
departure by bad weather, but at length on the 12th of November the
transports, escorted by eight ships of the line under Commodore
Hughes, got under way and sailed with a fair wind to the west. On
the 3rd of January 1759 they reached Barbados, the time-honoured
base of all British operations in the West Indies, and there was
Commodore Moore waiting with two more ships of the line to join
them and to take command of the fleet. After ten days' stay they
again sailed away north-westward before the trade-wind. Astern
of them the mountains of St. Vincent hung distant like a faint
blue cloud; ahead of them two tall peaks, shaped like gigantic
sugar-loaves, rose higher and higher from the sea, and marked the
southern end of St. Lucia. Then St. Lucia came abeam, a rugged mass
of volcanic mountains shrouded heavily in tropical forest, and
another island rose up broad and blue not many leagues ahead, an
island which the men crowded forward to see, for they were told
that it was Martinique. Still the fleet held on; St. Lucia was left
astern and Martinique loomed up larger and bolder ahead; then an
islet like a pyramid was passed on the starboard hand, the Diamond
Rock, not yet His Majesty's Ship; a little farther and the fleet
was under the lee of the island; yet a little farther and the land
shrank back to eastward into a deep inlet ringed about by lofty
volcanic hills, and a few useless cannon-shot from a rocky islet
near the entrance proclaimed that the French were ready for them in
the Bay of Fort Royal.[305]
[Sidenote: Jan. 16.]
[Sidenote: Jan. 17.]
The ships lay off the bay until the next day, while Hopson thought
out his plan of operations. The town and fortress of Fort Royal
lies well within the bay on the northern shore, so Negro Point,
which marks the entrance to the harbour to the north, was the
spot selected for the landing. The ships next morning stood in
and silenced two small batteries mounted at the Point, and in the
afternoon the troops landed unopposed in a small bay adjacent to
it. A camping ground was chosen in the only open space that could
be found, between two ravines, and there the army passed the night
formed up in square, to be ready against any sudden attack. At dawn
of the next morning shots were heard, and the outposts reported
that the enemy was advancing and entrenching a house close to the
British position. The grenadiers were sent forward to dislodge
them, and a smart skirmish ended in the retreat of the French.
Hopson would fain have pushed more of his men into action, but
the jungle was so dense that they could find no enemy. "Never was
such a country," wrote the General plaintively, "the Highlands of
Scotland for woods, mountains, and continued ravines are nothing
to it."[306] As it was plainly out of the question to attempt to
drag the heavy artillery before Fort Royal over such a country, it
was decided to re-embark the troops forthwith. Nearly one hundred
men had been killed and wounded in the morning's skirmish, but the
embarkation was accomplished without further loss.
[Sidenote: Jan. 18.]
On the following day the fleet coasted the island northward and by
evening lay off St. Pierre, the second town in Martinique, which
stood nestling in a little plain at the head of a shallow bay. The
men-of-war stood in on the next morning to observe the defences of
the place, and the fire of the French batteries from the heights
to right and left soon convinced the Commodore that the town could
not be taken without such damage to his ships as would disable them
for further service. It was therefore resolved that Martinique
should for the present be left alone, and that the expedition
should proceed to Guadeloupe, which was not only the richest of
the French Islands but the principal nest of French privateers in
the West Indies. So the fleet steered northward once more past
Dominica, where the white flag of the Bourbons yet floated over the
fort of Roseau; while a single ship was sent forward with the chief
military engineer on board to reconnoitre the town of Basseterre,
which lies on the western or leeward coast a few miles to north of
the most southerly point of Guadeloupe.
[Sidenote: Jan. 23.]
[Sidenote: Jan. 24.]
[Sidenote: Jan.]
The engineer returned with no very encouraging report. The town
though lying on an open roadstead was well fortified, and all the
approaches to it along the coast were well protected, while the
fort of Basseterre, situated on a lofty eminence at the southern
end, was declared to be impregnable by the attack of ships alone.
Moore, however, was resolute that the town could and should be
taken, and at ten o'clock on the morning of the 23rd the ships
of the line and bomb-ketches opened a heavy fire on the fort and
batteries. In a few hours the town, crammed with the sugar and
rum of the past harvest, was burning furiously, and by nightfall
every battery was silenced and the town was a heap of blackened
ruins. At dawn of the morrow the troops were landed, to find the
elaborate lines of defence inland deserted and every gun spiked,
while desultory shots from among the sugar-canes alone told of
the presence of the enemy. The army encamped in Basseterre, but
the firing from the cane-fields increased, and picquets and
advanced posts were harassed to death by incessant alarms and
petty attacks. Hopson sent a summons to the French Governor to
surrender, but received only an answer of defiance. The Governor
had in fact withdrawn his force some six miles from Basseterre to
an impregnable position such as can be found only in a rugged,
mountainous and untamed country. Each flank was covered by
inaccessible hills clothed with impenetrable forest; in his front
ran the river Galeon with high and precipitous banks, and beyond
the river a gully so steep and sheer that the French themselves
used ladders to cross it. The position was further strengthened by
entrenchments and cannon. To attack it in front was impossible.
The only practicable access was by a narrow road which led through
dense forest upon one flank; and this was most carefully guarded.
Here therefore the French commander lay, refusing to come to action
but sending out small parties to worry the British outposts, in the
hope that the climate would do the work of repelling his enemy for
him.
[Sidenote: Feb. 14.]
Nor was he without good ground for such hope; for Hopson was
in great doubt whether it would not be more expedient for him
to re-embark. His own health was failing rapidly, and the men
were beginning to fall down fast under the incessant work at the
advanced posts and the fatigue of carrying provisions to them.
From the day of landing it had been found necessary to push these
advanced posts farther and farther inland and to make them stronger
and stronger, until at last they embraced a circuit of fully three
miles. By the end of January the men on the sick list numbered
fifteen hundred, or fully a quarter of the force. Hopson sent six
hundred invalids to Antigua in the hope of saving at least some
of them, but therewith his efforts came to an end, nor could all
the representations of Barrington stimulate him to further action.
Yet new operations were by no means difficult either of conception
or of execution. Guadeloupe is in reality not one island but two,
being divided by a narrow strait known as the Salt River. It is
very much of the shape of a butterfly with wings outspread, flying
south; the western wing being known as Guadeloupe proper and the
eastern as Grande Terre, while the Salt River runs in the place
of the butterfly's body. Grande Terre, the most fertile part of
the island, still lay open to attack, with an excellent harbour at
Point à Pitre, of which the principal defence, Fort Louis, could be
reached by the cannon of ships. Moore being fortunately independent
of Hopson in respect of naval operations, sent ships round to Fort
Louis, which speedily battered it into surrender, and installed
therein a garrison of three hundred Highlanders and Marines. But
even with this new base secured to him Hopson declined to move. He
was indeed sick unto death, and on the 27th of February he died,
leaving the command to devolve on Barrington.
[Sidenote: March 6.]
[Sidenote: March 11.]
[Sidenote: March.]
His death came none too soon, for the force was on the brink of
destruction. The number of the dead cannot be ascertained, but over
and above the six hundred invalids sent to Antigua there were more
than sixteen hundred men on the sick list, and the remainder were
succumbing so fast that sufficient men could hardly be found to
do the daily duty. Barrington resolved to close this fatal period
of inaction at once. The defences of the fort of Basseterre had
already been repaired and rendered safe against attack, so the
Sixty-third regiment was left to hold it while the remainder of
the troops were embarked on board the transports. After five days
of weary beating against the trade-wind a portion of the ships
came to anchor before Fort Louis; but more than half of them had
fallen to leeward. The next day was spent by Barrington in an open
boat reconnoitring the coast, but on his return in the evening he
was met by the bad news that a French squadron had been sighted
to northward of Barbados and that Moore felt bound to fall back
with his own squadron to Prince Rupert's Bay, Dominica, in order
to cover Basseterre and the British Leeward Islands. Finally, as
sickness had wrought little less havoc in the fleet than in the
army, the Commodore begged for troops to make up the complement of
his crews.
Few situations could have been more embarrassing than that in
which Barrington now found himself. He loyally gave Moore three
hundred soldiers for his ships, and watched the fleet on which his
communications depended vanish from sight. Nearly if not quite
half of his force had perished or was unfit for duty; while of the
rest a part was isolated in Basseterre and fully one moiety was
at sea, striving to beat into Point à Pitre. Fort Louis, the only
strong position in which he could hope to wait in safety, was found
to be untenable; and the French were already preparing to besiege
it. Yet with a resolution which stamps him as no common man, he
resolved despite all difficulties to begin offensive operations at
once. He had at any rate transports though he had no men-of-war,
and he resolved to use them; his plan being, if he failed to bring
the enemy to action, to ravage the whole island and reduce it by
starvation. The cultivated land in such a confusion of mountains
could lie only in the valleys, and the settlements must needs
lie at the mouths of those valleys where there was communication
with other parts of the island by sea or by roads that followed
the coast. The French had raised abundance of batteries and
entrenchments to protect these settlements, but such multiplicity
of defences necessarily implied dispersion of force. Barrington's
troops, few though they might be, were at any rate to some extent
concentrated; and it was in his power to embark men sufficient to
overwhelm any one of these isolated settlements, and so to break up
the defences in detail. The operations were not in fact difficult
when once a man had thought out the method of conducting them, but
it was precisely in this matter of thought that Hopson had failed.
[Sidenote: March 27.]
[Sidenote: March 29.]
A fortnight was occupied in strengthening the defences of Port
Louis; and on the 27th of March six hundred men were embarked
under command of Colonel Crump and sent off to the south coast of
Grande Terre, with orders to land between the towns of St. Anne and
St. François, destroy both of them and ruin the batteries erected
for their protection. Crump, an excellent officer, performed this
duty punctually and with little loss; and on the 29th Barrington,
guessing that the French would certainly have detached some of
their troops from Gosier, a port a few miles to westward of St.
Anne, sailed with three hundred men against it, and at dawn fell
upon the enemy in their entrenchments. The troops, eager for work
after long inaction, attacked with great spirit, drove the enemy
out with little difficulty and slight loss, and then prepared to
force their way back to Fort Louis by land. Barrington had ordered
two separate sallies to be made by the garrison upon the lines
erected by the French against the fort, but owing to some mistake
one only was delivered. Nevertheless his own little detachment did
the work unaided, captured a battery of twenty-four pounders which
had been planted by the enemy to open on the fort on the next day,
and returned to its quarters triumphant.
[Sidenote: April 12.]
[Sidenote: April 13.]
By this time the missing transports had succeeded in working
into Point à Pitre; but to countervail this advantage there came
news from Basseterre that the colonel in command, a valuable
officer, had been killed, together with one or two of his men, by
an accidental explosion, and that the French were constructing
batteries to bombard the fort. Barrington appointed a new
commander, with orders to sally forth and capture these batteries
without more ado; and the task, since he had chosen the right men
to execute it, was performed with little trouble or loss. Moreover,
having now ruined the most important settlements in Grande Terre he
resolved to apply the same principles of warfare to Guadeloupe.
Accordingly on the 12th of April Brigadier Clavering, with
thirteen hundred men and six guns, was sent off to a bay close to
Arnouville,[307] where they landed unopposed, the enemy retiring
to a strong position in rear of the river Licorne. This position
was all-important to the French since it covered Mahault Bay, which
was the port by which the Dutch supplied Guadeloupe with provisions
from the island of St. Eustatia. It was so strong by nature that
it needed little fortification by art; access to the river being
barred by a mangrove swamp, across which there were but two
narrow approaches, both of them protected by redoubts, palisaded
entrenchments, and cannon. None the less Clavering determined
to attack. Covered by a heavy fire of artillery the Fourth and
Forty-second advanced against the French left, firing by platoons
as coolly as if on parade, till the Highlanders drawing their
claymores made a rush, and the Fourth dashing forward with the
bayonet drove the French from the redoubt. Then pushing round to
the rear of the entrenchments on the French right they forced the
enemy to evacuate them also, and captured seventy prisoners. The
French then retreated southward, setting fire to the cane-fields as
they passed in order to check the British pursuit, and took post
behind the river Lezarde, breaking down the bridge behind them. It
was too late for Clavering to attack them on that day, for the only
ford on the river was protected by a redoubt and four guns; but
keeping up a fire of artillery all night in order to distract the
enemy's attention, he passed a party in a canoe across the river
below the position of the French, who no sooner saw their right
flank turned than they retired with precipitation, abandoning all
their guns. Following the coast southward to Petit Bourg, where
they had prepared fortified lines and armed redoubts, the French
again tried to make a stand; but Barrington had sent a bomb-vessel
to await them off the coast, which opened fire with shell and drove
them back once more, before they could withdraw their guns from the
entrenchments.
[Sidenote: April 14.]
[Sidenote: April 18.]
[Sidenote: April 19.]
[Sidenote: May 1.]
Then and not till then did Clavering grant his men a halt after
their hard work under the tropical sun; but on the 15th he was
in motion again, and a detachment of a hundred men was sent to
capture the next battery to southward at the town of Gouyave. The
French, now thoroughly disheartened, waited only to fire one shot
and then fled, leaving seven guns behind them, when the British
having spiked the cannon retired to Petit Bourg. On the same day
Colonel Crump was sent with seven hundred men to Mahault Bay,
where he found the French defences abandoned. Having destroyed
them, together with a vast quantity of stores, he marched to join
Clavering at Petit Bourg and to help in the work of desolating
the country round it. Heavy rain suspended operations during the
two following days; but on the 18th the entire force, excepting
a garrison of two hundred and fifty men which was left at Petit
Bourg, renewed the advance southward upon St. Maries, where all the
French troops in the island were assembled to oppose it. The French
position was as usual strongly entrenched, but the paths that led
to rear of it, being judged impassable, were left unguarded. A
detachment was therefore sent to turn the entrenchments by these
paths, and the artillery was hastened up to the front; but the guns
had hardly opened fire when the French, perceiving the movement
in their rear, deserted their fortifications and fled to another
entrenched position on the heights beyond St. Maries. The British
pursued; and, while the ground was clearing for the artillery to
come into action, part of the infantry tried to force a way through
the forest and precipices on the flank of the earthworks. The
French, weary of finding position after position turned, left their
fortified lines to meet this attack, whereupon Clavering instantly
launched the remainder of his troops straight at the lines, and
despite a heavy fire of artillery and musketry swept the enemy out
of this last refuge. On the morrow the army entered the district of
Capesterre, reputed the richest in the whole of the West Indies;
and the inhabitants, dreading lest it should be overtaken by the
fate of the rest, came and begged for terms. A capitulation was
therefore granted on liberal conditions, and Guadeloupe, one of the
wealthiest of the Antilles, with a harbour large enough to shelter
the whole Navy of England from hurricanes, passed for the present
to the Crown of Britain.
[Sidenote: May 26.]
The surrender came in the nick of time, for the ink of the
signatures was hardly dry when news came of the arrival of
General Beauharnais from Martinique with six hundred French
regular troops and two thousand buccaneers. A day earlier this
reinforcement would have saved Guadeloupe; but on hearing of
the capitulation Beauharnais re-embarked his troops and sailed
away. Nothing therefore remained for Barrington but to settle
the administration, fortify the harbour, and leave a sufficient
garrison to hold it. The island of Mariegalante, which had not
been included in the capitulation, made some show of defiance but
surrendered on the first display of force. Crump was installed
as Governor; the Fourth, Sixty-third, and Sixty-fifth were left
with him; the Thirty-eighth returned to its old quarters in the
Leeward Islands, the Highlanders were shipped off to America, and
in June Barrington, with the remnant of the Buffs, Sixty-first, and
Sixty-fourth, returned to England.
So ended the campaign of Guadeloupe. The story is one which is
little known, and the name of John Barrington is one of which
few have heard; yet surely the achievements of himself and of
his troops are such as should not be forgotten. Barrington took
over from Hopson an army weakened by sickness, worn to death by
defensive warfare of the most harassing kind, and disheartened by
the consciousness that it was working to no purpose. He at once
shifted his base for more active operations, only to find, to his
great mortification, half of his force literally at sea, and the
fleet taken from him for other duty. Yet he went to work at once;
and knowing that he could not take the island by force reduced it
to submission by cutting off and destroying its supplies. I have
not hesitated to describe the petty engagements which followed,
since there was not one which did not show forethought in the
planning and skill in the execution. It is true that the French
regular troops on the island were few, and that the enemy which
deserted its entrenchments so readily was made up mainly of raw
militia and armed civilians; but they never fought except in a
strong position protected by artillery. It is true also that the
actual work in the field was done by Crump and Clavering, two
excellent officers, for Barrington was so much crippled by gout
that he could hardly leave Fort Louis. Nevertheless the whole
scheme of operations was Barrington's, and no man more cordially
acknowledged the fact than Clavering himself. The number of the
British killed and wounded in action is unfortunately not to be
ascertained, but judging by the casualties of the officers, of whom
eleven were killed and twenty-one wounded, it was not very great.
But it is not lead and steel that are most fatal in a tropical
expedition, and it is not in killed and wounded that its cost must
be reckoned. The island had been conquered, but the climate had
not; and the climate took its revenge. By the close of the seven
months that remained of the year 1759 nearly eight hundred officers
and men of the garrison had found their graves in Guadeloupe.
AUTHORITIES.--For the expeditions to Cancalle Bay and Cherbourg,
see _Account by an officer of the late expedition_. Entick also
gives details from the official documents. For the operations at
Goree, see _State Papers_ (Record Office), _C. O., Col. Corres._,
Sierra Leone, 2, 3. For Guadeloupe, see _State Papers, C. O._,
America and West Indies, 100, 101; W. O., _Orig. Corres._, 26.
Entick again gives a confused statement.