Death Before Glory
Page 17
At dawn on the following day, troops were put ashore in landing craft, Abercromby accompanying them in a dangerously advanced position. The Spanish Governor, General Don Ramon de Castro, sent out a small detachment of perhaps a hundred men and a few guns. Private Simpson says that the enemy initially subjected them to heavy musketry fire from a wood and that field guns and ammunition were brought ashore, ‘…after which we moved forward keeping a good distance between each file, on purpose to make the enemy think that we had a great force on this advance; we was very much fatigued with the great heat’. Brisbane agrees that there was ‘considerable resistance’ before the Spaniards were driven back to the walls of San Juan.
Abercromby could now see for himself the strength of the fortress. This was on a narrow island on the northern side of San Juan Bay (see map 11). The combination of man-made and natural defences was such that the British commander decided that there was only one possible direction of attack, from the eastern side across the San Antonio Bridge. Even this approach was well defended by entrenchments and ordnance and Abercromby reluctantly concluded that his only hope was to first sap Spanish morale. ‘The only Thing left was to endeavour to bombard the Town from a Point to the southward of it, near to a large Magazine abandoned by the Enemy’. This was not Trinidad. Not only were the fortifications much stronger, but the Spanish commander, Castro, was also a veteran with military experience against the English and his garrison of perhaps 4,000 men – mostly Spanish regulars and militia with some French and local black troops – was at least equal in numbers to the besieging force and determined and resourceful. Castro declined Abercromby’s invitation to surrender.
The artillery exchange proved to be one-sided. British guns caused some damage to Spanish defences, but the counter-fire from the fortress was more destructive, silencing a number of British pieces and damaging magazines. The defenders appeared on the ramparts shouting insults and throwing stones. For the attackers it was brutal and unrewarding work. Brisbane later recalled that ‘we had the severest duty I ever experienced, as, independently of living on salt provisions we had no other covering but our cloaks and the sand of the sea-beach for our couch’. Enemy militia had made an appearance in the British rear and were harassing outlying entrenchments and foraging parties.
Abercromby was frustrated at the lack of progress and the failings of his troops. Desertions were increasing, mainly from the German regiments. He decided to abandon the attack, fearing that a change in the weather might leave his small army marooned and at the mercy of the Spaniards. Disembarkation was no simple undertaking but the army was spirited away, marched to the beach during the night of 30 April and loaded on to the transports the next day. Tents were left in place to confuse the enemy who kept up a constant fire on the camp for several hours after the sudden departure.
British losses were 31 killed, 70 wounded and 124 missing. Abercromby’s gamble had failed and the assault on Puerto Rico marked the end of the last major West Indian offensive of the Revolutionary Wars. Manpower was not sufficient for further attacks and even if more acquisitions were made it was unclear what would be accomplished. John Moore was pessimistic; ‘It is to be regretted that we ever made the attempt [on Puerto Rico], but I doubt if not getting possession of that island is a misfortune…such numerous and extended possessions must ever be in danger’. The Government had reached the same conclusion. Abercromby was replaced by Major General Cornelius Cuyler who was instructed to desist from any aggressive operations and to consolidate the hold on existing British colonies at the least possible expense.14
We have seen that the over-worked Abercromby was at least spared the responsibility for Saint Domingue where General Simcoe took command in February 1797. His instructions were vague, reflecting the lack of British certainty regarding the current state and future of the colony. He was to reduce expenditure to £25,000 per month – no small challenge as £700,000 was spent in January – and permitted to pull back troops to the Môle if judged necessary. This place was to be held at all costs as a potential bargaining tool and because it bolstered the defence of Jamaica. He was promised some recruits, supplies and the services of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Maitland. Both Simcoe and Maitland agreed on the importance of Saint Domingue but the latter officer took a more conservative view of the military options. Certainly, offensive operations would have to acknowledge the low morale of the colonists; corruption, infighting and desertion were everywhere. Simcoe’s heterogeneous army, alluded to in the first chapter, was made up of 5,000 European troops of whom around 40% were non-British, in addition to 5,800 black chasseurs and three to four thousand local militia. This is a paper return and sickness and desertion significantly reduced the force available for immediate action. He was opposed by Toussaint with an army of approximately 20,000 men and Rigaud with around 12,000. Only at sea could the British boast superiority and Léogane and Gonaives were blockaded to stem the flow of Republican supplies.15
Simcoe had hoped to form a strike force of picked troops which could be launched from the sea against selected coastal targets. This opportunity never arose and he instead had to focus on defending occupied territory. In late February and March, Toussaint’s forces overran the outposts around Mirebalais. A relief force under Montalembert was ambushed with heavy casualties. By the beginning of April, the enemy was approaching Port au Prince from Léogane; there was fear that Toussaint and Rigaud might join forces in the Plain of Cul de Sac and make a concerted attack on the capital. The determination of émigré officers, men such as Montalembert and Viscomte de Bruges, was questionable. On 11 April, Maitland arrived at Port au Prince with 600 troops of the 40th Regiment of the Irish Brigade and other small detachments. Simcoe used the extra men to force Toussaint back from the town and sought to follow up this success by pushing on towards Verrettes with the ultimate objective of capturing Mirebalais. The attack had to be abandoned at Arcahaye when news was received that Rigaud was besieging Irois in the south.16
Simcoe responded to the new threat by immediately despatching a relief operation towards Jérémie under the command of Maitland. Irois’s tiny garrison was composed of 50 men of the 17th Foot and colonial artillery. On 20 April, Rigaud’s army of 1,200 men made a vigorous attack against which the intrepid group of defenders resisted long enough to allow 350 of Prince Edward’s Black Chasseurs to reach the place and drive the attackers back. Rigaud had started a regular siege when, by pure good fortune, two British frigates arrived to sink the enemy flotilla and completely defeat Rigaud’s land forces. Brigadier General George Churchill, reporting to Simcoe, estimated the Republican losses as at least 800; around Irois there were 250 bodies, mostly mulattoes and whites. By the time that Maitland appeared, the crisis had passed. That officer was, however, unimpressed, commenting that British survival was now a matter of rushing troops around the colony.17
Leaving Maitland at Jérémie, Simcoe was resolved to retake Mirebalais. Toussaint was taken by surprise and the place was captured cheaply at the end of May, the Republicans escaping across the flooded Artibonite. There was more anxiety at St Marc where the British garrison came under attack from a substantial Toussaint army approaching from Gonaives, perhaps as many as 14,000 men. Ground was ceded and the besieged force retired to Fort Churchill, where a bombardment was followed by a violent attack by 1,500 of Toussaint’s best fighters. The fort and town were saved by the timely arrival of Dessources in the harbour. Lieutenant Thomas Phipps Howard of the York Hussars describes the reaction.
…to the inexpressible satisfaction of the Garrison, the vessels were found to be Colonel Dessources’s Sloop with Transports having on Board a reinforcement of 500 men …Colonel Dessources was received in the Town as a Saviour.
It was one more example of a British West Indian garrison being rescued from the sea.
As Rigaud and Laplume were preoccupied fighting each other, Simcoe sensed an opportunity to strike a decisive blow against Toussaint’s retreating army. He hoped that the combination of tro
ops under Churchill, Dessources and Julien Depestre would trap his foe on the left bank of the Artibonite. Churchill’s dispatch describing this operation is strangely triumphant, but Simcoe’s assessment, communicated to Dundas, is more realistic.
The Brigadier General’s [Churchill’s] Letter will inform you of the Success of the Expedition but I have to regret that from some Delay of the Columns they did not move with the Exactitude and Concert I had hoped, by which Circumstance a considerable Object of the Expedition failed of success…
Churchill was not of the same calibre as Maitland and he had not displayed the necessary energy. To be fair, he was not helped by the torrential rain and the disillusionment of Dessources and Depestre. Simcoe still had some hope of seizing Verrettes but, by late June, the British army was bogged down in the fields around Arcahaye, more likely to perish of disease than in decisive action.18
Simcoe was frustrated. He was disgruntled by the perceived poor performance of his troops and an increasingly strained relationship with the navy. The situation was not entirely unfavourable for the British. The Spanish and the black population in the north were potential allies, Rigaud was at odds with the black leaders and Toussaint’s power had been blunted. However, the exploitation of these positives required more manpower and more money, both commodities the commander was denied by the over-riding demand for austerity. Simcoe bemoaned the missed opportunity, claiming that with just a few extra thousand men he would have ‘finished the business’. Having written a report to Dundas in June, making clear his view that it was impossible to protect Saint Domingue with the available resources, he left the colony in the company of Maitland in July, passing the command to Major General Whyte. Following the return of the two officers to London, the Government issued notice that a proposal had been made that the islands of St Domingo and Jamaica should remain neutral and that British troops in Saint Domingue would be withdrawn to the Môle and Jérémie. The citizens of Port au Prince would be offered support for either self-defence or escape. It appears that Maitland’s views had prevailed. He was more tuned in to the Government’s political and financial mood that the belligerent Simcoe.19
The man entrusted to impose this new policy on Saint Domingue at the start of 1798 was Major General Colebrooke Nesbitt. Maitland was also to sail from England as his chief of staff. Nesbitt fell seriously ill at Madeira and it was Maitland, only a lieutenant colonel in rank, who would effectively act as commander-in-chief; he arrived on the colony on 12 March. The early months of 1798 had seen General Whyte forced to cede ground to his enemies. Both Toussaint and Rigaud launched major attacks against the occupied zone in late January. Toussaint advanced from the Artibonite, forcing the abandonment of Grand Bois and the withdrawal of British troops in the Cul de Sac back to Croix des Bouquets. Mirebalais was surrounded and soon capitulated. In the south, Rigaud was besieging Irois and Laplume had captured the mountain stronghold of Lacoupe. Whyte remained passive; nearly all the combatants in these actions were black troops in uniform.20
Maitland was faced with a rapidly deteriorating situation. He was unable to work with Whyte, who returned to the Môle in a huff, handing all responsibility to his opinionated colleague. In mid-March, the cordon of the plain of Arcahaye, a series of forts, was abandoned by its commander, an officer of the Irish Brigade. Fortescue describes this action as ‘treacherous’, but the forts had a total garrison of 300 and were faced by 4,000 soldiers of Toussaint and Christophe. The colonial cavalry of Lapointe and Depestre could only slow the Republican advance and Port au Prince was now threatened. Maitland decided to follow through on his original plan to sacrifice the capital. On 23 April, he approached Toussaint offering to surrender Western Province in return for a five-week cessation of hostilities to allow the unhindered evacuation of British forces from St Marc, Arcahaye, and Port au Prince. His opponent quickly agreed, the negotiation tacitly acknowledging his precedence among the black and mulatto leaders. Maitland imposed martial law and embarked his troops and all locals who wished to go; by 18 May, the British had left Port au Prince.21
The British commander had not discounted the possibility of a final offensive. Part of the evacuated force was sent to the Môle and then moved to Jérémie where Maitland joined them. He still had approximately 2,000 British regulars and 7,000 colonial troops fit for duty and he was resolved to strike a blow against Rigaud by capturing Tiburon. Maitland blamed the officer in command in the Grand Anse, Brigadier General Brent Spencer, for allowing Rigaud’s army of 4−7,000 men to dominate him; ‘Spencer’s failure’, he opined, was due to ‘the received and practised mode of carrying on the war in this island – that of stuffing all his men into posts without leaving any moving force, so that when one of his posts was attacked, he could not hope to relieve it’. Operations were delayed by torrential rain until mid-June when Maitland left Jérémie with 800 British and 2,300 colonial troops, At first, things went to plan, the naval squadron bombarding the fort of Les Anglais whilst 1,700 of Dessources’s Volunteers moved through the mountains to cut Tiburon off from the north. The defenders were surprised but the weather and sea conditions, adverse winds and a heavy surf, prevented the landing of more men from the ships and, after three days, Maitland gave up.22
Negotiations with the enemy were opened to allow discussion of the final withdrawal of the British from Saint Domingue. This required some fortitude on Maitland’s part as there were many parties who were against the decision. Apart from a number of ministers at home, Balcarres on Jamaica and Admiral Hyde were strongly opposed. At the end of July, Maitland received both the necessary approval from Dundas and a conciliatory approach from Toussaint. His subsequent arrangements with the black leader showed perspicacity. Although the British evacuation could not be viewed as anything other than a defeat, Maitland contrived to leave the colony in as non-threatening a state as possible. The agreements with Toussaint ensured that his interests substantially coincided with those of the British and that he would pose no danger to Jamaica. Indeed, within a short period he was the dominant force, had turned against Rigaud and the Directory, and had become an open enemy of France. The last British troops sailed from the Môle in October. Saint Domingue remained a trap for unwary Europeans, but it was now baited for the French.23
In the years immediately following the departure from Saint Domingue, there was limited British offensive action in the Caribbean. The emphasis was now on defence and economy; in the nine months leading up to March 1800, only one complete regiment and two half-strength units were sent to the West Indies. The lack of a major French counter-offensive did, however, give a breathing space for some opportunistic conquests. In August 1799, a British expeditionary force just over a thousand strong, under the command of Lieutenant General Thomas Trigge, sailed from Martinique to capture the Dutch colony of Surinam on the South American coast. The local governor had previously been softened with inducements, which was just as well as the operation was badly mishandled. The divided landing force was greatly outnumbered by Dutch and Spanish regulars, but the governor duly capitulated, allowing Trigge’s men to first march into New Amsterdam and then to occupy the capital, Paramaribo.
In September 1800, Dutch Curaçao and its dependancy Aruba were seized in another bloodless coup. More easy catches followed in the spring of the following year. In March, the small island of St Batholomew, close to Guadeloupe and Sweden’s only West Indian possession, was surrendered without a fight. The island of St Martin, part Dutch and part French, put up some resistance but soon followed suit. The Danish islands of St Thomas and St John and the Dutch islands of St Eustatius and Saba were all part of the British Empire by the end of April.24
This rapid-fire acquisition of small dependencies proved to be the last action of the war against Revolutionary France in the Caribbean. In the summer of 1801, Dundas’s expansionist West Indian policy was unpopular in war weary Britain and the new Prime Minister, Henry Addington, was keen to sue for peace with France. The subsequent negotiations, at Amiens,
were conducted by Lord Cornwallis and the final treaty was signed on 25 March, 1802. The terms were widely criticised in Britain, regarded as a diplomatic triumph for her enemy. French dominion in Europe and British superiority in India and on the high seas confirmed the status quo. The West Indian colonies were pawns in this game of aggrandisement. All Britain’s hard-won conquests were returned to France and Holland, and only Trinidad, taken from Spain, was retained.25
Chapter 7
An English Lake: The Short Peace and the Napoleonic Wars 1802–1815
The resumption of hostilities in 1803 marked a change from the ideological warfare of the 1790s to a more traditional conflict between Britain and France. The Duke of York’s reforms had created a better trained, more professional army now much more comparable to the navy. This was reflected by the very rapid remobilisation of both army and navy after the short uneasy peace. By the end of 1804, the two services totalled 600,000 men; between 11 and 14% of the adult male population had been raised, three times the ratio achieved in France. During the Napoleonic era, the Caribbean theatre was increasingly overshadowed by the herculean struggle in Europe, notably the Iberian Peninsula where Wellington and his Spanish and Portuguese allies waged war against the French between 1808 and 1814. However, as previously discussed (see Chapter 1), there was still a significant commitment of manpower to the region, the Government striving to consolidate financial and maritime ascendancy over France. The availability of these forces, and their relatively good quality, allowed the British to make a number of re-conquests, the last of these actually taking place after the Battle of Waterloo. These Napoleonic actions are broadly divisible into three periods: the years 1803−1805, then 1807−1810, and, finally, 1815.1
We must first briefly review two French initiatives which were both launched by Bonaparte in 1802. In April, General Antoine Richepanse, a veteran of the Revolutionary Wars, commanded an expeditionary force of 3,800 men against mulatto-led insurgents on Guadeloupe. The threat of the return of slavery only served to exacerbate the insurrection, but the French forces prevailed, crushing the rebellion with great brutality and deporting 3,000 alleged black insurgents from the colony. Richepanse and many of his poorly supplied army were to die of yellow fever, but the Guadeloupe episode was to be overshadowed by the attempt to wrest power from Toussaint Louverture in Saint Domingue. The expeditionary corps, under the command of General Victor Emmanuel Leclerc, Bonaparte’s brother-in-law, arrived in February 1802. It was allowed free passage by the British who were cautious of growing French influence but not averse to the end of black autonomy in the colony. Leclerc’s sizeable army, around 35,000 men, achieved initial military success, soon forcing Toussaint’s submission, but the French were ultimately to lose a savage war against the overwhelming resistance of the black population and tropical disease. By October, a desperate Leclerc was writing to Bonaparte, ‘Since I arrived here I have seen only the spectre of burnings, insurrection, assassinations, of dead and of the dying…I struggle here against the blacks, against the whites, against the misery and the shortage of money, against my army which is demoralised’. The general soon succumbed to yellow fever and there was little left of the French force by the end of 1803. Rochambeau took command of the remnants and after a prolonged campaign of terror and sporadic fighting against the Spanish (by this time allied with Britain) around the town of Santo Domingo during 1808, the last survivors of Leclerc’s original corps surrendered to the British general Hugh Carmichael in 1809. This was to be the end of all fighting to leeward. As many as 40,000 French lives had been sacrificed to Napoleon’s colonial ambitions.2