Death Before Glory

by Martin Howard

  Brisbane was determined to shorten the odds of his future safety at sea and he later bought books on navigation and nautical instruments. Captain Thomas Powell was shipwrecked a month later, the vessel lying on its side for three minutes. He says that everyone expected to perish. ‘All the sailors were praying and most of the soldiers. In fact no one had any idea but that of going to the bottom that night…’

  Medico James McGrigor was a victim of poor navigation on two occasions, first shipwrecked in the Grenadines and later having a narrow escape on his return voyage home. During the latter passage on a transport, many of the sailors, including the original captain and mate, died of yellow fever and the command of the ship was devolved to a drunkard. Eventually, seven army officers took over and Captain Vandeleur, an ex-midshipman, was made responsible for navigation. He got them safely home, but only after entering the River Mersey believing it to be the Downs.

  There were other perils short of wrecking. Fire was a constant hazard. Andrew Bryson describes a conflagration just before his ship’s arrival at Barbados. He claims that the army officers ‘were all Gathered about Doing no Good’ and that it was left to the rank and file and the sailors to prevent the flames spreading from the galley to the rigging. The threat of disease must have been constantly in men’s minds. Thomas Phipps Howard describes the working of air pumps between decks to allow the hussars to ‘Sleep Healthy’. There were also external dangers, any ships isolated from the main convoy a potential target for foreign privateers. Pinckard relates that, ‘When any strange vessel appeared in sight, it, commonly, caused some apprehension, from our being alone and badly armed…’ All these factors made many of the doctor’s fellows anxious passengers; he contrasts the sailor blithely performing his routine tasks with the soldier who was ‘restless and inpatient – listening in terror to the wind – and shrinking in agitation at every sound’. Each moment brought new alarms and ‘a thousand questions dictated by a thousand fears’.9

  Pinckard may have exaggerated the soldiers’ trepidation. As the convoys ploughed across the Atlantic towards the Tropics, at least some were relaxed enough to enjoy the change in climate and the novel sights and traditions of the ocean. William Surtees’s vessel fell in with the trade winds after passing close to Tenerife and the other Canary Islands, ‘…our voyage now became delightful, for a gentle and refreshing, but constant and steady breeze carried us on at the rate of about five or six knots an hour…’ Contemporary journals document sightings of turtles, porpoises, dolphins and sharks. Normal holidays and anniversaries were observed – Colour Sergeant William Nichol ate his Christmas dinner just before arrival in the West Indies in 1808 – but one event takes precedence in all accounts. The ‘crossing the line’ ceremony was most commonly performed at the Tropic of Cancer and was particularly designed to initiate sailors who had not crossed before. William Dyott gives us a flavour of proceedings:

  One of the sailors is made to personate Neptune, who is supposed to rise from the sea, accompanied by his wife, Amphitrite. They are clad in a most ridiculous manner, in order to represent the high and mighty god and goddess of the ocean. These deities have two attendants, one of which is supposed to be a very humble inhabitant of the deep, on earth yclept [called] a barber. Mister Neptune greets you with a welcome to the tropic and an offer of a bottle of milk and a newspaper that he is supposed to have got a few days before from ashore, adding he shall order a prosperous gale to carry you to your intended port.

  After this benign opening, the unfortunate sailors were subjected to various indignities including imbibing seawater, ducking in a tub of water and crude shaving. In general, the ceremony was conducted in good humour. Soldiers and sailors used telescopes to view the activities on the other vessels.

  The redcoats were mostly spared. When Thomas Henry Browne was paraded before the gods of the sea, he had the good sense to part with a dollar. ‘The messengers were then about to be dispatched for some of the Soldiers, but as we did not wish them to pass thro’ this filthy ordeal, we interfered and expressed our hopes that His Majesty would consider tribute money as the purchase of their freedom of the Seas as well as our own.’ The ceremony could get out of hand and be mischievously used to exact retribution against an unpopular individual. Such a case occurred on Andrew Bryson’s ship where a targeted army officer was unable to escape by hiding or paying the usual bribe.

  He then offered him [Neptune] a Crown: No. Then half a Guinea: No. Then a whole one: No. ‘You have detained me from Dinner this half Hour & you Shall pay for it with a Vengeance. Officers, & you Barber, do y[ou]r duty.’ Notwithstanding all his out-cries and Strength, they tied up his eyes & placed him on the bason. One of the men poured a little water down his cheek, on which he Gave a Shout & the Barber Crammed his brush full into his mouth & rammed it half down his throat.10

  With fine weather and favourable trade winds the voyage to the West Indies could be made in as little as 30 days, but 40 to 50 days was more typical. Pinckard notes that the ‘sad uncertainties’ of the passage were well illustrated by the simultaneous arrival in Carlisle Bay of a transport of the Cork division and a merchantman of his own division, despite them departing a month apart in 1796. For many the voyage had become boring. William Dyott complained that nothing could be more unpleasant than being cooped up in a transport ‘with eight or ten men you never saw till the day you got on board.’ The time, he says, had become dull and tedious. The first sighting of the West Indies was therefore often a moment of relief and even joy. Pinckard is again our most descriptive witness, recounting the excited shouts of ‘Land! Land!’ when the boatswain spotted the higher points of Barbados, thereby winning the customary prize of a bottle of rum or brandy.

  It required the eye of a sailor to distinguish the all-delighting terra firma, amidst the clouds: the passengers looked, and looked in vain! A nearer approach of yet some leagues was necessary to render it visible to the eye of a landsman.

  The relief of finally seeing the destination was proportional to the length of the voyage. John Skinner, lieutenant colonel of the 16th Regiment, had spent nearly 17 weeks at sea. ‘Our men were almost wild with joy at landing…’11

  In their journals, diaries, memoirs and letters home, the new arrivals strain to give their European brethren some conception of the remarkable appearance of the West Indies. For soldiers and sailors what had emerged from the horizon was a beautiful and strange world, both intoxicating and threatening. Most were awed by the spectacular scenery that met them as they first approached the shore and then landed. There is much repetition in these accounts, but we will select a few representative excerpts. Thomas Phipps Howard’s journal entry for Tuesday 19 April 1796:

  The Morn: cloudy. The [Jolly] Boat went onshore early. At 12 oClock the Signal was made to weigh [anchor] & at about ½ after 12 got under Way for the Island of St Domingo [Saint Domingue]. The Boat returned just as the anchor was tripped. The Servant not returned therefore conclude he is run-away. Nothing can equal the beauty of the Sight that presented itself to us at 5 in the Even: A fleet of about 170 sail, crossing each other in all directions. The beautiful Island of Barbadoes on our Right; the mountains to their very tops thick-set with Villages, Plantations etc. etc. In short, I never saw so grand & − at the same time – pleasing Sight before.

  Cooper Willyams was greatly impressed by the splendour of Fort Royal Bay, the white stone of Fort Bourbon with its tricolour making a stark contrast against the verdure of the surrounding mountains. Andrew Bryson was also moved by the vistas of Martinique:

  The Beauty of the Prospect as we passed from Fort Royal to St. Pierre far exceeded anything I had either Seen or had any Idea of. In every little Val[ley], of which there are a prodigious number, there was a plantation [at] the bottom of the Vale planted with plantation trees, the leaves of which were 6 feet long & 2 broad and on each side of the Banks the Negro huts [were] arranged in straight lines…In all there places, Tho’ Nature had laid the Foundation, yet art had almost outstrippe
d her in the Superstructure which, could it but be Viewed with-out reference to the Back Ground, it would indeed defy the Pencil of …….. to do Justice to it.

  The novel and, at times, surreal nature of this new environment led some to depict their surroundings in near-poetical terms. Thomas St Clair, landing on the coast of South America, was astonished by the ‘tints of the foliage’ of the forest trees, lit by the ‘clear ethereal sky’. A Scottish soldier was delighted by the ‘bright serene atmosphere’ of Barbados, a place which was, in the words of William Dyott, ‘picturesque almost to a degree of enchantment, and really makes you fancy it a fairy island’. John Moore was not inclined to hyperbole but he records in his journal that St Lucia was beautiful with all in great abundance; ‘The situation of my post is very romantic…’ The army’s and navy’s doctors should have been aware of the more sinister aspect of the islands, but naval surgeon John Augustus Waller was as seduced as others by his first view; ‘The next morning, at day-light, displayed one of the most enchanting prospects my eyes ever beheld. It is at this hour that the West India islands appear in all their glory, and resemble a paradise’.12

  Once ashore, the first challenge for all European troops was the alien climate. The most obvious change was the intense heat. Europe being a little cooler than it is today, the contrast may have been even greater in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. There are plenty of anecdotal accounts of the effects of the sun, but we obtain hard facts from medical men who exhaustively documented the climate in attempting to explain the prevailing diseases. Colin Chisholm, inspector general of the ordnance medical department in the West Indies, collected data on Grenada in 1793. Using his mercury thermometer he determined that the summer temperature in the shade had usually reached 80° Farenheit by 10 o’clock in the morning, only lower than this if there was rain or wind. Taking his instrument into direct sunlight at noon he obtained a temperature reading of 120° and even as high as 130° in an enclosed yard.

  Thomas Phipps Howard felt this midday sun in Saint Domingue in August 1796, comparing it to a furnace; ‘The heat we experienced cannot be expressed by Words: broiling on a gridiron must be fools play to it’. In Port au Prince, soldiers fainted in the heat. Chisholm tells us that the temperature at night on Grenada fell to around 75°, which was some relief, although men still struggled to sleep. Lieutenant Henry Sherwood of the 53rd, on St Vincent in November 1798, wrote home that he got little rest at night, ‘When this letter reaches you, I daresay you will be warming yourselves by a good fire in a close pent up room whilst, if I am alive, I shall be in a room with all my windows open and shall be unable to bear my coat’.

  The only sure way to escape the heat was to move to the higher ground of the interior. William Dyott noted the marked contrast when campaigning on Grenada. Posted in the mountains in the north of the island, the nights were now chilly. ‘We made large fires and rolled our blankets close round us, our lodging not much calculated to keep out either wet or cold.’ Half of each day was spent in the clouds. The rainy season in the West Indies varies between the islands but generally runs from May to December. The rains often come suddenly and fall in torrents. The negative impact of heavy rain on the army’s fighting capacity has been alluded to in the campaign chapters.

  The winds, when moderate, were pleasant and mostly regarded as healthy. As was the case for the temperature, the breezes were believed to impact on the common tropical diseases and army doctors were quick to analyse their significance. In describing the winds of Guadeloupe, Inspector of Hospitals William Fergusson is careful to distinguish the sea breeze from the ‘night land-wind from the mountains’. Extreme weather conditions were not unusual and there are several accounts of the destructive effects of the hurricanes which blighted the region between July and October. The raging winds can exceed 140 miles per hour and can destroy a city or an island’s whole economy within hours. Mariner William Richardson was shipwrecked by a hurricane which struck Bermuda in 1798, the ship left lying on her side and the masts and sails blown away. ‘It is almost incredible that the wind should have such power but it is actually true’. Thomas Phipps Howard experienced several violent storms in Saint Domingue, the rain falling as if a river was descending from the clouds, the trees cracking in the wind, the thunder echoing off the mountains and the lightning so bright that after every flash his men were forced to stop for half a minute to recover their sight.

  The exotic flora and fauna of the islands were a source of fascination for the more curious British soldiers. Howard regarded Saint Domingue as a fine field for a botanist and he methodically lists many of the varieties in his journal, admitting that there were ‘ten thousand’ species with which he was unfamiliar. On his first journey on Martinique, Andrew Bryson saw ‘Oranges, Limes, Saursap, Guave, Sugar Apple, Mungos, Mammy Apples, Alligator Pears, Cocoa nuts & Cabbage Trees’. Those soldiers arriving in the winter were astounded to see the brilliant greens of the landscape. Jonathan Leach, who reached the islands at Christmas, struggled to reconcile what he witnessed, ‘…above all the total absence of snow, frost, and the dark and lowering clouds emblematic of that season in Europe’. The exotic views were matched by the smell, Thomas Henry Browne immediately noticing that there was ‘a sort of perfume in the air’. Many others appreciated the distinct odour of the spices, the sugar plantations and the myriad scented flowers.

  Less savoury were the swarms of insects which were almost constant companions to the troops. Pinckard makes numerous allusions to them, commenting that the heat would have been supportable ‘were it not for the addition and greater torment of musquitos, ants, centipedes, jack-spaniards [large wasps] and the multitudes of other insects biting, buzzing about our ears, crawling upon everything we touch and filling the whole atmosphere around us’. As we shall see, doctors did not understand the sinister role of mosquitoes and other insects in spreading deadly tropical diseases. Benjamin Moseley instead elaborated on the dangers of the various species of snakes before, in more optimistic vein, pointing out that the West Indies lacked many of the ‘greater evils’ of South America such as tigers, lions, bears and wolves.

  Another natural phenomenon added to the other-worldly ambience of the islands. Physician Chisholm witnessed five earthquakes in his five years on Grenada. The worst of these lasted for two minutes, accompanied by a ‘hollow rumbling noise’. Howard also relates his experience of more than one episode and says that it was widely known that Port au Prince had been almost totally destroyed less than 50 years earlier with the loss of 2,000 people. Most of the tremors were minor with minimal damage and the soldiers were reassured by the phlegmatic locals who would often hardly interrupt their work, pausing briefly to seek God’s protection. When an earthquake shook Martinique in 1809, Browne noted that the inhabitants crossed themselves and uttered Ave Marias for a minute or so before they dispersed and moved on ‘laughing to their several occupations’.13

  With such a complex mix of sensations and emotions, it is difficult to generalise regarding the dominant feelings of British officers and rank and file encountering the West Indies for the first time. We must presume that these were almost as varied as the islands themselves. There was the simple relief at a safe arrival; George Pinckard, not prone to understatement, expressed his joy at reaching Barbados, ‘How delightful an element – how cheering – is the solid earth!’ This optimism was shared by Captain Joseph Anderson who disembarked on the colony almost 20 years later. His first impressions led him to hope for a ‘continued happy residence’ in the place. The garrison was apparently healthy, but he was soon disillusioned by the onset of yellow fever. Most soldiers were more jaundiced in their initial assessment; Jonathan Leach admitted that the Caribbean islands were ‘interesting to the Johnny Newcomes’ but he says this novelty soon wore off and that, barring the spectacular scenery, nothing much excited him. It is perhaps inevitable that those whose recruitment involved coercion were the most crushed by their posting. Andrew Bryson consoled himself that ‘there was litt
le probability of my living So long’.

  The Irish recruit’s attitude to the black West Indian population was typical of the xenophobia displayed by British soldiers in their accounts of the wars. His depression was deepened by the prospect of living close to the local inhabitants; his heart ‘sickened at the very idea’ and his blood was ‘chilled’ by the mere sighting of a row of ‘negro huts’. Thomas St Clair and his comrades viewed the ‘native negros’ of Demerara with horror and disgust, ‘so powerfully do our European ideas of decency affect the imagination’. Quartermaster Surtees shared this low opinion, whilst blaming the dissolute European colonists for many of the perceived depravities of the black population.

  Here [Barbados, 1814] (I think I shall not far err if I say) you behold man in his lowest state: the savages of the woods are, in my opinion, much higher in the scale of being than those whom our cursed cupidity has introduced to all our vices, without one alleviating virtue to counterbalance the evil. But how could the poor African learn anything that is good from those who do not practice good themselves.

  The new arrivals were targeted by the locals who, in Browne’s opinion, looked ‘as disgusting as possible’. He believed that he was entering ‘the squalid darkness of the negro’ and he accuses the local traders of cheating the troops ‘by every means in their power’. The black women who the ungrateful Browne met in the market at Bridgetown gave him advice which was very likely well intended, ‘Ah Massa Johny Newcome go back to Shippy, too hot for him here, kill him’.14