this opportunity to contradict some of the statements contained therein, which certainly lessen the credit due to that officer, and the subject of this memoir. At p. 158 of that narrative, the writer asserts, that the garrison at Labay were abandoned to their fate, with hardly a probability of effecting a retreat. So far from this having been the case, Captain Otway ordered the Favorite to remain off that place to the last moment, and to attend the garrison along shore in their retreat to Sauteur. At day-light on the morning of March 1, 1796, Captain Wood, observing the enemy take possession of Pilot Hill, weighed and worked up through an intricate channel full of rocks and shoals, and anchored off Sauteur about 3 P.M. The insurgents were at this time bringing their heavy cannon forward by means of a string of mules, upwards of 100 in number, and at 5 o’clock made their appearance on the neighbouring heights. There being no other vessels than the Favorite, and an armed transport named the Sally, then at that anchorage, Captain Wood immediately pressed two large sloops which were lying at Isle Ronde, moored them close to the beach, and before 8 o’clock, succeeded in bringing off all the troops and the followers of the army, amounting in the whole to between 1,100 and 1,200 men, of different colours, whom he conveyed in safety to St. George’s, where they were landed by day-light the next morning. Had any delay occurred in the embarkation, there can be no doubt that every man of them would have been massacred, as the post of Sauteur was not tenable against cannon, and the brigands gave no quarter. It may be proper in this place to mention, that there is not depth of water in Labay for a ship of war to approach the shore near enough to fire her guns with effect, while she would, in attempting to do so, be a dead mark for the enemy’s artillery placed on the adjacent heights; and that Pilot Hill, after the destruction of the town, was no lonsrer a post to be defended with any prospect of success, as the insurgents, being greatly superior in numbers, commanded every part of the shore, and the garrison could not protect their own landing place, or even obtain a supply of water. No encomiums, however, are too great for the gallant Major Wright, who commanded there.
At p. 146 of the pamphlet alluded to, an unsuccessful at-
