From the Santa Margaritta, Lieutenant Wolley removed into the Boyne, a second rate, bearing the flag of Sir John Jervis, by whom he was entrusted with the command of 180 seamen landed from that ship to co-operate with the British army in the island of Gaudaloupe, after the recapture of that colony by the republican forces[1].
- ↑ See Vol. I. note at p. 841.
the heights of Sourier before the night shut in, and two howitzers within a mile of it. On the following day they got two other 24-pounders and the howitzers to the heights, the distance from which to the wharf where they landed is near five miles. When we consider that the road was to be formed for near four miles of the way, one of which was through a very thick wood, and that, as they approached Sourier, for near a mile, the road was so steep, that a loaded mule could not walk directly up it, it seems scarcely credible that so small a number of men should be able to have undergone such severe fatigue, considering the climate and the nature of the soil, which was a very stiff clay intermixed with large stones. The assistance thus rendered to the army by these brave fellows was invaluable; and the compliments paid them in general orders for their spirited conduct, is a convincing proof that they never once relaxed from their first exertions during the whole siege of Fort Bourbon, a period of five weeks. Indeed their astonishing exertions were almost beyond probability: after rain, which fell frequently, the steep parts of the road were so slippery, that a man even with the greatest care would often slip back tea and sometimes twenty feet at a time: but so determined were the honest tars not to fail in what they undertook, that when once they set out with a gun after heavy raiu, and found it impossible to keep their footing, they have crawled up as they dragged the ponderous engine of destruction, and kept themselves from falling back by sticking their fingers in the ground. Bat among the many ’compliments paid the seamen, none pleased them so much as having a battery appointed solely for them, where they used to relieve one another by turns, without even an additional allowance of grog as an encouragement. The following anecdote is related by a gentleman who published an account of the West India campaign in the year 1794:–
“One day, when the Commander-in-Chief of the army met Captain Harvey’s detachment of seamen on the road, they, being ignorant that a battery was appointed for them to serve in, surrounded the General, and offered him their services, swearing they thought it d–––d hard to have all work and no fighting; and hoped his honour would let them have some share in it. Upon the General replying, “Well, my lads, you shall have a battery to yourselves,” they saluted him with three hearty cheers, and went readily to their work again.”
Previous to the surrender of Fort Bourbon, Lord Garlies, now Earl of Galloway, joined the naval detachment at Sourier, with a reinforcement of seamen and marines.
