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Updated: May 23, 2025
In this last clause is seen the strategic idea of the British Admiral: the French must come back to Martinique. From the vigilance of his frigates it resulted that when the look-outs of de Guichen, who passed to windward of Martinique on the 7th of May, came in sight of Gros Ilet on the 9th, it was simply to find the British getting under way to meet the enemy.
I wus one o' the fellers picked fer thet job, an' we wus told off under a nigger mate, named LaGrasse he wus a French nigger from Martinique, and a big devil an' our orders wus ter meet Sanchez three days later. His vessel wus a three-masted schooner, the fastest thing ever I saw afloat, called the Vengeance, an' by that time she wus chock up with loot.
There it is!" and he made a mark with his pencil on the chart. "Right down there in the Caribbean, west of Martinique. Glory Hallelujah!" The old man was as frisky as a colt, and under the stimulus of excitement the years seemed to drop away from him. Captain Hamilton was quite as delighted, though he did not give so free a rein to his emotions. "Splendid!" he beamed.
In the West Indies, France had lost Martinique and Guadeloupe during the naval wars prior to Bonaparte's ascension to supreme authority. These islands were restored to her under the Treaty of Amiens; were once more captured by the British in 1809 to 1810; and were finally handed back to France under the Treaty of Paris in 1814. Tobago and St. Lucia, taken from France in 1803, were not restored.
But for the dark forests of cedar and pine, and this far faint dreamy sky, and the soft whiteness of the light, there are moments of our journey when I could fancy myself again in the West Indies, ascending some winding way over the mornes of Dominica or of Martinique. And, indeed, I find myself sometimes looking against the horizon glow for shapes of palms and ceibas.
De Guichen and Rodney met for the first time on the 17th of April, 1780, three weeks after the arrival of the latter. The French fleet was beating to windward in the Channel between Martinique and Dominica, when the enemy was made in the southeast. A day was spent in manoeuvring for the weather-gage, which Rodney got.
We found orders at Barbadoes to cruise off Martinique, to prevent supplies being furnished to the garrison of the island, and we proceeded there immediately.
In this he succeeded, as will be shown; but to understand the justification for a movement confessedly hazardous, it must be pointed out that he thus would place himself between the besiegers of Brimstone Hill and their fleet; or if the latter anchored near the hill, the English fleet would be between it and its base in Martinique, ready to intercept supplies or detachments approaching from the southward.
Admiral Gravina, with six Spanish ships of the line and two French, come out to him, and they sailed without a moment's loss of time. They had about three thousand French troops on board, and fifteen hundred Spanish: six hundred were under orders, expecting them at Martinique, and one thousand at Guadaloupe. General Lauriston commanded the troops.
After stopping to coal at Fort-de-France, in the beautiful island of Martinique, and a few days later stopping at Santiago de Cuba, we finally, on May 2, caught sight of a dark, broadening line upon the horizon, behind which soon loomed up in solitary dignity the snow-capped peak of Orizaba; and passing the Cangrejos and the island of Sacrificios, we anchored off the fort of San Juan de Ulloa, where we awaited a clean bill of health from the quarantine officers who came on board.
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