[35] This island had been restored to France by the Treaty of Amiens.
[36] The grenadier company of the 1st West India Regiment lost 1 rank and file, killed; 1 drummer, 18 rank and file, wounded; 1 subaltern, missing.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE EXPEDITION TO NEW ORLEANS, 1814-15.
In July, 1814, the 1st West India Regiment was removed to Guadaloupe, except two companies detached to St. Martin's and Marie-Galante, and remained so stationed until it was selected to take part in the expedition to New Orleans.
In June, 1812, the United States of America had declared war against Great Britain, Washington had been captured by the British on July 24th, 1813, and the war had been carried on with varying success until towards the close of the year 1814. In October of that year an expedition to New Orleans was decided upon; the force was to rendezvous at Negril Bay, Jamaica, and for that place the 1st West India Regiment embarked at Point à Prène, Guadaloupe, on November 14th, 1814. Lieutenant-Colonel Whitby, who had for the first time joined the regiment on the previous day, was then in command.
The assembly of the fleet, and the concentration of troops at a point so near to their own coast, had aroused the suspicions of the Americans; and the treachery of an official in the garrison office at Jamaica enabled them to receive positive information as to the aim and destination of the expedition. This official communicated the intelligence to an American trader residing in Kingston, and the latter at once sailed in a coasting schooner for Pensacola; where General Jackson, who commanded the United States army of the South, was on the point of marching to the relief of St. Mary's, then being attacked by a naval force under Rear-Admiral Cockburn. The American general, upon learning of the proposed expedition, at once marched to the Mississippi, concentrated a force of 13,000 men in and around New Orleans, and threw up works on either side of the river to defend the passage in the neighbourhood of the town.
On the 26th of November, 1814, the British fleet, under the command of Vice-Admiral Sir A. Cochrane, having on board a force of some 5000 men under Major-General Keane, sailed from Negril Bay and arrived off the Chandeleur Islands near the entrance of Lake Borgne, on December 10th.
"To reduce the forts which command the navigation of the Mississippi was regarded as a task too difficult to be attempted, and for any ships to pass without their reduction seemed impossible. Trusting, therefore, that the object of the enterprise was unknown to the Americans, Sir Alexander Cochrane and General Keane determined to effect a landing somewhere on the banks of Lake Borgne, and pushing directly on, to take possession of the town before any effectual preparation could be made for its defence. With this view the troops were removed from the larger into the lighter vessels, and these, under convoy of such gun-brigs as the shallowness of the water would float, began on the 13th to enter Lake Borgne."[37]