With the shattered remnant of his forces, consisting of the 37th and the gunners of the marine corps, he embarked on board the fleet of Admiral Jervis for conveyance to England, as prisoner of war.
The two barriers of Fort Bourbon were delivered over with all due formality, and I had the honour first to do duty as an officer by commanding a Fusilier guard at the eastern gate on this eventful day. Then came the preparation of those lists, which, as poor Jack Rolster our adjutant said, "were to carry grief to many a heart, and perhaps poverty to many a home;" yet, our losses in killed, wounded, and missing (barely three hundred) were trifling, when we considered the value of the territory we had added to the British crown. The casualties in our ranks were rapidly replaced by volunteers from the Scottish Lowland Fencible corps which were in process of reduction at this time.
In the store-houses of Fort Bourbon, we found great quantities of rice, maize, potatoes, figs, melons, and bananas. These, with pigs, turkeys, and wood-pigeons, kept us in fresh provisions for a long time.
The casualties of a soldier's life in these wild and perilous times, brought me through many a strange adventure and mischance; but few of these have impressed me more vividly than those connected with our campaign in Martinique.
At Fort Bourbon, Captain Glendonwyn discovered in the quarters of the late Colonel de Rouvigny, a vast quantity of plunder, among which were the gold and silver altar vessels, the jewels, vestments, books, reliques, and pictures belonging to the Ursuline convent at St. Pierre. These the general ordered to be packed up, and to be delivered to the superior; and on this peaceful duty, with all the paraphernalia of St. Ursule piled in a cart, driven by two half-naked negroes, and guarded by twenty Fusiliers, I marched by the main road to St. Pierre, passing on the way all the ruined and dismantled batteries we had so lately taken from the French, and over which the young grass and weeds were already sprouting.
After a twenty-one miles' march, we re-entered St. Pierre about nightfall. All was quiet then, as our troops occupied both the town and citadel. Even the revolted blacks—our most dreadful enemies—dared not to molest a red-coat now, unless they caught him straggling and alone.
It is impossible to depict the state of danger to which the decree of the French National Assembly by abolishing all distinctions of colour in their Colonies, reduced their wretched planters in the Antilles. The murders and devastations consequent on this decree are incalculable. In San Domingo alone one hundred and thirty-five thousand furious blacks were in arms, destroying all whose colour was fairer than their own; ten thousand of these marauders were killed, and twenty-four thousand were dispersed, but not before they had destroyed five hundred and forty-seven coffee and sugar plantations, and tortured to death in cold blood two hundred and fourteen white men and women. A white infant, impaled on a spear, was their banner and symbol!
Martinique, St. Bartholomew, Marigalante, and Los Santos, were all similarly convulsed.
I remember the terrible devastation of a village which the blacks of Bellegarde and Pelocque had ravaged. The little church of St. Martin had been shamefully desecrated; the images had been torn from their niches, the ornaments defaced, and bibles and missals were rent to shreds. In the houses, the skeletons, still with sufficient fragments of clothing about them to indicate their sexes, lay in veritable heaps, some with their sightless sockets turned still to heaven imploring the mercy or succour which never came. In the streets and alleys lay scattered bones, as if wild animals had gnawed and strewed them about. In the fleshless hand of a woman lay a blood-stained bible, which was open at the words, "It is better to be in the house of mourning than of feasting." A leaf was turned down at the passage which was thus impressed upon my memory. But to resume.
I proceeded direct to the Ursuline convent, which stands on the bank of a little stream.