On this expedition, we were despatched with the 1st and 2nd Grenadier battalions, a company of the 43rd Light Infantry, and 500 picked seamen and marines from the Quebec, the Rose, and the Adder. The naval brigade were led by Sir George Grey, of the Boyne, and the whole of the forces were under the command of old General Dundas.
We sailed from St. Lucia early in the morning; and as "The Saints" lie only a few miles distant from Martinique, we found ourselves within gun-shot of them about noon, when the forests of Marigalante, then about fifteen miles distant, were drooping in the hot sunshine.
These solitary isles are fifteen in number, and were chiefly frequented by the crews of British and French ships of war, pirates, slavers, and buccaneers, for the purposes of careening and refitting.
Terre de Bas, the most westerly, has a neat little wooden church, a few thickets and fields of sugar-cane, with excellent creeks for landing.
Terre de Haut is the most easterly, and the centre is a large barren rock, the haunt of myriads of sea birds.
The atmosphere, as we approached, was delightfully cool, as these isles have ever a fresh breeze, let the wind blow from whatever quarter it may. As we drew near, they rose under a dazzling sky, with clouds of that conical form, so frequently seen in the Antilles, floating over them. Birds of gaudy plumage flew about us; around us rippled a sea of the deepest green, and in its wondrous depth waved giant plants that sprung from the coral beds a hundred feet below; and little silvery fishes were sporting among this saline foliage which was brushed aside by the keels of the squadron, as we crept in shore.
The old palisadoed fort, on which Francis Lord Willoughby of Parham, unfurled the red cross of St. George in the olden time, still commanded the chief harbour; but the French had added many modern works thereto, and all these we stormed at the point of the bayonet and demolished.
On these isles, the buccaneers and filibustiers of former days—the compatriots of Kidd, of Morgan, and the terrible Lolonois—were said to store their treasure, and to slay a negro or a prisoner and bury him with it, that his unquiet spirit might haunt the spot and guard the gold till their return. Thus a human skeleton above a hoard of Spanish dollars and doubloons has more than once been found in the creeks of Los Santos, as elsewhere in the Indian isles, and on the shores of the Gulf of Florida.
After their capture, the expedition sailed at once to reduce the isle of Guadaloupe.
At one in the morning we crowded into the boats of the squadron, and in silence put off from our ships in Gosier Bay. The atmosphere was still and calm, and the vast depth of the sea could be seen by the clear light of the reflected stars; thus we could almost distinguish the base of the rocks in the bay, among the sand and shells, or weeds and coral beds, below.