"Plunderers. I have worn these epaulettes at Versailles—ay, in the same quadrille with Marie Antoinette. I have worn them in battle against the Austrians, and I would not have them desecrated."
"Then replace them, monsieur," said the earl; "it is not the custom of British soldiers to plunder either the living or the dead."
Mr. Williams, our minister, in his account of this affair, says: "Being the only chaplain present, I went up early in the evening, as soon as the action was over, to bury the dead. At the foot of the hill lay several of our seamen badly wounded. A little further on, under some tall trees, were several naval officers reposing after the fatigues of the morning; their men were not far from them. Further on a party of wounded prisoners were brought in by our people, and at the gates of the fort lay a heap of slain, who had died by the sword or the bayonet. Within it lay a multitude of miserable creatures expiring of their wounds, and many of our own people in the same situation. In the midst of this his Excellency [Sir Charles Grey] was writing his despatches, at a table on which lay an artilleryman sleeping, being overcome with fatigue, and the good general would not allow him to be disturbed."
After the slaughter and horrors we had witnessed, there was something quite refreshing in the humane sentiment, that prevented our gallant old leader from rousing the worn-out gunner, who had fallen asleep on a table brought forth from Du Plessis' quarters, for the use of the staff.
We had seventy-five killed and wounded in capturing this small fort. Of the French, including blacks and mulattoes, there were killed and taken two hundred and thirty-two.
Such was the storming of Fort Fleur d'Epée, in the island of Guadaloupe, by our losses at which I won my first lieutenantcy.
CHAPTER L.
"SMITH" OF THE ROYALS.
Flushed by this new conquest, "Hispaniola," was now our cri de guerre; and while troops, prisoners, sick and wounded were all re-embarked, and the squadron, after being careened and refitted, prepared to unite, previous to attacking that large and valuable island (an intention never carried out), I was ordered to convey thirty French civilians under a cartel to Dominica, while Harry Smith of the Royals, the aide-de-camp, who, as already related, had been wounded by a cannon-shot on our landing, was ordered to convey stores, despatches, and a few captured slaves to Jamaica. For these services, two large ships, formerly privateers (L'Etna and L'Ami du Peuple), which we found concealed in a cove at Terre d'en Haut, were fitted for sea by the carpenters and riggers of the Adder. Captain Cranky sent a small but well-armed prize-crew under a midshipman on board of each. Smith who was in love with a girl in Jamaica, where he had formerly been stationed, accepted his duty with joy; but I bade adieu to my comrades with a regret that almost amounted to a foreboding, and shifted my traps on board the Etna. He with his sable charge, and I with my jabbering Frenchmen separated, and with a fair wind we bore away from the rocky isles of Los Santos.
Neither of us sailed under convoy; we had no fear of French ships of war, or privateers, as old Sir John Jervis had swept them alike from the Leeward and Windward Isles, and all the Caribean sea.