The battles of the British Army

by Robert Melvin Blackwood

Table Bay, on the shore, and almost in the centre of which Cape Town stands, receives its name from that extraordinary eminence called Table Mountain, which rises about three thousand six hundred and eighty-seven feet above the level of the sea, and which terminates in a perfectly flat surface at that height, where the face of the rock on the side of Cape Town descends almost perpendicularly. To the eastward of the mountain, separated from it by a chasm, is Charles’s Mount, more generally called the Devil’s Tower; and on the westward, a round hill rises on the right hand of the bay, called the Lion’s Head, from which a ridge of high land, terminating in another smaller hill, called the Lion’s Rump, stretches towards the sea.

The town itself is handsome and extensive; and the streets, intersecting each other at right angles, are broad and airy, generally built with stone, and with terraces in front. The Company’s gardens, walks, parade, and castle, all add to the beauty of the place, and render it superior to any colonial city in the possession of Great Britain.

The coast is everywhere dangerous—landing, excepting in the bays, and that, too, in favourable weather, almost impracticable—and hence, a very inferior force on shore, if the surf were at all up, might successfully resist any attempt at the disembarkation of an army.

The troops in garrison consisted of a detachment of Batavian artillery, the 22nd Dutch regiment of the line, a German regiment of Waldecks, and a native corps, which acted as light infantry. To these, an auxiliary battalion, formed from the seamen and marines of a frigate and corvette which had been wrecked upon the coast, were added; while a number of irregulars, mounted and dismounted, comprised of the boors, and armed with guns of enormous length of barrel, completed the force of General Janssens, who was then commandant at the Cape.

The governor had a high reputation, both as a soldier and a civilian, and from the excellence of his measures since his arrival at the Cape, was held most deservedly in great estimation by the colonists. On the appearance of the British fleet, although his numerical superiority was greater than that of his enemy, he wisely considered that the matériel of the invaders was far more efficient than his own; and leaving a garrison in Cape Town, he determined to fall back on the interior with the remainder of his troops, and carry on a desultory war, until the arrival of a French or Dutch fleet from Europe should enable him to resort to active measures and save the colony. This plan, though ruinous to the inhabitants, if carried out, would have rendered the subjugation of the Cape a very difficult and tedious undertaking for the British, and in this posture of affairs the expedition made the coast, and came to anchor just out of range of the batteries in Table Bay.

The weather was fortunately calm, but the day was too far advanced to admit a landing of the troops, but all was prepared for effecting it on the morrow. The coast was sounded, the approaches to the town reconnoitred, and a small inlet, sixteen miles north-east of the town, called Leopard’s Bay, was selected as the point on which the troops should be disembarked. The transports accordingly weighed and took their stations, while the men-of-war got into a position to cover the landing, in case of opposition, with their guns.

During the night the surf had risen so prodigiously, that at daylight it was declared unsafe for boats to attempt the beach, and a landing at Saldana Bay was proposed. There it could be easily effected, but it would carry the army a distance from the town, separate it on its march from the fleet, oblige it to depend for its supplies on what provisions it could carry, or any which by accidental circumstances it could obtain on its route; it would also entail a harassing march of seventy miles on soldiers so long cooped up on shipboard; and that, too, in the hot season of the year, over a heavy sand, where water was not procurable. Still, the uncertainty of the weather, and the necessity of an immediate attack, overcame all other objections; and on the evening of the 5th, General Beresford, with the 38th regiment and the 20th light dragoons, sailed for Saldana, with an understanding that the remainder of the army should proceed thither on the following morning.

But daylight on the 6th January broke with happier promise; the surf had gone down considerably; and it was at once decided that the troops should be landed without farther loss of time. The Highland brigade was instantly transferred from the transports to the boats, and the 71st, 72nd, and 93rd, effected a landing with but a single casualty, and that arising from the swamping of a launch, by which five-and-thirty Highlanders were drowned.

No other loss attended the operation—the light company of the 93rd cleared the brushwood of a few skirmishers that had been thrown out by the enemy, and the remainder of the troops debarked without any opposition.

The artillery, consisting of four six-pounders and a couple of howitzers, were landed on the 7th; and the whole of the force being now safely on shore, the British general commenced his march direct on Cape Town, the guns being dragged through the sands by fatigue parties furnished from the fleet.