The haste in the equipment of the expedition soon showed itself in various ways. The transports were such miserable sailers that, long before they reached their destination, they ran short of water, and were obliged to put in at Rio Janeiro. There Auchmuty heard of Beresford’s disaster, and further of the arrival of a small reinforcement of the 47th and 38th Foot, which had been sent from the Cape to the Plata, and had taken up a position at Maldonado, a town standing at the entrance to the river on the north side. 1807.Not knowing what to do, Auchmuty victualled his ships for four months and started off again for Maldonado, where he arrived at last, after a passage of 147 weary days, 5th Jan. on the 5th January.
Finding that Maldonado was an untenable position, Auchmuty evacuated it a week later and sailed up the river. 13th Jan. The retention of Beresford’s army was an act of treachery which called for reprisals, and these he resolved to take by attacking Monte Video, which stands on the north bank of the river, on the opposite side to Buenos Ayres, and some one hundred and twenty miles below it. On the 16th he landed in a small bay to west of Caretas Rocks, nine miles from Monte Video, the enemy watching the disembarkation in great force, but not daring to oppose it. Three days later Auchmuty began his advance upon Monte Video in two columns, the right column being made up of the Seventeenth, two troops of the 20th, and as many of the 21st Light Dragoons, all of them dismounted, under Brigadier-General Lumley. The Seventeenth had previously exchanged their carbines for Spanish muskets, which had been obtained at Rio Janeiro. This right column was early attacked by the enemy and threatened by 4000 Spanish cavalry, which occupied two heights in the front and right of Auchmuty’s advance. The attack, however, was soon repulsed by the dismounted cavalry and the light companies of the infantry; and the enemy retired, allowing the British advanced posts to occupy the suburbs of Monte Video on the same evening. 1807. Auchmuty himself had his horse shot under him while directing this column, and remounted himself on Colonel Evan Lloyd’s charger.
20th Jan.
Next day the enemy took the initiative, sallying forth against Auchmuty’s force with 6000 men and several guns. This time they attacked the British left and left flank with cavalry, using their infantry to keep the dismounted cavalry in check. After driving in the picquets the Spanish infantry column was repulsed with great slaughter, and the cavalry then retired. The enemy’s loss in this action was reckoned at 1500. The English loss between the 16th and 20th was 18 killed and 119 wounded of all ranks.
Arrived before the town, Auchmuty discovered that the defences of Monte Video were not “weak,” as Popham had described them in his memorandum, but, to use Auchmuty’s own word, “respectable,” mounting 160 guns. Moreover the Spaniards, through possession of a fortified island, kept command of the sea, and were able to cannonade the British advance from their gunboats. Nevertheless, Auchmuty was fully decided that he would take Monte Video somehow. While he was making up his mind how to do it the enemy appeared on his rear, but was repulsed after a sharp skirmish, in which the Seventeenth lost a few men. 22nd Jan. After a few days’ construction of batteries and other preparations, Auchmuty saw that if Monte Video was to be taken it must be stormed, and accordingly made his dispositions for an assault at daybreak on the 3rd February. Naturally he chose infantry regiments for infantry work, and left the Seventeenth, together with the rest of the cavalry, the 47th Foot, one company of the 71st, and 700 marines to protect the rear and cover the attack, under the command of General Lumley. 3rd Feb. The storming force did its work magnificently, and in a few hours Monte Video was in Auchmuty’s hands, though at the cost of 27 officers and 370 men killed and wounded.
Horses being cheap, some of the Seventeenth were now mounted, doubtless a very welcome change from the drudgery of the infantry work during the siege of Monte Video; though even when employed on foot the regiment earned the personal thanks of the General. 1807. The Seventeenth had shown that it could beat the infantry at its own work in Jamaica eleven years before. But the native South American horses, as Auchmuty himself says, were not strong enough to carry the equipment of the British dragoons. The native irregular horsemen, armed with muskets and swords, pursued a method of warfare of the most harassing kind. They would ride up in twos or threes, dismount, fire over their horses’ backs, mount again, and gallop off before the British had a chance of catching them. And these men were not soldiers; they were the ordinary members of the population, not friendly as Popham had hoped, but inveterately hostile to the European invaders. In fact the British on the Plata found exactly the same elements opposed to them in New Spain as Napoleon was to find, a few months later, in the old Spain which is known to us as the Peninsula. March. Owing to the difficulty of obtaining forage, the mounted men of the Seventeenth, some 220 in number, were sent up the country forty or fifty miles from Monte Video to Lanelones and St. Joseph, while the remainder of the regiment was quartered in and about Monte Video.
Meanwhile, since the departure of General Auchmuty, the British Government had committed itself to the project of a general attack on Spanish South America. Sir Arthur Wellesley himself was called upon to give advice respecting it. Finally, on the 30th October General Craufurd (the famous Craufurd of the Light Division) was ordered off with 4000 men, with instructions to take Lima and Valparaiso on the Pacific coast, and to open communications with Beresford across the continent when Valparaiso was in his hands. Craufurd sailed on the 13th December 1806, arrived at Porto Praya on the 11th January 1807, waited for several weeks there in vain for the admiral who was to go with him, and at last in despair sailed for the Cape, where he arrived on the 20th March. There he found orders to join Auchmuty at Buenos Ayres, and accordingly sailed thither on the 5th April. 1807. The confusion caused by the efforts of the British Government to manage a campaign at from three to six months’ distance from England, can be appreciated only by those who have read the original despatches.
In February there arrived in the Plata a reinforcement consisting of the 9th Light Dragoons, a fact worth noting, inasmuch as this is the only occasion on which this great regiment, the first of the Lancer regiments, has fought side by side with the Seventeenth. The 16th and Seventeenth fought together in their youth in America. Thus after unspeakable confusion a large British force was at last in process of concentration on the Plata. And now the Government in an evil hour decided to put another commander over the heads of Craufurd and Auchmuty, and chose for the purpose General John Whitelocke. He arrived on the 10th May, and found that Auchmuty had already seized the town of Colonia, immediately opposite to Buenos Ayres, so as to make the passage across the river as short as possible. 15th June. A month later Craufurd arrived, and next day the Seventeenth and the artillery were embarked at Monte Video, while the rest of the army moved up to Colonia to embark there. Devoutly thankful the Seventeenth must have been to get to serious business again. Forage was terribly scarce for the horses, and flour hardly less scarce for the men, though bullocks could be bought for a dollar a head.
The passage up the river was delayed by contrary winds, but at last the hundred miles were traversed, and the troops landed at Ensenada, thirty miles below Buenos Ayres. The moment the army was disembarked it was surrounded by a cloud of Spanish light cavalry hovering about just out of musket range. Here was the opportunity for using the Seventeenth; but it was not employed. Two of the four mounted troops, each of forty men, were ordered to give up their horses to the commissariat. 28th June to 5th July. But when the pack-saddles were put on them the horses broke loose, and were from that moment useless. Thirty more mounted men were detailed to look after the landing of provisions, of whom ten were used as orderlies to carry despatches. 1807. Twelve more were attached to one of the infantry brigades; and the remainder, forty-eight all told, accompanied General Whitelocke, principally, no doubt, as his escort. The natural consequence was that the army could hardly advance at all. One staff officer was taken prisoner by the enemy’s light cavalry while carrying orders between two brigades, and another was stabbed within three hundred yards of the flank of the British line, all for want of a little cavalry which, with unspeakable folly, had been dismounted just when it was most sorely needed to encounter the enemy’s horse.
On the 29th June the advance began, across a very difficult country, much intersected by ditches and swamps, the dismounted men of the Seventeenth forming the rear-guard. The army was like to have been starved on this short march, but eventually it reached Buenos Ayres, after brushing aside some slight opposition from the Spaniards on the 4th July. Part of the Seventeenth and 40th Foot were left behind at the village of Reduction on the way, to protect the artillery. Sixteen of them, mounted men, together with thirty dismounted men of the 9th, were engaged in repelling an attack on the rear of the British advance.