The troops landed in four divisions at Longueville Bay, Pigeon Island, Chock Bay, and Ance la Raze. The Highlanders, under the command of Brigadier-General John Moore, landed in a small bay close under Pigeon Island. The army moved forward on the 27th to close in upon Morne Fortunée, the principal post in the island. To enable them to invest this place, it became necessary to obtain possession of Morne Chabot, a strong and commanding position overlooking the principal approach. Detachments under the command of Brigadier-Generals Moore and the Hon. John Hope, were accordingly ordered to attack this post on two different points. General Moore advanced at midnight, and General Hope followed an hour after by a less circuitous route; but falling in with the enemy sooner than he expected, General Moore carried the Morne, after a short but obstinate resistance, before General Hope came up. Next day General Moore took possession of Morne Duchassaux. By the advance of Major-General Morshead from Ance la Raze, Morne Fortunée was completely invested, but not until several officers and about 50 of the grenadiers, who formed the advanced post under Lieutenant-Colonel Macdonald, had been killed and wounded.
To dispossess the enemy of the batteries they had erected on the Cul de Sac, Major-General Morshead’s division was ordered to advance against two batteries on the left; whilst Major-General Hope, with the five companies of the Highlanders, the light infantry of the 57th regiment, and a detachment of Malcolm’s Rangers, supported by the 55th regiment, was to attack the battery of Secke, close to the works of Morne Fortunée. The light infantry and the rangers quickly drove the enemy from the battery; but they were obliged to retire from the battery in their turn under the cover of the Highlanders, in consequence of the other divisions under Brigadier-General Perryn and Colonel Riddle having been obstructed in their advance. In this affair Colonel Malcolm, a brave officer, was killed, and Lieutenant J. J. Fraser of the 42d, and a few men, wounded. The other divisions suffered severely.
So great were the difficulties which presented themselves from the steep and rugged nature of the ground, that the first battery was not ready to open till the 14th of May. In an attempt which the 31st regiment made upon a fortified ridge called the Vizie, on the evening of the 17th, they were repulsed with great loss; but the grenadiers, who had pushed forward to support them, compelled the enemy to retire. For six days a constant fire was kept up between the batteries and the fort. Having ineffectually attempted to drive back the 27th regiment from a lodgment they had formed within 500 yards of the garrison, the enemy applied for and obtained a suspension of hostilities. This was soon followed by a capitulation and the surrender of the whole island. The garrison marched out on the 29th, and became prisoners of war. The loss of the British was 2 field officers, 3 captains, 5 subalterns, and 184 non-commissioned officers and rank and file killed; and 4 field officers, 12 captains, 15 subalterns, and 523 non-commissioned officers and rank and file wounded and missing.
As an instance of the influence of the mind on bodily health, and of the effect of mental activity in preventing disease, General Stewart adduces this expedition as a striking illustration:—“During the operations which, from the nature of the country, were extremely harassing, the troops continued remarkably healthy; but immediately after the cessation of hostilities they began to droop. The five companies of Highlanders, who landed 508 men, sent few to the hospital until the third day subsequent to the surrender; but after this event, so sudden was the change in their health, that upwards of 60 men were laid up within the space of seven days. This change may be, in part, ascribed to the sudden transition from incessant activity to repose, but its principal cause must have been the relaxation of the mental and physical energies, after the motives which stimulated them had subsided.”
The next enterprise was against St Vincent, where the expedition, consisting of the Buffs, the 14th, 34th, 42d, 53d, 54th, 59th, and 63d regiments, and the 2d West Indian Regiment, landed on the 8th of June. The enemy had erected four redoubts on a high ridge, called the Vizie, on which they had taken up a position. The arrangements for an attack having been completed on the 10th, the troops were drawn up in two divisions under Major-Generals Hunter and William Morshed, at a short distance from the ridge. Another division formed on the opposite side of the hill. The attack was commenced by a fire from some field-pieces on the redoubts, which was kept up for some hours, apparently with little effect. As a feint, the Highlanders and some of the Rangers in the meantime moved forward to the bottom of a woody steep which terminated the ridge, on the top of which stood one of the redoubts, the first in the range. Pushing their way up the steep, the 42d turned the feint into a real assault, and, with the assistance of the Buffs, by whom they were supported, drove the enemy successively from the first three redoubts in less than half an hour. Some of the Highlanders had pushed close under the last and principal redoubt, but the general, seeing that he had the enemy in his power, and wishing to spare the lives of his troops, recalled the Highlanders, and offered the enemy terms of capitulation, which were accepted. The conditions, inter alia, were, that the enemy should embark as prisoners of war; but several hundreds of them broke the capitulation by escaping into the woods the following night. The total loss of the British on this occasion was 181 in killed and wounded. The Highlanders had 1 sergeant and 12 rank and file killed; and 1 officer (Lieutenant Simon Fraser), 2 sergeants, 1 drummer, and 29 rank and file wounded.[314]
In order to subjugate the island, the troops were divided and sent to different stations, and military posts were established in the neighbourhood of the country possessed by the Caribs and brigands. Favoured by the natural strength of the country, the enemy carried on a petty warfare with the troops among the woods till the month of September, when they surrendered. The French, including the brigands, were sent prisoners to England, and the Indians or Caribs, amounting to upwards of 5000, were transported to Ratan, an island in the gulf of Mexico.[315]
In September, Sir Ralph Abercromby returned to England, when the temporary command of the army devolved upon Major-General Charles Graham, who was promoted this year from the lieutenant-colonelcy of the 42d to the colonelcy of the 5th West India Regiment. He was succeeded in the lieutenant-colonelcy by Major James Stewart. The commander-in-chief returned from England in February 1797, and immediately collected a force for an attack on Trinidad, which surrendered without opposition. He, thereafter, assembled a body of troops, consisting of the 26th light dragoons dismounted, the 14th, 42d, 53d, and some other corps, at St Christopher’s, for an attack on Porto Rico, whither they proceeded on the 15th of April, and anchored off Congregus’s Point on the 17th. The enemy made a slight opposition to the landing, but retired when the troops disembarked. As the inhabitants of Porto Rico, who had been represented as favourable, did not show any disposition to surrender, and as the Moro or castle was too strong to be attacked with such an inconsiderable force, which was insufficient to blockade more than one of its sides, the commander-in-chief resolved to give up the attempt, and accordingly re-embarked his troops on the 30th of April. This was the last enterprise against the enemy in that quarter during the rest of the war. The Highlanders were sent to Martinique, where they embarked for England, free from sickness, after having the casualties of the two preceding years more than supplied by volunteers from the 79th Highlanders, then stationed in Martinique. The Royal Highlanders landed at Portsmouth on the 30th of July in good health, and were marched to Hillsea barracks. After remaining a few weeks there, the five companies embarked for Gibraltar, where they joined the five other companies, whose destination had been changed by their return to port after the sailing of the expedition to the West Indies. The regiment was now 1100 men strong.
The next service in which the Royal Highlanders were engaged was on an expedition against the island of Minorca, under the command of Lieutenant-General the Hon. Sir Charles Stewart, in the month of November 1798. The British troops having invested Cittadella, the principal fortress in the island, on the 14th of November, the Spanish commander, who had concentrated his forces in that garrison, surrendered on the following day. The Spanish general, whose force greatly exceeded that of the invaders, was deceived as to their numbers, which, from the artful mode in which they were dispersed over the adjoining eminences, he believed to amount to at least 10,000 men.
The possession of Minorca was of considerable importance, as it was made the rendezvous of a large force about to be employed on the coast of the Mediterranean, in support of our allies, in the year 1800. The command of this army was given to Sir Ralph Abercromby, who arrived on the 22d of June 1799, accompanied by Major-Generals Hutchinson and Moore. A part of the army was embarked for the relief of Genoa, then closely besieged by the French, and a detachment was also sent to Colonel Thomas Graham of Balgowan, who blockaded the garrison of La Vallette in the island of Malta.