A History of the 17th Lancers

Sir Joshua Reynolds

Walker & Burstall Ph. Sc.

John Hale

First Colonel of the 17^th Light Dragoons.

A History
Of the 17th Lancers
(DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE’S OWN)

BY

HON. J. W. FORTESCUE

London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
1895

All rights reserved

To the Memory
OF
MAJOR-GENERAL JAMES WOLFE
WHO FELL GLORIOUSLY IN THE MOMENT OF VICTORY
ON THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM BEFORE QUEBEC
13TH SEPTEMBER 1759
THIS HISTORY
OF THE REGIMENT RAISED IN HIS HONOUR
BY HIS COMRADE IN ARMS
JOHN HALE
IS PROUDLY AND REVERENTLY INSCRIBED

Preface

This history has been compiled at the request of the Colonel and Officers of the Seventeenth Lancers.

The materials in possession of the Regiment are unfortunately very scanty, being in fact little more than the manuscript of the short, and not very accurate summary drawn up nearly sixty years ago for Cannon’s Historical Records of the British Army. The loss of the regimental papers by shipwreck in 1797 accounts for the absence of all documents previous to that year, as also, I take it, for the neglect to preserve any sufficient records during many subsequent decades. I have therefore been forced to seek information almost exclusively from external sources.

The material for the first three chapters has been gathered in part from original documents preserved in the Record Office,—Minutes of the Board of General Officers, Muster-Rolls, Paysheets, Inspection Returns, Marching Orders, and the like; in part from a mass of old drill-books, printed Standing Orders, and military treatises, French and English, in the British Museum. The most important[· is a smudge?] of these latter are Dalrymple’s Military Essay, Bland’s Military Discipline, and, above all, Hinde’s Discipline of the Light Horse (1778).

For the American War I have relied principally on the original despatches and papers, numerous enough, in the Record Office, Tarleton’s Memoirs, and Stedman’s History of the American War,—the last named being especially valuable for the excellence of its maps and plans. I have also, setting aside minor works, derived much information from the two volumes of the Clinton-Cornwallis Controversy compiled by Mr. B. Stevenson; and from Clinton’s original pamphlets, with manuscript additions in his own hand, which are preserved in the library at Dropmore.

For the campaigns in the West Indies the original despatches in the Record Office have afforded most material, supplemented by a certain number of small pamphlets in the British Museum. The Maroon War is treated with great fulness by Dallas in his History of the Maroons; and there is matter also in Bridges’ Annals of Jamaica, and the works of Bryan Edwards. The original despatches are, however, indispensable to a right understanding of the war. Unfortunately the despatches that relate to St. Domingo are not to be found at the Record Office, so that I have been compelled to fall back on the few that are published in the London Gazette. Nor could I find any documents relating to the return of the Regiment from the West Indies, which has forced me unwillingly to accept the bald statement in Cannon’s records.

The raid on Ostend and the expedition to La Plata have been related mainly from the accounts in the original despatches, and from the reports of the courts-martial on General Whitelocke and Sir Home Popham. There is much interesting information as to South America,—original memoranda by Miranda, Popham, Sir Arthur Wellesley (the Duke of Wellington) and other documents—preserved among the manuscripts at Dropmore.

The dearth of original documents both at the Record Office and the India Office has seriously hampered me in tracing the history of the Regiment during its first sojourn in India and through the Pindari War. I have, however, to thank the officials of the Record Department of the India Office for the ready courtesy with which they disinterred every paper, in print or manuscript, which could be of service to me.

Respecting the Crimea and the Indian Mutiny I have received (setting aside the standard histories) much help from former officers, notably Sir Robert White, Sir William Gordon, and Sir Drury Lowe, but especially from Sir Evelyn Wood, who kindly found time, amid all the pressure of his official duties, to give me many interesting particulars respecting the chase of Tantia Topee. Above all I have to thank Colonel John Brown for information and assistance on a hundred points. His long experience and his accurate memory, quickened but not clouded by his intense attachment to his old regiment, have been of the greatest value to me.

My thanks are also due to the officials of the Record Department of the War Office, and to Mr. S. M. Milne of Calverley House, Leeds, for help on divers minute but troublesome points, and to Captain Anstruther of the Seventeenth Lancers for constant information and advice. Lastly, and principally, let me express my deep obligations to Mr. Hubert Hall for his unwearied courtesy and invaluable guidance through the paper labyrinth of the Record Office, and to Mr. G. K. Fortescue, the Superintendent of the Reading-Room at the British Museum, for help rendered twice inestimable by the kindness wherewith it was bestowed.

The first and two last of the coloured plates in this book have been taken from original drawings by Mr. J. P. Beadle. The remainder are from old drawings, by one G. Salisbury, in the possession of the regiment. They have been deliberately chosen as giving, on the whole, a more faithful presentment of the old and extinct British soldier than could easily be obtained at the present day, while their defects are of the obvious kind that disarm criticism. The portrait of Colonel John Hale is from an engraving after a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, the original of which is still in possession of his lineal descendant in America. That of Lord Bingham is after a portrait kindly placed at the disposal of the Regiment by his son, the present Earl of Lucan. Those of the Duke of Cambridge and of Sir Drury Lowe are from photographs.

May, 1895.

Contents

Appendix

List of Illustrations

W. & D. Downey Photo.

Walker & Burstall Ph. Sc.

H.R.H. The Duke of Cambridge, K.G.

Colonel-in-chief 17^th Lancers, 1876.

CHAPTER I
THE RISE OF THE 17TH LIGHT DRAGOONS, 1759

1645.

The British Cavalry Soldier and the British Cavalry Regiment, such as we now know them, may be said to date from 1645, that being the year in which the Parliamentary Army, then engaged in fighting against King Charles the First, was finally remodelled. At the outbreak of the war the Parliamentary cavalry was organised in seventy-five troops of horse and five of dragoons: the Captain of the 67th troop of horse was Oliver Cromwell. In the winter of 1642–43 Captain Cromwell was promoted to be Colonel, and entrusted with the task of raising a regiment of horse. This duty he fulfilled after a fashion peculiarly his own. Hitherto the Parliamentary horse had been little better than a lot of half-trained yeomen: Colonel Cromwell took the trouble to make his men into disciplined cavalry soldiers. Moreover, he raised not one regiment, but two, which soon made a mark by their superior discipline and efficiency, and finally at the battle of Marston Moor defeated the hitherto invincible cavalry of the Royalists. After that battle Prince Rupert, the Royalist cavalry leader, gave Colonel Cromwell the nickname of Ironside; the name was passed on to his regiments, which grew to be known no longer as Cromwell’s, but as Ironside’s.

In 1645, when the army was remodelled, these two famous regiments were taken as the pattern for the English cavalry; and having been blent into one, appear at the head of the list as Sir Thomas Fairfax’s Regiment of Horse. Fairfax was General-in-Chief, and his appointment to the colonelcy was of course a compliment to the regiment. Besides Fairfax’s there were ten other regiments of horse, each consisting of six troops of 100 men apiece, including three corporals and two trumpeters. As the field-officers in those days had each a troop of his own, the full establishment of the regiments was 1 colonel, 1 major, 4 captains, 6 lieutenants, 6 cornets, 6 quartermasters. Such was the origin of the British Cavalry Regiment.

The troopers, like every other man in this remodelled army, wore scarlet coats faced with their Colonel’s colours—blue in the case of Fairfax. They were equipped with an iron cuirass and an iron helmet, armed with a brace of pistols and a long straight sword, and mounted on horses mostly under fifteen hands in height. For drill in the field they were formed in five ranks, with six feet (one horse’s length in those days), both of interval and distance, between ranks and files, so that the whole troop could take ground to flanks or rear by the simple words, “To your right (or left) turn;” “To your right (or left) about turn.” Thus, as a rule, every horse turned on his own ground, and the troop was rarely wheeled entire: if the latter course were necessary, ranks and files were closed up till the men stood knee to knee, and the horses nose to croup. This formation deservedly bore the name of “close order.” For increasing the front the order was, “To the right (or left) double your ranks,” which brought the men of the second and fourth ranks into the intervals of the first and third, leaving the fifth rank untouched. To diminish the front the order was: “To the right (or left) double your files,” which doubled the depth of the files from five to ten in the same way as infantry files are now doubled at the word, “Form fours.”

The principal weapons of the cavalry soldiers were his firearms, generally pistols, but sometimes a carbine. The lance, which had formerly been the favourite weapon, at Crecy for instance, was utterly out of fashion in Cromwell’s time, and never employed when any other arm was procurable. Firearms were the rage of the day, and governed the whole system of cavalry attack. Thus in action the front rank fired its two pistols, and filed away to load again in the rear, while the second and third ranks came up and did likewise. If the word were given to charge, the men advanced to the charge pistol in hand, fired, threw it in the enemy’s face, and then fell in with the sword. But though there was a very elaborate exercise for carbine and pistol, there was no such thing as sword exercise.

Moreover, though the whole system of drill was difficult, and required perfection of training in horse and man, yet there was no such thing as a regular riding-school. If a troop horse was a kicker a bell was placed on his crupper to warn men to keep clear of his heels. If he were a jibber the following were the instructions given for his cure:—

“If your horse be resty so as he cannot be put forwards then let one take a cat tied by the tail to a long pole, and when he [the horse] goes backward, thrust the cat within his tail where she may claw him, and forget not to threaten your horse with a terrible noise. Or otherwise, take a hedgehog and tie him strait by one of his feet to the horse’s tail, so that he [the hedgehog] may squeal and prick him.”

For the rest, certain peculiarities should be noted which distinguish cavalry from infantry. In the first place, though every troop and every company had a standard of its own, such standard was called in the cavalry a Cornet, and in the infantry an Ensign, and gave in each case its name to the junior subaltern whose duty it was to carry it. In the second place there were no sergeants in old days except in the infantry, the non-commissioned officers of cavalry being corporals only. In the third place, the use of a wind instrument for making signals was confined to the cavalry, which used the trumpet; the infantry as yet had no bugle, but only the drum. There were originally but six trumpet-calls, all known by foreign names; of which names one (Butte sella or Boute selle) still survives in the corrupted form, “Boots and saddles.”

How then have these minor distinctions which formerly separated cavalry from infantry so utterly disappeared? Through what channel did the two branches of the service contrive to meet? The answer is, through the dragoons. Dragoons were originally mounted infantry pure and simple. Those of the Army of 1645 were organised in ten companies, each 100 men strong. They were armed like infantry and drilled like infantry; they followed an ensign and not a cornet; they obeyed, not a trumpet, but a drum. True, they were mounted, but on inferior horses, and for the object of swifter mobility only; for they always fought on foot, dismounting nine men out of ten for action, and linking the horses by the rude process of throwing each animal’s bridle over the head of the horse standing next to it in the ranks. Such were the two branches of the mounted service in the first British Army.

1745.

A century passes, and we find Great Britain again torn by internal strife in the shape of the Scotch rebellion. Glancing at the list of the British cavalry regiments at this period we find them still divided into horse and dragoons; but the dragoons are in decided preponderance, and both branches unmistakably “heavy.” A patriotic Englishman, the Duke of Kingston, observing this latter failing, raised a regiment of Light Horse (the first ever seen in England) at his own expense, in imitation of the Hussars of foreign countries. Thus the Civil War of 1745 called into existence the only arm of the military service which had been left uncreate by the great rebellion of 1642–48. Before leaving this Scotch rebellion of 1745, let us remark that there took part in the suppression thereof a young ensign of the 47th Foot, named John Hale—a mere boy of seventeen, it is true, but a promising officer, of whom we shall hear more.

The Scotch rebellion over, the Duke of Kingston’s Light Horse were disbanded and re-established forthwith as the Duke of Cumberland’s own, a delicate compliment to their distinguished service. As such they fought in Flanders in 1747, but were finally disbanded in the following year. For seven years after the British Army possessed no Light Cavalry, until at the end of 1755 a single troop of Light Dragoons—3 officers and 65 men strong—was added to each of the eleven cavalry regiments on the British establishment, viz., the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Dragoon Guards, and the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 10th, and 11th Dragoons. These light dragoons were armed with carbine and bayonet and a single pistol, the second holster being filled (sufficiently filled, one must conclude) with an axe, a hedging-bill, and a spade. Their shoulder-belts were provided with a swivel to which the carbine could be sprung; for these light troops were expected to do a deal of firing from the saddle. Their main distinction of dress was that they wore not hats like the rest of the army, but helmets—helmets of strong black jacked leather with bars down the sides and a brass comb on the top. The front of the helmet was red, ornamented with the royal cypher and the regimental number in brass; and at the back of the comb was a tuft of horse-hair, half coloured red for the King, and half of the hue of the regimental facings for the regiment. The Light Dragoon-horse, we learn, was of the “nag or hunter kind,” standing from 14.3 to 15.1, for he was not expected to carry so heavy a man nor such cumbrous saddlery as the Heavy Dragoon-horse. Of this latter we can only say that he was a most ponderous animal, with a character of his own, known as the “true dragoon mould, short-backed, well-coupled, buttocked, quartered, forehanded, and limbed,”—all of which qualities had to be purchased for twenty guineas. At this time, and until 1764, all troop horses were docked so short that they can hardly be said to have kept any tail at all.

In the year 1758 nine of these eleven light troops took part in an expedition to the coast of France, England having two years before allied herself with Prussia against France for the great struggle known as the Seven Years’ War. 1759. So eminent was the service which they rendered, that in March 1759, King George II. decided to raise an entire regiment of Light Dragoons. On the 10th of March, accordingly, the first regiment was raised by General Elliott and numbered the 15th. The Major of this regiment, whom we shall meet again as Brigadier of cavalry in America, was William Erskine. On the 4th August another regiment of Light Dragoons was raised by Colonel Burgoyne, and numbered the 16th. We shall see the 16th distinguished and Burgoyne disgraced before twenty years are past.

And while these two first Light Dragoon regiments are a-forming, let us glance across the water to Canada, where English troops are fighting the French, and seem likely to take the country from them. Among other regiments the 47th Foot is there, commanded (since March 1758) by Colonel John Hale, the man whom we saw fighting in Scotland as an ensign fourteen years ago. Within the past year he has served with credit under General Amherst at the capture of Cape Breton and Louisburg, and in these days of August, while Burgoyne is raising his regiment, he is before Quebec with General Wolfe. Three months more pass away, and on the 13th of October Colonel John Hale suddenly arrives in London. He is the bearer of despatches which are to set all England aflame with pride and sorrow; for on the 13th of September was fought the battle on the plains of Abraham which decided the capture of Quebec and the conquest of Canada. General Wolfe fell at the head of the 28th Regiment in the moment of victory; and Colonel Hale, who took a brilliant share in the action at the head of the 47th, has been selected to carry the great news to the King. Colonel Hale was well received; the better for that Wolfe’s last despatches, written but four days before the battle, had been marked by a tone of deep despondency; and, we cannot doubt, began to wonder what would be his reward. He did not wonder for long.

Very shortly after Hale’s arrival the King reviewed the 15th Light Dragoons, and was so well pleased with their appearance that he resolved to raise five more such regiments, to be numbered the 17th to the 21st.

The raising of the first of these regiments, that now known to us as the Seventeenth Lancers, was intrusted to Colonel John Hale, who received his commission for the purpose on the 7th November. For the time, however, the regiment was known as the Eighteenth, for what reason it is a little difficult to understand; since the apology for a corps which received the number Seventeen was not raised until a full month later (December 19th). As we shall presently see, this matter of the number appears to have caused some heartburning, until Lord Aberdour’s corps, which had usurped the rank of Seventeenth, was finally disbanded, and thus yielded to Hale’s its proper precedence.

7th Nov.

On the very day when Colonel Hale’s commission was signed, which we may call the birthday of the Seventeenth Lancers, the Board of General Officers was summoned to decide how the new regiment should be dressed. As to the colour of the coat there could be no doubt, scarlet being the rule for all regiments. For the facings white was the colour chosen, and for the lace white with a black edge, the black being a sign of mourning for the death of Wolfe. But the principal distinction of the new regiment was the badge, chosen by Colonel Hale and approved by the King, of the Death’s Head and the motto “Or Glory,”—the significance of which lies not so much in claptrap sentiment, as in the fact that it is, as it were, a perpetual commemoration of the death of Wolfe. It is difficult for us to realise, after the lapse of nearly a century and a half, how powerfully the story of that death seized at the time upon the minds of men.

Two days after the settlement of the dress, a warrant was issued for the arming of Colonel Hale’s Light Dragoons; and this, being the earliest document relating to the regiment that I have been able to discover, is here given entire:—

George R.

Whereas we have thought fit to order a Regiment of Light Dragoons to be raised and to be commanded by our trusty and well-beloved Lieutenant-Colonel John Hale, which Regiment is to consist of Four troops, of 3 sergeants, 3 corporals, 2 drummers, and 67 private men in each troop, besides commission officers, Our will and pleasure is, that out of the stores remaining within the Office of our Ordnance under your charge you cause 300 pairs of pistols, 292 carbines, 292 cartouche boxes, and 8 drums, to be issued and delivered to the said Lieutenant-Colonel John Hale, or to such person as he shall appoint to receive the same, taking his indent as usual, and you are to insert the expense thereof in your next estimate to be laid before Parliament. And for so doing this shall be as well to you as to all other our officers and ministers herein concerned a sufficient Warrant.

Given at our Court at St. James’ the 9th day of November 1759, in the 33rd year of our reign.

To our trusty and well-beloved Cousin and Councillor John Viscount Ligonier, Master-General of our Ordnance.

These preliminaries of clothing and armament being settled, Colonel Hale’s next duty was to raise the men. Being a Hertfordshire man, the son of Sir Bernard Hale of Kings Walden, he naturally betook himself to his native county to raise recruits among his own people. The first troop was raised by Captain Franklin Kirby, Lieutenant, 5th Foot; the second by Captain Samuel Birch, Lieutenant, 11th Dragoons; the third by Captain Martin Basil, Lieutenant, 15th Light Dragoons; and the fourth by Captain Edward Lascelles, Cornet, Royal Horse Guards. If it be asked what stamp of man was preferred for the Light Dragoons, we are able to answer that the recruits were required to be “light and straight, and by no means gummy,” not under 5 feet 5½ inches, and not over 5 feet 9 inches in height. The bounty usually offered (but varied at the Colonel’s discretion) was three guineas, or as much less as a recruit could be persuaded to accept.

Whether from exceptional liberality on the part of Colonel Hale, or from an extraordinary abundance of light, straight, and by no means gummy men in Hertfordshire at that period, the regiment was recruited up to its establishment, we are told, within December. the space of seventeen days. Early in December it made rendezvous at Watford and Rickmansworth, whence it marched to Warwick and Stratford-on-Avon, and thence a fortnight later to Coventry. Meanwhile orders had already been given (10th December) that its establishment should be augmented by two more troops of the same strength as the original four; and little 1760. 28th Jan. more than a month later came a second order to increase each of the existing troops still further by the addition of a sergeant, a corporal, and 36 privates. Thus the regiment, increased almost as soon as raised from 300 to 450 men, and within a few weeks again strengthened by one-half, may be said to have begun life with an establishment of 678 rank and file. To them we must add a list of the original officers:—

Lieutenant-Colonel Commandant.—John Hale, 7th November 1759.

Major.—John Blaquiere, 7th November 1759.

Captains.

Lieutenants.

Cornets.

Adjutant.—Richard Westbury.

Surgeon.—John Francis.

CHAPTER II
THE MAKING OF THE 17TH LIGHT DRAGOONS

1760

Details of the regiment’s stay at Coventry are wanting, the only discoverable fact being that, in obedience to orders from headquarters, it was carefully moved out of the town for three days in August during the race-meeting. But as these first six months must have been devoted to the making of the raw recruits into soldiers, we may endeavour, with what scanty material we can command, to form some idea of the process. First, we must premise that with the last order for the augmentation of establishment was issued a warrant for the supply of the regiment with bayonets, which at that time formed an essential part of a dragoon’s equipment. Swords, it may be remarked, were provided, not by the Board of Ordnance, but by the Colonel. It is worth while to note in passing how strong the traditions of 1645 still remain in the dragoons. The junior subaltern is indeed no longer called an ensign, but a cornet; but the regiment is still ruled by the infantry drum instead of the cavalry trumpet.

Farrier.   Officer.   Trumpeter.

1763.

Let us therefore begin with the men; and as we have already seen what manner of men they were, physically considered, let us first note how they were dressed. Strictly speaking, it was not until 1764 that the Light Dragoon regiments received their distinct dress regulations; but the alterations then made were so slight that we may fairly take the dress of 1764 as the dress of 1760. To begin with, every man was supplied by the Colonel, by contract, with coat, waistcoat, breeches, and cloak. The coat, of course, was of scarlet, full and long in the skirt, but whether lapelled or not before 1763 it is difficult to say. Lapels meant a good deal in those days; the coats of Horse being lapelled to the skirt, those of Dragoon Guards lapelled to the waist, while those of Dragoons were double-breasted and had no lapels at all. The Light Dragoons being a novelty, it is difficult to say how they were distinguished in this respect, but probably in 1760 (and certainly in 1763) their coats were lapelled to the waist with the colour of the regimental facing, the lapels being three inches broad, with plain white buttons disposed thereon in pairs.

The waistcoat was of the colour of the regimental facing—white, of course, for the Seventeenth; and the breeches likewise. The cloaks were scarlet, with capes of the colour of the facing. In fact, it may be said once for all that everything white in the uniform of the Seventeenth owes its hue to the colour of the regimental facing.

Over and above these articles the Light Dragoon received a pair of high knee-boots, a pair of boot-stockings, a pair of gloves, a comb, a watering or forage cap, a helmet, and a stable frock. Pleased as the recruit must have been to find himself in possession of smart clothes, it must have been a little discouraging for him to learn that his coat, waistcoat, and breeches were to last him for two, and his helmet, boots, and cloak for four years. But this was not all. He was required to supply out of an annual wage of £13: 14: 10 the following articles at his own expense:—

Nor was even this all, for we find (though without mention of their price) that a pair of checked sleeves for every man, and a powder bag with two puffs for every two men had likewise to be supplied from the same slender pittance.

Turning next from the man himself to his horse, his arms, and accoutrements, we discover yet further charges against his purse, thus—

Also a pair of saddle-bags, a turn-key, and an awl.

All these various items were paid for, “according to King’s regulation and custom,” out of the soldier’s “arrears and grass money.” For his pay was made up of three items—

We must therefore infer that his “subsistence” could not be stopped for his “necessaries” (as the various items enumerated above are termed); but none the less twopence out of the daily stipend was stopped for his food, while His Majesty the King deducted for his royal use a shilling in the pound from the pay of every soul in the army. Small wonder that heavy bounty-money was needed to persuade men to enlist.

What manner of instruction the recruit received on his first appearance it is a little difficult to state positively, though it is still possible to form a dim conception thereof. The first thing that he was taught, apparently, was the manual and firing exercise, of which we are fortunately able to speak with some confidence. As it contains some eighty-eight words of command, we may safely infer that by the time a recruit had mastered it he must have been pretty well disciplined. The minuteness of the exercise and the extraordinary number of the motions sufficiently show that it counted for a great deal. “The first motion of every word of command is to be performed immediately after it is given; but before you proceed to any of the other motions you must tell one, two, pretty slow, by making a stop between the words, and in pronouncing the word two, the motion is to be performed.” In those days the word “smart” was just coming into use, but “brisk” is the more common substitute. Let us picture the squad of recruits with their carbines, in their stable frocks, white breeches, and short black gaiters, and listen to the instructions which the corporal is giving them:—

“Now on the word Shut your pans, let fall the primer and take hold of the steel with your right hand, placing the thumb in the upper part, and the two forefingers on the lower. Tell one, two, and shut the pan; tell one, two, and seize the carbine behind the lock with the right hand; then tell one, two, and bring your carbine briskly to the recover. Wait for the word. Shut your—pans, one—two, one—two, one—two.”

There is no need to go further through the weary iteration of “Join your right hand to your carbine,” “Poise your carbine,” “Join your left hand to your carbine,” whereby the recruit learned the difference between his right hand and his left. Suffice it that the manual and firing exercise contain the only detailed instruction for the original Light Dragoon that is now discoverable. “Setting-up” drill there was apparently none, sword exercise there was none, riding-school, as we now understand it, there was none, though there was a riding-master. A “ride” appears to have comprised at most twelve men, who moved in a circle round the riding-master and received his teaching as best they could. But it must not be inferred on that account that the men could not ride; on the contrary the Light Dragoons seem to have particularly excelled in horsemanship. Passaging, reining back, and other movements which call for careful training of man and horse, were far more extensively used for purposes of manœuvre than at present. Moreover, every man was taught to fire from on horseback, even at the gallop; and as the Light Dragoons received an extra allowance of ammunition for ball practice, it is reasonable to conclude that they spent a good deal of their time at the butts, both mounted and dismounted.

As to the ordinary routine life of the cavalry barrack, it is only possible to obtain a slight glimpse thereof from scattered notices. Each troop was divided into three squads with a corporal and a sergeant at the head of each. Each squad formed a mess; and it is laid down as the duty of the sergeants and corporals to see that the men “boil the pot every day and feed wholesome and clean.” The barrack-rooms and billets must have been pretty well filled, for every scrap of a man’s equipment, including his saddle and saddle-furniture, was hung up therein according to the position of his bed. As every bed contained at least two men, there must have been some tight packing. It is a relief to find that the men could obtain a clean pair of sheets every thirty days, provided that they returned the foul pair and paid three halfpence for the washing.

The fixed hours laid down in the standing orders of the Light Dragoons of 14th May 1760 are as follows:—

The drum beat for—

If there was an order for a mounted parade the drum beat—

1st drum—“To horse.” The men turned out, under the eye of the quartermaster and fell in before the stable door in rank entire. Officers then inspected their troops; and each troop was told off in three divisions.

2nd drum—“Preparative.” By the Adjutant’s order.

3rd drum—“A flam.” The centre division stood fast; the right division advanced, and the left division reined back, each two horses’ lengths.

4th drum—“A flam.” The front and rear divisions passaged to right and left and covered off, thus forming the troop in three ranks.

5th drum—“A march.” The quartermasters led the troops to their proper position in squadron.

6th drum—“A flam.” Officers rode to their posts (troop-leaders on the flank of their troops), facing their troops.

7th drum—“A flam.” The officers halted, and turned about to their proper front.

Then the word was given—“Take care” (which meant “Attention”). “Draw your swords;” and the regiment was thus ready to receive the three squadron standards, which were escorted on to the ground and posted in the ranks, in the centre of the three squadrons.

Each squadron was then told off into half-squadrons, into three divisions, into half-ranks, into fours, and into files. As there are many people who do not know how to tell off a squadron by fours, it may be as well to mention how it was done. The men were not numbered off, but the officer went down each rank, beginning at the right-hand man, and said to the first, “You are the right-hand man of ranks by fours.” Then going on to the fourth he said, “You are the left-hand man of ranks by fours,” and so on. Telling off by files was a simpler affair. The officer rode down the ranks, pointing to each man, and saying alternately, “You move,” “You stand,” “You move,” “You stand.” Conceive what the confusion must have been if the men took it into their heads to be troublesome. “Beg your honour’s pardon, but you said I was to stand,” is the kind of speech that must have been heard pretty often in those days, when field movements went awry.

If the mounted parade went no further, the men marched back to their quarters in fours, each of the three ranks separately; for in those days “fours” meant four men of one rank abreast. If field movements were practised, the system and execution thereof were left to the Colonel, unhampered by a drill-book. There was, however, a batch of “evolutions” which were prescribed by regulation, and required of every regiment when inspected by the King or a general officer. As these “evolutions” lasted, with some modification, till the end of the century, and (such is human nature) formed sometimes the only instruction, besides the manual exercise, that was imparted to the regiment, it may be as well to give a brief description thereof in this place. The efficiency of a regiment was judged mainly from its performance of the evolutions, which were supposed to be a searching test of horsemanship, drill, and discipline.

First then the squadron was drawn up in three ranks, at open order, that is to say, with a distance equal to half the front of the squadron between each rank. Then each rank was told off by half-rank, third of rank, and fours; which done, the word was given, “Officers take your posts of exercise,” which signified that the officers were to fall out to their front, and take post ten paces in rear of the commanding officer, facing towards the regiment. In other words, the regiment was required to go through the coming movements without troop or squadron leaders. Then the caution was given, “Take care to perform your evolutions,” and the evolutions began.

To avoid tedium an abridgment of the whole performance is given at some length in the Appendix, and it is sufficient to say here that the first two evolutions consisted in the doubling of the depth of the column. The left half-ranks reined back and passaged to the right until they covered the right half-ranks; and the original formation having been restored by more passaging, the right half-ranks did likewise. The next evolution was the conversion of three ranks into two, which was effected by the simple process of wheeling the rear rank into column of two ranks, and bringing it up to the flank of the front and centre ranks. Then came further variations of wheeling, and wheeling about by half-ranks, thirds of ranks, and fours; each movement being executed of course to the halt on a fixed pivot, so that through all these intricate manœuvres the regiment practically never moved off its ground. No doubt when performed, as in smart regiments they were performed, like clockwork, these evolutions were very pretty—and of course, like all drill, they had a disciplinary as well as an æsthetic value; but it must be confessed that they left a blight upon the British cavalry for more than a century. It is only within the last twenty years that the influence of these evolutions, themselves a survival from the days of Alexander the Great, has been wholly purged from our cavalry drill-books.

Meanwhile at this time (and for full forty years after for that matter) an immense deal of time was given up to dismounted drill; for the dragoons had not yet lost their character of mounted infantry. To dismount a squadron, the even numbers (as we should now say) reined back and passaged to the right; and the horses were then linked with “linking reins” carried for the purpose, and left in charge of the two flank men, while the rest on receiving the word, “Squadrons have a care to march forward,” formed up in front, infantry wise, and were called for the time a battalion. This dismounted drill formed as important a feature of an inspection as the work done on horseback. Probably the survival of the march past the inspecting officer on foot may be traced to the traditions of those days.

If it be asked how time was found for so much dismounted work, the explanation is simple. From the 1st of May to the 1st October the troop horses were turned out to grass, and committed to the keeping of a “grass guard”—having, most probably, first gone through a course of bleeding at the hands of the farriers. It appears to have mattered but little how far distant the grass might be from the men’s quarters; for we find that if it lay six or eight miles away, the “grass guard” was to consist of a corporal and six men, while if it were within a mile or two, two or three old soldiers were held to be amply sufficient. Men on “grass guard” were not allowed to take their cloaks with them, but were provided with special coats, whereof three or four were kept in each troop for the purpose. “Grass-time,” it may be added, was not the busy, but the slack time for cavalrymen in those days—the one season wherein furloughs were permitted.

The close of the “grass-time” must have been a curious period in the soldier’s year, with its renewal of the long-abandoned stable work and probable extra tightening of discipline. On the farriers above all it must have borne heavily, bringing with it, as we must conclude, the prospect of reshoeing every horse in the regiment. Moreover, the penalty paid by a farrier who lamed a horse was brutally simple: his liquor was stopped till the horse was sound. Nevertheless the farrier had his consolations, for he received a halfpenny a day for every horse under his charge, and must therefore have rejoiced to see his troop stable well filled. The men, probably, in a good regiment, required less smartening after grass-time than their horses. Light Dragoons thought a great deal of themselves, and were well looked after even on furlough. At the bottom of every furlough paper was a note requesting any officer who might read it to report to the regiment if the bearer were “unsoldierly in dress or manner.” We gather, from a stray order, “that soldiers shall wear their hair under their hats,” that even in those days men were bitten with the still prevailing fashion of making much of their hair; but we must hope that Hale’s regiment knew better than to yield to it.

Every man, of course, had a queue of leather or of his own hair, either hanging at full length, in which case it was a “queue,” or partly doubled back, when it became a “club.” Which fashion was favoured by Colonel Hale we are, alas! unable to say,[2] but we gain some knowledge of the coiffure of the Light Dragoons from the following standing orders:—

“The Light Dragoon is always to appear clean and dressed in a soldier-like manner in the streets; his skirts tucked back, a black stock and black gaiters, but no powder. On Sundays the men are to have white stocks, and be well powdered, but no grease on their hair.”

Here, therefore, we have a glimpse of the original trooper of the Seventeenth in his very best: his scarlet coat and white facings neat and spotless, the skirts tucked back to show the white lining, the glory of his white waistcoat, and the sheen of his white breeches. “Russia linen,” i.e. white duck, would be probably the material of these last—Russia linen, “which lasts as long as leather and costs but half-a-crown,” to quote one of our best authorities. Then below the white ducks, fitting close to the leg, came a neat pair of black cloth gaiters running down to dull black shoes, cleaned with “black ball” according to the regimental recipe. Round on his neck was a spotless white stock, helping, with the powder on his hair, to heighten the colour of his round, clean-shaven face. Very attractive he must have seemed to the girls of Coventry in the spring of 1760. What would we not give for his portrait by Hogarth as he appeared some fine Sunday in Coventry streets, with the lady of his choice on his arm, explaining to her that in the Light Dragoons they put no grease on their heads, and in proof thereof shaking a shower of powder from his hair on to her dainty white cap! Probably there were tender leave-takings when in September the regiment was ordered northward; possibly there are descendants of these men, not necessarily bearing their names, in Coventry to this day.

CHAPTER III
REFORMS AFTER THE PEACE OF PARIS, 1763–1774

1760.

In September Hale’s Light Dragoons moved up to Berwick-on-Tweed, and thence into Scotland, where they were appointed to remain for the three ensuing years. Before it left Coventry the regiment, in common with all Light Dragoon regiments, had gathered fresh importance for itself from the magnificent behaviour of the 15th at Emsdorf on the 16th July; in which engagement Captain Martin Basil, who had returned to his own corps from Colonel Hale’s, was among the slain. The close of the year brings us to the earliest of the regimental muster-rolls, which is dated Haddington, 8th December 1760. One must speak of muster-rolls in the plural, for there is a separate muster-roll for each troop—regimental rolls being at this period unknown.

These first rolls are somewhat of a curiosity, for that every one of them describes Hale’s regiment as the 17th, the officers being evidently unwilling to yield seniority to the two paltry troops 1761. raised by Lord Aberdour. The next muster-rolls show considerable difference of opinion as to the regimental number, the head-quarter troop calling itself of the 18th, while the rest still claim 1762. to be of the 17th. In 1762 for the first time every troop 1763. acknowledges itself to be of the 18th, but in April 1763 the old conflict of opinion reappears; the head-quarter troop writes itself down as of the 18th, two other troops as of the 17th, while the remainder decline to commit themselves to any number at all. A gap in the rolls from 1763–1771 prevents us from following the controversy any further; but from this year 1763, the Seventeenth, 1763. as shall be shown, enjoys undisputed right to the number which it originally claimed.

Albeit raised for service in the Seven Years’ War, the regiment was never sent abroad, though it furnished a draft of fifty men and horses to the army under Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick. All efforts to discover anything about this draft have proved fruitless; though from the circumstance that Lieutenant Wallop is described in the muster-rolls as “prisoner of war to the French,” it is just possible that it served as an independent unit, and was actively engaged. But the war came to an end with the Treaty of Paris early in 1763; and with the peace came a variety of important changes for the Army, and particularly for the Light Dragoons.

The first change, of course, was a great reduction of the military establishment. Many regiments were disbanded—Lord Aberdour’s, the 20th and 21st Light Dragoons among them. Colonel Hale’s regiment was retained, and became the Seventeenth; and, as if to warrant it continued life, Hale himself was promoted to be full Colonel. We must not omit to mention here that, whether on account of his advancement, or from other simpler causes, Colonel Hale in this same year took to himself a wife, Miss Mary Chaloner of Guisbrough. History does not relate whether the occasion was duly celebrated by the regiment, either at the Colonel’s expense or at its own; but it is safe to assume that, in those hard-drinking days, such an opportunity for extra consumption of liquor was not neglected. If the fulness of the quiver be accepted as the measure of wedded happiness, then we may fearlessly assert that Colonel Hale was a happy man. Mrs. Hale bore him no fewer than twenty-one children, seventeen of whom survived him.

The actual command of the regiment upon Colonel Hale’s promotion devolved upon Lieut.-Colonel Blaquiere, whose duty it now became to carry out a number of new regulations laid down after the peace for the guidance of the Light Dragoons. 1764. By July 1764 these reforms were finally completed; and as they remained in force for another twenty years, they must be given here at some length. The pith of them lies in the fact that the authorities had determined to emphasise in every possible way the distinction between Light and Heavy Cavalry. Let us begin with the least important, but most sentimental of all matters—the dress.

Privates

Coat.—(Alike for all ranks.) Scarlet, with 3-inch white lapels to the waist. White collar and cuffs, sleeves unslit. White lining. Braid on button-holes. Buttons, in pairs, white metal with regimental number.

Waistcoat.—White, unembroidered and unlaced. Cross pockets.

Breeches.—White, duck or leather.

Boots.—To the knee, “round toed and of a light sort.”

Helmet.—Black leather, with badge of white metal in front, and white turban round the base, plume and crest scarlet and white.

Forage Cap.—Red, turned up with white. Regimental number on little flap.

Shoulder Belts.—White, 2¾ inches broad. Sword belt over the right shoulder.

Waist Belt.—White, 1¾ inches broad.

Cloaks.—Red, white lining; loop of black and white lace on the top. White cape.

Epaulettes.—White cloth with white worsted fringe.

Corporals

Same as the men. Distinguished by narrow silver lace round the turn-up of the sleeves. Epaulettes bound with white silk tape, white silk fringe.

Sergeants

Same as the men. Epaulettes bound with narrow silver lace; silver fringe. Narrow silver lace round button-holes. Sash of spun silk, crimson with white stripe.

Quartermasters

Same as the men. Silver epaulettes. Sash of spun silk, crimson.

Officers

Same as the men; but with silver lace or embroidery at the Colonel’s discretion. Silk sash, crimson. Silver epaulettes. Scarlet velvet stock and waist belts.

Trumpeters

White coats with scarlet lapels and lining; lace, white with black edge; red waistcoats and breeches. Hats, cocked, with white plume.

Farriers

Blue coats, waistcoats, and breeches. Linings and lapels blue; turn-up of sleeves white. Hat, small black bearskin, with a horse-shoe of silver-plated metal on a black ground. White apron rolled back on left side.

Horse Furniture.—White cloth holster caps and housings bordered with white, black-edged lace. XVII. L. D. embroidered on the housings on a scarlet ground, within a wreath of roses and thistles. King’s cypher, with crown over it and XVII. L. D. under it embroidered on the holster caps.

Officers had a silver tassel on the holster caps and at the corners of the housings.

Quartermasters had the same furniture as the officers, but with narrower lace, and without tassels to the holster caps.

Arms

Officers.—A pair of pistols with barrels 9 inches long. Sword (straight or curved according to regimental pattern), blade 36 inches long. A smaller sword, with 28-inch blade, worn in a waist belt, for foot duty.

Men.—Sword and pistols, as the officers. Carbine, 2 feet 5 inches long in the barrel. Bayonet, 12 inches long. Carbine and pistols of the same bore. Cartridge-box to hold twenty-four rounds.

So much for the outward adornment and armament of the men, to which we have only to add that trumpeters, to give them further distinction, were mounted on white horses, and carried a sword with a scimitar blade. Farriers, who were a peculiar people in those days, were made as dusky as the trumpeters were gorgeous. They carried two churns instead of holsters on their saddles, wherein to stow their shoeing tools, etc., and black bearskin furniture with crossed hammer and pincers on the housing. Their weapon was an axe, carried, like the men’s swords, in a belt slung from the right shoulder. When the men drew swords, the farriers drew axes and carried them at the “advance.” The old traditions of the original farrier still survive in the blue tunics, black plumes, and axes of the farriers of the Life Guards, as well as in the blue stable jackets of their brethren of the Dragoons.

Passing now from man to horse, we must note that from 27th July 1764 it was ordained that the horses of Horse and Dragoons should in future wear their full tails, and that those of Light Dragoons only should be docked.[3] This was the first step towards the reduction of the weight to be carried by the Light Dragoon horse. The next was more practical. A saddle much lighter than the old pattern was invented, approved, and adopted, with excellent results. It was of rather peculiar construction: very high in the pommel and cantle, and very deep sunk in the seat, in order to give a man a steadier seat when firing from on horseback. Behind the saddle was a flat board or tray, on to which the kit was strapped in a rather bulky bundle. It was reckoned that this saddle, with blanket and kit complete, 30 lbs of hay and 5 pecks of oats, weighed just over 10 stone (141 lbs.); and that the Dragoon with three days’ rations, ammunition, etc., weighed 12 stone 7 lbs. more; and that thus the total weight of a Dragoon in heavy marching order with (roughly speaking) three days’ rations for man and horse, was 22 stone 8 lbs. In marching from quarter to quarter in England, the utmost weight on a horse’s back was reckoned not to exceed 16 stone.

A few odd points remain to be noticed before the question of saddlery is finally dismissed. In the first place, there was rather an uncouth mixture of colours in the leather, which, though designed to look well with the horse furniture, cannot have been beautiful without it. Thus the head collar for ordinary occasions was brown, but for reviews white; bridoons were black, bits of bright steel; the saddle was brown, and the carbine bucket black. These buckets were, of course, little more than leather caps five or six inches long, fitting over the muzzle of the carbine, practically the same as were served out to Her Majesty’s Auxiliary Cavalry less than twenty years ago. Light Dragoons, however, had a swivel fitted to their shoulder-belt to which the carbine could be sprung, and the weapon thus made more readily available. The horse furniture of the men was not designed for ornament only; for, being made in one piece, it served to cover the men when encamped under canvas. As a last minute point, let it be noted that the stirrups of the officers were square, and of the men round at the top.

We must take notice next of a more significant reform, namely, the abolition of side drums and drummers in the Light Dragoons, and the substitution of trumpeters in their place. By this change the Light Dragoons gained an accession of dignity, and took equal rank with the horse of old days. The establishment of trumpeters was, of course, one to each troop, making six in all. When dismounted they formed a “band of music,” consisting of two French horns, two clarionets, and two bassoons, which, considering the difficulties and imperfections of those instruments as they existed a century and a quarter ago, must have produced some rather remarkable combinations of sound. None the less we have here the germ of the regimental band, which now enjoys so high a reputation.

Over and above the trumpeters, the regiment enjoyed the possession of a fife, to whose music the men used to march. At inspection the trumpets used to sound while the inspecting officer went down the line; and when the trumpeters could blow no longer, the fife took up the wondrous tale and filled up the interval with an ear-piercing solo. The old trumpet “marches” are still heard (unless I am mistaken) when the Household Cavalry relieve guard at Whitehall. But more important than these parade trumpet sounds is the increased use of the trumpet for signalling movements in the field. The original number of trumpet-calls in the earliest days of the British cavalry was, as has already been mentioned, but six. These six were apparently still retained and made to serve for more purposes than one; but others also were added to them. And since, so far as we can gather, the variety of calls on one instrument that could be played and remembered was limited by human unskilfulness and human stupidity, this difficulty was overcome by the employment of other instruments. These last were the bugle horn and the French horn; the former the simple curved horn that is still portrayed on the appointments of Light Infantry, the latter the curved French hunting horn. The united efforts of trumpet, bugle horn, and French horn availed to produce the following sounds:—

All attempts to discover the notation of these calls have, I regret to say, proved fruitless, so that I am unable to state positively whether any of them continue in use at the present day. The earliest musical notation of the trumpet sounds that I have been able to discover dates from the beginning of this century,[5] and is practically the same as that in the cavalry drill-book of 1894; so that it is not unreasonable to infer that the sounds have been little altered since their first introduction. Indeed, it seems to me highly probable that the old “Alla Standarda,” which is easily traceable back to the first quarter of the seventeenth century, still survives in the flourish now played after the general salute to an inspecting officer. As to the actual employment of the three signalling instruments in the field, we shall be able to judge better while treating of the next reform of 1763–1764, viz. that of the drill.

The first great change wrought by the experience of the Seven Years’ War on the English Light Dragoon drill was the final abolition of the formation in three ranks. Henceforward we shall never find the Seventeenth ranked more than two deep. Further, we find a general tendency to less stiffness and greater flexibility of movement, and to greater rapidity of manœuvre. The very evolutions sacrifice some of their prettiness and precision in order to gain swifter change of formation. Thus, when the left half rank is doubled in rear of the right, the right, instead of standing fast, advances and inclines to the left, while the latter reins back and passages to the right, thus accomplishing the desired result in half the time. Field manœuvres are carried out chiefly by means of small flexible columns, differing from the present in one principal feature only, viz. that the rear rank in 1763 does not inseparably follow the front rank, but that each rank wheels from line into column of half-ranks or quarter-ranks independently. Moreover, we find one great principle pervading all field movements: that Light Dragoons, for the dignity of their name, must move with uncommon rapidity and smartness. The very word “smart,” as applied to the action of a soldier, appears, so far as I know, for the first time in a drill-book made for Light Dragoons at this period. In illustration, let us briefly describe a parade attack movement, which is particularly characteristic.

The regiment having been formed by previous manœuvres in echelon of wings (three troops to a wing) from the left, the word is given, “Advance and gain the flank of the enemy.”

First Trumpet.—The right files (of troops?) of each wing gallop to the front, and form rank entire; unswivel their carbines, and keep up a rapid irregular fire from the saddle.

Under cover of this fire the echelon advances.

Second Trumpet.—The right wing forms the “half-wedge” (single echelon), passes the left or leading wing at an increased pace, and gains the flank of the imaginary enemy by the “head to haunch” (an extremely oblique form of incline), and forms line on the flank.

Third Trumpet—“Charge.”—The skirmishers gallop back through the intervals to the rear of their own troops, and remain there till the charge is over.

French Horns—“Retreat.”—The skirmishers gallop forward once more, and keep up their fire till the line is reformed.

The whole scheme of this attack is perhaps a shade theatrical, and, indeed, may possibly have been designed to astonish the weak mind of some gouty old infantry general; but a regiment that could execute it smartly could hardly have been in a very inefficient state.

1765.

In 1765 the Seventeenth was moved to Ireland, though to what part of Ireland the gap in the muster-rolls disenables us to say. Almost certainly it was split up into detachments, where we have reason to believe that the troop officers took pains to teach their men the new drill. We must conceive of the regiment’s life as best we may during this period, for we have no information to help us. Colonel Blaquiere, we have no doubt, paid visits to the outlying troops from time to time, and probably was able now and again to get them together for work in the field, particularly when an inspecting officer’s visit was at hand. We know, from the inspection returns, that the Seventeenth advanced and gained the flank of the enemy every year, in a fashion which commanded the admiration of all beholders. And let us note that in this very year the British Parliament passed an Act for the imposition of stamp duties on the American Colonies—preparing, though unconsciously, future work on active service for the Seventeenth.

1766.

For the three ensuing years we find little that is worth the chronicling, except that in 1766 the regiment suffered, for a brief period, a further change in its nomenclature, the 15th, 16th, and 17th being renumbered the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Light Dragoons. In this same year we discover, quite by chance, that two troops of the Seventeenth were quartered in the Isle of Man, for how long we know not. In 1767 a small matter crops up which throws a curious light on the grievances of the soldier in those days. Bread was so dear that Government was compelled to help the men to pay for it, and to ordain that on payment of fivepence every man should receive a six-pound loaf—which loaf was to last him for four days. Let us note also, as a matter of interest to Colonel Blaquiere, a rise in the value of another article, namely, the troop horse, whereof the outside price was in this year raised from twenty to twenty-two guineas.

1770.

In 1770 we find Colonel Hale promoted to be Governor of Limerick, and therewith severed from the regiment which he had raised. As his new post must presumably have brought him over to Ireland, we may guess that the regiment may have had an opportunity of giving him a farewell dinner, and, as was the fashion in those days, of getting more than ordinarily drunk. From this time forward we lose sight of Colonel Hale, though he is still a young and vigorous man, and has thirty-three years of life before him. His very name perishes from the regiment, for if ever he had an idea of placing a son therein, that hope must have been killed long before the arrival of his twenty-first child. His successor in the colonelcy was Colonel George Preston of the Scots Greys, a distinguished officer who had served at Dettingen, Fontenoy, and other actions of the war of 1743–47, as well as in the principal battles of the Seven Years’ War.

Meanwhile, through all these years, the plot of the American 1770. dispute was thickening fast. From 1773 onwards the news of trouble and discontent across the Atlantic became more frequent; and at last in 1774 seven infantry regiments were despatched to Boston. Then probably the Seventeenth pricked up its ears and discussed, with the lightest of hearts, the prospect of fighting the 1775. rebels over the water. The year 1775 had hardly come in when the order arrived for the regiment to complete its establishment with drafts from the 12th and 18th, and hold itself in readiness to embark at Cork for the port of Boston. It was the first cavalry regiment selected for the service—a pretty good proof of its reputation for efficiency.[6]

Marching Order.   Field-day Order.   Review Order.

PRIVATES, 1784–1810.

CHAPTER IV
THE AMERICAN WAR—1ST STAGE—THE NORTHERN CAMPAIGN, 1775–1780.

1775.

It would be beside the purpose to enter upon a relation of the causes which led to the rupture between England and the thirteen North American Colonies, and to the war of American Independence. The immediate ground of dispute was, however, one in which the Army was specially interested, namely, the question of Imperial defence. Fifteen years before the outbreak of the American War England had, by the conquest of Canada, relieved the Colonies from the presence of a dangerous neighbour on their northern frontier, and for this good service she felt justified in asking from them some return. Unfortunately, however, the British Government, instead of leaving it to the Colonies to determine in what manner their contribution to the cost of Imperial defence should be raised, took the settlement of the question into its own hands, as a matter wherein its authority was paramount. Ultimately by a series of lamentable blunders the British ministers contrived to create such irritation in America that the Colonies broke into open revolt.

1774.

It was in the year 1774 that American discontent reached its acutest stage; and the centre of that discontent was the city of Boston. In July General Gage, at that time in command of the forces in America, and later on to be Colonel-in-Chief of the 17th Light Dragoons, feeling that the security of Boston was now seriously threatened by the rebellious attitude of the citizens, moved down with some troops and occupied the neck of the 1774. isthmus on which the city stands. This step increased the irritation of the people so far that in a month or two he judged it prudent to entrench his position and remove all military stores from outlying stations into Boston. By November the temper of the Colonists had become so unmistakably insubordinate that Gage issued a proclamation warning them against the consequences of revolt. This manifesto was taken in effect as a final signal for general and open insurrection. Rhode Island and New Hampshire broke out at once; and the Americans began their military preparations by seizing British guns, stores, and ammunition 1775. wherever they could get hold of them. By the opening of 1775 the seizure, purchase, and collection of arms became so general that Gage took alarm for the safety of a large magazine at Concord, some twenty miles from Boston, and detached a force to secure it. This expedition it was that led to the first shedding of blood. The British troops succeeded in reaching Concord and destroying the stores; but they had to fight their way back to Boston through the whole population of the district, and finally arrived, worn out with fatigue, having lost 240 men, killed, 19th April. wounded, and missing, out of 1800. The Americans then suddenly assembled a force of 20,000 men and closely invested Boston.

It was just about this time that there arrived in Boston Captain Oliver Delancey, of the 17th Light Dragoons, with despatches announcing that reinforcements would shortly arrive from England under the command of Generals Howe and Clinton. Captain Delancey was charged with the duty of preparing for the reception of his regiment, and in particular of purchasing horses whereon to mount it. Two days after his arrival, therefore, he started for New York to buy horses, only to find at his journey’s end that New York also had risen in insurrection, and that there was nothing for it but to return to Boston.

And while Delancey was making his arrangements, the Seventeenth was on its way to join him. The 12th and 18th Regiments had furnished the drafts required of them, and the Seventeenth, 1775. thus raised to some semblance of war strength, embarked for its first turn on active service. Here is a digest of their final muster, dated, Passage, 10th April 1775, and 10th April. endorsed “Embarkation”—

Lieutenant-Colonel.—Samuel Birch.

Major.—Henry Bishop.

Adjutant.—John St. Clair, Cornet.

Surgeon.—Christopher Johnston.

Surgeon’s mate.—Alexander Acheson.

Deputy-Chaplain.—W. Oliver.

Major Bishopp’s Troop.

Robert Archdale, Captain. Frederick Metzer, Cornet.
1 Quartermaster, 2 sergeants, 2 corporals, 1 trumpeter, 29 dragoons, 31 horses.

Captain Straubenzee’s Troop.

Henry Nettles, Lieutenant. Sam. Baggot, Cornet.
5 Non-commissioned officers, 1 trumpeter, 26 dragoons, 31 horses.

Captain Moxham’s Troop.

Ben. Bunbury, Lieutenant. Thomas Cooke, Cornet.
5 Non-commissioned officers, 1 trumpeter, 26 dragoons, 31 horses.

Captain Delancey’s Troop.

Hamlet Obins, Lieutenant. James Hussey, Cornet.
5 Non-commissioned officers, 1 trumpeter, 1 hautboy, 27 dragoons, 31 horses.

Captain Needham’s Troop.

Mark Kerr, Lieutenant. Will. Loftus, Cornet.
5 Non-commissioned officers, 1 trumpeter, 26 dragoons, 31 horses.

Captain Crewe’s Troop.

Matthew Patteshall, Lieutenant. John St. Clair (Adjutant), Cornet.
5 Non-commissioned officers, 1 trumpeter, 1 hautboy, 26 dragoons, 31 horses.

What manner of scenes there may have been at the embarkation that day at Cork it is impossible to conjecture. We can only bear in mind that there were a great many Irishmen in the ranks, and that probably all their relations came to see them off, and draw what mental picture we may. Meanwhile it is worth while to compare two embarkations of the regiment on active service, at roughly speaking, a century’s interval. In 1879 the Seventeenth with its horses sailed to the Cape in two hired transports—the England and the France. In 1776 it filled no fewer than seven ships, the Glen, Satisfaction, John and Jane, Charming Polly, John and Rebecca, Love and Charity, Henry and Edward—whereof the very names suffice to show that they were decidedly small craft.

The voyage across the Atlantic occupied two whole months, but, like all things, it came to an end; and the regiment June 15–19. disembarked at Boston just in time to volunteer its services for the first serious action of the war. That action was brought about in this way. Over against Boston, and divided from it by a river of about the breadth of the Thames at London Bridge, is a peninsula called Charlestown. It occurred, rather late in the day, to General Gage that an eminence thereupon called Bunker’s Hill was a position that ought to be occupied, inasmuch as it lay within cannon-shot of Boston and commanded the whole of the town. Unfortunately, precisely the same idea had occurred to the Americans, who on the 16th June seized the hill, unobserved by Gage, and proceeded to entrench it. By hard work and the aid of professional engineers they soon made Bunker’s Hill into a formidable position; so that Gage, on the following day, found that his task was not that of marching to an unoccupied height, but of attacking an enemy 6000 strong in a well-fortified post. None the less he attacked the 6000 Americans with 2000 English, and drove them out at the bayonet’s point after the bloodiest engagement thitherto fought by the British army. Of the 2000 men 1054, including 89 officers, went down that day; and the British occupied the Charlestown peninsula.

1775.

The acquisition was welcome, for the army was sadly crowded in Boston and needed more space; but the enemy soon erected new works which penned it up as closely as ever. Moreover the Americans refused to supply the British with fresh provisions, so that the latter—what with salt food, confinement, and the heat of the climate—soon became sickly. The Seventeenth were driven to their wit’s end to obtain forage for their horses. It was but a poor exchange alike for animals and men to forsake the ships for a besieged city. The summer passed away and the winter came on. The Americans pressed the British garrison more hardly than ever through the winter months, and finally, on the 1776.2nd March 1776, opened a bombardment which fairly drove the English out. On the 17th March Boston was evacuated, and the army, 9000 strong, withdrawn by sea to Halifax.

However mortifying it might be to British sentiment, this evacuation was decidedly a wise and prudent step; indeed, but for the determination of King George III. to punish the recalcitrant Boston, it is probable that it would have taken place long before, for it was recommended both by Gage, who resigned his command in August 1775, and by his successor, General Howe. They both saw clearly enough that, as England held command of the sea, her true policy was to occupy the line of the Hudson River from New York in the south to Lake Champlain in the north. Thereby she could isolate from the rest the seven provinces of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, and reduce them at her leisure; which process would be the easier, inasmuch as these provinces depended almost entirely on the States west of the Hudson for their supplies. The Americans, being equally well aware of this, and having already possession of New York, took the bold line of attempting to capture Canada while the English were frittering their strength away at Boston. And they were within an ace of success. As early as May 1775 they captured Ticonderoga and the only King’s ship in Lake Champlain, and in November they obtained possession of Chambly, St. John’s, and Montreal. Fortunately Quebec still held out, though reduced to great straits, and saved Canada to England. On the 31st December the little garrison gallantly repelled an American assault, and shortly after it was relieved by the arrival of a British squadron which made its way through the ice with reinforcements of 3500 men under General Burgoyne. This decided the fate of Canada, from which the Americans were finally driven out in June 1776.

One other small incident requires notice before we pass to the operations of Howe’s army (whereof the Seventeenth formed part) in the campaign of 1776. Very early in the day Governor Martin of North Carolina had recommended the despatch of a flying column or small force to the Carolinas, there to rally around it the loyalists, who were said to be many, and create a powerful diversion in England’s favour. Accordingly in December 1775, five infantry regiments under Lord Cornwallis were despatched from England to Cape Fear, whither General Clinton was sent by Howe to meet them and take command. An attack on Charleston by this expedition proved to be a total failure; and on the 21st June 1776, Clinton withdrew the force to New York. This episode deserves mention, because it shows how early the British Government was bitten with this plan of a Carolina campaign, which was destined to cost us the possession of the American Colonies. Three times in the course of this history shall we see English statesmen make the fatal mistake of sending a weak force to a hostile country in reliance on the support of a section of disaffected inhabitants, and each time (as fate ordained it) we shall find the Seventeenth among the regiments that paid the inevitable penalty. From this brief digression let us now return to the army under General Howe.

While the bulk of this force was quartered at Halifax, the Seventeenth lay, for convenience of obtaining forage, at Windsor, some miles away. In June the 16th light Dragoons arrived at Halifax from England with remounts for the regiment; but it is questionable whether they had any horses to spare, for we find that out of 950 horses 412 perished on the voyage. About the same time arrived orders for the increase of the Seventeenth by 1 cornet, 1 sergeant, 2 corporals, and 30 privates per troop; but the necessary recruits had not been received by the time when the campaign opened. On the 11th June the regiment, with the rest of Howe’s army, was once more embarked at Halifax and reached Sandy Hook on the 29th. Howe then landed his force on Staten Island, and awaited the arrival of his brother, Admiral Lord Howe, who duly appeared with a squadron and reinforcements on the 1st July. Clinton with his troops from Charleston arrived on the 1st August, and further reinforcements from England on the 12th. Howe had now 30,000 men, 12,000 of them Hessians, under his command in America, two-thirds of whom were actually on the spot around New York.

Active operations were opened on the 22nd August, by the landing of the whole army in Gravesend Bay at the extreme south-west corner of Long Island. The American army, 15,000 strong, occupied a position on the peninsula to the north-west, where Brooklyn now stands—its left resting on the East River, its right on a stream called Mill Creek, and its front covered as usual by a strong line of entrenchments. From this fortified camp, however, they detached General Putnam with 10,000 men to take up a position about a mile distant on a line of heights that runs obliquely across the island. After a reconnaissance by Generals Clinton and Erskine, the latter of whom led the brigade to which the Seventeenth was attached, General Howe decided to turn the left flank of the Americans with part of his force, leaving the rest to attack their front as soon as the turning movement was completed. At 9 P.M. on the 26th August the turning column, under the command of Howe himself, marched across the flat ground to seize a pass on the extreme left of the enemy’s line, the Seventeenth forming the advanced guard. On reaching the pass it was found that the Americans had neglected to secure it, being content to visit it with occasional cavalry 1776. patrols. One such patrol was intercepted by the advanced party of the Seventeenth; and the pass was occupied by the British without giving alarm to the Americans. At nine next morning, Howe’s column having completely enveloped Putnam’s left, opened the attack on that quarter, while the rest of the army advanced upon the centre and right. The Americans were defeated at all points and driven in confusion to their entrenchments; but Howe made no effort to pursue them nor to storm the camp, as he might easily have done. He merely moved feebly up to the enemy’s entrenchments on the following day, and began to break ground as if for a regular siege. On the 29th the Americans evacuated the camp, and retired across the East River to New York; and this they were allowed to do without hindrance, though the British army of 20,000 men stood on their front, and a navigable river, where a British seventy-four could have anchored, lay in their rear. Thus deliberately were sacrificed the fruits of the battle of Brooklyn. This was the first action in which the Seventeenth was under fire. The regiment at its close received the thanks of Generals Erskine and Clinton.

The possession of Long Island gave the British complete command of New York by sea; and Howe set himself to transport his army to New York Island, an operation which was completed on the 15th September. The Americans then evacuated New York town and retired to the northern extremity of New York Island, where Washington fortified a position from Haarlem to Kingsbridge along the Hudson River in order to secure his retreat across it to the mainland. The English warships now moved up the Hudson to cut off that retreat; and Howe having left four brigades to cover New York town, 12th Oct. embarked the rest on flat-bottomed boats to turn Washington’s position. The flotilla passed through Hell Gate; and Howe 18th Oct. having wasted a deal of time in disembarking the troops first at the wrong place, landed them finally at Pell’s Point, the corner which divides East River from Long Island Sound, and 1776. forms the extreme point of the spit of continent that runs down to New York Island. The advanced parties of the Seventeenth were engaged in a trifling skirmish at Pelham Manor, a little to the north of Pell’s Point, shortly after disembarkation; but the British advance was practically unopposed, and the army was concentrated at New Rochelle, on Long Island Sound, on the 21st October. Washington now changed front, throwing his left back, and distributed his army along a line parallel to the march of the British; his right resting at Kingsbridge on the south, and his left at Whiteplains on the north. The two armies were separated by a deep river called the Bronx, which covered the whole of Washington’s front. Howe continued his march northward, doubtless with the intention of getting between Washington and the mainland; but Washington had already sent parties to entrench a new position for him at Whiteplains, to which he moved on the 26th October. This change of position brought the Americans from the left flank to the front of the British advance, and it was plain that an action was imminent. On the 28th, Howe’s army, advancing in two columns, came up with the Americans, and found them to be some 18,000 strong. The right of Washington’s main position rested on the Bronx River; but for some reason a detached force of 4000 men had been posted on a hill on the other side of the river, which detachment, owing to the depth and difficulty of the stream, was necessarily cut off from the rest of the line. Howe decided to attack this isolated body at once. The Seventeenth being detailed as part of the attacking force, moved off to a practicable ford, the passage of which was carried in the face of heavy fire; and the infantry then advancing drove the enemy brilliantly from their entrenchments, from whence the Seventeenth pursued them towards the main position at Whiteplains. The regiment lost one man and five horses killed, Cornet Loftus, four men and eight horses wounded, in this action; which unfortunately led to no result. On the 30th August a general attack on the American entrenchments was ordered, but 1776. was countermanded in consequence of a tremendous storm of rain; and on the 1st September the Americans quietly retired northward across the river Croton, on which they took up a position from which it was hopeless to attempt to dislodge them.

However, there was still an American garrison of 3000 men, which had been left by Washington in his entrenchments at Kingsbridge to hold the passage of the Hudson; and of these Howe determined to make sure. His attack was delivered by four columns simultaneously. The third of these crossed the Haarlem Creek in boats under a heavy fire, and by the capture of a strong post at the other side turned the left of the American position. The ground was unfavourable for cavalry, however; and the Seventeenth, which was attached to this column, lost but one man. The result of the whole operation was the surrender of the Americans, which was bought with the loss of 800 British killed and wounded.

Three days later Lord Cornwallis crossed the Hudson with 4000 men, and marched against the American fort which commanded the passage of the river from the Jersey side. The Americans promptly evacuated it and retreated, with Cornwallis at their heels in hot pursuit. He was on the point of overtaking them and striking a severe blow, when he received orders from General Howe to halt—orders which he very reluctantly obeyed. A party of the Seventeenth, probably a sergeant’s party for orderly duties, seems to have accompanied Cornwallis on this march, and through the gallant behaviour of one of the men has made itself remembered.

One day Private M’Mullins, of this detachment, was despatched by Lord Cornwallis with a letter of some importance to an officer of one of the outposts, and while passing near a thicket on his way was fired at by the rebels. He instantly pretended to fell from his horse, hanging with head down to the ground. The Americans, four in number, supposing him killed, ran out from their cover to seize their booty, and had come within a few 1776. yards of him, when, to their great astonishment, Private M’Mullins suddenly recovered his seat in the saddle and shot the first of them dead with his carbine. He then drew his pistol and despatched a second, and immediately after fell with his sword upon the other two, who surrendered as his prisoners. Whereupon Private M’Mullins drove them triumphantly before him into camp, where he duly delivered them up. Lord Cornwallis did not fail to report such bravery to General Howe, who in his turn not only promoted M’Mullins to be sergeant, but brought the exploit before the notice of the King. As all Light Dragoons of whatever regiment felt pride in their comrades, the story of Private M’Mullins found its way into the standard contemporary work on that branch of the service, and remains there embalmed to this day. Let it be noted that this feat of leaning out of the saddle almost to the ground is treated as one which “all Light Dragoons accomplished with the greatest ease.” We should probably never have known this but for Private M’Mullins of the Seventeenth.

With the recall of Cornwallis from New Jersey the campaign of 1776 came to an end. Since the American evacuation of New York, Howe had captured 4500 prisoners and 150 guns; but he had also thrice let slip the opportunity of capturing the whole American army. One further operation was insisted upon by the Admiral, namely, the capture of Rhode Island, which was effected 8th Dec. without loss by a small force under General Clinton. One troop of the Seventeenth accompanied Clinton on this expedition, and remained at Rhode Island for the next twelve months.

The rest of the Seventeenth went into winter quarters in New York, the total strength of the regiment at the close of the campaign being 225 men. Though its casualties had been light, it had done a good deal of hard work and established for itself a reputation. Howe himself testifies in his despatches to “the good service they have performed in this campaign,” and adds that “the dread which the enemy have of the Dragoons has been experienced on every occasion.” It is a significant indication of 1777.the nature of their work, that Howe begs for remounts of Irish horses for them, as being “hardier and better accustomed to get over fences.”

The rest of the army in the winter of 1776–77 was split up into detachments, and scattered along an extended line from the Delaware to New York. The Americans fully expected Howe to cross the Delaware as soon as the ice permitted and attack Philadelphia, but Howe as usual did nothing. He might have destroyed the American army without difficulty; but so far from attempting it, he allowed Washington with an inferior force to cut off two detached posts and do a great deal of damage.

Howe’s operations in the campaign of 1777 were little more satisfactory. After making every preparation to cross the Delaware and advance into Pennsylvania he brought back the army to New York, and embarked for the Chesapeake in order to approach Philadelphia from that side. In September he won the battle of Brandywine, and took possession of Philadelphia on the 26th. This occupation of Philadelphia was the sole result of the campaign; and it was, in fact, a political rather than a military enterprise, the object being to overawe the American Congress. It was a fatal mistake, for while Howe was wasting his time in Pennsylvania, Burgoyne was moving down from Canada to open the line of the Hudson from the north, in the hope of co-operation from Howe’s army in the south. No such co-operation was forthcoming. Howe’s army was engaged elsewhere; Clinton, though, as will be seen, he did make on his own responsibility a slight diversion on the Hudson, yet dared not weaken the garrison of New York. The result was that 16th Oct. Burgoyne with his whole force of 7000 men was overpowered and compelled to surrender at Saratoga.

The Seventeenth being left in garrison at New York, of course took no share in Howe’s operations. The fact was that in November 1776 it received some 200 recruits and 100 fresh horses from England, so that its time must have been fully occupied in the task of knocking these into shape. Nevertheless small detachments of the regiment were employed in two little affairs which must be related here.

The Americans, after retreating across the Croton in 1776, had formed large magazines on the borders of Connecticut, at the town of Danbury and elsewhere. These magazines General Clinton judged that it would be well to destroy. Accordingly, on the 25th April, 2000 men, drafted from different regiments, including twelve from the Seventeenth for the needful reconnaissance and patrol duties, embarked on transports and sailed up Long Island Sound to Camp’s Point, where they landed. At ten that night they marched, and at eight next morning they reached Danbury, to the great surprise of the Americans, who evacuated the town with all speed. The British, having destroyed the whole of the stores, prepared to return to their ships, but found that the Americans had assembled at a place called Ridgefield, and had there entrenched themselves to bar the British line of march. Weary as they were after twenty-four hours’ work, the English soldiers attacked and carried the entrenchments; and then, as night came on, they lay on their arms, prepared to fight at any moment. At daybreak they continued their march, and were again attacked by the Americans, who had received reinforcements during the night. Still they fought their way on till within half a mile of their ships, when General Erskine, losing all patience, collected 400 men, and taking the offensive at last beat the enemy off. The men had had no rest for three days and three nights, and were fairly worn out; but we may guess that the little detachment of the Seventeenth was not the last to answer to the call of its Brigadier. This expedition cost the British 15 officers and 153 men!

The second of the two affairs to which we have alluded was an expedition made by Clinton as a diversion to help Burgoyne, and was directed against two American forts on the right bank of the Hudson, which barred the passage of the British warships to Albany; Albany being the point to which Burgoyne hoped to penetrate. A force of 3000 men, including one troop of the 1777. Seventeenth, embarked on the 5th October and sailed up the 5th Oct. Hudson to Verplanks Point, forty miles from New York, on the east bank of the river. Here Clinton landed a portion of his force under the fire of a small American field-work, drove out the enemy, and pursued them for some little way. This feint produced the desired effect. The American general of the district at once concluded that Clinton meant to advance to meet Burgoyne on the east bank of the Hudson, and hurried away with most of the garrison of the river ports to occupy the passes on the roads. Clinton meanwhile quietly embarked 6th Oct. two-thirds of his force on the following morning, leaving the remainder to hold Verplanks, and landed them on the opposite bank. Thence he advanced over a very steep mountain, along very bad roads, to attack two important posts, Forts Clinton and Montgomery, from the rear. Though Fort Clinton, the lower of the two, was but twelve miles distant, it was not reached before sunset, owing to the difficulties of the march. Opposite Fort Clinton the force divided into two columns, one of them standing fast, while the other made a detour to reach Fort Montgomery unobserved—the design being to attack both posts, which were only three-quarters of a mile apart, simultaneously. The upper post, Fort Montgomery, was easily captured, being at once abandoned by its garrison of 800 men. Fort Clinton, however, was a more difficult matter, the only possible approach to it being over a plain covered with four hundred yards of abattis, and commanded by ten guns. The British, though they had not a single gun, advanced under a heavy fire, pushed each other through the embrasures, and, in spite of a gallant resistance on the part of the Americans, drove them out of the fort. The American loss was 300 killed, wounded, and prisoners; the British loss, 140 killed and wounded. Having destroyed the American shipping and some other batteries farther up the river, Clinton’s little expedition returned to New York. The troop of the Seventeenth formed part of the column that stormed Fort Clinton—a service which, if the original plan of campaign had been 1777. adhered to, would have been one of the most valuable in the war.

With this the campaign of 1777 came to an end, decidedly to the disadvantage of the British, who had lost the whole of Burgoyne’s division and gained nothing but Philadelphia. The winter of 1777–78 the British army spent in the city of Philadelphia, where it was kept inactive, and allowed to grow slack in discipline and efficiency; and this although Washington lay for five whole months but 26 miles distant, at Valley Forge—his position weak, his guns frozen into the entrenchments, his army worn to a shadow by sickness and desertion, and absolutely destitute of clothing, stores, and equipment. Howe had 14,000 men, and Washington a bare 4000, yet for the fourth time Howe allowed him to escape; and this time inaction was fatal, for the new year was to bring with it an event which changed the whole aspect and conduct of operations.

1778.

In February 1778 the French Government, still smarting under the loss of Canada, concluded a treaty of defensive alliance with the young American Republic, and despatched a fleet under D’Estaing to operate on the American coast. The British Government no sooner heard the news than it sent instructions for the army to evacuate Philadelphia and retire to New York, from whence half of it was to be forthwith despatched to attack the French possessions in the West Indies. The burden of this duty fell, not upon Howe, to whom it would have been a just retribution, but upon Clinton, who succeeded to the command on Howe’s resignation in the spring of 1778.

During the winter the Seventeenth had been moved down from New York to join the main army at Philadelphia, where, in March 1778, we find them reduced to a nominal total of 363 men, of whom no fewer than 67 were in hospital, and 162 horses. Fortunately for its own sake the regiment was busily employed during the spring in the duty of opening communications and bringing in supplies, by which it was prepared for the heavy work that lay before it. On the 3rd of May a strong detachment of the 1778. Seventeenth formed part of a mixed force of 1000 men which was sent out to reduce a hostile post at Crooked Billet, seventeen miles from Philadelphia. The business was neatly managed, for the British, with trifling loss, killed, wounded, or captured 150 of the Americans, and, thanks to the Seventeenth, took the whole of their baggage. Three weeks later the regiment was again employed in a small expedition against 3000 Americans, who had been posted by Washington in an advanced and isolated position at Barren Hill under the command of Marquis Lafayette. This time the affair was sadly bungled, and the Americans, who should have been captured in a body, would have got off scot free but for a dash made on the rear-guard by the light Dragoons, wherein 40 or 50 American prisoners were taken.

By constant excursions of this kind, on a larger or smaller scale, the regiment was prepared for the very arduous duty that lay before it. On the 18th June, at 3 A.M., the evacuation of Philadelphia was begun, and by 10 A.M. the whole British army had crossed the Delaware at the point of its junction with the Schuylkill. It then advanced up the left bank, on a road running parallel to the river, as far as Cornell’s Ferry, where it left the line of the Delaware and turned off on the road to Sandy Hook. Up to the 27th June the British, though constantly watched by small parties of the enemy, were allowed to pursue their march through this difficult country without molestation; but on that day an advanced corps of 5000 Americans appeared close in rear, with the main army of Washington but three miles behind it, while other smaller bodies came up on each flank. On 28th June. the 28th, Clinton, expecting an attack, divided his army into two parts, the first of which he sent off at daybreak in charge of the baggage (which was so abundant that the column was twelve miles long), leading off the second, under his personal command, at 8 A.M. The Seventeenth was attached to the baggage column, and must have marched with it for some eight or nine hours, when it was hurriedly sent for to join the rear-guard under General Clinton. The rear column had just come down from the 1778. high ground into a plain about three miles long by one mile wide, when the Americans appeared in force in the rear and on both flanks. Their first attempt was made on the right flank, and was likely to have been serious, had it not been checked, to use Clinton’s words, by the resolute bearing and firm front of the Seventeenth. The Americans had not lost their respect for the Light Dragoons. From that point the regiment was swiftly moved to others; and the general impression left on the mind by Clinton’s rather confused description is, that the Seventeenth were kept manœuvring round the column, frequently under Clinton’s immediate direction, wherever the Americans threatened most danger. The 16th Light Dragoons, more fortunate than the Seventeenth, had a chance of charging the American cavalry, and made admirable use of it; but they lost a great number of horses, which was a serious matter considering the weakness of the British mounted force. Finally Clinton made his dispositions for a pitched battle in the plain; but the Americans knew better than to accept it, and retired to the hills from which they had originally come down. Clinton thereupon attacked them with the infantry and drove them back. They retreated to a second position. Again Clinton attacked, and after hard fighting forced them out. They then fell back on a third position, where, Clinton feeling by this time assured of the safety of his baggage, thought best to leave them. And so ended the very hard day’s work which takes its name from the heights of Freehold, at the foot whereof the combat was fought. So terrible was the heat in the confinement of the valley that fifty-nine of the infantry dropped dead while advancing to the attack. The total loss on the English side was 358 men. The Seventeenth had no casualties, though Clinton’s testimony shows that they did good work. The Americans lost 361 men, and from that day abandoned the pursuit, having had for the present enough of it. Clinton, therefore, made the rest of his way untroubled to Sandy Hook, and on the 5th July embarked his army for New York. A flying expedition to Rhode Island, which arrived too late to catch 1778. the French force that had threatened it, and a successful inroad into Georgia in the south, brought the campaign of 1778 to a close.

In November, Clinton, in obedience to his orders, sent away half of his army to England and the West Indies. He was so sensible of the injury inflicted on his forces by the loss of some of his best troops, that he begged to be allowed to resign his command, and required some pressure to induce him to retain it. His difficulties were great enough, for everything was going wrong in New York. In December there was not a fortnight’s flour in store, and not a penny in the military chest. The clothing provided for the men proved to be bad, and was condemned right and left by their officers. “The linen is coarse and thin, and unfit for soldiers’ shirts, the stockings of so flimsy a texture as to be of little service, and the shoes of the worst kind.” One consignment of shoes was found to consist of “thin dancing pumps,” and even these too small for the men to wear. Moreover the Government in England, which had always given Howe a free hand, thought it right to tie down Clinton, who was far the better man, with every kind of order. “For God’s sake, my Lord,” the General wrote at last, “if you wish me to do anything leave me to myself.”

Such was the state of things when the Seventeenth went into their winter quarters at Hampstead, Long Island, in 1778. It was now the only British cavalry corps on the American Continent, the 16th having gone home, leaving all its horses and a certain number of men with the sister regiment. Though its numbers were thus raised to 414 men, we shall not again find it in the field entire during the remainder of the war. From this winter onward the scene of the main contest shifts from the north to the south, and we shall find the Seventeenth divided between these two points of the compass.

Field-day Order.   Review Order.

OFFICERS, 1810–1813.

Watering Order.   Review Order.   Marching Order.

PRIVATES, 1810–1813.

CHAPTER V
THE AMERICAN WAR—2ND STAGE—THE SOUTHERN CAMPAIGN, 1780–1782

1780.

The alliance of France with the revolted provinces having compelled the British Government to reduce General Clinton’s army by one-half, this loss was supplemented by the enlistment of volunteers from the loyal party in America itself, and by the organisation of corps of irregulars. One such corps, consisting partly of cavalry and partly of infantry, was commanded by Captain Lord Cathcart of the Seventeenth, and another, known as the King’s American Dragoons, received an Adjutant from the regiment. But the corps with which the name of the Seventeenth was inseparably connected was the so-called “Legion” commanded by Colonel Banastre Tarleton. To this last a small party of the Seventeenth seems to have been permanently attached, probably as a pattern for the guidance of the provincial recruits. But in addition to these a troop of the regiment under its own officers was frequently joined to it, which though in contemporary accounts generally included in the term “Cavalry of the legion,” was distinct from it and careful to preserve its individuality.

With the change in the composition of the army came simultaneously a change in the plan of campaign, by a return to the scheme, already tried once at the outbreak of the war, of an expedition to the Carolinas; where it was hoped that the loyalists were numerous and ready to rally round the army. The plan was to scour the country with flying columns, which would serve at once to hearten good subjects and overawe the 1780. disaffected. For such operations Charleston was required as a base, and it was to preparations for the reduction of Charleston that most of Clinton’s energies were devoted in the summer of 1779. An accession of strength was gained by the evacuation of Rhode Island in October, and finally, on the 26th December, Clinton sailed with a portion of his army on this expedition to the South. One troop of the Seventeenth, sixty strong, accompanied him.

Bad luck dogged this enterprise from the first. The transports were overtaken by a storm and dispersed in all directions. All the cavalry horses perished, and one ship containing siege artillery was lost. It was not till the end of January that the ships, many of them badly battered, appeared at the appointed rendezvous, the Island of Tybee, off the coast of Georgia, having spent five weeks over a voyage generally reckoned to last ten days. The troop of the Seventeenth was sent with Tarleton’s legion to Port Royal, a little to the north of Savannah, where it was landed and quartered at Beaufort, at the head of the harbour. With great difficulty it procured forty or fifty inferior horses; and after a time was ordered to join some reinforcements that were marching up from Savannah, and advance up country with them to unite with Clinton’s army before Charleston. Meanwhile the people of the country, knowing that the British had lost their horses, equipped themselves as cavalry to harass the column on the march. Nothing could have suited Tarleton better. A charge by the troop of the Seventeenth sufficed to disperse these irregular horsemen, and ensure the capture not only of several prisoners, but, better still, of their horses. After twelve days’ march through a difficult country broken up by flooded rivers, and in the thick of a hostile population, the legion arrived at its destination on the Ashley with its strength in horses multiplied by four or five, and a good supply of forage to boot.

Meanwhile General Clinton with the rest of the army had sailed to the river Edisto, a little to the south of Charleston, and advanced thence by slow marches upon the town. Charleston lies on a tongue of land which runs, roughly speaking, from north 1780. to south, being enclosed between the Cooper River on the east and the Ashley on the west. The British fleet having moved up to blockade it to the south or seaward, Clinton on the 30th March threw his army across the Ashley to the neck of the isthmus on which the town stands, and encamped over against the American entrenchments. As usual these were formidable enough, stretching across the isthmus from the Ashley to the Cooper, and strengthened by a deep canal, two rows of abattis, and other obstacles. Over and above the garrison of 6000 men within the town, the Americans kept a force of militia and three regiments of cavalry, under General Huger, on the upper forks and passes of the Cooper, whereby the communications between the town and the back country were kept open. The dislodgment of this corps of Huger’s was therefore indispensable to the complete investment of Charleston; and the execution of this task was intrusted to a picked force of 1400 men, including Tarleton’s legion and the detachment of the Seventeenth.

On the 12th April, therefore, Tarleton moved off to Goose Creek on his way to Monk’s Corner, thirty miles from Charleston, where there lay the American post that held Biggin’s Bridge over the Cooper. Knowing that the enemy was superior to him in cavalry, he had determined to make a night attack, and he had the good fortune on the way to pick up a negro who acquainted him with the enemy’s dispositions. Learning from this source that the American force was divided, the cavalry being on his own side of the river and the infantry on the other, he pushed on through the night, and at 3 A.M. surprised the main guard of the cavalry. Galloping hard on the backs of the fugitives he dashed straight into the camp, dispersed the far superior force that lay there, and captured 150 prisoners, 400 horses, and 50 ammunition waggons. The bridge being thus uncovered he at once ordered his infantry across it against the American post on the other side; and this having been captured, detached a force to seize Bowman’s Ferry, which commanded another branch of the Cooper. This was promptly done, and by the evening 1780. the American communications on the Cooper were cut through and Charleston completely isolated.

The Americans, however, were not so easily to be baulked. Huger himself and his principal officer, Colonel Washington,[7] had managed to escape by hiding in a swamp, and before the end of April had begun to collect another force of cavalry to the north of the Santee, a river which runs parallel to the Cooper, and at its nearest point is not above twenty miles from Biggin’s Bridge. On the 6th of May this force crossed the Santee, snapped up a British foraging party, and prepared to recross the river, a few miles lower down, at Lanew’s Ferry. Tarleton, who was patrolling with the detachment of the Seventeenth and some of his own dragoons, 150 men all told, learned what had happened, and pressed on with all haste to catch the Americans before they could repass the Santee. Once again he caught a superior force by surprise. Coming up at 3 P.M. with the American vedettes he at once drove them in upon the picquet, and was on the backs of the main body in an instant. Five officers and 36 men were cut down, 7 officers and 60 men made prisoners, and the rest, including Colonel Washington, driven into the river to escape as best they could by swimming. Tarleton, who had lost but two men and four horses killed, marched back to camp, twenty-six miles, on the same evening, with the result that twenty horses died of fatigue. But Tarleton, as we shall see, never spared men or horses.

On the 12th May Charleston surrendered to General Clinton, who thereupon prepared to return to New York. But first he sent three expeditions up three different rivers to the interior to pursue the advantages gained by the surrender. Of these three, one, under Lord Cornwallis, was ordered to cross the Santee River and pursue a large train of American stores and ammunition which, under the command of Colonel Burford, was retreating in all haste by the north-east bank towards North Carolina. Accordingly, on the 18th May, Cornwallis with a mixed force 1780. of 2500 men, including Tarleton’s legion and the Seventeenth, marched off and crossed the Santee in boats at Lanew’s Ferry. The legion and Seventeenth were then at once detached to Georgetown to clear the left flank of Cornwallis’s line of march, while the main body pursued its way up the river to Nelson’s Ferry. Having rejoined Cornwallis at that point on the 27th, Tarleton was detached once more with 40 men of the Seventeenth, 130 of the legion dragoons, 100 mounted infantry, and a three-pounder field-gun, to follow Burford by forced marches. So intense was the heat that many both of the men and of the horses broke down; but by dint of impressing fresh horses on the road the little column reached Camden (sixty miles distant as the crow flies) on the following day. There Tarleton learned that Burford was still far ahead of him, having left Rugeley’s Mills (twenty miles as the crow flies beyond Camden) on the 26th. Moreover, American reinforcements were on the march to join him from North Carolina, and both columns were making all haste to effect a junction. Seeing that such junction must at all hazards be prevented, Tarleton started off again at 2 A.M. on the 29th, reached Rugeley’s Mills at daylight, and there 29th May. obtained information of Burford still in retreat twenty miles ahead of him. In the hope of delaying him Tarleton sent him a message, wherein he exaggerated the strength of his force, to summon him to surrender. But Burford was too cunning either to pause or to surrender; so there was nothing for Tarleton to do but to leave his three-pounder behind and press on with his weary men and horses as best he could. At last at three in the afternoon the British advanced parties came up with Burford’s rear-guard, captured five men, and forced Burford to turn and fight. His force was 380 infantry, a detachment of cavalry, and 2 guns. The British had started but 300 strong, had marched a hundred and five miles in fifty-four hours, and had perforce left some men behind them on the way. Tarleton divided his little party into three columns, whereof the men of the Seventeenth, under Captain Talbot, formed the centre, and attacked at once. 1780. The Americans reserved their fire till the cavalry was within ten yards of them, but failed to check the charge of the British, who galloped straight into the middle of them and did fearful execution. Tarleton’s horse was killed under him; and the men, thinking that their leader was dead, became mad. The Americans lost 14 officers and 99 men killed; 8 officers and 142 men wounded, 3 officers and 50 men prisoners, also 3 colours, 2 guns, and the whole of their baggage train. The British lost but 2 officers and 3 men killed, 1 officer (Lieutenant Patteshall of the Seventeenth) and 11 men wounded, and 40 horses. After this action, known as the engagement of Waxhaws, the Americans who were advancing from North Carolina at once retired; and Tarleton rejoined Cornwallis at Camden. South Carolina was now virtually cleared of American troops; and Cornwallis having established a few outlying posts to keep order, and left Lord Rawdon in command at Camden, returned to Charleston to take up the business of civil administration.

General Washington now detached 2000 men from the North to North Carolina, which nucleus being reinforced by 4000 more men from Virginia, entered South Carolina once more on the 27th July, and advanced along the line of the Upper Santee upon Camden. To the great disgust and disappointment of the British commander the whole country welcomed the arrival of the Americans with joy, and Cornwallis in great anxiety hastened up to Camden in person. General Gates with 6000 men was advancing in his front, General Sumpter with 1000 men was threatening his communications with Charleston in rear; 800 of the garrison of Camden were in hospital, and a bare 2000 men fit for service. Nevertheless Cornwallis decided rather to advance against Gates than to retreat upon Charleston; and accordingly marched at 10 P.M. on the 15th August, almost exactly at the time when Gates started down the same road to meet him. 16th Aug. At 2 A.M. the advanced parties of the two columns met, fortunately just at a point where Cornwallis had reached a good position, his flanks being secured by swampy ground, and the line of 1780. Gates’s advance narrowed by the same cause to a point which prevented deployment of his far superior force. Cornwallis drew up his little army in two lines, holding Tarleton’s cavalry in reserve in the rear. Even this small force of mounted men had been weakened by the recall of part of the Seventeenth to New York; but the regiment was nevertheless represented. Cornwallis took the initiative, and after an hour’s hard fighting broke up the Americans completely. Then Tarleton was let loose with his men of the Seventeenth and dragoons of the legion, who pursued the defeated army for twenty-two miles, capturing seven guns, the whole of the baggage, and a great number of prisoners. Cornwallis lost 345 men killed and wounded, nearly all of them from the infantry, while the Americans lost in killed, wounded, and prisoners, not far from 2000 men, a number equal to that of the whole British force engaged.

There still remained General Sumpter, with 1000 men well armed and equipped, on the south side of the Wateree (Upper Santee), who was now preparing to retreat to North Carolina. Tarleton with a mixed force of 350 men was at once sent across the river after him; but by noon on the day after the 17th Aug. battle his troops were so exhausted by fatigue and by the heat that he was forced to pick out 100 cavalry and 60 infantry, and proceed with these alone. After marching five miles further his advanced party came upon two American vedettes, who fired and killed one dragoon. But the shots caused no alarm in the American camp, for it was assumed that the American militiamen, according to their usual habit, were merely shooting at cattle. Tarleton’s men at once captured the vedettes, and moved on to a neighbouring height, from which on peering over the crest they discovered the Americans comfortably resting, without the least suspicion of danger, during the heat of the day. General Sumpter was not even dressed, so hot was the weather; and altogether Tarleton’s task, thanks to his own energy, was once more an easy one. The Americans were promptly attacked and dispersed with the loss of 150 killed and wounded, and 300 prisoners. 1780. Two guns, a great quantity of stores and ammunition, and 250 loyalist prisoners previously captured by Sumpter, also fell into Tarleton’s hands.

Emboldened by this success, Lord Cornwallis advanced into North Carolina, but owing to the destruction of one of his detachments was compelled to fall back once more into South Carolina, and thus, notwithstanding his victory at Camden, found himself in as bad a position as ever. In November the indefatigable Sumpter, undismayed by previous defeats, collected another force and again threatened the British communications between Camden and Charleston. Once again Tarleton was ordered to checkmate him; but this time fortune sided with Sumpter. Tarleton on receiving his instructions moved off with his usual swiftness, and interposing between Sumpter’s force and the line of retreat into North Carolina, was on the point of cutting him off before Sumpter had received the least warning of an enemy’s approach. Unluckily, however, a deserter betrayed Tarleton’s movements, and thus enabled Sumpter to get the start of him on his retreat. Tarleton none the less followed hard after him, and having overtaken his rear-guard, and cut it to pieces, hurried forward with a handful of 170 of the Seventeenth and legion cavalry, and 80 mounted infantry, to catch the main body before it could cross a rapid river, the Tyger, that barred its line of march. At 5 P.M. on the 20th November he finally overtook Sumpter at Blackstocks, and with his usual impetuosity attacked him forthwith. The American force was 1000 strong, skilfully posted on difficult ground, and sheltered by log huts. Tarleton’s men were beaten back from all points, and being very heavily punished, were forced to retire. But by chance Sumpter himself had been badly wounded; and the Americans, without a leader to hold them together, retreated and dispersed. Tarleton, therefore, although defeated, was successful in gaining his point, and received particular commendation for this action from Lord Cornwallis.

1780.

In December reinforcements from New York were sent to South Carolina, and among them a troop of the Seventeenth, which was added to Tarleton’s command for the forthcoming operations. Cornwallis designed to march once more into North Carolina. The Americans, true to their habitual tactics, resolved to keep him in the South by harassing his outlying posts, and to this end sent 1000 men under General Morgan across the Broad River to attack Lord Rawdon in the district known as “Ninety-six,” on the western frontier of South Carolina. Cornwallis replied to this by detaching Tarleton, with a mixed force of about 1000 men, to the north-west to cut off Morgan’s retreat. 1781. On the night of the 6th January, Tarleton, after a very fatiguing march, managed to get within six miles of Morgan, who retreated in a hurry, leaving his provisions half-cooked on the ground. 7th Jan. At three next morning Tarleton resumed the pursuit, and at 8 A.M. came up with the American force, disposed for action, at a place called the Cowpens. As usual Tarleton attacked without hesitation, in fact so quickly that he barely allowed time for his troops to take up their allotted positions. The 7th Foot and legion infantry formed his first line, flanked on each side by a troop of cavalry; the 71st Foot and remainder of the cavalry were held in reserve. The Americans were drawn up in two lines, whereof the first was easily broken, but the second stood firm and fought hard. Seeing that his infantry attack was failing, Tarleton ordered the troop of cavalry on the right flank to charge, which it duly did under a very heavy fire, but being unsupported, was driven back by Morgan’s cavalry with some loss. Tarleton then ordered up the 71st, which drove back the Americans brilliantly for a time, but being, like the rest of the British force, fatigued by the previous hours of hard marching, could not push the attack home. The Americans rallied and charged in their turn, and the British began to waver. Tarleton ordered his irregular cavalry to charge, but they would not move; and then the American cavalry came down upon the infantry, and all was confusion. 1781. “Where is now the boasting Tarleton?” shouted Colonel Washington, as he galloped down on the broken ranks. But the boasting Tarleton, who had driven Washington once to hide for his life in a swamp, and once to swim for his life across the Santee, was not quite done with yet. Amid all the confusion the troop of the Seventeenth rallied by itself, and with these, a mere 40 men, and 14 mounted officers who had formed on them, Tarleton made a desperate charge against the whole of Washington’s cavalry, hurled it back, and pressing on through them, cut to pieces the guard stationed over the captured English baggage. Cornet Patterson of the Seventeenth, maddened by Colonel Washington’s taunt, singled him out, and was shot dead by Washington’s orderly trumpeter. Lieutenant Nettles of the Seventeenth was wounded, and many troopers of the regiment likewise fell that day. The survivors of that charge were the only men that left the field with Tarleton that evening. The irregular cavalry was collected in the course of the following days; but the infantry men were cut down where they stood. Both the 7th and the 71st had done admirably throughout their previous engagements in the war, and felt that their detachments had not received fair treatment at Cowpens. The 71st, it is on record, never forgave Tarleton to the last.

In spite of his victory Morgan continued his retreat into North Carolina, Lord Cornwallis following hard at his heels, but sadly embarrassed by the loss of his light troops. Having been misled by false reports as to the difficulty of passing the rivers of North Carolina, Cornwallis marched into the extreme back country of the province so as to cross the waters at their head, and on the 1st February fought a brilliant little action to force the passage of the Catawba. At the close of the day Tarleton’s cavalry had an opportunity of taking revenge for Cowpens, and this time did not leave the Seventeenth to do all the work alone. From the Catawba Cornwallis pressed the pursuit of Morgan with increased energy, but failed, though only by a hair’s breadth, to overtake him. 1781. Nevertheless, by the time he had reached Hillsborough, the American troops had fairly evacuated North Carolina; and Cornwallis seized the opportunity to issue a proclamation summoning the loyalists of the province to the royal standard. The Americans replied by sending General Greene with a greatly augmented force back into Carolina. Thereupon the supposed loyalists at once joined Greene, who was thus able to press Cornwallis back to a position on the Deep River. On the 14th March, Cornwallis, always ready with bold measures, marched out with 2000 British to attack Greene with 7000 Americans, met him at a place called Guildford, and defeated him with heavy loss. The cavalry had no chance, though the Seventeenth was present at the action; but the British infantry was terribly punished: 542 men were killed and wounded in the fight; and Cornwallis thus weakened was obliged to retire slowly down the river to Wilmington, which he reached on the 7th April.

The memory of Cornwallis’s campaigns in the Carolinas has utterly perished. But although they issued ultimately in failure, they remain among the finest performances of the British rank and file. The march in pursuit of Morgan, which culminated in the action of Guildford and the retreat to Wilmington, alone covered 600 miles over a most difficult country. The men had no tents nor other protection against the climate, and very often no provisions. Day after day they had to ford large rivers and numberless creeks, which (to use Cornwallis’s own words), in any other country in the world would be reckoned large rivers. When, for instance, the Guards forced the passage of the Catawba, they had to ford a rapid stream waist-deep for five hundred yards under a heavy fire to which they were unable to reply. The cavalry on their part came in for some of the hardest of the work, being continually urged on and on to the front in pursuit of an enemy which they could sometimes overtake, but never force to fight; constantly engaged in petty skirmishes, losing a man here and a man there, but gaining little for their pains, and at each day’s close driven to their wits’ end to procure food for themselves and forage for their horses. 1782. By the time Cornwallis reached Wilmington the cavalry were about worn out with their work on the rear-guard, and, in Cornwallis’s words, were in want of everything. But not a man of the army complained, and all, by Cornwallis’s own testimony, showed exemplary patience and spirit. Meanwhile the Americans gave him no rest. No sooner was his back turned on South Carolina than they attacked his posts right and left, making particular efforts against Lord Rawdon at Camden. In fact, in spite of all the hard work done and the hardships endured with invincible patience by the British troops, the state of the country was worse than ever—armed parties of Americans everywhere and all communications cut. Cornwallis was painfully embarrassed by his situation. To re-enter South Carolina would be to admit that the operations of the past eighteen months had been fruitless. He decided that the best course for him was to continue his advance into Virginia, at the same time despatching messengers to warn Lord Rawdon that he must prepare to be hard beset.

Not one of these messengers ever reached Lord Rawdon. The perils of bearers of despatches at this time were such that they could only be conquered by more than ordinary devotion to duty. Fortunately an instance of such devotion has been preserved for us from the ranks of the Seventeenth. The case is that of a corporal, O’Lavery by name, who was especially selected to accompany a bearer of despatches on a dangerous and important mission. The two had not gone far before they were attacked, and both of them severely wounded. The man in charge of the despatch died on the road; the corporal took the packet from the dead man’s hand and rode on. Then he too dropped on the road from loss of blood, but sooner than suffer the papers to fall into the hands of the enemy, he concealed it by thrusting it into his wound. All night he lay where he fell, and on the following morning was found alive, but unable to do more than point to the ghastly hiding-place of the despatch. The wound thus maltreated proved to be mortal, and Corporal O’Lavery was soon past all human reward. But Lord Rawdon, unwilling that such gallant service should be forgotten, erected a monument to O’Lavery’s memory in his native County Down.

On the 25th of April Cornwallis, having refreshed his army, quitted Wilmington and marched northward to Petersburg, 20th May. where he effected a junction with two bodies, amounting together to 3600 men, which had been despatched to reinforce him from England and New York. With these he crossed the Appomattox in search of Lafayette, and pursued him for some way north, destroying all the enemy’s stores as he went. The Americans were now, in spite of their continued resistance in South Carolina, in a distressed and desponding position; but just at this critical moment their hopes were revived by intelligence of coming aid from France. Clinton having discovered this by interception of despatches, and learned further that an attack on New York was intended, recalled half of Cornwallis’s troops to his own command, and thus put an end to further operations in the South. It is significant that Clinton begs in particular for the return of the detachment of the Seventeenth; evidently he counted upon this regiment above others in critical times. Thus for the moment operations in the South came to a standstill and Cornwallis retired to Yorktown.

Meanwhile Washington had raised an army in Connecticut and marched down with it to his old position at Whiteplains, where he was joined by a French force of 6000 men which had occupied Rhode Island since June of the previous year. For more than a month Washington kept Clinton in perpetual fear of an attack, until at last he received intelligence that the expected French fleet under the Comte de Grasse was on its way to the Chesapeake. Then he suddenly marched with the whole army, French and American, to Philadelphia, and thence down the Elk River to the Chesapeake. De Grasse had been there with 24 ships and 3500 troops since the 30th, and had managed to keep his position against the British fleet of 19 ships under Admiral Graves. This brief command of the sea by the French virtually decided the war. 1782. Yorktown was invested on the 28th September, and on the 19th October Cornwallis was compelled to surrender. From that moment the war was practically over, though it was not until the 16th April 1783 that Washington received, from the hand of Captain Stapleton of the Seventeenth, the despatch that announced to him the final cessation of hostilities.

So ended the first war service of the 17th Light Dragoons. It will have been remarked that since 1779 little has been said of the headquarters of the regiment stationed at New York. The answer is that there is little or nothing to say, no operations of any importance having been undertaken in the North after the capture of Charleston. Yet it is certain that the duties of foraging, patrolling, and reconnaissance must have kept the men in New York perpetually engaged in trifling skirmishes and petty actions, whereof all record has naturally perished. A single anecdote of one such little affair has survived, and is worth insertion, as exemplifying from early days a distinctive trait of the regiment, viz. the decided ability of its non-commissioned officers when left in independent command. We shall find instances thereof all through the regiment’s history. Our present business is with Sergeant Thomas Tucker, who, when out patrolling one day with twelve men, came upon a small American post, promptly attacked it, and made the garrison, which, though not large, was larger than his own party, his prisoners. Tucker had accompanied the regiment from England as a volunteer; he went back with it to England as a cornet. Incidents of this kind must have been frequent round New York; and as seventeen men of the Seventeenth, exclusive of those taken at Yorktown, were prisoners in the hands of the Americans at the close of the war, there can be no doubt that the garrison duty in that city was not mere ordinary routine.

A few odd facts remain to be noted respecting the officers. The first of these, gleaned from General Clinton’s letter-book of 1780, is rather pathetic. It consists of a memorial to the King from the 17th Light Dragoons, setting forth “that they look upon themselves as particularly distinguished, by having been employed in the actual service of their country ever since the rebellion began in America. 1782. But its being the only regiment of Dragoons in this service, and their promotion being entirely confined to that line, they cannot but feel sensibly when they see every day promotion made over them of officers of inferior rank.” I cannot discover that the least notice was taken of this petition, hard though the case undoubtedly was; for many of these officers held high staff appointments in New York. Lieutenant-Colonel Birch was a local Brigadier-General, and towards the end of the war was actually in command at New York; but he seems to have gained little by it. On the other hand Captain Oliver Delancey made his fortune, professionally speaking, through his success as Clinton’s Adjutant-General from August 1781.

As to the detachments employed in the South enough has already been said. But it is worth while to correct the error into which other writers have fallen, that the men of the Seventeenth were not with Cornwallis in the campaign of North Carolina. The fact is rendered certain by the mention of twenty-five men in the melancholy roll of the capitulation of Yorktown, which twenty-five I take to be the remnant of the small body that was permanently attached to Tarleton’s legion. Moreover, it was not likely that Cornwallis, who was badly in want of light troops, would have left them to do garrison work with Rawdon. The loose expression “legion-cavalry” is so often used to cover the whole of the mounted force under Tarleton’s command, that it is frequently difficult to distinguish the detachment of the Seventeenth from the irregulars. But the men of that detachment were not willing to sink their individuality in the general body of legion dragoons. When their old regimental uniform was worn out they were offered the green uniform of the legion, but they would have none of it. They preferred to patch their own ragged and faded scarlet, and be men of the Seventeenth. Nor can we be surprised at it when we remember how the legion retired and left a handful of the Seventeenth to face the victorious Americans alone at Cowpens. This action gives a fair clue to the real seat of strength in Tarleton’s cavalry.

1782.

Lastly, it must be noted that, although the history of the American War is usually slurred over in consequence of its disastrous conclusion, yet to the rank and file of the British army there is far more ground therein for pride than for shame. British troops have never known harder times, harder work, nor harder fighting, than in the fifteen hundred miles of the march through the Carolinas. They were continually matched against heavy odds under disadvantageous conditions, yet they were almost uniformly victorious. The Americans fought and kept on fighting with indomitable courage and determination, but it was not the Americans but the French, and not so much the French army as the French fleet, that caused Cornwallis to capitulate at Yorktown.

G. Salisbury.

OFFICER, Review Order.   PRIVATE, Field-day Order.   CORPORAL, Marching Order.

1814.

CHAPTER VI
RETURN OF THE 17TH FROM AMERICA, 1783—IRELAND, 1793—EMBARKATION FOR THE WEST INDIES, 1795

1783.

In 1783 the Seventeenth embarked from New York and returned to Ireland, after an absence of eight years. I have failed to discover the exact date. 1784. The last muster in America is dated New York, 29th June 1783; the first in Ireland, Cork, 14th January 1784, which latter date must be approximately that of their arrival. This muster-roll at Cork is somewhat of a curiosity. Firstly, it is written on printed forms, the earliest instance thereof in the history of the Seventeenth; in the second place, it shows the regiment to be 327 men short of its proper strength, which is, to say the least of it, singular; and, lastly, it shows that every troop had lost exactly forty horses, no more and no less, cast and dead in America,—a coincidence which sets one wondering who may have been the person or persons that made money out of it. The regiment was now reduced to a peace establishment of 204 non-commissioned officers and men, and stationed at Mount Mellick, Maryborough, and other quarters in King’s and Queen’s Counties. It also received new clothing, and for the first time discarded the scarlet, which it had hitherto worn, for blue.

The new kit, which, saving regimental distinctions, was issued to the whole of the Light Dragoons, April. consisted of a blue jacket, with white collar and cuffs and the whole front laced with white cord, similar to the jackets now worn by the Horse Artillery. The shade of blue was dark for regiments serving at home, 1784. and French gray for regiments serving in India. The helmet also was altered to the new and seemingly very becoming pattern which is to be seen in so many old prints. The leather breeches remained the same, but the boots, for officers at any rate, were more in the Hessian style. A coloured picture published at the beginning of the century makes the new dress appear a very handsome one, in the case of the Seventeenth Light Dragoons—the combination of light blue, silver lace, and crimson sash, relieved by the black fur on the cap, being decidedly pleasing. Let us note that the Seventeenth still retained their mourning lace round the helmet, and the plume of scarlet and white. The badge, of course, appears both on helmet and sabre-tasche, though, if so small a point be worth notice, the skull is below and not above the cross-bones. Shoulder-belts continued to be of buff leather, but the sword-belt of 1784, henceforward worn round the waist, was black. It is painful to have to add that in this year, when the Light Dragoons were on the whole more becomingly and sensibly dressed than at any other period of their existence, the abomination known as the shako made its first appearance in the cavalry, being in fact the head-dress for field-day order. Though not yet quite so extravagantly hideous as it became under King George IV. it was sufficiently ugly—felt in material and black in colour, with white lace curling spirally around it, and a short red and white plume.

Of the life of the regiment during the nine ensuing years there is neither material nor, I think, occasion for an annual chronicle. Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel Birch still retained the command, and held it until 1794. The only one of the original officers that remained, Captain Robert Archdale, disappears from the regimental list after 1794, so that for two whole years Birch was the sole survivor.

Meanwhile these were troublous days for Ireland. In the course of the American War the country had been so far stripped of troops that, in the alarm of French invasion in 1779, corps of volunteers, to the nominal strength of 50,000 men, had been raised for purposes of defence. 1784. Unfortunately, however, these volunteers did not confine themselves to military matters. They were, in Mr. Froude’s words, armed politicians not under military law. As such they twice received the thanks of the Irish House of Commons for political services, and finally extorted the independence of the Irish Parliament in 1782. They then attempted to establish a Legislative Assembly side by side with the House of Commons, and virtually to dictate to it the government of the country, and this although the peace of 1783 had rendered their existence as a defending force wholly unnecessary. They were suppressed by a little firmness, and therewith their character changed. Hitherto, though supported in part by Catholic subscriptions, the volunteers had consisted of Protestants only—men of position and good character. These men now retired, and their arms fell into the hands of ruffians and bad characters of every description. At last in 1787 these volunteers, once the idol of Ireland, appeared to have ceased their existence, but it was only for a time.

The outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, with its cant words of liberty, equality, and fraternity, turned many heads all the world over, and nowhere more than in Ireland. The most significant symptom thereof was the foundation of the Society of United Irishmen by the rebel Wolfe Tone; whereof the main object was the propagation and adoption of revolutionary principles, and ultimately rebellion. 1792. In 1792 some of Tone’s associates formed two battalions of “National Guards,” which were to hold a great review on the 9th December, but having been informed that they would muster at their peril, very sensibly took care, after all, not to put in an appearance. This happened in Dublin. But at Belfast and in the North there was not less sympathy with the Jacobins and the extreme revolutionists of France, and in Ulster too there were “National Guards” of the same stamp.

1793.

The services of a regiment in aid of the civil power are so ungrateful that they are better left unrecorded, nor would allusion here be made to those of the Seventeenth but for the coincidence that they have found a place in history. For in the year 1786 began one of those periodic outbreaks of agrarian crime which have so often troubled Ireland, the perpetrators being what are now called moonlighters but were then known as whiteboys or defenders. Of the share taken by the Seventeenth in the suppression of these defenders it is best to say nothing, arduous though the work undoubtedly was. But it was a far more serious matter when, early in April 1793, the “National Guard” of Northern Republicans paraded in their green uniforms at Belfast, undeterred by the suppression of their brethren in Dublin. In March, General Whyte was sent down to compel their submission, the Seventeenth forming part of his force. He thereupon sent four troops of the regiment to disarm the “Guard” of these Republican volunteers. The rest of the story is best told in Mr. Froude’s own words:—

1793.

On the evening of the 9th March, a corporal and a private of the 17th, off duty, strolled out of the barracks into the city where they met a crowd of people round a fiddler who was playing Ça ira. They told the fiddler to play God save the King. The mob damned the King with all his dirty slaves, and threw a shower of stones at them. The two dragoons, joined by a dozen of their comrades, drew their sabres and “drove the town before them.” Patriot Belfast had decorated its shops with sign-boards representing Republican notables. The soldiers demolished Dumouriez, demolished Mirabeau, demolished the venerable Franklin. The patriots so brave in debate, so eloquent in banquet, ran before half a dozen Englishmen. A hundred and fifty volunteers came out, but retreated into the Exchange and barricaded themselves. The officers of the 17th came up before any one had been seriously hurt, and recalled the men to their quarters. In the morning General Whyte came in from Carrickfergus, went to the volunteer committee room, and said that unless the gentlemen in the Exchange came out and instantly dispersed, he would order the regiment under arms. They obeyed without a word. The dragoons received a reprimand, but not too severe, as the General felt that they had done more good than harm.[8]

1793.

Thus through two men of the Seventeenth the Irish volunteers were finally brought to an end. It must be remembered in defence of these two dragoons that their regiment had fought through the whole of the American War, which had failed mainly through the Alliance of the French with the Americans; and that it was a little hard on them, when at home, to hear abuse of the King whom they served, and witness the exaltation of French and American heroes. Moreover, in those days the Irish had injured so many soldiers by hamstringing them when peaceably walking in the streets that there was a deal of bad blood between the Irish and the Army.

In that same year began the great war with France which was destined to last, with only a few months intermission, for the next twenty years, and to be finally closed by the victory of Waterloo. The efforts of Mr. Pitt were early directed against the French possessions in the West Indies—a policy which, after having been for many years condemned, in deference to the verdict of Lord Macaulay, has lately been vindicated by a more competent and impartial authority, Captain Mahan of the United States Navy. The richest of the French West Indies was the Island of St. Domingo, which accordingly became one of Pitt’s first objects. Ever since 1790, when the revolutionary principles of Paris had first found their way thither, the island had been in a state of disturbance, which had culminated, partly through mismanagement and partly through wilful mischief, in a general rising of the negroes against the whites, accompanied by all the atrocities that inevitably attend a servile war and a war of colour. Of the white planters many took refuge in Jamaica, whence they pressed the British Government to take possession of St. Domingo, averring that all classes of the population would welcome British dominion, and that on the first appearance of a British force the Colony would surrender without a struggle. It was the story of the Carolinas repeated, and we shall see that the story had the same end.

1793.

St. Domingo, an island almost as large as Great Britain, in shape greatly resembles a human right hand cut off at the wrist, and with the thumb, second and third fingers doubled inwards; the wrist forming the eastern end, and two long promontories, represented by the little and first fingers, the western extremities. The French garrison in the island consisted of 6000 regular troops, 14,000 white militia, and 25,000 negroes. The British force first directed against it consisted of 870 rank and file, which with the help of a small squadron captured 19th Sept. and garrisoned the ports of Jeremie and Mole St. Nicholas, 22nd Sept. situated near the extremities of the south and north promontories respectively. These posts, as commanding the windward passage between St. Domingo and Cuba, were of considerable strategic importance to the Navy. From Jeremie an expedition was undertaken against Cape Tiburon, in reliance on the help of 500 friendly Frenchmen, whom a French planter undertook to raise for the purpose. Not 50 Frenchmen appeared, and the attack was a total failure. Then came the rainy season, and with it the yellow fever, which played havoc among the troops. Reinforcements being imperatively needed, more men were withdrawn from Jamaica to St. Domingo, whereby, as will presently appear, the safety of Jamaica was seriously compromised.

1794.

In the spring of 1794 the British succeeded in taking Tiburon and one or two more ports, and finally in June they effected the capture of Port au Prince. But the revolted negroes, under the command of a man of colour, Andrew Rigaud, showed plainly by an attack on the British post at Tiburon that they at any rate did not mean to accept British rule. And now yellow fever set in again with frightful severity. A small British reinforcement of 300 men lost 100 in the short passage between Guadeloupe and Jamaica, left 150 more dying at Jamaica, and arrived at Port au Prince with a bare 50 fit for duty. 1795. Then Rigaud again became active, and on 28th December succeeded in recapturing Tiburon, after the British had lost 300 men out of 480.

When the news of all these calamities arrived in England, it was resolved that four regiments of Light Cavalry should be sent dismounted to St. Domingo in August, and that meanwhile detachments amounting to eight troops of the 13th, 17th and 18th Light Dragoons should be despatched to Jamaica forthwith. These last were, if required by the General, to be sent on to St. Domingo; and as the General required them very badly, being able to raise only 500 men fit for duty out of seven regiments, he lost no time in asking for them.

The detachments, including that from the Seventeenth, were accordingly shipped off, when or from whence I have been unable to discover. As little is known of the life on a transport in those days, it may be worth while to put down here such few details as I have succeeded in collecting. In the first place, then, hired transports seem generally to have been thoroughly bad ships. That they should have been small was unavoidable; but they seem as a rule to have been in every respect bad, and by no means invariably seaworthy. Those who have seen in the naval despatches of those days the extraordinary difficulty that was found in keeping even men-of-war clean, and the foul diseases that were rampant in the fleet through the jobbery and mismanagement of the Admiralty, will not be inclined to expect much of the hired transports. Let us then imagine the men brought on board a ship full of foul smells from bad stores and bilge-water, and then proceed to a brief sketch of the regulations.

The first regulation is that the ship is to be frequently fumigated with brimstone, sawdust, or wet gunpowder—no doubt to overcome the pervading stench. Such fumigation was to begin at 7 A.M., when the berths were brought up and aired, and be repeated if possible after each meal. Moreover, lest the free circulation of air should be impeded unnecessarily, it was ordained that married couples should not be allowed to hang up blankets, to make them separate berths, all over the ship, but in certain places only. 1795. The men were to be divided into three watches, one of which was always to be on deck; and in fine weather every man was to be on deck all day, and kept in health and strength by shot drill. For the rest the men were required to wash their feet every morning in two tubs of salt water placed in the forecastle for the purpose, to comb their heads every morning with a small tooth comb, to shave, to wash all over, and to put on a clean shirt at least twice a week.

At the very best the prospects of a voyage to the West Indies a century ago could not have been pleasant; but the experience of these unfortunate detachments of dragoons seems to have been appalling. After a terrible passage, in which some ships were cast away, and all were seriously battered, a certain number of transports arrived in July at Jamaica, and among them those containing two troops of the Seventeenth. Jamaica not being their destination, they were told that their arrival was an unfortunate blunder, and packed off again to St. Domingo. Think of the feelings of those unhappy men at being bandied about in such a fashion. They had not sailed clear of the Jamaican coast, however, when they were hastily recalled. The Maroons had broken out into rebellion; and the “unfortunate blunder” which brought the Seventeenth to Jamaica was fated to prove a piece of great good luck to the island and a cause of distinction to the regiment. But something must first be said of the story of the Maroons themselves.

CHAPTER VII
THE MAROON WAR IN JAMAICA, 1795

1795.

The year 1795, as will presently be told when we speak of the services of the Seventeenth in Grenada, was marked by a simultaneous revolt of almost all the possessions of the British in the West Indies. Amid all this trouble the large and important island of Jamaica remained untouched. This was remarkable, for from its wealth it offered a tempting prey to the French, and, from its proximity to St. Domingo, it was easy of access to French agents of sedition and revolt, who could pass into it without suspicion among the hundreds of refugees that had fled from that unhappy island. Moreover, the garrison had been reduced to great weakness by the constant drain of reinforcements for St. Domingo. Still, in spite of some awkward symptoms, the Jamaica planters remained careless and supine; and no one but the governor, Lord Balcarres, a veteran of the American War, felt the slightest anxiety. Such was the state of affairs when the squadron of the Seventeenth arrived at Port Royal in July, and was sent on board ship again. Three days later the Maroons were up in rebellion.

The history of these Maroons is curious, and must be told at some length if the relation of the war is to be rightly understood. Jamaica was originally gained for the English by an expedition despatched by Cromwell in 1655; but it was not until 1658 that the Spaniards, after a last vain struggle to expel the British garrison, were finally driven from the island. On their departure their slaves fled to the mountains, and there for some years they lived by the massacre and plunder of British settlers. 1795. They seem to have scattered themselves over a large extent of country, and to have kept themselves in at least two distinct bodies, those in the north holding no communication with those in the south. These latter, in their district of Clarendon, being disagreeably near the seat of Government, the British authorities contrived to conciliate and disperse; but their fastnesses had not long been deserted by the Maroons when they were occupied (1690) by a band of revolted slaves. These last soon became extremely formidable and troublesome, their ravages compelling the planters to convert every estate-building into a fortress; and at last the burden of this brigandage became so insupportable that the Government determined to put it down with a strong hand.

At the outset the attacks of the whites on these marauding gangs met with some success; but soon came a new departure. A man of genius arose from among these revolted slaves, one Cudjoe by name, by whose efforts the various wandering bands were welded into a single body, organised on a quasi-military footing, and made twice as formidable as before. Nor was this all. The Maroons of the north, who from the beginning had never left their strongholds nor ceased their depredations, heard the fame of Cudjoe, joined him in large numbers, and enlisted under his banner. Yet another tribe of negroes, distinct in race from both the others, likewise flocked to him; and the whole mass thus united by his genius grew, about the year 1730, to be comprehended, though inaccurately, by the whites under the name of Maroons (hog-hunters). Cudjoe now introduced a very skilful and successful system of warfare, which became traditional among all Maroon chiefs. The grand object was to take up a central position in a “cockpit,” i.e. a glen enclosed by perpendicular rocks, and accessible only through a narrow defile. A chain of such cockpits runs through the mountains from east to west, communicating by more or less practicable passes one with another. These glens run also in parallel lines from north to south, but the sides are so steep as to be impassable to any but a Maroon. 1795. Such were the natural fortresses of these black mountaineers, in a country known to none but themselves. To preserve communication among themselves they had contrived a system of horn-signals so perfect that there was a distinct call by which every individual man could be hailed and summoned. The outlets from these cockpits were so few that the white men could always find a well-beaten track which led them to the mouth of a defile; but beyond the mouth they could not go. A deep fissure, from two hundred to eight hundred yards long, and impassable except in single file, was easily guarded. Warned by the horns of the scouts that an enemy was approaching, the Maroons hid themselves in ambush behind rocks and trees, selected each his man, shot him down, and then vanished to some fresh position. Turn whither he might, the unlucky pursuer was met always by a fresh volley from an invisible foe, who never fired in vain.

Nevertheless the white men were sufficiently persistent in their pursuit of Cudjoe to force him to abandon the Clarendon district; but this only made matters worse, inasmuch as it drove him to an impregnable fastness, whence there was no hope of dislodging him, in the Trelawney district farther to the north-west. This cockpit contained seven acres of fertile land and a spring of water. Its entrance was a defile half a mile long; its rear was barred by a succession of other cockpits, its flanks protected by lofty precipices. Here Cudjoe made his headquarters and laughed at the white men. The Maroons lived in indolent savagery while their provisions lasted, and in active brigandage when their wants forced them to go and plunder. They were fond of blood and barbarity, as is the nature of savages, and never spared a prisoner, black or white. After nine or ten years of successful warfare Cudjoe fairly compelled the whites to make terms with him; and accordingly, in the year 1738, a solemn treaty was concluded between Captains Cudjoe, Johnny, Accompong, Cuffee, Quaco, and the Maroons of Trelawney town on the one part, and George the Second, by the Grace of God King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, and of Jamaica Lord, on the other. 1795. The terms of the treaty granted the Maroons amnesty, fifteen hundred acres of land, and certain hunting rights; also absolute freedom, independence, and self-government among themselves—the jurisdiction of the chiefs being limited only in respect of the penalty of death, and of disputes in which a white man was concerned. On their part the Maroons undertook to give up runaway slaves, to aid the king against all enemies, domestic and foreign, and to admit two white residents to live with them perpetually. A similar treaty was concluded with another body of Maroons that had not followed Cudjoe to Trelawney from the windward end of the island; and thus the Maroon question for the present was settled.

From 1738 till 1795 Maroons gave little or no trouble. They remained dispersed in five settlements, three of them to windward, but the two of most importance to leeward, in Trelawney district. They lived in a state midway between civilisation and barbarism, retaining the religion—a religion without worship or ceremony—which their fathers had brought from Africa, cultivating their provision grounds regularly, if in rather a primitive fashion, breeding horses, cattle, and fowls, hunting wild swine and fugitive slaves, and conducting themselves generally in a harmless and not unprofitable manner. Their vices were those of the white man, drinking and gambling, which of course gave rise to quarrels; but they were ruled with a strong hand by their chiefs, and kept well within bounds. Owing to the climate in which they lived, some thousands of feet above the sea, and the free, active life which they led, they were physically a splendid race—tall and muscular, and far superior to the negro slaves whom, from this cause as well as in virtue of their own freedom, they held in great contempt. Moreover, the fact that they were employed to hunt down runaway slaves helped greatly to make them friendly to the whites and hostile to the blacks. In fact they held an untenable position, being bound to the whites by treaty, and fighting in alliance with them both against insurgent negroes, as in 1760, and white invaders, as in 1779–80, and yet bound by affinity of race and colour to the very negroes that they helped to keep in servitude. 1795. Meanwhile they grew rapidly in numbers and consideration. Certain restrictions to which they had been subjected by Acts of the Jamaica Assembly at the time of the treaty fell into disuse, and became a dead letter. They began to leave their own district and wander at large about the plantations, making love to the female slaves, becoming fathers of many children by them, and thus gradually breaking down the barrier between themselves and their fellow-blacks. Simultaneously the internal discipline of the Maroons became seriously relaxed. Cudjoe and his immediate successors had ruled them with a rod of iron; but at a distance of two generations the authority of the chiefs, though they still bore the titles of Colonel and Captain, had sunk to a mere name. For a time the Colonel’s power in Trelawney was transferred to one of the white residents, a Major James, who had been brought up among the Maroons, could beat the best of them at their feats of activity and skill, and was considered to be almost one of themselves. Of great physical strength and utterly fearless, he would interpose in the thick of a Maroon quarrel, heedless of the whirling cutlasses, knock down those that withstood him, and clap the rebellious in irons without a moment’s hesitation. Naturally so strong a man was a great favourite with the Maroons, who, while he remained among them, were kept well in hand. But it so happened that James succeeded to the possession of an estate which obliged him to spend most of his time away from the Maroon town; and as a resident who does not reside could be satisfactory neither to his subjects at Trelawney nor his masters at Kingston, he was deprived of his post. He, rather unreasonably, felt himself much aggrieved by the Government in consequence; and the Maroons, who had been annoyed at his former neglect, became positively angry at his involuntary removal. In plain truth, the Maroons through indiscipline had got what is called “above themselves,” and were ripe for any mischief.

1795.

It was not long before matters came to a crisis. The new resident appointed in place of James, though in character irreproachable, was not a man to dominate the Maroons by personal ascendancy and courage. A trifling dispute sprang up in the middle of July; the Trelawney Maroons drove him from the town, and on the 18th sent a message to the magistrates to say that they desired nothing but battle, and that if the white men would not come to them and make terms, then they would come down to the white men. With that they called in all their people, and sent the women into the bush—nay, report said that they proposed to kill their cattle and also such of their children as were likely to prove an encumbrance to them.

Lord Balcarres, when the news reached him, was not a little troubled. At ordinary times it might have been politic to temporise and conciliate, but now that the greater number of the islands were aflame such policy seemed impossible. Here was a race of black men in insurrection, who had successfully resisted the whites two generations before, and now held an independent position in virtue of a solemn treaty. The bare existence of such a community was a standing menace at such a time. There was evidence that French agents were at work in Jamaica; and it was remarkable that just at this time the negroes on nine plantations, where the managers were known to be men of unusual clemency, showed symptoms of unrest and discontent. It is evident from Balcarres’s despatches that he had negro insurrection, so to speak, on the brain, and it is certain that he was ambitious of military glory; but he cannot be blamed at such a time for acting forcibly and swiftly. For a fortnight endeavours were made to smoothe matters over, and with some slight success, for six of the chiefs surrendered. But the main body still held aloof; and Balcarres without further ado proclaimed martial law. He took pains to obtain information as to every path and track that led into the Maroon district, his plan being to seize these and thus blockade the whole of it, though he admits that it would be a difficult manœuvre to do so effectually “on a circle of forty square miles of the most difficult and mountainous country in the universe.” 1795. On the 9th August the preparations were complete, and the passes were seized; whereupon thirty-eight of the older and less warlike Maroons surrendered, and were carried away under a guard and kept in strict confinement. Seeing this the remainder at once set fire to their towns (the old and the new town, as the two groups of shanties half a mile apart were named), an action which was not misinterpreted as “a signal of inveterate violence and hostility.” It was now clear that the matter would have to be fought out.

The force at Balcarres’s disposal was not great. The garrison consisted of the 16th and 62nd Foot, both so weak as to number but 150 men apiece fit for duty, and the 20th or Jamaica Light Dragoons. Besides these there were the stray detachments of the 13th, 14th, 17th, and 18th Light Dragoons, and of the 83rd Foot, some of them very weak, and probably amounting in all to little more than 400 men. Also there was a fair force of local militia, with several local Major-Generals. The Maroons of Trelawney numbered 660 men, women, and children; and there were at least as many more in the other Maroon settlements, which latter, though they never rose, were greatly distrusted by the Governor. Balcarres resolved to surround the whole of the Trelawney Maroon district, and made his dispositions thus:—Colonel Sandford, with the 16th Foot and 20th Dragoons, covered one outlet to the north; Colonel Hull, with 170 men of the 62nd Foot and of the Seventeenth, another; Colonel Walpole, with 150 of the 13th and 14th Dragoons, barred one approach from the south; and Balcarres himself, with the 83rd, took post to the south-west. The Seventeenth was represented by one troop only, the other being on board ship on its way to St. Domingo.

On the 12th August the Maroons opened the war by attacking a militia post, and killing and wounding a few men. On the same day Lord Balcarres ordered Colonel Sandford to attack and carry the new town from his side, and having done so, to halt and cut off the retreat of the Maroons, while he himself attacked the old town from his own side. 1795. Off started Colonel Sandford, accordingly, with forty-five of the 18th Dragoons, mounted, a body of militia infantry, and a number of volunteers—the latter men of property in the country, and “all generals,” as Balcarres sarcastically remarked. In spite of the steepness and difficulty of the ground the little column advanced rapidly with great keenness. 12th Aug. The Maroons on their approach quietly evacuated the site of the new town, and withdrew into a deep defile, three-quarters of a mile long, which formed their communication with the old town. Presently up came Sandford, and to his great joy carried the new town without opposition. Flushed with success he started off, in disobedience to orders, to take the old town, pressing on with his mounted men, dragoons, and volunteers, at such a pace that the militia could not keep up with him. Thus hurrying into the trap laid for him, he plunged into the defile. The column, which was half as long as the defile, had passed two-thirds of the way through it, when a tremendous volley was poured into its whole length. Not a Maroon was to be seen, and the column continued its advance. A second volley followed: Colonel Sandford fell dead; and then the column began to run. The officer of the 18th, seeing that retreat through the defile would be fatal, dashed straight forward at a small party of Maroons which he saw ahead, broke through them, and galloping headlong through a breakneck country, brought the remains of his detachment safely to Lord Balcarres’s camp. Two officers and thirty-five men were killed, and many more wounded in this little affair; and the militia (who had not been under fire) were so far demoralised that they evacuated the new town and retired. That night (though Balcarres knew it not) every Maroon warrior got blind drunk. Sixty of them were so helpless even on the following afternoon that they had to be carried into the cockpit by the women.

1795.

Though the Seventeenth was not engaged in this affair, it has been necessary to describe it at length in order to show how formidable an enemy these Maroons were. 14th Aug. Two days after the engagement the second troop of the regiment was disembarked from the transport in Montego Bay, and moved up to the front. British dragoons have rarely been better mounted than these detachments in Jamaica. The island is famous for its horses; and every trooper rode a thoroughbred.