Moreau De Jonnes in the West Indies (1795)(Part 2)

A. Moreau De Jonnes--Adventures in Wars
CHAPTER 7--1795: VICTOR HUGUES-HURRICANE AT ST. VINCENT-WRECK OF ENGLISH FRIGATE

All was lost in the West lndies. The ascendancy of
England had prevailed over that of France. Our colonies
of Martinique, St. Lucia, and Guadeloupe had been captured,
and there remained to us not a single rock from which to
display the tricolor. In the midst of this sad state of
affairs Victor Hugues, Commissary of the Convention, '
arrived. He was a man of indifferent appearance, of a
vulgar manner, and badly educated, but with a mind full
of resource and character full of energy and audacity. He
struggled against the enemy with a skill, courage, and good
luck possessed by none before or after him.

Having set out from France to relieve Guadeloupe, he
learnt on making landfall that the island capitulated a
fortnight earlier. instead of turning back, as others had
done in similar cases, he led his expedition to the port of
Moule, situated to windward of Grande Terre, which had
never been regarded as a landing-place, and therefore was
weakly defended. He quickly led his troops across the
island, and carried by assault the fort Fleur-d'Epée, which
covers the town of Pointe-à-pitre. Fort St. Louis was
evacuated by the English commander, as it was overlooked
by the other citadel and unable to offer resistance. This
officer concentrated his troops on La Basse Terre, a mountainous
volcanic island separated from La Grande Terre
by a narrow channel. By this bold action Victor Hugues
found himself master of the greater part of the colony and
of its chief town and principal commercial harbor. The
enemy, learning that he had effected this smart military
operation with a handful of stalwarts, brought in two
frigates and some transports, resolved to retake the place.
On the dark night of the end if July Admiral Jervis steered
to Pointe-à-pitre ships carrying troops, which he succeeded
in quietly landing on a deserted part of the inner harbor.

The English soldiers formed m mass of closed platoons
and entered the town which was undefended on the land
side. Two small posts en route were seized and silenced.
The column penetrated to the heart of the city, and feeling .
sure of victory, with arms at the support and at a walk,
entered the main street in order to seize the fort at its .
extremity opposite the church. This post consisted only
of a circular battery of heavy guns placed on a small hill
scarped round half its circumference, badly designed and
poorly defended by a garrison sound asleep among the
guns. It was two o'clock in the morning when a young
Carib girl with flying hair and a musket on her shoulder
rushed into the battery shouting, "Stand to arms! The
enemy is in the town!" At the same time she dashed at
the gun which enfiladed the main street, threw back the
plate covering the priming, and lit it by firing her piece
into it. The 24-pound shot struck the head of the English
column, and tore down its whole length with terrible effect
The gunners, aroused be the report, Dashed to their own
pieces, and carried on a lively fire from the battery, jealous
of the example set by the young heroine. The enemy.
staggered at his losses, fell back in disorder, leaving behind
him dead and wounded to the number of 1000 ; meanwhile
the reserves and most of the inhabitants of the town had
time to occupy the side streets and to pour a deadly fire
into the flanks of the column. The English troops which
escaped the artillery and musketry fire had great difficulty
in regaining their ships, after loss of their best troops and
of the military reputation acquired by their easy successes.
Victor Hugues, becoming thus possessed of the Isle of
Grande Terre, sought out the enemy in Guadeloupe proper,
where he was concentrated. In the early days of October
the camp of Barville, where General Graham was entrenched,
was briskly attacked- by our troops and forced to capitulate.
Its commander and thirty-two officers and six
ensigns were taken and sent to France by the Andromache
frigate. The whole island was soon restored to France
through capture of the other English posts, and the
Commissary of the Convention had the glory of reconquering
an important colony with a force inferior by half to that '
over which it triumphed.

Directly his authority was established, he turned his
thoughts towards the English West lndies, seeking to
prevent them from attacking by a vigorous offensive. With
this object, in the first place he made use of privateers,
who increased in numbers under his encouragement, and
became a scourge to the commerce and provisioning of
enemy establishments. Further, he took advantage of the
national hatred that the Caribs bore to the English, and the
aggressive schemes that they cherished against the colonists
of St. Vincent, their neighbors and despoilers. In the
midst of these occurrences I arrived at Pointe-à-pitre. A
rich shipowner, M. Mei, the consignee of the privateer
Le Vengeur, awaited the arrival of the schooner and received
me as a friend. The same evening he presented me to
the proconsul, who asked me a thousand questions about
St. Vincent. No doubt my answers satisfied him, for the
next day, under powers held by him from the Convention, he
appointed me lieutenant of marine artillery. Twenty-four
hours later 1 had received my instructions. My schooner
was laden with munitions of war; two 4-pounder guns were
embarked on the Carib dug-outs, and I set sail with ten
marine gunners, to be followed by a whole company. I
was given as pilot a savage, who brought with him another
for passage to Martinique. 1 did not want to take the
latter, as it seemed a risk to let him go on an island which
was headquarters of both land and sea forces of the English ;
but the pilot assured me, as seriously as if he had been a
sailor from the Gironde, that with a craft such as mine ;
and such a guide as himself we could pass with impunity
within gunshot of an English three-decker. 1 was not
entirely convinced as to the truth of this assertion. A11
the same, I agreed to receive the passenger. He was an
old man, still active and strong. He spoke French with
intelligence, and throughout the voyage he never stopped
telling me about men and things he had seen. He loved .
above everything his own Island of St. Vincent, the pearl
of the Antilles. as he said, and told me of its five wonders:
The Black Forest at the foot of the highest volcano, which
one cannot traverse without being terrified by weird apparitions
; the Lake, in which dwell the Spirits of the waters;
the Dragon with a huge emerald in his head; the siren or
mermaid Balane, as beautiful to look on as she is dangerous
to know; finally, the Cavern of Death. These same fables
circulate round the world, or more probably have an
independent origin everywhere in the spontaneous imaginations
of diverse races of man. When I tried to find out what the
old man was going to do in an enemy island he displayed
a nebulous vagueness. I was led to believe that he was
charged with a difficult political mission when he explained
to me how custom forbade servants to talk about their
masters, and particularly about the ladies of their family;
but as affection and devotion delight in praise of the objects
of their worship, as he knew of the friendship which the
chief of the Red tribe felt for me, he could not desist from
singing the praises of the chief's daughter. Her fame was
already known to me as the heroine of Victory Hill, the
savior of the town of Pointe-à-pitre. She had rendered
many such services to the inhabitants of Guadeloupe and
Martinique. She often visited the latter isle, where she
had been brought up in the nunnery at St. Pierre. Her
only brother had died in a fight with the English, and, her
mother being dead, she was the only object of love and
consolation left to her father. Compelled to recognize the
superiority of white men the Red chief wished his daughter
to grasp their ideas in order to use them for the good and
safety of his race. This plan had succeeded completely.
Education had grafted its powerful advantages on to the
strong qualities of a savage nature, and the Caribs recognized
that she had as much wisdom in the councils of the
Grand Lodge as she had bravery and skill in war.

Her name was Eliama, which signifies rainbow. Strange
that the natural phenomenon denoted by this word signifies,
alike to Carib and ancient Jew, the hope of a better time.
The old man had been her servant, and I landed him at the
Foot of the Maconba steps. They are cut out of the solid
volcanic rock which lines the coast, and form a convenient
and ingeniously constructed landing-stage. The schooner
put to sea again, and instead of holding her course, passing
to windward of the islands, at daybreak she entered under
full sail into the channel leading between Dominica and
Martinique to the Equatorial Ocean. At first she kept along
the steep coasts of the latter, but passed well outside the
harbors of St. Pierre and Fort Royal, where I could
distinguish the tall masts of English men-of-war. We were
not disturbed, the lookouts having signaled us, thanks to
our flag, as a St. Vincent sloop. l steered without any
mishap for the Cabesterre, and soon found myself in the
haven, surrounded by my friendly Caribs, who were delighted
to See me.

At night 1 landed the munitions and had them carried to
a cave easy of access. In the morning the two field-guns
arrived, and 1 was ready for the signal to march against
the enemy. My departure was delayed by causes which
postponed the opening of the campaign for many months.
It was then mid-winter, the season of storms. The harbor
where the schooner lay was infested by mosquitoes, and
the air was very stagnant. The grand chief Pakiri, attentive
to our comfort, gave me for my gunners a fresh and breezy
cave, and for myself a hut near his dwelling in the low hills.
It was a lovely spot, surrounded by bright flowers, watered
by a stream, and had been the residence of his daughter.

I was not alone ; at the end of my conference with the
Red and Black Caribs I found I had for company a little
girl of ten and a spaniel. When 1 wished to know who she
was she answered in good French that she was lady's-maid
to Mademoiselle. Her name was Zami, and she had spent
a year at the convent of St. Pierre with Eliama. Early
in the morning of the 4th of September I saw the faithful
dog run in. It was very much frightened, and tried to
hide in my clothes. Zami, who followed him, said that as
usual he had been waiting for his mistress on the beach;
but after sniffing as if to find out if she were coming, he
had suddenly taken fright and run away. 1 asked if he
could have seen anything in the sea to produce this effect.
The child had seen nothing, except that the water of the
port seemed higher and rougher than usual, although the
weather was perfectly calm. Without attaching much
importance to this event, I followed my habit of neglecting
nothing, and went off to the chief . I found him on an
isolated hillock some way from his abode. He was trying
a weather experiment which for a savage seemed very
ingenious. He wanted to learn the way the wind blew,
but as it was dead calm his search seemed rather guesswork.
He lit a bundle of green wood, which gave a thick smoke;
this rose vertically, until it reached the higher atmosphere,
when it bent towards the north and was flattened down by
a current from the south. Pakiri was much alarmed at
this, and took steps to mitigate the effects of a hurricane
which was about to burst over us.

If this wind sign had not sufficed to foretell a hurricane,
a crowd of other phenomena would soon have stilled any
doubt. Besides the spaniel, many other animals showed
that they felt its influence, which terrified them. High-
flying birds came down and lit on the Caribs huts ; enormous
bats, screech-owls as big as geese, iguanas as long as
crocodiles, came forth from the rocks and tried to seek
shelter in the hamlet. A monster dog-headed snake took refuge
in my house and refused to budge. Yellow-fleeced goats,
like antelopes or hinds, galloped down from the mountain
pastures, and came bleating under cover of the council-hall.
For a moment I thought that a pack of wolves had run for
lodging in our midst. They were huge greyhounds, of a
grey-black color, with long muzzle and blood-shot eye,
of the same strain as the Spaniards formerly employed in
St. Domingo to follow the natives in the woods. The
Caribs had imported them and put them to watch the
mountain passes which led to the English territory. These
hardy sentries had been seized with fear, and had deserted
their posts.

Still, as yet there was not a breath of wind, but gradually
a fear-inspiring gloom spread abroad. The sea rose and
bubbled like water boiling in a caldron. It had changed
its temperature and its level; in place of being cooler than
the air, it was much warmer, like the water of a hot spring.
its surface rose under an unknown pressure, and its waters,
bursting their bounds, flooded the harbor and flowed up
the bed of the rivers, driving back the streams. Porpoises,
dories, bonitos, and shoals of other fish, could be seen
rushing from the open sea and gaining shelter between the
rocks of the coast, to escape from a danger which they
could foresee, but which man, with his dim powers of
perception, could not recognize.

A surf, rising from the bottom of the sea, tore up huge
ocean seaweeds, wrenched shell-fish and molluscs from their
rocks, drove from their submarine lairs huge crustaceans, and ,
forced along in a tangled mass all these creatures that had
never before been on the shore. Above all, the atmosphere
displayed phenomena prophetic of the coming storm. In
rising, the sun had shone brightly in a clear sky, but at
midday it was veiled by mists which entirely changed its
look. It was devoid of rays like the moon; its disc had the
dull red look of a dying furnace. The light of day gradually
dwindled, becoming pale, shadowy, and flickering as in a
total eclipse; then a curtain of dark clouds covered the
sky, at the same time as a mist, from the Gulf of Mexico,
rose in mid-air and blotted out the horizon. Up to then
an extraordinary dead calm, almost unknown in these
islands, had prevailed. Leaves of trees hung down the
branches without movement. You would have thought
that life was ebbing away from the plants, and that they,
like men, were seized with a mortal asphyxia due to the
stifling heat.

We were roused from torpor by a long rumble from under
the sea ; it announced the approach of danger, and raised
an outcry of fear from the crowd. It was a raging tidal
wave coming from the west, moving on a broad front
through the narrow channels between the islands; launched
by an unknown force, it overwhelmed their waters, filled
them with a boiling sea, and formed on their surface a
current opposite to their normal currents. Behind this
great oceanic eddy roared the wind of the tempest. As
soon as it reached the cloud which hid the sea from our '
eyes, it tore it from top to bottom, and, through a peep-hole
suddenly opened in the mass of vapor, we were astonished
to see a man-of-war, a frigate, which was hugging
the coast of the island, trying under cover of its rocks to
reach the promontory of the Soufrière, double it, and
enter the port of Kingstown. It was a dangerous under-
taking, but might succeed, and the people, anxiously
following every maneuver of the vessel, began to think that
it would escape the double dangers of the storm and the
basalt rocks, when unexpectedly the frigate, which was
sailing almost on her beam ends, for some reason of which
we had no idea, ran up into the wind, broached to, and
was taken aback. She was then only two cable lengths
from the shore, but in the short time which elapsed between
the backward drag of her sails and the fall of her masts
We received such a powerful impulse that she covered this
space and dashed on to the pointed rocks of the shore.
Directly after this the towering waters of the tidal wave
hurled themselves on her; sometimes they broke on the
deck and tore off the sailors, dragging them with their
ebb into the abyss; sometimes they passed under the keel,
raising the vessel, only to let her drop on to the rocky
points ; they demolished the planking and allowed so much
water to enter the hold through great breaches that she
would have foundered without the support of the rock
on which she rested.

The Carib population gathered along the coast and
followed with keen eye all the acts of this terrible wreck.
Immediately after realizing at daybreak the portents of
the coming hurricane, the chief had given the signal of
alarm, which, repeated from village to village, from
mountain to mountain, had informed every family of the
approaching danger. The great advantage possessed by
the savages over the colonists is that, warned in advance
by their observations of a coming storm, they can mitigate
its effects, whilst in the islands occupied by Europeans the
population is constantly caught unprepared.

When all proper precautions had been taken the crowd
returned to the sea-coast to judge the extent of the danger.
The Black Caribs stayed in their huts, but sent to know if
their services were required.

Pakiri and I established ourselves on a promontory
formed by an ancient stream of lava, on the north of the
island, projecting into the Straits of St. Lucia. We were
obliged to crawl in order to reach the shelter of the blocks
of lava, and without them it would have been impossible
for us to stay there.

The violence of the storm continued to increase ; it had . '
already blown down huts, scattered the maize harvest,
torn up the manioc, beaten the bananas to the earth, and
laid flat numbers of trees on the hills. It was then that
the cloud had opened, and we could see the ship driving
towards us. The chief at once recognized her as an English
frigate trying to enter the port of Kingstown, doubtless
with the mission of landing troops and munitions for the
invasion of the Carib territory.

A moment previous to the catastrophe of her foundering
on the rocks l discovered in her after-rigging first one and
then another person who seemed to me to be Caribs. Neither
Pakiri nor I could be sure about them, or if they had not
been washed into the sea. An artilleryman who had
followed us and had a better point of view a little below
us called to me, and pointed out two black heads which
showed sometimes above the waves, but more often were
overwhelmed. One glance was enough for Pakiri. "it is
my daughter", he cried, and in a transport of despair added,
"Be true and devoted to us; if l perish, do not abandon
my brethren in their misfortune." He waited not for my
answer, but flung himself into the foam of a retreating
wave and reached open water, either to. save his beloved
daughter or perish with her. Ten times when they paused
to gain breath I thought they were exhausted, and the
first ray of hope was due to the success with which they
rounded the rocky point of the promontory and kept
beyond its terrible breakers.

At this moment the scene was suddenly closed. The
storm clouds which had lowered to the middle region of the
hills burst over our heads, and let loose a veritable flood,
blotting out everything. Each drop was at least 2 inches
in diameter, and made in falling as much noise as the
heaviest hail. Lightning blazed from ten points of the
compass, and lighted up the angular furrows of the clouds,
which now reached down to earth. Electric sparks moved
all around us, and the volcano of the Soufrière, answering
the peals of thunder, muttered its subterranean grumblings.

Thrice the earth shook. l thought the whole island was
about to be engulfed in the ocean. This crisis was the end
of Nature's convulsions; the rain had the happy effect of
calming the waves, of weakening and dissipating the clouds, ,
and clearing the air of the vapors with which it had been
charged. Daylight reappeared. The violent swell which
rendered landing impossible diminished quickly and enabled
the number of Caribs who had plunged into the sea to save
their chief and his daughter to approach the shore with
them. They sheltered them with their bodies, gave them
means of support, and succeeded in bringing them safely
on to the sand of the shore.

Eliama was carefully attended to by Carib women,
wrapped in cotton bands covered in with rugs of woven
palm-thread, and was soon able to tell her adventure.
She had left Martinique with her old attendant in a
canoe, which had been stopped by the English frigate ;
she had been summoned on board and detained there on
deck, the storm had. sprung up, and, taking advantage of
it, she had seized a boarding-axe and cut the tiller lines.
This resulted in throwing the vessel up into the wind, and
in the confusion she and her attendant had sprung into the
rigging and jumped overboard.

When at length the chief of the Reds was free to visit .
the scene of the shipwreck, we hurried to it. The sea,
breaking furiously over the frigate hedged on the rocks,
had demolished and flooded half of it ; part of the crew,
including the captain, had been washed overboard and
drowned; the others clung to the after-part, washed by
each mountainous wave. As if the cup of these wretches
was not full enough, the Black Caribs had scaled the rocky
peak at the foot of which the vessel lay, and with their
bows were shooting the sailors. 1 at once pointed out to
their chief that they would have to pay dearly for their
pleasure in killing these men, and guaranteed That if they
were made prisoners Victor Hugues would pay for each .
head in gunpowder and the best brandy. My efforts were
successful. The Caribs, having now changed their ideas
and come to regard the existence of each enemy as of
value to them, made every effort to save them from the
wreck. Their humanity was carried so far that in the case
of sick or wounded, unable to trust themselves alone to the
traveller between the ship and the shore, the black warriors
went at their own peril on board the wreck and brought
them off unhurt.

So large a number of prisoners was a matter of embarrassment.
Pakiri solved it by distributing these new guests
in caves where nothing was wanting except power to escape.
Three days later privateers from Guadeloupe came and
took them to Fort St. Charles in Basse Terre. Even now
one can hear from old negresses in the colony the account
of the sufferings of the sailors of the Laurel frigate due to
the act of a young Carib girl who had been detained on
board, and took the best revenge in her power.

At the close of this terrible day not a sign of the hurricane
showed in the sky; its effects, too, were confined to the
lower strata of the atmosphere, those in direct contact with
the sea, and I was delighted when the little Zami assured
me that my mountain residence was untouched.