During August and the first week of September the results of the Government’s incoherent enterprises began to crowd one upon another with rapidity enough to bewilder a clearer head than that of Dundas. The forces that he had set in motion in the Colonies seemed at first to promise great results at small cost. ◆April 12.◆ On the 12th of April General Cuyler, obedient to his instructions, embarked a force of about five hundred men[160] at Barbados, and sailed under convoy of Vice-admiral Sir John Laforey’s squadron to Tobago. The enemy was prepared for his coming, for, as was usual with Dundas’s secret expeditions, the whole island of Barbados was apprised of the project as early as the General;[161] ◆April 14.◆ but none the less Cuyler landed on the 14th at Courland Bay, stormed on the same night the French fort that crowns the hill above Scarborough, and captured the island with trifling loss. The news of this success reached London on the 1st of June, and was followed a month later by that of the bloodless capture of St. Pierre and Miquelon by a small force sent from Halifax; ◆May 14.◆ but the next intelligence from the west was less satisfactory. Though by no means over-trustful of the representations of the refugees from Martinique, whom Dundas had recommended to him, and who assured him that eight hundred men would suffice to take the island, June 10.◆ General Bruce embarked about eleven hundred troops at Barbados on the 10th of June,[162] and sailed for the island with Admiral Gardner’s squadron. ◆June 16.◆ After concerting operations with the French Royalists, he landed his troops on the 16th at Case Navire, for an attack on St. Pierre; but a panic, which set in among the Royalist levies on the morning fixed for the action, convinced him that it would be hopeless to trust them, and he accordingly re-embarked on the 21st for Barbados, carrying his pusillanimous allies away with him. ◆June 21.◆ Here, therefore, was an initial failure on the part of the monarchical party, which had promised such easy possession of the French West Indies; and Bruce did not hesitate to add that, since the Republicans had admitted all black men to rights of government in Martinique, any further attack would be hopeless unless undertaken by a considerable force. ◆Aug. 13.◆