The History of the First West India RegimentEllis, A. B. (Alfred Burdon)
History
The History of the First West India Regiment
Ellis, A. B. (Alfred Burdon)
Great Britain. Army. West India regiment, 1st
Next morning at daybreak a further advance was made, and about 6 a.m.
the Abmoussa River--or, rather, Lagoon--was reached. A very heavy and
dangerous surf was breaking on the bar, and the dense bush on the
further bank, which grew close down to the water's edge, was observed to
be full of armed men.
The company of the 1st West India Regiment was again called upon to lead
the way, and the men, embarking in the canoes, paddled out into the
breakers. A continued and furious fusillade was at once opened by the
concealed enemy upon the men, who were unable to reply, as their
attention was entirely occupied in keeping the canoes from capsizing.
Fortunately, the Appollonians fired wildly, and their powder was of bad
quality; for, although almost every man of the detachment was struck by
slugs or fragments of iron, only eleven were wounded, and those
slightly. A canoe was, however, unhappily upset, and two men beaten
against the rocks and drowned. The company formed up on landing, and
advanced steadily through the bush against the enemy, who offered but a
feeble resistance and soon retired altogether. One man was shot dead
while stepping ashore, an ambushed native firing at him at the distance
of a few feet only. The native allies now passed over, and the march was
continued. Parties of the enemy were observed hovering round the flanks,
but no attack was made, and at 3 p.m. a halt was ordered at the village
of Barcoo.
The force was here divided into two parts, of which one, consisting
entirely of natives, was to move through the bush and prevent the king
escaping inland; while the other, consisting of the company of the 1st
West India Regiment with the remainder of the native allies, was to
march along the beach and attack the town in front. This movement would
probably have been successful, had the division of natives performed the
duty allotted to them; but, being fired upon by some ambushed
Appollonians, they refused to proceed further, and when the company of
the 1st West India Regiment reached Atemboo, they found it entirely
deserted.
The success which had so far attended the expedition, however, produced
such an effect upon the native mind that, on March 9th, the principal
chiefs of Appollonia came in to Atemboo to make submission; and, as it
was reported that the king was in hiding in the immediate neighbourhood,
parties were sent out in search of him. On the 18th his wives and family
were captured to the westward, near the old fort, and the day following,
a party of the 1st West India Regiment brought in a body of 121 men, all
heavily manacled with irons weighing from fifty to ninety pounds, and
who had been intended to be sacrificed at an approaching "custom." Two
of these men thus unexpectedly saved from a horrible death volunteered
to point out where the king was concealed, and some men of the regiment
being sent out under their guidance, succeeded in capturing him in his
hiding-place, in the midst of a mangrove swamp.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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