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
large that they must have been quite fatiguing to the wearers. We
occupied about an hour in moving in procession from the banyan tree,
where we had rested on entering the town, to the end of the line
prepared for our reception; after which we proceeded to an open space
at some distance from the market-place, and there took our seats. At
3.15 p.m. the chiefs commenced moving in procession before us, and this
lasted until 6 p.m. Those whom we had first saluted in the market-place
passed us first. Each chief was preceded by his band of rude music,
consisting chiefly of drums and horns, followed by a body of soldiers
under arms, and shaded by a large umbrella. The king was preceded by
many of the officers of his household, and his messengers with the
gold-handled swords, etc. etc. When he came opposite the governor, and
received our military salute, he stopped, and approaching him took him
cordially by the hand. After the king, other chiefs, and a large body of
troops, passed in due order; and at 6 p.m. the ceremony closed."
At 9.30 a.m. on October 26th, 1848, the mission left Coomassie on its
return journey to the coast, and arrived at Cape Coast Castle on
November 4th. This was the first occasion on which a British Governor,
or a body of regular troops, had ever visited Coomassie.
In March, 1849, a further change took place in the distribution of the
regiment in the West Indies, No. 7 Company, under Captain R. Hughes,
proceeding to Nassau from Jamaica. There were thus the head-quarters and
3 companies in Jamaica, 3 in Nassau, 2 in Honduras, and 2 in West
Africa.
In June, 1849; the Acting Governor of Sierra Leone found that the state
of affairs in Sherbro, a low-lying tract of country some seventy-five
miles to the southward of Sierra Leone, imperatively called upon the
British to take steps for putting an end to the war which for a long
time had been carried on between the rival chiefs of the Caulker family,
and had utterly paralysed trade. H.M.S. _Alert_ and _Adelaide_ were to
be employed, but as a military force was required to proceed with the
naval one, the under-mentioned force embarked in the Colonial steamer
_Pluto_ on the 18th of June: Captain Grange, Lieutenant Jones, and 45
men of the 1st West India Regiment, and 44 men of the 3rd West India
Regiment. The expedition arrived at Yawrey Bay, at the mouth of the
Cockboro River, on the 19th of June, when a stockaded fort was shelled
and destroyed by the _Adelaide_. The expedition then proceeded to
Bendoo, and after some delay, owing to the difficulty in inducing the
chiefs to come in, returned to Yawrey Bay on the 29th, where
negotiations were held and a treaty of peace between the Government and
rival chiefs signed. The detachments rejoined at Freetown, Sierra Leone,
on July 7th.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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