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
"The Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief has perused the report which
you forwarded to the Adjutant-General on the 29th of January, of the
proceedings of the troops at Orange Walk, in British Honduras, who
were called out in aid of the civil power against a band of Santa
Cruz Indians in January last, and I am to request that you will
cause Captain White, 1st West India Regiment, by whom they were
commanded, to be informed that His Royal Highness considers that the
discretion and firmness displayed by him in the performance of this
difficult duty is very commendable to that officer.
"I have, etc.,
(Signed) "R.B. HAWLEY,
"Asst. Mil. Sec."
In July, 1874, the head-quarters of the regiment were moved from the
Gold Coast to Sierra Leone, one company being left in garrison at Cape
Coast Castle, and one at Elmina. As in June the two companies stationed
in Honduras had, with the one left in Jamaica, been removed to Demerara,
the distribution of the regiment in July, 1874, was: Head-quarters and
four companies (A, B, C, and H) at Sierra Leone, two (E and G) on the
Gold Coast, and three (D, F, and I) in Demerara.
In July, 1875, disturbances once more broke out in British Sherbro. The
inhabitants of the town of Mongray, on the river of the same name, in
that month made a raid upon Mamaiah, a town on the British frontier,
plundered several factories there, and carried off thirty-three British
subjects as slaves. Fresh outrages were committed later on, and, on the
8th of October, 1875, Lieutenant-Governor Rowe, C.M.G., with forty men
of the 1st West India Regiment, under Sub-Lieutenant G.V. Harrison, and
sixty armed police, left Sierra Leone in the colonial steamer _Lady of
the Lake_. The detachment was landed at Bendoo in Sherbro next day.
Negotiations were at once opened with the Mongray chiefs, resulting in
the surrender of the captives on the 15th, and on the 25th the party
returned to Sierra Leone.
Almost immediately after, fresh disturbances broke out in another
portion of Sherbro, on the Bargroo River, and, on the 15th of November,
Lieutenant-Governor Rowe left Freetown in the colonial steamer _Sir A.
Kennedy_, with Captain A.C. Allinson, Lieutenants J.H. Jones, and A.S.
Roberts, and ninety men of the 1st West India Regiment, fifty armed
police, a 4-2/5-inch howitzer, and a rocket-trough. The disturbance
arose from a raid of Mendis upon villages in British territory, thirteen
of which they plundered and destroyed, afterwards erecting a "war-fence"
at a place called Paytaycoomar, in British Sherbro. Here the Commandant
of Sherbro, Mr. Darnell Davis, attacked them with a few policemen, and
was repulsed with a loss of three killed and several wounded, himself
severely.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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