,
the fleet arrived at Barbadoes, and anchored in Carlisle-bay; where they
joined commodore Moore, appointed by his majesty to command the united
squadron, amounting to ten ships of the line, besides frigates and
bomb-ketches. Ten days were employed in supplying the fleet with
wood and water, in waiting for the hospital ship, in reviews,
re-embarkations, councils of war, assemblies of the council belonging to
the island, in issuing proclamations, and beating up for volunteers.
At length, every great ship being reinforced with forty negroes, to be
employed in drawing the artillery; and the troops, which did not
exceed five thousand eight hundred men, being joined by two hundred
Highlanders, belonging to the second battalion of the regiment commanded
by lord John Murray in North America, who were brought as recruits from
Scotland under convoy of the ship Ludlow-castle; the whole armament
sailed from Carlisle-bay on the thirteenth day of January; but by
this time the troops, unaccustomed to a hot climate, were considerably
weakened and reduced by fevers, diarrhoeas, the scurvy, and the
small-pox; which last disease had unhappily broke out amongst the
transports. Next morning the squadron discovered the island of
Martinique, which was the place of its destination. The chief
fortification of Martinique was the citadel of Port-Royal, a regular
fort, garrisoned by four companies, that did not exceed the number of
one hundred and fifty men, thirty-six bombardiers, eighty Swiss, and
fourteen officers. One hundred barrels of beef constituted their whole
store of provisions; and they were destitute of all other necessaries.
They were almost wholly unprovided with water in the cisterns, with
spare carriages for their cannon, match, wadding, and langrage; they had
but a small stock of other ammunition; and the walls were in many parts
decayed. The only preparations they had made for receiving the English
were some paltry intrenchments thrown up at St, Pierre, and a place
called Casdenavires, where they imagined the descent would probably
be attempted. On the fifteenth day of the month, the British squadron
entered the great bay of Port-Royal, some of the ships being exposed to
the shot of a battery erected on the isle de Ranieres, a little island
about half way up the bay. At their first appearance, the Florissant, of
seventy-four guns, which had been so roughly handled by captain Tyrrel
in the Buckingham, then lying under the guns o