GENERAL BARRINGTON TAKES GOSIER, &c.

General Barrington being left with no more than one ship of forty guns
for the protection of the transports, formed a plan of prosecuting the
war in Guadaloupe by detachments, and the success fully answered his
expectation. He determined to make a descent on the division of the
island called Grandterre, and for that purpose allotted six hundred men;
who, under the command of colonel Crump, landed between the towns of St.
Anne and St. Francois, and destroyed some batteries of the enemy, from
whom he sustained very little opposition. While he was thus employed,
a detachment of three hundred men attacked the town of Gosier, which,
notwithstanding a severe fire, they took by storm, drove the garrison
into the woods, set fire to the place, and demolished the battery
and intrenchment raised for its defence. This service being happily
performed, the detachment was ordered to force their way to Fort-Louis,
while the garrison of that castle was directed to make two sallies in
order to favour their irruption. They accordingly penetrated, with
some loss sustained in forcing a strong pass, and took possession of
a battery which the enemy had raised against the English camp, in the
neighbourhood of Fort Louis. The general, having hitherto succeeded in
his designs, formed the scheme of surprising at one time the three towns
of Petitbourg, Gonoyave, and St. Mary's situated on the Basseterre
side of the little Cul de Sac, and committed the execution of it to the
colonels Crump and Clavering: but the night appointed for the service
proved exceedingly dark and tempestuous; and the negro conductors were
so frightened, that they ran several of the flat-bottomed boats on the
shoals that skirt this part of the island. Colonel Clavering landed with
about eighty men; but found himself so entangled with mangrove trees,
and the mud so impassably deep, that he was obliged to re-embark, though
not before the enemy had discovered his design. This project having
miscarried, the general detached the same commanders, whose gallantry
and conduct cannot be sufficiently applauded, with a detachment of
fifteen hundred men, including one hundred and fifty volunteers from
Antigua, to land in a bay not far from the town of Arnonville, at the
bottom of the little Cul de Sac, under the protection of his majesty's
ship Woolwich. The enemy made no opposition to their landing; but
retreated, as the English advanced, to a