The West Indies, 1793–1810.
AMONG the leading objects contemplated by the British ministry in this war was the control of the East and West Indies, particularly of the latter, as among the most important sources as well as markets of British trade. In the present day, the value of the West India islands, and of all positions in the Caribbean Sea, is chiefly military or maritime; due less to the commerce they maintain than to their relations, as coaling ports or fortified stations, to the commercial routes passing through that region. It is scarcely necessary to add that whatever importance of this character they now possess will be vastly increased when an interoceanic canal is completed. During the French revolution, however, the islands had a great commercial value, and about one fourth the total amount of British commerce, both export and import, was done with them. This lucrative trade Great Britain had gathered into her hands, notwithstanding the fact that other nations owned the largest and richest of the islands, as well as those producing the best sugar and coffee. The commercial aptitudes of the British people, the superior quality of their manufactures, their extensive merchant shipping and ingenious trade regulations, conspired to make it the interest of the foreign colonists to trade with them, even when by so doing the laws of their own governments were defied; and to a great extent the British free ports engrossed the West Indian trade, as well as that to the adjacent South and Central American coasts, known as the Spanish Main.
In war, the control of a maritime region depends upon naval preponderance. When the opposing navies are of nearly equal strength, it is only by open battle, and by the reduction of one to a state of complete inferiority, that control can be asserted. If the region contested be small and compact, as, for instance, the immediate approaches to the English Channel, the preponderance of the fleet alone will determine the control and the safety of the national commerce within its limits; but if it be extensive, the distance between centres great, and the centres themselves weak, the same difficulties arise that are felt in maintaining order in a large and sparsely settled territory on land, as has till very lately been the case in our western Territories. In such circumstances the security of the traveller depends upon the government putting down nests of lawlessness, and establishing, at fitting stations, organized forces, that can by their activity insure reasonable safety in all directions.
In the War of the French Revolution, it soon, though not immediately, became evident, that the British navy could everywhere preponderate in force over its enemy; but it could not be omnipresent. The Caribbean Sea offered conditions peculiarly favorable to marauders, licensed or unlicensed; while its commercial value necessitated the preservation, and, as far as possible, the monopoly, of so fruitful a source of revenue. The presence of hostile cruisers not only inflicted direct loss, which was measured by their actual captures, but, beyond these, caused a great indirect injury by the friction and delays which the sense of insecurity always introduces into commercial transactions. The ideal aim of the British ministry was to banish the enemy's cruisers absolutely from the region; but, if this was impossible, very much might be effected by depriving them of every friendly anchorage to which they could repair to refit or take their prizes—in short, by capturing all the French islands. This would put an end to the myriads of very small craft, which, being able to keep the sea but for a few days, depended absolutely upon a near base; and would greatly cripple the operations of the larger vessels by throwing them, for supplies and refuge, upon the United States, which then extended a benevolent partiality to French cruisers and their prizes.
The French islands had vividly reflected during the past four years the movements and passions of the mother-country; but only in Haïti did the turbulence, extending through all classes of society until it ended in a servile insurrection, result in destroying the control of the home government. The disorder, amounting often to anarchy, which prevailed through the French part of the island, somewhat simplified the problem before Great Britain. It was the only base of operations to the westward then available for French cruisers; and, though too large to admit the thought of conquest under the climatic conditions with the force that could be spared for such an attempt, it was possible, without serious opposition, to occupy many of the ports commanding the principal trade routes. Such occupation deprived the enemy of their use, converted them into harbors of refuge for British commerce, and made them centres for the operations of British cruisers. Unfortunately the government, misled by the representations of French planters who saw their property threatened with destruction, conceived the hope of an easy conquest, or rather transfer of allegiance in the colony. In pursuance of this idea, several places were taken into possession, being either delivered or captured with an ease that showed how readily, in the then disorganized state of the island, most of the seaports could have been secured; but the motive being conquest, and not merely maritime control, the choice of objectives was decided by political or military, instead of maritime, considerations. The expected local native support followed the general rule noted in the last chapter, and proved futile; while yellow fever wasted the troops condemned to excessive exertion and exposure in so sickly a clime.
Had simple maritime advantages guided the British counsels, it would have been sufficient to note that Jamaica was the great centre of British interests in the western Caribbean; that outward-bound ships, entering the Caribbean through the eastern, or Windward, Islands, ran down with the trade wind along the south side of Haiti, where were two harbors, Aux Cayes and Jacmel, favorable as bases for privateers; and that the homeward trade passed through the Windward Passage, between Haïti and Cuba, which was flanked by two Haïtian ports, Tiburon to the south and Mole St. Nicolas on the north. These four were, therefore, particularly dangerous to British trade, and consequently, so far as position went, particularly advantageous if in British occupation. It is true that the topographical conditions of the ground about a seaport in an enemy's country may make the occupation very hazardous, except by the employment of more men than can be had; as was the case at Mole St. Nicolas, where the fortifications of the place itself were commanded by the surrounding heights. Yet it remained in the hands of the British from 1793 to 1798; and it may be believed that their interests would have been well served by strongly garrisoning these ports. [72] At the least they would so be lost to French cruisers. Instead of this, with the idea of conquest, the wholly insufficient forces sent were pushed down to the bottom of the bight of Gonaives, and the southern coast of the island was left in the enemy's hands. It is not desirable to give in detail the history of these petty military operations, nor of the civil commotions with which they were connected. Suffice it to say, that the course of events finally threw the government into the hands of a pure negro, Toussaint L'Ouverture. He continued to hold it till the Peace of Amiens, in 1802; and with him the British, in 1798, concluded a treaty by which they finally abandoned the island. Though the scheme of conquest had failed, their interference had opened the country to British trade and caused the loss of Haïti to France, by contributing to the rise of Toussaint, the negro most capable of leading his race. He still professed fidelity to the mother-country, but he acted as one possessing independent power. The British, by the treaty, recognized the island as a neutral territory, and Toussaint, on his part, permitted them as well as neutral ships to trade with it. [73] He also prohibited the sailing of privateers from ports of Haïti, as they seriously interfered with its commerce. [74] Under his strong and wise administration the prosperity of the island greatly revived, though without attaining the proportions of former days.
The islands known as the Lesser Antilles, which extend from Porto Rico in a southerly direction to Trinidad and form the eastern boundary of the Caribbean, are, from their small size, much more dependent than is Haïti or Cuba upon the control of the sea. Though the aggregate commercial value of the whole group was far inferior to that of the French part alone of Haïti, they had a distinct military advantage which made them, in that point of view and to the West Indies, more important than Haïti itself. They were to windward of the whole Caribbean with reference to the trade winds, which blow unceasingly from east to west; and hence were much nearer in time, that supreme factor in military combinations, to the great western islands than the latter were to them. The same circumstance of the trade wind threw them across the path of vessels bound from Europe to all parts of the Caribbean, and thus facilitated the intercepting of supplies essential to the support and industries of the islands, for much of which they depended upon the