Page:British campaigns in Flanders, 1690-1794; being extracts from "A history of the British army," (IA britishcampaigns00fort).pdf/257



During August and the first week of September the results of the Government's incoherent enterprises began to crowd one upon another with rapidity enough to bewilder a clearer head than that of Dundas. The forces that he had set in motion in the Colonies seemed at first to promise great results at small cost. On the

12th of April General Cuyler, obedient to his instructions, embarked a force of about five hundred men at Barbados, and sailed under convoy of Vice-admiral Sir John Laforey's squadron to Tobago. The enemy was prepared for his coming, for, as was usual with Dundas's secret expeditions, the whole island of Barbados was apprised of the project as early as the

General; but none the less Cuyler landed on the 14th at Courland Bay, stormed on the same night the French fort that crowns the hill above Scarborough, and captured the island with trifling loss. The news of this success reached London on the 1st of June, and was followed a month later by that of the bloodless capture

of St. Pierre and Miquelon by a small force sent from Halifax; but the next intelligence from the west was less satisfactory. Though by no means over-trustful of the representations of the refugees from Martinique, whom Dundas had recommended to him, and who