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Chapter 635: Sparrow Tactics

After the Jamaica Committee, the army dispatched by Parliament, was defeated by the Jamaica Abolition Movement, the rebels had formed a siege around the capital, Kingston.

Governor Lord Cumberland hastily appealed to mainland Britain for aid.

Considering Jamaica's immense economic interests, William Pitt Junior dispatched an expeditionary force almost without hesitation.

General Brand stepped onto the pier, turning to watch the soldiers disembarking from the transport ship 'Little Gray Elephant,' and shouted loudly:

"Hurry it up, you lazy lot!" he roared. "Every minute we waste here is another minute for those rebels to destroy a plantation!"

He took the reins from his aide and said to his chief of staff:

"Send out scouts immediately to pinpoint the rebels' position. And, by the way, contact Lord Cumberland as soon as possible and tell him to prepare a victory banquet for the soldiers."

It wasn't arrogance; the forces he had brought included elite units such as the 2nd Guards Grenadier Regiment, the King's Attendant Infantry Regiment, and the 1st and 2nd Carbine Dragoon Regiments.

According to earlier reports from the Jamaica Committee, the island's "Mulatto" — meaning mixed-race — army numbered less than a thousand, and their military training was quite rudimentary.

With his four thousand elite troops, subduing these rebels would be an effortless task.

However, his time was also severely constrained, because after dealing with the rebels in Jamaica, he would have to rush to the Bahamas archipelago, where a similar black uprising had erupted late last year.

Brand swung into his saddle and told his chief of staff, "Set up camp north of Kingston. Have all officers of battalion commander rank and above report to my tent for a meeting."

He cracked his riding crop, inwardly calculating how to quell all the uprisings in the Caribbean Sea region within three months. According to the Prime Minister's promise, upon his victorious return to London, he would be promoted to Lieutenant General and receive a nomination for Assistant Secretary of War.

Brand was indeed a capable commander; by the third day after landing, he had already largely ascertained the rebels' troop deployment and formulated a complete battle plan.

On the morning of the fourth day, with the King's Attendant Infantry Regiment leading the charge, Brand's forces launched a full-scale assault on the Jamaica Abolitionist Uprising Army.

At this point, Major Auriol had only just learned that a British force had appeared behind him. There was nothing to be done; the uprising army lacked cavalry, and the few warhorses they possessed were left behind by the French Expeditionary Force, so their reconnaissance capabilities were extremely poor.

He had no choice but to abandon Kingston, which was almost within their grasp, and organize his troops for defense.

However, his black army couldn't even manage a coordinated volley, so they were no match for the elite British troops.

Just half an hour after the first cannon blast, his chief of staff frantically reported that the front line had been shattered.

Auriol's heart sank. It seemed he wasn't facing the island's garrison after all. While the Jamaica Committee's troops were slightly more effective than his own, they could never be this formidable.

An officer beside him exclaimed:

"Commander, the British Expeditionary Force must have arrived."

They had previously received intelligence from the Special Trade Association that London had dispatched suppressive forces, but they hadn't expected them to move so swiftly.

Auriol decisively ordered the 1st and 2nd Infantry Battalions to hold off the British forces. He also sent several companies to set fires in the plantations surrounding Kingston to create chaos, while the rest immediately retreated northwest into the Blue Mountains.

Unfortunately, Brand had already anticipated every tactic Auriol might employ, even establishing his camp on the north side of Kingston from the outset.

This resulted in heavy losses for the uprising army. It wasn't until the plantation fires began to spread extensively that Auriol, guided by black soldiers familiar with the local terrain, managed to escape through a gap between two plantations.

Afterward, he was pursued by cavalry. Fortunately, the Blue Mountains were only about 10 kilometers from Kingston, and by the time he fled into the dense forest, he had only some 800 soldiers left.

Auriol pulled himself together and established contact with the 'Maroons' settlements in the mountains.

The Maroons were essentially escaped black people who, having fled into the mountains and intermingled with the island's indigenous Indian inhabitants, formed native communities. Using the deep mountains to evade British colonial pursuers, they had, over centuries of proliferation, spread throughout the Stony Mountains and the Blue Mountains.

These people naturally harbored animosity towards the British, and contact had been established with them at the outset of the Jamaica Abolition Movement uprising.

Soon, a Maroon settlement took in Auriol's remnants and provided them with food and water.

As night fell, Auriol gathered his officers. Showing no sign of defeat, he stood on a wooden stump and declared loudly:

"A single defeat is nothing. The British will leave here in a month at most.

"Hundreds of thousands of black people on the island's plantations await freedom. They can join our army at any moment to strike fiercely against the British once more!

"And from Santo Domingo, a steady stream of weapons will be delivered.

"Everyone, rally your spirits! Victory will ultimately be ours!"

Subsequently, Auriol led his troops to evade pursuit throughout the Blue Mountain jungles, subsisting on the abundant bananas and mangoes, and occasionally receiving supplies from Maroon settlements.

Just as he had predicted, after three weeks of the British pursuing and cornering them, they abruptly withdrew from the Blue Mountains.

General Brand, his face grim, instructed Major Catanholt, an officer of the Jamaica Committee, on how to defend against the rebels, and then led his expeditionary force back onto the transport ships, heading toward the Bahamas archipelago.

On the fourth day after he routed Auriol's forces, the city of Nassau in the Bahamas came under siege by black rebels.

Under the desperate pleas for aid from the Governor of the Bahamas, Brand had no choice but to rush to Nassau for reinforcement.

Of course, all of this was a pre-arranged tactic by Joseph for the Santo Domingo Abolition Movement.

The smuggling ships of the Special Trade Association transmitted messages to the black uprising armies throughout the Caribbean Sea region, forming an alliance of abolitionist rebels in places like Jamaica, the Bahamas, Dominic, and Barbados, to aid each other.

Wherever the British forces landed, the local uprising army would lower its flags and silence its drums, while other areas launched fierce assaults.

When the British forces went to reinforce, the previously dormant black armies would resume their activities, and the areas under British attack would temporarily retreat.

Since the number of black slaves throughout the Caribbean Sea far outnumbered the colonists, as long as the leaders remained alive, large numbers of troops could quickly be raised from the plantations.

Santo Domingo, meanwhile, served as the logistical supply base. The French Expeditionary Force would continuously 'suffer defeats,' leaving weapons and ammunition for Ogé, who would then distribute them to the various uprising armies.

As for transportation, that was naturally entrusted to the smuggling ships. They had extensive experience evading British patrol fleets, and being small vessels, they were rarely caught.