22
FRENCH
SETTLERS
IN
ANTIGUA.
Before the declaration of war between France and England was published, several French men had left the French colonies, from different motives, and settled in Antigua, where they lived sociably with the English, and prosecuted their respective professions.
After the rupture between those
nations was known in the West Indies, and the report of the intended attack upon St. Christopher's by the French, reached the ears of Lord F. Willoughby, he dispatched his nephew, Mr. Henry Willoughby, to the relief of that place. Arriving, however, too late for the action, he was obliged to proceed with his ship to Antigua ; and being (according to Du Tertre, the French historian) in " a burning rage" at the failure of his plans, he vented it upon the French settlers whom he found there—confiscating their property, forbidding them to quit their houses, or hold communications between themselves, under pain of death, and obliging them to swear allegiance to the English monarch. " Many of them submitted, in a very cowardly manner," remarks the above-named quaint author; " but others, whose heart was in a better place, refused to do so." Among these French settlers was a young surgeon, of the name of Grand-Maison, w ho had been formerly valet-dechambre to M. de la Barre, lieutenant-general by sea and land of the French forces, and who was fully alive to the tyrannical manner in which himself and his countrymen had been treated. Having a little more liberty than the others, from the nature of his profession, Grand-Maison had an opportunity of entering into conversation with another young Frenchman, of the name of Baston, who, says Du Tertre, " was skilful by sea and land, courageous and brave, and an admirer of firmness and constancy.'' Finding Grand-Maison entertained the same sentiments as himself, he proposed that
they should steal a small shallop, which was attached by an iron chain to a post firmly planted in the beach, and taking advantage of the darkness of the night, effect their escape from the island.
As, however, the oars had been carried