Antigua and the Antiguans. Volume 1

Page 81

ATTACK UPON GUADA LOUPE.

53

sugar, and the children to be taken care of, and supported by the country. The owners of those slaves who fell in defence of the country, were also recompensed, by having 5OOOlbs. of sugar paid them from the public stock for every negro killed or mortally wounded, instead of having such slaves valued by arbitration, as was the plan from the year 1672. Regulations were also gone into by the legislature, for the establishing of courts of law, and settling due methods for the distribution of justice throughout the colony. About the middle of this year (1689) Colonel Hewetson, with a party of men, embarked on board a man of war, and sailed to attack Guadaloupe. They landed with but little opposition, and having obtained some plunder, and given the French a kind of tit-for-tat, returned in safety to Antigua. This was a very busy year for the Antiguans ; for no sooner had Colonel Hewetson reached Antigua with his troops, from the late attack, than they raised 300 men, and sailed to the island of Marie Galante. Here they met with like success in the way of retaliation ; beating the inhabitants, burning their town, and obtaining more plunder. From Marie Galante they proceeded to St. Martin's, where Fortune, that usually fickle goddess, did not forsake them ; for they not only plundered the place and increased their spoils, but drove the French completely off the island. Upon their return, General Codrington (for the governor had arrived to this rank) sent three sloops, with eighty men, under the command of Captain Edward Thorn, to the island of Anguila, to bring from thence all the English who resided there ; they having been very cruelly used by some Irishmen, whom the French had landed there, for that purpose, a year before. 1690 was again ushered in by that demon—War. Louis, that ambitious, but admired monarch, encouraged his subjects to invade the English colonies, in the West Indies and America, while he assisted James, the abdicated sovereign, in his attempts upon England and Ireland. General Codrington was warmly attached to the reigning monarchs, Wil-


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