WEST INDIES. 
SfiAP. III.] 
4*9 
It is probable that this, and the other circum¬ 
stances which I have recounted, namely, the grow¬ 
ing prosperity of the colony, and the criminal in¬ 
attention of the British Ministry towards its secu¬ 
rity, had already attracted the vigilant rapaciousness 
of the French government; but it is asserted, that 
many of the inhabitants within the colony, who had 
formerly been subjects of France, scrupled not, on 
the first intimation that hostilities had been com¬ 
menced in Europe,, in the year 1778, to invite 
an attack from Martinico. Proof of this may not, 
perhaps, easily be produced, but it is certain, that 
their subsequent conduct gave too much cause for 
such a suspicion. 
On Monday the 7th of September, in that year, 
a French armament, consisting of a forty gun ship, 
three frigates, and about thirty sail of armed sloops 
and schooners, having on board two thousand re¬ 
gular troops, and a lawless banditti of volunteers, 
about half that number, appeared off the island, 
under the command of the Marquis de Bouille, 
governor of Martinico, and general of the French 
windward West Indian islands. Part of the troops 
having soon afterwards landed without opposition, 
the enemy proceeded to the attack of fort Ca- 
shacrou, the chief defence ot the island, and in 
which a detachment of the regulars was stationed. 
This fort was built on a rock, about three hundred 
feet in perpendicular height, surrounded on tnree 
sides by the sea, and was considered so very defen- 
sible, that it was supposed a few hundred men. 
