by John Marshall

“ Indeed their astonishing exertions were almost beyond probability: after rain, which fell frequently, the steep parts of the road were so slippery, that a man even with the greatest care would often slip back tea and sometimes twenty feet at a time: but so determined were the honest tars not to fail in what they undertook, that when once they set out with a gun after heavy raiu, and found it impossible to keep their footing, they have crawled up as they dragged the ponderous engine of destruction, and kept themselves from falling back by sticking their fingers in the ground. ”

“ Several skirmishes now daily took place, and many fell on both sides; though, from want of steadiness at the last, the enemy were always greater losers than ourselves. On the morning of the 29th of June, a large body of the enemy, to the number of one thousand, marched out of Fort Fleur d’Epée, and seemed to meditate an attack on a detachment of light infantry under Colonel Gomm, posted to the right of the grenadiers who were on Morne Mascot, under Brigadier-General Fisher. ”

“ When we consider that the road was to be formed for near four miles of the way, one of which was through a very thick wood, and that, as they approached Sourier, for near a mile, the road was so steep, that a loaded mule could not walk directly up it, it seems scarcely credible that so small a number of men should be able to have undergone such severe fatigue, considering the climate and the nature of the soil, which was a very stiff clay intermixed with large stones. ”