West India Regiment

“ Provost in 1805, Lieutenant-General Beckwith and Major-General Maitland in 1809 and 1810, all testified to the gallantry, steadiness, and discipline of the negro soldiers. Sir John Moore, speaking of the new corps in 1796, said "they are invaluable," and "the very best troops for the climate." To come to more recent times, in 1873 the 2nd West India Regiment bore for six months the entire brunt of the Ashanti attack, and had actually forced the invading army to retire across the Prah before the men of a single line battalion were landed. ”

“ Hardly had the first rocket fallen than the wood appeared alive with men, who, from every bush and tree, opened a destructive fire upon the British. This was promptly and steadily replied to by the detachments of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd West India Regiments, which were in the van, and the action became general. The militia were drawn up in two bodies, one acting as a support to the regulars, and the other as a reserve; and the latter, shortly after the commencement of the engagement, retreated without orders, and without firing a shot. ”

“ No lieutenant-colonel of a West India regiment can ever see the whole of his regiment together. The largest number that, under present circumstances, he can ever have under him at any one station is four companies; and the most he can have under his actual command at any one time is six companies on board a troopship. Thus in a regiment there are sometimes three, and sometimes six, officers vested with the power of an officer commanding a detachment ”

“ He might have added that the fidelity of the black soldiers of the 1st [Pg 295] West India Regiment could hardly have been put to a more crucial test. Nine-tenths of those men were Jamaicans, born and bred, and in the work of suppressing the rebellion they were required to hang, capture, and destroy the habitations of not only their countrymen and friends, but, in many instances, of their near relatives. Yet in no single case did any man hesitate to obey orders, nor was the loyalty of any one soldier ever a matter for doubt. ”

“ Major-General O'Connor, in his despatch reporting the restoration of order, says: "The men employed in the field, exposed to the tropical sun, heavy rains, constant and long marches by day and night, have all (the 2nd 6th Regiment, and the 1st West India Regiment) highly distinguished themselves by their patience, perseverance, and general good conduct." ”

“ Each step in the descent was marked by the disbandment of a West India regiment, until, at the present day, two only remain in existence; and it is a matter of common notoriety that those two are principally preserved to garrison Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast Colony, British Honduras, and British Guiana—colonies the climates of which, experience has shown, are fatal to European soldiers, who are necessarily in time of peace, from the nature of their duties, more exposed to climatic influence than are officers. ”

“ On April 1st, 1836, the 1st West India Regiment was increased from eight to ten companies, and recruits being obtained with difficulty, the Government commenced the injudicious practice of enrolling the slaves, disembarked from captured slavers, in the West India regiments. ”

“ Yet they are a remarkably fine body of men, and a picked battalion of the Guards would look small beside them if brigaded with them in Hyde Park. So little is known, that I have sometimes been asked if the officers of West India regiments are also black, and it is with a view to making the regiment to which I have the honour to belong better known to the public at large, that the following history has been written. ”

“ The greatest objection to the African, however, is the strange fact that no amount of care or attention on the part of his instructors can ever make him a good or even a fair shot. In the 1st West India Regiment there are still a few Africans remaining, most of whom have from twelve to eighteen years' service ”