This is a page on the history of the island of Martinique.
Charles Grey, 1st Earl Grey, was a British Army general in the 18th century and a scion of the noble House of Grey. He was a distinguished soldier in a generation of exceptionally capable military personnel, serving crucially in the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), the American Revolutionary War and the French Revolutionary Wars.
Admiral Sir Henry William Bayntun GCB was a senior officer in the Royal Navy, whose distinguished career in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars was a catalogue of the highest and lowest points of the Navy during the conflict. His record includes extensive operations in the West Indies followed by shipwreck, the battle of Trafalgar and the disastrous expedition to Buenos Aires in 1807.
HMS Zebra was a 16-gun Zebra-class sloop of the Royal Navy, launched on 31 August 1780 at Gravesend. She was the second ship to bear the name. After twenty years of service, including involvement in the West Indies campaigns during the French Revolutionary Wars, she was converted into a bomb vessel in 1798. In this capacity she took part in attacks on French ports, and was present at both battles of Copenhagen. The Navy sold her in 1812.
HMS Asia was a 64-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built by Thomas Bucknall and launched on 3 March 1764 at Portsmouth Dockyard. She participated in the American Revolutionary War and the capture of Martinique in 1794. She was broken up in 1804.
Robert Faulknor the younger (1763–1795) was an 18th-century Royal Navy officer, part of the Faulknor naval dynasty. He was court-martialled and died in an action off Guadeloupe in the eastern Caribbean Sea.
Fort Saint Louis is a seaside fortress in Fort-de-France, Martinique. The present-day fort has evolved from earlier strongholds that were erected on the site as early as 1638, and has been known in previous incarnations as Fort Royal and Fort de la Republique. The modern-day Fort Saint Louis is both an active naval base and a listed historic site of France. There are daily tours of the fort, though the portion that is still a naval base is off-limits.
John Maitland was an officer of the Royal Navy, who saw service during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, eventually rising to the rank of Rear-Admiral.
The invasion of Martinique was a successful British amphibious operation against the French colony of Martinique that took place between 30 January and 24 February 1809 during the West Indies campaign of 1804–1810 of the Napoleonic Wars. Martinique, like the nearby island of Guadeloupe, was a major threat to Britain's trade in the West Indies, providing a sheltered base from which privateers and French Navy warships could raid British merchant shipping and disrupt the trade routes that maintained the economy of the United Kingdom. Both islands also provided a focus for larger-scale French operations in the region and in the autumn of 1808, following the Spanish alliance with Britain, the Admiralty decided to order a British squadron to neutralise the threat, beginning with Martinique.
Vice-Admiral Sir William Charles Fahie KCB was a prominent British Royal Navy officer during the American War of Independence, French Revolutionary War and the Napoleonic Wars. Unusually, Fahie's service was almost entirely spent in the West Indies, where he had been born and where he lived during the time he was in reserve and in his retirement. After extensive service in the Caribbean during the American War of Independence, during which Fahie impressed with his local knowledge, Fahie was in reserve between 1783 and 1793, returning to service to participate in Sir John Jervis' campaign against the French West Indian islands in 1794.
WilliamAnderson was a Scottish artist specialising in maritime and patriotic themes. He was well-regarded for his detailed and accurate portraits of ships under sail, exhibiting his works annually in London between 1787 and 1811 and then occasionally until 1834. Anderson influenced other artists, notably John Ward and others of the Hull school.
In November 1798 a British expedition captured the island of Menorca from Spain. A large force under General Charles Stuart landed on the island and forced its Spanish garrison to surrender in eight days with only some bloodshed. The British occupied the island for four years, using it as a major naval base, before handing it back to Spain following the Treaty of Amiens.
The Capture of Minorca saw the island of Menorca captured from Spain by British-Dutch forces acting on behalf of Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor the Austrian claimant to the Spanish throne in September 1708 during the War of the Spanish Succession. The British would later annex the island as their own possession at the Treaty of Utrecht (1713).
The Invasion of Guadeloupe was a British attempt in 1794 to take and hold the island of Guadeloupe in the West Indies during the 1789-1799 French Revolutionary Wars. The British had negotiated with the French planters, Ignace-Joseph-Philippe de Perpignan and Louis de Curt, who wished to gain British protection, as the French Constitutional Assembly was passing a law abolishing slavery on 4 February 1794. The Whitehall Accord was signed on 19 February 1794 while the British were securing Martinique in the Battle of Martinique (1794). Troops led by General Charles Grey landed on 11 April 1794, assisted by a fleet led by Admiral Sir John Jervis. On 24 April French General Collot surrendered the last stronghold at Basse-Terre, leaving the island in the hands of the British and their French Royalist supporters. On 4 June a French fleet landed troops under the command of Victor Hugues who, with the assistance of French Republican locals, helped by the effect of yellow fever and other tropical diseases on the British forces, regained full control of the island by 10 December 1794.
Admiral Richard Darton Thomas was an officer of the British Royal Navy who served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and went on to become Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Station in the 1840s.
La Bienvenue was a 20-gun French warship launched at Le Havre in 1788 that made several changes in ownership and name during military conflict with the British. She briefly became La Royalist in October 1792 before reverting to her original name in January the following year. She was serving as a prison ship at Martinique when she was captured by the British in 1794.
HMS Roebuck was a fifth-rate ship of the Royal Navy which served in the American and French Revolutionary Wars. Designed in 1769 by Sir Thomas Slade to operate in the shallower waters of North America, she joined Lord Howe's squadron towards the end of 1775 and took part in operations against New York the following year. She engaged the American gun batteries at Red Hook during the Battle of Long Island in August 1776, and forced a passage up the Hudson River in October. On 25 August 1777, Roebuck escorted troopships to Turkey Point, Maryland, where an army was landed for an assault on Philadelphia. She was again called upon to accompany troopships in December 1779, this time for an attack on Charleston. When the ships-of-the-line, which were too large to enter the harbour, were sent back to New York, Admiral Marriot Arbuthnot made Roebuck his flagship. She was, therefore, at the front of the attack, leading the British squadron across the shoal to engage Fort Moultrie and the American ships beyond.
Velters Cornewall Berkeley (1754–1804) was an officer in the Royal Navy. He served in both the American and French Revolutionary Wars but never rose above the rank of Captain. He died at his home in Oxford in 1804, aged 50.
Rear-Admiral Sir John Ferris Devonshire (1774–1839) was an officer in the Royal Navy. He joined as a volunteer aboard HMS Cumberland in 1788 and served in various vessels in the waters around North America and the West Indies until 1795 when he moved to HMS Boyne, the flagship of John Jervis. Devonshire was acting lieutenant for a while before Jervis promoted him to full lieutenant aboard HMS Terpsichore, at that time employed in the defence of a British garrison under siege on Basse-Terre.
Samuel Campbell Rowley was a politician and Royal Navy officer who was born in Ireland in 1774. Rowley attended the Royal Naval Academy at Portsmouth in 1785 and joined his first ship in March 1789, serving in the West Indies. He passed the lieutenant's examination in 1792 but was not promoted until January 1794, when he joined HMS Vengeance. In her, Rowley took part in the West Indies campaign under Sir John Jervis and Sir Charles Grey, and was present at the capture of Martinique, St Lucia and Guadeloupe. Rowley returned to England at the beginning of 1795 and shortly after, was appointed to the 32-gun HMS Astraea, serving in the English Channel, where, on 10 April 1795, he assisted in the taking of the French 42-gun frigate, Gloire.
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