Across that channel Rodney's line of frigates watched for the expected reinforcement of the French fleet.

The first bay in St.Lucia is Gros islet; and there is the Gros islet itself--Pigeon Rock, as the English call it--behind which Rodney's fleet lay waiting at anchor, while he himself sat on the top of the rock, day after day, spy- glass in hand, watching for the signals from his frigates that the French fleet was on the move.
And those glens and forests of St.Lucia--over them and through them Sir John Moore and Sir Ralph Abercrombie fought, week after week, month after month, not merely against French soldiers, but against worse enemies; 'Brigands,' as the poor fellows were called; Negroes liberated by the Revolution of 1792.

With their heads full (and who can blame them ?) of the Rights of Man, and the democratic teachings of that valiant and able friend of Robespierre, Victor Hugues, they had destroyed their masters, man, woman, and child, horribly enough, and then helped to drive out of the island the invading English, who were already half destroyed, not with fighting, but with fever.

And now 'St.Lucia the faithful,' as the Convention had named her, was swarming with fresh English; and the remaining French and the drilled Negroes made a desperate stand in the earthworks of yonder Morne Fortunee, above the harbour, and had to surrender, with 100 guns and all their stores; and then the poor black fellows, who only knew that they were free, and intended to remain free, took to the bush, and fed on the wild cush-cush roots and the plunder of the plantations, man-hunting, murdering French and English alike, and being put to death in return whenever caught.

Gentle Abercrombie could not coax them into peace: stern Moore could not shoot and hang them into it; and the 'Brigand war' dragged hideously on, till Moore--who was nearly caught by them in a six-oared boat off the Pitons, and had to row for his life to St.Vincent, so saving himself for the glory of Corunna--was all but dead of fever; and Colonel James Drummond had to carry on the miserable work, till the whole 'Armee Francaise dans les bois' laid down their rusty muskets, on the one condition, that free they had been, and free they should remain.