Eastern West Indies (1756–1767 CE): War, Colonial Transitions, and Natural Disasters

Seven Years' War in the Caribbean

Between 1756 and 1767, the global Seven Years' War heavily impacted the Eastern West Indies, as European powers vied fiercely for dominance. British forces captured Grenada on March 4, 1762, under Commodore Swanton without resistance. Grenada was formally ceded to Britain by the Treaty of Paris (1763). A significant earthquake struck Grenada in 1766, followed by a suppressed rebellion among the enslaved population the following year.

Throughout the war, Britain secured control over several islands, notably St. Vincent, Grenada, and Tobago, reflecting significant territorial gains in the region.

British Victories and Strategic Shifts

The year 1759, often called Britain's Annus Mirabilis (year of wonders), saw sweeping British successes across global theaters. These included repelling French forces in India, decisive victories at the Battle of Minden in Europe, naval triumphs at the Battles of Lagos and Quiberon Bay, and significant North American conquests including Quebec City and Guadeloupe. British politician Horace Walpole famously remarked, "Our bells are worn threadbare with ringing for victories." British dominance established this year would notably elevate Britain’s global position at the expense of France.

Under the strategic direction of Secretary of State William Pitt the Elder, British forces carried out major offensives in the West Indies. In January 1759, British troops landed at Martinique but soon shifted focus to Guadeloupe due to stiff resistance. After intense fighting, disease, and leadership setbacks—including the death of commander Peregrine Hopson—Colonel John Barrington led British forces to victory, compelling the French governor Nadau du Treil to surrender on May 1, 1759. The costly victory, however, saw heavy casualties due to the tropical climate.

Following the war, Britain debated retaining either Canada or Guadeloupe. Britain ultimately prioritized Canada's strategic value, returning Guadeloupe to France under the Treaty of Paris (1763).

Jesuit Expulsion and Financial Crisis

In the French colony of Martinique, economic turmoil followed the bankruptcy of Jesuit missions. Father Antoine La Vallette, who borrowed heavily to expand plantation operations, faced ruin when ships laden with goods worth millions were captured during war. His creditors' legal action in 1760 led to a severe financial crisis, significantly contributing to the suppression of the Jesuit order across French territories.

Founding of Mayagüez

On September 18, 1760, settlers led by Faustino and Lorenzo Martínez de Matos, Juan de Silva, and Juan de Aponte established the town of Mayagüez near the Yagüez River on the island of Puerto Rico. Named Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria de Mayagüez, reflecting the Canarian heritage of its settlers, the town received rights of self-government in 1763.

Colonial Unrest and the Stamp Act

Political opposition to Britain's Stamp Act (1765) erupted notably in the Caribbean, especially in St. Kitts and Nevis, where violent riots targeted stamp distributors. Rioting successfully prevented stamp use in these islands. Although vocal political resistance appeared in other colonies, including Montserrat and Antigua, enforcement differed, with Barbados notably complying despite local opposition.

Port-au-Prince and Earthquakes

The city of Port-au-Prince, originally named L'Hôpital by the French in 1749, endured significant earthquakes in 1751 and again in 1770, the latter marking its establishment as the new capital of Saint-Domingue (modern Haiti).

Conclusion

The era 1756–1767 in the Eastern West Indies was characterized by intense warfare, natural disasters, and significant territorial and administrative shifts. The aftermath reshaped colonial dynamics, illustrating both the opportunities and challenges faced by European powers and local populations in a rapidly evolving geopolitical landscape.

The British had entered 1759 anxious about a French invasion, but by the end of the Annus Mirabilis of 1759, they are victorious in all theaters against France.

In India, they repulse French forces besieging Madras.

In Europe, British troops partake in a decisive Allied victory at the Battle of Minden.

The destruction of the French invasion barges and the victory of the Royal Navy over the French Navy at the Battle of Lagos and the decisive Battle of Quiberon Bay end any realistic prospect of a French invasion, and confirm Britain's reputation as the world's foremost naval power.

In North America, the British capture Fort Ticonderoga (Carillon), drive the French out of the Ohio Country, capture Quebec City as a result of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, and capture Guadeloupe in the West Indies.

The succession of victories leads Horace Walpole to remark; "Our bells are worn threadbare with ringing for victories".

Several of the triumphs will assume an iconic place in the mindset of the British public, reinforced by representations in art and music, such as the popular song Heart of Oak and the later painting The Death of General Wolfe.

Frank McLynn will identiiy 1759 as the year that prefigures the rise of the British Empire in eclipsing France as the dominant global superpower.

Much of the credit for the annus mirabilis is given to William Pitt the Elder, the minister who directs military strategy as part of his duties as Secretary of State for the Southern Department, rather than to the Prime Minister, the Duke of Newcastle.

More recent historians, however, will portray the British Cabinet as a more collective leadership than had previously been thought.

Charles Edward Stuart, while back in France, had had numerous affairs; the one with his first cousin Marie Louise de La Tour d'Auvergne, wife of Jules, Prince of Guéméné, resulted in a short-lived son Charles (1748–1749).

In 1748 Charles had been expelled from France under the terms of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which brought the war between Britain and France to an end.

Charles lives for several years in exile with his Scottish mistress, Clementina Walkinshaw, whom he met, and may have begun a relationship with, during the 1745 rebellion.

In 1753, the couple have a daughter, Charlotte.

Charles's inability to cope with the collapse of the cause leads to his problem with drink, and mother and daughter leave Charles with his father James's connivance.

Charlotte will  go on on to have three illegitimate children with Ferdinand, an ecclesiastical member of the Rohan family.

Their only son is Charles Edward Stuart, Count Roehenstart.

Clementina is suspected by many of Charles's supporters of being a spy planted by the Hanoverian government of Great Britain.

After his defeat, Charles had indicated to the remaining supporters of the Jacobite cause in England that, accepting the impossibility of his recovering the English and Scots crowns while he remained a Roman Catholic, he was willing to commit himself to reigning as a Protestant.

Accordingly, he visited London incognito in 1750 and conformed to the Protestant faith by receiving Anglican communion, likely at one of the remaining non-juring chapels.

Bishop Robert Gordon, a staunch Jacobite whose house in Theobald's Row was one of Charles's safe-houses for the visit, is the most likely to have performed the communion, and a chapel in Gray's Inn was suggested as the venue as early as 1788 [Gentleman's Magazine, 1788].

This rebuts David Hume's suggestion that it was a church in the Strand.

Unusually, the news of this conversion was not advertised widely, and Charles had seemingly returned to the Roman Catholic faith by the time of his marriage.

In 1759, at the height of the Seven Years' War, Charles is summoned to a meeting in Paris with the French foreign minister, the Duc De Choiseul.

Charles fails to make a good impression, being argumentative and idealistic in his expectations.

Choiseul is planning a full-scale invasion of England, involving upwards of one hundred thousand men—to which he hopes to add a number of Jacobites led by Charles.

However, he is so little impressed with Charles, he dismisses the prospect of Jacobite assistance.

The French invasion, which is Charles's last realistic chance to recover the British throne for the Stuart dynasty, is ultimately thwarted by naval defeats at Quiberon Bay and Lagos.

The ministers of King Louis XV of France have drawn up plans to invade Britain in 1759, during the Seven Years' War.

An army had been collected at Vannes, in the south-east of Brittany, and transports had been brought together in the landlocked waters of the Morbihan, which are connected with Quiberon Bay.

The scheme of the French ministers is to combine twenty-one ships of the line lying at Brest under the command of de Conflans, with twelve which are to be brought round from Toulon by de la Clue.

The army is then to be carried to some point on the coast of England or Scotland by the united squadrons.

La Clue, after attempting to sail to the relief of Louisbourg in 1758, had been trapped in the neutral Spanish harbor of Cartagena.

Following the Battle of Cartagena, La Clue had returned to Toulon, abandoning his attempt to relieve Louisbourg.

The task of blockading de la Clue at Toulon has been given to Admiral Edward Boscawen, who has with him fourteen sail of the line.

Boscawen had reached his station on May 16, 1759.

At the beginning of July, want of stores and water, together with the injury inflicted on some of his vessels by a French battery, compel him to go to Gibraltar to provision and refit.

He reaches the port on August 4.

On 5 August de la Clue leaves Toulon, and on 17 August passes the straits of Gibraltar, where he is sighted by the look-out ships of Boscawen.

The British fleet hurries out to sea, and pursues in two divisions, separated by a distance of some miles owing to the haste with which they had left port.

Knowing the British have spotted his fleet, during the night of 17/18 August de la Clue decides not to sail to the original rendezvous point, the nearby Spanish port of Cadiz where he fears his fleet will be blockaded, but instead to head for the open ocean.

His flagship changes course, hoping the rest of the fleet will follow, but in fact only seven ships of the line do so.

The remaining eight ships continue to steer for Cádiz, either because they had not seen the leader's course change in the dark, or because their captains want to find safety in the nearest friendly port.

In the morning de la Clue finds he has only seven ships of the line with him, but is confident the rest will soon rejoin him and so stops to wait for them.

Soon after, his lookouts see eight ships on the horizon, which match the numbers of the missing portion of his fleet.

Only when the ships approach closer and the rest of the British fleet appears on the horizon do the French realize they are being pursued by a superior British force, and turn to flee.

To maintain cohesion, the seven French ships have to sail at the speed of the slowest ship in their grouping, the Souverein, and they are gradually overhauled by the faster British ships in the afternoon of August 18.

One, the seventy-four-gun Centaure, is captured after a very gallant resistance, in which the British flagship Namur is severely damaged.

Boscawen transfers to Newark.

During the night of 18/19 August, two of the French ships (Souverain and Guerrier) alter course to the west, and escape.

The remaining four flee to the north, and into Portuguese waters near Lagos, where Océan, de la Clue's flagship, and Redoutable are driven ashore and destroyed, while Téméraire and Modeste are captured.

De la Clue is seriously wounded, and carried ashore in Portugal.

The five ships in Cádiz are blockaded by Boscawen's second-in-command, Admiral Broderick.

Although the defeat of the French squadron has ruined an integral part of their scheme to invade the British Isles, the French decide to persevere with their attack.

The scheme will finally be put to rest in November after the French naval defeat at the Battle of Quiberon Bay.

After refitting, several of Boscawen's victorious Mediterranean ships are sent to join Admiral Hawke's fleet off Ushant, and five will be with with Hawke when he destroys the Brest fleet at Quiberon Bay.

A young slave named Olaudah Equiano, who will eventually become a prominent abolitionist in England, had participated in the engagement on the English side.

He will include an account of the battle in his autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano.

The British, under Hawke, maintain a close blockade on the French coast in the vicinity of Brest during 1759.

In this year the French have made plans to invade England and Scotland, and have accumulated transports and troops around the Loire estuary.

The defeat of the Mediterranean fleet at the Battle of Lagos in August makes the invasion plans impossible, but Choiseul still contemplates a plan for Scotland, so the fleet is ordered to escape the blockade and collect the transports assembled in the Gulf of Morbihan.

Conflans, having struggled with unfavorable winds, had slowed down on the night of the nineteenth in order to arrive at Quiberon at dawn. 

Twenty miles off Belle-isle, he sights seven of Duff's squadron.

Once he realizes that this is not the main British fleet, he gives chase.

Duff splits his ships to the north and south, with the French van and center in pursuit, while the rearguard holds off to windward to watch some strange sails appearing from the west.

The French break off the pursuit but are still scattered as Hawke's fleet comes into sight.

HMS Magnanime sights the French at 8:30 and Hawke gives the signal for line abreast.

Conflans is faced with a choice, to fight in his current disadvantageous position in high seas and a "very violent" WNW wind, or take up a defensive position in Quiberon Bay and dare Hawke to come into the labyrinth of shoals and reefs.

About 9am Hawke gives the signal for general chase along with a new signal for the first seven ships to form a line ahead and, in spite of the weather and the dangerous waters, sets full sail.

By 2:30 Conflans rounds Les Cardinaux, the rocks at the end of the Quiberon peninsula that give the battle its name in French

The first shots are heard as he does so, although Sir John Bentley in Warspite will claim that they were fired without his orders.

However the British are starting to overtake the rear of the French fleet even as their van and center make it to the safety of the bay.

Just before 4 PM the battered Formidable surrenders to the Resolution, just as Hawke himself rounds The Cardinals.

Meanwhile, Thésée loses her duel with HMS Torbay and founders, Superbe capsizes, and the badly damaged Héros strikes her flag to Viscount Howe before running aground on the Four Shoal during the night.

Meanwhile, the wind shifts to the NW, further confusing Conflans' half-formed line as they tangle together in the face of Hawke's daring pursuit.

Conflans tries unsuccessfully to resolve the muddle, but in the end decides to put to sea again.

His flagship, Soleil Royal, headed for the entrance to the bay just as Hawke is coming in on Royal George.

Hawke sees an opportunity to rake Soleil Royal, but Intrépide interposes herself and takes the fire.

Meanwhile, Soleil Royal has fallen to leeward and is forced to run back and anchor off Croisic, away from the rest of the French fleet.

By now it is about 5 PM and darkness has fallen, so Hawke makes the signal to anchor.

During the nigh, eight French ships manage to do what Soleil Royal had failed to do, to navigate through the shoals to the safety of the open sea, and escape to Rochefort.

Seven ships and the frigates are in the Villaine estuary, but Hawke dares not attack them in the stormy weather.

The French jettison  their guns and gear and use the rising tide and northwesterly wind to escape over the sandbar at the bottom of the Villaine river.

One of these ships was wrecked, and the remaining six will be trapped throughout 1760 by a blockading British squadron and only later will manage to break out and reach Brest in 1761/1762.

The badly damaged Juste is lost as she makes for the Loire, one hundred and fifty of her crew surviving the ordeal, and Resolution grounds on the Four Shoal during the night.

Soleil Royal tries to escape to the safety of the batteries at Croisic, but Essex pursues her with the result that both are wrecked on the Four Shoal beside Heros.

The gale moderates on the 22nd, and three of Duff's ships are sent to destroy the beached ships.

Conflans sets fire to Soleil Royal while the British burn Heros, as seen in the right of Richard Wright's painting.

Hawke tries to attack the ships in the Villaine with fireboats, but to no effect.

The power of the French fleet is broken, and will not recover before the war is over; in the words of Alfred Thayer Mahan (The Influence of Sea Power upon History), "The battle of 20 November 1759 was the Trafalgar of this war, and [...] the English fleets were now free to act against the colonies of France, and later of Spain, on a grander scale than ever before".

For instance, the French will be unable to follow up their victory at the land Battle of Sainte-Foy in what is now Canada in 1760 for want of reinforcements and supplies from France, and so Quiberon Bay may be regarded as the battle that determined the fate of New France and hence Canada.

Hawke's commission will be extended and followed by a peerage (allowing him and his heirs to speak in the House of Lords) in 1776.

France experiences a credit crunch as financiers recognize that Britain can now strike at will against French trade.

The French government is forced to default on its debt.