Dividends and Cutlery

Even as the English Army continued to lose men to disease, the Black governments of Jamaica, the Bahamas, and the Lesser Antilles began sending troops to reinforce Saint-Domingue.

They were all members of the "Caribbean Military Committee." If Saint-Domingue, the strongest Black regime among them, fell, the other governments would face no fate but being uprooted one by one by the English.

Moreover, these islands had all received aid from Saint-Domingue in the past, so they naturally spared no effort in returning the favor now.

Thus, every day, Black volunteers boarded American Merchant Ships from the various islands, streaming without end toward Saint-Domingue.

The American Merchant Ships also brought vast quantities of supplies—food, clothing, medicine, even military horses—supporting the tens of thousands of Black soldiers in the Duarte Mountains as they launched unceasing harassment against the English Army.

London.

10 Downing Street.

"The situation appears rather grim." Lord Grenville set Marquis Canning's report on the table and looked toward Pitt the Younger.

The report was filled with despair.

Of the Expeditionary Force's 7,500 soldiers, only a little over 4,000 were currently fit for combat. The rest were afflicted by all manner of disease.

Over the past few months, only some 300 English soldiers had died in battle, while as many as 530 had already died of illness.

And those were figures from two months ago. There would only be more sick soldiers now.

At the same time, although Marquis Canning had occupied such important towns on the island as Port-au-Prince, Mariani, and Maguey, he had never managed to find the rebel main force.

He had tried to enter the mountains in search of those Negroes, but the damp, muddy terrain had plagued him so badly that he withdrew of his own accord after half a month.

At the end