Op zoek naar de Familie Bulkley in de West Indies komen we aardig wat te weten over de omstandigheden daar.
We weten dat Robert Ward Bulkley zijn zus Mary Ann Bulkley geboren is in 1808 in Antigua.
De vader van Robert Ward Bulkley overleed in Guadaloupe in 1810.
Deze William Fisher Bulkley was handelaar of marinier daar zijn we nog niet uit.
Terwijl Mary Ann Carter de moeder van Robert Ward hertrouwde met de Nederlander Johannes Ambrosius Maas.
De invasie van Guadaloupe vond plaats in 1810 en misschien is William hierbij wel om het leven gekomen .
We weten dus best wel veel van wat zich daar ruim 200 jaar geleden afspeelde.
Maar er is altijd weer iets onbekends zoals de invasie van Guadaloupe in 1810.
The Invasion
After a brief period of consolidation on Dominica, Cochrane and Beckwith sailed for Guadeloupe on 27 January 1810, arriving off Le Gosier in the evening and landing the larger division at the village of Sainte-Marie under the command of Hislop. The division split, with one half marching south towards Basse-Terre and the other north. Neither met serious opposition, the militia forces deserting in large numbers and abandoning their fortifications as the British approached. Messages were sent by the approaching British ordering the surrender of towns and forts, and both forces made rapid progress over the following two days.[13] On 30 January, Ernouf took up a position with his remaining garrison in the Beaupère–St. Louis Ridge highlands that guarded the approaches to Basse-Terre, Hislop forming his men in front of Ernouf's position. Later in the day, Harcourt's men came ashore to the north of Basse-Terre, outflanking the strongest French positions at Trois-Rivières and forcing their withdrawal to Basse-Terre itself.[9]
With his capital coming under bombardment from gun batteries set up by Royal Navy sailors organised into naval brigades, Ernouf marched to meet the British on the plain at Matabar on 3 February. Forming up, Ernouf attacked the British and initially drove them back, before superior numbers forced him to retire after he was outflanked by Wale's force attacking from the north. General Wale was wounded in the attack, in which his men suffered 40 casualties.[9] One eyewitness, an Irish sailor from HMS Alfred, claimed that Ernouf had laid a large land mine along his line of retreat and planned to detonate it as the British advanced but was prevented from doing so when Beckwith spotted the trap and refused to be drawn into it, although this story does not appear in other accounts.[14] While Ernouf was retreating, Commodore Fahie seized the opportunity to attack the undefended town of Basse-Terre, landing with a force of Royal Marines and capturing the town, cutting off Ernouf's route of escape. Isolated and surrounded, the French general requested a truce at 08:00 on 4 February to bury the dead from the battle the day before. This was accepted, and on 5 February he formally surrendered.[15]
[edit]Aftermath
British casualties in the operation numbered 52 killed and 250 wounded, with seven men missing. French losses were heavier, in the region of 500–600 casualties throughout the campaign.[12] 3,500 soldiers were captured with their officers, cannon and the French Imperial Eagle of the 66e Régiment. As Napoleon had rescinded the prisoner exchange system previously in place, all of the prisoners would remain in British hands until 1814. The captured eagle was sent to Britain, the first French eagle captured during the Napoleonic Wars.[16] By 22 February, the nearby Dutch colonies of Sint Maarten, Sint Eustatius and Saba were all persuaded to surrender without a fight by ships sent from Cochrane's fleet.[11] The British officers were rewarded for their successes: Beckwith was knighted and remained in the Caribbean until he retired in 1814 from ill-health, while Cochrane and Hislop were promoted.[16] All of the expedition's officers and men were voted the thanks of both Houses of Parliament and ten years later the regiments and ships that participated (or their descendents) were awarded the battle honour Guadaloupe 1810.[17] Four decades after the operation, it was among the actions recognised by a clasp attached to the Naval General Service Medal and the Military General Service Medal, awarded upon application to all British participants still living in 1847.[18]
Guadeloupe was taken over as a British colony for the remainder of the war, only restored to France after Napoleon's abdication in 1814. The following year, during the Hundred Days, Guadeloupe's governor Charles-Alexandre Durand Linois declared for the Emperor once more, requiring another British invasion, although of much smaller size and duration, to restore the monarchy.[19] The fall of Guadeloupe marked the end of the final French territory in the Caribbean; the entire region was now in the hands of either the British or the Spanish, except the independent state of Haiti.[2] The lack of French privateers and warships sparked a boom in trade operations, and the economies of the Caribbean islands experienced a resurgence. It also made a significant reduction in French international trade and had a corresponding effect on the French economy.[15] Finally, the capture of the last French colony struck a decisive blow to the Atlantic slave trade, which had been made illegal by the British government in 1807 and was actively persecuted by the Royal Navy. Without French colonies in the Caribbean, there was no ready market for slaves in the region and the slave trade consequently dried up.[20]
Ook vinden we nog een stukje over een William Bulkey in dezelfde tijd.
(1780-1856), born Cheshire, England, was sentenced to transportation for life for having received a stolen roll of cloth. He was taken in the convict ship Calcutta with David Collins's colonising expedition to Port Phillip in 1803 and there absconded with two fellow convicts who were never heard of again. Buckley was befriended by the Watourong tribe of Aborigines who believed him to be 'Murrangurk', a reincarnation of a dead chieftain of the tribe, and he lived with them until 1835. On his return to White civilisation he was pardoned and became a government interpreter. Accounts of his life as a 'white blackfellow' have been given by John Morgan in The Life and Adventures of William Buckley (1852), by James Bonwick in William Buckley, the Wild White Man, and His Port Phillip Black Friends (1856) and by W.T. Pyke in Buckley, the Wild White Man (1889). Craig Robertson published the biographical Buckley's Hope (1980), the title stemming from the phrase 'Buckley's Hope' (sometimes 'Buckley's Chance'), meaning little or no hope and reflecting the pessimistic view of Buckley's prospects of survival. The phrase is, however, linked by some to the Melbourne store of Buckley & Nunn. Barry Hill wrote the long verse sequence Ghosting William Buckley (1993).
