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1 Sep 57 John Port Louis, Mauritius Mother

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September 1^st 1857

Port Louis

My dear Mother

We are in a great state of excitement here. On Sunday afternoon the E.I.C. steam frigate ‘Assaye’ came in, begging the Governor to send up troops. So our right wing, consisting of four companies, received orders to start tomorrow (Wednesday) for Bombay in the named vessel. Two days notice for starting on a campaign is rather short warning. However, we are not provided with horses yet, so all that the officers have to do is to pack up their traps. Paton, Hamilton, Sheppard and Cocks go on with their companies under the command of Major Wilby. The left wing, to which my company belongs, remain here with the band and colours under Col. Williams, but I hope that a regiment from the Cape will be sent up here, and then we follow the right wing up. £400 a year difference of pay makes India rather attractive for a few years, although I must own that this place improves on acquaintance.

I think I should make some pleasant friends here, & that is always my aim. Acquaintances I hate, people who you must be on your best behaviour with. But give me people who will treat me as one of themselves; civil but without ostentation. People to whose house you may have free entrance, and who do not mind telling you when you are in the way. The worst of that here, and indeed in almost every other place is, that to make a place agreeable to young men, there should be young ladies, and then if you go often to the house, you are asked your intentions & have to make your bow and be off.

The people here, more especially the Creoles are getting up a petition to the Government requesting them to keep the whole regiment here, but I feel sure that nobody will pay any attention to them.

All the Council are for sending on without delay all the troops that can be got, but a small number must remain here. At present I can think of nothing else. I sit down and write for a short time. Then I get so excited that I jump up and move about, not being able even to read for any length of time together.

The officers of the ‘Assaye’ who take our four companies up dine with us tonight and we are learning a good deal about India from them. The Britishers have been very badly pushed there. All the seamen of the merchant vessels are even formed into a brigade to be called in to act in Bombay if required.

Sept^r 7th

Our right wing is off to India. They left this place on Friday afternoon. The men have to lie on the upper deck of the ‘Assaye’ and the officers, with the exception of one or two of the seniors, sleep on the sofas in the saloon. Rather rough, but that is soldiering & would scarcely suit our delicate friends, the Guards.

Our people expect to be up in India in ten days – lucky fellows – even if they come back here again, they will have seen India instead of being cooped up here. Besides they will miss the disagreeable time, the summer, here and will enjoy the cool season in India.

A detachment of mine came in from a place called Flacq the other day. There are thirty of them and they seem inclined to give as much trouble as they possibly can. I never came near such a set of insubordinate blaguards in all my life and all through the fault of the serjeant. The officer (Maule) that was with them is one of the best in the regiment, but officers can do nothing without non commissioned officers. I have to devote the best part of my time to hunting up these fellows. The only way to keep them up to their work is to bully them. I tried on the kind treatment but soldiers do not understand that, & take advantage, so punishment is now the order of the day with me.

Luckily they had not come in last Thursday or else I should have been prevented from going to a capital ball that Lady Bartley gave: there were only four of ‘ours’ there and one who is very killing in his own eyes, but one of the worst style of Irish in ours, went away very soon & we had the room to ourselves and very good fun we had. I was dancing the last dance with one of the belles here, a Miss Bourguignon & tripped over the floor. Over we went, of course to the delight of every body else & to the utter confusion of our worshipful selves. However altho’ the lady fell against the sofa, no damage was done. I astonished the commandant’s wife by falling into her lap, but being a good natured old lady, she took my apologies in good part. The people here all deplore the society as being very different from what it used to be. I fancy that formerly they used to live in town & so were always together. But now living all over the country, they do not get together so much and of course are in cliques & always squabbling and saying good natured things to one another.

Sept^r 9^th

The mail leaves on the 11^th , so yesterday I buckled to & wrote to Mary and Mr Riley & also to Mr Huggins. I shall send all under cover to Hyde Park Place as I am not certain whether I have directed to Mr Huggins rightly or not – and the others I will leave to you or my Father to forward to their destination.

And now you are down at Tavistock and all by yourself too. How I long for the mail which of course will be a fortnight late, to tell me all about Mary’s wedding and its concomitance. Also whether Arthur has passed at Addiscombe, for now is his time to get into the army, while there are lots of vacancies. What a colony of us there will be on this side of the Cape, for by one of the last papers we received, the 34^th were said to be under orders for India. Hurrah! Keep moving! We may get the Laurie name up yet. Like the Napiers we have a brother prepared to chronicle all our great deeds (when we perform any) altho’ you cannot say, like the mother of the Napiers, that you refused George 3^rd.

I think I told you I have a god daughter in the regiment. My color serjeant’s little girl. He is a Devonshire man from near South Molton and has been a long time (18 years) in the regiment. When he first joined he was thought to be about the most disreputable recruit that ever listed and could scarcely write his name. But by dint of perseverance he made his way and when the Queen sent out to the Crimea some work – a pocket handkerchief, I think, hemmed with her own most royal needle, to be given to the most deserving serjeant in the regiment he was the man chosen to receive it. He was afterwards chosen for the legion of honor and when the Queen reviewed us at Aldershot he was presented to her as the most deserving soldier in the regiment and now my company’s accounts which he keeps are always more correct than those of any other company, as altho’ not a great scholar, he is very attentive and I can assure you that all matters connected with the pay, feeding, and clothing of 86 men are not very trifling and require a man with a pretty clear head. He is very doubtful about his H’s and cannot for the life of him make out the difference between Helen and Ellen. However I wrote it for him and I have no doubt that he will get over this difficulty in time.

How lonely you must be now with only little Helen as a companion and unfortunately all your correspondence with your absent sons comes and goes by the same mail, so that you are called on to write a good deal at one particular time and during the rest of the month you neither receive nor write.

We have sent our messman away & are now catering for ourselves. But this is a dreadfully dear place and there is scarcely a chance of existing as a subaltern unless one has plenty of private means. Even a Captain is not a bit too well off on his pay as everything is more than double the price that it would cost in England. So that the colonial allowance is rather a myth than an addition to our means, as it does not double our pay, which it ought to do to put us on the same footing as we are in England.

Until the mail goes, every spare moment I have I make use of to write to you but when I sit down I have nothing whatsoever in my head to say, but I feel as if writing to you brings me for the time in communication with you and I feel nearer to you then than at other times. Then I try to forget the Mauritius and fancy myself in England and amongst you, but I cannot, & first with one thing and then with another I am so continually called away that the thread of my thoughts (stupid as they are certain to be) is broken, which may account in some measure for the disconnected style of my letters. I have discovered nothing peculiar to the Mauritius which would suit you, so am afraid I shall not be able to find anything for a Christmas present. There is no produce whatever here except sugar, and that you get much better in England.

I shall I think take to the water as there is no produce on land, and see whether I can hunt you up some nice bits of coral. It is all white but I have seen some very pretty bunches and there are also some curious looking star fish. These things are neither valuable or pretty but if I can find some conveyance for them it will shew you that I am thinking of you & that it is only want of opportunity that prevents me sending you something better. I do not know what the preserves are like, but I fancy that there are very few to be got just now as they are all out of season. But I will not press these things but wait until I know which way to turn & where to go to to get these things in the best order for shipment to England. This place is not like the West Indies, where preserves may be got which are indigenous to the place, but everything is imported the same way as in England.

Sept^r 10^th

I have just had the pleasure of answering another invitation to a ball, for the officers of the regiment. I am mess president & have to do all that sort of work, but I do not find my writing improves much with it all. We hear now that the governor is not leaving till the 12^th instead of the 11^th so that we shall have one day longer before finishing and starting our letters. The people here are in a great state of excitement. Some want to present an address to him; others do not. He has certainly not been a liberal man – has given no parties and in fact has not made himself at all agreeable to the ladies and then, altho’ the island was never so prosperous as it is now, owing to the bold way in which he imported Indians, thus enabling the planters to grow their sugar easily & so letting them clear enormous sums yearly (one planter here cleared £45,000 off his plantation in one year – no wonder everything is so dear!) yet the Cholera has visited the island twice during his stewardship, and last time carried off 18,000 people.

The inhabitants say that he did not take proper precautions to ward it off and one man writing to the paper here (we have a daily paper) calls the Governor the murderer of his two children (who, I conclude, died of cholera) and says that he will follow him home and seek justice in England where the great Sir J.M. Higginson, * governor of the Mauritius and its dependencies will be answer able to law like any other mortal. It must be a great fall for a man, retiring into private life, after being looked upon as the great man of the place and having sentries and guards of honour to pay him compliments wherever he goes. Worse almost than the Lord Mayor – great is the fall thereof.

I still find the mosquitoes very troublesome. They manage to find their way in through all the crevices of my curtains and when they get in, they revenge themselves on their victim for the trouble he has given them by putting up curtains. At present I have it in contemplation to join the Col. of the Artillery here and one or two more officers in renting the government station at Black river * which is one of the prettiest parts of the island and we shall go down there occasionally making up parties for a week or so at a time. It is about twenty miles from here, which is a pleasant distance for a walk. The only thing we have to take down there are mosquito curtains, as the place swarms with them, and sheets. Everything else is to be obtained on the spot. It is a capital place for shooting and fishing so I must learn to stuff birds and then must shoot some and send them home to you.

There is a horrid wind blowing now from the S.W. which is looked upon the same way as we look upon the East wind at home, as a sulky unhealthy wind. It goes by the name of the Madagash wind. I suppose from its blowing from Madagascar towards us. We have not made up our excursion to that island yet but shall wait until we are a little more settled. Then perhaps we may venture on more extended excursions than we have tried on as yet.

The 13^th Reg^t have just come in to coal on their way to Calcutta, so of course we are giving them a dinner and as I am president of the mess my time is pretty well taken up. So in a great hurry I must finish this letter. With best love to my Father & little Helen.

Believe me ever

Your affectionate Son

J Wimburn Laurie

4^th K.O. Reg^t.

Port Louis Sept^r 11^th /57.

* Sir J M Higginson – Sir James Macaulay Higginson (1805-1885) was an Anglo-Irish colonial administrator who had been Governor of Antigua from 1847 to 1850.

* Black river – an area at the South west of the island, near what is now the Black River Gorges National Park