The alliance of Spain and Holland with France much increased the difficulties of Great Britain, by throwing open their colonial ports to French privateers. The extensive sea-coasts of Cuba and Haïti became alive with them. In 1807 it was estimated that there were from two to three hundred depending upon these two islands, and unfitted, from their size, to go far from them.[75] The number testifies to the extent and value of British trade in that sea, although the privateer did not confine his depredations to the enemy, but preyed lawlessly on neutrals as well. The same authority illustrates the annihilation of French and Spanish commerce by stating that not more than two or three British privateers were sailing from Jamaica.
General Abercromby went for a short time to Europe in the fall of 1796. Upon his return a strong military and naval expedition was sent against Trinidad, but did not meet the resistance expected from the size and importance of the island. It capitulated on the second day, February 18, 1797, and with it the Spaniards lost four ships-of-the-line. Thence Abercromby moved, in April, against Porto Rico; but upon reconnoitring, the defences were found too strong, and the troops were re-embarked after losing two hundred men. This ended the colonial expeditions in the West Indies for the first war. Quiet possession was taken of the Dutch colonies of Surinam and Curaçoa in 1799 and 1800; and in 1801, when Sweden and Denmark became involved in hostilities with Great Britain, their West India islands were also given up without resistance, but no further fighting took place.
NOTE. As it does not enter into the author's plan to give in detail the naval history after Trafalgar, it may be well to state here, in brief, the subsequent events in the West Indies. At the Peace of Amiens in 1801, Great Britain restored all her West India conquests except the Spanish Trinidad. When war broke out again in 1803, Tobago, Santa Lucia, Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice were at once seized without difficulty, as was Surinam in 1804. There matters rested till 1807, when Curaçoa and the Danish islands fell, followed in 1809 by Martinique, and in 1810 by Guadaloupe. Spain having become again the ally of Great Britain in 1808, the latter had now no open enemy in the Caribbean; but the long habits of lawlessness left numerous pirates infesting Cuba, whom the weak Spanish government failed to control.