And what had led to this display of acclaim? A ship's crew in the West Indies ravaged by Yellow Jack in 1797; a disagreement between the Beauman family of Jamaica and his old friend Christopher Cashman, who had retired from the Army with his reaped wealth from hard field service in "John Company's" army in India, and who had, for a time, thought the life of a slave-owning sugar planter on Jamaica would be the sweet life. The bloody slave revolt on the ultra-rich sugar colony on French St. Domingue, which butchered Whites no matter their class or station, and which had drawn a British Army with an eye to seizing the whole thing… thankee that damned scheming fool, Henry Dundas, the Secretary of State for War, who would trade ten thousand British soldiers' lives for an enemy colony in the West Indies, and a cheer in Commons… had led the "patriotic" Beaumans to raise a regiment, and who better to lead it than former-Major Christopher Cashman, with that simpering twit Ledyard Beauman as Colonel of the Regiment over Leftenant-Colonel Cashman, with the rest of the officers' mess made up from Beauman kin and the younger sons of fellow planters. Most-like with an eye for new lands for themselves, and stout workers, once they were back in chains!

Outside Port-au-Prince, though, in the middle of a battle with the howling, fanatical army of the ex-slave general Toussaint L'Ouverture (no slouch, he, but damn' near a military genius!) Col. Ledyard Beauman, who'd gotten his martial experience from books and tabletop games with lead toy soldiers, had panicked, issued orders for retreat, and had galloped to the rear with his cousins and toadies, leaving Lewrie's friend Christopher Cashman to sort out the mess!

Back on Jamaica after the eventual evacuation of all British forces, the volunteer regiment shamed and dis-banded, the Beaumans had laid all the blame on Cashman, using their newspaper to vilify everyone but them, which had led to a duel of honour; which duel had turned to a farce, for Ledyard had been shivering drunk and fearful, and had turned and fired early, clipping the top of Cashman's shoulder.