After a six-month-long battle to capture Guadeloupe they finally received the formal surrender of the island, just days before a large French relief force arrived under Admiral Maximin de Bompart.

Major-General Peregrine Hopson, who had been Governor at Nova Scotia before the outbreak of war, was appointed to the chief command, and Colonel John Barrington, a junior officer, was selected to be his second.

On 3 January 1759, the British expedition reached Barbados where Commodore John Moore was waiting with two more ships of the line to join it and to take command of the fleet.

Hopson landed his troops near Fort Royal and fought a battle against the French, leaving 100 British dead or wounded.

A second landing was considered at Saint-Pierre but the defenses were so formidable that Hopson decided to abandon the attack on Martinique and proceed to Guadeloupe.

[1] At dawn on 24 January, the British troops were landed, and moved inwards for some 5 km, until they met a strong French position in a rugged, mountainous terrain.

In March he used this as a base from which naval transport carried separate forces under Brigadiers Byam Crump and John Clavering to attack French positions around the island.