West
African garrisons were to be composed of two companies from each of the
three West India regiments; and, in accordance with this scheme, two
companies of the 1st West India Regiment, under Captain L.S. O'Connor,
embarked at Barbados for Sierra Leone on March 22nd, 1843, arriving at
the latter place in the month of May of the same year. Early in 1844 the
3rd West India Regiment left West Africa for the Bahamas, and the two
companies of the 1st West India Regiment, with one of the 3rd West India
Regiment, composed the garrison of Sierra Leone, while that of the
Gambia consisted of two companies of the 2nd West India Regiment and
one of the 3rd. This arrangement was almost at once upset by the
necessity of furnishing a garrison for the Gold Coast, over which the
Crown had, in 1843, resumed jurisdiction, as it was suspected that the
Government of the merchants, which had been established at Cape Coast
Castle since 1831, connived at the maintenance of the slave trade; and,
in January, 1844, one captain, two subalterns, and 100 men of the 1st
West India Regiment left Sierra Leone for the Gold Coast.

In the same year, two companies of the regiment, under the command of
Captain Robeson, proceeded from Demerara to Jamaica, disembarking there
on June 1st. This was the first occasion on which any portion of the
corps was stationed in that island.

On the 25th of February, 1845, the head-quarters, with the Grenadier and
No. 8 Companies, embarked at Demerara in the _Princess Royal_ transport,
and sailed for Jamaica, to relieve the head-quarters of the 2nd West
India Regiment ordered to Nassau, disembarking at Port Royal on March
6th. The distribution of the regiment was then as follows: The
Grenadier, No. 1, No. 8, and the Light Company in Jamaica,[54] No. 5 at
Demerara, No. 2 at Trinidad, No. 3 at Dominica, No. 6 at Grenada, No. 4
at Sierra Leone, and No. 7 at Cape Coast Castle. During the last six
months of this year (1845) over 300 recruits joined the head-quarters
from West Africa.

In 1846, No. 5 Company was removed from Demerara to Tobago, and the
detachments at Dominica and Grenada rejoined head-quarters in Jamaica,
where No. 2 and No. 5 Companies also rejoined on the 16th of December,
1847.[55]

In the beginning of the year 1848, the King of Appollonia, a state on
the western frontier of the Gold Coast Colony, closed the roads leading
to Cape Coast Castle, stopped all trade, and maltreated several British
subjects