The islands then lay deserted of Europeans for almost fifteen years until 1797, when the English removed by force some 5,000 "Black Caribs" (a mixture of African Negro and Carib and Arawak Indians) from the Windward Island of St. Vincent, and marooned them on the then empty beaches of Port Royal on Roatán." ...The deportees were taken first to the small island of Balliceaux, then to Bequia, both in the northern Grenadines. They were then dispatched by the H.M.S. Experiment to Roatan," under the command of Captain Barrett. They were landed on Roatán on a stormy day of February 25, 1797. According to the Honduran historian, Durón, the British employed two men-of-war and a brigantine, landing the deportees in April, not February, in 1797.