Thomas Phipps Howard sailed from Southampton in February 1796 with Abercromby's expedition and kept a journal through two years in Saint-Domingue with the York Hussars. It is effectively the only record of him, and it stops in early 1798 at Port-au-Prince, before the evacuation.

The editorial matter places him inside the campaign that destroyed the British force. In ten days in July 1796 his regiment lost nearly a quarter of its strength to disease; penned into coastal towns and unable to fight inland, the army was reduced to covering its own withdrawal, which Maitland completed in 1798. Howard's value lies partly in what he could not see. He dismisses Toussaint's soldiers as brigands, and the sympathy for the enslaved he brought with him did not survive contact with an enemy who killed his comrades. Introductory chapters cover Toussaint's training and discipline of his troops, the regiment's history, and conditions aboard the transports.