individuals who fell into their hands, were too shocking to relate. The runaway negroes who happened to be along with them on these occasions, declared that they mutilated many of these unhappy victims in a dreadful manner, and inflicted on them a variety of studied and insulting tortures! One instance only occurred of their sparing a white man, who led a solitary life in the midst of the woods, and was actually ignorant that the Maroons were in rebellion against the whites. He had at one time resided among them, and was useful to them in a medical capacity. having been bred as a surgeon. The leader of this party had become a Christian, and had retired from the other Maroons to live with his family on a small retired spot which he had cultivated, and on which he had erected a small dwelling. On coming up to the white man's dwelling, he restrained his banditti from putting him to death, which some of them were inclined to do.-"No!" said he, "we must not kill this poor Buckera ; him no know say we do fight with tother Buckera ; him never do we harm; but him sometimes do we good, when he been live with we." Then addressing himself to the astonished and trembling white man, he said, "No be affraid, we wont hurt you, we wont burn your house; but give we key, we want what you have in your house to eat and drink. When we gone, no stay here; go to Buckera, and tell them, say, Johnson (this was the Ma

.

roon's adopted name) no been want for trouble them; him been want for keep himself to himself; but Buckera come and burn him house; them rook out him ground; them say, they want for kill me; my wife and pickininnie no have house, no have victual. Well! so long as Buckera trouble me first, I will shew them something too!" This Maroon was grateful and considerate, while he thus breathed revenge, and threatened destruction. A party of militia had destroyed his property, prior to his taking up arms and joining his rebellious brethren. It must indeed be confessed, that the whites sometimes did things, during this rebellion, which could answer no other end than to exasperate the Maroons, and render them more desperate and blood-thirsty. On taking possession of the forsaken haunts of the rebels, it would have been well had they always stopped at burning the huts, and destroying the provisions; but instances occurred of their opening the graves, and cutting off the heads from the putrid carcases of the Maroons who had been there interred? What were the survivors to think of this? but that those who could thus extend their hatred and antipathy to the dead, would wreak a horrible vengeance on the living if they had them in their power.

Much has been said against the employing of dogs against these savages; and in truth, the name of the thing has something revolting in it; when

superficially compared with the legitimate means, of civilized warfare. Those who have condemned, with unqualified dogmatism, the whites, for having recourse to these animals, did not examine the subject with fairness, liberality, and candour. Not that the author means to set up a defence of this mode of carrying on war: the horrors of war are sufficiently numerous, without sharpening its scourge by additional inventions of destruction. The employment of these dogs against the Maroons has been compared to the use the Spaniards made of them in hunting and extirpating the poor Indians in South America and the Caribbees. The comparison, and the inference to be drawn therefrom, is the very reverse of fairness and truth. In the one case, these anima were used as a means of offence against a helpless, naked, and flying people, in order to wrest from them, by extermination, the country they inhabited and possessed in the other, they were employed as a necessary defence and protection against rebellious savages, who exercised cold-blooded massacre, and every other horrible outrage and barbarity, against a people under whose government they lived in peace, and to whom they owed submission and allegiance, In sivilized war, if barbarities not recognised by it, are practised by one party, the other is justifiable in having recourse to retaliation. The whites could not setaliate the dreadful cruelties of the

7

U

:

Maroons, without themselves incurring the name of barbarous; but to employ the only resource which they had left to save the country from destruction, and themselves and families from indiscriminate slaughter, was surely, at least, a pardonable retaliation. And the author does not hesitate to assert, that had the Maroons held out for three or four months longer, Jamaica would have exhibited a scene of general conflagration, havoc, and ruin! In the season of crop, the weather is usually long and excessively dry, and so combustible does the stubble of the cane-fields become in consequence, that a spark of fire communicated to them, would in a few hours consume three or four plantations; and the blaze, if once become general, would be stopped with much difficulty;-even the grass at this season is so parched by the heat and the drought, that it would assist to propagate the devouring element. Thus then the Maroons would have had it in their power to destroy the property of the country; and many of the slaves, seeing their success and their desperate exploits, would have been tempted, by a view of independence, to have joined their banners, and to have massacred the few whites who had been left in care of the plantations. But for what purpose were these dogs gotten? Was it to tear, devour, and suck the blood of the unhappy Maroons, as was insidiously represented? Those who have ever traversed the

interior and mountainous parts of Jamaica, well know that they afford fastnesses to such a people as the Maroons, in which dogs could not be so employed with any chance of success. Of this the whites were fully aware. But, by their keen scent, they might discover the lurking retreats of the enemy, on the approach to them of the parties of the whites, and thus put them on their guard against those ambushes which so often proved fatal to them. But the grand intent of these animals was the terror which the name and the presence of them conveyed to the minds of the Maroons. Negroes are fond of exaggeration, and such of the slaves as had seen them, and afterwards resorted to the Maroons, gave to theas people an appalling description of their size, their fierceness, their strength, their agility, and numbers. This account operated as was expected and desired; the Maroons soon after the introduction of the Spanish dogs, testified a desire to capitulate, which they would not (as they themselves said) otherwise so easily have done. And thus was much bloodshed, not to say the absolute destruction of the country, prevented by thesǝ animals. At the same time not a drop of blood was shed by them, if we except an unfortunate accident, of one getting loose from its keeper, soon after their arrival, and worrying an old negro woman. They were muzzled and held in couples by the Spanish chasseurs.