All the Maroons that remain in the island do not amount to above five or six hundred. The Trelawney town Maroons were by far the most fierce, daring, and warlike of these people.

The Maroons in general lead a wild and roving sort of life. The women are chiefly employed in cultivating the grounds, and attending to the wants of their families; while the men are (or at at least were) in the woods, hunting the wild hog, or shooting the ring-tail pigeon. Their arms were a light fusee and powder-horn, a machetto, or short sabre, sometimes a lance made of the hardest wood, and, in war, a horn directed, by its various modulations, their movements. With these the Maroon climbed with the nimbleness and celerity of the roebuck, the precipitous rocks and rugged mountains of the wild woods, which he traversed in quest of his prey. He patiently explored the deepest retreats of the forest; lived in them for whole weeks; found every where abundance of materials wherewith to erect his hut, or kindle a fire for the dressing of his game; and, if unsuccessful in procuring it, he could easily subsist upon the mountain cabbage, while he assuaged his thirst with the moisture of the water-withe, or wild pine, should no rivulet be near, nor water remain in the excavations of the rocks. He was wonderfully adroit in the management of his fusee, he could charge and fire in any position, he could toss it high in the air, and, catching it

in the descent, instantly present it, with unerring aim, at his object. In short, he was completely adapted for a desultory and skirmishing warfare in a woody and mountainous country, like Jamaica. It is therefore no wonder, that in the contest between this people and the whites, they should avail themselves, so fatally to the latter, of these advantages and qualifications; nor can there be a doubt, that the terror of the Spanish dogs alone operated more powerfully to induce them to surrender, than all the troops and military talent in the country. Not that there was a deficiency of either; but what could a body of gal lant troops, headed by the bravest and most skilful officer, do against an enemy who was invisible to them-who, skulking behind huge trees and immense rocks, were so placed as completely to enfilade the narrow and rugged defiles through which the former were obliged to pass? It would be painful to dwell on the various shocking barbarities exercised on the unfortunate white men who fell, in these encounters, alive into the hands of this savage foe, who gloried in having such an opportunity of glutting their bloodthirsty, and vindictive spirit, by nameless insults and protracted tortures! The man who knows he has a generous enemy to fight with, has no presentiment of so horrible a fate, to damp the energy of his spirit; he does not fear becoming the martyr of an unpitying revenge, should the chance of war, some sudden surprise, or unex

pected ambush, throw him into the hands of such an enemy. He knows, that if he falls wounded into his power, he will be cherished, respected, consoled, with all that characteristic humanity which ever distinguishes the truly brave. Indeed, generosity and compassion to a vanquished enemy, form perhaps the brightest trait in the character of the soldier-that eye, which flashed fierceness. and defiance in the hour of battle, bedews with the softest tears of a generous sympathy, the wounds of his fallen foe! To preach this doctrine to the vindictive and cowardly savage, is like persuasion to the deaf winds of heaven.

The Maroons, however successful they were in their surprises, skirmishes, and ambuscades, were certainly, as before remarked, deficient in one of the first qualities of a soldier, courage. Confident of their security in the midst of their fastnesses and retreats, the marches and movements of the whites gave them little concern as to their safety; yet in the open field they were perfectly aware they were no match for the regulars and militia; nor was their mode of warfare at all calculated for a cultivated and champaign country. While they remained in the vicinity of their town, which, as a preliminary to war, they burnt with their own hands, a few shells were thrown, in the evenings, in different directions from the post there, into the surrounding woods, in order to scour them, and prevent night sur

prises. These, flying like comets through the darkened air, terrified and amazed them for a while; but at length, keeping a little beyond their reach, they were wont to gaze on them merely as an amusing spectacle. The Brigands of St. Domingo have often openly skirmished with the European troops, and have indeed, at times, fought pretty obstinately, and even come to the push of the bayonet : these negroes were partly trained to European tactics, and were supplied with artillery, to the use of which they were by no means novices.^ The Maroons neither knew, nor desired to know, any thing of artillery or the bayonet.

The Maroons are generally tall, well made, and more comely in their features than most of the other blacks; but there is a something in their looks which indicates wildness and ferocity. This is owing in a great measure to the wild and wandering life they lead, and to their not mixing so much with general society as the other negroes.

CHAP. XXV.

People of colour.-The different classes of them. Their rapidly increasing population in Jamaica-Their character, manners, and amusements, &c.

BETWEEN the whites and the blacks in the West Indies, a numerous race has sprung up, which goes by the general name of people of colour: these are subdivided into Mulattos, the offspring of a white and a black; Sambos, the offspring of a black and Mulatto: Quadroons, the offspring of a Mulatto and a white; and Mestees, or Mestises, the offspring of a Quadroon and a white. Below this last denomination, the distinction of colour is hardly perceptible; and those who are thus far removed from the original negro stock, are considered by the law as whites, and competent, in course, to enjoy all the privileges of a white. Between these particular casts, an endless variety of non-descript shades exist, descending from the deep jet to the faintest tinge of the olive, by gradations which it were impossible to mark and to designate.

The people of colour may be supposed to possess the mingled natures of the original stocks from whence they spring; and the more or less