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were divided among themselves; that the milder and more numerous were kept in awe by the smaller and more violent, who were the younger. It was evident, too, that they were now in a state of repentance; for, in an account sent on the 28th by major James; who had been requested to remain among them till the business was arranged by the executive power, they were stated to be in so humiliated a condition, as to be ready to accede to whatever might be requested of them. One of them was in irons, by his order, for an impertinent expression, and the body of Maroons offered to sacrifice him rather than aggravate their offence: it was also determined among them, that six of their principal officers should go the next day to make a submission, and obtain a passport from general Palmer to Spanish Town, to lay their complaints before the governor, and submit themselves to him.

Thus affairs seemed to be in a train of tranquillity; and, indeed, so confident was lord Balcarres of it that, on the militia being permitted by their commander to go home, and on the representation received of the state of things, he dispatched orders for the return of the troop of light dragoons that had been sent from Spanish Town, and suffered the 83d regiment of foot, which he had before expressly detained, to sail for St. Domingo, under convoy of the Success frigate. He also sent orders for captain Craskell to repair to Spanish Town, and directed that the chief captains of the Maroons should proceed to town by the 31st of July to make their submission."

This promising tranquillity was interrupted by the mischievous suggestions of the alarmists, who, by sowing mistrust and exaggerating danger, provoked men in authority to take those critical measures of precaution which, by terminating the protection of law and the comforts of liberty, justify a reclamation of the rights of nature. There is a species of moral cowardice, perfectly compatible with animal courage and personal bravery, which is in all emergencies the most dangerous and the most cruel of counsellors. It consists in a morbid irritability of the imagina tion, which requires on all occasions, not the proportionate, but the strongest possible antagonist stimulus. It isa species and degree of insanity which leads men to expend on precaution more than the worth of preservation, to break a but terfly upon a wheel, to oppose a villageriot by inflicting martial law over a county, to answer a pamphlet by a proscription, and punish a heresy by a massacre. Those writers and speakers who are afflicted with this disease, the

professors of the terrible, as they migh be called, are sure to elevate and sur prize, to agitate and impassion their hearkeners: hence they acquire a reputation for excellence and influence, which arises only from the imperfect and ignorant taste of their disciples. Merely to produce a great effect is not meritorious: he who throws a heavy stone into a puddle may do that; but if thereby he besplashes and bemires the ladies who are walking near, it is not his skill, but his awkwardness, that ought to be noticed. These agitators are in politics, what methodist preachers are in religion: the fears they infuse occasion much useless misery, and though they prevent little, they never prevent great evils in social conduct.. France, Ireland, and Jamaica have of late years suffered horribly in consequence of lis tening to the energumens. To overstate danger, and to propose extreme remedies for any danger, is the greatest possible inversion of political wisdom; the use of employing talent and virtue in the government of states is, that they can accomplish their objects by milde: means and gentler efforts than stupidity and brutality can. But alarmists restore to civilized society the panic terrors of barbarism, and fling away the properties of provinces and the lives of millions, for the attainment of purposes which judicious men would have obtained by a slight tax and a little recruiting, by an address to the voluntary faculties, and without the infamy of oppression.

the humbled Maroons were directed to send "In the end of July all was peace, and their captains by the 31st of the same month to Spanish Town, to make their submission. This it was impossible to comply with, owing to a delay occasioned by the messenger who brought the dispatches; but the Ma roon captains came down as speedily as possible, and proceeded on their way to the capital. In the meantime, the public mind Domingo, by an apprehension of the con was considerably agitated by the affairs of St tagion of revolutionary principles spreading to Jamaica, by a currency of vague report respecting French agency in the island, an by a reluctance to sending troops off th country at so alarming a juncture. It she seem that the commander in chief was als actuated by these motives; and they we certainly sufficiently substantial to excite accordingly held on the 3d of August; gilance and decision. A council of war w members of which, considering the fly reports that Frenchmen and people of lour were conspiring with the Maroons,

danger of suffering the departure of the troops ready to sail for St. Domingo, and the necessity of justifying Lord Balcarres in detaining them, concurred in opinion that it was requisite to establish martial law; which was accordingly proclaimed.

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That the detention of the troops was a wise measure, is not to be contravened; but it cannot be denied that the south side of the island was alarmed by reports from the north side, of which the north side knew nothing; and the north side by reports from the south side, of which the south side knew nothing; and, whatever might have been the intentions of the revolutionary French, and no one will doubt that they would have revolutionized Jamaica had they been able, it does not appear that any conduct of the Maroons, subsequent to their proposed submission, justified a suspicion of their insincerity. Indeed, all the evidence obtained respecting their offences, not only related to past matter, or to matter subsequent to hostilities, but was not deposed till some weeks after the declaration of martial law; and the like may be observed of all the evidence relative to the designs of the French. They were depositions taken subsequently of conversations and vague notions at different times prior to the departure of the six captains from Trelawney Town, or of expressions used, and acts committed, after their being thrown into irons.-The Maroons never thought about the forces on the island, kaew nothing of the intended embarkation for St. Domingo, had not been tampered with by the French, nor had they themselves, at this time, tampered with the slaves. A neglected, half wild body of people; they were ready to be tumultuous or submissive according to the ascendency of their passions. When cool, they would grow enraged at the sight of Crashell; and in the excess of rage and tumult, binds of them would become cool at the blows of James. These were not people to be plotting deep conspiracies. They had ignorantly braved the government, and it was necessary to make them feel their dependence: they had felt it, and it became politie to make them easy and happy in that dependence. The chief motives by which the council of war were influenced, must undoubtedly have arisen from the apprehenn of a general insurrection among the slaves on revolutionary principles; an apprehension which the very nature of the French revolution, more than the suspicious deposition of a French prisoner, justified their entertaining. On these grounds they armed the lieutenant-governor with the powers of martial hw; and on the 4th of August his Lonour left Spanish Town in order to take the command of the troops in person, in a

quarter where the revolt was expected to break out.”

To what dire resources the alarmists at length had to recur, is thus related by this unconcealing writer:

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"Colonel Quarrell*, who had been upon. service with the troops in the mountains, was compelled by the state of his health to leave the head-quarters, and to go down to the sea-shore. There he met with an intelligent Spaniard, who, talking with him on the state of the island, related an event, to which colonel Quarrell paid the utmost attention, as he thought the ideas it suggested might prove of importance to the country. seems that some years before, when the British abandoned the Musquito-shore to the Spaniards, the latter were opposed by the native Indians, who had always shown the most determined enmity to them. They attempted in vain to take possession of the country by means of a military force: in the course of a very few months they lost, from surprises and ambushes, nearly three regiments. Compelled to abandon the place, or fall upon some plan of counteracting the Indian warfare, they imported from Cuba 36 dogs and 12 chasseurs, who were sent by the alcalde provincialef, at the desire of Don Juan Despolito, the governor of the Havanna. These auxiliaries were more formidable than the finest regiment of the most warlike nation could have been; and from the time of their being employed, neither surprize nor ambush, annoyed the troops, the Spaniards soon suc-, ceeded in expelling the Musquito Indians from the territory on the coast, and quietly occupied Black River, Blue-fields, and CapeGracios a Deos. In whatever light the philanthropist may view means of the gen-. tlest kind when used to drive men from their native lands, he cannot justly blame the harshest adopted at home,, when self-preser◄ vation is the end proposed. Had the case been reversed, had the Indians employed dogs in driving away the Spaniards and keeping thern from their country, satisfaction, and not horror, would have been the emotion excited.. It occurred to colonel Quarrell, that the assistance of a certain number of the Cuba chasseurs would be attended with happy effects: he foresaw that the very terror they would spread would induce the Maroons to submit on proper terms; and he argued, that even if the commander in chief were compelled to bring them into actua service, it would be better, and more for the in crest of humanity, that some of the rebels should be thus destroyed, than that the most barbarous massacres should be committed on the inhabitants, and the colony ruined. Swayed by these motives, he suggested the

"Colonel Quarrell wished me not to entitle him according to his military rank, which he considered as temporary; but the time of which I treat fully justifies my giving him the title of the rank he then held, and still holds, if he were called into service."

The high-constable of the province whence the dogs and chasseurs came.

ANN. REV. VOL. II.

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scheme to the speaker and several members of the house of assembly, to be laid before the lieutenant-governor. The house, how ever, misconceived the plan: in their anxiety to spare the lives of the troops in so unequal a warfare, they approved of the means proposed, but contented themselves with recommending that a pecuniary encouragement should be given to the Spaniards trading to the north side of the island, to bring over a few dogs, in order to see what effect the importation would have. Colonel Quarrell, who had now retained the Spaniard with whom he had conversed, and two others in his pay, represented the inutility of this measure, pressed the conducting of the business on surer grounds and a more extensive plan, and, having obtained full information on the subject, offered to take the business upon himself, provided he were furnished with a vessel and a letter from the governor of Jamaica to the Spanish governor at the Havanna, requesting permission for him to purchase dogs. The government, having taken the offer into consideration, acceded to the proposal; a schooner called the Mercury, carrying twelve guns, was sent down to Bluefields, an open road at the western extremity of Jamaica; and a letter was transmitted to colonel Quarrell, addressed to don Luis de las Casas, the governor at the Havanna, recommending the bearer of it to his attentions as a commissioner for the purposes mentioned in it, and likewise as a member of the legislature, and a lieutenantcolonel of the troops. When the captain of the vessel delivered his dispatches, the commissioner was ill with a fever: but so anxious was he that nothing should delay the service, that he immediately went on board, and the captain requesting orders for the time of sailing, he answered, that in stant. The crew of the schooner consisted of four British seamen, twelve Curaçoa negroes, and eighteen Spanish renegadoes; but notwithstanding the unpromising, or rather alarming appearance of such a set of men, the commissioner, with a friend, whom he had invited to accompany him on the voyage, and their two servants, embarked at Bluefields in the end of the month of October 1795.

auxiliaries, and using the canine species against human beings, would give rise to much animadversion in England; and that the horrible enormities of the Spaniards in the conquest of the new world, would be brought again to remembrance. It is but too true, that dogs were used by those christian barbarians against the peaceful and inoffensive Americans, and the just indignation of mankind has ever since branded, and will continue to brand, the Spanish nation with infamy, for such atrocities. It was foreseen, and strongly urged as an argument against recurring to the same means in the present case, that the prejudices of party, and the virulent zeal of restless and turbulent men, would place the proceedings of the assembly on this occasion, in a point of view equally odious with the conduct of Spain on the same blood-stained theatre, in times past. No allowance would be made for the wide difference existing between the two cases. Some gentlemen even thought that the co-operation of dogs with British troops, would give not only a cruel, but a very dastardly complexion to the proceedings of government.

"To these and similar objections, it was answered, that the safety of the island and the lives of the inhabitants were not to be sacrificed to the apprehension of perverse misconstruction or wilful misrepresentation in the mother country. It was maintained, that the grounds of the measure needed only to be fully examined, and fairly stated, to induce all reasonable men to admit its propriety and necessity. To hold it as a principle, that it is an act of cruelty or cowardice in man to employ other animals as instruments of war, is a position contradicted by the practice of all nations. The Asiatics have ever used elephants in their battles; and if lions and tygers possessed the docility of the elephant, no one can doubt that these also would be made to assist the military operations of man, in those regions where they abound. Even the use of cavalry, as established among the most civilized and polished nations of Europe, must be rejected, if this principle be admitted; for wherein, it was asked, does the humanity of that doctrine consist, which allows the employLet us now take leave of general Wal- ment of troops of horse in the pursuit of pole and the Trelawney mountains, of the discomfited and flying infantry, yet shrinks Maroons and the cockpits, for a few weeks; at the preventive measure of sparing the let us set sail in the schooner, and let us ac- effusion of human blood, by tracing with company the commissioner in his expedition hounds the haunts of murderers, and rousto Cuba, remembering, at the same time, ing from ambush, savages more ferocious that the sole object of it was to quell the,and blood-thirsty than the animals which Maroon rebellion. We will not, however, track them?" take our departure till we have investigated the justice of the means proposed for the end in view. The argument has been stated

thus:

"The assembly of Jamaica were not unapprized that the measure of calling in such

The doctrine nakedly avowed by this author is, that the philanthropist cannot justly blame the harshest means, when self-preservation is the end proposed. This is bad historical morality.

"Captain Gilpin of the militia.

In the first place, self-preservation is not a justifiable ultimate end; and life itself is occasionally to be sacrificed, when its preservation would involve a breach of general laws, which it is important to avoid the precedent of violating. In the next place, all preservation is to be accomplished by the mildest adequate means; and the philanthropist may justly blame not only the harshest, but the gentlest inflictions, which are not essential to the end proposed. The only ground for employing these dogs to track the Maroons to their hidingplaces, a practice formerly common on the borders of Scotland, is, that no speedier and milder method could be devised of apprehending individuals, whom it was become necessary to transplant, after they had been wickedly or ignorantly irritated and terrified into a state of ferocious insurrection, which

rendered them formidable to the lives of all the contiguous proprietors. It may however be suspected that these dogs were not intended merely to track the Maroons, for the importation of them excited an extraordinary degree of

terror.

"On the 16th of March four Maroons dispatched by Johnson arrived at Old Maroon-Town, and informed general Walpole that he was on his way with the whole remaining body of the Maroons. Some of them being hog-hunting, they could not be all collected at once; but on the 21st, Patkinson, with thirty-six of his party, surrendered, bringing with them forty-four stands of arms. The whole number now remain

ing in the woods was thirteen, and these, with the rest of the runaways, surrendered next day. Thus concluded hostilities, with out recourse being once had to the assistance of the chasseurs, beyond the operation of the terror they inspired, but which it was very evident had been the means of producing the treaty, and of accelerating the surrender of the several bodies whose distrust kept them back so long after it was made; and who, as they gradually came in, always required that the Spaniards and dogs should be removed, and separated from them by a line of the troops. One knows not which to admire most, the activity and ad

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dress with which they were procured, or the humanity that in spite of three months provocation prevented their being employed volence of general Walpole are the colonists, in action. To the skill, temper, and benewhom he had a little before saved froin humiliation, indebted for this bloodless triumph; and to William Dawes Quarrell are they indebted for suggesting, and procuring the means by which the island was saved from destruction. We cannot but take this opportunity,' say the assembly, in requesting the lieutenant-governor to give orders for ing our acknowledgments of the eminent the dismission of the chasseurs, of expressadvantages derived from the importation of the chasseurs and dogs, in compliance with the general wishes of the island. Nothing can be clearer, than that if they had been off the island, the rebels could not have been, induced to surrender, from their almost inaccessible fastnesses. We are happy to have the appearance of the dogs, has been suffiit in our power to say, that terror excited by cient to produce so fortunate an event; and we cannot but highly approve that attention to humanity so strongly proved by their be ing ordered in the rear of the army."

The determination to transplant some of these unfortunate people into Canada, a climate so ill adapted for their constitutions, was surely unnatural. The partial transfer of them to Sierra Leone was more praiseworthy: yet we should have preferred the continent of South America, where there are other Maroons. Just observations are made by Mr. Dallas on the state of the interior and mountainous districts of Jamaica. He thinks them adapted by climate for white settlers, and has no doubt that if emigration was directed thither, it would speedily find the means of profitable subsistence. Is not the preliminary step to the colonization of the Jamaican highlands this?-that the richer planters, domesticated in the lowlands, should make it a matter of luxury to build villas in the more picturesque mountaindistricts, and to inhabit them during the feverish and sultry season. Plantations of mahogany and other precious woods would result; then sawing-mills, roads, dairy-farms, vine-yards, and all the arts of cultivation.

"It is hardly worth while to mention an accident by which an old woman lost her life, but it has been suggested that the omission of it may receive an unfavourable construction. One of the dogs that had been unmuzzled to drink when there was not the least apprehension of any mischief, went up to the woman, who was sitting attending to a pot in which she was preparing a mess. The dog smelled at it, and was troublesome; this provoked her, she took up a stick and began to beat him, on which he seized on her throat, which he would not let go till his head was severed from his body by his master. The wind-pipe of the woman being much torn, she could not be saved.

The appendix to each volume contains many curious papers: such as an act for consolidating all the acts relative to slaves; Mr. Quarrell's answer to the chairman of the Maroon committee; and

various interesting papers of correspon dence. The whole work is curious, interesting, instructive; but less distinguish ed for the moral taste of its sentiments, than for the sincerity of its narrations. GENERAL POLITICS.

ART. XVII. An Essay on the Principles of Population; or, a View of its past and present Effects on human Happiness. By T. R. MALTHUS, Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. 4to. pp. 610.

THE public opinion has already been pronounced upon the merits of this Essay. Mr. Malthus embarked upon the tide just at the happy moment, at the flood when it leads on to fortune, and such was the unnatural and unwholesome state of our moral and political atmosphere, that he appeared like a philosopher, as he would have appeared like a giant had he walked abroad in a mirage. No wise man had ever doubted, and no christian had ever disbelieved, that the general condition of mankind could be improved, till the unhappy consequences of the French revolution shook the liberties and morals of Europe. This amelioration was rendered probable to the good by reason, and certain by faith; they religiously expected what they benevolently desired. For these rational and righteous hopes, men who had no faith and little reason, substituted wild speculations how men might live for ever; and these speculations were combated by those who had just reason enough to expose the absurdity of their antagonists, and just faith enough to raise an outcry against their infidelity.

Mr. Malthus's object is to refute the opinion of the perfectibility of man, in other words, to prove that no material improvement can ever be expected in the state of society.

"In an inquiry concerning the future improvement of society, the mode of conduct ing the subject which naturally presents itself, is

"1. An investigation of the causes that have hitherto impeded the progress of mankind towards happiness; and

ment of society, has been little noticed by the writers who have treated this subjecí. The facts which establish the existence of this cause have, indeed, been repeatedly stated and acknowledged; but its natural overlooked; though probably among these and necessary effects have been almost totally effects may be reckoned a very considerable portion of that vice and misery, and of that unequal distribution of the bounties of nature, which it has been the unceasing object of the enlightened philanthropist in all ages to correct.

"The cause to which I allude, is the constant tendency in all animated life to increase beyond the nourishment prepared for it."

"Taking the whole earth instead of this island, emigration would of course be excluded; and supposing the present popula tion equal to a thousand millions, the human species would increase as the numbers 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 236, and subsiscenturies the population would be to the tence as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. In two

means of subsistence as 256 to 9; in three centuries as 4096 to 13, and in two thousand years the difference would be almost incalculable."

This last paragraph is the sum and substance of eight quarto pages; and in fact, the whole work is written in the same ratio: viz. eight lines of sense and substance to 8x50-210 lines of verbiage and senseless repetition; and even of these eight lines, all the pomp of nu merals and ratios might have been cashiered by substituting a proposition which no one in his senses would consider as other than axiomatic. Suppose a married couple to have six children, (not half the number which they would have if you suppose all checks to popu lation removed) and suppose all their posterity to mairy, and each couple to increase in the same propertion; and it is evident on the slightest reflection, that in a given number of generations, their posterity would want standing to examine the effects of one great cause inroom. (That it must be so, the rule of timately united with the very nure of man, multiplication would enable a child to which, though it has been costantly and demonstrate, and a school-boy who has powerfully operating since the commence- advanced in arithmetic as far as com

2. An examination into the probability of the total or partial removal of these causes in future.

"To enter fully into this question, and to enumerate all the causes that have hitherto influenced human improvement, would be much beyond the power of an individual. The principal object of the present essay is

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