Yet I know that out beyond my sight there is the region known as Trelawney, and Trelawney Town, the headquarters of the Maroons, the free negroes--they who fled after the Spanish had been conquered and the British came, and who were later freed and secured by the Trelawney Treaty.

I know that now they are ready to rise, that they are working among the slaves; and if they rise the danger is great to the white population of the island, who are outnumbered ten to one.
The governor has been warned, but he gives no heed, or treats it all lightly, pointing out how few the Maroons are.

He forgets that a few determined men can demoralize a whole state, can fight and murder and fly to dark coverts in the tropical woods, where they cannot be tracked down and destroyed; and, if they have made supporters of the slaves, what consequences may not follow! What do the Maroons look like?
They are ferocious and isolated, they are proud and overbearing, they are horribly cruel, but they are potent, and are difficult to reach.

They are not small and meagre, but are big, brawny fellows, clothed in wide duck trousers and shirts, and they are well-armed--cutlass, powder-horn, haversack, sling, shot-gun, and pouch for ball.

They dress as the country requires, and they are strong fighters against our soldiers who are burdened with heavy muskets, and who defy the climate, with their stuffed coats, their weighty caps, and their tight cross- belts.