In passing Guadaloupe, we were obliged to keep at a league's distance from the land, in obedience to an express regulation of that colony prohibiting small English vessels from approaching any nearer.
This is a precautionary measure against the escape of slaves to the English islands.

Numerous small vessels, called _guarda costas_, are stationed around the coast to warn off vessels and seize upon all slaves attempting to make their escape.

We were informed that the eagerness of the French negroes to taste the sweets of liberty, which they hear to exist in the surrounding English islands, is so great, that notwithstanding all the vigilance by land and sea, they are escaping in vast numbers.

They steal to the shores by night, and seizing upon any sort of vessel within their reach, launch forth and make for Dominica, Montserrat, or Antigua.

They have been known to venture out in skiffs, canoes, and such like hazardous conveyances, and make a voyage of fifty or sixty miles; and it is not without reason supposed, that very many have been lost in these eager darings for freedom.
Such is their defiance of dangers when liberty is to be won, that old ocean, with its wild storms, and fierce monsters, and its yawning deep, and even the superadded terrors of armed vessels ever hovering around the island, are barriers altogether ineffectual to prevent escape.