Black Rebellion | Page 6

three hundred dollars for
killing or taking a Trelawney Maroon, and a hundred and fifty dollars
for killing or taking any fugitive slave who had joined them. They also
voted five hundred pounds as a gratuity to the Accompong tribe of
Maroons, who had thus far kept out of the insurrection; and various
prizes and gratuities were also offered by the different parishes, with
the same object of self-protection.

The commander-in-chief being among the killed, Col. Walpole was
promoted in his stead, and brevetted as general, by way of incentive.
He found a people in despair, a soldiery thoroughly intimidated, and a
treasury not empty, but useless. But the new general had not served
against the Maroons for nothing, and was not ashamed to go to school
to his opponents. First, he waited for the dry season; then he directed
all his efforts towards cutting off his opponents from water, and, most
effectual move of all, he attacked each successive cockpit by dragging
up a howitzer, with immense labor, and throwing in shells. Shells were
a visitation not dreamed of in Maroon philosophy, and their quaint
compliments to their new opponent remain on record. "Damn dat little
buckra!" they said, "he cunning more dan dem toder. Dis here da new
fashion for fight: him fire big ball arter you, and when big ball 'top, de
damn sunting [something] fire arter you again." With which Parthian
arrows of rhetoric the mountaineers retreated.
But this did not last long. The Maroons soon learned to keep out of the
way of the shells, and the island relapsed into terror again. It was
deliberately resolved at last, by a special council convoked for the
purpose, "to persuade the rebels to make peace." But as they had not as
yet shown themselves very accessible to softer influences, it was
thought best to combine as many arguments as possible, and a certain
Col. Quarrell had hit upon a wholly new one. His plan simply was,
since men, however well disciplined, had proved powerless against
Maroons, to try a Spanish fashion against them, and use dogs. The
proposition was met, in some quarters, with the strongest hostility.
England, it was said, had always denounced the Spaniards as brutal and
dastardly for hunting down the natives of that very soil with hounds;
and should England now follow the humiliating example? On the other
side, there were plenty who eagerly quoted all known instances of
zoölogical warfare: all Oriental nations, for instance, used elephants in
war, and, no doubt, would gladly use lions and tigers also, but for their
extreme carnivorousness, and their painful indifference to the
distinction between friend and foe; why not, then, use these dogs,
comparatively innocent and gentle creatures? At any rate, "something
must be done;" the final argument always used, when a bad or
desperate project is to be made palatable. So it was voted at last to send
to Havana for an invoice of Spanish dogs, with their accompanying

chasseurs; and the efforts at persuading the Maroons were postponed
till the arrival of these additional persuasives. And when Col. Quarrell
finally set sail as commissioner to obtain the new allies, all scruples of
conscience vanished in the renewal of public courage and the chorus of
popular gratitude; a thing so desirable must be right; thrice they were
armed who knew their Quarrell just.
But after the parting notes of gratitude died away in the distance, the
commissioner began to discover that he was to have a hard time of it.
He sailed for Havana in a schooner manned with Spanish renegadoes,
who insisted on fighting every thing that came in their way,--first a
Spanish schooner, then a French one. He landed at Batabano, struck
across the mountains towards Havana, stopped at Besucal to call on the
wealthy Marquesa de San Felipe y San Jorge, grand patroness of dogs
and chasseurs, and finally was welcomed to Havana by Don Luis de las
Casas, who overlooked, for this occasion only, an injunction of his
court against admitting foreigners within his government; "the only
accustomed exception being," as Don Luis courteously assured him, "in
favor of foreign traders who came with new negroes." To be sure, the
commissioner had not brought any of these commodities; but then he
had come to obtain the means of capturing some, and so might pass for
an irregular practitioner of the privileged profession.
Accordingly, Don Guillermo Dawes Quarrell (so ran his passport)
found no difficulty in obtaining permission from the governor to buy as
many dogs as he desired. When, however, he carelessly hinted at the
necessity of taking, also, a few men who should have care of the
dogs,--this being, after all, the essential part of his expedition,--Don
Luis de las Casas put on instantly a double force of courtesy, and