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 assured him of the
entire impossibility of recruiting a single Spaniard for English service.
Finally, however, he gave permission and passports for six chasseurs.
Under cover of this, the commissioner lost no time in enlisting forty; he
got them safe to Batabano; but at the last moment, learning the state of
affairs, they refused to embark on such very irregular authority. When he
had persuaded them, at length, the officer of the fort interposed
objections. This was not to be borne, so Don Guillermo bribed him and
silenced him; a dragoon was, however, sent to report to the governor; Don
Guillermo sent a messenger after him, and bribed him too; and thus at
length, after myriad rebuffs, and after being obliged to spend the last
evening at a puppet-show in which the principal figure was a burlesque on
his own personal peculiarities, the weary Don Guillermo, with his crew of
renegadoes, and his forty chasseurs and their one hundred and four
muzzled dogs, set sail for Jamaica.

These new allies were certainly something formidable, if we may trust the
pictures and descriptions in Dallas's History. The chasseur was a tall,
meagre, swarthy Spaniard or mulatto, lightly clad in cotton shirt and
drawers, with broad straw hat, and moccasins of raw-hide; his belt