softly." So they sat down very softly, and showed an extreme
unwillingness to get up again. But, not being naturally an idle race,--at
least, in Jamaica the objection lay rather on the other side,--they soon
grew tired of this inaction. Distrustful of those about them, suspicious
of all attempts to scatter them among the community at large, frozen by
the climate, and constantly petitioning for removal to a milder one, they
finally wearied out all patience. A long dispute ensued between the
authorities of Nova Scotia and Jamaica, as to which was properly
responsible for their support; and thus the heroic race, that for a
century and a half had sustained themselves in freedom in Jamaica, were
reduced to the position of troublesome and impracticable paupers,
shuttlecocks between two selfish parishes. So passed their unfortunate
lives, until, in 1800, their reduced population was transported to Sierra
Leone, at a cost of six thousand pounds; since which they disappear from
history.

It was judged best not to interfere with those bodies of Maroons which
had kept aloof from the late outbreak, at the Accompong settlement, and
elsewhere. They continued to preserve a qualified independence, and
retain it even now. In 1835, two years after the abolition of slavery in
Jamaica, there were reported sixty families of Maroons as residing at
Accompong Town, eighty families at Moore Town, one hundred and ten
families at Charles Town, and twenty families at Scott Hall, making two
hundred and seventy families in all,--each station being, as of old,
under the charge of a superintendent. But there can be little doubt,
that, under the influences of freedom, they are rapidly intermingling
with the mass of colored population in Jamaica.

The story of the exiled Maroons attracted attention in high quarters, in
its time: the wrongs done to them were denounced in Parliament by