force, hath wisely followed the example of Gov. Trelawney at Jamaica, and
concluded an amicable treaty with them; in consequence of which, all the
negroes of the woods are acknowledged to be free, and all that is passed
is buried in oblivion." So ended a war of thirty-six years; and in
Stedman's day the original three thousand Ouca and Seramica Maroons had
multiplied, almost incredibly, to fifteen thousand.

But for those slaves not sharing in this revolt it was not so easy to
"bury the whole past in oblivion." The Maroons had told some very plain
truths to the white ambassadors, and had frankly advised them, if they
wished for peace, to mend their own manners and treat their chattels
humanely. But the planters learned nothing by experience,--and, indeed,
the terrible narrations of Stedman were confirmed by those of Alexander,
so lately as 1831. Of course, therefore, in a colony comprising eighty
thousand blacks to four thousand whites, other revolts were stimulated by
the success of this one. They reached their highest point in 1772, when
an insurrection on the Cottica River, led by a negro named Baron, almost
gave the finishing blow to the colony; the only adequate protection being
found in a body of slaves liberated expressly for that purpose,--a
dangerous and humiliating precedent. "We have been obliged to set three
or four hundred of our stoutest negroes free to defend us," says an
honest letter from Surinam, in the "Annual Register" for Sept. 5, 1772.
Fortunately for the safety of the planters, Baron presumed too much upon
his numbers, and injudiciously built a camp too near the seacoast, in a
marshy fastness, from which he was finally ejected by twelve hundred
Dutch troops, though the chief work was done, Stedman thinks, by the
"black rangers" or liberated slaves. Checked by this defeat, he again
drew back into the forests, resuming his guerrilla warfare against the
plantations. Nothing could dislodge him; blood-hounds were proposed, but
the moisture of the country made them useless: and thus matters stood