The leaders of the rebels, especially, were men who had each his own
story of wrongs to tell. Baron, the most formidable, had been the slave
of a Swedish gentleman, who had taught him to read and write, taken him
to Europe, promised to manumit him on his return--and then, breaking his
word, sold him to a Jew. Baron refused to work for his new master, was
publicly flogged under the gallows, fled to the woods next day, and
became the terror of the colony. Joli Coeur, his first captain, was
avenging the cruel wrongs of his mother. Bonny, another leader, was born
in the woods, his mother having taken refuge there just previously, to
escape from his father, who was also his master. Cojo, another, had
defended his master against the insurgents until he was obliged by ill
usage to take refuge among them; and he still bore upon his wrist, when
Stedman saw him, a silver band, with the inscription,--"True to the
Europeans." In dealing with wrongs like these, Mr. Carlyle would have
found the despised negroes quite as ready as himself to take the
total-abstinence pledge against rose-water.

In his first two-months' campaign, Stedman never saw the trace of a
Maroon; in the second, he once came upon their trail; in the third, one
captive was brought in, two surrendered themselves voluntarily, and a
large party was found to have crossed a river within a mile of the camp,
ferrying themselves on palm-trunks, according to their fashion. Deep
swamps and scorching sands, toiling through briers all day, and sleeping
at night in hammocks suspended over stagnant water, with weapons
supported on sticks crossed beneath,--all this was endured for two years
and a half, before Stedman personally came in sight of the enemy.

On Aug. 20, 1775, the troops found themselves at last in the midst of the
rebel settlements. These villages and forts bore a variety of expressive
names, such as "Hide me, O thou surrounding verdure," "I shall be taken,"