the Dutch governor, finding himself unable to subdue the rebel negroes
of that country by force, hath wisely followed the example of Governor
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 past 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 the 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 slaves 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 September 5, 1772.
Fortunately for the safety of the planters, Baron presumed too much
upon his numbers, and injudiciously built a camp too near the
sea-coast, 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