APPENDIX.] THE MAROONS. 361 



Maroons were ordered to pursue them, and were 

 promised a certain reward for each rebel they might 

 kill or take prisoner. They accordingly pushed into 

 the woods, and after rambling about for a day or two, 

 returned with a collection of human ears, which they 

 pretended to have cut off the heads of rebels they had 

 slain in battle, the particulars of which they minutely 

 related. Their report was believed* and they re- 

 "ceived the money stipulated to be paid them ; yet it 

 was afterwards found that they had not killed a man ; 

 that no engagement had taken place, and that the 

 ears which they had produced, had been severed from 

 the dead negroes \vhich had lain unburied at Hey^ 

 wood-Hall. 



Some few days after this, as the Maroons and a de- 

 tachment of the 74th regiment, were stationed at a 

 solitary place, surrounded by deep woods, called 

 Downs's cove, the detachment was suddenly attacked 

 in the middle of the night by the rebels. The centi- 

 nels were shot, and the huts in which the soldiers 

 were lodged, were set on fire. The liglit of the 

 flames while it exposed the troops, served to conceal 

 the rebels, who poured in a shower of musquetry 

 from all quarters, and many of the soldiers were slain. 

 Major Forsyth, who commanded the detachment, 

 formed his men into a square, and by keeping up a 

 brisk fire from all sides, at length compelled the ene- 

 my to retire. During the whole of this affair the 

 Maroons were not to be found, and Forsyth, for some 

 time, suspected that they were themselves the assail- 

 ants. It was discovered, however, that immediately 



Vol. I. 7.7. 



