376 HISTORY OF [BOOK n, 



Thus terminated this disastrous and bloody conflict; 

 in which it was never known with certainty, that a 

 single Maroon lost his life. Their triumph therefore 

 was great, and manv of the best informed among the 



O * o 



planters, in consequence of it, again anticipated the 

 most dreadful impending calamities. So general was 

 the alarm, that the governor thought it necessary, in 

 a proclamation which he issued on the occasion, to 

 make public the orders he had given to colonel Sand- 

 ford, and to declare in express terms, that if the de- 

 tachment under that officer's command had remained 

 at the post which it was directed to occupy, the Ma- 

 roons, in all probability, would have been compelled 

 to surrender themselves prisoners of war. " Soldiers 

 will learn from this fatal lesson (adds his lordship most 

 truly) the indispensable necessity of strictly adhering 

 to orders. An excess of ardour is often as prejudicial 

 to the accomplishment of any military enterprise, as 

 cowardice itself." The truth was, that the whole 

 detachment held the enemy in too great contempt. 

 They marched forth in the confidence of certain vic- 

 tory, and never having had any experience of the Ma- 

 roons mode of fighting, disregarded the advice of 

 some faithful negro attendants, who apprized them of 

 it. Happily the class of people on whom the Ma- 

 attended on that day by a favourite negro servant ; of whom it is related, 

 that during the first attack, perceiving a Maroon from behind a tree pre- 

 sent his gun at his beloved master, he instantly rushed forward to protect 

 him, by interposing his own person j and actually received the shot in his 

 breast. I rejoice to add, that the wound was not mortal, and that the 

 poor fellow has been rewarded as he deserved, fur such an instance of he- 

 roic fidelity as history has seldom recorckd. 



