212 NARRATIVE. 



vigilance, for the King kept the peace very strictly all the time I 

 was his neighbour, only making occasional excuses to extort a 

 present of rum, and when his drunken imagination elevated him 

 into a hero, he uttered the threats, which I beheve, formed the 

 sole foundation for the fears of the Europeans. One or two false 

 alarms, however, were given, and I was one night awakened by 

 the cry that he was coming, and after passing a few hours, not in 

 apprehension I must say, but in expectation of a bustle, it 

 dwindled to the alarming appearance of two fishing canoes with 

 lights in them, which were thought to approach too near to the 

 town. The second alarm was occasioned by the principal dike 

 giving way, and letting the water flow over the greater part of the 

 island: most of the inhabitants were ignorant of what had 

 happened, but on hearing the bugle sound for all the liberated 

 Africans, or King's boys, to turn out, and seeing Captain Findlay, 

 attended by two other officers, gallopping at their head, toward a 

 distant part of the island, the commotion became general, and 

 most of the black people deserted their houses, snatching up their 

 valuables, and were met in all directions, squalling and crying, 

 and running they knew not whither. I suspect his African 

 Majesty has no objection to this terror, as he hopes by it to get 

 an additional share of rum and cloth, to bribe him to tranquilhty. 



