HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
Spanish cruelty, it was said, afforded 
no precedent or excuse for English- 
men. 
General Macleod brought this 
subject into the house of commons, 
on thetwenty-sixth of February, and 
complained of the disgrace attend- 
ing such a measure. He was an- 
swered, that it was a matter of ne- 
cessity, and not of choice; that the 
Maroons massacring,without mercy, 
every one that fell into their hands, 
they could be considered in no 
other light than murderers, and de- 
served extermination by any means 
that could be employed to that 
purpose. 
The general moved, however, on 
the twenty-first of March, for an 
address to jhe king, requesting he 
would direct the papers, concerning 
the maroon war, to be laid before 
the house. He grounded his mo- 
tion ona letter from Jamaica,stating 
the facts above-mentioned : he de- 
scribed the maroonsasa free people, 
proprietors of the country they 
inhabited. He mentioned it, as 
customary among the Spaniards, in 
Cuba, to feed their blood-houndson 
human flesh, in order torender them 
férocious: but could a British par- 
_liament, he said, connive at such 
atrocities, and encourage so in- 
human a spirit in British officers and 
soldiers ? 
Mr. Dundas replied, that the ma- 
roons had commenced hostilities 
gainst our people, at Jamaica, 
hout any reasonable provocation, 
and had exercised great barbarities 
in prosecuting them. It was their 
practice to sally forth from their 
fastnesses in the night, and to sur- 
prize the planters; multitudes of 
whom they massacred: after which, 
they retreated to the woods and 
mountains, the passes to which were 
[61 
inaccessible. In such circumstances 
our people could not be blamed for 
employing the necessary means to 
secure themselves, and to annoy so 
ferocious an enemy. The motion, 
therefore,be said,was not sufficiently 
grounded, to comply with it, with- 
out an accurate enquiry into parti- 
culars. The mere rumour, how- 
ever, he acknowledged, had in- 
duced ministry to signify its disap- 
probation of such a measure to the 
government at Jamaica. 
On Mr. Dundas’s assuring the 
general that dispatches of this tenor 
had been sent, he withdrew his 
motion : not however till Mr. Sheri- 
dan expatiated on the subject, in 
answer to Mr. Barham, who had 
represented the maroons as rebels ; 
but whom the former justified, in 
their resentment of the punishment 
inflicted upon one of their people, 
who ought, according to treaty, 
to have been delivered up to his 
countrymen, to betried and punish- 
ed by them for the misdemeanour 
of which ke had been guilty. 
In the mean time, a report was 
daily gaining ground, that the plans 
of ministry embraced such a mul- 
tiplicity of objeéts, that new de- 
mands would shortly be made of 
means to carry them into execution. 
Their opponents thought it expe- 
dient, for that reason, to call the 
attention of the public to the situa- 
tion of the national finances, in 
order that a just idea might be 
formed of the conduét of ministers 
in this essential department. On 
the tenth of March, this subject 
was brought into the house of com- 
mons, by Mr. Grey: who observed, 
that, in whatever circumstances the 
country might be placed, whether 
of war or of peace, the strittest 
economywas become more indispens« 
sible, 
