THE MAROONS OF JAMAICA AND NOA'^A SCOTIA. 267 



and hunting." It had pi-oved impossible to change the "leo])ard's spots." 

 Two years under the regime of the amiable Governor with the most 

 approved appliances and surroundings of civilization had not worked 

 the expected miracle. The Halifax experiment had failed. It 

 appeared too that the Maroons were divided into three tribes jealous 

 of each other. One captain complained that he had not a well furnished 

 house and cellar to exercise hospitality. Another longed for the yams, 

 bananas, and cocoa of Jamaica. A third wanted hogs to hunt. The 

 weekly sermons were unattended. Parents did not object to bring 

 their children to be baptized, but as to marriage adhered to their old 

 free customs with polygamy, and funerals were conducted with in- 

 herited Coromantee ceremonies. The G-overnment still treated them 

 with kindness, but found watchfulness necessary. 



In April, 1799, two officers and fifty militia men were for a time 

 posted near the Preston settlement to guard against threatened dis- 

 order. Before this when Halifax was threatened by the French, who 

 had attacked Newfoundland, the Maroon men had been formed into 

 companies, and tlieir chiefs had received military commissions which 

 flattered their vanity. 



But they were not self-supporting and the cautious Haligonians 

 fought shy of all responsibility for their maintenance. Jamaica had 

 to foot their bills, adding to the oiiginal appropriation of $100,000, 

 further sums of $40,000 and $24,000, but now the Govei-nraent of 

 that island intimated that it Avould no longer consider the Maroons as 

 their wards. The mother country did not forsake them, but took 

 their views on the situation, if so we may refer to the very limited 

 knowledge of these people. They had heard of Sierra Leone and 

 .asked to be allovved to follow the twelve hundred " Loyal Negroes," 

 who had gone there seven years previously. 



It is not probable that the Maroons knew then that these, their 

 predecessors, to that sultry and unhealthy peninsula on the West (Joast 

 ■of Africa had not shown signs of improvement in civilization or 

 appreciation of the choice, now clearly mistaken, of this site as a 

 ipnrtly missionary, partly commercial establishment. 



They probablv had but limited knowledge of the tornadoes that 



