72 NARRATIVE OF AN 



CHAP, pointed in their defperate undertaking, by meeting the 

 ^J^* rebels or bufh negroes on the fecond or third day of their 

 inarch ! Thefcj notwithftanding the folemn proteftations 

 of the foldiers, that they were come without any evil 

 intention towards them, and their intreaties to let them 

 pafs by unmolefted, were fufpeded of being fent out to 

 fpy and betray them ; the negroes therefore infilled that 

 they flioiild lay down their arms at mercy, which the de- 

 ferters havingcompliedwith,the rebels immediately dreffed 

 them in one rank. Then having picked out ten or twelve 

 to affift them in attending the fick and wounded, repairing 

 their arms, and trying to make gunpowder, (in which 

 however they mifcarried) they condemned all the others 

 to death, which was inltantly put in execution, and above 

 fifty of thofe unfortunate men were one by one fhot 

 dead upon the fpot. 



It may well be fuppofed, that thofe who were faved 

 alive by the negroes muft have fpun out a very melan- 

 choly exiftence among them^ and indeed moft of them 

 died within very few months after by ill treatment, 

 hardfhips, and want ; and when the rebels furrendered 

 themfelves to the Europeans at difcretion, the few re- 

 maining miferable wretches that were ftill found alive, 

 were dire(5lly loaded with irons, and fent back from the 

 eolony of Berbice to Surinam, where three of them were 

 executed in the town of Paramaribo, one being hanged, 

 and two broken alive upon the rack. One of thefe mi- 

 ferable wretches was a Frenchman, called Renauld, who 

 feemed to have imbibed the fentiments of the negroes 



by 



