EXPEDITION TO SURINAM. 



been allowed to purfue, on the 21ft, with the rangers, C 

 when I was ordered to march back, the enemy would 

 have been between two fires ; in which cafe few could 

 have efcaped, and all the plundered fpoil muft have been 

 re-taken. The reader will probably recoiled a fimilar 

 inftance Which occurred two years before, when I was 

 ftationed at Devil's Harwar. Had I at that time been pro- 

 vided with men and ammunition to march, I might have 

 rendered the colony a material fervice. Thefe two capital 

 blunders I am forry to relate, but a regard to truth and 

 impartiality obliges me to do it. Let not thefe remarks, 

 however, fix a ftigma of cruelty on me in the eyes of the 

 world, fince no man could more ftrongly feel at the 

 fight of fuch manly youths fi:retched dead among the 

 furrounding foliage ; and finer bodies than two of them 

 were in particular I never beheld in all my life. 



" So two young mountain lions, nurs'd with blood. 



In deep receffes of the gloomy wood, 

 " Rufli fearlefs to the plains, and uncontroul'd 

 " Depopulate the flails, and wafte the fold j 

 " Till pierc'd at diftance from their native den, 

 " O'erpower'd they fall beneath the force of men j 

 ** Proftrate on earth their beauteous bodies lay, 

 " Like mountain firs, as tall and flraight as they." 



While my mind was engaged by thefe and fimilar 

 remarks, many of my loaded flaves fiill remained en- 

 tangled and firuggling in the quagmire, while the com^ 



U 2 manding 



