Published by
Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Transferred to Digital Printing 2006
First edition 1803
Second edition 1968
ISBN 0714619345 (Set)
eISBN 9781134570669
Publishers Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent
Printed and bound by CPI Antony Rowe, Eastbourne
TO THE HONOURABLE
WILLIAM DAWES QUARRELL,
OF HIS MAJESTY S PRIVY COUNCIL OF THE ISLAND OF JAMAICA .
M Y DEAR S IR ,
D EDICATIONS , in my opinion, should be devoted to the gratification of an authors feelings ; either as marks of private affection, or as tributes to public merit. When I have an opportunity of combining both these objects, I cannot consent to forego it. Your desire that I should, for the advantage of the work, inscribe it to some person in this country of greater influence than yourself, does you more honour than can be derived from a dedication ; but as I have all the honour of it in view for myself, I know not how better to secure it, than by prefixing to these volumes the name of one whose exertions have been publicly acknowledged to have saved his country, and whose friendship for myself has outlived the united attacks of time, absence, and adversity.
Your having had so important a share in the transactions I relate, and your having furnished me with so large a portion of my materials, are additional reasons for my requesting your acceptance of a work, which without your assistance and encouragement would never have appeared.
I am, my dear Sir,
With the highest esteem,
And warmest affection,
Your sincere friend,
R. C. DALLAS.
London,
March 1st, 1803.
T HE magnitude of the objects which have engaged the attention of the world during the last thirteen years ; the revolution of empires, the destruction of states, the extinction of whole classes of men, the alteration of established customs, the sacrifice of millions of lives, the general convulsions throughout the earth, the terrific though unavailing ambition of groveling upstarts, the unnatural policy and feeble efforts of the most powerful governments, the wonderful exploits of British arms in every quarter of the globe ; the return of France to absolute authority, and the extraordinary feats and good fortune of the man who, big with the intent of Csar crossing the Rubicon at the head of the flower of the Roman armies, crossed the Mediterranean without a soldier, and seized upon the empire ; have accustomed the minds of men to gigantic contemplations. We have seen a pious and beneficent monarch perish on a scaffold ; another, virtuous, ardent, and heroic, publicly assassinated ; a third, privately put to death ; a fourth and fifth, chased from their capitals ; and a sovereign Pontiff torn from St. Peters chair, hurried into foreign lands, and dying in captivity ; a Queen, bereft of her crown, thrust in tatters into a common jail amongst the vilest of criminals, kept awhile alive on the sorriest food, and at last, with an heroic firmness becoming a Queen, yielding her life to the public instrument of execution. We have seen a chain of opposed armies extending from the north to the south of Europe ; the navy of a small island blockading all the ports of all the maritime powers ; a Russian issuing from his frozen region, chasing victorious armies before him through Italy, and scowering the Alps ; and an Englishman blowing up navies, one after the other, beneath the line and at the pole ; in fine, we have seen all the passions in a tempest, and nature herself struggling against the chaos which threatened her very existence. But the contemplation of stupendous objects, far from disqualifying the mind for the relish of less extensive views, heightens its satisfaction in them, as the eye, after poring over the unbounded expanse of the ocean, is relieved and delighted by a streamlet and a dell. Encouraged by this reflexion, I undertook, at the request of a friend, to write the history of a short war, carried on by the government in Jamaica, against the body of black people called Maroons, long established in the interior of that island ; a subject I the more readily adopted, not only on account of its uncommon nature, but because the result of the contest was of great importance to the colony. My task, however, would have been very brief and incomplete, had I confined myself to the events of the war ; a war in which ambition, aggrandizement, and the usual incentives to hostility, had no part ; but which originated in private resentment on one side, and was prosecuted on the other from the necessity of settling the internal security of the country : I have, therefore, thought it proper to extend my plan, by including in it the whole history of the Maroons, the expedition to Cuba for the purpose of obtaining Spanish chasseurs, and an account of the state of Jamaica since the French revolution, by which I hope the whole subject has been placed in a clearer and more interesting light.
When I say that it is of an uncommon nature, I am not ignorant of the notice that was taken of it in parliament, nor of the account given by Mr. Edwards ; but it does not appear to have been understood or detailed. Far be it from me to speak lightly of the works of Mr. Edwards ; I shall only observe here, that I have been able to derive little or no assistance from the cursory narrative published by him in the year 1796. Consulting it, as incumbent upon me, I found very few of the particulars which I purposed to detail ; and saw, with some pain, that in those few, my information did not concur with his : a circumstance that renders it doubly necessary for me to state the authorities on which the following pages are founded. The gentleman, to whom I have dedicated the work, and who was indeed the friend that suggested it, is the chief source of my information ; an authority that will have full weight when it is known that he served in the Maroon war ; that he was the commissioner sent to Cuba for the Spanish chasseurs; and afterwards the commissary entrusted with the removal of the Maroons from Jamaica to Nova Scotia, where he remained some time with them ; that he has a considerable property in Jamaica, where he was a member of the House of Assembly at the time of the war, and is now a member of the Council. The conversations I had with this gentleman, convinced me that the subject would be highly interesting to the public ; and I found it a duty, as well as a pleasure, to comply with his desire. To make myself master of the subject, I not only repeatedly talked with him upon it, but I requested and obtained copious notes ; and I wrote the greater part of the book while we were under the same roof. The notes were so full, that I wished him to arrange and publish them under his own name ; but to this he was averse, and I therefore undertook the task. While, however, I fortify myself with his authority and friendship, I must not leave him exposed to any censure for my defects or opinions. For the language, observations, and reasonings I have to answer ; though, of the two last, I own I have adopted much from him. Mr. Quarrell was indeed but too scrupulously anxious not to be personally made prominent : he requested, where it was necessary to speak of him, to be mentioned as commissioner or agent, and forced me to draw my pen through passages which he thought complimentary, and some of which, since his departure from England, I have restored.
