the passes were seized; whereupon thirty-eight of the older and less warlike Maroons surrendered, and were carried away under a guard and kept in strict confinement. Seeing this the remainder at once set fire to their towns (the old and the new town, as the two groups of shanties half a mile apart were named), an action which was not misinterpreted as “a signal of inveterate violence and hostility.” It was now clear that the matter would have to be fought out. The force at Balcarres’s disposal was not great. The garrison consisted of the 16th and 62nd Foot, both so weak as to number but 150 men apiece fit for duty, and the 20th or Jamaica Light Dragoons. Besides these there were the stray detachments of the 13th, 14th, 17th, and 18th Light Dragoons, and of the 83rd Foot, some of them very weak, and probably amounting in all to little more than 400 men. Also there was a fair force of local militia, with several local Major-Generals. The Maroons of Trelawney numbered 660 men, women, and children; and there were at least as many more in the other Maroon settlements, which latter, though they never rose, were greatly distrusted by the Governor. Balcarres resolved to surround the whole of the Trelawney Maroon district, and made his dispositions thus:--Colonel Sandford, with the 16th Foot and 20th Dragoons, covered one outlet to the north; Colonel Hull, with 170 men of the 62nd Foot and of the Seventeenth, another; Colonel Walpole, with 150 of the 13th and 14th Dragoons, barred one approach from the south; and Balcarres himself, with the 83rd, took post to the south-west. The Seventeenth was represented by one troop only, the other being on board ship on its way to St. Domingo.