Three causes conspired to clothe the colonial militia with an efficiency unknown to the militia of England,--the presence of powerful neighbours, native or European; the knowledge that little help was to be expected from the mother country; and, in the tropics, the eternal dread of a rising of the negroes. Barbados, an island no larger than the Isle of Wight, could at the close of King Charles the Second's reign show six regiments of foot and two of horse, or a total of six thousand men; while Jamaica, a less fortunate island and a full generation later in settlement, produced in the same year seven regiments of four thousand men. Jamaica, it may be observed, owing to the presence of wild tribes of runaway slaves called Maroons, lived in more than ordinary terror of a servile war, and therefore kept her militia up to a high standard of efficiency. The reader should take note, in passing, of these Maroons, for we shall meet with them again at a very critical time. Even so, colonies frequently observed the true English spirit of apathy.[85] The main point, however, is that each colony, tropical or temperate, made provision for its own defence in respect of trained men and of fortification. Magazines were replenished partly by local laws, which compelled all vessels trading regularly from England to pay dues of gunpowder in proportion to their tonnage; the mother country making frequent grants of guns and of other stores from the depots of the Ordnance in England, and occasionally doling out even a small subvention of money. As a rule, moreover, the Crown was careful to appoint men of some military experience to be governors, in order that the local forces might not want a competent commander; and it is noteworthy, as a curious survival of old military traditions, that the civilian who performs the functions of sheriff in the West Indian Islands still bears, in a great many cases, the title of provost-marshal.