By 1739 the position of affairs was intolerable, and Governor Trelawny was determined to rid the colony of the ever-present menace. A considerable number of the soldiers and militia were collected and sent up these heights to surround all the paths to the Maroon settlements. And then, seeing there was little prospect of frightening the Maroons into submission, it was decided to make peace and to range the enemy on the side of the whites. For it must be remembered there were three parties in Jamaica, all antagonistic, whites, slaves, and Maroons. This idea was hailed with enthusiasm, as it seemed that the holding of the Maroons within bounds was likely to be no easier as the years went on, and their conquest was wellnigh impossible. In fact, they were better as friends than as enemies. Whatever they had done was best forgotten, and the Government declared themselves ready to cry quits. The difficulty was to get within touch, and to make these people who had been hunted and harried all their lives believe this extraordinary thing. They could hardly be expected to realise the position, and it was just as well they should not. For in the face of a slave population that were as tinder beside the flame, failure would be fatal. The prestige of the white man would be gone. And for this same reason, whatever was done must be done quickly. Colonels Guthrie and Sadler in command were instructed to move with what despatch they might. But, though the Maroons were as weary of the war as their opponents, it was difficult to get speech with Cudjoe and to make him believe that peace was in the air when they did get speech with him. For he was a cautious man, this negro leader. When he saw the force brought against him he collected his men in a spot most suitable for his mode of warfare, placing them upon ledges of rock that rose almost perpendicularly to a great height surrounding a plain which narrowed into a passage upon which the whole force could bring their arms to bear. This passage contracted into a defile half a mile long, and it would have been the simplest thing for the Maroons to cut off a party entering it, for it was so narrow that party must march in single file. For long afterwards it was known as Guthrie's defile. In the dell behind, secured by other cockpits behind it again, were collected the Maroon women and children, and on the open ground before the defile the men had erected their huts, which were called Maroon Town, or Cudjoe's Town, and in a moment they could have flown to the rock ledges. And even if the town had been burnt it would not have been a very grave loss, just a town of wattle and posts, such as they build even now on the Gambia, with a grass or palm leaf thatch. And all around were stationed men in the hills with horns made generally of conch shells, and in those days a negro could say a good deal with a horn, even as in Africa now he can send a message hundreds of miles by tapping a tom-tom.