The tale of the bringing of those dogs reads like an epic in itself. Mr Quarrell embarked in the schooner _Mercury_, carrying twelve guns, and the crew of the _Mercury_ consisted of four British seamen, one of whom was made captain, twelve Curacoa negroes, and eighteen Spanish renegadoes, and they appear to have been as nice a parcel of blackguards as a man might well gather together in those times. Throughout the voyage, the English who were on board found it necessary to keep possession of the cabin and quarter-deck, and to keep all the arms under their own charge. It was a long story of tribulation, but finally after infinite difficulties, Quarrell shipped forty chasseurs and one hundred and four dogs. They were big dogs, like powerful greyhounds, and I suspect were something like the kangaroo dogs that were so common in Australia when I was a child, greyhounds crossed with some other breed to give them bulk and strength. The chasseur was armed only with a machete, and the dogs were not supposed to tear the man they came up with, but if he made no resistance to hold him and bark for assistance. It would be no good resisting man and dog, for the steel of the machetes was excellent, and they were about eighteen inches long, formidable weapons. Dallas says these dogs and their keepers were employed in Cuba for taking runaways and breaking up bodies of negroes collected for hostile purposes, which is “sometimes occasioned,” he remarks quaintly, “by the rigour exercised on the Spanish plantations.” The _Mercury_ was a luckless ship. She ran ashore on a sandbank and appeared likely to leave her bones there. They had shipped cattle to feed the dogs, and on that dark night the dogs broke loose and seized the cattle, and the bellowing of the cattle, the howling of the dogs, the wild wail of the wind, the roaring of the waves as they washed over the little ship, all combined to make pandemonium, and Quarrell must have felt the Maroons' luck was holding. Even when they got her off and arrived at Montego Bay their ill-luck pursued them, for from the little fort on the hillside that was a haven of refuge to the townspeople there came a volley of grape-shot, the officer in command having mistaken the _Mercury_ for an enemy's privateer! Luckily, they don't appear to have been good marksmen for no one was hurt, and the little ship came to anchor with some American ships between her and the guns.