On the 14th December the dogs were landed at Montego Bay, and on the 18th Colonel Hull fell in with a party of Maroons under Johnson, and Johnson was their best leader. It was difficult to get into conversation with them, but the troops ceased firing and then the Maroon officers, who had some inkling of the offer that was to be made, were seen skipping about from rock to rock and Mr Werge of the 17th Light Dragoons, who seems to have been a very capable young man, with a cool, deliberate courage flung down his arms and stepping down the hill till he was close under them, called out that it was peace and they had better come down and shake hands upon it. Then Fowler the Maroon advanced and took him by the hand, and at Mr Werge's suggestion--he was as brave a young man as Dr Russell--they exchanged hats and jackets. Relations once established, General Walpole came up and the Maroons agreed that, on their knees they would beg His Majesty's pardon, that they would go to the Old Town or Montego Bay or anywhere else the Governor might appoint, and would settle on whatever lands might be given them. They would give up all runaways. And General Walpole agreed to a secret clause that they should not be sent off the island. And, indeed, the Maroons were in a bad way. They were short of provisions and measles had broken out among them, and their women and children were almost famished. The 1st of January 1796 was fixed for the day they should come in. But they were very distrustful. It was difficult to make them understand that no harm would be done them. Some few turned up, but practically the New Year's Day passed unnoticed. They straggled in by slow degrees, finding it exceedingly difficult to persuade themselves to abandon their mountain fastnesses for the tender mercies of the white man, but as a matter of fact all with the exception of the small parties out with Palmer and Parkinson came in within a fortnight of the day appointed, and the last were only out three months. But the Assembly because of this laxness, felt they might break their pledged word, and they banished the majority of the Maroons with incredible foolishness, considering that the negro line is supposed to be drawn at the 40th parallel of latitude, to Nova Scotia. Perhaps they hoped to destroy them, root and branch. There, as was only to be expected, they did not do well, and finally they were taken to Sierra Leone, where I read they made valuable settlers and helped the colony greatly. I was glad they did. And then I remembered that in Pree Town I had met the most bumptious, the most aggressive, the most unpleasant black men it has ever, except in Liberia, been my lot to come across, and I felt my sympathies weaken. Jamaica was not unmindful of these her children whom she hated. For a small island she spent an enormous sum of money on their welfare. £46,000 was expended in trying to colonise them comfortably, and this was supplemented by the British Government.