"This was certainly such a masterly trait of
generalship in a savage people, whom we affected to despise, as would
have done honor to any European commander."
From this time the Maroons fulfilled their threats. Shooting down
without mercy every black ranger who came within their reach,--one of
these rangers being, in Stedman's estimate, worth six white
soldiers,--they left Colonel Fougeaud and his regulars to die of
starvation and fatigue. The enraged Colonel, "finding himself thus
foiled by a naked negro, swore he would pursue Bonny to the world's
end." But he never got any nearer than to Bonny's kitchen-gardens. He
put the troops on half-allowance, sent back for provisions and
ammunition,--and within ten days changed his mind, and retreated to the
settlements in despair. Soon after, this very body of rebels, under
Bonny's leadership, plundered two plantations in the vicinity, and
nearly captured a powder-magazine, which was, however, successfully
defended by some armed slaves.
For a year longer these expeditions continued. The troops never gained
a victory, and they lost twenty men for every rebel killed; but they
gradually checked the plunder of plantations, destroyed villages and
planting-grounds, and drove the rebels, for the time at least, into the
deeper recesses of the woods or into the adjacent province of Cayenne.
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