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in the presence of his wife and daughters, who remained there, unfeeling spectators of his horrid barbar-
ity. He gave the word “
Feu!
” himself to every man as soon as he came out; and of fifty-one prisoners,
only Parson McMahon, Mr. Kerr and myself were saved.' 'With one or two exceptions,' resumes the an-
onymous historian of the
Handbook
, 'where protracted suffering had affected their minds, they met their
fate as became their race and station. There can be little doubt that the immediate cause of this execrable
deed was the death of Fédon's brother, who fell early in the day.'
The rebellion took about three months to subdue. (No help could come from the neighbouring island of
St. Vincent, which was in the throes of the black Carib revolt, or from St. Lucia, where Jervis was coping
with an insurrection of the Maroons: distant explosions of the French Revolution, touched off on the spot
by the agents of Victor Hugues.) But after the arrival of Sir Ralph Abercromby the rebel strong-points
were reduced one by one. Morne Quaqua was the last to fall. 'No quarter was given to the rebels,' as the
soldiers were incensed by a last act of wanton barbarity on their part, twenty white prisoners, having just
been led out and 'brutally murdered before the eyes of the advancing troops.' There were many fierce
battles in the last phases—bayonet charges by the Buffs under a commander with the familiar name (in
such circumstances) of Brigadier-General Campbell, sieges by the 57th Regiment, and assaults by Prince
Löwenstein's German Jäger-regiment under Graf von Heillimer, 'whose troops were well accustomed to
mountain and forest warfare.' After the capture of the governor, the Attorney-General sent letters asking
for assistance from the neighbouring islands, among others to the Spanish Governor in Trinidad, none
other than Don José Maria Chacon, who was the first to respond by sending two brigs, filled with sol-
diers. One cannot help wondering what must have been the feelings of this Spanish gentleman when, two
years later, with his fleet still burning in Port of Spain harbour to save it from capture, he had to surrender
the island of Trinidad to the British.
A special Court of Oyer and Terminer was called to deal with the rebels. Forty-seven were condemned
without hearing to be hanged, on proof of identity alone. But Lieutenant-Governor Houston pardoned
all except fourteen of the ringleaders. His clemency, though warmly applauded by the British Govern-
ment, was bitterly attacked by the colonists, who so far prevailed that, in the end, thirty-eight were ex-
ecuted. But he succeeded in saving many others who were caught later. These, like the rank and file of
the slaves—and like the Black Caribs of St. Vincent—were deported to British Honduras. 'It is gratifying
to record that the Legislators so far blended justice with mercy as to make a grant to some of the families
of those who suffered the extreme penalty of the law in consequence of their treason.'
The strangest part of the story is the total disappearance of the villain—or the hero—of the whole
affair. After hiding some time in the woods, Fédon was completely lost sight of; and nothing certain is
known of his fate, 'although it is conjectured that he was drowned while seeking escape to Trinidad in a
small canoe.' It was as though he had been lifted into the sky as unvestigially as Enoch and Elijah, and
borne away to some Negro garden of the Hesperides.
Mount Moritz, an inland valley north of the town, is inhabited by a little colony of whites; transplanted
offshoots of the Redlegs of Barbados, and so, most of them, descendants of the Duke of Monmouth's
followers. They were shy, simple people, living the same rustic life as the coloured islanders—which
in Grenada, and in comparison with the living conditions and the arduous labour of many rural popula-
tions in England, is not at all bad—and speaking the same difficult English. Strolling up the path of the
scattered village, we again listened in vain for the accents of the West Country. They looked stronger and
bigger than the 'Poor Whites' of Guadeloupe and the Saints and Barbados, and if their cotton clothes were
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