Shall oft with fading force return the note.
“Such recompence be valour’s due alone.”
* * *
This being the second or third heap of human bones we had met with in our march, I frankly acknowledge did not operate upon me as a stimulative to engage with negroes; yet these awful relics spurred on the common soldiers to take revenge for the loss of their massacred companions.
Having so frequently had occasion to speak of marching through a swamp, it may not be improper to illustrate [[104]]the description by the annexed drawing. The first figure represents Colonel Fourgeoud (preceded by a negro slave, as a guide, to give notice by his swimming when the water deepens) followed by myself, some other officers and marines, wading through the marsh above our middle, and carrying our arms, ammunition, and accoutrements above our heads, to prevent their being damaged by the wet.
In the back-ground may be seen the manner in which the slaves carry all burdens whatever on the head, and the mode of the rebel negroes firing upon the troops from the tops of high palm-trees, &c. A march of this nature, though occasionally necessary in Surinam, must be always very dangerous, being exposed to an attack from under cover of the surrounding bushes, without having the power of returning the fire more than once; for in such a depth of water no soldier can re-load his musket without wetting both the lock and the priming.
We now followed a kind of foot-path made by the enemy, which after a little turning led us in a westerly direction. Serjeant Fowler, who preceded the van-guard, at this time came to me pale, declaring, that the sight of the mangled bodies had made him extremely sick; and that he felt himself completely disarmed, being that moment, as it were, rivetted to the ground, without the power of advancing one single step, or knowing how to conceal his tremor:——I d—n’d him for a pitiful scoundrel, and had only time to order him to the rear.
March thro’ a swamp or Marsh in Terra-firma.
London, Published Decr. 1st, 1794, by J. Johnson, St. Paul’s Church Yard.