dination could be preserved in his district unless such a
punishment was inflicted as would be a warning to all evil doers. He
further suggested the propriety of sending the maroons[A] after them, to
hunt them out of their hiding places and bring them to justice.

[Footnote A: The maroons are free negroes, inhabiting the mountains of
the interior, who were formerly hired by the authorities, or by
planters, to hunt up runaway slaves, and return them to their masters.
Unfortunately our own country is not without _its_ maroons.]

We chanced to obtain a different version of this affair, which, as it
was confirmed by different persons in Bath, both white and colored, who
had no connection with each other, we cannot help thinking it the
true one.

The apprentices on Thornton, are what is termed a jobbing gang, that is,
they are hired out by their master to any planter who may want their
services. Jobbing is universally regarded by the negroes as the worst
kind of service, for many reasons--principally because it often takes
them many miles from their homes, and they are still required to supply
themselves with food from their own provision grounds. They are allowed
to return home every Friday evening or Saturday, and stay till Monday
morning. The owner of the gang in question lately died--to whom it is
said they were greatly attached--and they passed into the hands of a Mr.
Jocken, the present overseer. Jocken is a notoriously cruel man. It was
scarcely a twelvemonth ago, that he was fined one hundred pounds
currency, and sentenced to imprisonment for three months in the Kingston
jail, _for tying one of his apprentices to a dead ox_, because the
animal died while in the care of the apprentice. He also confined a
woman in the same pen with a dead sheep, because she suffered the sheep
to die. Repeated acts of cruelty have caused Jocken to be regarded as a
monster in the community. From a knowledge of his character, the
apprentices of Thornton had a strong prejudice against him. One of the
earliest acts after he went among them, was to break down their fences,
and turn his cattle into their provision grounds. He then ordered them
to go to a distant estate to work. This they refused to do, and when he
attempted to compel them to go, they left the estate in a body, and went
to the woods. This is what is called a _state of open rebellion_, and
for this they were to be hunted like beasts, and to suffer such a
terrible punishment a