but should have the honour to call upon her the next ney, day;" and immediately retired.

'I was no sooner returned home, than I acquainted Joanna with all that had happened; who, bursting into tears, called out, "Gado sa bresse da woma!"--" "God will bless this woman!" and insisted that she herself should be mortgaged to Mrs. Godefroy till every farthing should be paid: she indeed was very anxious to see the emancipation of her boy, but till that was done, she absolutely refused to accept of her own freedom. I shall not here endeavour to paint the contest which I sustained between affection and duty, but bluntly say that I yielded to the wish of this so charming a creature, and whose sentiments endeared her to me still more. Thus I instantly drew up a paper, declaring my Joanna, according to her desire, from this day to be the property of Mrs. Godefroy, till the last farthing of the money she lent me should be repaid; and, on the following day, with the consent of her relations, [without the consent of parents, brothers, and sisters, no respectable slaves are individually sold in Surinam,] I conducted her to Mrs. Godefroy's house, where, throwing herself at the feet of that incomparable woman, Joanna herself put the paper into her hands: but this lady having raised her up, no sooner had read the contents, than she exclaimed, "Must it be so? Then come here, my Joanna, I have a spirit to accept of you not as my slave, but more as my companion: you shall have a house built in my orange-garden, with my own slaves to attend you, till Providence shall call me away, when you shall be perfectly free, as indeed you now are the moment you wish to possess your manumission; and this you claim both by your extraction and your conduct." [I have already mentioned that Joanna was by birth a gentleman's daughter from Holland; and her mother's family were most distinguished people on the coast of Africa.] On these terms, and on no other, I accepted of the money on the 5th, and carrying it in my hat to Mr. de Graav's, I laid it on the table, demanding a receipt in full; and Joanna was transmitted from the wretched estate Fauconberg, to the protection of the first woman perhaps in all the Dutch West Indies, if not in the

world; and for which she thanked me with a look that could only be expressed by the COUNTENANCE of an angel.

Mr. de Graav, on counting the money, addressed me in the following terms:-" Stedman, 200 florins of this sum belong to me as administrator. Permit me also to have a small

share in this happy event, by not accepting this dividend, as I shall find myself amply paid by the pleasure of having been instrumental in bring about what seems so much to contribute to the enjoyment of two deserving people."

Having thanked my disinterested friend with an affectionate shake by the hand, I immediately returned the 200 florins to Mrs. Godefroy, and all were happy. I must not omit, as a farther proof of Mr. Godefroy's humane character, that on hearing of the dejected situation of the sick at Magdenberg, she at this time sent them a present of a whole barge-load of fruit, vegetables, and refreshments of every kind that the colony could afford, for their relief.

'On the 10th, finding myself sufficiently recovered, and ready once more to enter the forest, I bade farewell to my sweet family and friends, leaving the first still at Mr. de la Mare's, at their request; and cheerfully set off with a tentboat on my fifth campaign, in the hopes of accompanying Fourgeoud; who, having assembled all his remaining forces, and made the necessary arrangement to attack the enemy, was now determined to march in a very few days.'

The rebels, with an intention of braving Fourgeoud, had set fire to all the huts in two different camps. The enraged colonel immediately pursued them through the woods, at the head of 200 Europeans. Having marched during two days through the woods, marshes, and swamps, the men were ordered to halt and swing their hammocks, and to sleep without a covering, to prevent the enemy from hearing the sound of cutting the trees; nor were any fires allowed to be lighted, nor a word to be spoken, while a strict watch was kept round the camp. These, in fact, were all very necessary precautions; 'but,' says Stedman, if we were not discovered by the enemy, we were almost devoured by the clouds of gnats or musquitoes, which arose from a neighbouring marsh: for my own

part I suffered more here than I had even done on board the fatal barges in the upper Cottica, as we could make no smoke to drive them away. In this situation I saw the poor men dig holes with their bayonets in the earth, into which they thrust their heads, stopping the entry and covering their necks with their hammocks, while they lay with their bellies on the ground. To sleep in any other position was absolutely impossible,

"By the advice of a negro slave, I however enjoyed my rest. -“ Climb,” said he, "massera, with your hammock to the top of the highest tree that is in the camp, and there go sleep; not a single musquito will disturb you, the swarm will be sufficiently attracted by the smell of the sweating multitude below.”—This I immediately tried, and slept exalted near 100 feet above my companions, whom I could not sec for the myriads of musquitoes below me, nor even hear them, from the incessant buzzing of these troublesome insects.'

On the next day, August 17, the colonel with his exhausted. party continued to traverse the wilds, but at night they were alarmed by the rebels firing some shot into the camp. On the 19th, they were joined by Mr. Vinsack with 100 rangers. After struggling against the formidable obstacles which this wild country presented, and enduring the tormenting stings of the hideous insects which filled the air, the whole party encamped a few miles from the swamp in which captain Meyland and his party had been defeated. Here they passed a sad dreary and rainy night.

"On the morning of the 20th,' says our author, wé entered this formidable swamp, and soon found ourselves above our middle in water, well prepared nevertheless for the warm reception we expected from the opposite shore, as the former party had so fatally experienced. After wading above half a mile, our grenadiers rapidly mounted the beach with cocked firelocks and bayonets fixed; the main body instantly followed, and also mounting the beach, the whole formed without. the smallest opposition. We now beheld a spectacle sufficient to shock the most intrepid, the ground strewed with skulls, bones, and ribs, still covered with human flesh, and besmeared VOL. I. 2 X

with the blood of those unfortunate men who were killed with captain Meyland.---That officer had indeed found means to bury them, but the rebels had dug them up for the sake of their clothes, and to mangle their bodies, which, like ferocious animals, they had torn limb from limb. Amongst these, the fate of Meyland's nephew, a promising young man, was peculiarly affecting. 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.

"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.

'At 10 o'clock we met a small party of the rebels, with each a green hamper upon his back; they fired at us, dropped their bundles, and taking to their heels ran back towards their village. These we since learned were transporting rice to another settlement for their subsistence, when they should be expelled from Gado-Saby (the name of this settlement) which they daily expected, since they had been discovered by the gallant captain Meyland. A little after this we perceived an empty shed, where a picquet had been stationed to give notice of any danger, but they had precipitately deserted their post. We now vigorously redoubled our pace till about noon; when two more musket shot were fired at us by another advanced guard of the enemy, as a signal to the chief, Bonny, of our approach. Major Medlar and myself, with a few of the vanguard, and a small party of the rangers, at this time rushing forward, soon came to a fine field of rice and Indian corn: we here made a halt for the other troops, particularly to give

time for our rear to close up, some of whom were at least two miles behind us; and during which period we might have been cut to pieces, the enemy, unknown to us, having surrounded the field in which we were, as we were afterwards informed.

• In about half an hour the whole body joined us, when we instantly proceeded by cutting through a small defile of the wood, into which we had no sooner entered, than a heavy fire commenced from every side, the rebels retiring, and we advancing, until we arrived in a most beautiful field of ripe rice, in the form of an oblong square, from which the rebel town appeared at a distance, in the form of an amphitheatre, sheltered from the sun by the foliage of a few lofty trees, the whole presenting a coup d'œil romantic and enchanting beyond conception. In this field the firing was kept us, like one continued peal of thunder, for above 40 minutes, during which time our black warriors behaved with wonderful intrepidity and skill. The white soldiers were too eager, and fired over one another at random, yet I could perceive a few of them act with the utmost coolness, and imitate the rangers with great effect; amongst these was now the once-daunted Fowler, who being roused from his tremor by the firing at the beginning of the onset, had rushed to the front, and fully re-established his character, by fighting, like a brave fellow, by my side, until the muzzle of his musket was split by a shot from the enemy, which rendered it useless; a ball passed through my shirt, and grazed the skin of my shoulder; Mr. Decabanes, my lieutenant, had the sling of his fusee shot away: several others were wounded, some mortally, but I did not, to my surprize, observe one instance of immediate death---for which seeming miracle, however, I shall presently account.

This whole field of rice was surrounded and interspersed by the enemy with the large trunks and roots of heavy trees, in order to make our approach both difficult and dangerous; behind these temporary fortifications the rebels lay lurking, and firing upon us with deliberate aim, whilst their bulwarks certainly protected them in some measure from the effects of our fire, we having a vast number of these fallen trees to