Note 131 — Chapter XX · HOSTILITIES CONTINUED.

Captain Sprague, in his history, enters into a somewhat lengthened apology for this practice of General Worth, by saying, the negroes were the most active and vindictive of the hostile forces; that, from the peculiar situation of the country, ten negroes could keep it in a state of constant alarm; that many of them had intermarried with the Seminoles and become identified with them, had acquired their habits, and would have been useless to their owners had they been delivered to them; that the negro would have remained in service but a few days, when he would have again taken to the swamps and hommocks, when he could elude pursuit, and would have been more vindictive than before.