[22] The Governor, Ninian Home, had restricted entry to the island to all but a few French whom he deemed to have "sufferings are great and...principles good"; no slaves or free-coloureds were permitted, whom he believed to be exponents of radical egalitarian doctrines to a man.

[36][note 7] The scholar of Caribbean history Laurent Dubois suggests that "chafing under [British] regulations, the free coloureds of Grenada watched intently as the nearby French colonies instituted policies of racial equality".

"[44] In the event, Fédon was clearly willing to maximise his use of slaves before freeing them, presumably as a way of guaranteeing that they performed the labouring necessary to his plans: Dr Hay noted that Fedon maintained their servile status "till the last moment".

[47] Many had been business associates of Fédon and his brothers-in-law, or legal witnesses to deeds and charters;[38] Murphy suggests that "personal ties, as well as the belief that political rights should be extended to men regardless of race, may have motivated at least some of the white participants".

John Garraway, whose father lived through the rebellion, reported that Fédon was of no great ability, "nor was he possessed of any extraordinary courage, but in his detestation of the whites, and his readiness to assent to any species of cruelty and atrocity, his companions saw sufficient qualifications to entitle him to command".

[89] Without entering into any detail of our rights, we summon you, and all the inhabitants, of every denomination in this colony, to surrender, within the space of two hours, to the republican forces under our command...And we give you notice, that in case of your not submitting, as you are enjoined, you shall be liable to all the scourges of a disastrous war ...

[54] The hostages were not ill-treated at this time, and indeed a vestige of class society still operated; for example, while most eat their meals off banana leaves, Home ate from a plate, and was occasionally allowed out of his chains in spite of his comrades' repeated assaults on Belvidere.

[45] McKenzie wrote to London demanding reinforcements, emphasising the precarious nature of British rule following the rebellion: Every moment of inactivity must increase the evil within, as the Negroes are daily joining the Insurgents and desolating the Estates; all of which have been plundered, and a number in the neighbourhood of St George's...have been burnt".

[108] Campbell later wrote to Lord Cathcart that taking Camp Liberté seemed impossible, and how "the service was in storming the stronghold of the insurgents, which ended in proving which must of been the opinion of every military person before it commenced, a matter without any probability of success.

Demonstrating the seriousness of the situation argues Ashby, is the fact that the militia commanders were instructed, at their discretion, "to arm a number of able trusty negroes" at a time when the administration was in constant fear of those members of the population turning the aforesaid guns against their masters.

[123] Sir, Upwards of one half of the militia having left me, contrary to the most positive orders, I have been prevented from carrying my plans into execution; and as I shall not be able to act offensively until I have at least a number equal to those with which I set out, I thought it advisable to give the part of the militia that remained behind and who bore cheerfully much hardship from the extreme badness of the weather, leave to return to St. George's to refresh themselves, under the positive promise of them returning in two days; in which time it is to be hoped that the weather may prove more favourable for active operations...I must request a supply of blankets and shirts for my troops, as when they laid down their haversacks to engage the enemy, the negroes stole them.

[130] In retaliation for the attack on Belvidere—and perhaps indicating how close it had come to victory[131]—Fédon had the 44 of his 47 hostages killed: "one by one", comments Candlin, "the prisoners were dragged from the coffee store into the estate courtyard and shot, their blood mingling with the muddy, rain-soaked ground and running in great streams off the hillside".

[132][note 32] This number included the island's Governor, Ninian Home, upon whose killing Marie Rose Fédon observed with a "cold indifference", as Dr Hay later wrote,[66] or a "protean detachment" according to Brizan.

Dr Hay was spared because, as a medical doctor, his skills would come in handy to the rebels;[99] it is also probable, suggest Candlin and Pybus, that this was a quid pro quo for his generous treatment of Marie Rose following her arrest.

[103] The British, says military historian Martin R. Howard, had been "surprised by the obduracy of their mostly black adversaries...admitting that Fédon's men were capable of putting up stiff resistance", while William Dyott noted that they were not only resilient but mobile with it.

[146] The rebels maintained a world view of events, and a comment from one of Fedon's deputies acknowledges this: "Liberty can never be confined solely to the dominions of France, but must gradually extend to every corner of the globe, when it will the interest of mankind to unite and totally terminate that perfidious race".

[101] Communication was maintained with fellow revolutionaries in Haiti, Guadaloupe[56] and St Lucia, although this was a somewhat "uneasy relationship", suggests Martin, as Fédon, on the one hand, wanted as much assistance as he could receive, but on the other was wary of allowing external forces too much influence within his movement.

[151]Gaspar Goyrand, in St Lucia, wrote that he had heard that "several individuals have desired to act a part in this revolution, who, from a spirit of jealousy, of ambition, or the insanity of pride, have endeavoured to revive prejudices condemned to profound oblivion".

The Foreign Secretary, Henry Dundas, wrote to Abercromby informing him that: By the first week in April a division of not less than 4,000 British infantry will be ready to sail from England, Ireland and Gibraltar, which I trust will be found sufficient to replace all the losses which the army may experience during the Campaign.

[160] The mopping-up operation—what Nicols called being "in search of the Monsters in every direction"—began immediately;[98] in one of his final despatches from Grenada, Abercromby informed London that "there appeared a general Disposition in the Revolted to submit; and to throw themselves upon the Mercy of the British Government".

[198][note 56] The confiscation of property was particularly useful, argues Murphy, as it could be distributed as patronage to loyal whites which would both increase the political authority of the anglophone community and concomitantly deprive future rebels of the financial backing that Fédon had possessed.

[191] McGrigor reports how, in the weeks following the end of the rebellion, "all the Jails were now crowded with such of the rebels as had been made prisoner", and that, in one day, "about twenty of these French proprietors were executed on a large gibbet in the market place of St. George's, leaving wives and families".

[16] However, argues Craton, while many big houses and their estates had been destroyed, Fédon and the other planter leaders of the rebellion managed to keep their own lands safe and appear to have intended a return to the plantation economy once the British had been finally evicted.

[56] The rebellion had lasted over a year, consumed the resources of 16 British regiments,[77]—about 10,000 men, including slaves and skilled mercenaries[44]—and cost over £2,500,000 in sterling, argues the historian Tessa Murphy, and "paralysed one of Great Britain's most promising plantation colonies".

[23] The majority of contemporary sources view it solely as the work of "French revolutionary agents, traitorous francophone residents, or free persons of African descent whose liberty threatened the colonial order", argues the scholar Caitlin Anderson.

[214] Likewise, the socialist historian Chris Searle argues that, whether the rebels meant to lay particular emphasis on French revolutionary ideology, the important thing is that the British clearly thought so, blaming Jacobinism for the rebellion.

[229][note 61] Writing in The Encyclopedia of Africa and the Americas, C. M. Jacobs has described the revolt as "one of the most spectacular, sustained, bloody but ultimately unsuccessful antislavery, anticolonial, proto-nationalist struggles of the Age of Revolution",[29] although the extent of the bloodshed has been contested.

[191] The 19th-century Trinidadian novelist Edward Lanzer Joseph's Warner Arundell, published in 1838, is a historical register of the period in which Fédon is a primary protagonist,[32] a brooding Byronic hero much favoured by Gothic literature at the time.

[225] Finally, Nelson notes that Market Square is the last tourist attraction associated with the rebellion because, while it is today a bustling hub of social and economic activity, it is where the captured insurgents were hung from the public gallows in 1796.

[36]Has always been more famous...not just because it occurred in Jamaica, the chief of Britain's sugar colonies, but because it had the lineaments of a classic tale: a desperate cause, a heroic fight against odds, and a tragic outcome deeply discreditable to the winning side.