LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 39 



foreign bloodhounds should have fixed their crooked fangs in the 

 British uniform.' 'That's brave,' said he; and then he advanced 

 to me, and shook me by the hand. I stayed with him about a 

 couple of hours, and told him of my intended expedition through 

 the forests to the Portuguese settlements on the Rio Branco, adding 

 that I had already observed the necessary formalities required by 

 law from those who are about to leave the colony. He gave me 

 permission to range through the whole of ci-devant Dutch Guiana 

 for any length of time, and ordered my passport to be made out 

 immediately. It bears his signature, and date of April 16, 1812. 



" To General Carmichael indirectly I owe one of the best watches 

 that man ever wore. Many of those colonists who held public offices 

 in Demerara had not been over and above scrupulous in their money 

 transactions with the Government; and the General had given it out 

 that they should all be summoned, and be made to swear to their 

 accounts. Amongst them was a Dutch gentleman (since dead) in 

 the colonial service, who had still a large slice of conscience left. 

 He told his friends that he was quite aware he could never make 

 out a just balance-sheet, but that he would die before he would 

 take a false oath. The affair haunted him day and night, until he 

 could bear it no longer; and he actually proceeded up the river 

 Demerara, to the house of his friend Mr Edmonstone in Mibiri creek, 

 with the full intention of proceeding through the interior to the far 

 distant Portuguese or Spanish settlements, as occasion might offer. 

 I was staying with Mr Edmonstone at the time. As the fugitive 

 officer was walking with me in the woods on the following morning, 

 he entered more largely on the plan of his intended escape ; and he 

 said he had arranged his little affairs pretty well before he left the 

 town ; but that he had not been able to dispose of his watch, which 

 was nearly new, and which had been made to order by Keating 

 of London, who had charged forty pounds for it. My companion 

 had been very attentive to me formerly, when he was at Govern- 

 ment House in the time of Governor Bentinck. Knowing that 

 a friend in need is a friend indeed, I put his watch into my waist- 

 coat pocket, after having returned him his seals, and two rings 

 attached to it, and told him I was his debtor for the sum of 

 sixty guineas. This was in the spring of 1812, from which time to 



