CHARLES WATERTON, ESQ. xliii 
opportunity in the world of examining the water- 
fowl of Guiana: they were in vast abundance all 
along the sea shore, and in the fresh-water swamps 
behind the plantations. No country in the world can 
offer a more extensive and fertile field to the orni- 
thologist, than our celebrated colony of Demerara. 
I had several adventures during the time that the 
estates were under my charge. Perhaps it will be 
well to recount them here: they will tend to en- 
liven a little this dull attempt on my part at auto- 
biography ; or, more properly speaking, an attempt 
to amuse the reader of these Essays at my own 
cost, should my memoirs fall into the hands of a 
surly critic. However, be this as it may, let me 
here inform the reader that there shall not be a 
single exaggeration in any part of them. 
During the war betwixt Spain and England, the 
privateers from the Orinoco were perpetually 
scouring the coast of Essequibo, and committing 
ruinous devastations on the property of the British 
planters. One morning, five or six English gentle- 
men, amongst whom was my friend Mr. Robert 
Gordon, afterwards Governor of Berbice, went out 
in a schooner, with Mr. Hubbard, an Ameriean, to 
attack a privateer which had appeared in the offing. 
A person by the name of Lynch (I knew him 
well) was one of the party. He hada foreboding 
that all would not go right ; for, just as he was en- 
tering the vessel which was to take him out to 
battle, he gave his watch to a friend, and he begged 
it might be sent to his father in Ireland, should he 
not return. He was a light little man, apparently 
