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 fliat 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 American, 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 had a foreboding 

 that all would not go right ; for, just as he was 

 entering 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 



