Our Boundary War-Scare. 247 
As far as I can gather Major Scott may be right and his Gromweagle (Van 
Groenwegen) the real founder of Essequebo. He appears to have married an 
Indian woman, and a son, Amos Van Groenwegen, was Postholder of Demerara 
in the early years of the 18thcentury. The name still exists here as Van 
Groningen and perhaps Van Krunigen. 
An interesting find was a secret proposal between Spain and Portugal to 
influence the Bush Negroes so that the Dutch might be entirely driven out of 
Guiana ; whether any of the raids on the plantations in Surinam was due to this 
is uncertain. As another result of the Boundary investigation we have just 
got from the Hakluyt Society the interesting letters of Governor Storm van’s 
Gravesande. 
The Atlases of the American Commission and the British case are very interest- 
ing to the historian and go to prove that neither Spain nor Venezuela knew any- 
thing of the disputed territory. In fact, our neighbours came to us for maps and 
other information to formulate their case. On our side we have records of 
exploration by Waterton, Hancock, Hillhouse, Schomburgk, and Sawkins and 
Brown, not to mention a host of more recent travellers ; but Venezuela knows 
but little of her Guayana. Now that the balata-bleeder has followed the gold- 
digger and there is no fear of interference from Venezuela or Brazil, every part 
of the colony is being explored. Nothing important has, however, been lately 
discovered and we may therefore presume that the work of Schomburgk and 
the others was well done. Little is now left unexplored and that little will 
probably soon be pretty well known, for already balata expeditions are working 
almost to the boundaries of the colony. 
There is no doubt that the boundary settlement has put matters on a sound 
footing even though the exaggerated expectations of gold-diggers and diamond 
hunters have not been altogether justified by results. The balata-bleeder can 
now go through the length and breadth of the colony withoutrisk of hindrance, 
and the colony has been saved the expense of boundary posts. Probably also 
the United States has learnt from the war scare not to be so hasty in her judg- 
ments. 
