66 TlMEHRI. 



riots and raids from the runaways were frequent. This 

 system of police had nothing to do with attacks from 

 the outside. To prevent invasion special arrangements 

 were made, and instructions given, for a yearly return of 

 all able-bodied residents on the coast estates, that 

 immediate intimation should be sent to Fort St. Andries 

 of the first appearance of invaders, and that the bridges 

 should be pulled down and the roads destroyed between 

 the place of landing and New Amsterdam. 



Besides all this, on the advice of Sir Ralph Aber- 

 cromby, Commander-in-Chief, in 1797, the Governor- 

 General and Court raised and furnished a company 

 of black troops which were to be added to the 

 corps of South American Rangers in Demerara, at 

 this time commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel His- 

 lop, for the mutual protection of the two colonies. 

 The company consisted of one hundred and twelve 

 negroes, viz., five sergeants, five corporals, two drum- 

 mers, and one hundred privates, and was raised by 

 asking so many men from each estate according to its 

 size. The town and fort at Nassau contributed one man, 

 and the shops in New Amsterdam five. 



Each of the following estates gave one man : — Eduard, 

 Mon Choisi and Eddertown, and Zee Zight (now called 

 Cotton Tree), Zorg-en-Hoop, De Vryheid (town estate), 

 Fransenburg, Augsburg, Jacoba Wilhelmina, De Hoop ( 

 De Vrouwe Johanna, Grauw Bunderland, Johanna, Farm, 

 De Gennes, De Catoenboom, Ross, Zeeburg, Washing- 

 ton, Williamstadt, Ruimzigt, Overyssel, Rotterdam, 

 Novit Gedagt, Welgeleegen, Stevensburg, Paradise 

 Middelburg, Welvaren, Perseverance, Bellevue (now 

 part of Everton), Vigilantie, Het Plegtanker, La Pru- 



