EXPEDITION TO SURINAM. 107 



C H A P. VI. 



Account of n dreadful Execution-'FluBuating State of 

 political Affairs—Short Glimpfe of Peace — An Officer ffjot 

 dead; his whole Party cut to Pieces and the general 

 Alarm revived throughout the Colony, 



ON the 2ift of May our Lieutenant Colonel Lant- CHAP, 

 man died, and a number of our officers lay lick. , 

 Inftead of gaiety and diffipation, difeafe and mortality 

 now began to rage amongft us ; and the devaftation in- 

 creafed from day to day among the private men, in a 

 nK)ft alarming proportion. The remains of the deceafed 

 officer were interred with military honours, in the centre 

 of the Fortrefs Zelandia, where all criminals are im- 

 prifoned, and all field officers buried. At this place I 

 was not a little fliocked, to fee the captive rebel negroes 

 and others clanking their chains, and roafting plantains 

 and yams upon the fepulchres of the dead; they pre- 

 fented to my imagination, the image of a number of 

 diabolical fiends in the lhape of African flaves, torment- 

 ing the fouls of their European perfecutors. From thefe 

 gloomy manfions of defpair, on this day, feven captive 

 negroes were fele£led, who being led by a few foldiers 

 to the place of execution, which is in the Savannah, 

 where the failors and foldiers are interred, fix were 

 hanged, and one broken alive upon the rack, with an iron 



P 2 bars 



