EXPEDITION TO SURINAM. 293 



prevent the poffeflbrs of the colony from making fuch chap. 

 difcoveries as might perhaps reward their labour with , 

 very confiderable riches. 



If, as I have juft mentioned, cruelties were become lefs 

 common in the rivers by the rebels, barbarities flill con- 

 tinued in a fhocking degree in the metropolis ; where 

 my ears were deafened with the clang of the whip, and 

 the flirieks of the negroes. Among; the moft eminent 



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of thefe tyrants was a Mifs Sp — n, who lived next door 

 to Mr. de Graav, and who I faw with horror from my 

 "window give orders that a young black woman fliould 

 be flogged principally acrofs the breafts, at which fbe 

 feemed to enjoy peculiar fatisfadtion. To diffipate the im- 

 preffion this fcene had left on my mind, I got into a 

 whifkey, and rode out ; when the firfl thing I faw was 

 a negro girl fall naked from a garret window on a heap of 

 broken bottles : this was indeed an accident, bat fhe was 

 fo mangled, though not dead, that flie exhibited a fpedla- 

 cle nearly as wretched as the other. — Curfmg my unlucky 

 fate, I turned the horfes, and drove to the beach, as the 

 only place to avoid every fcene of cruelty and mifery ; but 

 here 1 had the mortification to fee two Philadelphia failors 

 (while they were fighting on the forecaftle of their vefTel) 

 both fall over the Ihip's bow into the ftream, where they 

 funk, and were no more feen. On board another Ame- 

 rican brig, I difcovered a little tar defending hirafeli from 

 the crofs-trees with a hatchet, againft a ferjeant and four 

 armed men, for a conllderable time ; till they threatening 



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