SETTLEMENTS ON THE DEMERARY, SiC. 195 



C€ived a body of soldiers from Surinam, and several armed 

 vessels from the islands of Curasso and St. Eiistatia, with 

 which he sailed up the river, and took possession of the 

 Dauger-head, a large plantation belonging to the West India 

 company, where he maintained himself till the arrival of an 

 armament from Holland; when the rebels were soon driven 

 into the woods, whence hunger, and the arrows of the In- 

 dians, obliged them to return, and seek an asylum in their 

 former slavery. Several hundred of the chief promoters 

 of this insurrection were however burnt, or broke on the 

 wheel, with all the various species of cruelty for which the 

 Dutch were then notorious. Before this, however, several 

 hundreds of the Carribbee Indians were, by the governor of 

 Essequebo and Demerary, engaged to take up arms against 

 the rebels, whom they not a little harrassed, concealing them- 

 selves in the woods by day, and setting fire to their houses 

 in the night, by shooting arrows fired at the point among the 

 troolies, with which they were thatched, and then killing the 

 negroes as they fled out in confusion. 



The Indians have a sincere dislike and contempt for the 

 blacks ; considering them apparently as an inferior race, born> 

 like cattle, to labour for the service of their betters. Of the 

 rights of intellect to exert control, they have an instinctive 

 conviction ; and are still less scrupulous than the Europeans, 

 about the means of maintaining ascendancy. With them, 



c c 2 



