SEITLEMENTS ON THE DEMERARY, &C. 305 



his negroes in making a handsome garden; he then gets a 

 pleasure boat, and four or five negroes are immediately put in 

 training for sailors; and lastly, his ambition must be gratified 

 by a curricle and pair of horses. The only thing they agree 

 in is good living. The pleasures of the table they both are 

 determined to enjoy ; the one in a large splendid house, and 

 the other in a cottage. 



Many English merchants, about 1790, formed establish- 

 ments, and settled in Demerary ; and considerable quantities 

 of British manufactured goods were obtained from the West 

 India islands; but the importation of negroes, or exportation 

 of produce in British shipping, was prohibited as interfering 

 with the Dutch navigation laws. Nevertheless, a barter trade 

 to a considerable amount was carried on privately, and even 

 passed over in silence by the officers of justice. There being 

 no custom-house in the Dutch colonies, that superintendance 

 devolves on the fiscal and receiver. 



The republican war of 1793 threw the inhabitants into great 

 distress ; their intercourse with the mother country was retard- 

 ed, and no business was carrying on, save with America, and 

 the contraband trade with the English. Their military force 

 was reduced to little more than two hundred men ; discontent 

 occupied every breast, and it was with the utmost difficulty 

 that the few remaining troops could be kept in subjection. 



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