312 STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF THE 



thing was rendered eventually easy for the English planters 

 and merchants to slip out with their schooners, though most 

 of the produce exported this way, went from the east sea coast, 

 by which means it avoided passing the fort at the mouth of 

 the river. 



Destitute of almost every article of European manufacture 

 and convenience, the military force reduced so very low as two 

 hundred men, and these so nearly in a state of- mutiny, as t6 

 make it synonymous to being without any ; the colonies began 

 to be conscious in this situation that they should fall an easy 

 prey to any adventurous plunderer. Victor Hugues' arrival 

 at Cayenne began to be noised abroad, his repeated procla- 

 mations of liberty and equality, which breathed vengeance on 

 all the possessions not immediately in possession of the French, 

 called on a rabble of idle and disaffected negroes and mulattoes 

 to join, to whom he promised freedom, and held out a glit- 

 tering prospect of glory. He succeeded in deluding six 

 thousand misguided objects to join him, whom he armed, and 

 disciplined, with an intention of taking possession of Dutch 

 Guyana, and finally of revolutionizing all the British posses- 

 sions in the West Indies. The dread of being consigned to 

 the mercy of such a band of lawless miscreants as composed 

 Victor Hugues' army, determined the inhabitants to apply for 

 advice and protection to the island of Barbadoes, where some 

 considerable proprietors resided who had also estates in 



