SETTLEMENTS ON THE DEMERARY, &C. 313 



Guyana. A short account of the French estabUshment at Cay- 

 enne, must convince every one how much wiser it was to 

 court the superintendence of a British, than of a French au- 

 thority. 



The province of Cayenne is situated in about 53 degrees 

 W. longitude, and 5 N. latitude, its principal settlement and 

 seat of government is near the coast on a small island of the 

 same name. It is bounded on the west by Surinam, on the 

 north and east by the Atlantic ocean, and to the southward 

 by the Portuguese territories, whence it is separated by the 

 course of the Oyapoco as far as its boundaries have been de- 

 fined ; the extent is computed to be three hundred and fifty 

 British miles in length, by two hundred and forty in breadth. 



The French undertook, in 1635, the colonization of Cay- 

 enne. Merchants of Rouen were the chief patrons of the 

 scheme; Ponceau de Bretigny, the official governor of the 

 settlers. The contempt for justice, which every where dis- 

 tinguishes the French, was here fatal to their interests. The 

 native Indians, expelled from their lands without even an at- 

 tempt at consent or purchase, robbed of their huts for the ac- 

 commodation of strangers, deprived of the society and labor 

 of their women by the seductions or violence of the whites, 

 and often compelled to toil for their oppressors, conspired 



s s 



