316 STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF THE 



Du Casse, who was a good seaman, arrived with some ships 

 from France, in 1688, at Cayenne, and by various means in- 

 stigated a party of pirates, who had settled there two years be- 

 fore with a large valuable booty, which they had taken in the 

 south seas, and who were now employed in cultivating the 

 land, to join him in plundering Surinam. Many of the other 

 colonists, induced by the designing arts of this adventurer, 

 joined him, but the expedition proved unfortunate — some of 

 the besiegers fell in the attack, the rest were taken prisoners, 

 and sent to the French Carribbee islands, where they settled. 

 The colony has never recovered this loss ; far from extending 

 into Guyana, it has only languished at Cayenne. 



The island of Cayanno, or Cayenne, is separated from the 

 continent only by two arms of a river of the same name, and 

 is about eighteen miles long and eight or ten broad ; its situa- 

 tion makes it a most unfit place for a settlement, and it would 

 have fared much better with the colonists had they com- 

 menced on the main. The land adjacent the sea, is hilly and 

 mountainous, and that in the center low and swampy, con- 

 tinually subject to inundations, to prevent which, no other 

 plan can be adopted but that which has been followed in the 

 neighbouring colonies, of digging dykes and draining into the 

 sea. It is much doubted whether the soil is good enough to 

 repay the expending of so much labor. This island is well 



