SETTLEMENTS ON THE DEMERARY, &C. 343 



ling to concede to him in the management of their exterior 

 concerns. He treated skilfully with the Indians, but ruled 

 the troops so despotically*, and imposed fatigues so insufferable 

 under a tropical sun, that he was massacred by the conspiracy 

 of twelve soldiers, in the year 1688. About this time it is re- 

 corded there were six hundred Dutch families settled along the 

 Surinam. 



The widow of Somelsdyk offered to transfer her third of the 

 colonial allotments to our king William III. but the offer 

 was not accepted. A French admiral, Cassard, plundered 

 this settlement in 1712, levying on Paramaribo a contribution 

 of fifty-five thousand pounds sterling. He ascended the river 

 beyond the town, and set fire to many estates. The confusion 

 prevalent at this period facilitated the desertion of a great many 

 i^egroes. 



It is common in Africa for negroes who dislike work to 

 withdraw from their masters and live in the woods, like gipsies, 

 or in a state of still greater wildness and privation. Near the 

 Cape, there are kraals or villages of such, who are called bush 

 men, from their living in the thicket. Some desertions of this 

 kind took place while the English possessed Surinam, and a 

 regular settlement of maroons, or wild negroes, was formed 

 between the Copenam and Sarameca rivers. But about the 



