Early Historical Data. 
21 
76. During the years 1586 to 1596 the Dutch already had founded 
several settlements, from which they were nevertheless driven by the 
Spaniards with the assistance of Indians in 1596. Not at all 
disheartened by these failures, Jost van der Hooge established a new Col- 
ony called Nova Zeelandia, which, by 1613 must have found itself in 
flourishing circumstances. In 1602 the Zeeland merchants van Peeren, 
van Rhee, de Moor, de Vries, and van Hoorn arranged for a voyage to 
the Guiana Coast under the command of van Ryk Hendrickzoon, for 
which purpose a charter granting them exclusive trade-rights was drawn 
up for them by the States-General. 
77. In 1621 the States-General undertook to supply the Colonists 
with Negro slaves from Africa, and now van Peer, who, with his 
companions, laid been driven out of the Orinoco, commenced operations 
afresh at Berbice, whereupon a new colonisation company, leaving the 
Texel under command of David Pieterse de Vries landed in September, 
1654, upon the island of Mecoria between the rivers Cayenne and Wia. 
Here again the emigrants found an old castle, which the French must 
have built, just as van der Hooge found a similar one in 1596 at the 
junction of the Essequibo with the Mazaruni the builders of which were 
probably Portuguese. 
78. These various attempts seem to have induced several Englishmen 
to settle in the so-called “Wild Coast'’ Colonies : van der Hooge already 
found a party established in the Surinam River under Captain Marshall 
who, with about 60 companions, had settled on the site of wliat had 
formerly been a large Indian village, Paramaribo, but which never- 
theless had to be abandoned owing to the many incursions of the Caribs. 
79. These attempts of the Dutch and English proved the signal 
for other nations, which were now reciprocally dispossessed and 
re-established in one perpetual change. Thus in 1640 the French took 
possession of the earlier settlement of Paramaribo which they subsequent- 
ly abandoned for the same reasons that had prompted the English, and in 
1652 the latter were once more its masters. Equally potent quarrels 
arising within the States-General considerably hindered the prosperous 
progress of colonisation along the Coast until, in 1678, a treaty was 
concluded with the van Peere family whereby it was to retain posession 
of Berbice colony “for ever-” The changing fortunes of War, however, 
during the past two hundred years brought the colonies of Berbice, 
Essequibo, and Demerara from out of the hands of the Dutch into 
those of the French, English and Spanish with the result that by am 
agreement between Great Britain and the Netherlands arrived at in 1812 
they were handed over to the former on the stipulation that the Dutch 
owners were to retain trading relations, in limited restriction, with 
Holland. Under the sovereignty of Great Britain, agriculture and 
trade rapidly advanced, for already by that date steam engines were 
generally employed at the sugar-mills. The census of January, 1817 
gave a Negro slave population of 77,163 for the Essequibo and 
Demerara Districts, and 24,529 for the Berbice: consequently the three 
districts between them owned 101,712 slaves, while at the same time 
the free population amounted to 8,000. From all statistical accounts 
this was the largest population the colony had hitherto held: it was 
