The Three Counties under the Dutch. 15 
time. Sometimes he was at one or other of the few 
centres of population, engaged in his harassing work, 
sometimes he was seeking very necessary relaxation in 
the houses of the planters or in travelling up the rivers ; 
but wherever he was, he found himself a welcome guest 
and he kept his eyes wide open. His private letters to a 
friend in England, being afterward published, afford a 
picture as complete as need be of the Guiana of those 
days. 
On the evening of the 20th April 1796 the English 
ships lay at anchor in the muddy water outside the 
mouth of the Demerara river. The scene which those on 
board saw before them was neither terrible nor inviting. 
Just in front, in the obtuse angle formed by the left bank 
of the river with the sea coast, lay the town of Stabroek, 
defended only by a miserable little fort occupying the 
most seaward point. Right and left from the mouth of the 
river stretched the low, flat, muddy coastland, varied here 
and there by bands of shore-growing bushes behind which 
were seen the tops of a few palm trees. That evening 
was spent, so certain did it seem that no resistance would 
be offered, in preparation for landing on the morrow, 
and especially in impressing on the soldiers the neces- 
sity of abstaining from plunder and from all disturbance 
of the peaceful ways of the inhabitants. The next day an 
attempt was made to send the troops on shore in small ves- 
sels, some of which had been brought for the purpose from 
Barbados, others had been captured off the coast, which 
were supposed to be sufficiently light to pass over the 
mud-bar and shallows which formed a natural protection to 
the harbour. But even these boats grounded on the flats 
and lay helpless and exposed to attack until the tide 
