The Colony of Surinam. 241 
provisions should be made, jurisdiction in Criminal matters. 
The administration of justice in civil matters was 
vested in the Court of Justice. The president and the 
members, six in number, were appointed by the Crown, 
and were bound to remain in office for six years. They 
had no right to resign. The civil and common law of the 
land remained as before to be the rule of the Court's 
judgments, 
Such was the fundamental law and the form of Gov- 
ernment introduced in 1815. It lasted till the year 1828. 
Under its regime the colony was almost at a stand, but 
rather retrograding than progressing. Her political 
existence was nil. Plantocracy had its full sway, and 
the colony w r as actually ruled and governed at home. 
The conduct of affairs was in the hands of the Colonial 
Office, then called *' The Department of Commerce and 
for the Colonies." The supreme power over the colonies 
was, under the constitutional law then in force in the 
mother country, vested in the Crown and in her alone, 
without any interference of the Legislature, the Chambers 
of the States-General of the Netherlands. 
Moved by the withering condition and the unsatisfac- 
tory state of affairs in the colony, it pleased the Crown, 
in 1*828, to order a full investigation and inquiry, with a 
view to the reorganization of the administration of all 
the West Indian colonies ; to the introduction of an 
entirely new form of government and to remedy the evils 
and abuses which, in the opinion of the Crown, had been 
creeping in, sapping and undermining the authority of 
the Crown, and impeding the progress and prosperity of 
the colony. Centralisation of all the West Indian colo- 
FF 
