Note 5 — CHAP. II.

The 11th Cassard sent a long-boat with a white flag, and an officer to treat with the inhabitants for contributions, which, if they refused to pay, he threatened to bombard the town of Paramaribo5. The boat, however, was obliged to return on board without any satisfactory answer. The river Surinam, just before Fort Zealandia, being above a mile in breadth, the Meduse and several flat-bottomed vessels with French troops, being favoured by a very dark night, found means to sail up beyond Paramaribo without being observed by the Dutch, with an intention to plunder the sugar and coffee plantations that are situated above that town: but on the 15th, the besieged prepared two large flat-bottomed barges filled with combustible matters, such as old junk, tar-barrels, &c. and anchored them on the other side of the river, directly opposite to the town, to which fire being applied, both were set in a blaze, and discovered the smallest boats of the enemy as they tried to get up the river through the darkness of the night. Thus discovered, few escaped without damage from the guns of the fort, and those of the trading vessels that lay in the roads, who sunk some of the flat-bottomed boats, a great part of the crews of which were drowned. This stratagem, however, did not prevent Cassard’s people, who had hasted forward, from pillaging and setting on fire the plantations; while he himself, having at last anchored before the town of Paramaribo, threw above thirty shells into it, and kept up a close cannonade both upon that and Fort Zealandia, till the 20th of October, when he sent a second message with one of his captains to the Dutch, demanding of them finally, whether they would capitulate and pay contribution, which, if they now dared to refuse, he threatened fire and destruction to the whole settlement.