Note 4 — CHAP. II.
Reading edition
This unfortunate gentleman’s reign, however, lasted but a short space, viz. till the year 1688, when on the same day both the governor and deputy governor, Mr. Verboom, were murdered by their own soldiers, owing, as was alledged, to their having not only forced the men to work like negroes in digging canals, &c. but also obliged them to subsist on very bad and short allowance, which drove them to this act of desperation4.—I am sorry to say this treatment is too frequently the case in the settlements, as I shall afterwards have occasion to prove. Such indeed was the confidence of these assassins, that they offered to give in their defence, and assign their reasons for committing this act of cruelty.