Having thus described the surface of the country in general, with its boundaries, rivers, &c. I shall proceed to an account of the earliest discoveries and most remarkable revolutions of this once flourishing colony, which escaped being visited by the gallant Admiral Rodney in the last war.—That part of Terra Firma, which is called Guiana, or the Wild Coast, and in which lies the colony of Surinam, is said by some to have been first found out by the justly celebrated Christopher Columbus, in the year 1498, whence he was sent home in chains; though others contend that it was not discovered till the year 1504, by Vasco Nunes, a Spaniard, as was stated in the beginning of this Chapter. In 1595 it was visited by Sir Walter Raleigh, under Queen Elizabeth, who also sailed up the river Oronoque above 600 miles, in search of the supposed El Dorado, and in hopes of discovering the gold-mines, of which he had the most lively expectations, from samples of a marcasite, which the Spaniards call Madre de Oro [7]. In 1634, a Captain Marshall, with about sixty English, were discovered in Surinam employed in planting tobacco, according to the relation of David Piterse de Vries, a Dutchman, who conversed with them upon the spot. In 1640, Surinam was inhabited by the French, who were obliged to leave it soon after, on account of the frequent invasions which they justly suffered from the Caribbean Indians, for having, like their neighbours the Spaniards, treated them with the most barbarous cruelties. In the year 1650, this colony being vacant, Francis Lord Willoughby of Parham, by King Charles the Second’s permission, sent thither one vessel, equipped by himself, to take possession of it in the name of his royal master; a little after which he dispatched three vessels more, one of them carrying twenty guns. All these were well received by the Indians or inhabitants of the country, with whom they entered into friendly treaties, and a kind of negociation. Two years after this Lord Willoughby went over himself, and leaving several good and wholesome laws and regulations for the government and defence of the colony, returned to England, whence he continued to supply the settlement at his own expence with men and ammunition. On the second day of June, 1662, the colony of Surinam was granted by charter of Charles the Second to Francis Lord Willoughby, and at that lord’s desire to be divided with Lawrence Hide, second son of Edward Earl of Clarendon, for them and their descendants for ever: the original record of this charter is to be found in the chapel of the Rolls. In 1664, the English captured the New Netherlands, since called New-York, from the Dutch.