At the discovery, in Surinam, that the peace had been concluded in Europe between the contending powers, before Commodore Harman retook the colony from the Dutch, considerable tumult and disorder took place among the inhabitants, who knew not whom they ought to acknowledge as their lawful sovereign. At length, by an order of King Charles, the settlement was ceded to the Dutch, in 1669, when twelve hundred of the old inhabitants, English and negroes together, left it, and went to settle on the island of Jamaica. At the close of the succeeding war, it was agreed by the treaty of Westminster that Surinam should be the property of the Dutch for ever, in exchange for the province of New-York, which accordingly took place in the year 1674; and after this period the colony of Surinam was never more in the possession of Great Britain. In 1678, a Mr. Heynsius was governor of the colony, and a Captain. Lightenburgh commander of the troops. The Dutch for the first few years enjoyed little satisfaction in their new possessions, as they were daily harrassed by the invasions of the Carribbean Indians, to whom they were much more obnoxious than the English had been: indeed they carried their resentment so far as to murder several of the Dutch settlers. In addition to this, the province of Zealand, to which the colony properly belonged, being perpetually at variance with the other United Provinces concerning the sovereignty of this settlement, and not being of themselves able to support the great expence which was requisite for its preservation and defence, at last resolved to sell the whole to the Dutch West India Company; which they did in the year 1682, for the sum of £.23,636 sterling, including all the warlike stores, ammunition, &c. amongst which were fifty pieces of cannon. At the same time they obtained a charter from their high mightinesses the States General, exempting them from duty for ten years. A few months after this, however, the West India Company, notwithstanding the above charter of indemnification, finding the other necessary expences of the settlement also too great for them, again transferred two-thirds of the colony of Surinam, the one to the town of Amsterdam, the other to the house of Somelsdyk, at the same price for which they had bought it, and these three together formed a society, to whom (still under the sanction of their high mightinesses) was some time afterwards intrusted, by a resolution of the States General, the sole and entire direction of the affairs of this country.