Such was the situation of Surinam, and in this manner all matters were finally settled, when Cornelius Van Aarsen, lord of Somelsdyk (as being one of the proprietors) went over with three hundred men, with whom he also took some felons sentenced for transportation. At his arrival, in 1684, he took the command as governor general of the colony. He then created a court of policy, to assist in the administration of justice; with the members of which, as well as with the inhabitants, he lived in a state of continual dissension. The consequence was, that they sent several complaints against him to Europe, notwithstanding he had made a favourable peace with the Caribbee, Warowa, and Arawakka Indians, as well as with a few run-away negroes, who had been settled at Rio Copename since the English left the colony. 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 desperation [8].—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. As the particulars of the assassination are not uninteresting, I shall beg leave to trespass upon the reader’s patience by a brief recital of the transaction. The governor was walking under a grove of orange-trees, near his own house, with Mr. Verboom, when unexpectedly ten or twelve armed soldiers (seemingly drunk) accosted them, and immediately insisted on less work and better subsistence. The governor drawing his sword to force them back, was instantaneously shot through the body in many places, and died upon the spot; his companion, on the other hand, received but one wound, and did not expire till the ninth day after. This done, the rioters, accompanied by several accomplices, marched in triumph to Fort Zealandia, which they took without resistance, and made themselves masters of the gunpowder and victualling magazines. After this, the garrison having joined them, they formed a ring, and chose out from among them a commander in chief, and several other officers to whom they all swore to be faithful, as also to each other, to the last drop of their blood. What is very remarkable, is, that their new chief, the very same afternoon, ordered the body of the massacred governor, Somelsdyk, to be interred in Fort Zealandia with decency and military honours; and even the great guns were fired from the walls, and three rounds with small arms by the rebels.