In 1692 Jeronimus Clifford, an Englishman, was condemned to be hanged (which sentence was changed to seven years imprisonment in the fortress Somelsdyk) on pretence of having insulted a magistrate who had arrested him for debt. On application, however, from the court of Great Britain, he was set at liberty in 1695, by desire of the King, when he made a demand on the colony of 20,000 guineas, for damages and false imprisonment; which being refused, his heirs have continued to claim it since 1700 to so late as 1762, but hitherto without obtaining any satisfaction. During the succeeding war which happened in 1712, the French Commodore Jaques Cassard, met with the same reception from Governor De Gooyer, which Ducasse had experienced from Scherpenhayzon before Zealandia; but four months after he returned with better success, and laid the colony under contribution for a sum of about 56,618l. sterling. It was on the 10th of October that he entered the river of Surinam, with six or eight ships of war, accompanied by a number of small vessels, in which fleet were embarked 3000 men. The largest ships were Le Neptune of 74, on board which he himself commanded Le Temeraire of 60 guns Le Rubis - 56 La Vestale - 48 La Parfaite - 48 La Meduse - 36 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 Paramaribo [9]. 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,