While this was going on at St. Eustatius, some Bristol privateers got information of the outbreak of hostilities, and pounced upon Demerara and Berbice, where they levied blackmail and captured most of the shipping. As usual with these plunderers, they had no authority to capture the colony, nor had they in this case even commissions against the Dutch. However, they put the inhabitants in a state of consternation, until, a few days later, two men-of-war arrived from Barbados to receive the capitulation, which was demanded on the same terms as that of St Eustatius, although neither party knew what these terms were. Nothing was left but submission, although the authorities protested against such an unheard-of manner of dictating unknown terms. The Governor of Barbados had heard from one of the inhabitants of that island that the Directeur-General of Demerara had expressed, at his dinner-table, his fears that in case of a war the river would be plundered by privateers, and of his preferring to surrender to one of the king's ships: for this reason he had sent the men-of-war. This was considered a bit of "sharp practice" by the Demerarians, but perhaps turned out for the best. Two commissioners were appointed by the colony to go in one of the English vessels to St. Eustatius and arrange the articles of capitulation, which were fortunately on altogether different lines from those of that island. Surinam, St. Martin's, Saba, and St. Bartholomew's also surrendered on the same unknown terms, but the admiral said that he and General Vaughan thought they ought to be put on a different footing. They would not treat them like the other, whose inhabitants, belonging to a State bound by treaty to assist Great Britain, had yet nevertheless assisted her public enemies and the rebels to her State, with every necessary and implement of war as well as provisions, thus perfidiously breaking the very treaties they had sworn to maintain.