which struck a table that I had just before removed from. On the following day, my servant was informed by a Mr. Ricardo, captain of the burgher-guard, that if we were not very particular I should be poisoned. Several shot were afterwards fired into my prison-room, and had I not shifted my bed repeatedly, every night, some one or other of them would probably have proved fatal. On one occasion, I was threatened with confinement in a dungeon, and actually placed for a few hours in one, because I would not divulge the names of the inhabitants through whose hands I still contrived to send and receive letters. In this state of suspense I was kept for four months.
“My men, I should observe, were sent to Jamaica soon after the surrender of the Surinam, the enemy hoping that an equal number of Dutch sailors would have been exchanged for them; instead of which, however, only a receipt for the number was returned; as I had pointed out to Sir John T. Duckworth the probability of H.M. late sloop being instantly sent to cruise against our trade. At length the enemy conceived it a good plan to send me, with my officers and the receipt, to Barbadoes; but in this instance likewise they were unsuccessful. Finding no man-of-war at that island when we arrived there, I however took upon myself to send them back nine Dutch clergymen in lieu of us; and I have the satisfaction to add, that, when tried by a court-martial, I was acquitted of all blame for the loss of the Surinam.”
CHARLES ALLEN, Esq.
[Commander.]
Is descended from Captain William Allen, of the Bonaventure 50, who, in 1696, retook the British settlements in Hudson’s Bay; and, on his return home, was mortally wounded in action with a French private ship of war. A medal which he obtained from Pope Innocent II. is now in the possession of Commander Allen, whose grandfather died captain of the Mary yacht, in 1752; and whose father, the late William Allen, Esq., was many years in the Stamp
