MARCH 1. (Sunday.)
Last night the negroes of Friendship took it into their ingenious heads to pay me a compliment of an extremely inconvenient nature. They thought, that it would be highly proper to treat me with a nightly serenade just by way of showing their enjoyment on my return; and accordingly a large body of them arrived at my doors about midnight, dressed out in their best clothes, and accompanied with drums, rattles, and their whole orchestra of abominable instruments, determined to pass the whole night in singing and dancing under my windows. Luckily, my negro-governors heard what was going forwards, and knowing my taste a little better than my visiters, they hastened to assure them of my being in bed and asleep, and with much difficulty persuaded them to remove into my village. Here they contented themselves with making a noise for the greatest part of the night; and the next morning, after coming up to see me at breakfast, they went away quietly. One of them only remained to enquire particularly after Lady H———-, as her mother had been her nurse, and she was very particular in her enquiries as to her health, her children, their ages and names. When she went away, I gave her a plentiful provision of bread, butter, plantains, and cold ham from the breakfast table; part of which she sat down to eat, intending, as she said, to carry the rest to her piccaninny at home. But in half an hour after she made her appearance again, saying she was come to take leave of me, and hoped I would give her a bit to buy tobacco. I gave her a maccaroni, which occasioned a great squall of delight. Oh! since I had given her so much, she would not buy tobacco but a fowl; and then, when I returned, she would bring me a chicken from it for my dinner; that is, if she could keep the other negroes from stealing it from her, a piece of extraordinary good luck of which she seemed to entertain but slender hopes. At length off she set; but she had scarcely gone above ten yards from the house, when she turned back, and was soon at my writing-table once more, with a “Well! here me come to massa again!” So then she said, that she had meant to eat part of the provisions which I had given her, and carry home the rest to her boy; but that really it was so good, she could not help going on eating and eating, till she had eaten the whole, and now she wanted another bit of cold ham to carry home to her child, and then she should go away perfectly contented. I ordered Cubina to give her a great hunch of it, and Mrs. Phillis at length took her departure for good and all.
MARCH 4. (Wednesday.)
I set out to visit my estate in St. Thomas’s in the East, called Hordley. It is at the very furthest extremity of the island, and never was there a journey like unto my journey. Something disagreeable happened at every step; my accidents commenced before I had accomplished ten miles from my own house; for in passing along a narrow shelf of rock, which overhangs the sea near Bluefields, a pair of young blood-horses in my carriage took fright at the roaring of the waves which dashed violently against them, and twice nearly overturned me. On the second occasion one of them actually fell down into the water, while the off-wheel of the curricle flew up into the air, and thus it remained suspended, balancing backwards and forwards, like Mahomet’s coffin. Luckily, time was allowed the horse to recover his legs, down came the wheel once more on terra firma, and on we went again. We slept at Cashew (an estate near Lacovia), and the next morning at daylight proceeded to climb the Bogr, a mountain so difficult, that every one had pronounced the attempt to be hopeless with horses so young as mine; but those horses were my only ones, and therefore I was obliged to make the trial. The road is bordered by tremendous precipices for about twelve miles; the path is so narrow, that a servant must always be sent on before to make any carts which may be descending stop in recesses hollowed out for this express purpose; and the cartmen are obliged to sound their shells repeatedly, in order to give each other timely warning. The chief danger, however, proceeds from the steepness of the road, which in some places will not permit the waggons to stop, however well their conductors may be inclined; then down they come drawn by twelve or fourteen, or sometimes sixteen oxen, sweeping every thing before them, and any carriage unlucky enough to find itself in their course must infallibly be dashed over the precipice. To-day, it really appeared as if all the estates in the island had agreed to send their produce by this particular road; the shells formed a complete chorus, and sounded incessantly during our whole passage of the mountain; and at one time there was a very numerous accumulation of carts and oxen in consequence of my carriage coming to a complete stop. As we were ascending,—“It is very well,” said a gentleman who was travelling with me, (Mr. Hill) “that we did not come by this road three months sooner. I remember about that time travelling it on horseback, and an enormous tree had fallen over the path, which made me say to myself as I passed under it, ‘Now, how would a chaise with a canopy get along here? The tree hangs so low that the carriage never could pass, and it would certainly have to go all the way home again.’ Of course, the obstacle must now be removed; but if I remember right, this must have been the very spot.... and as I hope to live, yonder is the very tree still!”—And so it proved; although three months had elapsed, the impediment had been suffered to remain in unmolested possession of the road, and to pass my carriage under it proved an absolute impossibility. After much discussion, and many fruitless attempts, we at length succeeded in unscrewing the wheels, lifting off the body, which we carried along, and then built the curricle up again on the opposite side of the tree. However, by one means or other (after leaving a knocked-up saddle-horse at a coffee plantation, to the owner of which I was a perfect stranger, but who very obligingly offered to take charge of the animal) we found ourselves at the bottom of the mountain; but the fatal tree, and the delay occasioned by taking unavoidable shelter from tremendous storms of rain, had lost us so much time, that night surprised us when we were still eight miles distant from our destined inn. The night was dark as night could be; no moon, no stars, nor any light except the flashing of myriads of fire-flies, which, flapping in the faces of the young horses, frightened them, and made them rear. The road, too, was full of water-trenches, precipices, and deep and dangerous holes. As to the ground, it was quite invisible, and we had no means of proceeding with any chance of safety except by making some of the servants lead the horses, while others went before us to explore the way, while they cried out at every moment,—“Take care; a little to the left, or you will slip into that water-trench—a little to the right, or you will tumble over that precipice.”—Into the bargain there was neither inn nor gentleman’s house within reach; and thus we proceeded crawling along at a foot’s pace for five eternal miles, when we at length stopped to beg a shelter for the night at a small estate called Porous. By this time it was midnight; all the family was gone to bed; the gates were all locked; and before we could obtain admittance a full hour elapsed, during which I sat in an open carriage, perspiration streaming down from my head to my feet through vexation, impatience and fatigue, while the night-dew fell heavy and the night-breeze blew keen; which (as I had frequently been assured) was the very best recipe possible for getting a Jamaica fever. On such I counted both for myself and my white servant, when I at length laid myself down in a bed at Porous; but to my equal surprise and satisfaction we both rose the next morning without feeling the slightest inconvenience from our risks of the preceding day, and in the evening of Friday, the 5th, I reached Miss Cole’s hotel at the Spanish Town. One of my young horses, however, was so completely knocked up by the fatigue of crossing the mountain, that I could get no further than Kingston (only fourteen miles) this next day. In consequence of the delay, I was enabled to visit the Kingston theatre; the exterior is rather picturesque; within it has no particular recommendations; the scenery and dresses were shabby, the actors wretched, and the stage ill lighted; the performance was for the benefit of the chief actress, who had but little reason to be satisfied with the number of her audience; and I may reckon it among my other misfortunes on this ill-starred expedition, that it was my destiny to sit out the tragedy of “Adelgitha,” whom the author meant only to be killed in the last act, but whom the actors murdered in all five. The heroine was the only one who spoke tolerably, but she was old enough and fat enough for the Widow Cheshire; Guiscard did not know ten words of his part; the tyrant was really comical enough; and Lothair was played by a young Jamaica Jew about fifteen years of age, and who is dignified here with the name of “the Creole Roscius.” His voice was just breaking, which made him “pipe and whistle in the sound,” his action was awkward, and altogether he was but a sorry specimen of theatrical talent: however, his forte is said to lie in broad farce, which perhaps may account for his being no better in tragedy. On Sunday, the 8th, I resumed my journey, but my horses were so completely knocked up, that I was obliged to hire an additional pair to convey me to Miss Hetley’s inn on the other side of the Yallacks River, which is nineteen miles from Kingston. This river, as well as that of Morant (which I passed about ten miles further) both in breadth and strength sets all bridges at defiance, and in the rainy season it is sometimes impassable for several weeks. On this occasion there was but little water in either, and I arrived without difficulty at Port Morant, where I found horses sent by my trustee to convey me to Hordley. The road led up to the mountains, and was one of the steepest, roughest, and most fatiguing that I ever travelled, in spite of its picturesque beauties. At length I reached my estate, jaded and wearied to death; here I expected to find a perfect paradise, and I found a perfect hell. Report had assured me, that Hordley was the best managed estate in the island, and as far as the soil was concerned, report appeared to have said true; but my trustee had also assured me, that my negroes were the most contented and best disposed, and here there was a lamentable incorrectness in the account. I found them in a perfect uproar; complaints of all kinds stunned me from all quarters: all the blacks accused all the whites, and all the whites accused all the blacks, and as far as I could make out, both parties were extremely in the right. There was no attachment to the soil to be found here; the negroes declared, one and all, that if I went away and left them to groan under the same system of oppression without appeal or hope of redress, they would follow my carriage and establish themselves at Cornwall. I had soon discovered enough to be certain, that although they told me plenty of falsehoods, many of their complaints were but too well founded; and yet how to protect them for the future or satisfy them for the present was no easy matter to decide. Trusting to these fallacious reports of the Arcadian state of happiness upon Hordley, I supposed, that I should have nothing to do there but grant a few indulgences, and establish the regulations already adopted with success on Cornwall; distribute a little money, and allow a couple of play-days for dancing; and under this persuasion I had made it quite impossible for me to remain above a week at Hordley, which I conceived to be fully sufficient for the above purpose. As to grievances to be redressed, I was totally unprepared for any such necessity; yet now they poured in upon me incessantly, each more serious than the former; and before twenty-four hours were elapsed I had been assured, that in order to produce any sort of tranquillity upon the estate, I must begin by displacing the trustee, the physician, the four white book-keepers, and the four black governors, all of whom I was modestly required to remove and provide better substitutes in the space of five days and a morning. What with the general clamour, the assertions and denials, the tears and the passion, the odious falsehoods, and the still more odious truths, and (worst of all to me) my own vexation and disappointment at finding things so different from my expectations, at first nearly turned my brain; and I felt strongly tempted to set off as fast as I could, and leave all these black devils and white ones to tear one another to pieces, an amusement in which they appeared to be perfectly ready to indulge themselves. It was, however, considerable relief to me to find, upon examination, that no act of personal ill-treatment was alleged against the trustee himself, who was allowed to be sufficiently humane in his own nature, and was only complained of for allowing the negroes to be maltreated by the book-keepers, and other inferior agents, with absolute impunity. Being an excellent planter, he confined his attention entirely to the cultivation of the soil, and when the negroes came to complain of some act of cruelty or oppression committed by the book-keepers or the black governors, he refused to listen to them, and left their complaints unenquired into, and consequently unredressed. The result was, that the negroes were worse off, than if he had been a cruel man himself; for his cruelty would have given them only one tyrant, whereas his indolence left them at the mercy of eight. Still they said, that they would be well contented to have him continue their trustee, provided that I would appoint some protector, to whom they might appeal in cases of injustice and ill-usage. The trustee declaring himself well satisfied that some such appointment should take place, a neighbouring gentleman (whose humanity to his own negroes had established him in high favour with mine) was selected for this purpose. I next ordered one of the book-keepers (of the atrocious brutality of whose conduct the trustee himself upon examination allowed that there could be no doubt) to quit the estate in two hours under pain of prosecution; away went the man, and when I arose the next morning, another book-keeper had taken himself off of his own accord, and that in so much haste that he left all his clothes behind him. My next step was to displace the chief black governor, a man deservedly odious to the negroes, and whom a gross and insolent lie told to myself enabled me to punish without seeming to displace him in compliance with their complaints against him; and these sources of discontent being removed, I read to them my regulations for allowing them new holidays, additional allowances of salt-fish, rum, and sugar, with a variety of other indulgences and measures taken for protection, &c. All which, assisted by a couple of dances and distribution of money on the day of my departure had so good an effect upon their tempers, that I left them in as good humour apparently, as I found them in bad. But to leave them was no such easy matter; the weather had been bad from the moment of my commencing my journey, but from the moment of my reaching Hordley, it became abominable. The rain poured down in cataracts incessantly; the old crazy house stands on the top of a hill, and the north wind howled round it night and day, shaking it from top to bottom, and threatening to become a hurricane. The storm was provided with a very suitable accompaniment of thunder and lightning; and to complete the business, down came the mountain torrents, and swelled Plantain Garden River to such a degree, that it broke down the dam-head, stopped the mill, and all work was at a stand-still for two days and nights. But the worst of all was that this same river lay between me and Kingston; bridge there was none, and it soon became utterly impassable. Thus it continued for four days; on the fifth (the day which I had appointed for my departure, and on which I gave the negroes a parting holiday) the water appeared to be somewhat abated at a ford about four miles distant; for as to crossing at my own, that was quite out of the question for a week at least. A negro was despatched on horseback to ascertain the height of the water; his report was very unfavourable. However, as at worst I could but return, and had no better means of employing my time, I resolved to make the experiment. About forty of the youngest and strongest negroes left their dancing and drinking, and ran on foot to see me safe over the water. The few hours which had elapsed since my messenger’s examination, had operated very favourably towards the reduction of the water, although it was still very high. But a servant going before to ascertain the least dangerous passage, and the negroes rushing all into the river to break the force of the stream, and support the carriage on both sides, we were enabled to struggle to the opposite bank, and were landed in safety with loud cheering from my sable attendants, who then left me, many with tears running down their cheeks, and all with thanks for the protection which I had shown them, and earnest entreaties that I would come to visit them another time. Whether my visit will have been productive of essential service to them must remain a doubt; the trustee at least promised me most solemnly that my regulations for their happiness and security should be obeyed, and that the slave-laws (of which I had detected beyond a doubt some very flagrant violations) should be carried into effect for the future with the most scrupulous exactness. If he breaks his promise, and I discover it, I have pledged myself most solemnly to remove him, however great may be his merits as a planter; if he contrives to keep me in ignorance of his proceedings (which, however, from the precautions which I have now taken, I trust, will be no easy matter), and the state of the negroes should continue after my departure to be what it was before my arrival, then I can only console myself with thinking, that the guilt is his, not mine; and that it is on his head that the curse of the sufferers and the vengeance of heaven will fall, not on my own. I have been told that this estate of mine is one of the most beautiful in the island. It may be so for anything that I can tell of the matter. The badness of the weather and the disquietude of my mind during the whole of my short stay, made every thing look gloomy and hideous; and when I once found myself again beyond my own limits, I felt my spirits lighter by a hundred weight. Of all the points which had displeased me at Hordley, none had made me more angry for the time, than the lie told me by the chief governor, which occasioned my displacing him. This fellow, who for the credit of our family (no doubt) had got himself christened by the name of John Lewis, had the impudence to walk into my parlour just as I was preparing to go to bed, and inform me, that he could not get the business of the estate done. Why not? He could get nobody to come to the night-work at the mill, which he supposed was the consequence of my indulging the negroes so much. Indeed! and where were the people who ought to come to their night-work? in the negro village? No; they were in the hospital, and refused to come out to work. Upon which I blazed up like a barrel of gunpowder, and volleying out in a breath all the curses that I ever heard in my life, I asked him, whether any person really had been insolent enough to select a whole night party from the sick people in the hospital, not one of whom ought to stir out of it till well? There stood the fellow, trembling and stammering, and unable to get out an answer, while I stamped up and down the piazza, storming and swearing, banging all the doors till the house seemed ready to tumble about our ears, and doing my best to out-herod Herod, till at last I ordered the man to begone that instant, and get the work done properly. He did not wait to be told twice, and was off in a twinkling. In a quarter of an hour I sent for him again, and enquired whether he had succeeded in getting the proper people to work at the mill? Upon which he had the assurance to answer, that all the people were there, and that it was not of their not being at the mill that he had meant to complain. Of what was it then? “Of their not being in the field.” When? “Yesterday. He could not get the negroes to come to work, and so there had been none done all day.” And who refused to come? “All the people.” But who? “All.” But who, who, who?—their names, their names, their names? “He could not remember them all.” Name one—well?—speak then, speak! “There was Beck.” And who else? “There was Sally, who used to be called Whan-ica.” And who else? “There was.... there was Beck.” But who else? “Beck... and Sally”... But who else? who else? “Little Edward had gone out of the hospital, and had not come to work.” Well! Beck and Sally, and little Edward; who else? “Beck, and little Edward, and Sally.”
But who else: I say, who else? “He could not remember any body else.” Then to be sure I was in such an imperial passion, as would have done honour to “her majesty the queen Dolallolla.”
Why, you most impudent of all impudent fellows that ever told a lie, have you really presumed to disturb me at this time of night, prevent my going to bed, tell me that you can’t get the business done, and that none of the people would come to work, and make such a disturbance, and all because two old women and a little boy missed coming into the field yesterday! Down dropped the fellow in a moment upon his marrow bones: “Oh, me good massa,” cried he (and out came the truth, which I knew well enough before he told me), “me no come of my own head; me ordered to come; but me never tell massa lie more, so me pray him forgib me!” But his obeying any person on my own estate in preference to me, and suffering himself to be converted into an instrument of my annoyance, was not to be easily overlooked; so I turned him out of the house with a flea in his ear as big as a camel; and the next morning degraded him to the rank of a common field negro. The trustee pleaded hard for his being permitted to return to the waggons, from whence he had been taken, and where he would be useful. But I was obdurate. Then came his wife to beg for him, and then his mother, and then his cousin, and then his cousin’s cousin: still I was firm; till on the day of my departure, the new chief governor came to me in the name of the whole estate, and bested me to allow John Lewis to return to the command of the waggons, “for that all the negroes said, that it would be too sad a thing for them to see a man who had held the highest place among them, degraded quite to be a common field negro.” There was something in this appeal which argued so good a feeling, that I did not think it right to resist any longer; so I hinted that if the trustee should ask it again as a favour to himself, I might perhaps relent; and the proper application being thus made, John Lewis was allowed to quit the field, but with a positive injunction against his ever being employed again in any office of authority over the negroes. I found baptism in high vogue upon Hordley, but I am sorry to say, that I could not discover much effect produced upon their minds by having been made Christians, except in one particular: whenever one of them told me a monstrous lie (and they told me whole dozens), he never failed to conclude his story by saying—“And now, massa, you know, I’ve been christened; and if you do not believe what I say, I’m ready to buss the booh to the truth of it.” The whole advantages to be derived by negroes from becoming Christians, seemed to consist with them in two points; being a superior species of magic itself, it preserved them from black Obeah; and by enabling them to take an oath upon the ‘Bible to the truth of any lie which it might suit them to tell, they believed that it would give them the power of humbugging the white people with perfect ease and convenience. They had observed the importance attached by the whites to such an attestation, and the conviction which it always appeared to carry with it; as to the crime or penalty of perjury, of that they were totally ignorant, or at least indifferent; therefore they were perfectly ready to “buss the book,” which they considered as a piece of buckra superstition, mighty useful to the negroes, and valued taking their oath upon the Bible to a lie, no more than Mrs. Mincing did the oath which she took in the Blue Garret “upon an odd volume of Messalina’s Poems.” Although I set out from Hordley at two o’clock, it was past seven before I reached an estate called “The Retreat,” which was only twelve miles off, so abominable was the road. Here I stopped for the night, which I passed at supper with the musquitoes,—“not where I ate, but where I was eaten.” Morant River had been swelled by the late heavy rains to a tremendous height, and its numerous quicksands render the passage in such a state extremely dangerous, However, a negro having been sent early to explore it, and having returned with a favourable report, we proceeded to encounter it. A Hordley negro, well acquainted with these perilous rivers, had accompanied me for the express purpose of pointing out the most practicable fords; but for some time his efforts to find a safe one were unavailing, his horse at the end of a minute or two plunging into a quicksand or some deep hole, among the waters thrown up from which he totally disappeared for a moment, and then was seen to struggle out again with such an effort and leap, as were quite beyond the capability of any carriage’s attempting. However, at the end of half an hour he was fortunate to find a place, where he could cross (up to his horse’s belly in the water, to be sure), but at least without tumbling into holes and quicksands; and here we set out, conscious that our whole chance of reaching the opposite shore consisted in keeping precisely the path which he had gone already, and determined to stick as close as possible to his horse’s tail. But no sooner were we fairly in the water, than my young horses found themselves unable to resist the strength and rapidity of the torrent, which was rolling down huge stones as big as rocks from the mountain; and to my utter consternation, I perceived the curricle carried down the stream, and the distance from my guide (who, by swimming his horse, had reached the destined landing-place in safety) growing wider and wider with every moment. We were now driving at all hazards; every moment I expected to see a horse or a wheel sink down into some deep hole, the chaise overturned, and ourselves either swallowed up in a quicksand, or dashed to pieces against the stones, which were rolling around us. I never remember to have felt myself so completely convinced of approaching destruction, and I roared out with all my might and main:—“We are carried away! all is over!” although, to be sure, I might as well have held my tongue, seeing that all my roaring could not do the least possible good. However, my horses, although too weak to resist the current, were fortunately strong enough to keep their legs; while they drifted down the stream, they struggled along in an oblique direction, which gradually (though but slowly) brought us nearer to the opposite shore; and after several minutes passed in most painful anxiety, a desperate plunge out of the water enabled them to jump the carriage upon terra firma on the same side with my guide, although at a considerable distance from the spot where he had landed. The Yallack’s River was less dangerous; but even this too had been sufficiently swelled to make the crossing it no easy matter; so that what with one obstacle and another, when I reached Kingston at six o’clock with my bones and my vehicle unbroken, I was almost as much surprised as satisfied. I dined with the curate of Kingston (Rev. G. Hill), where I met the admiral upon this station, Sir Home Popham, and a large party. At Kingston I was obliged to send back a horse, which had been lent me in aid of my own; another had been dropped at “the Retreat a third could get no farther than the mountains; and my companion’s three horses had found themselves unable even to reach Spanish Town, and I had thus been obliged to leave them and theirs behind upon the road. On the morning of our departure from Cornwall, when my Italian servant saw the quantity of horses, mules, servants, and carriages collected for the journey, he clapped his hands together in exultation, and exclaimed,—“They will certainly take us for the king of England!” But now when after leaving one horse in one place and another horse in another, on the morning of Monday the 16th, he beheld my whole caravan reduced to one pair of chaise horses and a couple of miserable mules, he cast a rueful look upon my diminished cavalry and sighed to himself,—“I verily believe, we shall return home on foot after all!” I reached Spanish Town in time to dine with the chief justice (Mr. Jackson), and intended to remain two or three days longer; but the fatality, which had persecuted me from the very commencement of this abominable journey, was not exhausted yet. On Tuesday morning, my landlady just hinted, that “she thought it right to let me know, that to be sure there was a gentleman unwell in the house; but she supposed, that I should not care about it: however, if I particularly disliked the neighbourhood of a sick person, she would procure me lodgings.” I asked, “What was the complaint?”
“Oh! he was a little sick, that was all.” To which I only could answer, that, “in that case I hoped he would get better,” and thought no more about it. However, when I went to visit the governor, I found, that this “little sickness” of my landlady’s was neither more nor less than the yellow fever; of which the gentleman in question was now dying, of which a lady had died only two days before, and of which another European, newly arrived, had fallen ill in this very same hotel only a fortnight before, and had died, after throwing himself out of an upper window in a fit of delirium. Under all these circumstances, I thought it to the full as prudent not to prolong my residence in Spanish Town; and accordingly, on Wednesday the 18th, I resumed my journey homewards. I travelled the north side of the island, which was the road used by me on my return two years ago. I have nothing to add to my former account of it, except that there need not be better inns anywhere than the Wellington hotel at Rio Bueno, and Judy James’s at Montego Bay, which latter is now, in my opinion, by far the prettiest town in Jamaica. Indeed, all the inns upon this road are excellent, with the solitary exception of the Black-heath Tavern, which I stopped at by a mistake instead of that of Montague. At this most miserable of all inns that ever entrapped an unwary traveller, there was literally nothing to be procured for love or money: no corn for the horses; no wine without sending six miles for a bottle; no food but a miserable starved fowl, so tough that the very negroes could not eat it; and a couple of eggs, one of which was addled: there was but one pair of sheets in the whole house, and neither candles, nor oranges, nor pepper, nor vinegar, nor bread, nor even so much as sugar, white or brown. Yams there were, which prevented my servants from going to bed quite empty, and I contented myself with the far-fetched bottle of wine and the solitary egg, which I eat by the light of a lamp filled with stinking oil. The one pair of sheets I seized upon to my own share, and my servants made themselves as good beds as they could upon the floor with great coats and travelling mantles. It was on Wednesday night, that after the fatigue of crossing Mount Diablo, “myself I unfatigued” in this delectable retreat, which seemed to have been established upon principles diametrically opposite to those of Shenstone’s. On Thursday I slept at Rio Bueno, on Friday at Montego Bay, passed Saturday at Anchovy estate (Mr. Plummer’s), and was very glad, on Sunday the 22d, to find myself once more quietly established at Cornwall, fully determined to leave it no more, till I leave it on my return to England. The lady, who had died so lately at Kingston, had arrived not long before in a vessel, both the crew and passengers of which landed (to all appearance) in perfect health after a favourable passage from England. Of course, they soon dispersed in different directions; yet almost all of them were attacked nearly at the same period by the fever, which seemed to have a particular commission to search out such persons as had arrived by that particular ship, at however remote a distance they might be from each other.
MARCH 29. (Sunday.)
This morning (without either fault or accident) a young, strong, healthy woman miscarried of an eight months’ child; and this is the third time that she has met with a similar misfortune. No other symptom of child-bearing has been given in the course of this year, nor are there above eight women upon the breeding list out of more than one hundred and fifty females. Yet they are all well clothed and well fed, contented in mind, even by their own account, over-worked at no time, and when upon the breeding list are exempted from labour of every kind. In spite of all this, and their being treated with all possible care and indulgence, rewarded for bringing children, and therefore anxious themselves to have them, how they manage it so ill I know not, but somehow or other certainly the children do not come.
MARCH 31.
During the whole three weeks of my absence, only two negroes have been complained of for committing fault. The first was a domestic quarrel between two Africans; Hazard stole Frank’s calabash of sugar, which Frank had previously stolen out of my boiling-house. So Frank broke Hazard’s head, which in my opinion settled the matter so properly, that I declined spoiling it by any interference of my own. The other complaint was more serious. Toby, being ordered to load the cart with canes, answered “I wo’nt”—and Toby was as good as his word; in consequence of which the mill stopped for want of canes, and the boilinghouse stopped for want of liquor. I found on my return that for this offence Toby had received six lashes, which Toby did not mind three straws. But as his fault amounted to an act of downright rebellion, I thought that it ought not by any means to be passed over so lightly, and that Toby ought to be made to mind. I took no notice for some days; but the Easter holidays had been deferred till my return, and only began here on Friday last. On that day, as soon as the head governor had blown the shell, and dismissed the negroes till Monday morning, he requested the pleasure of Mr. Toby’s company to the hospital, where he locked him up in a room by himself. All Saturday and Sunday the estate rang with laughing, dancing, singing, and huzzaing. Salt-fish was given away in the morning; the children played at ninepins for jackets and petticoats in the evening; rum and sugar was denied to no one. The gumbys thundered; the kitty-katties clattered; all was noise and festivity; and all this while, “qualis morens Philomela,” sat solitary Toby gazing at his four white walls! Toby had not minded the lashes; but the loss of his amusement, and the disgrace of his exclusion from the fête operated on his mind so forcibly, that when on the Monday morning his door was unlocked, and the chief governor called him to his work, not a word would he deign to utter; let who would speak, there he sat motionless, silent, and sulky. However, upon my going down to him myself, his voice thought proper to return, and he began at once to complain of his seclusion and justify his conduct. But he no sooner opened his lips than the whole hospital opened theirs to censure his folly, asking him how he could presume to justify himself when he knew that he had done wrong? and advising him to humble himself and beg my pardon; and their clamours were so loud and so general (Mrs. Sappho, his wife, being one of the loudest, who not only “gave it him on both sides of his ears,” but enforced her arguments by a knock on the pate now and then), that they fairly drove the evil spirit out of him; he confessed his fault with great penitence, engaged solemnly never to commit such another, and set off to his work full of gratitude for my granting him forgiveness. I am more and more convinced every day, that the best and easiest mode of governing negroes (and governed by some mode or other they must be) is not by the detestable lash, but by confinement, solitary or otherwise; they cannot bear it, and the memory of it seems to make a lasting impression upon their minds; while the lash makes none but upon their skins, and lasts no longer than the mark. The order at my hospital is, that no negro should be denied admittance; even if no symptoms of illness appear, he is allowed one day to rest, and take physic, if he choose it. On the second morning, if the physician declares the man to be shamming, and the plea of illness is still alleged against going to work, then the negro is locked up in a room with others similarly circumstanced, where care is taken to supply him with food, water, physic, &c., and no restraint is imposed except that of not going out. Here he is suffered to remain unmolested as long as he pleases, and he is only allowed to leave the hospital upon his own declaration that he is well enough to go to work; when the door is opened, and he walks away unreproached and unpunished, however evident his deception may have been. Before I adopted this regulation, the number of patients used to vary from thirty to forty-five, not more than a dozen of whom perhaps had anything the matter with them: the number at this moment is but fourteen, and all are sores, burns, or complaints the reality of which speaks for itself. Some few persevering tricksters will still submit to be locked up for a day or two; but their patience never fails to be wearied out by the fourth morning, and I have not yet met with an instance of a patient who had once been locked up with a fictitious illness, returning to the hospital except with a real one. In general, they offer to take a day’s rest and physic, promising to go out to work the next day, and on these occasions they have uniformly kept their word. Indeed, my hospital is now in such good order, that the physician told the trustee the other day that “mine gave him less trouble than any hospital in the parish.”
My boilers, too, who used to make sugar the colour of mahogany, are now making excellent; and certainly, if appearances may be trusted, and things will but last, I may flatter myself with the complete success of my system of management, as far as the time elapsed is sufficient to warrant an opinion. I only wish from my soul that I were but half as certain of the good treatment and good behaviour of the negroes at Hordley.
APRIL 1. (Wednesday.)
Jug-Betty having had two leathern purses full of silver coin stolen out of her trunk, her cousin Punch told her to have patience till Sunday, and he thought that by that time he should be able to find it for her. Upon which she very naturally suspected her cousin Punch of having stolen the money himself, and brought him to day to make her charge against him. However, he stuck firmly to a denial, and as several days had been suffered to elapse since the theft, there could be no doubt of his having concealed the money, and therefore no utility in searching his person or his house. I found great fault with the persons in authority for not having taken such a measure without a moment’s delay; but the trustee informed me that it frequently produced very serious consequences, many instances having occurred of the disgrace of their house being searched having offended negroes so much to the heart, as to occasion their committing suicide: so that it was a proceeding which was seldom ventured upon without urgent necessity. It was now too late to take it, at all events; the man confessed, indeed, that he had quitted his work, and gone down to the negro-village on the day of the robbery, which rendered his guilt highly probable, but he could be brought to confess no more; and as to his saying that he thought he could find the money by Sunday, he explained that into an intention of “going to consult a brown woman at the bay, who was a fortune-teller, and who when any thing was stolen, could always point out the thief by cutting the cards.” This was all that we could extract from him, and we were obliged to dismiss him. However, the fright of his examination was not without good consequences: one of the stolen purses had belonged to a sister of Jug-Betty’s, not long deceased; and on her return home, this purse (with its contents untouched) was found lying on the sister’s grave in her garden. Perhaps, the thief had taken it without knowing the owner; and on finding that it had belonged to a dead person, he had surrendered it through apprehension of being haunted by her duppy.
APRIL 5. (Sunday.)
Clearing their grounds by fire is a very expeditious proceeding, consequently in much practice among the negroes; but in this tindery country it is extremely dangerous, and forbidden by the law. As I returned home to-day from church, I observed a large smoke at no great distance, and Cubina told me, he supposed that the negroes of the neighbouring estate of Amity were clearing their grounds. “Then they are doing a very wrong thing,” said I; “I hope they will fire nothing else but their grounds, for with so strong a breeze a great deal of mischief might be done.” However, in half an hour it proved that the smoke in question arose from my own negro-grounds, that the fire had spread itself, and I could see from my window the flames and smoke pouring themselves upwards in large volumes, while the crackling of the dry bushes and brush-wood was something perfectly terrific. The alarm was instantly given, and whites and blacks all hurried to the scene of action. Luckily, the breeze set the contrary way from the plantations; a morass interposed itself between the blazing ground and one of my best cane-pieces: the flames were suffered to burn till they reached the brink of the water, and then the negroes managed to extinguish them without much difficulty. Thus we escaped without injury, but I own I was heartily frightened.
APRIL 8.
This morning I was awaked by a violent coughing in the hospital; and as soon as I heard any of the servants moving, I despatched a negro to ask, “whether any body was bad in the hospital?” He returned and told me, “No, massa; nobody bad there; for Alick is better, and Nelson is dead.” Nelson was one of my best labourers, and had come into the hospital for a glandular swelling. Early this morning he was seized with a violent fit of coughing, burst a large artery, and was immediately suffocated in his blood! This is the sixth death in the course of the first three months of the year, and we have not as yet a single birth for a set-off. Say what one will to the negroes, and treat them as well as one can, obstinate devils, they will die!
APRIL 9.
I had mentioned to Mr. Shand my having found a woman at Hordley, who had been crippled for life, in consequence of her having been kicked in the womb by one of the book-keepers. He writes to me on this subject:—“I trust that conduct so savage occurs rarely in any country. I can only say, that in my long experience nothing of the kind has ever fallen under my observation.” Mr. S. then ought to consider me as having been in high luck. I have not passed six months in Jamaica, and I have already found on one of my estates a woman who had been kicked in the womb by a white book-keeper, by which she was crippled herself, and on another of my estates another woman who had been kicked in the womb by another white book-keeper, by which he had crippled the child. The name of the first man and woman were Lory and Jeannette; those of the second were Full-wood and Martia: and thus, as my two estates are at the two extremities of the island, I am entitled to say, from my own knowledge (i.e, speaking lite-rally, observe), that “white book-keepers kick black women in the belly from one end of Jamaica to the other.”
APRIL 15. (Wednesday.)
About noon to-day a well-disposed healthy lad of seventeen years of age was employed in unhaltering the first pair of oxen of one of the waggons, in doing which he entangled his right leg in the rope. At that moment the oxen set off full gallop, and dragged the boy along with them round the whole inclosure, before the other negroes could succeed in stopping them. However, when the prisoner was extricated, although his flesh appeared to have been terribly lacerated, no bones were broken, and he was even able to walk to the hospital without support. He was blooded instantly, and two physicians were sent for by express. At two o’clock he was still in perfect possession of his senses, and only complained of the soreness of his wounds: but in half an hour after he became apoplectic; sank into a state of utter insensibility, during which a dreadful rattling in his throat was the only sign of still existing life, and before six in the evening all was over with him!
APRIL 17.
Pickle had accused his brother-in-law, Edward the Eboe, of having given him a pleurisy by the practice of Obeah. During my last visit I had convinced him that the charge was unjust (or at least he had declared himself to be convinced), and about six weeks ago they came together to assure me, that ever since they had lived upon the best terms possible. Unluckily, Pickle’s wife miscarried lately, and for the third time; previously to which Edward had said, that his wife would remain sole heiress of the father’s property. This was enough to set the suspicious brains of these foolish people at work; and to-day Pickle and his father-in-law, old Damon, came to assure me, that in order to prevent a child coming to claim its share of the grandfather’s property, Edward had practised Obeah to make his sister-in-law miscarry; the only proof of which adduced was the above expression, and the woman’s having miscarried “just according to Edward’s very words!” To reason with such very absurd persons was out of the case. I found too, that the two sisters were quarrelling perpetually, and always on the point of tearing each other’s eyes out. Therefore, as domestic peace “in a house so disunited” was out of the question, I ordered the two families to separate instantly, and to live at the two extremities of the negro village; at the same time forbidding all intercourse between them whatsoever: a plan, which was received with approbation by all parties; and Edward moved his property out of the old man’s house into another without loss of time. Among other charges of Obeah, Pickle declared, that his house having been robbed, Edward had told him that Nato was the offender; and in order to prove it beyond the power of doubt, he had made him look at something round, “just like massa’s watch,” out of which he had taken a sentee (a something) which looked like an egg; this he gave to Pickle, at the same time instructing him to throw it at night against the door of Nato’s house; which he had no sooner done and broken the egg, than the very next day Nato’s wife Philippa “began to bawl, and halloo, and went mad.” Now that Philippa had bawled and hallooed enough was certainly true; but it was also true that she had confessed her madness to have been a trick for the purpose of exciting my compassion, and inducing me to feed her from my own table. Yet was this simple fellow persuaded that he had made her go mad by the help of his broken egg, and his old fool of a father-in-law was goose enough to encourage him in the persuasion.
APRIL 19. (Sunday.)
“And massa,” said Bridget, the doctoress, this morning, “my old mother a lilly so-so to-day; and him tank massa much for the good supper massa send last night; and him like it so well.—Laud! massa, the old lady was just thinking what him could yam (eat) and him no fancy nothing; and him could no yam salt, and him just wishing for something fresh, when at that very moment Cu-bina come to him from massa with a stewed pig’s head so fresh: it seemed just as if massa had got it from the Almighty’s hands himself.”
APRIL 22.
Naturalists and physicians, philosophers and philanthropists, may argue and decide as they please; but certainly, as far as mere observation admits of my judging, there does seem to be a very great difference between the brain of a black person and a white one. I should think that Voltaire would call a negro’s reason “une raison très particulière.” Somehow or other, they never can manage to do anything quite as it should be done. If they correct themselves in one respect to-day they are sure of making a blunder in some other manner to-morrow. Cubina is now twenty-five, and has all his life been employed about the stable; he goes out with my carriage twice every day; yet he has never yet been able to succeed in putting on the harness properly. Before we get to one of the plantation gates we are certain of being obliged to stop, and put something or other to rights: and I once remember having laboured for more than half an hour to make him understand that the Christmas holidays came at Christmas; when asked the question, he always hesitated, and answered, at hap-hazard, “July” or “October.” Yet, Cubina is far superior in intellect to most of the negroes who have fallen under my observation. The girl too, whose business it is to open the house each morning, has in vain been desired to unclose all the jalousies: she never fails to leave three or four closed, and when she is scolded for doing so, she takes care to open those three the next morning, and leaves three shut on the opposite side. Indeed, the attempt to make them correct a fault is quite fruitless: they never can do the same thing a second time in the same manner; and if the cook having succeeded in dressing a dish well is desired to dress just such another, she is certain of doing something which makes it quite different. One day I desired, that there might be always a piece of salt meat at dinner, in order that I might be certain of always having enough to send to the sick in the hospital. In consequence, there was nothing at dinner but salt meat. I complained that there was not a single fresh dish, and the next day, there was nothing but fresh. Sometimes there is scarcely anything served up, and the cook seems to have forgotten the dinner altogether: she is told of it; and the next day she slaughters without mercy pigs, sheep, fowls, ducks, turkeys, and everything that she can lay her murderous hands upon, till the table absolutely groans under the load of her labours. For above a month Cubina and I had perpetual quarrels about the cats being shut into the gallery at nights, where they threw down plates, glasses, and crockery of all kinds, and made such a clatter that to get a wink of sleep was quite out of the question. Cubina, before he went to rest, hunted under all the beds and sofas, and laid about him with a long whip for half an hour together; but in half an hour after his departure the cats were at work again. He was then told, that although he had turned them out, he must certainly have left some window open: he promised to pay particular attention to this point, but that night the uproar was worse than ever; yet he protested that he had carefully turned out all the cats, locked all the doors, and shut all the windows. He was told, that if he had really turned out all the cats, the cats must have got in again, and therefore that he must have left some one window open at least. “No,” he said, “he had not left one; but a pane in one of the windows had been broken two months before, and it was there that the cats got in whenever they pleased.” Yet he had continued to turn the cats out of the door with the greatest care, although he was perfectly conscious that they could always walk in again at the window in five minutes after. But the most curious of Cubina’s modes of proceeding is, when it is necessary for him to attack the pigeon-house. He steals up the ladder as slily and as softly as foot can fall; he opens the door, and steals in his head with the utmost caution; on which, to his never-failing surprise and disappointment, all the pigeons make their escape through the open holes; he has now no resource but entering the dove-cot, and remaining there with unwearied patience for the accidental return of the birds, which nine times out of ten does not take place till too late for dinner, and Cubina returns empty-handed. Having observed this proceeding constantly repeated during a fortnight, I took pity upon his embarrassment, and ordered two wooden sliders to be fitted to the holes. Cubina was delighted with this exquisite invention, and failed not the next morning to close all the holes on the right with one of the sliders; he then stepped boldly into the dove-cot, when to his utter confusion the pigeons flew away through the holes on the left. Here then he discovered where the fault lay, so he lost no time in closing the remaining aperture with the second slider, and the pigeons were thus prevented from returning at all. Cubina waited long with exemplary patience, but without success, so he abandoned the new invention in despair, made no farther use of the sliders, and continues to steal up the ladder as he did before. A few days ago, Nicholas, a mulatto carpenter, was ordered to make a box for the conveyance of four jars of sweetmeats, of which he took previous measure; yet first he made a box so small that it would scarcely hold a single jar, and then another so large that it would have held twenty; and when at length he produced one of a proper size, he brought it nailed up for travelling (although it was completely empty), and nailed up so effectually too, that on being directed to open it that the jars might be packed, he split the cover to pieces in the attempt to take it off. Yet, among all my negroes, Nicholas and Cubina are not equalled for adroitness and intelligence by more than twenty. Judge then what must be the remaining three hundred!
APRIL 23.
In my medical capacity, like a true quack I sometimes perform cures so unexpected, that I stand like Katterfelto, “with my hair standing on end at my own wonders.” Last night, Alexander, the second governor, who has been seriously ill for some days, sent me word, that he was suffering cruelly from a pain in his head, and could get no sleep. I knew not how to relieve him; but having frequently observed a violent passion for perfumes in the house negroes, for want of something else I gave the doctoress some oil of lavender, and told her to rub two or three drops upon his nostrils. This morning, he told me that “to be sure what I had sent him was a grand medicine indeed,” for it had no sooner touched his nose than he felt some-thing cold run up to his forehead, over his head, and all the way down his neck to the back-bone; instantly, the headach left him, he fell fast asleep, nor had the pain returned in the morning. But I am afraid, that even this wonderful oil would fail of curing a complaint which was made to me a few days ago. A poor old creature, named Quasheba, made her appearance at my breakfast table, and told me, “that she was almost eighty, had been rather weakly for some time past, and somehow she did not feel as she was by any means right.”
“Had she seen the doctor? Did she want physic?”
“No, she had taken too much physic already, and the doctor would do her no good; she did not want to see the doctor.”
“But what then was her complaint?”
“Oh! she had no particular complaint; only she was old and weakly, and did not find herself by any means so well as she used to be, and so she came just to tell massa, and see what he could do to make her quite right again, that was all.” In short, she only wanted me to make her young again!
APRIL 24.
Mr. Forbes is dead. When I was last in Jamaica, he had just been poisoned with corrosive sublimate by a female slave, who was executed in consequence. He never was well afterwards; but as he lived intemperately, the whole blame of his death must not be laid upon the poison.
APRIL 30.
A free mulatto of the name of Rolph had frequently been mentioned to me by different magistrates, as remarkable for the numerous complaints brought against him for cruel treatment of his negroes. He was described to me as the son of a white ploughman, who at his death left his son six or seven slaves, with whom he resides in the heart of the mountains, where the remoteness of the situation secures him from observation or control. His slaves, indeed, every now and then contrive to escape, and come down to Savannah la Mar to lodge their complaints; but the magistrates, hitherto, had never been able to get a legal hold upon him. However, a few days ago, he entered the house of a Mrs. Edgins, when she was from home, and behaving in an outrageous manner to her slaves, he was desired by the head-man to go away. Highly incensed, he answered, “that if the fellow dared to speak another word, it should be the last that he should ever utter.” The negro dared to make a rejoinder; upon which Rolph aimed a blow at him with a stick, which missed his intended victim, but struck another slave who was interposing to prevent a scuffle, and killed him upon the spot. The murder was committed in the presence of several negroes; but negroes are not allowed to give evidence, and as no free person was present, there are not only doubts whether the murderer will be punished, but whether he can even be put upon his trial.
MAY 1. (Friday.)
This morning I signed the manumission of Nicholas Cameron, the best of my mulatto carpenters. He had been so often on the very point of getting his liberty, and still the cup was dashed from his lips, that I had promised to set him free, whenever he could procure an able negro as his substitute; although being a good workman, a single negro was by no means an adequate price in exchange. On my arrival this year I found that he had agreed to pay £150 for a female negro, and the woman was approved of by my trustee. But on enquiry it appeared that she had a child, from which she was unwilling to separate, and that her owner refused to sell the child, except at a most unreasonable price. Here then was an insurmountable objection to my accepting her, and Nicholas was told to his great mortification, that he must look out for another substitute. The woman, on her part, was determined to belong to Cornwall estate and no other: so she told her owner, that if he attempted to sell her elsewhere she would make away with herself, and on his ordering her to prepare for a removal to a neighbouring proprietor’s, she disappeared, and concealed herself so well, that for some time she was believed to have put her threats of suicide into execution. The idea of losing his £150 frightened her master so completely, that he declared himself ready to let me have the child at a fair price, as well as the mother, if she ever should be found; and her friends having conveyed this assurance to her, she thought proper to emerge from her hiding-place, and the bargain was arranged finally. The titles, however, were not yet made out, and as the time of my departure for Hordley was arrived, these were ordered to be got ready against my return, when the negroes were to be delivered over to me, and Nicholas was to be set free. In the meanwhile, the child was sent by her mistress (a free mulatto) to hide some stolen ducks upon a distant property, and on her return blabbed out the errand: in consequence the mistress was committed to prison for theft; and no sooner was she released, than she revenged herself upon the poor girl by giving her thirty lashes with the cattle-whip, inflicted with all the severity of vindictive malice. This treatment of a child of such tender years reduced her to such a state, as made the magistrates think it right to send her for protection to the workhouse, until the conduct of the mistress should have been enquired into. In the meanwhile, as the result of the enquiry might be the setting the girl at liberty, the joint title for her and her mother could not be made out, and thus poor Nicholas’s manumission was at a stand-still again. The magistrates at length decided, that although the chastisement had been severe, yet (according to the medical report) it was not such as to authorise the sending the mistress to be tried at the assizes. She was accordingly dismissed from farther investigation, and the girl was once more considered as belonging to me, as soon as the title could be made out. But the fatality which had so often prevented Nicholas from obtaining his freedom, was not weary yet. On the very morning, when he was to sign the title, a person whose signature was indispensable, was thrown out of his chaise, the wheel of which passed over his head, and he was rendered incapable of transacting business for several weeks. Yesterday, the titles were at length brought to me complete, and this morning put Nicholas in possession of the object, in the pursuit of which he has experienced such repeated disappointments. The conduct of the poor child’s mulatto mistress in this case was most unpardonable, and is only one of numerous instances of a similar description, which have been mentioned to me. Indeed, I have every reason to believe, that nothing can be uniformly more wretched, than the life of the slaves of free people of colour in Jamaica; nor would any thing contribute more to the relief of the black population, than the prohibiting by law any mulatto to become the owner of a slave for the future. Why should not rich people of colour be served by poor people of colour, hiring them as domestics? It seldom happens that mulattoes are in possession of plantations; but when a white man dies, who happens to possess twenty negroes, he will divide them among his brown family, leaving (we may say) five to each of his four children. These are too few to be employed in plantation work; they are, therefore, ordered to maintain their owner by some means or other, and which means are frequently not the most honest, the most frequent being the travelling about as higglers, and exchanging the trumpery contents of their packs and boxes with plantation negroes for stolen rum and sugar. I confess I cannot see why, on such bequest being made, the law should not order the negroes to be sold, and the produce of the sale paid to the mulatto heirs, but absolutely prohibiting the mulattoes from becoming proprietors of the negroes themselves. Every man of humanity must wish that slavery, even in its best and most mitigated form, had never found a legal sanction, and must regret that its system is now so incorporated with the welfare of Great Britain as well as of Jamaica, as to make its extirpation an absolute impossibility, without the certainty of producing worse mischiefs than the one which we annihilate. But certainly there can be no sort of occasion for continuing in the colonies the existence of do-mestic slavery, which neither contributes to the security of the colonies themselves, nor to the opulence of the mother-country, the revenue of which derived from colonial duties would suffer no defalcation whatever, even if neither whites nor blacks in the West Indies were suffered to employ slaves, except in plantation labour.
MAY 2.
I gave my negroes a farewell holiday, on which occasion each grown person received a present of half-a-dollar, and every child a maccaroni. In return, they endeavoured to express their sorrow for my departure, by eating and drinking, dancing and singing, with more vehemence and perseverance than on any former occasion. As in all probability many years will elapse without my making them another visit, if indeed I should ever return at all, I have at least exerted myself while here to do everything which appeared likely to contribute to their welfare and security during my absence. In particular, my attorney has made out a list of all such offences as are most usually committed on plantations, to which proportionate punishments have been affixed by myself. From this code of internal regulations the overseer is not to be allowed to deviate, and the attorney has pledged himself in the most solemn manner to adhere strictly to the system laid down for him. By this scheme, the negroes will no longer be punished according to the momentary caprice of their superintendent, but by known and fixed laws, the one no more than the other, and without respect to partiality or prejudice. Hitherto, in everything which had not been previously deter mined by the public law, with a penalty attached to the breach of it, the negro has been left entirely at the mercy of the overseer, who if he was a humane man punished him slightly, and if a tyrant, heavily; nay, very often the quantity of punishment depended upon the time of day when the offence was made known. If accused in the morning, when the overseer was in cold blood and in good humour, a night’s confinement in the stocks might be deemed sufficient; whereas if the charge was brought when the superior had taken his full proportion of grog or sangaree, the very same offence would be visited with thirty-nine lashes. I have, moreover, taken care to settle all disputes respecting property, having caused all negroes having claims upon others to bring them before my tribunal previous to my departure, and determined that from that time forth no such claims should be enquired into, but considered as definitively settled by my authority. It would have done the Lord Chancellor’s heart good to see how many suits I determined in the course of a week, and with what expedition I made a clear court of chancery. But perhaps the most astonishing part of the whole business was, that after judgment was pronounced, the losers as well as the gainers declared themselves perfectly satisfied with the justice of the sentence. I must acknowledge, however, that the negro principle that “massa can do no wrong,” was of some little assistance to me on this occasion. “Oh! quite just, me good, massa! what massa say, quite just! me no say nothing more; me good, massa!” Then they thanked me “for massa’s goodness in giving them so long talk!” and went away to tell all the others “how just massa had been in taking away what they wanted to keep, or not giving them what they asked for.” It must be owned that this is not the usual mode of proceeding after the loss of a chancery suit in England. But to do the negroes mere justice, I must say, that I could not have wished to find a more tractable set of people on almost every occasion. Some lazy and obstinate persons, of course, there must inevitably be in so great a number; but in general I found them excellently disposed, and being once thoroughly convinced of my real good-will towards them, they were willing to take it for granted, that my regulations must be right and beneficial, even in cases where they were in opposition to individual interests and popular prejudices. My attorney had mentioned to me several points, which he thought it advisable to have altered, but which he had vainly endeavoured to accomplish. Thus the negroes were in the practice of bequeathing their houses and grounds, by which means some of them were become owners of several houses and numerous gardens in the village, while others with large families were either inadequately provided for, or not provided for at all. I made it public, that from henceforth no negro should possess more than one house, with a sufficient portion of ground for his family, and on the following Sunday the overseer by my order looked over the village, took from those who had too much to give to those who had too little, and made an entire new distribution according to the most strict Agrarian law. Those who lost by this measure, came the next day to complain to me; when I avowed its having been done by my order, and explained the propriety of the proceeding; after which they declared themselves contented, and I never heard another murmur on the subject. Again, mothers being allowed certain indulgences while suckling, persist in it for two years and upwards, to the great detriment both of themselves and their children: complaint of this being made to me, I sent for the mothers, and told them that every child must be sent to the weaning-house on the first day of the fifteenth month, but that their indulgences should be continued to the mothers for two months longer, although the children would be no longer with them. All who had children of that age immediately gave them up; the rest promised to do so, when they should be old enough $ and they all thanked me for the continuance of their indulgences, which they considered as a boon newly granted them. On my return from Hordley, I was told that the negroes suffered their pigs to infest the works and grounds in the immediate vicinity of the house in such numbers, that they were become a perfect nuisance; nor could any remonstrance prevail on them to confine the animals within the village. An order was in consequence issued on a Saturday, that the first four pigs found rambling at large after two days should be put to death without mercy; and accordingly on Monday morning, at the negro breakfast hour, the head governor made his appearance before the house, armed cap-a-pee, with a lance in his hand, and an enormous cutlass by his side. The news of this tremendous apparition spread through the estate like wildfire. Instantly all was in an uproar; the negroes came pouring down from all quarters; in an instant the whole air was rent with noises of all kinds and creatures; men, women, and children shouting and bellowing, geese cackling, dogs barking, turkeys gobbling; and, look where you would, there was a negro running along as fast as he could, and dragging a pig along with him by one of the hind legs, while the pigs were all astonishment at this sudden attack, and called upon heaven and earth for commiseration and protection,—
“With many a doleful grunt and piteous squeak,
Poor pigs! as if their pretty hearts would break!”
From thenceforth not a pig except my own was to be seen about the place; yet instead of complaining of this restraint, several of the negroes came to assure me, that I might depend on the animals not being suffered to stray beyond the village for the future, and to thank me for having given them the warning two days before. What other negroes may be, I will not pretend to guess; but I am certain that there cannot be more tractable or better disposed persons (take them for all in all) than my negroes of Cornwall. I only wish, that in my future dealings with white persons, whether in Jamaica or out of it, I could but meet with half so much gratitude, affection, and good-will.