I left London, and embarked for Jamaica on board the same vessel, commanded by the same captain, which conveyed me thither in 1815. We did not reach the Downs till Sunday, the 9th, after experiencing in our passage a severe gale of wind, which broke the bowsprit of a vessel in our sight, but did no mischief to ourselves. On arriving in the Downs, we found all the flags lowered half way down the masts, which is a signal of mourning; and we now learnt, that, in a few hours after giving birth to a still-born son, the Princess Charlotte of Wales had expired at half-past two on Thursday morning.
“Peaceful slumbering on the ocean.” Here we are still in the Downs, and no symptoms of a probable removal. Indeed, when we weighed our anchor at Gravesend, it gave us a broad hint that there was no occasion as yet for giving ourselves the trouble; for, before it could be got on board, the cable was suffered to slip, and down again went the anchor, carrying along with it one of the men who happened to be standing upon it at the moment, and who in consequence went plump to the bottom. Luckily, the fellow could swim; so in a few minutes he was on board again, and no harm done.
We resumed our voyage with fine weather, but wind so perverse, that we did not arrive in sight of Portsmouth till the evening of the 21st. A pilot came on board, and conveyed us into Spithead.
This morning we quitted Portsmouth, and this evening we returned to it. The Needle rocks were already in sight, when the wind failed completely. There was no getting through the passage, and the dread of a gale would not admit of our remaining in so dangerous a roadstead. So we had nothing for it but to follow Mad Bess’s example, and “return to the place whence we came.” We are now anchored upon the Motherbank, about two miles from Ryde in the Isle of Wight.
Edward, the young man who was so dangerously wounded on our return from my former voyage to Jamaica, is now chief mate of the vessel, and feels no other inconvenience from his accident, except a slight difficulty in raising his left arm above his head.
Here we are, still riding at anchor, with no better consolation than that of Klopstock’s halfdevil Abadonna; the consciousness that others are deeper damned than ourselves. Another ship belonging to the same proprietor left the West India Docks three weeks before us, and here she is still rocking cheek by jowl alongside of us,
“One writ with us in sour misfortune’s book.”
A tolerably fair breeze at length enabled us to set sail once more.
I had often heard talk of “a hell upon earth,” and now I have a perfect idea of “a hell upon water.” It must be precisely our vessel during the last three weeks. At twelve at noon upon the 4th, we passed Plymouth, and were actually in sight of the Lizard point, when the wind suddenly became completely foul, and drove us back into the Channel. It continued to strengthen gradually but rapidly; and by the time that night arrived, we had a violent gale, which blew incessantly till the middle of Sunday, the 7th, when we were glad to find ourselves once more in sight of Plymouth, and took advantage of a temporary abatement of the wind to seek refuge in the Sound. Here, however, we soon found that we had but little reason to rejoice at the change of our situation. The Sound was already crowded with vessels of all descriptions; and as we arrived so late, the only mooring still unoccupied, placed us so near the rocks on one side, and another vessel astern, that the captain confessed that he should feel considerable anxiety if the gale should return with its former violence. So, of course, about eleven at night, the gale did return; not, indeed, with its former violence, but with its violence increased tenfold; and once we were in very imminent danger from our ship’s swinging round by a sudden squall, and narrowly escaping coming in contact with the ship astern, which had not, it seems, allowed itself sufficient cable. Luckily, we just missed her; and our cables (for both our anchors were down) being new and good, we rode out the storm without driving, or meeting with any accident whatever. The next day was squally; and in spite of the Breakwater, the rocking of the ship from the violent agitation of the waves by the late stormy weather was almost insupportable. However, on the 9th, the wind took a more favourable turn, though in so slight a degree, that the pilot expressed great doubts whether it would last long to do us any service. But the captain felt his situation in Plymouth Sound so uneasy, that he resolved at least to make the attempt; and so we crept once more into the Channel. In a few hours the breeze strengthened; about midnight we passed the lights upon the Lizard, and the next morning England was at length out of sight. This cessation of ill luck soon proved to be only “reculer ‘pour mieux sauter” The gale, it seems, had only stopped to take breath: about four in the afternoon of Wednesday, the wind began to rise again; and from that time till the middle of the 23d it blew a complete storm day and night, with only an occasional intermission of two or three hours at a time. Every one in the ship declared that they had never before experienced so obstinate a persecution of severe weather: every rag of sail was obliged to be taken down; the sea was blown up into mountains, and poured itself over the deck repeatedly. The noise was dreadful; and as it lasted incessantly, to sleep was impossible; and I passed ten nights, one after another, without closing my eyes; so that the pain in the nerves of them at length became almost intolerable, and I began to be seriously afraid of going blind. In truth, the captain could not well have pitched upon a set of passengers worse calculated to undergo the trial of a passage so rough. As for myself, my brain is so weak, that the continuation of any violent noise makes me absolutely light-headed; and a pop-gun going off suddenly is quite sufficient at any time to set every nerve shaking, from the crown of my head to the sole of my foot. Then we had a young lady who was ready to die of seasickness, and an old one who was little better through fright; and I had an Italian servant into the bargain, who was as sick as the young lady, and as frightened as the old one. The poor fellow had never been on board a ship before; and with every crack which the vessel gave, he thought that to be sure, she was splitting right in half. The sailors, too, appeared to be quite knocked up from the unremitting fatigue to which they were subjected by the perseverance of this dreadful weather. Several of them were ill; and one poor fellow actually died, and was committed to the ocean. To make matters still worse, during the first week the wind was as foul as it could blow; and we passed it in running backwards and forwards, without advancing a step towards our object; till at length every drop of my very small stock of patience was exhausted, and I could no longer resist suggesting our returning to port, rather than continue buffeting about in the chops of the Channel, so much to the damage of the ship, and all contained in her. A change of wind, however, gave a complete answer to this proposal. On Thursday it became favourable as to the prosecution of our voyage, but its fury continued unabated till the evening of the 23d. It then gradually died away, and left us becalmed before the island of Madeira; where we are now rolling backwards and forwards, in sight of its capital, Funchal, on the 24th of December, being seven immortal weeks since my departure from Gravesend. The evening sun is now very brilliant, and shines full upon the island, the rocks of which are finely broken; the height of the mountains cause their tops to be lost in the clouds; the sides are covered with plantations of vines and forests of cedars; and the white edifices of Funchal, built upon the very edge of the shore, have a truly picturesque appearance. We are now riding between the island and an isolated group of inaccessible rocks called “the Deserters;” * and the effect of the scene altogether is beautiful in the extreme.
* The Dezertas.
A light breeze sprang up in the night, and this morning Madeira was no longer visible.
We are now in the latitudes commonly known by the name of “the Horse Latitudes.” During the union of America and Great Britain, great numbers of horses used to be exported from the latter; and the winds in these latitudes are so capricious, squally, and troublesome in every respect,—now a gale, and then a dead calm—now a fair wind, and the next moment a foul one,—that more horses used to die in this portion of the passage than during all the remainder of it. These latitudes from thence obtained their present appellation, and extend from 29° to 25° or 24 1/2°.
On this day, on my former voyage, I landed at Black River. Now we are still at some distance from the line, and are told that we cannot expect to reach Jamaica in less than three weeks, even with favourable breezes; and our breezes at present are not favourable. Nothing but light winds, or else dead calms; two knots an hour, and obliged to be thankful even for that! A-weel! this is weary work!
On Saturday, the 3d, we managed to crawl over the line, and had no sooner got to the other side of it, than we were completely becalmed; and even when we resumed our progress, it was at such a pace that a careless observer might have been pardoned for mistaking our manner of moving for a downright standing still. Day after day produced nothing better for us than baffling winds, so light that we scarcely made two miles an hour, and so variable that the sails could be scarcely set in one direction before it became necessary to shift them to another; while the monotony of our voyage was only broken by an occasional thunderstorm, the catching a stray dolphin now and then, watching a shoal of flying fish, or guessing at the complexion of the corsairs on board some vessel in the offing: for the Caribbean Sea is now dabbed all over like a painter’s pallette with corsairs of all colours,—black from St. Domingo, brown from Carthagena, white from North America, and pea-green from the Cape de Verd Islands. On the afternoon of the 4th, one of them was at no very great distance from us; she hoisted English colours on seeing ours; but there was little doubt, from her peculiar construction and general appearance, that she was a privateer from Carthagena. She set her head towards us, and seemed to be doing her best to come to a nearer acquaintance; but the same calm which hindered us from bravely running away from her, hindered her also from reaching us, although at nightfall she seemed to have gained upon us. In the night we had a violent thunder-storm, and the next morning she was not to be seen. Still we continued to creep and to crawl, grumbling and growling, till on Sunday, the 11th, the long-looked-for wind came at last. The trade wind began to blow with all its might and main right in the vessel’s poop, and sent us forward at the rate of 200 miles a day. We passed between Deseada and Antigua in the night of the 15th; and, on the 16th, the rising sun showed us the island mountain of Montserrat; the sight of which was scarcely less agreeable to our eyes from its romantic beauty, than welcome from its giving us the assurance that our long-winded voyage is at length drawing towards its termination.
Yesterday morning a miniature shark chose to swallow the bait laid for dolphins, and in consequence soon made his appearance upon deck. It was a very young one, not above three feet long. I ordered a slice of him to be broiled at dinner, but he was by no means so good as a dolphin; but still there was nothing in the taste so unpalatable as to prevent the flesh from being very acceptable in the absence of more delicate food. In the evening, a bird, about the size of a large pigeon, flew on board, and was knocked down by the mate with his hat. It was sulky, and would not be persuaded to eat any thing that was offered, so he was suffered to escape this morning. It was beautifully shaped, with a swallow-tail, wings of an extraordinary spread in comparison with the smallness of the body, a long sharp bill, black and polished like a piece of jet, and eyes remarkably large and brilliant. The head, back, and outside of the wings were of a brownish slate colour, and the rest of his feathers of the most dazzling whiteness. It is called a crab-catcher.
Our favourable breeze lasted till Tuesday, the 20th; when, having brought us half way between St. Domingo and Jamaica, it died away, and we dragged on at the rate of two or three miles an hour till Thursday afternoon, which placed us at the mouth of Black River. If we had arrived one hour earlier, we could have immediately entered the harbour; but, with our usual good fortune, we were just too late for the daylight. We therefore did not drop anchor till two o’clock on Friday, before the town of Black River; and on Saturday morning, at four o’clock, I embarked in the ship’s cutter for Savannah la Mar. Every one assured us that we could not fail to have a favourable seabreeze the whole way, and that we should be on land by eight: instead of which, what little wind there was veered round from one point of the compass to the other with the most indefatigable caprice; and we were not on shore till eleven. Here I found Mr. T. Hill, who luckily had his phaëton ready, in which he immediately conveyed me once more to my own estate. The accounts of the general behaviour of my negroes is reasonably good, and they all express themselves satisfied with their situation and their superintendents. Yet, among upwards of three hundred and thirty negroes, and with a greater number of females than men, in spite of all indulgences and inducements, not more than twelve or thirteen children have been added annually to the list of the births. On the other hand, this last season has been generally unhealthy all over the island, and more particularly so in my parish; so that I have lost several negroes, some of them young, strong, and valuable labourers in every respect; and in consequence, my sum total is rather diminished than increased since my last visit. I had been so positively assured that the custom of plunging negro infants, immediately upon their being born, into a tub of cold water, infallibly preserved them from the danger of tetanus, that, on leaving Jamaica, I had ordered this practice to be adopted uniformly. The negro mothers, however, took a prejudice against it into their heads, and have been so obstinate in their opposition, that it was thought unadvisable to attempt the enforcing this regulation. From this and other causes I have lost several infants; but I am told, that on other estates in the neighbourhood they have been still more unfortunate in regard to their children; and one was named to me, on which sixteen were carried off in the course of three days.
The joy of the negroes on my return was quite sufficiently vociferous, and they were allowed today for a holiday. They set themselves to singing and dancing yesterday, in order to lose no time; and to show their gratitude for the indulgence, not one of the five pen-keepers chose to go to their watch last night; the consequence was that the cattle made their escape, and got into one of my very best cane-pieces. The alarm was given; my own servants and some of the head people had grace enough to run down to the scene of action; but the greatest part remained quietly in the negro-houses, beating the gumby-drum, and singing their joy for my arrival with the whole strength of their lungs, but without thinking it in the least necessary to move so much as a finger-joint in my service. The cattle were at length replaced in their pen, but not till the cane-piece had been ruined irretrievably. Such is negro gratitude, and such my reward for all that I have suffered on ship-board. To be sure, as yet there could not be a more ill-starred expedition than my present one.
I only learned, yesterday, that before making the island of Madeira an Algerine corsair was actually in sight, and near enough to discern the turbans of the crew; but we lost each other through the violence of the gale.
There is a popular negro song, the burden of which is,—
Take him to the Gulley! Take him to the Gulley!
But bringee back the frock and board.”—
“Oh! massa, massa! me no deadee yet!”—
“Take him to the Gulley! Take him to the Gulley!”
“Carry him along!”
This alludes to a transaction which took place some thirty years ago, on an estate in this neighbourhood, called Spring-Garden; the owner of which (I think the name was Bedward) is quoted as the cruellest proprietor that ever disgraced Jamaica. It was his constant practice, whenever a sick negro was pronounced incurable, to order the poor wretch to be carried to a solitary vale upon his estate, called the Gulley, where he was thrown down, and abandoned to his fate; which fate was generally to be half devoured by the john-crows, before death had put an end to his sufferings. By this proceeding the avaricious owner avoided the expence of maintaining the slave during his last illness; and in order that he might be as little a loser as possible, he always enjoined the negro bearers of the dying man to strip him naked before leaving the Gulley, and not to forget to bring back his frock and the board on which he had been carried down. One poor creature, while in the act of being removed, screamed out most piteously “that he was not dead yet;” and implored not to be left to perish in the Gulley in a manner so horrible. His cries had no effect upon his master, but operated so forcibly on the less marble hearts of his fellow-slaves, that in the night some of them removed him back to the negro village privately, and nursed him there with so much care, that he recovered, and left the estate unquestioned and undiscovered. Unluckily, one day the master was passing through Kingston, when, on turning the corner of a street suddenly, he found himself face to face with the negro, whom he had supposed long ago to have been picked to the bones in the Gulley of Spring-Garden. He immediately seized him, claimed him as his slave, and ordered his attendants to convey him to his house; but the fellow’s cries attracted a crowd round them, before he could be dragged away. He related his melancholy story, and the singular manner in which he had recovered his life and liberty; and the public indignation was so forcibly excited by the shocking tale, that Mr. Bedward was glad to save himself from being torn to pieces by a precipitate retreat from Kingston, and never ventured to advance his claim to the negro a second time.
A man has been tried, at Kingston, for cruel treatment of a Sambo female slave, called Amey. She had no friends to support her cause, nor any other evidence to prove her assertions, than the apparent truth of her statement, and the marks of having been branded in five different places. The result was, that the master received a most severe reprimand for his inhuman conduct, and was sentenced to close confinement for six months, while the slave, in consequence of her sufferings, was restored to the full enjoyment of her freedom.
It appears to me that nothing could afford so much relief to the negroes, under the existing system of Jamaica, as the substituting the labour of animals for that of slaves in agriculture, whereever such a measure is practicable. On leaving the island, I impressed this wish of mine upon the minds of my agents with all my power; but the only result has been the creating a very considerable additional expense in the purchase of ploughs, oxen, and farming implements; the awkwardness, and still more the obstinacy, of the few negroes, whose services were indispensable, was not to be overcome: they broke plough after plough, and ruined beast after beast, till the attempt was abandoned in despair. However, it was made without the most essential ingredient for success, the superintendence of an English ploughman; and such of the ploughs as were of cast-iron could not be repaired when once broken, and therefore ought not to have been adopted; but I am told, that in several other parts of the island the plough has been introduced, and completely successful. Another of my farming speculations answered no better: this was to improve the breed of cattle in the county, for which purpose Lord Holland and myself sent over four of the finest bulls that could be procured in England. One of them got a trifling hurt in its passage from the vessel to land; but the remaining three were deposited in their respective pens without the least apparent damage. They were taken all possible care of, houses appropriated to shelter them from the sun and rain, and, in short, no means of preserving their health was neglected. Yet, shortly after their arrival in Jamaica, they evidently began to decline; their blood was converted into urine; they paid no sort of attention to the cows, who were confined in the same paddock; and at the end of a fortnight not one was in existence, two having died upon the same day. The injured one, having been bled the most copiously in consequence of its hurt, was that which survived the longest.
Some days ago, a negro woman, who has lost four children, and has always been a most affectionate mother, brought the fifth, a remarkably fine infant, into the hospital. She complained of its having caught cold, a fever, and so on; but nothing administered was of use, and its manner of breathing made the doctor enquire, whether the child had not had a fall? The mother denied this most positively, and her fondness for the infant admitted no doubt of her veracity. Still the child grew worse and worse; still the question about the fall was repeated, and as constantly denied; until luckily being made in the presence of a new-comer, the latter immediately exclaimed, “that to her certain knowledge the infant had really had a fall, for that the mother having fastened it behind her back, the knot of the handkerchief had slipped, and the baby had fallen upon the floor.”—“It is false,” answered the mother: “the child did not fall; for when the knot slipped, I had time to catch it by the foot, and so I saved it from falling, just as its head struck against the ground.” Fear of being blamed as having occasioned the baby’s illness through her own carelessness had induced her to adopt this equivocation, and its life had nearly been the sacrifice of her duplicity. A proper mode of treatment was now adopted without loss of time; their beneficial effect was immediately visible, and the poor little negro is now recovering rapidly. But certainly there is no folly and imprudence like unto negro folly and imprudence. One of my best disposed and most sensible Eboes has had a violent fever lately, but was so nearly well as to be put upon a course of bark. On Wednesday morning a son of his died of dirt-eating,—a practice which neither severity nor indulgence could induce him to discontinue. The boy was buried that night according to African customs, accompanied with dancing, singing, drinking, eating, and riot of all kinds; and the father, although the kindest-hearted negro on my estate, and remarkably fond of his children, danced and drank to such an excess, that I found him on the following morning in a raging fever, and worse than he was when he first entered the hospital. I had warned him against the consequences of the funeral, reminded him of the dangerous malady from which he was but just recovering, and he had promised solemnly to be upon his guard; and such was the manner in which he performed his promise.
During my former visit to Jamaica I had interceded in behalf of a negro belonging to Greenwich estate, named Aberdeen, who had run away repeatedly, but who attributed his misconduct to the decay of his health, which rendered him unable to work as well as formerly, and to the fear of consequent punishment for not having performed the tasks assigned to him. The fellow while he spoke to me had tears running down his cheeks, looked feeble and ill, and indeed seemed to be quite heart-broken. On my speaking to the attorney, he readily promised to enquire into the truth of the man’s statement, and to take care that he should be only allotted such labour as his strength might be fully equal to. This morning he came over to see me, and so altered, that I could scarcely believe him to be the same man. He was cleanly dressed, walked with his head erect, and his eyes sparkled, and his mouth grinned from ear to ear, while he told me, that during my absence every thing had gone well with him, nobody had “put upon him;” he had been tasked no more than suited his strength; as much as he was able to do, he had done willingly, and had never run away. Even his asthma was better in consequence of the depression being removed from his spirits. So, he said, as soon as he heard of my return, he thought it his duty to come over and show himself to me, and tell me that he was well, and contented, and behaving properly; for that “to be sure, if massa no speak that good word for me to trustee, me no livee now; me good, massa!” Gratitude made him absolutely eloquent: his whole manner, and the strong expression of his countenance, put his sincerity out of all doubt, and I never saw a man seem to feel more truly thankful. All negroes, therefore, are not absolutely without some remembrance of kindness shown them; and indeed I ought not in justice to my own people to allow myself to forget, that when I sent a reward to those who had roused themselves to drive the cattle out of my canes the other night, there was considerable difficulty in persuading them to accept the money: they sent me word, “that as they were all well treated on the estate, it was their business to take care that no mischief was done to it, and that they did not deserve to be rewarded for having merely done their duty by me.” Nor was it till after they had received repeated orders from me, that their delicacy could be overcome, and themselves persuaded to pocket the affront and the maccaroni.
One of the deadliest poisons used by the negroes (and a great variety is perfectly well known to most of them) is prepared from the root of the cassava.
Its juice being expressed and allowed to ferment, a small worm is generated, the substance of which being received into the stomach is of a nature the most pernicious. A small portion of this worm is concealed under one of the thumb-nails, which are suffered to grow long for this purpose; then when the negro has contrived to persuade his intended victim to eat or drink with him, he takes an opportunity, while handing to him a dish or cup, to let the worm fall, which never fails to destroy the person who swallows it. Another means of destruction is to be found (as I am assured) in almost every negro garden throughout the island: it is the arsenic bean, neither useful for food nor ornamental in its appearance; nor can the negroes, when questioned, give any reason for affording it a place in their gardens; yet there it is always to be seen. The alligator’s liver also possesses deleterious properties; and the gall is said to be still more dangerous.
On Friday I was made to observe, in the hospital, a remarkably fine young negro, about twenty-two years of age, stout and strong, and whom every one praised for his numerous good qualities, and particularly for his affection for his mother, and the services which he rendered her. He complained of a little fever, and a slight pain in his side. On Saturday he left the hospital, and intended to go to his provision grounds, among the mountains, on Sunday morning; but, as he complained of a pain in his head, his mother prevented his going, and obliged him to return to the hospital in the evening. On Monday he was seized with fainting fits, lost his speech and power of motion, and this morning I was awaked by the shrieks and lamentations of the poor mother, who, on coming to the hospital to enquire for her son, found, that in spite of all possible care and exertions on the part of his medical attendants, he had just expired. Whether it be the climate not agreeing with their African blood (genuine or inherited), or whether it be from some defect in their general formation, certainly negroes seem to hold their lives upon a very precarious tenure. Nicholas, John Fuller, and others of my best and most favoured workmen, the very servants, too, in my own house, are perpetually falling ill with little fevers, or colds, or pains in the head or limbs. However, the season is universally allowed to have been peculiarly unhealthy for negroes; and, indeed, even for white people, the deaths on board the shipping having been unusually numerous this year. As to the barracks, which are scarcely a couple of miles distant from my estate, there the yellow fever has established itself, and, as I hear, is committing terrible ravages, particularly among the wives of the soldiers.—This morning several negro-mothers, belonging to Friendship and Greenwich, came to complain to their attorney (who happened to be at my house) that the overseer obliged them to wean their children too soon. Some of these children were above twenty-two months old, and none under eighteen; but, in order to retain the leisure and other indulgences annexed to the condition of nursing-mothers, the female negroes, by their own good-will, would never wean their offspring at all. Of course their demands were rejected, and they went home in high discontent; one of them, indeed, not scrupling to declare aloud, and with a peculiar emphasis and manner, that if the child should be put into the weaning-house against her will, the attorney would see it dead in less than a week.
The violent gale of wind which persecuted us with so much pertinacity on our leaving the English Channel is supposed to have been the tail of a tremendous hurricane, which has utterly laid waste Barbados and several other islands. No less than sixteen of the ships which sailed at the same time with us are reported to have perished upon the passage; so that I ought to consider it at least as a negative piece of good luck to have reached Jamaica myself, no bones broke, though sore peppered but I am still trembling in uncertainty for the fate of the vessel which is bringing out all my Irish supplies, and the non-arrival of which would be a misfortune to me of serious magnitude.
The negroes are so obstinate and so wilful in their general character, that if they do not receive the precise articles to which they have been accustomed, and which they expect as their right, no compensation, however ample, can satisfy them. Thus, at every Christmas it would go near to create a rebellion if they did not receive a certain proportion of salt fish; but if, in the intervening months, accident should prevent their receiving their usual allowance of herrings, the giving them salt fish to the amount of double the value would be considered by them as an act of the grossest injustice.
On Saturday, about eight in the evening, a large centipede dropped from the ceiling upon my dinner-table, and was immediately cut in two exact halves by one of the guests. As it is reported in Jamaica that these reptiles, when thus divided, will re-unite again, or if separated will reproduce their missing members, and continue to live as stoutly as ever, I put both parts into a plate, under a glass cover. On Sunday they continued to move about their prison with considerable agility, although the tail was evidently much more lively and full of motion than the head: perhaps the centipede was a female. On Monday the head was dead, but the tail continued to run about, and evidently endeavoured to to make its escape, although it appeared not to know very well how to set about it, nor to be perfectly determined as to which way it wanted to go: it only seemed to have Cymon’s reason for wishing to take a walk, and “would rather go any where, than stay with any body.” On Wednesday, at twelve o’clock, its vivacity was a little abated, but only a little; the wound was skinned over, and I was waiting anxiously to know whether it would subsist without its numskull till a good old age, or would put forth an entirely spick and span new head and shoulders; when, on going to look at the plate on Thursday morning, lo and behold! the dead head and the living tail had disappeared together. I suppose some of the negro servants had thrown them away through ignorance, but they deny, one and all, having so much as touched the plate, most stoutly; and as a paper case, pierced in several places, had been substituted for the glass cover, some persons are of opinion that the tail made its escape through one of these air-holes, and carried its head away with it in its forceps. Be this as it may, gone they both are, and I am disappointed beyond measure at being deprived of this opportunity of reading the last volume of “The Life and Adventures of a Centipede’s Tail.” I have proclaimed a reward for the bringing me another, but I am told that these reptiles are only found by accident; and that, very possibly, one may not be procured previous to my leaving the island.
Mr. Lutford, the proprietor of a considerable estate in the parish of Clarendon, had frequently accused a particular negro of purloining coffee. About six months ago the slave was sent for, and charged with a fresh offence of the same nature, when he confessed the having taken a small quantity; upon which his master ordered him to fix his eyes on a particular cotton tree, and then, without any further ceremony, shot him through the head. His mistress was the coroner’s natural daughter, and the coroner himself was similarly connected with the custos of Clarendon. In consequence of this family compact, no inquest was held, no enquiry was made; the whole business was allowed to be slurred over, and the murder would have remained unpunished if accident had not brought some rumours respecting it to the governor’s ear. An investigation was ordered to take place without delay; but Mr. Lutford received sufficient warning to get on shipboard, and escape to America; and the displacing of the custos of Clarendon, for neglecting his official duty, was the only means by which the governor could express his abhorrence of the act.
My estate is greatly plagued by a negress named Catalina; she is either mad, or has long pretended to be so, never works, and always steals. About a week before my arrival she was found in the trash-house, which she had pitched upon as the very fittest place possible for her kitchen; and there she was sitting, very quietly and comfortably, boiling her pot over an immense fire, and surrounded on all sides by dry canes, inflammable as tinder. This vagary was of too dangerous a nature to allow of her being longer left at liberty, and she was put into the hospital. But her husband was by no means pleased with her detention, as he never failed to appropriate to himself a share of her plunder, and when discovered, the blame of the robbery was laid upon his wife, in a fit of insanity. So, while the general joy at my first arrival drew the hospital attendants from their post, he took the opportunity to carry off his wife, and conceal her. The consequence was, that this morning complaints poured upon me of gardens robbed by Catalina, who had carried off as much as she could, dug up and destroyed the rest, and had shown as little conscience in providing herself with poultry as in helping herself to vegetables. I immediately despatched one of the negro-governors with a party in pursuit of her, who succeeded in lodging her once more in the hospital; where she must remain till I can get her sent to the asylum at Kingston, the only hospital for lunatics in the whole island.
FEBRUARY 12. (Thursday.)
On my former visit to Jamaica, I found on my estate a poor woman nearly one hundred years old, and stone blind. She was too infirm to walk; but two young negroes brought her on their backs to the steps of my house, in order, as she said, that she might at least touch massa, although she could not see him. When she had kissed my hand, “that was enough,” she said; “now me hab once kiss a massa’s hand, me willing to die to-morrow, me no care.” She had a woman appropriated to her service, and was shown the greatest care and attention; however, she did not live many months after my departure. There was also a mulatto, about thirty years of age, named Bob, who had been almost deprived of the use of his limbs by the horrible cocoa-bay, and had never done the least work since he was fifteen. He was so gentle and humble, and so fearful, from the consciousness of his total inability of soliciting my notice, that I could not help pitying the poor fellow; and whenever he came in my way I always sought to encourage him by little presents, and other trifling marks of favour. His thus unexpectedly meeting with distinguishing kindness, where he expected to be treated as a worthless incumbrance, made a strong impression on his mind. Soon after my departure his malady assumed a more active appearance but during the last stages of its progress the only fear which he expressed was, that he should not live till last Christmas, when my return was expected to a certainty. In the mean while he endeavoured to find out a means of being of some little use to me, although his weak constitution would not allow of his being of much. Some of his relations being in opulent circumstances, they furnished him with a horse, for he was too weak to walk for more than a few minutes at a time; and, mounted upon this, he passed all his time in traversing the estate, watching the corn that it might not be stolen, warning the pen-keepers if any of the cattle had found their way into the cane-pieces, and doing many other such little pieces of service to the property; so that, as the negroes said, “if he had been a white man he might have been taken for an overseer.” At length Christmas arrived; it was known that I was on the sea; Bob, too, was still alive; but still there was nothing to be heard of me. His perpetual question to all who came to visit him was, How was the wind? and he was constantly praying to the wind and the ocean to bring massa’s vessel soon to Savanna la Mar, that he might but see him once more, and thank him, before he died. At length I landed; and when, on the day of my arrival on my estate, I expressed my surprise at the nonappearance of several of the negroes, who had appeared to be most attached to me, and I had expected to find most forward in greeting me, I was told that a messenger had been sent to call them, and that their absence was occasioned by their attendance at poor Bob’s funeral. Several of his relations, who nursed him on his death-bed, have assured me, that the last audible words which he uttered were—“Are there still no news of massa?”
Talk of Lucretia! commend me to a she-turkey! The hawk of Jamaica is an absolute Don Giovanni; and he never loses an opportunity of being extremely rude indeed to these feathered fair ones; not even scrupling to use the last violence, and that without the least ceremony, not so much as saying, “With your leave,” or “By your leave,” or using any of the forms which common civility expects upon such occasions. The poor timid things are too much frightened by the sudden attack of this Tarquin with a beak and claws, to make any resistance; but they no sooner recover from their flutter sufficiently to be aware of what has happened, than they feel so extremely shocked, that they always make a point of dying; nor was a female turkey ever known to survive the loss of her honour above three days.
I think that I really may now venture to hope that my plans for the management of my estate have succeeded beyond even my most sanguine expectations. I have now passed three weeks with my negroes, the doors of my house open all day long, and full liberty allowed to every person to come and speak to me without witnesses or restraint; yet not one man or woman has come to me with a single complaint. On the contrary, all my enquiries have been answered by an assurance, that during the two years of my absence my regulations were adhered to most implicitly, and that, “except for the pleasure of seeing massa,” there was no more difference in treatment than if I had remained upon the estate. Many of them have come to tell me instances of kindness which they have received from one or other of their superintendents; others, to describe some severe fit of illness, in which they must have died but for the care taken of them in the hospital; some, who were weakly and low-spirited on my former visit, to show me how much they are improved in health, and tell me “how they keep up heart now, because since massa come upon the property nobody put upon them, and all go well;” and some, who had formerly complained of one trifle or other, to take back their complaints, and say, that they wanted no change, and were willing to be employed in any way that might be thought most for the good of the estate; but although I have now at least seen every one of them, and have conversed with numbers, I have not yet been able to find one person who had so much as even an imaginary grievance to lay before me. Yet I find, that it has been found necessary to punish with the lash, although only in a very few instances; but then this only took place on the commission of absolute crimes, and in cases where its necessity and justice were so universally felt, not only by others, but by the sufferers themselves, that instead of complaining, they seem only to be afraid of their offence coming to my knowledge; to prevent which, they affect to be more satisfied and happy than all the rest, and now when I see a mouth grinning from ear to ear with a more than ordinary expansion of jaw, I never fail to find, on enquiry, that its proprietor is one of those who have been punished during my absence. I then take care to give them an opportunity of making a complaint, if they should have any to make; but no, not a word comes; “every thing has gone on perfectly well, and just as it ought to have done.” Upon this, I drop a slight hint of the offence in question; and instantly away goes the grin, and down falls the negro to kiss my feet, confess his fault, and “beg massa forgib, and them never do so bad thing more to fret massa, and them beg massa pardon, hard, quite hard!” But not one of them has denied the justice of his punishment, or complained of undue severity on the part of his superintendents. On the other hand, although the lash has thus been in a manner utterly abolished, except in cases where a much severer punishment would have been inflicted by the police, and although they are aware of this unwillingness to chastise, my trustee acknowledges that during my absence the negroes have been quiet and tractable, and have not only laboured as well as they used to do, but have done much more work than the negroes on an adjoining property, where there are forty more negroes, and where, moreover, a considerable sum is paid for hired assistance. Having now waited three weeks to see how they would conduct themselves, and found no cause of dissatisfaction since the neglect of the watchman to guard the cattle (and which they one and all attributed to their joy at seeing me again), I thought it time to distribute the presents which I had brought with me for them from England. During my absence I had ordered a new and additional hospital to be built, intended entirely for the use of lying-in women, nursing mothers, and cases of a serious nature, for which purpose it is to be provided with every possible comfort; while the old hospital is to be reserved for those who have little or nothing the matter with them, but who obstinately insist upon their being too ill to work, in defiance of the opinion of all their medical attendants. The new hospital is not quite finished; but wishing to connect it as much as possible with pleasurable associations, I took occasion of the distribution of presents to open it for the first time. Accordingly, the negroes were summoned to the new hospital this morning; the rooms were sprinkled with Madeira for good luck; and the toast of “Health to the new hospital, and shame to the old lazy house!” was drunk by the trustee, the doctoresses, the governors, &c., and received by the whole congregation of negroes with loud cheering; after which, every man received a blue jacket lined with flannel, every woman a flaming red stuff petticoat, and every child a frock of white cotton. They then fell to dancing and singing, and drinking rum and sugar, which they kept up till a much later hour than would be at all approved of by the bench of bishops; for it is now Sunday morning, and they are still dancing and singing louder than ever.
To-day divine service was performed at Savanna la Mar for the first time these five weeks. The rector has been indisposed lately with the lumbago: he has no curate; and thus during five whole weeks there was a total cessation of public worship. I had told several of my female acquaintance that it was long since they had been to church; that I was afraid of their forgetting “all about and about it,” and that if there should be no service for a week longer I should think it my duty to come and hear them say their Catechism myself. Luckily the rector recovered, and saved me the trouble of hearing them; but the long privation of public prayer did not seem to have created any very great demand for the article, as I have seldom witnessed a more meagre congregation. It was literally “two or three gathered together,” and it seemed as if five or six would be too many, and forfeit the promise. I cannot discover that the negroes have any external forms of worship, nor any priests in Jamaica, unless their Obeah men should be considered as such; but still I cannot think that they ought to be considered as totally devoid of all natural religion. There is no phrase so common on their lips as “God bless you!” and “God preserve you!” and “God will bless you wherever you go!” Phrases which they pronounce with every-appearance of sincerity, and as if they came from the very bottom of their hearts. “God-A’mity! God-A’mity!” is their constant exclamation in pain and in sorrow; and with this perpetual recurrence to the Supreme Being, it must be difficult to insist upon their being atheists. But they have even got a step further than the belief in a God; they also allow the existence of an evil principle. One of them complained to me the other day, that when he went to the field his companions had told him “that he might go to hell, for he was not worthy to work with them;” and one of his adversaries in return accused him of being so lazy, “that instead of being a slave upon Cornwall estate, he was only fit to be the slave of the devil.” Then surely they could not be afraid of duppies (or ghosts) without some idea of a future state; and indeed nothing is more firmly impressed upon the mind of the Africans, than that after death they shall go back to Africa, and pass an eternity in revelling and feasting with their ancestors. The proprietor of a neighbouring estate lately used all his influence to persuade his foster-sister to be christened; but it was all in vain: she had imbibed strong African prejudices from her mother, and frankly declared that she found nothing in the Christian system so alluring to her taste as the post-obit balls and banquets promised by the religion of Africa. I confess, that this prejudice appears to me to be so strongly rooted, that in spite of the curates expected from the hands of the bishop of London, I am sadly afraid, that “the pulpit drum ecclesiastic” will find it a hard matter to overpower the gumby; and that the joys of the Christian paradise will be seen to kick the beam, when they are weighed against the pleasures of eating fat hog, drinking raw rum, and dancing for centuries to the jam-jam and kitty-katty. In the negro festivals in this life, the chief point lies in making as much noise as possible, and the Africans and Creoles dispute it with the greatest pertinacity. I am just informed that at the dance last night the Eboes obtained a decided triumph, for they roared and screamed and shouted and thumped their drums with so much effect, that the Creoles were fairly rendered deaf with the noise of their rivals, and dumb with their own, and obliged to leave off singing altogether.
On my arrival I found that idle rogue Nato, as usual, an inmate of the hospital, where he regularly passes at least nine months out of the twelve. He was with infinite difficulty persuaded, at the end of a fortnight, to employ himself about the carriage-horses for a couple of days; but on the third he returned to the hospital, although the medical attendants, one and all, declared nothing to be the matter with him, and the doctors even refused to insert his name in the sick list. Still he persisted in declaring himself to be too ill to do a single stroke of work: so on Thursday I put him into one of the sick rooms by himself, and desired him to get well with the doors locked, which he would find to the full as easy as with the doors open; at the same time assuring him, that he should never come out, till he should be sufficiently recovered to cut canes in the field. He held good all Friday; but Saturday being a holy-day, he declared himself to be in a perfect state of health, and desired to be released. However, I was determined to make him suffer a little for his lying and obstinacy, and would not suffer the doors to be opened for him till this morning, when he quitted the hospital, saluted on all sides by loud huzzas in congratulation of his amended health, and which followed him during his whole progress to the cane-piece. I was informed that a lad, named Epsom, who used to be perpetually running away, had been stationary for the last two years. So on Wednesday last, as he happened to come in my way, I gave him all proper commendation for having got rid of his bad habits; and to make the praise better worth his having, I added a maccarony: he was gratified in the extreme, thanked me a thousand times, promised most solemnly never to behave ill again, and ran away that very night. However, he returned on Saturday morning, and was brought to me all rags, tears, and penitence, wondering “how he could have had such bad manners as to make massa fret.”
Some of the free people of colour possess slaves, cattle, and other property left them by their fathers, and are in good circumstances; but few of them are industrious enough to increase their possessions by any honest exertions of their own. As to the free blacks, they are almost uniformly lazy and improvident, most of them half-starved, and only anxious to live from hand to mouth. Some lounge about the highways with pedlar-boxes, stocked with various worthless baubles; others keep miserable stalls provided with rancid butter, damaged salt-pork, and other such articles: and these they are always willing to exchange for stolen rum and sugar, which they secretly tempt the negroes to pilfer from their proprietors; but few of them ever make the exertion of earning their livelihood creditably. Even those who profess to be tailors, carpenters, or coopers, are for the most part careless, drunken, and dissipated, and never take pains sufficient to attain any dexterity in their trade. As to a free negro hiring himself out for plantation labour, no instance of such a thing was ever known in Jamaica, and probably no price, however great, would be considered by them as a sufficient temptation.
The Africans and Creoles certainly do hate each other with a cordiality which would have appeared highly gratifying to Dr. Johnson in his “Love of Good Haters.” Yesterday, in the field, a girl who had taken some slight offence at something said to her by a young boy, immediately struck him with the bill, with which she was cutting canes. Luckily, his loose wrapper saved him from the blow; and, on his running away, she threw the bill after him in his flight with all the fury and malice of a fiend. This same vixen, during my former visit, had been punished for fixing her teeth in the hand of one of the other girls, and nearly biting her thumb off; and on hearing of this fresh instance of devilism, I asked her mother, “how she came to have so bad a daughter, when all her sons were so mild and good?”—“Oh, massa,” answered she, “the girl’s father was a Guineaman.”
Neptune came this morning to request that the name of his son, Oscar, might be changed for that of Julius, which (it seems) had been that of his own father. The child, he said, had always been weakly, and he was persuaded, that its ill-health proceeded from his deceased grandfather’s being displeased, because it had not been called after him. The other day, too, a woman, who had a child sick in the hospital, begged me to change its name for any other which might please me best: she cared not what; but she was sure that it would never do well, so long as it should be called Lucia. Perhaps this prejudice respecting the power of names produces in some measure their unwillingness to be christened. They find no change produced in them, except the alteration of their name, and hence they conclude that this name contains in it some secret power; while, on the other hand, they conceive that the ghosts of their ancestors cannot fail to be offended at their abandoning an appellation, either hereditary in the family, or given by themselves. It is another negro-prejudice that the eructation of the breath of a sucking child has something in it venomous; and frequently nursing mothers, on showing the doctor a swelled breast, will very gravely and positively attribute it to the infant’s having broken wind while hanging at the nipple.
I asked one of my negro servants this morning whether old Luke was a relation of his. “Yes,” he said.—“Is he your uncle, or your cousin?”—“No, massa.”—“What then?”—“He and my father were shipmates, massa.”
The law-charges in Jamaica have lately been regulated by the House of Assembly; and by all accounts (except that of the lawyers) it was full time that something should be done on the subject. A case was mentioned to me this morning of an estate litigated between several parties. At length a decision was given: the estate was sold for £16,000; but the lawyer’s claim must always be the first discharged, and as this amounted to more than £16,000 the lawyer found himself in possession of the estate. This was the fable of Æsop’s oyster put in action with a vengeance.
A negro, named Adam, has long been the terror of my whole estate. He was accused of being an Obeah-man, and persons notorious for the practice of Obeah had been found concealed from justice in his house, who were afterwards convicted and transported. He was strongly suspected of having poisoned more than twelve negroes, men and women; and having been displaced by my former trustee from being principal governor, in revenge he put poison into his water jar. Luckily he was observed by one of the house servants, who impeached him, and prevented the intended mischief. For this offence he ought to have been given up to justice; but being brother of the trustee’s mistress she found means to get him off, after undergoing a long confinement in the stocks. I found him, on my arrival, living in a state of utter excommunication; I tried what reasoning with him could effect, reconciled him to his companions, treated him with marked kindness, and he promised solemnly to behave well during my absence. However, instead of attributing my lenity to a wish to reform him, his pride and confidence in his own talents and powers of deception made him attribute the indulgence shown him to his having obtained an influence over my mind. This he determined to employ to his own purposes upon my return; so he set about forming a conspiracy against Sully, the present chief governor, and boasted on various estates in the neighbourhood that on my arrival he would take care to get Sully broke, and himself substituted in his place. In the meanwhile he quarrelled and fought to the right and to the left; and on my arrival I found the whole estate in an uproar about Adam. No less than three charges of assault, with intent to kill, were preferred against him. In a fit of jealousy he had endeavoured to strangle Marlborough with the thong of a whip, and had nearly effected his purpose before he could be dragged away: he had knocked Nato down in some trifling dispute, and while the man was senseless had thrown him into the river to drown him; and having taken offence at a poor weak creature called Old Rachael, on meeting her by accident he struck her to the ground, beat her with a supplejack, stamped upon her belly, and begged her to be assured of his intention (as he eloquently worded it) “to kick her guts out.” The breeding mothers also accused him of having been the cause of the poisoning a particular spring, from which they were in the habit of fetching water for their children, as Adam on that morning had been seen near the spring without having any business there, and he had been heard to caution his little daughter against drinking water from it that day, although he stoutly denied both circumstances. Into the bargain, my head blacksmith being perfectly well at five o’clock, was found by his son dead in his bed at eight; and it was known that he had lately had a dispute with Adam, who on that day had made it up with him, and had invited him to drink, although it was not certain that his offer had been accepted. He had, moreover, threatened the lives of many of the best negroes. Two of the cooks declared, that he had severally directed them to dress Sully’s food apart, and had given them powders to mix with it. The first to whom he applied refused positively; the second he treated with liquor, and when she had drunk, he gave her the poison, with instructions how to use it. Being a timid creature, she did not dare to object, so threw away the powder privately, and pretended that it had been administered; but finding no effect produced by it, Adam gave her a second powder, at the same time bidding her remember the liquor which she had swallowed, and which he assured her would effect her own destruction through the force of Obeah, unless she prevented it by sacrificing his enemy in her stead. The poor creature still threw away the powder, but the strength of imagination brought upon her a serious malady, and it was not till after several weeks that she recovered from the effects of her fears. The terror thus produced was universal throughout the estate, and Sully and several other principal negroes requested me to remove them to my property in St. Thomas’s, as their lives were not safe while breathing the same air with Adam. However, it appeared a more salutary measure to remove Adam himself; but all the poisoning charges either went no further than strong suspicion, or (any more than the assaults) were not liable by the laws of Jamaica to be punished, except by flogging or temporary imprisonment, which would only have returned him to the estate with increased resentment against those to whom he should ascribe his sufferings, however deserved.
However, on searching his house, a musket with a plentiful accompaniment of powder and ball was found concealed, as also a considerable quantity of materials for the practice of Obeah: the possession of either of the above articles (if the musket is without the consent of the proprietor) authorises the magistrates to pronounce a sentence of transportation. In consequence of this discovery, Adam was immediately committed to gaol; a slave court was summoned, and to-day a sentence of transportation from the island was pronounced, after a trial of three hours. As to the man’s guilt, of that the jury entertained no doubt after the first half hour’s evidence; and the only difficulty was to restrain the verdict to transportation. We produced nothing which could possibly affect the man’s life; for although perhaps no offender ever better de served hanging; yet I confess my being weak-minded enough to entertain doubts whether hanging or other capital punishment ought to be inflicted for any offence whatever: I am at least certain, that if offenders waited till they were hanged by me, they would remain unhanged till they were all so many old Parrs. However, although I did my best to prevent Adam from being hanged, it was no easy matter to prevent his hanging himself. The Obeah ceremonies always commence with what is called, by the negroes, “the Myal dance.” This is intended to remove any doubt of the chief Obeah-man’s supernatural powers; and in the course of it, he undertakes to show his art by killing one of the persons present, whom he pitches upon for that purpose. He sprinkles various powders over the devoted victim, blows upon him, and dances round him, obliges him to drink a liquor prepared for the occasion, and finally the sorcerer and his assistants seize him and whirl him rapidly round and round till the man loses his senses, and falls on the ground to all appearance and the belief of the spectators a perfect corpse. The chief Myal-man then utters loud shrieks, rushes out of the house with wild and frantic gestures, and conceals himself in some neighbouring wood. At the end of two or three hours he returns with a large bundle of herbs, from some of which he squeezes the juice into the mouth of the dead person; with others he anoints his eyes and stains the tips of his fingers, accompanying the ceremony with a great variety of grotesque actions, and chanting all the while something between a song and a howl, while the assistants hand in hand dance slowly round them in a circle, stamping the ground loudly with their feet to keep time with his chant. A considerable time elapses before the desired effect is produced, but at length the corpse gradually recovers animation, rises from the ground perfectly recovered, and the Myal dance concludes. After this proof of his power, those who wish to be revenged upon their enemies apply to the sorcerer for some of the same powder, which produced apparent death upon their companion, and as they never employ the means used for his recovery, of course the powder once administered never fails to be lastingly fatal. It must be superfluous to mention that the Myal-man on this second occasion substitutes a poison for a narcotic. Now, among other suspicious articles found in Adam’s hut, there was a string of beads of various sizes, shapes, and colours, arranged in a form peculiar to the performance of the Obeah-man in the Myal dance. Their use was so well known, that Adam on his trial did not even attempt to deny that they could serve for no purpose but the practice of Obeah; but he endeavoured to refute their being his own property, and with this view he began to narrate the means by which he had become possessed of them. He said that they belonged to Fox (a negro who was lately transported), from whom he had taken them at a Myal dance held on the estate of Dean’s Valley; but as the assistants at one of these dances are by law condemned to death equally with the principal performer, the court had the humanity to interrupt his confession of having been present on such an occasion, and thus saved him from criminating himself so deeply as to render a capital punishment inevitable. I understand that he was quite unabashed and at his ease the whole time; upon hearing his sentence, he only said very coolly, “Well! I ca’n’t help it!” turned himself round, and walked out of court. That nothing might be wanting, this fellow had even a decided talent for hypocrisy. When on my arrival he gave me a letter filled with the grossest lies respecting the trustee, and every creditable negro on the estate, he took care to sign it by the name which he had lately received in baptism; and in his defence at the bar to prove his probity of character and purity of manners, he informed the court that for some time past he had been learning to read, for the sole purpose of learning the Lord’s Prayer. The nick-name by which he was generally known among the negroes in this part of the country, was Buonaparte, and he always appeared to exult in the appellation. Once condemned, the marshal is bound under a heavy penalty to see him shipped from off the island before the expiration of six weeks, and probably he will be sent to Cuba. He is a fine-looking man between thirty and forty, square built, and of great bodily strength, and his countenance equally expresses intelligence and malignity. The sum allowed me for him is one hundred pounds currency, which is scarcely a third of his worth as a labourer, but which is the highest value which a jury is permitted to mention.