Part 14

On opening the Assize-court for the county of Cornwall on March 4., Mr. Stewart, the Custos of Trelawny, and Presiding Judge, said, in his charge to the jury, he wished to direct their attention in a peculiar manner to the infringement of slave-laws in the island, in consequence of charges having been brought forward in England of slave laws not being enforced in this country, and being in fact perfect dead letters. The charge was unfounded; but it became proper, in consequence, for the bench to call in a strong manner on the grand jury to be particularly vigilant and attentive to the discharge of this part of their duty. The bench at the same time adverted to another subject connected with the above. Many out of the country, and _some in it_, had thought proper to interfere with our system, and by their insidious practices and dangerous doctrines to call the peace of the island into question, and to promote disorder and confusion. The jury were therefore enjoined, in every such case, to investigate it thoroughly, and to bring the parties concerned before the country, and not to suffer the systems of the island, as established by the laws of the land, to be overset or endangered. It was their bounden duty to watch over and support the established laws, and to act against those who dared to infringe them; and that, otherwise, it was imperiously called for on the principle of self-preservation. Every country had its peculiar laws, on the due maintenance of which depended the public safety and welfare. I read all this with the most perfect unconsciousness; when, lo and behold! I have been assured, from a variety of quarters, that all this was levelled at myself! It is I (it seems) who am “calling the peace of the island in question;” who am “promoting disorder and confusion;” and who am “infringing the established laws!” I should never have guessed it! By “insidious practices” is meant (as I am told) my overindulgence to my negroes; and my endeavouring to obtain either redress or pardon for those belonging to other estates, who occasionally appeal to me for protection: while “dangerous doctrines” alludes to my being of opinion, that the evidence of negroes ought at least to be _heard_ against white persons; the jury always making proportionable abatements of belief, from bearing in mind the bad habits of most negroes, their general want of probity and good faith in every respect, and their total ignorance of the nature of religious obligations. At the same time, these defects may be counterbalanced by the respectable character of the particular negro; by the strength of corroborating circumstances; and, finally, by the irresistible conviction which his evidence may leave upon the minds of the jury. They are not obliged to _believe_ a negro witness, but I maintain that he ought to be _heard_, and then let the jury give their verdict according to their conscience. But this, in the opinion of the bench at Montego Bay, it seems, is “dangerous doctrine!” At least, the venom of my doctrines is circumscribed within very narrow limits; for as I have made a point of never stirring off my own estate, nobody could possibly be corrupted by them, except those who were at the trouble of walking into my house for the express purpose of being corrupted.

At all events, if I _really_ am the person to whom Mr. Stewart alluded, I must consider his speech as the most flattering compliment that I ever received. If my presence in the island has made the bench of a whole country think it necessary to exact from the jury a more severe vigilance than usual in all causes relating to the protection of negroes, I cannot but own myself most richly rewarded for all my pains and expense in coming hither, for every risk of the voyage, and for every possible sacrifice of my pleasures. There is nothing earthly that is too much to give for the power of producing an effect so beneficial; and I would set off for Constantinople to-morrow, could I only be convinced that my arrival would make the Mufti redress the complaints of the lower orders of Turks with more scrupulous justice, and the Bashaws relax the fetters of their slaves as much as their safety would permit. But I cannot flatter myself with having done either the one or the other in Jamaica; and if Mr. Stewart _really_ alluded to me in his charge, I am certainly greatly obliged to him; but he has paid me much too high a compliment;--God grant that I may live to deserve it!

MARCH 16.

Hercules, the poor paralytic runaway, has neither moved nor spoken since his being brought into the hospital. For the two last days he refused all sustenance; blisters, rubbing with mustard, &c. were tried without producing the least sensation; and in the course of last night he expired without a groan.

Another offender, by name Charles Fox, is also under the doctor’s hands, suffering under the effects of his own transgressions. Having been Pickle’s shipmate, he professed the strongest attachment to him, and was perpetually at his house; till Pickle’s wife made her husband aware that love for herself was the real object of his shipmate’s visits. Finding her story disbelieved, she hid Pickle behind the bed, when he had an opportunity of hearing the solicitations of his perfidious Pylades; and, rushing from his concealment, he gave Fox so complete a thrashing, that he was obliged to come to the hospital. Here is another proof that negroes, “our unfortunate fellow-creatures,” are not without some of the luxuries of civilised life; old men of sixty keeping mistresses, and young ones seducing their friends’ wives; why, what would the Reporter of the African Institution have?

It is only to be wished, that the negroes would content themselves with these fashionable peccadilloes; but, unluckily, there are some palates among them which require higher seasoned vices; and besides their occasional amusements of poisoning, stabbing, thieving, &c., a plan has just been discovered in the adjoining parish of St. Elizabeth’s, for giving themselves a grand fête by murdering all the whites in the island. The focus of this meditated insurrection was on Martin’s Penn, the property of Lord Balcarras, where the overseer is an old man of the mildest character, and the negroes had always been treated with peculiar indulgence. Above a thousand persons were engaged in the plot, three hundred of whom had been regularly sworn to assist in it with all the usual accompanying ceremonies of drinking human blood, eating earth from graves, &c. Luckily, the plot was discovered time enough to prevent any mischief; and yesterday the ringleaders were to be tried at Black River.

MARCH 17. (Sunday.)

The Cornwall Chronicle informs us, that, at the Montego Bay assizes, a man was tried on the Monday, for assaulting, while drunk, an officer who had served with great distinction, and calling him a coward; for which offence he was sentenced to a month’s imprisonment and fine of £100; and on the Tuesday the same man brought an action against another person for calling him a “drunken liar,” for which he was awarded £1000 for damages! A plain man would have supposed two such verdicts to be rather incompatible; but one lives to learn.

I remember to have read the case of a French nobleman, who was accused of impotence by his wife before the Parliament of Paris, and by a farmer’s daughter for seduction and getting her with child before the Parliament of Rouen; he thought himself perfectly sure of gaining either the one cause or the other: but, however, he was condemned in both. Certainly the poor Frenchman had no luck in matters of justice.

To make the matter better, in the present instance, the man was a clergyman; and his cause of quarrel against the officer was the latter’s refusal to give him a puncheon of rum to christen all his negroes in a lump.

MARCH 22.

Mr. Plummer came over from St. James’s to-day, and told me, that the “insidious practices and dangerous doctrines” in Mr. Stewart’s speech were intended for the Methodists, and that only the charge to the grand jury respecting “additional vigilance” was in allusion to myself; but he added that it was the report at Montego Bay, that, in consequence of my over-indulgence to my negroes, a song had been made at Cornwall, declaring that I was come over to set them all free, and that this was now circulating through the neighbouring parishes. If there be any such song (which I do not believe), I certainly never heard it. However, my agent here says, that he has reason to believe that my negroes really have spread the report that I intend to set _them_ free in a few years; and this merely out of vanity, in order to give themselves and their master the greater credit upon other estates. As to the truth of an assertion, that is a point which never enters into negro consideration.

The two ringleaders of the proposed rebellion have been condemned at Black River, the one to be hanged, the other to transportation. The plot was discovered by the overseer of Lyndhurst Penn (a Frenchman from St. Domingo) observing an uncommon concourse of stranger negroes to a child’s funeral, on which occasion a hog was roasted by the father. He stole softly down to the feasting hut, and listened behind a hedge to the conversation of the supposed mourners; when he heard the whole conspiracy detailed. It appears that above two hundred and fifty had been sworn in regularly, all of them Africans; not a Creole was among them. But there was a _black_ ascertained to have stolen over into the island from St. Domingo, and a _brown_ Anabaptist missionary, both of whom had been very active in promoting the plot. They had elected a King of the Eboes, who had two Captains under him; and their intention was to effect a complete massacre of all the whites on the island; for which laudable design His Majesty thought Christmas the very fittest season in the year, but his Captains were more impatient, and were for striking the blow immediately. The next morning information was given against them: one of the Captains escaped to the woods; but the other, and the King of the Eboes, were seized and brought to justice. On their trial they were perfectly cool and unconcerned, and did not even profess to deny the facts with which they were charged.

Indeed, proofs were too strong to admit of denial; among others, a copy of the following song was found upon the King, which the overseer had heard him sing at the funeral feast, while the other negroes joined in the chorus:--

SONG OF THE KING OF THE EBOES.

Oh me good friend, Mr. Wilberforce, make we free!

God Almighty thank ye! God Almighty thank ye!

God Almighty, make we free!

Buckra in this country no make we free:

What Negro for to do? What Negro for to do?

Take force by force! Take force by force!

CHORUS.

To be sure! to be sure! to be sure!

The Eboe King said, that he certainly had made use of this song, and what harm was there in his doing so? He had sung no songs but such as his brown priest had assured him were approved of by John the Baptist. “And who, then, was John the Baptist?” He did not very well know; only he had been told by his brown priest, that John the Baptist was a friend to the negroes, and had got his head in a pan!

As to the Captain, he only said in his defence, that if the court would forgive him this once, he would not do so again, as he found the whites did not like their plans which, it seems, till that moment they had never suspected! They had all along imagined, no doubt, that the whites would find as much amusement in having their throats cut, as the blacks would find in cutting them. I remember hearing a sportsman, who was defending the humanity of hunting, maintain, that it being as much the nature of a hare to run away as of a dog to run after her, consequently the hare must receive as much pleasure from being coursed, as the dog from coursing.

MARCH 23.

Two negroes upon Amity estate quarrelled the other day about some trifle, when the one bit the other’s nose off completely. Soon after his accident, the overseer meeting the sufferer--“Why, Sambo,” he exclaimed, “where’s your nose?”

“I can’t tell, massa,” answered Sambo; “I looked every where about, but I could not find it.”

MARCH 24. (Sunday.)

Every Sunday since my return from Kingston I have read prayers to such of the negroes as chose to attend, preparatory to the intended visitations of the minister, Dr. Pope. About twenty or thirty of the most respectable among them generally attended, and behaved with great attention and propriety. I read the Litany, and made them repeat the responses. I explained the Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer to them, teaching them to say each sentence of the latter after me, as I read it slowly, in hopes of impressing it upon their memory. Then came “the good Samaritan,” or some such apologue; and, lastly, I related to them a portion of the life of Christ, and explained to them the object of his death and sufferings. The latter part of my service always seemed to interest them greatly; but, indeed, they behaved throughout with much attention. Unluckily, the head driver, who was one of the most zealous of my disciples, never could repeat the responses of the Litany without an appeal to myself, and always made a point of saying--“Good Lord, deliver us; yes, sir!” and made me a low bow: and one day when I was describing the wonderful precocity of Christ’s understanding, as evidenced by his interview with the doctors in the temple, while but a child, the head driver thought fit to interrupt me with--“Beg massa pardon, but want know one ting as puzzle me. Massa say ‘the child,’ and me want know, massa, one ting much; was Jesus Christ a boy or a girl?” Like my friend the Moravian, at Mesopotamia, I cannot boast of any increased audience; and if the negroes will not come to hear massa, I have little hope of their giving up their time to hear Dr. Pope, who inspires them with no interest, and can exert no authority. Indeed, I am afraid that I am indebted for the chief part of my present auditory to my quality of massa rather than that of priest; and when I ask any of them why they did not come to prayers on the preceding Sunday, their excuse is always coupled with an assurance, that they wished very much to come, “because they wish to do _any thing_ to oblige massa.”

MARCH 25.

The negroes certainly are perverse beings. They had been praying for a sight of their master year after year; they were in raptures at my arrival; I have suffered no one to be punished, and shown them every possible indulgence during my residence amongst them; and one and all they declare themselves perfectly happy and well treated. Yet, previous to my arrival, they made thirty-three hogsheads a week; in a fortnight after my landing, their product dwindled to twenty-three; daring this last week they have managed to make but thirteen. Still they are not ungrateful; they are only selfish: they love me very well, but they love themselves a great deal better; and, to do them justice, I verily believe that every negro on the estate is extremely anxious that all should do their full duty, except himself. My censure, although accompanied with the certainty of their not being punished, is by no means a matter of indifference. If I express myself to be displeased, the whole property is in an uproar; every body is finding fault with every body; nobody that does not represent the shame of neglecting my work, and the ingratitude of vexing me by their ill-conduct; and then each individual--having said so much, and said it so strongly, that he is convinced of its having its full effect in making the others do their duty--thinks himself quite safe and snug in skulking away from his own.

MARCH 26.

Young Hill was told at the Bay this morning, that I make a part of the Eboe King’s song! According to this report, “good King George and good Mr. Wilberforce” are stated to have “given me a paper” to set the negroes free (i. e. an order), but that the white people of Jamaica will not suffer me to show the paper, and I am now going home to say so, and “to resume my chair, which I have left during my absence to be filled by the Regent.”

Since I heard the report of a rebellious song issuing from Cornwall, I have listened more attentively to the negro chaunts; but they seem, as far as I can make out, to relate entirely to their own private situation, and to have nothing to do with the negro state in general. Their favourite, “We varry well off,” is still screamed about the estate by the children; but among the grown people its nose has been put out of joint by the following stanzas, which were explained to me this morning. For several days past they had been dinned into my ears so incessantly, that at length I became quite curious to know their import, which I learned from Phillis, who is the family minstrel. It will be evident from this specimen, that the Cornwall bards are greatly inferior to those of Black River, who have actually advanced so far as to make an attempt at rhyme and metre.

NEGRO SONG AT CORNWALL.

Hey-ho-day! me no care a dammee! (i. e. a damn,)

Me acquire a house, (i. e. I have a solid foundation to

build on,)

Since massa come see we--oh!

Hey-ho-day! neger now quite eerie, (i. e. hearty,)

For once me see massa--hey-ho-day!

When massa go, me no care a dammee,

For how them usy we--hey-ho-day!

An Alligator, crossing the morass at Bellisle, an estate but a few miles distant from Cornwall, fell into a water-trench, from which he struggled in vain to extricate himself, and was taken alive; so that, according to the vulgar expression, he may literally be said to “have put his foot in it.” Fontenelle says, that when Copernicus published his system, he foresaw the contradictions which he should have to undergo--“Et il se tira d’affaire très-habilement. Le jour qu’on lui présentoit le premier exemplaire, scavez-vous ce qu’il fit? Il mourut;” which was precisely the resource resorted to by the alligator. He died on the second morning of his captivity, and his proprietor, Mr. Storer, was obliging enough to order the skin to be stuffed, and to make me a present of him. Neptune was despatched to bring him (or rather her, for nineteen eggs were found within her) over to Cornwall; and at dinner to-day we were alarmed with a general hubbub. It proved to be occasioned by Neptune’s arrival (if Thames or Achelous had been despatched on this errand, it would have been more appropriate) with the alligator on his head. In a few minutes every thing on the estate that was alive, without feathers, and with only two legs, flocked into the room, and requested to take a bird’s-eye view of the monster; for as to coming near her, _that_ they were much too cowardly to venture. It was in vain that I represented to them, that being dead it was utterly impossible that the animal could hurt them: they allowed the impossibility, but still kept at a respectful distance; and when at length I succeeded in persuading them to approach it, upon some one accidentally moving the alligator’s tail, they all, with one accord, set up a loud scream, and men, women, and children tumbled out of the room over one another, to the irreparable ruin of some of my glasses and decanters, and the extreme trepidation of the whole side-board.

*****

The negro-husband, who stabbed his rival in a fit of jealousy, has been tried at Montego Bay, and acquitted. On the other hand, the King of the Eboes has been hung at Black Hiver, and died, declaring that he left enough of his countrymen to prosecute the design in hand, and revenge his death upon the whites. Such threats of a rescue were held out, that it was judged advisable to put the militia under arms, till the execution should have taken place; and also to remove the King’s Captain to the gaol at Savannah la Mar, till means can be found for transporting him from the island.

MARCH 27.

The Eboe Captain has effected his escape by burning down the prison door. It is supposed that he has fled towards the fastnesses in the interior of the mountains, where I am assured that many settlements of run-away slaves have been formed, and with which the inhabited part of the island has no communication. However, the chief of the Accompong Maroons, Captain Roe, is gone in pursuit of him, and has promised to bring him in, alive or dead. The latter is the only reasonable expectation, as the fugitive is represented as a complete desperado.

*****

The negroes have at least given me one proof of their not being entirely selfish. When they heard that the boat was come to convey my baggage to the ship at Black River, they collected all their poultry, and brought it to my agent, desiring him to add it to my sea-stores. Of course I refused to let them be received, and they were evidently much disappointed, till I consented to accept the fowls and ducks, and then gave them back to them again, telling them to consider them as a present from my own hen-house, and to distinguish them by the name of “massa’s poultry.”

MARCH 28.

I have been positively assured, that an attempt was made to persuade the grand jury at Montego Bay, to present me for over-indulgence to my own negroes! It is a great pity that so reasonable an attempt should not have succeeded.--The rebel captain who broke out of prison, has been found concealed in the hut of a notorious Obeah-man, and has been lodged a second time in the gaol of Savannah la Mar.

MARCH 29.

About two months ago, a runaway cooper, belonging to Shrewsbury estate, by name Edward, applied to me to intercede for his not being punished on his return home. As soon as he got the paper requested, he gave up all idea of returning to the estate, and instead of it went about the country stealing every thing upon which he could lay his hands; and whenever his proceedings were enquired into by the magistrates, he stated himself to be on the road to his trustee, and produced my letter as a proof of it. At length some one had the curiosity to open the letter, and found that it had been written two months before.

MARCH 30.

This was the day appointed for the first “Royal play-day,” when I bade farewell to my negroes. I expected to be besieged with petitions and complaints, as they must either make them on this occasion or not at all. I was, therefore, most agreeably surprised to find, that although they had opportunities of addressing me from nine in the morning till twelve at night, the only favours asked me were by a poor old man, who wanted an iron cooking pot, and by Adam, who begged me to order a little daughter of his to be instructed in needle-work: and as to complaints, not a murmur of such a thing was heard; they all expressed themselves to be quite satisfied, and seemed to think that they could never say enough to mark their gratitude for my kindness, and their anxiety for my getting safe to England. We began our festival by the head driver’s drinking the health of H. R. H. the Duchess of York, whom the negroes cheered with such a shout as might have “rent hell’s concave.”

Then we had a christening of such persons as had been absent on the former occasion, one of whom was Adam, the reputed Obeah-man. In the number was a new-born child, whom we called Shakspeare, and whom Afra, the Eboe mother, had very earnestly begged me to make a Christian, as well as a daughter of hers, about four or five years old; at the same time that she declined being christened herself! In the same manner Cubina’s wife, although her father and husband were both baptised on the former occasion, objected to going through the ceremony herself; and the reason which she gave was, that “she did not like being christened while she was with child, as she did not know what change it might not produce upon herself and the infant.”