University of Virginia Library

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 " ( i. e. an order ) to set the negroes free, but that the white people of Jamaica will not suffer me to show the paper, and that I am now going home to say so, and " to resume my place, 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 chants;

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-up 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.

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. Fontenelli says, that when Copernicus published his system, he foresaw the contradictions which he should have to undergo-" et il se tira d'affaire tres-habilement. Le jour qu'on lui presentoit 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 wer found within her) over to Cornwall ; and at dinner to-day we were alarmed with a general hubbub. It proved to be the occasion by the arrival of Neptune with the alligator on his head. In a few minutes everything on the estate that was alive, without feathers, and with only two legs, flocked into the room, and requested to alloowed 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 sideboard.

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 River, 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 jail at Savannah-la-Mar, till means can be found for transporting him from the island.