MARCH 8(Sunday.)
I resumed my journey; but my horses were so completely
knocked up that I was obliged to hire an additional pair to convey me to
Miss Hetley's inn, on the other side of the Yallacks
River, which is nineteen miles from Kingston. This river, as
well as that of Morant (which I passed about ten miles further),
both in breadth and strength, sets all bridges at defiance ; and in
the rainy season it is sometimes impassable for several weeks.
On this occasion there was but little water in either, and I
arrived without difficulty at Port Morant, where I found horses
sent by my trustee to convey me to Hordley. The road led up
to the mountains, and was one of the steepest, roughest, and most
fatiguing that I ever travelled—in spite of its picturesque beauties.
At length I reached my journey's end, jaded and wearied
to death: here I expected to find a perfect paradise, and I found
a perfect bell. Report bad assured me that Hordley was the
best-managed estate in the island ; and, as far as the soil was
concerned, report appeared to have said true : but my trustee
tiad also assured me that my negroes were the most contented
and best-disposed, and here there was a lamentable incorrectness
in the account. I found them in a perfect uproar; complaints
of all kinds stunned me from all quarters : all the blacks accused
all the whites, and all the whites accused all the blacks; and as
far as I could make out, both parties were extremely in the right.
There was no attachment to the soil to be found here ; the negroes
declared, one and all, that if I went away and left them to
groan under the-same system of oppression -without appeal or
hope of redress, they would -follow my carriage and establish
themselves at Cornwall. I had soon discovered enough to be
certain that, although they told me plenty of falsehoods, many
of their complains were but too well founded ; and yet how to
protect them for the future, or satisfy them for the present was
no easy matter to decide. Trusting to these fallacious reports of
the Arcadian state of happiness upon Hordley, I had supposed
that I should have nothing to do there but grant a few indul-gences and establish the regulations already adopted with suc-cess at Cornwall ; distribute a little money, and allow a couple
of play-days for dancing : and under this persuasion I had made
it quite impossible for me to remain above a week at Hordley,
which I conceived to be fully sufficient for the above purpose.
As to grievances to be redressed, I wa totally unprepared for
any such neccessity ; yet now they poured in upon me incessantly,
each more serious than the former ; and before twenty-four hours
were elapsed I had been assured that, in order to produce any
sort of tranquility upon the estate, I must begin be displacing
the trustee, the physician, the four white book-keepers, and the
four black governors ; all of whom I was modestly required to remove,
and provide better substitutes, in the space of fice days and
a morning. What with the general clamour, the assertions and
denials, the tears and the passion, the odious falsehoods, and the
still more odious truths, and ( worst of all to me) my own vexation and
disappointment at finding these things so different from my
expectations, my brain was nearly turned, and I felt strongly
tempted to set off as fast as I could, and leave all these black
and white devils to tear one another to pieces—an amusement in
which the appeared to be perfectly ready to indulge themselves.
It was, however, considerable relief to me to find, upo examination, that
no act of personal ill-treatment was alleged against the
trustee himself, who was allowed to be sufficiently humane in his
own nature, and was only complained of for allowing the negroes to be
maltreated by the book-keepers, and other inferior
agents, with absolute impunity. Being an excellent planter, he
confined his attention entirely to cultivation of the soil, and
when the negroes came to complain of some act of cruelty or
oppression committed by the book-keepers or the black governors, he
reused to listen to them, and left their complaints
uninquired into, and consequently unredressed. The result was,
that the negroes were worse off than if he had been a cruel man
himself ; for his cruelty would have given them only one tyrant,
whereas his indolence left them at the mercy of eight. Still they
said they would be well contented to have him continue their
trustee, provided that I would appoint some protector, to whom
they might appeal in cases of injustice and ill-usage. The
trustee declaring himself well satisfied that some such appointment should
take place, a neighbouring gentleman (whoe humanity to his own negroes had
established him in high favour
with mine ) was selected for this purpose. I next ordered one of
the book-keepers ( of the strociious brutality of whose conduct
the trustee himself, upon examination, allowed that there could
be no doubt) to quit the estate in two hours, under pain of prosecution : away went the man, and
when I arose the next morning, another book-keeper had taken himself off of his own accord,
and that in so much haste that he left all his clothes behind him.
My next step was to displace the chief black governor, a man
deservedly odious to the negroes, and whom a gross and insolent
lie told to myself enabled me to punish without seeming to displace him in
compliance with their complaints againsts him : and
these sources of discontent eing removed, Iread tothem my
regulations for allowing them new hollidays, additional allowances
of salt-fish, rum, and sugar, with a variety of other indulgences and
measures taken for protection, &c. All which,
assisted by a couple of dances and distribution of money on the
day of my departure, had such an effect upon their tempers that
I left them in as good humour, apparently, as I found them in bad.
But to leave them was no such easy matter ; the weather
had been bad from the time of my commencing my journey, but
from the moment of my reaching Hordley it became abominable.
—the rain poured down in cataracts incessantly. The old crazy
house stands on the top of a hill, and the north wind, howled
round it night and day, shaking it from top to bottom, and
threatening to become a hurricane. The storm was provided
with a very suitable accompaniment of thunder and lightning :
and, to complete the business, down came the mountain-torrents,
and swelled Plantain-Garden River to such a degree that it
broke down the dam-head, stopped the mill, and all work was at
a stand-still for two days and nights. But the worst of all was
that this same river lay between me and Kingston: bridge there
was none, and it soon became utterly impassable. Thus it continued for
four days ; on the fifth (the day which I had appointed
for my departure, and on which I gave the negroes a parting
holiday) the water appeared to be somewhat abated at a ford
about four miles distant; for as to crossing at my own, that was
quite out of the question for a week at least. A negro was despatched on
horseback to ascertain the height of the water; his
report was very unfavourable. However, as at worst I could
but return, and had no better means of employing my time, I
resolved to make the experiment. About forty of the youngest
and stron gest negroes. left their -dancing and drinking and ran
on foot to see me safe over the water. The few hours which had
elapsed since my messenger's examination had operated very
favourably towards the reduction of the water, although it was
still very high. But, by a servant going before to ascertain the,
least dangerous passage, and the negroes rushing all into river
to break the force of the stream, and support the carriage on
both sides, we were enabled to struggle to the opposite bank,
and were landed in safety, amidst loud cheering from my sable
attendants, who then left me, many with tears running down
their cheeks, and all with thanks for the protection which I had
shown them, and earnest entreaties that I would come to visit
them another time. Whether my visit will have been produc-tive of essential service to them, must remain a doubt; the
trustee at least promised me most solemnly that my regulations
for their happiness and security should be obeyed; and that the
slave-laws ( of which I had detected, beyond a doubt, some very
flagrant violations) should be carried into effect, for the future,
with the most scrupulous exactness. If he breaks his promise,
and I discover it, I have pledged myself most solemnly to remove
him, however great may be his merits as a planter ; if he contrives
to keep me in ignorance of his proceedings (which, however, from
the precautions which I have now taken, I trust will be no easy
matter), and the state of the negroes should continue after my
departure to be what it was before my arrival, then I can only
console myself with thinking that the guilt is his, not mine; and
that it is on
his head that the curse of the sufferers and the
vengeance of heaven will fall, not on my own. I have been told
that this estate of mine is one of the most beautiful in the island.
It may be so, for anything that I can tell of the matter. The
badness of the weather, and the disquietude of my mind, during
the whole of my short stay, made everything look gloomy and
hideous ; and when I once found myself again beyond my own
limits, I felt my spirits lighter by a hundred weight.
Of all the points which had displeased me at Hordley, none
had made me more angry for the time than the lie told me by
the chief governor, which occasioned my displacing him. This
fellow, who for the credit of our family (no doubt) had got himself
christened by the name of John Lewis, had the impudence
to walk into my parlour just as I was preparing to go to bed,
and inform me that he could not get the business of the estate
done. Why not? He could get nobody to come to the night-work at the mill, which be supposed was the consequence of my
indulging the negroes so much. Indeed! and where were the
people who ought to come to their night-work? In the negro
village? No ; they were in the hospital, and refused to come
out to work. Upon which I blazed up like a barrel of gunpowder,
and asked him whether any person really had been inso-lent enough to select a whole night-party from the sick people
in the hospital, not one of whom ought to stir out of it till well?
There stood the fellow, trembling and stammering, and unable,
to get out an answer, while I stamped up and down the piazza,
storming and swearing, banging all the doors till the house
seemed ready to tumble about our ears, and doing my best to
out-Herod Herod, till at last I ordered the man to be gone that
instant, and get the work done properly. He did not wait to
be told twice, and was off in a twinkling. In a quarter of an
hour I sent for him again, and inquired whether lie had succeeded in
getting the proper people to work at the mill ? Upon
which be had the assurance to answer, that all the people were
there, and that it was not of their not being at the mill that he
had meant to complain. Of what was it then ? " Of their not
being in the field." When ? " Yesterday. He could not get
the negroes to work, and so there had been none done all day."
And who refused to come ? " All the people." But who?
"All." But who, who, who ? —their names? " He could not
remember them all." Name one. " There was Beck." And
who else? "There was Sally." And who else? "There was ....
there was Beck." But who else? "Beck .... and Sally"
... But who else? who else? " Little Edward had gone out
of the hospital, and had not come to work." Well! Beck and
Sally, and little Edward; who else? " Beck, and little Edward,
and Sally." But who else : I say, who else ? "He could not
remember anybody else." Upon which I put myself into a most
imperial passion. " Why, you most impudeut of all impudent
fellows that ever told a lie, have you really presumed to disturb
me at this time of night to tell me that you can't get the business
done, and that none of the people would come to work, and all
because two old women and a little boy missed coming into the,
field yesterday !" Down dropped theipfellow in a moment upon
his marrow-bones : " Oh, me good massa," cried he (and out
came the truth, which I knew well enough before he told me),
" me no come of my own head ; me
ordered to come; but me
never tell massa lie more, sp me pray him forgib me! " But his
obeying any person on my own estate in preference to me, and
suffering himself to be converted into an instrument of my annoyance, was
not to be easily overlooked, so I turned him out of
the house, and the next morning degraded him to the rank of a
common field-negro. The trustee pleaded hard for his being
permitted to return to the waggons, where he would be useful.
But I was obdurate. Then came his wife to beg for him, and
then his mother, and then his cousin, and then his cousin's cousin;
still I was firm: till on the day of my departure the new chief
governor came to me in the name of the whole estate, and begged
me allow John Lewis to return to the command of the waggons " for that
all the negroes said that it would be
too sad a
thing for them to see a man who had held the highest place
among them degraded quite to be a common field-negro." There
was something in this appeal which argued so good a feeling,
that I did not think it right to resist any longer; so I hinted
that if the trustee should ask it again as a favour to himself, I
might perhaps relent; and the proper application being thus
made, John Lewis was allowed to quit the field, but with a positive
injunction against his ever
being employed again in any office of authority over the negroes.
I found baptism in high vogue upon Hordley, but I am sorry
to say, that I could not discover much effect produced upon their
minds by having been made Christians, except in one particular :
Whenever one of them told me a monstrous lie (and they told me
whole dozens), he never failed to conclude his story by saying,
" And now, massa, you know I've been christened, and if you
do not believe what I say, I'm ready to buss the book to the
truth of it." The whole advantages to be derived by negroes from
becoming Christians seemed to consist with them in two points :
being a superior species of magic itself, it preserved them from
black Obeah ; and by enabling thein to take an oath upon the
Bible to the truth of any lie which it might suit them to tell,
they believed that it would give them the power of humbugging
the white people with perfect ease and convenience. They had
observed the importance attached by the whites to such an attestation, and
the conviction which it always appeared to carry with
it ; as to the crime or penalty of perjury, of that they were to-tally ignorant, or at least indifferent; therefore they were perfectly ready to
"buss the book," which they considered as a
piece of buckra superstition, mighty useful to the negroes, and
cared nothing taking their oath upon the Bible to a lie.
