University of Virginia Library

JANUARY 24.

This was a day of incessant occupation. I rose at six o'clock and went down to the Bay to settle some business; on return I visited the hospital while breakfast was being got ready; and as soon as it was over, I went down to the negro-houses to

hear the whole body of Eboes, lodge a complaint against one of the book-keepers, and to appoint a day for their being heard in his presence. On my return to the house, I found two women belonging to a neighbouring estate, who came to complain of cruel treatment from their overseer, and to request me to inform their trustee how ill they bad been used, and see their injuries redressed. They said, that having been ill in the hospital, and ordered to the field while they were still too weak to work, they had been flogged with much severity (though not beyond the limits of the law) ; and my head driver, who was less scrupulously delicate than myself as to ocular inspection of Juliet's person-(which Juliet, to do her justice, was perfectly ready to submit to in proof of her assertions), told me that the woman bad certainly suffered greatly; the other, whose name was Delia, was but just recovering from a miscarriage, and declared openly that the overseer's conduct had been such, that nothing should have prevented her running away long ago if she could but have had the heart to abandon a child which she bad on the estate. Both were poor feeble-looking creatures, and seemed very unfit subjects for any severe correction. I promised to write to their trustee; and, as they were afraid of being punished on their return home for having thrown themselves on my protection, I wrote a note to the overseer, requesting that the women might remain quite unmolested till the trustee's arrival, which was daily expected ; and, with this note and a present of cocoa-fingers and salt fish, Delia and-Juliet departed, apparently much comforted.

They were succeeded by no less a personage than Venus her-self-a poor little, sickly, timid soul, who had purchased her freedom from my father by substituting in her place a fine stout wench, who, being Venus's locum tenens , was, by courtesy, called Venus too, though her right name was "Big Joan;" but, by some neglect of the then attorney, Venus had never received any title, and she now came to beg " massa so good as give paper" otherwise she was still, to all intents and purposes, my slave, and I might still have compelled her to work, although, at the same time, her substitute was on the estate. Of course I promised the paper required, and engaged to act the part of a second Vulcan by releasing Venus from my chains : but the

paper was not the only thing that Venus wanted; she also wanted a petticoat! She told me that when the presents were distributed on Sunday, the petticoat, which she would otherwise have had, was, of course, " given to the other Venus;" and though, to be sure, she was free now, yet, " when she belonged to massa, she had always worked for him well," and " she was quite as glad to see massa as the other Venus," and, therefore, " ought to have quite as much petticoat." I tried to convince her, that for Venus to wear a petticoat of blue durant, or, indeed, any petticoat at all, would be quite unclassical : but the goddess of beauty stuck to her point, and finally carried off the petticoat.

Venus had scarcely evacuated the premises when her place was occupied by the minister of Savannah la Mar, with proposals for instructing the negroes in religion ; and the minister, in his turn, was replaced by one of the Sunday-night thieves, who had been caught while in the actual possession of one of my sheep and a great turkey-cock ; and, to make the matter worse, he depredator's name was Hercules! The demi-god had nothing to say in his excuse: he had just received a large allowance of beef :-therefore, hunger had no share in his transgression ; and the committing the offence during the very time that I was giving the negroes a festival, rendered his ingratitude the more flagrant.

I perfectly well understood that the man was sent to me by my agent, in order to show the absolute necessity of sometimes employing the cart-whip, and to see whether I would suffer the fellow to escape unpunished. But, as this was the first offender who had been brought before me, I took that for a pretext to absolve him: so I lectured him for half an hour with great severity, swore that on the very next offence I would order him to be sold; and that, if he would not do his fair proportion of work without being lashed, he should be sent to work somewhere else; for I would suffer no such worthless fellows on my estate and would not be at the expense of a cart-whip to correct him. Hercules promised most earnestly to behave better in future, and was suffered to depart: but I am told that no good can be, expected of him; that he is perpetually running away; and that he had been absent for five weeks together before my arrival

only returned home upon hearing that there was a distribution of beef, rum, and jackets going forward; in return for all which he stole my sheep and my poor great turkey-cock.