University of Virginia Library

JANUARY 30.

There were above twenty ladies literally at my feet this morning. I went down to the negro-village to speak to Bessie about going to her black doctor; and all the refractory females of last week, hearing of my being there, came in a body to promise better conduct for the future, and implore Me not to go away.

The sight of my carriage getting ready to take me to Kingston, and the arrival of post-horses, bad alarmed them with the idea that I was really going to put into execution my threats of leaving them for ever. They had artfully enough prevailed on the wife of Clifford (the driver whom Whaunica bad collared) to be their spokeswoman ; and they begged, and lifted up their folded bands, and cried, and fell on the ground, and kissed my feet and, in short, acted their part so well, that they almost made me act mine to perfection, and fall to blubbering. I told them that I certainly should go to Kingston on Thursday; but if I had good accounts of them during my , absence, I should return in a few days; if, on the contrary, the idle negroes continued to refuse to work without compulsion, then, in justice to the good ones (who last week were obliged to do more than their share), those punishments which I bad stopped must be resumed; but that as Cornwall would be insupportable to me if I could not live there without hearing the crack of the abominable cart-whip, all (lay long, I would not return to it, but ship myself off for England, and never visit them or Jamaica any more. And then I talked very sternly and positively about " punishments,". and making-bad negroes do their work properly ;" and every third, word was tile cart-whip, till I almost 'fancied myself the princess' in the " Fairy Tale," who never opened her month but out came.. two toads and three couple of serpents. However, to sweeten, my oration a little at the end, I told them that, " having inquired closely into the characters of the present book-keepers, I had

found no charge against any of them except one, who was accused of having occasionally struck a negro, of using bad language to them, and of being a hasty passionate man, though in other respects very serviceable to the estate. But although these faults were but trifling, and some of them not proved, so determined was I to show that I would suffer no white person on the estate who maltreated the negroes either by word or deed, that I had determined to make an example of him for the warning of the rest, and accordingly had dismissed him this morning."

This book-keeper, by his own account, bad made himself obnoxious to them, and on hearing of his discharge they one and all sprawled upon the ground in a rapture of joy and gratitude.

The man had denied positively the charge of striking the negroes, and ascribed in cutting out part of a boiling-house window, in order that he might pass out atolen sugar unperceived -for, to do the negroes justice, it is a doubt whether they are the greatest thieves or liars, and the quantity of sugar which they purloin during the crop, and dispose of at the Bay for a mere trifle, is enormous. However, whether the charge of strinking was true or not, it was sufficiently proved that this book-keeper was a passionate man, and he himself "that the negroes had conceived a spite against him. Indeed, I had less unwillingness to do this, because from the slight nature of this offence it will be easy for him to find another situation ; and I have besides desired a double salary on going away, which will free him from any charge of having been dismissed disgracefully.