MARCH 4. (Monday.)
Since my arrival in Jamaica I am not conscious of having
omitted any means of satisfying my Negroes, and rendering them
happy and secure from oppression. I have suffered no person to
punished, except the two female demons who almost bit a
xxx hands off (for which they received a slight Switching), and
the most worthless rascal on the estate, whom for manifold
offences I was compelled, for the sake of discipline, to allow to
pass two days in the bilboes. I have never refused a favour that
I could possibly grant. I have listened patiently to all com
plaints. I have increased the number of negro holidays, and
have given away money and presents of all kinds incessantly.
Now for my reward. On Saturday morning there were no
fewer than forty-five persons (not including children) in the
hospital which makes nearly a fifth of my whole gang. Of
these the medical people assured me that not above seven had
anything whatever the matter with them ; the rest were only
feigning sickness, out of mere idleness, and in order to sit doing
nothing, while their companions were forced to perform their
part of the estate-duty. And sure enough, on Sunday morning
they all walked away from the hospital to amuse themselves, except about
seven or eight: they
will, perhaps, go to the field for
a couple of days, and on Wednesday we may expect to have
them all back again, complaining of pains which (not existing)
it is not possible to remove. Jenny (the girl whose hands were
bitten) was told by the doctoress, that having been in the hospital
all the week, she ought not, for very shame, to go out on Sunday. She
answered, " She wanted to
go to the mountains, and
go she would." " Then," said the doctoress, " you must not
come back again on Monday at least." " Yes," Jenny said, " she
should come back:" and back this morning Jenny came. But
as her wounds were almost well, she had tied packthread round
them so as to cut deep into the flesh, had rubbed dirt into them,
and, in short, bad played such tricks as nearly to produce mortification in
one of her fingers.
The most worthless fellow on the whole property is one Nato
—a thief, a liar, a runaway, and one who has never been two
days together out of the hospital since my arrival, although he
has nothing the matter with him : indeed, when the other negroes
abused him for his laziness, and leaving them to do his work for
him, he told them plainly that he did not mean to work and
that nobody should make him. The only real illness which
brought him to the hospital, within my knowledge, was the consequence of
a beating received
from his own father, who had
caught him in the act of robbing his house by the help of a false
key. In the hospital lie found his wife, Philippa, the mad woman, with
whom he instantly
quarrelled, and she cut his head
open with a plate; and as she might have served one of the children in the
same way, we were
obliged to confine her. Her
husband was thought to be the fittest person to guard her; and,
accordingly, they were locked up together in a separate room
from the other invalids, till a strait waistcoat could be made.
The husband was then restored to freedom, and desired to go to
work, which he declared to be impossible from illness; yet he
disapeared the whole of the next day, and on his return the
following morning he had the impudence to assert that he had
never been out of the hospital for an hour. For this runaway
offence, and for endeavouring to exasperate his wife's phrenzy,
vqs put into the bilboes for two days: on the third he was
released, when he came to me with tears in his eyes, implored
me most earnestly to forgive what had passed, and promised
to behave better for the future " to so good a niassa." It appeared
afterwards that he had employed
his absence in complaining to Mr Williams, a neighbouring magistrate,
that, " having
a spite against them; although neither he nor his wife had committed any
fault, I had punished
them both by locking them up
for several days in a solitary prison, under pretence of his wife's
insanity, when in fact she was perfectly in her senses." Unluckily, one of
my physicians had told
Mr. Williams, that very
morning, how much he had been alarmed at Cornwall, when,
upon going into a mad woman's room, her husband had fastened
the door, and he had found himself shut up between them -the
woman really mad, and the man pretending to be so too. The
moment that Nato mentioned the mad woman as his wife,
"What, then," said Mr. Williams, "you are the fellow who
alarmed the doctor so much two days ago?" Upon which Nato
had the impudence to burst into a fit of laughter,—" Oh, ki,
massa, doctor no need be fright ; we no want to hurt him; only
make lilly bit fun wid him, massa, that all." On which he was
ordered to get out of Mr. Williams's house; slunk back into the
Cornwall hospital, and in a few days came to me with such a
long story of penitence, and " so good a massa," that he induced
me to forgive him.
To sum up the whole, about three this morning an alarm was
given that the pen-keeper had suffered the cattle to get among
the canes, where they might do infinite mischief: the trustee
was roused out of his bed-the drivers blew their shells to sum-mon the negroes to their assistance—when it appeared that there
was not a single watchman at his post; the watch-fires had all
been suffered to expire ; not a single domestic was to be found,
nor a horse to be procured; even the little servant-boys, whom
the trustee had locked up in his own house, and had left fast
asleep when he went to bed, had got up again, and made their
escape to pass the night in play and rioting : and although they
were perfectly aware of the detriment which the cattle were
doing to my interests, not a negro could be prevailed upon to
rouse himself and help to drive them out, till at length Cubina
(who had run down from his own house to mine on the first
alarm) with difficulty collected about half a dozen to assist him :
but long before this, one of my best cane-pieces was trampled to
pieces, and the produce of this year's crop considerably dimi-nished.—And so much for negro gratitude! However, they
still continue their eternal song of " Now massa come, we very
well off;" but their satisfaction evidently begins and ends with
themselves. They rejoice sincerely at being very well off but
think it unnecessary to make the slightest return to massa for
making them so.
