Barbadoes, April 1, 1796.
We are here all joy and delight. Without the humours of an April day,
the morning has been hailed in cheerfulness, from bringing to us friends
we have long been anxious to meet.
At an early hour the ensign was flying at the battery, announcing the
approach of unnumbered strangers.
On this occasion, as on many others, we were both pleased and surprised
to observe the acuteness of sailors in discovering the nature and extent
of a distant fleet. Before _we_ could well distinguish a ship from a
brig, our tars, from the cut of the sails, proclaimed it to be an
English convoy, but not that of Admiral Cornwallis. From the mode of
setting the canvass, from the form of the ship, the figure of the masts,
or some slight circumstance, attaching to different vessels, but totally
imperceptible to us, they had no hesitation in declaring, while yet very
remote, that instead of the fleet from Spithead, it was our
long-wished-for convoy from Cork.
The whole fleet is now at anchor in the bay, and has brought to us a
large body of troops, destined for St. Domingo, under the command of
General Whyte. This being the division of the expedition to which we are
attached, we had twofold pleasure in greeting its arrival.
In our gladness to hail it, we climbed the shrouds up to the main top,
and there stood to view its entrance into the bay. Such a scene must
have been highly interesting, even if it had been wholly independent of
the intimate connexion we had with it: the day was fine; the breeze soft
and mild; and the surface of the water gently moving. The picture was
rich and varied; comprehending, under a bird’s-eye view, the town, and
neighbouring plantations, the bay crowded with shipping, a great extent
of the fine country around, and the wide ocean, together with the
numerous vessels of our desired convoy dropping, with full sails, into
the harbour.
This fleet, which had been so often reported at sea, even so long since
as before we left England, and which did once sail and return, finally
took its departure from Cove on the 25th of February: hence it may be
considered to have made at last a very favorable passage, having been
precisely five weeks at sea.
We now look forward to a speedy change of place, and I may soon have to
address you from St. Domingo, where I hope to meet your letters, and
learn tidings of ye all. It is about a week’s voyage, and is considered
a very pleasant one, being as fine sailing as is known on any part of
the ocean; the ship having only to spread wide her canvass and fly
before _the trades_.
Indolence is considered to be the general effect of excessive heat of
climate; and if the ingenious Bruno had visited the tropical regions, he
might here have found many facts in support of his very plausible
doctrine. The languor of climate is felt by few on their early arrival
in the West Indies: the first effect of the heat seems to be that of
stimulating the rigid northern fibre into increased activity; and creole
inertness follows only as the result of continued residence.
“Precisely thus,” would have exclaimed Dr. Brown, “and so with wine,
opium, brandy, and all other stimuli. They, at first, only increase the
excitement, and give new vigour to the frame; but, continued to excess,
they exhaust the excitability, over-run ever-delighting excitement, and
plunge the body into indirect debility, inducing a state of body,
precisely similar to that of creole inactivity; a state from which there
is no escape, but through the medium of new or still more powerful
stimuli.” Yet, the renewed vigour—the restored excitement, acquired by a
return to the _sedative north_, would seem an everlasting obstacle to
the theory as stated by its great projector: the languor of climate, or
indirect debility, being removed by a directly debilitating power—the
abstraction of heat.
But I am straying from our path. Let me, therefore, retrace my steps,
and tell you the effect of climate upon a cold Hollander of our crew.
I have already made known to you that neither my comrade Dr. Cleghorn,
nor myself, feel yet any sense of tropical indolence, but that we
continue our habits of exercise in all our rude European strength. We
have, for some days past, been closely watching one of our sailors who
is a Dutchman. He is recently from Holland, and, in manners and
appearance, a true Batavian. On the passage he was a dull, heavy, slow,
and plodding Dutchman—frigid, and inanimate as the most icy boor of his
aquatic nation. His movements were a tolerably accurate representation
of the crawling sloth; and the unvaried sedateness of his visage no less
emblematical of his native home.
Having particularly noticed him throughout the voyage, we feel some
surprise in now witnessing, as it were, a complete revolution of his
nature and habits. The rays of a tropical sun seem to have given play to
his muscles, set free all the circulating juices of his frame, and
thawed the icy coldness of his soul. The change we observe in him is
indeed greater than you can imagine: roused from the torpor of unheeding
sameness, by the all-vivifying power of tropical warmth, the frigid
cloud of indifference is dissipated from his brow; he is grown cheerful
and gay; wears a smile of mirth upon his countenance, and moves with an
alertness, beyond all that could have been expected in a Dutchman. He
now skips merrily about the ship; pulls his oar with glee in the boat;
and, on all occasions, appears animated and lively; vying in spirits and
activity with the sprightliest tar of the ship.