It is fascinating to read up the old books that have been written about
Jamaica. Wearisome sometimes naturally, because for one illuminating
remark you must wade through a mass of turgid stuff.
I confess even to having skipped occasionally Hans Sloane, and I read
Hans Sloane--in the original edition with the long “s's”--sitting on
the verandah of my house looking over the Caribbean Sea, and when I had
finished I felt I had known him, so charming is he. I was sorry I could
not write and thank him for his book. It is a very strange thing how
personality creeps out in writing. No one surely ever talked less of
himself than Hans Sloane, but we somehow get a picture of a kindly,
interesting man, patient and tactful, whom it must have been a privilege
to know, and he manages to give us a very clear picture of life in
Jamaica little more than thirty years after the first landing of the
English. He was Physician to the Duke of Albemarle and lived in Jamaica
for a year, 1687-88, and he looked at the country he had come to with
seeing eyes, and described thoughtfully what he saw.
“The Swine come home every night in several hundreds from feeding on
the wild Fruit in the neighbouring Woods, on the third sound of a Conch
Shell, when they are fed with some few ears of Indian corn thrown in
amongst them, and let out the next morning not to return till night, or
that they heard the sound of the Shell. These sort of remote Plantations
are very profitable to their Masters, not only in feeding their own
Families, but in affording them many Swine to sell for the Market. It
was not a small Diversion to me, to see the Swine in the Woods, on the
first sound of the Shell, which is like that of a Trumpet, to lift up
their Heads from the ground where they were feeding and prick up their
Ears to hearken for the second which so soon as ever they heard, they
would begin to make some movements homewards, but on the third Sound
they would run with all their Speed to the Place where the Overseer us'd
to throw them Corn. They are called home so every night, and also when
such of them as are fit for Market are wanted; and seem to be as much,
if not more, under Command and Discipline, than any Troops I ever saw.
“A Palenque is here a place for bringing up of Poultry, as Turkeys,
which here much exceed the European and are very good and well tasted,
Hens, Ducks, Muscovy Ducks and some very few Geese.... These Poultry are
all fed on Indian, or Guinea Corn and Ants nests brought from the Woods
which these Fowls pick up and destroy mightily.”
This was written of 1687, but it is true now in this twentieth century.
I have seen oranges and naseberries lying rotting under the trees in
heaps and I know there is much waste land in Jamaica where it should be
well worth someone's while to raise hogs and chickens and turkeys. Just
behind where I am sitting writing, a bare two miles from the town of
Montego Bay, there is a swamp which at present breeds nothing but large
and fierce mosquitoes, but where hogs might live to their advantage
and the swamp's, and in these days of cold storage and world shortage
I wonder why that swamp is not turned to good account. As for fowls and
turkeys and ducks, they grow fat and heavy, they lay wonderfully, and if
anyone gave a little attention to the poultry industry they should coin
money. Guinea-fowl will feed themselves, and so will the pea-fowl, the
bird that used to be considered--rightly--a dish for a royal banquet.
And nowadays, instead of being taken to market on mule-back or on the
heads of slaves, they would quite well pay for motor cartage.
I am sorry to say it seems to me this industry has rather retrograded
since Sloane's day.
“The Cattle,” he says, “are penn'd every night or else they in a short
time run wild. These Pens are made of Palisadoes and are look'd after
very carefully by the Planters. The Oxen who have been drawing in their
Mills and are well fed on Sugar Cane tops are reckoned the best meat, if
not too much wrought. They are likewise fatted by Scotch Grass.”
They did escape many a time from these “Palisadoes” and so the woods of
Jamaica proved very attractive hunting-grounds for the buccaneers. It is
evident that pork and beef might be got here quite as easily as in the
days of the Spaniards, and perhaps it was in return for this unwilling
hospitality that these gentlemen brought much of their plunder to Port
Royal, for Jamaica, in those first years, even before Sir Hans Sloane
wandered about it, made money out of the corsairs. They were a difficult
problem. Other days, other manners. They ravaged the coasts yet they
brought wealth to the capital, and while some of them got themselves
hanged for the blackguards they undoubtedly were, Sir Henry Morgan,
the successful English leader of the lot, was at one time
Lieutenant-Governor of the island.
It was no wonder Jamaica attracted all sorts and conditions of
adventurers, for the climate, if one remembers it lies within the
tropics, is lovely. It is hot in the middle of the day and the sun has
naturally great power, but there is from ten in the morning till four in
the afternoon a cooling breeze off the sea, and at night it is reversed,
the cool breeze comes from the land. Hans Sloane notices this, he also
mentions what of course is of no consequence in these days of steamers,
that no ship can come into harbour save in the middle of the day, and
none can go out save in the early morning or at night. He kept a record
of the weather all the time he was in the island, and that record for
1687-88 might have done almost word for word for 1919-20, so little does
the climate vary. His memorandum for the 25th October 1688 might have
stood for the 25th October 1920, when I read it, “Fair weather with
a small sea breeze.” And when the sea breeze has failed he has a note
which I feelingly record is perfectly true, “Extream hot.” Luckily the
sea breeze seldom fails, and I suppose there is no place in the world
where the climate suits everyone always. Sloane remarks that most people
considered the land breeze at night unwholesome, “which,” he says, with
a wisdom beyond his time, “I do not believe,” and even to-day I have
met people who warned me gravely against the danger of sleeping outside.
“The damp night wind is so dangerous!” and like Sloane I did not believe
and I went on sleeping in the open and daily growing better and better.
As a physician, he had a great deal to say about the health of the
people of the new Colony. Indeed, reading him has made me understand how
slowly and imperceptibly we throw off the old and take up the new. He
dilates on the immorality of the people. Not that he worried about their
souls as did later writers; he takes things as he finds them and does
not expect men to be impossible--and dull--angels, but he writes wisely
on the effect such conduct must have on the individual.
“The Passions of the Mind have very great power on Mankind here,
especially Hysterical Women and Hypochondriacal Men. These cannot but
have a great share in the cause of several Diseases, some of the People
living here being in such Circumstances, as not to be able to live
easily elsewhere: add to this that there are not wanting some, as
everywhere else, who have been of bad Lives, whereby their minds are
disturbed, and their Diseases, if not rendered Mortal, yet much worse
to cure than those who have sedate Minds, and Clear Consciences. On
the same account it is that those who have not their Wills, Minds, and
Affairs settled, in Distempers are much worse to be cur'd than other
Men.” And he goes on to say that he considers many of the ailments of
the people may be set down to “Debauchery” and their love of drinking.
The Europeans, he says, are foolish to dress in the tropics as they
would at home, and he tells how, going for a ride in the early morning,
his periwig and “Cloths” were wet with dew.
This shrewd observer prescribes the most drastic remedies.
One good lady, who was going blind, he ordered to take “Millepedes
alive, to one hundred in a morning, rising to that number by degrees,
on the days when she took nothing else. By these means persisted in she
first felt some relief, by degrees recovered the sight of one Eye and
then of the other, so that she could at last read Bibles of the smallest
print, and was entirely cured.” I am glad of that, for she had been bled
by cupping, by scarification in the shoulders, blistered in the neck,
and had had various other extremely disagreeable things done to her.
But I hardly give the “Millepedes” credit, perhaps it was the abstinence
from the many good things that came her way.
He certainly makes diverting reading on the people who came to him with
various ailments, though I doubt whether his patients found anything
particularly amusing in his treatment of them. He carefully sorts them
all out according to their rank, for people were much more punctilious
then than now. He mentions “Loveney, a negro woman of Colonel
Ballard's,” “one Barret,” “a lusty woman,” “one Cornwall's daughter,” “a
Gentleman aged about 40 years,” “a young Gentlewoman aged about twelve
years.” And he is extremely frank as to their ailments and their causes.
Of a “Gentlewoman aged about fifty years,” he writes, “I attribute this
disease to Wine Punch and Vinous Liquors, but she would not abstain,
alledging that her Stomach was cold and needed something to warm it.” We
sometimes hear that statement in these days!
Again he tells us of a gentleman who in drinking “Madera Wine and Water,
he made use of it too often, whereby he became usually, the more he
drank, the more dry, so that after a small time he was necessitated to
drink again.” I think we also meet cases like that not infrequently.
Sloane himself considers that water is the best drink, though he did not
always practise what he preached, but his really lightning cure was that
of that “lusty negro Footman Emanuel. Emanuel was ordered over-night to
get himself ready against next morning to be a guide on foot for about
an hundred miles through the Woods to a place of the island to seize
Pirates who, as the Duke of Albemarle was informed, had there unladed
great quantities of Silver to Careen their Ship.” Now Emanuel had
evidently heard all about the pirates, and did not desire a closer
acquaintance, and I have the sincerest sympathy with Emanuel. “About
twelve a'Clock in the night he pretended himself to be extraordinary
sick, he lay straight along, would not speak, and dissembled himself in
great Agony by groaning, etc.” But, alas, he had the cleverest doctor
in the island to deal with. “His pulse beat well, neither had he any
foaming at the mouth or difficulty in breathing. The Europeans who stood
by thought him dead, Blacks thought him bewitched, and others were of
opinion that he was poyson'd. I examined matters as nicely as I could,
concluded that this was a new strange Disease such as I had never
seen, or was not mention'd by any Authority I had read, or that he
counterfeited it.”
Poor Emanuel!
“Being confirmed that it was this latter, and that he could speak very
well if he pleas'd, to frighten him out of it, I told the Standers by,
that in such a desperate condition as this, 'twas usual to apply a Frying
pan with burning Coals to the Head, in order to awake them thoroughly,
and to draw from the Head, and that it was likewise an ordinary method
to put Candles lighted to their Hands and Feet, that when the flame
came to burn them they might be awaked. I sent two several People in all
haste to get ready these things, in the meantime leaving him, that he
might have time to consider and recover out of this fit of Dissumlation,
which in a quarter of an hour he did, so that he came to speak. I
question'd him about his pain, he told me it was very great in his Back.
I told him in short that he was a dissembler, bid him go and do his
business without any more ado, or else he should have due Correction,
which was the best Remedy I knew for him, he went about his Errand
immediately and perform'd it well, though he came too late for the
Pirats.” I expect Emanuel knew a thing or two, and since the leading of
the expedition was in his hands, very naturally saw to it that they did
not come upon them too soon.
Sloane was not content to stay in Port Royal or at Spanish Town, which
was the seat of the Government, but wandered about the island. At St
Ann's, on Captain Hemmings' plantation, he found the ruins of Sevilla,
the town the Spaniards built as their first capital. Whether he looked
at those ruins with the eyes of a romance writer, I do not know.
Certainly he seems to have found them much more magnificent than any
other Spanish remains found warrant us in thinking them. He found a
fort, a monastery, sugar works, and Captain Hemmings told him he often
found pavements 3 feet deep under big canes. There were the ruins
of several buildings not yet finished, and tradition said that the
Europeans had been cut off by the Indians. The town had been overgrown
for a long time, and he says most of the timber felled off this place,
within the walls of the tower, was 60 feet long. “The West Gate of the
Church was very fine Work and stands very entire, it was seven Foot
wide, and as high before the Arch began. Over the door in the middle was
our Saviour's head with a Crown of Thorns, between two Angels, on the
right side a small round figure of some Saint with a Knife stuck into
his Head, on the left a Virgin Mary or Madonna, her Arm tied in three
places Spanish Fashion.”
That pathetic, uncompleted old church at Sevilla, with the arched stones
that lay about among the canes but had never been put up, tells a story
of terror of the old days. But the English soldiery, contemptuous of all
things Spanish, swept everything away, and I do not suppose that one of
those stones he saw in Captain Hemmings' fields yet remains. All went
long years ago.
Colonel Ballard told him that when the Spaniards left the island they
abandoned not only their slaves but their dogs, great beasts as big as
Irish greyhounds. These went wild and hunted of themselves the cattle
that were in the savannahs and woods. Apparently these capable dogs had
been used by their masters to hunt the Indians, for there was always a
certain share of the booty on these occasions due to the master of the
dogs. There were wild horses too in the woods, and the English settlers
took the best and destroyed them, using them ruthlessly in the mills.
Man has ever been cruel to the luckless beasts that fell into his
hands. And Sloane remarks how smooth were the skins of these horses
in comparison with the rough coated little horses introduced by the
conquerors from New England. There were cattle too and the settlers
as well as the buccaneers hunted these, killing them apparently rather
wantonly, but probably there was not much else for the soldiers to feed
on. “This way of taking the wild black Cattle,” says Sloane, “cutting
their tendons or Lancing is what is used by the Spaniards in their
islands and Continents, and by Privateers and Bucaniers; but in Jamaica
there remain very few wild Cattle to be taken and those are in the
Northside of the Island in the less frequented parts. The manner in
which the Spaniards and English killed these Cattle, besides the wild
Dogs who used of themselves to hunt and kill them, was with a Lance or
Halberd, on the end of which was an Iron sharpened and made in the shape
of a Crescent or Half Moon. These wild Cattle are said much to exceed
the others in taste.”
He tells too of the slaves, for negro slaves they had in those days as
well as Indians and indentured white servants. “The Indians are not the
natives of the island, they being destroyed by the Spaniards, but
are usually brought by surprise from the Mosquitoes or Florida” (what
blackguards were these old colonists) “or such as were slaves to the
Spaniards and taken from them by the English.... They are of an olive
colour, have long black lank hair, and are very good Hunters, Fishers,
or Fowlers, but are naught at working in the Fields or Slavish Work,
and if checkt or drub'd are good for nothing, therefore are very gently
treated and well fed.”... “Of the Negros... those who are Creolians,
born in the island, or taken from the Spaniards, are reckoned worth more
than the others in that they are seasoned to the Island.”
Seasoned to the Island, indeed! He means their troubles there were the
devil, they knew. And then he goes on to show us what these troubles
might be. “The punishments for Crimes of Slaves are usually for
rebellion by burning them, by nailing them down to the ground with
crooked Sticks on every Limb and then applying the Fire by degrees from
the Feet and Hands, burning them gradually up to the head whereby
their Pains are extravagant. For Crimes of a lesser nature, Gelding, or
chopping off Half the Foot with an Ax. Their Punishments are suffered by
them with great Constancy.
“For running away they put Iron Rings of great weight on their Ankles,
or Pottocks about their necks, which are Iron Rings with two long Spikes
rivetted to them or a Spur in the Mouth.
“For Negligence they are usually whipt by the Overseers with Lancewood
Switches till they be bloody, and several of the Switches broken, being
first tied up by their Hands in the Mill Houses. Beating with Manati
Straps is thought too cruel, and therefore prohibited by the Customs of
the Country. The Cicatrices are visible on their skins for ever after,
and a slave, the more he have of those, is the less valu'd.” So that was
why it was prohibited to beat them with Manati Straps, for they do not
otherwise appear to have been over-tender.
“After they are whip'd till they are Raw some put on their Skins Pepper
and Salt to make them smart; at other times their Masters will drop
melted Wax on their Skins and use several very exquisite Torments. These
Punishments are sometimes merited by the Blacks, who are a very perverse
Generation of People” (I remember that Miriam, my first waiting-maid,
who wore her wool standing out in a series of little tails like a
surprised night-mare, always considered the table laid when she had put
on the carving knife, even though we proposed to eat eggs), “and though
they appear Harsh” (harsh is hardly the term I should have used),
“yet are scarcely equal to some of their Crimes and inferior to what
punishments other European nations inflict on their slaves in the East
Indies.”
And we are left wondering what on earth the other nations could have
done.
But there was one safeguard, a feeble one it is true, but still in some
cases I dare say it was efficacious.
“There are many Negros sold to the Spaniards,” he says, “who are either
brought lately from Guinea, or bad Servants or Mutinous in Plantations.
They are sold to very good profit; but if they have many Cicatrices or
Scars on them, the marks of their severe Corrections, they are not
very saleable. The English got in return Cacao, Sarsaparilla, Pearls,
Emeralds, Cochineal, Hides, &c.”
So the thought of the pearls and emeralds they might be worth, perhaps
saved many a poor slave from the cruel treatment that otherwise might
have been his.
“I saw in this harbour (Port Royal),” says Sloane on one occasion, “a
ship come from the Guineas loaded with blacks to sell. The Ship was very
nasty with so many people on board.”
“When a Guinea ship comes near to Jamaica with Blacks to sell,” he goes
on, “there is great care taken that the Negros should be shaved, trim'd,
and their bodies and hair anointed all over with Palm Oil which adds
great beauty to them. The Planters chose their Negros by their look and
by the country from which they come. The Blacks from the East Indies”
(what a cruel long way to come in a slave ship) “are fed on Flesh and
Fish at home, and therefore are not coveted, because troublesome to
nourish, and those from Angola run away from their Masters, and fancy
on their deaths they are going home again, which is no lucriferous
experiment, for on hard usage they kill themselves.” No wonder, poor
things, no wonder. And such were the times that kindly Hans Sloane
merely remarks it is “no lucriferous experiment.”
He also remarks that the negroes and Indians used to bathe themselves in
fair water every day as “often as conveniently they can.” Which really
sounds as if their masters did not.
And he tells of treasure ships too, does Hans Sloane, treasure ships
such as we have dreamed of when we were young. He tells us of Sir
William Phipps who wrote an account of the first finding of the great
Plate ship wrecked to the north-east of Hispaniola. He went with one
Rogers master of a small ship to Porto Plata, and there they discharged
three guns to get the Spaniards to trade. They came down, they were
forbidden to trade with the English, I believe, and the English sold
them “small Babies,” “and Searges,” and they got in exchange hides and
jerked hogs taken by the hunters there. Meanwhile Rogers had his heart
set on the wreck and was making enquiries about it. He actually went
looking for it and discovered it by means of a “Sea Feather growing on
the planks of the Ship lying under the water.” Back he came with the
good news, and Sir William Phipps joined him with another ship, and they
set to work in businesslike fashion to possess themselves of that
silver. The ship was a Spanish galleon, lost about the year 1659, bound
to Spain, and it was near thirty years later that these Merchant
Venturers turned it to good account. Their two ships were laden with
trade goods in case they failed to find the ship, but having found it
they set to work to clear away the coral and lapis astroites which had
grown over it, “and they took up silver as the Weather and their Divers
held out, some days more and some days less. The small Ship went near,
the great one rode afar off.” And they actually took out in bullion
£22, 196, “30, 326 of which were Sows,” says Sloane, “and great Bars,
336.” But it must have been pleasant standing on the deck of that small
ship watching the sea-worn gold and silver that belonged of right to the
Spaniards dumped on the planks. So the Venturers found it, for they
stayed until the crews were short of provisions and they had brought up
26 tons of silver. Then a sloop from Bermuda came to their aid with
foodstuffs, but the secret was out, and while the foodless ships sailed
away for home laden with their booty that sloop went back to Bermuda and
talked, and many sloops and divers were sent down and a vast quantity
more of plate and money was taken up, so that when the second fleet came
from England most of what was left of that rich find was dispersed among
people who certainly had as good a right to it as the first comers.
After that it became quite fashionable to take out patents to hunt for
wrecks, and though Sloane says much money was made on that first wreck,
much more was lost in the projects than ever was taken out of the sea.
Evidently to Hans Sloane his expedition to Jamaica loomed large, for
it was years after he left it that his last volume on the subject was
published. That voyage must have been _the_ event of a fairly full life.
After the death of the Duke of Albemarle, who certainly seems to have
been a shining example of how not to live in the tropics, Hans Sloane,
in the train of the Duchess, left Jamaica on the 16th March 1689, and
did not arrive off the Lizard till the 29th May. How far off Jamaica was
in those days we may judge when we are told that the fleet was afraid to
go into Plymouth because they did not know whether England was at war or
not. At last they picked up a fishing smack and heard that James II.
had been deposed, that William III. reigned in his stead, and that the
Channel was full of French privateers.
Before I leave the subject of Jamaica's first historian, I must tell
a strange story that was told me by a friend. He told his experience
reluctantly, he does not believe in the supernatural, and he is quite
sure there must be some perfectly natural explanation of the incident
could he but find it. There was something wrong with his knee and he was
afraid he was going to be a cripple for life, for no doctor could find
out what was wrong. He used to struggle from his bed on to a board and
his servants carried him that way to a sofa, where he spent his daylight
hours. So it went on from day to day and he had little hope of getting
better. At night his black manservant slept on the floor close to his
bed, so as to be near in case he should want any help. Naturally, being
a young and active man and not given to books, he was much depressed at
the outlook.
One night as he lay in bed he wakened suddenly from his sleep with
the feeling that somebody was in the room. For a moment he could see
nothing, only hear the snores of the man on the floor. Then as he looked
he saw the moonlight streaming through the open window, and right in
its light stood a man, not anyone he knew, but a white man with a kindly
face, his brown hair drawn back and tied behind with a ribbon, and his
brown coat, knee-breeches, stockings and shoes those of other days. He
said nothing, but, smiling quietly, came towards the bed and laying his
hand on the injured leg began slowly stroking it up and down. It was
infinitely soothing, and presently to his surprise my friend closed his
eyes, and when he opened them again his strange visitor had gone. He
felt strangely at ease and fell asleep. When he waked in the morning he
rose up, and, discarding the board on which he had been carried, told
everyone he was going to get well and would require it no more. And sure
enough he never did.
From that day he mended and now hardly knows which leg was bad. But
instead of wondering, as I should have done, whether the Duke of
Albemarle's physician had visited him, he says, “Only fancy, I'm sure it
was only fancy.” He is not a reading man, and I don't think he has ever
heard of Hans Sloane.
But if I skipped some of Hans Sloane's two great volumes, I must confess
to having raced through at a much faster rate many of the other books
on early Jamaica. There is a novel called _Marly_, the scene of which
is laid in the beginning of the last century, and so dull it is I can
hardly believe it was presented to people for amusement. If they had
nothing else to read, it almost excuses the ignorance and easy-going
ways of the planters and their families. Not that these regarded
themselves as ignorant by any means. Uncultured as they were, they held
themselves far above any of their dependents, though the ladies might,
and often did, sit round the pepper pot with their black serving women,
ate as they did, and talked as they did. Lady Nugent, the Governor's
wife, between 1801 and 1805, found great difficulty in talking to them,
and she, of course, met the best.
“A party of ladies with me at the Penn,” she writes, “and never was
there anything so completely stupid. All I could get out of them was,
'Yes, ma'am,' 'No, ma'am,' with now and then a simper or a giggle.
At last I set them to work stringing beads, which is now one of my
occupations; and I was heartily glad when their carriages came at 2
o'clock.”
Of course Lady Nugent forgets that she was a very great lady, and that
quite likely these wives and daughters of the planters were shy. They
might have shown to greater advantage if she could have met them on
equal terms. But she never did. She seems to have been a cheery soul,
but I am afraid she was convinced she was made of very superior clay.
She is always complaining that she finds “sad want of local matter
or indeed any subject of conversation with them.” The manner of their
speech, too, was bad.
“The Creole language,” she says, “is not confined to the negroes. Many
of the ladies who have not been educated in England speak a sort of
broken English, with an indolent drawling out of their words that is
very tiresome, if not disgusting. I stood next to a lady one night, next
to a window, and by way of saying something remarked that the air was
much cooler than usual, to which she answered, “Yes, ma'am, him railly
too fraish.'”
Probably we should be surprised could we reincarnate them to find these
ladies giving themselves all the airs of a _grande dame_, though they
had less learning than any cook-maid nowadays, less than the little
black boys and girls trotting along the steep and stony paths with
slates on their heads to their daily school. But the lords and ladies of
that time were hardly models of decorum.
“I wish,” goes on this gossipy good lady who is very sure of herself
and her own position in the world, “I wish Lord Balcarres” (the Governor
whose place General Nugent was taking) “would wash his hands and use
a nail brush, for the black edges of his nails really make me sick. He
has, besides, an extraordinary propensity to dip his fingers into every
dish. Yesterday he absolutely helped himself to some fricassee with his
dirty finger and thumb.” And again, “We drove to Lord Balcarres' Penn.
Never was such a scene of dirt and discomfort. Lord B. was in a
sad fright, thinking we should expect breakfast. However, upon his
secretary's whispering to me that there was but one whole teacup and a
saucer and a half, we declared our intention of returning to the King's
House, where a party was waiting for us to breakfast.”
If that could be written of the King's representative of one of the
premier colonies only thirty-five years before Queen Victoria came
to the throne, what must we not forgive in the planters of a century
earlier.
Lady Nugent has a certain fearful joy in recounting the backslidings
of the men of her day, which makes her most amusing reading, while it
certainly throws a good deal of light on the manners and customs of her
times.
“The overseer, a vulgar Scotch officer on half pay, did the honours to
us.... I talked to the black women, who told me all their histories. The
overseer's _chère amie_ (and no man here is without one) is a tall black
woman, well made, with a flat nose, thick lips and a skin of ebony,
highly polished and shining. She showed me her three yellow children,
and said with ostentation she would soon have another.... The marked
attention of the other women plainly proved her to be the favourite
Sultana of this vulgar, ugly Scotch Sultan.”
As a rule, of course, white ladies did not visit the house where a
coloured woman was established. They probably giggled and sniggered, and
talked in hushed voices into each other's ears, while the little girls
looked innocent and had to pretend they did not understand, but Lady
Nugent seems to have broken down the unwritten law, perhaps like a King
of old she was above all law.
She tells a story of a slave addressing a Mr Shirley, “a profligate
character as far as I can understand.”
“'Hi, Massa, you telly me marry one wife which is no good. You no tinky
I see you buckra no content wid one, two, three, four wives, no more
poor negro.' The overseers, too, are in general needy adventurers,
without either principle, religion, or morality. Of course their example
must be the worst possible to these poor creatures...” The smugness of
Lady Nugent!
“A little mulatto girl sent into the drawingroom to amuse me,” says she,
writing of her visit to Mr Simon Taylors, an old bachelor at Liguanea.
“She was a sickly, delicate child, with straight light hair and very
black eyes. Mr T. appeared very anxious for me to dismiss her, and in
the evening the housekeeper told me she was his own daughter and he had
a numerous family, some almost on every one of his estates.”
When she left the gentlemen she took tea in her own room, surrounded by
the black, brown, and yellow ladies of the house, and fairly revelled in
gossip, this being the time, of course, when she heard of its master's
peccadilloes.
We smile at Lady Nugent, but after all she does succeed in giving us
some idea of how the planters of Jamaica lived in her day, all the more
so because she is unconscious of doing anything beyond telling the tale
of her life and sufferings in a far land with what she regarded as a
pestilential climate. But she by no means holds such a high place in my
affections as Hans Sloane.