person received a present of half-a-dollar, and every child a maccaroni.
In return, they endeavoured to express their sorrow for my departure,
by eating and drinking, dancing and singing, with more vehemence and
perseverance than on any former occasion. As in all probability many
years will elapse without my making them another visit, if indeed I
should ever return at all, I have at least exerted myself while here to
do everything which appeared likely to contribute to their welfare and
security during my absence. In particular, my attorney has made out a
list of all such offences as are most usually committed on plantations,
to which proportionate punishments have been affixed by myself. From
this code of internal regulations the overseer is not to be allowed to
deviate, and the attorney has pledged himself in the most solemn manner
to adhere strictly to the system laid down for him. By this scheme, the
negroes will no longer be punished according to the momentary caprice of
their superintendent, but by known and fixed laws, the one no more than
the other, and without respect to partiality or prejudice. Hitherto, in
everything which had not been previously deter mined by the public law,
with a penalty attached to the breach of it, the negro has been left
entirely at the mercy of the overseer, who if he was a humane man
punished him slightly, and if a tyrant, heavily; nay, very often the
quantity of punishment depended upon the time of day when the offence
was made known. If accused in the morning, when the overseer was in cold
blood and in good humour, a night’s confinement in the stocks might be
deemed sufficient; whereas if the charge was brought when the superior
had taken his full proportion of grog or sangaree, the very same offence
would be visited with thirty-nine lashes. I have, moreover, taken care
to settle all disputes respecting property, having caused all negroes
having claims upon others to bring them before my tribunal previous to
my departure, and determined that from that time forth no such claims
should be enquired into, but considered as definitively settled by my
authority. It would have done the Lord Chancellor’s heart good to see
how many suits I determined in the course of a week, and with what
expedition I made a clear court of chancery. But perhaps the most
astonishing part of the whole business was, that after judgment was
pronounced, the losers as well as the gainers declared themselves
perfectly satisfied with the justice of the sentence. I must
acknowledge, however, that the negro principle that “massa can do no
wrong,” was of some little assistance to me on this occasion. “Oh! quite
just, me good, massa! what massa say, quite just! me no say nothing
more; me good, massa!” Then they thanked me “for massa’s goodness in
giving them so long talk!” and went away to tell all the others “how
just massa had been in taking away what they wanted to keep, or not
giving them what they asked for.” It must be owned that this is not the
usual mode of proceeding after the loss of a chancery suit in England.
But to do the negroes mere justice, I must say, that I could not have
wished to find a more tractable set of people on almost every occasion.
Some lazy and obstinate persons, of course, there must inevitably be in
so great a number; but in general I found them excellently disposed, and
being once thoroughly convinced of my real good-will towards them, they
were willing to take it for granted, that my regulations must be
right and beneficial, even in cases where they were in opposition to
individual interests and popular prejudices. My attorney had mentioned
to me several points, which he thought it advisable to have altered, but
which he had vainly endeavoured to accomplish. Thus the negroes were
in the practice of bequeathing their houses and grounds, by which means
some of them were become owners of several houses and numerous
gardens in the village, while others with large families were either
inadequately provided for, or not provided for at all. I made it public,
that from henceforth no negro should possess more than one house, with a
sufficient portion of ground for his family, and on the following Sunday
the overseer by my order looked over the village, took from those who
had too much to give to those who had too little, and made an entire new
distribution according to the most strict Agrarian law. Those who lost
by this measure, came the next day to complain to me; when I avowed
its having been done by my order, and explained the propriety of the
proceeding; after which they declared themselves contented, and I
never heard another murmur on the subject. Again, mothers being allowed
certain indulgences while suckling, persist in it for two years and
upwards, to the great detriment both of themselves and their children:
complaint of this being made to me, I sent for the mothers, and told
them that every child must be sent to the weaning-house on the first day
of the fifteenth month, but that their indulgences should be continued
to the mothers for two months longer, although the children would be no
longer with them. All who had children of that age immediately gave them
up; the rest promised to do so, when they should be old enough $ and
they all thanked me for the continuance of their indulgences, which they
considered as a boon newly granted them. On my return from Hordley, I
was told that the negroes suffered their pigs to infest the works and
grounds in the immediate vicinity of the house in such numbers, that
they were become a perfect nuisance; nor could any remonstrance prevail
on them to confine the animals within the village. An order was in
consequence issued on a Saturday, that the first four pigs found
rambling at large after two days should be put to death without mercy;
and accordingly on Monday morning, at the negro breakfast hour, the head
governor made his appearance before the house, armed cap-a-pee, with a
lance in his hand, and an enormous cutlass by his side. The news of this
tremendous apparition spread through the estate like wildfire. Instantly
all was in an uproar; the negroes came pouring down from all quarters;
in an instant the whole air was rent with noises of all kinds and
creatures; men, women, and children shouting and bellowing, geese
cackling, dogs barking, turkeys gobbling; and, look where you would,
there was a negro running along as fast as he could, and dragging a
pig along with him by one of the hind legs, while the pigs were all
astonishment at this sudden attack, and called upon heaven and earth for
commiseration and protection,--
“With many a doleful grunt and piteous squeak,
Poor pigs! as if their pretty hearts would break!”
From thenceforth not a pig except my own was to be seen about the place;
yet instead of complaining of this restraint, several of the negroes
came to assure me, that I might depend on the animals not being suffered
to stray beyond the village for the future, and to thank me for having
given them the warning two days before. What other negroes may be, I
will not pretend to guess; but I am certain that there cannot be more
tractable or better disposed persons (take them for all in all) than my
negroes of Cornwall. I only wish, that in my future dealings with white
persons, whether _in_ Jamaica or out of it, I could but meet with half
so much gratitude, affection, and good-will.
THE END.