PART II (continued 4)

He told us he was very sorry for it, and he had no hand in it; but it was out of his power to help us, and let us know very plainly what our condition was; namely, that we were put on board his ship as servants to be delivered at Maryland to such a man, whom he named to us; but that, however, if we would be quiet and orderly in the ship, he would use us well in the passage, and take care we should be used well when we came there, and that he would do anything for us that lay in his power; but if we were unruly and refractory, we could not expect but he must take such measures as to oblige us to be satisfied; and that, in short, we must be handcuffed, carried down between the decks and kept as prisoners, for it was his business to take care that no disturbance must be in the ship.

My captain raved like a madman, swore at the captain, told him he would not fail to cut his throat, either on board or ashore, whenever he came within his reach; and that, if he could not do it now, he would do it after he came to England again, if ever he durst show his face there again. For he might depend upon it, if he was carried away to Virginia, he should find his way to England again; that, if it was twenty years after, he would have satisfaction of him. “Well, young man,” says the captain, smiling, “’tis very honestly said, and then I must take care of you while I have you here, and afterwards I must take care of myself.” “Do your worst,” says Jacque boldly; “I’ll pay you home for it one time or other.” “I must venture that, young man,” says he, still calmly, “but for the present you and I must talk a little;” so he bids the boatswain, who stood near him, secure him, which he did. I spoke to him to be easy and patient, and that the captain had no hand in our misfortune.

“No hand in it! D—n him,” said he aloud, “do you think he is not confederate in this villainy? Would any honest man receive innocent people on board his ship and not inquire of their circumstances, but carry them away and not speak to them? And now he knows how barbarously we are treated, why does he not set us on shore again? I tell you he is a villain, and none but him. Why does he not complete his villainy and murder us, and then he will be free from our revenge? But nothing else shall ever deliver him from my hands but sending us to the d—l, or going thither himself; and I am honester in telling him so fairly than he has been to me, and am in no passion any more than he is.”

The captain was, I say, a little shocked at his boldness, for he talked a great deal more of the same kind, with a great deal of spirit and fire, and yet without any disorder in his temper. Indeed I was surprised at it, for I never had heard him talk so well and so much to the purpose in my life. The captain was, I say, a little shocked at it. However, he talked very handsomely to him, and said to him, “Look ye, young man, I bear with you the more because I am sensible your case is very hard; and yet I cannot allow your threatening me neither, and you oblige me by that to be severer with you than I intended. However, I will do nothing to you but what your threatening my life makes necessary.” The boatswain called out to have him to the geers, as they called it, and to have him taste the cat-o’-nine-tails—all which were terms we did not understand till afterwards, when we were told he should have been whipped and pickled, for they said it was not to be suffered. But the captain said, “No, no; the young man has been really injured, and has reason to be very much provoked; but I have not injured him,” says he. And then he protested he had no hand in it, that he was put on board, and we also, by the owner’s agent, and for their account; that it was true that they did always deal in servants, and carried a great many every voyage, but that it was no profit to him as commander; but they were always put on board by the owners, and that it was none of his business to inquire about them; and, to prove that he was not concerned in it, but was very much troubled at so base a thing, and that he would not be instrumental to carry us away against our wills, if the wind and the weather would permit, he would set us on shore again, though, as it blowed then, the wind being at south-west and a hard gale, and that they were already as far as the Orkneys, it was impossible.

But the captain was the same man. He told him that, let the wind blow how it would, he ought not to carry us away against our consent; and as to his pretences of his owners and the like, it was saying of nothing to him, for it was he, the captain, that carried us away, and that, whatever rogue trepanned us on board, now he knew it, he ought no more to carry us away than murder us; and that he demanded to be set on shore, or else he, the captain, was a thief and a murderer.

The captain continued mild still; and then I put in with an argument that had like to have brought us all back, if the weather had not really hindered it; which, when I came to understand sea affairs better, I found was indeed so, and that it had been impossible. I told the captain that I was sorry that my brother was so warm, but that our usage was villainous, which he could not deny. Then I took up the air of what my habit did not agree with. I told him that we were not people to be sold for slaves, that though we had the misfortune to be in a circumstance that obliged us to conceal ourselves, having disguised ourselves to get out of the army, as being not willing to go into Flanders, yet that we were men of substance, and able to discharge ourselves from the service when it came to that; and, to convince him of it, I told him I would give him sufficient security to pay £20 apiece for my brother and myself; and in as short time as we could send from the place he should put into London, and receive a return. And, to show that I was able to do it, I pulled out my bill for £94 from the gentleman of the custom-house, and who, to my infinite satisfaction, he knew as soon as he saw the bill. He was astonished at this, and, lifting up his hands, “By what witchcraft,” says he, “were ye brought hither!”

“As to that,” says I, “we have told you the story, and we add nothing to it; but we insist upon it that you will do this justice to us now.” “Well,” says he, “I am very sorry for it, but I cannot answer putting back the ship; neither, if I could,” says he, “is it practicable to be done.”

While this discourse lasted the two Scotchmen and the other Englishman were silent; but as I seemed to acquiesce, the Scotchmen began to talk to the same purpose, which I need not repeat, and had not mentioned but for a merry passage that followed. After the Scotchmen had said all they could, and the captain still told them they must submit,—“And will you then carry us to Virginia?” “Yes,” says the captain. “And will we be sold,” says the Scotchman, “when we come there?” “Yes,” says the captain. “Why then, sir,” says the Scotchman, “the devil will have you at the hinder end of the bargain.” “Say you so,” says the captain, smiling. “Well, well, let the devil and I alone to agree about that; do you be quiet and behave civilly, as you should do, and you shall be used as kindly, both here and there too, as I can.” The poor Scotchmen could say little to it, nor I, nor any of us; for we saw there was no remedy but to leave the devil and the captain to agree among themselves, as the captain had said, as to the honesty of it.

Thus, in short, we were all, I say, obliged to acquiesce but my captain, who was so much the more obstinate when he found that I had a fund to make such an offer upon; nor could all my persuasions prevail with him. The captain of the ship and he had many pleasant dialogues about this in the rest of the voyage, in which Jacque never treated him with any language but that of kidnapper and villain, nor talked of anything but of taking his revenge of him. But I omit that part, though very diverting, as being no part of my own story.

In short, the wind continued to blow hard, though very fair, till, as the seamen said, we were past the islands on the north of Scotland, and that we began to steer away westerly (which I came to understand since). As there was no land any way for many hundred leagues, so we had no remedy but patience, and to be easy as we could; only my surly Captain Jacque continued the same man all the way.

We had a very good voyage, no storms all the way, and a northerly wind almost twenty days together; so that, in a word, we made the capes of Virginia in two-and-thirty days from the day we steered west, as I have said, which was in the latitude of 60 degrees 30 minutes, being to the north of the isle of Great Britain; and this, they said, was a very quick passage.

Nothing material happened to me during the voyage; and indeed, when I came there, I was obliged to act in so narrow a compass that nothing very material could present itself.

When we came ashore, which was in a great river which they call Potomac, the captain asked us, but me more particularly, whether I had anything to propose to him now. Jacque answered, “Yes, I have something to propose to you, captain; that is, that I have promised you to cut your throat, and depend upon it I will be as good as my word.” “Well, well,” says the captain, “if I can’t help it, you shall;” so he turned away to me. I understood him very well what he meant; but I was now out of the reach of any relief; and as for my note, it was now but a bit of paper of no value, for nobody could receive it but myself. I saw no remedy, and so talked coldly to him of it as of a thing I was indifferent about; and indeed I was grown indifferent, for I considered all the way on the voyage, that as I was bred a vagabond, had been a pickpocket and a soldier, and was run from my colours, and that I had no settled abode in the world, nor any employ to get anything by, except that wicked one I was bred to, which had the gallows at the heels of it, I did not see but that this service might be as well to me as other business. And this I was particularly satisfied with when they told me that after I had served out the five years’ servitude I should have the courtesy of the country (as they called it); that is, a certain quantity of land to cultivate and plant for myself. So that now I was like to be brought up to something by which I might live, without that wretched thing called stealing, which my very soul abhorred, and which I had given over, as I have said, ever since that wicked time that I robbed the poor widow of Kentish Town.

In this mind I was when I arrived at Virginia; and so, when the captain inquired of me what I intended to do, and whether I had anything to propose—that is to say, he meant whether I would give him my bill, which he wanted to be fingering very much—I answered coldly, my bill would be of no use to me now, for nobody would advance anything upon it. Only this I would say to him, that if he would carry me and Captain Jacque back to England, and to London again, I would pay him the £20 off my bill for each of us. This he had no mind to; “for, as to your brother,” says he, “I would not take him into my ship for twice £20, he is such a hardened, desperate villain,” says he; “I should be obliged to carry him in irons as I brought him hither.”

Thus we parted with our captain or kidnapper, call him as you will. We were then delivered to the merchants to whom we were consigned, who again disposed of us as they thought fit; and in a few days we were separated.

As for my Captain Jacque, to make short of the story, that desperate rogue had the luck to have a very easy, good master, whose easiness and good humour he abused very much; and, in particular, took an opportunity to run away with a boat which his master entrusted him and another with to carry some provisions down the river to another plantation which he had there. This boat and provisions they ran away with, and sailed north to the bottom of the bay, as they call it, and into a river called Susquehanna, and there quitting the boat, they wandered through the woods, till they came to Pennsylvania, from whence they made shift to get passage to New England, and from thence home; where, falling in among his old companions and to the old trade, he was at length taken and hanged, about a month before I came to London, which was near twenty years afterwards.

My part was harder at the beginning, though better at the latter end. I was disposed of, that is to say, sold, to a rich planter whose name was Smith, and with me the other Englishman, who was my fellow-deserter, that Jacque brought me to when we went off from Dunbar.

We were now fellow-servants, and it was our lot to be carried up a small river or creek which falls into Potomac river, about eight miles from the great river. Here we were brought to the plantation, and put in among about fifty servants, as well negroes as others; and being delivered to the head man, or director, or manager of the plantation, he took care to let us know that we must expect to work, and very hard too; for it was for that purpose his master bought servants, and for no other. I told him, very submissively, that since it was our misfortune to come into such a miserable condition as we were in, we expected no other; only we desired we might be showed our business, and be allowed to learn it gradually, since he might be sure we had not been used to labour; and I added that when he knew particularly by what methods we were brought and betrayed into such a condition, he would perhaps see cause at least to show us that favour, if not more. This I spoke with such a moving tone as gave him a curiosity to inquire into the particulars of our story, which I gave him at large, a little more to our advantage, too, than ordinary.

This story, as I hoped it would, did move him to a sort of tenderness; but yet he told us that his master’s business must be done, and that he expected we must work as above; that he could not dispense with that upon any account whatever. Accordingly, to work we went; and indeed we had three hard things attending us; namely, we worked hard, lodged hard, and fared hard. The first I had been an utter stranger to; the last I could shift well enough with.

During this scene of life I had time to reflect on my past hours, and upon what I had done in the world; and though I had no great capacity of making a clear judgment, and very little reflections from conscience, yet it made some impressions upon me; and particularly, that I was brought into this miserable condition of a slave by some strange directing power as a punishment for the wickedness of my younger years; and this thought was increased upon the following occasion. The master whose service I was now engaged in was a man of substance and figure in the country, and had abundance of servants, as well negroes as English; in all, I think, he had near two hundred; and among so many, as some grew every year infirm and unable to work, others went off upon their time being expired, and others died; and by these and other accidents the number would diminish, if they were not often recruited and filled, and this obliged him to buy more every year.

It happened while I was here that a ship arrived from London with several servants, and among the rest was seventeen transported felons, some burnt in the hand, others not; eight of whom my master bought for the time specified in the warrant for their transportation respectively, some for a longer, some a shorter, term of years.

Our master was a great man in the country, and a justice of peace, though he seldom came down to the plantation where I was. Yet, as the new servants were brought on shore and delivered at our plantation, his worship came thither, in a kind of state, to see and receive them. When they were brought before him I was called, among other servants, as a kind of guard, to take them into custody after he had seen them, and carry them to the work. They were brought by a guard of seamen from the ship, and the second mate of the ship came with them, and delivered them to our master, with the warrant for their transportation, as above.

When his worship had read over the warrants, he called them over by their names, one by one, and having let them know, by his reading the warrants over again to each man respectively, that he knew for what offences they were transported, he talked to every one separately very gravely; let them know how much favour they had received in being saved from the gallows, which the law had appointed for their crimes; that they were not sentenced to be transported, but to be hanged, and that transportation was granted them upon their own request and humble petition.

Then he laid before them that they ought to look upon the life they were just going to enter upon as just beginning the world again; that if they thought fit to be diligent and sober, they would, after the time they were ordered to serve was expired, be encouraged by the constitution of the country to settle and plant for themselves; and that even he himself would be so kind to them, that if he lived to see any of them serve their time faithfully out, it was his custom to assist his servants in order to their settling in that country, according as their behaviour might merit from him; and they would see and know several planters round about them who now were in very good circumstances, and who formerly were only his servants, in the same condition with them, and came from the same place—that is to say, Newgate; and some of them had the mark of it in their hands, but were now very honest men and lived in very good repute.

Among the rest of his new servants, he came to a young fellow not above seventeen or eighteen years of age, and his warrant mentions that he was, though a young man, yet an old offender; that he had been several times condemned, but had been respited or pardoned, but still he continued an incorrigible pickpocket; that the crime for which he was now transported was for picking a merchant’s pocket-book, or letter-case, out of his pocket, in which was bills of exchange for a very great sum of money; that he had afterwards received the money upon some of the bills, but that going to a goldsmith in Lombard Street with another bill, and having demanded the money, he was stopped, notice having been given of the loss of them; that he was condemned to die for the felony, and being so well known for an old offender, had certainly died, but the merchant, upon his earnest application, had obtained that he should be transported, on condition that he restored all the rest of his bills, which he had done accordingly.

Our master talked a long time to this young fellow; mentioned, with some surprise, that he so young should have followed such a wicked trade so long as to obtain the name of an old offender at so young an age; and that he should be styled incorrigible, which is to signify that notwithstanding his being whipped two or three times, and several times punished by imprisonment, and once burnt in the hand, yet nothing would do him any good, but that he was still the same. He talked mighty religiously to this boy, and told him God had not only spared him from the gallows, but had now mercifully delivered him from the opportunity of committing the same sin again, and put it into his power to live an honest life, which perhaps he knew not how to do before; and though some part of his life now might be laborious, yet he ought to look on it to be no more than being put out apprentice to an honest trade, in which, when he came out of his time, he might be able to set up for himself and live honestly.

Then he told him that while he was a servant he would have no opportunity to be dishonest; so when he came to be for himself he would have no temptation to it; and so, after a great many other kind things said to him and the rest, they were dismissed.

I was exceedingly moved at this discourse of our master’s, as anybody would judge I must be, when it was directed to such a young rogue, born a thief, and bred up a pickpocket, like myself; for I thought all my master said was spoken to me, and sometimes it came into my head that sure my master was some extraordinary man, and he knew all things that ever I had done in my life.

But I was surprised to the last degree when my master, dismissing all the rest of us servants, pointed at me, and speaking to his head-clerk, “Here,” says he, “bring that young fellow hither to me.”

I had been near a year in the work, and I had plied it so well that the clerk, or headman, either flattered me or did really believe that I behaved very well. But I was terribly frighted to hear myself called out aloud, just as they used to call for such as had done some misdemeanour, and were to be lashed or otherwise corrected.

I came in like a malefactor indeed, and thought I looked like one just taken in the fact and carried before the justice; and indeed when I came in, for I was carried into an inner room or parlour in the house to him (his discourse to the rest was in a large hall, where he sat in a seat like a lord judge upon the bench, or a petty king upon his throne); when I came in, I say, he ordered his man to withdraw, and I standing half naked and bare-headed, with my haugh, or hoe, in my hand (the posture and figure I was in at my work), near the door, he bade me lay down my hoe and come nearer. Then he began to look a little less stern and terrible than I fancied him to look before, or, perhaps, both his countenance then and before might be to my imagination differing from what they really were; for we do not always judge those things by the real temper of the person, but by the measure of our apprehensions.

“Hark ye, young man, how old are you?” says my master; and so our dialogue began.

Jacque. Indeed, sir, I do not know.

Mast. What is your name?

Jacque. They call me Colonel^[4] here, but my name is Jacque, an’t please your worship.

Mast. But prithee, what is thy name?

Jacque. Jacque.

Mast. What! is thy Christian name, then, Colonel, and thy surname Jacque?

Jacque. Truly, sir, to tell your honour the truth, I know little or nothing of myself,^[5] nor what my true name is; but thus I have been called ever since I remember. Which is my Christian name, or which my surname, or whether I was ever christened or not, I cannot tell.

Mast. Well, however, that’s honestly answered. Pray, how came you hither, and on what account are you made a servant here?

Jacque. I wish your honour could have patience with me to hear the whole story; it is the hardest and most unjust thing that ever came before you.

Mast. Say you so? Tell it me at large, then. I’ll hear it, I promise that, if it be an hour long.

This encouraged me, and I began at being a soldier, and being persuaded to desert at Dunbar, and gave him all the particulars, as they are related above, to the time of my coming on shore and the captain talking to me about my bill after I arrived here. He held up his hands several times as I went on, expressing his abhorrence of the usage I had met with at Newcastle, and inquired the name of the master of the ship; “for,” said he, “that captain, for all his smooth words, must be a rogue.” So I told him his name, and the name of the ship, and he took it down in his book, and then he went on.

Mast. But pray answer me, honestly too, to another question: What was it made you so much concerned at my talking to the boy there, the pickpocket?

Jacque. An’t please your honour, it moved me to hear you talk so kindly to a poor slave.

Mast. And was that all? Speak truly now.

Jacque. No, indeed; but a secret wish came into my thoughts, that you, that were so good to such a creature as that, could but one way or other know my case, and that if you did, you would certainly pity me, and do something for me.

Mast. Well, but was there nothing in his case that hit your own, that made you so affected with it; for I saw tears come from your eyes and it was that made me call to speak to you?

Jacque. Indeed, sir, I have been a wicked, idle boy, and was left desolate in the world; but that boy is a thief, and condemned to be hanged. I never was before a court of justice in my life.

Mast. Well, I won’t examine you too far. If you were never before a court of justice, and are not a criminal transported, I have nothing further to inquire of you. You have been ill used, that’s certain; and was it that that affected you?

Jacque. Yes, indeed, please your honour. (We all called him his honour, or his worship.)

Mast. Well, now I do know your case, what can I do for you? You speak of a bill of £94 of which you would have given the captain £40 for your liberty; have you that bill in your keeping still?

Jacque. Yes, sir; here it is.

I pulled it out of the waistband of my drawers, where I always found means to preserve it, wrapped up in a piece of paper, and pinned to the waistband, and yet almost worn out, too, with often pinning and removing. So I gave it to him to read, and he read it.

Mast. And is this gentleman in being that gave you the bill?

Jacque. Yes, sir; he was alive and in good health when I came from London, which you may see by the date of the bill, for I came away the next day.

Mast. I do not wonder that the captain of the ship was willing to get this bill of you when you came on shore here.

Jacque. I would have given it into his possession if he would have carried me and my brother back again to England, and have taken what he asked for us out of it.

Mast. Ay; but he knew better than that, too. He knew, if he had any friends there, they would call him to an account for what he had done. But I wonder he did not take it from you while you were at sea, either by fraud or by force.

Jacque. He did not attempt that indeed.

Mast. Well, young man, I have a mind to try if I can do you any service in this case. On my word, if the money can be paid, and you can get it safe over, I might put you in a way how to be a better man than your master, if you will be honest and diligent.

Jacque. As I have behaved myself in your service, sir, you will, I hope, judge of the rest.

Mast. But perhaps you hanker after returning to England?

Jacque. No, indeed, sir; if I can but get my bread honestly here, I have no mind to go to England; for I know not how to get my bread there. If I had, I had not ’listed for a soldier.

Mast. Well, but I must ask you some questions about that part hereafter; for ’tis indeed something strange that you should list for a soldier when you had £94 in your pocket.

Jacque. I shall give your worship as particular account of that as I have of the other part of my life, if you please; but ’tis very long.

Mast. Well, we will have that another time. But to the case in hand. Are you willing I should send to anybody at London to talk with that gentleman that gave you the bill; not to take the money of him, but to ask him only whether he has so much money of yours in his hands, and whether he will part with it when you shall give order, and send the bill, or a duplicate of it; that is (says he) the copy? (And it was well he did say so, for I did not understand the word duplicate at all.)

Jacque. Yes, sir; I will give you the bill itself, if you please. I can trust it with you, though I could not with him.

Mast. No, no, young man, I won’t take it from you.

Jacque. I wish your worship would please to keep it for me, for if I should lose it, then I am quite undone.

Mast. I will keep it for you, Jacque, if you will; but then you shall have a note under my hand, signifying that I have it, and will return it you upon demand, which will be as safe to you as the bill. I won’t take it else.

So I gave my master the bill, and he gave me his note for it; and he was a faithful steward for me, as you will hear in its place. After this conference I was dismissed, and went to my work; but about two hours after, the steward, or the overseer of the plantation, came riding by, and coming up to me as I was at work, pulled a bottle out of his pocket, and calling me to him, gave me a dram of rum. When, in good manners, I had taken but a little sup, he held it out to me again, and bade me take another, and spoke wondrous civilly to me, quite otherwise than he used to do.

This encouraged me and heartened me very much, but yet I had no particular view of anything, or which way I should have any relief.

A day or two after, when we were all going out to our work in the morning, the overseer called me to him again, and gave me a dram and a good piece of bread, and bade me come off from my work about one o’clock, and come to him to the house, for he must speak with me.

When I came to him, I came, to be sure, in the ordinary habit of a poor half-naked slave. “Come hither, young man,” says he, “and give me your hoe.” When I gave it him, “Well,” says he, “you are to work no more in this plantation.”

I looked surprised, and as if I was frighted. “What have I done, sir?” said I; “and whither am I to be sent away?”

“Nay, nay,” says he, and looked very pleasantly, “do not be frighted; ’tis for your good; ’tis not to hurt you. I am ordered to make an overseer of you, and you shall be a slave no longer.”

“Alas!” says I to him, “I an overseer! I am in no condition for it. I have no clothes to put on, no linen, nothing to help myself.”

“Well, well,” says he, “you may be better used than you are aware of. Come hither with me.” So he led me into a vast, great warehouse, or, rather, set of warehouses, one within another, and calling the warehouse-keeper, “Here,” says he, “you must clothe this man, and give him everything necessary, upon the foot of number five, and give the bill to me. Our master has ordered me to allow it in the account of the west plantation.” That was, it seems, the plantation where I was to go.

Accordingly, the warehouse-keeper carried me into an inner warehouse, where were several suits of clothes of the sort his orders mentioned, which were plain but good sorts of clothes, ready made, being of a good broadcloth, about 11s. a yard in England; and with this he gave me three good shirts, two pair of shoes, stockings, and gloves, a hat, six neckcloths, and, in short, everything I could want; and when he had looked everything out, and fitted them, he lets me into a little room by itself. “Here,” says he; “go in there a slave, and come out a gentleman;” and with that carried everything into the room, and, shutting the door, bid me put them on, which I did most willingly; and now you may believe that I began to hope for something better than ordinary.

In a little while after this came the overseer, and gave me joy of my new clothes, and told me I must go with him. So I was carried to another plantation, larger than that where I worked before, and where there were two overseers or clerks; one within doors, and one without. This last was removed to another plantation, and I was placed there in his room (that is to say, as the clerk without doors), and my business was to look after the servants and negroes, and take care that they did their business, provide their food, and, in short, both govern and direct them.

I was elevated to the highest degree in my thoughts at this advancement, and it is impossible for me to express the joy of my mind upon this occasion; but there came a difficulty upon me, that shocked me so violently and went so against my very nature that I really had almost forfeited my place about it, and, in all appearance, the favour of our master, who had been so generous to me; and this was, that when I entered upon my office, I had a horse given me and a long horsewhip, like what we call in England a hunting-whip. The horse was to ride up and down all over the plantation, to see the servants and negroes did their work; and, the plantation being so large, it could not be done on foot, at least so often and so effectively as was required; and the horsewhip was given me to correct and lash the slaves and servants when they proved negligent or quarrelsome, or, in short, were guilty of any offence. This part turned the very blood within my veins, and I could not think of it with any temper, that I, who was but yesterday a servant or slave like them, and under the authority of the same lash, should lift up my hand to the cruel work which was my terror but the day before. This, I say, I could not do; insomuch that the negroes perceived it, and I had soon so much contempt upon my authority that we were all in disorder.

The ingratitude of their return for the compassion I showed them provoked me, I confess, and a little hardened my heart; and I began with the negroes, two of whom I was obliged to correct; and I thought I did it most cruelly; but after I had lashed them till every blow I struck them hurt myself and I was ready to faint at the work, the rogues laughed at me, and one of them had the impudence to say, behind my back, that, if he had the whipping of me, he would show me better how to whip a negro.

Well, however, I had no power to do it in such a barbarous manner as I found it was necessary to have it done; and the defect began to be a detriment to our master’s business. And now I began indeed to see that the cruelty so much talked of, used in Virginia and Barbados, and other colonies, in whipping the negro slaves, was not so much owing to the tyranny and passion and cruelty of the English, as had been reported, the English not being accounted to be of a cruel disposition, and really are not so; but that it is owing to the brutality and obstinate temper of the negroes, who cannot be managed by kindness and courtesy, but must be ruled with a rod of iron, beaten with scorpions, as the Scripture calls it, and must be used as they do use them, or they would rise and murder all their masters; which, their numbers considered, would not be hard for them to do, if they had arms and ammunition suitable to the rage and cruelty of their nature.

But I began to see at the same time that this brutal temper of the negroes was not rightly managed; that they did not take the best course with them to make them sensible, either of mercy or punishment; and it was evident to me that even the worst of those tempers might be brought to a compliance without the lash, or at least without so much of it as they generally inflicted.

Our master was really a man of humanity himself, and was sometimes so full of tenderness that he would forbid the severities of his overseers and stewards; but he saw the necessity of it, and was obliged at last to leave it to the discretion of his upper servants. Yet he would often bid them be merciful, and bid them consider the difference of the constitution of the bodies of the negroes, some being less able to bear the tortures of their punishment than others, and some of them less obstinate, too, than others.

However, somebody was so officious as to inform him against me upon this occasion, and let him know that I neglected his affairs, and that the servants were under no government; by which means his plantation was not duly managed, and that all things were in disorder.

This was a heavy charge for a young overseer, and his honour came like a judge, with all his attendants, to look into things and hear the cause. However, he was so just to me as that, before he censured me, he resolved to hear me fully, and that not only publicly, but in private too. And the last part of this was my particular good fortune; for, as he had formerly allowed me to speak to him with freedom, so I had the like freedom now, and had full liberty to explain and defend myself.

I knew nothing of the complaint against me till I had it from his own mouth, nor anything of his coming till I saw him in the very plantation, viewing his work, and viewing the several pieces of ground that were ordered to be new planted; and after he had rode all round, and seen things in the condition which they were to be seen in, how every thing was in its due order, and the servants and negroes were all at work, and everything appearing to his mind, he went into the house.

As I saw him come up the walks I ran towards him and made my homage, and gave him my humble thanks for the goodness he had showed me in taking me from the miserable condition I was in before, and employing and entrusting me in his business; and he looked pleasant enough, though he did not say much at first; and I attended him through the whole plantation, gave him an account of everything as we went along, answered all his objections and inquiries everywhere in such a manner as it seems he did not expect; and, as he acknowledged afterwards, everything was very much to his satisfaction.

There was an overseer, as I observed, belonging to the same plantation, who was, though not over me, yet in a work superior to mine; for his business was to see the tobacco packed up and deliver it either on board the sloops or otherwise, as our master ordered, and to receive English goods from the grand warehouse, which was at the other plantation, because that was nearest the water-side; and, in short, to keep the accounts.

This overseer, an honest and upright man, made no complaint to him of his business being neglected, as above, or of anything like it, though he inquired of him about it, and that very strictly, too.

I should have said, that as he rid over the plantation, he came in his round to the place where the servants were usually corrected when they had done any fault; and there stood two negroes, with their hands tied behind them, as it were under sentence; and when he came near them they fell on their knees and made pitiful signs to him for mercy. “Alas! alas!” says he, turning to me, “why did you bring me this way? I do not love such sights. What must I do now? I must pardon them; prithee, what have they done?” I told him the particular offences which they were brought to the place for. One had stole a bottle of rum, and had made himself drunk with it, and, when he was drunk, had done a great many mad things, and had attempted to knock one of the white servants’ brains out with a handspike, but that the white man had avoided the blow, and, striking up the negro’s heels, had seized him and brought him prisoner thither, where he had lain all night; and that I had told him he was to be whipped that day, and the next three days, twice every day.

“And could you be so cruel?” says his honour. “Why, you would kill the poor wretch; and so, beside the blood which you would have to answer for, you would lose me a lusty man negro, which cost me at least £30 or £40, and bring a reproach upon my whole plantation. Nay, and more than that, some of them in revenge would murder me, if ever it was in their power.”

“Sir,” says I, “if those fellows are not kept under by violence, I believe you are satisfied nothing is to be done with them; and it is reported in your works that I have been rather their jest than their terror, for want of using them as they deserve; and I was resolved, how much soever it is against my own disposition, that your service should not suffer for my unseasonable forbearance; and therefore, if I had scourged him to death——” “Hold,” says he; “no, no, by no means any such severity in my bounds. Remember, young man; you were once a servant. Deal as you would acknowledge it would be just to deal with you in his case, and mingle always some mercy. I desire it, and let the consequence of being too gentle be placed to my account.”

This was as much as I could desire, and the more because what passed was in public, and several, both negroes and white servants, as well as the particular persons who had accused me, heard it all, though I did not know it. “A cruel dog of an overseer,” says one of the white servants behind; “he would have whipped poor bullet-head”—so they called the negro that was to be punished—“to death if his honour had not happened to come to-day.”

However, I urged the notorious crime this fellow was guilty of, and the danger there was in such forbearance, from the refractory and incorrigible temper of the negroes, and pressed a little the necessity of making examples. But he said, “Well, well, do it the next time, but not now;” so I said no more.

The other fellow’s crime was trifling compared with this; and the master went forward, talking of it to me, and I following him, till we came to the house; when, after he had been sat down a while, he called me to him, and, not suffering my accusers to come near till he had heard my defence, he began with me thus:—

Mast. Hark ye, young man, I must have some discourse with you. Your conduct is complained of since I set you over this plantation. I thought your sense of the obligation I had laid on you would have secured your diligence and faithfulness to me.

Jacque. I am very sorry any complaint should be made of me, because the obligation I am under to your honour (and which I freely confess) does bind me to your interest in the strongest manner imaginable; and, however I may have mistaken my business, I am sure I have not willingly neglected it.

Mast. Well, I shall not condemn you without hearing you, and therefore I called you in now to tell you of it.

Jacque. I humbly thank your honour. I have but one petition more, and that is, that I may know my accusation; and, if you please, my accusers.

Mast. The first you shall, and that is the reason of my talking to you in private; and if there is any need of a further hearing, you shall know your accusers too. What you are charged with is just contrary to what appeared to me just now, and therefore you and I must come to a new understanding about it, for I thought I was too cunning for you, and now I think you have been too cunning for me.

Jacque. I hope your honour will not be offended that I do not fully understand you.

Mast. I believe you do not. Come, tell me honestly, did you really intend to whip the poor negro twice a day for four days together; that is to say, to whip him to death, for that would have been the English of it, and the end of it?

Jacque. If I may be permitted to guess, sir, I believe I know the charge that is brought against me, and that your honour has been told that I have been too gentle with the negroes, as well as other servants; and that when they deserved to be used with the accustomed severity of the country, I have not given them half enough; and that by this means they are careless of your business, and that your plantation is not well looked after, and the like.

Mast. Well, you guess right. Go on.

Jacque. The first part of the charge I confess, but the last I deny, and appeal to your honour’s strictest examination into every part of it.

Mast. If the last part could be true, I would be glad the first were; for it would be an infinite satisfaction to me that, my business not being neglected, nor our safety endangered, those poor wretches could be used with more humanity; for cruelty is the aversion of my nature, and it is the only uncomfortable thing that attends me in all my prosperity.

Jacque. I freely acknowledge, sir, that at first it was impossible for me to bring myself to that terrible work. How could I, that was but just come out of the terror of it myself, and had but the day before been a poor naked, miserable servant myself, and might be to-morrow reduced to the same condition again; how could I use this terrible weapon^[6] on the naked flesh of my fellow-servants, as well as fellow-creatures? At least, sir, when my duty made it absolutely necessary, I could not do it without the utmost horror. I beseech you, pardon me if I have such a tenderness in my nature, that though I might be fit to be your servant, I am incapable of being an executioner, having been an offender myself.

Mast. Well, but how, then, can my business be done? And how will this terrible obstinacy of the negroes, who, they tell me, can be no otherwise governed, be kept from neglect of their work, or even insolence and rebellion?

Jacque. This brings me, sir, to the latter part of my defence; and here I hope your honour will be pleased to call my accusers, or that you will give yourself the trouble of taking the exactest view of your plantation, and see, or let them show you, if anything is neglected, if your business has suffered in anything, or if your negroes or other servants are under less government than they were before; and if, on the contrary, I have found out that happy secret, to have good order kept, the business of the plantation done, and that with diligence and despatch, and that the negroes are kept in awe, the natural temper of them subjected, and the safety and peace of your family secured, as well by gentle means as by rough, by moderate correction as by torture and barbarity, by a due awe of just discipline as by the horror of unsufferable torments, I hope your honour will not lay that sin to my charge.

Mast. No, indeed; you would be the most acceptable manager that ever I employed. But how, then, does this consist with the cruel sentence you had passed on the poor fellow that is in your condemned hole yonder, who was to be whipped eight times in four days?

Jacque. Very well, sir. First, sir, he remains under the terrible apprehensions of a punishment so severe as no negro ever had before. This fellow, with your leave, I intended to release to-morrow without any whipping at all, after talking to him in my way about his offence, and raising in his mind a sense of the value of pardon. And if this makes him a better servant than the severest whipping will do, then, I presume, you would allow I have gained a point.

Mast. Ay; but what if it should not be so? For these fellows have no sense of gratitude.

Jacque. That is, sir, because they are never pardoned. If they offend, they never know what mercy is; and what, then, have they to be grateful for?

Mast. Thou art in the right indeed. Where there is no mercy showed, there is no obligation laid upon them.

Jacque. Besides, sir, if they have at any time been let go, which is very seldom, they are not told what the case is. They take no pains with them to imprint principles of gratitude on their minds, to tell them what kindness is shown them, and what they are indebted for it, and what they might gain in the end by it.

Mast. But do you think such usage would do? Would it make any impression? You persuade yourself it would, but you see ’tis against the received notion of the whole country.

Jacque. There are, it may be, public and national mistakes and errors in conduct, and this is one.

Mast. Have you tried it? You cannot say it is a mistake till you have tried and proved it to be so.

Jacque. Your whole plantation is a proof of it. This very fellow had never acted as he did if he had not gotten rum in his head, and been out of the government of himself; so that, indeed, all the offence I ought to have punished him for had been that of stealing a bottle of rum and drinking it all up; in which case, like Noah, he did not know the strength of it, and when he had it in his head he was a madman, he was as one raging and distracted; so that, for all the rest, he deserved pity rather than punishment.

Mast. Thou art right, certainly right, and thou wilt be a rare fellow if thou canst bring these notions into practice. I wish you had tried it upon any one particular negro, that I might see an example. I would give £500 if it could be brought to bear.

Jacque. I desire nothing, sir, but your favour, and the advantage of obliging you. I will show you an example of it among your own negroes, and all the plantation will acknowledge it.

Mast. You make my very heart glad within me, Jacque. If you can bring this to pass, I here give you my word I’ll not only give you your own freedom, but make a man of you for this world as long as you live.

Upon this I bowed to him very respectfully, and told him the following story:—‘There is a negro, sir, in your plantation who has been your servant several years before I came. He did a fault that was of no great consequence in itself, but perhaps would have been worse if they had indeed gone further; and I had him brought into the usual place, and tied him by the thumbs for correction, and he was told that he should be whipped and pickled in a dreadful manner. After I had made proper impressions on his mind of the terror of his punishment, and found that he was sufficiently humbled by it, I went into the house, and caused him to be brought out, just as they do when they go to correct the negroes on such occasions. When he was stripped and tied up he had two lashes given him, that was indeed very cruel ones, and I called to them to hold. ‘Hold!’ said I to the two men that had just began to lay on upon the poor fellow: ‘Hold!’ said I, ‘let me talk with him.’

“So he was taken down. Then I began and represented to him how kind you, that were his great master,^[7] had been to him; that you had never done him any harm; that you had used him gently, and he had never been brought to this punishment in so many years, though he had done some faults before; that this was a notorious offence, for he had stolen some rum, and made himself and two other negroes drunk-mad;^[8] and had abused two women negroes, who had husbands in our master’s service, but in another plantation; and played several pranks, and for this I had appointed him this punishment.

“He shook his head, and made signs that he was muchee sorree, as he called it. ‘And what will you say or do,’ said I, ‘if I should prevail with the great master to pardon you? I have a mind to go and see if I can beg for you.’ He told me he would lie down, let me kill him. ‘Me will,’ says he, ‘run, go, fetch, bring for you as long as me live.’ This was the opportunity I had a mind to have, to try whether, as negroes have all the other faculties of reasonable creatures, they had not also some sense of kindness, some principles of natural generosity, which, in short, is the foundation of gratitude; for gratitude is the product of generous principles.”

“You please me with the beginning of this story,” says he; “I hope you have carried it on.”

“Yes, sir,” says I; “it has been carried on further perhaps than you imagine, or will think has been possible in such a case.

“But I was not so arrogant as to assume the merit to myself. ‘No, no,’ said I, ‘I do not ask you to go or run for me; you must do all that for our great master, for it will be from him entirely that you will be pardoned at all, for your offence is against him; and what will you say? Will you be grateful to him, and run, go, fetch, bring, for him, as long as you live, as you have said you would for me?’

“’Yes, indeed,’ says he, ‘and muchee do, muchee do, for you too’ (he would not leave me out); ‘you ask him for me.’

“Well, I put off all his promised gratitude to me from myself, as was my duty, and placed it to your account; told him I knew you was muchee good, muchee pitiful, and I would persuade you if I could; and so told him I would go to you, and he should be whipped no more till I came again; but, ‘Hark ye, Mouchat,’ says I (that was the negro’s name), ’they tell me, when I came hither, that there is no showing kindness to any of you negroes; that when we spare you from whipping you laugh at us, and are the worse.’

“He looked very serious at me, and said, ‘Oh, that not so; the masters say so, but no be so, no be so, indeede, indeede,’ and so we parleyed.”

Jacque. Why do they say so, then? To be sure they have tried you all.

Negro. No, no, they no try; they say so, but no try.

Jacque. I hear them all say so.

Negro. Me tell you the true; they have no mercie; they beat us cruel, all cruel; they never have show mercie. How can they tell we be no better?

Jacque. What! do they never spare?

Negro. Master, me speakee the true; they never give mercie; they always whippee, lashee, knockee down, all cruel. Negro be muchee better man, do muchee better work, but they tell us no mercie.

Jacque. But what, do they never show any mercy?

Negro. No, never; no, never; all whippee; all whippee, cruel, worse than they whippee de horse, whippee de dog.

Jacque. But would they be better if they did?

Negro. Yes, yes; negro be muchee better if they be mercie. When they be whippee, whippee, negro muchee cry, muchee hate; would kill if they had de gun. But when they makee de mercie, then negro tell de great tankee, and love to worke, and do muchee worke; and because he good master to them.

Jacque. They say no; you would laugh at them and mock when they show mercy.

Negro. How they say when they show mercie? They never show mercie; me never see them show one mercie since me live.

“Now, sir,” said I, “if this be so, really they go, I dare say, contrary to your inclination, for I see you are but too full of pity for the miserable. I saw it in my own case; and upon a presumption that you had rather have your work done from a principle of love than fear, without making your servants bleed for every trifle, if it were possible; I say, upon this presumption I dealt with this Mouchat, as you shall hear.”

Mast. I have never met with anything of this kind since I have been a planter, which is now about forty years. I am delighted with the story. Go on; I expect a pleasant conclusion.

Jacque. The conclusion, sir, will be, I believe, as much to your satisfaction as the beginning; for it every way answered my expectation, and will yours also, and show you how you might be faithfully served if you pleased, for ’tis certain you are not so served now.

Mast. No, indeed; they serve me but just as they do the devil, for fear I should hurt them. But ’tis contrary to an ingenuous spirit to delight in such service. I abhor it, if I could but know how to get any other.

Jacque. It is easy, sir, to show you that you may be served upon better principles, and consequently be better served, and more to your satisfaction; and I dare undertake to convince you of it.

Mast. Well, go on with the story.

Jacque. After I had talked thus to him I said, “Well, Mouchat, I shall see how you will be afterwards, if I can get our great master to be merciful to you at this time.”

Negro. Yes, you shall see; you muchee see, muchee see.

“Upon this I called for my horse and went from him, and made as if I rode away to you, who they told me was in the next plantation; and having stayed four or five hours, I came back and talked to him again, told him that I had waited on you, and that you had heard of his offence, was highly provoked, and had resolved to cause him to be severely punished for an example to all the negroes in the plantation; but that I had told you how penitent he was, and how good he would be if you would pardon him; and had at last prevailed on you. That you had told me what all people said of the negroes; how, that to show them mercy was to make them think you were never in earnest with them, and that you did but trifle and play with them. However, that I had told you what he had said of himself, and that it was not true of the negroes, and that the white men said it, but that they could not know because they did never show any mercy, and therefore had never tried; that I had persuaded you to show mercy, to try whether kindness would prevail as much as cruelty. ‘And now, Mouchat,’ said I, ‘you will be let go. Pray let our great master see that I have said true.’ So I ordered him to be untied, gave him a dram of rum out of my pocket-bottle, and ordered them to give him some victuals.

“When the fellow was let loose, he came to me and kneeled down to me, and took hold of my legs and of my feet, and laid his head upon the ground, and sobbed and cried like a child that had been corrected, but could not speak for his life; and thus he continued a long time. I would have taken him up, but he would not rise; but I cried as fast as he, for I could not bear to see a poor wretch lie on the ground to me, that was but a servant the other day like himself. At last, but not till a quarter of an hour, I made him get up, and then he spoke. ‘Me muchee know good great master, muchee good you master. No negro unthankful; me die for them, do me so muchee kind.’

“I dismissed him then, and bid him go to his wife (for he was married), and not work that afternoon; but as he was going away I called him again, and talked thus to him.

“’Now, Mouchat,’ says I, ‘you see the white men can show mercy. Now you must tell all the negroes what has been reported of them; that they regard nothing but the whip; that if they are used gently they are the worse, not the better; and that this is the reason why the white men show them no mercy; and convince them that they would be much better treated and used kindlier if they would show themselves as grateful for kind usage as humble after torment; and see if you can work on them.’

“’Me go, me go,’ says he; ‘me muchee talk to them. They be muchee glad as me be, and do great work to be used kind by de great master.’”

Mast. Well, but now what testimony have you of this gratitude you speak of? Have you seen any alteration among them?

Jacque. I come next to that part, sir. About a month after this I caused a report to be spread abroad in the plantation that I had offended you, the great master, and that I was turned out of the plantation, and was to be hanged. Your honour knows that some time ago you sent me upon your particular business into Potuxent River, where I was absent twelve days; then I took the opportunity to have this report spread about among the negroes, to see how it would work.

Mast. What! to see how Mouchat would take it?

Jacque. Yes, sir; and it made a discovery indeed. The poor fellow did not believe it presently, but finding I was still absent, he went to the head-clerk, and standing at his door, said nothing, but looked like a fool of ten years old. After some time the upper overseer came out, and seeing him stand there, at first said nothing, supposing he had been sent of some errand; but observing him to stand stock-still, and that he was in the same posture and place during the time that he had passed and repassed two or three times, he stops short the last time of his coming by. “What do you want,” says he to him, “that you stand idle here so long?”

“’Me speakee; me tell something,’ says he.

“Then the overseer thought some discovery was at hand, and began to listen to him. ‘What would you tell me?’ says he.

“’Me tell! Pray,’ says he, ‘where be de other master?’

“He meant he would ask where he was. ‘What other master do you mean?’ says the clerk. ‘What! do you want to speak with the great master? He can’t be spoke with by you. Pray what is your business? Cannot you tell it to me?’

“’No, no; me no speakee the great master—the other master,’ says Mouchat.”

“’What! the colonel?’ says the clerk.

“’Yes, yes; the colonel,’ says he.

“’Why, don’t you know that he is to be hanged to-morrow,’ says the clerk, ‘for making the great master angry?’^[9]

“’Yes, yes,’ says Mouchat; ‘me know, me know; but me want speak; me tell something.’

“’Well, what would you say?’ says the clerk.

“’Oh! me no let him makee de great master angry.’ With that he kneeled down to the clerk.

“’What ails you?’ says the clerk. ‘I tell you he must be hanged.’

“’No, no,’ says he; ‘no hang de master. Me kneel for him to great master.’

“’You kneel for him!’ says the clerk.^[10] ’What! do you think the great master will mind you? He has made the great master angry, and must be hanged, I tell you. What signifies your begging?’

“Negro. Oh! me pray, me pray the great master for him.

“Clerk. Why, what ails you that you would pray for him?

“Negro. Oh! he beggee the great master for me; now me beggee for him. The great master muchee good, muchee good; he pardon me when the other master beggee me; now he pardon him when me beggee for him again.

“Clerk. No, no; your begging won’t do. Will you be hanged for him? If you do that, something may be.

“Negro. Yes, yes; me be hang for de poor master that beggee for me. Mouchat shall hang; the great master shall hangee me, whippee me; anything to save the poor master that beggee me; yes, yes, indeed.

“Clerk. Are you in earnest, Mouchat?

“Negro. Yes, indeed; me tellee de true. The great master shall know me tellee de true, for he shall see the white man hangee me, Mouchat. Poor negro Mouchat will be hangee, be whippee, anything for the poor master that beggee for me.

“With this the poor fellow cried most pitifully, and there was no room to question his being in earnest; when on a sudden I appeared, for I was fetched to see all this transaction. I was not in the house at first, but was just come home from the business you sent me of, and heard it all; and indeed neither the clerk or I could bear it any longer, so he came out to me. ‘Go to him,’ says he; ‘you have made an example that will never be forgot, that a negro can be grateful. Go to him,’ adds he, ‘for I can talk to him no longer.’ So I appeared, and spoke to him presently, and let him see that I was at liberty; but to hear how the poor fellow behaved your honour cannot but be pleased.”

Mast. Prithee go on. I am pleased with it all; ’tis all a new scene of negro life to me, and very moving.

Jacque. For a good while he stood as if he had been thunderstruck and stupid; but, looking steadily at me, though not speaking a word, at last he mutters to himself, with a kind of laugh, “Ay, ay,” says he, “Mouchat see, Mouchat no see; me wakee, me no wakee; no hangee, no hangee; he live truly, very live;” and then on a sudden he runs to me, snatches me away as if I had been a boy of ten years old, and takes me up upon his back and runs away with me, till I was fain to cry out to him to stop. Then he sets me down, and looks at me again, then falls a-dancing about me as if he had been bewitched, just as you have seen them do about their wives and children when they are merry.

“Well, then, he began to talk with me, and told me what they had said to him, how I was to be hanged. ‘Well,’ says I, ‘Mouchat, and would you have been satisfied to be hanged to save me?’ ‘Yes, yes,’ says he; ’be truly hangee, to beggee you.’

“’But why do you love me so well, Mouchat?’ said I.

“’Did you no beggee me,’ he says, ‘at the great master? You savee me, make great master muchee good, muchee kind, no whippee me; me no forget; me be whipped, be hanged, that you no be hanged; me die, that you no die; me no let any bad be with you all while that me live.’

“Now, sir, your honour may judge whether kindness, well managed, would not oblige these people as well as cruelty, and whether there are principles of gratitude in them or no.”

Mast. But what, then, can be the reason that we never believed it to be so before?

Jacque. Truly, sir, I fear that Mouchat gave the true reason.

Mast. What was that, pray? That we were too cruel?

Jacque. That they never had any mercy showed them; that we never tried them whether they would be grateful or no; that if they did a fault they were never spared, but punished with the utmost cruelty; so that they had no passion, no affection, to act upon but that of fear, which necessarily brought hatred with it; but that if they were used with compassion they would serve with affection as well as other servants. Nature is the same, and reason governs in just proportions in all creatures; but having never been let taste what mercy is, they know not how to act from a principle of love.

Mast. I am convinced it is so. But now, pray tell me, how did you put this in practice with the poor negroes now in bonds yonder, when you passed such a cruel sentence upon them that they should be whipped twice a day, for four days together? Was that showing mercy?

Jacque. My method was just the same; and if you please to inquire of Mr.——, your other servant, you will be satisfied that it was so; for we agreed upon the same measures as I took with Mouchat; namely, first to put them into the utmost horror and apprehensions of the cruellest punishment that they ever heard of, and thereby enhance the value of their pardon, which was to come as from yourself, but not without our great intercession. Then I was to argue with them, and work upon their reason, to make the mercy that was showed them sink deep into their minds and give lasting impressions; explain the meaning of gratitude to them, and the nature of an obligation, and the like, as I had done with Mouchat.

Mast. I am answered. Your method is certainly right, and I desire you may go on with it; for I desire nothing on this side heaven more than to have all my negroes serve me from principles of gratitude for my kindness to them. I abhor to be feared like a lion, like a tyrant. It is a violence upon nature every way, and is the most disagreeable thing in the world to a generous mind.

Jacque. But, sir, I am doubtful that you may not believe that I intended to act thus with those poor fellows. I beseech you to send for Mr.——, that he may tell you what we had agreed on before I speak with him.

Mast. What reason have I to doubt that?

Jacque. I hope you have not; but I should be very sorry you should think me capable of executing such a sentence as you have heard me own I had passed on them, and there can be no way effectually to clear it up but this.

Mast. Well, seeing you put so much weight upon it, he shall be called for.

[He was called, and being ordered by the master to tell the measures that were concerted between them for the punishment or management of those negroes, he gave it just as Jacque had done before.]

Jacque. I hope, sir, you are now not only satisfied of the truth of the account I gave relating to the method we had agreed on, but of its being so proper and so likely to answer your end.

Mast. I am fully satisfied, and shall be glad to see that it answers the end; for, as I have said, nothing can be more agreeable to me. Nothing has so much robbed me of the comfort of all my fortunes as the cruelty used, in my name, on the bodies of those poor slaves.

Jacque. It is certainly wrong, sir; it is not only wrong as it is barbarous and cruel; but it is wrong, too, as it is the worst way of managing and of having your business done.

Mast. It is my aversion; it fills my very soul with horror. I believe if I should come by while they were using those cruelties on the poor creatures, I should either sink down at the sight of it or fly into a rage and kill the fellow that did it; though it is done, too, by my own authority.

Jacque. But, sir, I dare say I shall convince you also that it is wrong in respect of interest, and that your business shall be better discharged and your plantations better ordered, and more work done by the negroes who shall be engaged by mercy and lenity than by those who are driven and dragged by the whips and the chains of a merciless tormentor.

Mast. I think the nature of the thing speaks itself. Doubtless it should be so, and I have often thought it would be so, and a thousand times wished it might be so; but all my English people pretend otherwise, and that it is impossible to bring the negroes to any sense of kindness, and consequently not to any obedience of love.

Jacque. It may be true, sir, that there may be found here and there a negro of a senseless, stupid, sordid disposition, perfectly untractable, undocible, and incapable of due impressions; especially incapable of the generosity of principle which I am speaking of. You know very well, sir, there are such among Christians as well as among the negroes; whence else came the English proverb, That if you save a thief from the gallows, he shall be the first to cut your throat. But, sir, if such a refractory, undocible fellow comes in our way, he must be dealt with, first by the smooth ways to try him, then by the violent way to break his temper, as they break a horse; and if nothing will do, such a wretch should be sold off, and others bought in his room; for the peace of the plantation should not be broken for one devilish-tempered fellow. And if this was done I doubt not you should have all your plantations carried on and your work done, and not a negro or a servant upon it but what would not only work for you, but even die for you, if there was an occasion for it, as you see this poor Mouchat would have done for me.

Mast. Well, go on with your measures, and may you succeed. I’ll promise you I will fully make you amends for it. I long to have these cruelties out of use, in my plantation especially. As for others, let them do as they will.

Our master being gone, I went to the prisoners, and first I suffered them to be told that the great master had been there, and that he had been inclined to pardon them, till he knew what their crime was; but then he said it was so great a fault that it must be punished. Besides, the man that talked to them told them that the great master said that he knew if he had pardoned them they would be but the worse, for that the negroes were never thankful for being spared, and that there were no other ways to make them obedient but severity.

One of the poor fellows, more sensible than the other, answered, if any negro be badder for being kindly used, they should be whipped till they were muchee better; but that he never knew that, for that he never knew the negro be kindly use.

This was the same thing as the other had said, and indeed was but too true, for the overseers really knew no such thing as mercy; and that notion of the negroes being no other way to be governed but by cruelty had been the occasion that no other method was ever tried among them.

Again, if a slack hand had at any time been held upon them, it had not been done with discretion, or as a point of mercy, and managed with the assistance of argument to convince the negroes of the nature and reason of it, and to show them what they ought to do in return for it; but it was perhaps the effect of negligence, ill conduct, and want of application to the business of the plantation; and then it was no wonder that the negroes took the advantage of it.

Well, I carried on the affair with these two negroes just as I did with Mouchat, so I need not repeat the particulars; and they were delivered with infinite acknowledgments and thanks, even to all the extravagances of joy usual in those people on such occasions. And such was the gratitude of those two pardoned fellows that they were the most faithful and most diligent servants ever after that belonged to the whole plantation, Mouchat excepted.

In this manner I carried on the plantation fully to his satisfaction; and before a year more was expired there was scarce any such thing as correction known in the plantation, except upon a few boys, who were incapable of the impressions that good usage would have made, even upon them too, till they had lived to know the difference.

It was some time after this conference that our great master, as we called him, sent for me again to his dwelling-house, and told me he had had an answer from England from his friend, to whom he had written about my bill. I was a little afraid that he was going to ask me leave to send it to London; but he did not say anything like that, but told me that his friend had been with the gentleman, and that he owned the bill, and that he had all the money in his hand that the bill had mentioned; but that he had promised the young man that had given him the money (meaning me) not to pay the money to anybody but himself, though they should bring the bill; the reason of which was, that I did not know who might get the bill away from me.

“But now, Colonel Jacque,” says he, “as you wrote him an account where you was, and by what wicked arts you were trepanned, and that it was impossible for you to have your liberty till you could get the money, my friend at London has written to me, that, upon making out a due copy of the bill here, attested by a notary and sent to him, and your obligation likewise attested, whereby you oblige yourself to deliver the original to his order after the money is paid, he will pay the money.”

I told him I was willing to do whatever his honour directed; and so the proper copies were drawn as I had been told were required.

“But now, what will you do with this money, Jacque?” says he, smiling. “Will you buy your liberty of me, and go to planting?”

I was too cunning for him now indeed, for I remembered what he had promised me; and I had too much knowledge of the honesty of his principles, as well as of the kindness he had for me, to doubt his being as good as his word; so I turned all this talk of his upon him another way. I knew that when he asked me if I would buy my liberty and go to planting, it was to try if I would leave him; so I said, “As to buying my liberty, sir—that is to say, going out of your service—I had much rather buy more time in your service, and I am only unhappy that I have but two years to serve.”

“Come, come, colonel,” says he, “don’t flatter me; I love plain dealing. Liberty is precious to everybody; if you have a mind to have your money brought over, you shall have your liberty to begin for yourself, and I will take care you shall be well used by the country, and get you a good plantation.”

I still insisted that I would not quit his service for the best plantation in Maryland; that he had been so good to me, and I believed I was so useful to him, that I could not think of it; and at last I added I hoped he could not believe but I had as much gratitude as a negro.

He smiled, and said he would not be served upon those terms; that he did not forget what he had promised, nor what I had done in his plantation; and that he was resolved in the first place to give me my liberty. So he pulls out a piece of paper, and throws it to me: “There,” says he, “there’s a certificate of your coming on shore, and being sold to me for five years, of which you have lived three with me; and now you are your own master.” I bowed, and told him that I was sure, if I was my own master, I would be his servant as long as he would accept of my service. And now we strained courtesies, and he told me I should be his servant still; but it should be on two conditions: first, that he would give me £30 a year and my board for my managing the plantation I was then employed in; and, secondly, that at the same time he would procure me a new plantation to begin upon my own account, “For, Colonel Jacque,” says he, smiling, “though you are but a young man, yet ’tis time you were doing something for yourself.”

I answered that I could do little at a plantation for myself, unless I neglected his business, which I was resolved not to do on any terms whatever, but that I would serve him faithfully, if he would accept of me, as long as he lived. “So you shall,” says he again, “and serve yourself too.” And thus we parted for that time.

Here I am to observe in the general, to avoid dwelling too long upon a story, that as the two negroes who I delivered from punishment were ever after the most diligent and laborious poor fellows in the whole plantation as above, except Mouchat, of whom I shall speak more by-and-by, so they not only were grateful themselves for their good usage, but they influenced the whole plantation; so that the gentle usage and lenity with which they had been treated had a thousand times more influence upon them to make them diligent than all the blows and kicks, whippings, and other tortures could have which they had been used to. And now the plantation was famous for it; so that several other planters began to do the same, though I cannot say it was with the same success, which might be for want of taking pains with them and working upon their passions in a right manner. It appeared that negroes were to be reasoned into things as well as other people, and it was by thus managing their reason that most of the work was done.

However, as it was, the plantations in Maryland were the better for this undertaking, and they are to this day less cruel and barbarous to their negroes than they are in Barbados and Jamaica; and ’tis observed the negroes are not in these colonies so desperate, neither do they so often run away or so often plot mischief against their master, as they do in those.

I have dwelt the longer upon it that, if possible, posterity might be persuaded to try gentler methods with those miserable creatures, and to use them with humanity; assuring them that if they did so, adding the common prudence that every particular case would direct them to for itself, the negroes would do their work faithfully and cheerfully; they would not find any of that refractoriness and sullenness in their temper that they pretend now to complain of, but they would be the same as their Christian servants, except that they would be the more thankful, and humble, and laborious of the two.

I continued in this station between five and six years after this, and in all that time we had not one negro whipped, except, as I observed before, now and then an unlucky boy, and that only for trifles. I cannot say but we had some ill-natured, ungovernable negroes; but if at any time such offended, they were pardoned the first time, in the manner as above, and the second time were ordered to be turned out of the plantation. And this was remarkable, that they would torment themselves at the apprehension of being turned away, more by a great deal than if they had been to be whipped, for then they were only sullen and heavy. Nay, at length we found the fear of being turned out of the plantation had as much effect to reform them—that is to say, make them more diligent—than any torture would have done; and the reason was evident, namely, because in our plantation they were used like men, in the other like dogs.

My master owned the satisfaction he took in this blessed change, as he called it, as long as he lived; and as he was so engaged by seeing the negroes grateful, he showed the same principle of gratitude to those that served him as he looked for in those that he served, and particularly to me; and so I come briefly to that part. The first thing he did after giving me my liberty as above, and making me an allowance, was to get the country bounty to me—that is to say, a quantity of land to begin and plant for myself.

But this he managed a way by himself, and, as I found afterwards, took up, that is, purchased in my name, about three hundred acres of land, in a more convenient place than it would have otherwise been allotted me; and this he did by his interest with the lord proprietor; so that I had an extent of ground marked out to me, not next but very near one of his own plantations. When I made my acknowledgment for this to him, he told me plainly that I was not beholden to him for it all; for he did it that I might not be obliged to neglect his business for the carrying on my own, and on that account he would not reckon to me what money he paid, which, however, according to the custom of the country, was not a very great sum—I think about £40 or £50.

Thus he very generously gave me my liberty, advanced this money for me, put me into a plantation for myself, and gave me £30 a year wages for looking after one of his own plantations.

“But, Colonel,” says he to me, “giving you this plantation is nothing at all to you if I do not assist you to support it and to carry it on, and therefore I will give you credit for whatever is needful to you for the carrying it on; such as tools, provisions for servants, and some servants to begin; materials to build outhouses, and conveniences of all sorts for the plantation, and to buy hogs, cows, horses for stock, and the like; and I’ll take it out of your cargo, which will come from London, for the money of your bill.”

This was highly obliging and very kind, and the more so, as it afterwards appeared. In order to this he sent two servants of his own who were carpenters. As for timber, boards, planks, and all sorts of such things, in a country almost all made of wood they could not be wanting. These run me up a little wooden house in less than three weeks’ time, where I had three rooms, a kitchen, an outhouse, and two large sheds at a distance from the house for store houses, almost like barns, with stables at the end of them; and thus I was set up in the world, and, in short, removed by the degrees that you have heard from a pickpocket to a kidnapped, miserable slave in Virginia (for Maryland is Virginia, speaking of them at a distance); then from a slave to a head-officer or overseer of slaves, and from thence to a master-planter.

I had now, as above, a house, a stable, two warehouses, and three hundred acres of land; but, as we say, bare walls make giddy hussies, so I had neither axe nor hatchet to cut down the trees; horse, nor hog, nor cow to put upon the land; not a hoe or a spade to break ground, nor a pair of hands but my own to go to work upon.

But Heaven and kind masters make up all those things to a diligent servant; and I mention it because people who are either transported or otherwise trepanned into those places are generally thought to be rendered miserable and undone; whereas, on the contrary, I would encourage them, upon my own experience, to depend upon it, that if their own diligence in the time of service gains them but a good character, which it will certainly do if they can deserve it, there is not the poorest and most despicable felon that ever went over but may, after his time is served, begin for himself, and may in time be sure of raising a good plantation.

For example, I will now take a man in the meanest circumstances of a servant, who has served out his five or seven years; suppose a transported wretch for seven years. The custom of the place was then—what it is since I know not—that on his master’s certifying that he had served his time out faithfully, he had fifty acres of land allotted him for planting, and on this plan he begins.

Some had a horse, a cow, and three hogs given, or rather lent, them, as a stock for the land, which they made an allowance for at a certain time and rate.

Custom has made it a trade to give credit to such beginners as these for tools, clothes, nails, ironwork, and other things necessary for their planting, and which the persons so giving credit to them are to be paid for out of the crop of tobacco which they shall plant. Nor is it in the debtor’s power to defraud the creditor of payment in that manner; and as tobacco is their coin as well as their product, so all things are to be purchased at a certain quantity of tobacco, the price being so rated.

Thus the naked planter has credit at his beginning, and immediately goes to work to cure the land and plant tobacco; and from this little beginning have some of the most considerable planters in Virginia, and in Maryland also, raised themselves—namely, from being without a hat or a shoe to estates of £40,000 or £50,000; and in this method, I may add, no diligent man ever miscarried, if he had health to work and was a good husband; for he every year increases a little, and every year adding more land and planting more tobacco, which is real money, he must gradually increase in substance, till at length he gets enough to buy negroes and other servants, and then never works himself any more.