MARCH 8(Sunday.)
I resumed my journey; but my horses were so completely knocked up that I was obliged to hire an additional pair to convey me to Miss Hetley's inn, on the other side of the Yallacks River, which is nineteen miles from Kingston. This river, as well as that of Morant (which I passed about ten miles further), both in breadth and strength, sets all bridges at defiance ; and in the rainy season it is sometimes impassable for several weeks. On this occasion there was but little water in either, and I arrived without difficulty at Port Morant, where I found horses sent by my trustee to convey me to Hordley. The road led up to the mountains, and was one of the steepest, roughest, and most fatiguing that I ever travelled--in spite of its picturesque beauties.
At length I reached my journey's end, jaded and wearied to death: here I expected to find a perfect paradise, and I found a perfect bell. Report bad assured me that Hordley was the best-managed estate in the island ; and, as far as the soil was concerned, report appeared to have said true : but my trustee tiad also assured me that my negroes were the most contented and best-disposed, and here there was a lamentable incorrectness in the account. I found them in a perfect uproar; complaints of all kinds stunned me from all quarters : all the blacks accused all the whites, and all the whites accused all the blacks; and as far as I could make out, both parties were extremely in the right. There was no attachment to the soil to be found here ; the negroes declared, one and all, that if I went away and left them to groan under the- same system of oppression - without appeal or hope of redress, they would -follow my carriage and establish themselves at Cornwall. I had soon discovered enough to be certain that, although they told me plenty of falsehoods, many of their complains were but too well founded ; and yet how to protect them for the future, or satisfy them for the present was no easy matter to decide. Trusting to these fallacious reports of the Arcadian state of happiness upon Hordley, I had supposed that I should have nothing to do there but grant a few indul- gences and establish the regulations already adopted with suc- cess at Cornwall ; distribute a little money, and allow a couple of play-days for dancing : and under this persuasion I had made it quite impossible for me to remain above a week at Hordley, which I conceived to be fully sufficient for the above purpose. As to grievances to be redressed, I wa totally unprepared for any such neccessity ; yet now they poured in upon me incessantly, each more serious than the former ; and before twenty-four hours were elapsed I had been assured that, in order to produce any sort of tranquility upon the estate, I must begin be displacing the trustee, the physician, the four white book-keepers, and the four black governors ; all of whom I was modestly required to remove, and provide better substitutes, in the space of fice days and a morning. What with the general clamour, the assertions and denials, the tears and the passion, the odious falsehoods, and the still more odious truths, and ( worst of all to me) my own vexation and disappointment at finding these things so different from my expectations, my brain was nearly turned, and I felt strongly tempted to set off as fast as I could, and leave all these black and white devils to tear one another to pieces--an amusement in which the appeared to be perfectly ready to indulge themselves. It was, however, considerable relief to me to find, upo examination, that no act of personal ill-treatment was alleged against the trustee himself, who was allowed to be sufficiently humane in his own nature, and was only complained of for allowing the negroes to be maltreated by the book-keepers, and other inferior agents, with absolute impunity. Being an excellent planter, he confined his attention entirely to cultivation of the soil, and when the negroes came to complain of some act of cruelty or oppression committed by the book-keepers or the black governors, he reused to listen to them, and left their complaints uninquired into, and consequently unredressed. The result was, that the negroes were worse off than if he had been a cruel man himself ; for his cruelty would have given them only one tyrant, whereas his indolence left them at the mercy of eight. Still they said they would be well contented to have him continue their trustee, provided that I would appoint some protector, to whom they might appeal in cases of injustice and ill-usage. The trustee declaring himself well satisfied that some such appointment should take place, a neighbouring gentleman (whoe humanity to his own negroes had established him in high favour with mine ) was selected for this purpose. I next ordered one of the book-keepers ( of the strociious brutality of whose conduct the trustee himself, upon examination, allowed that there could be no doubt) to quit the estate in two hours, under pain of prosecution : away went the man, and when I arose the next morning, another book-keeper had taken himself off of his own accord, and that in so much haste that he left all his clothes behind him. My next step was to displace the chief black governor, a man deservedly odious to the negroes, and whom a gross and insolent lie told to myself enabled me to punish without seeming to displace him in compliance with their complaints againsts him : and these sources of discontent eing removed, Iread tothem my regulations for allowing them new hollidays, additional allowances of salt-fish, rum, and sugar, with a variety of other indulgences and measures taken for protection, &c. All which, assisted by a couple of dances and distribution of money on the day of my departure, had such an effect upon their tempers that I left them in as good humour, apparently, as I found them in bad.
But to leave them was no such easy matter ; the weather had been bad from the time of my commencing my journey, but from the moment of my reaching Hordley it became abominable. --the rain poured down in cataracts incessantly. The old crazy house stands on the top of a hill, and the north wind, howled round it night and day, shaking it from top to bottom, and threatening to become a hurricane. The storm was provided with a very suitable accompaniment of thunder and lightning : and, to complete the business, down came the mountain-torrents, and swelled Plantain-Garden River to such a degree that it broke down the dam-head, stopped the mill, and all work was at a stand-still for two days and nights. But the worst of all was that this same river lay between me and Kingston: bridge there was none, and it soon became utterly impassable. Thus it continued for four days ; on the fifth (the day which I had appointed for my departure, and on which I gave the negroes a parting holiday) the water appeared to be somewhat abated at a ford about four miles distant; for as to crossing at my own, that was quite out of the question for a week at least. A negro was despatched on horseback to ascertain the height of the water; his report was very unfavourable. However, as at worst I could but return, and had no better means of employing my time, I resolved to make the experiment. About forty of the youngest and stron gest negroes. left their -dancing and drinking and ran on foot to see me safe over the water. The few hours which had elapsed since my messenger's examination had operated very favourably towards the reduction of the water, although it was still very high. But, by a servant going before to ascertain the, least dangerous passage, and the negroes rushing all into river to break the force of the stream, and support the carriage on both sides, we were enabled to struggle to the opposite bank, and were landed in safety, amidst loud cheering from my sable attendants, who then left me, many with tears running down their cheeks, and all with thanks for the protection which I had shown them, and earnest entreaties that I would come to visit them another time. Whether my visit will have been produc- tive of essential service to them, must remain a doubt; the trustee at least promised me most solemnly that my regulations for their happiness and security should be obeyed; and that the slave-laws ( of which I had detected, beyond a doubt, some very flagrant violations) should be carried into effect, for the future, with the most scrupulous exactness. If he breaks his promise, and I discover it, I have pledged myself most solemnly to remove him, however great may be his merits as a planter ; if he contrives to keep me in ignorance of his proceedings (which, however, from the precautions which I have now taken, I trust will be no easy matter), and the state of the negroes should continue after my departure to be what it was before my arrival, then I can only console myself with thinking that the
guilt is his, not mine; and that it is on his head that the curse of the sufferers and the vengeance of heaven will fall, not on my own. I have been told that this estate of mine is one of the most beautiful in the island. It may be so, for anything that I can tell of the matter. The badness of the weather, and the disquietude of my mind, during the whole of my short stay, made everything look gloomy and hideous ; and when I once found myself again beyond my own limits, I felt my spirits lighter by a hundred weight.
Of all the points which had displeased me at Hordley, none had made me more angry for the time than the lie told me by the chief governor, which occasioned my displacing him. This fellow, who for the credit of our family (no doubt) had got himself christened by the name of John Lewis, had the impudence to walk into my parlour just as I was preparing to go to bed, and inform me that he could not get the business of the estate done. Why not? He could get nobody to come to the night- work at the mill, which be supposed was the consequence of my indulging the negroes so much. Indeed! and where were the people who ought to come to their night-work? In the negro village? No ; they were in the hospital, and refused to come out to work. Upon which I blazed up like a barrel of gunpowder, and asked him whether any person really had been inso- lent enough to select a whole night-party from the sick people in the hospital, not one of whom ought to stir out of it till well? There stood the fellow, trembling and stammering, and unable, to get out an answer, while I stamped up and down the piazza, storming and swearing, banging all the doors till the house seemed ready to tumble about our ears, and doing my best to out-Herod Herod, till at last I ordered the man to be gone that instant, and get the work done properly. He did not wait to be told twice, and was off in a twinkling. In a quarter of an hour I sent for him again, and inquired whether lie had succeeded in getting the proper people to work at the mill ? Upon which be had the assurance to answer, that all the people were there, and that it was not of their not being at the mill that he had meant to complain. Of what was it then ? " Of their not being in the field." When ? " Yesterday. He could not get the negroes to work, and so there had been none done all day." And who refused to come ? " All the people." But who? "All." But who, who, who ? --their names? " He could not remember them all." Name one. " There was Beck." And who else? "There was Sally." And who else? "There was .... there was Beck." But who else? "Beck .... and Sally" ... But who else? who else? " Little Edward had gone out of the hospital, and had not come to work." Well! Beck and Sally, and little Edward; who else? " Beck, and little Edward, and Sally." But who else : I say, who else ? "He could not remember anybody else." Upon which I put myself into a most imperial passion. " Why, you most impudeut of all impudent fellows that ever told a lie, have you really presumed to disturb me at this time of night to tell me that you can't get the business done, and that none of the people would come to work, and all because two old women and a little boy missed coming into the, field yesterday !" Down dropped theipfellow in a moment upon his marrow-bones : " Oh, me good massa," cried he (and out came the truth, which I knew well enough before he told me), " me no come of my own head ; me ordered to come; but me never tell massa lie more, sp me pray him forgib me! " But his obeying any person on my own estate in preference to me, and suffering himself to be converted into an instrument of my annoyance, was not to be easily overlooked, so I turned him out of the house, and the next morning degraded him to the rank of a common field-negro. The trustee pleaded hard for his being permitted to return to the waggons, where he would be useful. But I was obdurate. Then came his wife to beg for him, and then his mother, and then his cousin, and then his cousin's cousin; still I was firm: till on the day of my departure the new chief governor came to me in the name of the whole estate, and begged me allow John Lewis to return to the command of the waggons " for that all the negroes said that it would be too sad a thing for them to see a man who had held the highest place among them degraded quite to be a common field-negro." There was something in this appeal which argued so good a feeling, that I did not think it right to resist any longer; so I hinted that if the trustee should ask it again as a favour to himself, I might perhaps relent; and the proper application being thus made, John Lewis was allowed to quit the field, but with a positive injunction against his ever being employed again in any office of authority over the negroes.
I found baptism in high vogue upon Hordley, but I am sorry to say, that I could not discover much effect produced upon their minds by having been made Christians, except in one particular : Whenever one of them told me a monstrous lie (and they told me whole dozens), he never failed to conclude his story by saying, " And now, massa, you know I've been christened, and if you do not believe what I say, I'm ready to buss the book to the truth of it." The whole advantages to be derived by negroes from becoming Christians seemed to consist with them in two points : being a superior species of magic itself, it preserved them from black Obeah ; and by enabling thein to take an oath upon the Bible to the truth of any lie which it might suit them to tell, they believed that it would give them the power of humbugging the white people with perfect ease and convenience. They had observed the importance attached by the whites to such an attestation, and the conviction which it always appeared to carry with it ; as to the crime or penalty of perjury, of that they were to- tally ignorant, or at least indifferent; therefore they were perfectly ready to "buss the book," which they considered as a piece of buckra superstition, mighty useful to the negroes, and cared nothing taking their oath upon the Bible to a lie.
MARCH 15. (Sunday.)
Although I set out from Hordley at two o'clock, it was past seven before I reached an estate called " The Retreat," which was only twelve miles off, so abominable was the road. Here I stopped for the night, which I passed at supper with the musquitoes--" not where I ate, but where I was eaten." Morant River had been swelled by the late heavy rains to a tremendous height, and its numerous quicksands render the passage in such a state extremely dangerous. However, a negro having been sent early to explore it, and having returned with a favourable report, we proceeded to encounter it. A Hordley negro well acquainted with these perilous rivers had accompanied me for the express purpose of pointing out the most practicable fords : but for some time his efforts to find a safe one were unavailing, his horse at the end of a minute or two plunging into a quick- sand or some deep hole, among the waters thrown up from which he totally disappeared for a moment, and then was seen to struggle out again with such an effort and leap, as were quite beyond the capability of any carriage's attempting. However, at the end of half an hour he was fortunate to find a place where he could cross (up to his horse's belly in the water, to be sure), but at least without tumbling into holes and quicksands -, and here we set out, conscious that our whole chance of reaching the opposite shore consisted in keeping precisely the path which he had gone already, and determined to stick as close as possible to his horse's tail. But no sooner were we fairly in the water than my young horses found themselves unable to resist the strength and rapidity of the torrent, which was rolling down huge stones as big as rocks from the mountain ; and to my utter consternation I perceived the curricle carried down the stream, and, the distance from my guide (who by swimming his horse had reached the destined landing-place in safety) growing wider and wider with every moment. We were now driving at all hazards ; every moment I expected to see a horse or a wheel sink down into some deep hole, the chaise overturned, and ourselves either swallowed up in a quicksand or dashed to pieces against the stones which were rolling around us. I never remember to have felt myself so completely convinced of approaching destruction, and I roared out with all my might and main, "We are carried away ! all is over !" although to be sure, I might as well have held my tongue, seeing that all my roaring could not do the least possible good. However, my horses, although too weak to resist the current, were fortunately strong enough to keep their legs ; while they drifted down the stream they struggled along in an oblique direction, which gradually (though but slowly) brought us
nearer to the opposite shore ; and after several minutes passed in most painful anxiety, a desperate plunge out of the water enabled them to jump the carriage upon terra firma on the same side with my guide, although at a considerable distance from the spot where he had landed.
Journal of a Residence among the Negroes in the West Indies Page 20
