Collected Works of Frances Trollope

by Frances Milton Trollope

  “Come this way, Whitlaw, for a spell, will you? — I promised the colonel to tell you everything; and I comprehend by him that our errands here — yours and mine, I mean — arn’t that unlike. — There, take your glass, pay your levy, and come with me into that snug corner there.”

  Whitlaw obeyed his directions very literally, and followed him.

  “Well, I say, Whitlaw,” resumed his Natchez acquaintance, “have you heard of the outbreak at Colonel Mirandeau’s? This is the second within ten days; and both comes of reading, and preaching, and praying, and such like diabolical exercises; and it comes, too, as I tell ’em all at Natchez, of that stingy, saving, niggardly, pitiful spirit, that makes ’em do anything rather than kill their niggers outright. You may scorch ’em, ’tis true, and skin ’em, and welcome, or anything else in the torture line that comes into your head; but there isn’t one single planter between this and Natchez liberal and patriotic enough to hang one of his gang outright.”

  “Why, there’s few that likes to make away with their own stock, that’s a fact,” replied Whitlaw. “But what is it, Mr. Hogstown sir, that has happened over at Colonel Mirandeau’s? I’ve been considerable busy since I arrived, and haven’t chanced to hear a word of it.”

  “Well, then, it’s no joke, I promise you,” replied Hogstown. “There’s been one Bible and five tracts, and two hymn-books found hid in some of the nigger-huts on Colonel Mirandeau’s plantation. — That was a week or ten days ago; and yesterday as ever was, a young nigger, newly purchased in Virginia, was overheard, and right-down caught out, while reading out loud to a whole bevy of them a piece of a cursed old English newspaper, with a lot of infernal stuff in it about emancipation. Just think of that, Whitlaw, in a nigger-hut in Louisiana!”

  “Confound the varmint! — and what was done to ’em?”

  “Ay, there’s the mischief. They was flogged all round, just as many lashes as they could stand without the pulse going; and then they was salted; and it done ’em no more harm than if they had been so many red herrings. But if the colonel had been liberal and only hanged three or four of ’em, we should have seen how the rest would have quaked. The varmint know the valy of their lives, and ’tis that makes ’em so malignant and rebelsome.”

  “’Tis very true, Mr. Hogstown sir; but when a man has a gang of his own,” replied Whitlaw, remembering with no little feeling of pride the three men, seven women, and ten children, that made the glory and profit of Mount Etna, “when a man has once got together a gang, you will most times find ’em considerable against losing ’em, any how.”

  “There’s more of profit than patriotism in that notion, Mr. Whitlaw, you won’t deny that, sir. But, however, that’s not much to the business in hand between us two. I expect that we are both of us come to New Orlines pretty much in the same line, by what has been made known to me at Paradise Plantation; only I am engaged for the public — the public of Natchez, I mean, — and you, as I take it, for Colonel Dart and nobody else. Now my instructions at starting was specially to find you out, and make you comprehend clear and distinct what it is we have got to perform.”

  Whitlaw was struck, on hearing these words, with the recollection of Juno’s promise that he should be instructed at New Orleans as to what he was to do. Many times since she spoke the words, he had thought of them with what he was now ready to confess was very unbecoming scorn, and he proposed to listen to the communications of Hogstown with silent and meek obedience.

  “In the first place, Mr. Whitlaw, you must be pleased, sir, to tell me—”

  At this moment a rush of company into the small room in which they had placed themselves rendered the continuation of so important a conversation impossible, and they mutually agreed that for the remainder of the evening they would amuse themselves with the scene they were in, and meet on the morrow in a private room at the hotel where Hogstown had taken up his quarters, for the purpose of giving and receiving both counsel and information, on the important business which brought them to the city.

  CHAPTER XIV.

  WHITLAW, notwithstanding the late hours of the preceding evening, was punctual to his appointment, and found Mr. Hogstown engaged in examining a daily advertiser, from which he was making memoranda of all the runaway negroes.

  “Good morning, Mr. Whitlaw. Here it is, you see: thirty-one — thirty-two — thirty-three; no less than thirty-three cursed runaways in this one paper and this one State! I’ll be hanged if a man didn’t ought to chain up every individual one of the black beetles the identical instant they have done finished their work; and if there was a State obligement to that effect, we should soon progress towards a betterment in our management of them.”

  “I have no doubt in the world of it, sir,” replied Whitlaw in an accent of very earnest sincerity; “but let us conduct so as to arrive at a mutual comprehension of how we can come to an exchangeability of usefulness in this matter.”

  “I desire no better, Mr. Whitlaw; and to take up just where we stopped last night, I must tell you, sir, that I have been desired to make a requirement of you as to all the light you can throw upon the character and behaviour of a family that neighbours close upon your father’s store at Mount Etna. They conduct so as to be considerable remarked in the country. They are Germans, I expect, Mr. Whitlaw; but as for the name, you must excuse my liableness to forget it, seeing it’s a strange one.”

  Whitlaw’s eyes emitted a flash of triumph as he listened to this speech. A hundred bitter thoughts that lay rankling at the bottom of his heart started into fresh life at the idea of being at length able to do the hated Steinmark an injury, and he eagerly answered —

  “Throw a light upon our German neighbours, Mr. Hogstown? — There’s few that can do it better, I expect. Why, I’ve lived with in a stone’s throw of ’em best part of my life, and a dangerous set they are as ever imported themselves into a country.”

  “That responds considerable to what I’ve heard, Mr. Whitlaw; and I’ll just tell you, to avoid any involvement of misunderstanding, what the secret managing committee of Natchez holds to be the best card they’ve got to play at the present alarming crisis. You see, sir, ’tis as plain as the sun’s in heaven, that the planters and slave-holders, considered as a body, are at a great remove from advocating the punishment of death among their stock. Now, it is naked folly to fancy that there’s anything else but death will make an impression any way worth punishment to the country: and so you see, Mr. Whitlaw, if slaves mustn’t die, white men must, that’s a fact.”

  “I think I progress towards understanding you, Mr. Hogstown. We shall have to examine, I expect, into the conduct of the Steinmark family; and if it’s found to be derogatory to the usual feelings of white men and slaveowners, something of the nature of Lynch-law might be usefully introduced among them.”

  “Depend upon it, sir, there would be considerable advisability in this. It will issue in danger if something is not done to stop the notion that’s getting abroad, that niggers are to be taught and tutored like Christians. It’s very illy done of these Germans to cultivate their estate, as we are told they do, altogether without slaves: which is just as much as to say, that slavery isn’t needful. I expect, Mr. Whitlaw, that you can tell whether this accusation against ’em is repealable or not?”

  “The accusation’s as true, let who will have made it, as that black’s black, and that white’s white. I tell you, Mr. Hogstown, I’ve known them for years, and never did a slave do a turn of work for any of ’em since in the country they’ve been.”

  “Well, sir, that’s satisfactory so far, and not to be contradicted, I expect. And now, there’s another point, upon which if we can make a hit, I calculate something considerable important might issue. There’s a young fellow, that has taken to living at a clearing in the forest somewhere between Natchez and this German’s farm. I don’t take my pay for nothing, Mr. Whitlaw, and would on no account miss an opportunity of cultivating any observations that may be useful. I had occasion, not that long ago
, to watch this young fellow, called Bligh, as I understand, at the place where he keeps; I had a fine occasion to watch his behavement, when a little nasty stinking nigger was lucky enough to make merriment for some gentlemen of the highest standing in Natchez. First, he turned deadly pale when they kicked the boy, and then he downright hid his face and his eyes, because, I calculate, he couldn’t bear the seeing the varmint rolled about and in trouble; and last of all, though he looked as poor as corn-meal and ditchwater, what did he do, but out with his money to get the smut out of the scrape, because he’d lost some coppers through the gentlemen’s joking. Now, that was particular, warn’t it?”

  “Very!” replied Whitlaw solemnly. “Go on.”

  “Well, sir, I keeped my eye upon him; and when he left the store where this happened, I followed round-about fashion, till I saw him reading over all the bills posted up about the market concerning the sale of niggers, and the runaways, and all the rest of the nigger news. Well, sir, I stopped still a spell, and then I got into a little exchangeability of talk with him. As to his sayings, he was not that venturesome to expose himself; contrarywise, he was curious clever to keep safe, I thought: but he couldn’t hide from me that his talk had no agreement with his shabby jacket, and I was obligated to conclude that he was more or less an impostor. Well, sir, this negro-lover, this shabby-dressed and fine-spoken youngster, is hand-and-glove with the whole Steinmark family; and there’s some that say he is to marry the daughter. That’s no great matter, certainly, one way nor t’other; but it’s curious singular that this chap, what can’t abide the sight of a kicked nigger, should be so everlasting intimate with them as won’t hold a slave, though all the country knows they’re rich enough to have a gang of five hundred.

  Don’t you perceive, Mr. Whitlaw, how the two things hitches together?”

  “Don’t I, Mr. Hogstown? I expect I do, sir: and I tell you what, though I’m in no hurry to leave New Orlines, — that is, not before my duty and my business is done finished, — yet this is what I know and am ready to testify, that nothing I or you either can be after doing here will help the cause one quarter so much as blowing up them incarnate devils at Reichland, — the Steinmarks, I mean. If there’s mischief brewing in one quarter, it comes from them: you may as well doubt that a nigger’s black. Where will you find another rich man as don’t own a slave? and what can it mean, coming as it does too from the d — d Europe side of the water, but emancipation and treason? Maybe we’re all of us in a bad way; I don’t know but we shall find it so: but this I do know, that if there’s any hope left, it will be by making an example of those cursed emancipation chaps, the young Steinmarks.”

  “Well, sir,” replied Hogstown gravely, “I can’t but approbate the zeal you show; and I shall not fail to report your information and your opinion to the gentlemen of our Natchez committee. But you see, Mr. Whitlaw, the thing must be done with judgment, and, noways in a bustle, — at least not on our parts, that guides the springs, as I may say. There will be no objection, of course, that the mob, when we set them on their work of doing justice, should be that little degree infuriated as may be necessary for the executioning their business; but I would recommend you, sir, to be quite peaceable and reasonable in your way of giving evidence, and upon no account seem to have any reasons of your own private concernments to urge your speaking, but altogether the public good, and love of justice, and respect for our glorious constitution, and veneration for the memory of the immortal Washington, — and the ever-to-be-venerated Jefferson, both of whom approved the institution of slavery, and practised it greatly to their own comfort and advantage. I beg your pardon, Mr. Whitlaw, for taking the liberty of advising you, sir; but you are a young man, and don’t rightly know perhaps as yet, the vast importance of putting things in a right light, particularly when addressing any meeting of the people; — and that, I take it, sir, is what we shall be expected to do, if we entertain any hopes of getting up a Lynch-law execution at Natchez.”

  “No offence at all, Mr. Hogstown. Honest men that are true and hearty in a cause, like you and I, sir, must not stand upon ceremony together, but just speak out what they think; and so I recommend you, first and foremost, to keep your eye upon them Steinmarks, one and all of course, but most particularly upon him as keeps the mill. Take my word for it, he is one that will raise the niggers to mutiny if anyone can — I know him; and if Lynch-law must be had, ’tis him as I’d try the first go upon.”

  “You may depend upon it, sir, that your recommendation shall not be lost sight of in any degree,” replied Hogstown. “And now I think we may each go to our separate work, and learn all we can of the goings on and intentions of the principal slave-holders here. I take it for granted that you have got letters of introduction to some of the first planters, for Colonel Dart is a gentleman exceedingly well respected, and knows the nature of the business we have in hand too well not to set you upon getting an the private news on the subject to be obtained at New Orlines.”

  “Why yes, Mr. Hogstown, I have got letters pretty considerable. Is there anything else; sir, that you can point out as desirable in the way of my duty?”

  “Not at the present moment, Mr. Whitlaw; but it may be as well to meet once a day, I expect. Will you be pleased to call on me here again tomorrow, sir? And if we either of us pick up intelligence of any kind, the other may profit thereby.”

  Whitlaw thanked him very cordially for his obliging proposal, and having promised to wait upon him on the morrow, took his leave, not perhaps altogether pleased at finding that he should for the future be really obliged to sacrifice some portion of his precious time to business, but more than consoled for it by believing that he should be able at his return to gratify the hatred he had so long vainly nourished against the family of Steinmark.

  CHAPTER XV.

  WHEN old Juno first imagined the expedient of getting rid of Whitlaw by sending him off to New Orleans, she was too much delighted at the idea to delay the execution of it till she had fabricated in her busy brain some errand that might really give him occupation there; and his instructions were in consequence so vague, that till the future information at which the prophetess had so mysteriously hinted should reach him, he very naturally thought he might consider himself as his own master.

  When, however, Hogstown crossed his path in the manner described, the superstitious young man doubted not for an instant that it was this meeting which had been predicted; and this persuasion, together with the agreeable information respecting the suspicions thrown on the Steinmarks, determined him to set about doing what was required of him, as far indeed as he comprehended what it was, with all diligence and activity.

  The delivery of the letters with which he was charged, was what he now determined to set about; and as he walked towards the mansion which the geography of the city had taught him was first in order, he taxed his memory to recall the various verbal instructions given him with each packet, for the purpose of making him acquainted with the position and standing of the parties, and to instruct him in the best mode of turning each and every of them to profit. The general instructions were clear and intelligible enough, and not easily forgotten; — namely, that in every instance where Colonel Dart’s letters obtained him entrance into a family, he was to keep in mind during his intercourse with every individual of it, that the object of his journey was to ascertain, as nearly as possible, the feelings and opinions of the inhabitants of New Orleans on the state of the slave population, and of the dangers said to threaten the continuance of the system.

  All this he remembered well; but he remembered also, that not one of the six letters he carried was given to him without some special and peculiar instructions which the careful and anxious Colonel Dart fancied might be useful.

  He opened the whole packet as he walked, and scanned the address of each letter in the hope that the sight of the name and residence might recall what it was so essential for him to remember.

  “Monro Barbacuit, Esq.” was the name that first
met his eye; and it instantly recalled to him an anecdote that Colonel Dart had recounted, and of which, as Whitlaw believed, this gentleman was the hero, stating that when a partial revolt of slaves on one division of his estate occurred, it had been met and checked by the greatest personal bravery and presence of mind on his part; and that such was the effect of this well-timed display of firmness, that not only was no farther danger anticipated from that quarter, but the example was considered as having been of the most signal service throughout the whole neighbourhood.

  “George Washington Bobbin, Esq.” followed next.

  “Ay!” thought Whitlaw, “I remember that name too. That’s the man that was caught t’other day changing a lame nigger baby, born on his own, estate, for a bouncing brat of a piccaniny that belonged to a neighbour. But he’s curious rich, so nobody says nothing about it; and I must take care to make no allusion to healthy children, or anything of that sort.”

  “Adams Byron Chesterfield Higgins, Esq.” muttered our hero as he continued his progress. “That’s him as wants a bill brought into Congress, for leave to fit out a few ships to make prize of all the craft caught off the coast of Liberia, with licence to dispose of the crews and cargo, black or white, at pleasure. That’s a fine young fellow! Success to him, any how!”

  “Zerubbabel Theodore Octavius Cobb, Esq. That’s a puzzler.” Whitlaw walked with his eyes fixed on the name, or rather names, for several minutes, and then exclaimed, “I can’t remember one syllable about him!”

  The next was a very modest address — Mr. John Croft. “Oh! that’s the man newly come from England to sell that fine estate at Nixton, and we want to buy it a bargain: that’s nothing to do with slaves or slavery, for the gangs upon it belong to his tenant. I mind all about that.”

  The sixth and last letter was directed to Brutus Pennyfeather, Esq and this also brought its own history to his memory, for Mr. Pennyfeather was a merchant who dealt largely with Colonel Dart for cotton.