LETTER XX.
St. Jago de Cuba.
The French emigrants begin to seek in their talents some resource from the frightful poverty to which they are reduced, but meet with very little encouragement. The people here are generally poor, and unaccustomed to expensive pleasures. A company of comedians are building a theatre; and some subscription balls have been given, at which the Spanish ladies were quite eclipsed by the French belles, notwithstanding their losses.
Madame D——, of Jeremie, who plays and sings divinely, gave a concert, which was very brilliant.
The French women are certainly charming creatures in society. The cheerfulness with which they bear misfortune, and the industry they employ to procure themselves a subsistence, cannot be sufficiently admired. I know ladies who from their infancy were surrounded by slaves, anticipating their slightest wishes, now working from the dawn of day till midnight to support themselves and their families. Nor do they even complain, nor vaunt their industry, nor think it surprising that they possess it. Their neatness is worthy of admiration, and their taste gives to their attire an air of fashion which the expensive, but ill-chosen, ornaments of the Spanish ladies cannot attain. With one young lady I am particularly acquainted whose goodness cannot be sufficiently admired. Ah! Eliza, how shall I describe thy sweetness, thy fidelity, thy devotion to a suffering friend. Why am I not rich that I could place thee in a situation where thy virtues might be known, thy talents honoured. Alas! I never so deeply regret my own want of power as when reflecting that I am unable to be useful to you.
This amiable girl was left by her parents, who went to Charleston at the beginning of the revolution, to the care of an aunt, who was very rich, and without children. At the evacuation of Port-au-Prince, that lady embarked for this place. Her husband died on the passage; and they were robbed of every thing they possessed by an English privateer. The father of Eliza wrote for them to join him in Carolina; but the ill health of madame L—— would not suffer her to undertake the voyage, and Eliza will not hear of leaving her, but works day and night to procure for her aunt the comforts her situation requires. She is young, beautiful and accomplished. She wastes her bloom over the midnight lamp, and sacrifices her health and her rest to soothe the sufferings of her infirm relation. Her patience and mildness are angelic. Where will such virtues meet their reward? Certainly not in this country; and she is held here by the ties of gratitude and affection which, to a heart like hers, are indissoluble.
In the misfortunes of my French friends, I see clearly exemplified the advantages of a good education. Every talent, even if possessed in a slight degree of perfection, may be a resource in a reverse of fortune; and, though I liked not entirely their manner, whilst surrounded by the festivity and splendour of the Cape, I now confess that they excite my warmest admiration. They bear adversity with cheerfulness, and resist it with fortitude. In the same circumstances I fear I should be inferior to them in both. But in this country, slowly emerging from a state of barbarism, what encouragement can be found for industry or talents? The right of commerce was purchased by the Catalonians, who alone exercise it, and agriculture is destroyed in consequence of the restraints imposed on it by the government. The people are poor, and therefore cannot possess talents whose acquisition is beyond their reach; but they are temperate, even to a proverb, and so hospitable that the poorest among them always find something to offer to a stranger. At the same time they are said to be false, treacherous, and revengeful, to the highest degree. Certainly there are here no traces of that magnanimous spirit, which once animated the Spanish cavalier, who was considered by the whole world as a model of constancy, tenderness and heroism.
They feel for the distressed, because they are poor; and are hospitable because they know want. In every other respect this is a degenerate race, possessing none of the qualities of the Spaniards of old except jealousy, which is often the cause of tragical events.
A young gentleman of this place fell in love with a beautiful girl who rejected him because she was secretly attached to another. Her lover was absent; and she feared to avow her passion lest his rival might use some means to destroy him, for she knew he was cruel and vindictive; but her lover returning, she declared her attachment, and declined receiving the visits of him who had pretended to her hand. A few evenings previous to that fixed on for her marriage, she was returning from church with her mother, when at the door of her house a man, wrapped in a large cloak, seized her arm, and plunging a dagger in her breast, fled, leaving her lifeless on the ground. The cries of her affrighted mother brought people to her assistance, but the blow was directed by a secure hand; she breathed no more. Every body was convinced that the perpetrator of this abominable act was her rejected lover; but, as no proofs existed, the law could not interfere. Shortly after he was found dead in the street; and probably it was the hand of him he had driven to despair, that inflicted the punishment due to his crime.
Nothing is more common than such events. They excite little attention, and are seldom enquired into. How different is this from the peaceful security of the country in which I first drew breath, and to which I so ardently, but I fear hopelessly, desire to return.