JANUARY 30.
There were above twenty ladies literally at my feet this morning. I went down to the negro-village to speak to Bessie about going to her black doctor; and all the refractory females of last week heard of my being there, and came in a body to promise better conduct for the future, and implore me not to go away. The sight of my carriage getting ready to take me to Kingston, and the arrival of post-horses, had alarmed them with the idea that I was really going to put my threats into execution of leaving them for ever. They had artfully enough prevailed on the wife of Clifford (the driver whom Whannica had collared) to be their spokes-woman; and they begged, and lifted up their folded hands, and cried, and fell on the ground, and kissed my feet—and, in short, acted their part so well, that they almost made me act mine to perfection, and fall to blubbering. I told them, that I certainly should go to Kingston on Thursday; but if I had good accounts of them during my absence, I should return in a few days;—if, on the contrary, the idle negroes continued to refuse to work without compulsion, then, in justice to the good ones (who last week were obliged to do more than their share), those punishments, which I had stopped, must be resumed;—but that, as Cornwall would be unsupportable to me, if I could not live there without hearing the crack of the abominable cart-whip all day long, I would not return to it, but ship myself off for England, and never visit them or Jamaica any more. And then I talked very sternly and positively about “punishments” and “making bad negroes do their work properly,” and every third word was the cart-whip, till I almost fancied myself the princess in the “Fairy Tale,” who never opened her mouth, but out came two toads and three couple of serpents. However, to sweeten my oration a little at the end, I told them, that, “having enquired closely into the characters of the present book-keepers, I had found no charge against any of them except one, who was accused of having occasionally struck a negro, of using bad language to them, and of being a hasty passionate man, though in other respects very serviceable to the estate. But although these faults were but trifling, and some of them not proved, so determined was I to show that I would suffer no white person on the estate who maltreated the negroes, either by word or deed, that I had determined to make an example of him for the warning of the rest; and accordingly had dismissed him this morning.”
The man in question (by his own account) had made himself obnoxious to them; and on hearing of his discharge, they, one and all, sprawled upon the ground in such a rapture of joy and gratitude, that now I may safely say with Sir Andrew Aguecheek, “I was adored once!”
The book-keeper had denied positively the charge of striking the negroes, and ascribed it to the revenge of the Eboe Edward, whom he had detected in cutting out part of a boiling-house window, in order that he might pass out stolen sugar unperceived; for, to do the negroes justice, it is a doubt whether they are the greatest thieves or liars, and the quantity of sugar which they purloin during the crop, and dispose of at the Bay for a mere trifle, is enormous. However, whether the charge of striking were true or not, it was sufficiently proved that this book-keeper was a passionate man, and he said himself, “that the negroes had conceived a spite against him,” which alone were reasons enough for removing him. Indeed, I had the less scruple from the slight nature of his offence making it easy for him to find another situation; and I have besides desired him to stay out his quarter on the estate, and then receive a double salary on going away, which will free him from any charge of having been dismissed disgracefully.