JANUARY 31.
I went to enquire after my petitioners Juliet and Delia, and had the satisfaction to find that the trustee had enquired into their complaint; and, as it appeared not to be entirely unfounded, he had done every thing that was right and necessary. Aberdeen, too, the runaway cooper, who had applied to me to obtain his pardon, had been suffered to return to his work unpunished; and as it had been found that his flight had in a great measure been occasioned by his being in a bad state of health, which rendered him apprehensive of being put to labour beyond his strength, he had been permitted to select his own occupation, which, of course, was the easiest one in his trade. But I found it a more difficult matter to ascertain the truth or falsehood of the charges brought to me on Sunday last: the books positively contradicted them, but the register might have been falsely kept; and as the negroes persisted most positively in their complaint against the overseer (particularly as to his having curtailed them of the legal allowance of time for their meals, and the cultivation of their own grounds) with the concurrence of the trustee, I wrote to the magistrates of the county, desiring that they would summon the negroes in question before a council of protection, and examine into the injuries of which they had complained to me.
FEBRUARY 1. (Thursday.)
I left Cornwall for Spanish Town at six in the morning, accompanied by a young naval officer, the son of my next neighbour, Mr. Hill of Amity, who not only was good enough to lend me a kittereen, with a canopy, to perform my journey, but his son to be my cicerone on my tour. The road wound through mountain passes, or else on a shelf of rock so narrow—though without the slightest danger—that one of the wheels was frequently in the sea, while my other side was fenced by a line of bold broken cliffs, clothed with trees completely from their brows down to the very edge of the water. Between eight and nine we reached a solitary tavern, called Blue-fields, where the horses rested for a couple of hours. It had a very pretty garden on the sea-shore, which contained a picturesque cottage, exactly resembling an ornamental Hermitage; and leaning against one of the pillars of its porch we found a young girl, who exactly answered George Colman’s description of Yarico, “quite brown, but extremely genteel, like a Wedgewood teapot.” She told us that she was a Spanish creole, who had fled with her mother from the disputes between the royalists and independents in the island of Old Providence; and the owner of the tavern being a relation of her mother, he had permitted the fugitives to establish themselves in his garden-cottage, till the troubles of their own country should be over. She talked perfectly good English, for she said that there were many of that nation established in Providence. Her name was Antonietta. Her figure was light and elegant; her black eyes mild and bright; her countenance intelligent and good-humoured; and her teeth beautiful to perfection: altogether, Antonietta was by far the handsomest creole that I have ever seen.
From Blue-fields we proceeded at once to Lakovia (a small village), a stage of thirty miles. Here we found a relay of horses, which conveyed us by seven o’clock to “the Gutturs;” a house belonging to the proprietor of the post-horses, and which is situated at the very foot of the tremendous May-day Mountains. The house is an excellent one, and we found good beds, eatables, and, in short, every thing that travellers could wish. The distance from Lakovia to “the Gutturs” is sixteen miles.