Well, I carried on the affair with these two negroes just as I did with Mouchat, so I need not repeat the particulars; and they were delivered with infinite acknowledgments and thanks, even to all the extravagances of joy usual in those people on such occasions. And such was the gratitude of those two pardoned fellows that they were the most faithful and most diligent servants ever after that belonged to the whole plantation, Mouchat excepted.
In this manner I carried on the plantation fully to his satisfaction; and before a year more was expired there was scarce any such thing as correction known in the plantation, except upon a few boys, who were incapable of the impressions that good usage would have made, even upon them too, till they had lived to know the difference.
It was some time after this conference that our great master, as we called him, sent for me again to his dwelling-house, and told me he had had an answer from England from his friend, to whom he had written about my bill. I was a little afraid that he was going to ask me leave to send it to London; but he did not say anything like that, but told me that his friend had been with the gentleman, and that he owned the bill, and that he had all the money in his hand that the bill had mentioned; but that he had promised the young man that had given him the money (meaning me) not to pay the money to anybody but himself, though they should bring the bill; the reason of which was, that I did not know who might get the bill away from me.
“But now, Colonel Jacque,” says he, “as you wrote him an account where you was, and by what wicked arts you were trepanned, and that it was impossible for you to have your liberty till you could get the money, my friend at London has written to me, that, upon making out a due copy of the bill here, attested by a notary and sent to him, and your obligation likewise attested, whereby you oblige yourself to deliver the original to his order after the money is paid, he will pay the money.”
I told him I was willing to do whatever his honour directed; and so the proper copies were drawn as I had been told were required.
“But now, what will you do with this money, Jacque?” says he, smiling. “Will you buy your liberty of me, and go to planting?”
I was too cunning for him now indeed, for I remembered what he had promised me; and I had too much knowledge of the honesty of his principles, as well as of the kindness he had for me, to doubt his being as good as his word; so I turned all this talk of his upon him another way. I knew that when he asked me if I would buy my liberty and go to planting, it was to try if I would leave him; so I said, “As to buying my liberty, sir—that is to say, going out of your service—I had much rather buy more time in your service, and I am only unhappy that I have but two years to serve.”
“Come, come, colonel,” says he, “don’t flatter me; I love plain dealing. Liberty is precious to everybody; if you have a mind to have your money brought over, you shall have your liberty to begin for yourself, and I will take care you shall be well used by the country, and get you a good plantation.”
I still insisted that I would not quit his service for the best plantation in Maryland; that he had been so good to me, and I believed I was so useful to him, that I could not think of it; and at last I added I hoped he could not believe but I had as much gratitude as a negro.
He smiled, and said he would not be served upon those terms; that he did not forget what he had promised, nor what I had done in his plantation; and that he was resolved in the first place to give me my liberty. So he pulls out a piece of paper, and throws it to me: “There,” says he, “there’s a certificate of your coming on shore, and being sold to me for five years, of which you have lived three with me; and now you are your own master.” I bowed, and told him that I was sure, if I was my own master, I would be his servant as long as he would accept of my service. And now we strained courtesies, and he told me I should be his servant still; but it should be on two conditions: first, that he would give me £30 a year and my board for my managing the plantation I was then employed in; and, secondly, that at the same time he would procure me a new plantation to begin upon my own account, “For, Colonel Jacque,” says he, smiling, “though you are but a young man, yet ’tis time you were doing something for yourself.”