The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, Commonly Called Colonel Jack

by Daniel Defoe

I considered my present state of life to be my mere youth, though I was now above thirty years old, because in my youth I had learned nothing; and if my daily business, which was now great, would have permitted, I would have been content to have gone to school. However, fate, that had yet something else in store for me, threw an opportunity into my hand; namely, a clever fellow that came over a transported felon from Bristol, and fell into my hands for a servant. He had led a loose life; that he acknowledged; and being driven to extremities, took to the highway, for which, had he been taken, he would have been hanged. But falling into some low-prized rogueries afterwards, for want of opportunity for worse, was catched, condemned, and transported, and, as he said, was glad he came off so.

He was an excellent scholar, and I, perceiving it, asked him one time if he could give a method how I might learn the Latin tongue. He said, smiling, Yes; he could teach it me in three months, if I would let him have books, or even without books, if he had time. I told him a book would become his hands better than a hoe; and if he could promise to make me but understand Latin enough to read it, and understand other languages by it, I would ease him of the labour which I was now obliged to put him to, especially if I was assured that he was fit to receive that favour of a kind master. In short, I made him to me what my benefactor made me to him, and from him I gained a fund of knowledge infinitely more valuable than the rate of a slave, which was what I had paid for it; but of this hereafter.

With these thoughts I went cheerfully about my work. As I had now five servants, my plantation went on, though gently, yet safely, and increased gradually, though slowly. But the third year, with the assistance of my old benefactor, I purchased two negroes more, so that now I had seven servants; and having cured land sufficient for supply of their food, I was at no difficulty to maintain them; so that my plantation began now to enlarge itself, and as I lived without any personal expense, but was maintained at my old great master’s, as we called him, and at his charge, with £30 a year besides, so all my gains was laid up for increase.

In this posture I went on for twelve years, and was very successful in my plantation, and had gotten, by means of my master’s favour, who now I called my friend, a correspondent in London, with whom I traded, shipped over my tobacco to him, and received European goods in return, such as I wanted to carry on my plantation, and sufficient to sell to others also.

In this interval my good friend and benefactor died, and I was left very disconsolate on account of my loss; for it was indeed a great loss to me. He had been a father to me, and I was like a forsaken stranger without him, though I knew the country, and the trade too, well enough, and had for some time chiefly carried on his whole business for him. Yet I seemed now at a loss; my counsellor and my chief supporter was gone, and I had no confidant to communicate myself to, on all occasions, as formerly; but there was no remedy. I was, however, in a better condition to stand alone than ever. I had a very large plantation, and had near seventy negroes and other servants. In a word, I was grown really rich, considering my first circumstances, that began as I may say with nothing; that is to say, I had nothing of stock, but I had a great beginning, for I had such a man’s friendship and support in my beginning, that indeed I needed no other stock; and if I had had £500 to have begun with, and not the assistance, advice, and countenance of such a man, I had not been in a better condition. But he promised to make a man of me; and so he did, and in one respect I may say I have merited it of him, for I brought his plantation into such order, and the government of his negroes into such a regulation, that if he had given £500 to have had it done, he would have thought his money well bestowed. His work was always in order, going forward to his mind; every thing was in a thriving posture; his servants all loved him, even negroes and all, and yet there was no such thing as a cruel punishment or severities known among them.

In my own plantation it was the same thing. I wrought so upon the reason and the affections of my negroes that they served me cheerfully, and, by consequence, faithfully and diligently; when in my neighbour’s plantation there was not a week hardly passed without such horrible outcries, roarings and yellings of the servants, either under torture or in fear of it, that their negroes would, in discourse with ours, wish themselves dead and gone, as it seems they believed they should after death, into their own country.

If I met with a sullen, stupid fellow, as sometimes it was unavoidable, I always parted with him and sold him off; for I would not keep any that sense of kind usage would not oblige. But I seldom met with such bad ones; for, by talking to them in a plain reasoning way, I found the temper of the roughest of them would break and soften. The sense of their own interest would prevail with them at first or last; and if it had not, the contrary temper was so general among my people that their own fellows and countrymen would be against them, and that served to bring them to reason as soon as any other thing. And this those who think it worth their while will easily find, viz., that having prevailed effectually over one leading man among them to be tractable, and pleased, and grateful, he shall make them all like him, and that in a little while, with more ease than can be imagined.

I was now a planter, and also a student. My pedagogue I mentioned above was very diligent, and proved an extraordinary man indeed. He taught me not only with application, but with admirable judgment in the teaching part; for I have seen it in many instances since that time that every good scholar is not fitted for a schoolmaster, and that the art of teaching is quite different from that of knowing the language taught.

But this man had both, and proved of great use to me, and I found reason, in the worth of the person, to be very kind to him, his circumstances considered. I once took the liberty to ask him how it came to pass that he, who must have had a liberal education and great advantages to have advanced him in the world, should be capable of falling into such miserable circumstances as he was in when he came over. I used some caution in entering upon an inquiry which, as I said, might not be pleasant to him to relate, but that I would make him amends by telling him, that if he desired not to enter into it with me, I would readily excuse him, and would not take it ill at all. This I did because to a man under such afflictions one should always be tender, and not put them upon relating anything of themselves which was grievous to them or which they had rather was concealed.

But he told me that it was true, that to look back upon his past life was indeed renovare dolorem; but that such mortifications were now useful to him, to help forward that repentance which he hoped he was sincerely entered upon; and that though it was with horror he looked back upon misspent time and ill-applied gifts which a bountiful Creator had blessed him with, and spared to him for a better improvement, yet he thought he ought to load himself with as much of the shame as it pleased God to make his lot, since he had already loaded himself with the guilt in a shameless manner, till God, he still hoped in mercy to him, had cut him short and brought him to public disgrace; though he could not say he had been brought to justice, for then he had been sent into eternity in despair, and not been sent to Virginia to repent of the wickedest life that ever man lived. He would have gone on, but I found his speech interrupted by a passionate struggle within, between his grief and his tears.