The Mountain-Cabbage & Maureecee Tree.
London, Published Decr. 1st, 1791, by J. Johnson, St. Pauls Church Yard.
Having thus far dwelt on the palm-tree species, I must once more return to domestic occurrences.
I have said that all the officers and most of the privates who had lately been stationed at the Hope, had died, or were sent up dangerously ill, while I had escaped the contagion. But, alas! now it became my turn, having only had a reprieve, and no more: for on the 9th I was seized with the same burning fever that had carried off the rest; and even my black boy Quaco was very ill.
On the 14th, necessity forced me to give up the command to another officer, and depart from this inhospitable spot on my way to Paramaribo: I could however reach, no farther than Goet Accoord, and there, on the 15th, all expected my death; when an old negro woman found means to make me partake of some butter-milk boiled with some barley and melasses, which was the first food [[70]]I had tasted since I was taken ill. This certainly did me infinite service; and the day following I was again able to be transported: the black boy also was much better.
The evening of the 15th I reached Fauconberg, where I was met by a packet of six or eight letters from different friends, accompanied with presents of hung-beef, bullocks tongues, Madeira, porter, rum, and two gallons of excellent shrub, besides a fine bacon ham, and a beautiful pointer; both the last from the identical Charles Macdonald, the English sailor, which he had brought me from Virginia, in return for the little civility I had formerly shewn him so unexpectedly at the Hope. This mark of the poor fellow’s gratitude and generosity, the true characteristics of a British tar, gave me greater pleasure than all the things I received put together. But still I must except two letters, the one from Mr. Lude at Amsterdam, and the other from Mr. de Graav, his administrator at Paramaribo, acquainting me finally, and to my heartfelt satisfaction, that the amiable Joanna and the little boy were at my disposal, but at no less a price than two thousand florins, amounting, with other expences, to near two hundred pounds sterling, a sum which I was totally unable to raise. I already owed the sum of fifty pounds, that I had borrowed for the black boy Quaco’s redemption; but Joanna was to me invaluable, and though appraised at one-twentieth part of the whole estate, which had been sold for forty thousand florins, no [[71]]price could be too dear for a young woman, possessing so much excellence, provided I could pay it.
View of Magdenbergh, on Tempate Creek.
View of Calays, & the Creek Caswinica.
London, Published Decr. 1st, 1791, by J. Johnson, St. Paul’s Church Yard.