Poor Nato’s stock of goodness is quite exhausted; and the day before yesterday he returned to the hospital with most piteous complaints of pains and aches, whose existence he could persuade no person to credit. His pulse was regular, his skin cool, his tongue red and moist, and the doctor declared nothing whatever to be the matter with him. However, on my arrival, he began to moan, and groan, and grunt, and all so lamentably, that every soul in the hospital, sick or well, burst into a fit of laughter. For my part, I told him that I really believed him to be very bad; and that, as he met with no sympathy in the hospital, I should remove him from such unfeeling companions. Accordingly I had a comfortable bed made for him in a separate house. Here he was plentifully supplied with provisions: but, in order that he might enjoy perfect repose daring his illness, the doors were kept locked, and no person allowed to disturb him with their conversation; while, by the doctor’s orders, he was obliged to take frequent doses of Bitter-Wood and Assafotida. Shame would not suffer him to get well all at once; so yesterday he still complained of a pain in his chest, and begged to be blooded. His request was granted; and the blood proved to be so pure and well-coloured, that every one exclaimed, that for a man who had such good blood to part with it so wantonly was a shame and a folly. The fellow was at length convinced that his tricks would serve no object; and this morning he begged me to suffer him to return to his duty, and promised that I should have no more cause to complain of him. So I consented to consider his cure as completed, and he set off for the field perfectly satisfied with his release.
MARCH 15.
On opening the Assize-court for the county of Cornwall on March 4., Mr. Stewart, the Custos of Trelawny, and Presiding Judge, said, in his charge to the jury, he wished to direct their attention in a peculiar manner to the infringement of slave-laws in the island, in consequence of charges having been brought forward in England of slave laws not being enforced in this country, and being in fact perfect dead letters. The charge was unfounded; but it became proper, in consequence, for the bench to call in a strong manner on the grand jury to be particularly vigilant and attentive to the discharge of this part of their duty. The bench at the same time adverted to another subject connected with the above. Many out of the country, and some in it, had thought proper to interfere with our system, and by their insidious practices and dangerous doctrines to call the peace of the island into question, and to promote disorder and confusion. The jury were therefore enjoined, in every such case, to investigate it thoroughly, and to bring the parties concerned before the country, and not to suffer the systems of the island, as established by the laws of the land, to be overset or endangered. It was their bounden duty to watch over and support the established laws, and to act against those who dared to infringe them; and that, otherwise, it was imperiously called for on the principle of self-preservation. Every country had its peculiar laws, on the due maintenance of which depended the public safety and welfare. I read all this with the most perfect unconsciousness; when, lo and behold! I have been assured, from a variety of quarters, that all this was levelled at myself! It is I (it seems) who am “calling the peace of the island in question;” who am “promoting disorder and confusion;” and who am “infringing the established laws!” I should never have guessed it! By “insidious practices” is meant (as I am told) my overindulgence to my negroes; and my endeavouring to obtain either redress or pardon for those belonging to other estates, who occasionally appeal to me for protection: while “dangerous doctrines” alludes to my being of opinion, that the evidence of negroes ought at least to be heard against white persons; the jury always making proportionable abatements of belief, from bearing in mind the bad habits of most negroes, their general want of probity and good faith in every respect, and their total ignorance of the nature of religious obligations. At the same time, these defects may be counterbalanced by the respectable character of the particular negro; by the strength of corroborating circumstances; and, finally, by the irresistible conviction which his evidence may leave upon the minds of the jury. They are not obliged to believe a negro witness, but I maintain that he ought to be heard, and then let the jury give their verdict according to their conscience. But this, in the opinion of the bench at Montego Bay, it seems, is “dangerous doctrine!” At least, the venom of my doctrines is circumscribed within very narrow limits; for as I have made a point of never stirring off my own estate, nobody could possibly be corrupted by them, except those who were at the trouble of walking into my house for the express purpose of being corrupted.
At all events, if I really am the person to whom Mr. Stewart alluded, I must consider his speech as the most flattering compliment that I ever received. If my presence in the island has made the bench of a whole country think it necessary to exact from the jury a more severe vigilance than usual in all causes relating to the protection of negroes, I cannot but own myself most richly rewarded for all my pains and expense in coming hither, for every risk of the voyage, and for every possible sacrifice of my pleasures. There is nothing earthly that is too much to give for the power of producing an effect so beneficial; and I would set off for Constantinople to-morrow, could I only be convinced that my arrival would make the Mufti redress the complaints of the lower orders of Turks with more scrupulous justice, and the Bashaws relax the fetters of their slaves as much as their safety would permit. But I cannot flatter myself with having done either the one or the other in Jamaica; and if Mr. Stewart really alluded to me in his charge, I am certainly greatly obliged to him; but he has paid me much too high a compliment;—God grant that I may live to deserve it!
MARCH 16.
Hercules, the poor paralytic runaway, has neither moved nor spoken since his being brought into the hospital. For the two last days he refused all sustenance; blisters, rubbing with mustard, &c. were tried without producing the least sensation; and in the course of last night he expired without a groan.
Another offender, by name Charles Fox, is also under the doctor’s hands, suffering under the effects of his own transgressions. Having been Pickle’s shipmate, he professed the strongest attachment to him, and was perpetually at his house; till Pickle’s wife made her husband aware that love for herself was the real object of his shipmate’s visits. Finding her story disbelieved, she hid Pickle behind the bed, when he had an opportunity of hearing the solicitations of his perfidious Pylades; and, rushing from his concealment, he gave Fox so complete a thrashing, that he was obliged to come to the hospital. Here is another proof that negroes, “our unfortunate fellow-creatures,” are not without some of the luxuries of civilised life; old men of sixty keeping mistresses, and young ones seducing their friends’ wives; why, what would the Reporter of the African Institution have?
It is only to be wished, that the negroes would content themselves with these fashionable peccadilloes; but, unluckily, there are some palates among them which require higher seasoned vices; and besides their occasional amusements of poisoning, stabbing, thieving, &c., a plan has just been discovered in the adjoining parish of St. Elizabeth’s, for giving themselves a grand fête by murdering all the whites in the island. The focus of this meditated insurrection was on Martin’s Penn, the property of Lord Balcarras, where the overseer is an old man of the mildest character, and the negroes had always been treated with peculiar indulgence. Above a thousand persons were engaged in the plot, three hundred of whom had been regularly sworn to assist in it with all the usual accompanying ceremonies of drinking human blood, eating earth from graves, &c. Luckily, the plot was discovered time enough to prevent any mischief; and yesterday the ringleaders were to be tried at Black River.
MARCH 17. (Sunday.)
The Cornwall Chronicle informs us, that, at the Montego Bay assizes, a man was tried on the Monday, for assaulting, while drunk, an officer who had served with great distinction, and calling him a coward; for which offence he was sentenced to a month’s imprisonment and fine of £100; and on the Tuesday the same man brought an action against another person for calling him a “drunken liar,” for which he was awarded £1000 for damages! A plain man would have supposed two such verdicts to be rather incompatible; but one lives to learn.