“Poor fellow!” said Mr. Edwards; “and must he leave this cottage which he has built, and these bananas which he has planted?”
Caesar now for the first time looked up, and fixing his eyes upon Mr. Edwards for a moment, advanced with an intrepid rather than an imploring countenance, and said, “Will you be my master? Will you be her master? Buy both of us. You shall not repent of it. Caesar will serve you faithfully.”
On hearing these words Clara sprang forward, and clasping her hands together, repeated, “Caesar will serve you faithfully.”
Mr. Edwards was moved by their entreaties, but he left them without declaring his intentions. He went immediately to Mr. Jefferies, whom he found stretched on a sofa, drinking coffee. As soon as Mr. Edwards mentioned the occasion of his visit, and expressed his sorrow for Caesar, Jefferies exclaimed, “Yes, poor devil! I pity him from the bottom of my soul. But what can I do? I leave all those things to Durant. He says the sheriff’s officer has seized him; and there’s an end of the matter. You know, money must be had. Besides, Caesar is not worse off than any other slave sold for debt. What signifies talking about the matter, as if it were something that never happened before! Is not it a case that occurs every day in Jamaica?”
“So much the worse,” replied Mr. Edwards.
“The worse for them, to be sure,” said Jefferies. “But, after all, they are slaves, and are used to be treated as such; and they tell me the negroes are a thousand times happier here, with us, than they ever were in their own country.”
“Did the negroes tell you so themselves?”
“No; but people better informed than negroes have told me so; and, after all, slaves there must be; for indigo, and rum, and sugar, we must have.”
“Granting it to be physically impossible that the world should exist without rum, sugar, and indigo, why could they not be produced by freemen as well as by slaves? If we hired negroes for labourers, instead of purchasing them for slaves, do you think they would not work as well as they do now? Does any negro, under the fear of the overseer, work harder than a Birmingham journeyman, or a Newcastle collier, who toil for themselves and their families?”
“Of that I don’t pretend to judge. All I know is, that the West India planters would be ruined if they had no slaves; and I am a West India planter.”