For Faith and Freedom

by Walter Besant

'Oh, Sir,' I cried, 'would that the whole world would so live and so act!'

'Truly, if it did, we should have the prisons cleared. There should be no more throwing away of good lives in hanging; no more waste of stout fellows and lusty wenches by fever and small-pox. All should go to the Plantations—all. Now, Madam, to our business, which is the advantage of these young gentlemen. Know, therefore, that Mr. Jerome Nipho, with all those who have received presents of prisoners, straightway sells them to persons who engage to transport them across the seas to his Majesty's Plantations in Jamaica, Virginia, or elsewhere. There they are bound to work for a certain term of years. Call it not work, however,' he added quickly; 'say rather that they are invited every day to exercise themselves in the cotton and the sugar fields. The climate is delightful; the sky is seldom clouded; there are never any frosts or snows; it is always summer; the fruits are delicious; they have a kind of spirit distilled from the sugar canes which is said to be finer and more wholesome than the best Nantz; the food is palatable and plentiful, though plain. The masters or employers (call them rather friends) are gentlemen of the highest humanity, and the society is composed of sober merchants, wealthy planters, and gentlemen, like your brother, who have had the misfortune to differ in opinions from the Government.'

'Why, Sir,' I said, 'I have always understood that the transported prisoners are treated with the greatest inhumanity: forced to work in heat such as we never experience, driven with the lash, and half-starved, so that none ever come back.'

He shook his head gently. 'See now,' he said, 'how prejudices arise. Who could have thought that the Plantations should be thus regarded? 'Tis true that there are estates cultivated by convicts of another kind—I mean robbers, highwaymen, petty thieves, and the like. Bristol doth every year send away a shipload at least of such. Nay, 'tis reported that rather than hang murderers and the like the Bristol merchants buy them of the magistrates; but this is out of the kindness of their hearts. Madam,' he thrust his hand into his bosom and looked me in the face, 'I myself am sometimes engaged in that trade. I myself buy these unhappy prisoners and send them to estates where I know they will be treated with the greatest kindness. Do I look like a dishonest man, Madam? As for my name it is George Penne, and I am known to every man of credit in Bristol. Do I talk like one who would make money out of his neighbours' sufferings? Nay, if that is so, let us part at once and say no more. Madam, your humble servant—no harm is done: your humble servant, madam.' He put his hat under his arm, and made as if he would go; but I begged him to remain, and to advise me further in the matter.

Then I asked him if transported persons ever came home again.

'Surely,' he replied, 'some of them come home laden with gold. Some, possessed of places both of honour and of profit, who return to visit their friends, and then go back to the new country. It is a very Eldorado, or land of gold, to those who are willing to work; and for those who have money and choose to buy exemption from work, it is only an agreeable residence in cheerful society for a certain term of years. Have you, by chance, Madam, any friends who can influence Mr. Jerome Nipho?'

'No, Sir, I have none.'

'Then will I myself communicate with that gentleman. Understand, Madam, that I shall have to pay him so much a head for every prisoner; that I shall be engaged to place every man on board ship; that the prisoners will then be taken across the seas and again sold. But in the case of those who have money, a ransom can be procured, by means of which they will not have to work.'

So far he had spoken in the belief that I was at Taunton on my brother's business, or that of my friends. I told him, therefore, that certain events had occurred which would prevent me from seeing the prisoners at Exeter. And because I could not forbear from weeping while I spoke, he very earnestly begged me to inform him fully in every particular as to my history, adding that his benevolence was not confined to the unhappy case of prisoners, but that it was ready to be extended in any other direction that happy chance might offer.

Therefore, being, as you have seen, so friendless and so ignorant, and so fearful of falling into my husband's hands, and at the same time so grateful to this good man for his kindly offers (indeed, I took him for an instrument provided by Heaven for the safety promised in my vision of the night), that I told him everything exactly, concealing nothing. Nay, I even told him of the bag of gold which I had tied round my waist—a thing which I had hitherto concealed, because the money was not mine, but Barnaby's. But I told it to Mr. Penne.