Chapter VII: Introduction (7)

When I came to him, I came, to be sure, in the ordinary habit of a poor half-naked slave. “Come hither, young man,” says he, “and give me your hoe.” When I gave it him, “Well,” says he, “you are to work no more in this plantation.”

I looked surprised, and as if I was frighted. “What have I done, sir?” said I; “and whither am I to be sent away?”

“Nay, nay,” says he, and looked very pleasantly, “do not be frighted; ’tis for your good; ’tis not to hurt you. I am ordered to make an overseer of you, and you shall be a slave no longer.”

“Alas!” says I to him, “I an overseer! I am in no condition for it. I have no clothes to put on, no linen, nothing to help myself.”

“Well, well,” says he, “you may be better used than you are aware of. Come hither with me.” So he led me into a vast, great warehouse, or, rather, set of warehouses, one within another, and calling the warehouse-keeper, “Here,” says he, “you must clothe this man, and give him everything necessary, upon the foot of number five, and give the bill to me. Our master has ordered me to allow it in the account of the west plantation.” That was, it seems, the plantation where I was to go.

Accordingly, the warehouse-keeper carried me into an inner warehouse, where were several suits of clothes of the sort his orders mentioned, which were plain but good sorts of clothes, ready made, being of a good broadcloth, about 11s. a yard in England; and with this he gave me three good shirts, two pair of shoes, stockings, and gloves, a hat, six neckcloths, and, in short, everything I could want; and when he had looked everything out, and fitted them, he lets me into a little room by itself. “Here,” says he; “go in there a slave, and come out a gentleman;” and with that carried everything into the room, and, shutting the door, bid me put them on, which I did most willingly; and now you may believe that I began to hope for something better than ordinary.

In a little while after this came the overseer, and gave me joy of my new clothes, and told me I must go with him. So I was carried to another plantation, larger than that where I worked before, and where there were two overseers or clerks; one within doors, and one without. This last was removed to another plantation, and I was placed there in his room (that is to say, as the clerk without doors), and my business was to look after the servants and negroes, and take care that they did their business, provide their food, and, in short, both govern and direct them.

I was elevated to the highest degree in my thoughts at this advancement, and it is impossible for me to express the joy of my mind upon this occasion; but there came a difficulty upon me, that shocked me so violently and went so against my very nature that I really had almost forfeited my place about it, and, in all appearance, the favour of our master, who had been so generous to me; and this was, that when I entered upon my office, I had a horse given me and a long horsewhip, like what we call in England a hunting-whip. The horse was to ride up and down all over the plantation, to see the servants and negroes did their work; and, the plantation being so large, it could not be done on foot, at least so often and so effectively as was required; and the horsewhip was given me to correct and lash the slaves and servants when they proved negligent or quarrelsome, or, in short, were guilty of any offence. This part turned the very blood within my veins, and I could not think of it with any temper, that I, who was but yesterday a servant or slave like them, and under the authority of the same lash, should lift up my hand to the cruel work which was my terror but the day before. This, I say, I could not do; insomuch that the negroes perceived it, and I had soon so much contempt upon my authority that we were all in disorder.

The ingratitude of their return for the compassion I showed them provoked me, I confess, and a little hardened my heart; and I began with the negroes, two of whom I was obliged to correct; and I thought I did it most cruelly; but after I had lashed them till every blow I struck them hurt myself and I was ready to faint at the work, the rogues laughed at me, and one of them had the impudence to say, behind my back, that, if he had the whipping of me, he would show me better how to whip a negro.

Well, however, I had no power to do it in such a barbarous manner as I found it was necessary to have it done; and the defect began to be a detriment to our master’s business. And now I began indeed to see that the cruelty so much talked of, used in Virginia and Barbados, and other colonies, in whipping the negro slaves, was not so much owing to the tyranny and passion and cruelty of the English, as had been reported, the English not being accounted to be of a cruel disposition, and really are not so; but that it is owing to the brutality and obstinate temper of the negroes, who cannot be managed by kindness and courtesy, but must be ruled with a rod of iron, beaten with scorpions, as the Scripture calls it, and must be used as they do use them, or they would rise and murder all their masters; which, their numbers considered, would not be hard for them to do, if they had arms and ammunition suitable to the rage and cruelty of their nature.

But I began to see at the same time that this brutal temper of the negroes was not rightly managed; that they did not take the best course with them to make them sensible, either of mercy or punishment; and it was evident to me that even the worst of those tempers might be brought to a compliance without the lash, or at least without so much of it as they generally inflicted.

Our master was really a man of humanity himself, and was sometimes so full of tenderness that he would forbid the severities of his overseers and stewards; but he saw the necessity of it, and was obliged at last to leave it to the discretion of his upper servants. Yet he would often bid them be merciful, and bid them consider the difference of the constitution of the bodies of the negroes, some being less able to bear the tortures of their punishment than others, and some of them less obstinate, too, than others.

However, somebody was so officious as to inform him against me upon this occasion, and let him know that I neglected his affairs, and that the servants were under no government; by which means his plantation was not duly managed, and that all things were in disorder.

This was a heavy charge for a young overseer, and his honour came like a judge, with all his attendants, to look into things and hear the cause. However, he was so just to me as that, before he censured me, he resolved to hear me fully, and that not only publicly, but in private too. And the last part of this was my particular good fortune; for, as he had formerly allowed me to speak to him with freedom, so I had the like freedom now, and had full liberty to explain and defend myself.

I knew nothing of the complaint against me till I had it from his own mouth, nor anything of his coming till I saw him in the very plantation, viewing his work, and viewing the several pieces of ground that were ordered to be new planted; and after he had rode all round, and seen things in the condition which they were to be seen in, how every thing was in its due order, and the servants and negroes were all at work, and everything appearing to his mind, he went into the house.

As I saw him come up the walks I ran towards him and made my homage, and gave him my humble thanks for the goodness he had showed me in taking me from the miserable condition I was in before, and employing and entrusting me in his business; and he looked pleasant enough, though he did not say much at first; and I attended him through the whole plantation, gave him an account of everything as we went along, answered all his objections and inquiries everywhere in such a manner as it seems he did not expect; and, as he acknowledged afterwards, everything was very much to his satisfaction.

There was an overseer, as I observed, belonging to the same plantation, who was, though not over me, yet in a work superior to mine; for his business was to see the tobacco packed up and deliver it either on board the sloops or otherwise, as our master ordered, and to receive English goods from the grand warehouse, which was at the other plantation, because that was nearest the water-side; and, in short, to keep the accounts.

This overseer, an honest and upright man, made no complaint to him of his business being neglected, as above, or of anything like it, though he inquired of him about it, and that very strictly, too.

I should have said, that as he rid over the plantation, he came in his round to the place where the servants were usually corrected when they had done any fault; and there stood two negroes, with their hands tied behind them, as it were under sentence; and when he came near them they fell on their knees and made pitiful signs to him for mercy. “Alas! alas!” says he, turning to me, “why did you bring me this way? I do not love such sights. What must I do now? I must pardon them; prithee, what have they done?” I told him the particular offences which they were brought to the place for. One had stole a bottle of rum, and had made himself drunk with it, and, when he was drunk, had done a great many mad things, and had attempted to knock one of the white servants’ brains out with a handspike, but that the white man had avoided the blow, and, striking up the negro’s heels, had seized him and brought him prisoner thither, where he had lain all night; and that I had told him he was to be whipped that day, and the next three days, twice every day.

“And could you be so cruel?” says his honour. “Why, you would kill the poor wretch; and so, beside the blood which you would have to answer for, you would lose me a lusty man negro, which cost me at least £30 or £40, and bring a reproach upon my whole plantation. Nay, and more than that, some of them in revenge would murder me, if ever it was in their power.”

“Sir,” says I, “if those fellows are not kept under by violence, I believe you are satisfied nothing is to be done with them; and it is reported in your works that I have been rather their jest than their terror, for want of using them as they deserve; and I was resolved, how much soever it is against my own disposition, that your service should not suffer for my unseasonable forbearance; and therefore, if I had scourged him to death——” “Hold,” says he; “no, no, by no means any such severity in my bounds. Remember, young man; you were once a servant. Deal as you would acknowledge it would be just to deal with you in his case, and mingle always some mercy. I desire it, and let the consequence of being too gentle be placed to my account.”

This was as much as I could desire, and the more because what passed was in public, and several, both negroes and white servants, as well as the particular persons who had accused me, heard it all, though I did not know it. “A cruel dog of an overseer,” says one of the white servants behind; “he would have whipped poor bullet-head”—so they called the negro that was to be punished—“to death if his honour had not happened to come to-day.”

However, I urged the notorious crime this fellow was guilty of, and the danger there was in such forbearance, from the refractory and incorrigible temper of the negroes, and pressed a little the necessity of making examples. But he said, “Well, well, do it the next time, but not now;” so I said no more.

The other fellow’s crime was trifling compared with this; and the master went forward, talking of it to me, and I following him, till we came to the house; when, after he had been sat down a while, he called me to him, and, not suffering my accusers to come near till he had heard my defence, he began with me thus:—

_Mast_. Hark ye, young man, I must have some discourse with you. Your conduct is complained of since I set you over this plantation. I thought your sense of the obligation I had laid on you would have secured your diligence and faithfulness to me.

_Jacque_. I am very sorry any complaint should be made of me, because the obligation I am under to your honour (and which I freely confess) does bind me to your interest in the strongest manner imaginable; and, however I may have mistaken my business, I am sure I have not willingly neglected it.

_Mast_. Well, I shall not condemn you without hearing you, and therefore I called you in now to tell you of it.

_Jacque_. I humbly thank your honour. I have but one petition more, and that is, that I may know my accusation; and, if you please, my accusers.

_Mast_. The first you shall, and that is the reason of my talking to you in private; and if there is any need of a further hearing, you shall know your accusers too. What you are charged with is just contrary to what appeared to me just now, and therefore you and I must come to a new understanding about it, for I thought I was too cunning for you, and now I think you have been too cunning for me.

_Jacque_. I hope your honour will not be offended that I do not fully understand you.

_Mast_. I believe you do not. Come, tell me honestly, did you really intend to whip the poor negro twice a day for four days together; that is to say, to whip him to death, for that would have been the English of it, and the end of it?

_Jacque_. If I may be permitted to guess, sir, I believe I know the charge that is brought against me, and that your honour has been told that I have been too gentle with the negroes, as well as other servants; and that when they deserved to be used with the accustomed severity of the country, I have not given them half enough; and that by this means they are careless of your business, and that your plantation is not well looked after, and the like.

_Mast_. Well, you guess right. Go on.

_Jacque_. The first part of the charge I confess, but the last I deny, and appeal to your honour’s strictest examination into every part of it.

_Mast_. If the last part could be true, I would be glad the first were; for it would be an infinite satisfaction to me that, my business not being neglected, nor our safety endangered, those poor wretches could be used with more humanity; for cruelty is the aversion of my nature, and it is the only uncomfortable thing that attends me in all my prosperity.

_Jacque_. I freely acknowledge, sir, that at first it was impossible for me to bring myself to that terrible work. How could I, that was but just come out of the terror of it myself, and had but the day before been a poor naked, miserable servant myself, and might be to-morrow reduced to the same condition again; how could I use this terrible weapon[6] on the naked flesh of my fellow-servants, as well as fellow-creatures? At least, sir, when my duty made it absolutely necessary, I could not do it without the utmost horror. I beseech you, pardon me if I have such a tenderness in my nature, that though I might be fit to be your servant, I am incapable of being an executioner, having been an offender myself.

_Mast_. Well, but how, then, can my business be done? And how will this terrible obstinacy of the negroes, who, they tell me, can be no otherwise governed, be kept from neglect of their work, or even insolence and rebellion?

_Jacque_. This brings me, sir, to the latter part of my defence; and here I hope your honour will be pleased to call my accusers, or that you will give yourself the trouble of taking the exactest view of your plantation, and see, or let them show you, if anything is neglected, if your business has suffered in anything, or if your negroes or other servants are under less government than they were before; and if, on the contrary, I have found out that happy secret, to have good order kept, the business of the plantation done, and that with diligence and despatch, and that the negroes are kept in awe, the natural temper of them subjected, and the safety and peace of your family secured, as well by gentle means as by rough, by moderate correction as by torture and barbarity, by a due awe of just discipline as by the horror of unsufferable torments, I hope your honour will not lay that sin to my charge.

_Mast_. No, indeed; you would be the most acceptable manager that ever I employed. But how, then, does this consist with the cruel sentence you had passed on the poor fellow that is in your condemned hole yonder, who was to be whipped eight times in four days?

_Jacque_. Very well, sir. First, sir, he remains under the terrible apprehensions of a punishment so severe as no negro ever had before. This fellow, with your leave, I intended to release to-morrow without any whipping at all, after talking to him in my way about his offence, and raising in his mind a sense of the value of pardon. And if this makes him a better servant than the severest whipping will do, then, I presume, you would allow I have gained a point.

_Mast_. Ay; but what if it should not be so? For these fellows have no sense of gratitude.

_Jacque_. That is, sir, because they are never pardoned. If they offend, they never know what mercy is; and what, then, have they to be grateful for?

_Mast_. Thou art in the right indeed. Where there is no mercy showed, there is no obligation laid upon them.

_Jacque_. Besides, sir, if they have at any time been let go, which is very seldom, they are not told what the case is. They take no pains with them to imprint principles of gratitude on their minds, to tell them what kindness is shown them, and what they are indebted for it, and what they might gain in the end by it.

_Mast_. But do you think such usage would do? Would it make any impression? You persuade yourself it would, but you see ’tis against the received notion of the whole country.

_Jacque_. There are, it may be, public and national mistakes and errors in conduct, and this is one.

_Mast_. Have you tried it? You cannot say it is a mistake till you have tried and proved it to be so.

_Jacque_. Your whole plantation is a proof of it. This very fellow had never acted as he did if he had not gotten rum in his head, and been out of the government of himself; so that, indeed, all the offence I ought to have punished him for had been that of stealing a bottle of rum and drinking it all up; in which case, like Noah, he did not know the strength of it, and when he had it in his head he was a madman, he was as one raging and distracted; so that, for all the rest, he deserved pity rather than punishment.

_Mast_. Thou art right, certainly right, and thou wilt be a rare fellow if thou canst bring these notions into practice. I wish you had tried it upon any one particular negro, that I might see an example. I would give £500 if it could be brought to bear.

_Jacque_. I desire nothing, sir, but your favour, and the advantage of obliging you. I will show you an example of it among your own negroes, and all the plantation will acknowledge it.

_Mast_. You make my very heart glad within me, Jacque. If you can bring this to pass, I here give you my word I’ll not only give you your own freedom, but make a man of you for this world as long as you live.

Upon this I bowed to him very respectfully, and told him the following story:—‘There is a negro, sir, in your plantation who has been your servant several years before I came. He did a fault that was of no great consequence in itself, but perhaps would have been worse if they had indeed gone further; and I had him brought into the usual place, and tied him by the thumbs for correction, and he was told that he should be whipped and pickled in a dreadful manner. After I had made proper impressions on his mind of the terror of his punishment, and found that he was sufficiently humbled by it, I went into the house, and caused him to be brought out, just as they do when they go to correct the negroes on such occasions. When he was stripped and tied up he had two lashes given him, that was indeed very cruel ones, and I called to them to hold. ‘Hold!’ said I to the two men that had just began to lay on upon the poor fellow: ‘Hold!’ said I, ‘let me talk with him.’

“So he was taken down. Then I began and represented to him how kind you, that were his great master,[7] had been to him; that you had never done him any harm; that you had used him gently, and he had never been brought to this punishment in so many years, though he had done some faults before; that this was a notorious offence, for he had stolen some rum, and made himself and two other negroes drunk-mad;[8] and had abused two women negroes, who had husbands in our master’s service, but in another plantation; and played several pranks, and for this I had appointed him this punishment.

“He shook his head, and made signs that he was _muchee sorree_, as he called it. ‘And what will you say or do,’ said I, ‘if I should prevail with the great master to pardon you? I have a mind to go and see if I can beg for you.’ He told me he would lie down, let me kill him. ‘Me will,’ says he, ‘run, go, fetch, bring for you as long as me live.’ This was the opportunity I had a mind to have, to try whether, as negroes have all the other faculties of reasonable creatures, they had not also some sense of kindness, some principles of natural generosity, which, in short, is the foundation of gratitude; for gratitude is the product of generous principles.”

“You please me with the beginning of this story,” says he; “I hope you have carried it on.”

“Yes, sir,” says I; “it has been carried on further perhaps than you imagine, or will think has been possible in such a case.

“But I was not so arrogant as to assume the merit to myself. ‘No, no,’ said I, ‘I do not ask you to go or run for me; you must do all that for our great master, for it will be from him entirely that you will be pardoned at all, for your offence is against him; and what will you say? Will you be grateful to him, and run, go, fetch, bring, for him, as long as you live, as you have said you would for me?’

“’Yes, indeed,’ says he, ‘and muchee do, muchee do, for you too’ (he would not leave me out); ‘you ask him for me.’

“Well, I put off all his promised gratitude to me from myself, as was my duty, and placed it to your account; told him I knew you was muchee good, muchee pitiful, and I would persuade you if I could; and so told him I would go to you, and he should be whipped no more till I came again; but, ‘Hark ye, Mouchat,’ says I (that was the negro’s name), ’they tell me, when I came hither, that there is no showing kindness to any of you negroes; that when we spare you from whipping you laugh at us, and are the worse.’

“He looked very serious at me, and said, ‘Oh, that not so; the masters say so, but no be so, no be so, indeede, indeede,’ and so we parleyed.”

_Jacque_. Why do they say so, then? To be sure they have tried you all.

_Negro_. No, no, they no try; they say so, but no try.

_Jacque_. I hear them all say so.

_Negro_. Me tell you the true; they have no mercie; they beat us cruel, all cruel; they never have show mercie. How can they tell we be no better?

_Jacque_. What! do they never spare?

_Negro_. Master, me speakee the true; they never give mercie; they always whippee, lashee, knockee down, all cruel. Negro be muchee better man, do muchee better work, but they tell us no mercie.

_Jacque_. But what, do they never show any mercy?

_Negro_. No, never; no, never; all whippee; all whippee, cruel, worse than they whippee de horse, whippee de dog.

_Jacque_. But would they be better if they did?

_Negro_. Yes, yes; negro be muchee better if they be mercie. When they be whippee, whippee, negro muchee cry, muchee hate; would kill if they had de gun. But when they makee de mercie, then negro tell de great tankee, and love to worke, and do muchee worke; and because he good master to them.

_Jacque_. They say no; you would laugh at them and mock when they show mercy.

_Negro_. How they say when they show mercie? They never show mercie; me never see them show one mercie since me live.

“Now, sir,” said I, “if this be so, really they go, I dare say, contrary to your inclination, for I see you are but too full of pity for the miserable. I saw it in my own case; and upon a presumption that you had rather have your work done from a principle of love than fear, without making your servants bleed for every trifle, if it were possible; I say, upon this presumption I dealt with this Mouchat, as you shall hear.”

_Mast_. I have never met with anything of this kind since I have been a planter, which is now about forty years. I am delighted with the story. Go on; I expect a pleasant conclusion.

_Jacque_. The conclusion, sir, will be, I believe, as much to your satisfaction as the beginning; for it every way answered my expectation, and will yours also, and show you how you might be faithfully served if you pleased, for ’tis certain you are not so served now.

_Mast_. No, indeed; they serve me but just as they do the devil, for fear I should hurt them. But ’tis contrary to an ingenuous spirit to delight in such service. I abhor it, if I could but know how to get any other.

_Jacque_. It is easy, sir, to show you that you may be served upon better principles, and consequently be better served, and more to your satisfaction; and I dare undertake to convince you of it.

_Mast_. Well, go on with the story.

_Jacque_. After I had talked thus to him I said, “Well, Mouchat, I shall see how you will be afterwards, if I can get our great master to be merciful to you at this time.”

_Negro_. Yes, you shall see; you muchee see, muchee see.

“Upon this I called for my horse and went from him, and made as if I rode away to you, who they told me was in the next plantation; and having stayed four or five hours, I came back and talked to him again, told him that I had waited on you, and that you had heard of his offence, was highly provoked, and had resolved to cause him to be severely punished for an example to all the negroes in the plantation; but that I had told you how penitent he was, and how good he would be if you would pardon him; and had at last prevailed on you. That you had told me what all people said of the negroes; how, that to show them mercy was to make them think you were never in earnest with them, and that you did but trifle and play with them. However, that I had told you what he had said of himself, and that it was not true of the negroes, and that the white men said it, but that they could not know because they did never show any mercy, and therefore had never tried; that I had persuaded you to show mercy, to try whether kindness would prevail as much as cruelty. ‘And now, Mouchat,’ said I, ‘you will be let go. Pray let our great master see that I have said true.’ So I ordered him to be untied, gave him a dram of rum out of my pocket-bottle, and ordered them to give him some victuals.

“When the fellow was let loose, he came to me and kneeled down to me, and took hold of my legs and of my feet, and laid his head upon the ground, and sobbed and cried like a child that had been corrected, but could not speak for his life; and thus he continued a long time. I would have taken him up, but he would not rise; but I cried as fast as he, for I could not bear to see a poor wretch lie on the ground to me, that was but a servant the other day like himself. At last, but not till a quarter of an hour, I made him get up, and then he spoke. ‘Me muchee know good great master, muchee good you master. No negro unthankful; me die for them, do me so muchee kind.’

“I dismissed him then, and bid him go to his wife (for he was married), and not work that afternoon; but as he was going away I called him again, and talked thus to him.

“’Now, Mouchat,’ says I, ‘you see the white men can show mercy. Now you must tell all the negroes what has been reported of them; that they regard nothing but the whip; that if they are used gently they are the worse, not the better; and that this is the reason why the white men show them no mercy; and convince them that they would be much better treated and used kindlier if they would show themselves as grateful for kind usage as humble after torment; and see if you can work on them.’

“’Me go, me go,’ says he; ‘me muchee talk to them. They be muchee glad as me be, and do great work to be used kind by de great master.’”

_Mast_. Well, but now what testimony have you of this gratitude you speak of? Have you seen any alteration among them?

_Jacque_. I come next to that part, sir. About a month after this I caused a report to be spread abroad in the plantation that I had offended you, the great master, and that I was turned out of the plantation, and was to be hanged. Your honour knows that some time ago you sent me upon your particular business into Potuxent River, where I was absent twelve days; then I took the opportunity to have this report spread about among the negroes, to see how it would work.

_Mast_. What! to see how Mouchat would take it?

_Jacque_. Yes, sir; and it made a discovery indeed. The poor fellow did not believe it presently, but finding I was still absent, he went to the head-clerk, and standing at his door, said nothing, but looked like a fool of ten years old. After some time the upper overseer came out, and seeing him stand there, at first said nothing, supposing he had been sent of some errand; but observing him to stand stock-still, and that he was in the same posture and place during the time that he had passed and repassed two or three times, he stops short the last time of his coming by. “What do you want,” says he to him, “that you stand idle here so long?”

“’Me speakee; me tell something,’ says he.

“Then the overseer thought some discovery was at hand, and began to listen to him. ‘What would you tell me?’ says he.

“’Me tell! Pray,’ says he, ‘where be de other master?’

“He meant he would ask where he was. ‘What other master do you mean?’ says the clerk. ‘What! do you want to speak with the great master? He can’t be spoke with by you. Pray what is your business? Cannot you tell it to me?’

“’No, no; me no speakee the great master—the other master,’ says Mouchat.”

“’What! the colonel?’ says the clerk.

“’Yes, yes; the colonel,’ says he.

“’Why, don’t you know that he is to be hanged to-morrow,’ says the clerk, ‘for making the great master angry?’[9]

“’Yes, yes,’ says Mouchat; ‘me know, me know; but me want speak; me tell something.’

“’Well, what would you say?’ says the clerk.

“’Oh! me no let him makee de great master angry.’ With that he kneeled down to the clerk.

“’What ails you?’ says the clerk. ‘I tell you he must be hanged.’

“’No, no,’ says he; ‘no hang de master. Me kneel for him to great master.’

“’You kneel for him!’ says the clerk.[10] ’What! do you think the great master will mind you? He has made the great master angry, and must be hanged, I tell you. What signifies your begging?’

“_Negro_. Oh! me pray, me pray the great master for him.

“_Clerk_. Why, what ails you that you would pray for him?

“_Negro_. Oh! he beggee the great master for me; now me beggee for him. The great master muchee good, muchee good; he pardon me when the other master beggee me; now he pardon him when me beggee for him again.

“_Clerk_. No, no; your begging won’t do. Will you be hanged for him? If you do that, something may be.

“_Negro_. Yes, yes; me be hang for de poor master that beggee for me. Mouchat shall hang; the great master shall hangee me, whippee me; anything to save the poor master that beggee me; yes, yes, indeed.

“_Clerk_. Are you in earnest, Mouchat?

“_Negro_. Yes, indeed; me tellee de true. The great master shall know me tellee de true, for he shall see the white man hangee me, Mouchat. Poor negro Mouchat will be hangee, be whippee, anything for the poor master that beggee for me.

“With this the poor fellow cried most pitifully, and there was no room to question his being in earnest; when on a sudden I appeared, for I was fetched to see all this transaction. I was not in the house at first, but was just come home from the business you sent me of, and heard it all; and indeed neither the clerk or I could bear it any longer, so he came out to me. ‘Go to him,’ says he; ‘you have made an example that will never be forgot, that a negro can be grateful. Go to him,’ adds he, ‘for I can talk to him no longer.’ So I appeared, and spoke to him presently, and let him see that I was at liberty; but to hear how the poor fellow behaved your honour cannot but be pleased.”

_Mast_. Prithee go on. I am pleased with it all; ’tis all a new scene of negro life to me, and very moving.

_Jacque_. For a good while he stood as if he had been thunderstruck and stupid; but, looking steadily at me, though not speaking a word, at last he mutters to himself, with a kind of laugh, “Ay, ay,” says he, “Mouchat see, Mouchat no see; me wakee, me no wakee; no hangee, no hangee; he live truly, very live;” and then on a sudden he runs to me, snatches me away as if I had been a boy of ten years old, and takes me up upon his back and runs away with me, till I was fain to cry out to him to stop. Then he sets me down, and looks at me again, then falls a-dancing about me as if he had been bewitched, just as you have seen them do about their wives and children when they are merry.

“Well, then, he began to talk with me, and told me what they had said to him, how I was to be hanged. ‘Well,’ says I, ‘Mouchat, and would you have been satisfied to be hanged to save me?’ ‘Yes, yes,’ says he; ’be truly hangee, to beggee you.’

“’But why do you love me so well, Mouchat?’ said I.

“’Did you no beggee me,’ he says, ‘at the great master? You savee me, make great master muchee good, muchee kind, no whippee me; me no forget; me be whipped, be hanged, that you no be hanged; me die, that you no die; me no let any bad be with you all while that me live.’

“Now, sir, your honour may judge whether kindness, well managed, would not oblige these people as well as cruelty, and whether there are principles of gratitude in them or no.”

_Mast_. But what, then, can be the reason that we never believed it to be so before?

_Jacque_. Truly, sir, I fear that Mouchat gave the true reason.

_Mast_. What was that, pray? That we were too cruel?

_Jacque_. That they never had any mercy showed them; that we never tried them whether they would be grateful or no; that if they did a fault they were never spared, but punished with the utmost cruelty; so that they had no passion, no affection, to act upon but that of fear, which necessarily brought hatred with it; but that if they were used with compassion they would serve with affection as well as other servants. Nature is the same, and reason governs in just proportions in all creatures; but having never been let taste what mercy is, they know not how to act from a principle of love.

_Mast_. I am convinced it is so. But now, pray tell me, how did you put this in practice with the poor negroes now in bonds yonder, when you passed such a cruel sentence upon them that they should be whipped twice a day, for four days together? Was that showing mercy?

_Jacque_. My method was just the same; and if you please to inquire of Mr.——, your other servant, you will be satisfied that it was so; for we agreed upon the same measures as I took with Mouchat; namely, first to put them into the utmost horror and apprehensions of the cruellest punishment that they ever heard of, and thereby enhance the value of their pardon, which was to come as from yourself, but not without our great intercession. Then I was to argue with them, and work upon their reason, to make the mercy that was showed them sink deep into their minds and give lasting impressions; explain the meaning of gratitude to them, and the nature of an obligation, and the like, as I had done with Mouchat.

_Mast_. I am answered. Your method is certainly right, and I desire you may go on with it; for I desire nothing on this side heaven more than to have all my negroes serve me from principles of gratitude for my kindness to them. I abhor to be feared like a lion, like a tyrant. It is a violence upon nature every way, and is the most disagreeable thing in the world to a generous mind.

_Jacque_. But, sir, I am doubtful that you may not believe that I intended to act thus with those poor fellows. I beseech you to send for Mr.——, that he may tell you what we had agreed on before I speak with him.

_Mast_. What reason have I to doubt that?

_Jacque_. I hope you have not; but I should be very sorry you should think me capable of executing such a sentence as you have heard me own I had passed on them, and there can be no way effectually to clear it up but this.

_Mast_. Well, seeing you put so much weight upon it, he shall be called for.

[He was called, and being ordered by the master to tell the measures that were concerted between them for the punishment or management of those negroes, he gave it just as Jacque had done before.]

_Jacque_. I hope, sir, you are now not only satisfied of the truth of the account I gave relating to the method we had agreed on, but of its being so proper and so likely to answer your end.

_Mast_. I am fully satisfied, and shall be glad to see that it answers the end; for, as I have said, nothing can be more agreeable to me. Nothing has so much robbed me of the comfort of all my fortunes as the cruelty used, in my name, on the bodies of those poor slaves.

_Jacque_. It is certainly wrong, sir; it is not only wrong as it is barbarous and cruel; but it is wrong, too, as it is the worst way of managing and of having your business done.

_Mast_. It is my aversion; it fills my very soul with horror. I believe if I should come by while they were using those cruelties on the poor creatures, I should either sink down at the sight of it or fly into a rage and kill the fellow that did it; though it is done, too, by my own authority.

_Jacque_. But, sir, I dare say I shall convince you also that it is wrong in respect of interest, and that your business shall be better discharged and your plantations better ordered, and more work done by the negroes who shall be engaged by mercy and lenity than by those who are driven and dragged by the whips and the chains of a merciless tormentor.

_Mast_. I think the nature of the thing speaks itself. Doubtless it should be so, and I have often thought it would be so, and a thousand times wished it might be so; but all my English people pretend otherwise, and that it is impossible to bring the negroes to any sense of kindness, and consequently not to any obedience of love.

_Jacque_. It may be true, sir, that there may be found here and there a negro of a senseless, stupid, sordid disposition, perfectly untractable, undocible, and incapable of due impressions; especially incapable of the generosity of principle which I am speaking of. You know very well, sir, there are such among Christians as well as among the negroes; whence else came the English proverb, That if you save a thief from the gallows, he shall be the first to cut your throat. But, sir, if such a refractory, undocible fellow comes in our way, he must be dealt with, first by the smooth ways to try him, then by the violent way to break his temper, as they break a horse; and if nothing will do, such a wretch should be sold off, and others bought in his room; for the peace of the plantation should not be broken for one devilish-tempered fellow. And if this was done I doubt not you should have all your plantations carried on and your work done, and not a negro or a servant upon it but what would not only work for you, but even die for you, if there was an occasion for it, as you see this poor Mouchat would have done for me.

_Mast_. Well, go on with your measures, and may you succeed. I’ll promise you I will fully make you amends for it. I long to have these cruelties out of use, in my plantation especially. As for others, let them do as they will.

Our master being gone, I went to the prisoners, and first I suffered them to be told that the great master had been there, and that he had been inclined to pardon them, till he knew what their crime was; but then he said it was so great a fault that it must be punished. Besides, the man that talked to them told them that the great master said that he knew if he had pardoned them they would be but the worse, for that the negroes were never thankful for being spared, and that there were no other ways to make them obedient but severity.

One of the poor fellows, more sensible than the other, answered, if any negro be badder for being kindly used, they should be whipped till they were muchee better; but that he never knew that, for that he never knew the negro be kindly use.

This was the same thing as the other had said, and indeed was but too true, for the overseers really knew no such thing as mercy; and that notion of the negroes being no other way to be governed but by cruelty had been the occasion that no other method was ever tried among them.

Again, if a slack hand had at any time been held upon them, it had not been done with discretion, or as a point of mercy, and managed with the assistance of argument to convince the negroes of the nature and reason of it, and to show them what they ought to do in return for it; but it was perhaps the effect of negligence, ill conduct, and want of application to the business of the plantation; and then it was no wonder that the negroes took the advantage of it.

Well, I carried on the affair with these two negroes just as I did with Mouchat, so I need not repeat the particulars; and they were delivered with infinite acknowledgments and thanks, even to all the extravagances of joy usual in those people on such occasions. And such was the gratitude of those two pardoned fellows that they were the most faithful and most diligent servants ever after that belonged to the whole plantation, Mouchat excepted.

In this manner I carried on the plantation fully to his satisfaction; and before a year more was expired there was scarce any such thing as correction known in the plantation, except upon a few boys, who were incapable of the impressions that good usage would have made, even upon them too, till they had lived to know the difference.

It was some time after this conference that our great master, as we called him, sent for me again to his dwelling-house, and told me he had had an answer from England from his friend, to whom he had written about my bill. I was a little afraid that he was going to ask me leave to send it to London; but he did not say anything like that, but told me that his friend had been with the gentleman, and that he owned the bill, and that he had all the money in his hand that the bill had mentioned; but that he had promised the young man that had given him the money (meaning me) not to pay the money to anybody but himself, though they should bring the bill; the reason of which was, that I did not know who might get the bill away from me.

“But now, Colonel Jacque,” says he, “as you wrote him an account where you was, and by what wicked arts you were trepanned, and that it was impossible for you to have your liberty till you could get the money, my friend at London has written to me, that, upon making out a due copy of the bill here, attested by a notary and sent to him, and your obligation likewise attested, whereby you oblige yourself to deliver the original to his order after the money is paid, he will pay the money.”

I told him I was willing to do whatever his honour directed; and so the proper copies were drawn as I had been told were required.

“But now, what will you do with this money, Jacque?” says he, smiling. “Will you buy your liberty of me, and go to planting?”

I was too cunning for him now indeed, for I remembered what he had promised me; and I had too much knowledge of the honesty of his principles, as well as of the kindness he had for me, to doubt his being as good as his word; so I turned all this talk of his upon him another way. I knew that when he asked me if I would buy my liberty and go to planting, it was to try if I would leave him; so I said, “As to buying my liberty, sir—that is to say, going out of your service—I had much rather buy more time in your service, and I am only unhappy that I have but two years to serve.”

“Come, come, colonel,” says he, “don’t flatter me; I love plain dealing. Liberty is precious to everybody; if you have a mind to have your money brought over, you shall have your liberty to begin for yourself, and I will take care you shall be well used by the country, and get you a good plantation.”

I still insisted that I would not quit his service for the best plantation in Maryland; that he had been so good to me, and I believed I was so useful to him, that I could not think of it; and at last I added I hoped he could not believe but I had as much gratitude as a negro.

He smiled, and said he would not be served upon those terms; that he did not forget what he had promised, nor what I had done in his plantation; and that he was resolved in the first place to give me my liberty. So he pulls out a piece of paper, and throws it to me: “There,” says he, “there’s a certificate of your coming on shore, and being sold to me for five years, of which you have lived three with me; and now you are your own master.” I bowed, and told him that I was sure, if I was my own master, I would be his servant as long as he would accept of my service. And now we strained courtesies, and he told me I should be his servant still; but it should be on two conditions: first, that he would give me £30 a year and my board for my managing the plantation I was then employed in; and, secondly, that at the same time he would procure me a new plantation to begin upon my own account, “For, Colonel Jacque,” says he, smiling, “though you are but a young man, yet ’tis time you were doing something for yourself.”

I answered that I could do little at a plantation for myself, unless I neglected his business, which I was resolved not to do on any terms whatever, but that I would serve him faithfully, if he would accept of me, as long as he lived. “So you shall,” says he again, “and serve yourself too.” And thus we parted for that time.