Journal of a Residence among the Negroes in the West Indies Read online

  JOURNAL Of A RESIDENCE AMONG THE NEGROES IN THE WEST INDIES. BY THE LATE MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS. ESQ., MP., AUTHOR OF "THE MONK," "THE CASTLE SPECTER," "TALES OF WONDER," &c. I would give many a sugar cane, Mat. Lewis were alive again.."

  BYRON. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 1845.

  THE following Journals of two residences in Jamaica, in 1815-16, and in 1817, were printed from the MS. of Mr. Lewis, who died at sea, on the voyage homewards from the West Indies, in the year 1818.

  London: Printed by William Clowes and Sons, Stanford Street.

  "Nunc alio patriam quaero sub sole jacentem." -- Virgil.

  1815. NOVEMBER 8. (Wednesday.)

  I LEFT London, and reached Gravesend at nine in the morning, having been taught to expect our sailing in a few hours. But although the vessel left the Docks on Saturday, she did not reach this place till three o'clock on Thursday the 9th. The Captain now-tells me, that we may expect to sail certainly in the afternoon of to-morrow the 10th. I expect the ship's cabin to gain greatly by my two days' residence at the "***** ****," which nothing can exceed for noise, dirt, and dulness. Eloisa would never have established "black melancholy,"- at the Paraclete as its favourite residence, if she had happened to pass three days at an inn at Gravesend: nowhere else did I ever see the Sky look so dingy, and the river so dirty: to be sure, the place has all the advantages of an English November to assist it in those particulars. Just now, too, a carriage passed my windows, conveying on board a cargo of passengers, who seemed sincerely afflicted at the thoughts of leaving their dear native land! The pigs squeaked, the ducks quacked, and the fowls screamed; and all so dolefully, as clearly to prove, that theirs was no dissembled sorrow! And after them (more affecting than all) came a wheelbarrow, with a solitary porker tied in a basket, with his head hanging over on one side, and his legs sticking out on the other, who neither grunted nor moved, nor gave any signs of life, but seemed to be of quite the same opinion with Hannah More's heroine,

  "Grief is for little wrongs; despair for mine!"

  As Miss O'Neil is to play "Elwina" for the first time to- morrow, it is a thousand pities that she had not the previous advantage of seeing the speechless despondency of this poor pig; it might have furnished her with some valuable hints, and enabled her to convey more perfectly to the audience the "expressive silence" of irremediable distress.

  NOVEMBER 10.

  At four o'clock in the afternoon, I embarked on board the "Sir Godfrey Webster," Captain Boyes. On approaching the vessel, we heard the loudest of all possible shrieks proceeding from a boat lying near her: and who should prove to be the complainant, but my former acquaintance, the despairing pig. He had recovered his voice to protest against entering the ship: I had already declared against climbing up the accommodation ladder; the pig had precisely the very same objection. So a soi-disant chair, being a broken bucket, was let down for us, and the pig and myself entered the vessel by the same conveyance; only pig had the precedence, and was hoisted up first. The ship proceeded three miles, and then the darkness obliged us to come to an anchor. There are only two other cabin passengers, a Mr. J----- A and a Mr. S-----; the latter is a planter in the "May-Day Mountains," Jamaica: he wonders, considering how much benefit Great Britain derives from the West Indies, that government is not careful to build more churches in them, and is of opinion, that "hedicating the negroes is the only way to make them appy; indeed, in his umble hopinion, hedication his hall in hall!"

  NOVEMBER 11.

  We sailed at six o'clock, passed through "Nob's Hole," the "Girdler's Hole," and "the Pan" (all very dangerous sands, and particularly the last, where at times we had only one foot water below us), by half-past four, and at five came to an anchor in the Queen's Channel. Never having seen any thing of the kind before, I was wonderfully pleased with the manoeuvring of several large ships, which passed through the sands at the same time with us: their motions seemed to be effected with as much ease and dexterity as if they had been crane-necked, carriages; and the effect as they pursued each other's track and windings was perfectly beautiful.

  NOVEMBER 12. (Sunday.)

  The wind was contrary, and we had to beat up the whole way. We did not reach the Downs till past four o'clock, and, as there were above sixty vessels arrived before us, we had some difficulty in finding a safe berth. At length we anchored in the Lower Roads, about four miles off Deal. We can see very clearly the double lights in the vessel moored off the Goodwin sands: it is constantly inhabited by two families, who reside there alternately every fortnight, except when the weather delays the exchange. The "Sir Godfrey Webster" is a vessel of 600 tons, and was formerly in the East India service. I have a very clean cabin, a place for my books, and every thing is much more comfortable than I expected; the wind, however, is completely west, the worst that we could have, and we must not even expect a change till the full moon. The captain pointed out a man to me today, who had been with him in a violent storm off the Bermudas. For six hours together, the flashes of lightning were so unintermitting that the eye could not sustain them: at one time, the ship seemed to be completely in a blaze; and the man in question (who was then standing at the wheel, near the captain) suddenly cried out, "I don't know what has happened to me, but I can neither see nor stand ;" and he fell down upon the deck. He was taken up and carried below; and it appeared that the lightning had affected his eyes and legs, in a degree to make him both blind and lame, though the captain, who was standing by his side had received no injury: in three or four days the man was quite well again.

  In this storm no less than thirteen vessels were dismasted, or otherwise shattered by the lightning.

  NOVEMBER 13.

  At six this morning came on a tremendous gale of wind; the captain says, that he never experienced a heavier. However, we rode it out with great success, although, at one time, it was bawled out that we were driving; and, at another, a brig which lay near us broke from her moorings, and came bearing down close upon us. The danger, indeed, from the difference of size, was all upon the side of the brig; but, luckily, the vessels cleared each other. This evening she has thought it as well to remove further from so dangerous a neighbourhood. There is a little cabin-boy on board, and Mr. J----- has brought with him a black terrier; and these two at first sight swore to each other an eternal friendship, in the true German style. It is the boy's first voyage, and he is excessively sea-sick; so he has been obliged to creep into his hammock, and his friend, the little black terrier, has crept into the hammock with him. A boat came from the shore this evening, and reported that several vessels have been dismasted, lost their anchors, and injured in various ways. A brig, which was obliged to make for Ramsgate, missed the pier, and was dashed to pieces completely; the crew, however, were saved, all except the pilot; who, although he was brought on shore alive, what between bruises, drowning, and fright, had suffered so much that he died two hours afterwards. The weather has now again become calm; but the wind is still full west.

  NOVEMBER 15.

  The wind altered sufficiently to allow us to escape from the Downs; and at dusk we were off Beachy Head. This morning the steward left the trap-door of the store-hole open; of course, I immediately contrived to step into it, and was on the point of being precipitated to the bottom, among innumerable boxes of grocery, bags of biscuit, and porter barrels;-where a broken limb was the least that I could expect. Luckily I fell across the corner of the trap, and managed to support myself, till I could effect my escape with a bruised knee, and the loss of a few inches of skin from my left arm.

  NOVEMBER 19. (Sunday.)

&
nbsp; At one this morning a violent gust of wind came on; and, at the rate of ten miles an hour, carried us through the Chops of the Channel, formed by the Scilly Rocks and the Isle of Ushant. But I thought that the advance was dearly purchased by the terrible night which the storm made us pass. The wind roaring, the waves dashing against the stern, till at last they beat in the quarter gallery; the ship, too, rolling from side to side, as if every moment she were going to roll over and over! Mr. J------ was heaved off one of the sofas, and rolled along, till he was stopped by the table. He then took his seat upon the floor, as the more secure position; and, half an hour afterwards, another heave chucked him back again upon the sofa. The captain snuffed out one of the candles, and both being tied to the table, could not relight it with the other: so the steward came to do it; when a sudden heel of the ship made him extinguish the second candle, tumbled him upon the sofa on which I was lying, and made the candle which he had brought with him fly out of the candlestick, through a cabin window at his elbow; and thus we were all left in the dark. Then the intolerable noise! The cracking of bulk-heads! the sawing of ropes! the screeching of the tiller! the trampling of the sailors! the clattering of the crockery! Every thing above deck, and below deck all in motion at once! Chairs, writing-desks, books, boxes, bundles, fire-irons and fenders, flying to one end of the room; and the next moment (as if they had made a mistake) flying back again to the other with the same hurry and confusion! "Confusion worse confounded!" Of all the inconveniences attached to a vessel, the incessant noise appears to me the most insupportable! As to our live stock, they seem to have made up their minds on the subject, and say with one of Ariosto's knights (when he was cloven from the head to the chine)," "or convien morire." Our fowls and ducks are screaming and quacking their last by dozens; and by Tuesday morning it is supposed that we shall not have an animal alive in the ship, except the black terrier-and my friend the squeaking pig, whose vocal powers are still audible, maugre the storm and the sailors, and who (I believe) only continues to survive out of spite, because he can join in the general chorus, and help to increase the number of abominable sounds. We are now tossing about in the Bay of Biscay: I shall remember it as long as I live.

  NOVEMBER 20.

  Our live stock has received an increase; our fowls and ducks are dead to be sure, but a lark flew on board this morning, blown (as is supposed) from the coast of France. In five minutes it appeared to be quite at home, ate very readily whatever was given it, and hopped about the deck without fear of the sailors, or the more formidable black terrier, with all the ease and assurance imaginable.

  NOVEMBER 21.

  The weather continues intolerable. Boisterous waves running mountains high, with no wind, or a foul one. Dead calms by day, which prevent our making any progress; and violent storms by night, which prevent our getting any sleep.

  Everything is in a state of perpetual motion. We drink our tea exactly as Tantalus did in the infernal regions; we keep bobbing at the basin for half an hour together without being able to get a drop; and certainly nobody on ship-board can doubt the truth of the proverb, "Many things fall out between the cup and the lip."

  NOVEMBER 23.

  PANDORA'S BOX. (Iliad A.)

  Prometheus once (in Tooke the tale you'll see)

  In one vast box enclosed all human evils;

  But curious Woman needs the inside would see,

  And out came twenty thousand million devils.

  The story's spoil'd, and Tooke should well be chid:

  The fact, sir, happen'd thus, and I've no doubt of it;

  'T was not that Woman raised the coffer's lid,

  But when the lid was raised, Woman popp'd out of it.

  "But Hope remain'd"-true, sir, she did; but still

  All saw of what Miss Hope gave intimation;

  Her right hand grasp'd an undertaker's bill,

  Her left conceal'd a deed of separation.

  N.B. I was most horribly sea-sick when I took this view of the subject.

  NOVEMBER 24.

  "Manibus date lilia plenis;

  Purpureos spargam flores!"

  The squeaking pig was killed this morning.

  NOVEMBER 26.

  A complete and most violent storm, from twelve at night till seven the next morning. The fore-top-sail, though only put up for the first time yesterday, was rent from top to bottom; and several of the other sails are torn to pieces. The perpetual tempestuous weather which we have experienced has so shaken the, planks of the vessel, that the sea enters at all quarters. About one o'clock in the morning I was saluted by a stream of water, which poured down exactly upon my face, and obliged me to shift my lodgings. The carpenter had been made aware that there was a leak in my cabin, and ordered to caulk the seam; but, I suppose, he thought that during only a two months' voyage, the rain might very possibly never find out the hole, and that it would be quite time enough to apply the remedy when I should have felt the inconvenience. The best is, that the carpenter happening to be at work in the next cabin when the water came down upon me, I desired him to call my servant, in order that I might get up on account of the leak; on which he told me "that the leak could not be helped;" grumbled a good deal at calling up the servant; and seemed to think me not a little unreasonable for not lying quietly, and suffering my self to be pumped upon by this shower-bath of his own providing.

  But if the water gets into the ship, on the other hand, last night the poor old steward was very near getting out of it. In the thick of the storm he was carrying some grog to the mate, when a gun, which drove against him, threw him off his balance, and he was just passing through one of the port-holes, when, luckily, he caught hold of a rope, and saved himself. A screech-owl flew on board this morning: I am sure we have no need of birds of ill omen; I could supply the place of a whole aviary of them myself.

  NOVEMBER 29.

  The wind continues contrary, and the weather is as disagreeable and perverse as it can well be; indeed, I understand that in these latitudes nothing can be expected but heavy gales or dead calms, which makes them particularly pleasant for sailing, especially as the calms are by far the most disagreeable of the two: the wind steadies the ship; but when she creeps as slowly as she does at present (scarcely going a mile in four hours), she feels the whole effect of the sea breaking against her, and rolls backwards and forwards with every billow as it rises and falls. In the meanwhile, everything seems to be in a state of the most active motion, except the ship; while we are carrying a spoonful of soup to our mouths, the remainder takes the "glorious golden opportunity" to empty itself into our laps, and the glasses and salt-cellars carry on a perpetual domestic warfare during the whole time of dinner, like the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. Nothing is so common as to see a roast goose suddenly jump out of its dish in the middle of dinner, and make a frisk from one end of the table to the other; and we are quite in the habit of laying wagers which of the two boiled fowls will arrive at the bottom first.

  N.B. To-day the fowl without the liver wing was the favourite, but the knowing ones were taken in; the uncarved one carried it hollow.

  DECEMBER 1.(Friday.)

  The captain to-day pointed out to me a sailor-boy, who, about three years ago, was shaken from the mast-head, and fell through the scuttle into the hold: the distance was above eighty feet, yet the boy was taken up with only a few bruises.

  DECEMBER 3. (Sunday.)

  The wind during the last two days has been more favourable and at nine this morning we were in the latitude of Madeira.

  DECEMBER 6.

  I had no idea of the expense of building and preserving a ship. That in which I am at present cost 30,000l. at its outset. Last year the repairs amounted to 14,0001.; and in a voyage to the East Indies they were more than 20,0001. In its return last year from Jamaica it was on the very brink of shipwreck. A storm had driven it into Bantry Bay, and there was no other refuge from the winds than Bear Haven, whose entrance was narrow and difficult; however, a gentleman from Castletown cam
e on board, and very obligingly offered to pilot the ship. He was one of the first people in the place, had been the owner of a vessel himself, was most thoroughly acquainted with every of the haven, &e. &c., and so on they went. There was one sunken rock, and that about ten feet in diameter; the knew it, and warned his gentleman-pilot to keep a little to the eastward. " My dear friend," answered the Irish "now do just make yourself asy; I know well enough what we are about; we are as clear of the rock as if we were in Sea, by Jasus;"-upon which the vessel struck upon and there she struck. The captain fell to swearing and is hair. " G- d- you, sir! didn't I tell you to keep Dam'me , she's on the rock!"" Oh! well, my Dear, she now on the rock, and, in a few minutes, you know, why she'll be off the rock: to be sure, I'd have taken my oath that the rock was two hundred and fifty feet on the other side of her, but--"-"Two hundred and fifty feet! why, the channel is not two hundred and fifty feet wide itself! and as to getting her off, bumping up against this rock, it can only be with a great hole in her side."-" Poh ! now, bother, my dear! why sure-"-" Leave the ship, sir; dam'me, sir, get out of my ship this moment! " Instead of which, with the most smiling and obliging air in the world, the Irishman turned to console the female passengers. " Make yourselves asy , ladies, pray make yourself perfectly asy ; but, upon my soul, I believe your captain's mad ; no danger in life! only make yourselves asy , I say ; for the ship lies on the rock as safe and as quiet, by Jasus, as if she were lying on a mud bank! " Luckily the weather was so perfectly calm, that the ship having once touched the rock with her keel bumped. no more. It was low water; she wanted but five inches to float her, and when the tide rose she drifted off', and with but little harm done. The gentleman-pilot then thought proper to return on shore, took a very polite leave of the lady passengers, and departed with all the urbanity possible; only thinking the captain the strangest person that he had ever met with ; and wondering that any man of common sense could be put out of temper by such a trifle.