Walter Besant

Before it was daylight we were aroused by the discordant clang of a bell: work was about to begin.

In these latitudes there is little twilight; the day begins, as it ends, with a kind of suddenness. I arose, being thus summoned, and looked out. Long rays of light were shooting up the sky from the East, and, though the stars were still visible, the day was fast breaking. In a few moments it became already so light that I could see across the yard—or what the Italians would call the piazza—with its ragged bonannow-leaves, the figures of our fellow-slaves moving about the huts, and hear their voices. Alas! sad and melancholy are the voices of those who work upon his Majesty's Plantations. Two old negresses went about among the new-comers, carrying a bucketful of their yellow mess, which they distributed among us, and giving us to understand that this bowl of yellow porridge, or loblollie, made out of Indian corn, was all we should have before dinner. They also gave us to understand in their broken English, which is far worse than the jargon talked by some of our country people, that we should have to prepare our own meals for the future, and that they would show us how to make this delectable mess.

'Eat it,' said Barnaby; 'a pig is better fed at home. Eat it, Robin, lest thou faint in the sun. Perhaps there will be something better for dinner. Heigho! only to think of Mother Rosemary's, where I thought to lie last night! Patience, lads!'

One would not seem to dwell too long on the simple fare of convicts: therefore I will say, once for all, that our rations consisted of nothing at all but the Indian meal and of salt beef or salt fish. The old hands and the negro slaves know how to improve their fare in many ways, and humane masters will give their servants quantities of the fruits such as grow here in great abundance—as plantains, lemons, limes, bonannows, guavas, and the like. And many of the black slaves have small gardens behind their huts, where they grow onions, yams, potatoes, and other things which they cultivate on Sundays. They are all great thieves also, stealing, whenever they can, poultry, eggs, and fruit, so that they grow fat and sleek, while the white servants daily grow more meagre, and fall into diseases by reason of the poorness of their food. Then, as to drink, there are many kinds of drink (apart from the wines of Spain, Portugal, Canary, Madeira, and France) made in the country itself, such as mobbie, which is a fermented liquor of potatoes; and perino, from the liquor of chewed cassavy root; punch, which is water and sugar left to work for ten days; rum, which is distilled in every Ingenio, and is a spirit as strong as brandy, and said to be more wholesome. Those who have been long in the island, even the servants, though without a penny, know how and where to get these drinks; and, since there is no consoler, to the common sort, so good as strong drink, those who are able to drink every day of these things become somewhat reconciled to their lot.

'Come out, ye dogs of rebels and traitors!' It was the loud and harsh voice of the master himself, who thus disturbed us at our breakfast. 'Twas his custom thus to rise early, and to witness the beginning of the day's work. And 'twas his kindly nature which impelled him thus to welcome and encourage his newly-bought slaves. 'Come out, I say! Ye shall now show of what stuff ye are made. Instead of pulling down your lawful King, ye shall pull up your lawful master and make him rich. If ye never did a day's work in your lives, ye shall now learn the how by the must. Come forth, I say, ye lazy, guzzling skulkers!'

'Ay, ay,' said Barnaby, leisurely scraping his bowl, 'we are like, indeed, to be overfed here.' He rolled sailor fashion out of the hut.

'Barnaby,' I said, 'for God's sake, say nothing to anger the master! There is no help but in patience and in hope.'

So we, too, went forth. The master, red-faced as he was, looked as if he had been drinking already.

'So,' he cried, 'here is the learned physician. Your health, Doctor. And here is the gallant Captain, who was once a sailor. The air of the fields, Captain, will remind you, perchance, of the quarter-deck. This young gentleman looks so gallant and gay that I warrant he will ply the hoe with a light and frolick heart. Your healths, gentlemen. Hark ye, now. You are come of a good stock, I hear. Therefore have I bought you at a great price, looking to get my money back and more. Some planters would suffer you to lie at your ease cockered up with bonavist and Madeira till the money comes. As for me, I shall now show you what you will continue to do, unless the money comes. Therefore you will at once, I doubt not, ask for paper and pen and presently write. Sixty pounds a-piece, gentlemen—not one penny less—will purchase your freedom. Till then, the fields. And no difference between white and black; but one whip for both.'

We made no reply, but took the hoes which were given out to us and marched with the rest of the melancholy troop.

There were as many blacks as whites. We were divided into gangs; with every gang a driver armed with a whip; and over all the overseers, who, by their severity, showed their zeal for the master. The condition of slavery hath in it something devilish, both for those who are slaves and those who are masters. The former it drives into despair, and fills with cunning, dishonesty, treachery, and revenge. Why, the black slaves have been known to rise in rebellion, and while they had the power have inflicted tortures unheard-of upon their masters. The latter it makes cruel and unfeeling; it tempts them continually to sins of all kinds; it puts into their power the lives, the bodies—nay, the very souls—of the poor folk whom they buy. I do maintain, and conceal not my opinion, that no man ought, in a Christian country, to be a slave except for a term of years, and then for punishment. I have been myself a slave, and I know the misery and the injustice of the condition. But it is idle to hope that the planters will abandon this means of cultivating their estates, and it is certain that in hot countries no man will work except by compulsion.

The whip carried by the driver is a dreadful instrument, long, thick, and strongly plaited, with a short handle. It is coiled and slung round the shoulders when it is not being used to terrify or to punish, and I know well that its loud crack produces upon the mind a sensation of fear and of horror such as the thunder of artillery or the sight of the enemy charging could never cause even to a coward. The fellows are also extremely dexterous in the use of it; they can inflict a punishment not worse than the flogging of a schoolboy; or, with no greater outward show of strength, they will cut and gash the flesh like a Russian executioner with the cruel instrument which they call the knout.

For slight offences, such as laziness or carelessness in the field, the former is administered; but for serious offences, the latter. One sad execution (I cannot call it less) I myself witnessed. What the poor wretch had done I know not, but I can never forget his piercing shrieks as the whip cut into the bleeding flesh. This is not punishment: it is savage and revengeful cruelty. Yet the master and the overseers looked on with callous eyes.

They marched us to a field about half a mile from our village or camp, and there, drawing us up in line, set us to work. Our task was, with the hoe, to dig out square holes, each of the same depth and size, in which the sugar canes are planted, a small piece of old cane being laid in each. These holes are cut with regularity and exactness, in long lines and equally distant from each other. It is the driver's business to keep all at work at the same rate of progress, so that no one should lag behind, no one should stop to rest or breathe, no one should do less than his neighbours. The poor wretches, with bent bodies streaming with their exertions, speedily become afflicted with a burning thirst; their legs tremble; their backs grow stiff and ache; their whole bodies become full of pain; and yet they may not rest nor stand upright to breathe a while, nor stop to drink, until the driver calls a halt. From time to time the negroes—men and women alike—were dragged out of the ranks and laid on the ground three or four at a time, to receive lashes for not making the holes deep enough or fast enough. At home one can daily see the poor creatures flogged in Bridewell; every day there are rogues tied to the cart-wheel and flogged wellnigh to death; but a ploughman is not flogged for the badness of his furrow, nor is a cobbler flogged because he maketh his shoon ill. And our men do not shriek and scream so wildly as the negroes, who are an ignorant people and have never learned the least self-restraint. It was horrid also to see how their bodies were scarred with the marks of old floggings, and branded with letters to show by whom they had been bought. As for our poor fellows, who had been brave recruits in Monmouth's army, they trembled at the sight and worked all the harder; yet some of them with the tears in their eyes, to think that they should be brought to such a dismal fate and to herd with these poor, ignorant, black people.

'Twas the design of the master to set us to the very hardest work from the beginning, so that we should be the more anxious to get remission of our pains. For it must not be supposed that all the work on the estate was so hard and irksome as that with the hoe—which is generally kept for the strongest and hardest of the negroes, men and women. There are many other employments: some are put to weed the canes, some to fell wood, some to cleave it, some to attend the Ingenio, the boiling-house, the still-house, the curing-house; some to cut the maize, some to gather provisions, of bonavist, maize, yams, potatoes, cassavy, and the like. Some to the smith's forge; some to attend to the oxen and sheep; some to the camels and assinegoes, and the like: so that, had the master pleased, he might have set us to work better fitted to English gentlemen. Well, his greediness and cruelty were defeated, as you shall presently see. As for the domestic economy of the estate, there were on it five hundred acres of land, of which two hundred were planted with sugar, eighty for pasture, one hundred and twenty for wood, thirty for tobacco, five for ginger, and as many for cotton-wool, and seventy for provisions—viz. corn, potatoes, plantains, cassavy, and bonavist—with a few for fruit. There were ninety-six negroes, two or three Indian women with their children, and twenty-eight Christian servants, of whom we were three.

At eleven o'clock we were marched back to dinner. At one we went out again, the sun being at this time of the day very fierce, though January is the coldest month in the year. We worked till six o'clock in the evening, when we returned.

'This,' said Robin, with a groan, 'is what we have now to do every day for ten years.'

'Heart up, lads!' said Barnaby; 'our time will come. Give me time to turn round, as a body may say. Why, the harbour is full of boats. Let me get to the port and look round a bit. If we had any money now—but that is past praying for. Courage and patience! Doctor, you hoe too fast: no one looks for zeal. Follow the example of the black fellows, who think all day long how they shall get off with as little work as possible. As for their lash, I doubt whether they dare to lay it about us, though they may talk. Because you see, even if we do not escape, we shall some time or other, through the Rector's efforts, get a pardon, and then we are gentlemen again; and when that moment arrives I will make this master of ours fight, willy-nilly, and I will kill him, d'ye see, before I go home to kill Benjamin.'

He then went on to discourse (either with the hope of raising our spirits or because it cheered his mind just to set them forth) upon his plans for the means of escape.

'A boat,' he said, 'I can seize. There are many which would serve our purpose. But a boat without victuals would be of little use. One would not be accused of stealing, yet we may have to break into the store and take therefrom some beef or biscuit. But where to store our victuals? We may have a voyage of three or four hundred knots before us. That is nothing for a tight little boat when the hurricane season is over. We have no compass either—I must lay hands upon a compass. The first Saturday night I will make for the port and cast about. Lift up your head, Robin. Why, man, all bad times pass if only one hath patience.'

It was this very working in the fields, by which the master thought to drive us into despair, which caused in the long run our deliverance, and that in the most unexpected manner.