CHAPTER THE SECOND.
OF OTHER MY ADVENTURES UNTIL MY COMING TO BE A MAN

Thus in a sultry colony, among Black Negroes and their cruel Task-masters, and I the clerk to a Mulotter Washerwoman, did I come to be full sixteen years of age, and a stalwart Lad of my inches. But for that Fate, which from the first irrevocably decreed that mine was to be a Roving Life, almost to its end, I might have continued in the employ of Maum Buckey until Manhood overtook me. The Dame was not unfavourable towards me; and, without vanity, may I say that, had I waited my occasion, 'tis not unlikely but that I might have married her, and become the possessor of her plump Money-Bags, full of Moidores, pilar Dollars, and pieces of Eight. Happily I was not permitted so to disparage my lineage, and put a coffee-coloured blot on my escutcheon. No, my Lilias is no Mulotter Quartercaste. 'Twas my roving propensity that made me set but little store by the sugar-eyes and Molasses-speech which Madam Soapsuds was not loth to bestow on me, a tall and likely Lad. I valued her sweetness just as though it had been so much cane-trash. With much impatience I had waited for the coming back of my friendly skipper, that he might advise me as to my future career. But, as I have already warned the Reader, it was fated that I was to see that kindly shipmaster no more. Once, indeed, the old ship came into Port Royal, and right eagerly did I take boat and board her. But her name had been changed from The Humane Hopwood to The Protestant Pledge. She was in the Guinea trade now, and brought Negroes, poor souls! to slave in our Plantations. The Mariner that was her commander had but dismal news to tell me of my friendly Handsell. He, returning to the old country, had it seems a Mighty Quarrel with his Patron – and my Patron too, forsooth! – Villain Hopwood. Whether he had reproached him with his treachery to me or not, I know not; but it is certain that both parted full of Wrath and High Disdain, and each swearing to be the Ruin of the other. But Gold had, as it has always in a Mammon-ridden world, the longest, strongest pull. Devil Hopwood found it easy to get the better of a poor unlettered tarpaulin, that knew well enough the way into a Wapping Alehouse, but quite lost himself in threading the mazes of a great man's Antechamber. 'Tis inconceivable how much dirty work there was done in my young days between Corinthian columns and over Turkey carpets, and under ceilings painted by Verrio and Laguerre. Sir Basil, I believe, went to a great man, and puts a hundred guineas into the hands of his Gentleman – by the which I mean his Menial Servant, save that he wore no Livery; but there's many a Base wretch hath his soul in plush, and the Devil's aigulets on his heart. How much out of the Hundred my Lord took, and how much his Gentleman kept, it serves not to inquire. They struck a Bargain, and short was the Time before Ruin came swooping down on Captain Handsell. He had gone into the Channel trade; and they must needs have him exchequered for smuggling brandies and lace from St. Malo's. Quick on this follows a criminal Indictment, from which, as a Fool, he flies; for he might at least have threatened to say damaging things of Brute Basil in the dock, and have made terms with him before trial came on. And then he must needs take command of a miserable lugger that fetched and carried between Deal and Dunquerque – the old, old, sorry tinpot business of kegs of strong waters, and worse contraband in the guise of Jacobite despatches. To think of brave men's lives being risked in these twopenny errands, and a heart of Oak brought to the gallows, that clowns may get drunk the cheaper, or traitors – for your Jacobite conspirators were but handy-dandy Judases, now to King James and now to King George – exchange their rubbishing ciphers the easier! It drives me wild to think of these pinchbeck enterprises. If a Man's tastes lead him towards the Open, the Bold, and the Free, e'en let him ship himself off to a far climate, the hotter the better, where Prizes are rich, and the King's writ in Assault and Battery runneth not, – nor for a great many other things ayont Assault and Battery, – and where, up a snug creek, of which he knows the pilotage well, he may give a good account of a King's ship when he finds her. He who does any thing contrair to English law within five hundred leagues of an English lawyer or an English law-court is a very Ass and Dolt. Fees and costs will have their cravings; and from the process-server to the Hangman all will have their due. Give me an offing, where there is no law but that of the strong hand and the bold Heart. Any sharks but land-sharks for John Dangerous. I never see a parchment-visaged, fee-clutching limb of the law but I long to beat him, and, if I had him on blue water, to trice him up higher than ever he went before. But for a keg of brandy! But for a packet of treason-papers! Shame! 'tis base, 'tis idiotic. And this did the unlucky Handsell find to his cost. I believe he was slain in a midnight affray with some Riding Officers of the Customs close unto Deal, about two years after his going into a trade that was as mean as it was perilous.

So no more Hope for me from that quarter. The skipper of The Protestant Pledge would have retained me on board for a Carouse; but I had too much care for my Head and my Liver for such pranks, and went back, as dolefully as might be, to keep Maum Buckey's washing-books. I chafed at the thought that I could do no more. I told her the grim news I had heard of her brother-in-law, whereat she wept somewhat; for where Whites were concerned she was not a hard-hearted woman. But she cheered up speedily, saying that Sam had come to as sorry an end, and that she supposed there was but one way with the Handsells, Rum and Riot being generally their Ruin.

As it is one of the failings of youth not to know when it is well off, and to grow A-weary even of continued prosperity, I admit that the life I led palled upon me, and that I longed to change it. But it was not, all things considered, so very unpleasant a one. True, the employment was a sorry one, and utterly beneath the dignity of a Gentleman, such as bearing fardels in the streets or unloading casks and bales at the wharf, for instance. But it is in man's nature never to be satisfied, and when he is well to long to be better, and so, by force of striving, to tumble into a Hole, where indeed he is at the Best, for he is Dead. At this distance of time, though I have many comforts around me, – Worldly Goods, a Reputable name, my Child, and her Husband, – I still look back on my old life in Jamaica, and confess that Providence dealt very mercifully with me in those bygone days. For I had enough to eat and to drink, and a Mistress who, although Passionate and Quarrelsome enough by times, was not unkind. If she would swear, she would also tender gentle Language upon occasion; and if she would throw things, she was not backward in giving one a dollar to heal one's pate. An odd life it was, truly. There was very little of that magnificence about the town of Port Royal in my days which I have heard the Creoles to boast about. It may have been handsome enough in the Spaniard's Reign, or in King Charles the Second's; but I have heard that its most comely parts had been swallowed up by an Earthquake, and, when I remember it, the Main thoroughfare was like nothing half so much as the Fag End of Kent Street in the Borough, where the Broom-men live. As for public scavengers – humane at least – there were none; for that salutary practice of putting rebellious Blacks into chain-gangs, and making them sweep the streets, – which might be well done in London with Pickpockets and the like trash, to their souls' health and the benefit of the Body politic, – did not then obtain. The only way of clearing the offal was by the obscene birds that flew down from the hills; Messieurs the landcrabs, who were assuredly the best scavengers of all, not stirring beyond the Palisadoes. Some things were very cheap, but others inordinately dear. Veal was at a prodigious price; and 'twas a common saying, that you could buy Four children in England cheaper than you could one calf in Jamaica. But for the products and dishes of the colony, which I have elsewhere hinted at, all was as low-priced as it was abundant. What droll names did they give, too, unto their fish and flesh and fowl! How often have you in England heard of Crampos, Bonettas, Ringrays, Albacoras, and Sea-adders, among fish; of Noddies and Boobies and Pitternells and Sheerwaters among birds? And Calialou Soup, and Pepperpot to break your Fast withal in the morning, and make you feel, ere you get accustomed to that Fiery victual, like a Salamander for some hours afterwards!

Now and then also, with some other young white folks with whom I had stricken up acquaintance, – clerks, storekeepers, and the like, – would we seek out the dusky beauties of the town in their own quarters, and shake a leg at their Dignity Routs, Blackamoor Drums, and Pumpkin-Faced Assemblies, or by what other name the poor Black wretches might choose to call their uproarious merrymakings. There, in some shed, all hustled together as a Moorfields Sweetener does luck in a bag, would be a mob of men and women Negroes, all dressed in their bravest finery, although little of it was to be seen either on their Backs or their Feet; the Head being the part of their Bodies which they chiefly delight to ornament. Such ribbons and owches, such gay-coloured rags and blazing tatters, would they assume, and to the Trips and Rounds played to them by some Varlet of a black fiddler, with his hat at a prodigious cock, and mounted on a Tub, like unto the sign of the Indian Bacchus at the Tobacconist's, would they dance and stamp and foot it merrily – with plenty of fruit, salt fish, pork, roasted plantain, and so forth, to regale themselves withal, not forgetting punch and sangaree – quite forgetful, poor mercurial wretches, for the time being of Fetters and the Scourge and the Driver that would hurry them to their dire labour the morrow morn. Surely there never did exist so volatile, light-spirited, feather-brained a race as these same Negro Blacks. They will whistle and crack nuts, ay and dance and sing to the music of the Fiddle or the Banjar an hour after the skin has been half flayed off their backs. They seem to bear no particular Malice to their Tormentors, so long as their weekly rations of plantain, yam, or salt fish, be not denied them, and that they have Osnaburgs enow to make them shirts and petticoats to cover themselves. Give them but these, and their dance at Christmas time, with a kind word thrown to them now and again, just as you would fling a marrow-bone to a dog, and they will get along well enough in slavery, almost grinning at its Horrors and making light of its unutterable Woes. I never saw so droll a people in my life. Nor is it the less astonishing thing about them that, beneath all this seeming lightheartedness and jollity, there often lies smouldering a Fire of the Fiercest passion and blackest revenge. The dark-skinned fellow who may be flapping the flies away from you in the morning, and bearing your kicks and cuffs as though they were so many cates and caresses, may, in the evening, make one in a circle of Heathen monsters joined together to listen to the Devilish Incantations of the Obeah man, – to mingle in ceremonies most hideous and abominable, and of which perhaps that of swearing eternal Hatred to the White Race over a calabash that is made out of the skull of a new-born Babe, and filled with Dirt, Rum, and Blood mixed together, is perchance the least horrid. And yet I don't think the unhappy creatures are by nature either treacherous, malicious, or cruel. 'Tis only when the fit seizes them. Like the Elephants, the idea suddenly comes over them that they are wronged – that 'tis the White Man who has wrought them all these evils, and that they are bound to Trample him to bleeding mud without more ado. But 'tis all done in a capricious cobweb-headed manner; and on the morrow they are as quiet and good-tempered as may be. Then, just as suddenly, will come over them a fit of despondency, or dark, dull, brooding Melancholy. If they are at sea, they will cast themselves into the waves and swim right toward the sharks, whose jaws are yawning to devour them. If they are on dry land, they will, for days together, refuse all food, or worse still, go dirt-eating, stuffing themselves with clay till they have the mal d'estomac, and so die: this mal