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Page 31
Mr. King dealt in all manner of merchandize, and kept from one to six
clerks. He loaded many vessels in a year; particularly to
Philadelphia, where he was born, and was connected with a great
mercantile house in that city. He had besides many vessels and
droggers, of different sizes, which used to go about the island; and
others to collect rum, sugar, and other goods. I understood pulling
and managing those boats very well; and this hard work, which was the
first that he set me to, in the sugar seasons used to be my constant
employment. I have rowed the boat, and slaved at the oars, from one
hour to sixteen in the twenty-four; during which I had fifteen pence
sterling per day to live on, though sometimes only ten pence. However
this was considerably more than was allowed to other slaves that used
to work with me, and belonged to other gentlemen on the island: those
poor souls had never more than nine pence per day, and seldom more
than six pence, from their masters or owners, though they earned them
three or four pisterines[Q]: for it is a common practice in the West
Indies for men to purchase slaves though they have not plantations
themselves, in order to let them out to planters and merchants at so
much a piece by the day, and they give what allowance they chuse out
of this produce of their daily work to their slaves for subsistence;
this allowance is often very scanty. My master often gave the owners
of these slaves two and a half of these pieces per day, and found the
poor fellows in victuals himself, because he thought their owners did
not feed them well enough according to the work they did. The slaves
used to like this very well; and, as they knew my master to be a man
of feeling, they were always glad to work for him in preference to any
other gentleman; some of whom, after they had been paid for these poor
people's labours, would not give them their allowance out of it. Many
times have I even seen these unfortunate wretches beaten for asking
for their pay; and often severely flogged by their owners if they did
not bring them their daily or weekly money exactly to the time; though
the poor creatures were obliged to wait on the gentlemen they had
worked for sometimes for more than half the day before they could get
their pay; and this generally on Sundays, when they wanted the time
for themselves. In particular, I knew a countryman of mine who once
did not bring the weekly money directly that it was earned; and though
he brought it the same day to his master, yet he was staked to the
ground for this pretended negligence, and was just going to receive a
hundred lashes, but for a gentleman who begged him off fifty. This
poor man was very industrious; and, by his frugality, had saved so
much money by working on shipboard, that he had got a white man to buy
him a boat, unknown to his master. Some time after he had this little
estate the governor wanted a boat to bring his sugar from different
parts of the island; and, knowing this to be a negro-man's boat, he
seized upon it for himself, and would not pay the owner a farthing.
The man on this went to his master, and complained to him of this act
of the governor; but the only satisfaction he received was to be
damned very heartily by his master, who asked him how dared any of his
negroes to have a boat. If the justly-merited ruin of the governor's
fortune could be any gratification to the poor man he had thus robbed,
he was not without consolation. Extortion and rapine are poor
providers; and some time after this the governor died in the King's
Bench in England, as I was told, in great poverty. The last war
favoured this poor negro-man, and he found some means to escape from
his Christian master: he came to England; where I saw him afterwards
several times. Such treatment as this often drives these miserable
wretches to despair, and they run away from their masters at the
hazard of their lives. Many of them, in this place, unable to get
their pay when they have earned it, and fearing to be flogged, as
usual, if they return home without it, run away where they can for
shelter, and a reward is often offered to bring them in dead or alive.
My master used sometimes, in these cases, to agree with their owners,
and to settle with them himself; and thereby he saved many of them a
flogging.
Once, for a few days, I was let out to fit a vessel, and I had no
victuals allowed me by either party; at last I told my master of this
treatment, and he took me away from it. In many of the estates, on the
different islands where I used to be sent for rum or sugar, they would
not deliver it to me, or any other negro; he was therefore obliged to
send a white man along with me to those places; and then he used to
pay him from six to ten pisterines a day. From being thus employed,
during the time I served Mr. King, in going about the different
estates on the island, I had all the opportunity I could wish for to
see the dreadful usage of the poor men; usage that reconciled me to my
situation, and made me bless God for the hands into which I had
fallen.
I had the good fortune to please my master in every department in
which he employed me; and there was scarcely any part of his business,
or household affairs, in which I was not occasionally engaged. I often
supplied the place of a clerk, in receiving and delivering cargoes to
the ships, in tending stores, and delivering goods: and, besides this,
I used to shave and dress my master when convenient, and take care of
his horse; and when it was necessary, which was very often, I worked
likewise on board of different vessels of his. By these means I became
very useful to my master; and saved him, as he used to acknowledge,
above a hundred pounds a year. Nor did he scruple to say I was of more
advantage to him than any of his clerks; though their usual wages in
the West Indies are from sixty to a hundred pounds current a year.
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