A Brief Account and Familiar Description of Jamaica..., by Richard Winter Hamilton
---- "Aspice, venturo laetentur ut omnia saeclo." -- Virg. Poi. [Eclogues 4]
_____ [The following letter was not received by any of the West India mails. The post could not have brought it. It may seem to be antedated, if we compute it by the aera of the Old World; but clocks go much faster in the New. As it came by private hand, and is therefore an affair of "courtesy," the dread of an inquiry into this admitted fraud on the revenue, and this certainly rather suspicious forestalment of the European chronology, forbids the announcement of any further particulars.]
Jamaica, May 2, 1934.
My dear Friend,
From the superscription of this letter, you perceive my present abode. Yes, it is true: though you could not have lately thought it, and though I can scarcely now believe it myself, at length my wishes are accomplished. It was no passion of yesterday; but almost early as my first infant wonder, and surely as my first youthful dream, I longed to traverse this scene, and inspect this people. Their former sufferings, their rapid improvements, the glories which they have already achieved, the destinies which they still invite and covet to deserve, all wrought most powerfully on my imagination at a period of life when sensibility brooks no restraint, and the mind, romantically unsuspicious, least of all suspects itself. But this was one of the few emotions which a maturer judgment does not condemn. It had its birth in a detestation of slavery, and in a sense of justice toward them who had endured that monstrous wrong. The hope, the vision, though there was little probability that it ever would be realized, was not without its use: it tended to quicken and to augment those benevolent feelings, those righteous principles, of the want of which we only ought to be ashamed. My ancestors, as you well know, had taken a noble part in the struggle which gave freedom to the bondmen of this Archipelago: and often, when a child, did I endeavour to understand what that condition of captivity and thraldom was, which nearly a century has seen subverted. My grandfather, while his eyes streamed with tears, would often tell me of these cruelties as I curiously questioned him; and once, taking me into his study, exhibited some of the instruments of torture. Well I remember the iron collar, and the whip, which not the most ruffian driver would wield against the most stubborn beast. The sickening disgust, the burning indignation, which that spectacle produced, have never left me; and from that hour I felt the desire, which has impelled me thither, inconquerable. Again and again has its gratification been delayed. But all difficulties have yielded to prudence and resolution; and I now tread a soil which, though, alas! it covers millions of victims to avarice and oppression, yet along all its surface presents no living one. A few monuments of that accursed system still remain, and the emancipated race would fain preserve them. They impress a force of contrast on the triumph of liberty. But they are rapidly mouldering away; and the trophies of political and moral regeneration are now sufficiently numerous and splendid to hide them for ever from any, save the inquisitive eye. The glorious revolution of these isles is fast swallowing up each trace of injustice, as the gigantic fig-tree, indigenous to them, is wont to enfold and overpower every meaner stem. Reverently and gratefully I adore the Providence which has safely conducted me to a country where the most astonishing transition from vassalage to freedom has been so sufficiently proved and successfully essayed; where a den of debasement has been converted into a theatre of glory; and where man has sprung up from his most abject vileness to his fullest grandeur! Here is the prodigality of Nature's luxuriance, and here, too, the victory of Religion's might. It is an Elysium of beauty! It is a Paradise of God!
I reached the harbour of Port Royal on the 2d ult.; and no language can describe my feelings as our gallant bark glided into it. We, of a northern clime, have little idea of the magnificence which crowns the tropic shores. It was evening as our anchor dropt. The land-breeze did not arise until the navigation was accomplished: then it came down upon us with a most refreshing coolness. While it fanned us, it welcomed us by its fragrance. But though the scene of dazzling picturesque was partly veiled, its characteristic features were not lost. The tall cocoa waved on the uplands; the cibeia and the palmetto tossed their huge arms from many a steep; the mangrove skirted and overhung the transparent sea; the marine jasmine flowered most beautifully along the shore; the maize, the pimento, the cane, filled up the ascending amphitheatre, and breathed forth an atmosphere of aromatic odours. The golden dolphin sported beneath the bows of our ship. Birds of the brightest plumage kept wheeling around the pennant which fluttered from the mast, as though its variegated colours had deceived them, and made them suppose it was a winged creature like themselves. The blue mountains rose majestically above all; and as the shadows of the night slowly descended upon them, they seemed to grow yet larger, and to lose themselves in the sky. The gun, as the sun set, from the guard-ship, which belongs to this station, (nominally, and only nominally, a ship of war,) long continued to resound along the gulleys which the torrents from the hills have forced for their channels. Determining to continue on board for the night, I lingered, long after its fall, on the deck. The thoughts which pressed upon me were as subduing as they were strange. Though the land was now invisible, I felt that I was moored close to an enchanted isle. The richest perfumes stole on the sense. Swarms of the fire-fly danced before me wherever I moved. The water glowed with its phosphorescence on every side. The ripple of the tide was harmony itself; but other harmony floated past me. It sunk, but again it swelled. It was the choral strain of a Christian congregation. They were now singing the parting hymn. It died away; but soon arose more scattered sounds. Along the unseen coast, beneath which we lay, the song of devotion was now begun in every house, and the voice of thanksgiving and melody could be often, at intervals, distinctly heard, blending the notes of infancy and age. Mine eye turned involuntarily to heaven. There was Venus, in her crescent, casting a shadow, and shedding a gleam upon the waves. Soon the moon silvered the horizon, and seemed rather a sun than the satellite of night. But the world above was new to me as the lower world. Constellations of another hemisphere broke out above me. The rarefied air is scarcely a medium of vision; they appear to burn in their orbits. There flamed the Altar on its azure pavement; and there swam the Ship in the liquid deeps of aether; and there stood the Cross, blest sign of heaven, and dearest token of peace to earth! I hurried below, but not to sleep; joy may banish it, as easily as grief, from the eye!
April 3. -- I had resolved to keep a journal; and any extracts from it which I think can interest you I shall from time to time transcribe. This will give my letter rather an uncouth and artificial form; but it will enable us both to preserve an order in the descriptions I offer, and in the impressions you receive. Did I not know that every thing concerning the Negro freeman and Christian was most certain of securing your attention and sympathy, it would be unpardonable arrogance in me to hope that such crude brief notices could furnish you any satisfaction. I shall proceed by dates, and thus you may follow me in my principal movements.
I truly waited for this morning; and soon I found myself enjoying a prospect of unutterable charms. The sun emerged from ocean; and what a rise! It tinged the orient into a blush of vermilion, and seemed to come forth from a fountain of gold. The earliest light it threw over the hills pointed them as with cones of flame. Welcome was that Aurora-beam. The dusky outline unfolded itself; and numberless beauties, which had escaped me in the obscurity of the former evening, now burst out with their perfect distinctness and grace. The water of the bay is as crystal; and you may observe the rocks of jet which lie beneath. The admiration which a first glance of Jamaica awakened is only confirmed the more, and the longer, I gaze. In every direction there is the rifest fertility. The mighty Bombax towers above all. Charming savannahs terrace the abruptest precipices: and from the mountain-ridge which traverses the island, nearly a hundred streams descend, resembling, to the distant eye and ear, as many silvery threads and tinkling bells. Each ravine is a glade. Clumps of bamboo are very general, and have a most beautiful effect, as they yield, like ostrich plumes, to the gale. Flights of humming-birds fill the air. The mocking songster trills a pleasant note, and seems the metamorphosis of Echo. The wild dove coos and murmurs sweetly from the woods. How can recollection of bondage and depravity cleave to a spot over which the Genius of Liberty now rejoices, and the Daughter of Zion now exults? Whither shall we leave it to find more substantially realized, more grandly surpassed, the Atalantis of a Plato, and the Antilla of an Aristotle? I should have told you, and it is strange that it escaped me in the memorandum of yesterday, that on the neck of land which forms one horn of the bay, stands a fine statue of the patriot and liberator, Wilberforce. You are not so ill-read in the history of Great Britain not to be familiar with that name. Your sympathy with the cause which his name evokes, must have commanded your love and veneration. It is wrought indelibly into that cause, like that of Phidias in Minerva's shield. It is about a hundred and fifty years since he began to plead the wrongs, and challenge the claims, of the slave. A century has consecrated his grave. You have sometimes called me "Old Mortality:" I confess a strong impulse to wander among the tombs of the great and holy dead. Following this pensive tendency, Westminster Abbey has always been to me hallowed ground. Tombs are shrines. Though we offer before them no worship, we learn from them the lessons and examples of the purest philanthropy. In that sleeping-place of the illustrious of other times, I long since marked and honoured his grave. The name was almost effaced. It appeared to me more worn by pilgrim-footsteps than by natural fret and decay. That very obliteration of its memorial was itself a fact of eloquent import. It was in the room of epitaph and elegy. Men of all nations had been drawn thither. Hearts had shed their tears upon it. Nature had sent her votaries, and Earth her sureties, to bless that precious dust. Other names, -- names of renown and unfading lustre, -- might be easily decyphered. Thousands, and tens of thousands, had read and bewailed them. But this sepulchre bore other marks; and there was a glory in its premature injury -- the depression of the slab, and the effacement of the inscription! Mankind will demand the frequent repair of that monument while they bend around it!
The sculpture, to which I have referred, is of noble workmanship. Though design and modelling are very successfully studied and executed here, this came from the mother-country. It was the last production, and is the masterpiece, of Chantrey. The likeness was the most perfect which could be procured. It stands on one of the bold reaches of the semicircular bay, and though the plinth for a corresponding image is already erected on the other, it is unsettled whether it shall be that of Sharpe or Clarkson. Were there as many points as may be found in a trapezium, figures of departed excellence and talent, devoted to the task of manumission, might rise from them all. But to this statue; -- mind and benevolence inform it, and it stands as if inviting the voyager to see the consummation of its Original's labours and prayers. It is not, though on an imposing scale, majestic in its size; and I think that I have heard that in appearance he was far from prepossessing. Yet surely that face must have looked like an angel's when he remonstrated and sued on behalf of his afflicted and aggrieved brother-man, since there is so much of holy, kindly air, which even rigid marble fails not to express. Could He but have seen what the fine attitude of his likeness invites the world to contemplate! But he died not until assured that the crime of slavery was absolved, and its existence annihilated; and then, like the messenger of the Athenian triumph, with the shout of victory, expired!
5th. -- You have heard that no people are more civilized than these islanders, nor does common fame do them more than justice. When most depressed and imbruted, a quickness, a wit, a gratitude, always distinguished them; but now that more favourable circumstances prevail, a force of character and a beauty of manner may be observed as original as it is subdued. We ordinarily were taught to connect with the negro countenance stupidity and fierceness, sullen downcast, and cruel glance. I wish you could see the face he now exhibits: it is "after the image of Him who created him." The brow which receded now rises into a mass of power and sublimity; the chin which, in consequence of this deformity, once protruded, now fixes the right angle of the facial line; the lips have lost their sensual thickness, the nostrils their brutal dilation; and though the Lawrences and Spurzheims of the former age decided that there were physical limitations in this human variety to all improvement, their very contour has caught the beam of intellect and the repose of religion. The soul lifted up itself, and the barriers yielded before it! It looked forth, and all its organs kindled with its irradiations! The bland polish of their address and behaviour is really captivating; and as there is no fawning manner nor deprecatory look, it indicates the high-minded but amiable spirit. Nor need you wonder at this courtesy. When most despitefully entreated they were a patient and forgiving race. Beneath the wigwam in their parent-land, they welcomed the white man to the simple repast, pitied the pallid stranger who had no wife nor mother to attend him, and with voices of soothing kindness sang him to his sleep. The meekness which wrong could scarcely ruffle, the simple hospitality which even the rising spirit of provocation could not stain, to this hour survive; and though their forms of development are varied from the more native manner, they have lost none of their ingenuousness by whatever acquisitions they have obtained of elaborate refinement. There is a stamen of strength in all they say and do; and while that strength is graceful, it never degenerates into frivolity and finesse. Sometimes indeed they can launch a light missile of satire; and especially when they refer to the antiquated notions of their incapacity for freedom, it is impossible not to perceive with what keen sarcasm they are prompted to retort, but that their piety constrains them to forgive. A little humour they will sometimes discharge; and one amused me much at a public meeting of the county of Cornwall, by bantering the professions of love which the planters and mortgagees had boasted for their slaves on the eve of Abolition. Said he, with raillery in his eye as well as tone, with an assumed seriousness which gave an exquisite piquancy to the scene, "They poured in their avowals of love profusely at the last. As the English bard has said, 'Farewell goes out sighing.' Was it not natural that the parting should be the most tender spectacle of all? Always had they loved us, however singularly love evinced itself. What is so wayward and so coy as love? Compatriots! doubt it not. True it was occasionally agitated and disturbed in its exercise, but 'The course of true love never did run smooth!' As true was it, that their warm affection was most self-denyingly controlled. And is it not the highest attribute of love to suffer the fire inwardly to consume the vitals when its ebullition might overpower its object? Might not we have been too greatly affected by the suddenness, the disinterestedness, of the recital? How delicate was their consideration! Who can sufficiently admire the fortitude (Sparta, what canst thou compare with it, -- Rome, what hast thou of a proud rivalship to boast!) with which they repressed the ardour of their attachment, and imposed silence on feelings struggling for utterance? Martyrs to their sensibility! Victims to the secret which tenderness forbad them to disclose!
'They never told their love,
But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
Feed on their damask cheek: they pined in thought;
And, with a green and yellow melancholy,
They sat like patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?
We men may say more.'"
While this sportive badinage was much enjoyed, no rancour and bitterness breathed through it.
Civilization is nothing, if law be not in force. Murder has not been known since the white man forebore to kill the black. A fine swarthy magistrate, whose experience was most ample, and whose head was covered with the grey of a good old age, assured me that robbery was so unknown that it had become a kind of proverb: "The only thief is the zephyr which steals the spicy perfume of our groves, and even this makes a full restitution." The piazzas which so prettily peer from the dingles of the hills are always open, nor is there necessity for lock and bolt. And that which some thought impracticable is now universally realized, and free labour has established the dominion of cheerful industry. The penns are cultivated to the highest degree. The hoe has yielded to the plough. The fine rich mould is thus equally broken and mellowed, and its productive powers are proportionably increased. A new vegetation has sprung up amidst the old, and the diligent hand seeks its healthy duties and gathers its rural spoils. The husbandman needs no incentive but that of interest; and though his "face" is now humanized and beautified into intellectual and religious expression, "in the sweat of it he eats his bread."
6th. -- In Kingston is a museum, well deserving the visit, and well repaying the attention, of the traveller. It contains the rarest specimens of the geology of the island. The botany cannot but be most gorgeous; and though its flowers must be faded in the hortus siccus, still enough of colour and anatomy are preserved to shew what vegetable treasures are comprised within its limits. The birds are, as might be expected, of the most splendid description; and being well prepared, and fixed according to their habitudes, seem to be ready for flight or congregated in some sylvan retreat. The monkey of course is here: the simia tribe is generally a disgusting deformity in these exhibitions, but in such a place possesses one redeeming advantage. Who can compare the negro with the most erect and subtle of this mimicry of man? I marked the contrast well: only the infatuation of phrenzy could have adventured the comparison. Many collections are brought thither from Africa. The beasts of prey are numerous; "they can spare them," said the keeper, "now that that continent is enclosed for tillage, and advances so rapidly in each species of amelioration." The asbestos is in larger masses than I ever saw before. The gentleman who accompanied me exclaimed, as I tore down a thread, "It is an emblem of our heart: the blow of violence cannot break it, but there is not a fibre which kindness may not unwind." Natural curiosities, however, had little attraction to me: the archives were unfolded, and the history of bondage stood confessed. There was the model of the slave-ship, the instrument with which they wrenched open the mouth of the poor victims of the middle passage when despair had sealed it, the brands which stamped them, the scourges which tore them, the stocks which distorted them, the thumb-screws which racked them! How curdled my blood! How sunk my heart! Horrid insignia of cruelty! The rust is upon you! Consume ye away! Who shall recall from the grave the bodies ye have been employed to agonize, and from eternity the souls into which your iron entered? Here is the first order of Elizabeth, authorizing the importation of slaves; and the last proclamation of injustice and bloodshed, signed by the name of Belmore, the infatuated man who ruled the island, when in 1831 the slaves, unarmed, unmenacing, simply asked their annual recess from labour. He answered them by the roar of musketry and cannon. Such boundless malignity made him the object of general scorn. England remanded him, and he came home to an exile of disgrace. It were foolish to tell you that then the re-action commenced, that tyranny had over-reached itself, and that this additional rivet which was attempted to be driven into the chains of the negro, broke them to pieces for ever!
8th. -- Being the Sabbath, I hastened to the house of God. No invidious distinctions now sever the children of our common Father. They mingle with a perfect brotherly-kindness and charity. The preacher of the morning was dark as ebony. The wool curled around his head. No attempt did he make to conceal his negro conformation. The subject occurred in the progress of an exposition. It arose in order, and was a part of the 5th chapter of the 2d Epistle to the Corinthians. Particularly he enlarged when he entered on the discussion of the 15th and 16th verses. His emphasis was most touching as he pronounced the words, "And that he died for all!" How many a dark eye then glistened in its tears! It was a simultaneous throb of that self-valuation which redemption teaches us to entertain. They felt in that one syllable the covenant which embraced them. And it prepared the way for that which follows: "Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh; yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more." The circumstances of the people seemed to lend a new interest to the passage. It was a solemn disclaimer of any nationality in religion. All the hues of diversity melted away before it. Black and white at that moment forgot each other, forgot themselves, and felt that they were "brethren for whom Christ died." With one remark I was greatly delighted, nor do I remember to have heard it before. "The blessed Saviour," said he, "chose the geographical centre of the populated earth, that he might cast an equal look upon all nations. But he did more. Tinge and colour have been pleaded to justify a bondage I rather wish to forget than recall. He stood in the midway, therefore, of even these complexional varieties. To the Briton he was dark, -- to the Numidian he was pale; -- the deeper and the lighter shades of every kind were blended in that mysterious Countenance: there the burning zone set its flush, as well as a milder one impressed its softness. Neither could reproach the extreme. And He who came to redeem from every nation, kindred, and tribe, stood forth the embodied representative of each diversity of feature and hue which could alienate the human family, and divide man from man. Little reck we of the tradition which describes, or the medallion which portrays, that face; we know the climate beneath which he grew in stature, we know what was that dusky race from which he sprung; how the sun glowed upon him, and yet how its fervour was allayed by the vapours and gentle gales of that atmosphere; and we call upon you to take one hasty but grateful glance of that visage which reflected all the signs and modifications of the human look and expression, -- and having 'known him after the flesh, henceforth to know him,' in this still inferior manner, 'no more for ever.'" On the same day I heard another pastor, nor need I discriminate any further the colour of the ministers. They are all sable. This is the consequence of no prejudice, but is an interesting proof of that efficient state, of that self-supplying vigour, which distinguishes the religion of this colony. Of its Zion it may be said, this and that man was born in her! The native church is the mother of them all! The ministry is most able, and really eloquent. The one, of whom I now speak, dilated on the prediction: "Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God." He warmed as he proceeded. "Our ancestors were chained as captives, yoked as beasts, branded as felons, bartered as chattels. But did not the punishments they unjustly suffered vindicate their manhood? Were they not bound by law? Is the brute threatened with death? Is it led forth to execution? If they were not men, why forbid their acts of prayer and thanksgiving? Must the mere animal be legislatively interdicted to praise its Maker, and secured by pains and penalties not to supplicate his favour? Children of Ethiopia, now dwelling in these isles of the western sea! Your fathers stretched out their hands when the fetter bound them. Not against their oppressors did they stretch them out, but to God. Divine love conquered human indignation. A strongly vindictive nature, the quickest recoil of resentment, was suddenly subdued. They forgave! They sought not a way to the heart of the tyrant by the sword! They kindled no conflagration! They laid no ambush! They raised no war-whoop! The Ethiopian had changed his skin. And our enfranchised hands are still stretched out to God. They taught us the holy gesture, and we teach it [to] our children. My heart beats within me when I think of that far reaching continent, -- long since pillaged by every marauder and invaded by every pirate, -- desolated by cruelty and drenched with blood. And what was Africa? that realm of wonder, that scene of glory, that land of exhaustless wealth and imperishable architecture, where still moulder the ruins of the hundred-gated Thebes, where still sepulchral Memphis glooms, where still the pyramid glasses itself in the stream of Nile, where the Delta still yields its miracles of fertility, where Death cannot after three thousand years destroy the dead, where Ptolemy reigned and Hannibal armed, where Cyprian taught and Augustine wept? Of that rich, wondrous country, what descendant is so degenerate as to be ashamed? Whose glory burns more brightly? Whose heraldry is less unknown? O thou father-land! which these eyes never saw, must never see! thy captive children heard 'the joyful sound,' and reverberated the cry to thy shores! And now thy countless race, thy deepest interior, catch and echo it to the ends of the world! Teneriffe, lift up thy voice, -- nor let Atlas refuse to prolong the mountain strain! Gambia and Senegal and Congo, waft it on your tides! And thou, O Zaira, through all thine awful solitudes and wastes, rejoice and blossom as the rose!"
11th. -- The House of Assembly, you may be sure, was an early attraction. I went as soon as possible to Spanish Town. The chamber is more convenient than decorated. As the tinsel and gewgaws of all state in our country declined from the time of the fourth William (of blessed memory), so the colonial dependencies have followed the same example. It is, substantially, the same apartment in which the abettors of Slavery raved and blasphemed. Pandemonium never listened to more fiendish language than once shook its walls. Its legislators were bravos, and its constituents buccaneers. The voice of authority was as unheeded as of freedom. Their debate was invective, and their eloquence brawl. Decorum might well be defied, when human nature was outraged. Would you have seen an infernal possession? Would you have seen the possession of legion? Those livid cheeks, those barbed lips, those brows curved by cruelty, those eyes rolling in flame, those hands clenched with fury, those tones screeching with despair, would have proved the fact, and furnished the illustration. That race is gone to its account. Task-masters and gaolers no longer fill the senate. I was fortunate, this being the day for opening the session. The governor is our countryman, and is not inaptly selected from the peerage. His ancestor might be supposed to look down upon this scion of the noble house of Harbord. The tree of freedom ever canopy that illustrious stock with its foliage, and nurture it with its sap! That ancestor was the negro's fastest friend among all the great. He was wont to meet the champions of abolition in the morning, at Aldermanbury, and then spend his afternoon in the Lords', presenting petitions. No man deserves a more embalmed commemoration. Lord Suffield entered the house amidst the marked respect of its members. The speech was elegantly composed, and beautifully delivered. It referred to the prosperity of the island. "Now," said he, "from your wide-armed havens and well-stored quays, you waft your products and fabrics to every shore. Your plantations flourish, and free are the hands which till them. Your soils are enriched and renewed by the fallow which a state of slavery excludes. The charter of your liberty is the stay of your strength, and the earnest of your renown. Your sovereign regards you with special favour, and has no greater pleasure than to ratify the decisions of this House, and to foster the interests of this Country. Proceed as you have begun; and may this fair, fertile isle of alternate spring and autumn, of blossom and fruit, of bud and flower, be shielded from the hurricane, its only danger, now that the passions of men are calmed, and the elements of society are composed to a settled rest." One clause was peculiarly interesting. "It will be for you to say what shall be determined respecting certain public buildings: as we neither want any troops, nor possess any prisoners, you will consider in what manner it will be proper to dispose of the barracks and the gaols." Nor was another sentence less so. "Government must exist, and law must declare itself, in the purest state of society: heaven could not endure without them. But as there, so in this favoured region, they happily avail to constitute the standard, and provide the reward, of obedience." There was but one brief allusion to slavery, and the thrill it produced cannot be described. "You know the deliverance which was erst wrought out for your forefathers. You have towered into the erectness of freemen. The slow justice and reparation of Britain has been more rapidly followed by other countries, and," continued the governor, with all the emphasis of his noble soul, and all the ardour of his ancestral blood, "earth groans not under a trace of bondage, nor does day, through its flight around it, dawn upon a slave."
14th. -- I called on an interesting family this day, to whom I had an introduction. Their country house is in the Golden Vale of the Rio Grande. The evergreen of the coffee, and the golden fruit of the orange, render all such retreats most luxuriant. Here I saw domestic life. Those strong affections which belong to our coloured brethren, evidently were not impaired by the chastened mildness of their expression. Piety blessed the scene. It might have been the home of Bethany, to which Jesus often retreated from his persecutions, and all whose members he loved. A fine sprightly girl asked me to write in her album, saying, with much archness, that her brother, who had lately begun Latin, had told her, "that black people should rather keep a Nigrum." As I had sat with this household at public worship, last Lord's-day, and we had now been recalling the subject of one of the discourses already adverted to, I could not plead inability to decide upon a theme. I wish you may like it as well as did my grateful petitioner.
Afric! thy sons and daughters from afar,
Out of thy searchless depths, thine antres wild,
Immeasurable, with gold-roofed cities piled, --
Or from the islands 'neath the western star,
Where groaned thy captive children, -- all shall come
And weave them garlands of their native flowers
For Faith's pure altars and for Freedom's bowers, --
Of Liberty and Christian Truth the home!
The cruel hunters of thy kindred fly!
Under thy feet, thou swarthy Land, the rod
Of Tyranny is trampled! thy dark Eye
Forgiveness beams! thy cottage Tamarinds nod
With clustering fruit! the holy Song swells high!
And all thy sumless hands are stretched to God!
16th. -- The business of the Session is now begun, and I am present whenever I can attend the debates. The Assembly comprises a few whites, but the large majority consists of the dark population, through all its shades. The Quadroon complexion is not distasteful to the most prejudiced arbiter of skins. Between these there exists no rivalry. Birth is the basis of patriotism, and each native feels, whatever may be the land of his fathers, that this is his rightful home. You remember the wicked intention of America to denationalize its black citizens and freemen: the accursed swamp of Liberia bears witness to the failure. The intercourse is as equal here as between the differently-tinted physiognomies of England, where the "fair-haired" and the brunette do not think it quite necessary to quarrel. The relationships of society are founded upon such identity in this isle. I could have supposed, as I looked around me on this parti-coloured senate (the only party indication, by the bye, that it manifests), that I was gazing on Cato in Utica; or that the representatives of Carthage were sitting with the Conscript Fathers of Rome. They were most decorous; there is no descendant among them of a Barrett or a Burge. Bridges is not the name of the Chaplain to the House. The tone of the addresses was that of congratulation. Each speaker alluded to the universal extinction of Slavery. One exclaimed, "That cup is at length drained out. That chain is now every where riven. Stand up, O man of every clime and diversity, in thy greatness! Earth, with thy thousand voices, chant the anthems which shall bear to heaven the announcement and the praise of the disenthralment of all thy nations and all thy children!" The love of liberty lightened in every word. Apostrophe is still a favourite figure with the coloured representatives, betraying the warm kindlings which have always distinguished the progeny of Ham, -- "Souls made of fire, and children of the sun." I will give you another specimen which I noted down. "Columbus! wronged is thy memory, for thou didst love this isle! Esquivel! thou didst emulate the benevolence of thy friend, and wouldst have ruled it in justice and mercy! Las Casas! even thy mistaken prejudice against our race, when thou didst plead the cause of the aborigines, we forgive! Ye were thwarted by the ruthless mercenaries of your train! Ye were abandoned and abused by the false-hearted courtiers of Castile! Ye shed the generous tears which burst from mighty souls! But now behold the fruits of your discovery and rule! Ye are absolved from all the wrongs of which your names have been tortured into the occasions and pretexts! Honoured shades! do ye not still hover round us? Blest be the hour in which the navigator's and victor's prow approached our shores!" Sometimes there is a more sportive vein. "Davus sum," said one, in a facetious disclaimer of superior knowledge. "It is rather too late," said another, "to object to any man, -- Hic niger." "Health and freedom," said a third, "are connected with agriculture; no longer does it recall the Sabine farm." I may just add, that the revenue, easily supplied, is very largely devoted to works of utility and acts of beneficence.
18th. -- I attended a missionary meeting to-day. It was a moving sight. The building was crowded to excess. The congregation evinced the deepest feeling. The manner of the speeches was calm, but earnest, as an Indian talk, No violence, no extravagance, characterised them; but that natural pathos which goes at once to the heart. There was many an affecting retrospect. No attempt was made to conceal the slavery of their forefathers. The president most touchingly quoted, and all responded to them, the words of Scripture: "Who in time past were not a people, but now are the people of God: who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy." The tear stood in every eye! The events of an age rose up before them! The Israelite felt no nobler emotion when, from the heights of Zion, he thought upon the kilns of Egypt! Much valuable and stirring information was imparted. They have stations in Patagonia, Borneo, and Papua. "If we need any apology for seizing on the most hopeless portions of the missionary field," the Report proceeded to say, "it may be found in that debasement which we endured ourselves. If any were to be found of whose souls it could be said, 'There is no hope for them in God,' must it not have been the spurned and insulted slave? Whom can we deem too degraded to be exalted, too injured to be redressed, too wretched to be pitied? If we can find the lowest abyss of human woe, it should be our duty first to sound it." But it was when the missionaries who had visited that island, and who had well prepared the way of emancipation, were mentioned, that the enthusiasm of the meeting reached its height. If justice was not done to them, it was because nothing could do it. They called them their fathers in Christ, their moral founders, their intrepid advocates when they had no other friend. These honoured names are familiar in their mouths as household words, yet reverently uttered as temple inspirations. "Nor let us," said a patriarch, "forget the adherents to the missionary enterprise in the mother country, who sent those venerated men. Such did not, such could not, as they, bear the battle-brunt. Before tribunals they did not appear, vindicating from blood-thirsty judges their innocence and our own. But nobly they roused a chivalrous nation, they knocked with a thunder of importunity at the door of the Imperial Parliament, and the appeal of one was re-echoed from every city and hamlet of Britain, -- 'We have an oath in heaven! and never will we cease, until there be no more found the felon-kidnapper on the shore, or the bark of the slaver with its living freight upon the deep, -- until there be heard no more the hiss of the scourge and the clank of the fetter, -- until the Antilles join these northern isles in the shout of liberty and the hallelujahs of religion, -- until those dens of bondage wave with the harvests of free and well-requited labour -- shall bloom with the improvements of civil life -- shall smile with the hearths of domestic contentment -- shall stand forth with the monuments of a substantial and enlightened freedom -- shall sparkle with the temples of the cross!' That cry was caught, that vow arose to God, and soon on the loud wind of Britain's voice flew the mandate, that Slavery should cease unto the ends of the earth." "Let us," such was the appeal of an excellent and wealthy man, "give to this cause our silver and gold. We supported missions when we were the objects of them; and, when slaves, allowed not the calabash to pass us, but freely gave our bits. Now, being the Lord's freemen, be our service rendered to his cause with cheerfulness, and be it our resolve to sow bountifully." There was an allusion to our county, which, of course, was not lost on me. "Never, when we record our gratitude," said a truly eloquent speaker, "to the Christians of England, let it be done without a distinct tribute of honour to Yorkshire; that immense province led the way; it infused its might into a Wilberforce, and still more independently it chose a Brougham for this very championship. From that honoured sphere he was summoned to the foremost judicial and political office of the kingdom; and, with the constancy which only malevolence could asperse, and ignorance could doubt, carried the noble measure which, with all its imperfections, soon perfected itself. That name of incorruptible integrity be ever pronounced with honour!
'Clarum et venerabile nomen
Gentibus, et multum nostrae quod proderat urbi.'"
22d. -- Another Sabbath comes, -- and here it comes with a charm I have no power of description to convey. Those of my country are not forgotten and slighted by me.
"The blessed homes of England!
How softly on her bowers
Is laid the holy quietness
That breathes from sabbath hours!"
But our sabbaths are as of an earth which still is "cursed," -- these like one in Eden. The morning sermon was founded on the benediction of the dying Jacob: -- "The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors, unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of Joseph; and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren." Here was scope for the Negro-imagination. It was employed, though rather in a veiled manner, to show how the West-India exile was peculiarly favoured by God, and how his separation from his brethren was overruled to his enjoyment of privileges incomparably superior to the blessings of his ancestors. There was one passage which I will not omit. "Blue hills of Africa! our fathers, wherever was their captivity, thought of you, and their spirits sighed for the land which ye were supposed to environ! In your wreathing mists they dreamed that might be recognized the shades of the mighty dead! But though we shall never gaze on those mountain-heights which melt away in the azure of heaven, we even now press 'the utmost bound of the everlasting hills,' our 'feet stumble on no dark mountains,' but we ascend the 'bright hills of heavenly day.'" I listened with pleasure to another discourse. It was a similar subject. "Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither . . . . so now it was not ye that sent me hither, but God." The preacher took a masterly view of Divine Providence: -- the transition was easy to the state of his own nation. He exhibited the blessings which had been extracted from their enslavement. But pre-eminently lovely was the spirit of the whole; -- it was a generous acquittal of every wrong, -- it was Joseph weeping on the neck of his conscience-stricken brethren.
25th. -- I this day followed a funeral to the burying-ground, near St. Thomas, in the Vale. The obsequies of the Negro were formerly occasions of the most heartless revelry. The conch and the gong were the noisy accompaniments. Foolish and vain oblations were presented at the grave, -- and there was a secret horror, too. Obeahism having probably destroyed that victim, ruthlessly threatened the health and the spirits of those who survived. Far different was the scene I now beheld. -- The cemetery was laid out in a sober taste, -- it was planted with drooping trees and modest flowers; -- it was a garden with its sepulchre; -- the hillocks of turf were affectingly simple, like the undulations of a summer-sea. This was the "bringing home" of a beloved saint. The bier was unostentatious, and the train consisted of mourners who "sorrowed, but not without hope." The solemn hymn which broke from the serious multitude was far more impressive than the most scientific dirge. The pastor then addressed himself to the immediate relative, and friends: -- "Another Negro soul has passed to heaven; another proof has been given that our Redeemer is no respecter of persons. Dark was the flesh which now rests in hope, 'as the tents of Kedar;' but rich and of wrought gold was the clothing of the spirit, as the 'curtains of Solomon.' Angels deemed not our brother's body unworthy of their care, for they 'bore it up in their hands;' nor his spirit beneath their safeguard, for they have 'carried him into the bosom' of his Father and his God. 'Them who sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.' When I think of the resurrection, my fellow-mortals, I look with awe upon this isle. I speak not of the European, who here has found a premature grave. -- I speak not even of the African, who has been wasted by cruel, hopeless labour into an untimely death. -- I speak of the Carib. -- where is he? That inoffensive race, what had it done, that it should be hunted by the bloodhound, and be worn out by the toil of the mine? Jamaica is the tomb of that exterminated people! But for our emancipation, so quickly were we depopulating, our tribe must also have been consumed! O, how will their oppressors meet them! But let us rejoice in the mildness and justice of those who no longer 'take us away for nought;' who no more 'rule over us to make us to howl.' Let us rejoice that we have not to seek the refuge of the dead, because there 'the prisoners hear not the voice of the oppressor, and the servant is free from his master' but from 'a desire to be with Christ, which is far better.'" I lingered after the procession had retired. The memorials are generally artless, but correct. Gray's "unlettered Muse" has not indited them, "Adieu!" (thus I soliloquized) "Adieu, thou holy spot! what precious dust is mingled with this clay! Here missionaries, pastors, saints, slumber together until the embrace of the resurrection! Soft be the dews which fall on it! -- gentle be the airs which breathe over it! Here let the plantain cast its shade, and the aloe diffuse its fragrance! Here let the cereus nightly blow! 'Let me die the death of the righteous; let my last end be like his,' whatever be his colour, wherever is his clime!"
29th. -- I must record my enjoyment of another Sabbath; -- it was at Montego-bay. It was the more precious, as it was to be my last. The people were seen approaching the sanctuary in neat attire and with a serious look. Yet was there no gloom and moroseness; they were going up to a festival as well as a solemnity. The singing of these islanders is quite melodious. I have never heard any thing more sweetly concerted. A certain wildness sometimes marks the tunes, as though they confessed their origin; -- then flows a plaintive passage, as if relating former wrong; -- and after this, there frequently resounds a triumphant burst like a trumpet's call or a nation's ode, such a "song" as shall be heard in its loudest chorus "from the ends of the earth," -- a paean of liberty and salvation, -- "even glory to the righteous."
The only discourse which I shall notice was from that solemn text: -- "And they shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God." When the orator spoke of the union at last among the good and pious of all nations, his feelings overcame him. "There is," said he, in a voice nearly stifled with emotion, while a sob of joy arose from his auditory, "there is the one household of God in the one home of heaven! The 'whole family' is gathered into its 'Father's house.' If the sun-scorched complexion of the Negro made him unwelcome to his fellows upon earth, he shall no more thus offend them, for 'the sun does not there light upon him, nor any heat.' If his speech, was deemed by softer ears to be harsh and dissonant, this shall no more prejudice him, for his tongue is modulated to seraph lays and golden harps. If his feature was charged with a repulsive deformity, he now sees his Saviour; is already 'like him' in his glorified spirit; with a 'body like unto his glorious body,' shall soon 'awaken in his image;' and surely then no eye will disdain the embodied immortal who wears 'the name of the Lamb on his forehead.' Angolan, Mandingo, Foulah, Boshman, Ashantee, Hottentot, Guinean, even now ye stand about the throne! Ye are no longer reviled and spurned! On every side ye meet the glance of eyes radiant with welcome, and the hail of voices musical with love! And didst not Thou, adored Jesus, look toward the swarthy children of the burning line, when this promise fell from thy lips? Didst not thou turn from the plains of Judah to the Lybian shore, and then saidst, 'They shall come from the South?' Yes, they have come, we have come, and still 'the south keeps not back!' Africa, thy jubilee has long since resounded, -- thy year of release still rolls round with its interminable blessings!"
The christian feast, -- that ordinance which took its rise on the night in which the Great Redeemer was betrayed, and that will be perpetuated until the night in which He shall come again, -- is always "a feast of charity." Like as from a haven of calm we see but the billows tossing afar, or as from a mountain-summit we but hear the muttering of the storm below. Still never had this holy rite, I must confess, melted my entire nature to the degree in which I felt its sublime pathos on occasion of its commemoration to-day. Never had I been witness ere now to its affecting accompaniments in this isle. We surely, under any circumstances, admit that all the guests of this Table are "one in Christ Jesus;" that they are all equally bidden; that, sitting in the wide-opened banqueting-house, they are all fanned by the banner of an impartial love! It is not more certain that the middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile is removed, than that it is our duty to efface every minor distinction. Yet did America once suffer this law of caste in her religious assemblies, and the White has often said to his darker fellow-member, "Stand by thyself! Come not near to me!" Yes, it was absolutely an accustomed thing to erect a barrier between such communicants when meeting at the same sacramental board! The odious prejudice fretted itself into those churches which are synonymous with spiritual revival and missionary zeal! But "God hath shewed" them, and all his people throughout the world, "that they should not call any man common or unclean." What were my emotions as I sat at this fellowship! The bread we broke together was truly "the bread of tears," but they were tears of overpowering joy; and our cup was filled with "the wine of astonishment," but it was the astonishment awakened by so "unspeakable a gift." On every side I was surrounded by my tawny brethren! New were the glances which met my eye, but all beamed one expression; new were the tones which caught mine ear, but all responded one theme. Bond and free are now unknown terms, but here were the united descendants of both. In the dusky visage I of course felt the strongest interest. The children now about me sprung from fathers who had "sacrificed to demons," and had "partaken of the table of devils." When the negro was first converted, his passover was humble as it was concealed. It was "eaten with bitter herbs." Behind some forest-screen these persecuted saints were compelled to secrete themselves, and veil the hallowed rite, as the earliest Christians fled to caves and catacombs. What think you were their symbols? Not our bread, but Cassava -- not our wine, but the Opuntia juice. They can now easily command the bread-corn, and the pure blood of the grape. He greatly misconceives this service who thinks it rather an individual than social act; who deems it nothing whether the other participants be like-minded with himself. There must be sympathy with "the members in particular," as well as communion with the Head. It was this which gave the scene its richest zest. Sweet was the intercourse of that hour. It went to my heart when the Administrator exclaimed, "We are one bread, and one body." And when they lifted up the voice of thanksgiving! It could be only less melodious than the hymn of Jesus and his disciples, when they closed the primaeval celebration of the same festival: and this congregation departed, as did the holy band from the guest-chamber, to a region of beauty and of calm, to a Mount of Olives! I thought within myself, scarcely more "blessed are they who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!" The remonstrance was already on my lips, "Lord, why cannot I follow Thee now?"
I have met with an elegant volume, published about a century ago, entitled "The Bow in the Cloud; or, The Negro's Memorial." Its purport was the benefit of the slave, or of the newly-constituted freeman. It is a great favourite here. It could hardly fail to be this, since it is a record of the sympathy of England with the children of captivity and bondage. It also breathes many an ardent augury of their mental and christian destinies. Its contents were as varied as the signatures, but it was a rainbow miscellany, a blended texture of kindness and commiseration, arching a cloud of mourning with the sign of hope.
To-day, the 30th, I must leave this island of beauty and of bliss. Still I shall roam along these bright calm seas. You may suppose me superstitious; -- you may, perhaps, shape my inference more strongly than I conceive it myself; but since slavery has ceased there has not been known a tornado. Let the naturalist and the christian account for the coincidence, the synchronism, or the effect, as they can. I may send you further accounts, but this little diary must for the present suffice. Thou fair and holy land, farewell! No longer my sojourn, thou shalt be my vision! Distant as thou shalt soon be from me, thine image is cameoed in my heart! Blessed art thou among the nations! Blessed are thy people, for their God is the Lord! I have scarcely been a month, yet have formed so many ties and friendships, that to leave is to tear myself away. But the ship is warping from the port, -- the signal of departure is flying, and the fore-topsail is sheeted home. Forget not the happy wanderer, the pilgrim of these Cyclades.
Yours most faithfully.
* * * * * *
On board. -- I have kept the letter open, just to express any thing that might occur since embarkation. As the shore receded, I felt all the anguish of a bereavement. But we are bearing gallantly away, and the other sunny islet gems invite me to visit them also. A beloved friend, who saw me into my boat, instead of bidding me a formal adieu, for which neither of us could command sufficient control of feeling, cited the following stanza, in a way which went at once to the heart: --
"And if, on life's uncertain main,
Mishap shall mar thy sail;
If faithful, wise, and good in vain,
Woe, want, and exile thou sustain,
Beneath the fickle gale;
Waste not a sigh on fortune changed,
On thankless courts, or friends estranged,
But come where kindred worth shall smile
To greet thee in the lovely isle."
At Sea. -- I forgot to say, that Barbadoes has erected a monument to the missionary, Shrewsbury; and Demerara has raised a chaste but most appropriate tomb over the remains of the martyr, Smith.
(Richard Winter Hamilton.)