the roads in such a manner, that I could not get any more carted to the bay; however, I hope I shall be able to fend you thirty hogsheads of my own by the Clarendon, Captain Kennedy, who will fail with the convoy from Bluefields against the ist August; also forty hogsheads by the same ship from Clarendon-hall estate. You will please to order insurance accordingly.

Mr. Sneaking Caution, the manager, tells me, that the cause of the fugars being so dark, and not having fo good a grain as I would with, has been owing to the canes being too ripe, and burning fafter than they could be taken off: the last twenty hogsheads were fo very black, that I thought it best for your interest to direct him to convert them into rum, which will answer very well, for two hogsheads will make one puncheon of rum. You may be affured that no attention of mine shall be wanting to your concerns in this quarter; Sneaking Caution was strongly recommended to me by our mutual friend Doctor Bolus, and he is a fine, active, industrious young man. As to what you mention respecting the crops, you will please to observe, that when Mr. M'Donald was manager, and made three hundred hogsheads yearly, he injured the flaves and cattle materially, and cultivated and impoverished the plantation fo that they never will retrieve again; and though we have made only an hundred hogfheads this year, I hope we shall make a better crop next year; you will please to observe, that the long continuance of the draught last year,

and the heavy and untimely rains this year, affected the crop very much; as to what you say respecting your black people, though feveral of them have died lately, it was not for want of attention; for Clysterpipe, who is Doctor Bolus's brother, is very attentive; there are too many invalids on the estate, who never would be of any fervice to you; they are old deformed creatures, of the Auranoutang species, who I do not suppose have any fouls, therefore, as they are an incumbrance to the estate, I have ordered the manager to give them no allowance; as fast as they die I shall fupply their places by new negroes which will answer very well.

I have drawn a bill on you for two thousand pounds sterling, at ninety days fight, in favour of Messrs. ******, of London, which please to accept; I hope next crop to make you a remittance equal thereto; and that in two or three years I shall be clear of debt, which I long for much, that I may once more return to dear old England.

I am thankful to you for your kind present of Madeira, malmfy, porter, cheese, and hams; they all came to hand in fine order; the Madeira is excellent! Mr. Ahmuty writes me, that it is best London particular; you will lay me under an additional obligation to order that gentleman to fend me two pipes next year.

I am, with great regard,

Dear Sir,

Your most humble servant,

TOM COLDWEATHER.

It

It is quite common for an attorney to keep a favourite black or mulatta girl on every estate, which the managers are obliged to pamper and indulge like goddeffes. Tom Coldweather, a gentleman in Spanish-Town, was attorney for about forty plantations, and had thirty or forty doxys of this kind in keeping: I suppose each flattered the debauchee that they waited chaste for his coming. The vanity of female slaves is raised to an unbounded degree to be chosen objects of their master, (for they call an attorney their master) on which account they are often intolerable infolent to fubordinate white men: woe betide a poor overseer if he affronts one of them!

When an attorney visits a plantation, he commonly invites a few diffipated gentlemen to spend a few days with him; he sends wines and other necessaries previously; the only duty he does, is, to take a ride in the cool of the morning or evening with the manager along the pleasant walks or intervals, or round some of the cane pieces. In the evening the manager is obliged to procure fome of the finest young wenches for the gentlemen, about fun fet they are ordered from the field to wait upon their master and his friends; and though this is a pimp-like action, most managers are guilty of it. These poor wretches wash themselves in some river or pond, brace up their breasts, and meet at the great-house, where they exercise themselves with great dexterity, by-dancing in all the varied wriggles peculiar to their

sex; the gentlemen fit in the piazza with their feet extended against the posts, to keep them from the cramp; against bed time they are thus properly drilled, and hastened to the different chambers; their black husbands, or poor bockra partners, being neglected, filently pass those nights in disagreeable slumbers, wrecked with jealousy and torture.

It is very amazing indeed to think how furprisingly nature operates through every pulse and vein of those who are born and nurtured beneath the torrid zone; how far different their passions and sensations are from those in colder regions; and even men from other countries, when they get innured to the West Indies, how imperceptably, like wax softened by heat, they melt into their manners and customs. In Europe, Great Britain and Ireland I should say, it would render a gentleman of fortune odious in the community to take half a dozen ladies of easy virtue into keeping at once; in those countries frigid lovers trifle away half their time in stiff formalities and religious ceremonies, whilst chil-/ dren of the fun, fofstered and invigorated beneath his cæleftial rays, eternal votaries to the revels of Bacchus and Venus, luxuriously and voluptuoufly spend their few days and nights in diffipations dear delightful downy lap, whilst African manners and customs are native and congenial to their hearts!

I should

I should have observed to you before, that he who is chief in the superintendency of a plantation in Jamaica, is called an Overseer; and in the Windward Islands, a Manager; and the Overseer's Deputies are called Book-keepers; and in the Windward Islands Overseer's or NegroDrivers; however, when I have occasion to speak of either in future, I shall call them overseers and book-keepers.

Overseers all over Jamaica are generally Europeans, and get falaries from 100 to £ 300 fterling per annum, and are accommodated with comfortable houses, furniture, &c. and flaves to attend them; they rear (where they are industrioufly inclined) abundance of sheep, goats, swine, and poultry, for themselves and their bookkeepers; besides, the proprietors furnish them yearly with falt-beef, Port, butter, flour, fplic pease, barley, &c. and sometimes with porter, cheese, and hams; the estates supply them with vegetables, corn, fugar, rum, coffee, and chocolate; so that as to eating and drinking, overfeers and book-keepers live very well; they all mess together; nor is there such distinction observed among them as in the West India Islands.

The meanest class of adventurers succeed best in the planting line; because a man of education, spirit, or genius, would think himself buried alive, and would secretly repine and murmur at his fate, to live among an illiberal narrowminded set of cowskin heroes; it would be pain