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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
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