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[Footnote Q: These pisterines are of the value of a shilling.]
[Footnote R: Mr. Dubury, and many others, Montserrat.]
[Footnote S: Sir Philip Gibbes, Baronet, Barbadoes.]
[Footnote T: Benezet's Account of Guinea, p. 16.]
CHAP. VI.
_Some account of Brimstone-Hill in Montserrat--Favourable
change in the author's situation--He commences merchant with
three pence--His various success in dealing in the different
islands, and America, and the impositions he meets with in
his transactions with Europeans--A curious imposition on
human nature--Danger of the surfs in the West
Indies--Remarkable instance of kidnapping a free
mulatto--The author is nearly murdered by Doctor Perkins in
Savannah._
In the preceding chapter I have set before the reader a few of those
many instances of oppression, extortion, and cruelty, which I have
been a witness to in the West Indies: but, were I to enumerate them
all, the catalogue would be tedious and disgusting. The punishments of
the slaves on every trifling occasion are so frequent, and so well
known, together with the different instruments with which they are
tortured, that it cannot any longer afford novelty to recite them; and
they are too shocking to yield delight either to the writer or the
reader. I shall therefore hereafter only mention such as incidentally
befel myself in the course of my adventures.
In the variety of departments in which I was employed by my master, I
had an opportunity of seeing many curious scenes in different islands;
but, above all, I was struck with a celebrated curiosity called
Brimstone-Hill, which is a high and steep mountain, some few miles
from the town of Plymouth in Montserrat. I had often heard of some
wonders that were to be seen on this hill, and I went once with some
white and black people to visit it. When we arrived at the top, I saw
under different cliffs great flakes of brimstone, occasioned by the
steams of various little ponds, which were then boiling naturally in
the earth. Some of these ponds were as white as milk, some quite blue,
and many others of different colours. I had taken some potatoes with
me, and I put them into different ponds, and in a few minutes they
were well boiled. I tasted some of them, but they were very
sulphurous; and the silver shoe buckles, and all the other things of
that metal we had among us, were, in a little time, turned as black
as lead.
Some time in the year 1763 kind Providence seemed to appear rather
more favourable to me. One of my master's vessels, a Bermudas sloop,
about sixty tons, was commanded by one Captain Thomas Farmer, an
Englishman, a very alert and active man, who gained my master a great
deal of money by his good management in carrying passengers from one
island to another; but very often his sailors used to get drunk and
run away from the vessel, which hindered him in his business very
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