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The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, Commonly called Colonel Jack

"'Yes, yes,' says Mouchat; 'me know, me know; but me want speak; me tell something.'

"'Well, what would you say?' says the clerk.

"'Oh! me no let him makee de great master angry.' With that he kneeled down to the clerk.

"'What ails you?' says the clerk. 'I tell you he must be hanged.'

"'No, no,' says he; 'no hang de master. Me kneel for him to great master.'

"'You kneel for him!' says the clerk.¹⁰ 'What! do you think the great master will mind you? He has made the great master angry, and must be hanged, I tell you. What signifies your begging?'

"Negro. Oh! me pray, me pray the great master for him.

"Clerk. Why, what ails you that you would pray for him?

"Negro. Oh! he beggee the great master for me; now me beggee for him. The great master muchee good, muchee good; he pardon me when the other master beggee me; now he pardon him when me beggee for him again.

"Clerk. No, no; your begging won't do. Will you be hanged for him? If you do that, something may be.

"Negro. Yes, yes; me be hang for de poor master that beggee for me. Mouchat shall hang; the great master shall hangee me, whippee me; anything to save the poor master that beggee me; yes, yes, indeed.

"Clerk. Are you in earnest, Mouchat?

"Negro. Yes, indeed; me tellee de true. The great master shall know me tellee de true, for he shall see the white man hangee me, Mouchat. Poor negro Mouchat will be hangee, be whippee, anything for the poor master that beggee for me.

"With this the poor fellow cried most pitifully, and there was no room to question his being in earnest; when on a sudden I appeared, for I was fetched to see all this transaction. I was not in the house at first, but was just come home from the business you sent me of, and heard it all; and indeed neither the clerk or I could bear it any longer, so he came out to me. 'Go to him,' says he; 'you have made an example that will never be forgot, that a negro can be grateful. Go to him,' adds he, 'for I can talk to him no longer.' So I appeared, and spoke to him presently, and let him see that I was at liberty; but to hear how the poor fellow behaved your honour cannot but be pleased."

Mast. Prithee go on. I am pleased with it all; 'tis all a new scene of negro life to me, and very moving.

Jacque. For a good while he stood as if he had been thunderstruck and stupid; but, looking steadily at me, though not speaking a word, at last he mutters to himself, with a kind of laugh, "Ay, ay," says he, "Mouchat see, Mouchat no see; me wakee, me no wakee; no hangee, no hangee; he live truly, very live;" and then on a sudden he runs to me, snatches me away as if I had been a boy of ten years old, and takes me up upon his back and runs away with me, till I was fain to cry out to him to stop. Then he sets me down, and looks at me again, then falls a-dancing about me as if he had been bewitched, just as you have seen them do about their wives and children when they are merry.

"Well, then, he began to talk with me, and told me what they had said to him, how I was to be hanged. 'Well,' says I, 'Mouchat, and would you have been satisfied to be hanged to save me?' 'Yes, yes,' says he; 'be truly hangee, to beggee you.'

"'But why do you love me so well, Mouchat?' said I.

"'Did you no beggee me,' he says, 'at the great master? You savee me, make great master muchee good, muchee kind, no whippee me; me no forget; me be whipped, be hanged, that you no be hanged; me die, that you no die; me no let any bad be with you all while that me live.'

"Now, sir, your honour may judge whether kindness, well managed, would not oblige these people as well as cruelty, and whether there are principles of gratitude in them or no."

Mast. But what, then, can be the reason that we never believed it to be so before?

Jacque. Truly, sir, I fear that Mouchat gave the true reason.

Mast. What was that, pray? That we were too cruel?

Jacque. That they never had any mercy showed them; that we never tried them whether they would be grateful or no; that if they did a fault they were never spared, but punished with the utmost cruelty; so that they had no passion, no affection, to act upon but that of fear, which necessarily brought hatred with it; but that if they were used with compassion they would serve with affection as well as other servants. Nature is the same, and reason governs in just proportions in all creatures; but having never been let taste what mercy is, they know not how to act from a principle of love.

Mast. I am convinced it is so. But now, pray tell me, how did you put this in practice with the poor negroes now in bonds yonder, when you passed such a cruel sentence upon them that they should be whipped twice a day, for four days together? Was that showing mercy?

Jacque. My method was just the same; and if you please to inquire of Mr. – , your other servant, you will be satisfied that it was so; for we agreed upon the same measures as I took with Mouchat; namely, first to put them into the utmost horror and apprehensions of the cruellest punishment that they ever heard of, and thereby enhance the value of their pardon, which was to come as from yourself, but not without our great intercession. Then I was to argue with them, and work upon their reason, to make the mercy that was showed them sink deep into their minds and give lasting impressions; explain the meaning of gratitude to them, and the nature of an obligation, and the like, as I had done with Mouchat.

Mast. I am answered. Your method is certainly right, and I desire you may go on with it; for I desire nothing on this side heaven more than to have all my negroes serve me from principles of gratitude for my kindness to them. I abhor to be feared like a lion, like a tyrant. It is a violence upon nature every way, and is the most disagreeable thing in the world to a generous mind.

Jacque. But, sir, I am doubtful that you may not believe that I intended to act thus with those poor fellows. I beseech you to send for Mr. – , that he may tell you what we had agreed on before I speak with him.

Mast. What reason have I to doubt that?

Jacque. I hope you have not; but I should be very sorry you should think me capable of executing such a sentence as you have heard me own I had passed on them, and there can be no way effectually to clear it up but this.

Mast. Well, seeing you put so much weight upon it, he shall be called for.

[He was called, and being ordered by the master to tell the measures that were concerted between them for the punishment or management of those negroes, he gave it just as Jacque had done before.]

Jacque. I hope, sir, you are now not only satisfied of the truth of the account I gave relating to the method we had agreed on, but of its being so proper and so likely to answer your end.

Mast. I am fully satisfied, and shall be glad to see that it answers the end; for, as I have said, nothing can be more agreeable to me. Nothing has so much robbed me of the comfort of all my fortunes as the cruelty used, in my name, on the bodies of those poor slaves.

Jacque. It is certainly wrong, sir; it is not only wrong as it is barbarous and cruel; but it is wrong, too, as it is the worst way of managing and of having your business done.

Mast. It is my aversion; it fills my very soul with horror. I believe if I should come by while they were using those cruelties on the poor creatures, I should either sink down at the sight of it or fly into a rage and kill the fellow that did it; though it is done, too, by my own authority.

Jacque. But, sir, I dare say I shall convince you also that it is wrong in respect of interest, and that your business shall be better discharged and your plantations better ordered, and more work done by the negroes who shall be engaged by mercy and lenity than by those who are driven and dragged by the whips and the chains of a merciless tormentor.

Mast. I think the nature of the thing speaks itself. Doubtless it should be so, and I have often thought it would be so, and a thousand times wished it might be so; but all my English people pretend otherwise, and that it is impossible to bring the negroes to any sense of kindness, and consequently not to any obedience of love.

Jacque. It may be true, sir, that there may be found here and there a negro of a senseless, stupid, sordid disposition, perfectly untractable, undocible, and incapable of due impressions; especially incapable of the generosity of principle which I am speaking of. You know very well, sir, there are such among Christians as well as among the negroes; whence else came the English proverb, That if you save a thief from the gallows, he shall be the first to cut your throat. But, sir, if such a refractory, undocible fellow comes in our way, he must be dealt with, first by the smooth ways to try him, then by the violent way to break his temper, as they break a horse; and if nothing will do, such a wretch should be sold off, and others bought in his room; for the peace of the plantation should not be broken for one devilish-tempered fellow. And if this was done I doubt not you should have all your plantations carried on and your work done, and not a negro or a servant upon it but what would not only work for you, but even die for you, if there was an occasion for it, as you see this poor Mouchat would have done for me.

Mast. Well, go on with your measures, and may you succeed. I'll promise you I will fully make you amends for it. I long to have these cruelties out of use, in my plantation especially. As for others, let them do as they will.

Our master being gone, I went to the prisoners, and first I suffered them to be told that the great master had been there, and that he had been inclined to pardon them, till he knew what their crime was; but then he said it was so great a fault that it must be punished. Besides, the man that talked to them told them that the great master said that he knew if he had pardoned them they would be but the worse, for that the negroes were never thankful for being spared, and that there were no other ways to make them obedient but severity.

One of the poor fellows, more sensible than the other, answered, if any negro be badder for being kindly used, they should be whipped till they were muchee better; but that he never knew that, for that he never knew the negro be kindly use.

This was the same thing as the other had said, and indeed was but too true, for the overseers really knew no such thing as mercy; and that notion of the negroes being no other way to be governed but by cruelty had been the occasion that no other method was ever tried among them.

Again, if a slack hand had at any time been held upon them, it had not been done with discretion, or as a point of mercy, and managed with the assistance of argument to convince the negroes of the nature and reason of it, and to show them what they ought to do in return for it; but it was perhaps the effect of negligence, ill conduct, and want of application to the business of the plantation; and then it was no wonder that the negroes took the advantage of it.

Well, I carried on the affair with these two negroes just as I did with Mouchat, so I need not repeat the particulars; and they were delivered with infinite acknowledgments and thanks, even to all the extravagances of joy usual in those people on such occasions. And such was the gratitude of those two pardoned fellows that they were the most faithful and most diligent servants ever after that belonged to the whole plantation, Mouchat excepted.

In this manner I carried on the plantation fully to his satisfaction; and before a year more was expired there was scarce any such thing as correction known in the plantation, except upon a few boys, who were incapable of the impressions that good usage would have made, even upon them too, till they had lived to know the difference.

It was some time after this conference that our great master, as we called him, sent for me again to his dwelling-house, and told me he had had an answer from England from his friend, to whom he had written about my bill. I was a little afraid that he was going to ask me leave to send it to London; but he did not say anything like that, but told me that his friend had been with the gentleman, and that he owned the bill, and that he had all the money in his hand that the bill had mentioned; but that he had promised the young man that had given him the money (meaning me) not to pay the money to anybody but himself, though they should bring the bill; the reason of which was, that I did not know who might get the bill away from me.

"But now, Colonel Jacque," says he, "as you wrote him an account where you was, and by what wicked arts you were trepanned, and that it was impossible for you to have your liberty till you could get the money, my friend at London has written to me, that, upon making out a due copy of the bill here, attested by a notary and sent to him, and your obligation likewise attested, whereby you oblige yourself to deliver the original to his order after the money is paid, he will pay the money."

I told him I was willing to do whatever his honour directed; and so the proper copies were drawn as I had been told were required.

"But now, what will you do with this money, Jacque?" says he, smiling. "Will you buy your liberty of me, and go to planting?"

I was too cunning for him now indeed, for I remembered what he had promised me; and I had too much knowledge of the honesty of his principles, as well as of the kindness he had for me, to doubt his being as good as his word; so I turned all this talk of his upon him another way. I knew that when he asked me if I would buy my liberty and go to planting, it was to try if I would leave him; so I said, "As to buying my liberty, sir-that is to say, going out of your service-I had much rather buy more time in your service, and I am only unhappy that I have but two years to serve."

"Come, come, colonel," says he, "don't flatter me; I love plain dealing. Liberty is precious to everybody; if you have a mind to have your money brought over, you shall have your liberty to begin for yourself, and I will take care you shall be well used by the country, and get you a good plantation."

I still insisted that I would not quit his service for the best plantation in Maryland; that he had been so good to me, and I believed I was so useful to him, that I could not think of it; and at last I added I hoped he could not believe but I had as much gratitude as a negro.

He smiled, and said he would not be served upon those terms; that he did not forget what he had promised, nor what I had done in his plantation; and that he was resolved in the first place to give me my liberty. So he pulls out a piece of paper, and throws it to me: "There," says he, "there's a certificate of your coming on shore, and being sold to me for five years, of which you have lived three with me; and now you are your own master." I bowed, and told him that I was sure, if I was my own master, I would be his servant as long as he would accept of my service. And now we strained courtesies, and he told me I should be his servant still; but it should be on two conditions: first, that he would give me £30 a year and my board for my managing the plantation I was then employed in; and, secondly, that at the same time he would procure me a new plantation to begin upon my own account, "For, Colonel Jacque," says he, smiling, "though you are but a young man, yet 'tis time you were doing something for yourself."

I answered that I could do little at a plantation for myself, unless I neglected his business, which I was resolved not to do on any terms whatever, but that I would serve him faithfully, if he would accept of me, as long as he lived. "So you shall," says he again, "and serve yourself too." And thus we parted for that time.

Here I am to observe in the general, to avoid dwelling too long upon a story, that as the two negroes who I delivered from punishment were ever after the most diligent and laborious poor fellows in the whole plantation as above, except Mouchat, of whom I shall speak more by-and-by, so they not only were grateful themselves for their good usage, but they influenced the whole plantation; so that the gentle usage and lenity with which they had been treated had a thousand times more influence upon them to make them diligent than all the blows and kicks, whippings, and other tortures could have which they had been used to. And now the plantation was famous for it; so that several other planters began to do the same, though I cannot say it was with the same success, which might be for want of taking pains with them and working upon their passions in a right manner. It appeared that negroes were to be reasoned into things as well as other people, and it was by thus managing their reason that most of the work was done.

However, as it was, the plantations in Maryland were the better for this undertaking, and they are to this day less cruel and barbarous to their negroes than they are in Barbados and Jamaica; and 'tis observed the negroes are not in these colonies so desperate, neither do they so often run away or so often plot mischief against their master, as they do in those.

I have dwelt the longer upon it that, if possible, posterity might be persuaded to try gentler methods with those miserable creatures, and to use them with humanity; assuring them that if they did so, adding the common prudence that every particular case would direct them to for itself, the negroes would do their work faithfully and cheerfully; they would not find any of that refractoriness and sullenness in their temper that they pretend now to complain of, but they would be the same as their Christian servants, except that they would be the more thank ful, and humble, and laborious of the two.

I continued in this station between five and six years after this, and in all that time we had not one negro whipped, except, as I observed before, now and then an unlucky boy, and that only for trifles. I cannot say but we had some ill-natured, ungovernable negroes; but if at any time such offended, they were pardoned the first time, in the manner as above, and the second time were ordered to be turned out of the plantation. And this was remarkable, that they would torment themselves at the apprehension of being turned away, more by a great deal than if they had been to be whipped, for then they were only sullen and heavy. Nay, at length we found the fear of being turned out of the plantation had as much effect to reform them-that is to say, make them more diligent-than any torture would have done; and the reason was evident, namely, because in our plantation they were used like men, in the other like dogs.

My master owned the satisfaction he took in this blessed change, as he called it, as long as he lived; and as he was so engaged by seeing the negroes grateful, he showed the same principle of gratitude to those that served him as he looked for in those that he served, and particularly to me; and so I come briefly to that part. The first thing he did after giving me my liberty as above, and making me an allowance, was to get the country bounty to me-that is to say, a quantity of land to begin and plant for myself.

But this he managed a way by himself, and, as I found afterwards, took up, that is, purchased in my name, about three hundred acres of land, in a more convenient place than it would have otherwise been allotted me; and this he did by his interest with the lord proprietor; so that I had an extent of ground marked out to me, not next but very near one of his own plantations. When I made my acknowledgment for this to him, he told me plainly that I was not beholden to him for it all; for he did it that I might not be obliged to neglect his business for the carrying on my own, and on that account he would not reckon to me what money he paid, which, however, according to the custom of the country, was not a very great sum-I think about £40 or £50.

Thus he very generously gave me my liberty, advanced this money for me, put me into a plantation for myself, and gave me £30 a year wages for looking after one of his own plantations.

"But, Colonel," says he to me, "giving you this plantation is nothing at all to you if I do not assist you to support it and to carry it on, and therefore I will give you credit for whatever is needful to you for the carrying it on; such as tools, provisions for servants, and some servants to begin; materials to build outhouses, and conveniences of all sorts for the plantation, and to buy hogs, cows, horses for stock, and the like; and I'll take it out of your cargo, which will come from London, for the money of your bill."

This was highly obliging and very kind, and the more so, as it afterwards appeared. In order to this he sent two servants of his own who were carpenters. As for timber, boards, planks, and all sorts of such things, in a country almost all made of wood they could not be wanting. These run me up a little wooden house in less than three weeks' time, where I had three rooms, a kitchen, an outhouse, and two large sheds at a distance from the house for store houses, almost like barns, with stables at the end of them; and thus I was set up in the world, and, in short, removed by the degrees that you have heard from a pickpocket to a kidnapped, miserable slave in Virginia (for Maryland is Virginia, speaking of them at a distance); then from a slave to a head-officer or overseer of slaves, and from thence to a master-planter.

I had now, as above, a house, a stable, two warehouses, and three hundred acres of land; but, as we say, bare walls make giddy hussies, so I had neither axe nor hatchet to cut down the trees; horse, nor hog, nor cow to put upon the land; not a hoe or a spade to break ground, nor a pair of hands but my own to go to work upon.

But Heaven and kind masters make up all those things to a diligent servant; and I mention it because people who are either transported or otherwise trepanned into those places are generally thought to be rendered miserable and undone; whereas, on the contrary, I would encourage them, upon my own experience, to depend upon it, that if their own diligence in the time of service gains them but a good character, which it will certainly do if they can deserve it, there is not the poorest and most despicable felon that ever went over but may, after his time is served, begin for himself, and may in time be sure of raising a good plantation.

For example, I will now take a man in the meanest circumstances of a servant, who has served out his five or seven years; suppose a transported wretch for seven years. The custom of the place was then-what it is since I know not-that on his master's certifying that he had served his time out faithfully, he had fifty acres of land allotted him for planting, and on this plan he begins.

Some had a horse, a cow, and three hogs given, or rather lent, them, as a stock for the land, which they made an allowance for at a certain time and rate.

Custom has made it a trade to give credit to such beginners as these for tools, clothes, nails, ironwork, and other things necessary for their planting, and which the persons so giving credit to them are to be paid for out of the crop of tobacco which they shall plant. Nor is it in the debtor's power to defraud the creditor of payment in that manner; and as tobacco is their coin as well as their product, so all things are to be purchased at a certain quantity of tobacco, the price being so rated.

Thus the naked planter has credit at his beginning, and immediately goes to work to cure the land and plant tobacco; and from this little beginning have some of the most considerable planters in Virginia, and in Maryland also, raised themselves-namely, from being without a hat or a shoe to estates of £40,000 or £50,000; and in this method, I may add, no diligent man ever miscarried, if he had health to work and was a good husband; for he every year increases a little, and every year adding more land and planting more tobacco, which is real money, he must gradually increase in substance, till at length he gets enough to buy negroes and other servants, and then never works himself any more.

In a word, every Newgate wretch, every desperate forlorn creature, the most despicable ruined man in the world, has here a fair opportunity put into his hands to begin the world again, and that upon a foot of certain gain and in a method exactly honest, with a reputation that nothing past will have any effect upon; and innumerable people have raised themselves from the worst circumstances in the world-namely, from the cells in Newgate.

But I return to my own story. I was now a planter, and encouraged by a kind benefactor; for, that I might not be wholly taken up with my new plantation, he gave me freely, and without any consideration, my grateful negro, Mouchat. He told me it was a debt due to the affection that poor creature had always had for me; and so indeed it was, for as the fellow would once have been hanged for me, so now, and to his last, he loved me so much that it was apparent he did everything with pleasure that he did for me; and he was so overcome of joy when he heard that he was to be my negro that the people in the plantation really thought it would turn his head, and that the fellow would go distracted.

Besides this, he sent me two servants more, a man and a woman, but these he put to my account, as above. Mouchat and these two fell immediately to work for me, and they began with about two acres of land which had but little timber on it at first, and most of that was cut down by the two carpenters who built my house, or shed rather, for so it should be called.

These two acres I got in good forwardness, and most of it well planted with tobacco; though some of it we were obliged to plant with garden-stuff for food, such as potatoes, carrots, cabbages, peas, beans, &c.

It was a great advantage to me that I had so bountiful a master, who helped me out in every case; for in this very first year I received a terrible blow. For my bill, as I have observed, having been copied and attested in form, and sent to London, my kind friend and custom-house gentleman paid me the money, and the merchant at London, by my good master's direction, had laid it all out in a sorted cargo of goods for me, such as would have made a man of me all at once; but, to my inexpressible terror and surprise, the ship was lost, and that just at the entrance into the capes; that is to say, the mouth of the bay. Some of the goods were recovered, but spoiled; and, in short, nothing but the nails, tools, and ironwork were good for anything; and though the value of them was pretty considerable in proportion to the rest, yet my loss was irreparably great, and indeed the greatness of the loss to me consisted in its being irreparable.

I was perfectly astonished at the first news of the loss, knowing that I was in debt to my patron, or master, so much that it must be several years before I should recover it; and as he brought me the bad news himself, he perceived my disorder; that is to say, he saw I was in the utmost confusion and a kind of amazement; and so indeed I was, because I was so much in debt. But he spoke cheerfully to me. "Come," says he, "do not be so discouraged; you may make up this loss." "No, sir," says I; "that never can be, for it is my all, and I shall never be out of debt." "Well, but," says he, "you have no creditor, however, but me; and now I remember I once told you I would make a man of you, and I will not disappoint you for this disaster."

I thanked him, and did it with more ceremony and respect than ever, because I thought myself more under the hatches than I was before. But he was as good as his word, for he did not baulk me in the least of anything I wanted; and as I had more ironwork saved out of the ship, in proportion, than I wanted, I supplied him with some part of it, and took up some linen and clothes and other necessaries from him in exchange.

And now I began to increase visibly. I had a large quantity of land cured-that is, freed from timber-and a very good crop of tobacco in view. And I got three servants more and one negro, so that I had five white servants and two negroes, and with this my affairs went very well on.

The first year, indeed, I took my wages, or salary-that is to say, £30 a year-because I wanted it very much; but the second and third year I resolved not to take it on any account whatsoever, but to leave it in my benefactor's hands to clear off the debt I had contracted.

And now I must impose a short digression on the reader, to note that notwithstanding all the disadvantages of a most wretched education, yet now, when I began to feel myself, as I may say, in the world, and to be arrived to an independent state, and to foresee that I might be something considerable in time; I say, now I found different sentiments of things taking place in my mind. And, first, I had a solid principle of justice and honesty, and a secret horror at things past, when I looked back upon my former life. That original something-I knew not what-that used formerly to check me in the first meannesses of my youth, and used to dictate to me when I was but a child that I was to be a gentleman, continued to operate upon me now in a manner I cannot describe; and I continually remembered the words of the ancient glassmaker to the gentleman that he reproved for swearing, that to be a gentleman was to be an honest man; that without honesty human nature was sunk and degenerated; the gentleman lost all the dignity of his birth, and placed himself even below an honest beggar. These principles, growing upon my mind in the present circumstances I was in, gave me a secret satisfaction that I can give no description of. It was an inexpressible joy to me that I was now like to be, not only a man, but an honest man; and it yielded me a greater pleasure that I was ransomed from being a vagabond, a thief, and a criminal, as I had been from a child, than that I was delivered from slavery and the wretched state of a Virginia sold servant. I had notion enough in my mind of the hardships of the servant, or slave, because I had felt it and worked through it; I remembered it as a state of labour and servitude, hardship and suffering. But the other shocked my very nature, chilled my blood, and turned the very soul within me; the thought of it was like reflections upon hell and the damned spirits; it struck me with horror, it was odious and frightful to look back on, and it gave me a kind of a fit, a convulsion or nervous disorder, that was very uneasy to me.