would admit of. The overseer, (manager,) Mr.
Duncan, is an intelligent, active, business man, and
on any other estate than Golden Grove, would doubtless
be a personage of considerable distinction. He
conducted us through the numerous buildings, from the
boiling-house to the pig-stye. The principal complaint
of the overseer, was that he could not make the people
work to any good purpose. They were not at all
refractory or disobedient; there was no difficulty
in getting them on to the field; but when they were
there, they moved without any life or energy.
They took no interest in their work, and he was obliged
to be watching and scolding them all the time, or else
they would do nothing. We had not gone many steps
after this observation, before we met with a practical
illustration of it. A number of the apprentices
had been ordered that morning to cart away some dirt
to a particular place. When we approached them,
Mr. D. found that one of the “wains” was
standing idle. He inquired of the driver why he
was keeping the team idle. The reply was, that
there was nothing there for it to do; there were enough
other wains to carry away all the dirt. “Then,”
inquired the overseer with an ill-concealed irritation,
“why did not go to some other work?” The
overseer then turned to us and said, “You see,
sir, what lazy dogs the apprentices are—this
is the way they do every day, if they are not closely
watched.” It was not long after this little
incident, before the overseer remarked that the apprentices
worked very well during their own time,
when they
were paid for it. When we went into the hospital,
Mr. D. directed out attention to one fact, which to
him was very provoking. A great portion of the
patients that come in during the week, unable to work,
are in the habit of getting well on Friday evening,
so that they can go out on Saturday and Sunday; but
on Monday morning they are sure to be sick again,
then they return to the hospital and remain very poorly
till Friday evening, when they get well all at once,
and ask permission to go out. The overseer saw
into the trick; but he could find no medicine that
could cure the negroes of that intermittent sickness.
The Antigua planters discovered the remedy for it,
and doubtless Mr. D. will make the grand discovery
in 1840.
On returning to the “great house,” we
found the custos sitting in state, ready to communicate
any official information which might be called for.
He expressed similar sentiments in the main, with those
of Mr. Barclay. He feared for the consequences
of complete emancipation; the negroes would to a great
extent abandon the sugar cultivation and retire to
the woods, there to live in idleness, planting merely
yams enough to keep them alive, and in the process
of time, retrograding into African barbarism.
The attorney did not see how it was possible to prevent
this. When asked whether he expected that such
would be the case with the negroes on Golden Grove,
he replied that he did not think it would, except