out of a house and threatened him with vengeance; on which, finding he was likely to be handled roughly, the rogue offered each of us some small allowance, but nothing near our demands.  This exasperated us much more; and some were for cutting his ears off; but he begged hard for mercy, which was at last granted him, after we had entirely stripped him.  We then let him go, for which he thanked us, glad to get off so easily, and ran into the bushes, after having wished us a good voyage.  We then repaired on board, and shortly after set sail for England.  I cannot help remarking here a very narrow escape we had from being blown up, owing to a piece of negligence of mine.  Just as our ship was under sail, I went down into the cabin to do some business, and had a lighted candle in my hand, which, in my hurry, without thinking, I held in a barrel of gunpowder.  It remained in the powder until it was near catching fire, when fortunately I observed it and snatched it out in time, and providentially no harm happened; but I was so overcome with terror that I immediately fainted at this deliverance.

In twenty-eight days time we arrived in England, and I got clear of this ship.  But, being still of a roving disposition, and desirous of seeing as many different parts of the world as I could, I shipped myself soon after, in the same year, as steward on board of a fine large ship, called the Jamaica, Captain David Watt; and we sailed from England in December 1771 for Nevis and Jamaica.  I found Jamaica to be a very fine large island, well peopled, and the most considerable of the West India islands.  There was a vast number of negroes here, whom I found as usual exceedingly imposed upon by the white people, and the slaves punished as in the other islands.  There are negroes whose business it is to flog slaves; they go about to different people for employment, and the usual pay is from one to four bits.  I saw many cruel punishments inflicted on the slaves in the short time I stayed here.  In particular I was present when a poor fellow was tied up and kept hanging by the wrists at some distance from the ground, and then some half hundred weights were fixed to his ancles, in which posture he was flogged most unmercifully.  There were also, as I heard, two different masters noted for cruelty on the island, who had staked up two negroes naked, and in two hours the vermin stung them to death.  I heard a gentleman I well knew tell my captain that he passed sentence on a negro man to be burnt alive for attempting to poison an overseer.  I pass over numerous other instances, in order to relieve the reader by a milder scene of roguery.  Before I had been long on the island, one Mr. Smith at Port Morant bought goods of me to the amount of twenty-five pounds sterling; but when I demanded payment from him, he was going each time to beat me, and threatened that he would put me in goal.  One time he would say I was going to set his house on fire, at another he would swear I was going to run away with his slaves.