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 much.  This man had taken a liking to me; and many different times begged of my master to let me go a trip with him as a sailor; but he would tell him he could not spare me, though the vessel sometimes could not go for want of hands, for sailors were generally very scarce in the island.  However, at last,