Letter from John Black to his brother, George Black, 19 January 1803.
In this letter, much of what arose in last weeks blog about John Black is discussed or at least briefly mentioned. From the arrival of Fullarton to investigate the Governor Picton - to the high mortality rate among the enslaved and much of Blacks his difficulties attempting to squeeze as much profit from his estate as possible.
My dear brother,
After passing the night with the family at a crowded ball given by Governor Picton in celebration of the anniversary of the Queen’s birth, I take the pen with a confused head to avail myself of a friend who sails for Greenock this day to say what time permits me in reply to your kind letter of 24 November dated at Stranmillis at 12 o’clock at night. And in the first let me join in your natural affliction for the loss of our dear mother whom it pleased God to spare us to that advanced age when such an event might be expected. To you and my dear sisters who have been always with her, the loss must have been sensible, but I unfortunate I, who have been estranged from everything consanguinely dear to me for nearly 30 years, the period I may say of a man’s life, I feel it with probably less poignant sorrow, but perhaps more lasting impression and it appears to incite me still more to revisit my native soil before we are forever separated. The account you give me however of the disposition of the persons on whom that re-union principally depends is not consolatory.
The more so as the reports which have reached them respecting my financial abilities are fallacious in the extreme and I am surprised very much indeed that Park, with whom I have always been on the most friendly terms, should attempt to mislead them so much to my prejudice. I can assure you with the greatest sincerity that my income for several years preceding 1802 barely kept pace with my expenses and we live as frugally as the extent of my family and estate can possibly admit, but this year of 1802 in the fall has nearly brought this country to destruction by the mortality with which we have been afflicted in our slaves and stock and should it unfortunately be again the case in this fall Trinidad, which we are informed is considered so valuable a possession, will be completely done up. I have an hospital at Barataria well-ordered and attended; Park will tell you that no estate in this country offers a more healthful situation for slaves and notwithstanding those advantages, improved by the best medical attendance and a profusion of every thing, I have buried 36 slaves since 1 day of June last, many of them my very best and most valuable people, refiners, distillers and mill boatswains, and when I estimate the intrinsic value of those people (together with 27 mules and 5 draft oxen) without calculating the inconvenience that must necessarily arise by the want of my leading people at £4,000 sterling Park will tell you I do not exaggerate.
I have nevertheless been one for my numbers who has suffered the least, for I know properties where the mortality has exceeded 100 or 260 and there are many, many of 60 and 80. Park has also been a sufferer, but to what extent I am ignorant, for people generally keep those losses secret; the census now preparing for the information of the commissioners will explain all and I am very apprehensive the general loss will be found to approach 4,000 slaves.
To an infant colony on which no great dependence (experience has taught us) can be placed with respect to its revenues, by reason of the uncertainty of its seasons, this is nearly a mortal blow. We had cherished hopes of a very plentiful crop to come to our relief and also an increased value of sugar on account of the total ruin of St Domingo and the failure of the crop at Jamaica by druth or drowth, but the season has been hitherto worse than I have ever before known it, nothing but deluge of rain in all those Windward Islands (insomuch that a flood was down a few days ago in the River Ricagua near Barataria by which one of my best negroes was carried away and drowned) and our accounts of the prospect of sugar advancing are worse and worse. The quotations you mention indeed are very different and I shall be glad to know from you as soon as possible how far those prices may be depended on and what quantity you could engage to procure sale for. There are several of my friends disposed to try your market if you persist in encouraging it and I will undertake to procure you a consignment to the extent of the vente, if you be sure of obtaining a price nearly equal to what you have quoted. From your situation in the customs you cannot I suppose be openly concerned in business, but our friend Jemmy Kennedy (whom assure of my inviolable regard) can step forward and it shall not be my fault if I be not of service to him. We learned a few days ago of the Industry’s arrival after a heavy passage. I hope Hughes’s wants did not excite him to open the liqueurs for yourself and for Dean Graves and that you and my friends have found a glass of them comfortable by the fireside in your long, windy, rainy winter evenings. The fruit must all have been lost no doubt, as would a couple [of] turtle I had procured the morning Hughes broke ground, and who were too late to be embarked. I mentioned to you the probability of a connection taking place with the dean’s family and in effect Mariquite was married to Captain Graves of the 14th on the 25 October (I think) and they make a very happy couple. He is a young man of much merit in his profession and well beloved in the regiment of which he has been for some time commanding officer here and just now promoted to a vacant company.
He has been 15 years in the army and was with this famous regiment on the continent serving immediately under the eye of his royal highness, who then marked him as a promising officer. He has lost much by the death of Sir Ralph Abercromby who was much attached to him. The 14th and 57th have been some time under orders for Europe and the transports had actually arrived for them when a counter-order arrived (after they had quitted their barracks to embark) in consequence of some suspicion at home of Bonaparte’s sincerity which however appear to have been removed by Andreossi’s arrival as ambassador. We have heard therefore that the orders respecting those regiments are now to be observed and the 37th and 64th replace them so that I shall have probably the pleasure of seeing Mrs Rowan’s sons. The mother’s situation I deplore and that of all the unfortunate family most sincerely.
I thank you for your hint respecting L.B. The respect we were taught in our youth to show that family gives me reason to rejoice at having in my power to show him civility and give him advice. As I am neither merchant, banker or gambler, his vice can do me no hurt. I must say however his conduct here hitherto has been correct and I hope will continue so. He is very intimate with us and as you observe can make himself a very pleasant companion and I think him a safe one.
Colonel Fullarton and his suitte arrived here 15 days ago in the Ulysses (Captain Hood has remained at Barbados in the Blenheim but is now hourly expected), also his lady, her sister Miss Mackay and the family, all I believe from the mansion house at Fullarton. It fell to my lot as senior member of the council to board the Ulysses long before she anchored, to be the mouth piece of General Picton’s congratulations on his safe arrival and to take the proper arrangements with him for the style we had agreed on for his landing and reception. This took place the ensuing morning, with all the honours due his rank and the street completely lined by three regiments from the wharf to council chamber and here it again fell to my lot to receive him on the wharf and conduct him up. The commission was there immediately opened under a discharge of 21 guns and in presence of council and a great concourse of the first personages civil and military. It was read by the clerk and he and General Picton sworn as two of the three commissioners for executing the office of Governor of Trinidad. Since then little has been done but visiting and scraping, but we are summoned for council tomorrow to enter on business and then will see how the administration of Trinidad is to be managed. In the mean time the most perfect harmony subsists between the consuls to the great disappointment of many whom Park knows. Tell him from me that he made on being sworn in the handsomest compliment to General Picton on the administration of his government, seemingly as if coming from his majesty and his ministers and this in an audible voice with an apparent intention that it should be well heard and understood by all present, many of whom put on long faces. General Picton is a brigadier by the commission of the forces in the Windward Islands and as such commands wholly the military here. Communicate this to Park who will rejoice to know that his enemies have been baffled in all their attempts and are now fairly put down.
You may suppose that the colonel and I were not long together before he discovered me to be a nephew of our late uncle the doctor whom he speaks of in terms of admiration and of as having been one of his dearest friends. This naturally brought Lord Macartney on the topic for whom he entertains the most inviolable attachment and speaks of his merits as a man and his talents as a statesman in the terms his reputation so deservedly merits. Those circumstances, my situation in the colony and the preference given me by General Picton to carry him his congratulations and receive his orders, have given me it would appear more than a common title to his favour for on all occasions public and private he has been particularly attentive to me and I hope I shall continue to deserve it. There will be no harm however in strengthening the connection by a recommendatory letter from his lordship (which however it should not appear I sought for) but I wave all recommendation on his lordship’s part to places of pecuniary advantage; I will be well content to keep my place of master and examiner in chancery, for I see he has brought out such a tail or rather entail of needy people to provide for that I suppose we must endeavour to create places to allocate them, otherwise they will continue to be leeches on him which the salary £3,000 a year allowed him by government is no way adequate to support in this colony, extravagantly dear in what regards the necessaries of life.
Thus you see helter skelter I have endeavoured to give you an idea of my situation here moral, and as to the physical, we are all thank God in perfect health. Josefine brought a charming little girl on the 2 December much about the time I suppose Esther has lain in. She and her husband live very happily on Barataria and his conduct (whose worst feature was etouderie a disease I was once terribly afflicted with) repairs much to my satisfaction his youthful ecarto, the offspring of inexperience. Barataria was never in such high condition, it is the admiration of all travellers (for the high road goes through the midst of it) and will give a revenue of some relief to our losses, but it will require at least 3 years to bring them up. Nor do I think the colony generally speaking in less than 5 years can defray the losses and expenses of the late one. Hence you will see the perplexity of my situation; my desire leads me home and I see myself bound here faster than ever; could I even spare where[withal] to send Mrs Black and the children to you or elsewhere for their education I would sit down without repairing and drag it out, but under the present prospects I fear that even will not be feasible. I shall be anxiously expecting the result however of young Mr McIlveen’s negotiations (if this is Jack I remember him perfectly well) and such other friends as you can employ. I would do anything within the compass of my power, but I owe here from late purchases of land and losses of slaves an enormous sum and that I must pay off with dispatch, for in my peculiar situation I must not expose my conduct to censure who am professionally obliged to enforce payment from others.
I don’t know how far Valentine Jones the £3 would be disposed to serve me; I well know his great abilities (he is allowed to be by all people the cleverest man that was at the head of the commissariat in these countries) and he is better experienced to give information on West India properties and West India concerns than any man in Ireland (and perhaps in England) certainly. Park, I am sure, will also be aiding and abetting by your telling him of my dependence on his friendship, and Jemmy Kennedy’s good offices I am sure will not be wanting. Thus prepared I think if the old gentlemen are reasonable some advantage must be gained. Ballintaggart was once I thought of all places the most beautifully romantic and as youthful impressions are lasting so I retain still the same high idea of it; I doubt however if the reality would now answer my expectations. I have been so long a stranger to still life and peaceful retirement that I much doubt whether I would not soon be wearied of the ewe hedges nicely cut into sophas and fauteuils, the majestic grove of ash and elm that lead to the fishing alcoves on the borders of the fish pond where my dear Aunt Kitty caught me with her fishing hook by the finger which I was obliged to ride to Richhill behind Uncle Sam to have cut out by Dr Cranston (does she remember this) and she all the time weeping and lamenting for the torture I must suffer; the park, the old state coach in the barn, the nice flower garden under the windows of the drawing room lined with Morocco leather and above all Dick Greenaway, the park and deer. All these were the delights of my soul at that time and I still reflect on them with inconceivable pleasure, but I return to say that I much doubt if my mind long accustomed to turbulence and disappointments would now find the same satisfaction in those rural pleasures. When I landed in Nova Scotia in August ’99 they were in the midst of harvest, mowing and reaping.
It is impossible to conceive or describe the pleasure I felt on seeing those delightful labours of which I had been so long deprived the contemplation of, and the smell of the new mown hay was new life to me (and I then had much occasion for it) but it soon wore off. It was the lure of novelty and winter no sooner began to show her dreary head by the fall of the leaf than my heart yearned again for West India luxuriant, eternal verdure and the attendant activity in our species of industry. To see one lonely man mowing a field of several acres of hay or to see 100 negroes holing a piece of cane land to a chosen song led by one of the number is wonderful odds to an active mind, and this last I have been so long inured to, that I can’t conceive how a large farm can be cultivated with so few hands or how farmers contrive to live by it.
If my means however ever admit my offering for Ballintaggart I would purchase it more for the sake of keeping it in the family than for any enjoyment I would take there. If ever I settle at home, I must be near the sea and I must have a boat or something afloat were it but a wash tub in a tocher. It is my hobby horse, every man has his own and this has always been mine.
I must conclude for I am tired and jaded by last night’s debauch, a little of which goes far with me; but you shall hear from me again soon. In the mean time allow me to embrace your dear Ellen and her little [one] for the love and respect I bore her amiable mother and excellent father; Mrs Younghusband and the family, Esther and Mr Pettigrew, Miss Stewart and her fire side and in short all those whom you well know I must bear the sincerest friendship for.
I remain my dearest brother,
Your affectionate brother John.
Source:
Letter from John Black to his brother, George Black, 19 January 1803 - Jonathan Jeffrey Wright (ed.), An Ulster Slave-Owner in the Revolutionary Atlantic: the Life and Letters if John Black (2019), Letter 6 of 20 from this collection.