From C. P. W.
Oct. 24. Nothing happens here now, so that even this delightful country, with its charming variety of scenery and its delicious climate, its bracing air, its sparkling streams, its richness of autumnal tints, the ever-varying play of light and shade upon the steep hillsides and through the green valleys often cease to charm. For myself, I may say that even the continual excitement incident to the task of weighing cotton, selling sugar, or counting rails, not to mention the no less important duty of seeing that my hat is not stolen from my head, or the shingles off my roof,—even these interesting and exciting occupations sometimes grow wearisome, and fail to afford that continued gratification and satisfaction to enjoy which is the object of a life in this Department. Although the statement seems absurd, I must nevertheless affirm, that it is more bother to take care of a plantation of one hundred and twenty working hands than it is to exercise that number in the “School of the Company;” and that the satisfaction derived from the faithfulness and honesty of perhaps thirty is hardly sufficient to atone for the anxiety and distrust with which one regards the remaining ninety, who lie by habit and steal on the least provocation, who take infinite pains to be lazy and shirk, who tell tales of others, of which themselves are the true subjects, and from whom all the artifices of the lawyer cannot draw a fair statement of fact, even when it is obviously for their own interest to tell the whole truth. “Wherefore he is called the everlasting Niggah.”
I have had my grumble, and I feel better. What I have said “has truth in it, only distorted.” I am not actually miserable, though one might draw that inference from these remarks. The fact is that, the novelty of this life having worn off after fifteen months of the “useful experience,” the life, as was to be, and was expected, loses something of its satisfaction, and one is more open to the effect of the vexations and annoyances than when the interest was fresh and the work new and untried. It is not so much that one is annoyed by the work itself, but the imperfections of the system under which we are obliged to work grow more clear and are continually presented in various forms. The only satisfactory thing would be to reconstruct the system on the plantation, first, by turning off all the hands not wanted; second, by adopting a new system in regard to the privileges and compensation of the people. The privileges are, free houses, free land for provision crops, free use of wood, and, with certain restrictions, of the animals and implements. I should do away with these privileges, making them pay house-rent and land-rent, making them pay for their wood, if of certain qualities, and for the use of teams and implements—for their own work. Then I should increase their wages, with fixed prices for the various kinds of work. I should wish to be able to discharge any one whose work did not suit me, and remove him from the plantation. These reforms cannot possibly be instituted now, and can never be, probably, on this island. In the meantime, if the people were only honest and truthful, other matters would be of comparatively little account, but they are the most provoking set, in this respect, that you can easily conceive. They are almost incorrigible.