Chapter IV: Part 4

_First._ My Lord, the whole tenor of my conduct in life contradicts every particular of this indictment. Yet I had never said this, did not my present circumstances extort it from me, and seem to make it necessary. Permit me here, my Lord, to call upon malignity itself, so long and cruelly busied in this prosecution, to charge upon me any immorality, of which prejudice was not the author. No, my Lord, I concerted not schemes of fraud, projected no violence, injured no man’s person or property. My days were honestly laborious, my nights intensely studious. And I humbly conceive my notice of this, especially at this time, will not be thought impertinent or unreasonable, but, at least, deserving some attention. Because, my Lord, that any person, after a temperate use of life, a series of thinking and acting regularly, and without one single deviation from sobriety, should plunge into the very depth of profligacy, precipitately, and at once, is altogether improbable and unprecedented, and absolutely inconsistent with the course of things. Mankind is never corrupted at once; villainy is always progressive, and declines from right, step after step, till every regard of probity is lost, and all moral obligation totally perishes.

Again, my Lord, a suspicion of this kind, which nothing but malevolence could entertain, and ignorance propagate, is violently opposed by my very situation at that time, with respect to health. For, but a little space before, I had been confined to my bed, and suffered under a very long and severe disorder, and was not able, for half a year together, so much as to walk. The distemper left me, indeed, yet slowly, and in part; but so macerated, so enfeebled, that I was reduced to crutches, and was so far from being well about the time I am charged with this fact, that I never to this day perfectly recovered. Could, then, a person in this condition take anything into his head so unlikely, so extravagant? I, past the vigour of my age, feeble and valetudinary, with no inducement to engage, no ability to accomplish, no weapon wherewith to perpetrate such a fact; without interest, without power, without motive, without means.

Besides, it must needs occur to everyone that an action of this atrocious nature is never heard of, but, when its springs are laid open, it appears that it was to support some indolence or supply some luxury, to satisfy some avarice or oblige some malice, to prevent some real, or some imaginary want; yet I lay not under the influence of any one of these. Surely, my Lord, I may, consistent with both truth and modesty, affirm thus much; and none who have any veracity, and knew me, will ever question this.

In the second plea, the disappearance of Clark is suggested as an argument of his being dead; but the uncertainty of such an inference from that, and the fallibility of all conclusions of such a sort, from such a circumstance, are too obvious and too notorious to require instances; yet, superseding many, permit me to produce a very recent one, and that afforded by this castle.

In June, 1757, William Thompson, for all the vigilance of this place, in open daylight, and double-ironed, made his escape, and, notwithstanding an immediate inquiry set on foot, the strictest search, and all advertisements, was never seen or heard of since. If, then, Thompson got off unseen, through all these difficulties, how very easy was it for Clark, when none of them opposed him? But what would be thought of a prosecution commenced against any one seen last with Thompson?

Permit me next, my Lord, to observe a little upon the bones which have been discovered. It is said, which, perhaps, is saying very far, that these are the skeleton of a man. It is possible, indeed it may; but is there any certain known criterion which incontestably distinguishes the sex in human bones? Let it be considered, my Lord, whether the ascertaining of this point ought not to precede any attempt to identify them.

The place of their deposition, too, claims much more attention than is commonly bestowed upon it. For, of all places in the world, none could have mentioned anyone wherein there was greater certainty of finding human bones than an hermitage, except he should point out a churchyard. Hermitages, in times past, being not only places of religious retirement, but of burial, too, and it has scarce or never been heard of, but that every cell now known, contains, or contained, these relics of humanity, some mutilated and some entire. I do not inform, but give me leave to remind, your Lordship, that here sat solitary sanctity, and here the hermit, or the anchoress, hoped that repose for their bones, when dead, they here enjoyed when living.

All this while, my Lord, I am sensible this is known to your Lordship, and many in this Court, better than I. But it seems necessary to my case, that others, who have not at all, perhaps, adverted to things of this nature, and may have concern in my trial, should be made acquainted with it. Suffer me, then, my Lord, to produce a few of many evidences that these cells were used as repositories of the dead, and to enumerate a few, in which human bones have been found, as it happened in this in question, lest, to some, that accident might seem extraordinary, and, consequently, occasion prejudice.

1. The bones, as was supposed, of the Saxon, St. Dubritius, were discovered buried in his cell at Guy’s Cliff near Warwick, as appears from the authority of Sir William Dugdale.

2. The bones, thought to be those of the anchoress Rosia, were but lately discovered in a cell at Royston, entire, fair, and undecayed, though they must have lain interred for several centuries, as is proved by Dr. Stukeley.

3. But our own country, nay, almost this neighbourhood, supplies another instance; for in January, 1747, was found by Mr. Stovin, accompanied by a reverend gentleman, the bones in part of some recluse, in the cell at Lindholm, near Hatfield. They were believed to be those of William of Lindholm, a hermit, who had long made this cave his habitation.

4. In February, 1744, part of Woburn Abbey being pulled down, a large portion of a corpse appeared, even with the flesh on, and which bore cutting with a knife, though it is certain this had lain above two hundred years, and how much longer is doubtful, for this abbey was founded in 1145, and dissolved in 1558 or 1559.

What would have been said, what believed, if this had been an accident to the bones in question?

Further, my Lord, it is not yet out of living memory that a little distance from Knaresborough, in a field, part of the manor of the worthy and patriotic baronet who does that borough the honour to represent it in Parliament, were found, in digging for gravel, not one human skeleton alone, but five or six, deposited side by side, with each an urn placed at its head, as your Lordship knows was usual in ancient interments.

About the same time, and in another field, almost close to this borough, was discovered also, in searching for gravel, another human skeleton; but the piety of the same worthy gentleman ordered both pits to be filled up again, commendably unwilling to disturb the dead.

Is the invention[25] of these bones forgotten, then, or industriously concealed, that the discovery of those in question may appear the more singular and extraordinary? whereas, in fact, there is nothing extraordinary in it. My Lord, almost every place conceals such remains. In fields, in hills, in highway sides, and in commons lie frequent and unsuspected bones. And our present allotments for rest for the departed, is but of some centuries.

Another particular seems not to claim a little of your Lordship’s notice, and that of the gentlemen of the jury; which is, that perhaps no example occurs of more than _one_ skeleton being found in _one_ cell, and in the cell in question was found but _one_; agreeable, in this, to the peculiarity of every other known cell in Britain. Not the invention of one skeleton, then, but of two, would have appeared suspicious and uncommon.

But then, my Lord, to attempt to identify these, when even to identify living men sometimes has proved so difficult--as in the case of Perkin Warbeck and Lambert Symnel at home, and of Don Sebastian abroad--will be looked upon, perhaps, as an attempt to determine what is indeterminable. And I hope, too, it will not pass unconsidered here, where gentlemen believe with caution, think with reason, and decide with humanity, what interest the endeavour to do this is calculated to serve, in assigning proper personality to those bones, whose particular appropriation can only appear to eternal omniscience.

Permit me, my Lord, also, very humbly to remonstrate that, as human bones appear to have been the inseparable adjuncts of every cell, even any person’s naming such a place at random as containing them, in this case, shows him rather unfortunate, than conscious prescient, and that these attendants on every hermitage only accidentally concurred with this conjecture. A mere casual coincidence of _words_ and _things_.

But it seems another skeleton has been discovered by some labourer, which was full as confidently averred to be Clark’s as this. My Lord, must some of the living, if it promotes some interest, be made answerable for all the bones that earth has concealed, and chance exposed! and might not a place where bones lay, be mentioned by a person by chance, as well as found by a labourer by chance? Or, is it more criminal accidentally to _name_ where bones lie, than accidentally to _find_ where they lie?

Here, too, is a human skull produced, which is fractured; but was this the _cause_ or was it the consequence of death--was it owing to violence, or was it the effect of natural decay? If it was violence, was that violence before or after death? My Lord, in May, 1732, the remains of William, Lord Archbishop of this province, were taken up by permission, in this cathedral, and the bones of the skull were found broken; yet certainly he died by no violence offered to him alive, that could occasion that fracture there.

Let it be considered, my Lord, that upon the dissolution of religious houses, and the commencement of the Reformation, the ravages of those times affected the living and the dead. In search after imaginary treasures, coffins were broken up, graves and vaults broken open, monuments ransacked, and shrines demolished; your Lordship knows that these violations proceeded so far, as to occasion parliamentary authority to restrain them; and it did, about the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. I entreat your Lordship, suffer not the violence, the depredations, and the iniquities of these times to be imputed to this.

Moreover, what gentleman here is ignorant that Knaresborough had a castle, which, though How a ruin, was once considerable, both for its strength and garrison. All know it was vigorously besieged by the arms of the Parliament. At which siege, in sallies, conflicts, flights, pursuits, many fell in all the places around it; and where they fell were buried. For every place, my Lord, is burial-earth in war; and many, questionless, of these yet rest unknown, whose bones futurity shall discover.

I hope, with all imaginable submission, that what has been said will not be thought impertinent to this indictment, and that it will be far from the wisdom, the learning, and the integrity of this place to impute to the living what zeal, in its fury, may have done; what nature may have taken off, and piety interred; or what war alone may have destroyed, alone deposited.

As to the circumstances that have been raked together, I have nothing to observe; but that all circumstances whatsoever are precarious, and have been but too frequently found lamentably fallible; even the strongest have failed. They may rise to the utmost degree of probability, yet they are but probability still. Why should I name to your Lordship the two Harrisons, recorded in Dr. Howel, who both suffered upon circumstances, because of the sudden disappearance of their lodger, who was in credit, had contracted debts, borrowed money, and went off unseen, and returned again a great many years after their execution. Why name the intricate affair of Jaques du Moulin under King Charles II., related by a gentleman who was counsel for the Crown. And why the unhappy Coleman, who suffered innocent, though convicted upon positive evidence, and whose children perished for want, because the world uncharitably believed the father guilty. Why mention the perjury of Smith, incautiously admitted king’s evidence; who, to screen himself, equally accused Fainlotte and Loveday of the murder of Dunn; the first of whom, in 1749, was executed at Winchester; and Loveday was about to suffer at Reading, had not Smith been proved perjured, to the satisfaction of the court, by the surgeon of Gosport Hospital.

Now, my Lord, having endeavoured to show that the whole of this process is altogether repugnant to every part of my life; that it is inconsistent with my condition of health about that time; that no rational inference can be drawn that a person is dead who suddenly disappears; that hermitages were the constant repositories of the bones of the recluse; that the proofs of this are well authenticated; that the revolution in religion, or the fortunes of war, has mangled, or buried, the dead; the conclusion remains, perhaps no less reasonably, than impatiently, wished for. I, last, after a year’s confinement, equal to either fortune, put myself upon the candour, the justice, and the humanity of your Lordship, and upon yours, my countrymen, gentlemen of the jury.’

It will be seen from this elaborate defence that it must have been written long before his trial, and before his hopes of acquittal were crushed by the appearance of Houseman in the witness-box to give evidence against him; for he did not attempt to discredit his evidence, nor did he attempt to shake his testimony by cross-examination, and he must have anticipated the result. The judge summed up carefully; he recapitulated the evidence, and showed how Houseman’s testimony was confirmed by the other witnesses; and, taking Aram’s defence, he pointed out that he had alleged nothing that could invalidate the positive evidence against him. The jury, without leaving the court, returned a verdict of ‘Guilty,’ and the judge pronounced the awful sentence of the law. Aram had behaved with great firmness and dignity during the whole of his trial, and he heard his conviction, and his doom, with profound composure, leaving the bar with a smile upon his countenance.

In those days the law allowed but little time for appeal. Aram was tried, convicted, and sentenced on Friday, the 3rd of August, 1759, and he had to die on the following Monday--only two whole days of life being allowed him. Those days must have been days of exquisite torture to him, when he thought of the upturned faces of the mob, all fixing their gaze upon him, yelling at, and execrating him, and we can scarcely wonder at his attempting to commit suicide. On the Monday morning, when the clergyman came to visit him, and at his request to administer the Sacrament to him, he was astonished to find Aram stretched on the floor of his cell in a pool of blood. He had managed to secrete a razor, and had cut the veins of his arms in two places. Surgeons were sent for, and they brought him back to life, when he was put into the cart and led to execution. Arrived at the gallows, he was asked if he had any speech to make, and he replied in the negative. He was then hanged, and, when dead, his body was cut down, put in a cart, taken to Knaresborough, and there suspended in chains, on a gibbet which was erected on Knaresborough forest, south or south-east of the Low Bridge, on the right hand side going thence to Plumpton. It was taken down in 1778, when the forest was enclosed.

He left his latest thoughts in writing, for, on the table in his cell, was found a paper on which was written,

‘What am I better than my fathers? To die is natural and necessary. Perfectly sensible of this, I fear no more to die than I did to be born. But the manner of it is something which should, in my opinion, be decent and manly. I think I have regarded both these points. Certainly nobody has a better right to dispose of man’s life than himself; and he, not others, should determine how. As for any indignities offered to anybody, or silly reflections on my faith and morals, they are (as they were) things indifferent to me. I think, though, contrary to the common way of thinking; I wrong no man by this, and I hope it is not offensive to that eternal being who formed me and the world; and as by this I injure no man, no man can be reasonably offended. I solicitously recommend myself to the eternal and almighty Being, the God of Nature, if I have done amiss. But perhaps I have not, and I hope this thing will never be imputed to me. Though I am now stained by malevolence, and suffer by prejudice, I hope to rise fair and unblemished. My life was not polluted, my morals irreproachable, and my opinions orthodox.

‘I slept soundly till three o’clock, awak’d, and then writ these lines.

‘“Come, pleasing Rest, eternal Slumber fall;
Seal mine, that once must seal the eyes of all;
Calm and compos’d my soul her journey takes,
No guilt that troubles, and no heart that aches.
Adieu! thou sun, all bright like her arise;
Adieu! fair friends, and all that’s good and wise.”’

Aram never made any regular confession of his guilt--but in a letter he wrote to the vicar of Knaresborough, in which he gives his autobiography, he says, ‘Something is expected as to the affair upon which I was committed, to which I say, as I mentioned in my examination, that all the plate of Knaresborough, except the watches and rings, were in Houseman’s possession; as for me, I had nothing at all. My wife knows that Terry had the large plate, and that Houseman himself took both that and the watches, at my house, from Clark’s own hands; and, if she will not give this in evidence for the town, she wrongs both that and her own conscience; and, if it is not done soon, Houseman will prevent her. She likewise knows that Terry’s wife had some velvet, and, if she will, can testify it. She deserves not the regard of the town, if she will not. That part of Houseman’s evidence, wherein he said I threatened him, was absolutely false; for what hindered him, when I was so long absent and far distant? I must need observe another thing to be perjury in Houseman’s evidence, in which he said he went home from Clark; whereas he went straight to my house, as my wife can also testify, if I be not believed.’

The contemporary accounts of his trial, whether published in York or London, have the following:

‘Aram’s sentence was a just one, and he submitted to it with that stoicism he so much affected; and the morning after he was condemned, he confessed the justness of it to two clergymen (who had a licence from the judge to attend him), by declaring that he murdered Clark. Being asked by one of them what his motive was for doing that abominable action, he told them, ‘he suspected Clark of having an unlawful commerce with his wife; that he was persuaded at the time, when he committed the murder, he did right, but, since, he had thought it wrong.’

‘After this, pray,’ said Aram, ‘what became of Clark’s body, if Houseman went home (as he said upon my trial) immediately on seeing him fall?’

One of the clergymen replied, ‘I’ll tell you what became of it. You and Houseman dragged it into the cave, stripped and buried it there; brought away his clothes, and burnt them at your own house.’

To which he assented. He was asked whether Houseman did not earnestly press him to murder his wife, for fear she should discover the business they had been about. He hastily replied,

‘He did, and pressed me several times to do it.’

Aram’s wife lived some years after his execution; indeed, she did not die until 1774. She lived in a small house near Low Bridge, within sight of her husband’s gibbet; and here she sold pies, sausages, &c. It is said that she used to search under the gibbet for any of her husband’s bones that might have fallen, and then bury them.

Aram, by his wife, had six children, who survived their childhood--three sons and three daughters. All these children, save one, Sally, took after their mother; but Sally resembled her father, both physically and mentally. She was well read in the classics, and Aram would sometimes put his scholars to the blush, by having Sally in their class. Her father was very fond of her, and she was living with him at Lynn when he was arrested, and she clung to him when in prison at York. On his death, she went to London, and, after a time, she married, and, with her husband, kept a public-house on the Surrey side of Westminster Bridge.

Houseman went back to Knaresborough, where he abode until his death. He was naturally mobbed, and never dared stir out in the day time, but sometimes slunk out at night. Despised and detested by all, his life must have been a burden to him, and his punishment in this world far heavier than Aram was called upon to bear.

REDEMPTIONERS.

Slavery, properly so called, appears to have been from the earliest ages, and in almost every country, the condition of a large portion of the human race; the weakest had ever to serve the strong--whether the slave was a captive in battle, or an impecunious debtor unable to satisfy the claims of his creditor, save with his body. Climate made no difference. Slavery existed in Europe, Asia, and Africa, and in our own ‘right little, tight little island,’ our early annals show that a large proportion of the Anglo-Saxon population was in a state of slavery. These unfortunate bondsmen, who were called theows, thrœls, and esnes,[26] were bought and sold with land, and were classed in the inventory of their lord’s wealth, with his sheep, swine, and oxen, and were bequeathed by will, precisely as we now dispose of our money, or furniture.

The condition of the Anglo-Saxon slaves was very degraded indeed; their master might put them in bonds, might whip them, nay, might even brand them, like cattle, with his own distinguishing mark, a state of things which existed until Alfred the Great enacted some laws, whereby the time of the servitude of these unhappy people was limited to six years, and the institution of slavery received such a blow, that it speedily became a thing of the past. They were no longer slaves, but redemptioners, _i.e._, they had the hope of redemption from servitude, and the law gave them the power to enforce their freedom.

We have only to turn to the pages of holy writ to find slavery flourishing in rank luxuriance in the time of the patriarchs, and before the birth of Moses. Euphemistically described in Scripture history as servants, they were mostly unconditional and perpetual slaves. They were strangers, either taken prisoners in war or purchased from the neighbouring nations; but the Jews also had a class of servants who only were in compulsory bondage for a limited time, and they were men of their own nation.

These were men who, by reason of their poverty, were obliged to give their bodies in exchange for the wherewithal to support them, or they were insolvent debtors, and thus sought to liquidate their indebtedness, or men who had committed a theft, and had not the means of making the double, or fourfold, restitution that the law required. Their thraldom was not perpetual, they might be redeemed, and, if not redeemed, they became free on the completion of their seventh year of servitude.

Exodus, chap. 21, vv. 2-6. ‘If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by himself. And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children: I will not go out free: then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door-post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve for ever.’

Here, then, we have a redemptioner, one whose servitude was not a hopeless one, and we find this limited bondage again referred to in Leviticus, chap. 25, vv. 39, 40, 41.

‘And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond servant: but as an hired servant, and as a sojourner, he shall be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee. And then shall he depart from thee, both he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return.’

Here in England we are accustomed to look upon the slave from one point of view only, as an unhappy being of a different race and colour to ourselves, few of us knowing that there has been a time (and that not so very long ago) when members of our own nation, so utterly forlorn and miserable from the rude buffetings Fortune had given them in their way through the world, have been glad to sell their bodies for a time, to enable them to commence afresh the struggle for existence, in another land, and, perchance, under more favourable circumstances.

In ‘his Majesty’s plantations’ of Virginia, Maryland, and New England, and in the West Indies, these unfortunates were first called servants, and as such are officially described; but in America in later times they received the appellation of redemptioners, a name by which they were certainly called in the middle of this century, for in Dorsey’s ‘Laws of Maryland,’ published in 1840, we find an Act[27] (cap. 226) was passed in 1817 to alleviate the condition of these poor people. The preamble sets forth, ‘Whereas it has been found that German and Swiss emigrants, who for the discharge of the debt contracted for their passage to this country are often obliged to subject themselves to temporary servitude, are frequently exposed to cruel and oppressive impositions by the masters of the vessels in which they arrive, and likewise by those to whom they become servants,’ &c.

It is impossible to fix any date when this iniquitous traffic first began. It arose, probably, from the want of labourers in the plantations of our colonies in their early days, and the employment of unscrupulous agents on this side to supply their needs in this respect. A man in pecuniary difficulties in the seventeenth and eighteen centuries was indeed in woeful plight: a gaol was his certain destination, and there he might rot his life away, cut off from all hope of release, unless death came mercifully to his relief. All knew of the horrors of a debtor’s prison, and, to escape them, an able-bodied man had recourse to the dreadful expedient of selling himself into bondage, for a term of years, in one of the plantations, either in America or the West Indies, or he would believe the specious tales of the ‘kidnappers,’ as they were called, who would promise anything, a free passage, and a glorious life of ease and prosperity in a new land.

Thoroughly broken down, wretched, and miserable, his thoughts would naturally turn towards a new country, wherein he might rehabilitate himself, and, in an evil hour, he would apply to some (as we should term it) emigration agent, who would even kindly advance him a trifle for an outfit. The voyage out would be an unhappy experience, as the emigrants would be huddled together, with scant food, and, on his arrival at his destination, he would early discover the further miseries in store for him; for, immediately on landing, or even before he left the ship, his body would be seized as security for passage money, which had, in all probability, been promised him free, and for money lent for his outfit; and, having no means of paying either, utterly friendless, and in a strange country, he would be sold to slavery for a term of years to some planter who would pay the debt for him.

Having obtained his flesh and blood at such a cheap rate, his owner would not part with him lightly, and it was an easy thing to arrange matters so that he was always kept in debt for clothes and tobacco, &c., in order that he never should free himself. It was a far cry to England, and with no one to help him, or to draw public attention to his case, the poor wretch had to linger until death mercifully released him from his bondage; his condition being truly deplorable, as he would be under the same regulations as the convicts, and one may be very sure that _their_ lot was not enviable in those harsh and merciless times. It was not for many years, until the beginning of this century, that the American laws took a beneficial turn in favour of these unhappy people; and it was then too late, for the institution of redemptioners died a speedy death, owing to the influx of free emigration.

One of the earliest notices of these unfortunates is in a collection of Old Black letter ballads, in the British Museum, where there is one entitled, ‘The Trappan’d Maiden, or the Distressed Damsel,’ (c. 22, e. 2)/186 in which are depicted some of the sorrows which were undergone by these unwilling emigrants, at that time. The date, as nearly as can be assigned to it, is about 1670.

The Girl was cunningly trapan’d,
Sent to Virginny from England;
Where she doth Hardship undergo,
There is no cure, it must be so;
But if she lives to cross the main,
She vows she’ll ne’er go there again.

Give ear unto a Maid
That lately was betray’d,
And sent into Virginny, O:
In brief I shall declare,
What I have suffered there,
When that I was weary, O.

When that first I came
To this Land of Fame,
Which is called Virginny, O:
The Axe and the Hoe
Have wrought my overthrow,
When that I was weary, O.

Five years served I
Under Master Guy,
In the land of Virginny, O:
Which made me for to know
Sorrow, Grief, and Woe,
When that I was weary, O.

When my Dame says, Go,
Then must I do so,
In the land of Virginny, O:
When she sits at meat
Then I have none to eat,
When that I was weary, O.

The cloathes that I brought in,
They are worn very thin,
In the land of Virginny, O:
Which makes me for to say
Alas! and well-a-day,
When that I was weary, O.

Instead of Beds of Ease,
To lye down when I please,
In the land of Virginny, O:
Upon a bed of straw,
I lay down full of woe,
When that I was weary, O.

Then the Spider, she
Daily waits on me,
In the land of Virginny, O:
Round about my bed
She spins her tender web,
When that I was weary, O.

So soon as it is day,
To work I must away,
In the land of Virginny, O:
Then my Dame she knocks
With her tinder-box,
When that I was weary, O.

I have played my part
Both at Plow and Cart,
In the land of Virginny, O;
Billats from the Wood,
Upon my back they load,
When that I was weary, O.

Instead of drinking Beer,
I drink the waters clear,
In the land of Virginny, O;
Which makes me pale and wan,
Do all that e’er I can,
When that I was weary, O.

If my Dame says, Go,
I dare not say no,
In the land of Virginny, O;
The water from the spring
Upon my head I bring,
When that I was weary, O.

When the Mill doth stand,
I’m ready at command,
In the land of Virginny, O;
The Morter for to make,
Which made my heart to ake,
When that I was weary, O.

When the child doth cry,
I must sing, By-a-by,
In the land of Virginny, O;
No rest that I can have
Whilst I am here a slave,
When that I was weary, O.

A thousand Woes beside,
That I do here abide,
In the land of Virginny, O;
In misery I spend
My time that hath no end,
When that I was weary, O.

Then let Maids beware,
All by my ill-fare,
In the land of Virginny, O:
Be sure thou stay at home,
For if you do here come,
You will all be weary, O.

But if it be my chance,
Homeward to advance,
From the land of Virginny, O:
If that I once more
Land on English shore,
I’ll no more be weary, O.

Some of these complaints would seem to us to be rather of the ‘crumpled rose-leaf’ order, but probably there was enough humanity left in their owners to treat their female ‘servants’ more tenderly than the male, whose sorrows were genuine enough.

Ned Ward, in his ‘London Spy,’ 1703, gives a most graphic account of the sort of men who enticed these human chattels to the plantations. He was pursuing his perambulations about the City, exercising those sharp eyes of his, which saw everything, and was in the neighbourhood of the Custom-house, when he turned down a place called Pig Hill (so called, he says, from its resembling the steep descent down which the Devil drove his Hogs to a Bad Market).

‘As we walked up the Hill, as Lazily as an Artillery Captain before his Company upon a Lord Mayor’s Day, or a Paul’s Labourer up a Ladder, with a Hod of Mortar, we peeped in at a Gateway, where we saw two or three Blades, well drest, but with Hawkes’ Countenances, attended with half-a-dozen Ragamuffingly Fellows, showing Poverty in their Rags and Despair in their Faces, mixt with a parcel of young, wild striplings, like runaway ‘Prentices. I could not forbear enquiring of my Friend about the ill-favoured multitude, patched up of such awkward Figures, that it would have puzzled a Moor-Fields Artist,[28] well-read in physiognomy, to have discovered their Dispositions by their Looks.

‘“That House,” says my Friend, “which they there are entering is an Office where Servants for the Plantations bind themselves to be miserable as long as they live, without a special Providence prevents it. Those fine Fellows, who look like Footmen upon a Holy day, crept into cast suits of their Masters, that want Gentility in their Deportments answerable to their Apparel, are Kidnappers, who walk the ‘Change and other parts of the Town, in order to seduce People who want services and young Fools crost in Love, and under an uneasiness of mind, to go beyond the seas, getting so much a head of Masters of Ships and Merchants who go over, for every Wretch they trepan into this Misery. These young Rakes and Tatterdemallions you see so lovingly hearded are drawn by their fair promises to sell themselves into Slavery, and the Kidnappers are the Rogues that run away with the Money.”’

And again, when he goes on ‘Change, he further attacks these villains.

‘“Now,” says my Friend, “we are got amongst the Plantation Traders. This may be call’d Kidnapper’s Walk; for a great many of these Jamaicans and Barbadians, with their Kitchen-stuff Countenances, are looking as sharp for servants as a Gang of Pick-pockets for Booty.... Within that Entry is an Office of Intelligence, pretending to help Servants to Places, and Masters to Servants. They have a knack of Bubbling silly wenches out of their Money; who loiter hereabouts upon the expectancy, till they are pick’d up by the Plantation Kidnappers, and spirited away into a state of misery.”’

And yet once more Ward, in his ‘Trip to America,’ says,

‘We had on board an Irishman going over as Servant, who, I suppose, was Kidnapped. I asked him whose Servant he was, “By my Fait,” said he, “I cannot tell. I was upon ’Change, looking for a good Master, and a brave Gentleman came to me, and asked me who I was, and I told him I was myn own self; and he gave me some good Wine and good Ale, and brought me on Board, and I have not seen him since.”’

Then, as since, the emigration from Great Britain was mostly fed by the poorer classes of Ireland; and, in the latter part of William III.‘s reign, such was the numbers that were sent over to the plantations as ‘servants,’ or in other words, slaves, that it was found necessary to enact special laws, in Maryland, to check the excessive importation, it being considered a source of danger to the State, as tending to introduce Popery. Accordingly, several acts were passed, placing a duty of twenty shillings per head on each Irish person landed; which, proving insufficient for the purpose, was further increased to forty shillings a few years afterwards.

In 1743, there was a _cause célèbre_, in which James Annesley, Esq., appeared as the plaintiff, and claimed the earldom of Anglesey from his uncle Richard, who, he maintained (and he got a verdict in his favour), had caused him to be kidnapped when a lad of thirteen years of age, and sent to America, there to be sold as a slave. That this was absolutely the fact, no one who has read the evidence can possibly doubt, and the hardships endured by the ‘servants’ at that time are plaintively alluded to in a little book, called, ‘The Adventure of an Unfortunate Young Nobleman,’ published 1743. ‘Here the Captain repeating his former Assurances, he was sold to a rich Planter in Newcastle County called Drummond, who immediately took him home, and entered him in the Number of his Slaves.

‘A new World now opened to him, and, being set to the felling of Timber, a Work no way proportioned to his Strength, he did it so awkwardly, that he was severely corrected. Drummond was a hard, inexorable Master, who, like too many of the Planters, consider their Slaves, or Servants, as a different Species, and use them accordingly. Our American Planters are not famous for Humanity, being often Persons of no Education, and, having been formerly Slaves themselves, they revenge the ill-usage they received on those who fall into their Hands. The Condition of European Servants in that Climate is very wretched; their Work is hard, and for the most part abroad, exposed to an unwholesome Air, their Diet coarse, being either Poul or bread made of Indian Corn, or Homine or Mush, which is Meal made of the same kind, moistened with the Fat of Bacon, and their Drink Water sweetened with a little Ginger and Molasses.’

Although, as before stated, Mr. Annesley won his case with regard to his legitimacy and property, for some reason or other he never contested the title with his usurping uncle, who continued to be recognized as Earl of Anglesey until his death.

Defoe, writing in 1738 in his ‘History of Colonel Jack,’ makes his hero to be kidnapped by the master of a vessel at Leith, and carried to Virginia, where he was consigned to a merchant, and disposed of as he saw fit--in fact, treated with the same _nonchalance_ us an ordinary bale of goods would be. He was sold to a planter for five years, and had three hard things to endure, viz., hard work, hard fare, and hard lodging. He describes the arrival of a ship from London with several ‘servants,’ and amongst the rest were seventeen transported felons, some burnt in the hand, and some not, eight of whom his master purchased for the time specified in the warrant for their transportation, so that the unfortunate men were in no better position than, and were under the same severe laws as, the convict. Their ranks were recruited by many gentlemen concerned in the Rebellion, and taken prisoners at Preston, who were spared from execution and sold into slavery at the plantations, a condition which must often have made them dissatisfied with the clemency extended to them. In many cases, with kind masters, their lot was not so hard, and when their time of bondage was expired they had encouragement given them to plant for themselves, a certain number of acres being allotted to them by the State; and, if they could get the necessary credit for clothes, tools, &c., they were in time enabled to put by money, and, in some rare instances, became men of renown in the colony.

The usage these poor people endured on their passage to the plantations was frequently abominable, and a writer in 1796 describes the arrival, at Baltimore, of a vessel containing three hundred Irish ‘passengers’ who had been nearly starved by the captain, the ship’s water being sold by him at so much a pint, and this treatment, combined with other cruelties too shocking to relate, caused a contagious disorder to break out on board, which carried off great numbers, whilst most of these unhappy folk who were spared at that time, subsequently died whilst performing quarantine in the Delaware.

The redemptioners mainly sailed from the northern ports of Ireland, Belfast or Londonderry, though this country by no means enjoyed the unenviable monopoly of this traffic: Holland and Germany sending their wretched quota of white slaves. The particular class of vessels employed in this iniquitous trade were known by the name of ‘White Guineamen,’ and belonged to the ‘free and enlightened’ citizens of the sea-ports in America, who had their kidnappers stationed at certain parts of Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and also in Holland, to provide them with human cargoes. Seduced by the glowing descriptions of a trans-Atlantic paradise, with bright and alluring visions of American happiness and liberty, the miserable, the idle, and the unwary among the lower classes of Europe were entrapped into the voyage, the offer of gratuitous conveyance being an additional bait, which was eagerly accepted; but we have seen how, on their arrival at the promised land, they were speedily disillusioned. The difficulty of hiring tolerable servants was so great, that many persons were obliged to deal with their fellow-creatures in this way, who would otherwise have utterly abhorred the thought of being slave-dealers.

Some of the laws for their regulation in the colonies are curious. For instance, in Virginia, after they had served their time, they were obliged to have a certificate from their master to say that they had done so, and if any person should entertain any hired servant running away without such a certificate, he had to pay the master of such servant thirty pounds weight of tobacco for every day and night he should so harbour him.

Pursuit after runaway servants was made at the public expense, and, if caught, they had to serve for the time of their absence, and the charge disbursed. In case the master refused to pay the charge, the servant was sold, or hired out, until by their services they had reimbursed the amount expended in capturing them, after which they were returned to their master to serve out their time. Whoever apprehended them was to have as reward two hundred pounds weight of tobacco, if the capture took place about ten miles from the master’s house, or one hundred pounds weight if above five miles, and under ten. This reward was to be paid by the public, and the servant had to serve some one four months for every two hundred pounds weight of tobacco paid for him.

‘Every Master that hath a Servant that hath run away twice, shall keep his Hair close cut, and not so doing, shall be fined one hundred pounds weight of Tobacco for every time the said Fugitive shall, after the second time, be taken up.’

If they ran away in company with any negro, then they had to serve the master of that negro as long as the negro was at large. If any servant laid violent hands on his master, mistress, or overseer, and was convicted of the same in any court, he had to serve one year longer at the expiration of his term.

‘A Woman-servant got with Child by her Master, shall, after her time of indenture or custom is expired, be, by the Church-wardens of the Parish where she lived, sold for two Years, and the Tobacco employed for the use of the Parish.’

‘No Minister shall publish the Banns, or celebrate the Contract of Marriage between any Servants, unless he hath a Certificate from both their Masters that it is with their consent, under the Penalty of 10,000 lbs. of Tobacco. And the Servants that procure themselves to be married without their Masters’ consent, shall each of them serve their respective Master a year longer than their time; and if any person, being free, shall marry with a Servant without the Master’s Licence, he or she so marrying shall pay the Master 1500 lbs. of Tobacco, or one year’s service.’

In Maryland, the laws respecting servants were somewhat milder, but, if they ran away, they had to serve ten days for every one day’s absence. In this colony, however, ‘Every Man-Servant shall have given him at the time of the expiration of his Service, one new Hat, a good Cloath Suit, a new Shift of White Linnen, a pair of new French full Shooes and Stockings, two Hoes, and one Axe, and one gun of 20s. price, not above four foot Barrel, nor less than three and a half. And every Woman-Servant shall have given her, at the expiration of her Servitude, the like Provision of Cloaths, and three Barrels of Indian Corn.’

In New England they dealt still more tenderly and fairly by their servants. If a servant fled from the cruelty of his or her master, he or she was to be protected and harboured, provided that they fled to the house of some free man of the same town, and ‘If any Man or Woman Hurt, Maim, or Disfigure a Servant, unless it be by mere Casualty, the Servant shall go free, and the Master or Mistress shall make such recompense as the Court shall award. Servants that have serv’d diligently, and faithfully, to the end of their Times, shall not be sent away empty; and such as have been unfaithful, negligent, or unprofitable shall not be sent away unpunished, but shall make such satisfaction as Authority shall direct.’

In Jamaica the laws were pretty fair, and in Barbadoes there was a very just enactment. ‘Whatever Master or Mistress shall turn off a Sick Servant, or not use, or endeavour, all lawful means for the recovery of such servant, during the time of Servitude, he or she shall forfeit 2,200 lbs of Sugar. To be levyed by Warrant of a Justice of Peace, and disposed towards the maintenance of such Servant, and the said Servant so neglected, or turned off, shall be Free.’

In the last few years of the eighteenth century, it was no uncommon thing to meet with advertisements in the American papers, couched in the following strain: ‘To be disposed of, the indentures of a strong, healthy Irishwoman; who has two years to serve, and is fit for all kinds of house work. Enquire of the Printer.’

‘STOP THE VILLAIN!

‘Ran away this morning, an Irish Servant, named Michael Day, by trade a Tailor, about five feet eight inches high, fair complexion, has a down look when spoken to, light bushy hair, speaks much in the Irish dialect, &c. Whoever secures the above-described in any gaol, shall receive thirty dollars reward, and all reasonable charges paid. N.B.--All masters of Vessels are forbid harbouring or carrying off the said Servant at their peril.’

* * * * *

The laws which regulated them were originally framed for the English convicts before the Revolution, and were not repealed. They were, of necessity, harsh and severe, so much so that, towards the end of the eighteenth century, several societies sprang up, both Irish and German, whose members did all in their power to mitigate the severity of these laws, and render their countrymen, during their servitude, as comfortable as circumstances would permit. These societies were in all the large towns south of Connecticut.

When the yellow fever was raging in Baltimore in the year 1793, but few vessels would venture near the city, and every one that could do so fled from the doomed place. But a ‘White Guinea-man,’ from Germany, arrived in the river, and, hearing that such was the fatal nature of the infection that for no sum of money could a sufficient number of nurses be procured to attend the sick, conceived the philanthropic idea of supplying this deficiency from his redemption passengers, and, sailing boldly up to the city, he advertised his cargo for sale thus: ‘A few healthy Servants, generally between seventeen and twenty-one years of age; their times will be disposed of by applying on board the brig.’ It was a truly generous thought to thus nobly sacrifice his own countrywomen _pro bono publico_!

As the eighteenth century drew to a close a more humane state of things came into existence; and in Maryland, in 1817, as before stated, a law was passed for the relief of the German and Swiss redemptioners. It was enacted that there should be, in every port, a person to register the apprenticeship, or servitude, of these emigrants, and, unless drawn up or approved by him, no agreement to service was binding. Minors, under twenty-one, were not allowed to be sold, unless by their parents or next-of-kin, and the indentures covenanted that at least two months schooling must be given, annually, to them by their masters. No emigrant was bound to serve more than four years, except males under seventeen, and females under fourteen, who were to serve, respectively, till twenty-one and eighteen. There were many other clauses that related both to their better treatment on board the vessels and on land, and, if this law had been strictly acted up to, the condition of these poor people would have been much ameliorated.

But, happily, in course of years, as the prosperity of the United States of America grew by ‘leaps and bounds,’ attracting labour in abundance from all parts of Europe, there was no longer any need for the traffic in human flesh and blood, and the redemptioner became a thing of the past.

A TRIP TO RICHMOND IN SURREY.

The following _morceau_ gives so quaint an account of a day’s outing in the last century that I have thought it a pity to let it remain buried. It is by J. West, and was published in 1787:

From London to Richmond I took an excursion,
For the sake of my health and in hopes of diversion:
Thus, walking without any cumbersome load,
I mark’d ev’ry singular sight on the road.

In Hyde Park I met a hump-back’d macarony
Who was pleased I should see how he manag’d his pony.
The Cockney was dresst in true blue and in buff,
In buckskin elastic, but all in the rough;
He wore patent spurs on his boots, with light soles,
And buttons as big as some halfpenny rolls;
His hair out of curls, with a tail like a rat,
And sideways he clapt on his head a round hat;
His cravat was tied up in a monstrous large bunch,
No wonder the ladies should smile at his hunch.

The next figure I saw, ’twas a milliner’s maid,
A high cap and pink ribbons adorning her head,
Which was made to sit well, but a little fantastic,
With a hundred black pins and a cushion elastic.
She stalked like a peacock when waving her fan,
And us’d an umbrella upon a new plan;
Her elbows she lean’d on her hoop as on crutches,
And wagg’d her silk gown with the air of a duchess.
Now forward I stept to behold her sweet face;
She ogled and smil’d with a seeming good grace;
However, there was no dependence upon it,
Although her eyes sparkled from under her bonnet,
I question’d her love, so I wished her farewel;
But something more clever I’m ready to tell.