The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, Commonly called Colonel Jack

The Englishman falls a-storming and raving like a madman, and we gathering round him, let any man guess, if they can, what was our surprise and how we were confounded when we were told how it was. In short, we drew our swords and began to lay about us, and made such a noise and hurry in the ship that at last the seamen were obliged to call out for help. The captain commanded us to be disarmed in the first place, which was not, however, done without giving and receiving some wounds, and afterwards he caused us to be brought to him into the great cabin.

Here he talked very calmly to us, that he was really very sorry for what had befallen us; that he perceived we had been trepanned, and that the fellow who had brought us on board was a rogue that was employed by a sort of wicked merchants not unlike himself; that he supposed he had been represented to us as captain of the ship, and asked us if it was not so. We told him yes, and gave him a large account of ourselves, and how we came to the woman's house to inquire for some master of a collier to get a passage to London, and that this man engaged to carry us to London in his own ship, and the like, as is related above.

He told us he was very sorry for it, and he had no hand in it; but it was out of his power to help us, and let us know very plainly what our condition was; namely, that we were put on board his ship as servants to be delivered at Maryland to such a man, whom he named to us; but that, however, if we would be quiet and orderly in the ship, he would use us well in the passage, and take care we should be used well when we came there, and that he would do anything for us that lay in his power; but if we were unruly and refractory, we could not expect but he must take such measures as to oblige us to be satisfied; and that, in short, we must be handcuffed, carried down between the decks and kept as prisoners, for it was his business to take care that no disturbance must be in the ship.

My captain raved like a madman, swore at the captain, told him he would not fail to cut his throat, either on board or ashore, whenever he came within his reach; and that, if he could not do it now, he would do it after he came to England again, if ever he durst show his face there again. For he might depend upon it, if he was carried away to Virginia, he should find his way to England again; that, if it was twenty years after, he would have satisfaction of him. "Well, young man," says the captain, smiling, "'tis very honestly said, and then I must take care of you while I have you here, and afterwards I must take care of myself." "Do your worst," says Jacque boldly; "I'll pay you home for it one time or other." "I must venture that, young man," says he, still calmly, "but for the present you and I must talk a little;" so he bids the boatswain, who stood near him, secure him, which he did. I spoke to him to be easy and patient, and that the captain had no hand in our misfortune.

"No hand in it! D-n him," said he aloud, "do you think he is not confederate in this villainy? Would any honest man receive innocent people on board his ship and not inquire of their circumstances, but carry them away and not speak to them? And now he knows how barbarously we are treated, why does he not set us on shore again? I tell you he is a villain, and none but him. Why does he not complete his villainy and murder us, and then he will be free from our revenge? But nothing else shall ever deliver him from my hands but sending us to the d-l, or going thither himself; and I am honester in telling him so fairly than he has been to me, and am in no passion any more than he is."

The captain was, I say, a little shocked at his boldness, for he talked a great deal more of the same kind, with a great deal of spirit and fire, and yet without any disorder in his temper. Indeed I was surprised at it, for I never had heard him talk so well and so much to the purpose in my life. The captain was, I say, a little shocked at it. However, he talked very handsomely to him, and said to him, "Look ye, young man, I bear with you the more because I am sensible your case is very hard; and yet I cannot allow your threatening me neither, and you oblige me by that to be severer with you than I intended. However, I will do nothing to you but what your threatening my life makes necessary." The boatswain called out to have him to the geers, as they called it, and to have him taste the cat-o'-nine-tails-all which were terms we did not understand till afterwards, when we were told he should have been whipped and pickled, for they said it was not to be suffered. But the captain said, "No, no; the young man has been really injured, and has reason to be very much provoked; but I have not injured him," says he. And then he protested he had no hand in it, that he was put on board, and we also, by the owner's agent, and for their account; that it was true that they did always deal in servants, and carried a great many every voyage, but that it was no profit to him as commander; but they were always put on board by the owners, and that it was none of his business to inquire about them; and, to prove that he was not concerned in it, but was very much troubled at so base a thing, and that he would not be instrumental to carry us away against our wills, if the wind and the weather would permit, he would set us on shore again, though, as it blowed then, the wind being at south-west and a hard gale, and that they were already as far as the Orkneys, it was impossible.

But the captain was the same man. He told him that, let the wind blow how it would, he ought not to carry us away against our consent; and as to his pretences of his owners and the like, it was saying of nothing to him, for it was he, the captain, that carried us away, and that, whatever rogue trepanned us on board, now he knew it, he ought no more to carry us away than murder us; and that he demanded to be set on shore, or else he, the captain, was a thief and a murderer.

The captain continued mild still; and then I put in with an argument that had like to have brought us all back, if the weather had not really hindered it; which, when I came to understand sea affairs better, I found was indeed so, and that it had been impossible. I told the captain that I was sorry that my brother was so warm, but that our usage was villainous, which he could not deny. Then I took up the air of what my habit did not agree with. I told him that we were not people to be sold for slaves, that though we had the misfortune to be in a circumstance that obliged us to conceal ourselves, having disguised ourselves to get out of the army, as being not willing to go into Flanders, yet that we were men of substance, and able to discharge ourselves from the service when it came to that; and, to convince him of it, I told him I would give him sufficient security to pay £20 apiece for my brother and myself; and in as short time as we could send from the place he should put into London, and receive a return. And, to show that I was able to do it, I pulled out my bill for £94 from the gentleman of the custom-house, and who, to my infinite satisfaction, he knew as soon as he saw the bill. He was astonished at this, and, lifting up his hands, "By what witchcraft," says he, "were ye brought hither!"

"As to that," says I, "we have told you the story, and we add nothing to it; but we insist upon it that you will do this justice to us now." "Well," says he, "I am very sorry for it, but I cannot answer putting back the ship; neither, if I could," says he, "is it practicable to be done."

While this discourse lasted the two Scotchmen and the other Englishman were silent; but as I seemed to acquiesce, the Scotchmen began to talk to the same purpose, which I need not repeat, and had not mentioned but for a merry passage that followed. After the Scotchmen had said all they could, and the captain still told them they must submit, – "And will you then carry us to Virginia?" "Yes," says the captain. "And will we be sold," says the Scotchman, "when we come there?" "Yes," says the captain. "Why then, sir," says the Scotchman, "the devil will have you at the hinder end of the bargain." "Say you so," says the captain, smiling. "Well, well, let the devil and I alone to agree about that; do you be quiet and behave civilly, as you should do, and you shall be used as kindly, both here and there too, as I can." The poor Scotchmen could say little to it, nor I, nor any of us; for we saw there was no remedy but to leave the devil and the captain to agree among themselves, as the captain had said, as to the honesty of it.

Thus, in short, we were all, I say, obliged to acquiesce but my captain, who was so much the more obstinate when he found that I had a fund to make such an offer upon; nor could all my persuasions prevail with him. The captain of the ship and he had many pleasant dialogues about this in the rest of the voyage, in which Jacque never treated him with any language but that of kidnapper and villain, nor talked of anything but of taking his revenge of him. But I omit that part, though very diverting, as being no part of my own story.

In short, the wind continued to blow hard, though very fair, till, as the seamen said, we were past the islands on the north of Scotland, and that we began to steer away westerly (which I came to understand since). As there was no land any way for many hundred leagues, so we had no remedy but patience, and to be easy as we could; only my surly Captain Jacque continued the same man all the way.

We had a very good voyage, no storms all the way, and a northerly wind almost twenty days together; so that, in a word, we made the capes of Virginia in two-and-thirty days from the day we steered west, as I have said, which was in the latitude of 60 degrees 30 minutes, being to the north of the isle of Great Britain; and this, they said, was a very quick passage.

Nothing material happened to me during the voyage; and indeed, when I came there, I was obliged to act in so narrow a compass that nothing very material could present itself.

When we came ashore, which was in a great river which they call Potomac, the captain asked us, but me more particularly, whether I had anything to propose to him now. Jacque answered, "Yes, I have something to propose to you, captain; that is, that I have promised you to cut your throat, and depend upon it I will be as good as my word." "Well, well," says the captain, "if I can't help it, you shall;" so he turned away to me. I understood him very well what he meant; but I was now out of the reach of any relief; and as for my note, it was now but a bit of paper of no value, for nobody could receive it but myself. I saw no remedy, and so talked coldly to him of it as of a thing I was indifferent about; and indeed I was grown indifferent, for I considered all the way on the voyage, that as I was bred a vagabond, had been a pickpocket and a soldier, and was run from my colours, and that I had no settled abode in the world, nor any employ to get anything by, except that wicked one I was bred to, which had the gallows at the heels of it, I did not see but that this service might be as well to me as other business. And this I was particularly satisfied with when they told me that after I had served out the five years' servitude I should have the courtesy of the country (as they called it); that is, a certain quantity of land to cultivate and plant for myself. So that now I was like to be brought up to something by which I might live, without that wretched thing called stealing, which my very soul abhorred, and which I had given over, as I have said, ever since that wicked time that I robbed the poor widow of Kentish Town.

In this mind I was when I arrived at Virginia; and so, when the captain inquired of me what I intended to do, and whether I had anything to propose-that is to say, he meant whether I would give him my bill, which he wanted to be fingering very much-I answered coldly, my bill would be of no use to me now, for nobody would advance anything upon it. Only this I would say to him, that if he would carry me and Captain Jacque back to England, and to London again, I would pay him the £20 off my bill for each of us. This he had no mind to; "for, as to your brother," says he, "I would not take him into my ship for twice £20, he is such a hardened, desperate villain," says he; "I should be obliged to carry him in irons as I brought him hither."

Thus we parted with our captain or kidnapper, call him as you will. We were then delivered to the merchants to whom we were consigned, who again disposed of us as they thought fit; and in a few days we were separated.

As for my Captain Jacque, to make short of the story, that desperate rogue had the luck to have a very easy, good master, whose easiness and good humour he abused very much; and, in particular, took an opportunity to run away with a boat which his master entrusted him and another with to carry some provisions down the river to another plantation which he had there. This boat and provisions they ran away with, and sailed north to the bottom of the bay, as they call it, and into a river called Susquehanna, and there quitting the boat, they wandered through the woods, till they came to Pennsylvania, from whence they made shift to get passage to New England, and from thence home; where, falling in among his old companions and to the old trade, he was at length taken and hanged, about a month before I came to London, which was near twenty years afterwards.

My part was harder at the beginning, though better at the latter end. I was disposed of, that is to say, sold, to a rich planter whose name was Smith, and with me the other Englishman, who was my fellow-deserter, that Jacque brought me to when we went off from Dunbar.

We were now fellow-servants, and it was our lot to be carried up a small river or creek which falls into Potomac river, about eight miles from the great river. Here we were brought to the plantation, and put in among about fifty servants, as well negroes as others; and being delivered to the head man, or director, or manager of the plantation, he took care to let us know that we must expect to work, and very hard too; for it was for that purpose his master bought servants, and for no other. I told him, very submissively, that since it was our misfortune to come into such a miserable condition as we were in, we expected no other; only we desired we might be showed our business, and be allowed to learn it gradually, since he might be sure we had not been used to labour; and I added that when he knew particularly by what methods we were brought and betrayed into such a condition, he would perhaps see cause at least to show us that favour, if not more. This I spoke with such a moving tone as gave him a curiosity to inquire into the particulars of our story, which I gave him at large, a little more to our advantage, too, than ordinary.

This story, as I hoped it would, did move him to a sort of tenderness; but yet he told us that his master's business must be done, and that he expected we must work as above; that he could not dispense with that upon any account whatever. Accordingly, to work we went; and indeed we had three hard things attending us; namely, we worked hard, lodged hard, and fared hard. The first I had been an utter stranger to; the last I could shift well enough with.

During this scene of life I had time to reflect on my past hours, and upon what I had done in the world; and though I had no great capacity of making a clear judgment, and very little reflections from conscience, yet it made some impressions upon me; and particularly, that I was brought into this miserable condition of a slave by some strange directing power as a punishment for the wickedness of my younger years; and this thought was increased upon the following occasion. The master whose service I was now engaged in was a man of substance and figure in the country, and had abundance of servants, as well negroes as English; in all, I think, he had near two hundred; and among so many, as some grew every year infirm and unable to work, others went off upon their time being expired, and others died; and by these and other accidents the number would diminish, if they were not often recruited and filled, and this obliged him to buy more every year.

It happened while I was here that a ship arrived from London with several servants, and among the rest was seventeen transported felons, some burnt in the hand, others not; eight of whom my master bought for the time specified in the warrant for their transportation respectively, some for a longer, some a shorter, term of years.

Our master was a great man in the country, and a justice of peace, though he seldom came down to the plantation where I was. Yet, as the new servants were brought on shore and delivered at our plantation, his worship came thither, in a kind of state, to see and receive them. When they were brought before him I was called, among other servants, as a kind of guard, to take them into custody after he had seen them, and carry them to the work. They were brought by a guard of seamen from the ship, and the second mate of the ship came with them, and delivered them to our master, with the warrant for their transportation, as above.

When his worship had read over the warrants, he called them over by their names, one by one, and having let them know, by his reading the warrants over again to each man respectively, that he knew for what offences they were transported, he talked to every one separately very gravely; let them know how much favour they had received in being saved from the gallows, which the law had appointed for their crimes; that they were not sentenced to be transported, but to be hanged, and that transportation was granted them upon their own request and humble petition.

Then he laid before them that they ought to look upon the life they were just going to enter upon as just beginning the world again; that if they thought fit to be diligent and sober, they would, after the time they were ordered to serve was expired, be encouraged by the constitution of the country to settle and plant for themselves; and that even he himself would be so kind to them, that if he lived to see any of them serve their time faithfully out, it was his custom to assist his servants in order to their settling in that country, according as their behaviour might merit from him; and they would see and know several planters round about them who now were in very good circumstances, and who formerly were only his servants, in the same condition with them, and came from the same place-that is to say, Newgate; and some of them had the mark of it in their hands, but were now very honest men and lived in very good repute.

Among the rest of his new servants, he came to a young fellow not above seventeen or eighteen years of age, and his warrant mentions that he was, though a young man, yet an old offender; that he had been several times condemned, but had been respited or pardoned, but still he continued an incorrigible pickpocket; that the crime for which he was now transported was for picking a merchant's pocket-book, or letter-case, out of his pocket, in which was bills of exchange for a very great sum of money; that he had afterwards received the money upon some of the bills, but that going to a goldsmith in Lombard Street with another bill, and having demanded the money, he was stopped, notice having been given of the loss of them; that he was condemned to die for the felony, and being so well known for an old offender, had certainly died, but the merchant, upon his earnest application, had obtained that he should be transported, on condition that he restored all the rest of his bills, which he had done accordingly.

Our master talked a long time to this young fellow; mentioned, with some surprise, that he so young should have followed such a wicked trade so long as to obtain the name of an old offender at so young an age; and that he should be styled incorrigible, which is to signify that notwithstanding his being whipped two or three times, and several times punished by imprisonment, and once burnt in the hand, yet nothing would do him any good, but that he was still the same. He talked mighty religiously to this boy, and told him God had not only spared him from the gallows, but had now mercifully delivered him from the opportunity of committing the same sin again, and put it into his power to live an honest life, which perhaps he knew not how to do before; and though some part of his life now might be laborious, yet he ought to look on it to be no more than being put out apprentice to an honest trade, in which, when he came out of his time, he might be able to set up for himself and live honestly.

Then he told him that while he was a servant he would have no opportunity to be dishonest; so when he came to be for himself he would have no temptation to it; and so, after a great many other kind things said to him and the rest, they were dismissed.

I was exceedingly moved at this discourse of our master's, as anybody would judge I must be, when it was directed to such a young rogue, born a thief, and bred up a pickpocket, like myself; for I thought all my master said was spoken to me, and sometimes it came into my head that sure my master was some extraordinary man, and he knew all things that ever I had done in my life.

But I was surprised to the last degree when my master, dismissing all the rest of us servants, pointed at me, and speaking to his head-clerk, "Here," says he, "bring that young fellow hither to me."

I had been near a year in the work, and I had plied it so well that the clerk, or headman, either flattered me or did really believe that I behaved very well. But I was terribly frighted to hear myself called out aloud, just as they used to call for such as had done some misdemeanour, and were to be lashed or otherwise corrected.

I came in like a malefactor indeed, and thought I looked like one just taken in the fact and carried before the justice; and indeed when I came in, for I was carried into an inner room or parlour in the house to him (his discourse to the rest was in a large hall, where he sat in a seat like a lord judge upon the bench, or a petty king upon his throne); when I came in, I say, he ordered his man to withdraw, and I standing half naked and bare-headed, with my haugh, or hoe, in my hand (the posture and figure I was in at my work), near the door, he bade me lay down my hoe and come nearer. Then he began to look a little less stern and terrible than I fancied him to look before, or, perhaps, both his countenance then and before might be to my imagination differing from what they really were; for we do not always judge those things by the real temper of the person, but by the measure of our apprehensions.

"Hark ye, young man, how old are you?" says my master; and so our dialogue began.

Jacque. Indeed, sir, I do not know.

Mast. What is your name?

Jacque. They call me Colonel⁴ here, but my name is Jacque, an't please your worship.

Mast. But prithee, what is thy name?

Jacque. Jacque.

Mast. What! is thy Christian name, then, Colonel, and thy surname Jacque?

Jacque. Truly, sir, to tell your honour the truth, I know little or nothing of myself,⁵ nor what my true name is; but thus I have been called ever since I remember. Which is my Christian name, or which my surname, or whether I was ever christened or not, I cannot tell.

Mast. Well, however, that's honestly answered. Pray, how came you hither, and on what account are you made a servant here?

Jacque. I wish your honour could have patience with me to hear the whole story; it is the hardest and most unjust thing that ever came before you.

Mast. Say you so? Tell it me at large, then. I'll hear it, I promise that, if it be an hour long.

This encouraged me, and I began at being a soldier, and being persuaded to desert at Dunbar, and gave him all the particulars, as they are related above, to the time of my coming on shore and the captain talking to me about my bill after I arrived here. He held up his hands several times as I went on, expressing his abhorrence of the usage I had met with at Newcastle, and inquired the name of the master of the ship; "for," said he, "that captain, for all his smooth words, must be a rogue." So I told him his name, and the name of the ship, and he took it down in his book, and then he went on.

Mast. But pray answer me, honestly too, to another question: What was it made you so much concerned at my talking to the boy there, the pickpocket?

Jacque. An't please your honour, it moved me to hear you talk so kindly to a poor slave.

Mast. And was that all? Speak truly now.

Jacque. No, indeed; but a secret wish came into my thoughts, that you, that were so good to such a creature as that, could but one way or other know my case, and that if you did, you would certainly pity me, and do something for me.

Mast. Well, but was there nothing in his case that hit your own, that made you so affected with it; for I saw tears come from your eyes and it was that made me call to speak to you?

Jacque. Indeed, sir, I have been a wicked, idle boy, and was left desolate in the world; but that boy is a thief, and condemned to be hanged. I never was before a court of justice in my life.

Mast. Well, I won't examine you too far. If you were never before a court of justice, and are not a criminal transported, I have nothing further to inquire of you. You have been ill used, that's certain; and was it that that affected you?

Jacque. Yes, indeed, please your honour. (We all called him his honour, or his worship.)

Mast. Well, now I do know your case, what can I do for you? You speak of a bill of £94 of which you would have given the captain £40 for your liberty; have you that bill in your keeping still?

Jacque. Yes, sir; here it is.

I pulled it out of the waistband of my drawers, where I always found means to preserve it, wrapped up in a piece of paper, and pinned to the waistband, and yet almost worn out, too, with often pinning and removing. So I gave it to him to read, and he read it.

Mast. And is this gentleman in being that gave you the bill?

Jacque. Yes, sir; he was alive and in good health when I came from London, which you may see by the date of the bill, for I came away the next day.

Mast. I do not wonder that the captain of the ship was willing to get this bill of you when you came on shore here.

Jacque. I would have given it into his possession if he would have carried me and my brother back again to England, and have taken what he asked for us out of it.

Mast. Ay; but he knew better than that, too. He knew, if he had any friends there, they would call him to an account for what he had done. But I wonder he did not take it from you while you were at sea, either by fraud or by force.

Jacque. He did not attempt that indeed.

Mast. Well, young man, I have a mind to try if I can do you any service in this case. On my word, if the money can be paid, and you can get it safe over, I might put you in a way how to be a better man than your master, if you will be honest and diligent.

Jacque. As I have behaved myself in your service, sir, you will, I hope, judge of the rest.

Mast. But perhaps you hanker after returning to England?

Jacque. No, indeed, sir; if I can but get my bread honestly here, I have no mind to go to England; for I know not how to get my bread there. If I had, I had not 'listed for a soldier.

Mast. Well, but I must ask you some questions about that part hereafter; for 'tis indeed something strange that you should list for a soldier when you had £94 in your pocket.

Jacque. I shall give your worship as particular account of that as I have of the other part of my life, if you please; but 'tis very long.

Mast. Well, we will have that another time. But to the case in hand. Are you willing I should send to anybody at London to talk with that gentleman that gave you the bill; not to take the money of him, but to ask him only whether he has so much money of yours in his hands, and whether he will part with it when you shall give order, and send the bill, or a duplicate of it; that is (says he) the copy? (And it was well he did say so, for I did not understand the word duplicate at all.)

Jacque. Yes, sir; I will give you the bill itself, if you please. I can trust it with you, though I could not with him.

Mast. No, no, young man, I won't take it from you.

Jacque. I wish your worship would please to keep it for me, for if I should lose it, then I am quite undone.

Mast. I will keep it for you, Jacque, if you will; but then you shall have a note under my hand, signifying that I have it, and will return it you upon demand, which will be as safe to you as the bill. I won't take it else.

So I gave my master the bill, and he gave me his note for it; and he was a faithful steward for me, as you will hear in its place. After this conference I was dismissed, and went to my work; but about two hours after, the steward, or the overseer of the plantation, came riding by, and coming up to me as I was at work, pulled a bottle out of his pocket, and calling me to him, gave me a dram of rum. When, in good manners, I had taken but a little sup, he held it out to me again, and bade me take another, and spoke wondrous civilly to me, quite otherwise than he used to do.

This encouraged me and heartened me very much, but yet I had no particular view of anything, or which way I should have any relief.

A day or two after, when we were all going out to our work in the morning, the overseer called me to him again, and gave me a dram and a good piece of bread, and bade me come off from my work about one o'clock, and come to him to the house, for he must speak with me.

When I came to him, I came, to be sure, in the ordinary habit of a poor half-naked slave. "Come hither, young man," says he, "and give me your hoe." When I gave it him, "Well," says he, "you are to work no more in this plantation."