But would’st thou see thy negroe-train encrease, Free from disorders; and thine acres clad With groves of sugar

NOR pine the Blacks, alone, with real ills, [365] That baffle oft the wisest rules of art: They likewise feel imaginary woes;646 Woes no less deadly. Luckless he who owns The slave, who thinks himself bewitch’d; and whom, In wrath, a conjurer’s snake-mark’d staff647 hath struck! [370] VER. 370. snake-mark’d] The negroe-conjurers, or Obia-men, as they are called, carry about them a staff, which is marked with frogs, snakes, &c. The 144 They mope, love silence, every friend avoid; They inly pine; all aliment reject; Or insufficient for nutrition take: Their features droop; a sickly yellowish hue Their skin deforms; their strength and beauty fly. [375] Then comes the feverish fiend, with firy eyes, Whom drowth,648 convulsions, and whom death surround, Fatal attendants! if some subtle slave (Such, Obia-men are stil’d) do not engage, To save the wretch by antidote or spell.

Whom blows, alas! could win alone to toil.

How far more pleasant is thy rural task

NOR, Negroe, at thy destiny repine,603 [165] Tho’ doom’d to toil from dawn to setting sun

chlorotic

YET, if thine own, thy childrens life, be dear; Buy not a Cormantee,578 tho’ healthy, young. Of breed too generous for the servile field; They, born to freedom in their native land, Chuse death before dishonourable bonds: [85] Or, fir’d with vengeance, at the midnight hour, Sudden they seize thine unsuspecting watch, And thine own poinard579 bury in thy breast.

chuse the slave, Who sails from barren climes; where art571 alone, Offspring of rude necessity, compells The sturdy native, or to plant the soil, [60] Or stem vast rivers for his daily food.

Who sees, with grief, thy sons in fetters bound; [15] Who wishes freedom to the race of man;

ar more healthy

The Minnahs make good tradesmen, but addicted to suicide. The Mundingos, in particular, subject to worms; and the Congas, to dropsical disorders. How salt-water, or new negroes should be seasoned. Some negroes eat dirt. Negroes should be habituated by gentle degrees to field labour.

Leave Europe; there, through all her coyest ways, [625] Her secret mazes, nature is pursued: But here, with savage loneliness, she reigns On yonder peak, whence giddy fancy looks, Affrighted, on the labouring main below. Heavens! what stupendous, what unnumbered trees, [630] “Stage above stage, in various verdure drest,”548 Unprofitable shag its airy cliffs! Heavens! what new shrubs, what herbs with useless bloom, Adorn its channel’d sides; and, in its caves What sulphurs, ores, what earths and stones abound! [635] There let philosphy conduct thy steps, “For naught is useless made:

WHILE such fair scenes adorn these blissful isles; Why will their sons, ungrateful, roam abroad?526 Why spend their opulence in other climes? SAY, is pre-eminence your partial aim?

WHILE flows the juice mellifluent from the Cane, Grudge not, my friend, to let thy slaves, each morn, But chief the sick and young, at setting day, Themselves regale with oft-repeated draughts [410] Of tepid Nectar; so shall health and strength Confirm thy Negroes, and make labour light. WHILE flame thy chimneys, while thy coppers foam, How blithe, how jocund, the plantation smiles! By day, by night, resounds the choral song [415] Of glad barbarity; serene, the sun Shines not intensely hot; the trade-wind blows: How sweet, how silken, is its noontide breath?

WHEN may the planter idly fold his arms, And say, “My soul take rest?” Superior ills, [195] Ills which no care nor wisdom can avert, In black succession rise. Ye men of Kent,321 When nipping Eurus,322 with the brutal force Of Boreas,323 join’d in ruffian league, assail Your ripen’d hop-grounds;324 tell me what you feel, [200] And pity the poor planter;

“BE pious, be industrious, be humane; “From proud oppression guard the labouring hind. “Whate’er their creed, God is the Sire of man, “His image they; then dare not thou, my son, “To bar the gates of mercy on mankind. [635] “Your foes forgive, for merit must make foes; “And in each virtue far surpass your sire. “Your means are ample, Heaven a heart bestow!

No surly dog, Nor surlier Ethiop,252 their approach debarr’d.

Well-fed, well-cloath’d, all emulous to gain Their master’s smile, who treated them like men;

gold bought better land and slaves. [600] Heaven bless’d his labour

To tropic suns, to fell barbaric hinds, A poor outcast, an alien, did he roam; His wife, the partner of his better hours, [590] And one sweet infant, chear’d his dismal way. Unus’d to labour; yet the orient sun, Yet western Phoebus, saw him wield the hoe.

solstitial beams, Shot yellow deaths224 on the devoted land;

Not wealth he craves,

says Ulloa,

IN plants, in beasts, in man’s imperial race, An alien mixture meliorates the breed; Hence Canes, that sickened dwarfish on the plain, [460] Will shoot with giant-vigour on the hill. Thus all depends on all; so God ordains. Then let not man for little selfish ends, (Britain, remember this important truth;) Presume the principle to counteract [465] Of universal love; for God is love, And wide creation shares alike his care.

Thy Negroe-train, (in linen lightly wrapt,)161 Who now that painted Iris162 girds the sky, (Aerial arch, which Fancy loves to stride!) Disperse, all-jocund, o’er the long-hoed land.

PLANTER, improvement137 is the child of time;

AS art transforms the savage face of things, And order captivates the harmonious mind; Let not thy Blacks irregularly hoe: But, aided by the line, consult the site Of thy demesnes;135 and beautify the whole.

PLANTER

Columbus’ daring keel89 explor’d. DAUGHTERS of Heaven,90 with reverential awe, Pause at that godlike name; for not your flights [95] Of happiest fancy, can outsoar his fame. COLUMBUS, boast of science, boast of man!

The inhabitants of St. Christopher look whiter, are less sallow, and enjoy finer complexions, than any of the dwellers on the other islands

Yet probity, from principle, not fear, Actuates thy sons, bold, hospitable, free:

recian Tempé

This land, for many a crop, will feed his mills; Disdain supplies, nor ask from compost aid. SUCH, green St. Christopher, thy happy soil!

generate

Canoes have been scooped out of this tree, capable of holding upwards of a hundred people;

it soon found its way into Europe in that form,

The Greeks and Romans seem to have known very little of this most useful and beautiful plant

o Fame’s eternal Dome, where Maro23 reigns; Where pastoral Dyer, where Pomona’s Bard, And Smart and Sommerville in varying strains,24 4 Their sylvan lore convey: O may I join This choral band, and from their precepts learn

A Muse, that long hath wander’d in the groves [5] Of myrtle-indolence, attempts to sing.20

Medicines of such amazing efficacy, as I have had occasion to make trials of in these islands, deserve to be universally known.

IN a West-India georgic,14 the mention of many indigenous remedies, as well as diseases

Vos sequor, ô Graiae gentis decus, inque vestris nunc Fixa pedum pono pressis vestigia signis; Non ita certandi cupidus, quam propter amorem, Quod vos imitari aveo.——13

instructing the Reader;

My inducements to this arduous undertaking were, not only the importance and novelty of the subject, but more especially this consideration; that, as the face of this country was wholly different from that of Europe, so whatever hand copied its appearances, however rude, could not fail to enrich poetry with many new and picturesque images.