Eighteenth Century Waifs

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.

From yon spot in the Park, just where the Parade is,
Approach’d a grand sportsman, attended by ladies
On bay horses mounted; they swift tore the ground,
Escorted by servants and terriers around;
I guess’d that my Lord went to sport with his Graces
To Windsor’s wide forest or Maidenhead races.

Through Kensington passing I saw a fine show
Of chaises, gigs, coaches, there all in a row!
When I came to a well where a girl stood close by,
Who ask’d to what place do these folk go? and why?
I, smiling, replied, ‘They, my dear, go to Windsor,
To see king and queen,’ – but could not convince her.
On tiptoe the titt’ring girl ran off the stand,