Benjamin M'mahon

Jamaica Plantership Benjamin M'mahon

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1839 edition. Excerpt: ... Miller's favourite overseers made large fortunes:--he himself amassed a princely one before he left for England, in 1833. William Miller, jun., the natural son of the above Mr-Miller, is now an attorney in Jamaica, and is remarkable for his ferocious disposition. Id 1833, a gentleman having taken up a black labourer belonging to Steelfield estate, of which Mr. Miller, jun. is attorney, and having sent him as a deserter to Mr. Miller's house, Mr, Miller walked deliberately to the door, and desiring the man who was in charge of the hospital to bring four people and his whip, he first turned to the poor runaway, and said, " 1 will now suck your blood, you;" and then turning his attention to the four men who had been brought from the hospital, he had him laid down and flogged before his eyes to such a degree, that he was carried to the hospital, where he shortly afterwards died. This person is now an extensive attorney:--how far he deserves to be trusted with such an office, I leave my readers to judge. Mr. James M'Donald, who also lived in the parish of Trelawney, was, next to Mr. William Miller, sen., the most extensive attorney on the island. The estates of which he was attorney he seldom visited more than once a year, and that was usually at the time of serving out cloth to the labourers. Three-fourths of the estates committed to his charge were involved in ruin. Unwilling to allow his overseers sufficient cattle to produce the requisite supply of manure, the cane land of course grew worse and worse; and in order to keep up the crops, a large number of acres were planted, from which, however, the returns would be scarcely more than adequate to the expence of cultivation; from land, especially in a tropical climate, requiring more than double the...