Chapter 6 - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness by Mayne Reid
The Virginia Plantation
“I found the farm everything he had described it—a large plantation with a good wooden house, and well-enclosed fields. I immediately set about ‘stocking’ it with my remaining cash. What was my surprise to find that I must spend the greater part of this in buying men! Yes—there was no alternative. There were no labourers to be had in the place—except such as were slaves—and these I must either buy for myself, or hire from their masters, which, in point of morality, amounted to the same thing.
“Thinking that I might treat them with at least as much humanity, as they appeared to receive from others, I chose the former course; and purchasing a number of blacks, both men and women, I began life as a planter. After such a bargain as that, I did not deserve to prosper; and I did not prosper, as you shall see.
“My first crop failed; in fact, it scarcely returned me the seed. The second was still worse; and to my mortification I now ascertained the cause of the failure. I had come into possession of a ‘worn-out’ farm. The land looked well, and on sight you would have called it a fertile tract. When I first saw it myself, I was delighted with my purchase—which seemed indeed a great bargain for the small sum of money I had paid. But appearances are often deceptive; and never was there a greater deception than my beautiful plantation in Virginia. It was utterly worthless. It had been cropped for many years with maize, and cotton, and tobacco. These had been regularly carried off the land, and not a stalk or blade suffered to return to the soil. As a natural fact, known to almost every one, the vegetable or organic matter will thus in time become exhausted, and nothing will remain but inorganic or purely mineral substances, which of themselves cannot nourish vegetation, and of course can give no crop. This is the reason why manure is spread upon land—the manure consisting of substances that are for the most part organic, and contain the principles of life and vegetation. Of course, gentlemen, these things are known to you; but you will pardon my digression, as my children are listening to me, and I never lose an opportunity of instructing them in facts that may hereafter be useful to them.
“Well, as I have said, I had no crops, or rather very bad ones, for the first and second years. On the third it was, if possible, still worse; and on the fourth and fifth no better than ever. I need hardly add that by this time I was ruined, or very nearly so. The expense of feeding and clothing my poor negroes had brought me in debt to a considerable amount. I could not have lived longer on my worthless plantation, even had I desired it. I was compelled, in order to pay my debts, to sell out everything—farm, cattle, and negroes. No, I did not sell all. There was one honest fellow to whom both Mary and I had become attached. I was resolved not to sell him into slavery. He had served us faithfully. It was he who first told me how I had been tricked; and, sympathising in my misfortune, he endeavoured—both by industry on his own part, and by encouraging his fellow-labourers—to make the ungrateful soil yield me a return. His efforts had been vain, but I determined to repay him for his rude but honest friendship. I gave him his liberty. He would not accept it. He would not part from us. He is there!”
As the narrator said this, he pointed to Cudjo, who stood hanging by the door-post; and, delighted at these compliments which were being paid him, was showing his white teeth in a broad and affectionate smile.
Rolfe continued:—
“When the sale was completed, and the account settled, I found that I had just five hundred pounds left. I had now some experience in farming; and I resolved to move out to the West—into the great valley of the Mississippi. I knew that there my five hundred pounds would still set me up again in a farm as big as I wanted, where the timber was still growing upon it.
“Just at this time my eye fell upon some flaming advertisements in the newspapers, about a new city which was then being built at the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. It was called ‘Cairo,’ and as it was situated on the fork between two of the largest and most navigable rivers in the world, it could not fail in a few years to become one of the largest cities in the world. So said the advertisement. There were maps of the new city everywhere, and on these were represented theatres, and banks, and court-houses, and churches of different religious denominations. There were lots offered for sale, and, along with these, small tracts of land adjoining the town—so that the inhabitants might combine the occupations of merchant and agriculturist. These lots were offered very cheap, thought I; and I did not rest, night nor day, until I had purchased one of them, and also a small farm in the adjacent country.
“Almost as soon as I had made the purchase, I set out to take possession. Of course, I took with me my wife and children. I had now three—the two eldest being twins and about nine years old. I did not intend to return to Virginia any more. Our faithful Cudjo accompanied us to our far Western home.
“It was a severe journey, but not so severe as the trial that awaited us on our arrival at ‘Cairo.’ As soon as I came within sight of the place, I saw, to use an expressive phrase, that I had been ‘sold’ again. There was but one house, and that stood upon the only ground that was not a swamp. Nearly the whole site of the proposed city was under water, and the part not wholly inundated consisted of a dark morass, covered with trees and tall reeds! There were no theatres, no churches, no court-houses, no banks, nor any likelihood there ever would be, except such as might be built to keep back the water from the only house in the place—a sort of rough hotel, filled with swearing boatmen.
“I had landed, of course; and, after putting up at the hotel, proceeded in search of my ‘property.’ I found my town-lot in a marsh, which took me over the ankles in mud. As for my farm, I was compelled to get a boat to visit it; and after sailing all over it without being able to touch bottom, I returned to the hotel, heartless and disgusted.
“By the next steamboat that came along, I embarked for Saint Louis—where I sold both lot and farm for a mere trifle.
“I need not say that I was mortified at all this. I was almost heart-broken when I reflected on my repeated failures, and thought of my young wife and children. I could have bitterly cursed both America and the Americans, had that been of any use; and yet such a thing would have been as unjust as immoral. It is true I had been twice outrageously swindled; but the same thing had happened to me in my own country, and I had suffered in the same way by those who professed to be my friends. There are bad men in every country—men willing to take advantage of generosity and inexperience. It does not follow that all are so; and we hope far less than the half—for it must be remembered that the bad points of one country are more certain to be heard of in another than its good ones. When I look to the schemes and speculations which have been got up in England, and which have enriched a few accomplished rogues, by the ruin of thousands of honest men, I cannot, as an Englishman, accuse our American cousins of being greater swindlers than ourselves. It is true I have been deceived by them, but it was from the want of proper judgment in myself, arising from a foolish and ill-directed education. I should have been equally ill-treated in the purchase of a horse at Tattersall’s, or a pound of tea in Piccadilly, had I been equally unacquainted with the value of the articles. We both, as nations, have erred. Neither of us can, with grace, cast a stone at the other; and as for myself, why, look there!” said Rolfe, smiling and pointing to his family, “two of my children only are Englishmen; the others are little Yankees. Almost every Englishman can say something similar. Why, then, should we sow jealousy between them?”