149 



to be, this prejudice respecting Obeah, and the 

 facility with which they are frequently induced 

 to poison to the right hand and to the left. A 

 neighbouring gentleman, as I hear, has now three 

 negroes in prison, all domestics, and one of them 

 grown grey in his service, for poisoning him with 

 corrosive sublimate ; his brother was actually 

 killed by similar means ; yet I am assured that 

 both of them were reckoned men of great hu- 

 manity. Another agent, who appears to be in 

 high favour with the negroes whom he now go- 

 verns, was obliged to quit an estate, from the 

 frequent attempts to poison him ; and a person 

 against whom there is no sort of charge alleged for 

 tyranny, after being brought to the doors of death 

 by a cup of coffee, only escaped a second time by 

 his civility, in giving the beverage, prepared for 

 himself to two young book-keepers, to both of 

 whom it proved fatal. It, indeed, came out, after- 

 wards, that this crime was also effected by the 

 abominable belief in Obeah : the woman, who mixed 

 the draught, had no idea of its being poison ; but 

 she had received the deleterious ingredients from 

 an Obeah man, as " a charm to make her massa 

 good to her ; " by which the negroes mean, the 

 compelling a person to give another every thing for 

 which that other may ask him. 



Next to this vile trick of poisoning people (arising, 

 doubtless, in a great measure, from their total want 

 of religion, and their ignorance of a future state, 



