Raphael Semmes, Memoirs of Service Afloat During the War Between the States

I descended at once from the empyrean in which I had been wandering, took a hasty leave of my friends, and in company with Mr. Fyfe, rode back to the coast. We took a new route back, and re-entered Kingston through a different suburb— stopping to lunch with one of Mr. Fyfe's friends, an English merchant, at his magnificent country-house. But, alas! much of the magnificence of the Kingston of former years is passing away. I had known it in its palmiest days, having visited it when a midshipman in the old service, before the happy slave had been converted into the wretched freedman. It was then a busy mart of commerce, and the placid waters of its unrivalled harbor were alive with shipping bearing the flags of all nations, come in quest of her great staples, sugar, coffee, cocoa, gensing, &c. Now, a general air of dilapidation and poverty hangs over the scene. A straggling ship or two only are seen in the harbor; the merchants have become shopkeepers, and the sleek, well-fed negro has become an idler and a vagrant, with scarce rags enough to hide his nakedness. My host, in the few days I remained with him, gave me much valuable information concerning the negro, since his emancipation, which I will not detain the reader to repeat. I may say in a few words, however, that the substance of this information was, that there has been no increase, either in numbers, intelligence, or morals among them; and that, too, under circumstances, all of which were favorable to the negro. He was the pet of the government for years after his emancipation, and English fanatics have devoted their lives to his regeneration, but all without success. He is, to-day, with a few exceptions about the towns, the same savage that he is in his native Dahomey. An English parliament had declared that he was the political equal of the white man —that is, of the colonial white man, for England takes the best of care, that the imperial legislature is never tainted by his presence —and I found him a generation afterward, far below his former level of slave.

I found my gig in waiting for me at the wharf in Kingston, and taking leave of my friend, with many thanks for his hospitality, I pulled on board of my ship about sunset. And here, what a scene of confusion met me, and what reports Kell had to make of how my fellows had been ‘cutting up!’ The paymaster had been drunk ever since he landed, neglecting his