Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 11).djvu/89

 *quence surrendered his regiment on good terms to the republicans. In the consideration even of a generation unknown to him, his memory is precious. After the peace, and the establishment of independence, he returned home, and was prosecuted 36 times in {63} the American courts by men, whom, it was alleged, his revolutionary troops had injured; but he was victorious in his defence of all the suits, out of which he came, says a survivor, with honour unspotted. He was the most friendly and indulgent of men towards neighbours and negroes, for he loved and served all. He would not have returned to die in England, but for the infidelity of his lady, during his flight to the mother country. Her guilty paramour was the colonel's confidential overseer, who, after the final departure of his master, married the lady. This affair, it is here thought, broke the noble heart of the colonel; who soon after his return, slept, and was gathered unto his fathers.

Sunday, 23d.—I dined, this day, at my cousin Captain Rugeley's, with Mr. Irvin and family. At sunset, I visited the negro-huts, in which I found small nests or beds, full of black babies. The women were cooking corn-cakes in pans over the fire. Oak-leaves were laid over the cakes, and then hot embers or ashes on them: thus they are speedily baked. All seemed happy, having kind treatment, full bellies, and little thought; being unconsciously degraded, to the level of the beasts that perish. Saw no church, nor heard any thing of a sabbath. Slept at the Captain's in a good bed, curtainless, alongside the one in which himself and lady and children slept; all in one room, the only one in the house; with {64} a fine negro-wench on the floor, at our feet, as our bodyguard, all night, in readiness, to hush the children. Thus