_Mast_. No, indeed; they serve me but just as they do the devil, for fear I should hurt them. But ’tis contrary to an ingenuous spirit to delight in such service. I abhor it, if I could but know how to get any other. _Jacque_. It is easy, sir, to show you that you may be served upon better principles, and consequently be better served, and more to your satisfaction; and I dare undertake to convince you of it. _Mast_. Well, go on with the story. _Jacque_. After I had talked thus to him I said, “Well, Mouchat, I shall see how you will be afterwards, if I can get our great master to be merciful to you at this time.” _Negro_. Yes, you shall see; you muchee see, muchee see. “Upon this I called for my horse and went from him, and made as if I rode away to you, who they told me was in the next plantation; and having stayed four or five hours, I came back and talked to him again, told him that I had waited on you, and that you had heard of his offence, was highly provoked, and had resolved to cause him to be severely punished for an example to all the negroes in the plantation; but that I had told you how penitent he was, and how good he would be if you would pardon him; and had at last prevailed on you. That you had told me what all people said of the negroes; how, that to show them mercy was to make them think you were never in earnest with them, and that you did but trifle and play with them. However, that I had told you what he had said of himself, and that it was not true of the negroes, and that the white men said it, but that they could not know because they did never show any mercy, and therefore had never tried; that I had persuaded you to show mercy, to try whether kindness would prevail as much as cruelty. ‘And now, Mouchat,’ said I, ‘you will be let go. Pray let our great master see that I have said true.’ So I ordered him to be untied, gave him a dram of rum out of my pocket-bottle, and ordered them to give him some victuals. “When the fellow was let loose, he came to me and kneeled down to me, and took hold of my legs and of my feet, and laid his head upon the ground, and sobbed and cried like a child that had been corrected, but could not speak for his life; and thus he continued a long time. I would have taken him up, but he would not rise; but I cried as fast as he, for I could not bear to see a poor wretch lie on the ground to me, that was but a servant the other day like himself. At last, but not till a quarter of an hour, I made him get up, and then he spoke. ‘Me muchee know good great master, muchee good you master. No negro unthankful; me die for them, do me so muchee kind.’ “I dismissed him then, and bid him go to his wife (for he was married), and not work that afternoon; but as he was going away I called him again, and talked thus to him.