6 - Doldrums

Summary

The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable … if ten thousand worlds had been my own, I would have freely parted with them all to have exchanged my condition with that of the meanest slave in my own country[.]

Equiano, kidnapped on board a slave ship, The Interesting Narrative (1789)

Apart from domestic pressures, another reason for Smeathman's impatience to get home may have been his eagerness to tend his latest project—his garden. Convinced that cultivation would turn the African countryside into an ‘earthly paradise ten months of the year’, he declared that he had ‘enclosed a large garden’ with the intention of raising ‘many curious plants’. He was also keeping a weather diary which he hoped would ‘throw some light on meteorological knowledge’. By the end of 1773, he was boasting to Drury that he had not just ‘dared to plan’ but ‘actually finished’ an ‘elegant, pleasant & profitable garden’. In transforming a wasteland into a productive garden, he had raised the value of the land and even created a spirit of competition:

It is laid out in straight & winding walks with grass plots, groves, views &c. Nature kindly planted the groves which I have only protected & keep clean. I have added various kinds of beautiful & curious trees, shrubs & flowers, which I have transported at various times from all parts of the Country. I have besides planted Plantanes, Bananas for Bakeovers, pine-apples, sugar cane, Palma Christi, from which is made the famous Castor-oil, Cotton, Pepper, Papays, Cashew, Tamarinds, Oranges, Guavas, Limes & various other fruits, so that with permission of Providence this Island will abound with most of these things in a few years & will be a great relief to future seamen. I have besides all sorts of Country kitchen stuff & some curious herbs. My example has also turned the heads of my neighbours, every one having now got his large garden & what will surprise your African acquaintance, we are already wrangling about ground, and when I came here, no one deigned it worth while to clear the bush—tho’ full of vermin—five yards from his house.