Action on the part of a very Bad Man, or of a Bad Action done by
him who is ordinarily accounted a very Good one.

_The Humane Hopwood_ was a very shy Sailer,--being, in truth, as Leaky
an old Tub as ever escaped breaking up for Fire-Wood at Lumberers'
Wharfs,--and we were seven weeks at Sea before we fell in with a
trade-wind, and then setting every Rag we could hoist, went gaily before
that Favourable breeze, and so cast anchor at Port Royal in the island
of Jamaica.

Captain Handsell was as good as his word. Not a syllable did he say to
the Sheriff of Kingston about my not being a Transport, or being,
indeed, in the Flesh at all in those parts; for he argued that the
Sheriff might have some foregatherings with the Knight and Alderman of
Bishopsgate Street by correspondence, and that the Wealthy Extortioner
might make use of his credit in the Sugar Islands to do me, some day or
another, an ill turn. But he had me privily on shore when the Transports
had all been assigned to different task-masters; and in due time he
introduced me to his Aunt, his Brother's Wife indeed (and I believe he
had come out to the Island with an Old-Bailey Passport; but Rum and the
climate had been too strong for him, and he had so Died and left her a
Widow).

She was by right and title, then, Mistress Handsell, with the Christian
name of Sarah; but among the coloured people of Kingston she went by the
name of Maum Buckey, and, among her more immediate intimates, as "Yaller
Sally." And, although she passed for being very Wealthy, I declare that
she was nothing but a Washerwoman. This Washing Trade of hers, however,
which she carried on for the King and Merchants' ships that were in
Harbour, and for nearly all the rich Merchants and Traders of Kingston,
brought Maum Buckey in a very pretty penny; and not only was her tub
commerce a brisk ready-money business, but she had two flourishing
plantations--one for the growing of Coffee, and the other of Sugar--near
the town of Savannah de la Mar. Moreover, she had a distillery of Rum
and Arrack in Kingston itself, and everybody agreed that she must be
very well to do in the world. She was an immensely fat old Mulotter
woman, on the wrong side of Fifty when I knew her, and her Mother had
been a slave that had been the Favourite Housekeeper to the English
Governor, who, dying, left her her Freedom, and enough Money to carry
on that Trade of cleansing clothes which her Daughter afterwards made so
prof