So that there was nothing talked of but this young and gallant
slave, even by those who yet knew not that he was a prince.
I ought to tell you that the Christians never buy any slaves but
they give 'em some name of their own, their native ones being likely
very barbarous, and hard to pronounce; so that Mr. Trefry gave
Oroonoko that of Caesar; which name will live in that country as
long as that (scarce more) glorious one of the great Roman: for 'tis
most evident he wanted no part of the personal courage of that Caesar,
and acted things as memorable, had they been done in some part of
the world replenished with people and historians that might have given
him his due. But his misfortune was to fall in an obscure world,
that afforded only a female pen to celebrate his fame; though I
doubt not but it had lived from others' endeavors if the Dutch, who
immediately after his time took that country, had not killed,
banished, and dispersed all those that were capable of giving the
world this great man's life much better than I have done. And Mr.
Trefry, who designed it, died before he began it, and bemoaned himself
for not having undertook it in time.
For the future, therefore, I must call Oroonoko Caesar; since by
that name only he was known in our Western World, and by that name
he was received on shore at Parham-House, where he was destined a
slave. But if the King himself (God bless him) had come ashore,
there could not have been greater expectation by all the whole
plantation, and those neighboring ones, than was on ours at that time;
and he was received more like a governor than a slave:
notwithstanding, as the custom was, they assigned him his portion of
land, his house, and his business up in the plantation.
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