those lost in the hurricane. In 1781, another hurricane so damaged Thistlewood's own dwelling that he could no longer live there. His slaves' houses were also damaged, corn and plantains lost, and the gardens again destroyed. His slaves suffered from a shortage of food for most of that decade. Thistlewood grew crops for sale and flogged any slave who stole them. While his slaves complained of hunger and starvation, Thistlewood entertained guests such as William Beckford, dining out on lavish meals, including crabs, mudfish, shrimps, mutton, turnips, broccoli, duck, watermelons, and a variety of alcohol. In 1781, because of illness, Thistlewood tried to sell Breadnut Pen. He failed to find a buyer and kept the property until he died. Family Thistlewood was the uncle of Arthur Thistlewood, a British radical activist and conspirator in the Cato Street Conspiracy. Thistlewood never married, but had a son, Mulatto John, by his slave Phibbah, who was originally a slave of Cope's. John was born on 29 April 1760, and Cope manumitted him on 3 May 1762. An elder son, Thomas, born to Jenny, died in childhood. Thistlewood eventually purchased Phibbah from Cope and lived with her at Breadnut Island. He bought a number of books for Mulatto John to read, but John showed little interest in reading, a disappointment to his father, who later accused John of stealing money from him. In 1775, Thistlewood apprenticed Mulatto John to William Hornby as a carpenter. John was unhappy with his apprenticeship, and looked forward to the time when he could serve in the militia and get away from Hornby. One day in 1779, when John refused to go to work, Thomas had him flogged "pretty well" to persuade him to change his mind. When war broke out with the American colonies, John joined the "Brown Infantry", a regiment for mixed-race Jamaicans, to prepare for a French invasion that never came. In 1780, John took ill and had to be brought home by his mother. Thistlewood wrote that John "is very weak indeed & not in his right senses." Doctors of European origin were called and prescribed doses of bark and rhubarb, and, according to Thistlewood, "also laid blisters inside each thigh...They gave him a blister which brought away a great quantity of putrid blood." But despite, or because of, the doctors' attention, John died of a fever on 7 September 1780, though Thistlewood and Phibbah