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 THE WHITE SLAVE.
 
 '-a"3 
 
 " I threw myself upon my bed; but I turned continually from side to side, and 
 found it impossible to compose myself to rest. Hour after hour dragged on ; but I 
 could not sleep. It was past midnight, when I heard a slight tap at the door, and a 
 soft whisper, which thrilled through every nerve. I sprung up; I opened the door; 
 I clasped her to my bosom. It was Cassy ; it was my betrothed wife." — See page 26.
 
 THE 
 
 WHITE SLAVE: 
 
 A STORY OF LIFE IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 ETC. 
 
 EDITED BY R. HILDRETH, ESQ. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.' 
 
 Wlitl) numerous TEnctrauings. 
 
 THE SLAVE AUCTION. 
 
 FIFTEENTH THOUSAND. 
 
 LONDON; INGRAM, COOKE, & CO., 227, STRAND. 
 
 MDCCCLII.
 
 THE 
 
 WHITE SLAVE: 
 
 OK, 
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 
 
 % StOTH jOf 
 SLAVE LIFE IN VIRGINIA, ETC. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 R. HILDRETH, ESQ. 
 
 AUTHOR OF " A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES." 
 
 " All men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent 
 rights, of which, when they enter into society, they cannot by any compact deprive 
 or divest their posterity — namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means 
 of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing happiness and safety." 
 
 Virginia Bill of Rights, Art. I. 
 
 FIRST ENGLISH ILLUSTRATED EDITION. 
 
 a&ttf) 1Etgf)t ISngraufngs. 
 
 FIFTEENTH THOUSAND. 
 
 LONDON: 
 INGHAM, COOKE, & CO., 227, STRAND. 
 
 MDCCCLII.
 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 THE WHITE SLAVE AND HIS WIFE Frontispiece. 
 
 THE SLAVE AUCTION Vignette in Title. 
 
 THE WHITE SLAVE AND THE OVERSEER p. 19 
 
 HEADING THE PROCLAMATION OF THE REWARD 40 
 
 THE SLAVE-OWNERS' DUEL ... - G2 
 
 WRECK OF THE SLAVE SHIP SO 
 
 AVENGING AN OLD INJURY 177 
 
 FIRST VIEW OF THE LAND OF LIBERTY ......... 299 

 
 Uniform with this Work 
 
 IS PUBLISHED, 
 
 UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 
 
 BY MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 
 
 With Eight Engravings, price 2s. Qd. 
 
 dftWj i£t)ttton.
 
 the 
 
 WHITE SLAVE: 
 
 OR, 
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 
 
 1 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ^"E who would know what evils man can inflict upon his fellow 
 without reluctance, hesitation, or regret ; ye who would learn the 
 limit of human endurance, and with what bitter anguish and indig- 
 nant hate the heart may swell, and yet not hurst, — peruse these 
 Memoirs ! 
 
 Mine are no silken sorrows, nor sentimental sufferings, but that 
 stern reality of actual woe, the story of which may, perhaps, touch 
 even some of those, who are every day themselves the authors of 
 misery the same as I endured. For however the practice of tyranny 
 may have deadened every better emotion, and the prejudices of 
 education and interest may have hardened the heart, humanity will 
 still extort an involuntary tribute; and men will grow uneasy at 
 hearing of those deeds, of which the doing does not cost them a 
 moment's inquietude. 
 
 Should I accomplish no more than this — should I be able, through 
 the triple steel with which the love of money and the lust of domi- 
 nation has encircled it, to reach one bosom — let the story of my 
 wrongs summon up, in the mind of a single oppressor, the dark and 
 dreaded images of his own misdeeds, and teach his conscience how 
 to torture him with the picture of himself, and I shall be content. 
 Next to the tears and the exultations of the emancipated, the remorse 
 of tyrants is the choicest offering upon the altar of liberty ! 
 
 But perhaps something more may be possible, — not likely — but to 
 be imagined — and it may be, even faintly to be hoped. Perhaps 
 within some youthful breast, in which the evil spirits of avarice and 
 tyranny have as yet failed to gain unlimited control, I may be able to 
 
 B
 
 3 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 rekindle the smothered and expiring embers of humanity. Spite of 
 habits and prejudices inculcated and fostered from his earliest child- 
 hood—spite of the enticements of wealth and political distinction, 
 and the still stronger enticements of indolence and ease — spite of the 
 pratings of hollow-hearted priests — spite of the arguments of time- 
 serving sophists — spite of the hesitation and terrors of the weak- 
 spirited and wavering — in spite of evil precept and evil example, he 
 dares — that generous and heroic youth ! — to cherish and avow the 
 feelings of a man. 
 
 Another Saul among the prophets, he prophesies terrible things 
 in the ear of insolent and luxurious tyranny ; . in the midst of 
 tyrants, he dares to preach the good tidings of liberty ; in the very 
 school of oppression, he stands boldly forth the advocate of human 
 rights ! 
 
 He breaks down the ramparts of prejudice ; he dissipates the illu- 
 sions of avarice and pride ; he repeals the enactments which, though 
 wanting every feature of justice, have sacrilegiously usurped the 
 sacred form of law ! He snatches the whip from the hand of the 
 master ; he breaks for ever the fetter of the slave ! 
 
 In place of reluctant toil, drudging for another, he brings in 
 smiling industry to labour for herself! All nature seems to exult in 
 the change ! The earth, no longer made barren by the tears and tlie 
 blood of her children, pours forth her treasures with redoubled 
 liberality. Existence ceases to be torture ; and to live is no longer, 
 to millions, the certainty of being miserable. 
 
 Chosen Instrument of Mercy ! Illustrious Deliverer ! Come ! 
 come quickly ! 
 
 Come ! — lest, if thy coming be delayed, there come in thy place 
 he who will be at once Deliverer and Avenger! 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The county in which I was born was then, and for aught I know' 
 may still be, one of the richest and most populous in Eastern Virginia. 
 My father, Colonel Charles Moore, was the head of one of the most 
 considerable and influential families in that part of the country; and 
 family, however little weight it may have in other parts of America, 
 at the time I was born, was a thing of no slight consequence in Lower 
 Virginia. Nature and education had combined to qualify Colonel 
 Moore to fill with credit the station in which his birth had placed 
 him. He was a finished aristocrat ; and such he showed himself in 
 every word, look, and action. There was in his bearing a conscious 

 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 6 
 
 superiority which few could resist, softened, and rendered even agree- 
 able by a gentleness and suavity, which flattered, pleased, and cap- 
 tivated. In fact, he was familiarly spoken of among his friends and 
 neighbours as the faultless pattern of a true Virginian gentleman — an 
 encomium by which they supposed themselves to convey, in the most 
 emphatic manner, the highest possible praise. 
 
 When the war of the American revolution broke out, Colonel 
 Moore was a very young man. By birth and education he belonged, 
 as I have said, to the aristocratic party, which being aristocratic, was, 
 of course, conservative. But the impulses of youth and patriotism 
 were too strong to be resisted. He espoused with zeal the cause of 
 libertv ; and bv his political activity and influence, contributed not a 
 little to its success. 
 
 Of liberty, indeed, he was always a warm and energetic admirer. 
 Amono- my earliest recollections of him, is the earnestness with which, 
 among his friends and guests, he used to vindicate the cause of the 
 French revolution, then going on. Of that revolution, throughout 
 irs whole progress, he was a most eloquent advocate and apologist ; 
 and though I understood little or nothing of what he said, the spirit 
 and eloquence with which he spoke could not fail to affect me. Tiie 
 riglits of .nan, and the rights of human nature, were phrases wdiich, 
 although at that time I was quite unconscious of their meaning, I 
 heard so often repeated, that they made an indelible impression 
 upon my memory, and, in after years, frequently recurred to my 
 recollection. 
 
 But Colonel Moore was not a mere talker ; he had the credit of 
 acting up to his principles, and was universally regarded as a man of 
 the greatest good-nature, honour, and uprightness. Several promising 
 young men, who afterwards rose to eminence, were indebted for their 
 first start in life to his patronage and assistance. He settled half the 
 rences in the countv, and never seemed so well pleased as when, 
 bj preventing a lawsuit or a duel, he hindered an accidental and 
 perhaps trifling dispute from degenerating into a bitter, if not a fatal 
 quarrel. The tenderness of his heart, his ready, active benevolence, 
 and bis sympathy with misfortune, were traits in his character spoken 
 of by everybody. 
 
 1 1 been allowed to choose my own paternity, could I possibly 
 selected a more desirable father ? But by the laws and customs 
 of Virginia, it is not the father, but the mother, whose rank and con- 
 m determine that of the child; and, alas! my mother was a con- 
 cubine and a slave ! 
 
 Yet those who beheld her for the first time woidd hardly have 
 imagined, or would willingly have forgotten, that she was connected 
 with an ignoble and degraded race. Humble as her station might be, 
 
 b2
 
 4 THE -WHITE SLAVE J OR, 
 
 she could at least boast possession of the most brilliant beauty. The 
 trace of African blood, by which her veins were contaminated, was 
 distinctly visible ; but the tint which it imparted to her complexion 
 only served to give a peculiar richness to the blush that mantled over 
 her cheek. Iler long black hair, which she understood how to 
 arrange with an artful simplicity, and the flashing of her dark eyes, 
 which changed their expression with every change of feeling, cor- 
 responded exactly to her complexion, and completed a picture which 
 mi°ht perhaps be matched in Spain or Italy, but for which it would 
 be In vain to seek a rival among the pale-faced and languid beauties 
 of Eastern Virginia. 
 
 I describe her more like a lover than a son. But, in truth, her 
 beauty was so uncommon as to draw my attention while I was yet a 
 child • and many an hour have I watched her, almost with a lover's 
 earnestness, while she fondled me on her lap, and tears and smiles 
 chased each other alternately over a face, the expression of which 
 was ever changing, yet always beautiful. She was the most affec- 
 tionate of mothers ; "the mixture of tenderness, grief, and pleasure, 
 with which she always seemed to regard me, gave a new vivacity to 
 her beauty ; and it was probably this, which so early and so strongly 
 fixed my attention. 
 
 But I was very far from being her only admirer. Her beauty was 
 notorious through all that part of the country ; and Colonel Moore 
 had been frequently tempted to sell her by the offer of very high 
 prices. All such offers, however, he had steadily rejected ; for he 
 especially prided himself upon owning the swiftest horse, the hand- 
 somest "wench, and the finest pack of hounds, in the "Ancient 
 Dominion." 
 
 Now, it may seem odd to some people, in some parts of the world, 
 that Colonel Moore, being such a man as I have described him, should 
 keep a mistress, and be the father of illegitimate children. Such 
 persons, however, must be totally ignorant of the state of things in 
 the slave-holding states of America. 
 
 Colonel Moore was married to an amiable woman, whom, I dare 
 say, he loved and respected ; and in the course of time she made him 
 the happy father of two sons and as many daughters. This circum- 
 stance, however, did not hinder him, any more than it does any other 
 American planter, from giving, in the meantime, a very free indul- 
 gence to his amorous temperament among his numerous slaves at 
 Spring-Meadow — for so his estate was called. Many of the young 
 women occasionally boasted of his attentions ; though generally, at 
 any one time, he did not have more than one or two acknowledged 
 favourites. 
 
 My mother was, for several years, distinguished by Colonel Moore's
 
 MEMOir.S OF A FUGITIVE. 5 
 
 very particular regard ; and she brought him no less than six chil- 
 dren, all of whom, except myself, who was the eldest, were lucky 
 enough to die in infancy. 
 
 From my mother I inherited some imperceptible portion of African 
 blood, and with it, the base and cursed condition of a slave. But 
 though born a slave, I inherited all my father's proud spirit, sensitive 
 feelings, and ardent temperament; and as regards natural endow- 
 ments, whether of mind or body, I am bold to assert, that he had 
 more reason to be proud of me than of either of his legitimate and 
 acknowledged sons. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 That education is the most effectual which commences earliest — a 
 maxim well understood in that part of the world in which it was my 
 misfortune to be born. As it sometimes happens there, that one half 
 of a man's children are born masters, and the other half slaves, it 
 has become sufficiently obvious how necessary it is to begin, betimes, 
 the course of discipline proper to train them up for these very dif- 
 ferent situations. It is, accordingly, the general custom, that young 
 master, almost from the hour of his birth, has allotted to him some 
 little slave, near his own age, upon whom he begins, from the time 
 he can go alone, to practise his apprenticeship of tvrannv. It so 
 happened, that within less than a year after my birth, Colonel Moore's 
 wife presented him with her second son, James ; and while we both 
 slept unconscious in our cradles, I was duly assigned over and ap- 
 pointed to be the body-servant of my younger brother. It is in this 
 capacity of Master James's boy, that, following back the traces of 
 memory, I first discover myself. 
 
 The natural and usual consequences of giving one child absolute 
 authority over another, may be easily imagined. The love of domi- 
 nation is perhaps the strongest of our passions, and it is surprising 
 how soon the veriest child will become perfect iu the practice of 
 tyranny. Of this, Colonel Moore's eldest son, William, or Master 
 William, as he was called at Spring- Meadow, was a striking instance. 
 He was the terror and bugbear, not only of Joe, his own boy, but of 
 all the children on the place. That unthinking and irrational delight 
 in the exercise of cruelty, which is sometimes displayed by a wayward 
 child, seemed in him almost a passion; and this passion, by per- 
 petual indulgence, was soon fostered into a habit. When any delin- 
 quent slave was to be punished, he contrived, if possible, to find it 
 out, and to be present at the infliction ; so that he soon became an 
 adept in all the horrible proctitis and disgusting slang of an overseer.
 
 6 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 He always went armed with a whip, twice as long as himself, and, 
 upon the least opposition to his whims and caprices, was ready to 
 show his skill in the use of it. All this he took some little pains to 
 conceal from his father ; who, however, was pretty careful not to see 
 what he could by no means approve, but what, at the same time — • 
 indulgent father as he was — he would have found it very difficult to 
 prevent or to cure. 
 
 Master James, to whose service I was particularly appointed, was 
 a very different boy. Sickly and weak from his birth, his temper 
 was gentle and his mind effeminate. He had an affectionate dispo- 
 sition, and soon conceived a fondness for me, which I very thankfully 
 returned. He protected me from the tyranny of Master William by 
 his entreaties, his tears, and what had much more weight with that 
 amiable youth, by threats of complaining to his father, and making a 
 complete exposure of his brutal and cruel behaviour. 
 
 I soon learned to put up with and to pardon an occasional pettish- 
 ness and ill-humour, for which Master James's bad health furnished a 
 ready excuse; and by flattery and apparent obsequiousness, — for a child 
 learns and practises such arts as readily as a man, — I presently came to 
 have a great influence over him. He was the master, and I the slave; 
 but while we were both children, this artificial distinction had less 
 potency, and I found little difficulty in maintaining that actual pre- 
 eminence, to which my superior vigour, both of body and mind, so 
 justly entitled me. 
 
 When Master James had reached the age of five years, it was judged 
 expedient by his father that he should be initiated into the rudiments 
 of learning. To learn the letters was a laborious undertaking enough, 
 — but for putting them into words my young master seemed to have 
 no genius whatever. He was not destitute of ambition; he was 
 indeed very desirous to learn ; it was the ability, not the inclination, 
 that was wanting. In this difficulty he had recourse to me, who was 
 on all occasions his chief counsellor. By putting our heads together, 
 we soon hit upon a plan. My memory was remarkably good, while 
 that of my poor little master was very miserable. We arranged, 
 therefore, that the family tutor should first teach me the letters and 
 the abs, which my strong memory, we thought, would enable me 
 easily to retain, and which I was gradually, and between plays, as 
 opportunity served, to instil into the mind of Master James. This 
 plan we found to answer admirably. Neither the tutor nor Colonel 
 Moore made any objection to it ; for all that Colonel Moore desired 
 was, that his son should learn to read; and the tutor was very willing 
 to shift off the most laborious part of his task upon my shoulders. 
 
 As yet, no one had dreamed of those barbarous and detestable laws 
 —unparalleled in any other codes, and destined to be the everlasting
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 7 
 
 disgrace of America — by which it has been made a crime, punishable 
 with fine and imprisonment, to teach a slave to read. 
 
 It is not enough that custom and the proud scorn of unfeeling 
 tyranny unite to keep the slave in hopeless and helpless ignorance, 
 but the laws, too, have openly become a party to this accursed con- 
 spiracy ! Yes, I believe they would tear out our very eyes, — and that, 
 too, by virtue of a regularly enacted statute, — had they ingenuity 
 enough to invent a way of enabling us to drudge and delve without 
 them ! 
 
 I soon learned to read, and before long I made Master James 
 almost as good a reader as myself. As he was subject to frequent 
 fits of illness, which confined him to the house, and disabled him 
 from indulging in those active sports to which boys are chiefly devoted, 
 his father obtained for him a large collection of books adapted to his 
 age, which he and I used to read over together, and in which we took 
 great delight. 
 
 In the further progress of my young master's studies I was still his 
 associate ; for though the plan of teaching me first, in order that I 
 might afterwards teach him, was pursued no longer, yet as I had a 
 desire to learn, as well as a quick apprehension, I found no difficulty 
 in extracting every day from Master James the substance of his lessons. 
 Indeed, if there was any difficulty in them, be was in the constant 
 habit of appealing to me for assistance. In this way I acquired some 
 elementary knowledge of arithmetic and geography, and even a smat- 
 tering of Latin. 
 
 These acquisitions, however, I took great pains to conceal, since 
 even the fact that I could read, though it increased my consequence 
 among the servants, exposed me to a good deal of ridicule, to which I 
 was very sensitive. I was not looked upon, as I suppose they now 
 look upon a slave who knows how to read, and who exhibits some 
 marks of sense and ability, as a dreadful monster breathing war and 
 rebellion, and plotting to cut the throats of all the good people in 
 America ; I was regarded rather as a sort of prodigy — like a three- 
 legged hen, or a sheep with four eyes ; a thing to be produced and 
 exhibited for the entertainment of strangers. Frequently at a dinner 
 party, after the Madeira had circulated pretty freely, I was set to read 
 paragraphs in the newspapers, to amuse my master's tipsy guests, and 
 was puzzled, perplexed, and tormented, by all sorts of absurd, ridi- 
 culous, and impertinent questions, which I was obliged to answer 
 under penalty of having a wine-glass, a bottle, or a plate flung at my 
 head. Master William especially, as he was prevented from using his 
 whip upon me as freely as he wished, strove to indemnify himself by 
 making me the butt of his wit. He took great pride in the nick- 
 name of the " learned nigger," which he had invented and always
 
 8 THE WHITE SLAVE ) OR, 
 
 applied to me ; — though God knows, that my cheek was little less 
 fair than his, and I cannot help hoping that, at least, my soul was 
 whiter. 
 
 These, it may be thought, were trifling vexations. In truth they 
 were so ; but it cost me many a struggle before I could learn to 
 endure them with any tolerable patience. I was compensated, in some 
 measure, by the pleasure I took in listening, as I stood behind my 
 master's chair, to the conversation of the company, — I mean their 
 conversation before they set regularly in to drinking ; for every dinner 
 party was sure to wind up with a general frolic. 
 
 Colonel Moore kept an open house, and almost every day he had 
 some of his friends, relatives, or neighbours, at his table. He was 
 himself an eloquent and most agreeable talker ; his voice was soft 
 and musical, and he always expressed himself with a great deal of 
 point and vivacity. Many of his guests were well-informed men ; 
 and though politics was always the leading topic of conversation, a 
 great variety of other subjects were occasionally discussed. Colonel 
 Moore, as I have already observed, was himself a warm democrat- 
 republican was then the phrase — for democrat, however fond the 
 Americans have since become of the name, was at that time regarded 
 as an epithet of reproach. The greater part of those who frequented 
 Colonel Moore's house entertained the same liberal opinions on 
 political subjects. I listened to their conversation with eagerness and 
 pleasure ; and when I heard them talk of equal rights, and declaim 
 against tyranny and oppression, my heart would swell with emotions 
 of which I scarcely understood the meaning. All this time, I made 
 no personal application of what I heard and felt. It was only the 
 abstract beauty of liberty and equality, of which I had learned to be 
 enamoured. It was the French republicans with whom I sympathized ; 
 it was the Austrian and English tyrants against whom my indignation 
 was roused ; it was John Adams and his atrocious gag law. I had 
 not yet learned to think about myself. What I saw around me I had 
 always been accustomed to see, and it appeared, as it were, the fixed 
 order of nature. Though born a slave, I had, as yet, experienced 
 scarcely anything of the miseries of that wretched condition. I was 
 singularly fortunate in my young master, to whom I was, in many 
 respects, as much a companion as a servant. By his favour, and 
 through means of my mother, who still continued a favourite with 
 Colonel Moore, I enjoyed more indulgences than any other servant on 
 the place. Comparing my situation with that of the field hands, I 
 might pronounce myself fortunate indeed; and though exposed to 
 occasional mortifications, enough to give me already a foretaste of the 
 bitter cup which every one who lives a slave must swallow, my youth 
 and the buoyant vivacity of my temper as yet sustained me.
 
 MElIOITiS OP A FUGITIVE. 9 
 
 At this time I did not know that Colonel Moore was my father. 
 That gentleman was indebted for no inconsiderable part of his high 
 reputation, to a very strict attention to those conventional observances 
 which so often usurp the place of morals. Some observances of this 
 sort, which prevail in America, are sufficiently remarkable. It is con- 
 sidered, for instance, no crime whatever, for a master to be, if he 
 chooses, the father of every infant slave born upon his plantation. 
 Yet it is esteemed a very great breach of propriety, indeed almost an 
 unpardonable crime, for such a father ever, in any way, to acknow- 
 ledge or take any notice of any of his unfortunate children. Imperious 
 custom demands that he should treat them, in every respect, like his 
 other slaves. If he drive them into the field to labour, if he sell 
 them at auction to the highest bidder, it is all well. But if he 
 audaciously undertake to exhibit towards them, in any way, the 
 slightest indication of paternal tenderness, he may be sure that his 
 character will be assailed by the tongue of universal slander ; that his 
 every weak point and unjustifiable action will be carefully sought out, 
 malignantly magnified, and ostentatiously exposed ; that he will be 
 compelled to run a sort of moral gauntlet, and will be represented 
 among all the better sort of people, as everything that is infamous, 
 base, and contemptible. 
 
 Colonel Moore was far too wise a man to entertain the slightest 
 idea of exposing himself to anything of that sort. He had always 
 kept the best society, and though he might be a democrat in politics, 
 he was certainly very much of an aristocrat and an exclusive in his 
 feelings. Of course, he had the same sort of indescribable horror at 
 the thought of violating any of the settled proprieties of the society 
 in which he moved, that a modern belle has of cotton lace, or a 
 modern dandy of an iron fork. This being the case, nobody will 
 wonder — so far at least as Colonel Moore had any control over the 
 matter — that I was still ignorant who my father was. 
 
 But though a secret to me, it certainly was not so to Colonel Moore's 
 friends and visitors. If nothing else had betrayed it, the striking 
 resemblance between us would certainly have done so ; and although 
 that same regard to propriety, which prevented Colonel Moore from 
 ever noticing the relationship, also tied up the tongues of his guests, 
 yet, after I had learned the secret, there immediately occurred to my 
 mind the true explanation of certain sly jests and distant allusions, 
 which had sometimes been dropped towards the end of a dinner, by 
 some of those guests whom deep potations had inspired at once with 
 wit and veracity. These brilliancies, of which I had never been able 
 to understand the meaning, were always ill received by Colonel Moore, 
 and by all the soberer part of the company, and were frequently fol 
 lowed by a command to me and the other servants to emit the room ;
 
 10 THE WHITE SLAVE; OR, 
 
 but why or wherefore, till I became possessed of the key above men- 
 tioned, I was always at a great loss to determine. 
 
 The secret which my father did not choose, and which my mother 
 did not dare, to communicate, I might easily have obtained from my 
 fellow servants. But at this time, like most of the lighter-eom- 
 plexioned slaves, I felt a sort of contempt for my duskier brothers in 
 misfortune. I kept myself as much as possible at a distance fiom 
 them, and scorned to associate with men a little darker than myself. 
 So ready are slaves to imbibe all the ridiculous prejudices of their 
 oppressors, and themselves to add new links to the chain wind 1 , 
 deprives them of their liberty ! 
 
 But let me do my father justice ; for I do not believe that he was 
 totally destitute of a father's feelings. Though he never made the 
 slightest acknowledgment of the claims which I had upon him, yet I 
 am sure, in his own heart, he did not totally deny their validity. 
 There was a tone of good-natured indulgence whenever he spoke to 
 me, an air of kindness, which though he always had it, seemed towards 
 me to have in it something peculiar. At any rate, he succeeded in 
 captivating my affections ; for though I regarded him only as my 
 master, I loved him very sincerely 7 . 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 I was about seventeen years old, when my mother was attacked by 
 a fever, which proved fatal to her. She early had a presentiment of 
 her fate ; and before the disorder had made any great progress, she 
 sent me word that she desired to see me. I found her in bed. She 
 hegged the woman who nursed her, to leave us together, and bade 
 me sit down by her bed-side. Having told me that she feared 
 she was going to die, she could not think it kind to me, she said, to 
 leave the world, without first telling me a secret, which possibly I 
 might find hereafter of some consequence. I begged her to go on, 
 and waited with impatience for the promised information. She began 
 with a short account of her own life. Her mother was a slave ; her 
 father was a certain Colonel Randolph — a scion of one of the great 
 Virginian families. She had hecn raised as a lady's maid, and on 
 the marriage of Colonel Moore, had been purchased by him and pre- 
 sented to his wife. She was then quite a girl. As she grew older, 
 and her beauty hecame more noticeable, she found much favour in 
 the eyes of her master. She had a neat little house, vrith a double 
 set of rooms — an arrangement, as much for Colonel Moore's conve- 
 nience as her own ; and though some light tasks of needlework were
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 11 
 
 sometimes required of her, yet as nobody chose to quarrel with 
 master's favourite, she lived, henceforward, a very careless, indolent, 
 but, as she told me, a very unhappy life. 
 
 For a part of this unhappiness she was indebted to herself. The 
 air of superiority she assumed in her intercourse with the other ser- 
 vants, made them all hate her, and induced them to improve every 
 opportunity of vexing and mortifying her ; — and to all sorts of femi- 
 nine mortiiications she was as sensitive as any belle that ever existed. 
 But though vain of her beauty and her master's favour, she was not 
 ill-tempered; and the foolish pride from which she suffered, sprung 
 in her, as a similar feeling did in me, from a groundless, though common 
 prejudice. Indeed, our situation was so superior to that of most of 
 the other slaves, that w r e naturally imagined ourselves, in some sort, 
 a superior race. It was doubtless under the influence of this feeling, 
 that my mother, having told me who my father was, observed with a 
 smile and a self-complacent air, which even the tremors of her fever 
 did not prevent from being apparent, that both on the father's and 
 the mother's side I had running in my veins the best blood of Vir- 
 ginia — the blood, she added, of the Moores and the Randolphs ! 
 
 Alas ! she did not seem to recollect that though I might count all 
 the nobles of Virginia among my ancestors, one drop of blood im- 
 ported from Africa — though that, too, might be the blood of kings 
 and chieftains — would be enough to taint the whole pedigree, and to 
 condemn me to perpetual slavery, even in the house of my own 
 father ! 
 
 The information which my mother communicated made little im- 
 pression upon me at the moment. My principal anxiety was for her ; 
 for she had always been the tenderest and most affectionate of 
 parents. The progress of her disorder was rapid, and on the third 
 day she ceased to live. I lamented her with the sincerest grief. 
 The sharpness of my sorrow was soon over ; but my spirits did not 
 seem to regain their former tone. The thoughtless gaiety, which till 
 now had shed a sort of sunshine over my life, seemed to desert me. 
 My thoughts began to recur very frequently to the information which 
 my mother had communicated. I hardly know how to describe the 
 effect which it seemed to have upon me. Nor is it easy to tell 
 what were its actual effects, or what ought to be ascribed to other 
 and more general causes. Perhaps that revolution of feeling which 
 I now experienced, should be attributed, in a great measure, to the 
 change from boyhood to manhood, through which I was passing. 
 Hitherto things had seemed to happen like the events of a dream, 
 without touching me deeply or affecting me permanently. I was 
 sometimes vexed and dissatisfied; I had my occasional sorrows and 
 complaints. But those sorrows were soon over, and as after summer
 
 12 THE WHITE SLAVE; OR, 
 
 showers the sun shines out the brighter, so my transient sadness was 
 soon succeeded by a more lively gaiety, which, as soon as immediate 
 grievances were forgotten, burst forth, unsubdued either by reflec- 
 tions on the past or anxieties for the future. In that gaiety there 
 was indeed scarcely anything of substantial pleasure ; it originated 
 rather in a careless insensibility. It was like the glare of the moon- 
 beams, bright, but cold. Such as it was, however, it was far more 
 comfortable than the state of feeling by which it now began to be 
 succeeded. My mind seemed to be filled with indefinite anxieties, of 
 which I could divine neither the causes nor the cure. There was, as 
 it were, a heavy weight upon my bosom, an unsatisfied craving for 
 something, I knew not what, a longing which I could do nothing to 
 satisfy, because I could not tell its object. I would be often lost in 
 thought, but my mind did not seem to fix itself to any certain aim, 
 and after hours of apparently the deepest meditation, I should have 
 been very much at a loss to tell about what I had been thinking. 
 
 But sometimes my reflections would take a more definite shape. 
 I would begin to consider what I was and what I had to anticipate. 
 The son of a freeman, yet born a slave ! Endowed by nature with 
 abilities, which I should never be permitted to exercise ; possessed of 
 knowledge, which already I found it expedient to conceal ! The 
 slave of my own father, the servant of my own brother, a bounded, 
 limited, confined, and captive creature, who did not dare to go out of 
 sight of his master's house without a written permission to do so ! 
 Destined to be the sport of I knew not whose caprices ; forbidden in 
 anything to act for myself, or to consult my own happiness ; com- 
 pelled to labour all my life at another's bidding; and liable every 
 hour and instant to oppressions the most outrageous, and degrada- 
 tions the most humiliating ! 
 
 These reflections soon grew so bitter that I struggled hard to sup- 
 press them. But that was not always in my power. Again and 
 again, in spite of all my efforts, these hateful ideas would start up 
 and sting me into anguish. 
 
 My young master still continued kind as ever. I was changing to 
 a man, but he still remained a boy. His protracted ill health, which 
 had checked bis growth, appeared also to retard his mental maturity. 
 He seemed every day to fall more and more under my influence ; 
 and every day my attachment to him grew stronger. He was, in 
 fact, my sole hope. "While I remained with him, I might reasonably 
 expect to escape the utter bitterness of slavery. In his eyes, I was 
 not a mere servant. He regarded me rather as a loved and trusted 
 companion. Indeed, though he had the name and prerogatives of 
 master, I was much less under his control than he was under mine. 
 There was between us something of a brotherly affection, at least of
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 13 
 
 that kind which may exist between foster-brothers, though neither of 
 us ever alluded to our actual relationship, and he, probably, was 
 ignorant of it. 
 
 I loved Master James as well as ever ; but towards Colonel Moore 
 my feelings underwent a rapid and a radical change. "While I con- 
 sidered myself merely as his slave, his apparent kindness had gained 
 my affections, and there was nothing I woidd not have done or suf- 
 fered for so good-natured and condescending a master. But after I 
 had learned to look upon myself as his son, I began to feel that I 
 might justly claim as a right, \vhat I had till now regarded as a pure 
 gratuity. I began to feel that I might claim much more, — even an 
 equal birth -right with my brethren. Occasionally, I had read the 
 Bible ; and I now turned with new interest to the story of Hagar the 
 bond-woman, and Ishmael her son ; and as I read how an angel came 
 to their relief when the hard-hearted Abraham had driven them into 
 the wilderness, there seemed to grow up within me a wild, strange, 
 uncertain hope, that in some accident, I knew not what, I too might 
 find succour and relief. At the same time, with this irrational hope, 
 a new spirit of bitterness burst in upon my soul. Unconsciously I 
 clenched my hands, and set my teeth, and fancied myself, as it were, 
 another Ishmael, wandering in the wilderness, every man's hand 
 against me, and my hand against every man. The injustice of mv 
 unnatural parent stung me deeper and deeper, and all mv love for 
 him was turned into hate. The atrocity of those laws which made 
 me a slave — a slave in the house of my own father — seemed to glare 
 before my too prophetic eyes in letters of blood. Young as I was, 
 and as yet untouched, I trembled for the future, and cursed the country 
 and the hour that gave me birth ! 
 
 I endeavoured, as much as possible, to conceal these new feelings 
 with which I was tormented ; and as deceit is one of those defences 
 against tyranny of which a slave early learns to avail himself, I was 
 not unsuccessful. My young master would sometimes find me in 
 tears ; and sometimes when I would be lost in thought, he complained 
 of my inattention. But I put him off with plausible excuses ; and 
 though he suspected there was something which I did not tell him, 
 and would frequently say to me, " Come, Archy, boy, let me know 
 what it is that troubles you," — I made light of the matter, and 
 laughed off his suspicions. 
 
 I was now about to lose this kind master, in whose tenderness 
 and affection I found the sole palliative that could make slavery 
 tolerable. His health, which had always been bad, greAv rapidly 
 worse, and confined him first to his chamber, and then to his bed. 
 I nursed him during his whole illness with a mother's tenderness and 
 assiduity. Never was master more faithfully served; — but it was
 
 14 THE WHITE SLAVE ) OR, 
 
 the friend, not the slave, who rendered these attentions. He was 
 not insensihle to my services ; he did not seem to like that any one 
 but I should be about him, and it was only from my hand that he 
 would take his physic or his food. But it was not in the power of 
 physician or of nurse to save him. He wasted daily, and grew weaker 
 e v ery hour. The fatal crisis soon came. His weeping friends were 
 collected about his bed, — but the tears they shed were not as bitter 
 as mine. Almost with his last breath he recommended me to the 
 good graces of his father; but the man who had closed his heart to 
 the promptings of paternal tenderness, was not likely to give much 
 ht to the requests of a dying son. He bade his friends farewell, 
 — he pressed my hand in his, and, with a gentle sigh, he expired in 
 my arms. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The family of Colonel Moore knew well how truly I had loved, 
 and how faithfully I had served, my young master. They respected 
 the profound depth of my grief, and for a week or two I was suffered 
 to weep on unmolested. My feelings were no longer of that acute 
 and piercing kind which I have described in the preceding chapter. 
 The temperament of the mind is for ever changing. That state of 
 preternatural sensibility of which I have attempted to give an idea, 
 had disappeared when my attention became wholly occupied in the 
 care of my dying master. It was succeeded by a dull and stupid 
 sorrow. Apparently I now had increased cause for agitation and 
 alarm. That which I then dreaded, had happened. My young master, 
 upon whom all my hopes were suspended, lived no longer, and I knew 
 not what was to become of me. But the fit of fear and anxious anti- 
 cipation was over, and I now waited my fate with a sort of stupid and 
 careless indifference. 
 
 Though not called upon to do it, I continued as usual to wait upon 
 my master's table. For several days I took my place instinctively 
 near where Master James's chair ought to have stood, till the sight of 
 the vacant place drove me in tears to the opposite corner. In the 
 meantime, nobody called upon me to do anything, or seemed to notice 
 that I was present, Even Master William made an effort to repress 
 his habitual insolence. 
 
 But this could not last long. Indeed it was a stretch of indulgence 
 which no one but a favourite servant could have expected, since slaves, 
 in general, are thought to have no business to be sorry, if it makes 
 them unable to work. 
 
 One morning after breakfast, Master William having discussed his
 
 KBHOIBS OF A FUGITIVE. 15 
 
 toast and coffee, began by telling his father that, in his opinion, the 
 
 inta at Spring-Meadow were a great deal too indulgently treated. 
 He was by this time a smart, dashing, elegant young man, having 
 returned upwards of a year before from college, and quite lately from 
 Charleston, in South Carolina, whither he had been to spend a winter, 
 and, as his father expressed it, to wear off the rusticity of the school- 
 room. It was there, perhaps, that he had learned the new precepts 
 of humanity which he was now preaching. He declared that any 
 tenderness towards a servant only tended to make him insolent and 
 
 ntented, and was quite thrown away on the ungrateful rascals. 
 
 : looking about, as if in search of some victim upon whom to 
 practise a doctrine so consonant to his own disposition, his eye lighted 
 
 i me. " There's that boy, Arehy, I'll bet a hundred to one I 
 could make him one of the best servants in the world. He's a bright 
 fellow, naturally, and nothing has spoiled him but poor James's over- 
 indulgence. Come, father, just be good enough to give him to me, I 
 want another servant most devilishly." 
 
 Without stopping for an answer, he hastened out of the room, 
 having, as he said, two jockey races to attend that morning ; and, 
 what was more, a cock-fight into the bargain. There was nobody 
 else at table. Colonel Moore turned towards me. He began with 
 commending very highly my faithful attachment to his poor son 
 James. As he mentioned his son's name, the tears stood in his eyes, 
 and for a moment or two he was unable to speak. He recovered 
 himself presently, and added — " I hope now )'ou will transfer all this 
 same zeal and affection to Master William." 
 
 These words roused me in a moment. I knew Master William to 
 be a tyrant, from whose soul custom had long since obliterated what 
 little humanity nature had bestowed upon him ; and to judge from 
 what he had let drop that morning, he had of late improved upon his 
 natural inclination for cruelty, and had proceeded to the final length 
 of reducing tyranny into a system and a science. I knew, too, that 
 from childhood he had entertained a particular spite against me; and 
 I dreaded, lest he was already devising the means of inflicting upon 
 me with interest all those insults and injuries from which the pro- 
 tection of his younger brother had hitherto shielded me. 
 
 It was with horror and alarm that I found myself in danger of 
 falling into such hands. I threw myself at my master's feet, and 
 besought him, with all the eloquence of grief and fear, not to give me 
 to Master William. The terms in which I spoke of his son, though I 
 chose the mildest I could think of, and the horror I expressed at the 
 thoughts of becoming his servant, though I endeavoured as much as 
 possible to save the father's feelings, seemed to make him angry. 
 The smile left his lip, and his brow grew dark and contracted. I
 
 ] 5 THE WHITE SLAVE \ OR, 
 
 began to despair of escaping the wretched fate that awaited me; and 
 my despair drove me to a very rash and foolish action. For, em- 
 boldened by the danger of becoming the slave of Master William, I 
 dared to hint — though distantly and obscurely — at the information 
 which my mother had communicated on her death-bed; and I even 
 ventured something like a half appeal to Colonel Moore's 'paternal 
 tenderness. At first he did not seem to understand me ; but the 
 moment he began to comprehend my meaning, his face grew black as 
 a thunder-cloud, then became pale, and immediately was suffused with 
 a burning blush, in which shame and rage were equally commingled. 
 I now gave myself up for lost, and expected an instant outbreak of 
 fury; but, after a momentary struggle, Colonel Moore seemed to 
 regain his composure; even the habitual smile returned to his lips ; 
 and without taking any notice of my last appeal, or giving any further 
 signs of having understood it, he merely remarked, that he did not 
 know how to refuse Master William's request, nor could he compre- 
 hend the meaning of my reluctance. It was mighty foolish ; still he 
 was willing to indulge me so far as to allow me the choice of entering 
 into Master William's service, or going into the field. This alternative 
 was proposed with an air and a manner which was intended to stop 
 my mouth, and allow me nothing but the bare liberty of choosing. It 
 was, indeed, no very agreeable alternative ; but anything, even the 
 hard labour, scanty fare, and harsh treatment, to which I knew the 
 field hands were subjected, seemed preferable to becoming the sport 
 of Master William's tyranny. I was piqued too, at the cavalier 
 manner in which my request had been treated, and I did not 
 hesitate. I thanked Colonel Moore for his great goodness, and at 
 once made choice of the field. He seemed rather surprised at my 
 selection, and with a smile which bordered close upon a sneer, bade 
 me report myself to Mr. Stubbs. 
 
 An overseer is regarded in all those parts of slave-holding America 
 with which I ever became acquainted, very much in the same light in 
 which people, in countries uncursed with slavery, look upon a hang- 
 man ; and as this latter employment, however useful and necessary, 
 has never succeeded in becoming respectable, so the business of an 
 overseer is likely, from its nature, always to continue contemptible and 
 degraded. The young lady who dines heartily on lamb has a senti- 
 mental horror of the butcher who killed it ; and the slave-owner who 
 lives luxuriously on the forced labour of his slaves, has alike sentimental 
 abhorrence of the man who holds the whip and compels the labour. 
 He is like a receiver of stolen goods, who cannot bear the thoughts 
 of stealing himself, but who has no objection to live upon the pro- 
 ceeds of stolen property. A thief is but a thief ; an overseer but an 
 overseer. The slave -owner prides himself upon the honourable appel-
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 17 
 
 /at ion of a planter; and the receiver of stolen goods assumes the 
 character of a respectable shopkeeper. By such contemptible juggle 
 do men deceive not themselves only, but ol'ttimes the world also. 
 
 Mr. Thomas Stubbs was overseer at Spring-Meadow, a person with 
 whose name, appearance and character I was perfectly familiar, 
 though hitherto I had been so fortunate as to have had very little 
 communication with him. 
 
 He was a thick set, clumsy man, about fifty, with a little bullet 
 head, covered with short tangled hair, and stuck close upon his 
 shoulders. His face was curiously mottled and spotted, for what with 
 sunshine, what with whisky, and what with ague and fever, brown, red, 
 and sallow seemed to have put in a joint claim to the possession of 
 it, without having yet been able to arrive at an amicable partition. 
 He was generally to be seen on horseback, leaning forward over the 
 saddle, and brandishing a long thick whip of twisted cow-hide, which 
 from time to time he applied over the head and shoulders of some 
 unfortunate slave. If you were within hearing, his conversation, or 
 rather his commands and observations, would have appeared a string 
 of oaths, from the midst of which it was not very easy to disentangle 
 his meaning. Some such exclamations were pretty sure to begin every 
 sentence, and others to end it. It was, however, only when Mr. 
 Stubbs had sole possession of the field, that he sprinkled his orders 
 with this strong spice of brutality ; for when Colonel Moore or any 
 other gentleman happened to be riding by, he could assume quite an 
 air of gentleness and moderation, and, what appears very surprising, 
 was actually able to express himself with not more than one oath to 
 every other sentence. 
 
 Mr. Stubbs, in his management of the plantation, did not confine 
 himself to hard words, He used his whip as freely as his tongue. 
 Colonel Moore had received a European education ; and like every 
 man educated anywhere — except on a slave estate — he had a great 
 dislike to all unnecessary cruelty. He was usually made very angry, 
 about once a week, by some brutal act on the part of his overseer. 
 But having satisfied his outraged feelings by declaring himself very 
 much offended, and Mr. Stubbs's proceedings to be quite intolerable, 
 he ended with suffering things to go on just as before. The truth 
 was, Mr. Stubbs understood making crops ; and such a man was too 
 valuable to be given up, for the mere sentimental satisfaction of pro- 
 tecting the slaves from his tyranny. 
 
 It was a great change to me, after having been accustomed to the 
 elegance and propriety of Colonel Moore's house, and the gentle rule 
 and light service of Master James, to pass under the despotic control 
 of a vulgar, ignorant, and brutal blackguard. Besides, I had never 
 been accustomed to severe and regular labour; and it was trying,
 
 18 THE "WHITE SLAVE j OR, 
 
 indeed, to submit at once to the hard work of the field. However, I 
 resolved to make the best of it. I was strong, and use would soon 
 make my tasks more tolerable. I knew well enough that Mr. Stubbs 
 was totally destitute of all humane feelings, but I bad no reason to 
 suppose that he entertained towards me any of that malignity which I 
 had so much dreaded in Master William. From what I bad known 
 of him, I did not judge him to be a very bad tempered man ; and I 
 took it for granted that he cursed and whipped, not so much out of 
 spite and ill feeling, but as a mere matter of business. He seemed 
 to imagine, like every other overseer, that it was impossible to manage 
 a plantation in any other way. My diligence I hoped might enable 
 me to escape the lash ; and Mr. Stubbs's vulgar abuse, however 
 provoking the other servants might esteem it, I thought I might 
 easily despise. 
 
 Mr. Stubbs listened to my account of myself very graciously, all 
 the time rolling his tobacco from one cheek to the other, and squint- 
 ing at me with one of his little twinkling grey eyes. Having cursed 
 me to his satisfaction for a "blunder-head," he bade me follow him to 
 the field. A large clumsy hoe, with a handle six feet long, was put 
 into my hands, and I was kept hard at work all day. 
 
 At dark, I was suffered to quit the field, and the overseer pointed 
 out to me a miserable little hovel, about ten feet square, and half as 
 many high, with a leaky roof, and without either floor or window. 
 This was to be my house, or rather I was to share it with Billy, a 
 young slave about my own age. 
 
 To this wretched hut I removed a chest, containing my clothes and 
 a few other things,' such as a slave is permitted to possess. By way 
 of bed and bedding, I received a single blanket, about as big as a 
 large pocket handkerchief ; and a basket of corn and a pound or two 
 of damaged bacon, were given me as my week's allowance of provisions. 
 But as I was totally destitute of \wt, kettle, knife, plate, or dish of 
 any kind — for these are conveniences which slaves must procure as 
 they can — I was in some danger of being obliged to make my supper 
 on raw bacon. Billy saw my distress and took pity on me. He 
 helped me beat my corn into hominy, and leut me his own little 
 kettle to cocfk it in; so that about midnight I was able to break a 
 fast of some sixteen or twenty bours. My chest being both broad 
 and long, served tolerably well for bed, chair and table. I sold a part 
 of my clothes, which were indeed much too fine for a field hand ; 
 and having bought myself a knife, a spoon, and a kettle, I was able 
 to put my housekeeping into tolerable order. 
 
 My accommodations were as good as a field hand had a right to 
 expect ; but they were not such as to make me particularly happy ; 
 especially as I had been used to something better. My hands
 
 H 
 
 H 
 
 H 
 
 £ 
 
 H 
 O 
 
 e 
 
 w 
 
 5=3
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 19 
 
 were blistered with the hoe, anil coming in at night completely 
 exhausted by a sort of labour to which I was not accustomed, it was 
 do very agreeable recreation to be obliged to beat hominy, and to be 
 up till after midnight preparing food for the next day, with the recol- 
 lection, too, that I was obliged to turn into the field with the first 
 dawn of the morning. But this labour, severe as it was, had been in 
 a manner my own choice. In choosing it, I had escaped a worse 
 tyranny and a more bitter servitude. I had avoided falling into the 
 hands of Master William. 
 
 As I shall not have occasion to mention that amiable youth again, 
 I may as well finish his history here. Some six or eight months 
 after the death of his younger brother, he became involved in a 
 drunken quarrel, at a cock-fight. This quarrel ended in a duel, and 
 Master William fell dead at the first fire. His death was a great 
 stroke to Colonel Moore, who seemed for a long time almost incon- 
 solable. I did not lament him, either for his own sake or his father's. 
 I knew well that in his death I had escaped a cruel and vindictive 
 master ; and I felt a stern and bitter pleasure in seeing the bereave- 
 ments of a man who had dared to trample upon the sacred ties of 
 nature. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 I had the same task with those who had been field hands all their 
 lives ; but I was too proud to flinch or complain. I exerted myself 
 to the utmost, so that even Mr. Stubbs had no fault to find, but, on 
 the contrary, pronounced me more than once a " right likely hand." 
 
 The cabin which I shared with Billy, had a very leaky roof; as 
 the weather was rainy, we found it by no means comfortable. At 
 length we determined one day to repair it, and to get time to do so, 
 we exerted ourselves to get through our tasks at an early hour. 
 
 We had finished about four o'clock in the afternoon, and were return- 
 ing together to the town — for so we called, the collection of cabins in 
 which the servants lived. Mr. Stubbs met us, and having inquired if 
 we had finished our tasks, he muttered something about our not 
 having half enough to do, and ordered us to go and weed his garden. 
 Billy submitted in silence, for he had been too long under Mr. Stubbs's 
 jurisdiction to think of questioning his commands. But I ventured 
 to say, in as respectful manner as I could, that as we had finished our 
 regular tasks, it seemed very hard to give us this additional work. 
 This put Mr. Stubbs into a furious passion, and he swore twenty oaths 
 that I should both weed the garden and be whipped into the bargain. 
 He sprang from his horse, and catching me by the collar of mv shirt, 
 
 c 2
 
 20 THE WHITE SLAVE \ OR, 
 
 the only dress I had on, he began to lay upon me with his whip. It 
 was the first time, since I had ceased to be a child, that I had been 
 exposed to this degrading torture. The pain was great enough ; the 
 idea of being whipped was sufficiently bitter, but these were nothing 
 in comparison with the sharp and burning sense of the insolent in- 
 justice that was done me. It was with the utmost difficulty that I 
 restrained myself from springing upon my brutal tormentor, and dash- 
 ing him to the ground. But alas! I was a slave. What in a freeman 
 is a most justifiable act of self-defence, becomes in a slave unpar- 
 donable insolence and rebellion. I griped my hands, set my teeth 
 firmly together, and bore the injury the best I could. I was then 
 turned into the garden, and the moon happening to be full, I was 
 kept there weeding till near midnight. 
 
 The next day was Sunday. The Sunday's rest is the sole and 
 single boon for which the American slave is indebted to the religion 
 of his master. That master tramples under foot every other precept 
 of the Gospel without the slightest hesitation, but so long as he does 
 not compel his slaves to work on Sundays, he thinks himself well 
 entitled to the name of a Christian. Perhaps he is so ; but if he is, 
 a title so easily purchased can be worth but little. 
 
 I resolved to avail myself of the Sunday's leisure to complain to 
 my master of the barbarous treatment I had experienced the day 
 before at the hands of Mr. Stubbs. Colonel Moore received me 
 with a coolness and distance quite unusual in him, for generally he 
 had a smile for everybody, especially for his slaves. However, he 
 heard my story, and even condescended to declare that nothing gave 
 him so much pain as to have his servants unnecessarily or unrea- 
 sonably punished, and that he never woidd suffer such things to take 
 place upon his plantation. He then bade me go about my business, 
 having first assured me that in the course of the day he would see 
 Mr. Stubbs, and inquire into the matter. This was the last I heard 
 from Colonel Moore. That same evening, Mr. Stubbs sent for me to 
 his own house, and having tied me to a tree before his door, gave me 
 forty lashes, and bade me complain at the house again, if I dared. 
 " It's a hard case, indeed," he added, " if I can't lick a cursed 
 nigger's insolence out of him, without being obliged to give an 
 account of it !" 
 
 Insolence ! — the tyrant's ready plea ! 
 
 If a poor slave has been whipped and miserably abused, and no 
 other apology for it can be thought of, the rascal's ' insolence' can be 
 always pleaded ; and when pleaded, is enough, in every slave-holder's 
 estimation, to excuse and justify any brutality. The slightest word, 
 jr look, or action, that seems to indicate the slave's sense of any
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 21 
 
 injustice that is done him, is denounced as insolence, and is punished 
 with the most unrelenting severity. 
 
 This was the second time I had experienced the discipline of the 
 lash ; but I did not find the second dose any more agreeable than the 
 first. A blow is esteemed, among freemen, the very highest of indig- 
 nities ; and, low as their oppressors have sunk them, it is esteemed 
 an indignity among slaves. Besides — as strange as some people 
 may think it — a twisted cowhide, laid on by the hand of a strong 
 man, does actually indict a good deal of pain, especially if every blow 
 brings blood. 
 
 I will leave it to the reader's own feelings to imagine, what no 
 words can sufficiently describe, the bitterness of that man's misery, 
 who is even r hour in danger of experiencing this indignity and this 
 torture. "When he has wrought up his fancy — and let him thank 
 God, from the very bottom of his heart, that in his case it is only 
 fancy — to a lively idea of that misery, he will have taken the first step 
 towards gaining some notion, however faint and inadequate, of what 
 it is to be a slave ! 
 
 I had now learned a lesson which every slave early learns — I found 
 that I did not enjoy even the privilege of complaining ; and that the 
 only way to escape a reiteration of injustice, was to submit in silence 
 to the first infliction. I did my best to swallow this bitter lesson, 
 and to acquire a portion of that hypocritical humility, so necessary to 
 a person in my unhappy condition. Humility, and whether it be real 
 or pretended they care but little, is esteemed, by masters, the great 
 and crowning virtue of a slave ; for they understand by it, a disposi- 
 tion to submit, without resistance or complaint, to every possible 
 wrong and indignity ; to reply to the most opprobrious and unjust 
 accusations with a soft voice and a smiling face ; to take kicks, cuffs, 
 and blows, as though they were favours ; to kiss the foot that treads 
 you to the dust. 
 
 This sort of humility was a virtue with which, I must confess, 
 nature had but scantily endowed me ; nor did I find it so easy as I 
 might have desired, to strip myself of all the feelings of a man. It 
 was like quitting the erect carriage which I had received at God's 
 hand, and learning to crawl on the earth like a base reptile. This 
 was, indeed, a hard lesson. But an American overseer is a stern 
 teacher; and if I learned but slowly, it was not the fault of Mr. 
 Stubbs.
 
 i>2 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 It would be irksome to myself, arid tedious to the reader, to enter 
 into a minute detail of all the miserable and monotonous incidents 
 that made up my life at this time. The last chapter is a specimen, 
 from which it may be judged what sort of pleasures I enjoyed. They 
 may be summed up in a few words ; and the single sentence which 
 embraces this part of my history, might suffice to describe the whole 
 lives of many thousand Americans. I was hard worked, ill fed, and 
 well whipped. Mr. Stubbs having once began with me, did not suffer 
 me to get over the effects of one Hogging before he inflicted another ; 
 and I have some marks of his about me, which I expect to carry to 
 the grave. All this time he assured me, that what he did was only 
 for mv own good ; and he swore that he would never give over till he 
 had lashed my cursed insolence out of me. 
 
 The present began to grow intolerable ; and what hope for the 
 future has the slave ? I wished for death ; nor do I know to what 
 desperate counsels I might have been driven, when one of those 
 changes, to which a slave is ever exposed, but over which he can 
 exercise no rontrol, afforded me some temporary relief from my 
 distresses. 
 
 Colonel Moore, by the sudden death of a relation, became heir to 
 a large property in South Carolina. But the person deceased had 
 left a will, about which there was some dispute, which had every 
 appearance of ending in a lawsuit. The matter required Colonel 
 Moore's personal attention; and he had lately set out for Charleston, 
 and had taken with him several of the servants. One or two also 
 had recently died ; and Mrs. Moore, soon after her husband's depar- 
 ture, sent for me to assist in filling up the gap which had been made 
 in her domestic establishment. 
 
 I was truly happy at the change. I knew Mrs. Moore to be a lady 
 who would never insult or trample on a servant, even though he were 
 a slave, unless she happened to be very much out of humour — an 
 unfortunate occurrence — which, in her case, did not happen oftener 
 than once or twice a week ; except, indeed, in the very warm weather, 
 when the fit sometimes lasted the whole week through. 
 
 Besides, I hoped that the recollection of my fond and faithful 
 attachment to her younger son, who had always been her favourite, 
 would secure me some kindness at her hands. Nor was I mistaken. 
 The contrast of my new situation with the tyranny of Mr. Stubbs, 
 gave it almost the colour of happiness. I regained my cheerfulness 
 and my buoyant spirits. I was too wise, or rather this new influx of
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 23 
 
 cheerfulness made me too thoughtless, to trouble myself about the 
 future ; and satisfied with the temporary relief I experienced, I ceased 
 to brood over the miseries of my condition. 
 
 About this time, Miss Caroline, Colonel Moore's eldest daughter, 
 returned from Baltimore, where she had been living for several years 
 with an aunt, who superintended her education. She was but an 
 ordinary girl, without much grace or beauty : but her maid, Cassy,* 
 who had formerly been my play-fellow, and who returned a woman, 
 though she had left us a child, possessed a high degree of both. 
 
 I learned from one of my fellow-servants, that she was the daughter 
 of Colonel Moore, by a female slave, who for a year or two had shaied 
 her master's favour jointly with my mother, but who had died many 
 years since, leaving Cassy an infant. Her mother was said to have 
 been a great beauty, and a very dangerous rival of mine. 
 
 So far as regarded personal charms, Cassy was not unworthy of her 
 parentage, either on the father's or the mother's side. She was not 
 tall, but the grace and elegance of her figure could not be surpassed ; 
 and the elastic vivacity of all her movements afforded a model, which 
 her indolent and languid mistress, who did nothing but loll all day 
 upon a sofa, might have imitated with advantage. The clear soft 
 olive of her complexion, brightening in either cheek to a rich red, 
 was certainly more pleasing than the sickly, sallow hue, so common, 
 or rather so universal, among the patrician beauties of Lower Virginia; 
 and she could boast a pair of eyes, which, for brilliancy and expression, 
 I have never seen surpassed. 
 
 At this time, I prided myself upon my colour as much as any 
 Virginian of them all ; and although I had found, by a bitter expe- 
 rience, that a slave, whether white or black, is still a slave, and that 
 the master, heedless of his victim's complexion, handles the whip 
 with perfect impartiality; still, like my poor mother, I thought myself 
 of a superior caste, and would have felt it a degradation to put myself 
 on a level with those a few shades darker than myself. This silly 
 pride had kept me from forming intimacies with the other servants, 
 either male or female ; for I was decidedly whiter than any of them. 
 It had, too, justly enough, exposed me to an ill will, of which I had 
 more than once felt the consequences, but which had not yet wholly 
 cured me of my folly. 
 
 Cassy had, perhaps, more African blood than I ; but this was a 
 point, however weighty and important I had at first esteemed it, 
 which, as I became more acquainted with her, seemed continually of 
 less consequence, and soon disappeared entirely from my thoughts. 
 We were much together ; and her beauty, vivacity, and good humour, 
 
 * Cassandra. 

 
 24 THE WHITE SLAVE; OR, 
 
 made every day a stronger impression upon me. I found myself in 
 love before I had thought of it ; and presently I discovered that my 
 affection was not unrequited. 
 
 Cassy was one of nature's children, and she had never learned 
 those arts of coquetry, often as skilfully practised by the maid as the 
 mistress, by which courtships arc protracted. "We loved ; and before 
 long we talked of marriage. Cassy consulted her mistress, and the 
 answer was favourable. Mrs. Moore listened with equal readiness to 
 me. Women are never happier than when they have an opportunity 
 to dabble in match-making; nor does even the humble condition of 
 the parties quite deprive the business of its fascination. 
 
 It was determined that our marriage should be a little festival 
 among the servants. The coming Sunday was fixed on as the day ; 
 and a Methodist clergyman, who happened to have wandered into the 
 neighbourhood, readily undertook to perform the ceremony. This 
 part of his office, I suppose he would have performed for anybody ; 
 but he undertook it the more readily for us, because Cassy, while at 
 Baltimore, had become a member of the Methodist society. 
 
 I was well pleased with all this ; for it seemed to give to our union 
 something of that solemnity which properly belonged to it. In 
 general, marriage among American slaves is treated as a matter of 
 very little moment. It is a mere temporary union, contracted without 
 ceremony, not recognised by the laws, little or not at all regarded by 
 the masters, and, of course, often but lightly esteemed by the parties. 
 The recollection that the husband may, any day, be sold into 
 Louisiana, and the wife into Georgia, holds out but a slight induce- 
 ment to draw tight the bonds of connubial intercourse ; and the cer- 
 tainty that the fruits of their marriage, the children of their love, are 
 to be born slaves, and reared to all the privations and calamities of 
 hopeless servitude, is enough to strike a damp into the hearts of the 
 fondest couple. Slaves yield to the impulses of nature, and propa- 
 gate a race of slaves ; but, save in a few rare instances, servitude is 
 as fatal to domestic love as to all the other virtues. Some few choice 
 spirits, indeed, will still rise superior to their condition, and, when 
 cut off from every other support, will find within their own hearts the 
 means of resisting the deadly and demoralizing influences of servitude. 
 In the same manner, the baleful poison of the plague or yellow fever 
 — innocent, indeed, and powerless in comparison ! — while it rages 
 through an infected city, and sweeps its thousands and tens of thou- 
 sands to the grave, finds, here and there, an iron constitution, which 
 defies its total malignity, and sustains itself by the sole aid of nature's 
 health-preserving power. 
 
 On the Friday before the Sunday which had been fixed upon for 
 our marriage, Colonel Moore returned to Spring-Meadow. His arrival
 
 ^ t 
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. _■> 
 
 was unexpected, and by me, at least, very much unwished for. To 
 the other servants who hastened to welcome him home, he spoke 
 with his usual kindness and good nature ; but though I had come 
 forward with the rest, all the notice he took of me, was a single stare 
 of dissatisfaction. lie appeared to be surprised, and that, too, not 
 asrreeablv, to see me ajain in the house. 
 
 The next day I was discharged from my duties as house servant, 
 and put again under the control of Mr. Stubbs. This touched me to 
 the quick ; but it was nothing to what I felt the day following, when 
 I went to the house to claim my bride. I was told that she was 
 gone in the carriage with Colonel Moore and his daughter, who had 
 ridden out to call upon some of the neighbours, and that I need not 
 take the trouble of coming again to see her, for Miss Caroline did 
 not choose that her maid should marry a field hand. 
 
 It is impossible for me to describe the paroxysm of grief and pas- 
 sion which I now experienced. Those of the same ardent tempera- 
 ment with myself will easily conceive my feelings ; and to persons of 
 a cooler temper, no description can convey an adequate idea. My 
 promised wife snatched from me, and myself again exposed to the 
 hateful tyranny of a brutal overseer ! — and all so sudden too — and 
 with such studied marks of insult and oppression ! 
 
 I now felt afresh the ill effects of my foolish pride in keeping 
 myself separate and aloof from my fellow servants. Instead of sym- 
 pathizing with me, many of them openly rejoiced at my misfortune ; 
 and as I had never made a confidant or associate among them, I had 
 no friend whose advice to ask, or whose sympathy to seek. At 
 length, I bethought myself of the methodist minister, who was to come 
 that evening to marry us, and who had appeared to take a good deal 
 of interest in the welfare of Cassy and myself. I was desirous not 
 only of seeking such advice and consolation as he could afford me, 
 but I wished to save the good man from a useless journey, and pos- 
 sibly from insult at Spring-Meadow ; for Colonel Moore looked on 
 all sorts of preachers, and the methodists especially, with an eye of 
 very little favour. 
 
 I knew that the clergyman in question held a meeting about five 
 miles off, and I resolved, if I could get leave, to go and hear him. I 
 applied to Mr. Stubbs for a pass, that is, a written permission, with- 
 out which no slave can go off the plantation to which he belongs, 
 except at the risk of being stopped by the first man he meets, horse- 
 whipped, and sent home again. But Mr. Stubbs swore that he was 
 tired of such gadding, and he told me he had made up his mind to 
 grant no more passes for the next fortnight. 
 
 To some sentimental persons, it may seem hard after the slave has 
 laboured six days for his master, and the blessed seventh at length
 
 2 6 THE "WHITE SLAVE ; OH, 
 
 gladdens him with its heams, that he cannot be allowed a little 
 change of scene, but must still be confined to the hated fields, the 
 daily witnesses of his toils and his sufferings. Yet many thrifty 
 managers and good disciplinarians are, like Mr. Stubbs, very much 
 opposed to all gadding ; and they pen up their slaves, when not at 
 work, as they pen up their cattle, to keep them, as they say, out of 
 mischief. 
 
 At another' time this new piece of petty tyranny might have pro- 
 voked me, but now, I scarcely regarded it, for my whole heart was 
 absorbed by a greater passion. I was slowly returning towards the 
 servants' quarter, when a little girl, one of the house servants, came 
 running to me almost out of breath. I knew her to be one of 
 Cassy's favourites, and I caught her in my arms. As soon as she 
 had recovered her breath, she said she had been looking for me all 
 the morning, for she had a message from Cassy; that Cassy had 
 been obliged, much against her inclination, to go out that morning 
 with her mistress, but that I must not be alarmed or down-hearted, 
 for she loved me as well as ever. 
 
 I kissed the little messenger, and thanked her a thousand times for 
 her news. I then hastened to my house. It was quite a comfortable 
 little cottage, which Mrs. Moore had ordered to be built for Cassv 
 and myself, but of which I expected every moment to be deprived. 
 The news I had heard excited new commotions in my bosom. I had 
 no sooner sat down than I found it impossible to keep quiet. My 
 heart beat violently ; the fever in my blood grew high. I left the 
 house, and walked about within the limits of my jail yard, for so I 
 might justly esteem the plantation ; I used the most violent exercise, 
 and tried every means I could think of to subdue the powerful emo- 
 tions of mixed hope and fear, with which I was agitated, and which 
 I found more oppressive than even the certainty of misery. 
 
 As evening drew on, I watched for the return of the carriage, and 
 at length its distant rumbling caught my ear. I hastened towards 
 the house in the hope of seeing Cassy and, perhaps, of speaking with 
 her. The carriage stopped at the door, and I was fast approaching 
 it ; but at the instant, it occurred to me that it would be better not 
 to risk being seen by Colonel Moore, who, I was now well satisfied, 
 entertained a decided hostility towards me, and whom 1 believed to 
 be the author of the cruel repulse I had that morning met with. 
 This thought stopped me, and I drew back and returned home, with- 
 out catching a glimpse, or exchanging a word. 
 
 I threw myself upon my bed ; but I turned continually from side 
 to side, and found it impossible to compose myself to rest. Hour 
 after hour dragged on ; but I could not sleep. It was past midnight, 
 when I heard a slight tap at the door, and a soft whisper, which
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 27 
 
 thrilled through every nerve. I sprung up — I opened the door — I 
 clasped her to my bosom. It was Gassy, it was my betrothed wife. 
 
 She told me that since Colonel Moore's return, everything seemed 
 changed at the house. Miss Caroline had told her that Colonel 
 Moore had a very bad opinion of me, and was very much displeased 
 to find that, during his absence, I had been again employed as one 
 of the house servants. She added, that when he was told of our 
 intended marriage, he had declared that Cassy was too pretty a girl 
 to be thrown away upon such a scoundrel, and that he would under- 
 take to provide her with a much better husband. So her mistress 
 had bidden her to think no more of me ; but at the same time had 
 told her not to cry, for she would never leave off teazing her father 
 till he had fulfilled his promise; " and if you get a husband," thp, 
 young lady added, " that, you know, is all that any of us want." So 
 thought the mistress; the maid, I have reason to suppose, was rather 
 more refined in her notions of matrimony. 
 
 I was not quite certain how to interpret this conduct of Colonel 
 Moore's. I was strongly inclined to consider it only as a new out- 
 break of that spite and hostility which I had been experiencing ever 
 since my useless and foolish appeal to his fatherly feelings. It 
 occurred to me, however, as possible, that his opposition to our mar- 
 riage might spring from other motives. Whatever I might imagine, 
 I kept my own counsel. One motive which occurred to me, I could 
 not think of myself with the slightest patience; and still less could I 
 bear to shock and distress poor Cassy, by the mention of it. Another 
 motive, which I thought might possibly have influenced Colonel 
 Moore, was less discreditable to him, and would have been flattering 
 to the pride of both Cassy and myself. But this I could not men- 
 tion, without leading to disclosures, which I did not see fit to make. 
 
 Cassy knew herself to be Colonel Moore's daughter; but early in 
 our acquaintance I had discovered that she had no idea that I was 
 his son. I have every reason to believe that Mrs. Moore was per- 
 fectly well informed as to both these particulars, for they were of 
 that sort, which seldom or never escape the eagerness of female 
 curiosity, and more especially the curiosity of a wife. 
 
 Whatever she might know, she discovered in it no impediment to 
 my marriage with Cassy. Nor did I; for how could that same regard 
 for the decencies of life — such is the soft phrase which justifies the 
 most unnatural cruelty — that refused to acknowledge our paternity, 
 or to recognise any relationship between us, pretend at the same time, 
 and on the sole ground of relationship, to forbid our union. 
 
 But I knew that Cassy felt, rather than reasoned; and, though 
 born and bred a slave, she possessed great delicacy of feeling. Be- 
 sides, she was a methodist, and though as cheerful and gay-hearted &
 
 23 THE WHITE SLAVE j OR, 
 
 girl as I ever knew, she was very devout in all the observances of her 
 religion. I feared to put our mutual happiness in jeopardy; I was 
 unwilling to harass Cassy with what I esteemed unnecessary scruples. 
 I had never told her the story of my parentage, and every day I grew 
 less inclined to tell it. Accordingly I made no other answer to what 
 she told me, except to say, that however little Colonel Moore might 
 like me, his dislike was not my fault. 
 
 A momentary pause followed ; — I pressed Cassy's hand in mine, 
 and in a faltering voice I asked what she intended to do. 
 
 " I am your wife ; — I will never be anybody's but yours," was the 
 answer. I clasped the dear girl to my heart. We knelt together, 
 and with upraised hands invoked the Deity to witness and confirm 
 our union. It was the only sanction in our power ; and if twenty 
 priests had said a benediction over us, would that have made our 
 vows more binding, or our marriage more complete? 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 It was impossible for my wife to visit me except by stealth. She 
 slept every night upon the carpet in her mistress's room, — for a floor 
 is esteemed in America a good enough bed for a slave, even for a 
 favourite and a woman. She was liable to be called upon in the 
 night, at the caprice of a mistress, who was, in fact, a mere spoiled 
 child ; and she could only visit me at the risk of a discovery, which 
 might have been attended with very unpleasant consequences ; for if 
 these clandestine visits had been detected, I fear that not all Cassy's 
 charms — whatever poets may have fabled of the power of beauty — 
 could have saved her from the lash. 
 
 Yet short and uncertain as these visits were, thev sufficed to create 
 and to sustain a new and singular state of feeling. My wife was seldom 
 with me, but her image was ever before my eves, and appeared to 
 make me regardless of all beside. Things seemed to pass as in a 
 happy dream. The labour of the field was nothing ; the lash of the 
 overseer was scarcely felt. My mind became so occupied and, as it 
 were, filled up, with the pleasure which I found in our mutual affec- 
 tion, and by the anticipated delights of each successive interview, that 
 it seemed to have no room for disagreeable emotions. Strong as was 
 my passion, there was nothing in it uneasy or unsatisfied. When I 
 clasped the dear girl to my bosom, I seemed to have reached the 
 height of human fruition. I was happy ; greater happiness I could 
 not imagine, and did not desire. 
 
 The intoxication of passion is the same in the slave and in the
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 29 
 
 master ; it is exquisite ; and while it lasts, all-sufficient in itself. I 
 found it so. With almost everything to make me miserable, still was 
 I happy, — for the excess of my passion rendered me insensible tc 
 anything save its own indulgence. 
 
 But such ecstasies are unsuited to the human constitution. They 
 are soon over, and perhaps are ever purchased at too dear a price ; for 
 they are but too apt to be succeeded by all the anguish of disappointed 
 hope, and all the bitterness of deep despair. Still I look back with 
 pleasure to that time. It is one of the bright spots of my existence 
 which eager memory discovers in her retrospections, scattered and 
 scarcely visible, — tiny islets of delight, surrounded on all sides by a 
 gloomy and tempestuous ocean. 
 
 "We had been married about a fortnight. It was near midnight, 
 and I was sitting before my door waiting for my wife to come. The 
 moon was full and bright ; the sky was cloudless. I was still at the 
 height and flood of my intoxication ; and as I watched the planet, 
 and admired her brightness, I gave thanks to heaven that the base 
 tendencies of a servile condition had not yet totally extinguished 
 within me all the higher and nobler emotions of man's nature. 
 
 Presently I observed a figure approaching. I should have known 
 her at any distance, and I sprang forward and caught my wife in my 
 arms. But as I pressed her to my heart, I felt her bosom to be 
 strangely agitated : and when I brought her face to mine, my check 
 was moistened with her tears. 
 
 Alarmed at these unusual indications I hurried her into the house, 
 and hastily inquired the cause of her agitation. My inquiries ap- 
 peared to increase it. She sunk her head upon my breast, burst into 
 sobs, and seemed wholly incapable of speaking. I knew not what to 
 think, or what to do. I exerted myself to compose her ; I kissed off" 
 the tears that trickled fast down her cheeks ; I pressed my hand 
 against her beating heart, as if in that way I could have checked its 
 palpitations. At length she grew more calm ; but it was by slow 
 degrees and in broken sentences that I learned the origin of her 
 terror. 
 
 It seemed that Colonel Moore, ever since his return, had distin- 
 guished her by particular kindness. He had made her several little 
 presents, had sought frequent occasions to talk with her, and was ever, 
 half jocosely, complimenting her beauty. He had even dropped 
 certain hints, which Cassy could not help understanding, but of which 
 she thought it best to take no notice. He was not to be repelled in 
 that way, but proceeded to words and actions, of which it was not 
 possible for her to affect to misunderstand the meaning. Her native 
 modesty, her love for me, her religious feelings, were all alarmed; 
 and the poor girl began to tremble at the fate that seemed to await
 
 30 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OB, 
 
 her. But as yet she kept her terrors to herself. She was reluctant 
 to torture me with the story of insults, which, however they might 
 pierce my heart, I had no power to repel. 
 
 That day Mrs. Moore and her daughter had gone to visit one of 
 tie neighbours, and Cassy was left at home. She was employed on 
 some needlework in her mistress's room when Colonel Moore entered. 
 She rose up hastily, and would have gone away, but he bade her stop 
 and listen to what he had to say to her. lie did not seem to notice 
 her agitation, and appeared perfectly self-possessed himself. He told 
 her that he had promised her mistress to provide her with a husband 
 iu place of that scoundrel Archy ; that he had looked about, but did 
 not see anybody who was worthy of her, and, on the whole, he had 
 concluded to take her himself. 
 
 This he said with a tone of tenderness which no doubt he meant to 
 be irresistible. To many women in Cassy's situation it would have 
 been so. They would have esteemed themselves highly honoured by 
 their master's notice, and would have felt not a little flattered by the 
 delicate terms under which he concealed the real character of his pro- 
 posal. But she, poor child, heard him with shame and dread, and 
 was ready, she told me, to sink into the earth with terror and dismay. 
 In relating it, she blushed — she hesitated — she shuddered — her 
 breathing became short and thick — she clung to me, as if some visible 
 image of horror were present before her, and bringing her lips close 
 to my ear, she exclaimed in a trembling and scarcely audible whisper 
 — " Oh, Archy ! — and he my father !" 
 
 Colonel Moore, she believed, could not have misunderstood the 
 feelings with which she listened to his offer. But if so, he disregarded 
 them; for he proceeded to enumerate all the advantages she would 
 derive from this connexion, and strove to tempt her by promises of 
 idleness and finery. She stood with her eyes upon the floor, and 
 only answered him by sobs and tears, which she strove in vain to 
 suppress. Upon this Colonel Moore, in a tone of pique and dis- 
 pleasure, told her "not to be a fool;" and catching one of her hands 
 in his, he threw his arm about, her waist, and bade her not provoke 
 him by useless resistance. She uttered a scream of surprise and 
 terror, and sunk at his feet. At that moment the sound of the car- 
 riage wheels fell, she said, like heavenly music on her ear. Her 
 master heard it too, for he let go his grasp, and, muttering some- 
 thing about another time, hastily left the room. She remained 
 almost senseless on the floor, till the sound of her mistress's footsteps 
 in the passage recalled her to herself. The rest of the afternoon and 
 evening she had passed she hardly knew how. Her head, she told 
 me, was dizzy; a cloud swam before her eyes; and she had hardly 
 been sensible of anything but a painful feeling of languor and oppres-
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 31 
 
 sion. She had not dared to leave her mistress's room, and had 
 d with impatience for the hour that would permit her to throw 
 herself into the arms of her husband, her natural protector. 
 
 Her natural protector ! — alas, of what avail is the natural right of 
 husband to protect his wife against the assaults of a villain, who is 
 once her owner and his ! 
 
 Such was Cassy's story ; and, strange as it may seem, I heard it 
 ite unmoved. Although I held the panting, trembling, weeping 
 arrator in my arms, I listened to her story with far less emotion 
 an I have since experienced in recounting it. In truth, I was pre- 
 pared for it ; I had anticipated it ; I expected it. 
 
 I knew well that Cassy's charms were too alluring not to excite a 
 voluptuary in whom a long indulgence had extinguished all the better 
 feelings, and rendered incapable of controlling himself, and to whom, 
 neither the fear of punishment nor the dread of public indignation 
 supplied the place of conscience. What else could be reasonably 
 expected of a man who knew well, let him proceed to what extremities 
 he might, not only that the law would justify him, but that anybody 
 who might think of calling him to account before the bar of public 
 opinion, would be denounced by the public voice as an impertinent 
 intermeddler in the affairs of other people ? 
 
 Little of paternal tenderness as Colonel Moore ever showed to me, 
 at least from the moment that he found I knew him to be my father, 
 I have too much of filial respect to entertain the wish of misrepre- 
 senting him. Though he was of a warm and voluptuous tempera- 
 ment, he was naturally a good-natured man, and his honour was, as I 
 have said, unquestioned. But honour is of a very diverse character. 
 There is honour among gentlemen, and honour among thieves ; and 
 'sh. both these codes contain several excellent enactments, neither 
 cm fairly claim to be regarded as a perfect system of morality. Of 
 that code in which he had been educated, Colonel Moore was a strict 
 observer. To have made an attempt on the chastity of a neighbour's 
 wife or daughter he would have esteemed — and so the honorary code 
 of Virginia esteems it — an offence of the blackest die ; an offence, he 
 well knew, to be expiated only by the offender's life. But beyond 
 this he did not dream of prohibition or restraint. Hardened and 
 emboldened by certain impunity — provided the sufferer were a slave 
 — he regarded the most atrocious outrage that could be perpetrated 
 m the person aDd feelings of a woman rather as a matter of jest, a 
 thing to be laughed at over the fourth bottle, than a subject of serious 
 ' sober reprehension. 
 
 Of all this I was well aware. I had from the first foreseen that 
 Cassy would be devoted by her master to the same purposes which 
 had been fulfilled by my mother and her own. It was from these
 
 32 THE WHITE SLAVE j OR, 
 
 intentions, as I had all along believed, that his opposition to our 
 marriage had originated. In imagining that it might spring from 
 nother cause, I had done him an honour to which, as was now too 
 evident, he had not the slightest title. What I had just now heard, 
 I had daily expected to hear. I had expected it ; yet such had been 
 my intoxication, that even anticipations terrible as this had not been 
 able to alarm or distress me ; and now that anticipation was changed 
 into reality, still I remained unmoved. The ecstasy of passion still 
 sustained me ; and as I pressed my wretched, trembling wife to my 
 bosom, I still rose superior to the calamity that assailed me — even 
 yet I was happy. 
 
 This seems incredible ! 
 
 Love then as I did ; or, if that suit your temperament better, hate 
 with the same intensity with which I loved. Be absorbed in any 
 passion, and while the fit continues, you will find yourself endowed 
 with a surprising and almost superhuman energy. 
 
 My mind was already made up. The unhappy slave has but one 
 way of escaping any threatening infliction ; a poor and wretched re- 
 source, to which he recurs always at the imminent risk of redoubling 
 his miseries. That remedy is flight. 
 
 Our preparations were soon made. My wife returned to the house, 
 and gathered up a little bundle of clothing. In the meantime I em- 
 ployed myself in collecting such provisions as I could readiest lay my 
 hands on. A couple of blankets, a hatchet, a little kettle, and a few 
 other small articles, completed my equipments ; and by the time my 
 wife returned I was ready for a start. We set out with no other com- 
 panion but a faithful dog. I did not wish to take him for fear that, 
 somehow or other, he might lead to our detection ; but he would 
 not be driven back, and I was afraid to tie him, lest his howlings 
 might give an alarm, and lead to an immediate pursuit. 
 
 Lower Virginia had alreadv begun to feel the effects of that blight 
 which has since lighted so heavily upon her, and which, in truth, she 
 so well deserved. Already her fields were beginning to be deserted ; 
 already impenetrable thickets had commenced to cover plantations, 
 which, had the soil been cultivated by freemen, might still have pro- 
 duced a rich and abundaut harvest. There was a deserted plantation 
 about ten miles from Spring-Meadow. I had formerly visited it 
 several times, in company with my young master, James, who, when 
 he was well enough to ride about, had a strange taste for wandering 
 into out-of-the-way places. It was thither that, in the hurry of the 
 moment, I resolved to go. 
 
 The by-road which had formerly led to this estate, and the fields on 
 both sides, were grown over with small scrubby pines, so close and 
 tangled as to render the thicket almost impenetrable. I contrived,
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 33 
 
 however, to keep on iu the right direction. But the difficulties of 
 the way were so great, that the morning had dawned before we 
 reached the plantation buildings. They were still standing, but in a 
 most dilapidated condition. The great house had been a structure of 
 larse size and considerable pretensions. But the windows were gone, 
 the doors had dropped from their hinges, and the roof was partly 
 fallen iu. The court-yard was completely grown up with young trees. 
 Wild vines were creeping over the house ; and all was silent, desolate, 
 and deserted. The stables, and what had been the servants' quarter, 
 were mere heaps of ruins, overgrown with weeds and grass. 
 
 At some distance behind the house, there was a rapid descent, 
 which formed one side of a deep ravine ; and near the bottom of this 
 hollow a fine bubbling spring burst from under the hill. It was uow 
 half choked with leaves and sand, but its waters were pure and cool 
 as ever. Near the spring was a little low building of brick, which 
 perhaps had been intended for a dairy, or some such purpose. The 
 door was gone, and half the roof had tumbled in. The other half 
 still kept its position, and the vacancy occasioned by the part that 
 had fallen served well enough to admit the light and air, and to 
 supply the place of windows, which had formed no part of the original 
 construction. This ruinous little building was shaded by several large 
 and ancient trees, and was so completely hidden by a more recent 
 growth, as to be invisible at the distance of a few paces. It was by 
 mere accident that we stumbled upon it, as we were searching for the 
 spring, of which I had drank upon my former visits, but the situation 
 of which I did not exactly recollect. It struck us at once that this 
 was the place for our temporary habitation, and we resolved forthwith 
 to clear it of the rubbish it contained, and to turn it into a dwelling. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 I knew that the place where we now were was very seldom visited 
 by anybody. The deserted house had the reputation of being 
 haunted ; and this, as well as its seclusion from the road, and the 
 almost impenetrable thickets by which it was surrounded, would serve 
 to protect us against intruders. There were several plantations about 
 it ; for it occupied the highest ground between two rivers, which 
 flowed at no great distance apart, and of which the low grounds were 
 still in cultivation. But there were no cultivated fields nearer than 
 four or five miles, and no houses nearer than Spring-Meadow, which, 
 I have said, was some ten or twelve miles distant. I judged that for 
 the present we might remain secure in this retreat; and it seemed 
 
 D
 
 34 THE WHITE SLAVE; OR, 
 
 our best policy to suffer the search for us to he pretty well over 
 hefore we attempted to continue our flight. 
 
 In the meantime, we exerted ourselves to make things as comfort- 
 able as possible. It was the height of summer, and we anticipated 
 but little inconvenience from the openness of our habitation. A heap 
 of pine-straw in one corner of our ruinous hovel, formed our bed, 
 and sweeter slumbers not down itself could have ensured. Out of 
 such materials as the wainscoting of the deserted house supplied, I 
 made two rude stools, and something that served for a table. The 
 spring furnished us with water ; our principal concern was to provide 
 ourselves with food. The woods and thickets produced some wild 
 fruits ; and the peach-orchard near the house, though choked and 
 shaded by a more recent growth, still continued to bear. I was an 
 adept in the art of snaring rabbits, and such other small game as the 
 woods supplied. The spring which furnished us with water was one 
 of the heads of a little branch or brook which discharged, at a short 
 distance, into a larger stream. In that stream there were fish. But 
 our chief resource was in the neighbouring corn fields, which already 
 furnished roasting ears, and from which I did not scruple to draw a 
 plentiful supply. 
 
 On the whole — though we were both quite unaccustomed to so 
 wild a livelihood — we passed our time very agreeably. Those who 
 are always idle can never know the true luxury of idleness, the real 
 pleasure with which he who has been pushed to work against his will, 
 relaxes his strained muscles, and delivers himself up to the delight of 
 doing nothing. I used to lie for hours in a dreamy sort of indolence, 
 outstretched upon the shady slope, enjoying the sweet consciousness 
 of being my own master, and luxuriating in the idea that I need come 
 or go at no one's bidding, but might work or be idle as suited my 
 own good will. No wonder that emancipated slaves are inclined to 
 indolence. It is to them a new pleasure. Labour, in their minds, is 
 indissolubly associated with servitude and the whip ; and not to work, 
 they have ever been taught to look upon as the badge and peculiar 
 distinction of freedom. 
 
 The present was passing pleasantly enough ; but it was necessary 
 to be thinking about the future. We had always regarded our present 
 place of refuge as temporary only ; and it was now time to think of 
 leaving it. I should have esteemed it delightful indeed, to pass a 
 whole life of solitude and seclusion with Cassy, where, if we had 
 lacked the pleasures of society, we might have escaped its tenfold 
 greater ills. But this was not possible. The American climate was 
 never meant for hermits. Our present station would answer well 
 enough for a summer retreat ; but the winter would render it un- 
 tenable ; and before long, winter would be approaching. Our hope
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 35 
 
 was to escape into the free states — for I knew that north of Virginia 
 there was a country where there were no slaves. If we could once 
 »et awav from the neighbourhood of Spring-Meadow, where I was 
 well-known, we should enjoy one great advantage during the remainder 
 of our flight. Our complexions would not betray our servile con- 
 dition; and we should And no great difficulty, we thought, in passing 
 ourselves as free citizens of Virginia. Colonel Moore had, no doubt, 
 filled the country round with advertisements, in which our persons 
 were accurately described, and every peculiarity of each of us carefully 
 noted. It was therefore necessary to use great caution; and I con- 
 sidered it essential to our escape that Cassy should adopt some dis- 
 guise. What this should be, or where we should get it, was now the 
 question. 
 
 We finally determined to assume the character of persons travelling 
 to the north to seek our fortunes; and we arranged that Cassy should 
 adopt a man's dress, and accompany me in the character of a younger 
 brother. The night on which we had left Spring- Meadow, I had 
 brought away my best suit, one of the last gifts of poor master James, 
 and such as would well enough enable me to play the part of a 
 travelling Virginian. But I had neither hat nor shoes; nor any 
 clothes whatever, that could properly serve as a disguise for Cassy. 
 
 Luckily I had a small sum, the accumulated savings of master 
 James's liberality, which I had always kept in reserve, in the hope 
 and expectation that I should some time have a use for it. This 
 monev, I had been careful to take with me; and it was now our sole 
 reliance not only for the expenses of the road, but for procuring the 
 means, without which we could not start all. 
 
 But though we had the money, how could we make any use of it, 
 without running a very serious risk of detection? 
 
 There lived, about five or six miles from Spring- Meadow, and near 
 the same distance from us, one Mr. James Gordon. He kept a little 
 store; and his principal customers were the slaves of the neighbouring 
 plantations. Mr. James Gordon, or Jemmy Gordon, as he was 
 familiarly called, was one of those poor white men, of whom the 
 number in Lower Virginia is, or was, very considerable, and who are 
 spoken of, even by the slaves themselves, with a sort of contempt. 
 He had neither lands nor servants; for his father before him had 
 been a poor white man. He had been educated to no trade; for 
 where every planter has his own mechanics on his own plantation, a 
 free workman can expect no encouragement. The only resource for 
 a man in Jemmy Gordon's situation, is to find employment as an 
 overseer for some of his richer neighbours. But in Virginia, there 
 are more persons who desire to be overseers than there are plantations 
 to oversee. Besides, Mr. Gordon was one of those careless, easy, 
 
 d2
 
 S6 THE WHITE SLAVE; OR, 
 
 good matured, indolent sort of men, who are general!}' pronounced 
 good-for-nothing. He never could hring himself to that ever watchful 
 scrutiny and assiduous oversight, which is so necessary among slaves, 
 whose maxim it is to work as little as possible, and to plunder all 
 they can. He was apt enough to get into a passion, and cut and 
 slash, right and left, without discrimination; but he was incapable of 
 that regular severity and systematic cruelty, by which other overseers 
 gained the reputation of excellent disciplinarians. Moreover, on a 
 certain plantation of which he had been the manager, some large 
 vacancies had occurred in the corn-crib, which were never very clearly 
 accounted for. How far this was occasioned by negligence, or how 
 far by dishonesty, was never, so far as I know, satisfactorily deter- 
 mined. All I can say is, that Mr. Gordon was dismissed from his 
 employment, and found it so difficult to get a new situation, that he 
 gave up the search in despair, and resolved to turn trader. He had 
 nothing to begin upon, and, of course, traded in a very small way. 
 He dealt principally in whisky, but in addition kept shoes, and such 
 articles of clothing as slaves are in the habit of purchasing to eke out 
 the miserable and insufficient supply which they receive from their 
 masters. He took money in payment, but likewise corn and other 
 produce — without any strict inquiry how his customers came into, 
 possession of it. 
 
 It is this class of men against whom the legislators of Virginia 
 have exercised all their ingenuity in the construction of penal statutes; 
 and against whom they have exerted all the severity which they have 
 dared to use towards men, who might still claim the title and demand 
 the rights of ' free white citizens.' But these penal enactments have 
 failed, in a great measure, of their object. Though the trade with 
 slaves is dangerous and disgraceful, and the traders in consequence 
 are desperate and reckless, their number is still so great as to furnish 
 the planters with an inexhaustible topic of declamation and complaint 
 — and to supply the slaves with numerous little comforts and luxuries 
 which they might in vain have expected from the indulgence or 
 humanity of their masters. 
 
 These traders are, no doubt, the receivers of plunder; and no small 
 proportion of what they sell is paid for in that way. It is in vain, 
 that tyranny fences itself about with the terrors of the law. It is in 
 vain, that the slaveholder flatters himself with the hope of appro- 
 priating to his own sole use, the entire fruits of the forced labours of 
 his fellow men. The slave cannot resist the compulsion with which 
 the law has armed the hand of his master. The lash is an ensign of 
 authority and of torture, to which the stoutest heart and the most 
 stubborn will, are soon compelled to yield. But fraud is the natural 
 counterpart to tyranny; and cunning is ever the defence of the weak 

 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 37 
 
 a-rainst the oppressions of the strong. Can the unhappy slave, who 
 has been compelled to plant in the daytime for his master's benetit, 
 blamed if he strives in the night to gather some gleaning of the 
 crop for his own nse? 
 
 Blame him you who can ! Join if you will, in the clamour of the 
 master against the cursed knavery of his slaves ! That same master, 
 who thiuks it no wrong to rob those slaves of their labour, their sole 
 possession, their only property ! He to talk about theft ! — he — the 
 slaveholder — who has carried the art of pillage to a perfection of 
 which robbers and pirates never dreamed ! They are content to 
 snatch such casual spoils as chance may offer ; but the slaveholder — 
 whip in hand — extorts from his victims a large, a regular, an annual 
 plunder ! Nay more ; he sells for money, he has inherited from his 
 father, and he hopes to transmit to his children, the privilege of con- 
 tinuing this systematic pillage ! 
 
 I had once saved Mr. Gordon's life, and for this piece of service he 
 had alwavs expressed the greatest gratitude. This had happened 
 several years before. He was fishing on the river not far from Spring- 
 Meadow, when a sudden squall upset his boat. It was no great 
 distance from the shore, but Mr. Gordon was no swimmer, and was in 
 the greatest danger. Master James and myself happened to be 
 walking along the bank. We saw a man struggling in the water, and 
 I plunged in after him, and caught him as he was sinking the third 
 time. This service, Mr. Gordon was in the habit of acknowledging 
 by occasional little presents ; and I flattered myself with the hope 
 that he would not refuse his aid in my present circumstances. My 
 plan was, to get from Mr. Gordon a hat and shoes for myself, a man's 
 dress for Cassv, and such information as he could give us about the 
 route we ought to follow. A great many difficulties presented them- 
 selves to my mind in the prosecution of the journey. I resolved, 
 however, not to afflict myself with borrowed trouble, but to leave the 
 future to take care of itself. 
 
 The first thing was, to see Mr. Gordon and find out how far he was 
 disposed to assist me. His house and store — both under the same 
 roof — were in a lonely part of the country, near the crossing of two 
 roads, and out of sight of any other buildings. I did not think it 
 safe to trust myself upon the highway earlier than midnight ; and it 
 was considerably past that hour before I approached Mr. Gordon's 
 house. When I came within sight of it, I hesitated, and more than 
 once came to a halt. I did not like to trust my liberty and all my 
 hopes of happiness to the unsure guardianship of any man's gratitude, 
 and least of all, such a man as Mr. Gordon. The risk seemed too 
 great ; and my heart sunk within me when I called to mind how frail 
 was the prop on which depended, if not my life, eevrything certainly 
 that made life desirable.
 
 38 THE WHITE SLAVE J OR, 
 
 I was on the point of turning back ; but I recollected that this was 
 my only resource. Mr. Gordon must help us to escape, or our 
 chance was worth nothing. This thought pushed me on. I plucked 
 up courage and approached the door. Three or four dogs which 
 kept watch about the house immediately opened in full chorus ; but 
 though they barked loud enough, they gave no signs of any intention 
 to attack me. I knocked again ; — and pretty soon, Mr. Gordon thrust 
 his head from the window, bade his dogs be quiet, and inquired who 
 I was and what I wanted. I begged him to open the door and let 
 me in, for I had business with him. Expecting, perhaps, to drive a 
 profitable trade with some midnight customer, he hastened to do as I 
 had requested. He opened the door; the moonlight, as I entered, 
 fell upon my face, and he recognised me at once. 
 
 " What ! Archy, is it you," — and he spoke it with an air of the 
 greatest surprise — " where, in the devil's name, did you spring from ? 
 — I hoped you were clear out of the neighbourhood a month ago," — 
 and with these words he drew me into the house and shut the door. 
 
 I told him that I had a place of concealment near by, and that I 
 had come to get a little assistance from him in making my escape. 
 
 " Anything in reason, Archy ; but if I were caught helping off a 
 runaway, it would ruin me for ever. There's Colonel Moore, your 
 master, and Major Pringle, and Captain Knight, and a half dozen 
 more were over here, it's only yesterday, and they swore if I did not 
 leave off trading with the hands, they'd pull my house down about 
 my ears, and ride me on a rail out of the country ; — and now if I were 
 caught helping you, fact, Archy, 'twould do my business for me with 
 a witness. I'm not quite such a fool as all that." 
 
 I used tears, and flatteries, and entreaties. I reminded Mr. Gordon 
 how often he had wished for an opportunity to serve me ; I told him 
 that all I wanted was a few articles of dress, and some directions 
 about the road I ought to follow. 
 
 " True, Archy, true ; — You saved my life, boy ; — I can't deny it ; 
 — and one good turn deserves another. But this business of yours 
 is an ugly, bad business, at the best. What, the devil, must you and 
 that wench be running away for ? I never knew any mischief in my 
 life, that a woman wasn't at the bottom of it. It's that tattling 
 babbler, widow Hinkley, that brought Colonel Moore and the rest' of 
 'em over here yesterday; — curse the envious old jade, she wants to 
 drive me out of the neighbourhood, and get all the custom for 
 herself." 
 
 I knew that Mr. Gordon had no turn for sentiment, and that it 
 would be casting pearls before swine's feet to waste any upon him. 
 So I told him it was too late to talk about our reasons for running 
 away, — run away we had, — and the only thing now was, to avoid 
 being taken.
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 39 
 
 " Ay, av, boy, I understand you. It's a damned silly business, and 
 you begin to be ashamed of it already. You had better make up 
 your minds now to go in, take your whippings, and make the best of 
 it. It's the loss of the wench that Colonel Moore is most angry 
 about ; and I dare say, if you were to go in, Archy, and make a 
 merit of telling where he could find her, you might get off mighty 
 easy, and shift all the blame upon her shoulders." 
 
 I concealed the indignation which this base proposal excited. 
 Such treachery to one another is too common among slaves, and is 
 always promoted and rewarded by the masters. I could not expect 
 Mr. Gorden to rise very far above the level of current morals. So I 
 passed by his proposal in silence. I only said, that I had made up 
 my mind to undergo anything rather than return to Spring-Meadow. 
 If he was resolved not to assist me, I would be off as soon as pos- 
 sible, trusting to his honour to say nothing about this visit. As a last 
 resource, I hinted that I had the money to pay for all I wanted, and 
 that I should not dispute about the price. 
 
 Whether it was this last hint, or some more generous motive, or 
 the combined effect of both, I shall not undertake to determine; but 
 certain it is, that Mr. Gordon began to exhibit a more favourable 
 disposition. 
 
 " As to money, Archy, between friends like us, there is no need of 
 speaking about that. And if you will have your own way, consider- 
 ing what has happened between us, 'twould be mighty unkind in me 
 not to let you have the things you're wanting. But you'll never get 
 off — mind now what I tell you — you'll never get off. "Why, boy, the 
 colonel swears he'll spend five thousand dollars but what he'll catch 
 you. He's got printed handbills stuck up all through the country, 
 with Five Hundred Dollars Reward! at the head of 'em. Come into 
 the store here, and I'll show you one. Five hundred dollars ! — some- 
 body is to pocket that money, I reckon." 
 
 I did not like the tone in which this was spoken. The emphasis 
 with which Mr. Gordon dwelt on the five hundred dollars, was rather 
 alarming. The idea of this reward was evidently taking strong hold 
 upou his imagination. 
 
 Mr. Gordon's establishment consisted of but two rooms, of which, 
 one was his parlour, bed-room, and kitchen, and the other his store. 
 All this time we had been in the bed-room, with no light but that of 
 the moon. I now followed him into the store. He struck a light, 
 kindled a piece of light wood, and holding it up to a large hand-bill 
 posted opposite the door, I read, to the best of my recollection, pretty 
 much as follows : —
 
 40 THE WHITE SLAVE; OR, 
 
 " FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS REWARD. 
 
 " Ran away from the subscriber, at Spring-Meadow, on Saturday 
 evening last, two servants, Archy and Cassy, for whose apprehension 
 the above reward will be paid. 
 
 " They are both very light coloured. Of the two, Cassy is a shade 
 the darker. Archy is about twenty-one years of age, five feet eleven 
 inches high, and a stout muscular frame. He has a firm erect walk, 
 and is a very likely fellow. Smiles when spoken to. His hair is a 
 light brown, and curls over his head; he has blue eyes and a high 
 forehead. Said boy was raised in my family, and has always been 
 kindly treated. It is not known what clothes he wore away. 
 
 «' Cassy is about eighteen, five feet three inches, or thereabouts, 
 and a handsome face and figure. She has long, dark hair, and a 
 bright black eye. When she smiles there is a dimple in her left 
 cheek. She has a good voice, and can sing several songs. No other 
 marks particularly recollected, except a mole on her right breast. She 
 has been raised a lady's maid, and she took a variety of good clothing 
 with her. Said slaves have gone off in company as is supposed. 
 
 " Whoever will return them to me, or lodge them in any jail, so 
 that I can get them, shall be paid the above reward ; or one half for 
 either separately. 
 
 " Charles Moore. 
 
 " N.B. I suspect they have taken the road to Baltimore, as Cassy 
 formerly lived in that city. No doubt they will attempt to pass for 
 white people." 
 
 While I was reading this advertisement, Mr. Gordon looked over 
 my shoulder, and added his comments upon each sentence of it. 
 Neither his remarks, nor the advertisement itself were calculated to 
 make me feel very comfortably. Perhaps Mr. Gordon observed it ; 
 for he handed me a glass of whisky, and bade me keep up my spirits. 
 He swallowed one himself; and drank to my escape. This reassured 
 me a little, — for, to tell the truth, I was a good deal startled at Mr. 
 Gordon's evident hankering after the five hundred dollars. The 
 whisky he drank, — and he was not content with a single glass, — 
 seemed to rekindle his gratitude. He swore he would run any risk 
 to serve me, and told me to pick out such articles as I wanted. 
 
 I fitted myself with hat and shoes, and selected the same for 
 Cassv. But it was necessary to have a man's dress for her. Mr. 
 Gordon did not deal in ready-made clothing, but he had some cloth 
 which I thought would answer our purpose, and he undertook to get 
 the suit made up for me. I gave him the measure by guess, and was 
 to return in three days, by which time he promised to have the clothes
 
 READING THE PROCLAMATION OF THE REWARD.
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 41 
 
 finished. I had much rather have completed the husiness at once, 
 and have started directly on our journey ; hut that was impossible. 
 A disguise for Cassy was absolutely necessary ; it would have been 
 foolish to have attempted an escape without it. I pressed him to be 
 sure and have the clothes finished at the time appointed; for a 
 reward of five hundred dollars, and the chance of makinsr friends with 
 Colonel Moore, and rising in the world by his assistance, was a temp- 
 tation to which I wished to keep Mr. Gordon exposed for as short a 
 time as possible. I now inquired what I had to pay for my various 
 purchases. Mr. Gordon took his slate and began to figure it up. 
 He proceeded very diligently for a few minutes, and then suddenly 
 came to a full stop. He looked at the goods I had selected, and then 
 at the slate. For a moment he hesitated; then lookin» at me, 
 " Aichy," he said, "you saved my life, — you're welcome to them 'ere 
 things." 
 
 I knew well how to value this instance of generosity. "Whatever 
 money Mr. Gordon got, was pretty sure to go in gambling and dissi- 
 pation. Of course he was not only poor, but often distressed and 
 tormented to get the means of indulging his propensities. Monev 
 was to him, what whisky is to the lips of the drunkard. For such 
 a person to be generous, is hard indeed; and I ceased at once to 
 distrust a man who gave so substantial a proof of his inclination to 
 assist me. I bade him good night, and set out on my return home, 
 with a heart much lightened. 
 
 Mr. Gordon put me some questions about the place of my retreat, to 
 which, however, I thought it best to return a somewhat equivocal reply. 
 Though greatly reassured, I still could see no good purpose to he 
 answered by too great confidence ; and at setting out from Mr. Gor- 
 don's I was careful to take a direction quite wide of the true one. 
 Once or twice I thought I was followed. The moon was now setting, 
 and her light was scanty and uncertain. My path led through a 
 scattered growth of stunted trees and bushes. A pursuer might 
 easily have concealed himself; but when I stopped to listen, all was 
 silent, and I soon dismissed my fanciful fears. 
 
 Taking a considerable circuit, I struck into the direction of the 
 deserted plantation, and arrived there about daybreak. Cassy came 
 out to meet me. It was the first time we had been so long separated 
 since our escape from Spring-Meadow. I felt as overjoyed to see 
 her as if I had returned after a year's absence ; and the eagerness 
 witli which she flew into my arms, and pressed me again and again to 
 her bosom, satisfied me that I was not alone in the feeling. AYe 
 spent the three days in making preparations, starting and answering 
 difficulties, and sometimes in pleasing ourselves with anticipations of 
 future happiness.
 
 42 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 At the appointed time I set off for Mr. Gordon's. I approached 
 the house not trembling and hesitating as before, but with the con- 
 fident step with which one hastens to the dwelling of a tried friend. 
 I knocked. In a moment Mr. Gordon opened the door ; he caught 
 me by the arm, and would have drawn me into the house ; but the 
 door half opened enabled me to discover that there were others there, 
 beside himself. 
 
 I snatched myself from his grasp, and starting back, I said in a 
 whisper, " Heavens ! Mr. Gordon, who have you in the house?" 
 
 He returned me no answer; but almost while I spoke, I heard 
 Stubbs' grum voice growling, "Seize him, seize him;" — and that 
 moment I knew I was betrayed. I ran ; but very soon I felt some- 
 body grasping at my shoulder. Luckily I had a thick stout stick in 
 my hand, and, turning short about, with one blow I struck my pur- 
 suer to the ground. It was the traitor Gordon. I was tempted to 
 stop and renew the blow, but that moment a pistol ball whizzed by 
 my head, and looking round, I saw Stubbs and another man, with 
 pistols in their hands, close upon me. There was no time to lose. I 
 sprang forward and ran for my life. Two or three shots were fired 
 in quick succession, but without effect ; and presently I reached a 
 thicket, where I. felt myself more safe. It was soon evident that I was 
 much the fleetest of the party ; for before long I was out of sight and 
 hearing of my pursuers. I kept on for near half an hour, when, almost 
 exhausted, I sunk upon the ground, and strove to recover my breath 
 and to collect my thoughts. There was no moon ; the starlight was 
 obscured by a thin mist ; and I did not well know where I was. 
 Having determined, as well as I was able, the probable direction of 
 the deserted plantation, I again set forward. In the race I had 
 sprained one of my ankles. This I had scarcely observed, at the 
 moment ; but it now became painful, and I moved with difficulty. 
 However, I kept on the best I could, and flattered myself with the 
 hope of getting back before daylight. I passed, for a considerable 
 distance, through fields and thickets with which I was not acquainted ; 
 but presently, I reached a brook which I knew. I quenched my 
 thirst, and pushed forward -with greater alacrity. I was still five or 
 six miles from the deserted plantation, and I was obliged to take a very 
 circuitous route. I kept on as fast as I was able ; but the sun was 
 up some hours before I arrived at the spring. Cassy was anxiously 
 watching for me. She had become exceedingly alarmed at my delay; 
 nor did the disorder of my dress, and my appearance of hurry and 
 fatigue tend to reassure her. 
 
 I hastened towards the spring, and was stooping to drink, when 
 Cassy gave a loud shriek. I looked up, and saw two or three men 
 rushing clown the side of the hollow. I sprang upon my feet, but
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 43 
 
 immediately felt myself seized from behind. Two other men had 
 rushed down the hollow, upon the other side, and while I was pre- 
 paring to give battle to those I had first seen, before I was aware of 
 my danger, I found myself in the grasp of their confederates. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 I learned, afterwards, that when Mr. Stubbs and his companions, 
 who were waiting for me at Gordon's, had failed to bring me down 
 with their pistols, discovering that I ran too fast for them, they soon 
 gave over the chase and returned to the store. They sent off im- 
 mediately for assistance ; and were presently joined by two men, and, 
 what was of more importance, by a dog, named Jowler, and cele- 
 brated throughout the county for his skill in tracking out runaways. 
 
 Jowler had no sooner arrived than they tied a string about his 
 neck, the other end of which one of the party held in his hand. The 
 dog was then put upon my trail, and trotted slowly forward with his 
 nose to the ground, followed by Mr. Stubbs and the rest of the party. 
 All the latter part of the way I had walked quite slowly, and Jowler 
 and his company had gained so fast upon me, that they reached the 
 spring almost as soon as I did. Having discovered my retreat, thev 
 resolved to make everything certain; and dividing into two parties, 
 they rushed down both sides of the hollow at the same time, and 
 secured me in the manner I have related. 
 
 Poor Cassy was seized at the same instant ; and almost before we 
 knew what had happened, we found our hands tied, and ourselves 
 connected by a stout chain, the ends of which were made fast about 
 cm- necks. This was sad business for Cassy; and the poor girl, when 
 she felt the iron around her neck, wept bitterly. I do not believe the 
 chain was drawn much tighter than was necessary ; yet, when I saw 
 the tears of my poor wife, I could not help feeling a choking sensa- 
 tion about my throat. What aggravated my distress and my indigna- 
 tion, was the brutal jests of our captors. It was well my hands were 
 fast, for had they been free, I verily believe I should have found the 
 means to finish one or another of the scoundrels. Mr. Gordon was 
 one of the party. His head was bound up in a bloody handkerchief; 
 but instead of joining in the jests of his companions, lie tried to keep 
 them from vexing and insulting us. 
 
 ' I'll tell you what, Stubbs, you nasty infernal blackguard, let 
 that gal Cassy be. Ain't it I who've taken them ? Ain't it I who am 
 to have the reward ? Let them be, I say ; I tell you they are under 
 my protection."
 
 44 THE WHITE SLAVE; OR, 
 
 " Indeed ! A fine sort of protector they've found in you," an- 
 swered Stubbs, with a loud laugh, in which he was joined by his 
 companions ; — " No question they're mightily obliged to you. The 
 deuce take your nonsense and yourself into the bargain. I'll say 
 what I please to the gal, and do what I please, too. Ain't I the 
 overseer?" And here he broke out with a fresh string of ribaldry, 
 addressed to poor Cassy. 
 
 It was only by a promise to treat his companions to a quart of 
 whisky, that Mr. Gordon could prevail on them to let us alone. The 
 word ' whisky' worked like a charm ; and, by the influence of it, he 
 persuaded the others to drop a little behind, and to give him a 
 chance, as he expressed it, to have some private conversation with me. 
 He had no objection to their hearing what he said to me, but he did 
 not want to be interrupted. 
 
 I was a good deal surprised at all this. Mr. Gordon had betrayed 
 me ; and after doing me so base and irreparable an injury, what could 
 he mean by these little marks of good-will ? Mr. Gordon was, as I 
 have described him, a good-natured fellow. He had not been able ta 
 resist the temptation of five hundred dollars, and all the other advan- 
 tages which he expected to gain by betraying me ; but, for all that, 
 he had not forgotten that I had saved his life. He walked up beside 
 me, and, stammering and hesitating, he attempted to enter into con- 
 versation. 
 
 " That was a duced hard blow you struck me, Archy," he began. 
 
 " I am sorry it was not harder," was my answer. 
 
 " Come, come, now, don't be in such a devilish savage humour. 
 Why, boy, I thought I might as well get the five^undred dollars, as to 
 let them slip through my fingers, and all for nothing too. I knew right 
 well you were sure to be taken ; and for all you pout so about it, I've 
 made better terms for you than anybody else would have done. Come, 
 boy, cheer up, and I'll tell you how it all was. You see, when you 
 left me t'other night, I could not sleep a wink for thinking. Says I 
 to myself, that's a damned foolish project of Archy's. He is sure to 
 be caught ; and then it will be coming out as how I helped him, and 
 then there will be the devil and all to pay. He'll be whipped, and 
 I'll be fined and sent to jail, and, for anything I know, ridden on a 
 rail out of the country, as Colonel Moore and them others threatened 
 me ; and then — to make a bad matter worse — somebody else will get 
 the reward. Now that boy Archy, said I, saved my life — there's no 
 denying that, anyhow — and if I can save him a whipping, and at the 
 same time put five hundred dollars into my pocket, it will be a 
 mighty pretty business for both of us. 
 
 " So the next morning I got up early, and started off for Colonel 
 Moore's ; and a mighty fluster I found the Colonel in, to be sure, for
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 4-> 
 
 he could hear no news of you nowhere. So says I, ' Colonel,' says I. 
 ' I hear as how you've offered five hundred dollars reward to anybody 
 that'll catch them 'ere runaways of yours.' ' Yes,' says the Colonel, 
 'cash down;' and he looked me in the face, as though he thought I 
 knew where to find you. 
 
 " ' Just so, Colonel,' says I ; — ' and perhaps I might, if you'll 
 promise me something in the first place.' 
 
 " ' Promise you something !' said the Colonel ; ' haven't I promised 
 five hundred dollars already ! — what is it you mean?' 
 
 " Says I, ' Colonel, it isn't the reward I was thinking about — the 
 reward is handsome — a very pretty reward surely. Pay me four 
 hundred and fifty dollars, Colonel, and promise me not to whip Archy, 
 when you get him, and I'll not ask for the other fifty.' 
 
 " ' Pshaw, nonsense !' says the Colonel. ' Pray, Mr. Gordon, what 
 is it to you how much I whip the scoundrel, provided you get your 
 money ?' 
 
 " Says I, ' Colonel, Jemmy Gordon isn't the chap to forget a favour. 
 That boy Archy saved my life ; it's three years ago this very month ; 
 and if you'll promise me, upon jour honour, not to punish him for 
 running away, I will undertake to hunt him up for you ; — and not 
 otherwise.' 
 
 " The Colonel higgled and haggled a good deal ; but when he 
 found he couldn't get round me nohow, he promised all I had asked 
 him. So I told him how you had beeu at my house, and how you 
 were coming again; and he sent Stubbs and them other fellows to 
 help me take you ; and that's the long and the short of the whole 
 matter. So don't be sulky, Archy, but cheer up, and take it kindly. 
 You see, I meant to do what was best for us both." 
 
 " I wish you much joy, Mr. Gordon, of your part of the bargain; 
 and may you lose your five hundred dollars the next time you play 
 cards, and that will be before you are twelve hours older." 
 
 " You're in a passion, Archy, or you wouldn't talk in that way. 
 Well, boy, to tell the truth, I don't much wonder at it. But by audi 
 by you'll think better of it. I should think you might be content 
 with having broken my head; my eyes, Archy, but it aches as though 
 it would split." So saying, Mr. Gordon broke off the conversation, 
 and joined his companions. 
 
 Little reason as I have to speak well of him, I am bold to say there 
 are a great many men in the world not much better than Jemmy 
 Gordon. Five hundred dollars was a great temptation to him. 
 Besides, he hoped to secure the good graces of Colonel Moore, and 
 expected, by his assistance, to get into the way of gaining a living 
 respectably ; — at least, as respectably as any poor man can in that 
 country. He not only quieted his conscience with the idea that, if he
 
 4G THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 (lid not betray me somebody else would, — but he had made terms with 
 Colonel Moore for my benefit ; and actually seemed to have flattered 
 himself into the notion that he was doing me a favour by betraying 
 me. 
 
 There is many a gentleman in slave-holding America — for anti- 
 republican as it may seem, in no part of the world is the distinction 
 between gentleman and the common people more distinctly marked — 
 who would consider it an insult to be compared with Jemmy Gordon, 
 but whose whole life is a continued practice of the very principles 
 upon which that man acted when he made up his mind to play the 
 traitor. Many is the gentleman in slave-holding America, who knows 
 full well — and in the secret recesses of his own soul most unequi- 
 vocally acknowledges — that to keep his fellow-men in bondage is a 
 gross, flagrant, high-handed violation of the first and clearest prin- 
 ciples of justice and equity — a practice, abstractly considered, fully 
 more criminal than piracy or highway robbery. Slavery, in the 
 abstract, he acknowledges to himself and to others, to be totally inde- 
 fensible. But then his slaves are his estate, and he cannot live like a 
 gentleman without them. Besides, he treats his servants particularly 
 we ll — so very well, that he does not hesitate to argue that they are 
 much happier as slaves, than freedom under any form could possibly 
 make them ! 
 
 When men of sense and education can satisfy themselves with such 
 wretched sophistry as this, let us learn to have some charity for poor 
 Jemmy Gordon. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 It was past noon before we arrived at Spring-Meadow, where Colonel 
 Moore had been for some time impatiently expecting us. But as he 
 happened to have a large party to dine with him, he was too busy in 
 entertaining his company to pay any immediate attention to us. Yet, 
 no sooner had he received notice of our arrival, than he sent out Mr. 
 Gordon's five hundred dollars. It was a large roll of bank notes ; 
 the fellow's eye kindled up at the sight of it, and he snatched it 
 eagerly. I was looking steadily at him, and his eyes met mine. The 
 change was sudden. He blushed and grew pale by turns ; shame, 
 remorse, and self-contempt, were painted in his face. He thrust the 
 money hastily into his pocket, and walked away without speaking a 
 word. 
 
 Cassy and myself were driven to the stables, and locked up in a 
 close, narrow, dark room, which served sometimes as a corn-crib, and 
 sometimes as a sort of dungeon for refractory slaves. We sat down
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 47 
 
 upon the floor — for there was nothing else to sit upon — and poor 
 Cassy sunk into my arms. Her grief and terror seemed to burst out 
 afresh, and she wept bitterly. I kissed away ber tears, and tried to 
 console her. But she would not be comforted; and little, indeed, 
 was the comfort I had to offer. The more I said to her, the more 
 she wept; and she clung to me closer and closer, till her embrace 
 became almost convulsive. — " He will kill us — he will separate us 
 for ever," she murmured, in a low inarticulate voice; and it was the 
 only reply she made to all I could say to her. 
 
 Our situation was indeed pitiable. Had we fallen into the hands 
 of an ordinary pirate or robber, there might have been some room for 
 hope. The consciousness of his own violence might, perhaps, alarm 
 him; the fear of avenging justice might stay his hand. At the worst, 
 death, and that, too, a speedy and an easy one, would be the farthest 
 limit of his malice. But we — unhappy creatures — could flatter our- 
 selves with no such prospect. We were runaway slaves, who had fallen 
 again into the hands of their master; — a master whom the very 
 recollection that he owned us inspired with rage at our insolence in 
 daring to run away from him, and who knew well, that both the law 
 and public opinion would amply justify him in the infliction of any 
 tortures not likely to result in immediate death. 
 
 It is true that we had fled from the greatest outrage that can be 
 inflicted upon a wife and a husband. But that was no excuse, not 
 even the slightest palliation. Slaves are not permitted to fly at all. 
 It is their duty — alas! that such a word should be so prostituted! — 
 to submit, without a murmur, to all the insults, outrages, and oppres- 
 sion of then; masters. 
 
 I clasped my wife to my bosom, with almost the same trembling 
 earnestness with which she clung to me. I felt, as she did, that it 
 was the last time; and this idea sunk into my heart with a bitterness, 
 which all my late ecstasies served only to aggravate. I almost stifled 
 her with eager kisses ; but the fever that glowed iu her cheek was not 
 the flush of pleasure; and those deep sighs she heaved, they could 
 not be mistaken for the pantings of delight. The speedy separation 
 that threatened us, was not only terrible in anticipation, but it seemed 
 to destroy all our capacity for present enjoyment. But for that, with 
 Cassy in my arms, what should I have cared for chains and a dun- 
 geon! Dreading that, her lips lost all their sweetness, her bosom 
 was an uneasy pillow, and though I could not leave her, every em- 
 brace seemed to inerease both her distress and mine. 
 
 We passed several hours in this way, without any interruption. 
 We had not tasted food that day, and nobody brought us even a cup 
 of cold water. The heat and closeness of the room, into which the 
 air had no admission, aggravated the fever in our blood, and made
 
 43 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR 
 
 our thirst almost intolerable. How I longed for the cool spring, the 
 balmy air, the freedom we had lost! 
 
 Toward evening, we heard somebody approaching ; and I soon 
 recognised the voices of Colonel Moore and his overseer. They 
 opened the door, and bade us come out. At first, the light dazzled 
 my eyes so that I could scarcely distinguish one object from another ; 
 but in a little while I was enabled to see that our visitors were accom- 
 panied by Peter, a tall fellow, with a very suspicious smile, the spy 
 and tell-tale of the place, the detestation of all the servants, but 
 the especial favourite of Mr. Stubbs, and his regular assistant on ail 
 occasions. 
 
 Colonel Moore's face was a good deal flushed, and I judged that 
 he had been drinking. This was a practice very unusual with him. 
 For, though every dinner at his house was pretty sure to end by 
 putting the greater part of the guests upon the floor, Colonel Moore 
 generally passed the bottle, under the plea that his physician had for- 
 bidden its use, and commonly rose up the only sober man from his 
 own table. It was too plain that, on the present occasion, he had 
 forgotten his accustomed sobriety. He spoke not a word to me, and 
 I found it impossible to catch his eye ; but, turning to his overseer, 
 he said, in an under tone, and with the air of being a good deal irri- 
 tated, — " It was a damned blunder, Mr. Stubbs, to shut them up 
 together. I thought you understood my orders better." 
 
 The overseer mumbled out some unintelligible apology, of which 
 Colonel Moore took no notice ; and, without further preface or ex- 
 planation, he ordered Mr. Stubbs to tie me up. 
 
 The padlock by which the chain was fastened about my neck was 
 undone. They stripped me almost naked. Mr. Stubbs produced a 
 piece of rope, with one end of which he bound my hands, and the 
 other end he made fast, with Peter's assistance, to a beam over my 
 head ; not, however, till he had drawn it so tight as almost to lift me 
 from the floor. 
 
 Colonel Moore then ordered them to free Cassy from the chain. 
 He put a heavy whip into her hand, and pointing to me, " Take care, 
 my girl," he said, " that you lay it on to some purpose." 
 
 Poor Cassy looked about in utter amazement. She did not under- 
 stand him ; she had no idea of such refined cruelty — such ferocious 
 revenge. 
 
 He repeated his commands with a tone and a look that were 
 frightful. " If you wish to save your own carcass, see that you 
 bring blood at every blow. I'll teach you — both of you — to trifle 
 with me." 
 
 She now comprehended his brutal purpose ; — and giving one look 
 of mingled horror and despair, sunk senseless to the ground. Peter
 
 — 
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 4-9 
 
 was sent for water. He dashed it in her face, and she soon revived. 
 Thev placed her on her feet, and Colonel Moore again put the whip 
 imo her hand, and repeated his orders. 
 
 She threw it down, as if the touch had stung her, and looking 
 him full in the face, the tears all the while streaming from her eyes, 
 she said in a tone firm, hut full of entreaty, " Master, he is my 
 hushand !" 
 
 That word husband seemed to kindle Colonel Moore into a new 
 fury, which totally destroyed his self-command. He struck Cassy to 
 the ground with his fists, trampled on her with his feet, and snatching 
 up the whip which she had thrown down, he laid it upon me with 
 such violence, that the lash penetrated my flesh at every blow, and the 
 blood ran trickling down my legs, and stood in little puddles at my 
 feet. The torture was too great for human endurance ; I screamed 
 with agony. " Pshaw !" said my executioner, " his noise will disturb 
 the house ;" — and drawing a handkerchief from his pocket, he thrust 
 it into my mouth, and rammed it down my throat with the butt-end 
 of his whip-handle. Having thus effectually gagged me, he renewed 
 his lashes. How long they were continued I do not know ; a cloud 
 began to swim before my eyes ; my head grew dizzy and confused ; 
 and a fortunate faintiug-tit soon put me beyond the reach of torture. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 "When I recovered my senses, I found myself stretched upon a 
 wretched pallet Which lay upon the floor, in one corner of a little, 
 old, aud ruinous hovel. I was very weak, and hardly able to move ; 
 and I afterwards learned that I had just passed through the paroxysm 
 of a fever. A deaf old woman, too much superannuated to be fit for 
 anything but a nurse, was my only companion. I recognised the old 
 lady, and forgetting that she could not hear me, I put a thousand 
 questions in a breath. I dreaded, yet I wished to learn the fate of 
 poor Cassy ; and it was to her that most of my questions related. 
 But to all my inquiries the old woman returned no answer. I might 
 l Team myself deaf, she said, and she could not hear a word. Besides, 
 she told me, I was too sick and weak to talk. 
 
 I was not to be silenced in that way, aud only bawled the louder, 
 and added signs and gestures, to enable the old woman to understand 
 me. But it was plain that aunt Judy had no intention to gratify my 
 curiosity ; for when she found she could not quiet me, she went out, 
 aud locking the door after her, left me to my own meditations. 
 These were not very agreeable. As yet, however, my thoughts were 
 
 I
 
 50 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OK, 
 
 so confused, and my head so dizzy, that I could scarcely be said to 
 reflect at all. 
 
 I learned afterwards, that it was more than a week that I had 
 remained delirious, the effect of the violent fever into which I had 
 been thrown, and which threatened a speedy termination to my 
 miserable existence. But the crisis was now past. My youth, and 
 the vigour of my constitution, had carried me through it, and had 
 preserved me for new sufferings. 
 
 I recovered rapidly, and was soon able to walk about. Lest I 
 should make an undue use of my returning strength, and attempt 
 another escape, I was presently accommodated with fetters and hand- 
 cuffs. My fetters were taken off once a day, for about an hour, and 
 under Peter's supervision, I was allowed to breathe the fresh air, and 
 to take a short walk about the plantation. It was in vain that I 
 attempted to get from Peter any information concerning my wife. He 
 could not, or he would not, tell me anything about her. 
 
 I thought that perhaps he might sell the information which he 
 refused to give ; and I promised to make him a present of some 
 clothes, if he would allow me to visit my former house. We went 
 together. This house I had been enabled, in anticipation of my 
 marriage, and through the bounty of Mrs. Moore and her daughter, 
 to fit up quite comfortably. It was furnished with a variety of things 
 seldom seen in a slave's cabin. But I found it stripped and plun- 
 dered ; every article of furniture was gone, and my chest was broken 
 open and all my clothes taken away. For this I was no doubt in- 
 debted to my fellow-servants. The strongest, or almost the strongest, 
 impulse of the human mind, is the desire of acquisition. This pas- 
 sion the slave can only gratify by plunder. Besides, such is the 
 baneful effect of slavery, that it almost destroys the very germ of 
 virtue. If oppression makes the wise man mad, it too often makes 
 the honest man a villain. It embitters the feelings, and hardens and 
 brutifies the heart. He who finds himself plundered from his birth 
 of his liberty and labour — his only inheritance — becomes selfish, 
 reckless, and regardless of everything save the immediate gratification 
 of the present moment. Plundered of everything himself, he is ready 
 to plunder in his turn even his brothers in misfortune. 
 
 Finding my house stripped, and my clothes stolen, it put me in 
 mind to feel in my pockets for my money. That was gone too. 
 Indeed, I soon recollected, that when surprised and seized by Mr. 
 Gordon and his assistants, Mr. Stubbs had searched my pockets, and 
 transferred their contents to his own. This, of course, was the last 
 that I expected to see of my money. According to the Virginian 
 code of morals, Mr. Stubbs was a very respectable man, who did what 
 was perfectly proper. Certainly it was highly dangerous to trust a
 
 .. I =-— - «— ^ 
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 51 
 
 rogue and a runaway with the possession of a considerable sum of 
 money. But, according to the same code, the servants who had 
 stolen my clothes were a set of outrageous thieves, who richly 
 deserved a whipping. So Mr. Stubbs declared, whom we happened 
 to meet as we were returning, and to whom I complained that my 
 house had been plundered. That honest gentleman worked himself 
 quite into a- passion, and swore roundly that if he could catch the 
 thieves, he would make them smart for it. Notwithstanding this 
 outburst of virtuous indignation, Mr. Stubbs said nothing about 
 returning my money, and I judged it safest not to introduce the 
 subject myself. 
 
 In two or three weeks I had nearly recovered my strength, and the 
 gashes with which my back had been scored were quite healed over. 
 I was beginning to wonder what Colonel Moore intended to do with 
 me, when one evening I received a message from Mr. Stubbs, to be 
 up by sunrise the next morning, and ready for a journey. Where we 
 were going, or what was to be the object of our travels, he did not 
 condescend to inform me, nor did I feel much curiosity to know. I 
 had now one great consolation. Do what they pleased, it was im- 
 possible to render me any more miserable. It was this idea which 
 sustained me, and enabled me to regard the future with a sort of 
 careless and stupid indifference, at which, when I reflect upon it, I am 
 myself surprised. 
 
 In the morning, Mr. Stubbs came for me. He was on horseback, 
 whip in hand, as usual. He undid my fetters, but allowed me to 
 retain my handcuffs. He tied a piece of rope about my neck, and 
 fastened the other end of it to his own waist. Thus guarded against 
 escape, he mounted his horse, and bade me walk beside him. I was 
 still rather weak, and sometimes my pace flagged a little ; — but a 
 stroke from Mr. Stubbs's whip soon quickened me into vigour. I 
 inquired where we were going. " You'll know when you get there," 
 was the answer. 
 
 That night we lodged at a sort of tavern. We both occupied one 
 room — he the bed and I the floor. He took the cord from my neck 
 and bound my legs with it. It was drawn so tight, and caused me so 
 much pain, that I could not sleep. Several times I complained to 
 Mr. Stubbs ; but he ordered me to go to sleep quietly, and not be 
 troubling him with foolish complaints. The next morning when he 
 came to untie me, he found my ankles a good deal swollen. He 
 seemed sorry that he had paid no more attention to my appeals, but 
 excused himself by saying that we were all such a devilish pack of 
 liai\->, tnere was no telling when to believe us ; and he did not want 
 to be at the trouble of getting up for nothing. 
 
 The next day we continued our journey ; — but I was so broken 
 
 e 2 
 
 UNIVERSITY Or 
 ILLINOIS LIBRARY
 
 52 THE WHITE SLAVE \ 03, 
 
 down by the fatigues of the day previous, and by the want of sleep, 
 that nothing but the frequent application of Mr. Stubbs's whip could 
 stimulate me into the necessary exertion. My spirits and that stub- 
 bornness of soul, which hitherto had sustained me, seemed to fail at 
 the same time with my strength, and I wept like a child. At last, 
 we reached our journey's end. Late that evening, we entered the 
 city of Richmond. I am not able to describe the town, for I was 
 hurried off to jail, and there locked up for safe keeping. 
 
 I was now told why we had come. Colonel Moore, according to 
 Mr. Stubbs's account, was sick of such an unruly fellow, and had 
 determined to sell me. I had not seen him since the day I had 
 fainted under the energy of his paternal discipline. Nor did I ever 
 see him afterwards. A strange parting that between a son and a 
 father. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The next day I was to be sold. There was to be a public sale of 
 slaves, and several besides myself were to be disposed of. I was 
 fettered and handcuffed, and taken to market. The rest of the 
 merchandise was already collected ; but it was some time before the 
 sale began, and I occupied the interval in looking about me. Several 
 of the groups attracted my particular attention. 
 
 The first that caught my eye was an old man whose head was 
 completely white, and a pretty little girl, his granddaughter, as he 
 told me, about ten or twelve years old. Both the old man and the 
 little girl had iron collars about their necks, which were connected by 
 a heavy chain. One would have imagined that the old age of the 
 man and the youth of the girl would have made such savage precau- 
 tions unnecessary. But their master, so far as I could learn, had 
 resolved to sell them in a fit of passion, and the chains perhaps were 
 intended more for punishment than security. 
 
 A man and his wife, with an infant in her arms, stood next to the 
 old man and his daughter. The man and wife were quite young, and 
 apparently fond of each other ; at least, they seemed very much dis- 
 tressed at the idea of falling into the hands of different purchasers. 
 The woman now and then would address some one or other of the 
 company, who seemed to indicate an intention of buying. She would 
 beg them to purchase herself and her husband, and she ran over with 
 great volubility the good qualities of both. The man looked on the 
 ground, and preserved a moody and sullen silence. 
 
 There was another group of eight or ten men and women, who 
 seemed to regard the sale with as much unconcern as if they were
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 53 
 
 merely spectators. They laughed, and talked, and jested with one 
 another with as much gaiety as any of the company. An apologist 
 for tyranny would, no doubt, rejoice in such a spectacle, and would 
 be emboldened to argue that, after all, being sold at public auction is 
 not so terrible a thing as some weak people are apt to imagine. The 
 argument would be quite as sound as any that the slaveholder ever 
 uses ; and for ingenuity and conclusiveness deserves to be compared 
 with that of the philosopher who, having seen through the grates of 
 a prison a parcel of condemned criminals laughing and jesting toge- 
 ther, concluded that the expectation of being hung must have some- 
 thing in it very exhilarating. 
 
 The truth is, that the human mind, in its eager though too often 
 unavailing struggle after happiness, will still make the most of its 
 means ; — and even in the valley of despair, or under the ribs of death 
 itself, still strives to create some matter of enjoyment. Even the 
 slave will sing at his task ; he can laugh, too, though he find himself 
 sold like an ox in the market. The tyrant discovers that all his 
 wrongs and oppressions have not been able to extinguish in the soul 
 of his victim the capability of enjoyment ; and he points you to these 
 outbursts of a nature not yet totally subdued, and dares to boast of 
 the happiness he causes ! 
 
 But to be sold is not always a laughing matter. The first bargain 
 which the auctioneer offered to the company, was a man apparently 
 about thirty, with a fine, open, prepossessing countenance. He had 
 no expectation of being sold till the moment he was placed upon the 
 table ; for it appeared that his master, who lived near the city, had 
 lured him to town under the delusive pretext of an intention to hire 
 him out to some one of the citizens. When the poor fellow found that 
 he was actually to be sold, he was seized with such a trembling that 
 he could scarcely support himself. He shook from head to foot, and 
 his face indicated the greatest terror and distress. The two principal 
 bidders, — and they seemed to enter into a pretty warm competition, 
 — were a gentleman of the neighbourhood, who appeared to know the 
 poor fellow on sale, and a dashing, buckish young man, who, it was 
 said, was a slave-trader from South Carolina, who had come to pur- 
 chase slaves for that market. 
 
 As the sale proceeded, it was curious, but at the same time most 
 distressing, to observe the anxiety of the unhappy slave. When the 
 slave-trader took the lead, his jaw fell, his eyes rolled wildly, and he 
 seemed the very picture of despair ; but when the Virginian bid 
 higher, a gleam of pleasure shot across his face, the tears ran down 
 his cheeks, and his earnest " God bless you, master !" was enough to 
 touch the hardest heart. He interrupted the sale by his cries and 
 vociferations, and not even, the whip could keep him still. He called
 
 54 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 upon his favourite bidder by name, and entreated him to persevere by 
 every motive he could think of. He promised to serve him faithfully 
 to the last minute of his life, and work himself to death in his service, 
 if he would only buy him — only save him from being wholly separated 
 from his wife and children, and sent away — he knew not whither— 
 from the place where he was born and raised, and where, as he said, 
 he had always behaved well, and borne a good character. Not that 
 he had any particular objections to the other gentleman either — for 
 the poor fellow began to see the danger of offending a man who was 
 likely to become his master : no doubt he was a very fine gentleman 
 too ; but he was a stranger, and would take him out of the country, 
 and carry him far away from his wife and children ; and as he men- 
 tioned them, his voice sunk, choked and interrupted, to an inarticulate 
 sobbing. 
 
 The bidders kept up the contest with much spirit. The man was 
 evidently a first-rate hand. Aside from this, the Virginian seemed 
 touched by the poor fellow's entreaties, and dropped some hints about 
 slave-traders, which put his opponent into a violent passion, and 
 came near ending in a quarrel. The interposition of the by-standers 
 kept the competitors apart ; but the slave-trader, whose passions were 
 roused, swore that he would have the " boy," cost what he might, if 
 it were only to teach him a little good manners. One or two of the 
 company cried shame, and called upon the slave-trader to leave off 
 bidding, and suffer the poor fellow to remain in the country. He 
 replied with an oath and a sneer that he was not fool enough to be 
 bamboozled by any such nonsense, and immediately rose fifty dollars on 
 the last bid. This was more than the Virginian could afford to sacrifice 
 to a fit of good nature, and piqued and chagrined he yielded up the 
 contest. The auctioneer knocked off the purchase, and the man, 
 more dead than alive, was delivered into the hands of the slave- 
 trader's attendants, who received orders to give him twenty lashes on 
 the spot, for his " cursed ill-manneredly Virginian insolence." 
 
 The sneering emphasis with which this was spoken created no little 
 sensation among the by-standers ; but as the slave-trader strutted 
 about with his hand on his dirk handle, and as two pistols might 
 plainly be seen sticking out of his pockets, nobody saw fit to question 
 this provoking exercise of " his sacred right of property," and the 
 sale proceeded as before. 
 
 At length came my turn. I was stripped half-naked, the better to 
 show my joints and muscles, and placed upon the table or platform, 
 on which the subject of the sale was exposed to the examination of 
 the purchasers. I was whirled about, my limbs were felt, and my 
 capabilities discussed in a slang much like that of a company of horse- 
 jockeys. Various were the remarks that were made upon me. One
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 55 
 
 fellow declared that I had "a savage sullen look;" another swore 
 that mv eve was "devilish malicious;" a third remarked that these 
 light-coloured fellows were all rascals, — to which the auctioneer 
 replied that he never knew a slave of any smartness who was not a 
 rogue. 
 
 Abundance of questions were put to me, as to where I was raised, 
 why I was sold, and what I was fit for. To all these inquiries I made 
 the shortest and most indefinite answers. I was not in a humour to 
 gratify this curiosity ; and I had none of that ambition to bring a high 
 price, so common among slaves, the last and lowest form in which is 
 displayed that love of superiority which exercises so principal an in- 
 fluence over the feelings and the'actions of men. 
 
 Mr. Stubbs kept in the background, and said nothing. He had 
 his own reasons, I suppose, for this reserve. The auctioneer did his 
 best. According to his account, there was not a stronger, more 
 laborious, docile and obedient servant to be bought in all the States. 
 Notwithstanding all these praises, a suspicion seemed to spread itself 
 that my master had some reasons for selling me, which he did not 
 think fit to avow. One suggested that I must be consumptive ; 
 another thought it likely I was subject to fits ; while a third expressed 
 the opinion that I was an unruly fellow, and " mighty hard to manage." 
 The sears on mv back tended to confirm these suspicions ; and I was 
 knocked off at last at a very low price, to a portly, smiling old gentle- 
 man, by name Major Thornton. 
 
 No sooner had the auctioneer's hammer struck upon the table, 
 than mv new master spoke kindly to me, and ordered my irons to be 
 taken off. Against this Mr. Stubbs and the auctioneer remonstrated 
 very earnestly ; and assured the purchaser that if he unchained me, 
 he did it at his own risk. " I know it," replied my new master, " the 
 risk is mine, — but I will never own a servant who wants to run away 
 from me." 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 When my new master learned that I had but just recovered from 
 a fever, and that my strength was not yet entirely restored, he pro- 
 cured a horse for me, and we set out together for his plantation. He 
 lived a considerable distance west of Richmond, in that part of the 
 State known as Middle Virginia. During the ride he entered into 
 conversation with me, and I found him a very different person from 
 any one I had ever met with before. 
 
 He told me that I might consider myself lucky in falling into his 
 hands ; for he made it a point to treat his servants better than any-
 
 5C) THE WHITE SLAVE ) OR, 
 
 body in the neighbourhood. "If they are discontented or unrulv, 
 or apt to run away," he added, " I sell them at once, and so get rid 
 of them. I don't want any such fellows about me. But as mv 
 servants know very well that they stand no chance to better them- 
 selves by changing their master, they are very cautious how they offend 
 me. Be obedient, my boy, and do your task, and I will ensure you 
 plenty to eat, enough clothes, and more indulgence than you will be 
 likely to get from any other master." Such was the amount of 
 Major Thornton's lecture, which it took him, however, some five or 
 six hours to get through. 
 
 It was late in the evening before we arrived at Oakland, — for that 
 was the name of Major Thornton's property. The house was of brick, 
 with wooden porticos. It was not large, but neat and very handsome, 
 and presented many more appearances of substantial comfort than are 
 to be found about most of the houses of Virginia. The grounds 
 around it were prettily laid out, and ornamented with flowers and 
 shrubbery, — a thing quite uncommon, and which I had seldom seen 
 before. At a distance, on a fine swell, were the servants' cabins, 
 built of brick, neat and substantial ; not placed in a straight line, but 
 clustered together in a manner that had something picturesque about 
 it. They were shaded by fine large oaks ; no underbrush nor weeds 
 were suffered to grow about them, and altogether, they presented an 
 appearance of neatness and comfort, as new and singular ao it was 
 pleasing. The servants' cabins, on all the plantations I had ever 
 seen before, were a set of miserable ruinous hovels, with leaky roofs 
 and clay floors, almost buried in a rank growth of weeds, and as dirtv 
 and ill-kept as they were uncomfortable. 
 
 The children who were playing about the cabins furnished a new 
 occasion of surprise. I had been accustomed to see the children of a 
 plantation running about stark naked, or dressed — if dressed at all — 
 in a shirt of dirty osnaburgs, hanging in tatters about their legs, and 
 never washed after it was once put on. But the children at Oakland 
 were neatly and comfortably clothed, and presented nothing of that 
 squalid, pinched, neglected, and half-starved appearance, to which my 
 eye was so well accustomed. Their merry faces and boisterous sports 
 called up no idea of juvenile wretchedness. I observed, too, that the 
 hands, who were just coming in from their work, were all well clothed, 
 I saw none of those patched, tattered, ragged, and filthy garments so 
 common on other plantations. 
 
 Major Thornton was not a planter; — that is to say, he did not 
 make tobacco, and he chose to call himself a farmer. His principal 
 crop was wheat ; and he was a great advocate for the clover system of 
 cultivation, which he had adopted and pursued with much success. 
 He owned some thirty or forty working hands ; the children and
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 57 
 
 superannuated made his entire stock of slaves upwards of eighty. He 
 kept uo overseer, but managed for himself. Indeed, it was a maxim 
 with him, that an overseer was enough to ruin any man. He was 
 naturally stirring and industrious, and agriculture was his hobby, a 
 hobbv which he rode to some purpose. 
 
 In all these things, and many others, he was the perfect contrast of 
 all his neighbours ; and for that reason very little liked by any of 
 them. He carefully avoided horse-racing, cock-fights, political-meet- 
 ings, drinking, gambling, and frolicking of every sort. His money, 
 he used to sav, cost him too much to make it, to be thrown away 
 upon a bet ; and as to frolics, he had neither time nor taste for any 
 such nonsense. His neighbours revenged themselves for this con- 
 tempt of their favourite sports, by pronouncing him a mean-spirited 
 money-making fellow. They went further, and accused him of being 
 a bad citizen and a dangerous neighbour. They complained most 
 bitterly, that his excessive indulgence to his servants made all the 
 slaves in the neighbourhood uneasy and discontented; and at one 
 time, some of them went so far as to talk about giving him warning 
 to move out of the county. 
 
 But Major Thornton was a man of spirit. He understood his own 
 rights ; — he knew well the people among whom he lived, and what 
 sort of reasoning would influence them most. He contrived to get 
 hold of an offensive remark of one of the busiest of his ill-disposed 
 neighbours, and sent him a challenge. It was accepted; and his 
 antagonist was shot through the heart at the first fire. Henceforward, 
 — though his neighbours liked him no better than before, — thev took 
 verv good care how they talked about him, and allowed him to go on 
 in his own way, without any interference. 
 
 Major Thornton had not been bred a planter, and this perhaps 
 was the reason why he departed so much from the ordinary routine, 
 and managed things so very differently from all his neighbours. 
 He was born of a good family, as they say in Virginia, but his father 
 died when he was a mere boy, and left but a very scanty property. 
 He began life, in a small way, in a country store. His shrewdness, 
 economy, and attention to his business, enabled him, in the course 
 of a few years, to lay up a considerable sum of money. In Vir- 
 ginia, trade is hardly looked upon as respectable, — at least, such 
 was the case at the time of which I am speaking, — and every 
 on? who desires to be anybody, aims at becoming a landed proprietor. 
 About the time that Major Thornton had made enough to think of 
 changing his store for a plantation, the proprietor of Oakland, having 
 already .-asted two good estates on dogs, horses, and wild debauchery, 
 became so pressed for money as to be obliged to bring his remaining 
 property under the hammer. Major Thornton became the purchaser ;
 
 58 THE WHITE SLAVE j OK, 
 
 — but the place he bought was very different from Oakland as I saw 
 it. The buildings, which were old and ugly, were all out of repair, 
 and just tumbling to the ground ; and the land was nearly ruined 
 by that miserable, thriftless system of cultivation so universal through- 
 out the slave-holding states of America. 
 
 In a few years after the property had passed into the hands of 
 Major Thornton, everything was changed. The old houses were torn 
 down, and new ones built. The grounds about the house were en- 
 closed and ornamented ; and the land, under skilful management, 
 was fast regaining its original fertility. Those who had been born 
 and bred planters, and whose estates were very much in the same way 
 in which Oakland had been before it fell into the hands of Major 
 Thornton, looked at what was going on there with astonishment and 
 envy, and wondered how it could possibly happen. Major Thornton 
 was always ready to tell them ; for he was extremely fond of talking, 
 — particularly about himself, and his system of farming. But though 
 he had explained the whole matter at least ten times to every one of 
 his neighbours, he never could make a single convert. He haul three 
 favourite topics ; but he was equally unsuccessful upon all of them. 
 He never could persuade any one of his neighbours that a clover lay 
 was the true cure for sterile fields ; that the only way to have a 
 plantation well managed was to manage it one's self; or that to give 
 servants enough to eat, was a sure method to prevent them from 
 plundering the corn-fields and stealing sheep. 
 
 But though Major Thornton could gain no imitators, he still perse- 
 vered in farming according to his own notions. In no respect was he 
 more an innovator than in the management of his slaves. A merciful 
 man, he used to say, is merciful to his beast ; and not having been 
 raised on a plantation, he could not bear the idea of treating his ser- 
 vants worse than his horses. " It may do very well for you, Colonel," 
 he said one day to one of his neighbours, " to tie a fellow up and 
 give hrm forty lashes with your own hand ; you were born and bred 
 to it, and I dare say you find it very easy. But as odd as you may 
 think it, I had much rather be flogged myself than to flog one of my 
 servants ; and though sometimes I am obliged to do it, it is a great 
 point with me to get along with as little whipping as possible. That's 
 a principal reason why I keep no overseer, — for a cow-hide and a pair 
 of irons are the only two things those fellows have any notion of. 
 They have no wish, and if they had they have not the sense, to get 
 along in any other way; — the devil take the whole generation of 
 them. Everybody, you know, has their oddities. For my part, I 
 hate to hear the crack of a whip on my plantation, even though it be 
 nothing more than a cart-whip." 
 
 The above speech of Major Thornton's contained a brief summary
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 59 
 
 of his system. He was, what every other slaveholder is, and from 
 the very necessity of his condition must be, — a tyrant. He felt no 
 scruple in compelling his fellow men to labour, in order that he might 
 appropriate the fruits of that labour to his own benefit, — and in this 
 certainly, if in anything, the very essence of tyranny consists. But 
 though a tyrant, as every slaveholder is and must be, he was a reason- 
 able and, as far as possible, a humane one, — which very few slave- 
 holders either are or can be. He had no more thought of relinquishing 
 what he and the laws called his property in his slaves, than he had of 
 leaving his land to be occupied by the first comer. He would have 
 been as ready as any of his neighbours to have denounced the idea of 
 emancipation, or the notion of limiting his power over his servants, 
 as a ridiculous absurdity, and an impertinent interference with his 
 'most sacred rights.' But though, in theory, he claimed all the 
 authority and prerogatives of the most unlimited despotism, he dis- 
 played in his practice a certain share of common sense and common 
 humanity, — two things which, so far as relates to the management of 
 his slaves, it is extremely uncommon for a slaveholder to have, or if 
 he has them, very difficult for him to exercise. 
 
 These unusual gifts led him to a discovery, which at the time was 
 entirely new in his neighbourhood; though I hope before now it has 
 become general. He discovered that men cannot work without eating; 
 and that so far as the capability of labour is concerned, there is the 
 same policy in attending to the food, shelter, and comfort of one's 
 slaves, as in spending something on corn and stabling for one's horses. 
 'Feed well and work hard,' was Major Thornton's motto and practice, 
 — a motto and a practice, which in any other country than America, 
 would never have subjected him to the charge of unreasonable and 
 superfluous humanity. 
 
 As to whipping, Major Thornton, to use his own phrase, could not 
 bear it. "Whether he felt some qualms of conscience at the barefaced, 
 open tyranny of the lash, — which I do not think very probable, for I 
 once heard him tell a methodist parson, who ventured to say some- 
 thing to him on that delicate subject, that he had as much right to 
 flog his slaves as to eat his dinner ; or whether it was the influence of 
 that instinctive humanity which is wanting only in brutal tempers, and 
 which, till evil custom has worn it out, will not permit us to inflict 
 pain, without feeling ourselves a sympathetic suffering ; or whatever 
 might be the reason, unless Major Thornton was put into a passion 
 — to which he was but seldom liable — he certainly had a great horror 
 at using the whip. 
 
 But this was not all. Another man might have detested it as much 
 as he did; but the practice of a year or two in planting, and the 
 apparent impossibility of dispensing with its use, would have taught
 
 60 THE WHITE SLAVE J OR, 
 
 him to get rid of so inconvenient a squeamishness. There are very 
 few men indeed — and of all men in the world, very few planters — 
 whose good sense and knowledge of human nature would enahle them 
 to manage their slaves by any other means. Major Thornton, how- 
 ever, contrived to get on wonderfully well ; and in all the time that I 
 lived with him, which was nearly two years, there were not more than 
 a half a dozen whippings on the place. If one of his servants was 
 guilty of anything, which in a slave is esteemed especially enormous, 
 such as running away, repeated theft, idleness, insolence or insubordi- 
 nation, Major Thornton sent him off to be sold. By a strange, but 
 common inconsistency, this man of feeling, who could not bear to 
 whip a slave, or to see him whipped, or even to have him whipped on 
 his own plantation, felt no scruples at all, at tearing him from the 
 arms of his wife and children, and setting him up at public sale, to 
 fall into the hands of any ferocious master, who might chance to 
 purchase him ! 
 
 This dread of being sold was ever before our eyes; and was as 
 efficacious as the lash is on other plantations, in forcing us to labour 
 and submission. We knew very well that there were few masters like 
 Major Thornton ; and the thought of exchanging our nice, neat 
 cottages, our plentiful allowance, our regular supply of clothing, and 
 the general comfort and indulgence of Oakland, for the fare and the 
 treatment to be expected from the common run of masters, was more 
 terrible than a dozen whippings. Major Thornton understood this 
 well j and he took care to keep up the terrors of it, by making an 
 example of some delinquent, once in a year or two. 
 
 Then he had the art of exciting our emulation by little prizes and 
 presents ; he was very scrupulous never to exact anything beyond the 
 appointed task ; and he kept us in good humour by allowing us, when 
 not at work, to be very much our own masters, and to go where, and 
 do what we pleased. We were rather cautious, though, how we 
 visited the neighbouring plantations ; for with a magnanimity worthy 
 of slaveholders, some of Major Thornton's neighbours were in the 
 habit of gratifying their spite against him, by improving every oppor- 
 tunity that offered, to abuse his servants. And here I may as well 
 relate an incident that happened to myself, which will serve, at once, 
 as a curious illustration of Virginian manners, and a proof of what, I 
 believe, will be found to be true all the world over, — that where the 
 laws aim at the oppression of one half the people of a country, they 
 are seldom treated with much respect by the other half. 
 
 Captain Robinson was one of Major Thornton's nearest neighbours, 
 and a person with whom he had frequent altercations. I was passing 
 along on the public road one Sunday, at a little distance from Oak- 
 land, when I met Captain Robinson on horseback, followed by a ser-
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 61 
 
 vant. He bade me stop, and inquired if I was the fellow whom that 
 " damned scoundrel Thornton" sent to his house yesterday with an 
 insolent message about his lower-field fences. I answered that I had 
 been sent yesterday with a message about the fence, which I had de- 
 livered to his overseer. 
 
 " A mighty pretty message it was, mighty ! I'll tell you what, 
 boy, if my overseer had known his business, he would have tucked 
 you up on the spot, and given you forty lashes." 
 
 I told him that I had only delivered the message which my master 
 had sent me with, and it seemed hard to blame me for that. 
 
 " Don't talk to me, don't talk to me, you infernal scoundrel — I'll 
 teach both you and your master what it is to insult a gentleman. Lay 
 hold of him, Tom, while I dust that new jacket of his a little." 
 
 Having received these orders from his master, Captain Robinson's 
 man Tom jumped off his horse and laid hold of me ; but as I strug- 
 gled hard, and was the stronger of the two, I should soon have got 
 away, if the master had not dismounted and come to the aid of his 
 servant. Both together, they were too strong for me, and having 
 succeeded in getting me down, they stripped off my coat, and bound 
 my hands. Captain Robinson then mounted his horse, and beat me 
 with his whip, till it was quite worn out. Having thus satisfied his 
 rage, he rode off, followed by Tom, without taking the trouble to 
 loose my hands. They had no sooner left me than I began to look 
 about for my hat and coat. Both were missing ; — and whether it 
 was the captain or his servant that carried them off, I never could 
 discover. I suppose, though, it was the servant, — for I recollect 
 very well seeing Tom, a few Sundays after, strutting about at a 
 methodist meeting, with a blue coat on, which I could almost have 
 sworn to be mine. 
 
 When I got home, and told my ma ter what had happened, he was 
 in a towering passion. At first, he was for riding at once to Captain 
 Robinson's, and calling for an explanation. But presently he recol- 
 lected that the county court was to meet the next day, at which he 
 had business. This would give him an opportunity to consult his 
 lawyer ; and, after a little reflection, he thought it best not to move 
 in the affair till he had legal advice upon it. 
 
 The next day he took me with him. We called upon the lawyer ; 
 I told what had happened to me, and Major Thornton inquired what 
 satisfaction the law would afford him. 
 
 The lawyer answered, that the law in this case was very clear, and 
 the remedy it provided, all-sufficient. " Some people," he said, 
 " who know nothing about the matter, have asserted that the law in 
 slave-holding States does not protect the person of the slave against 
 the violence of the free, and that any white man may flog any slave at
 
 02 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OB, 
 
 his own good pleasure. This is a very great mistake,. if not a wilful 
 falsehood. The law permits no such thing. It extends the mantle 
 of its protection impartially over bond and free. In this respect, the 
 law knows no distinction. If a freeman is assaulted, he has his 
 action for damages against the assailant ; and if a slave is assaulted, 
 the master of that slave, who is his legal guardian and protector, can 
 bring his action for damages. Now in this case, Major Thornton, it 
 is quite plain that you have good ground of action against Captain 
 Robinson ; and the jury, I dare say, will give you a swinging verdict. 
 I suppose you are able to prove all these facts V 
 
 " Prove them — to be sure," answered my master ; " here is Archy 
 himself who has told you the whole story." 
 
 " Yes, my good sir ; but you do not seem to remember that a slave 
 cannot be admitted to testify against a white man." 
 
 " And pray tell me, then," said Major Thornton, " what good the 
 law you speak of is going to do me ? Did not Robinson catch Archy 
 alone, and abuse him as he has told you ? You don't suppose he 
 was fool enough to call in a white man on purpose to be a witness 
 against him ? Why, sir, notwithstanding the protection of the law, 
 which you commend so highly, every servant I have may be beaten 
 by this Robinson every day in the week, and I not be able to get 
 the slightest satisfaction. The devil take such law I say." 
 
 " But, my dear sir," answered the lawyer, " you must consider the 
 great danger and inconvenience of allowing slaves to be witnesses." 
 
 " Why, yes," said my master with a half smile, " I fancy it would 
 be rather dangerous for some of my acquaintances ; — quite inconve- 
 nient no doubt. Well, sir, since you say the law can't help me in 
 this matter, I must take care of myself. I cannot allow my servants 
 to be abused in this way. I'll horsewhip that scoundrel Robinson at 
 sight." 
 
 With these words my master left the office, and I followed behind 
 him. We had gone but a little way down the street when he had 
 an unexpected opportunity of carrying his threat into execution, — 
 for as it chanced, we met Captain Robinson, who had business, it 
 seemed, at the county court, as well as Major Thornton. My master 
 did not waste many words upon him, but began striking him over 
 the shoulders with his riding-whip. Captain Robinson drew a pistol ; 
 — my master threw down his whip and drew a pistol also. The 
 captain fired, but without effect ; Major Thornton then levelled his 
 weapon, — but Robinson called out that he was unarmed, and begged 
 him not to fire. Major Thornton hesitated a moment, and then 
 dropped his hand. By this time quite a crowd had collected about 
 us, and some friend of Captain Robinson's handed him a loaded 
 pistol. The combatants renewed their aim and fired together. Cap-
 
 = 
 
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 *«'
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 63 
 
 tain Robinson fell desperately wounded. His ball missed my master, 
 but passed tbrougb the body of a free coloured man, who was the 
 only person of all the company who made any attempt to separate 
 the parties. The poor fellow fell dead; and the people about 
 declared that it was good enough for him, — for what right had " a 
 cursed free fellow " like him to be interfering between gentlemen ? 
 
 Captain Robinson's friends lifted him up and carried him home. 
 Major Thornton and myself walked off the held in triumph, — and so 
 the affair ended. Such affrays are much talked about ; but the grand 
 jury very seldom hears anything of them; and the conqueror is pretty 
 sure to rise in the public estimation. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Somf, persons perhaps may think that having fallen into the hands 
 of such a master as Major Thornton, I had now nothing to do but to 
 eat, to work, and to be happy. 
 
 Had I been a horse or an ox, there would be good ground for this 
 idea ; but unfortunately I was a man ; and the animal appetites are 
 by no means the only motive of human action, nor the sole sources 
 of human happiness or misery. 
 
 It is certainly true that several of Major Thornton's servants, born 
 perhaps with but little sensibility, and brutalized by a life of servi- 
 tude, seemed very well content with their lot. This was the sort of 
 servant which Major Thornton especially admired. In this particular 
 he did not differ much from his neighbours. The more stupid a held 
 hand is, the more he is esteemed ; and a slave who shows any signs 
 of capacity, is generally set down as certain to be a rogue and a rascal. 
 
 I soon discovered my master's fondness for stupid fellows ; and I 
 took care to play the fool to his entire satisfaction. In a short time, 
 I made myself quite a favourite ; and my master having taken a fancy 
 to me, I was more indulged, perhaps, than any servant on the place. 
 But this could not make me happy. 
 
 Human happiness — with some very limited exceptions — is never 
 in fruition, but always in prospect and pursuit. It is not this, that, 
 or the other situation that can give happiness. Riches, power, or 
 glory, are nothing when possessed. It is the pleasure of tne pursuit 
 and the struggle, it is the very labour of their attainment in which 
 consists the happiness they bring. 
 
 Those moralists who have composed so many homilies upon the 
 duty of contentment, betray an extreme ignorance of human nature. 
 No situation, however splendid, in which one is compelled to remain
 
 6i THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 fixed and stationary, can long afford pleasure; and on the other 
 hand, no condition, however destitute or degraded, out of which one 
 has a fair prospect, or anything like a sufficient hope of rising, can 
 justly be considered as utterly miserable. This is the constitution of 
 the human mind ; and in it we find the explanation of a thousand 
 things, which without this key to their meaning, seem full of mystery 
 and contradiction. 
 
 Though all men have not the same objects of pursuit, all are im- 
 pelled and sustained by the same hope of success. Nothing can 
 satisfy the lofty desires of one man but influence, fame, or power, the 
 myrtle wreath or laurel crown ; another aims no higher than to rise 
 from abject poverty to a little competency, or if his ambition is of 
 another sort, to be the chief person in his native village, or the oracle 
 of a country neighbourhood. How different are these aims ! — and 
 yet the impulse that prompts them is the same. It is the desire of 
 social superiority. He whom circumstances permit to yield to this 
 impulse of his nature, and to pursue — successfully or not it matters 
 little — but to pursue with some tolerable prospect of success, the 
 objects which have captivated his fancy, may be regarded as having 
 all the chance for happiness, which the lot of humanity allows ; while 
 he, whom fate or fortune, or whatever malignant cause, compels to 
 suppress and forego the instinctive impulses and wishes of his heart 
 —whatever in other respects may be his situation — is a wretch con- 
 demned to sorrow, and deserving pity. To the one, toil is itself a 
 pleasure. He is a hunter whom the sight of his game fills with 
 delight, and makes insensible to fatigue. Desire sustains him, and 
 Hope cheers him on. These are delights the other never knows ; for 
 him life has lost its relish; rest is irksome to him, and labour is 
 intolerable. 
 
 This is no digression. He who has taken the pains to read the 
 preceding paragraph will be able to understand how it happened, 
 that even with such a master as Major Thornton, I was neither happy 
 nor content. 
 
 It is true I was well fed, well clothed, and not severely worked ; 
 and in these particulars, — as my master was fond of boasting, and 
 as I have since found to be the case, — my situation was far superior 
 to that of very many freemen. But I lacked one thing which every 
 freeman has ; and that one want was enough to make me miserable. 
 I wanted liberty; the liberty of labouring for myself, not for a 
 master ; of pursuing my own happiness, instead of toiling at his plea- 
 sure, and for his gain. This liberty can lighten the hardest lot. He 
 knows but little of human nature, who has not discovered that to all 
 who rise one step above the brutes, it is far pleasanter to starve and 
 freeze after their own fashion, than to be fed, and clothed, and 
 worked upon compulsion.
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 6'5 
 
 I was wretched, — for I had no object of hope or rational desire. 
 I was a slave ; and the laws held out no prospect of emancipation. 
 All the efforts in the world could not better my condition ; all the 
 efforts in the world could not prevent me from falling — perhaps to- 
 morrow — into the hands of another master, as cruel and unreasonable 
 as evil passions and hard-heartedness could make him. The future 
 offered only the chance of evils. I might starve with cold and hunger 
 as well as another ; I might perish by gun-shot wounds, or the tor- 
 ture of the lash ; or be hung up, perhaps, without judge or jury. 
 But of bettering my condition I had neither chance nor hopes. I 
 was a prisoner for life ; at the present moment, not suffering for food 
 or clothing, but without the slightest prospect of liberation; and 
 likely enough at any moment to change my keeper, and, under the 
 discipline of a new jailer, to feel the pinchings of cold and hunger, 
 and to tremble daily beneath the whip. I was cut off and excluded 
 from all those hopes and wishes which are the chief impulses of 
 human action. I could not aim to become the master of a little 
 cottage which, however humble, I might call my own ; to be the 
 lord of one poor acre, which, however small or barren, might still be 
 mine. I could not marry — alas, poor Cassy ! — -and become the 
 father of a family, with the fond hope that when age should overtake 
 me, I might still find pleasure and support in the kindness of chil- 
 dren and the sympathy of a wife. My children might be snatched 
 from the arms of their mother, and sold to the slave-trader; the 
 mother might be sent to keep them company, — and I be left old, de- 
 solate, uncomforted. Motives such as these, motives which strengthen 
 the freeman's arm and cheer his heart, were unfelt by me. I la- 
 boured ; — but it was only because I feared the lash. The want of 
 willingness unnerved me, and every stroke cost a new effort. 
 
 It is even true that Major Thornton's humanity, or, to speak more 
 correctly, his sense of his own interest, while it preserved his servants 
 from the miseries of hunger and nakedness, at the same time exposed 
 those among them, whom slavery and ignorance had not completely 
 brutalized, to other and more excruciating miseries. Had we been 
 but half fed and half clothed, like the servants on several of the 
 neighbouring plantations, we should, like them, have enjoyed the 
 excitement of plunder. We should have found some exercise for our 
 ingenuity, and some object about which to interest ourselves, in plans 
 and stratagems for eking out our short allowance by the aid of theft. 
 
 As it was, stealing was but little practised at Oakland. The 
 inducement was too small, and the risk too great, for detection was 
 certain to result in being sold. Money was no object to us ; we could 
 only spend it on food and clothes, and of these we had enough already. 
 Whisky was tho only luxury we wanted ; and we could make enough 
 
 F
 
 G6 THE WHITE SLAVE; OR, 
 
 to purchase that without the necessity of theft. Mr. Thornton allowed 
 each of us a little piece of ground. That was customary ; but, what 
 was quite contrary to custom, he allowed us time to cultivate it. He 
 endeavoured to stimulate our industry by the promise of buying all 
 we could produce, not at a mere nominal price, as was the fashion on 
 other plantations, but at its full value. 
 
 I am sorry to say it, but it is not the less true, that Major Thorn- 
 ton's people, like all slaves who have the means and the opportunity, 
 were generally drunkards. Our master took good care that whisky 
 did not interfere with our work. To be drunk before the task was 
 finished was a high misdemeanour. But after the day's labour was over, 
 we were at liberty to drink as much as we pleased, provided always 
 that it did not prevent us from turning out at daylight the next 
 morning. Sunday was generally a grand saturnalia. 
 
 Hitherto I had scarcely been in the habit of drinking ; but now I 
 began to be eager for anything which promised to sustain my sinking 
 spirits, and to excite my stagnant soul. I soon found in whisky a 
 something that seemed to answer the purpose. In that elevation of 
 heart which drunkenness inspires, that forgetfulness of the past and 
 the present, that momentary halo with which it crowns the future, I 
 found a delight which I hastened to repeat, and knew not how to 
 forego. Reality was to me a blank, dark and dreary. Action was 
 forbidden ; desire was chained ; and hope shut out. I was obliged 
 to find relief in dreams and illusions. Drunkenness, which degrades 
 the freeman to a level with the brutes, raises, or seems to raise the 
 slave, to the dignity of a man. It soon became my only pleasure, and 
 I indulged it to excess. Every day, as soon as my task was finished, 
 I hastened to shut myself up with my bottle. I drank in solitude, 
 for much as I loved the excitement of drunkenness, I could not forget 
 its beastliness and insanity, and I hated to expose my folly to the 
 sight of my fellow-servants. But my precautions were not always 
 successful. In the phrensy of excitement I sometimes forgot all my 
 sober precautions, undid the bolts I had carefully fastened, and sought 
 the company I most desired to shun. 
 
 One Sunday, I had been drinking till I was no longer the master 
 of my own actions. I had left my house, and gone to seek some 
 boon-companions with whom to protract the revel and increase its 
 zest. But I was unable to distinguish one object from another, and 
 after straggling off for some distance, I sunk down, almost insensible, 
 upon the carriage-way which led towards Major Thornton's house. 
 
 I had grown a little more sober, and was endeavouring to rally my 
 thoughts and to recollect where I was, and what had brought me 
 there, when I saw my master riding up the road with two other gen- 
 tlemen. They were all on horseback ; and, as drunk as I was, I saw 
 at a glance that my master's two companions were very much in the
 
 MEMOIKS OF A FUGITIVE. 67 
 
 same predicament. The manner in which they reeled backward and 
 forward in their saddles was truly laughable ; and I expected every 
 moment to see them fall. I made these observations as I lay upon 
 the road, without once thinking where I was, or recollecting the 
 danger I was in of being ridden over. They had come quite near 
 before they noticed me. By that time I was sitting up, and my 
 master's drunken companions took it into their heads to jump their 
 horses over me. Major Thornton did his best to prevent them; 
 one he succeeded in stopping, but the other evaded his attempt to 
 seize the bridle, swore that the sport was too pretty to be lost, put 
 spurs to his horse, and brought him up to the leap. 
 
 But the horse had no fancy for this sort of sport. When he saw 
 me before him, he started back, and his drunken rider came tumbling 
 to the ground. The others dismounted, and went to his assistance. 
 Before he was well upon his feet, he begged Major Thornton's atten- 
 tion, and forthwith commenced a very grave lecture on the indecency 
 of allowing servants to get drunk, and to lie about the plantation, 
 particularly across the roads, frightening gentlemen's horses, and 
 putting the necks of their riders into jeopardy. "Especially you, 
 Major Thornton, who pretend to be a pattern for all of us. Yes, 
 sir, — yes, if you did as you ought to do, every time one of the rascal 
 fellows had the insolence to get drunk, you would tie him up and 
 give him forty lashes. That's the way I do on my plantation." 
 
 My master was so very fond of setting forth his method of farming, 
 and his plan of plantation-discipline, that he did not always stop to 
 consider whether his auditors were drunk or sober. The present 
 opportunity was too good to be lost, and, rubbing his hands together, 
 be answered, with a half smile and a very sagacious look — "But, 
 my dear sir, you must know it is a part of my plan to let my servants 
 drink as much as they please, so that it does not interfere with their 
 tasks. Poor fellows ! it serves to keep them out of mischief, and 
 soon makes them so stupid they are the easiest creatures in the world 
 to manage." Here he paused a minute, and assuming the look which 
 a man puts on who thinks he is going to urge an unanswerable argu- 
 ment — " Besides," be added, " if one of these drinking fellows hap- 
 pens to take a huff and runs away, the very first thing he does is to 
 get drunk, so that you seldom have any difficulty in catching him." 
 
 Though I was still too much under the influence of whisky to be 
 capable of much muscular motion, I had so far recovered my senses 
 as to comprehend perfectly all that my master was saying ; and no 
 sooner had he finished, than, drunk as I was, I made a resolution to 
 drink no more. I was not yet so far lost as to be able to endure the 
 idea of being myself the instrument of my own degradation. My reso- 
 lution was well kept, for I have seldom tasted spirits since that day. 
 
 F2
 
 6$ THE WHITE SLAVE J OR, 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 It is the lot of the slave to be exposed, in common with other men , 
 to all the calamities of chance and all the caprices of fortune. But, 
 unlike other men, he is denied the consolation of struggling against 
 them. He is bound hand and foot, and his sufferings are aggravated 
 tenfold by the bitter idea that he is not allowed to help himself, or to 
 make any attempt to escape the blow which he sees pending over 
 him. This idea of utter helplessness is one of the most distressing in 
 nature ; it is twin sister to despair. 
 
 Major Thornton, by over exertion and imprudent exposure, brought 
 on a fever, which, in a short time, assumed a very unfavourable 
 aspect. It was the first time he had been sick for many years. The 
 alarm, and even terror, which the news of his danger excited at 
 Oakland, was very great. Every morning and evening we collected 
 about the house to learn how our master did ; and mournful were the 
 faces and sad the hearts with which we heard the bitter words, " no 
 better." The women at Oakland had always been treated with pecu- 
 liar indulgence, such as their sex and weakness demand, but demand 
 so often without obtaining it. Major Thornton's illness gave an 
 instance how full of gratitude is the female heart, and at what a 
 trifling expense one may purchase its most zealous affection. All the 
 women on the place were anxious to be employed in some way in 
 ministering to the comfort of their suffering master. The most dis- 
 agreeable duties were eagerly performed ; and if ever man was ten- 
 derly and assiduously nursed, it was Major Thornton. But all this 
 care, all our sympathy, our sorrow and our terrors, were of no effect. 
 The fever raged with unabated fury, and seemed to find new fuel in 
 the strength of the patient's constitution. But that fuel was soon 
 exhausted ; and in ten days our master was no more. 
 
 "When his decease became known, we looked upon each other in 
 silent consternation. A family of helpless orphans, from whom death 
 had just snatched their last surviving parent, could not have felt a 
 greater destitution. Tears rolled down the cheeks of the men, and 
 the lamentations of the women were violent and wild. His old 
 nurse, in particular, wept and would not listen to any consolation. 
 She had good reason. At his father's death she had been sold, with 
 the other property, to satisfy the creditors. But Major Thornton 
 had re-purchased her out of his very first earnings ; he had made her 
 the head-servant of his household, and had always treated her with 
 great tenderness. The old woman loved him like her own child, and 
 lamented her " dear son Charley," as she called him, with all the 
 pathetic energy of a widowed and childless mother.
 
 ME.MOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 69 
 
 We all attended the funeral, and followed our dead master to the 
 grave. The hollow sound of the earth as it fell upon the coffin, was 
 echoed back from every bosom ; and when this last sad office was 
 finished, we stood over the spot, and wept together. Doubt not the 
 sincerity of our sorrow ! It was for ourselves we were lamenting. 
 
 Major Thornton was never married ; and he left no children whose 
 rights the laws acknowledged. If he had intended to make a will, 
 his sudden death prevented him ; and his property passed to a troop 
 of cousins, for whom, I suspect, he did not entertain any great 
 affection. At all events, I had never seen any of them at Oakland, 
 nor could I learn from the other servants that either of them had 
 ever made a visit there. It was thus that we became the property of 
 strangers who had never seen us, and whom we had never seen. 
 
 These heirs-at-law were poor as well as numerous, and seemed very 
 eager to turn all the property into money, so as to get their several 
 shares with the least possible delay. An order of court, or whatever 
 the legal process might be called, was soon obtained ; and the sale of 
 the slaves was advertised to take place at the county court-house. 
 The agent to whom the care of the estate was intrusted, made the 
 necessary preparations. Of course, it was not thought expedient that 
 we should know what was going on, or what our new owners intended 
 to do with us. The secret was carefully kept, lest some of us should 
 run away. 
 
 The day before that which had been appointed for the sale we were 
 collected together. The able-bodied men and women were hand- 
 cuffed and chained in a string. A few old grey-headed people and 
 the younger children were carried in a cart. The rest of us were 
 driven along like cattle — men, women, and children together." Three 
 fellows on horseback, with the usual equipment of long whips, served 
 at once as guards and drivers. 
 
 I shall not attempt to describe our affliction. It would be but the 
 repetition of an oft-told tale. Who has not read of slave-traders on 
 the coast of Africa ? Whose heart has not ached at picturing the 
 terrors and despair of the kidnapped victims ? Our case was much 
 the same. Many of us had been born and reared at Oakland, and 
 all looked upon it as a home — nay, more, as a city of refuge, where 
 we had always been safe from gratuitous insults and aggressions. 
 From this home we were now snatched away, without a moment's 
 warning ; and were driven chained to the slave-market, there to be 
 sold to the highest bidder. 
 
 Is it strange that we were reluctant to go ? Had we been setting 
 out, of our own accord, to seek our fortunes, we could not have 
 broken, all at once, all the ties that bound us to Oakland, without 
 some throbs of natural grief. What, then, must have been our 
 anguish to leave it as we did ?
 
 70 THE WHITE SLAVE; OR, 
 
 But the tears of the men, the sobs of the women, and the cries 
 and terrors of the poor children, availed us nothing. Our conductors 
 cracked their whips, and made a jest of our lamentations. Our sor- 
 rowful procession moved slowly on ; and many a sad, lingering look, 
 we cast behind us. We said nothing ; and our melancholy reflections 
 were only interrupted by the curses, shouts, and loud laughter of our 
 drivers. 
 
 We lodged that night by the road-side, our drivers sleeping and 
 keeping watch by turns. The next day we reached the county court- 
 house, and at the appointed hour the sale began. The company was not 
 very numerous, and the bidders seemed extremely shy. Many of our 
 late master's neighbours were present. One of them remarked, that 
 several of us were fine stout fellows, but, for his part, he should be 
 afraid to buy any of the Thornton hands, for we had been so spoiled 
 by our late master's foolish indulgence, that one of us would be 
 enough to spread discontent through a whole neighbourhood. This 
 speech was received with evident applause, and it had its intended 
 effect. The auctioneer did his best, and harangued most eloquently 
 upon our healthy, sound, and plump condition. "As to the over- 
 indulgence that gentleman speaks about," he added, " a good cow-hide 
 and strict discipline, will soon bring them into proper subordination ; 
 and from what I have heard of that gentleman's own management, 
 he is the very person who ought to buy them." A slight titter ran 
 through the company at this sally of the auctioneer's, but it did not 
 seem to make the bidding much brisker. We went off at very 
 moderate prices. Most of the younger men and women, and a large 
 proportion of the children, were bought by a slave-trader, who had 
 come on purpose to attend the sale. It was very difficult to get a 
 bid for several of the old people. Mr. Thornton's nurse, who, as I 
 have mentioned, had been his housekeeper, and a person of no little 
 consequence at Oakland, was knocked off for twenty dollars. She 
 was bought by an old fellow, well-known in the neighbourhood for 
 his cruelty to his servants. He shook his head as the auctioneer's 
 hammer struck the table, grinned a significant smile, and said he 
 believed the girl was yet able to handle a hoe — anyhow, he would get 
 one summer's work out of her. The old lady had scarcely held up 
 her head since the death of her master ; but she forgot all her sorrows, 
 she forgot even to deplore the lot that seemed to await her, in her 
 anger at being sold at so small a price. She turned to her pur- 
 chaser, and with an indignant air, told him that she was both younger 
 and stronger than folks thought for, and assured him that he had 
 made the best bargain of any of the company. The old fellow 
 chuckled, but said nothing. It was easy to read his thoughts. He 
 was evidently resolving to hold the old woman to her word.
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 71 
 
 Some of the old and decerpit slaves coidd not be sold at all. They 
 were not worth purchasing, and nobody would make an offer. I do 
 not know what became of them. 
 
 The slave-dealer who had purchased most of the children, declined 
 buying such of the mothers as were past the age of child-bearing. 
 The parting of these mothers from their children was a new scene of 
 misery and lamentation. The poor things, snatched a little while 
 before from the home of their birth and their infancy, and now torn 
 from the mothers that bore and nursed them, clasped their little 
 hands, and shrieked with all the unrestrained vehemence of infant 
 agony; the mothers wept too, but their grief was more subdued. 
 There was one old woman, the mother, she said, of fifteen children. 
 One little girl, about ten or twelve years eld, was all that remained 
 to her. The others had been sold and scattered, she knew not 
 whither. She was now to part from her youngest and onlv remaining 
 child. The little girl clung to her mother's dress with all the terror 
 of one who was about to be kidnapped ; and her screams and cries 
 might have touched a heart of stone. Her new master snatched the 
 child away, hit her a cut with his whip, and bade her hold her 
 " cursed clatter." A slave-trader, however he may have the exterior 
 of a gentleman, is, in fact, the same ferocious barbarian, whether on 
 the coast of Guinea, or in the heart of the ' Ancient Dominion.' 
 
 When our new master had completed his purchases, he prepared to 
 set out with his drove. He was one of a slave-dealing firm, whose 
 head-quarters were at the city of Washington, the seat of the federal 
 government, and the capital of the United States of America. It was 
 to this place that he intended to carry us. The whole purchase was 
 about forty head, consisting in nearly equal proportions of men, women, 
 and children. We were joined in couples by iron collars about our 
 necks, which were connected by a link of iron. To these connecting 
 links a heavy chain was fastened, extending from one end of the drove 
 to the other. Besides all this, the right and left hands of every couple 
 were fastened together by handcuffs, and another chain passed along 
 these fastenings. The collars about our necks, with their connecting 
 chain, might have been thought, perhaps, under ordinary circum- 
 stances, a sufficient security ; but as our new master had heard from 
 Major Thornton's neighbours, who were present at the sale, that we 
 were " a set of very dangerous fellows," he thought it best, as he 
 said, to omit no reasonable means of security. 
 
 The drove was presently put in motion. Our purchasers, with two 
 or three assistants, rode beside us on horseback, armed with whips, as 
 usual. The journey was slow, sad, and wearisome. We travelled 
 without any good will ; the poor children harassed with the weight of 
 their chains, and unaccustomed to fatigue j and ail of us faint for
 
 72 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 ^rant of food — for our new master was an economist, who spent as 
 little on the road as possible. 
 
 I will not dwell upon the tedious monotony of our sufferings and 
 our journey. Suffice it to say, that after travelling for several days, 
 we crossed the noble and wide-spreading Potomac, and, late at night, 
 began to enter the federal city. Perhaps I ought to say, the place 
 where the federal city was to be — for Washington, at that time, 
 seemed only a straggling village, scattered over a wide extent of 
 ground, and interspersed with deserted fields, overgrown with bushes. 
 There were some indications, however, of the future metropolis. 
 The Capitol, though unfinished, was rearing its spacious walls in the 
 fcioonlight, and gave promise of a magnificent edifice. Lights gleamed 
 from the windows. The Congress, perhaps, was in session. I gazed 
 at the building with no little emotion. " This," said I to myself. " is 
 the head-quarters of a great nation, the spot in which its concentrated 
 wisdom is collected, to devise laws for the benefit of the whole com- 
 munity — the just and equal laws of a free people and a great demo- 
 cracy !" I was going on with this mental soliloquy, when the iron 
 collar about my neck touched a place from which it had rubbed the 
 skin ; and as I started with the pain, the rattling of chains reminded 
 me, that " these just and equal laws of a free people and a great 
 democracy," did not avail to rescue a million* of bondmen from 
 hopeless servitude ; and the cracking of our drivers' whips told too 
 plainly that within a stone's throw of the Temple of Liberty — nay, 
 under its very porticos — the most brutal, odious, and detestable 
 tyranny found none to rebuke, or to forbid it. What sort of liberty 
 is it, whose chosen city is a slave-market ? — and what that freedom, 
 which permits the bravado insolence of a slave-trading aristocracy to 
 lord it in the very halls of her legislation? 
 
 We passed up the street which led by the Capitol, and presently 
 arrived at the establishment of Savage, Brothers, and Co., our new 
 masters. Half an acre of ground, more or less, was enclosed with a 
 wall some twelve feet high, well armed at the top with iron spikes 
 and pieces of broken bottles. In the centre of the enclosure was 
 a low brick building, of no great size, with a few narrow, grated 
 
 * The slaves in the United States are now near three millions and a half. 
 It ought perhaps to he added, that by the federal constitution the general 
 government has no right to interfere with the question of slavery in the 
 States. The legislature of each state is the sole judge of that question 
 within its own limits. Slavery, however, is still tolerated within the dis- 
 trict of Columbia, which includes the city of Washington, over which con- 
 gress has an exclusive right of legislation. It is to be hoped that the people 
 of the free States will not be deterred by the insolent and ferocious spirit of 
 the slave-holders, from doing themselves the justice to abolish slavery wher- 
 ever it is within their power. — Editok.
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 73 
 
 rindows, and a stout door, well secured with bars and padlocks, 
 rhis was the establishment used by Messrs. Savage, Brothers, & Co., 
 is a warehouse, in which they stowed away such slaves as they pur- 
 :hased from time to time in the neighbouring country, to be kept till 
 hey were ready to send them off in droves, or to ship them to the 
 south. In common with all the slave-trading gentry, Messrs. Savage, 
 Brothers, & Co. had the free use of the city prison ; but this was not 
 arge enough for the scale on which they carried on operations, so 
 hey had built a prison of their own. It was under the management 
 )f a regular jailer, and was very much like any other jail. The slaves 
 vere allowed the liberty of the yard during the daytime, but at sunset 
 hey were all locked up promiscuously in the prison. This was small 
 ind ill ventilated ; and the number that was forced into it was some- 
 ;imes very great. While I was confined there, the heat and stench 
 vere often intolerable; and many a morning I came out of it with a 
 burning thirst and a high fever. 
 
 The states of Maryland and Virginia claim the honour of having 
 exerted themselves for the abolition of the African slave-trade. It is 
 irue they were favourable to that measure, and they had good reasons 
 sf their own for being so. They gained the credit of humanity, by 
 the same vote that secured them the monopoly of a domestic trade 
 in slaves, which bids fair to rival any traffic ever prosecuted on the 
 coast of Africa. The African traffic they have declared to be piracy; 
 while the domestic slave-trade flourishes in the heart of their own ter- 
 ritories, a just, legal, and honourable commerce ! 
 
 The district of Columbia, which includes the city of Washington, 
 and which is situated between the two states above-mentioned, has 
 become, from the convenience of its situation and other circumstances, 
 the centre of these slave-trading operations — an honour which it 
 shares, however, with Richmond and Baltimore, the chief towns of 
 Virginia and Maryland. The lands of these two states have been 
 exhausted by a miserable and inefficient system of cultivation, such 
 as ever prevails where farms are large, and the labourers enslaved. 
 Their produce is the same with the productions of several of the free 
 states north and west of them; and they are every day sinking 
 faster and faster under the competition of free labour to which they 
 are exposed. 
 
 Many a Virginian planter can only bring his revenue even with his 
 expenditure, by selling, every year, a slave or two. This practice, 
 jocularly, but at the same time significantly, known as " eating a 
 negro" — a phrase worthy of slave-holding humanity — is becoming 
 every day more and more common. A very large number of planters 
 have ceased to raise crops with the expectation of profit. They 
 endeavour to make the produce of their lands pay their current
 
 74 THE WHITE SLAVE; OR, 
 
 expenses ; but all their hopes of gain are confined to the business of 
 raising slaves for the southern market ; and that market is as re<ni- 
 larly supplied with slaves from Virginia as with mules and horses 
 from Kentucky. 
 
 But the slave-trade in America, as well as in Africa, carries with it 
 the curse of depopulation ; and, together with the emigration which 
 is constantly going on, has already unpeopled great tracts of countrv 
 in the lower part of Virginia, and is fast restoring the first seats of 
 Anglo- American population to all their original wildness and solitude. 
 Whole counties, almost, are grown up in useless and impenetrable 
 thickets, already retenanted by deer and other wild game, their 
 original inhabitants. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 We were driven into the prison -yard, through a stout gate well 
 studded with iron nails. The heavy padlocks of the prison-door were 
 unfastened, and we were thrust in without further ceremony. A faint 
 glimmer of moonlight stole in at the narrow and grated windows of 
 the prison ; but it was some time before I was able to distinguish one 
 object from another. When, at length, my eyes had accommodated 
 themselves to the faintness of the light, I found myself crowded into 
 the midst of perhaps a hundred human beings — most of them young 
 men and women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five — closely 
 packed on the bare floor. 
 
 A considerable number started up at our entrance, and began to 
 crowd about us, and to inquire who we were, and whence we came. 
 They seemed glad of anything to break the monotony of their con- 
 finement. But wearied and fatigued, we were in no humour for 
 talking ; and sinking down upon the floor of our prison, notwith- 
 standing the poisonous stench, and the confined and impure atmosphere, 
 we were soon buried in profound slumbers. Sleep is the dearest solace 
 of the wretched; and there is this sweet touch of mercy in it, that it 
 ever closes the eyes of the oppressed more willingly than those of the 
 oppressor. I hardly think that any member of the firm of Savage, 
 Brothers, & Co. slept so soundly that night as did the most unquiet 
 of their newly-purchased victims. 
 
 Day came — the prison-door was unlocked, and we were let out 
 into the enclosure about it. The scanty allowance of corn-bread, 
 which the penuriousness of our wealthy but economical masters 
 allowed us, was doled out to each. My meal finished, I sat down 
 upon the ground, and observed the scene about me. With a few
 
 ME.AIOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 75 
 
 exceptions, the prisoners were collected in groups, some containing 
 two or three, and others a much larger number. The men were more 
 numerous than the women, though the females had received a con- 
 siderable addition from our party. The acquaintance of these new 
 comers was eagerly sought for, and they were constantly receiving 
 solicitations to enter into temporary unions, to last while the parties 
 remained together. Most of the women whom we found in the prison 
 had already formed connexions of this sort. 
 
 These courtships, if so they should be called, were still going on, 
 when a tall young fellow, with a very quizzical face, produced a three- 
 stringed fiddle, and, after preluding for a few moments, struck up a 
 livelv tune. The sound of the music soon drew a large group about 
 him, who provided themselves with partners, and began a dance. As 
 the fiddler warmed to his business, he played faster and faster ; and 
 the dancers, amidst laughs and shouts and boisterous merriment, did 
 their best to keep up with the tune. 
 
 It is thus that men, whenever their natural sources of enjoyment 
 fail them, betake themselves to artificial excitements. Too often, we 
 sing and dance, not because we are inerry, but in the hope to become 
 so ; and merriment is seldomer the expression and the evidence of 
 pleasure, than the disguise of weariness and pain — the hollow echo of 
 an aching heart. 
 
 But the entire company did not join the dancers. As it happened, 
 it was Sunday ; and a part of them seemed to entertain conscientious 
 scruples about dancing on that, and, for aught I know, upon any other 
 day. The more sober part of the company gradually collected together 
 in the opposite corner of the prison-yard ; and a sedate young man, 
 with a handsome and intelligent face, mounted upon the head of an 
 empty barrel which happened to be standing there, and taking a 
 hymn-book from his pocket, struck up a methodist psalm. His voice 
 was sweet and clear, and his singing far from disagreeable. He was 
 soon joined by several others ; and as the chorus swelled, the sound of 
 the psalmody almost drowned the scraping of the fiddle and the 
 laughter of the dancers. I observed, too, that several of the dancing 
 party cast their eyes, from time to time, wistfully towards the singers ; 
 and before the psalm was half finished, several of the females had 
 stolen softly away, and mingled in the group collected about the 
 preacher. The singing being ended, he began to pray. His hands 
 were clasped and raised, and he spoke with a ready fluency, and a 
 natural earnestness and unction, not always heard from a regular 
 clergyman in a cushioned pulpit. Tears ran down many a face, and 
 sighs and groans almost drowned the voice of the speaker. These, 
 perhaps, were mere practised responses, as artificial and as little sin- 
 cere as the drawl of the parish clerk in the English church service.
 
 76 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 And yet, in some cases, they had every appearance of heing genuine 
 hursts of natural feeling — an involuntary tribute to the eloquence and 
 fervour of the speaker. 
 
 Next followed the exhortation. The text was from Job ; and the 
 preacher began upon the trite subject of patience. But, like all 
 ignorant and illiterate speakers, he soon deserted his original topic, 
 and ran on from one thing to another with very little of method or 
 connexion. Now and then some sparks of sense were struck out, 
 but they were speedily quenched in a flood of absurdity. It was a 
 strange farrago, but it was delivered with a volubility, an earnestness 
 and a force, which produced a strong effect upon the hearers. It was 
 not long before he had worked them up to a pitch of excitement, 
 which far surpassed that of the dancers in the opposite corner. In- 
 deed, the danciug group grew thinner and thinner, and the squeak of 
 the fiddle sounded weaker and weaker, till at last the fiddler threw 
 down his instrument, and, with his remaining adherents, hastened to 
 swell the audience of a performer whose powers so much out-matched 
 
 his own. 
 
 As the sermon proceeded, the groans and cries of mercy and amen 
 grew louder and more frequent; and several, overcome by their feel- 
 ings, or wishing, or affecting to be so, fell flat upon the ground, and 
 screamed and shouted as if they were possessed by evil spirits. So 
 strong was the contagion, and so powerful the sympathetic infectiousness 
 of this spiritual intoxication, that 1, a mere looker on, felt a strong 
 impulse to rush among the crowd, and to shriek and shout with the 
 rest. The paroxysm was now at its height, and the speaker was 
 almost exhausted by his vehement gesticulation, when, stamping his 
 foot with more than common energy, he burst in the head of the 
 barrel, and tumbled headlong among his auditors. 
 
 This unlucky accident instantly converted the cries and groans of 
 his hearers into shouts of irrepressible laughter ; and they seemed to 
 pass all at once from a state of the utmost terror and solemnity, into 
 outrageous and uncontrollable merriment. The fiddler crept out from 
 amidst the burly burly, caught up his fiddle, and struck up a lively 
 air, — I forget the name of it, but I recollect very well that it con- 
 tained some allusion to the disaster of his rival. The dance was 
 renewed, while the preacher, with a few more of his attached hearers, 
 slunk away mortified and disheartened. The dancers grew more 
 boisterous, and the fiddler played his best, till at last the party had 
 fairly tired themselves out, and were too much exhausted to keep it 
 up any longer. 
 
 Men born and bred in slavery, are not men, but children. Their 
 faculties are never permitted to unfold themselves ; and it is the aim 
 of their masters, and the necessary effect of their condition, to keep
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 77 
 
 them in a state of perpetual imbecility. Tyranny is ever hostile to 
 everj* species of mental development ; for a state of ignorance involves 
 of necessity a state of degradation and of helplessness. 
 
 I soon made myself acquainted with a number of my fellow-prisoners, 
 and entered into conversation with them. Some of them had been in 
 jail a fortnight, and others longer. I presently discovered that they 
 considered their confinement as a sort of holiday. They had nothing 
 to do ; and not to be compelled to work seemed, for them, the supreme 
 idea of happiness. As to being confined within the walls of a prison, 
 they had the liberty of the yard, and it was just as agreeable being 
 shut up within four brick walls as to be prisoner on a plantation, 
 forbidden to go beyond the line of its zig-zag fences. Then they had 
 no overseer to harass them, and nothing to do but to dance and sleep. 
 Nothing was wanted but a little whisky, and even that was not 
 always wanting. They seemed anxious to drown all memory of the 
 past and all dread of the future, and to bask without concern in the 
 sunshine of their present felicity. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 I had been in the jail ten days or a fortnight, when Messrs. Savage, 
 Brothers, & Co. selected from among their chatties a cargo of slaves 
 for the Charleston market. I was one of the number ; and, with 
 some fifty others, was loaded on board a small vessel bound for that 
 port. The captain's name was Jonathan Osborne. He was a citizen 
 of Boston, and the vessel, the brig Two Sallys, belonged to that port, 
 and was the property of a rich and respectable merchant. 
 
 The people of the northern States of the American Union talk 
 finely upon the subject of slavery, and express a very proper indigna- 
 tion at its horrors. Yet, while the African slave-trade was permitted 
 their merchants carried it on ; and these same merchants do not 
 always refuse to employ their vessels in the domestic slave-trade, a 
 traffic not one iota less base and detestable. 
 
 Northern statesmen have permitted slavery where no constitutional 
 objections prevented them from abolishing it ; the courts and lawyers 
 of the North scrupulously fulfil, to the utmost letter, the constitu- 
 tional obligation to restore to the Southern master the victim who has 
 escaped his grasp and fled to the " free States" in the vain hope of 
 protection, whilst the whole North looks calmly on, and tamely suffers 
 the Southern slave-holders to violate all the provisions of the same 
 constitution, and to imprison, torture, and put to death the citizens of
 
 73 THE AVHITE SLAVE \ OR, 
 
 the North without judge or jury, whenever they imagine that such 
 severities can contribute, in the slightest degree, to the security of 
 their slave-holding tyranny. Nay, more; many of the Northern 
 aristocrats, in the energy of their hatred of democratical equality, 
 seem almost ready to envy, while they affect to deplore, the condition 
 of their Southern brethren. And yet the Northern States of the 
 Union dare to assert that they are undefiled by the stain of slavery. 
 It is a vain, false boast. They are partners in the wrong. The blood 
 of the slave is on their hands, and is dripping in red and gory drops 
 from the skirts of their garments. 
 
 Before leaving the prison, we were supplied with handcuffs, those 
 usual badges and emblems of servitude, and, having reached the wharf, 
 we were crammed together into the hold of the vessel, so close that 
 we had hardly room to move, and not room enough either to lie or sit 
 with comfort. The vessel got under weigh soon after we came on 
 board, and proceeded down the river. Once or twice a-day we were 
 suffered to come on deck, and to breathe the fresh air for a few 
 minutes ; but we were soon remanded to our dungeon in the hold. The 
 mate of the vessel seemed to be a good-natured young man, and dis- 
 posed to render our condition as comfortable as possible; but the captain 
 was a savage tyrant, worthy of the business in which he w-as engaged. 
 
 We had been on our voyage a day or two, and had already cleared the 
 river, and were standing down the bay, when I became excessively 
 sick. A burning fever seemed raging in my veins. It was after 
 sunset ; the hatches were closed down, and the heat of the narrow 
 hold in which we were confined, and which was more than half filled 
 up with boxes and barrels, became intolerable. I knocked against 
 the deck, and called aloud for air and water. It was the mate's 
 watch. He came forward to ascertain what was the matter, and bade 
 the men unfasten the hatches and lift me upon deck. I snatched 
 the basin of water which he gave me, and, though brackish and warm, 
 it seemed to my feverish taste the most delicious of drinks. I drained 
 it to the bottom, and called for more ; but the mate, who feared 
 perhaps that excessive drinking might aggravate my disorder, refused 
 this request. I wanted air as much as water. This he did not refuse 
 me; and I was lying on the deck, imbibing at every pore the cool 
 breeze of the evening, when the captain came up the companion-way. 
 
 He no sooner saw the hatches off, and me lying on the deck, 
 than he stepped up to his mate with a clenched fist and a face dis- 
 torted with passion, and addressed him with, " How dare you, sir, 
 take off the hatches after sundown without my orders ?" 
 
 The mate attempted an apology, and began with saying, that I was 
 taken suddenly sick, and had called for assistance ; but without wait- 
 ing to hear him out, the brutal captain rushed by, and hitting me a
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 79 
 
 kick, precipitated me headlong into the hold, upon the heads of my 
 companions. Without stopping to inquire whether or not my neck 
 was broken, he bade his men replace and secure the hatches. Luckily 
 I sustained but little injury, though I came within an inch of having 
 my skull broken against one of the beams. The water I had drank, 
 and the cool air I had breathed, abated my fever, and I soon began to 
 grow better. 
 
 In the course of the next day we passed the capes of the Chesapeake, 
 and entered the great Atlantic. We stood to the southward and 
 eastward, and were making rapid way, when it came on to blow a 
 furious gale. The tossing and pitching of the ship was terrible 
 indeed to us poor prisoners, confined in the dark hold, and expecting, 
 at every burst of thunder, that the vessel was breaking in pieces. 
 The storm continued to increase. The noise and tumult on deck, 
 the creaking of the rigging, the cries of the seamen, and the sound of 
 cracking spars and splitting canvas, added to our terror. Pretty 
 soon, we found that the hold was filling with water, and an alarm was 
 given that the vessel had sprung a leak. The hatches were opened, 
 and we were called on deck. Our handcuffs were knocked off, and 
 we were set to work at the pumps. 
 
 I could not tell whether it were night or morning ; for the gale 
 had now lasted a good while, and since it began we had not been 
 suffered to come on deck. However, it was not totally dark. A dim 
 and horrid glimmer, just sufficient to betray our situation, and more 
 terrible perhaps than total darkness, was hovering over the ocean. At 
 a distance, the huge black waves, crested with pale blue foam, seemed 
 to move on like monsters of the deep ; nor when nearer, did they lose 
 any of their terrors. Now we sunk into a horrid gulf, between two 
 watery precipices, which swelled on either side, black and frowning, 
 and ready to devour us; and now, lifted on the top of a lofty wave, 
 we viewed all around a wild and fearful waste of dark and stormy 
 waters. It was a terrible sight for one who had never seen the sea 
 before; and as I gazed upon it, half stupitied with terror, little did I 
 think that this same fierce and raging element was to prove hereafter 
 my best and surest friend ! 
 
 The brig was almost a total wreck. Her foremast was gone by 
 the board, and she was lying-to on a starboard tack, under a close 
 reefed main-top-sail. These are terms which, at that time, I had 
 never heard. It was long afterwards that I learned to use them. But 
 the whole scene remains as distinct upon my memory as if it had been 
 painted there. 
 
 Notwithstanding all our efforts, the leak gained upon us, and the 
 captain made up his mind that it would be impossible to keep the 
 vessel afloat. Accordingly he made his preparations for quitting her,
 
 80 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 He and his mates were armed with swords and pistols, and cutlasses 
 were put into the hands of two or three of the crew. The long-boat 
 had been washed overboard ; but they had succeeded in securing the 
 jolly-boat, which they now lowered away, and dropped into the water 
 under the vessel's lee. The crew were already embarking before we 
 well understood what they were about ; but as soon as we compre- 
 hended that they were going to desert the ship, we rushed franticly 
 forward, and demanded to be taken on board. This they had 
 expected, and they were prepared for it. Three or four pistol shots 
 were fired among us, and several of us were severely wounded by the 
 sailors' cutlasses. At the same time they cried to us to stand back, 
 and they would take us on board as soon as all things were ready. 
 Terrified and confused, we stood a moment doubting what to do. The 
 sailors improved this interval to jump on board. " Cast off," shouted 
 the captain ; the seamen bent to their oars, and the boat was fast 
 quitting the vessel, before we had recovered from our momentary 
 hesitation. 
 
 We raised a shout, or rather a scream, of terror, at finding our- 
 selves thus deserted ; and three or four poor wretches, on the impulse 
 of the moment, sprang into the water, in the hope of reaching the 
 boat. All but one sunk instantly in the boiling surge ; he, a man of 
 herculean frame, springing with all the effort of a death-struggle, was 
 carried far beyond the rest, and rising through the billows, found 
 himself just behind the boat. He stretched out his hand and caught 
 the rudder. Tbe captain was steering. He drew a pistol and fired it 
 at the head of the swimmer. We heard a scream above all the noise 
 of the tempest. It was only for a moment ; he sunk, and we saw 
 him no more. It is impossible to convey any adequate idea of the 
 terror and confusion which now prevailed on board. The women, 
 now screaming, now praying, were frantic with fear. Four or five 
 poor fellows lay about the deck bleeding and desperately wounded. 
 Death seemed to ride upon the storm, and to summon his victims. 
 The vessel still lay with her head to windward ; but the spray dashed 
 over her continually, and every now and then she shipped a sea which 
 set the decks afloat, and drenched us in salt water. It occurred to 
 me that unless the pumps were kept going, the vessel would soon fill 
 and carry us to the bottom. I called about me such of the men as 
 seemed to be most in their senses, and endeavoured to explain to 
 them our situation ; but they were stupified with terror, and would 
 not, or could not, understand me. As a last resource, I rushed for- 
 ward, crying — " Pump, my hearties, pump for your lives." This was 
 the phrase which the captain and his mates had continually repeated, 
 as they stood over us and directed our labour. The poor creatures 
 seemed to obey as if instinctively this voice of command. They col-
 
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 W
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 81 
 
 I acted about me and began to work the pumps. If it bad no other 
 good effect, at least it served to call off our attention from the horrors 
 with which we were surrounded. We plied our work till one of the 
 pumps was broken and the other choked and rendered useless. By 
 this time the storm had abated, and the vessel, notwithstanding all our 
 fears to the contrary, still rode the waves. 
 
 It grew lighter by degrees. Presently the clouds began to break 
 away, and to drive in huge misty masses along the sky. Occasionally 
 the sun broke out ; and after a considerable dispute, whether it were 
 rising or setting, we concluded it must be some four or five hours 
 past sunrise. 
 
 As soon as the women had recovered from the first paroxysm of their 
 terror, they gave such care as they could to the poor sufferers who had 
 been wounded. They had bound up their wounds, and had collected 
 them together on the quarter-deck. One poor fellow, who had been 
 shot through the body with a pistol ball, was much worse hurt than 
 the others. His wife was supporting his head on her lap, and was 
 trying to prevent the pitching of the vessel from aggravating his 
 sufferings. She had been standing by him, or rather clinging to him, 
 at the moment he was wounded. She had caught him in her arms as 
 he fell, had dragged him from the press, and from that moment 
 seemed to forget all the horrors of our situation, in her incessant 
 efforts to soothe his pains. Her affectionate care had proved of little 
 avail. The struggle was now almost over. In a little while he 
 expired in her arms. When she found that he was dead, her grief, 
 which she had controlled and suppressed so long, burst forth in all 
 its energy. Her female companions gathered about her ; but the poor 
 woman was beyond the reach of consolation. 
 
 Some of us now ventured below, and took the liberty of overhaul- 
 ing the steward's stores. Everything was more or less damaged 
 with salt water ; but we lighted upon a cask or two of bread, which 
 was tolerably dry, and which sufficed to furnish us a sumptuous 
 repast. 
 
 We had not finished it before we discovered a vessel standing to- 
 wards us. As she approached, we waved fragments of the tattered 
 sails, and shouted for assistance. Having run down pretty near us, 
 she hove to, and sent a boat on board. When the boat's crew had 
 mounted over the brig's side, they seemed utterly amazed at the scene 
 which her decks presented. I stepped forward, and explained to the 
 officer the nature of our situation ; that we were a cargo of slaves 
 bound from Washington to Charleston, and that the vessel and her 
 lading had been deserted by the crew ; that, contrary to every expec- 
 tation, we had succeeded in keeping her afloat, but that the pumps, 
 were out of order and she was again filling. 
 
 G
 
 82 THE white slave; or, 
 
 The mate hastened back to his own ship, and soon returned with 
 the captain and the carpenter. After examining and consulting 
 together, they determined to put a part of their own crew on board the 
 brig, and to navigate her into Norfolk, to which port they, were 
 bound, and which was the nearest harbour. The carpenter was put 
 to work stopping her leaks and repairing her pumps. Her new crew 
 set up a jury foremast, out of such materials as they found on board. 
 She was soon in sailing order, and they shook the reefs out of her 
 main-top-sail and put her before the wind. 
 
 The vessel which had rescued us was the Arethusa, of New York, 
 Charles Parker, master; and lest we might need assistance, she 
 slackened sail and kept us company. Before night we made the land, 
 and a pilot came on board. The next morning we entered the har- 
 bour of Norfolk. The vessel had scarcely touched the wharf before we 
 were hurried away, and locked up in the city gaol for safe keeping. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 We remained in gaol some three weeks before anybody condescended 
 to inform us why we were kept there, or what was to become of us. 
 We now learned that Captain Parker and his crew had libelled the 
 Two Sallys and her cargo for salvage ; and that the court had ordered 
 the libelled property to be sold at auction, for the joint benefit of the 
 owners and salvors. This was all Greek to us. I had not the most 
 distant idea what was mean by " libelling for salvage," and I hardly 
 think that any of the others understood it better than I. Nobody 
 took the trouble to explain it to us ; it was enough for us to under- 
 stand that we were to be sold ; the why and the wherefore it was 
 thought of no consequence for slaves to know. 
 
 As I had already been twice sold at public auction, the thing had 
 lost its interest and its novelty. I was tired of the confinement of 
 the prison ; and as I knew that I must be sold at last, I was ready to 
 take my chance now as ever. 
 
 The sale was much like other sales of slaves. There was only one 
 circumstance about it that seemed worthy of particular notice. The 
 wounded men, though they were not yet cured — indeed two of the 
 four were hardly thought out of danger — were to be sold among the 
 rest. " Damaged articles," the auctioneer observed, " which he was 
 willing to dispose of at a great discount." The four were offered in 
 one lot, — " Like so many broken frying-pans," said one of the spec- 
 tators, " but for my part, I have no fancy for speculating either in 
 broken frying-pans, wounded slaves, or sick horses." A physician
 
 MEMOIKS OF A FUGITIVE. 83 
 
 who was present was advised to purchase. " If they should happen 
 to die," said his adviser, " they would be quite useless to anybody 
 else, but you might find some use for their dead bodies." Various 
 other jests, equally brilliant and pointed, were thrown out by others 
 of the company, and were received with shouts of laughter that con- 
 trasted a little harshly with the sad woe-begone faces, and low moans 
 of the wounded men, who were brought to the place of sale on little 
 pallets, and who lay upon the ground the very pictures of sickness 
 and distress. 
 
 This jocular humour had reached a high pitch, when it was rather 
 suddenly checked by a tall, fine-looking man, who had more the air 
 and manners of a gentleman than the greater part of the company. 
 He observed, with a tone and a look of some severity, that in his 
 opinion, selling men upon their death-beds was no laughing matter. 
 He immediately made a bid quite beyond anything that had been 
 offered, and the auctioneer pronounced him to be the purchaser. I 
 hoped this same gentleman might have purchased me also ; but as 
 soon as he had given some directions about the removal of the 
 wounded men, he left the place of sale. Perhaps I had no reason to 
 regret it. This gentleman, for aught I could tell, had acted as a 
 hundred other slave-buyers might have done, from a momentary im- 
 pulse of humanity, which disgusted him, it is true, with the brutality 
 of the rest of the company, but which in all likelihood was neither 
 strong nor steadv enough to render his treatment of his servants much 
 different from that of his neighbours. Such temporary fits of 
 humanity and good nature are occasionally felt by everybody ; but 
 they are no guarantee whatever against an habitual disregard of the 
 rights and feelings of those who are not allowed to protect them- 
 selves, and who are protected neither by the laws nor by public 
 opinion. 
 
 I was purchased by an agent of Mr. James Carleton, of Carleton- 
 Hall, in one of the northern counties of North Carolina, and was 
 presently sent off with two or three of my companions for the plan- 
 tation of our new master. 
 
 After a journey of four or five days, we arrived at Carleton-Hall. 
 It was like the residences of so many other American planters, a 
 mean house, with no great signs about it, either of ornament or com- 
 fort. At a short distance from the house was the servants' quarter, 
 a miserable collection of ruinous cabins, crowded together without 
 any order, and almost concealed in the vigorous growth of weeds, 
 that sprung up around and among them. 
 
 Soon after our arrival we were carried into the presence of our 
 new master, who examined us one by one, and inquired into our 
 several capabilities. Having learned that I had been raised a housc- 
 
 g2
 
 84 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 servant, and being pleased, as he said, with my manners and appear- 
 ance, he told me he would take me into the house to supply the place 
 of his man, John, who had become so confirmed a drunkard that he 
 had been obhged to turn him into the field. 
 
 I was well enough pleased with this arrangement ; for in general, 
 those slaves who are house servants are infinitely better off than 
 those who are employed in field labour. They are better fed and 
 better clothed, and their work is much lighter. They are sure of the 
 crumbs that fall from their master's table ; and as the master's eyes 
 and those of his guests would be offended by a display of dirt and 
 rags in the dining-room, house-servants are comfortably clothed, not 
 so much, it is true, on their own account, as for the gratification of 
 their owner's vanity. As it is a matter of ostentation to have a house 
 full of servants, the labour becomes light when divided among so 
 many. Sufficient food, comfortable clothing, and light work are not 
 to be despised ; but the circumstance which principally contributes to 
 make the condition of the house-servant more tolerable than that of 
 the field hand is of a different description. Men, and especially 
 women and children, cannot have anything much about them, be it a 
 dog, a cat, or even a slave, without insensibly contracting some 
 interest in it and regard for it ; and it thus happens that a family 
 servant often becomes quite a favourite, and is at length regarded 
 ■with a feeling that bears some faint and distant resemblance to family 
 affection. 
 
 This is the most tolerable — in fact, the only tolerable point of 
 view — in which slavery can be made to present itself; and it has 
 been by steadily fixing their eyes on a few cases of this sort, and as 
 steadily closing them to all its intrinsic horrors and enormities, that 
 some bold sophists have mustered courage to make the eulogium of 
 slavery. 
 
 Yet this best condition of a slave, — that, I mean, of a household 
 servant, — is often almost too miserable for endurance. If there are 
 kind masters and good-natured mistresses, it happens, too frequently, 
 that the master is a capricious tyrant, and the mistress a fretful scold. 
 The poor servant is exposed every hour of his life to a course of 
 harsh rebukes, and peevish chidings, which are always threatening to 
 end in the torture of the lash, and which to a person of any spirit or 
 sensibility, are more annoying than even the lash itself. And all 
 this is without hope or chance of remedy. The master and the mis- 
 tress indulge their bad humour without restraint. No fear of ' warn- 
 ing' puts any curb upon them. The slave is theirs, and they can 
 treat him as they please. lie cannot help himself ; and there is no 
 one to help him. 
 
 Mr. Carleton, while he entertained most of the notions of his
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. S5 
 
 brother planters, differed from the greater part of them in one strik- 
 ing particular. He was a zealous presbyterian, and very warm and 
 earnest in the cause of religion. Had any one told him that to hold 
 men in slaver}' was a high-handed offence against religion and morality, 
 what would have been his answer ? Would his heart have responded 
 to the truth of a sentiment so congenial to every more generous 
 emotion and better feeling? I am much afraid it would not. I 
 fear he would have answered much like those of his brother slave- 
 holders, who made no pretensions whatever to peculiar piety. With 
 a secret consciousness of his criminality, but with a fixed determination 
 never to admit it, he would have worked himself into a violent passion; 
 talked of the " sacred rights of property," — more sacred in a slave- 
 holder's estimation than either liberty or justice ; and declaimed 
 against impertinent interference in the affairs of other people, — a topic, 
 by the way, which is very seldom much insisted upon, except by those 
 whose affairs will hardly bear examination. 
 
 Mr. Carleton, though a zealous presbyterian, had, as I have said, 
 most of the feelings and notions of his brother planters. It thus 
 happened that his character, his conversation, and his conduct, were 
 full of strange contrasts, and were for ever presenting an odd incon- 
 gruous mixture of the bully and the puritan. I use the word bully 
 for want of a better, not exactly in its most vulgar sense, but intend- 
 ing to signify by it a certain spirit of bravado and violence, a dispo- 
 sition tc settle every disputed point by the pistol, so common, I might 
 almost say universal, in the southern States of America. Mr. Carleton 
 with all his piety, talked as familiarly of shooting people as if he had 
 been a professed assassin. 
 
 As I had the honour of waiting upon Mr. Carleton's table, and the 
 pleasure and advantage of listening every day to his conversation, I 
 soon came to understand his character perfectly, — as perfectly at 
 least as it was possible for anybody to understand so very inconsistent 
 a character. He had family prayers night and morning, with the most 
 punctilious regularity. He prayed long and fervently, and on his 
 bended knees. He was particularly earnest in his petitions for the 
 universal spread of the gospel ; he asked most devoutly, that as all 
 men were creatures of the same God, they might speedily become 
 children of the same faith. Yet not only the plantation slaves were 
 never invited to join in this family worship, but even the house-ser- 
 vants were excluded. The door was shut; — and at the very moment 
 when the devout Mr. Carleton professed to prostrate himself in the 
 dust before his Creator, he felt too strongly the sense of his own 
 superiority, to permit even his household servants to participate in 
 his devotions ! 
 
 But for all this, Mr. Carleton evidently had the cause of religion
 
 8C) THE WHITE SLAVE J OH, 
 
 very much at heart, and seemed ready to spend and be spent in the 
 service. There were very few clergymen in the part of the county in 
 which he resided, and his zeal frequently led him to supply the gap, 
 by acting as an exhort er. Indeed, there was scarcely a Sunday that 
 he did not hold forth somewhere in the neighbourhood. Within ten 
 miles of Carleton Hall, in different directions, there were as many as 
 three churches, wretched, ruinous, little buildings, that looked more 
 like deserted barns than places of public worship. All of these Mr. 
 Carleton had caused to be repaired, principally at his own expense, 
 and in each of them he preached occasionally. But he did not con- 
 sider a church as indispensable to an exhortation. During the sum- 
 mer, he frequently held meetings in some shady grove, or by the side 
 of some cool spring ; and, in the winter, sometimes in his own house, 
 and sometimes in the houses of his neighbours. He was generally 
 pretty sure of a considerable audience. That part of the country was 
 thinly inhabited, and the people had but few amusements. They were 
 glad of any occasion of assembling together, and seemed to care very 
 little whether it were a preaching or a frolic. Besides, Mr. Carleton 
 was really an agreeable speaker ; and the earnestness and vehemence 
 of his manner were well calculated to attract an audience. 
 
 A very considerable proportion of his hearers were slaves; for 
 though he did not judge it expedient to allow them to become par- 
 takers in his private devotions, he had no objection to their swelling 
 his audience, and giving a sort of eclat to his public performances. 
 Indeed, towards the end of his discourses, he would often condescend 
 to introduce a few sentences for their particular benefit. The change 
 which took place in his manner, when he came to that part of his 
 sermon, was sufficiently obvious. The phrase, ' dear brethren,' which 
 in the earlier part of it he was for ever repeating, was now suddenly 
 dropped. The preacher assumed a condescending, patronizing air, 
 and briefly and drily informed those of his hearers, ' whom God had 
 appointed to be servants,' that their only hope of salvation was in 
 patience, obedience, submission, diligence, and subordination. He 
 warned them earnestly against thieving and lying, their ' easily beset- 
 ting sins ;' and enforced, at some length, the great wickedness and 
 folly of being discontented with their condition. All this was ap- 
 plauded by the masters as very orthodox doctrine, and very proper 
 to be preached to servants. The servants themselves received it with 
 an outward submission to which their hearts gave the lie. Nor is it 
 very strange, considering the doctrines which he preached to them, 
 that the greater part of Mr. Carleton's converts among the slaves 
 were hypocritical fellows, who made their religion a cloak for their 
 roguery. There was, in fact, much truth in the observation of one 
 of Mr. Carleton's neighbours, that most of the slaves in that part of
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 87 
 
 the country had no religion at all, and that those who pretended to 
 have any were worse than the others. And how could it be other- 
 wise, when, in the venerable name of religion, they had preached to 
 them a doctrine of double-distilled tyranny, — a doctrine which, not 
 content with now and then a human victim, demanded the perpetual 
 sacrifice of one-half of the entire community? 
 
 Alas, Christianity ! What does it avail, — thy concern for the poor, 
 — thy tenderness for the oppressed, — thy system of fraternal love and 
 affection ? The serpent knows how to suck poison from the harmless 
 nature of the dove. The tyrants of every age and country have suc- 
 ceeded in prostituting Christianity into an instrument of their crimes, 
 a terror to their victims, and an apology for their oppressions ! Nor 
 have they ever wanted tinie-serving priests and lying prophets, to 
 applaud, encourage, and sustain them ! 
 
 However little the slaves might relish Mr. Carleton's doctrines, — 
 of which indeed their own hearts instinctively made the refutation, — 
 they were very fond of attending upon his performances. It was 
 some relief to the eternal monotony of their lives ; and it gave them 
 an opportunity of getting together after the meeting was over, and 
 having a frolic among themselves. This recreation, which it afforded 
 to the servants, was, in my opinion, the best effect of Mr. Carleton's 
 labours ; though certain gentlemen, who dreaded every assembly of 
 slaves, as a source of discontent and conspiracy, were very earnest in 
 the condemnation of his meetings, under the hypocritical pretence of 
 being shocked at the violations of the Sabbath, of which they fur- 
 nished the occasion ! 
 
 Mr. Carleton was president of a Bible society, and was very 
 anxious and earnest about the universal diffusion of the Bible. I 
 soon found out, however, that besides myself, there was not a single 
 slave on his plantation, nor indeed in all the neighbourhood, who 
 knew how to read ; and what was more, I learned that Mr. Carleton 
 was extremely unwilling to have any of them taught. 
 
 There is connected with this subject a point of view, in which the 
 system of domestic slavery that prevails in America exhibits itself as 
 out-braving all other tyrannies, and betraying a demoniac spirit almost 
 too horrid to be thought of. Mr. Carleton believed, and the immense 
 majority of his fellow countrymen believe also, that the Bible contains 
 a revelation from God, of things essential to man's eternal welfare. 
 In this belief, and animated by a lofty spirit of philanthropy, they 
 have formed societies — and of one of these Mr. Carleton was president j 
 — and contribute their money — as Mr. Carleton did very liberally — 
 to disseminate the Bible through the world, and to put this divine and 
 unerring guide into the possession of every family. But while they 
 are so zealous to confer this inestimable treasure upon all the world
 
 88 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 beside, they sternly withhold it from those, of whom the law has 
 made them the sole guardians. They withhold it from their slaves, 
 of whom, to use their own favourite phrase, God has appointed them 
 the natural protectors ; and in so doing, by their own confession, they 
 voluntarily and knowingly expose those slaves to the danger of eternal 
 punishment ! To this awful danger they voluntarily and knowingly 
 expose them, lest, should they learn to read, they might learn at the 
 same time their own rights, and the means of enforcing them. 
 
 "What outrage upon humanity was eve^: equal to this ? Other 
 tyrannies have proceeded all lengths against man's temporal happiness ; 
 and in support of their evil dominion have hazarded every extreme of 
 temporary cruelty ; but what other tyrants are recorded in all the 
 world's history, who have openly and publicly confessed that they 
 prefer to expose their victims to the imminent clanger of eternal 
 misery, rather than impart a degree of instruction, which might, hy 
 possibility, endanger their own unjust and usurped authority ? Can 
 any one calmly consider the cool diabolism of this avowal, and believe 
 it is men who make it ? Men, too, who seem in other matters not 
 destitute of the common feelings of good will ; men who talk about 
 liberty, virtue, and religion, and who speak even of justice and 
 humanity ! 
 
 Were I inclined to superstition, I should believe they were not men, 
 but rather demons incarnate ; evil spirits who had assumed the human 
 shape, and who falsely put on a semblance of human feelings, in order 
 the more secretly and securely to prosecute their grand conspiracy 
 against mankind. 1 should believe so, did I not know that the love 
 of social superiority, that very impulse of the human heart, which is 
 the main-spring of civilization and the chief source of all human im- 
 provement, is able, when suffered to work on, uncontrolled by other 
 more generous emotions, to corrupt man's whole nature, and to drive 
 him to acts the most horrid and detestable. When to the corruptest 
 form of this fierce passion, is joined a base fear, at once cowardly and 
 cruel, what wonder that man becomes a creature to be scorned and 
 hated ? — To be pitied rather ; the maniac can hardly be held account- 
 able for the enormities to which his madness prompts him, even 
 though that madness be self-created. 
 
 However diabolical the tyranny may be esteemed, which, to secure 
 its usurped authority, is ready to sacrifice both the temporal and 
 eternal happiness of its victims, it is no doubt well adapted to accom- 
 plish the end at which it aims ; namely, its own perpetuation. But 
 it is necessary to go one step further. The slaveholders ought to 
 recollect that all knowledge is dangerous ; and that it is impossible to 
 give the slaves any instruction in Christianity, without imparting to 
 them some dangerous ideas. It matters not that the law prohibits
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 89 
 
 the teaching them to read. Oral instruction is as dangerous as 
 written ; and the catechism is nothing but a Bible in disguise. Let 
 them go on then, and bring their work to a glorious completion. 
 Let them prohibit at once all religious instruction. They must come 
 to this at last. Let me tell them that the time is past, in which Mr. 
 Carleton's doctrine of passive obedience is all that a religious teacher 
 has to utter. There is another spirit abroad ; and that spirit will 
 penetrate wherever religious instruction opens the way for it. Now- 
 a-day it is impossible to hail the slave as a Christian brother, without 
 first acknowledging his rights as a fellow-man. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 I had not been long in Mr. Carleton's service, before 1 discovered 
 that a pretty sure way of getting into his good graces, was to be a 
 great admirer of his religious performances, and a devout attendant 
 upon such of them as his servants might attend. There never was a 
 person less inclined by nature to hypocrisy than myself. But craft 
 and cunning are the sole resource of a slave ; and I had long ago 
 learned to practise a thousand arts, which, at the same time that I 
 despised them, I often found extremely useful. 
 
 For these arts I now had occasion; and I plied my flattery to such 
 purpose, that I soon gained the goodwill of my master, and before 
 long was duly established in the situation of confidential servant. 
 This was a station of very considerable respectability ; and next to the 
 :verseer, I was decidedly the most consequential person on the place. 
 It was my duty to attend specially upon my master, to ride about with 
 him to meetings, carry his cloak and Bible, and take care of his horse ; 
 for among other matters Mr. Carleton was a connoisseur in horses, 
 and he did not like to trust his to the usual blundering negligence of 
 his neighbours' grooms. 
 
 Pretty soon my master found out my accomplishments of reading and 
 writing, — for I inadvertently betrayed a secret which I had determined 
 to keep to myself. At first he did not seem to like it; but as he 
 could not unlearn me, he soon determined to turn these acquirements 
 of mine to some account. He had a good deal of writing of one sort 
 and another; and he set me to work as copier. In my character of 
 secretary, I was often called upon, when my master was busy, to write 
 passes for the people. This raised my consequence extremely ; and 
 my fellow-servants soon began to look upon me as second only to 
 * master' himself. 
 
 Mr. Carleton was naturally humane and kind-hearted ; and though
 
 90 THE WHITE SLAVE j OB, 
 
 his sudden outbreaks of impatience and fretfulness were often vexatious 
 enough, still if one humoured him, they were generally soon over ; 
 and as if he reproached himself for not keeping a better guard upon 
 his temper, they were often followed by an affability and indulgence 
 greater than usual. I soon learned the art of managing him to the 
 best advantage, and every day I rose in his favour. 
 
 I had a good deal of leisure ; and I found means to employ it both 
 innocently and agreeably. Mr. Carleton had a collection of books, 
 very unusual for a North Carolina planter. This library must have 
 contained between two and three hundred volumes. It was the 
 admiration of all the country round, and contributed not a little to 
 give its owner the character of a great scholar, and a very learned 
 man. My situation of confidential servant gave me free access to it. 
 The greater part of the volumes treated of divinity, but there were 
 some of a more attractive description ; and I was able to gratify, 
 occasionally and by stealth — for I did not like to be seen reading any- 
 thing but the Bible — that taste for knowledge which I had imbibed 
 when a child, and which all the degradations of servitude had not 
 utterly extinguished. All things considered, I found myself much 
 more agreeably situated than I had been at any time since the death 
 of mv first master. 
 
 I wish, both for their sakes and his own, that all the rest of Mr. 
 Carleton's slaves had been as well off and as kindly treated as myself. 
 The house servants, it is true, had nothing to complain of; except, 
 indeed, those grievous evils which are inseparable from a state of 
 servitude, and which no tenderness or indulgence on the part of the 
 master can ever do away. But the plantation hands — some fifty in 
 number — were very differently situated. Mr. Carleton, like a large 
 proportion of American planters, had no knowledge of agriculture, and 
 not the slightest taste for it. He had never given any attention to 
 the business of his plantation ; his youth had been spent in a course 
 of boisterous dissipation ; and since his conversion he had been 
 entirely devoted to the cause of religion. Of course his planting 
 affairs and all that related to them, were wholly in the hands of his 
 overseer, who was shrewd, plausible, intelhgent, and well acquainted 
 with his business ; but a severe taskmaster, bad tempered, and, if all 
 reports were true, not very much overburdened with honesty. Mr. 
 Warner, for this was the overseer's name, was engaged on terms 
 which, however ruinous to the planter and his plantation, were very 
 common in Virginia and the Carolinas. Instead of receiving a regular 
 salary in money he took a certain proportion of the crop. Of course, 
 it was his interest to make the largest crop possible, without any 
 regard whatever to the means used to make it. What was it to him 
 though the lands were exhausted, and the slaves worn out with heavy
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 91 
 
 tasks and unreasonable labours? He owned neither the lands nor 
 the slaves, and if in ten or twelve years, — and for something like that 
 time he had been established at Carleton-Hall, — he could scourge all 
 their value out of them, the gain was his, and the loss would be his 
 employer's. This desirable consummation, he seemed pretty nearly 
 arrived at. The lands at Carleton-Hall were never cultivated, it is 
 likely, with any tolerable skill ; but Mr. Warner had carried the pro- 
 cess of exhaustion to its last extremity. Field after field had been 
 ' turned out' as they call it — that is, left uncultivated and unfenced, 
 to grow up with broom-sedge and persimmon bushes, and be grazed 
 by all the cattle of the neighbourhood. Year after year, new land 
 had been opened, and exposed to the same exhausting process, which 
 had worn out the fields that had been already abandoned ; — till at 
 last, there was no new land left upon the plantation. 
 
 Mr. Warner now began to talk about throwing up his employment ; 
 and it was only by urgent solicitations, and a greater proportion of 
 the diminished produce, that Mr. Carleton had prevailed upon him to 
 remain another year. 
 
 But it was not the land only that suffered. The slaves were sub- 
 jected to a like process of exhaustion ; and what with hard work, 
 insufficient food, and an irregular and capricious severity, they had 
 become discontented, sickly, and inefficient. There never was a time 
 that two or three of them, and sometimes many more, were not run- 
 aways, wandering in the woods; and hence originated further troubles, 
 and fresh severity. 
 
 Mr. Carleton had expressly directed that his servants should 
 receive an allowance of corn, and especially of meat, which in that 
 part of the world was thought extremely liberal : and I believe, if the 
 allowance had been faithfully distributed, the heartiest man upon the 
 place would have received about half as much meat as was consumed 
 by Mr. Carleton's youngest daughter, a little girl some ten or twelve 
 years old. But if the slaves were worthy of belief, neither Mr. 
 Warner's scales nor his measures were very authentic ; and according 
 to their story, so much as he could plunder out of their weekly 
 allowance, went to increase his share in the yearly produce of the 
 plantation. 
 
 Once or twice, complaints of this sort had been carried to Mr. 
 Carleton; but without deigning to examine into them, he had dis- 
 missed them as unworthy of notice. Mr. Warner, he said, was an 
 honest man and a Christian, — indeed it was his Christian character 
 that had first recommended him to his employer; — and these scan- 
 dalous stories were only invented out of that spite which slaves always 
 feel against an overseer, who compels them to do their duty. It 
 might be so ; I cannot undertake positively to contradict it. Yet I
 
 92 THE WHITE SLATE ; OR, 
 
 know that these imputations upon Mr. Warner's honesty were not 
 confined to the plantation, but circulated pretty freely through the 
 neighbourhood; and if he was not a rogue, Mr. Carleton, by an 
 unlimited, unsuspicious, and unwise confidence, did his best to make 
 him so. 
 
 "Whether the slaves were cheated or not, of their allowance, there 
 is no dispute that they were worked hard, and harshly treated. Mr. 
 Carleton always took sides with his overseer, and was in the habit of 
 maintaining that it was impossible to get along on a plantation with- 
 out frequent whipping and a good deal of severity ; and yet, as he 
 was naturally good-natured, it gave him pain to hear of any very 
 flagrant instance of it. But he was much from home ; and that kept 
 him ignorant, to a great degree, of what was going on there ; and for 
 the rest, the overseer was anxious to save his feelings, and had issued 
 very strict orders, which he enforced with merciless severity, that 
 nobody should run to the house with tales of what was done upon 
 the plantation. By this ingenious device, though a very common 
 one, Mr. Warner had everything in his own way. In fact, Mr. Carle- 
 ton had as little control over his plantation as over any other in the 
 county, and he knew just as little about it. 
 
 When my master was a young man, he had betted at horse-races 
 and gambling-tables, and spent money very freely in a thousand 
 foolish ways. Since he had grown religious he had dropped these 
 expenses, but he had fallen into others. It was no small sum that 
 he spent every year upon Bibles, church repairs, and other pious 
 objects. For several years his income had been diminishing; but 
 without any corresponding diminution of his expenses. As a natural 
 consequence, he had become deeply involved in debt. His overseer 
 had grown rich, while he had been growing poor. His lands and 
 slaves were mortgaged, and he began to be plagued by the sheriff's 
 officer. But these perplexities did not cause him to forego his 
 spiritual labours, which he prosecuted, if possible, more diligently 
 than before. 
 
 I had now been living with him some six or seven months, and 
 was completely established in his favour, when one Sunday morning 
 we set off together for a place about eight miles distant, where he 
 had not preached before since I had been in his service. The place 
 appointed for the meeting was in the open air. It was a pretty place 
 though, and well adapted to the purpose, being a gentle swell of 
 ground over which were thinly scattered a number of ancient and 
 wide-spreading oaks. Their outstretched limbs formed a thick shade, 
 under which there were neither weeds nor undergrowth, but some- 
 thing more like a grassy lawn than is often to be seen in that 
 country. Near the top of the swell somebody had fixed up some
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 9 
 
 <■> 
 
 rude benches ; and partly supported against one of the largest trees 
 was a misshapen little platform, with a chair or two upon it, which 
 seemed intended for the pulpit. 
 
 Quite a troop of horses, and as many as ten or twelve carnages, 
 were collected at the foot of the swell ; and the benches were already 
 occupied by a considerable number of people. The white hearers, 
 however, were far outnumbered by the slaves, who were scattered 
 about in groups, most of them in their Sunday dresses, and many of 
 them very decent-looking people. A few, however, were miserably 
 ragged and dirty ; and there was quite a number of half-grown chil- 
 dren from the adjoining plantations, without a rag to hide their 
 nakedness. 
 
 My master seemed well pleased with the prospect of so large an 
 audience. He dismounted at the foot of the hill, if a rise so gentle 
 deserved the name, and delivered his horse into my charge. I sought 
 out a convenient place in which to tie the horses ; and as I knew the 
 services would not begin immediately, I sauntered about, looking at 
 the equipages and the company. "While I was occupied in this way, 
 a smart carriage drove up. It stopped. A servant jumped from 
 behind, opened the door, and let down the steps. An elderly lady, 
 and another about eighteen or twenty, occupied the back seat. On 
 the front seat was a woman whom I took to be their maid, though I 
 could not see her distinctly. Something called off my attention and 
 I turned another way. When I looked again, the two ladies were 
 walking up the hill, and the maid was on the ground, with her back 
 towards me, taking something from the carriage. A moment after 
 she turned round, and I knew her. It was Cassy, — it was my wife. 
 
 I sprang forward and caught her in my arms. She recognised me 
 at the same moment, and, uttering a cry of surprise and pleasure, 
 she would have fallen had I not supported her. She recovered herself 
 directly, and bade me let her go, for she had been sent back for her 
 mistress's fan, and she must make haste and carry it to her. She 
 told me to wait, though, for if she could get leave, she would come 
 back again immediately. She tripped up the hill and overtook her 
 mistress. I could see, by her gestures, the eagerness with which she 
 urged her request. It was granted, and in a moment she was again at 
 my side. Again I pressed her to my bosom, and again she returned 
 my embrace. Once more I felt what it was to be happy. I took her 
 by the hand, and led her to a little wood on the opposite side of the 
 road. Here was a thick voung growth, where we could sit screened 
 from observation. AVe sat down upon a fallen tree ; and while I held 
 her hands fast loeked in mine, we asked and answered a thousand 
 questions. 
 
 The first emotions and agitation of our meeting over, Cassy required
 
 94 THE WHITE SLAVE; OR, 
 
 of me a detailed narrative of my adventures since our separation. 
 With what a kindling eye and heaving bosom did she listen to my 
 story ; at every painful incident of it, the fast flowing tears chasing 
 each other down her cheeks, now pale, now flushed ; at every gleam 
 of ease or comfort, a tender, joyous, sympathising smile beaming upon 
 me, breathing new life into my soul ! You who have loved as we 
 loved, — you who have parted as we parted, with no hope ever to 
 meet again, — you who have met as we met, brought together by acci- 
 dent or by Providence, — you, and only you, may imagine the emotions 
 that swelled my heart as I pressed the hand, and felt the presence, 
 and basked in the sympathy of a woman, and a wife, as dear to me, 
 slave though I was, slave though she was — as dear to me as the wife 
 of his bosom is to the proudest freeman of you all. 
 
 My story finished, again Cassy clasped me in her arms, and claimed 
 me as her husband ; tears, but tears of joy, again fast flowing down 
 her cheeks. There, for awhile, she sat, silent, seeming as if lost in a 
 sort of reverie, or, indeed, almost as if doubting whether all that she 
 had just heard, — whether the very husband whom she saw before her, 
 — whether our whole unexpected meeting was anything more than a 
 treacherous dream. But with a kiss or two I recalled her attention, 
 and made her understand that I was no less anxious to hear her story 
 than she had been to hear mine. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 It seemed to be with the greatest reluctance that the poor girl 
 carried back her recollection to that terrible day which had separated 
 us, as we then thought, for ever. She hesitated, — and seemed half 
 ashamed, and almost unwilling to speak of what had followed after 
 that separation. I pitied her ; and great as was my curiosity — if my 
 feelings on that occasion deserve so trifling a name — I could almost 
 have wished her to pass over the interval in silence. Distressing 
 doubts and dreadful apprehensions crowded upon me, and I almost 
 dreaded to hear her speak. But she hid her face in my bosom, and 
 murmuring in a voice half choked with sobs, " My husband must 
 know it," — she began her story. 
 
 She was already, she told me, more than half dead with fright and 
 horror, and the first blow that Colonel Moore struck beat her sense- 
 less to the ground. When she came to her senses, she found herself 
 lying on a bed in a room which she did not recollect ever to have 
 seen before. She rose from her bed as well as her bruises would 
 allow her j for she did not move without difficulty. The room was
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 9-5 
 
 prettily furnished; the bed was hung with curtains, neat and com- 
 fortable ; a dressing-table stood in one corner, and there was all the 
 usual furniture of a lady's bed-chamber; but it was not like any 
 room in the house at Spring- Meadow. 
 
 She tried to open the doors, of which there were two, but both 
 were fastened. She endeavoured to get a peep from the windows, in 
 the hope that she might know some part of the prospect. But she 
 could only discover that the house seemed to be surrounded bv trees ; 
 for the windows were guarded on the outside by close blinds, which 
 were fastened in some way she did not understand, so that she could 
 not open them. This fastening of the doors and windows, satisfied 
 her that she was held a prisoner, and confirmed all her worst sus- 
 picions. 
 
 As she passed by the dressing-table, she caught a look at the glass. 
 Her face was deadly pale; her hah- fell in loose disorder over her 
 shoulders, and looking down, she saw stains of blood upon her dress, 
 but whether her own or her husband's she could not tell. She sat 
 down on the bedside; her head was dizzy and confused, and she 
 scarcely knew whether she was awake or dreaming. 
 
 Presently one of the doors opened, and a woman entered. It was 
 Miss Kitty,* as she was called among the servants at Spring-Meadow, 
 a pretty 7 , dark-complexioned damsel, who enjoyed at that time the 
 station and dignity of Colonel Moore's favourite. Cassy's heart beat 
 hard while she heard some one fumbling at the lock. When the door 
 opened she was glad to see that it was only a woman, and one whom 
 she knew. She ran towards her, caught her by the hand, and begged 
 her protection. The girl laughed, and asked what she was afraid of. 
 Cassy hardly knew what answer to make. After hesitating a moment, 
 she begged Miss Ritty to tell her where she was, and what they in- 
 tended to do with her. 
 
 " It is a fine place you're in," was the answer, " and when master 
 comes, you can ask him what is to be dor.e with you." This was 
 said with a significant titter, which Cassy knew too well how to 
 interpret. 
 
 Though Miss Ritty had evaded a direct answer to her inquiry, it 
 now occurred to her where she must be. This woman, she recollected, 
 occupied a small house — the same that once had been inhabited by 
 Cassy's mother and by mine — at a considerable distance from any other 
 on the plantation. It was surrounded by a little grove which almost 
 hid it from view, and was very seldom visited by any of the servants. 
 Miss Ritty looked upon herself, and was, in fact, regarded by the rest 
 of us, as a person of no little consequence; and though she some- 
 
 * Henrietta.
 
 9& THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 times condescended to make visits, she was not often anxious to have 
 them returned. Cassy, however, had heen once or twice at her house. 
 There were two little rooms in front, into which she was freely ad- 
 mitted; but the apartment behind was locked; and it was whispered 
 among the servants that Colonel Moore kept the key, so that even 
 Miss Ritty herself did not enter it except in his company. This, 
 perhaps, was mere scandal ; but Cassy recollected to have noticed 
 that the windows of this room were protected against impertinent 
 curiosity by close blinds on the outside, and she no longer doubted 
 where she was. 
 
 She told Miss Ritty as much, and inquired if her mistress knew of 
 her return. 
 
 Miss Ritty could not tell. 
 
 She asked if her mistress had got another maid in her place. 
 
 Miss Ritty did not know. 
 
 She begged for permission to go and see her mistress ; but that, 
 Miss Ritty said, was impossible. 
 
 She requested that her mistress might be told where she was ; and 
 that she wished very much to see her. 
 
 Miss Ritty said that she would be glad to oblige her, but she was 
 not much in the habit of going to the house, and the last time 
 she was there, Mrs. Moore had spoken to her so spitefully, that 
 she was determined never to go again, unless she were absolutely 
 obliged to. 
 
 Having thus exhausted every resource, poor Cassy threw herself 
 upon the bed, hid her face in the bedclothes, and sought relief in 
 tears. 
 
 It was now Miss Ritty's turn. She patted the poor girl on the 
 shoulder, bade her not be down-hearted, and unlocking a bureau 
 which stood in the room, she took out a dress which she pronounced 
 to be " mighty handsome." She bade Cassy get up and put it on, 
 for her master would be coming presently. This was what Cassy 
 Seared ; but she hoped, if she could not escape the visit, at least to 
 defer it. So she told Miss Ritty that she was too sick to see any- 
 body ; she absolutely refused to look at her dresses, and begged to be 
 allowed to die in peace. Miss Ritty laughed when she spoke of 
 dying; yet she seemed a little alarmed at the idea of it, and inquired 
 what was the matter. 
 
 Cassy told her that she had seen and suffered enough that day to 
 kill anybody; that her head was sick, and her heart was broken, and 
 the sooner death came to her relief the better. She then mustered 
 courage to mention my name, and endeavoured to discover what had 
 become of me. Miss Ritty again shook her head, and declared that 
 she could give no information.
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 97 
 
 At that moment the door opened, and Colonel Moore came in. 
 He had a haggard and guilty look. The flush which overspread his 
 face when she had last seen him, was wholly gone ; his countenance 
 was pale and ghastly. She had never seen him look so before, and 
 she trembled at the sight of him. He bade Ritty begone ; but told 
 her to wait in the front room, as perhaps he might need her assistance- 
 He bolted the door, and sat down on the bed by Cassy's side. She 
 started up in terror, and retired to the farthest corner of the room. 
 He smiled scornfully, and bade her come back, and sit down beside 
 him. She obeyed, — for, however reluctant, she coidd do no better. 
 He took her hand, and threw one arm about her waist. Again she 
 shrank from him, and would have fled; but he stamped his foot im- 
 patiently, and, in a harsh tone, bade her be quiet. 
 
 For a moment he was silent; — then changing his manner, he 
 summoned up his habitual smile, and began in that mild, gentle, 
 insinuating tone, in which he was quite unsurpassed. He plied her 
 with flattery, soft words, and generous promises. He reproached her, 
 but without any harshness, for her attempts to evade the kindness he 
 intended her. He then spoke of me ; but no sooner had he entered 
 on that subject, than his voice rose, his face became flushed again, and 
 he seemed in manifest danger of losing his temper. 
 
 She interrupted him, and besought him to tell her how I did, and 
 what had become of me. He answered that I was well enough — 
 much better than I deserved to be ; but she need give herself no 
 further thought or trouble on that score, for he intended to send me 
 out of the country as soon as I was able to travel, and she need not 
 hope nor expect ever to see me again. 
 
 She most earnestly besought and begged that she might be sent off 
 and sold with me. He affected to be greatly surprised at this request, 
 and inquired why she made it. She told him, that after all that had 
 happened, it were better that she should not live any longer in his 
 family ; beside, if she were sold at the same time, the same person 
 might buy her that bought her husband. That word — husband, put 
 him into a violent passion. He told her that she had no husband, 
 and wanted none ; for he would be better than a husband to her. 
 He said that he was tired of her folly, and, with a significant look, he 
 bade her not be a fool, but to leave off whining and crying, be a good 
 girl, and do as her master desired ; was it not a servant's duty to obey 
 her master? 
 
 She told him that she was sick and wretched, and begged him to 
 leave her. Instead of doing so, he threw his arms about her neck, 
 and declared that her being sick was all imagination, for he had never 
 seen her look half so handsome. 
 
 She started up ; but he caught her in his arms, and dragged her 
 
 H
 
 98 THE white slave; or, 
 
 towards the bed. Even at that terrible moment, her presence of 
 mind did not forsake her. She exerted her strength, and succeeded 
 *a breaking away from his hateful embraces. Then summoning up 
 all her energies, she looked him in the face, as well as her tears 
 would allow her, and striving to command her voice, " Master, — 
 Father !" she cried, " what is it you would have of your own 
 daughter?" 
 
 Colonel Moore stacr^ered as if a bullet had struck him. A burning 
 blush overspread his face ; he would have spoken, but the words 
 seemed to stick in his throat. This confusion was only for a moment. 
 In an instant he recovered his self-possession, and, without taking any 
 notice of her last appeal, he merely said, that if she were really sick, 
 he did not wish to trouble her. With these words he unbolted the 
 door, and walked out of the room. 
 
 She heard him talking with Miss Ritty ; and he had been gone but 
 a few moments before she entered. She began with a long string of 
 questions about what Colonel Moore had said and done ; but when 
 Cassy did not seem inclined to give her any answer, she laughed, and 
 thanked her, and told her she need not trouble herself, for she had 
 been peeping and listening at the key-hole the whole time. She said 
 she could not imagine why Cassy made such a fuss. In a very young 
 girl it might be excusable; but in one as old as she was, and a married 
 woman, too — she could not understand it. Such is the morality, and 
 such the modesty to be expected of a slave ! 
 
 The poor girl was in no humour for controversy, so she listened 
 to this ribaldry without making any answer to it. Yet even at that 
 moment a faint ray of hope began to display itself. It occurred to 
 her, that if Miss Ritty could be made sensible of the risk she ran in 
 aiding to create herself a rival, she would not be pleased at the 
 prospect of being perhaps supplanted in a situation which she seemed 
 to find so very agreeable. This idea appeared to offer some chance 
 of gaining over Miss Ritty to aid her in escaping from Spring- 
 Meadow ; and at once she resolved to act upon it. It was necessary 
 to be cautious and to feel her way, lest by piquing the girl's pride, she 
 might deprive herself of all the advantage to be gained from working 
 upon her fears. 
 
 She approached the subject gradually, and soon placed it in a light 
 in which, it was plain, her companion had never viewed it. When it 
 was first suggested to her, she expressed a deal of confidence in her 
 own beauty, and affected to have no fears; yet it soon became obvious 
 that, notwithstanding all her boasting, she was a good deal alarmed. 
 Indeed, it was quite impossible for her to look her anticipated rival in 
 the face, and not to perceive the danger. Cassy was well pleased to 
 see the effect of her suggestions ; and began to entertain some serious 
 hopes of once more making her escape.
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 99 
 
 It was, to be sure, a miserable, and most probably an ineffectual 
 resource, this running away. But what else could she do ? What 
 other hope was there of escaping a fate which all her womanly, and 
 all her religious feelings taught her to regard with the utmost horror 
 and detestation ? This was her only chance ; she would try it, and 
 trust in God's aid to give her endeavours a happy issue. 
 
 She now told Miss Ritty distinctly how she felt, what she intended, 
 and what assistance she wanted. Her new confederate applauded her 
 resolution. " Certainly, if Colonel Moore was really her father, that 
 did make a difference; and her being a Methodist might help to 
 account for her feelings, for she knew that sort of folks were mighty 
 strict in all their notions." 
 
 But though Miss Ritty was ready enough to encourage and applaud, 
 she seemed very reluctant to take any active part in aiding and abetting 
 an escape which, though apparently it tended to promote her interests, 
 might end, if her agency in it were discovered, in bringing her into 
 danger and disgrace. 
 
 Several plans were talked over, but Miss Ritty had some objection 
 to all of them. She preferred anything to the risk of being suspected 
 by her master of plotting to defeat his wishes. As they found great 
 difficulty in fixing upon any feasible plan, it was agreed at last, in 
 order to gain time, to give out that Gassy was extremely sick. This, 
 indeed, was hardly a fiction ; for nothing but the very critical nature 
 of her situation had enabled the poor girl to sustain herself against 
 the shocks and miseries of the last four-and-twenty hours. Ritty 
 undertook to persuade her master that the best thing he could do, 
 was to let her alone till she got better. She would promise to take 
 her into training in the meantime, and was to assure Colonel Moore 
 that she did not doubt of being soon able to convince her that it was 
 both her interest and her duty to comply with her master's wishes. 
 
 So far things went extremely well. They had hardly arranged their 
 plan, before they heard Colonel Moore's step in the outer room. 
 Ritty ran to him, and succeeded in persuading him to go away without 
 any attempt to see Cassy. He commended her zeal, and promised ta 
 be governed by her advice. The next day a circumstance happened 
 which neither Cassy nor Ritty had anticipated, but which proved very 
 favourable to their design. Colonel Moore was obliged to set off for 
 Baltimore without delay. Some pressing call of business made his 
 immediate departure indispensable. Before setting out, however, he 
 found time to visit Ritty, and to enjoin upon her to keep a watchful 
 eye upon Cassy, and to take care and bring her to her senses before 
 his return. 
 
 If Cassy was to escape at ail, now was the time. She soon hit 
 upon a scheme. Her object was to screen Ritty from suspicion as 
 
 h 2
 
 100 THE WHITE SLAVE ', OR, 
 
 much as to favour her own flight. Luckily the same arrangement 
 might be made to accomplish both purposes. Cassy could only escape 
 through the door, or out of the windows. Escaping through the door 
 was out of the question, because Ritty had the key of it, and was 
 supposed to be sleeping or watching, or both together, in the front 
 room. The escape, then, must be by the windows. These did not 
 lift up, as is commonly the case, but opened upon hinges on the inside. 
 The blinds by which they were guarded on the outside, were slats 
 nailed across the window-frames, and not intended to be opened. 
 These must be cut or broken ; and as they were of pine, this was a 
 task of no great difficulty. Ritty brought a couple of table-knives, 
 and assisted in cutting them away ; though, according to the story she 
 was to tell her master, she was sleeping all the time, most soundly 
 and unsuspiciously, and Cassy must have secretly cut away the slats 
 with a pocket-knife. 
 
 Early in the evening of Colonel Moore's departure, everything was 
 ready, and Cassy was to sally forth as soon as she dared to venture. 
 Ritty agreed not to give any notice of her escape till late the next 
 day. This delay she could account for by the plea of not being 
 able to find the overseer, and by a pretended uncertainty as to 
 whether it would be Colonel Moore's wish that the overseer should 
 be informed at all about the matter. At all events, they hoped 
 that no very vigorous pursuit would be made until Colonel Moore's 
 return. 
 
 Cassy now made ready for her departure. She felt a pang at the 
 idea of leaving me ; but as Ritty could not, or would not, tell her 
 what had become of me, and as she knew, that separated and helpless 
 as we were, it was impossible for us to render each other anv assist- 
 ance, she rightly judged, that she would best serve me, and best 
 comply with my wishes, by adopting the only plan that seemed to 
 carry with it any likelihood of preserving herself from the violence 
 she dreaded. 
 
 Cassy had supplied herself from Ritty's allowance, with food enough 
 to last for several days. It was now quite dark, and time for her to 
 go. She kissed her hostess and confederate, who seemed much 
 affected at dismissing her on so lonely and hopeless an adventure, and 
 who freely gave her what little money she had. Cassy was a good deal 
 touched at this unexpected generosity. She let herself down from the 
 window, bade Ritty farewell, and summoning up all her resolution 
 and self-command, she took the nearest way across the fields towards 
 the high-road. This road was little travelled except by the people of 
 Spring-Meadow, and one or two other neighbouring plantations, and 
 at this hour of the evening there was little danger of meeting any- 
 body, except, perhaps, a night-walking slave, who would be as anxious 
 as herself to avoid being seen. There was no moon, — but the glim-
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 101 
 
 mer of the star-light served to guide her steps. She felt no appre- 
 hension of losing her way, for she had frequently been in the carriage 
 with her mistress, as far as the little village at the court-house of the 
 county, and it was hither that in the first instance she determined 
 to go. 
 
 She arrived there without having met a single soul. As yet there 
 were no signs of morning. All was still, save the monotonous 
 chirpings of the summer insects, interrupted now and then bv the 
 crowing of a cock, or the barking of a watch-dog. The village 
 -consisted of a dilapidated court-house, a blacksmith's shop, a tavern, 
 two or three stores, and half-a-dozen scattered houses. It was 
 situated at the meeting of two roads. One of these she knew 
 led into the road that ran towards Baltimore. She had flattered 
 herself with the idea of reaching that city, where she had many 
 acquaintances, and where she hoped she might find protection and 
 employment. Her chance of ever getting there was very small. Bal- 
 timore was some two or three hundred miles distant ; and she did not 
 even know which of the roads that met at the court-hou6e she ought 
 to take. She could not inquire the way, beg a cup of cold water, or 
 even be seen upon the road, without the risk of being taken up as a 
 runaway, and carried back to the master from whom she was flying. 
 
 After hesitating for some time, she took one of the roads that 
 offered themselves to her choice, and walked on with vigour. The 
 excitement of the last day or two seemed to give her an unnatural 
 strength ; for after a walk of some twenty miles, she felt fresher than 
 at first. But the light of the morning dawn, which began to show 
 itself, reminded her that it was no longer safe to pursue her journev. 
 Close by the road side was a friendly thicket, the shrubs and weeds 
 -all dripping with the dew. She had gone but a little way among 
 them when she found them so high and close as to furnish a suffi- 
 cient hiding-place. She knelt down, and destitute as she was of 
 human assistance, she besought the aid and guardian care of Heaven. 
 After eating a scanty meal, — for it was necessary to husband her pro- 
 visions, — she scraped the leaves together into a rude bed, and com- 
 posed herself to sleep. The three preceding nights she had scarcely 
 slept at all, — hut she made it up now, for she did not wake till late 
 in the afternoon. As soon as evening closed in, she started again, 
 and walked as vigorously as before. The road forked frequently; 
 but she had no means of determining which of the various courses 
 she ought to follow. She took one or the o'ther, as her judgment, 
 or rather as her fancy decided ; and she comforted herself with the 
 notion that, whether right or wrong in her selections, at all events 
 she was getting further from Spring-Meadow. 
 
 la the course of the nisrht she met several travellers. Some of
 
 102 THE WHITE SLAVE; OK, 
 
 them passed without seeming to notice her. She discovered some at 
 a distance, and concealed herself in the hushes till they had gons by. 
 But she did not always escape so easily. More than once she was 
 stopped and questioned ; but luckily she succeeded in giving satisfac- 
 tory answers. Indeed there was nothing in her complexion, especially 
 in the uncertain light of the evening, that w r ould clearly indicate her 
 to be a slave ; and in answering the questions that were put to her, 
 she took care to say nothing that would betray her condition. One 
 of the men who questioned her shook his head, and did not seem 
 satisfied ; another sat on his horse, and watched her till she was fairly 
 out of sight ; a third told her that she was a very suspicious charac- 
 ter ; — but all three suffered her to pass. She was the less liable to 
 interruption because, in Virginia, the houses of the inhabitants are 
 not generally situated along the public roads. The planters usually 
 prefer to build at some distance from the high way, and the roads, 
 passing along the highest and most barren tracts, wind their weary 
 length through a desolate, and what seems almost an uninhabited 
 country. When morning approached again, she concealed herself as 
 before, and waited for the return of night to pursue her journey. 
 
 She proceeded in this way for four days, or rather nights, at the 
 end of which time her provisions were entirely exhausted. She had 
 wandered she knew not whither, — and the hope of reaching Balti- 
 more, which at first had lightened her fatigue, was now quite gone. 
 She knew not what to do. To go much further without assistance 
 was scarcely possible. Yet should she ask anywhere for food or 
 guidance, though she stood some chance, perhaps, of passing for a 
 free white woman, still her complexion, and the circumstance of her 
 travelling alone, might cause her to be suspected as a runaway, and 
 very probably she would be stopped, put into some jail, and detained 
 there, till suspicion was changed into certainty. 
 
 She was travelling slowly along the fifth night, exhausted with 
 hunger and fatigue, and reflecting upon her unhappy situation, when 
 descending a hill, the road came suddenly upon the banks of a broad 
 river. There was no bridge; but a ferry boat was fastened to the 
 shore, and close by was the ferry-house, which seemed also to be a 
 tavern. Here was a new perplexity. She could not cross the river with- 
 out calling up the ferry-people, or waiting till they made their appear- 
 ance, and this would be exposing herself at once to that risk of detec- 
 tion which she had resolved to defer to the very last moment. Yet 
 to turn back and seek another road seemed to be an expedient 
 equally desperate. Any other road, which did not lead in a direc- 
 tion opposite to that which she wished to follow, would be likely to 
 bring her again upon the banks of the same river ; and as she could 
 not live without food, she would be soon compelled to apply some-
 
 HE1I0IRS OF A FUGITIVE. 103 
 
 where for assistance, and to face the detection she was so anxious to 
 avoid. 
 
 She sat down by the roadside, resolved to wait for the morning, 
 and to take her chance. There was a field of corn near the house, 
 and the stalks were covered with roasting ears. She had no fire, nor 
 the means of kindling one ; but the sweet milky taste of the unripe 
 kernels served to satisfy the cravings of hunger. 
 
 She had chosen a place where she could observe the first move- 
 ments about the ferry-house. The morning had but just dawned, 
 when she saw a man open the door and come out of it. He was 
 black, and she walked boldly up to him, and told him that she was 
 in great haste and wished to be taken across the ferry immediately. 
 The fellow seemed rather surprised at seeing a woman, a traveller, 
 alone, and at that hour of the morning ; — but after staring at her a 
 minute or two, he appeared to recollect that here was an opportunity 
 of turning an honest penny, and muttering something about the earli- 
 ness of the hour, and the ferry-boat not starting till after sunrise, he 
 offered to take her across in a canoe for half a dollar. This price she 
 did not hesitate to pay ; and the fellow, no doubt, put it into his own 
 pocket, without ever recollecting to hand it over to his master, or to 
 mention a word to him about this early passenger. 
 
 They entered the boat, and he paddled her across. She did not 
 dare to ask any questions, lest she should betray herself; and she did 
 her best to quiet the curiosity of the boatman, who, however, was 
 very civil and easily satisfied. Having landed on the opposite shore, 
 she travelled on a mile or two further. By this time it was broad 
 daylight, and she concealed herself as usual. 
 
 At night she set out again. But she was faint with hunger, her 
 shoes were almost worn out, her feet were swollen and very- painful, 
 and altogether her situation was anything but comfortable. She 
 seemed to have got off the highway, and to be travelling some cross- 
 road, which wound along through dreary and deserted fields, and 
 appeared to be very little frequented. All that night she did not 
 meet a single person, or pass a single house. Painful as was the 
 effort, she still struggled to drag along her weary steps : but her 
 spirits were broken, her heart was sinking, and her strength was 
 almost gone. At length the morning dawned; but the wretched 
 Cassy did not seek her customary hiding-place. She still kept on 
 in hopes of reaching some house. She was now quite subdued ; and 
 chose to risk her liberty, and even to hazard beins; carried back to 
 
 it * O 
 
 Spring-Meadow, and subjected to the fearful fate from which she was 
 flying, rather than perish with hunger and fatigue. Sad, indeed, it 
 is, that the noblest resolution and the loftiest stubbornness of soul is 
 compelled so often to yield to the base necessities of animal nature,
 
 104 THE WHITE SLAVE; OR, 
 
 and from a paltry and irrational fear of death, — of which tyrants have 
 ever known so well to take advantage, — to sink down from the lofty 
 height of heroic virtue, to the dastard submissiveness of a craven and 
 obedient slave ! 
 
 She had not gone far before she saw a low, mean-looking house by 
 the road side. It was a small building of logs, blackened with age, 
 and not a little dilapidated. Half the panes or more were wanting in 
 the two or three little windows with which it was provided, and their 
 places were supplied by old hats, old coats, and pieces of plank. The 
 door seemed dropping from its hinges ; and there was no enclosure of 
 any kind about the house, unless that name might properly be given 
 to the tall weeds with which it was surrounded. Altogether, it 
 showed most manifest signs of thriftless and comfortless indolence. 
 
 She knocked softly at the door ; and a female voice, but a rough 
 and harsh one, bade her come in. There was no hall or entry, the 
 out-door opened directly into the only room, and, on entering, she 
 found it occupied by a middle-aged woman, bare-footed, and in a 
 slovenly dress, with her uncombed hair hanging about a haggard and 
 sun-burnt face. She was setting a rickety table, and seemed to be 
 making preparations for breakfast. One side of the room was almost 
 wholly taken up by an enormous fire-place. A fire was burning in 
 it, and the corn-cakes were baking in the ashes. In the opposite 
 corner was a low bed, on which a man, the master of the family most 
 likely, lay still asleep, undisturbed by the cries and clamours of half- 
 a-dozen brats, who had been tumbling and bawling about the house, 
 unwashed, uncombed, and half naked, but who were seized with 
 sudden silence, and slunk behind their mother, at the sight of a 
 stranger. 
 
 The woman pointed to a rude 6ort of stool or bench, which seemed 
 the only piece of furniture in the nature of a chair, which the house 
 contained, and asked Cassy to sit down. She did so ; and her hostess 
 eyed her sharply, and seemed to wait with a good deal of curiosity 
 to hear who she was, and what she wanted. As soon as Cassy 
 could collect her thoughts, she told her hostess that she was travelling 
 from Richmond to Baltimore to see a sick sister. She was poor 
 and friendless, and was obliged to go on foot. She had lost her 
 way, and had wandered about all night, without knowing where she 
 was, or whither she was going. She was half dead, she added, with 
 hunger and fatigue, and wanted food and rest, and such directions 
 about the road, as might enable her to pursue her journey. At the 
 same time she took out her purse, in order to show that she was able 
 to pay for what she wanted. 
 
 Her hostess, notwithstanding her rude and poverty-stricken appear- 
 ance, seemed touched with this pitiful story. She told her to put
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 105 
 
 up her money ; she said she did not keep a tavern, and that she was 
 able to give a poor woman a breakfast, without being paid for it. 
 
 Cassy was too faint and weak to be much in a humour for talking; 
 besides, she trembled at every word, lest she might drop some un- 
 guarded expression that would serve to betray her. But now that 
 the ice was broken, the curiosity of her hostess could not be kept 
 under. She overwhelmed her with a torrent of questions, and every 
 time Cassy hesitated, or gave any sign of confusion, she turned her 
 keen, grey eyes upon her with a sharp and penetrating expression 
 that increased her disorder. 
 
 Pretty soon the ash-cakes were baked, and the other preparations 
 for breakfast were finished, when the woman shook her good man 
 roughly by the shoulder, and bade him bestir himself. This connu- 
 bial salutation roused the sleeper. He sat up on the bed, and stared 
 about the room with a vacant gaze ; but the redness of his eyes, aud 
 the sallow paleness of his face, seemed to show that he had not quite 
 slept off the effects of the last night's frolic. The wife appeared to 
 know what was wanting, for she forthwith produced the whisky-jug, 
 and poured out a large dose of the raw spirit. Her husband drank 
 it off with a relish, and, with a trembling hand, returned the broken 
 glass to his wife, who filled it half full and emptied it herself. Then 
 turning to Cassy and remarking, that "a body was fit for nothing till 
 they had got their morning bitters," she offered her a dram, and 
 seemed not a little astonished at its being declined. 
 
 The good man then began leisurely to dress himself; and had half 
 finished his toilet before he seemed to notice that there was company 
 in the house. He now came forward, and bade the stranger good 
 morning. His wife immediately drew him aside, and they began an 
 earnest whispering. Now and then they would both look Cassy in the 
 face, and as she was conscious that she must be the subject of their con- 
 versation, she began to feel a good deal of embarrassment, which she 
 was too little practised in deceit to be able to conceal. This matri- 
 monial conference over, the good woman bade Cassy draw up her 
 stool and sit down at the breakfast table. The breakfast consisted of 
 hot corn cakes and cold bacon, a palatable meal enough in any case, 
 but which Cassy 's long starvation made her look upon as the most 
 delicious she had ever eaten. Sweet, indeed, ought to be that mess 
 of pottage, for which one sells the birthright of freedom ! 
 
 She ate with an appetite which she could not restrain ; and her 
 hostess seemed a good deal surprised and a little alarmed at the 
 rapidity with which the table was cleared. Breakfast being finished, 
 the man of the house began to question her. He asked her about 
 Richmond, and whether she knew such and such persons, who, as he 
 said, were living there. Cassy had never been in Richmond, and
 
 106 THE WHITE SLAVEJ OK, 
 
 knew the town only by name. Of course her answers were very 
 little to the purpose. She blushed and stammered, and held down 
 her head, and the man completed her confusion by telling her that it 
 was very plain she had not come from Richmond, as she pretended ; 
 for he was well acquainted with the place, and it was clear enough 
 from her answers, that she knew nothing about it. He told her that 
 it was no use to deny it; — her face betrayed her; — and he " reckoned," 
 if the truth was told, she was no better than a runaway. At the 
 sound of this word the blood rushed into her face, and her heart sunk 
 within her. It was in vain that she denied, protested, and entreated. 
 Her terror, confusion and alarm, only served to give new assurance to 
 her captors, who seemed to chuckle over their prize, and to amuse 
 themselves with her fright and misery, very much as a cat plays with 
 the mouse it has caught. 
 
 He told her that if she were in fact a free woman, there was not the 
 slightest ground for alarm. If she had no free papers with her, she 
 would only have to lie in jail till she could send to Richmond and 
 get them. That was all ! 
 
 But that was more than enough for poor Cassy. No proofs of 
 freedom could she produce ; and her going to jail would be almost 
 certain to end in her being restored to Colonel Moore, and becoming 
 the wretched victim of his rage and lust. That fate must be deferred 
 as long as possible, and there seemed but one way of escaping it. 
 
 She confessed that she was a slave, and a runaway ; but she posi- 
 tively refused to tell the name of her master. He lived, she said, a 
 great way off, and she had run away from him not out of any spirit 
 of discontent or disobedience, but because his cruelty and injustice 
 were too great to be endured. There was nothing she would not 
 choose rather than fall into his hands again ; if they would only save 
 her from that, — if they would only let her live with them, she would 
 be their faithful and obedient servant as long as she lived. 
 
 The man and his wife looked at each other, and seemed pleased 
 with the idea. They walked aside and talked it over. Nothing 
 appeared to deter them from accepting her proposal at once, but the 
 fear of being detected in harbouring and detaining a runaway. Cassy 
 did her best to quiet these apprehensions ; and, after a short struggle, 
 avarice and the dear delight of power triumphed over their fears, and 
 Cassy became the property of Mr. Proctor — for so the man was 
 named. His property, as he might speciously argue, by her own 
 consent; a ten times better title than the vast majority of his coun- 
 trymen could boast. 
 
 To prevent suspicions among the neighbours, it was agreed that 
 Cassy should pass for a free woman, whom Mr. Proctor had hired ; 
 and as that gentleman had been so fortunate as to have been initiated
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 107 
 
 into the art and mystery of penmanship — an accomplishment some- 
 what rare among the " poor white folks" of Virginia — in order that 
 Cassy might he prepared to answer impertinent questions, he gave 
 her free papers, which he forged for the occasion. 
 
 It was a great thing to have escaped returning to Spring-Meadow. 
 
 But for all that, Cassy soon discovered that her present situation 
 would not prove very agreeable. Mr. Proctor was the descendant 
 and representative of what, at no distant period, had been a rich and 
 very respectable family. The frequent division cf a large estate, 
 which nobody took any pains to increase, while all diminished it by 
 idleness, dissipation, and bad management, had left Mr. Proctor's 
 father in possession of a few slaves, and a considerable tract of worn- 
 out land. At his death, the slaves had been sold to pay his debts, and 
 the land, being divided among his numerous children, had made Mr. 
 Proctor the possessor of only a few barren acres. But though left 
 with this miserable pittance, he had been brought up in the dissipated 
 and indolent habits of a Virginian gentleman ; the land he owned, 
 which was so poor and worthless that none of his numerous creditors 
 thought it worth their while to disturb him in the possession of it, 
 still entitled him to the dignity of a freeholder and a voter; and he 
 felt himself as much above what is esteemed in that country the base 
 and degraded condition of a labourer, as the richest aristocrat in the 
 whole state. He was as proud, as lazy, and as dissipated as any of 
 the nabobs, his neighbours ; and, like them, he devoted the principal 
 part of his time to gambling, politics, and drink. 
 
 Luckily for Mr. Proctor, his wife was a very notable woman. She 
 boasted no patrician blood ; and when her husband began to talk, as 
 he often did, about the antiquity and respectability of his family, she 
 would cut him short by observing, that she thought herself full as 
 good as he was, but for all that, her ancestors had been " poor 
 folks" as far back as anybody knew anything about them. If the 
 question between aristocracy and democracy were to be settled by 
 the experience of the Proctors, the plebeians most undoubtedly 
 would carry the day ; for while her husband did little or nothing but 
 frolic, drink, and ride about the country, Mrs. Proctor ploughed, 
 planted, and gathered in the crop. But for her energy and industry, 
 it is much to be feared that Mr. Proctor's aristocratic habits would 
 have soon made himself and his family a burden upon the county. 
 
 Cassv's services were a great accession to this establishment. Her 
 new mistress seemed resolved to make the most of them ; and the 
 poor girl before long was almost completely broken down by a degree 
 and a kind of labour to which she was totally unaccustomed. Two 
 or three times a-week, at least, Mr. Proctor came home drunk ; and 
 on these occasions he blustered about, threatened his wife, and beat
 
 108 THE WHITE SLAVE; OR, 
 
 and abused his children without any sort of mercy. Cassy could 
 hardly expect to come off better than they did ; — indeed, his drunken 
 abuse would have become quite intolerable, if the energetic Mrs. 
 Proctor had not known how to quell it. At first, she used mild 
 measures, and coaxed and flattered him into quiet ; but when these 
 means failed, she would tumble him into bed by main strength, and 
 compel him to lie still by the terror of the broomstick. 
 
 It was nothing but the wholesome authority which Mrs. Proctor 
 exercised over her husband, that protected Cassy against what she 
 dreaded even more than Mr. Proctor's drunken rudeness. Whenever 
 he could find her alone, he tormented her with solicitations of a most 
 distressing kind; and nothing could rid her of his importunities, 
 except the threat of complaining to Mrs. Proctor. But her troubles 
 did not end even here. Mrs. Proctor listened to her complaints, 
 thanked her for the information, and said she would speak to Mr. 
 Proctor about it. But she could not imagine that a slave could pos- 
 sibly be endowed with the slightest particle of that virtue cf which 
 the free women of Virginia boast the exclusive possession. Full of 
 this notion, she judged it highly improbable, whatever merit Cassy 
 might pretend to claim, that she had actually resisted the importu- 
 nities and solicitations of so very seducing a fellow as Mr. Proctor ; 
 and, filled with all the spite and fury of female jealousy, she delighted 
 herself with tormenting the object of her suspicions. Mrs. Proctor, 
 with all her merit, had one little foible which, most likely, she had 
 adopted out of compliment to her husband. She thought a daily 
 dram of whisky necessary to keep off the fever and ague ; and when, 
 through inadvertence, as sometimes would happen, she doubled the 
 dose, it seemed to give a new edge to the natural keenness of her 
 temper. On these occasions, she plied both words and blows with a 
 fearful energy ; and though perhaps it were difficult to say which of 
 the two was most to be dreaded, both together they were enough to 
 exhaust the patience of a saint. 
 
 Poor Cassy could discover no means of delivering herself from this 
 complication of miseries, under which she was ready to sink, when 
 she was most unexpectedly relieved, by the unsolicited interference of 
 a couple of Mr. Proctor's neighbours. They were men of leisure like 
 him : like him, too, they were of good families, and one of them had 
 received an excellent education, and was more or less distantly con- 
 nected with several of the most distinguished people in the state. But 
 a course of reckless dissipation had long ago stripped them of such 
 property as they had inherited, and reduced them to live by their wits ; 
 which they exercised in a sort of partnership, principally on the race- 
 course and at the gaming-table. 
 
 These two speculating gentlemen were on terms of intimacy with
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 109 
 
 Mr. Proctor, and they knew that he had a free woman, for such they 
 supposed Cassy to be, living at his house. In common with most 
 Virginians, they considered the existence of a class of freed people as 
 a great social annoyance, and likely enough in the end seriously to 
 endanger those " sacred rights of property," in defence of which 
 there is nothing which a true-born son of liberty ought not to be 
 proud to undertake. Instigated, doubtless, by such patriotic notions, 
 these public-spirited persons judged that they would be rendering the 
 state a service, — to say nothing of the money they might put into 
 their own pockets, — by applying to this great political evd, so far at 
 least as Cassy was a party to it, a remedy, which the doctrines of 
 more than one of the Virginian statesmen, and the spirit of more than 
 one of the Virginian statutes, would seem fully to sanction. In plain 
 English, they resolved to seize Cassy, and sell her for a slave ! 
 
 The business of kidnapping is one of the natural fruits of the 
 American system of slavery, and is as common and as well organized 
 in several parts of the United States as the business of horse-stealing 
 is in many other countries. "When they take to stealing slaves, the 
 operations of these adventurers become very hazardous ; but while 
 they confine themselves to stealing only free people, they can pursue 
 their vocation with comparatively little danger. They may perhaps 
 inflict some trifling personal wrong ; — but according to the doctrines 
 of some of the most popular among the American politicians, they are 
 doing the public no inconsiderable service ; since, in their opinion, 
 nothing seems to be wanting to render the slave-holding states of 
 America a perfect paradise, except the extermination of the eman- 
 cipated class. It was, no doubt, by some such lofty notions of the 
 public good, that Cassy's friends were actuated. At all events, those 
 sophistries which tyranny has invented to justify oppression, are as 
 much an apology for them as for any one else. 
 
 As far as Cassy could learn, their scheme was pretty much as 
 follows. They invited Mr. Proctor to a drinking frolic, and as soon 
 as the whisky had reduced him to a state of insensibility, a message 
 was sent to his wife that her husband was taken dangerously ill, and 
 that she must instantly come to his assistance. Notwithstanding a 
 few domestic jars, Mr. and Mrs. Proctor were a most loving couple ; 
 and the good woman, greatly alarmed at this unexpected news, imme- 
 diately set out to visit her husband. The conspirators had followed 
 their own messenger, and were concealed in a thicket close to the 
 house watching for her departure. She was hardly out of sight, 
 before they rushed into the field where Cassy was at work, bound 
 her hand and foot, put her into a sort of covered waggon or carry-all, 
 which they had provided for the occasion, and drove off as fast as 
 possible. They travelled all that day, and the following night.
 
 110 THE WHITE SLAVE; OH, 
 
 Early the next morning, they reached a small village where they met 
 a slave-trader with a gang of slaves, on his way to Richmond. The 
 gentlemen thieves soon struck up a bargain with the gentleman 
 slave-trader ; and having received then money, they delivered Cassy 
 into his possession. 
 
 He seemed touched with her beauty and her distress, and treated 
 her with a kindness which she hardly expected from one of his pro- 
 fession. Her shoes and clothes were nearly worn out. He bought 
 her new ones ; and as she was half dead with fatigue, terror, and 
 want of sleep, he even went so far as to wait a day at the village, in 
 order that she might recover a little before setting out on the journey 
 to Richmond. 
 
 But she soon found that she was expected to make a return for 
 these favours. When they stopped for the night, at the end of the 
 first day's journey, she received an intimation that she was to share 
 the bed of her master ; and directions were given to her how and 
 when to come there. These directions she saw fit to disregard. In 
 the morning her master called her to account. He laughed in her 
 face when she spoke of the wickedness of what he had commanded, 
 and told her he did not want her to be preaching any of her sermons 
 to him. He would excuse her disobedience this time ; but she must 
 take very good care not to repeat it. 
 
 The next evening she received directions similar to those which 
 had been given the day before ; and again she disobeyed them. Her 
 master, who had been drinking and gambling half the night, with 
 some boon companions whom he found at the tavern, enraged at not 
 finding her in his room as he had expected, sallied forth in pursuit of 
 her. Luckily he was too drunk to know very well where he was 
 going. He had gone but a few steps from the tavern door, before he 
 stumbled over a pile of wood, and injured himself very seriously. 
 His cries soon brought some of the tavern's people to his assistance. 
 They carried him to his room, bound up his bruises and put him to 
 bed. 
 
 It was late the next morning before he was able to rise ; but he 
 was no sooner up than he resolved to take ample vengeance for his 
 disappointment and his bruises. He came hobbling to the tavern 
 door, with a crutch in one hand and a whip in the other. He had all 
 his slaves paraded before the house ; and made two of the stoutest 
 fellows among them hold Cassy by the arms while he plied the whip. 
 Her cries soon collected the idlers and loungers, who seem to con- 
 stitute the principal population of a Virginian village. Some inquired 
 the cause of the whipping, but without seeming to think the question 
 of consequence enough to wait for an answer. It seemed to be the 
 general opinion that the master was tipsy, and had chosen this way to
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. Ill 
 
 vent his drunken humours; but whether drunk or sober, nobody 
 thought of interfering with his * sacred and unquestionable rights.' 
 On the contrary, all looked on with unconcern, if not with appro- 
 bation; and the greater number seemed as much pleased with the 
 sport, as so many boys would have been with the baiting of an 
 unlucky cat. 
 
 Just in the midst of this proceeding, a handsome travelling car- 
 riage drove up to the door. There were two ladies in it ; and they 
 no sooner saw what was going on, than with that humanity so natural 
 to the female heart that not even the horrid customs and detestable 
 usages of slaveholding tyranny can totally extinguish it, they begged 
 the brutal savage to leave beating the poor girl, and tell them what 
 was the matter. 
 
 The fellow reluctantly dropped the lash, and answered in a surly 
 tone, that she was an insolent disobedient baggage, not fit to be 
 noticed by two such ladies, and that he was only giving her a little 
 wholesome correction. 
 
 However, this did not seem to satisfy them ; and in the meantime 
 the carriage-steps were let down and they got out. Poor Cassy was 
 sobbing and crying, and scarcely able to utter a word ; her hair had 
 fallen down over her face and shoulders ; and her cheeks were all 
 stained with tears. Yet even in this situation the two ladies seemed 
 struck with her appearance. They entered into conversation with her, 
 and soon foimd that she had been bred a ladies' maid, and that her 
 present master was a slave-trader. These ladies, it seemed, had been 
 travelling at the north; and while on their journey had lost a female 
 servant by a sudden and violent attack of fever. They were now on 
 their return to Carolina ; and the younger of the two suggested to her 
 mother — for such their relation proved to be — to buy Cassy to supply 
 the place of the maid they had lost. The mother started some ob- 
 jections to purchasing a stranger, about whom they knew nothing, and 
 who had been sold by her former owner, they knew not for what 
 reasons. But when Cassy's tears, prayers, and supplications, were 
 added to the entreaties of her daughter, she found herself quite unable 
 to resist ; and she sent to ask the man his price. He named it. It 
 was a high one. But Mrs. Montgomery — for that was the lady's name 
 — was one of those people who, when they have made up then- minds 
 to do a generous action, are not easily to be shaken from their purpose. 
 She took Cassy into the house with her, ordered the trunks to be 
 brought in, and told the man to make out his bill of sale. The pur- 
 chase was no sooner completed, than her new mrstress took Cassy up 
 stairs, and soon fitted her with a dress better becoming her new 
 situation than did the coarse gown and heavy shoes for which she 
 was indebted to the disinterested generosity of her late master.
 
 112 THE WHITE SLAVE; OK, 
 
 Cassy was dressed, the bill of sale was delivered, and the money 
 paid, when Mrs. Montgomery's brother and travelling companion rode 
 up. He rallied his sister not a little on what he called her foolish 
 propensity to interfere between other people and their servants ; he 
 took her to task rather severely, for the imprudence of her purchase, 
 and the high price she had paid ; and he told her, with a smile and a 
 shake of the head, that one time or other, her foolish confidence and 
 generosity would be her ruin. Mrs. Montgomery took her brother's 
 raillery all in good part ; the carnage was ordered, and they proceeded 
 together on their journey. 
 
 The ladies with whom Cassy had come to the meeting, were Mrs. 
 Montgomery and her daughter. They lived some ten miles from 
 Carleton-Hall. So near had Cassy and myself been to each other for 
 six long months or more without knowing it. Cassy spoke of her 
 mistress with the greatest affection. Her gratitude was unbounded ; 
 and she seemed to find a real pleasure and enjoyment in serving a 
 benefactress who treated her with a gentle and uniform kindness, not 
 often exerted even by those who are capable of momentary acts of the 
 greatest generosity. 
 
 As Cassy finished her story, she threw her arms about my neck, 
 leaned her head upon my bosom, and looking me in the face, while 
 the tears were streaming from her eyes, she heaved a sigh, and 
 whispered that she was too, too happy ! With such a mistress, and 
 restored so unexpectedly to the arms of a husband, whom, fondly as 
 she loved him, she feared to have lost for ever, what more could she 
 desire ! 
 
 Alas, poor girl ! — she forgot that we were slaves ; — and that the 
 very next day might again separate us, subject us to other masters 
 and renew her sufferings and my miseries ! 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Before we had half finished what we had to say to each other, 
 the movement of the people on the hill-side informed us that the 
 morning's religious services were over. Never before had one of my 
 master's sermons seemed so short to me. We hastened towards the 
 spot ; I to receive my master's orders, and Cassy to attend upon her 
 mistress. As we came near the rural pulpit, I observed Mr. Carleton 
 in conversation with two ladies, who proved to be Mrs. Montgomery 
 and her daughter. We stopped at a little distance from them. Miss 
 Montgomery looked around, and seeing us standing together, she 
 beckoned to Cassy, and pointing to me, she inquired if that was the
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 113 
 
 husband, who had put her into such a flutter that morning ? This 
 question drew the notice of the other two ; and my master seemed a 
 little surprised at seeing me in this new character. " What's this, 
 Archy," he said, " what is the meaning of all this ? It is the first 
 I ever heard of your being married. You don't pretend to claim that 
 pretty girl there for your wife?" 
 
 I replied that she was indeed my wife, though it was now some 
 two years or more, since we had seen or known anything of each 
 other. I added, that I had never mentioned my marriage to him, 
 because I had despaired of ever seeing my wife again; and now, it 
 was nothing but the merest accident that had brought us together. 
 
 " Well, Archy, if she is your wife, I don't know how I can help it, 
 though I suppose I shall have you spending half your time at Poplar- 
 Grove; — is not that what your place is called, Mrs. Montgomery?" 
 
 She said it was ; — and after a moment's pause, observed, that too 
 little respect, she feared, was often paid to the matrimonial connexions 
 of servants. For her part, she could not but regard them as sacred ; 
 and if Cassy and myself were really married, and I was a decent, civil 
 fellow, she had no objection to my visiting Poplar-Grove as often as 
 Mr. Carleton would permit. 
 
 My master undertook to answer for my good behaviour; and turning 
 to me, he bade me bring up the horses. I made all the haste I coidd ; 
 but before I returned, Mrs. Montgomery was gone, and Cassy with 
 her. We mounted, and had already taken the road to Carleton-Hall, 
 when my master seemed to recollect that I had just found a wife 
 from whom I had been long separated ; and it began to occur to him, 
 that possibly we might take some pleasure in being indulged with a 
 little of one another's company. He gave me joy of my discovery, 
 with an air half serious, half jocose, — as if in doubt whether a slave 
 were properly entitled to a master's serious sympathy, — and remarked, 
 in a careless tone, that perhaps I would like to spend the remainder 
 of the day at Poplar-Grove. 
 
 As I knew that Mr. Carleton had much real goodness of heart, I 
 had long since learned to put up with his cavalier manner ; and how- 
 ever little I might be pleased with the style in which he made the 
 offer, the matter of his present proposal was so much to my fancy, 
 that I eagerly caught at it. He took his pencil from his pocket, 
 and wrote me a pass ; I asked and received such directions as he 
 could give me about the way ; and putting spurs to my horse, I soon 
 overtook Mrs. Montgomery's carriage, which I followed to Poplar- 
 Grove. 
 
 This was of one those pretty, and even elegant country seats, 
 which are sometimes seen, though very seldom, in Virginia and the 
 Carolinas; and which may serve to prove that the inhabitants of those 
 
 i
 
 114 THE WHITE SLAVE; OR, 
 
 states, notwithstanding their almost universal negligence of such 
 matters, are not totally destitute of all ideas of architectural beauty 
 and domestic comfort. The approach to the house was through a 
 broad avenue of old and venerable oaks. The buildings had the 
 appearance of considerable antiquity; but they were in perfect repair, 
 and the grounds and fences were neat and well kept. 
 
 As the ladies left the carriage, I came up. I told Mrs. Montgomery 
 that my master had given me leave to visit my wife, and I hoped she 
 would have no objection to my spending the afternoon there. 
 
 Mrs. Montgomery answered, that Cassy was too good a girl to be 
 denied any reasonable indulgence ; and as long as I behaved well, she 
 would never make any objection to my coming to see her. She put 
 me several questions about our marriage and separation ; and the 
 softness of her voice and the unassuming gentleness of her manner, 
 satisfied me that she was an amiable and kind-hearted woman. 
 
 No doubt, through the broad extent of slave-holding America, 
 there are many amiable women and kind-hearted mistresses. Yet 
 how little does their kindness avail ! It reaches only here and there. 
 It has no power to alleviate the wretchedness, or to diminish the 
 sufferings of myriads of wretches, who never hear a voice softer than 
 the overseer's, and who know no discipline milder than the lash. 
 
 The house-servants at Poplar-Grove were treated with kindness 
 and even with indulgence, and were much attached to the family ; 
 but as happens in so many other cases, the situation of the field 
 hands was extremely different. Some three years before, Mrs. Mont- 
 gomery, by her husband's death, and the will which he left, became 
 the owner and sole mistress of the estate. Upon this occasion, her 
 good nature, and her sense of justice, prompted her to extend the 
 same humane system to the management of the plantation, which she 
 had always acted upon, in the government of her own household. 
 During her husband's life, the servants' quarter had been three miles 
 or more from the house; and as the slaves were never allowed to 
 come there, unless they were sent for, Mrs. Montgomery saw scarcely 
 anything of them, and knew very little of their wants and grievances, 
 and next to nothing of the general management of the estate. 
 Indeed she spent the greater portion of every year, in visiting her 
 relations in Virginia, or in trips to the northern cities ; and when at 
 home, her husband's manifest disinclination to her having anything 
 to do with those matters, had always prevented her from meddling in 
 any way, with the plantation affairs. 
 
 But when her husband was dead, and the plantation and slaves 
 had become her own property, she could not reconcile herself to the 
 idea of taking no thought, concern, or care, for the welfare and well- 
 being of more than a hundred human creatures, who toiled from
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 115 
 
 morning to night for her sole henefit. She resolved upon a total 
 change of system ; and ordered the servants' quarter to be removed 
 near the house, so that she might be able to go there daily, and have 
 an opportunity of inspecting and relieving the wants and grievances 
 of her servants. 
 
 She was shocked at the miserable pittance of food and clothing 
 which her husband had allowed them, and at the amount of labour 
 which he had exacted. She ordered their allowances to be increased, 
 and their tasks to be diminished. Several instances of outrageous 
 severity having reached her ears, she dismissed her overseer, and pro- 
 cured a new one. The servants no sooner discovered that their 
 mistress had interested herself in their welfare, than she was over- 
 whelmed with petitions, appeals, and complaints. One wanted a 
 blanket, another a kettle, and a thud, a pair of shoes. Each asked 
 for some trifling gift, which it seemed very hard to refuse ; and every 
 request that was granted was followed by half-a-dozen others, equally 
 trifling, and equally reasonable. But, before the end of the year, these 
 small items amounted to a sum sufficient to swallow up half the usual 
 profits of the plantation. Scarcely a day passed that Mrs. Montgomery 
 was not pestered with complaints about the severity of her new over- 
 seer ; and the servants were constantly coming to beg off from some 
 threatened punishment. Two or three instances in which the overseer 
 was checked for the tyrannical manner in which he exercised his 
 authority, only served to increase this annoyance. She was perplexed 
 with continual appeals, as to which she found it next to impossible 
 to get at the truth, since the overseer always told one story, and the 
 servants another. The second overseer was dismissed ; a third threw 
 up his place in disgust ; and a fourth, who resolved to humour the 
 indulgent disposition of his employer, suffered the hands to take their 
 own course, and to do pretty much as they pleased. Of course, they 
 did not care to work, while they had the choice of being idle. Every 
 season, since Mrs. Montgomery had commenced her experiments, the 
 crop had fallen lamentably short ; but that year there was scarcely any 
 crop at all. 
 
 Her friends now thought it time to interfere. Her brother, whom 
 she loved, and for whose opinion and advice she entertained a high 
 regard, had all along remonstrated against the course she was pursuing. 
 He now spoke in a more decided tone. He told her, that the silly 
 notions she had taken up about the happiness of her slaves, woidd 
 certainly ruin her. Where was the need of being more humane than 
 her neighbours ? — And what folly could be greater than to reduce 
 herself and her children to beggary, in the vain pursuit of a senti- 
 mental and impracticable scheme ? 
 
 Mrs. Montgomery defended herself and her conduct with great 
 
 i2
 
 116 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 earnestness. She pleaded her duty towards those unhappy beings 
 whom God had placed in her power, and under her protection. She 
 even went so far as to hint at the injustice of living in luxury upon 
 the fruits of forced labour ; and she spoke with much feeling of the 
 savage brutality of overseers, and the torture of the lash. Her 
 brother replied, that such talk was very pretty, and generous, and 
 philanthropic, and all that ; and while it went no further than talk, 
 he had not the least objection to it. But pretty and philanthropic as 
 it was, it would not make either com or tobacco. She might talk as 
 she pleased ; but if she expected to live by her plantation, she must 
 manage it like other people. Everybody who knew anything about 
 the matter would tell her, that if she wished to make a crop, she must 
 keep a smart overseer, put a whip into his hands, and give him unli- 
 mited authority to use it. If she would do this, she might justly 
 call herself the mistress of the plantation ; but as long as she followed 
 her present plan, she would be no better than the slave of her own 
 servants ; and her philanthropy would end in their being sold for debt, 
 and in her being left a beggar. 
 
 These warm remonstrances made a deep impression upon Mrs. 
 Montgomery. She could not deny that the plantation had produced 
 scarcely anything since she had come into possession of it ; and she 
 was conscious that, after all her labours in their behalf, her servants 
 were discontented, idle, and insubordinate. However, she did not 
 feel inclined to yield the point. She still maintained that her ideas 
 on the mutual relation of master and servant were the obvious dic- 
 tates of justice and humanity, which no one could despise or overlook 
 who made any pretensions to virtue or to conscience. She argued 
 that the system, which she was attempting to introduce, was a good 
 one ; and that nothing was wanting except an overseer who had sense 
 enough to carry it into judicious operation. Possibly there was some- 
 thing of truth in this. If she could have found a man like Major 
 Thornton, and made an overseer of him, she might perhaps have 
 succeeded. But such men are seldom found anywhere, and in slave- 
 holding America, very seldom indeed. Take the American overseers 
 together, and they are the most ignorant, intractable, stupid, obsti- 
 nate, and self-willed race that ever existed. What could a woman do, 
 who could only act through assistance of this sort, and who had the 
 prejudices of the whole neighbourhood actively excited against her ? 
 Things went on from bad to worse. The ready money which her 
 husband had left was all spent, and her affairs soon became so entan- 
 gled and embarrassed, that she was obliged to call upon her brother 
 for assistance. He refused in the most positive manner to have any- 
 thing to do with the business, unless she would surrender to him the
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 117 
 
 sole and exclusive management of her affairs. To these hard terms, 
 after a short and ineffectual struggle, she was obliged to consent. 
 
 He immediately took the plantation into his own hands. He 
 removed the cabins to their former situation; revived the old rule 
 that no servant should ever go to the house, unless specially sent for; 
 reduced them to their former allowance of food and clothing; aud 
 engaged an overseer on the express condition that Mrs. Montgomery 
 should never listen to any complaints against him, or intermeddle, in 
 any way, with his management of the plantation. 
 
 Within the first month after this return to the old system, near 
 one-third of the working hands were runaways. Mrs. Montgomery's 
 brother told her that this was no more than might be expected ; for 
 the rascals had been so spoiled and indulged, as to render them quite 
 impatient of the necessary and wholesome severity of plantation dis- 
 cipline. After long searching, and a good deal of trouble and expense, 
 the runaways, except one or two, were finally recovered ; and Poplar- 
 Grove, under its new administration, passed by degrees to its ancient 
 routine of whipping and hard labour. Once in a while, notwith- 
 standing all the pains that were taken to prevent it, some instance of 
 severity would reach the ear of Mrs. Montgomery ; and, in the first 
 burst of indignant feeling, she would sometimes declare, that the nar- 
 rowest poverty would be far better than the wealth and luxury for 
 which she was indebted to the whip of the slave-driver. But these 
 exclamations of generous passion were scarcely uttered, before she 
 acknowledged to herself, that to think of giving up the luxury to 
 which she had been accustomed from her infancy, was out of the 
 question. She strove to escape from the knowledge, and to banish 
 the recollection of injustice and cruelty which her heart condemned, 
 but which she lacked the power, or rather the spirit, to remedy. She 
 fled from a home where she was for ever haunted by the spectre of 
 that delegated tyranny, for which, however she might attempt to deny 
 or disguise it, she could not but feel herself responsible ; and whde 
 her slaves toiled beneath the burning sun of a Carolina summer, and 
 smarted under the lash of a stern and relentless overseer, she attempted 
 to drown the remembrance of their wrongs in the dissipations and 
 gaieties of Saratoga or New York. 
 
 But she was obliged to spend a part of the year at Poplar-Grove; 
 and with all her care, she could not always save her feelings from 
 some rude brushes. Of this I had a striking instance on my first 
 visit. One of her plantation hands had been so far indulged by the 
 overseer, who, by the way, was a very rigid presbyterian, as to receive 
 a pass to attend Mr. Carleton's meeting. After the meeting was over, 
 his mistress happened to see him there ; and as she wished to send a 
 message to one of her neighbours, she called him to her, aud sent
 
 118 THE WHITE SLAVE; OR, 
 
 him with it. It so happened, that Mrs. Montgomery's overseer was 
 at this neighbour's when the servant arrived there with his mistress's 
 message. The overseer no sooner saw him, than he inquired what 
 business he had to come there, when his pass only allowed him to go 
 to the meeting and back again. It was in vain that he pleaded his 
 mistress's orders. The overseer said that made no difference whatever ; 
 for Mrs. Montgomery had nothing at all to do with the plantation 
 bands ; and to impress this fact upon his memory, he gave him a dozen 
 lashes on the spot. 
 
 The poor fellow was bold enough to come to the house, and make 
 his complaint to Mrs. Montgomery. Nothing could exceed her anger 
 and vexation ; but her agreement with her brother left her without a 
 remedy. She made the servant a handsome present : told him that 
 he had been very unjustly punished, and begged him to go home and 
 say nothing about it to anybody. She submitted to the mortification 
 of making this request, in hopes of saving the poor fellow from a second 
 punishment. But by some means or other, as I learned afterwards, 
 the overseer found out what had been going on ; and to vindicate his 
 supreme authority, and keep up the discipline of the plantation, he 
 inflicted a second whipping more severe than the first. 
 
 Such is the malignant nature and disastrous operation of the slave- 
 holding system, that, in too many instances, the sincerest goodwill, 
 and best intended efforts in the slave's behalf, end only in plunging 
 him into deeper miseries. It is impossible to build any edifice of 
 good upon so evil a foundation. The whole system is totally and 
 radically wrong. The benevolence, the good-nature, the humanity of 
 a slave-holder, avail as little as the benevolence of the bandit, who 
 generously clothes the stripped and naked traveller in a garment 
 plundered from his own portmanteau. What grosser absurdity than 
 the attempt to be humanely cruel, and generously unjust ! The very 
 first act in the slave's behalf, without which all else is useless, and 
 worse than useless, is — to make him free! 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 I have before observed that Sunday is the slave's holiday. Where 
 intermarriages are allowed between the slaves of different plantations, 
 this is generally the only occasion on which the scattered branches of 
 the same family are indulged with an opportunity of visiting each 
 other. Many planters, who pride themselves upon the excellence of 
 their discipline, forbid these intermarriages altogether; and if they
 
 MEJIOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 119 
 
 happen to have a superabundance of men-servants, they prefer that 
 one woman should have half-a-dozen husbands, rather than suffer 
 their slaves to be corrupted, by gadding about among other people's 
 plantations. 
 
 Other managers, just as good disciplinarians, and a little more 
 shrewd than their neighbours, forbid the men only to marry away 
 from home. They are very willing to let their women get husbands 
 where they can. They reason in this way. When a husband goes 
 to see his wife, who lives upon another plantation, he will not be apt 
 to go empty-handed. He will cany something with him, probably 
 something eatable, plundered from his master's fields, that may serve 
 to make him welcome, and render his coming a sort of festival. Now 
 everything that is brought upon a plantation in this way, is so much 
 clear gain ; and, so far as it goes, it amounts to feeding one's people 
 at the expense of one's neighbours ! 
 
 Sunday, as I have said, is the day upon which are paid the matri- 
 monial visits of the slave. But Sunday was no holiday to me ; for I 
 was generally obliged, on that day, to attend my master upon his 
 ecclesiastical excursions. To make up for this, Mr. Carleton allowed 
 me Thursday afternoons, so that I was able to visit Cassy at least 
 once a week. 
 
 The year that followed was the happiest of my life ; and with all 
 the inevitable mortifications and miseries which slavery, even under its 
 least repulsive form, ever carries with it, I still look back to that year 
 with pleasure, — a pleasure that yet has power to warm a heart, sad- 
 dened and embittered by a thousand painful recollections. 
 
 Before the end of the year Cassy made me a father. The infant 
 boy had all his mother's beauty ; and only he who is a father, and as 
 fond a husband, too, as I was, can know the feelings with which I 
 pressed the little darling to my heart. 
 
 No ! — no one can know my feelings, — no one, alas ! but he who 
 is, as I was, the father of a slave ! — And is it true, then, that this 
 child of my hopes and wishes, this pledge of mutual love, this dear, 
 dear infant of whom I am the father, is it true he is not mine ? 
 
 Is it not my duty and my right, a right and duty dearer than life, 
 to watch over his helpless infancy, and to rear him with all a father's 
 tenderness and love, to a manhood, that will perhaps repay my care, 
 and, in turn, sustain and cherish me, a tottering weak old man ? 
 
 My duty it may be ; but it is not my right. A slave can have no 
 rights. His wife, his child, his toil, his blood, his life, and every- 
 thing that gives his life a value, they are not his ; he holds them all 
 but at his master's pleasure. He can possess nothing ; and if there 
 is anything he seems to have, it is only by a sufferance which 
 exists but in his owner's will.
 
 120 THE WHITE SLAVE; OR, 
 
 This very child, this very tender habe, may be torn from my arms, 
 and sold to-morrow into the hands of a stranger, and I shall have no 
 right to interfere. Or if not so ; if some compassion be yielded to 
 his infancy, and if he be not snatched from his father's embraces 
 and his mother's bosom while he is yet all unconscious of his misery, 
 yet what a sad, wretched, desolate fate awaits him ! Shut out from 
 every chance or hope of anything which it is worth one's while to 
 live for ; — bred up a slave ! 
 
 A slave ! — That single word, what volumes it does speak ! It 
 speaks of chains, of whips and tortures, compulsive labour, hunger 
 and fatigues, and all the miseries our wretched bodies suffer. It 
 speaks of haughty power, and insolent commands ; of insatiate ava- 
 rice ; of pampered pride and purse-proud luxury ; and of the cold 
 indifference and scornful unconcern with which the oppressor looks 
 down upon his victims. It speaks of crouching fear, and base ser- 
 vility ; of low, mean cunning, and treacherous revenge. It speaks of 
 humanity outraged ; manhood degraded ; the social charities of life, 
 the sacred ties of father, wife and child trampled underfoot ; of aspi- 
 rations crushed ; of hope extinguished ; and the light of knowledge 
 sacrilegiously put out. It speaks of man deprived of all that makes 
 him amiable or makes him noble ; stripped of his soul, and sunk into 
 a beast. 
 
 And thou, my child, to this fate thou art born ! May heaven 
 have mercy on thee, for man has none ! 
 
 The first burst of instinctive and thoughtless pleasure, with which I 
 had looked upon my infant boy, was dissipated for ever, the moment 
 I had recovered myself enough to recollect what he was born to. 
 Various and ever changing, but always wretched and distressing were 
 the feelings with which I gazed at him, as he slept upon his mother's 
 bosom, or waking, smiled at her caresses. He was indeed a pretty 
 baby ; a dear, dear child ; — and for his mother's sake I loved him, 
 how I loved him ! Yet struggle as I might, I could not, for a 
 moment, escape the bitter thought of what his fate must be. Full 
 well I knew that did he live to be a man, he would repay my love, 
 and justly, with curses, curses on the father who had bestowed upon 
 him nothing but a life incumbered and made worse than worthless by 
 the inheritance of slavery. 
 
 I found no longer the same pleasure in Cassy's society which it 
 used to afford me ; or rather the pleasure which 1 could not but take 
 in it, was intermingled with much new misery. I did not love her 
 less ; but the birth of that boy had infused fresh bitterness into the 
 cup of servitude. Whenever I looked upon him my mind was filled 
 with horrid images. The whole future seemed to come visibly before 
 me. I saw him naked, chained, and bleeding under the lash ; I saw
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 121 
 
 him a wretched, trembling creature, cringing to escape it ; I saw him 
 utterly debased, and the spirit of manhood extinguished within him ; 
 already he appeared that worthless thing, — a slave contented with 
 his fate ! 
 
 I could not bear it. I started up in a phrensy of passion ; I 
 snatched the child from the arms of his mother, and, while I loaded 
 him with caresses, I looked about for the means of extinguishing a 
 life, which, as it was an emanation from my existence, seemed destined 
 to be only a prolongation of my misery. 
 
 My eyes rolled wildly, I doubt not ; and the stern spirit of my 
 determination must have been visibly marked upon my face ; for, 
 gentle and unsuspicious as she was, and wholly incapable of that 
 wild passion which tore my heart, my wife, with a mother's instinc- 
 tive watchfulness, seemed to catch some glimpse of my intention. 
 She rose up hastily, and without speaking a word, she caught the 
 baby from my feeble and trembling grasp ; and as she pressed it to 
 her bosom, she gave a look that told me all that she feared; and 
 told me, too, that the mother's hfe was bound up in that of the child. 
 
 That look subdued me. My arms dropped powerless, and I sunk 
 down in a sort of sullen stupor. I had been prevented from accom- 
 plishing my purpose, but I was not satisfied that in foregoing it, I 
 did a father's duty to the child. The more I thought upon it — and 
 it so engrossed me that I could scarcely draw my thoughts away — 
 the more was I convinced that it were better for the boy to die. And 
 if the deed did peril my own soul, I loved the child so well I did not 
 shrink, even at that ! 
 
 But then his mother ? 
 
 I would have reasoned with her ; but I knew how vain would be 
 the labour to array a woman's judgment against a mother's feelings ; 
 and I felt, that one tear stealing down her cheek, one look of hers, 
 like that she gave me when she snatched the child away, would, even 
 in mv own mind, far outbalance the weightiest of mv arguments. 
 
 The idea of rescuing the boy, by one bold act, from all the bitter 
 miseries that impended over him, had shot upon my mind like some 
 faint struggling star across the darkness of a midnight storm. But 
 that glimmer of comfort was now extinguished. The child must live. 
 
 The life I gave him, I must not take away. No ! not though 
 every day of it would draw new curses on my devoted head, — and 
 those, too, the curses of my child. This, this, alas ! is the barbed 
 arrow that still is sticking in my heart ; the fatal, fatal wound that 
 nought can heal.
 
 122 ' THE white slave; or, 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 One Sunday morning, when the boy was about three months old, 
 two strangers unexpectedly arrived at Carleton-Hall. In consequence 
 of their coming, some urgent business occupied my master's atten- 
 tion, so that he found himself obliged to give up the meeting which 
 he had appointed for that day. I was not sorry for it ; for it left me 
 at liberty to visit my wife and child. 
 
 It was the autumn. The heat of summer had abated, and the 
 morning was bright and balmy. There was a soothing softness in 
 the air, and the woods were clothed in a gay variety of colours, that 
 almost outvied the foliage of the spring. As I rode along towards 
 Poplar-Grove, the serenity of the sky, and the beauty of the prospect, 
 seemed to breathe a peaceful pleasure to my heart. It was the more 
 needed ; for I had been a good deal irritated by some occurrences 
 during the week; and every new indignity to which my situation 
 exposed me, I now seemed to suffer twice over, once in my own 
 person, and a second time in anticipation for my child. I had set 
 out in no very agreeable frame of mind ; but the ride, the prospect, 
 and the fine autumnal air, had soothed me into a cheerful alacrity of 
 spirit, such as I had hardly felt for some weeks before. 
 
 Cassy welcomed me with a ready smile, and those caresses which a 
 fond wife bestow-s so freely on the husband whom she loves. Her 
 mistress, the day before, had given her some new clothes for the 
 child, and she had just been dressing him out, to make the little 
 fellow fit, she said, to see his father. She brought the boy and placed 
 him on my knee. She praised his beauty ; and with her arm about 
 my neck, she tried to trace his father's features in the baby's face. 
 In the full flow of a mother's fond affection, she seemed unconscious 
 and forgetful of the future ; and by a thousand tender caresses, and 
 all the little artifices of a woman's love, she sought to make me forget 
 it too. She had but little success. The sight of that poor, smiling, 
 helpless and unconscious child, brought back all my melancholy feel- 
 ings. Yet I could not bear to disappoint my wife's hopes and 
 efforts ; and to make her think herself successful, I strove to affect a 
 cheerfulness I did not feel. 
 
 The beauty of the day tempted us abroad. We walked among the 
 fields and woods, carrying the child by turns. Cassy had a hundred 
 little things to tell me of the first slight indications of intelligence 
 which the boy was giving. She spoke with all a mother's fluency 
 and fervour. I said but little ; indeed I hardly dared to speak at ail. 
 Had I once begun, I could not have restrained myself from going on ;
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 123 
 
 and I did not wish to poison her pleasure, by an outpouring of that 
 bitterness which I felt bubbling up at the bottom of my heart. 
 
 The hours stole away insensibly, and the sun was already declining. 
 I had my master's orders to be back that night ; and it was time for 
 roe to go. I clasped the infant to my heart. I kissed Cassv's cheek 
 and pressed her hand. She seemed not satisfied with so cold a part- 
 ing; for she threw her arms about my neck, and loaded me with 
 embraces. This was so different from her usual coy and timid man- 
 ner, that I was at a loss to understand it. Is it possible that she 
 felt some instinctive presentiment of what was going to happen ? 
 Did the thought dart across her mind, that this might be our last, 
 our final parting ? 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 When I got back to Carleton-Hall, I found everything in the 
 greatest confusion. It was not long before I was made acquainted 
 with the cause. It seemed that some twelve months previous, Mr. 
 Carleton had found himself very much pressed for money. This had 
 obliged him to look a little into his affairs. He found himself bur- 
 dened with a load of debt of which, before, he had no definite idea ; 
 and as his numerous creditors, who had been too long put off with pro- 
 mises, were beginning to be very clamorous, he saw that some vigo- 
 rous remedy was necessary. To borrow seemed the most certain 
 means of relief from the immediate pressure of his debts ; and he 
 succeeded in obtaining a large loan from some Baltimore money- 
 lenders, of which he secured the repayment by a mortgage upon his 
 slaves, including even the house-servants, and myself among the 
 number. This money he expended in satisfying several executions, 
 which had already issued against him, and in stopping the mouths 
 of the most clamorous of his creditors. The money was borrowed 
 for a year ; not with any expectation on Mr. Carleton's part of being 
 able to repay it in that time, out of any funds of his own ; but in 
 the hope that before the year's end, he might succeed in obtaining a 
 permanent loan, and so be enabled to cancel the mortgage. 
 
 In this expectation he had hitherto been disappointed; and he 
 was yet negotiating with the persons from whom he expected to bor- 
 row, when the time of repayment, mentioned in the mortgage, expired. 
 This happened about a month previous ; and when I got back to 
 Carleton-Hall, I found that the strangers who had arrived that morn- 
 ing, were the agents of the Baltimore money-lenders, who had been 
 sent to take possession of the mortgaged property. They had already 
 caught as many of the slaves as they could find ; and I no sooner 
 
 ml
 
 12 i THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 entered the house than I was seized, and put under a guard. These 
 precautions were thought necessary to prevent the slaves from run- 
 ning away, or concealing themselves from the agents of their new 
 owners. 
 
 My poor master was in the greatest distress and embarrassment 
 that could be imagined. It was in vain that he begged for delay, 
 and proposed various terms of accommodation. The agents declared 
 that they had no discretion in the matter ; they were instructed to 
 get either the money or the slaves ; and in case the money was not 
 forthcoming, to proceed with the slaves to Charleston, in South 
 Carolina, which at that time was esteemed the best market for dis- 
 posing of that commodity. 
 
 As to paying the money at once, that was out of the question ; 
 but Mr. Carleton hoped that he might be able in the course of a few 
 days, if not to obtain the loan for which he was negotiating, at least 
 to get such temporary assistance as would enable him to discharge 
 the mortgage. The agents agreed to give him twenty-four- hours, but 
 refused to wait any longer. Mr. Carleton despaired of doing any 
 thing in so short a time ; and did not think it worth his while to 
 attempt it. The plantation hands must go ; there did not seem to 
 be any remedy for that ; but he was very desirous to save his house- 
 servants from the slave-market, and he begged the agents not to 
 leave him without a servant to make his bed or cook his dinner. 
 
 The agents replied that they were truly sorry for the disagreeable 
 situation in which he found himself; but that, since the mortgage 
 was made, several of the slaves included in the schedule were dead; 
 that some of the others seemed hardly worth the sum at which they 
 had been valued; that the price of slaves had fallen considerably 
 since the mortgage was made, and seemed likely to fall more ; and 
 that, everything considered, they thought it more than doubtful 
 whether the mortgaged property would be sufficient to satisfy the 
 debt. However, they were desirous to indulge him as far as their 
 duty to their principals would allow ; and if he would pay the value 
 of such of the slaves as he wished to retain, they had no objections to 
 receive the money instead of the servants. 
 
 Mr. Carleton had not fifty dollars in the house ; but he imme- 
 diately started off to see what he could borrow in the neighbourhood. 
 Wherever he went, he found that the news of what had happened 
 had preceded him. Besides this Baltimore mortgage, he was known 
 to owe many other debts ; and his neighbours generally looked upon 
 him as a ruined man. Of course, the greater part of them felt no 
 inclination to lend him their money ; and, in fact, very many of them 
 were not so much better off than Mr. Carleton as to have much 
 money to lend. After riding about the greater part of the day, he
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 125 
 
 succeeded in borrowing a few hundred dollars, on condition, however, 
 that he should secure the repayment by a mortgage of such slaves as 
 he should redeem. He had returned to the house a little before I 
 did, and was already considering with himself which of his slaves 
 he should retain. He told me that I had been a good and trust- 
 worthy servant, and that he was very unwilling to part with me. But 
 he had not money enough to redeem us all ; and his old nurse and 
 her family were entitled to be retained in preference to any of the 
 rest of us. Not only were their services the most essential to 
 him, but the mother had long been a favourite servant, her children 
 were born and bred in his family, and he considered it a matter 
 of conscience to keep them, at all events. The agents released 
 those of the servants whom he selected. The rest of us were kept 
 confined, and received notice to be ready for a start early the next 
 morning. 
 
 I had yet one hope. I thought if Mrs. Montgomery could be in- 
 formed of my situation she would certainly buy me. I mentioned it 
 to my master. He told me not to flatter myself too much with that 
 idea ; — for Mrs. Montgomery already had more servants about her 
 house than she had any kind of use for. However, he readily under- 
 took to write her a note explaining my situation. It was despatched by 
 a servant, and I waited with impatient hope for the answer. 
 
 At last the messenger returned. Mrs. Montgomery and her 
 daughter had gone that morning to visit her brother, who lived some 
 ten miles from Poplar-Grove, and" they were expected to be absent 
 three or four days. I bebeve I had heard something of this in the 
 morning ; but in my hurry, confusion, and excitement, it had escaped 
 my memory. 
 
 My last hope was now gone ; and as it went, the shock I felt was 
 dreadful. Till that moment, I had concealed from myself the 
 misery of my situation. I had been familiar with calamity, but this 
 exceeded anything I had ever suffered. It is true, I had once before 
 been separated from my wife ; but my bodily pains, my delirium and 
 fever, had helped to blunt the agony of that separation. Now, I was 
 torn from both wife and child ! — and that, too, without anything to 
 call off my attention, or to deaden the torture of conscious agony. 
 My heart swelled with impotent passion, and beat as though it would 
 leap from my bosom. My forehead glowed with a burning heat. I 
 would have wept ; but even that relief was denied me. The tears 
 refused to flow ; the fever in my brain had parched them up. 
 
 My first impulse was, to attempt making my escape. But my new 
 masters were too well acquainted with the business of legal kidnap- 
 ping to give me an opportunity. We were all collected in one of the 
 out-houses, and carefully secured. "With many of the plantation
 
 126 THE WHITE SLAVE \ OR, 
 
 hands, this was quite an unnecessary precaution. A large proportion 
 of them were so sick and weary of the tyranny of Mr. Carleton's 
 overseer, that they were glad of any change ; and when their master 
 made them a farewell visit, and began to .condole with them upon their 
 misfortune, several of them were bold enough to tell him that they 
 thought it no misfortune at all ; for whatever might happen, they 
 could not be worse treated than they had been by his overseer. Mr. 
 Carleton seemed not well pleased at this bold disclosure, and took 
 his leave of us rather abruptly ; and certainly this piece of informa- 
 tion could not have been very soothing to his feelings. 
 
 At early dawn we were put into travelling order. A waggon car- 
 ried the provisions and the younger children. The rest of us were 
 chained together, and proceeded in the usual fashion. 
 
 It was a long journey, and we were two or three weeks upon the 
 road. Considering that we were slaves driven to market, we were 
 treated on the whole with unexpected humanity. At the end of the 
 third or fourth day's journey, the women and children were released 
 from their chains ; and two or three days later, a part of the men 
 received the same indulgence. Those of us, of whom they were more 
 suspicious, were still kept in irons. Our drivers seemed desirous to 
 enhance our value by putting us into good condition. Our daily 
 journey was quite moderate ; we were all furnished with shoes, and 
 were allowed plenty to eat. At night we encamped by the road-side, 
 kindled a large fire, cooked our hominy, and made a hut of branches to 
 sleep under. Several of the company declared that they were never so 
 well treated in all their lives ; and they went along laughing and singing 
 more like men travelling for pleasure, than like slaves going to be sold. 
 So little accustomed is the slave to kindness or indulgence of any sort, 
 that the merest trifle is enough to put him into ecstasy. The gift of 
 a single extra meal is sufficient to make him fall in love even with a 
 slave-driver. 
 
 The songs and laughter of my companions only served to aggravate 
 my melancholy. They observed it, and did their best to cheer me. 
 There never was a kinder-hearted company, and I found some relief 
 even in their rude efforts at consolation ; for there is more power in 
 the sympathy of the humblest human creature than the haughty 
 children of luxury are apt to believe. I was a favourite among the 
 servants at Carleton-Hall, because I had taken some little pains to be 
 so ; for I had long since renounced that silly prejudice and foolish 
 pride, which at an earlier period had kept me aloof from my fellow- 
 servants, and had justly earned me their hatred and dislike. Expe- 
 rience had made me wiser; and I no longer took sides with our 
 oppressors by joining them in the false notion of their own natural 
 superiority ; — a notion founded only in the arrogant prejudice of con-
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 127 
 
 ceited ignorance, and long since discarded by the liberal and en- 
 lightened; but a notion which is still the orthodox creed of all 
 America, and the principal, I might almost say the sole foundation, 
 which sustains the iniquitous superstructure of American slavery. I 
 had made it a point to gain the good will and affection of my fellow- 
 servants, by mixing among them ; taking an interest in all their con- 
 cerns ; and rendering them such little services as my favour with Mr. 
 Carleton put in my power. Once or twice, indeed, I had overstepped 
 the mark, and got myself into very serious trouble by letting my 
 master know what severities his overseer inflicted. But though my 
 attempts at serving them were not always successful, their gratitude 
 was not the less on that account. 
 
 "When my companions observed my melancholy they stopped their 
 songs, and having rim through their few topics of condolence, they 
 continued their conversation in a subdued and moderated tone, as if 
 unwilling to irritate my feelings by what might seem to me unreason- 
 able merriment. I saw, and in my heart acknowledged, the kindness 
 of their intention ; but I did not wish that my sadness should cast a 
 shade over what they enjoyed as a holiday, — the only holiday 
 perhaps which their miserable fate would ever allow them. I told 
 them that nothing would be so likely to cheer me as to see them 
 merry ; and though my heart was aching and ready almost to burst, 
 I forced a laugh, and started a song. The rest joined in it; the 
 chorus rose again loud as ever, the laugh went round, and the turbu- 
 lence of their merriment soon allowed me to sink again into a moody 
 silence. 
 
 I had the natural feelings of a man ; I loved my wife and child. 
 Had they been snatched from me by death, or had I been separated 
 from them by some fixed, inevitable, natural necessity, I should have 
 wept, no doubt, but my feelings would have been those of simple 
 grief, unmixed with any more bitter emotion. But that the dear ties 
 of husband and father, ties so twined about my inmost heart, should 
 be thus violently severed, without a moment's warning, and at a 
 creditor's caprice, and he too the creditor of another; to be thus 
 chained up, torn from my home, and driven to market, there to be 
 sold to pay the debts of a man who called himself my master ; — the 
 thoughts of this stirred up within my soul a bitter hatred and a burn- 
 ing indignation against the laws and the people that tolerate such 
 things ; fierce and deadly passions which tore my heart, distracted and 
 tormented me even more than my grief at the sudden separation. 
 
 But the more violent emotions ever tend to cure themselves. If 
 the patient survive the first paroxysm, his mind speeddy begins to 
 verge towards its natural equilibrium. I found it so. The torture 
 of furious but impotent emotions at first almost overpowered me.
 
 128 THE WHITE SLAVE j OB, 
 
 But my feelings softened by degrees, tills at length, they subsided 
 into a dull, but fixed and settled misery ; a misery which the impulse 
 of temporary excitement may sometimes make me forget, but which, 
 like the guilty man's remorse, is too deeply rooted to be ever 
 ^radicated. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 At length we arrived at Charleston, the capital of South Carolina. 
 We spent several days in recruiting ourselves after our long journey. 
 As soon as we had recovered from our lameness and fatigues, we 
 were dressed up in new clothes, and fitted out to show off to the best 
 advantage. We were then exposed for the inspection of purchasers. 
 The women and children, pleased with their new finery, seemed to 
 enjoy the novelty of their situation, and appeared as anxious to find 
 a master and to bring a high price, as though the bargain were 
 actually for their own benefit. The greater part of our company were 
 bought up by a single purchaser, and I among the rest. We were 
 purchased by General Carter, a man of princely fortune ; indeed, one 
 of the richest planters in South Carolina ; and were immediately sent 
 off to one of his plantations, at some distance from the city. 
 
 The lower country of South Carolina, from the Atlantic for eighty 
 or a hundred miles inward, including more than half the state, is, 
 with the exception I shall presently mention, one of the most barren, 
 miserable, uninviting countries in the universe. In general, the soil 
 is nothing but a thirsty sand, covered for miles and miles with forests 
 of the long-leaved pine. These tracts are called, in the expressive 
 phrase of the country, Pine Barrens. For a great distance inland, 
 these barrens preserve almost a perfect level, raised but a few feet 
 above the surface of the sea. The tall, straight, branchless trunks of 
 the scattered pines, rise like slender columns, and are crowned with a 
 tuft of knarly limbs, and long bristly leaves, through which the 
 breezes murmur with a monotonous sound, much like that of falling 
 waters, or waves breaking on a beach. There is rarely any under- 
 growth, and the surface is either matted with the saw-palmetto, a low 
 evergreen, or covered with a coarse and scattered grass, on which 
 herds of half-wild cattle feed in summer, and starve in winter. The 
 trunks of the pines scarcely interrupt a prospect, whose tedious same- 
 ness is only varied by tracts, here and there, of almost impenetrable 
 swamp, thickly grown up with bays, water oaks, cypresses, and other 
 large trees, adown whose spreading branches and whitened trunks, a 
 long dusky moss hangs in melancholy festoons, drooping to the 
 ground, the very drapery of disease and death. The rivers, which are
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 129 
 
 wide and shallow, swollen with the heavy rains of spring and winter, 
 frequently overflow their low and marshy banks, and help to increase 
 the extent of swampy ground, — the copious source of poisonous 
 vapours and febrile exhalations. Even where the country begins to 
 rise into hills, it preserves, for a long distance, its sterile character. 
 It is a collection of sandy hillocks thrown together in the strangest 
 confusion. In several places, not even the pine will grow ; and the 
 barren and thirsty soil is clothed only with stunted bushes of the 
 black jack, or dwarf oak. In some spots even these are wanting ; 
 and the bare sand is drifted by the winds. 
 
 Throughout this extent of country, of which, with all its barrenness, 
 a great part might be, and by the enterprising spirit of free labour 
 doubtless would be, brought into profitable cultivation, there are only 
 some small tracts, principally along the water courses, which the 
 costly and thriftless system of slave labour has found capable of im- 
 provement. All the rest still remains a primitive wilderness, with 
 scarcely anything to interrupt its desolate and dreary monotony. 
 
 This description does not include the tract stretching along the sea- 
 shore, from the mouth of the Santee to that of the Savannah, and 
 extending in some places, twenty or thirty miles up the country. 
 The coast between these rivers is a series of islands ; — the famous 
 sea-islands of the cotton markets; and the main land, which is 
 separated from these islands by innumerable narrow and winding 
 channels, is penetrated, for some distance inland, by a vast number 
 of creeks and inlets. The islands present a bluff shore and a fine 
 beach towards the ocean, but the opposite sides are often low and 
 marshy. They were originally covered with a magnificent growth of 
 the live, or evergreen oak, one of the finest trees anywhere to be seen. 
 The soil is light ; but it possesses a fertility never yet attained in the 
 dead and barren sands of the interior. These lands are protected by 
 embankments from the tides and floods, and the fields are divided 
 and drained by frequent dikes and ditches. Such of them as can be 
 most conveniently irrigated with fresh water, are cultivated as rice- 
 fields ; — the remainder are employed in the production of the long 
 staple, or sea-island cotton, — a species of vegetable wool, which 
 excels every other in the length of its fibre, and almost rivals silk in 
 strength and softness. 
 
 These beautiful districts present a strong contrast to the rest of the 
 lower country of South Carolina. As far as the eye can stretch, 
 nothing is to be seen but a smooth, level, highly-cultivated country, 
 penetrated in every direction by creeks and rivers. The residences of 
 the planters are often handsome buildings, placed on some fine swell, 
 and shaded by a choice variety of trees and shrubbery. These houses 
 are inhabited by their owners only in the winter. They are driven 
 
 K
 
 130 THE WHITE SLAVE; OR, 
 
 from home in the summer, partly by the tiresomeness of a listless and 
 monotonous indolence, and partly by the unhealthiness of the climate, 
 which is much aggravated by the ricje cultivation. This absentee 
 aristocracy congregates in Charleston, or dazzles and astonishes the 
 cities and watering places of the North, by its profuse extravagance 
 and reckless dissipation. The plantations are left to the sole manage- 
 ment of overseers, who, with their families, form almost the only 
 permanent free population of these districts. The slaves are ten 
 times as numerous as the free. The whole of this rich and beautiful 
 country is devoted to. the support of a few hundred families in a 
 lordly, luxurious, dissipated indolence, which renders them useless 
 to the world and a burden to themselves ; and to contribute towards 
 this same great end, more than a hundred thousand human beings 
 are sunk into the very lowest depths of degradation and misery.. 
 
 General Carter, our new master, was one of*the richest of these 
 American grandees. The plantation to which we were sent, was 
 called Loosahachee ; and though very extensive, was but one out of 
 several, which he owned. Coming as I did from Virginia, there 
 were many things in the appearance of the country, and in the way 
 in which tilings were managed, that were entirely new to me. 
 
 I and my companions, who had always been accustomed to some 
 small quantity of meat as a relish to our corn dietj found, our mere 
 unseasoned hominy neither so palatable nor so nourishing as we could 
 wish. Being strangers and new-comers, we had not yet learned the 
 customs of the country; and were quite unacquainted with many 'of 
 the arts by which the Carolina slaves are enabled to eke out their 
 scanty and insufficient allowance. Our only resource was an appeal 
 to our master's generosity ; and it happened, that about a fortnight 
 after we were put upon the plantation, General Carter, with several 
 of his friends, made a flying visit from Charleston to Loosahachee, to 
 see how the crops were coming on. This we thought to be a good 
 opportunity to get some improvement of our fare. We did not like 
 to ask too much, lest our request should be rejected without ceremony. 
 Indeed, we determined to be as moderate as possible ; and after due 
 consultation, it was resolved to petition our master for a.little salt to 
 season our hominy, — a luxury to which we had always' been accus- 
 tomed, but which was not included in the Loosahachee allowance, 
 which consisted simply of corn, a peck a week to each working hand. 
 My companions requested me to act as spokesman, and I readily 
 undertook to do so. 
 
 V\ hen General Carter and his friends came near my task, I walked 
 towards him. He asked me what I meant by leaving my work in 
 that fashion, and inquired what I wanted. I told him that I was 
 one of the servants whom he had lately purchased ; that some of us 

 
 JfEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 131 
 
 were born and raised in Virginia, and the rest in North Carolina ; 
 that Ave were not used to living upon bare hominy, without anything 
 to grre it a relish ; and that we should take it as a very great favour 
 if he would be kind enough to allow us a little salt. 
 
 He seemed to be rather surprised at the boldness of this request, 
 and inquired my name. 
 
 " Archy Moore," I answered. 
 
 " Archy Moore !" he cried, with a sneer, — " and pray tell me how 
 loni it has been the fashion among you fellows to have double names ? 
 You are the first fellow I ever owned who was guilty of such a piece 
 of impertinence ; — and a damned impertinent fellow you are. I see 
 it in vour eye. Let me beg leave to request of you, Mr. Archy 
 Moore, to be satisfied with calling yourself Archy the next time I 
 inquire your name." 
 
 I had taken the name of Moore since leaving Spring-Meadow; 
 an assumption not uncommon in Virginia, and which is there thought 
 harmless enough. But the South Carolinians, who, of all the Ameri- 
 cans, seem to have carried the theory and practice of tyranny to the 
 highest perfection, are jealous of everything that may seem in any 
 respect to raise their slaves above the level of their dogs and horses. 
 
 The words and manner of my master were sufficiently irritating, 
 but I was not to be shuffled off in that way. I passed over his 
 rebuke in silence, but ventured again, in the most respectfid terms I 
 could command, to renew the request, that he would be pleased to 
 allow us a little salt to season our hominy. 
 
 " You are a damned unreasonable, dissatisfied set of fellows as ever 
 I met with !" was the answer. " Why, boy, you eat me out of house 
 and home already. It is as. much as I can do to buy corn for you. 
 If you want salt, isn't there plenty of sea-water within five. miles? If 
 you rant it, you have nothing to do but to make it." 
 
 So he said ; and as they wheeled their horses and rode away, he 
 and his companions joined in a loud laugh at the wit and point of his 
 answer. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 Among Mr. Carleton's servants, or rather the servants that had 
 been Mr. Carleton's, but who had now become the property of 
 General Carter, was one named Thomas. While we had lived together 
 at Carleton-Hall, I had contracted an intimacy with him winch we 
 still kept up. He was of unmixed African blood, with good features, 
 a stout muscular frame, and, on several accounts, a very remarkable 
 man.
 
 132 THE WHITE SLAVE J OB, 
 
 His bodily strength, and his capacity for enduring privation and 
 fatigue, were very uncommon ; but the character of his mind was still 
 more so. His passions were strong, and even violent ; but, what is 
 very rare among slaves, he had them completely under his control ; 
 and in all his words and actions he was as gentle as a lamb. The 
 truth was, that, when quite young, he had been taken in hand bv 
 certain methodists, who lived and laboured in his neighbourhood ; 
 and so strong and lasting were the impressions which their teaching 
 made upon him, and so completely had he imbibed their doctrines, 
 that it seemed as if several of the most powerful principles of human 
 nature had been eradicated from his bosom. 
 
 His religious teachers had thoroughly inculcated into a soul natu- 
 rally proud and high-spirited, that creed of passive obedience and 
 patient long-suffering, which, under the sacred name of religion, has 
 been often found more potent than whips or fetters, in upholding 
 tyranny and subduing the resistance of the superstitious and trembling 
 slave. They had taught him, and he believed, that God had made 
 him a servant, and that it was his duty to obey his master, and be 
 contented with his lot. Whatever cruelties or indignities the unpro- 
 voked insolence of unlimited authority might inflict upon him, it was 
 his duty to submit in humble silence ; and if his master smote him 
 on one cheek, he was to turn to him the other also. This, with 
 Thomas, was not a mere form of words run through with and then 
 forgotten. In all my experience, I have never known a man over 
 whom his creed appeared to hold so powerful a control. 
 
 Nature had intended him for one of those lofty spirits who are the 
 terror of tyrants and the bold assertors of liberty. But, under the 
 influence of his religion, he had become a passive, humble, and obedient 
 slave. He made it a point of duty to be faithful to his master in all 
 things. He never tasted whisky ; he woidd sooner starve than steal ; 
 and he preferred being whipped to telling a lie. These qualities, so 
 very uncommon in a slave, as well as his cheerful obedience and 
 laborious industry, had gained him the goodwill even of Mr. Carle- 
 ton's overseer. He was treated as a sort of confidential servant ; was 
 often trusted to keep the keys and give out the allowance ; and so 
 scrupulously did he fulfil all that was required of him, that even the 
 fretful caprice of an overseer had no fault to find. He had lived at 
 Carieton-Hall more than ten years, and in all that time had never 
 once been whipped. What was most remarkable and uncommon of 
 all, at the same time that he obtained the confidence of the overseer, 
 Thomas had succeeded in gaining the goodwill of his fellow-servants. 
 There never lived a kinder-hearted, better-tempered man. There was 
 nothing he was not ready to do for a fellow-creature in distress ; he 
 was ever vvilhng to share his provisions with the hungry, and to help
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 133 
 
 the weak and tired to finish their tasks. Besides, he was the spiritual 
 guide of the plantation, and could preach and pray almost as well as 
 his master. I had no sympathy for his religious enthusiasm, but I 
 loved and admired the man, and we had long been on terms of close 
 intimacy. . 
 
 Thomas had a wife, Ann by name, a pretty, sprightly, good- 
 natured girl, whom he loved exceedingly. It was a great comfort to 
 him — indeed, he regarded it as a special interposition of Providence 
 in his behalf — that when carried away from Carleton-Hall they had 
 not been separated. Never was a man more grateful or more de- 
 lighted than Thomas was, when he found that both he and Ann had 
 been purchased by General Carter. That they should fall into the 
 hands of the same owner was all he desired ; and he readily transferred 
 to the service of his purchaser all that zeal and devotion which, as he 
 had been taught to believe, a slave owes to his master. While all the 
 rest of us, upon our first arrival at Loosahachee, had been com- 
 plaining and lamenting over the hardness of our tasks, and the poor 
 and insufficient food which our new master allowed us, Thomas said 
 not a word, but had worked away with such zeal and vigour, that he 
 soon gained the reputation of being one of the best hands on the 
 place. 
 
 Thomas's wife had an infant child but a few weeks old, who, 
 according to the Carolina fashion, was brought to her in the field to 
 be nursed ; — for the Carolina planters, spendthrifts in everything else, 
 in all that regards their servants are wonderful economists. One hot 
 afternoon, Ann sat down beneath a tree, and took the infant from the 
 hands of the little child, herself scarcely able to walk, who had the 
 care of it during the day. She had finished the maternal office, and 
 was returning slowly, and perhaps rather unwillingly, to her task, 
 when the overseer rode into that part of the field. The name of our 
 overseer was Mr. Martin. He was one of those who are denominated 
 smart fellows and good disciplinarians. He had established a rule 
 that there was to be no loitering at Loosahachee. Walking was too 
 lazy a pace for him ; if there was any occasion to go from one part of 
 the field to another, it was to be in a run. Ann had perhaps forgotten, 
 at all events she was not complying with this ridiculous piece of 
 plantation discipline. This was no sooner observed by the overseer 
 than he rode up to her, cursed her for a lazy vagabond, and com- 
 menced beating her over the head with his whip. Thomas happened 
 to be working close by. He felt every stroke ten times as keenly as 
 though it had lighted upon his own shoulders. Here was a trial too 
 strong for the artificial principles of any creed. He moved forward 
 as though he would go to his wife's assistance. We who were by 
 begged him to stop, and told him he would only get himself into
 
 134 THE WHITE SLAVE; OR, 
 
 trouble. But the cries and shrieks of his wife made him deaf to our 
 entreaties ; he rushed forward, and before the overseer was aware, he 
 seized his whip, snatched it from his hand, and demanded what he 
 meant by beating a woman in that way for no offence whatever. 
 
 To judge from Mr. Martin's looks, this was a display of spirit, or, 
 as he would call it, of insolence and insubordination, for which he 
 was not at all prepared. He reined back his horse for a rod or 
 two, when, seeming to recollect himself, he put his hand into his 
 coat-pocket and drew out a pistol. He cocked it, and pointed it at 
 Thomas, who dropped the whip and turned to run. Mr. Martin 
 fired, but his hand shook too much to enable him to take a very 
 effectual aim ; and Thomas continued his flight, leaped the fence, and 
 disappeared in the thicket by which it was bordered. 
 
 Having put the husband to flight, the overseer turned to the wife, 
 who stood by trembling and crying. He was boiling over with rage 
 and passion, and seemed determined to spend his fury on this help- 
 less and unhappy woman. He called the driver of the gang, and two 
 or three other men, to his assistance, and bade them strip off her 
 clothes. 
 
 The preparations being complete, Mr. Martin commenced the 
 torture. The lash buried itself in her flesh at every blow ; and as 
 the poor wretch threw up her gashed and gory arms, the blood ran 
 down in streams. Her cries were dreadful. Used as I had been to 
 similar scenes, my heart sickened, and my head grew dizzy. I longed 
 to seize the monster by the throat, and dash him to the ground. 
 How I restrained myself I do not know. Most sure I am, that 
 nothing but the base and dastard spirit of a slave could have endured 
 that scene of female torture and distress, and not have interfered. 
 
 Before Mr. Martin had finished, poor Ann sunk to the ground in 
 a state of total insensibility. He ordered us to make a litter of 
 sticks and hoe-handles, and to carry her to his house. We laid her 
 down in the passage. The overseer brought a heavy chain, one end 
 of which he put around her neck, and the other he fastened to 
 one of the beams. He said her fainting was all pretence ; and that 
 if he did not chain her, she would be running away and joining her 
 husband. 
 
 We were now all ordered into the woods to hunt for Thomas. 
 We separated, and pretended to examine every place that seemed likely 
 to conceal him ; but with the exception of the drivers, and one or two 
 base fellows who sought to curry favour with the overseer, I do not 
 believe that any of us felt any great anxiety, or took much pains to 
 find him. Not far from the fence was a low swampy place, thickly 
 grown up with cane and gum-trees. As I was making my way 
 through it, I came suddenly upon Thomas, who was leaning against
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE, 135 
 
 the trunk of a large tree. He laid his hand upon my shoulder, and 
 asked what the overseer had done to his wife. I concealed from him, 
 as well as I could, the miserable torture which had been inflicted upon 
 her ; but I told him that Mr. Martin was all fire and fury, and that it 
 would be best for him tc keep out of the way till his passion could 
 subside a little. I promised to return in the evening and to bring him 
 food. In the meantime, if he would lie close, there would be little 
 danger that any one would find him. 
 
 We were presently called back from our ineffectual search, and 
 ordered to resume our tasks. I finished mine as quickly as I could, 
 hastened home, got some food ready, and went to see poor Ann. I 
 found her lying in the passage, chained, as we had left her. Her 
 low moans showed that she had so far recovered herself as to be once 
 more sensitive to pain. She complained that the chain about her 
 neck hurt her, and made it difficult to breathe. I stooped down and 
 was attempting to loosen it, when Mrs. Martin made her appearance 
 at the door ; she asked what right I had to meddle with the girl, 
 and bade me go about my business. I would have left the food I 
 had brought, but Mrs. Martin told me to take it away again ; it 
 would learn the wench better manners, she said, to starve her for a 
 day or two. 
 
 1 took up my little basket, and went away with a heavy heart. 
 As soon as it grew dark, I set off to meet Thomas ; but lest my steps 
 might be dogged by the overseer or some of his spies, I took a very 
 roundabout course. I found him near the place where I had met 
 him before. His earnest entreaties to know the whole, drew from 
 me the story of his poor wife's sufferings and her present situation. 
 It moved him deeply. At intervals he wept like a child ; — then he 
 strove to restrain himself, repeating half aloud some texts of Scrip- 
 ture, and what seemed a sort of prayer. But all would not do ; and 
 carried away at last, by a sudden gust of passion, forgetful of his 
 religious scruples, he cursed the brutal overseer with all the energy 
 of a husband's vengeance. Presently he recovered his self-command, 
 and began to take fault to himself, ascribing all the blame to his own 
 foolish interference. The thought that what his affection for his wife 
 had prompted him to do, had only served to aggravate her sufferings, 
 seemed to agitate him almost to distraction. Again, the tide of pas- 
 sion swept all before it. His countenance grew convulsed — his 
 bosom heaved — and he only found relief in half-uttered threats and 
 muttered execrations. 
 
 He consulted with me as to what he had better do. I knew that 
 the overseer was terribly incensed against him. I had heard him say, 
 that if such a daring act of insolence was not most signally punished, 
 it would be enough to corrupt and disorder the whole neighbourhood.
 
 136 THE WHITE SLAVE 
 
 I was aware that Mr. Martin would not dare absolutely to put him to 
 death. But this prohibition to commit murder is the sole and single 
 limit to an overseer's authority; and I knew that he had both the right 
 and the will to inflict a torture compared to which the agonies of an 
 ordinary death-struggle would be but trifling. I therefore advised 
 Thomas to fly; since even if he were caught at last, no severer punish- 
 ment could be inflicted upon him than he would be certain of, upon 
 a voluntary surrender. 
 
 For a moment, this advice seemed to please him ; and an expression 
 of daring determination appeared in his face, such as I had never seen 
 there before. But it disappeared in an instant. " There is Ann," he 
 said, " I cannot leave her ; and she, poor timid thing, even if she 
 were well, I could never persuade her to fly with me. It will not do, 
 Archy ; I cannot leave my wife !" 
 
 "What could I answer? 
 
 I understood him well, and knew how to sympathize with him. I 
 could not but admit the force of his objection. Such feelings I knew 
 it would be in vain to combat with arguments ; indeed, I could not 
 make up my mind to attempt it ; and as I had no other advice to 
 give, I remained silent. 
 
 Thomas seemed lost in thought, and continued for some minutes 
 with his eyes fixed upon the ground. Presently he told me that he 
 had made up his mind. He was determined, he said, to go to 
 Charleston, and appeal to his master. 
 
 The little I had known of General Carter, did not incline me to put 
 much dependence on his justice or generosity ; but as Thomas seemed 
 pleased with this plan, and as it was his only chance, I applauded it. 
 He ate the food I had brought, and determined to set off immediately. 
 He had only been once to Charleston, during all the time we had 
 been at Loosahachee; but as he was one of those people, who, if they 
 have been once to a place, find little difficulty in going a second time, 
 I had no doubt of his finding his way to town. 
 
 I returned to my cabin ; but I was so anxious and uncertain about 
 the success of Thomas, in the scheme he had adopted, that I could 
 not sleep. At daylight I went to my task. My anxiety acted as a 
 stimulus upon me, and I had finished long before any of my com- 
 panions. As I was passing from the field to my cabin, I saw General 
 Carter's carriage driving up the road ; and as it passed me I observed 
 poor Thomas behind, chained to the footman's stand. 
 
 The carriage drove up to the house. General Carter got out of it, 
 and sent off in great haste for Mr. Martin, who had taken his gun and 
 dog early that morning, and had been beating about the woods all 
 day, in search of Thomas. In the meantime, General Carter ordered 
 all the hands on the plantation to be collected.
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 137 
 
 At last Mr. Martin arrived. The moment General Carter saw him, 
 he cried out, — " Well, sir, here is a runaway I have brought back 
 for you. Would you believe it? — the fellow had the impertinence to 
 come to Charleston with the story of his grievances ! Even from his 
 own account of the matter, he was guilty of the greatest insolence I 
 ever heard of. Snatching the whip from the hand of an overseer ! 
 Things are coming to a pretty pass, indeed, when these fellows un- 
 dertake to justify such insubordination. The next thing we shall 
 hear of, they will be cutting our throats. However, I stopped the 
 scoundrel's mouth before he had said live words. I told him I 
 would pardon anything sooner than insolence to my overseer. I 
 would much sooner excuse impertinence towards myself. And to let 
 him know what I thought of his conduct, here you see I have brought 
 him back to youj and I have done it, even at the risk of being 
 obliged to sleep here to-night, and catching the country fever. Whip 
 the rascal well, Mr. Martin ! whip him well ! I have had all the 
 hands collected, that they may see the punishment and take warning 
 by it." 
 
 Mr. Martin, thus invited, sprung upon his prey with a tiger's 
 ferdcity. But I have no inclination to disgust myself with another 
 description of the horrid torment of which, in America, the whip is 
 the active and continual instrument. He who is curious in these 
 matters, will do well to spend six months upon an American planta- 
 tion. He will soon discover that the rack was a superfluous inven- 
 tion ; and that the whip, by those well skilled in the use of it, can be 
 made to answer any purposes of torture. 
 
 Though Thomas was quite cut up with the lash, and whipped by 
 two drivers till he fainted from pain and loss of blood, such was the 
 nerve and vigour of his constitution, and the noble firmness of his 
 mind, that he stood it like a hero, and disdained to utter any of 
 those piercing screams and piteous cries for mercy, which are com- 
 monly heard upon the like occasions. He soon got over the effects 
 of this discipline, and in a few days was at work again as usual. 
 
 Not so with his wife. She was naturally of a slender constitution, 
 and perhaps had not entirely recovered from the weakness incident 
 upon child-birth. Either the whipping she had suffered, or her 
 chains and starvation afterwards, or both together, had brought on a 
 violent disorder, of which, at first, she seemed to get better, but 
 which left her suffering under a dull nervous fever, without strength 
 or appetite, or even the desire of recovery. Her poor baby seemed 
 to sympathize with its mother, and pined from day to day. At 
 length it did. The mother did not long survive it. She lingered 
 for a week or two. Sick as she was, she had no attendant except a 
 superannuated old woman, who could neither see nor hear. Thomas
 
 138 THE WHITE SLAVE J OK, 
 
 of course was obliged to go to his tasks as usual. He returned one 
 night, and found her dead. 
 
 One of the drivers, a mean-spirited fellow, and Mr. Martin's prin- 
 cipal spy and informer, was the only person allowed to preach at 
 Loosahachee, and to act as the leader in those mummeries to which 
 the ignorant and superstitious slaves give the name of religion. He 
 paid a visit to the afflicted husband, and offered his services for the 
 funeral. Thomas had so much natural good sense, that he was not, 
 like many persons of his way of thinking, imposed upon and taken 
 in by every one who chose to make use of the cant of sanctitv. He 
 had long ago seen through this hypocritical fellow, and learned to 
 despise him. He therefore declined his assistance; and pointing to 
 me, " Himself and his friend," he said, " would be sufficient to bury 
 the poor girl.'' He seemed about to add something more, but the 
 mention of his wife had overpowered him ; his voice choked, his eyes 
 filled with tears, and he was constrained to be silent. 
 
 It was a Sunday. The preacher soon left us : and poor Thomas 
 sat the whole day watching his wife's body. I remained with him ; 
 but I knew how useless any attempt at consolation would be, and I 
 said but little. 
 
 Towards sunset several of our fellow-servants came in ; and they 
 were presently followed by most of the plantation people. We took 
 lip the body and carried it to the place of burial. This was a fine 
 smooth slope, covered with tall trees. It seemed to have been long 
 used for its present purpose. Numerous little ridges, some of them 
 new, and others just discernible, indicated the places of the graves. 
 
 The husband leaned over the body, while we busied ourselves in 
 the sad office of digging its last resting-place. The shallow grave 
 was soon finished. We all remained silent, in expectation of a prayer, 
 a hymn, or some similar ceremony. Thomas attempted once or twice 
 to begin ; but his voice rattled in his throat, and died away in an 
 inarticulate murmur. He shook his head> and bade us place the 
 body in the grave. We did so; and the earth was soon heaped 
 upon it. 
 
 It was already growing dark ; and the burial being finished, those 
 who had attended at it hastened homeward. The husband still remained 
 standing by the side of the grave. I took his arm, and with a gentle 
 force would have drawn him away. He shook me off, and, raising his 
 hand and head, he muttered, in a low whisper, " Murdered, mur- 
 dered!" As he spoke these words, he turned his eyes on me. There 
 gleamed in them a spirit of passionate and indignant grief. It was 
 plain that natural feeling was fast gaining the mastery over that 
 system of artificial constraint in which he had been educated. I 
 sympathized with him; and I pressed his hand to let him know I
 
 MEMOIKS OF A FUGITIVE. 139 
 
 did so. He returned the pressure ; and, after a short pause, he added, 
 " Blood for blood ; is it not so, Archy ?" There was something ter- 
 rible in the slow, but firm and steady tone in which he spoke. I knew 
 not what to answer ; nor did he appear to expect a reply. Though he 
 i addressed me, the question seemed intended only for himself. I took 
 his arm, and we walked off in silence. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 It is customary in South Carolina, to allow the slaves the week 
 from Christmas to the New-year as a sort of holiday. This indul- 
 gence is extended so far, that during that week they are, for the most 
 part, allowed to leave the plantations, the scenes of their daily labours 
 and sufferings, and to wander about in the neighbourhood, pretty 
 much at their own will and pleasure. The highways present at that 
 season a singular appearance. The slaves of every age and sex, col- 
 lected from the populous plantations of the tide waters, and dressed 
 in the best attire they have been able to muster, assemble in great 
 numbers, swarming along the road, and clustering about the little 
 whisky-shops, producing a scene of bustle and confusion, witnessed 
 only at the Christmas holidays. 
 
 These shops are principally supported by a traffic with the slaves 
 for stolen rice and cotton, — a traffic which all the vindictive fury of 
 the planters, backed by an abundant legislation, has not been able to 
 eradicate. They are the chief support — in fact, the only means of 
 livelihood, open to a considerable portion of the lower order of the 
 white aristocracy of the country. It is the same in Carolina as in 
 Lower Virginia. The poor whites arc extremely rude and ignorant, 
 and acquainted with but few of the comforts of civilized life. They are 
 idle, dissipated, and vicious ; with all that vulgar brutality of vice 
 which poverty and ignorance render so conspicuous and disgusting. 
 "VV ithout land, or, at best, possessing some little tract of barren and 
 exhausted soil, which they have neither skill nor industry to render 
 jjroductive ; without any trade or handicraft art ; and looking upon 
 all manual labour as degrading to freemen, and fit only for a state of 
 servitude, — these poor white men have become the jest of the slaves, 
 and are at once feared and hated by the select aristocracy of rich 
 planters. It is only the right of suffrage which they possess, that 
 preserves them the show of consideration and respect with which- 
 they are yet treated. This right of suffrage, of which the select 
 aristocracy are extremely anxious to deprive them, is the only safe-
 
 110 THE WHITE SLAVE; OR, 
 
 guard of the poor whites. But for this, they would be trampled 
 under foot without mercy ; and, by force of law and legislation, would 
 Boon he reduced to a condition little superior to that of the very 
 Blaves themselves. 
 
 On the Christmas holidays which succeeded my becoming an inha- 
 bitant of Loosahacb.ee, a great number of slaves, of whom I was one, 
 were assembled about a little store on the neighbouring high road, 
 laughing, talking, drinking whisky, and making merry after our 
 several fashions. While we were thus employed, I observed riding 
 along the road, a mean-looking fellow, shabbily dressed, with a face 
 of that disagreeable cadaverous hue that makes the inferior order of 
 whites in Lower Carolina look so much bke walking corpses. He 
 was mounted on a lean scraggy horse, whose hips seemed just bursting 
 through the skin, and he carried in his hand an enormous whip, which 
 he handled with a familiar grace, seldom acquired except by an 
 American slave-driver. As he passed us, I noticed that all the slaves 
 who had hats pulled them off to him ; but as I did not see anything 
 in the fellow's appearance that demanded any particular respect, and 
 as I was ignorant of the Carolina etiquette, which requires from every 
 slave an obsequious bearing towards every freeman, seldom expected 
 in Virginia, I let my bat remain upon my head. The fellow noticed 
 it ; reined up his jaded beast, and eyed me sharply. My complexion 
 made him doubt whether I might not be a freeman ; my dress, and 
 the company I was in, gave him equal grounds for supposing me a 
 slave. He inquired who I was ; and being told that I was one of 
 General Carter's people, he rode towards me with his upraised whip, 
 demanding why 1 did not take off my hat to him; and without 
 waiting for an answer, he be<ran to lay the lash over my shoulders. 
 Tlie fellow was evidently drunk, and my first impulse was to take the 
 whip away from him. Luckily I did not yield to this impulse; for 
 any attempt to resist even a drunken white man, though that resist- 
 ance was only in repelling the most unprovoked attack, according to 
 the just and equal laws of Carolina, might have cost me my life. 
 
 I learned, upon inquiry, that this fellow had been an overseer; but 
 some time previous had been discharged by his employer for suspected 
 dishonesty. Not long after, he had set up a whisky-shop about half-a- 
 mile distant. From what he said to the owner of the store where we 
 were assembled, it would seem that his shop had not been so much 
 frequented during the holidays as he had expected; and in beating 
 me, lie had vented his drunken spite and ill -humour on the first object 
 that gave him anything like a pretence to exercise it. I learned, too, 
 that this fellow, whose name was Christie, was a cousin of Mr. Martin, 
 our overseer. They had been close friends ; but had lately had a 
 violent quarrel. Christie had stabbed Martin; and Martin had shot
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 141 
 
 at Christie with his double-barrelled gun. He had taken a still more 
 effectual revenge by doing his best to stop the trade from Loosahachee 
 
 to Christie's shop, which he had formerly winked at, and which had 
 been carried on, much to Christie's benefit, by the exchange of well- 
 watered whisky for General Carter's rice and cotton. 
 
 I no sooner heard this account of Mr. Christie, than it occurred to 
 me that I had him in my power ; and at once I resolved to make him 
 smart in his turn for the lashes he had inflicted upon me. It is true, I 
 was obligc-d to play the part of a spy and an informer ; but such low 
 means are the only resource which the condition of servitude allows. 
 As soon as I got home, I hastened to the overseer, and with an 
 abundance of hypocritical pretences and professions of zeal for my 
 master's service, I communicated to him, as a great secret, the fact 
 that Mr. Christie was in the habit of trading with the hands, and 
 buying whatever they brought him, without asking any questions. 
 
 Mr. Martin said that he was well aware of it ; and he would give 
 me five dollars if I would help him to detect Christie in the fact. 
 
 We quickly struck up a bargain. The overseer furnished me with 
 a quantity of cotton, and I set off, one moonlight night, to pay a 
 visit to Mr. Christie's shop. 
 
 He recognised me at once, and jested a good deal about the 
 whipping he had given me. He thought it an excellent joke ; and it 
 best answered my purpose to appear very much of the same opinion. 
 I found him not at all disinclined to trade, provided I would exchange 
 my cotton for his whisky, at the nominal price of a dollar a quart. 
 It was not long before I paid him a second visit. That time, Mr. 
 Martin and one of his friends were posted outside the shop, at a place 
 where they could peep between the logs, and see and overhear the 
 whole transaction. 
 
 To buy rice, cotton, or in fact anything else of a slave, unless he 
 produces a written permit from his master to sell it, according to the 
 Carolina statute-book, is one of the most enormous crimes a man can 
 commit. Mr. Christie was indicted at the next court. He was 
 found guilty on the express testimony of Mr. Martin and his com- 
 panion, and was fined a thousand dollars, and sentenced to a year's 
 imprisonment. The fine swept away what little property he had ; 
 and how his imprisonment ended I never heard. More than one of 
 the jurymen who convicted him were grievously suspected of the very 
 Bame practices ; but the dread of incurring fresh suspicion, or perhaps 
 the jealous rivalry of trade, made those very fellows the most cla- 
 morous for his condemnation. 
 
 Mr. Martin was so well pleased with my services in this affair, — in 
 which he fancied I had put myself forward merely to be used as his 
 cat's paw, — that he took me quite into favour, and began to employ
 
 142 THE WHITE slave; or, 
 
 me as one of his regular spies and informers. Tyranny, whether on 
 the great scale or the little, din only be sustained through a system 
 of espionage and betrayal, in which the most mean-spirited of the 
 oppressed are turned into the tools and instruments of oppression. 
 There are many alleviations of the wretchedness of servitude to be 
 expected from the favour and indulgence of an overseer. Let it be 
 remembered also, that so strong are the allurements which power 
 holds out, that even among freemen there are hundreds of thousands 
 always to be found, who are ready to assist in sacrificing the dearest 
 rights of their neighbours, by volunteering to be the instruments of 
 superior tyrants. What then can be reasonably expected .from those 
 who have been studiously and systematically degraded? What 
 wonder, if among the oppressed are found the readiest and most 
 relentless instruments of oppression ? 
 
 As I knew I could turn Mr. Martin's favour to good account, 
 I took care, not to let him suspect with what scorn and loathing I 
 regarded the office in which he sought to employ me. But while he 
 imagined that I was engaged heart and hand in his service, I counter- 
 worked him more than once, by communicating his plans and strata- 
 gems to those whom he sought to entrap. This' same Mr. Martin, 
 though he was absolute viceroy over more than three hundred 
 people, was a very ignorant and a very stupid fellow. Several cir- 
 cumstances occurred, which with a shrewd person would have betrayed 
 me ; but I succeeded so completely in blinding Mr. Martin's eyes, 
 that he still continued to place an unlimited confidence in my fidelity. 
 Of this, he soon gave me a new proof; for riding one day into the 
 fi.eld where I was at work, and not finding matters, going on just to 
 suit him, he called out the driver of the gang, and took from him the 
 whip, which he carried as the badge and principal instrument of his 
 office. He then called for me, and having given me twenty or thirty 
 laches, according to the custom in such cases, he put the whip into 
 my hand, appointed me driver of the gang, and bade me do the first 
 duty of my office upon the fellow to whose place I had succeeded. 
 
 It is under the inspection of drivers, who are appointed from among 
 the slaves, at the will of the overseer, that the culture of a Carolina 
 plantation is carried on. The overseers have learned too much of the 
 airs and the luxurious indolence of their employers, to be willing to 
 be riding about all day in the hot sun looking after the labourers. 
 The slaves are divided into gangs, and each gang is put under the 
 charge of a driver, who is generally selected for his cowardly and 
 mean-spirited subserviency, and his readiness to tyrannize over and to 
 betray his companions. The driver is entrusted with all the unlimited 
 and absolute authority of the master himself. He receives a double 
 allowance ; he has no task ; his sole business is to look after his gang,
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 143 
 
 and see that they perform the work assigned them; and for this 
 purpose he takes his station in the midst of them, whip in hand. 
 When the overseer makes his appearance in the field, all the drivers 
 collect about him to receive his orders. For the performance of the 
 work assigned to his gang, each driver is himself responsible ; and 
 that he may perfectly understand by what means he is to enforce its 
 performance, the overseer usually inducts him into office by giving 
 him a severe castigation with the very whip which he afterwards puts 
 into his hand to be used upon his companions. 
 
 The absolute power of an overseer is often, I ought rather to say 
 always, shockingly abused ; but the absolute power of drivers is yet 
 one step higher towards the perfection of tyranny. The driver faith- 
 fullv copies all the arrogance and insolence of the overseer from whom 
 he receives his commission ; and as he is always among his gang, the 
 aggravating weight of his authority is so much the heavier. He is 
 but one of themselves ; and the slaves are naturally more impatient 
 of his rule, than they would be of the same dominion, exercised In- 
 die belonging to what they have been taught to regard as a superior 
 race; and whom, being a freeman, they are ready to acknowledge as 
 actually the -.superior. Besides, the drivers are far from hmiting their 
 demands, as the overseer himself generally would do, to the perform- 
 ance of the field labour. They have a thousand little spites to gratify; 
 a thousand purposes of their* own to accomplish. They are, in fact, 
 the absolute masters of. everything which any of their gang may 
 happen to possess ; and the persons of the women are as much at 
 their disposal as at that of the overseer, or the master. Even if by 
 chance a driver should happen not to be disposed to abuse his autho- 
 rity, the dread of losing his situation, and the knowledge that all the 
 deficiencies of any of his subordinates will be visited upon his head, 
 make him of necessity hasty, harsh, and cruel. 
 
 Heaven is my witness that while I held the office of driver, my 
 great object was to use the authority which it gave me to alleviate, as 
 far as I could, the misery of my companions. My gang consisted of 
 the Carleton hands, with whom I had long beeu connected, and whom 
 I looked upon as friends and fellow-sufferers. Many is the time, 
 when I have seen one and another fainting under his task, and 
 unable to finish it, that I have dropped the whip, seized the hoe, and, 
 instead of the stimulus of the lash, have used the encouragement of 
 aid and assistance. This I did repeatedly; though TMr. Martin, more 
 than once, when he found me so employed, expressed his disapproba- 
 tion, and told me it was no way, and would only bring the station of 
 driver into contempt. 
 
 But it is no part of my purpose to write an eulogium on myself; 
 and I shall not hesitate to confess the whole truth. There were
 
 144 THE WHITE SLAVE; OR, 
 
 times that I abused my office ; — and I verily believe that no man 
 ever exercised an unlimited authority who did not abuse it. The 
 consciousness of my power made me insolent and impatient ; — and 
 with all my hatred, my hearty, experimental hatred of tyranny, the 
 whip had not long been placed in my hands before I caught myself in 
 the act of playing the tyrant. 
 
 Power is ever dangerous and intoxicating. Human nature cannot 
 bear it. It must be constantly checked, controlled, and limited, or it 
 declines inevitably into tyranny. Even all the endearments of the 
 family connexion ; the tenderness of connubial love, and the heart- 
 binding ties of paternity, seconded, as they always are, bv the strong 
 influence of habit and opinion, have not made it safe to entrust the 
 head of a family with absolute power even over his own household. 
 "What terms then are strong enough in which to denounce the vain, 
 ridiculous, and wanton folly of expecting anything but abuse where 
 power is totally unchecked by either moral or legal control? 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 Since the death of his wife, a remarkable change had taken place 
 in my friend Thomas. lie had lost his former air of contentment 
 and good-nature, and had grown morose and sullen. Instead of 
 being the most willing and industrious labourer in the field, as he 
 used to be, he seemed to have imbibed a strong distaste for work, and 
 he slighted and neglected his task as much as possible. Had he 
 been under any other driver than myself, his idleness and neglect 
 would have frequently brought him into trouble. But I loved and 
 pitied him ; and I screened him all I could. 
 
 The wrongs and injuries that had been inflicted upon him since his 
 arrival at Loosahachee, seemed to have subverted all the principles 
 upon which he had so long acted. It was a subject on which he did 
 not seem inclined to converse, and upon which I was unwillino- to 
 press him; but I had abundant reason to suspect that he had totally 
 renounced the religion in which he had been so carefully instructed, 
 and which, for so long a time, had exercised so powerful an influence 
 over him. He had secretly returned to the practice of certain wild 
 rites, which in his early youth he had learned from his mother, who 
 had herself been kidnapped from the coast of Africa, and who had 
 been, as he had often told me, zealously devoted to her country's 
 superstitions. He would sometimes talk wildly and incoherently 
 about having seen the spirit of his departed wife, and of some promise
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 145 
 
 he had made to the apparition ; and I was led to believe that he 
 suffered under occasional fits of partial insanity. 
 
 At all events, he was, in most respects, an altered man. He had 
 ceased to be the humble and obedient slave, contented with his lot, 
 and zealously devoted to his master's service. Instead of promoting 
 his master's interest, it seemed now to be his study and his aim to 
 do as much mischief as possible. There were two or three artful, 
 daring, unquiet spirits on the plantation, from whom, till lately, he 
 had kept aloof, but whose acquaintance he now sought, and whose 
 confidence he soon obtained. They found him bold and prudent, and 
 what was more, trusty and magnanimous ; and they soon gave place 
 to his superiority of intellect, and acknowledged him as their leader. 
 They were joined by some others, whose only motive was the desire 
 of plunder, and they extended their depredations to every part of the 
 plantation. 
 
 In this new character, Thomas still gave evidence that he was no 
 ordinary man. He conducted his enterprises with singular address ; 
 and when all other stratagems by which to save his companions from 
 detection proved unavailing, he had still one resource that showed 
 the native nobleness of his soul. Such was the steady firmness of 
 his mind, and the masculine vigour of his constitution, that he was 
 enabled to do what few men could. He could brave even the torture 
 of the lash — a torture, as I have said already, not less terrible than 
 that of the rack itself. When every other resource failed him, he was 
 ready to shield his companions by a voluntary confession ; and to con- 
 centrate upon himself a punishment, which he knew that some among 
 them were too feeble and faint-hearted to endure. Magnanimity such 
 as this, is esteemed even in a freeman the highest pitch of virtue ; — 
 how, then, shall we sufficiently admire it in a slave ? 
 
 Thank God, tyranny is not omnipotent ! 
 
 Though it crush its victims to the earth ; and tread them into the 
 dust ; and brutify them by every possible invention ; it cannot totally 
 extinguish the spirit of manhood within them. Here it glimmers, and 
 there it secretly burns ; sooner or later, to burst forth in a flame, that 
 will not be quenched, and cannot be kept under ! 
 
 So long as I was in the confidence of Mr. Martin, I was able to 
 render Thomas essential service, by informing him of the suspicions, 
 plans, and stratagems of the overseer. It was not long, however, 
 before I forfeited that confidence ; not because Mr. Martin enter- 
 tained any suspicions of my playing him false, — for it was very easy 
 to throw dust into the eyes of so stupid a fellow, — but because I did 
 not come up to his notions of the spirit and the duty of a driver. 
 The season was sickly; and as the hands who composed my gang 
 were from a more northern climate, and not yet seasoned to the 
 
 L
 
 146 THE WHITE SLAVE J OR, 
 
 pestiferous atmosphere of a rice plantation, they suffered a good deal 
 from sickness, and several of them were often unable to work. I 
 had explained this to Mr. Martin, and he seemed to be satisfied with 
 my explanation ; but riding into the field one day, in a particularly 
 bad humour, and, I believe, a little excited with liquor, he got into 
 a towering lage at finding not half my gang in the field, and more 
 than half the tasks untouched. 
 
 He demanded the reason. 
 
 I told him that the hands were sick. 
 
 He swore they had no business to be sick ; he was tired, he said, 
 of this talk about sickness : he knew very well it was all sham ; and 
 he was determined to be imposed upon no longer. " If any more 
 complaints are made of sickness, Archy, you have nothing to do but 
 whip the scoundrels, and set them to work." 
 
 ""What," said I, " if they are really sick?" 
 
 " Sick or not sick, I tell you. If they are not sick, a whipping 
 is no more than they deserve ; and if they are, why nothing is so 
 likely to do them good as a little bloodletting." 
 
 " In that case," said I, "you had better appoint another driver; I 
 should make but a poor hand at whipping sick people." 
 
 " Hold your tongue, you damned insolent blackguard. Who gave 
 you leave to advise me, or dispute my orders ? Hand me your whip, 
 you rascal." 
 
 I did so ; and Mr. Martin thereupon administered upon me a fresh 
 infliction of that same discipline he had bestowed when he first put 
 the whip into my hand. So ended my drivership ; and though I now 
 lost my double allowance, and was obliged to turn into the field 
 again, and perform my task like the other hands, I cannot say that I 
 much regretted it. It was a pitiful and sorry office, which no one but 
 a scoundrel ever ought to undertake. 
 
 I now united myself more closely to the party of Thomas, and 
 joined heart and hand in all their enterprises. Our depredations 
 became at last so considerable, that Mr. Martin was obliged to 
 establish a regular watch, consisting of his drivers and a few of their 
 subordinates, who kept prowling about the plantation all night, and 
 made it unsafe to venture into the fields. This arrangement was 
 hastened by a circumstance that happened upon the plantation, about 
 which a very strict inquiry was instituted, but which led to no definite 
 result. On one and the same night, General Carter's splendid plan- 
 tation-seat, and his expensive rice-mills were discovered to be on 
 fire ; and, notwithstanding all efforts to save them, both were totally 
 consumed. Several of the slaves, and Thomas among the rest, were 
 put to a sort of torture to make them acknowledge some participa- 
 tion in this house-burning. That cruelty availed nothing. They all
 
 MEMOIBS OF A FUGITIVE. 147 
 
 stoutly denied knowing anything about it. I was, as I have said, 
 very much in Thomas's confidence ; yet he never spoke to me about 
 that fire. As he was one of those men who know how to keep their 
 own secrets, I always suspected that he knew much more about the 
 matter than he chose to divulge. 
 
 At all events, it was evidently a much more potent feeling than 
 the mere love of plunder by which Thomas was actuated. Since his 
 wife's death he sometimes drank to excess ; but this was seldom, and 
 there never was a man more temperate in his meats and drinks, or 
 less fastidious than Thomas generally was. He had formerly dressed 
 with much neatness ; now he neglected his dress altogether. He did 
 not love society ; he had little intercourse with anybody except with 
 me ; and it was not always that he seemed to wish even for my com- 
 2>aiiy. Thomas had little use for his share of the plunder ; and in 
 fact, he generally distributed it among his companions. 
 
 When the thing was first proposed, he seemed to have little inclina- 
 tion to extend dur depredations beyond the limits of Loosahaehee. 
 But as it was no longer safe to continue there, and as his com- 
 panions had rioted too long in plunder to be wilbng to relinquish it, 
 Thomas yielded at last to their urgent solicitations, and led us, night 
 after night, to the neighbouring plantations. We soon pushed our 
 proceedings so far, as to attract the notice of the overseers, whose 
 domains we had invaded. At first, they supposed that the thieves 
 were to be looked for at home ; and numberless were the severities 
 they exercised upon those whom they suspected. But in spite of all 
 their cruelties, the depredations were still continued ; and such was 
 the singular art and cunning which Thomas displayed, in varying the 
 scene and manner of our visits, that for a long time we escaped all 
 the traps and ambushes that were planned against us. 
 
 We were one night in a rice-field, and had almost filled our bags, 
 when the watchful ear of Thomas detected a sound, as if of some one 
 cautiously approaching. He supposed it might be the patrol, which, 
 of late, instead of whiling away their time by the help of a fiddle and 
 a bottle of whisky, had grown more active, and actually performed 
 some of the duties of a night watch. Under this impression, he gave 
 a signal for us to steal off quietly, in a certain order which he had 
 arranged beforehand. The field was bordered on one side by a deep 
 and wide river, from which it was protected by a high embankment. 
 We had come by water; and our canoe lay in the river, under the 
 shade of a clump of bushes and small trees, which grew upon the 
 dike. One by one, we cautiously stole over the bank, carefully 
 keeping in the shade of the bushes, and all but Thomas were already 
 in the boat. We were waiting for our leader, who, as usual, was the 
 last man in the retreat, when we heard several shouts and cries, 
 
 l2
 
 148 THE white slave; ok, 
 
 which seemed to indicate that he was discovered, if not taken. The 
 sound of two musket shots fired in rapid succession, increased our 
 terror. We hastily shoved the boat from the shore ; and pushing her 
 into the current of the flood-tide, which was setting up the river, we 
 were carried rapidly and silently out of sight of our landing-place. 
 The shouts were still continued; but they grew fainter and fainter, 
 and seemed to take a direction from the river. We now put out our 
 paddles, and plying with all our strength, we pretty soon reached a 
 small cove or creek, the place where we kept our boat, and at which 
 we were accustomed to embark. We drew the canoe on shore, and 
 carefully concealed it among the high grass. Then, without taking 
 out our rice-bags, and leaving our shoes in the boat, we ran towaids 
 Loosahachee, which we reached without any further adventure. 
 
 I was very anxious about Thomas; but I had scarcely thrown 
 myself upon my bed, before I heard a light tap at the door of my 
 cabin, which I knew to be his. I sprang up and let him in. He was 
 panting for breath and covered with mud. Thomas said, that just as 
 he was going to climb the embankment, he looked behind him, and 
 saw two men rapidly approaching. They seemed to observe him just 
 at the same moment, and called to him to stop. If he had attempted 
 to reach the boat, it would have drawn them that way, and perhaps 
 led to the detection of the whole company. The moment they called 
 to him, he dropped his rice-bag, and, stooping as low as he could, he 
 pushed rapidly through the rice in a direction from the river. His 
 pursuers raised a loud shout, and fired their muskets at him — but 
 without effect. He jumped several cross ditches, made for the high 
 ground, at a distance from the river, and drew off the patrol in that 
 direction. They pursued him closely ; but as he was very strong and 
 active, and well acquainted with the place, he succeeded in escaping 
 from among the ditches and embankments of the rice-field, gained 
 the high grounds, and took a direction towards Loosahachee. But 
 though he had distanced his pursuers, they had still kept upon his 
 track; and he expected that they would follow him up, and would 
 shortly be arriving. 
 
 While Thomas was telling his adventures, he had stripped off his 
 wet clothes, and washed off the mud with which he was covered. I 
 furnished him with a dry suit, which he took with him to his own 
 cabin, which was close by mine. I hastened round to the cabins of 
 our companions, and told them what visitors to expect. The harking 
 of all the plantation dogs pretty soon informed us that the patrol was 
 coming. They had roused up the overseer, and with torches in their 
 hands, they entered and searched every cabin in the quarter. But we 
 were prepared for their visit ; we were roused with difficulty out of a 
 deep sleep, and seemed to be very much astonished at this unseason- 
 able disturbance.
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 149 
 
 The search proved to be a very useless one ; but as the patrol were 
 certain that they had traced the fugitive to Loosahachee, the overseer 
 of the plantation upon which we had been depredating, came over 
 the next morning to search out and punish the culprit. He was 
 accompanied by several other men, who it seems were freeholders of the 
 district, selected with such forms, or rather such neglect of all form, 
 as the laws of Carolina prescribe in such cases. Five Carolina free- 
 holders selected at hap-hazard, constitute such a court as, in most 
 other countries, would hardly be trusted with the final adjudication of 
 any matter above the value of forty shillings at the utmost. But in 
 that part of the world, they not only have the power of judging all 
 charges against slaves, and sentencing the accused to death, but what 
 the Carolinians doubtless consider a much graver matter — the right 
 of saddling the state treasury with the estimated value of the culprit. 
 This law for refunding to the masters, nominally a part, but what, by 
 over-valuation, usually amounts to the entire value of condemned 
 slaves, deprives the poor wretches of that protection against an unjust 
 sentence, which otherwise they might find in the pecuniary interest of 
 their masters, and leaves them without any sort of shield against the 
 prejudice, carelessness, or stupidity of the judges. But why should 
 we expect anything like equity or fairness in the execution of laws 
 which themselves are founded upon the grossest wrong ? It must be 
 coufessed, that in this matter the Americans preserve throughout an 
 admirable consistency. 
 
 A table was set out before the door of the overseer's house, some 
 glasses and a bottle of whisky were placed upon it, and the court 
 proceeded to business. We were all brought up and examined, one 
 after the other. The only witnesses were the patrol who had pursued 
 Thomas, and they were ordered by the court to pick out the culprits. 
 That was rather a difficult matter. There were between sixty and 
 seventy men of us ; the night had been cloudy and without a moon, 
 and the patrol had only caught some hast)- and uncertain glimpses of 
 the person whom they had followed. The court seemed rather vexed 
 at their hesitation. Yet perhaps it was not very unreasonable ; since 
 they were quite unable to agree together as to what sort of a man it 
 was. One thought him short ; and the other was certain that he was 
 quite tall. The first pronounced him a stout, well-set fellow ; the 
 other had taken him to be very slender. 
 
 By this time the first bottle of whisky was emptied, and a second 
 was put upon the table. The court now told the witnesses that it 
 would not do ; they did not come up to the mark at all ; and if they 
 went on at that rate, the fellow would escape altogether. Just at 
 this moment, the overseer of the plantation which had been plundered, 
 rode up ; and as soon as he had dismounted, he stepped forward to
 
 150 THE white slave; or, 
 
 the relief of the witnesses. He said, that while the court was orga- 
 nizing, he had taken the opportunity to ride over and examine the riee- 
 field in which the rogue had been started up. It was much trampled 
 in places, and there were a great many foot-prints ; but they were all 
 just alike, and seemed to have been made by the same person. He 
 took a little stick from his pocket, on which, he said, he had carefully 
 marked their exact length and breadth. 
 
 Now this was a trick for detecting people which Thomas understood 
 very well, and he had taken good care to be prepared for it. Our 
 whole company were provided with shoes of the largest size we could 
 get, and all exactly of the same pattern, so that our tracks had the 
 appearance of being made by a single person, and he a fellow with a 
 very large foot. 
 
 This speech of the overseer seemed to revive the drooping hopes 
 of the judges, and they made us all sit down upon the ground pnd 
 have our feet measured. There was a man on the plantation named 
 Billy, a harmless, stupid fellow, wholly unconnected with us ; but, 
 unluckily for him, the only one of all the slaves whose foot cor- 
 responded at all with the measure. The length of this poor fellow's 
 foot was fatal to him. The judges shouted with one voice, and in 
 the style of condemnation to be expected from such a court, that 
 " they would be damned if he was not the thief." It was in vain that 
 the poor fellow denied the charge and pleaded for mercy. His terror, 
 confusion, and surprise, only served to confirm the opinion of his 
 guilt ; and the more he denied, and the louder he pleaded, the more 
 positively his judges were determined against him. Without further 
 ceremony they pronounced him guilty, and sentenced him to be 
 hung ! 
 
 The sentence was no sooner pronounced than preparations were 
 made for its execution. An empty barrel was brought out, and 
 placed under a tree that stood before the door. The poor fellow was 
 mounted upon it ; the halter was put about his neck, and fastened to 
 a limb over his head. The judges had already become so drunk as 
 to have lost all sense of judicial decorum. One of them kicked away 
 the barrel, and the unhappy victim of Carolina justice dropped strug- 
 gling into eternity. 
 
 The execution over, the slaves were sent into the field ; while 
 Mr. Martin, with the judges and witnesses, and several others whom 
 the fame of the trial had drawn to Loosahachee, commenced a re^u- 
 lar drunken debauch, which they kept up all that day, and the night 
 following
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 151 
 
 CHAPTER, XXX. 
 
 The authority of masters over their slaves is in general a continual 
 reign of terror. A base and dastard fear is the sole principle of 
 human nature to which the slaveholder appeals. When it was de- 
 termined to hang the poor fellow, whose fate I have described in the 
 last chapter, his judges could not know, nor do I suppose they much 
 cared, whether he were innocent or guilty. Their great object was 
 to terrify the survivors ; and by an example of what they would deno- 
 minate wholesome and necessary severity, to deter from any further 
 trespasses upon the neighbouring plantations. In this they suc- 
 ceeded ; for though Thomas endeavoured to keep up our spirits, we 
 were thoroughly scared, and felt little inclination to second his bold- 
 ness, which seemed to grow more determined, the more obstacles it 
 encountered. 
 
 One of our confederates, in particular, was so alarmed at the fate 
 of poor Billy, that he seemed to have lost all self-control ; and we 
 were in constant fear lest he should betray us. When the first 
 paroxysm of his terror was at its height, the evening after he had 
 witnessed the execution, I believe he would gladly have confessed the 
 whole, if he could have found a white man sober enough to listen to 
 him. After awhile, he grew more calm; but in the course of the 
 day he had chopped some hints, which were carefully treasured up by 
 one of the drivers. He reported them, as I discovered, to the over- 
 seer; but Mr. Martin had not yet recovered from the effects of the 
 frolic ; and he was too drunk and stupid to understand a word that 
 the driver said to him. 
 
 We had begun to get the better of our fears, when a new incident 
 happened, which determined us to seek our safety in flight. Some 
 persons, in passing along the river bank, had discovered our canoe, 
 which, in the hurry of our retreat, we had taken too little care to 
 conceal. It contained not onlv our bags full of rice, — for we had 
 not yet recovered courage enough to go after them, — but our shoes 
 also, exactly of the same size, and corresponding with the measure 
 which had been produced upon the trial. Here was ample proof that 
 quite a number had been engaged in the scheme of depredation ; and 
 as one of the company had been traced to Loosahachee, it would be 
 reasonable to look for the others upon the same plantation. Luckily 
 I obtained an early intimation of this discovery, by means of one of 
 the overseer's house-servants, with whom I had the policy to keep up 
 a pretty intimate connexion. A man had arrived at the overseer's 
 house, his horse dripping with foam, and, with an appearance of
 
 1 52 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OK, 
 
 great haste and impatience, he had asked to see the overseer. The 
 moment he came in, the stranger requested to speak with him alone ; 
 and Mr. Martin took his guest into another room and locked the 
 door. The girl, who was my spy and informant, under an appearance 
 of the greatest simplicity, was artful and intelligent ; and she was 
 prompted to overhear this secret conversation, as much by her own 
 curiosity as by the suspicion that it might possibly be something in 
 which I would take an interest. She contrived to conceal herself in 
 a closet, which was separated from the room in which the overseer 
 and his visitor were conversing, only by a thin partition ; and having 
 overheard his story, the substance of which I have already men- 
 tioned, — and learned, besides, that the court would hold a new ses- 
 sion at Loosahachee, the day following, — she hastened to inform me 
 of what she had heard. She knew nothing, in particular, of our 
 affairs ; but she had reason to believe that this piece of news would 
 not be entirely uninteresting to me. 
 
 I informed Thomas of what she had told me. We agreed, at 
 once, that our best chance of safety was in flight ; and we imme- 
 diate!} communicated our intention, and the cause of it, to the rest of 
 our confederates. They were anxious to accompany us ; and we all 
 resolved to be off that very night. 
 
 As soon as evening came on, we stole away from the plantation 
 and gained the woods in company. As we anticipated that a very 
 diligent search woidd be made for us, we thought it best to separate. 
 Thomas and myself resolved to keep together ; the others scattered 
 and took various directions. As long as the darkness lasted, we tra- 
 velled on as rapidly as we could. When the morning began to appear, 
 we plunged into a thick swampy piece of woods, and having broken 
 down some branches and young trees, we made as dry a bed as we were 
 able, and lay down to sleep. We were much fatigued with our long 
 and rapid journey, and slept soundly. It was past noon when we 
 waked. Our appetites were sharp, but we had no provisions. Just 
 as we were beginning to consider what course it would be best for us 
 to pursue, we heard the distant baying of a hound. Thomas listened 
 for a moment, and then exclaimed that he knew that cry. It was a 
 famous dog, a cross of the blood-hound, which Mr. Martin had long 
 had in training, and upon whose performances in tracking out run- 
 aways he very much prided himself. The place where we were was 
 a thick swamp, in which it was difficult to move, and not easy to 
 stand. To cross it would be impossible ; and we resolved to get into 
 the edge of it, where the ground was harder, and the undergrowth 
 thinner, and to continue our flight. We did so ; but the hound 
 gained rapidly upon us, and his baying sounded louder and louder. 
 Thomas drew a stout sharp knife, which he carried in his pocket.
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 153 
 
 We were now just at the border where the dry ground came down upon 
 the swamp, and looking behind us, across the level and open woods, 
 we could see the hound coining on with his nose to the ground, and 
 uttering at intervals a deep and savage cry. Farther behind, but still 
 in full view, we saw a man on horseback, who we took to be Mr. 
 Martin himself. 
 
 The dog was evidently upon our track ; and following it to the 
 place where we had first plunged into the swamp, he disappeared from 
 our view. But we could still hear his clamour, which grew louder 
 and almost constant ; and we soon perceived by the rustling and 
 cracking of the underwood that he was close upon us. At this mo- 
 ment we faced about, and stood at bay ; — Thomas in front with his 
 knife in hand, and I just behind, with a sharp and heavy lightwood 
 knot, the best, indeed the only weapon of which I could avail myself. 
 Presently the dog emerged from the swamp. The moment he saw us 
 he redoubled his cry, and dashed forward, foaming and open-mouthed. 
 He made a great leap directly at Thomas's throat, but only succeeded 
 in seizing his left arm, which Thomas raised as a shield against the 
 dog's attack. At the same instant he dealt a stroke with his kni*e, 
 which penetrated to the hilt, and dog and man came struggling to the 
 ground. How the contest would have ended had Thomas been alone, 
 is very doubtful ; for though the hound soon received several wounds, 
 they only seemed to increase his ferocity, and he stdl struggled to 
 get at the throat of his antagonist. My lightwood knot now did 
 good service. Two or three heavy blows upon the dog's head laid 
 him senseless and sprawling on the ground. 
 
 "While we had been awaiting the dog's attack, and during the con- 
 test, we had scarcely thought of his master ; but looking up, after it 
 was over, we discovered that Mr. Martin was already very near us. 
 When the dog took to the swamp, his master had followed along 
 upon its edge, and came suddenly upon us before we had expected 
 him. He pointed his gun and called upon us to surrender. Thomas 
 no sooner saw the overseer, than he seemed to lose all his self-con- 
 trol, and grasping his knife, he rushed directly upon him. Mr. 
 Martin fired ; — but the buck-shot rattled harmlessly among the trees, 
 and as he was attempting to wheel his horse, Thomas dashed upon 
 him, seized him by the arm, and dragged him to the ground. The 
 horse ran frightened through the woods ; and it was in vain that I 
 attempted to stop him. We looked round iu expectation of seeing 
 some others of the huntsmen coming up. None were in sight ; and 
 we seized the opportunity to retreat, and to carry our prisoner into 
 the covert of the swamp. 
 
 We learned from him, that by the time the court and their attend- 
 ants arrived at Loosahachee, our flight had been discovered, and that
 
 154 THE WHITE SLAVE ) OR, 
 
 it was immediately resolved to raise the neighbourhood, and to com- 
 mence a general search for the runaways. All the horses, dogs, and 
 men, that could be come at, were put into requisition. They were 
 divided into parties, and immediately commenced beating through the 
 woods and swamps in the neighbourhood. 
 
 A party of five or six men, with Mr. Martin and his blood-hound, 
 had traced three of our companions into a thick swamp, just on the 
 bank of a river. The pursuers dismounted, and with their guns in 
 their hands, tbey followed the dog into the thicket. Our poor 
 fellows were so overcome with fatigue, that they slept till the very 
 moment that the hound sprang in upon them. He seized one of 
 them by the throat, and held him to the ground. The others ran, 
 and as they ran, the pursuers fired. One of the fugitives fell dead, 
 hoiribly mangled and cut to pieces with buck-shot; the other still 
 continued his flight. As soon as the dog could be compelled to quit 
 his hold of the man he had seized, — which was not without difficulty 
 and delay, — he was put upon the track of the surviving fugitive. He 
 followed it to the river, where he stood at fault. The man had pro- 
 bably plunged in, and swam to the other side ; but as the dog could 
 not be made to take the water, and as the swamp on the opposite 
 bank was reputed to be very soft and dangerous, no further pursuit 
 was made ; the chase in that direction was given up, and the poor 
 fellow was suffered to escape for the present. 
 
 The pursuers now separated. Two of them undertook to cany 
 back to Loosahachee the captive they had taken, and the other three, 
 with Mr. Martin and his hound, were to continue the hunt in search 
 of the rest of us. They learned from their captive the place at which 
 they had parted company, and the direction which the several parties 
 had taken. After beating about for some time, the hound struck 
 upon our trail, and opened in full cry ; but the horses of Mr. Martin's 
 companions were so broken down, that when he began to spur on, to 
 keep up with the hound, he soon left them far behind. Mr. Martin 
 ended his story by advising us to go in and surrender ourselves ; 
 giving us his word and honour as a gentleman and an overseer, that 
 if we would offer him no further violence or injury, he would protect 
 us from punishment, and reward us most handsomely. 
 
 The sun was now setting. The short twilight which follows a 
 Carolina sunset would soon be succeeded by the darkness of a cloudy 
 and moonless night; and we felt but little apprehension of being 
 immediately troubled by our pursuers. I looked at Thomas, as if to 
 inquire what we had better do. He drew me aside, having first 
 examined the fastenings of our prisoner, whom we had bound to a 
 tree, by some cords found in his own pocket, and which were doubt- 
 less intended for a very different purpose.
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 155 
 
 Thomas paused for a moment, as if to collect his thoughts ; then 
 pointing to Mr. Martin, "Archy," he said, " that man dies to-night." 
 
 There was a wild energy, and, at the same time, a steady coolness, 
 n the tone in which he spoke. It startled me ; at first I made no 
 mswer ; and as meanwhile I looked Thomas in the face, I saw there 
 in expression of stern exultation, and a fixedness of purpose not to he 
 shaken. His eyes flashed fire, as he repeated, — but in a low and 
 jaiet tone that contrasted strangely with the matter of his speech, — 
 * I tell you, Archy, that man dies to-night. She commands it ; I 
 lave promised it ; and now the time is come." 
 
 " AVho commands it ?" I hastily inquired. 
 
 " Do you ask who ? Archv, that man was the murderer of mv 
 Urife." 
 
 Though Thomas and I had lived in great intimacy, this was almost 
 ;he first time, since the death of his wife, that he had mentioned her 
 x> me in such plain terms. He had, it is true, now and then made 
 some distant allusions to her ; and I recollected that on several occa- 
 sions before, he had dropped some strange and incoherent hints 
 about an intercourse which he still kept up with her. 
 
 The mention of his wife brought tears into his eyes ; but with his 
 hand he wiped them hastily away, and soon recovering his former air 
 of calm and steady determination, he again repeated, in the same low 
 but resolute tone, "Archy, I tell you that man dies to-night." 
 
 When I called to mind all the circumstances that had attended the 
 death of Thomas's wife, I could not hut acknowledge that Mr. Martin 
 had been her murderer. I had sympathized with Thomas then, and 
 I sympathized with him now. The murderer was in his power ; he 
 believed himself called upon to execute justice upon him ; and I could 
 not but acknowledge that his death would be an act of righteous 
 retribution. 
 
 Still, I felt a sort of instinctive horror at the idea of shedding 
 blood ; and perhaps, too, there still crept about my heart some 
 remains of that slavish fear and senile timidity, which the bolder 
 spirit of Thomas had wholly shaken off. I acknowledged that the 
 life of the overseer was justly forfeit; but, at the same time, I 
 reminded Thomas that Mr. Martin had promised, if we would carry 
 him home in safety-, to procure our pardon, and protect us from 
 punishment. 
 
 A scornful smile played about the lip of my comrade while I was 
 speaking. " Yes, Archy," he answered, " pardon and protection ! — 
 and a hundred lashes, and a hanging the next day, perhaps. No ! 
 boy, I want no such pardon ; I want no pardon such as they will 
 give. I have been a slave too long already. I am now free ; and 
 when they take me, they are welcome to take my life. Besides, we
 
 156 THE WHITE SLAVE ) OR, 
 
 cannot trust him ; — if we wished it, we cannot trust him. You know 
 we cannot. They do not think themselves obliged to keep any pro- 
 mises they make us. They will promise anything to get us in their 
 power, and then their promises are worthless as rotten straw. My 
 promises are not like theirs ; and have I not told you that I have 
 promised it ? Yes, I have sworn it ; and I now say, once for all, that 
 man must die to-night." 
 
 There was a strength and a determination in his tone and manner 
 which overpowered me. I could resist it no longer, and I bade him 
 do his pleasure. He loaded the gun which he had taken from Mr. 
 Martin, and which he had held in his hand all the time we had been 
 talking. This done, we returned to the overseer, who was sitting at 
 the foot of the tree to which we had bound him. He looked up 
 anxiously at us as we approached, and inquired if we had determined 
 to go in? 
 
 " We have determined," answered Thomas. " We allow you half 
 an hour to prepare for death. Make the most of it. You have many 
 sins to repent of, and the time is short." 
 
 It is impossible to describe the look of mingled terror, amazement, 
 and incredulity, with which the overseer heard these words. One 
 moment, with a voice of authority, he bade us untie him ; the next, 
 he forced a laugh, and affected to treat what Thomas had said as a 
 mere jest ; then yielding to his fears, he wept like a child, and cried, 
 and begged for mercv. 
 
 DO J 
 
 "Have you shown it ?" answered Thomas. " Did you show it to 
 my poor wife ? You murdered her ; and for her life you must answer 
 with your own." 
 
 Mr. Martin called God to witness that he was not guilty of this 
 charge. He had punished Thomas's wife, he confessed ; but he did 
 only what his duty as an overseer demanded ; and it was impossible, 
 he said, that the few cuts he gave her could have caused her death. 
 
 " The few cuts !" cried Thomas. " Thank God, Mr. Martin, that 
 we do not torture you as you tortured her ! Speak no more, or you 
 will but aggravate your sufferings. Confess your crimes ! Say your 
 prayers ! Do not spend your last moments in adding falsehood to 
 murder !" 
 
 The overseer cowered beneath this energetic reproof. He covered 
 his face with his hands, bent down his head, and passed a few 
 moments in a silence, which was only interrupted by an inarticulate 
 sobbing. Perhaps he was trying to prepare himself to die. But life 
 was too sweet to be surrendered without another effort to save it. 
 He saw that it was useless to appeal to Thomas ; but rousing himself 
 once more, he turned to me. He begged me to remember the con- 
 fidence he had once placed in me, and the favours which, as he said,
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 157 
 
 be had shown ine. He promised to purchase us both, and give vis 
 our liberty, anything, everything, if we would only spare his life ! 
 
 His tears and piteous lamentations moved me. My head grew 
 dizzy, and I felt such a faintness and heart-sinking, that I was obliged 
 to support myself against a tree. Thomas stood by, with his arms 
 folded and resting on the gun. He made no answer to the reiterated 
 prayers and promises of the overseer. Indeed, he did not appear to 
 notice them. His eyes were fixed, and he seemed lost in thought. 
 
 After a considerable interval, during which the unhappy overseer 
 continued to repeat his prayers and lamentations, Thomas roused 
 himself. He stepped back a few paces, and raised the gun. " The 
 half hour is out," he said ; — " Mr. Martin, are you ready?" 
 
 " No ! oh, no ! Spare me— oh, spare me ! — one half hour longer 
 — I have much — " 
 
 He did not live to finish the sentence. The gun flashed, the ball 
 penetrated his brain, and he fell dead without a struggle. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 We scraped a shallow grave, in which we placed the body of the 
 overseer. We dragged the dead hound to the same spot, and laid 
 him with his master. They were fit companions. 
 
 We now resumed our flight ; not, as some may perhaps suppose, 
 with the frightened and conscious-stricken haste of murderers, but 
 with that lofty feeling of manhood vindicated, and tyranny visited with 
 a just retribution, which animated the soul of the Israelitish hero 
 whilst he fled for refuge into the country of the Midianites : and 
 which burned in the bosoms of Wallace and of Tell, as they pursued 
 their midnight flight among the friendly cliffs and freedom-breathing 
 summits of then* native mountains. 
 
 There were no mountains to receive and shelter us. But still we 
 fled through the swamps and barrens of Carolina, resolved to put, as 
 soon as possible, some good miles between us and the neighbourhood 
 of Loosahachee. It Avas more than twenty-four hours since we hid 
 tasted food ; yet such was the excitement of our minds that Ave did 
 not faint, and Avere hardly sensible of Aveakness or fatigue. 
 
 We kept a nortliAvesterly direction, steering our course by the 
 stars, and Ave must have made a good distance, for Ave did not once 
 stop to rest, but pushed fonvard at a very rapid pace all night. Our 
 way lay through the open " piney Avoods," through which Ave could 
 travel almost as fast as on a road. Sometimes a sAvamp, or the
 
 158 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 appearance of a plantation, would compel us to deviate from our 
 track, but, as soon as we could, we resumed our original direction. 
 
 The darkness of the night, which for the last hour or two that it 
 lasted had been increasing by a foggy mist, was just beginning to 
 yield to the first indistinct grey dawn of the morning. We were 
 passing along a little depression in the level of the pine barrens, now 
 dry, but in the wet season probably the bed of a temporary stream, 
 looking for a place in which to conceal ourselves, when we suddenly 
 came upon a man lying, as it seemed, asleep in the midst of a 
 clump of bushes, with his head resting on a bag of corn. We reco- 
 gnised him at once. He was a slave belonging to a plantation next 
 adjoining Loosahachee, with whom we had had some slight acquaint- 
 ance, but who, as we were informed, had been a runaway for some 
 two or three months past. Thomas shook him by the shoulder, and he 
 wakened in a terrible fright. We told him not to be alarmed, xbr we 
 were runaways like himself, and very much in need of his assistance, 
 beina; half dead with hunjrer, and in a country with which we were 
 totally unacquainted. At first the man appeared very reserved and 
 suspicious. He feared, it seemed, lest we might be decoys, sent out 
 on purpose to entrap him. At last, however, we succeeded in dissi- 
 pating his doubts ; and no sooner was he satisfied with the account 
 we gave of ourselves, than he bade us follow him, and we should 
 presently have food. 
 
 With his bag of corn upon his shoulder, he pursued the shallow 
 ravine in which we had found him for a mile or more, till at length it 
 widened into what seemed a large swamp, or rather a pond grown up 
 with trees. We now left the ravine, and followed along on the edge 
 of the pond for some distance, when presently our guide began wading 
 in the water, and called to us to follow him. We plunged in ; but 
 before going far, he laid down his bag of corn upon a fallen tree, and 
 going back, he carefully effaced the marks which our footsteps had 
 made upon the muddy edge of the pond. He now led as forward 
 through mud and water up to our waist, for near half a mile. The 
 gigantic trees among which we were wading, sprung up like columns 
 from the surface of the water, with round, straight, whitish-coloured 
 branchless trunks, their leafy tops forming a thick canopy over head. 
 There was scarcely any undergrowth, except a species of enormous 
 vines, which ran twining like great cables about the bodies of the 
 trees, and, reaching to the very tops, helped with their foliage to 
 thicken the canopy above us. So effectually was the light excluded, 
 and so close did the trunks of the trees stand together, that one could 
 see but a very little way into this watery forest. 
 
 The water began to grow deeper, and the wood more gloomy, and 
 we were wondering whither our guide was leading us, when presently
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 159 
 
 we came to a little island which rose a few feet from the surface of 
 the water, so regular and mound-like, that it had quite the appearance 
 of an artificial structure. Perhaps it was the work of the ancient 
 inhabitants of the country, and the site of one' of their forts or fast- 
 nesses. It was about an acre in extent, and was covered with a thick 
 growth of trees, quite different, however, from those of the lake by 
 which it was surrounded, and much inferior in size and majesty-. Its 
 edges were bordered by low shrubs and bushes, whose abundant 
 foliage gave the islet the appearance of a mass of green. Our guide 
 pointed out to us a little opening in the bushes, through which we 
 ascended ; and after having gained the dry land, he led us through 
 the thicket along a narrow and winding path, till presently we came 
 to a rude cabin built of bark and branches. He now gave a peculiar 
 whistle, which was immediately answered, and two or three men 
 presently made their ajjpearance. 
 
 They seemed a good deal surprised at seeing us, and me especiallv, 
 whom apparently they took for a freeman. But our guide assured 
 them that we were friends and fellow-sufferers, and led the way into 
 the cabin. Our new hosts received us kindly ; and having heard how 
 long we had been without food, before asking us any further ques- 
 tions, they hastened to satisfy our hunger. They produced beef and 
 hominy in abundance, on which we feasted to our hearts' content. 
 
 We were then called upon to give an account of ourselves. Accord- 
 ingly we made a relation of our adventures, omitting, however, any 
 mention of the fate of the overseer ; and as our guide, who knew us, 
 could confirm a part of our story, our account was pronounced satis- 
 factory, and we were presently admitted to the privilege of joining 
 their fraternity. 
 
 There were six of them, besides ourselves ; — all brave fellows, who, 
 weary of daily task-work and the tyranny of overseers, had taken to 
 the woods, and had succeeded in regaining a savage and stealthy 
 freedom, which, with all its hardships and dangers, was a thousand 
 times to be preferred to the forced labour and wretched servitude 
 from which they had escaped. Our guide was the only one of them 
 whom we had ever seen tdl now. The leader of the band had fled 
 from his master's plantation in the neighbourhood, with a single com- 
 panion, some two or three years before. They did not then know of 
 the existence of this retreat ; but being sharply pursued, they had 
 attempted to cross the pond or swamp, by which it was surrounded, — a 
 thing, I suppose, which had never been tried before. In this attempt 
 they were fortunate enough to light upon the islet, which being 
 unknown to any one else, had ever since served them as a secure 
 retreat. They soon picked up a recruit or two ; and had afterwards 
 been joined by their other companions.
 
 1 GO THE WHITE SLAVE j OR, 
 
 Our guide, it seems, had been to a neighbouring plantation to 
 trade for corn ; — a traffic which our friends carried on with the slaves 
 of several of the nearest plantations. After the business was con- 
 cluded, the men with whom he had been dealing, had produced a 
 bottle of whisky of which our guide had drank so freely, that he had 
 not gone far on his way home, before his legs failed him. He sunk 
 down in the place where we had found him, and fell fast asleep. 
 
 Drinking whisky away from home, according to the prudent laws 
 of this swamp-encircled commonwealth was a high misdemeanour, 
 punishable with thirty-nine lashes, which were forthwith inflicted 
 upon our guide with a good deal of emphasis. He took it in good 
 part though, as being the execution of a law to which he had himself 
 assented, and which he knew was enacted as much for his own 
 benefit, as for the benefit of those who had just now carried it into 
 execution. 
 
 The life upon which we now entered had at least the charm of 
 noveltv. In the daytime we eat, slept, told stories, and recounted 
 our escapes ; or employed ourselves in dressing skins, making clothes, 
 and curing provisions. But the night was our season of adventure 
 and enterprise. As the autumn was coming on, we made frequent 
 visits to the neighbouring corn-fields and potato-patches, which we 
 felt no scruples whatever in laying under severe contribution. This 
 however was only for a month or two. Our regular and certain 
 supply was in the herds of half wild cattle, which wander through 
 the " piney woods" and feed upon the coarse grass which they 
 furnish. We killed as many of these cattle as we needed, and their 
 flesh, cut into long strips, we dried in the sun. Thus cured, it is a 
 palatable food ; and we not only kept a stock on hand for our own 
 consumption, but it furnished the principal article of a constant but 
 cautious traffic, which, as I have already mentioned, we carried on 
 with the slaves of several neighbouring plantations. 
 
 This wild life of the woods has its privations and its sufferings ; 
 but it has, too, its charms and its pleasures ; and in its very worst 
 aspect, it is a thousand and ten thousand times to be preferred to that 
 miscalled civilization which degrades the noble savage into a cringing 
 and broken-spirited slave ; — a civilization, which purchases the indo- 
 lence and luxury of a single master, with the sighs and tears, the 
 forced and unwilling labour, the degradation, misery, and despair of a 
 hundred of his fellow-men ! Yes — there is more of true manhood in 
 the bold bosom of a single outlaw than in a whole nation of cowardly 
 tyrants and crouching slaves !
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 161 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 By the end of the winter, the herds of cattle which were accus- 
 tomed to frequent our neighbourhood, were a good deal thinned ; and 
 the pasturage had now become so bare and withered, that what 
 remained of them were little better than walking skeletons, and, in 
 fact, scarcely worth the trouble of killing. 
 
 Moreover, the overseers of the neighbouring plantations were 
 beginning to be very well aware that they were exposed to some 
 pretty regular and diligent depredators. We learned from the slaves 
 with whom we trafficked, that there was a good deal of talk about 
 the rapid disappearance of the cattle ; and that preparations were 
 making for a grand hunt in search of the plunderers. 
 
 With the double object of disappointing these preparations, and of 
 getting among some fresh herds of cattle, it was resolved that five 
 of us should make an excursion to a considerable distance, while the 
 other two remained at home and kept close. 
 
 One of our number undertook to lead us into the neighbourhood of 
 a plantation beyond the Santee, on which he had been raised. He 
 knew all the country about it perfectly well. There were several 
 good hiding places, he said, in which we could conceal ourselves in 
 the day time ; and the extensive woods and wastes furnished a good 
 range, and abundance of cattle. 
 
 We set off under his guidance, and kept on for several days, or 
 nights rather, in a northwardly direction. On the fifth or sixth 
 evening of our journey, we started soon after sunset, and having tra- 
 velled till a little past midnight, through a country of abrupt and 
 barren sand-hills, our guide told us that we were now in the neigh- 
 bourhood into which he intended to carry us. But as the moon had 
 gone down, and it was cloudy and quite dark, he was rather uncertain 
 as to the precise place we were at; and we should do best, he said, to 
 camp where we were till daylight, when he would lead us to some 
 better place of concealment. 
 
 This advice was very acceptable, — for by this time we were way- 
 worn, tired, and sleepy. We kindled a fire, cooked the last of the 
 provisions we had brought with us, and having appointed one of our 
 number to keep watch, the rest of us lay down, and were soon fast 
 asleep. 
 
 I at least was sleeping soundly, and dreaming of poor Cassy and 
 our infant child, when my dream was interrupted, and I was roused 
 from my slumbers, by what seemed a discharge of fire-arms, and 
 a galloping of horses. I sprang upon my feet, hardly knowing 
 
 M
 
 162 THE WHITE SLAVE; OB, 
 
 whether I was awake. At the same moment my eye fell upon Thomas, 
 who had been sleeping beside me, and I perceived that his clothes 
 were all stained with blood. He had already gained his feet; and 
 without stopping to hear or see anything further, we sprung together 
 into the nearest thicket, and fled for some time, we scarcely knew 
 where or why. At last, Thomas cried out that he could go no further. 
 The bleeding of his wounds had weakened him much, and they were 
 now growing stiff and painful. The morning was just beginning to 
 dawn. We sat down upon the ground, and endeavoured to bind up 
 his wounds the best we were able. A ball or buck-shot had passed 
 through the fleshy part of his left arm, between the shoulder and 
 elbow. Another shot had struck him in the side ; but, as far as we 
 could judge, had glanced on one of his ribs, and so passed off without 
 doing any mortal injury. These wounds had bled profusely, and 
 were now very painful. We bound them up as well as we could; 
 and looking round, we found a little stream of water with which to 
 wash away the blood, and quench our thirst. 
 
 Thus recruited and refreshed, we began to consider which way we 
 should turn, and what we were to do. We did not dare to go back 
 to the camp where we had slept; indeed, we were very doubtful 
 whether we were able to do so, for the morning had been dark, and 
 we had fled with heedless haste, taking very little note of our direction. 
 Our island retreat was at the distance of some seven or eight days' 
 journey ; and as we had travelled in the night, and not always in pre- 
 cisely the same direction, it would be no very easy matter to find our 
 way back again. However, Thomas prided himself upon his wood- 
 manship, and though he had not observed the course of our journey 
 quite so closely as he could have wished, he still thought that he 
 might succeed in finding the way back. 
 
 But his wounds were too recent, and he felt too weak, to think of 
 starting off immediately. Besides, it was already broad daylight; 
 and we had the best of reasons for travelling only by night. So we 
 sought out a thicket in which we concealed ourselves till night-fall. 
 
 As the evening came on, Thomas declared that he felt much better 
 and stronger ; and we resolved to set out at once on our return. In 
 the first place, however, we determined to make an attempt to find 
 the camp of the preceding night, in hopes that some of our compa- 
 nions might have escaped as well as ourselves, and that by some good 
 luck we might chance to fall in with them. 
 
 After wandering about for some time, at length we found the camp. 
 Two dead bodies, stiff and bloody, lay by the extinguished embers of 
 the fire. They seemed to have been shot dead as they slept, and 
 scarcely to have moved a limb. The bushes about were stained and 
 spattered with blood ; and by the moonlight, we tracked the bloody
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 163 
 
 flight of one of our luckless companions for a considerable distance. 
 This must have been our sentinel, who had probably dropped asleep, 
 and thus exposed us to be surprised. 
 
 Perhaps he might be lurking somewhere in the bushes, wounded 
 and helpless. This thought emboldened us. We shouted and called 
 aloud. But our voices echoed through the woods, and died away 
 unanswered. We returned again to the camp, and gazed once more 
 upon the distorted faces of our dead companions. We could not bear 
 to leave them unburied. I hastily scraped a shallow trench, and 
 there we placed them. We dropped a tear upon their grave, and 
 sad, dismayed, dejected, we set out upon our long, weary, and uncer- 
 tain journey. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 We travelled slowly all that night, and soon after the morning 
 dawn we concealed ourselves again, and lay down to sleep. Thomas's 
 wounds were much better, and seemed disposed to heal. The hurt in 
 his side was far less dangerous than we had at first supposed, and as 
 the pain had subsided, he was now able to sleep. 
 
 We slept well enough, but awoke weak and faint for want of food, 
 for it was now some twenty-four hours since we had tasted any. The 
 sun was not yet down ; yet we resolved to set out immediately, in 
 hopes that daylight might point out to us something with which to 
 satisfy our hunger. 
 
 After travelling a considerable distance through the woods, just as 
 the sun was setting we struck into a road. This road we determined 
 to follow, in hopes that it might presently lead us into the neighbour- 
 hood of some farm-house, near which we might light upon something 
 eatable. It was an unlucky resolve; for we had not gone above 
 half-a-mile, when, just upon the crest of a short hill, we suddenly 
 came upon three travellers on horseback, whom the undulations of 
 the road had concealed from us, till we were within a few yards of 
 each other. 
 
 Both parties were mutually surprised. The travellers reined up 
 their horses, and eyed us sharplv. Our appearance might well attract 
 attention. Our clothes — such as we had — were torn and ragged. 
 Instead of shoes, we wore a kind of high mocassins, made of un- 
 tanned ox-hide ; we had caps of the same material ; and the dresses 
 of both of us, especially of Thomas, were spattered and stained with 
 blood. 
 
 They took me for a freeman, and one of them called out, " Hallo,
 
 1 64 THE WHITE SLAVE j OR, 
 
 stranger, who are you, and where are you going ? — and whose fellow 
 is that you have along ?" 
 
 I did my hest to take advantage of my colour, and to seem what 
 thev took me for. But this I soon found would not avail ; for though 
 apparently at first they did not suspect that I was a slave, yet our 
 appearance was so strange, that they questioned me very closely. As 
 I had no very definite idea where we were, and was totally unacquainted 
 with the neighbourhood, I was not at all able to hit upon appropriate 
 answers to the numerous questions they put me, and my statements 
 soon srrew confused and contradictorv. This served to excite their 
 suspicions ; and while I was attending to the questions of the one 
 who acted as chief spokesman, another of the company suddenly 
 sprang from his horse, and seizing me by the collar, swore that I was 
 either a runaway or a negro-stealer. The other two jumped down in 
 a moment ; and while one of them caught me by the arm, the other 
 attempted to seize Thomas. 
 
 He eluded this attempt and turned to run. He had gone but a 
 little distance, when, looking back and seeing me on the ground, he 
 forgot at once his wounds, his weakness, and his own danger. He 
 grasped his staff, and rushed to my rescue. They had throttled me 
 till I was powerless and almost insensible ; and while one of them 
 still held me to the ground, the other stood up to meet Thomas, who, 
 as he turned short about, had struck his pursuer to the earth, and 
 now came on to my relief, with his staff uplifted. His new antagonist 
 was both strong and active. He succeeded in avoiding the stroke of 
 Thomas's cudgel, and immediately closed with him. Thomas had but 
 little use of one arm, and his strength was much reduced by loss of 
 blood and long fasting ; but he struggled hard, and was already 
 getting the upper hand, when the fellow whom he had knocked down 
 at the commencement of the fight, regained his senses and came to the 
 assistance of his companion. Both together they were too much for 
 him ; and they soon got him down and hound his hands. They did 
 the same with me ; and one of them having produced a piece of rope 
 from his saddle-bags, they made halters of it, which they put about 
 our necks, and by the application of their whips, they compelled us to 
 keep up with their horses. 
 
 In about half an hour, we came to a mean and forlorn-looking 
 cabin, by the road-side. It appeared to be a sort of inn, or tavern ; 
 and here we were^to lodge. The only persons about the house 
 seemed to be the landlady herself and a little daughter some ten or 
 twelve years old. The whole appearance of the place bore evident 
 marks of discomfort and poverty. Our captors had no sooner pro- 
 vided for their horses, than they called for chains ; — trace-chains, 
 they said, or in fact anything in the shape of a chain, would answer
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 165 
 
 their purpose. But much to their disappointment, the landlady- 
 declared that she had nothing of the sort. However, she procured 
 some old rope ; and having secured us as effectually as they could, 
 they made us sit down in the passage. 
 
 The landlady told them, that in all probability, we were runaways ; 
 for the neighbourhood had lately been much troubled by them. A 
 company of five or six men, she said, had gone out two or three 
 nights since on purpose to hunt up the rascals, and had unexpectedly 
 come upon quite a party, asleep in the woods around a fire. 
 
 The gang seemed too large to be easily taken, but it was resolved 
 that the fellows should not escape; especially as the man whose 
 slaves they were supposed to be, and who was one of the party, openly- 
 declared that he had rather they were all shot, than to have them 
 wandering about the country useless to him, and mischievous to his 
 neighbours. 
 
 The company separated, and each man approached from a different 
 point. Upon a given signal, all fired ; and then putting spurs to 
 their horses, they rode off and returned home each by himself. 
 Nobody had stopped to see what execution was done ; but as the 
 men were all good shots, it was supposed that most of the runaways 
 were either killed or desperately wounded ; and, as our clothes were 
 bloody, and one of us was hurt, she thought it likely, she said, that 
 we belonged to that same gang. 
 
 It appeared in the course of the conversation between the landlady 
 and her guests, that the murderous kind of attack to which our com- 
 panions had fallen victims, but which had been intended for another 
 party of runaways, is an operation occasionally practised in Lower 
 Carolina, when a party of slave-hunters falls in with a gang of fugi- 
 tive slaves too large to be easily arrested. 
 
 The dispersion of the attacking party, and each one shooting and 
 returning by himself, is only the effect of an ancient and traditionary 
 prejudice. By the law of Carolina, the killing a slave is regarded 
 as murder ; and though probably, this law was never enforced, and 
 would doubtless be treated by a jury of modern slaveholders, as an 
 old-fashioned and fanatical absurdity, there still linger, in the breasts 
 of the people, some remains of horror at the idea of deliberate blood- 
 shed, and a sort of superstitious apprehension of the possible enforce- 
 ment of this antiquated law. To blindfold their own consciences, 
 and to avoid the possibility of a judicial investigation, each man of an 
 attacking party takes care to see none of the others when they fire ; 
 and no one goes to the place to ascertain how many have been killed 
 or disabled. The poor wretches who are not so fortunate as to be 
 shot dead upon the spot, are left to the lingering torments of thirst, 
 fever, starvation and festering wounds ; and when at length they die,
 
 166 THE white slave; or, 
 
 their skeletons lie bleaching in the Carolina sun, proud proofs of 
 slaveholding civilization and humanity. 
 
 While our captors were at supper, the little girl, the landlady's 
 daughter, came to look at us as we lay in the passage. She was a 
 pretty child, and her soft blue eyes filled with tears as she looked 
 upon us. I asked her for water. She ran to get it for us ; and 
 inquired if we did not want something to eat. I told her that we 
 were half dead with hunger ; and she no sooner heard it, than she 
 hastened away, and soon returned with a large cake of bread. 
 
 Our arms were bound so tight that we were utterly helpless, and 
 the little girl broke the bread, and fed us with her own hand. 
 
 Is not this one instance enough to prove that nature never intended 
 man to be a tyrant ? Avarice, a blind lust of domination, the false 
 but specious suggestions of ignorance and passion combine to make 
 him so ; and pity at length is banished from his soul. It then seeks 
 refuge in the woman's heart ; and when the progress of oppression 
 drives it even thence, as, sad and hesitating, it prepares to wing its 
 way to heaven, still it lurks and lingers in the bosom of the child ! 
 
 By listening closely to the conversation of the travellers, — for by 
 this time the landlady had produced a jug of whisky, and they had 
 become very communicative, — we learned that we were within a few 
 miles of the town of Camden, and on the great northern road leading 
 from that town into North Carolina. Our captors, it seemed, were 
 from the upper country. They had not passed through Camden, but 
 had struck into this road very near the place where they met us. 
 They were travelling into Virginia to purchase slaves. 
 
 After discussing the question at considerable length, they concluded 
 to delay their journey for a day or two, and to take us to Camden, 
 in hopes to find our owner and obtain a reward for apprehending 
 us ; or if nobody should claim us immediately, they could lodge us 
 in jail, advertise us in the newspapers, and give further attention to 
 the business upon their return. 
 
 By this time, the whisky jug was emptied, and the travellers made 
 preparations for sleeping. There were but two rooms in the house. 
 The landlady and her daughter had one, and some beds were prepared 
 for the guests in the other. We were carried into their room ; and 
 after again lamenting that the landlady could not furnish them with 
 chains, they carefully examined and retightened the ropes with which 
 we were bound, and then undressed and threw themselves upon their 
 beds. They were probably fatigued with their journey, and the 
 whisky increased their drowsy inclination ; so that before long, they 
 all gave evident tokens of being in a sound slumber. 
 
 I envied them that happiness ; for the tightness of my bonds, and 
 the uneasy position in which I was obliged to lie, prevented me from
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 167 
 
 sleeping. The moonbeams shone in at the window, and made every 
 object distinctly visible. Thomas and myself were lamenting in whis- 
 pers, our wretched condition, and consulting hopelessly together, when 
 we saw the door of the room cautiously and silently opening. In a 
 moment, the landlady's little daughter made her appearance. She 
 came towards us with noiseless steps, and one hand raised, as if mo- 
 tioning us to be silent. In the other she held a knife ; and stooping 
 down she hastily cut the cords by which we were bound. 
 
 We did not dare to speak ; but our hearts beat hard, and I am 
 sure our looks expressed the gratitude we felt. We gained our feet 
 with as little noise as possible, and were stealing towards the door, 
 when a new thought struck Thomas. He laid his hand upon my 
 shoulder to draw my attention, and then began to pick up the coat, 
 shoes, and other clothes of one of our captors. At once I understood 
 his intention, and imitated his example. The little girl seemed 
 astonished and displeased at this proceeding, and motioned to us to 
 desist. But without seeming to understand her gestures, we gained 
 the door with the clothes in our hands; and passing out of the 
 passage, we walked slowly and cautiously for some distance, taking 
 good heed, lest the sound of our footsteps might give an alarm. In 
 the meantime, the little girl patted the house dog on the head, and 
 kept him quiet. When we had gained a sufficient distance, we started 
 upon a run, which we did not give over till we were fairly out of 
 breath. 
 
 As soon as we had recovered ourselves a little, we stripped off our 
 ragged dresses, and bid them in the bushes. Luckily the clothes 
 which we had brought off in our flight, fitted us very tolerably, and 
 gave us a much more respectable, and less suspicious appearance. 
 We now went on for two or three miles, till we came to a road that 
 crossed the one upon which we were travelling, and ran off towards 
 the south. 
 
 In all this time, Thomas had said nothing ; nor did he scarcely 
 seem to notice my remarks, or to hear the questions, which, from 
 time to time, I put to him. When we came to the cross-road, he 
 suddenly stopped, and took me by the arm. I supposed that he was 
 going to consult with me, as to the course which we should take ; 
 and great was my surprise to hear him say, " Archy, here I leave 
 you." 
 
 I could not imagine what he intended, and I looked at him for an 
 explanation. 
 
 " You are now," he said, " on the road to the north. You have 
 good clothes, and as much learning as an overseer. You can readily 
 pass for a freeman. It will be very easv for you to get away to those 
 free States, of which I have heard you speak so often. If I go with
 
 168 THE WHITE SLAVE; OB, 
 
 you, we shall both be stopped and questioned. We shall be pursued ; 
 and if we keep together, and follow this road, we shall certainly be 
 taken. It is a great way to the free States, and I have little chance 
 and no hope of ever getting there ; and if I did, what should I gain by 
 it? I will try the woods again, and do as I can. I shall be able to 
 get back to our old place ; — but you, Archy, you can do better. You 
 are sure of getting away to the north. Go, my boy — go, and God 
 bless you." 
 
 I was deeply moved, and it was some time before I was able to 
 reply. The thoughts of escaping from my present situation of danger 
 and misery, to a land where I could bear the name, and enjoy the 
 rights of a freeman, flashed upon my mind with a radiant and dazzling 
 brightness that seemed almost to blot out every other feeling. Yet 
 still my love for Thomas, and the gratitude I owed him, glimmered 
 through these new hopes, and a low voice from the very centre of my 
 heart bade me not to desert my friend. After too long a pause and 
 too much hesitation, I began to answer him. I spoke of his wounds, 
 of our sworn friendship, and of the risk he had so lately run in my 
 behalf, and insisted that I would stay with him to the last. 
 
 I spoke, I fear, with too little of zeal and earnestness. At least, 
 all that I said only seemed to confirm Thomas in his determination. 
 He replied that his wounds were healing, and that he was already 
 almost as strong as ever. He added, that if I stayed with him I 
 might do myself much harm without the chance of doing him any 
 good. He pointed along the road, and, in an energetic and com- 
 manding voice, he bade me follow it, whde he should take the cross- 
 road towards the south. 
 
 When Thomas had once made up his mind, there was a firmness in 
 the tone with which he spoke sufficient often to overawe the most 
 unwilling. At the present moment I was but too ready to be prevailed 
 upon. He saw his advantage, and pursued it. " Go, Archy," he 
 repeated — " go ; if not for your own sake, go for mine ! If you stay 
 with me, and are taken, I shall never forgive you for it." 
 
 Little by little my better feelings yielded ; and at last I consented 
 to the separation. I took Thomas by the hand, and pressed him to 
 my heart. A nobler spirit never breathed ; — I was not worthy to call 
 myself his friend. 
 
 " God bless you, Archy," he said, as he left me. I stood watching 
 him as he walked rapidly away ; and as I looked I was ready to sink 
 into the earth with shame and mortification. Once or twice I was 
 just starting to follow him ; but selfish prudence prevailed, and I held 
 back. I watched him till he was out of sight, and then resumed my 
 journey. It was a base desertion, which not even the love of liberty 
 eould excuse.
 
 IIEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 169 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 I walked on as fast as I was able till after daylight, without 
 meeting a single individual, or passing more than two or three mean 
 and lonely houses. Just as the sun was rising I gained the top of a 
 considerable hill. Here there was a small house by the road -side, 
 and a horse saddled and bridled was tied to a tree near by. The 
 animal was sleek, and in good condition ; and, from the cut of the 
 saddle-bags, I took him to belong to some doctor, who had come thus 
 early to visit a patient. It was a tempting opportunity. I looked 
 cautiously this way and that, and seeing nobody, I unfastened the 
 horse, and jumped into the saddle. I walked him a little distance, 
 but presently put him into a gallop that soon carried me out of sight 
 of the house. 
 
 This was a very lucky acquisition ; for as I was upon the same road 
 which the travellers from whom I had escaped would follow as soon 
 as they resumed their journey, I was in manifest danger of being over- 
 taken and recognised. As I found that my horse had both spirit and 
 bottom, I put him to his speed, and went forward at a rapid rate. 
 My good luck did not end here, for happening to put my hand into 
 the pocket of my new coat, I drew out a pocket-book, which, beside 
 a parcel of musty papers, I found, on examining it a little, to contain 
 quite a pretty sum of money in bank notes. This discovery gave a 
 new impulse to my spirits, which were high enough before, and I 
 pushed on all day without stopping, except now and then to rest my 
 horse in the shade of a tree. 
 
 Towards evening I got a supper, and corn for my horse, at a little 
 hedge tavern ; and waiting till the moon rose, I set out again. By 
 morning my horse was completely broken down, and gave out entirely. 
 Thankful for his services thus far, — for according to my reckoning he 
 had carried me upwards of a hundred miles in the twenty-four hours, — 
 I stripped off his saddle and bridle and turned him into a wheat-field 
 to refresh himself. I now pursued my journey on foot; for I feared 
 if I kept the horse, the possession of him might, perhaps, get me 
 into difficulty ; and in fact, he was so jaded and worn out that he 
 would be of very little use to me. I had got a good start upon the 
 travellers, and I did not doubt that I could get on as fast upon foot, 
 as they would on horseback. 
 
 Before sunset I arrived at a considerable village. Here I indulged 
 myself in a hearty meal and in a good night's sleep. Both were 
 needed; for what with watching, fasting, and fatigue, I was quite 
 worn out. I slept some ten hours, and awoke with new vigour. I
 
 170 THE WHITE SLAVE; OR, 
 
 now resumed my journey, which I pursued without much fear of in- 
 terruption ; though I judged it prudent to stop but seldom, and to push 
 forward as rapidly as possible. I kept on through North Carolina 
 and Virginia ; crossed the Potomac into Maryland, and avoiding Balti- 
 more, I passed on into Pennsylvania, and congratulated myself that 
 at last I trod a soil cultivated by freemen. 
 
 I had gone but a very few miles before I perceived the difference. 
 In fact, I had scarcely passed the slave-holding border, before the 
 change became apparent. The spring was just opening, and every 
 thing was beginning to look fresh, green, and beautiful. The nicely 
 cultivated fields, the numerous small enclosures, the neat and substan- 
 tial farm-houses, thickly scattered along the way ; the pretty villages 
 and busy towns, the very roads themselves, which were covered vsith 
 wagons and travellers, — all these signs of universal thrift and 
 comfort gave abundant evidence that at length I saw a country where 
 labour was honourable, and where every one laboured for himself. It 
 was an exhilarating and delightful prospect, and in strong contrast 
 with all I had seen in the former part of my journey, in which a 
 wretched and lonely road had led me on through a vast monotonous 
 extent of unprofitable woods, deserted fields grown over with broom- 
 sedge and mullen, or fields just ready to be deserted, gullied, barren, 
 and with all the evidences upon them of a negligent, unwilling, and 
 unthrifty cultivation. Here and there I had passed a mean and 
 comfortless house; and once in fifty miles, a decaying, poverty-stricken 
 village, with a court-house, and a store or two, and a great crowd of 
 idlers collected about a tavern door; but without one single sign of 
 industry or improvement. 
 
 I was desirous of seeing Philadelphia ; but that city, so near the 
 slave-holding border, I feared might be infected with something of 
 the slave-holding spirit ; for the worst plagues are the most apt to 
 be contagious. I passed by, without passing through it, and hastened 
 on to New York. I crossed the noble Hudson and entered the town. 
 It was the first city I had ever seen ; at least, the first one worthy to 
 be called a city ; and when I beheld the spacious harbour crowded with 
 shipping, the long lines of warehouses, the numerous streets, the 
 splendid shops, and the swarming crowds of busy people, I was 
 astonished and delighted with the new idea which all this gave me of 
 the resources of human art and industry. I had heard of such things 
 before; but to feel, one ought to see. 
 
 I did nothing for several days but wander up and down the 
 streets, looking, gazing, and examining with an almost insatiable 
 curiosity. New York then was far inferior to what it must by this 
 time have become, and the commercial restrictions which then pre- 
 vailed must have tended to diminish its business and its bustle. Yet
 
 3IE1I0IRS OF A FUGITIVE. 171 
 
 to my rustic inexperience the city seemed almost interminable, and 
 the rattling of the drays and carriages over the pavements, and the 
 crowds of people in the streets, far exceeded all my previous notions 
 of the busy confusion of a city. 
 
 I had now been in New York about a week, and was standing: one 
 forenoon by a triangular grass-plot, near the centre of the town, 
 gazing at a fine building of white marble, which one of the passers- 
 by told me was the City Hall, when suddenly I felt my arm rudely 
 seized. I looked round, and with horror and dismay I found myself 
 in the gripe of General Carter — the man who in South Carolina had 
 called himself my master ; but who, in a country that prided itself in 
 the title of a " Free State," ought no longer to have had any claim 
 upon me. 
 
 Let no one be deceived by the false and boastful title which the 
 northern States of the American Union have thought fit to assume. 
 With what justice can they pretend to call themselves free States, 
 after having made a bargain with the slave-holders, by which they 
 are bound to deliver back again into the hands of their oppressors 
 every miserable fugitive who takes refuge within their territory ? The 
 good people of the free States have no slaves themselves. Oh no ! 
 Slave-holding, they confess, is a horrible enormity. Thev hold no 
 slaves themselves; they only act as bumbailiffs and tipstaves to the 
 slave-holders ! 
 
 My master, — for so even in the free city of New York I must con- 
 tinue to call him, — had seized me by one ami, and a friend of his held 
 me by the other. He called me by name, and in the hurry and con- 
 fusion of this sudden surprise, I forgot for a moment how impolitic 
 it was for me to appear to know him. A crowd began to collect 
 about us. When they heard that I was seized as a fugitive slave, 
 some of them appeared not a little outraged at the idea that a white 
 man should be subject to such an indignity. Thev seemed to think 
 that it was only the black whom it was lawful to kidnap in that way. 
 Such, indeed, is the untiring artfulness of tyranny, that it is ever 
 nestling even in the bosoms of the free, and there is not one preju- 
 dice, the offspring, as all prejudices are, of ignorance and self- 
 conceit, of which it has not well learned how to avail itself. 
 
 Though several of the crowd did not scruple to use very strong 
 expressions, they made no attempt to rescue me, and I was dragged 
 along towards that very City Hall which 1 had just been admiring. I 
 was carried before the sitting magistrate ; some questions were put 
 and answered ; some oaths were sworn and papers written. I had 
 not yet recovered from the first confusion of my seizure, and this 
 array of courts and constables was a horrid sort of danger to which I 
 was totallv unaccustomed, so that I scarcely know what was said or
 
 172 THE "WHITE slave; or, 
 
 clone. But to the best of my recollection the magistrate declined 
 acting on the question, though he consented to grant a warrant for 
 -detaining me in prison till I could be taken before some other 
 tribunal. 
 
 The warrant was made out and I was delivered over to an officer. 
 The court-room was filled with the crowd who had followed us from 
 the street. They collected close about us as we left the court-room ; 
 and I could see by the expression of their faces, and the words which 
 some of them dropped, that they were very well inclined to favour 
 my escape. At first I seemed all submission to the officer ; — we had 
 gone, however, but a very few steps, when, with a sudden spring, I tore 
 myself from his grasp and darted among the crowd, which opened to 
 give me a passage. I heard noise, confusion, and shouts behind me; 
 but in a moment I had cleared the enclosure in which the City Hall 
 stood, and crossing one of the streets by which it was bounded, I 
 dashed down a narrow and crooked lane. The people stared at me 
 as I ran, and some shouted, " Stop thief !" One or two seemed half 
 inclined to seize me, but I turned one short corner, and then 
 another, and finding that I was not pursued, I soon dropped into a 
 walk. 
 
 For this escape I return my thanks, not to the laws of New York, 
 but to the good will of her citizens. The secret bias and selfish 
 interest of the law-makers often lead them wrong ; the unprompted 
 and disinterested impulses of the people are almost always right. It 
 is true that the artful practice and cunning instigation of the pur- 
 chased friends and bribed advocates of oppression, joined to the 
 interest which the thieves and pickpockets of a great city always 
 have in civil tumult and confusion, may now and then succeed in ex- 
 citing the young, the ignorant, the thoughtless, and the depraved, to 
 acts of violence in favour of tyranny .But so congenial to the human 
 heart is the love of freedom, that it burns not brighter in the souls 
 of sages and of heroes, than in the bosoms even of the most ignorant 
 and thoughtless, when not quenched by some excited prejudice, base 
 passion, or sinister influence. 
 
 In my previous wanderings about the town, I had discovered the 
 road that led northwardly out of it ; and I soon turned in that direc- 
 tion, determined to shake off from my feet the very dust of a city 
 where I had been so near falling back again into the wretched con- 
 dition of servitude. 
 
 I travelled all that day, — and at night the inn-keeper at whose 
 house I lodged, told me that I was in the state of Connecticut. I 
 now pursued my flight for several days, through a fine hilly and 
 mountainous country, such as I had never seen before. The noble- 
 ness of the prospect, the craggy rocks and rugged hills, contrasted
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 173 
 
 finely with the excellent cultivation of the valleys, and the universal 
 thrift and industry of the inhabitants. Where freedom nerves the 
 arm, it is in vain that rocks and hills of granite oppose the labours 
 of the cultivator. Industrious liberty teaches him the art to extract 
 comfort, competence, and wealth from a soil the most unwilling and 
 ungrateful. 
 
 I knew that Boston was the great sea-port of New England ; and 
 thither I directed my steps, resolved to leave a land, however otherwise 
 inviting, whose laws would not acknowledge me a freeman. As I 
 approached the town, the country lost much of its picturesque and 
 hilly grandeur; but this was made up for by the greater beauty of 
 its smoother and better cultivated fields ; and by the pretty dwellings 
 scattered so numerously along the road, that the environs of the 
 town seemed almost a continued village. The city itself, seated on 
 hills, and seen for a considerable distance, gave a noble termination 
 to the prospect. 
 
 I crossed a broad river, by a long bridge, and soon entered the 
 town ; but I did not stop to examine it. Liberty was too precious to 
 be sacrificed to the gratification of an idle curiosity ; a New York 
 mob had set me free ; a Boston mob might perhaps delight in the 
 opportunity of restoring me to servitude. I found my way, as soon. 
 as the crooked and irregular streets would allow me, to the wharves. 
 Many of the ships were stripped and rotting in the docks ; but after 
 some search and inquiry, I found a vessel about to sail for Bordeaux. 
 I offered myself as a sailor. The captain questioned me, and laughed 
 heartily at my land-lubberly air and rustic ignorance ; but finally he 
 agreed to take me at half wages. He advanced me a month's pay ; 
 and the second mate, who was a fine vounst fellow, and who seemed 
 to feel for my lonely and helpless ignorance, assisted me in buying 
 such clothes as would be necessary for the voyage. 
 
 In a few days our cargo was completed, and the ship was ready for 
 sea. We dropped off from the wharf; threaded our course among 
 the numerous islets and headlands of Boston harbour ; passed the 
 castle and the lighthouse ; sent off oiu* pilot ; and with all sail set, 
 and a smacking breeze, we left the town behind. 
 
 As I stood upon the forecastle, and looked towards the land, which 
 soon seemed but a little streak in the horizon, and was fast sinking 
 from our sight, I seemed to feel a heavy weight drop off me. The 
 chains were gone. I felt myself a freeman ; and as I watched the 
 fast-receding shore, my bosom heaved with a proud scorn, — a mingled 
 feeling of safety and disdain. 
 
 " Farewell, my country !" — such were the thoughts that rose upon 
 my mind, and pressed to find an utterance from my lips ; — " And 
 such a country ! A land boasting to be the chosen seat of liberty
 
 174 THE WHITE slave; ok, 
 
 and equal rights, yet holding such a portion of her people in hopeless, 
 helpless, miserable bondage ! 
 
 " Farewell, my country ! Much is the gratitude and thanks I 
 owe thee ! Land of the tyrant and the slave, farewell ! 
 
 " And welcome, welcome, ye bounding billows and foamy surges of 
 the ocean ! Ye are the emblems and the children of liberty — I hail 
 ye as my brothers ! — for, at last, I too am free ! — free ! — free !" 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 The favourable breezes, with which we had set out, did not last 
 long. The weather soon became tempestuous, and we were involved 
 in fogs, and driven about by contrary winds. Our labours and hard- 
 ships were very great ; but still I found a sort of pleasure in them. 
 It was for myself that I toiled and suffered ; and that thought gave 
 me strength and vigour. 
 
 I applied myself with the greatest zeal and good-will to learn the 
 business of my profession. At first, my companions laughed at my 
 ignorance and awkwardness, and were full of their jokes and tricks 
 upon me. But though rude and thoughtless, they were generous 
 and good-natured. In the very first week of our voyage, I had a 
 fair fight with the bully of the ship. I whipped him soundly; and 
 the crew all agreed that there was something in me. 
 
 I was strong and active ; and as I made it a point to imitate what- 
 ever I saw done by any of the crew, I was surprised to find in how 
 short a time I was able to run over the rigging, and venture upon the 
 yards. The maze of ropes and sea terms that at first perplexed me, 
 soon grew clear. Before we were across the ocean, I could hand, 
 reef, and steer with any man on board ; and the crew swore with one 
 consent that I was born to be a sailor. 
 
 But I was not satisfied with setting sails and handling ropes. I 
 wished to understand the art of navigation. One of our crew was a 
 young man of good education, who served before the mast, as is 
 common with New Englanders, in expectation of presently com- 
 manding a ship himself. He had his books and his instruments ; 
 and as he had already been one or two voyages, he understood pretty 
 well Iioav to apply them, and used to keep a reckoning of the ship's 
 course. This same young sailor, Tom Turner by name, was a fine, 
 free-hearted fellow as ever lived ; but he was of a slight make, and 
 his strength was not equal to his spirit. I had gained his good-will 
 by standing by him in some of our forecastle frolics ; and seeing how 
 anxious I was to learn, he undertook to be my instructor. He put
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 175 
 
 his Navigator into my hand, and whenever it was my watch below, I 
 was constantly poring over it. At first, the whole matter seemed 
 mighty mysterious. It was some time before I could see into it. 
 But Tom, who had a fluent tongue, lectured and explained ; and I 
 listened and studied ; and presently I began to understand it. 
 
 All this time we were beating about in the neighbourhood of the 
 banks of Newfoundland ; and as we experienced a constant succession 
 of storms and contrary winds, we made but little progress. We lost 
 a couple of topsails and several of our spars ; and had been out some 
 seventy days in very rough weather. 
 
 I took it all kindly though ; I was in no hurry to get ashore. I 
 had chosen the ocean for my country ; and when the winds roared, 
 the rigging rattled, and the timbers creaked, I only wrapped my 
 monkey-jacket a little closer, braced myself against my sea-chest, and 
 studied my Navigator ; — that is, if it happened to be my watch below; 
 for when upon deck, I was always ready at the first call, and was the 
 first to spring into the rigging. 
 
 At last the weather moderated, and we made sail for the coast of 
 France. We had made the land, and were within a few leagues of 
 our harbour, when an armed brig, with the British colours flying, bore 
 down upon us, fired a shot a-head ; and sent a boat's crew on board. 
 
 In those days, American vessels were quite accustomed to such sort 
 of visitations ; and our captain did not seem to be much alarmed. 
 But no sooner had the boat's officer reached our deck, than laying his 
 hand upon his sword, he told the captain that he was a prisoner. 
 
 It seemed that while we were beating about on the Grand Bank, 
 America, at last, had screwed up her courage, and had declared war 
 against England. The armed brig was a British privateer, and we 
 were her prize. At first we were all ordered below ; but presently we 
 were called up again, and offered the choice of enlisting on board the 
 privateer, or being carried prisoners into England. Near half onr 
 crew were what the sailors call Dutchmen, that is, people from the 
 North Sea, or the coasts of the Baltic. These adventurers readily 
 enlisted. Tom Turner was spokesman for the Americans ; and when 
 called upon to follow this example, he answered the lieutenant in a 
 tone so gruff as to be little better than a growl, — " We'll see you 
 hanged first !" 
 
 For myself, I felt no patriotic scruples. I had renounced my 
 country, if, indeed, that place can be fitly called one's country, which, 
 while it gives him birth, cuts him off, by its wicked and unjust laws, 
 from everything that makes life worth having. Despite the murmurs 
 and hisses of my companions, I stepped forward, and put my name to 
 the shipping paper. Had they known my history, they would not 
 have blamed me.
 
 176 THE white slave; or, 
 
 After cruising for some time without success, we returned to 
 Liverpool to refit. Our crew was recruited, and we soon put to sea 
 again. Cruising off the coast of France, we took several prizes, but 
 none of very great value. We now made sail for the West Indies ; 
 and, in the neighbourhood of the Bermudas, while close hauled to the 
 wind and under easy sail, we discovered a vessel a-head, and gave 
 chase. 
 
 The chase slackened sail and waited for us to come up. This 
 made us suppose that it might be a man-of-war ; and, as we were 
 more anxious for plunder than for fighting, we put up the helm, and 
 bore away. 
 
 The chase now made sail in pursuit ; and as she proved to be much 
 the better sailor, she gained rapidly upon us. 
 
 When we saw that there was no chance of escaping, we took in our 
 light canvas, brought the vessel to, ran up the British flag, and 
 cleared for action. 
 
 The enemv was an armed and fast-sailing schooner — an American 
 privateer, as it proved, about a fair match for the brig in point of 
 size and armament, but in much finer trim, and most beautifully 
 worked. She ran down upon us ; her crew gave three cheers ; and, 
 shooting across our bows, she gave us a broadside that did much 
 execution. She tacked and manoeuvred till she gained a favourable 
 position, and then poured in her fire with such steadiness, that she 
 seemed all a-blaze. Her guns were well shotted and well aimed, and 
 did serious damage. Our captain and first lieutenant were soon 
 wounded and disabled. We paid back the enemy as well as we could, 
 but our men dropped fast, and our fire began to slacken. The 
 schooner's bowsprit got fast in our main rigging, and directly we heard 
 the cry for the boarders. We seized our pikes, and prepared to re- 
 ceive them ; but a party of the enemy soon got a footing on board the 
 brig, wounded the only officer on deck, and drove our men, frightened 
 and confused, towards the forecastle. 
 
 I saw our danger ; and the idea of falling again into the hands of 
 the tyrants from whom I had escaped, summoned back my ebbing 
 courage. I seemed to feel a more than human energy spring up 
 within me. I put myself at the head of our yielding and dispirited 
 crew, and fought with all the frantic valour of a mad hero of romance. 
 I struck down two or three of the foremost of the enemy ; and as they 
 quailed and shrunk before me, I cheered and encouraged my compa- 
 nions, and callsd on them to charge. My example seemed to inspire 
 them. They rallied at once, and rushed forward with new courage. 
 They drove the enemy before them, tumbled some into the sea, and 
 pressed the others back into their own vessel. 
 
 Nor did our success stop here. We boarded in our turn, and the
 
 < 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 > 
 1 

 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 177 
 
 decks of the schooner saw as bloody a battle as had been fought on 
 those of the brig. The fortune of the fight still ran in our favour, and 
 we soon drove the enemy to take refuge on the quarter-deck. We 
 called to them to surrender ; but their captain, waving his bloody 
 sword, sternly refused. He encouraged his men to charge once more, 
 and rushed furiously upon us. His cutlass clashed against my pike, 
 and flew from his hand. He slipped, and fell upon the deck ; and in 
 a moment my weapon was at his breast. 
 
 He cried for quarter. I thought I knew his face. 
 
 " Your name ?" 
 
 " Osborne ! # " 
 
 " Jonathan Osborne, late commander of the Two Sallys ?" 
 
 "The same!" 
 
 " Then die ; — a wretch like you deserves no mercy !" and as I 
 spoke, I plunged the weapon into his heart, and felt thrilling to the 
 very elbow-joint, the pleasurable sense of doing justice on a tyrant ! 
 
 But justice ought never to be sullied by passion, — and if possible, 
 should be unstained with blood. If in my feelings at that moment, 
 there was something noble, there was far too much of savage fury 
 and passionate revenge. Yet from what I then felt, I can well un- 
 derstand the fierce spirit and ferocious energy of the slave, who vin- 
 dicates his liberty at the sword's point, and who looks upon the 
 slaughter of his oppressors almost as a debt due to humanity. 
 
 The crew no sooner saw their captain slain, than they threw down 
 their arms and cried for quarter. The schooner was ours, and a 
 finer vessel never sailed the seas. 
 
 Every officer on board the brig was wounded. All confessed that 
 the capture of the prize was, in a great measure, due to me ; and 
 with the approbation of all the crew, I was put on board as prize- 
 in aster. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 YVe had a short passage to Liverpool. The schooner was con- 
 demned as a prize, and was bought in by the owners of the brig. 
 They fitted her out as a privateer ; and as they had been informed 
 how large a share I had in her capture, they offered me the command 
 of her. I readily accepted it; and having selected an experienced 
 old sailor for my first lieutenant, I soon collected a crew, and set sail. 
 
 The cruising ground which I preferred, was the coast of America. 
 Off the harbour of Boston we were so lucky as to fall in with, and 
 make prize of a homeward bound East-Indiaman, with a very valuable 
 cargo of teas and silks. We put a prize-crew on board and sent her 
 
 N
 
 178 THE WHITE slave; or, 
 
 off for Liverpool, where she arrived safely, and produced us a very- 
 handsome sum in prize-money. We now stood to the southward ; 
 and for a month or two we cruised off the capes of A'irginia. As we 
 kept well into the coast, we often made the land ; and I never saw it 
 without feeling a strong inclination to send a boat's crew ashore, and 
 to kidnap from theii' beds such of the nearest planters as I could lay 
 my hands upon. But I did not think it prudent to attempt to carry 
 into execution this piece of experimental instruction, of which the 
 Virginians stand so much in need. 
 
 My cruising adventures, chases, and escapes would fill a volume ; 
 but they are little to my present purpose. Suffice it to say, that 
 while the war lasted I kept the seas ; 'and when it ended, most reluc- 
 tantly I left them. My share in the prizes we had taken rendered 
 me wealthy, — at least, what the moderation of my wishes made me 
 esteem so. But what was to supply the ever varying stimulus and 
 excitement which, till now, had sustained me, and prevented my mind 
 from preying on itself, and poisoning my peace with bitter recollec- 
 tions ? The images of my wife, my child, and of the friend to whom 
 I owed so much, often, on my voyages, flitted mournfully across my 
 mind ; but the cry of " Sail ahead " would call off my thoughts, and 
 dissipate my incipient melancholy in the bustle of action. But now 
 that I was on shore, homeless, alone, a stranger, with nothing to 
 occupy my mind, — the thoughts of those dear sufferers haunted me 
 continually. The very first thing I did was to look up a trusty agent 
 whom I might send in search of them. Such a one I found. I 
 gave him all the information which might promote the object of his 
 mission ; I allowed him an uulimited credit on my banker ; and sti- 
 mulated his zeal by a handsome advance, and the promise of a still 
 larger reward, if he succeeded in the object of his mission. 
 
 He saded for America by the first opportunity ; and I consoled 
 mvseif with the hope that his search would be successful. In the 
 meantime, to have some occupation that might keep off anxious 
 doubts and troublesome anxieties, I applied myself to study. When 
 a child, I had a fondness for reading, and an ardent love of know- 
 ledge. This love of knowledge, the accursed discipline of servitude 
 had stifled and kept under, but had not totally extinguished. I was 
 astonished to find it still so strong. Having once turned my atten- 
 tion that way, my mind drank in all sorts of information, as the 
 thirsty earth imbibes the rain. I might rather be said to devour 
 books, than to read them. I scarcely gave myself time to sleep. 
 No sooner had I finished one, than I hurried to another with restless 
 inquietude. I read on without selection or discrimination. It was 
 a long time before I learned to compare, to weigh, and to judge. It 
 happened to me as it has happened to mankind in general. In my
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 179 
 
 anxiety to know, I was ready to take everything on trust ; and I did 
 not stop to distinguish between what was fact, and what was fiction. 
 But while I allowed an abundance of folly and falsehood to be palmed 
 upon me under the sober disguise of truth, I had but little taste for 
 writers professedly imaginative. I could not understand why they 
 wrote, or what they aimed at. I despised the poets ; but voyages, 
 travels, histories and narratives of every sort, I devoured with un- 
 distinguishing voracity. Time and reflection have since enabled me 
 to extract something of truth and philosophy from these chaotic 
 acquisitions. 
 
 For a while, my studies had much the same stimulating and 
 exciting effect with my former activity. They raised my spirits, and 
 enabled me to bear up under the discouraging advices which I re- 
 ceived from America. But they palled at last ; — and when my agent 
 returned with the disastrous information, that all his searches had 
 been unavailing, I found no support under the load of grief that over- 
 whelmed me. 
 
 From such information as my agent had been able to obtain, it 
 appeared that Mrs. Montgomery, Cassy's mistress, had become secu- 
 rity to a large amount for that brother of hers, by whose advice and 
 agency she managed her affairs. That brother was a planter ; and 
 among the American planters, the passion for gambling is next to 
 universal, — for it is one of the few excitements by which they are 
 able to relieve the listless and wearisome indolence of their useless 
 lives. Mrs. Montgomery's brother was a gambler, and an unsuccess- 
 ful one. Having ruined himself, he began to prey upon his sister. 
 Besides embezzling all such money of hers as he could lay his hands 
 upon, — and as he had the entire management of her affairs, her in- 
 come was much at his disposal, — he induced her, under various pre- 
 tences, to put her name to bonds and notes to a large amount. On 
 these notes and bonds suits were commenced, but this her brother, 
 who strove to defer the disclosure of his villanies as long as possible, 
 took care to conceal from her ; and the first thing she knew of the 
 matter, her entire property was seized on execution. 
 
 Among her other chattels, my wife and child were sold, — for it is 
 the law and the practice of America to sell women and children to 
 pay the debts of a gambler ! 
 
 Cassy and her infant had fallen into the hands of a gentleman, — 
 such is the American phrase, — who followed the lucrative and respect- 
 able business of a slave trader. My agent no sooner learned bis 
 name, than he set out in pursuit of him. But he found that the man 
 had been dead for a year or two ; and that he had left no papers 
 behind him, from which might be traced the history of his slave- 
 trading expeditions. Not yet discouraged, my agent travelled over 
 
 n2
 
 180 THE WHITE SLAVEJ OR, 
 
 the entire route which he was told the deceased slave-trader had 
 usually followed. He even succeeded in getting some trace of the 
 very gang of slaves which had heen purchased at the sale of Mrs. 
 Montgomery's property. He tracked them from village to village, till 
 he arrived at Augusta, in the state of Georgia, — but here he lost 
 sight of them altogether. That town is, or was, one of the great 
 marts of the American slave-trade ; and here, in all probability, the 
 slaves were sold ; but to whom it was impossible to discover. 
 
 Thus baffled in his search, my agent had recourse to advertise- 
 ments in the newspapers, in which the person of my wife was parti- 
 cularly described, mention was made of the name of her late owner, 
 and a very generous reward was offered to any one who would give 
 information where she or her child was to be found. These adver- 
 tisements brought him an abundance of communications, but none to 
 the purpose ; and after having spent near two years in the search, he 
 gave it up at last, as unavailing. 
 
 Of Thomas he could learn nothing, except that General Carter had 
 never retaken him. A man of his figure and appearance had been 
 occasionally seen traversing the woods of that neighbourhood, and 
 lurking about the plantations; and it seemed not unlikely that he 
 was still alive, and the leader of some band of runaways. Such was 
 the information which my agent brought me. 
 
 While he remained in America, however little encouragement his 
 letters gave, still I could hope. But now the last staff of consolation 
 was plucked from under me. What availed it, that I had myself 
 shaken off the chains which were still hanging, and perhaps with a 
 weight so much the heavier to the friend of my heart, to the wife of 
 my bosom, to the dear, dear infant, the child of my love ? The curse 
 of tyranny indeed is multifold ; nay, infinite ! — It blasted me across 
 the broad Atlantic, and when I thought of Cassy and my boy, I 
 shrunk and trembled as if again the irons were upon me, and the 
 bloody lash cracking about my head ! — Almighty God ! why hast 
 thou created beings capable of so much misery ! 
 
 I recovered slowly from the shock which, at first, had quite, un- 
 manned me. But though I regained some degree of composure, it 
 was in vain that I courted anything like enjoyment. A worm was 
 gnawing at my heart which would not be appeased. Never was 
 there a bosom more inclined than mine to the gentle pleasures of 
 domestic life. But I found only torture in the recollection that I 
 was a husband and a father. Oh, had my wife and my dear boy 
 been with me, in what a sweet retirement I could have spent my 
 days, ever finding a new relish for present bliss in the recollection of 
 ills endured and miseries escaped ! 
 
 The sense of loneliness which oppressed me, and the bitter
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 181 
 
 thoughts and hateful images that were ever crowding on my mind, 
 made my life an irksome burden, and drove me to seek relief in the 
 excitements of travel. I visited every country in Europe, and sought 
 occupation and amusement in examining their schemes of society, and 
 studying their laws and manners. I traversed Turkey and the 
 regions of the East, once the seats of art and opulence, but long 
 since ruined by the heavy hand of tyranny, and the ever renewed 
 extortions of military pillage. I crossed the Persian deserts, and 
 saw in India a new and better civilization slowly rising upon the 
 ruins of the old. 
 
 The interest I felt in the oppressed and unfortunate race with 
 which, upon the mother's side, I am connected, carried me again 
 across the ocean. I have climbed the lofty crests of the Andes and 
 wandered among the flowery forests of Brazil. 
 
 Everywhere I have seen the hateful empire of aristocratic usurpa- 
 tion lording it with a high hand over the lives, the liberty, and the 
 happiness of men. But everywhere, or almost everywhere, I have 
 seen the bondsmen beginning to forget the base lore of traditionary 
 subserviency, and already feeling the impulses and lisping in the lan- 
 guage of freedom. I have seen it everywhere ; — everywhere, ex- 
 cept in my native America. 
 
 There are slaves in many other countries ; but nowhere else is 
 oppression so heartless and unrelenting. Nowhere else has tyranny 
 ever assumed a shape so flendish. Nowhere else is it, of all the 
 world beside, the open aim of the laws, and the professed purpose of 
 the masters, to blot out the intellects of half the population, and to 
 extinguish at once and for ever, both the capacity and the hope of 
 freedom. 
 
 In catholic Brazil, — in the Spanish islands, where one might expect 
 to find tyranny aggravated by ignorance and superstition, the slave is 
 still regarded as a man, and as entitled to something of human sym- 
 pathies. He may kneel at the altar by his master's side, and he may 
 hear the catholic priest proclaiming boldly from his pulpit, the sacred 
 truth that all men are equal. He may find consolation and support 
 in the hope of one day becoming a freeman. He may purchase his 
 liberty with money; if barbarously and unreasonably punished, he 
 may demand it as his legal right ; he may expect it from the grati- 
 tude or the generosity of his master, or from the conscience-stricken 
 dictates of his priest-attended deathbed. When he becomes a free- 
 man he has a freeman's rights, and enjoys a real and practical 
 equality, at the mere mention of which, the prating and prejudiced 
 Americans are filled with creeping horror and passionate indignation. 
 
 Slavery, in those countries, by the force of causes now in opera- 
 tion, is fast approaching to its end ; and let the African slave-trade
 
 182 THE WHITE SLAVE; OE, 
 
 be once totally abolished, and before the expiration of half a 
 century, there will not a slave be found in either Spanish or Portuguese 
 America. 
 
 It is in the United States alone, that country so apt to claim a 
 monopoly of freedom, that the spirit of tyranny still soars boldly 
 triumphant, and disdains even the most distant thought of limitation. 
 Here alone, of ail the world beside, oppression riots unchecked by 
 fear of God or sympathy for man. 
 
 To add the last security to despotism, the American slave-holders, 
 while they fiercely refuse to relinquish the least tittle of their whip- 
 wielding authority, have deprived themselves, by special statute, of 
 the power of emancipation, and have thus artfully and industriously 
 closed up the last loop-hole through which hope might look in upon 
 their victims ! 
 
 And thou my child ! — These are the mercies to which thy youth 
 is delivered over ! Perhaps already the spirit of manhood is extin- 
 guished within thee ; already perhaps the frost of servitude has nipped 
 thy budding soul, and left it blasted, — worthless. 
 
 No ! — oh no ! — It ought not, must not, cannot, shall not be so ! 
 Child ! thou hast yet a father ; one who has not forgotten, and who 
 will not forsake thee. Thy need is great — and great shall be his 
 efforts ; that love is little worth which disappointment tires or 
 danger daunts. 
 
 Yes, — I have resolved it. I will revisit America, and through the 
 length and the breadth of the land I will search out my child. I will 
 snatch him from the oppressor's grasp, or perish in the attempt. 
 Should I be recognised and seized ? — It is not in vain that I have 
 read the history of the Romans ; I know a way to disappoint the 
 tyrants ; the guilt be on their heads ! I cannot be a slave the second 
 time. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 Having formed the resolve recorded at the close of the last 
 chapter, I began immediately to make preparations to carry it into 
 execution ; and now once more I resume my pen to recount my fur- 
 ther adventures. 
 
 I had lived for years past a life of constant uneasiness and anxiety ; 
 haunted, as it were, by the spectres of wife and child, pale, weeping, 
 holding out imploring hands, as if calling to me for aid and deliver- 
 ance. From the moment that I began to prepare for my new journey 
 and search, I felt a lightness, an exhilaration, a relief, as if a great 
 stone had been plucked out of my heart. Now, at last, I had again
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 183 
 
 something to live and to strive for ; a shadow perhaps, one so vain 
 and unsubstantial, that ever since the failure of my former searches 
 it had seemed idle to attempt to pursue it. Yet how much better to 
 pursue even a shadow if one can but prevail upon himself for the 
 moment to think it real, than to sit still in hopeless and idle vacuity ! 
 Man was made to hope and to act. 
 
 Before leaving England, I took care to provide myself with pass- 
 ports as a British subject, under the name of Captain Archer Moore, 
 by which I was known to my English acquaintances ; and with letters 
 also of introduction to the mercantile correspondents of those ac- 
 quaintances in the principal commercial towns of America. It was in 
 the character of a traveller, curious to investigate American society, 
 that I revisited the country of my birth. 
 
 As it was from Boston that I had taken my departure, so I resolved 
 to reland there, and thence to retrace my steps to the scenes of my 
 youth, as the first means towards obtaining, if possible, some clew to 
 the object of my search. 
 
 It was now more than twenty years since I had hastily fled from 
 Boston, a panting fugitive, eager to find on the boisterous ocean, or 
 somewhere beyond it, that freedom which the laws of America denied 
 me there. How different from the stern and desperate spirit of defi- 
 ance with which I had seen those shores fade from my sight, was the 
 tender sentiment, rising almost to hope, with which I again saw 
 spreading out before me that same land, emerging from the waters ; 
 cruel land of bondage as it had been to me, but where yet I might — 
 O kind Heaven that I might ! — regain a long-lost wife and child ! 
 
 As we landed at the wharf and made our way into the town, we 
 found it in a state of great confusion. A vast crowd, mostly of well- 
 dressed people, was collected about a building which I afterwards 
 understood to be the City Hall ; and just as we approached it, an 
 unfortunate person, with a rope about his neck, was dragged, appa- 
 rently from some neighbouring house or by-way, into the middle of 
 the street. The shout was raised, Hang him ! hang him ! and the 
 gentlemen in fine broadcloth, in whose hands he was, seemed quite 
 ready to do the bidding of the mob, and to be looking round as if 
 for some lamp-post or other convenience for that purpose. Making 
 our way with great difficulty to an adjoining street, we found it com- 
 pletely choked up with a well-dressed crowd, through which, amid 
 jeers and insults, a few women, holding each other's hands, slowly 
 made their way, retreating apparently from a neighbouring building, 
 and for some reason or other, evidently objects of very great indigna- 
 tion. 
 
 On reaching my hotel, called, I think, the Tremont House, I 
 anxiously inquired into the occasion of all this tumult. The landlord
 
 184 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OK, 
 
 informed me, that it had all been caused by the obstinacy of the 
 women whom I had seen in the streets. In spite of the remon- 
 strances of the citizens, as expressed at a great public meeting lately 
 held, in which all the leading merchants and lawyers had participated, 
 these obstinate females had persisted in meeting to pray for and to 
 plot the abolition of slavery ; and what was still more provoking, to 
 listen to the exhortations on that subject of an emissary lately sent 
 over from England. It was the object of the gentlemanly mob I had 
 seen, composed, as he assured me, of men of property and standing, 
 to catch this emissary if they could, and to punish him in some fitting 
 way for his insolence. 
 
 " And pray," said I, " as you have no slaves in Boston, nor, I 
 believe, in this part of the country, why all this zeal against these 
 good women? Being an Englishman myself, I must confess to some 
 little interest in this unfortunate countryman of mine, w r hom vour 
 Boston gentry are so anxious to hang. Why need your lawvers and 
 merchants play the dog in the manger — neither themselves do any- 
 thing to abolish slavery, nor even allow the women to pray for it?" 
 
 "As a stranger and an Englishman," said the landlord, who, though 
 in a great state of excitement against the offending females, was evi- 
 dently a person not without good feelings, " these things may seem a 
 little strange to you. Yet allow me to suggest a word of caution. 
 It would be an unpleasant thing for me to have one of my guests 
 seized as a British emissary, and made to undergo the scrutiny and 
 perhaps insults of a party of volunteer police. Suffice it to say, that 
 just at this moment the price of cotton is very high, and southern trade 
 a great objcet. New York and Philadelphia have set the example of 
 mobbing the abolitionists, and we should be in danger of losing all 
 our southern customers if we did not follow the example. Besides, 
 at a public meeting held here in Boston, we have just nominated a 
 candidate for president ; and should we fail in zeal for southern 
 interests, how are we to expect to get any southern votes?" 
 
 After this specimen of Boston, I saw nothing to detain me there, 
 and so hastened on to New York. It was not without strong 
 emotions that I stood again in the Park, on the very spot where 
 General Carter had seized and claimed me as a slave. The whole 
 scene, with all its incidents, came back to my mind as fresh as at the 
 moment of the seizure, and I walked straight to the court-room to 
 which I had been carried, with as little doubt, hesitation, or uncer- 
 tainty as if it had all happened the day before. There were a number 
 of prisoners at the bar, the room was crowded with spectators, and a 
 trial or examination of evident interest was going on. It soon 
 appeared, that the prisoners were charged with having sacked and 
 plundered a number of houses, whose occupants were suspected to be
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 185 
 
 tainted with abolitionism, and of having, in the same spirit, burnt 
 down an African church. The feeling in the court-room seemed, 
 however, altogether in favour of the prisoners, and such, as far as I 
 could judge by the newspapers, and the conversations which I heard, 
 was the current opinion of the city. The prevailing idea seemed to 
 be, that the persons really guilty of the riots were those who had 
 suffered by them, since it was their pestilent, unpopular opinions which 
 had stirred up the mob to sack and plunder their houses. 
 
 What I saw in New York and Boston served to cure me of an 
 error, as to America, sufficiently common. I had supposed that in 
 the free states, so called, there was really some freedom. I knew 
 indeed, by my own experience, that no asylum was to be found there 
 by refugee slaves from the southern states ; but I had imagined that 
 the native-born inhabitants did enjoy a certain degree of liberty. My 
 mistake in this respect was now very apparent. No one in New York 
 or Boston was at liberty, at the time of my visit, to entertain, or at 
 least publicly to express, any detestation of the system of slavery, or 
 desire or hope for its speedy abolition, under penalty of being visited 
 with the public indignation. Such persons indeed would be lucky if 
 they escaped without insult to their persons, and destruction of their 
 property. The leading politicians, lawyers, and merchants of those 
 cities under whose encouragement and instigation these outrages were 
 inflicted, seemed to stand in no less awe and terror of the anger of 
 the southern planters than the very slaves who delved the plantations. 
 Those slaves were held in cheek by the whip and superior force ; the 
 northern freemen, so called, by their own pusdlauimity and base love 
 of money. In fact, already I began to doubt whether this voluntary 
 slavery of the nominally free — voluntary on the part of an over- 
 whelming majority, however a virtuous and noble minority might 
 struggle against it — was not every way a more wretched and lament- 
 able thing than the forced slavery of the labourers of the south. 
 Hitherto I had hated a country from whose prison-houses I had 
 with such difficulty escaped, and which continued to retain, if indeed 
 death had not fortunately delivered them, those nearest and dearest 
 to me. To this hatred I now began to add contempt for a mean- 
 spirited population, in which there were more voluntary slaves than 
 forced ones. 
 
 From New York I passed on to Philadelphia, and thence to "Wash- 
 ington. That city had greatly expanded since, as one of a chained 
 gang of slaves, I had been lodged in the slave-prison of Messrs. 
 Savage, Brothers & Company, for shipment to the south. In every 
 village and town on my way, I heard the same execrations vented 
 against the abolitionists, with accounts of new riots in which they had 
 suffered, or new attempts to subject them to more legal punishments.
 
 186 THE white slave; or, 
 
 There seemed to be a general conspiracy against freedom of speech 
 and freedom of the press. A learned judge of Massachusetts, after 
 severely denouncing the abolitionists as incendiaries, proposed to have 
 them indicted at common law as guilty of sedition, if not of treason. 
 The accomplished governor of the same state said ditto to the judge, 
 and added fresh denunciations of his own. Almost the only person 
 in New England of any note, as I understood, who ventured to with- 
 stand this popular clamour, or to drop a word of apology for those 
 unfortunate abolitionists, was Dr. Channing, whose writings have made 
 him well known wherever the English language is read ; but whose 
 refusal, on this occasion, to become by silence a participator in the 
 outrages going on around him, had very nearly destroyed, at least for 
 the time, his weight and influence at home. 
 
 Washington I found in the greatest state of excitement. An un- 
 fortunate botanist, who had been gathering plants in the neighbour- 
 hood, had, from some cause or other, fallen under suspicion as being 
 an abolitionist. His person, room, and trunks had been searched. 
 He was found to have in possession a pile of newspapers, which was 
 made to serve the purpose of an herbarium, in which to dry, press, 
 and preserve his plants. This pile of papers, on being carefully scru- 
 tinized, was found to contain some articles bearing strongly to aboli- 
 tion sentiments. The whole District of Columbia was at once in com- 
 motion. The unfortunate botanist had been immediately arrested on 
 the charge of having in his possession an incendiary publication. The 
 alarm had reached a very high pitch ; but when it was known that 
 this botanical incendiary, this fellow who sought to entice the flowers 
 and the herbage into a bloody conspiracy, was safely locked up in 
 jail, and all bail refused, the city of Washington, especially the southern 
 members of Congress, once more breathed freely, as if delivered from 
 impending destruction. 
 
 The high degree of excitement, alarm, and terror which I found 
 thus prevailing wherever I went, and which, according to all accounts, 
 overspread at this moment the whole United States, was much of a 
 puzzle to me. I doubt very much whether the Stamp Act itself had 
 caused half so much commotion. Even the sacking of Washington 
 by the British could hardly have produced more alarm than I found 
 prevailing in that city and neighbourhood. The mere fact that a few 
 women of Boston had formed a society to pray for the abolition of 
 slavery, or that a file of abolition newspapers had found its way to 
 the District of Columbia, did not seem sufficient to account for so 
 great an alarm. Even the circumstance that a Miss Prudence Cran- 
 dall, somewhere in Connecticut, had set up a school to winch she 
 admitted coloured children on terms of equality with her white pupils, 
 would not appeal' in itself so alarming a matter, since a number of
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 187 
 
 the most pious and distinguished gentlemen of her state and neigh- 
 bourhood, including a judge of the United States court, had taken an 
 early opportunity to break up her school and to send her out of the 
 town. I was assured, in fact, that this was not all. This Boston 
 female society and Connecticut school were only small items. I was 
 told of a grand plot formed by the abolitionists, tending to the most 
 alarming results ; no less than the cutting the throats of all the white 
 men throughout the south, horrible indignities upon all the white 
 women, the ruin of northern trade and commerce, the destruction 
 of the south, and the dissolution of the Union. It was admitted by 
 some of the more charitable persons with whom I conversed, that pos- 
 sibly the abolitionists themselves did not distinctly contemplate all 
 these ends. But they asked for the immediate abolition of slavery — 
 a thing which could end in nothing but in the above-mentioned dis- 
 asters and horrors. 
 
 I had a great curiosity to know who these formidable plotters, 
 objects of so much alarm and terror, might be. I was not ignorant 
 of affairs in America, but of these terrible abolitionists I had never 
 heard; indeed it would seem as if they had all at once started sud- 
 denly out of the ground. I learnt, upon inquiry, that within a short 
 time past there had sprung up, in New England and elsewhere, several 
 societies, delegates from which had lately met at New York, to the 
 number of twelve men, where they had formed a national society. 
 It was the fundamental principle of those societies, that to hold men 
 in forced bondage was politically wrong, socially a crime, and theo- 
 logically a sin; disqualifying those guilty of it to be esteemed either 
 good democrats, good men, or good Christians; and that, nationally 
 and individually, this wrong, crime and sin ought to be at once re- 
 pented of and abandoned. These fanatical persons had rapidly in- 
 creased in numbers. Several wealthy merchants, several zealous and 
 eloquent divines, had joined them. A good deal of money, as much 
 as forty or fifty thousand dollars, had been contributed and expended 
 in the dissemination of this startling creed, partly by agents and mis- 
 sionaries sent forth for that purpose, partly by the publication of 
 newspapers, of which there were already two or three devoted to the 
 cause, and especially by the printing of tracts, setting forth the cruel- 
 ties and injustice of slavery, which had been sent by mail into all 
 parts of the country, even into the southern states. 
 
 It was these tracts that had throws the whole south, planters, poli- 
 ticians, merchants, lawyers, divines, into an agony of terror, a terror 
 with which even the people of the north so far sympathized as to be 
 ready to trample under foot, for the extinction of these horrible inno- 
 vators, every safeguard of liberty hitherto esteemed the most sacred. 
 Free speaking and free writing were not to be any longer tolerated.
 
 188 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 Throughout the United States, so far as related to the subject of 
 slavery, they were to be suppressed by mob violence. 
 
 A few hundred men and women, hitherto mostly obscure and un- 
 known, by the holding of a few public meetings and the publication 
 of a few tracts, had thrown a whole country into commotion. Not 
 John the Baptist, when he preached that the kingdom of heaven was 
 at hand, had more terribly alarmed King Herod, the scribes and the 
 Pharisees; and now, as then, the murder of the innocents seemed to 
 be thought the most feasible way of staving off the apprehended 
 catastrophe. 
 
 As there are glens among the mountains where the faintest spoken 
 words come back in thunder from a thousand echoes, so there are 
 times and seasons when human hearts respond in like manner to the 
 faintest uttered truth, testifying to the force of it, sometimes by loud 
 response of approbation and applause, sometimes in deafening shouts 
 of indignation, defiance, and conscience-stricken dread. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 Having reached Richmond on my southern journey, I found that 
 city also showing the general alarm. A committee of vigilance for 
 the suppression of incendiary publications was vigorously at work; 
 and as we drove into the town, a great bonfire was burning in the 
 main street, consisting of publications lately seized and condemned. 
 One of the books thus burnt at the stake was made up, I was told, 
 entirely of extracts from speeches delivered within a few years past in. 
 the Virginia house of delegates, in which the evils of slavery had 
 been pretty strongly depicted. But whatever liberty of that sort 
 might previously have been allowed, nothing of the kind was to be 
 tolerated for the future. 
 
 At Richmond I procured a horse and servant, — for in Lower Vir- 
 ginia there were no public conveyances, — and set off on a visit to 
 Spring Meadow, my birth-place. To satisfy inquiries, — since any 
 traveller, a stranger and unknown, was at that time liable to suspicion, 
 — I gave out that, on a former visit to the country, many years be- 
 fore, I had become acquainted with the family at Spring-Meadow, to 
 which, indeed, I claimed a distant relationship. As I began to ap- 
 proach that neighbourhood, I found the aspect of desolation and 
 desertion characteristic enough of Virginia as I remembered it, and 
 as I now again saw it, growing more and more marked. As I rode 
 along, absorbed in thought, my eyes at length met an object which I 
 recognised, being no other than the shop and dwelling-house of Mr.
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 189 
 
 Jemmy Gordon, situated at the crotch of the roads, some six or seven 
 miles from Spring Meadow. It was a fine, warm, summer afternoon, 
 and on a rude bench or settle beside the door was sitting, more asleep 
 than awake, an old gentleman, who, to the best of my recollection, 
 could be no other than Mr. Jemmy himself. I accordingly addressed 
 him as Mr. Gordon, when he roused himself up, did the honours of 
 the house with a grace, and bade me walk in and refresh myself with 
 a glass of peach brandy. He confessed, however, that I had the 
 advantage of him, as he found it impossible to recollect my name. I 
 endeavoured to remind him of a young Mr. Moore, an Englishman, 
 who, some twenty years before, had passed a week or two at Spring 
 Meadow, and more than once had ridden by his shop ; and after a 
 good deal of nodding, thinking, and muttering to himself, he declared 
 at last that he recollected me perfectly. When I inquired after 
 Spring Meadow and its occupants, Mr. Gordon shook his head mourn- 
 fully. " Gone, sir, all gone to rack and ruin. Colonel Moore, in his 
 old age, was obliged to move off somewhere to Alabama, with such of 
 the hands as he could save from the clutch of the sheriff; and that's 
 the last I've heard of him. The old plantation has been abandoned 
 these ten years ; and the last time I was by there, the roof of the 
 mansion-house was all tumbling in." As I knew there was no house 
 nearer than Gordon's, I begged of him to entertain me for a day or 
 two, while I took a turn round the old plantation. From my conver- 
 sation with him, I learnt that, with the decrease of the population in 
 the neighbourhood, his trade bad fallen off, and that he too, had 
 serious thoughts, old as he was, of moving off to Alabama, or some- 
 where else at the south-west. Early the next morning, leaving my 
 servant and horse behind me, I set off on foot. But I was no sooner 
 out of sight of Jemmy Gordon's house than I directed my steps, not 
 to Spring Meadow, but to that old deserted plantation on the higher 
 lands above, to which I had fled with Cassy, and where, in the hope- 
 fulness and thoughtlessness of youth, runaways as we were, we had 
 passed some weeks of happy privacy, ending, indeed, in heavy tribu- 
 lation. The great house had now completely fallen, and was one 
 undistinguishable heap of ruins ; but the little brick dairy, near the 
 run below, was very much in the same condition as when we had 
 found in it a temporary shelter. As I sat down beneath one of the 
 great trees by which it was shaded, how all the past came rushing up 
 before me ! 
 
 After an hour or two of reverie, I made my way through the woods 
 to Spring Meadow, where I found another similar scene of desolation. 
 The garden, where I had spent so many thoughtless hours in childish 
 sports with Master James, was now overgrown with persimmons, 
 which choked and overshadowed the few remaining shrubberies. Yet
 
 190 THE WHITE SLAVE; OR, 
 
 the old garden walks might be distinctly traced in several places, and 
 there were considerable remnants of an old summer-house, where we 
 had sat hour after hour, hid away from his brother William, and 
 studying Master James's lessons together. Adjoining the garden 
 was the family burying-ground, and over Master James's grave I 
 dropped a tear. My mother's grave I had to seek in another part of 
 the plantation. What stranger, lighting on the spot, could have now 
 distinguished, from any difference in the grass and trees that waved 
 above them, or in the wild aspect around of nature regaining her 
 dominion, in which spot the master rested, and in which the slave ? 
 These silent graves, already half obliterated, no less than the fast 
 mouldering ruins of what had once been the seat of opulence and 
 plenty, seemed plainly to testify that not by such means were families 
 to be perpetuated, prosperous communities to be founded, or perma- 
 nent triumphs over nature secured. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 Returning to Richmond, I found that consequential little town 
 still in a state of the greatest alarm. The whole ordinary course of 
 law had been set aside, and a self-constituted committee of vigilance 
 assuming to dictate to the citizens what newspapers they should be 
 allowed to receive, and what books to read, or to have in their houses. 
 At such a moment, it was very easy to fall under suspicion ; and un- 
 fortunately, just before setting out on my late excursion, I had drawn 
 attention to myself at the dinner table, by an unlucky jest at the 
 fright into which the great state of Virginia had been thrown by a 
 few picture books ; for it was the cuts with which some of the aboli- 
 tion tracts were illustrated which seemed to inspire the greatest 
 alarm. My coming back redoubled their suspicions. I had hardly 
 had time to wash and dress myself, when I was waited upon by three 
 grave-looking gentlemen, among the most respectable citizens of the 
 town, as the landlord assured me, and in terms polite, but very 
 peremptory, they required me to make my immediate appearance before 
 the vigilance committee, then sitting in the town-hall. 
 
 I had brought letters to a merchant of the place, whom I found, 
 like most of the merchants in the southern towns, to be a northern 
 man by birth, and from whom, on the presentation of my letters on 
 my first arrival, I had received the usual attentions. With some 
 difficulty I obtained leave from the bailiffs of the vigilance committee 
 to send for this gentleman, and also for another, whom I had met at 
 his house at dinner, and whom I understood to be a leading lawyer.
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 191 
 
 The merchant soon sent me an apology for not coming. His wife 
 had suddenly been seized with an alarmins; sickness, which made it 
 impossible for him to leave her. But when I read this note to the 
 three volunteer bailiffs, who still remained with me, regaling them- 
 selves with mint juleps at my expense, they heard it with an in- 
 credulous smile ; and one of them exclaimed, " What more could you 
 expect of the sneaking Yankee? He means to keep himself out of 
 harm's way, at all events." 
 
 The lawyer soon made his appearance, and having accepted a fee, 
 entered with great apparent, and I dare say real, zeal into my case. 
 I begged to know whether those who had summoned me before 
 them possessed any legal authority, and whether I was bound to pay 
 any attention to their summons. I had supposed, I said, that the 
 state of Virginia was a country of laws, and that I could only be held 
 to answer to some charge sworn against me before some magistrate. 
 Was I obhged to submit to a personal examination before this vigi- 
 lance committee? To this my friendly lawyer replied, that in the 
 present state of alarm, the law was suspended. The necessity of self- 
 preservation rose above all law ; and in the imminent danger to which 
 the whole southern states were exposed, — the breaking out of a 
 general slave insurrection, — everything must be sacrificed to the 
 safety of the community. The throats of the white inhabitants, the 
 purity of their wives and daughters, were at risk. Two Yankee 
 schoolmasters had been warned out of the town the day before, and 
 nothing- but the earnest efforts of himself and a few others, and their 
 own prudence in not attempting the slightest resistance to this man- 
 date, had saved them from the indignity, perhaps, of a public flogging 
 and a coat of tar and feathers. As it was, they had been obliged to 
 fly because they had not known how to hold their foolish Yankee 
 tongues, — this perhaps was a sly hit at my own imprudent freedom of 
 speech, — the chief witness and informant against them being a fellow 
 whom one of them had sued the day before to recover payment for 
 several quarters' schooling for his children, and who, so the lawyer 
 seemed to intimate, had taken this compendious method of squaring 
 the account. It would be safest for me, in the present excited state 
 of the public mind, if I wished to save myself from disagreeable per- 
 sonal indignities, to pay the greatest deference to the committee and 
 their orders; and he would do his best to get me off as easily as 
 possible. 
 
 Having found, upon inquiry, that the English consul was absent 
 from the city, I hastened with my lawyer to wait upon the vigilance 
 committee, and the more so, as a second detachment of volunteer 
 bailiffs had already arrived, rather ominously backed by a mob, col- 
 lected before the door of the hotel, with orders to bring me by force,
 
 192 THE WHITE SLAVE; OK, 
 
 if I delayed any longer. Those who had me in charge did their best 
 to protect me, yet I did not entirely escape without insults from the 
 crowd. 
 
 Having arrived in the august presence of the committee, I found 
 myself obliged to submit to a very stringent examination on the part 
 of the chairman, a sharp-nosed, grey-eyed gentleman, and in spectacles, 
 deacon, I was told, of a Presbyterian church. He inquired as to my 
 name, birthplace, occupation, and object in visiting the country ; 
 which I stated to be, to observe its manners and customs, and, in 
 fact, as I added, I had found them very singular indeed, and well 
 worthy of a traveller's curiosity. I might, however, as well have 
 kept my observations to myself, for this sally brought a scowl blacker 
 than before across the brows of the very solemn-looking committee, 
 and a reproving shake of the head and glance of the eye from my 
 friendly lawyer, who sat in one corner, but who was not allowed to 
 take any part in the proceedings. 
 
 In the course of my answers, I had referred to my letter of intro- 
 duction brought to the merchant, to whom a message was imme- 
 diately sent, to come before the committee, and to bring that letter 
 with him. His wife must have recruited very suddenly, for in a sur- 
 prisingly short time the merchant made his appearance, with the letter 
 in his hand ; the sweat running down his face, and the poor man 
 trembling in an agony of terror, that went far to raise grave suspicions 
 against both him and me. The letter happened to be from Tappan, 
 "Wentworth, & Co., well-known bankers of Liverpool. No sooner 
 had the chairman read the signature, than his face, though quite long 
 and serious enough before, underwent a very sudden elongation ; bis 
 eyebrows rising up like those of a man who had just seen a ghost, or 
 something else very terrible — "Tappan! Tappan!" he repeated to 
 himself several times, in a sharp, quick, but snivelling tone — 
 " Tappan ! Tappan ! there we have it ; a bloody emissary, no doubt ! 
 That, you know," he continued, turning to his colleagues, " is the 
 name of the New York silk merchant, who is one of the leaders in 
 this nefarious conspiracy, and who has given I don't know how many 
 thousand dollars to circulate these horrid incendiary tracts. How I 
 wish I had the rascal here now ! I should rejoice to be one to help 
 put a rope round his neck. Ah, Mr. Doeface," he added, with an 
 ominous nod to the poor trembling merchant to whom the letter was 
 addressed, and a look in which indignation and commisseration were 
 about equally mingled — " Ah, Mr. Doeface, I am very sorry to find 
 that you have any such correspondents." 
 
 Exclamations, threats, and oaths resounded from all sides of the 
 crowded hall, and before either Mr. Doeface, who seemed indeed past 
 speaking, or I, could get in a word, messengers were despatched to
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 193 
 
 search the merchant's house from garret to cellar, and his warehouses 
 also, in hopes of discovering some of the obnoxious tracts, while others 
 were deputed to break open and examine my trunks ; which breaking 
 open, however, I prevented by handing out my keys. Meanwhile, 
 with very great difficulty, I brought the honourable chairman and his 
 colleagues to perceive that the letter which had produced so great a 
 commotion, was dated not at New York, but at Liverpool ; and as I 
 happened to have in my pocket-book two or three other letters of 
 credit from the same firm to merchants in Charleston and New 
 Orleans, I at length succeeded in making it understood that my 
 letter of introduction was not, after all, such palpable evidence of 
 treason and sedition as had at first been supposed. 
 
 Luckily, my friend, the Yankee merchant, had but very little of a 
 literary turn. After a thorough search of his premises, the committee 
 of inspection were able to discover nothing except a number of pic- 
 ture books belonging to his children, and some twenty or thirty 
 pamphlets, all of which were brought in for the critical inspection of 
 the vigilance committee. At the sight of the picture books, the com- 
 mittee grew very solemn, and the chairman cast another look over the 
 top of his spectacles, half of pity and half of reproach, at the Yankee 
 merchant, whose teeth began to chatter worse than ever, and who 
 rolled up the whites of his great eyes in as perfect an agony as if 
 he had just been caught in the very act of horse-stealing or forgery. 
 But after a solemn and serious inspection, during which the whole 
 assembled multitude held their breath, clinched their fists, set their 
 teeth, and looked daggers at the suspected offender, nothing worse 
 appeared than Jack the Giant-Killer, and Little Red Riding-Hood. 
 One very fierce-looking old gentleman on the committee, with puffing 
 cheeks and blood-shot eyes, apparently not very familiar with juvenile 
 literature, and a little the worse for liquor, thought there was some- 
 thing rather murderous in these representations, especially as the 
 pictures were pretty highly-coloured. But his colleagues assured him 
 that these were very ancient books, which had been long in circula- 
 tion, and though, perhaps, considered in themselves, like the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, the History of Moses and the Deliverance of 
 the Israelites, as recorded in the Bible, or the Virginia Bill of Rights, 
 they might seem to have rather a malign aspect, yet they could not 
 be set down as belonging to that class of incendiary or abolition 
 publications, the having which in ones possession would be proof of 
 conspiracy. 
 
 "V\ ith myself, it came near going considerably worse. As ill luck 
 would have it, the only book that I happened to have in my trunk, 
 was a volume of Sterne's Sentimental Journey; and that unlucky 
 volume happened to have for a frontispiece a prisoner chained in a 
 
 o
 
 194 the white slave; or, 
 
 dungeon, and underneath, by way of motto, Sterne's celebrated ex- 
 clamation, " Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery, still thou art 
 a bitter draught, and though thousands have been made to drink 
 thee, none the less bitter on that account !" 
 
 The production of this book, with this horrible frontispiece to it, 
 and incendiary motto, evidently produced a profound sensation. The 
 great eyes of my friend, the Yankee merchant, dilated almost to 
 saucers at the sight of it. But, fortunately, several of the members 
 of the committee were pretty well read in light literature, and were 
 able to assure the assembled multitude that Lawrence Sterne was no 
 abolitionist. It was not difficult to perceive, that two or three of 
 the gentlemen on the committee, though it is by no means easy to 
 rise above the contagion of popular passion, however absurd, were 
 perfectly aware of the ridiculous light in which themselves, and the 
 community to which they belonged, must appear in my eyes. But 
 they did not dare to suggest any such idea, lest they should be sus- 
 pected of lack of sensibility to the public danger, or a disposition 
 to shield abolitionists. Indeed, it was quite enough to do away any 
 tendency to laugh — the thought that before a less well-read com- 
 mittee of vigilance, as might easily happen in the rural districts, the 
 having in a man's trunk a stray volume with an unfortunate frontis- 
 piece, might subject him to summary punishment as a plotter of 
 rebellion and murder. 
 
 Finally, after a most thorough, searching, and deliberate examina- 
 tion, conducted, as the Richmond newspapers of the next day had it, 
 " with the greatest decorum, and with the strictest regard to every 
 principle of equity," the evidence against me resolved itself into the 
 unlucky witticism about the picture books, in which I had indulged 
 at the hotel dinner-table ; a piece of personal disrespect for the com- 
 monwealth of Virginia, and the institution of slavery, which it was 
 impossible for me to deny, and which was circumstantially testified to 
 by no less than seven witnesses. 
 
 The committee, however, wishing, as they said, to preserve, as far 
 as possible, the ancient reputation of Virginia for hospitality, in con- 
 sideration that I was a stranger and a foreigner, saw fit to dismiss 
 me unpunished ; not, however, without a long exhortation, half-way 
 between a scolding and a sermon, delivered in a rasping, nasal tone, 
 by the sharp-nosed, grey-eyed chairman, in which he dwelt with great 
 unction, even with tears in his eyes, upon the sin and danger of 
 jesting about sacred things ; nor did he wind up without a hint that, 
 all things considered, I might as well leave Richmond at my earliest 
 convenience.
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 195 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 I lost not a moment in profiting by the kind advice of my ser- 
 monizing friend, the chairman ; and by the assistance of the lawyer, 
 who seemed really anxious for my safety, I evaded the mob collected 
 in the street, who appeared inclined to put me on trial a second time, 
 and as speedily as possible obtained a conveyance out of town, there 
 to wait the approach of the great southern mail stage-coach, my legal 
 friend promising to see that my baggage was put on at Richmond. 
 Two or three days' ride in this conveyance, in which I was the only 
 passenger, brought me to the little village, a court-house, jail, and 
 tavern, in which last was the post-office, the nearest point on the 
 route to Carleton-Hall and Poplar-Grove, which I intended next to 
 visit. As the coach, which was little better than a sort of lumber- 
 waggon, drove up, there were collected about the tavern-door a dozen 
 or two of those idlers, several of them rather out at the elbows, and 
 more than half of them decidedly tipsy, commonly to be found on 
 that route about the doors of such places. They were engaged in 
 discussing, with most vehement gesticulations, what then seemed to be 
 the only topic wherever I went — the wicked plot and conspiracy of the 
 bloodthirsty abolitionists. One of them held in his hands a little 
 tract, which had come directed to him through the post-office, entitled, 
 " Human Rights," the sight of which seemed to have upon him and 
 his companions much the effect of the bite of a mad dog, for they 
 were all more or less foaming at the mouth, and all seemed exceed- 
 ingly anxious, if not to bite, at least to hang somebody. The man 
 with the tract, as I was told, was a candidate for congress in that 
 district. He seemed to suspect a little that the sending him this tract on 
 human rights was a contrivance to damage him with the people, on the 
 part of his rival, who had a brother living in New York ; but the pre- 
 vailing opinion appeared to be, that the tract was a bond fide abolition 
 emissary, a sort of bombshell stuffed with sedition and murder, which 
 might at any time explode ; and though some wished to preserve it as a 
 palpable proof of the reality of the abolition conspiracy, the prevailing 
 opinion seemed to be, that it would be safest to burn it forthwith. 
 Accordingly, amid oaths and execrations, and wishes that a dozen or 
 two of the abolitionists were tied to it, it was solemnly deposited in 
 the kitchen fire. Their hand thus in, the company, headed by the 
 would-be member of congress, beset the coach, and insisted upon 
 searching the mail-bags for the detection of like dangerous missives. 
 Nor could the driver protect his charge in any other way than by the 
 
 o2
 
 196 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 most positive asseverations that the mail-hags from the north had 
 undergone a thorough search and purgation at Richmond. I had 
 taken care to secure the good graces of this driver, who was a very 
 shrewd fellow, a Yankee from Maine, and who gave me such an excel- 
 lent character to the landlord, as, together with a little prudent dissi- 
 mulation on my part, secured me from the danger of fresh annoyancse. 
 The old story of having, during a former tour some twenty years 
 hefore, enjoyed the hospitality of Carleton-Hall and Poplar-Grove, 
 served as an excuse for wishing to visit those plantations, and for 
 inquiring about their former and present inhabitant. Of their former 
 possessors Mr. Carleton and Mrs. Montgomery, I was able to learn 
 but little. Mr. Carleton had adopted the common resource of emi- 
 gration to the south-west. The Montgomerys were gone, it was 
 said, to Charleston, but nobody knew anything more of them. 
 Both plantations, I was told, belonged at present to a Mr. Mason, 
 a very odd sort of a gentleman, who would, no doubt, be very glad 
 to see me. 
 
 I slept that night at the tavern, or rather tried to sleep, but dis- 
 turbed as I was by the singing of musquitoes, the barking of dogs, 
 and what was infinitely worse, the sound of the handmills with which 
 the slaves of the establishment were busy all night in preparing their 
 next day's allowance of meal, with but little success. No sooner did 
 I sink into a doze, than that well-remembered sound mingled with my 
 dreams, and I began to imagine it was myself who was grinding. 
 
 Rising in the morning unrefreshed, I proceeded on horseback to 
 Carleton-Hall. Having introduced myself as once the guest of the 
 former proprietor, I received, according to the hospitable custom of 
 the South, where the leisure of the planters makes them always eager 
 for company, a very cordial and friendly welcome. Mr. Mason I 
 found to be a gentleman in manners, education, and sentiment, such 
 as would do honour to any part of the world. In the course of the 
 week that I remained his guest, I learned from him that his father, a 
 man of natural energy, who had raised himself from a humble posi- 
 tion, after acting many years as an overseer, had become the purchaser 
 of Carleton-Hall and Poplar-Grove, when those two plantations had 
 passed out of the hands of their former proprietors. Having enjoyed 
 very small advantages himself, being, in fact, hardly able to write his 
 name, he had been the more anxious to educate his son, whom he 
 had sent to a northern college, and afterwards to travel in Europe. 
 Unlike a large number of the young men of the South, sent to the 
 North for their education, the young Mason had made a good use of 
 his opportunities; and four or five years before he had returned home, 
 just in time to receive, under the will of his dying father, possession 
 of the estates, and the guardianship of two young sisters, — and charm-
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 197 
 
 ing little girls they were — joint heirs with himself of the plantations 
 and the people. 
 
 The plantation at Carleton-Hall, instead of heing worn out and 
 just ready to be deserted, like too many others in that neighbourhood, 
 I found to be in a much better state of cultivation than when I had 
 formerly known it. The buildings were all in good repair, and the 
 negro houses were so well clustered, and so neat and tidy, with little 
 gardens about them, as, instead of an unsightly nuisance, as is usually 
 the case, to be real ornaments to the landscape. 
 
 Under the profound dissimulation which slaves know so well how 
 to assume in all its varieties, from stupid indifference to appearances 
 of the strongest emotion, whether joyful or sorrowful, it is often 
 extremely difficult to get at their real feelings. Yet there was some- 
 thing hardly to be mistaken in the broad, good-natured smile with 
 which wherever we went, Mr. Mason's friendly greeting was looked 
 up for and returned, by young and old, man and maiden, and espe- 
 cially in the jovous clamour with which the children of the plantation 
 gathered about him. We went to see them in the school-room, as he 
 called it, where they were all assembled every day, not to be taught 
 anything, but to be kept out of mischief, under the care of a vene- 
 rable, white-haired old woman, bent half-double with age, whom they 
 called " Granny ;" and a merry sight of it they were, from infants of 
 three or four months, in the arms of little nurses just big enough to 
 carry them, to children of twelve or fourteen, all cleanly dressed — a 
 thing I had never seen before on a plantation — the larger ones having 
 the range of an ample playground about the nominal school-house, 
 where they amused themselves with sports and monkey-tricks innu- 
 merable. The only thing that Granny undertook to teach was good 
 manners, upon which subject her lectures, at least during the presence 
 of visitors, were very incessant, and sufficiently amusing. Tbe title 
 of " Granny" was not in her case merely nominal, so Mr. Mason told 
 me. She was, in fact, grandmother, or great grandmother, or great- 
 ereat-grandmother, of nearly even" one of the children about her. 
 Mr. Mason himself addressed her by the title of Aunt Dolly, with 
 almost as much kindness and affection as if she had been his own 
 grandmother — treatment on his part to which he said she was well 
 entitled, as being, in fact, the founder and source of the fortunes of 
 the family. His father's first earnings had been invested, some fifty 
 years before, in the purchase of Aunt Dolly, then a young woman 
 with three or four children. She afterwards had others, twelve in all, 
 and all females. The daughters had been scarcely less fruitful than 
 the mother; and it was from this source that the whole plantation, as 
 well as that at Poplar-Grove, had been stocked. In fact, his father, 
 who was a man of some scruples, had never sold a servant in his liie,
 
 198 THE white slave; or, 
 
 and never bought one except Aunt Dolly, at her own special request, 
 and a number of likely men as husbands for his superabundant 
 females. 
 
 The system of management upon Mr. Mason's plantation, inherited, 
 as he told me, in part from his father, but improved by himself, I 
 found to be totally different from anything I had ever seen else- 
 where, except that it reminded me, in several points, of the discipline 
 of Major Thornton, to whom I had myself formerly belonged. Mr. 
 Mason was, like Major Thornton, his own overseer, though he em- 
 ployed an assistant under him for each of the plantations, men, like 
 himself, of intelligence, education, and humanity, but whom, he said, 
 it had cost him great searching to find and great labour to train. 
 Everything went on with the regularity of clockwork. The allow- 
 ances to the people, both of food and clothing, were generous, and 
 the tasks by which everything was done moderate. The whip was 
 only used on very rare occasions, and that rather for the punishment 
 of the misdemeanours which the people committed against each 
 other, than for those against the master ; for, said Mr. Mason, " I 
 am not only plantation manager, but judge and magistrate to settle 
 all our internal disputes, and, in fact, to tell the truth, the very 
 hardest worked slave in the whole establishment. How many 
 planters in North Carolina do you suppose would accept my property 
 on condition of managing it as I do ?" The great stimulus employed 
 to make the people work was emulation. They were divided into 
 eight or ten classes, according to their capacity and aptitude for 
 labour, individuals being promoted or degraded according to their 
 merits, and each class according to the amount of labour it performed, 
 being distinguished by certain privileges and badges of honour. The 
 
 west class of all was called the " lazy class," into which there was 
 a great horror of falling, except on the part of two or three habitual 
 sluggards who were always in it, and who served as standing butts 
 for all the wit of the plantation. At the close of every harvest there 
 was a grand fancy ball, at which the people were allowed precedence 
 according to their merits. The best of them had the first choice of 
 characters, the range of which first choice was, however, rather 
 limited, lying between General Washington in sword and cocked hat, 
 and old Master Mason, my host's father, till lately General Jackson, 
 since he was chosen president, had come in as a rival. All the rest 
 had the choice of characters, each according to his place on the list 
 of merit ; and as Mr. Mason allowed a certain moderate compensation 
 for extra labour beyond the regular task, the buying of finery to 
 figure at this fancy ball proved a great stimulus to many, the women 
 especially. Some of the people were excellent mimics. Every doctor, 
 minister, and overseer in the neighbourhood got taken off; and on
 
 ME2I0IRS OF A FUGITIVE. 199 
 
 the whole, Mr. Mason said, the acting was often superior to such as 
 he had seen a good deal applauded on the New York and London 
 boards. The idea itself he had picked up from a West India planter 
 with whom he had become accmainted in England. 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 Two or three days after my arrival at Carleton-Hall, Mr. Mason 
 and myself, who had become by this time excellent friends, rode to 
 visit Poplar-Grove. Of the old servants' quarter, the only building 
 standing was one quite near the great house, a neat little cottage, which 
 Mrs. Montgomery had caused to be built on purpose for me and 
 Cassy, and in which our child had been born. The honeysuckle 
 which we had planted in commemoration of that event, and which 
 she had twined with so much care over the door, was still growing 
 there, though exhibiting many signs of age — old, bent, and gnarled, 
 and the ends of the twigs beginning to die. The little garden around 
 was still neatly kept, and I thought I recognised some of the very 
 rose bushes which she and I had planted. Little did Mr. Mason 
 imagine my feelings as we rode together by that cottage door ! O, 
 how I longed to be alone and unobserved ! It was, indeed, with the 
 greatest difficulty that I prevented myself from springing from my 
 saddle and rushing into the house. It seemed to me almost as if I 
 should find Cassy there and the child ! 
 
 I learnt from conversation with Mr. Mason, that the pecuniary 
 results of his system of management were not less satisfactory than 
 the moral ones. Owing to his father's good nature in indorsing the 
 paper of a friend, the plantations, as he inherited them, had been 
 burdened by a heavy mortgage, which was now nearly paid off. I 
 did not fail to congratulate this worthy gentleman on having ap- 
 proached so near to the solution of a problem which all my observa- 
 tion and experience had made me beheve insoluble — the making 
 plantation life a tolerable condition of existence, as well for the slaves 
 as for the free. But, though evidently well pleased with my compli- 
 ments, Mr. Mason shook his head. " I sha'n't deny, sir," he said, 
 " that I feel a certain pleasure from the approval, by a man of your 
 experience and discernment, of my poor efforts to do the best I can 
 in the very trying and embarrassing position in which Providence has 
 placed me ; but, after all, sir, make the very best of it, this slavery 
 is a damnable business for whites and blacks, and all of us together." 
 Though we had talked before with a good deal of freedom, and 
 though I had given Mr. Mason an account of my experiences at
 
 200 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 Richmond with a pretty free expression of my own feelings and 
 opinions, he had all along observed a certain uneasy reserve, as if 
 doubting if it would be safe to speak out. Willing enough to draw 
 him on, I replied, " Certainly, sir, if all masters were like you, slavery 
 would be a very different thing from what it is, and vastly more 
 tolerable." " Ay," said he, with a significant smile, " if all masters 
 were like me, slavery would cease to exist to-morrow." " What," 
 I asked, " are you an abolitionist ?" I almost regretted the question 
 the moment I had put it, for I at once perceived that even his sound 
 head and heart were not entirely proof against a word so terrible to 
 every southern ear — a sort of synonyme, in fact, for rape and throat- 
 cutting. He began in a hesitating manner to disavow that character, 
 but soon gave his answer a different turn. " No more an abolitionist," 
 he said, " than Washington, or Patrick Henry. This is an evil, 
 cursed system, beyond the reach of individual effort, and only to be 
 remedied by public action. The worst evils, I am satisfied, that 
 could possibly arise from setting all the slaves free to-morrow, would 
 not begin to approach the amount of evil suffered, whether by blacks 
 or whites, in every ten years that slavery continues to exist." 
 " What," I asked, " would it be safe to set so many ignorant slaves 
 free at once, and without any preparation for it ? The general opinion 
 among slaveholders seems to be that, if so freed, the slaves would 
 begin by cutting the throats and taking possession of the wives and 
 daughters of their masters, and end by dying of starvation for want 
 of somebody to provide for them. You must begin, they say, by 
 preparing them for freedom." " It is hardly worth while," answered 
 Mr. Mason, "to speculate upon a contingency so improbable just 
 now, as the setting free of all the slaves by the spontaneous act of 
 their owners. A deal of preparation, I fear, will be wanting before 
 we can come to that — preparation not so much, however, on the part 
 of the slaves as on that of the masters. The slaves, in my opinion, 
 are quite well enough prepared for freedom already ; about as much 
 so as slaves ever will be or can be. From my observations at home 
 and abroad, they are decidedly more intelligent, and a good deal 
 more kind-hearted and manageable, than either the Irish or the 
 English peasantry. The difficulty, and the only difficulty, about their 
 working for wages, is precisely the same which has defeated two or 
 three attempts that I have known to carry on plantations by free la- 
 bourers imported from Europe. While we have so much more land than 
 inhabitants, as we still do in most of the southern states, the negroes 
 would prefer to scatter, and, instead of working for wages, to set up, 
 like our present poorer class of free whites, each man a little plan- 
 tation of his own. That is what has happened in Hayti. The sugar 
 plantations, which require the employment of numerous labourers, have
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 201 
 
 been in a great measure abandoned, while the coffee cultivation, 
 which each cottager can carry on for himself, still flourishes, and forms 
 the staple of the island. 
 
 " If that is all," I answered, " the slaves themselves would not 
 seem to be in any great danger of starving, however it might be with 
 some of their late masters. But pray, sir, what do you think of the 
 throat-cutting, and other enormities?" "These," he replied, "are 
 bugbears inherited from our grandmothers. The wild savages, many 
 of them prisoners of war, formerly imported from Africa, when they 
 rose in insurrection, as they sometimes did, naturally enough began, 
 if they could, by cutting their masters' throats. An insurrection, 
 even nowadays, as it is sure to be met by bullets, bowie knives, 
 hangings and burnings, is likely enough, while it lasts, to be prose- 
 cuted by the same methods. The negro is an imitative creature, and 
 easily adopts the example which his master sets. But to suppose 
 that our slaves, if voluntarily set free, would take to robbing and 
 murdering their white neighbours, instead of bestirring themselves 
 like other poor folks — like the Irish emigrants, for instance, landed 
 on our shores in no respect their superiors, except in freedom — to 
 earn an honest living by their labour, for themselves and their 
 children, seems to me quite ridiculous. It is paying a very poor 
 compliment, indeed, to the courage and superiority of us whites, to 
 doubt whether we, superior as well in numbers as in everything else, 
 could not inspire awe enough to maintain our natural position at the 
 head of the community, and to keep these poor people in order 
 without making slaves of them." 
 
 " But suppose," said I, " the emancipated slaves should prove as 
 harmless as you imagine. Suppose they should actually labour 
 enough to save themselves from starvation ; yet, scattered upon little 
 patches of ground, would they not live in idleness and poverty, 
 leaving the present productive plantations abandoned, and reducing 
 the whole south to a squalid misery, such as we see in the present 
 villages of free blacks !" 
 
 " The present free coloured people in the United States," said Mr. 
 Mason, " are a poor, persecuted race ; placed, especially in the 
 southern states, under very anomalous circumstances ; and yet, even 
 among them, I have known some very deserving persons. It would, 
 however, be more reasonable to deduce the position which our sup- 
 posed emancipated slaves would be likely to assume, from that at 
 present occupied by the mass of our white people who do not own 
 slaves. I must confess, there is not much to boast of in the con- 
 dition of the poor white people throughout the southern states. It 
 is freedom which makes the chief difference between the slaves and 
 those poor whites. Here in North Carolina, a very great number of
 
 202 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 them can neither read nor write, nor tell their own age ; nor are they, 
 in any intellectual or moral respect, (except that consciousness of 
 being their own masters which goes so far towards making a man,) 
 superior to the generality of the plantation slaves. Yet, however, 
 there may be some among our rich planters, who would think it a 
 very good thing to reduce these poor white men to slavery, he would 
 be a bold fellow, indeed, who would dare to propose, much more to 
 undertake it. That, indeed, would seem scarcely necessary, for 
 already the operation of our system is terribly depressing to them, as 
 well as to the slaves. It hangs like a millstone about their necks, 
 since it makes almost every kind of manual labour disgraceful ; and 
 apart from manual labour, how few other chances have the poor to 
 acquire that capital necessary to give them a start in the world ! 
 And yet, with all these drawbacks and impediments, it is stdl this 
 class of the poor free whites which forms the substratum and basis of 
 our southern civilization, such as it is. My father began life a poor 
 man. He has often told me that he came the first time to Carleton- 
 Hall barefooted, not being, in fact, the owner of a pair of shoes. The 
 fathers or grandfathers of almost all my neighbours were poor men 
 also. It is a common saying that a plantation seldom remains in the 
 same family beyond the third generation. It is out of this class of 
 the poor that the new proprietors spring up ; and it is into this class 
 of the poor that the families of the former proprietors subside. But 
 consider how this class of the poor is sunk, deteriorated, and weighed 
 down by slavery ! No wonder that in wealth, industry, intelligence, 
 everything that makes a community respectable, we are so far behind 
 the free states. Not only have our poor free people vastly less 
 chance to rise than the people of the same class at the north, but by 
 holding the bulk of our labourers in perpetual slavery, we cut off the 
 very main source whence fresh energy and strength ought to flow in 
 upon us. Here, in my opinion, is the great evil which this system 
 inflicts upon the community, as well as the greatest wrong which it 
 inflicts on the individuals. It is very easy to say, that compare my 
 slaves with as many families of poor white people within a range of 
 ten miles about, and they are better fed, better clothed, better lodged, 
 and vastly freer from care and anxiety. That is true ; but there goes 
 a man, now — Ah, Peter, how'dy, my good fellow?" — such were the 
 words with which Mr. Mason nodded to an immense brawny black 
 man, who passed us just at this moment, driving a cart, — " there 
 goes a man, now, who, if he was his own master, and in a country 
 where his colour did not deprive him of equal rights, would, before 
 he died, have a plantation of his own, and one worth owning, too. 
 That fellow has a head ; his opinion upon any question of cultivation, 
 or upon any application of plantation labour, is worth more, any day,
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 203 
 
 than mine and that of my two overseers put together. And do you 
 suppose that slavery under any form can agree with such a man as 
 that ? There is a considerable class who seem to be born to be the 
 mere instruments of others ; and if only such persons were born slaves, 
 it might not be of so much consequence." " But among those bora 
 in servitude there are all sorts of characters. Why, Mr. Mason, it 
 might have happened to me or you to be born a slave. There are 
 slaves here in North Carolina quite as white as either of us ; and do 
 you suppose that under any circumstances we should have rested con- 
 tent under such a fate? We might have submitted, rather than jump 
 out of the frying-pan into the fire, and yet have found the frying-pan 
 not by any means our natural element." 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 Returning the next day to Carleton-Hall, we found, sitting in 
 the porch, a gentleman whom, from his dress and manner, I at once 
 perceived to belong to the clerical profession. My host, who met him 
 with great cordiality, introduced him to me as the reverend Paul 
 Telfair, rector of the episcopal church of St. Stephen's. 
 
 There was something in Mr. Telfair's presence which strongly im- 
 pressed me the moment I set my eyes upon him. He was a slight 
 but rather tall young man, not, I should judge, above three or four 
 and twenty. His pale but handsome features lightened up, when he 
 spoke, with a radiant smile, which seemed to spread round him a 
 serene halo. His address was perfectly simple and unpretending, and 
 yet it had in it at once such dignity and winning sweetness as to put 
 one in mind of a real minister of grace and messenger from heaven. 
 
 " This," said Mr. Mason, " is the son of that Miss Montgomery, 
 now Mrs. Telfair, whose mother was once the owner of Poplar-Grove, 
 and at not finding whom still resident upon it you seemed so much 
 disappointed. I never saw that lady," he continued; '"but knowing 
 the son as I do, I am not surprised that you should so much have 
 missed the presence of the mother." 
 
 It appeared, in the course of our subsequent conversation, that the 
 Montgomerys, having removed, after the loss of their property, to 
 Charleston, had endeavoured to support themselves, though much to 
 the scandal of some of their relations, by setting up a female school. 
 It was not long, however, before Miss Montgomery attracted the admi- 
 ration of a wealthy gentleman of that city, a Mr. Telfair, whose wife 
 she became, and by whom she had an only son — the young clergy- 
 man who had so favourably impressed me, and in whose face, striking
 
 204 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 as it was, there had yet appeared something familiar, which I now 
 traced back to my recollection of the mother. 
 
 " Besides," added Mr. Mason, " since you take so much interest 
 in my system of plantation arrangements, let me tell you that Mr. 
 Telfair is a main spoke in the wheel. Not only does he do all the 
 marrying and christening, services thought, Loth at Carleton-IIall and 
 Poplar-Grove, to be quite indispensable, but the keeping those who 
 misbehave at home on Sunday is one of the most effective punish- 
 ments which I can inflict. It is a great proof," he added, " of my 
 young friend's gifts, not only that he has so completely eclipsed the 
 itinerant methodists and the vinegar-visaged presbyterian exhorters, 
 who used formerly to predominate in this neighbourhood, but that 
 even black parson Tom himself, for a long time the admiration not 
 only of my two plantations, but I may say of the whole country, has 
 been content to restrain his gifts, and to subside into the humble 
 position of clerk and catechist." 
 
 Mr. Telfair, as I afterwards learnt, had, through the influence of 
 his mother, upon whom, during her state of poverty, religious ideas 
 had made a deep impression, been devoted from an early age to the 
 work of the Christian ministry. From a child, he had esteemed him- 
 self set aside for that service; and having been admitted to holy 
 orders, had given himself up, without stint, to religious labours, the 
 greater part of the time as rector of St. Stephen's, a few miles distant. 
 
 One of the old parish churches of colonial times, when the church 
 of England was the established religion of North Carolina, and indeed 
 of all the southern states, St. Stephen's, since the revolution, had 
 gone into a state of great decay and dilapidation. But though the 
 roof had fallen, and the doors and windows bad disappeared, the solid 
 brick walls of the old church had yet remained standing. Mr. Telfair, 
 having chosen this neighbourhood as a sort of missionary ground, had 
 caused the old church to be repaired, mainly at his own expense, and 
 had, with untiring zeal, gathered together a congregation, and revived 
 the almost forgotten worship, according to the decent ceremonies of 
 the church of England. 
 
 As was well befitting the disciple of one who had especially 
 addressed himself to the poor and lowly, the despised and the rejected, 
 the moral and religious condition of the slaves had been from the 
 beginning a subject of very great interest with Mr. Telfair. In Mr. 
 Mason he had found a zealous co-operator and active churchwarden; 
 and the example of the one, and the bland and persuasive exhortations 
 of the other, had not been without a marked influence in the neigh- 
 bourhood, on the conduct of the masters and the condition of the 
 servants. 
 
 But whatever amelioration the system of slavery might be capable
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 205 
 
 of, it was impossible for Mr. Telfair, or any other man of observation 
 and humanity, to regard it with any patience as a permanent condition 
 of things. The intimate relations into which he was brought, both 
 with the masters and the slaves, made him thoroughly aware of the 
 false position in which both were placed by it ; and for want of any 
 other apparent method of getting rid of so great an evil, he had 
 entered with very great eagerness into the scheme of colonization. 
 He was himself the president of the county colonization society ; his 
 personal exhortation had led to the emancipation of several favourite 
 slaves with the view of sending them to Liberia ; and his glowing 
 imagination, overleaping, in the eagerness of benevolent hope, all 
 bounds of time and space, seemed to regard as an event almost at 
 hand, the removal of the black and coloured population from the 
 United States, and the civilization and christianization of Africa. So 
 thoroughly did he seem himself convinced, and so did he warm and 
 light up with the subject, that, however visionary his hopes might 
 appear, nothing could be more agreeable than to hear him give utter- 
 ance to them. 
 
 These brilliant hopes, however, we found for the moment obscured 
 by an ominous shadow. Mr. Telfair spoke without bitterness, yet not 
 without indications of the most poignant regret, of the late doings of 
 the northern abolitionists, as having put back the cause of* emancipa- 
 tion, he feared, for many, many years. He himself had just been 
 made personally to feel their effects. He had established, in con- 
 nexion with his church, a Sunday-school for the slaves, in which, 
 besides oral instruction, some of them had been taught to read. A 
 committee of planters had just waited upon him to require him to 
 discontinue this course of instruction ; in fact, during the present state 
 of excitement, and, until further notice, to discontinue his slave 
 Sunday-school altogether. " Ah, Captain Moore," said Mr. Telfair, 
 addressing himself to me, " this is but an unfavourable time for you 
 to visit the southern states. You see what it is to have slavery in a 
 country. In fact, it makes slaves of the whole of us. It now appears 
 that the liberty of the press and the freedom of speech, about which 
 we have made so many boasts, cannot be allowed, consistently with 
 the public safety, in countries were slavery prevails. There is at this 
 moment no more liberty of speech or of writing in any slave state — 
 and from the accounts we get of mobs and riots in Boston, New 
 York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere, the case does not seem to be much 
 better in the free States — than there is at Rome, Vienna, or Warsaw. 
 I suppose that, in either of those cities, a man is at full liberty to 
 express his opinion, in words or print, of domestic slavery as it exists 
 in America. The only questions forbidden to be discussed there, are 
 those relating to the domestic policy of those cities and countries.
 
 206 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 So here you may denounce popery and Russian despotism as loudly 
 as you please ; but pray be very careful what you say about domestic 
 slavery. In any mixed companj 7 , I should not think it safe, just now, 
 to say what I have said here. In fact, I find myself already a marked 
 man. A printed letter of mine to a friend, on behalf of the coloniza- 
 tion scheme, in which, in proof of the evils of slavery, I had quoted 
 from Washington, Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and other distinguished 
 patriots, when just ready for publication, was seized the other day, at 
 Richmond, by the committee there, and ordered to be burnt as an 
 incendiary publication." 
 
 " Indeed," said I; "then that unfortunate letter of yours was pro- 
 bably part of the bonfire that lighted my entrance into Richmond ;" 
 and I went on to give him an account of my adventures in that city. 
 " Not content with burning my letter," so the good clergyman con- 
 tinued, " if, in fact, it was not rather Washington and Jefferson for 
 whom the burning was meant, the Richmond committee have reported 
 me to our country committee as a suspected person, on whom an eye 
 is to be kept ; and these good gentlemen, besides putting a stop to 
 my Sunday-school, have also taken my newspaper reading under their 
 supervision. For some months past I had received through the post- 
 office a newspaper printed at New York, called the ' Emancipator.' 
 It is, I understand, the chief organ of the new society of abolitionists 
 there. It had been sent to me gratuitously, and I had read it with a i 
 good deal of interest, wishing to discover what its conductors would 
 be at. But this, my good friends, or rather masters, of the committee 
 of vigilance, consider altogether too dangerous. They cannot allow 
 the peace of the country to be so perilled. They have forbidden the 
 postmaster to give out the paper any more, and they have forbidden 
 me to take it out or to read it. This is the degree of liberty that 
 exists at present in North Carolina!" — words spoken with an indig- 
 nant emphasis and some little bitterness, in spite of the serene self- 
 control which Mr. Telfair in general exhibited. 
 
 " And how does it happen, gentlemen," said I, " that the evils of 
 slavery, which it would appear have been not only pretty largely felt, 
 but pretty freely discussed among you, from the time of Jefferson 
 downward — and nowhere, as I have been told, more fully and freely 
 than in some recent debates in the Virginian legislature — how does it 
 happen that this subject has become all at once prohibited ? Pray, I 
 should like to learn what is the mighty difference, after all, between 
 colonizationists, like our good friend Mr. Telfair here, and these 
 northern abolitionists, whose interference, he seems to think, is likely 
 to prove so serious a damage to the cause of emancipation ? Isn't it 
 slavery that you are both alike hostile to ? Isn't it emancipation that 
 you are both alike aiming at ?" " The difference between us,'* replied
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 207 
 
 Mr. Telfair, iC is sufficiently palpable, though I don't so much wonder 
 at your asking the question ; for I can perceive, especially since the 
 late excitement broke out, a growing disposition to confound us 
 together, and to set down as incendiary, and as hostile to the welfare 
 of the south, the bare sentiment of dislike to slavery. But with 
 respect to us colonizationists, the case is this : we admit the evils of 
 slavery to be very great — so great, that duty to ourselves, our children, 
 to the entire population, black and white, requires from us the greatest 
 efforts to get rid of them. But we do not see how it is possible to 
 get rid of these evils, so long as the black population remains among 
 us. It is a very common opinion in America, that it is impossible for 
 two distinct races of men to live together, at least two races so distinct 
 as the whites and the negroes, on anything approaching to terms of 
 equality. It seems to be believed that, so long as the blacks remain 
 among us, we must either make slaves of them, or they will turn about 
 and make slaves of us. The late president Jefferson gave expression 
 to this common opinion, by his remark that we hold the slaves like a 
 wolf by the ear, whom it is neither safe to hold nor to let go. I 
 must confess that I, for one, — and a considerable number of our 
 colonization friends would probably concur with me, — do not exactly 
 assent to this view of the case. It seems to me that the whites are 
 the wolf, and the unfortunate negroes the lamb whom we have caught 
 by the ear, and whom, if we only had the will, we might let go with- 
 out any sort of danger. Why can't we allow freedom to the negroes 
 as weli as to the Irish or the Germans? But, with the inveterate 
 prejudices of our people, it seems useless to preach that doctrine. The 
 poorest, meanest, and most degraded of our whites, would be all up 
 in arms at the very idea of it. The more low, brutal, and degraded 
 a white man is, the more strenuously does he insist on the natural 
 superiority of the white men, and the more he is shocked at the idea 
 of allowing freedom to the ' niggers.' Our colonization system of 
 emancipation yields to this invincible feeling. Before emancipating 
 the slaves, or simultaneously with their emancipation, we propose to 
 remove them out of the country. Regarded by the larger number as 
 completely visionary, and even by us who believe in it, expected to 
 operate, at least at first, only by very slow degrees, this scheme has 
 not been calculated to produce much alarm. Even very vivid pictures 
 of the evils of slavery, and strong declamations against it, have been 
 permitted, so long as they have been regarded only as the expression 
 of speculative opinions and of individual sentiment, accompanied, as 
 they generally are, by the admission, more or less distinct, that, how- 
 ever great these evils may be, there is no hope or means of their 
 removal so long as the two races remain in juxtaposition. 
 
 " But the new sect of the abolitionists has broken through all these
 
 208 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 limits. In the first place, they begin with denouncing the holding of 
 slaves as a sin inconsistent with any just pretensions to the character 
 of a Christian. Now, there was a time, and that not many years 
 ago, when the great body of the southern slaveholders would have 
 laughed at this denunciation, because only a small portion of them 
 made any pretension to be Christians, while with large numbers the 
 open avowal of infidel opinions was not uncommon. But by the 
 multiplied labours of the various sects within the last twenty-five 
 years, the profession of Christianity, and in some respects, too, I 
 hope, the practice of it, has very greatly increased among us ; and 
 for our good slaveholding people to be told that they are no Chris- 
 tians, touches them in a very sensitive point. In fact, from our ex- 
 cessive squirming at the charge, I cannot but suspect myself that we 
 feel a little as though there was some truth in it. 
 
 " Then, again, these abolitionists say, your slaves have a right to be 
 free, and it is your duty to set them free at once. You need not 
 trouble yourselves about the consequences of doing your duty ; do it, 
 and leave the consequences to God. 
 
 " What a difference it makes whether a thing is said in earnest, or 
 only by way of flourish and clap-trap? What a difference when a 
 maxim is to be applied to your own case, and when to that of others ! 
 Our good southern democrats have been preaching for half a century, 
 more or less, that all men are born free and equal — a maxim which 
 they have set forth as the very basis of their political system ; but 
 now, when they are asked, not in flourish, in jest merely, but in real 
 earnest, themselves to carry their own doctrine into practice, you see 
 how the wolf shows his teeth ! 
 
 " You will judge from all this," added Mr. Telfair, " that I do not 
 share the ferocious prejudices against the abolitionists, of which you 
 have seen already, since you came among us, so many specimens. 
 They have done me the honour to send me, by the mail, quite a number 
 of their publications, besides the newspaper that I spoke of. I have 
 read them all attentively, and I can safely say, that the vulgar and 
 current charge against them of stimulating the slaves to revolt is 
 totally unfounded. The revolt which they have attempted to stimu- 
 late, and the revolt, I am very much inclined to think, of which our 
 committees of vigilance are most afraid, is, a revolt of Christian con- 
 sciences against the evils and enormities of slavery. 
 
 " But, although I admit the rectitude of their motives, I do not 
 any the less on that account condemn their conduct. You can judge 
 from my own case the awkward position in which they have placed 
 every southern well-wisher of the negroes. The only result, I am 
 afraid, will be, to tighten the bonds of the slaves, to check all efforts 
 that have been making for then mental and moral improvement, and
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 209 
 
 to put the most serious obstacles in the way of that scheme of coloni- 
 zation, which is the only remedy for the sore evils of slavery which 
 the south seems in the least to tolerate." 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 Mr. Telfair, perhaps from professional habit, seemed to run, 
 upon such subjects as occupied his mind, into a sort of lengthened 
 discourse, and I let him go on without interruption. Mr. Mason, I 
 had observed, during this conversation, had not let drop a single 
 word ; and after Mr. Telfair had left us, I felt some curiosity to draw 
 him out. I accordingly put to him several questions, by way of 
 getting at his opinion of the colonization scheme. " I am a member," 
 he said, "of the Colonization Society; secretary, in fact, of the same 
 branch of which Mr. Telfair is president ; one of my servants, a 
 superior man, who evinced a disposition to go, I set free and sent to 
 Liberia ; but I am sorry to say he died of the seasoning fever within 
 a month or two after his arrival. I always thought the Colonization 
 Society a good thing, as a sort of a brooding hen, under whose wings 
 the callow humane sentiment of the south might take shelter, and be 
 cherished and kept alive against a time of more efficient action. I 
 never expected anything important from what it might do directly, 
 but a good deal from its keeping the evils of slavery, and the necessity 
 of some remedy for them, constantly before the public mind. The 
 best thing it has done yet certainly is, its having hatched out of its 
 northern eggs these same abolition societies, which are making so 
 much stir just at this moment." 
 
 " Indeed," I asked, " and is that the fact ?" 
 
 " So far as I am informed," said Mr. Mason, " all the most active 
 persons in these abolition societies first had their attention drawn to 
 the subject by the colonization scheme. Of that scheme several o* 
 them were originally warm champions. But, on further consideration, 
 it seemed too much like carrying coals to Newcastle, the transporting 
 some two or three millions of people from their homes, where their 
 labour is greatly needed, and is capable of being productively applied, 
 across the ocean to an uncultivated wilderness, where the native 
 supply of labour already far exceeds the demand. As the slaves must 
 be emancipated before they can be colonized, it seemed quite effort 
 enough to emancipate them here, without being obliged to provide 
 in addition for their transportation out of the country, at immense 
 and ruinous expense, depriving the southern states of that productive 
 labour which is the very thing they stand most in need of. It was 
 
 p
 
 210 THE WHITE SLAVE; OK, 
 
 these ideas, combined with those of the sin and wrong of slavery, a 
 wronc and sin to be abandoned, not gradually, but at once, that no 
 doubt gave rise to the abolition societies," 
 
 " But," I asked, " in view of such results as those mentioned by 
 Mr. Telfair, how can you speak of the springing up of these societies 
 as a good thing ?" 
 
 " I hope," said Mr. Mason, looking round with an air of some 
 uneasiness, but whether real or assumed I could hardly tell — " I hope 
 there are no lurking members of the committee of vigilance within 
 ear-shot. Our overseers have a habit of playing the eavesdropper 
 among the negro cabins, and how soon the same system may be 
 extended to us masters is more than I can tell. But to answer your 
 question," — and here he sunk his voice almost to a whisper, — " the 
 first step towards the cure of any serious disorder is to understand 
 the real nature of it, and especially to bring the patient himself to a 
 true sense of his own condition. And that is a result which these 
 abolition societies are already beginning to produce. Even those who 
 have thought most about it have never hitherto been fully aware of 
 the real nature and extent of the evil we had to deal with. We 
 knew, indeed, that our American goddess of liberty lay asleep and 
 dreaming, like Milton's Eve, with a foul toad at her ear ; yet we 
 thought that, after all, it was but a toad, which, however ugly and 
 venomous, the growing light of day, as the sun was getting towards 
 high noon, would drive to skulk into some hole or other. But these 
 northen abolitionists having undertaken to poke the creature a little by 
 v.Tiy of hastening his progress, choosing for that purpose the famous 
 national declaration of ours, that all men are created free, with certain 
 unalienable rights — see how this, as we thought comparatively harmless 
 thing, starts up a horrible and blood-thirsty monster, threatening to 
 swallow down the poor trembling goddess of American liberty at a 
 single gulp ! I do not mean the liberty of black men or coloured 
 men — for here, in America, they never had any — but the liberty of 
 us white men, as masters. 
 
 " The pretended danger of slave insurrection is made occasion for 
 suppressing all liberty of thought, speech, or writing, derogatory to 
 the institution of slavery. That danger does very well to frighten fools 
 with, and it is by frightening fools that knaves generally get them- 
 selves entrusted with power. But the insurrection, as Mr. Telfair 
 very well remarked, which the leaders in this business are most afraid 
 of, is not an insurrection of slaves, but an insurrection of conscience 
 — ^an insurrection which they intend to find the means, if they can, to 
 anticipate and prevent. 
 
 " Here now," he added, taking up a newspaper, " here it is openly 
 confessed and stated in so many words by the ' Washington Telegraph,'
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 211 
 
 a leading champion of the rights and interests of the slaveholder, and 
 a chief promoter of all the prevailing alarm : ' We hold' — here he 
 read from the paper — ' that we have most to fear from the gradual 
 operation of public opinion among ourselves, and that those are the 
 most insidious and dangerous invaders of our rights and interests, 
 who, coming to us in the guise of friendship, endeavour to persuade 
 us that slavery is a sin, a curse, and an evil. Our greatest cause of 
 apprehension is from the operation of the morbid sensibility which 
 appeals to the consciences of our people, and would make them the 
 voluntary instruments of their own destruction.' And the way in 
 which it is proposed to prevent these appeals to the morbid sensibility 
 of conscience is pretty distinctly set forth in another paragraph, which 
 I find quoted fiom the e Columbia Telescope,' a South Carolina 
 paper : ' Let us declare that the question of slavery is not, and shall 
 not be, open to discussion ; that the system is deep rooted among us, 
 and must remain for ever ; that the very moment any private indi- 
 vidual attempts to lecture us upon its evils and immorality, and the 
 necessity of putting means in operation to secure us from them, in 
 the same moment his tongue shall be cut out and cast upon the 
 dunghill.' 
 
 " This appeal to southern consciences, which it is proposed to put 
 down by this summary process, has revealed the true state of the case. 
 The great mass of our people, whether at the south or the north, 
 even those who speak of slavery as an evil, do not really regard it so. 
 Compared with the emancipation of the slaves, they regard it as a 
 positive good. They may possibly admit that slavery is bad, but they 
 are quite certain that freedom would be much worse. Then, again, 
 there appears to be among us a vastly larger class than any body 
 supposed, who hold that slavery is no evil at all in any sense, but a 
 positive good — a good thing for the slaves, who are thus enabled to 
 live free from care, in sleek and happy contentment, and a good thing 
 for the masters, who, in being raised above the necessity of base and 
 servile employments, are thus enabled to preserve the dignity of 
 freedom. This romantic view of the case might not, perhaps, so well 
 bear discussion, but you see they do not intend to allow any. Yet, 
 without a full and free discussion of our existing system, in all its 
 bearings and operations, how can we reasonably hope or expect to 
 bring about any beneficial change ? The struggle which you now see 
 beginning, and which this northern appeal to southern consciences 
 has provoked, is plainly, to my mind, the final and decisive struggle 
 between the extension and perpetuation of slavery on the one hand, 
 and emancipation on the other. The institution of slavery in this 
 country is vastly more potent than anybody had supposed. It not 
 only has complete control of the governments of all the southern 
 
 p2
 
 212 THE WHITE SLAVE J OR, 
 
 states, so as to be enabled to enact whatever laws it pleases, but, by 
 means of its vigilance committees and its system of lynchings, it com- 
 pletely overrides both laws and constitutions in the exercise of a 
 despotic and arbitrary power, derived from the discretionary discipline 
 of the plantation, but totally inconsistent with all established ideas of 
 English or American liberty. Not content with this, it is eagerly clutch- 
 ing at all the powers and patronage of the general government, which it 
 seeks to transform from a bulwark of freedom to a bulwark of slavery ; 
 and not content with this, it seeks to dictate to the northern states a 
 course of action in conformity with this same view. Having completely 
 suppressed, at least for the time being, all liberty, at the south, of speech, 
 writing, or reading on this forbidden subject, it is endeavouring to ac- 
 complish the same thing at the north. Northern politicians are stimu- 
 lated, by hopes of currying southern favour, to put themselves at the 
 head of anti-abolition mobs ; and northern merchants, by the hope 
 of securing southern customers, to hold public meetings to call 
 upon the state legislatures to pass laws to restrict the liberty of the 
 press. That very thing I see has just been done in the degenerate city 
 of Philadelphia; and Boston and New York are very loudly called 
 upon to imitate the disgraceful example. Yes, Mr. Moore, seasonably 
 or unseasonably, the great battle has begun, the great struggle on 
 which the future fate of America is to depend. The slavery or the 
 freedom of our coloured inhabitants is an interesting question ; that, 
 however, has already become but a merely subordinate one. The first 
 great question is, Shall not merely the political, but the intellectual, 
 moral, and religious control of this country pass into the hands of the 
 upholders of perpetual slavery ? or shall our old American notions, 
 that all men are equal before God, and ought to be equal before the 
 law, continue to circulate ? Shall the control, not only of our politics 
 and legislation, but of our newspapers, our churches, our literature, 
 our public sentiment, pass into the hands of the hard, the cruel, the 
 tyrants by nature, the mercenary, the scoffers at justice and human 
 rights, the sleek, comfortable time-servers, equally ready, for a consi- 
 deration, to read prayers to God or to the devil ? or shall the votaries 
 of human advancement, the friends of man, the true servants of the 
 God of love, have liberty to live, speak, and labour among us ? 
 The first question is about our own liberty, and that not alone the 
 liberty of acting, but the mere liberty even of writing, reading, talk- 
 ing, and thinking." 
 
 Warming with his subject, and striding up and down the room, 
 Mr. Mason had uttered all the latter part of this long discourse, not 
 without many gesticulations, and in a tone of voice rising at times a 
 little above the ordinary key. But he suddenly checked himself, and 
 added, in a subdued tone, " I, for my part, had rather been born the
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 213 
 
 most miserable negro in North Carolina, than, having enjoyed, as I 
 have, the advantages of education and the privileges of freedom, to 
 find myself, from being the master, as I had imagined, of my own 
 slaves, my own thoughts, and my own course of conversation and 
 reading, all at once converted into a deputy slave-driver, under a 
 committee of vigilance, composed, as those committees generally are, 
 of the greatest fools and the greatest scoundrels among us, and 
 obliged to read, talk, and think under their inquisitorial jurisdiction." 
 
 " Pardon me," said I, " Mr. Mason, if I take the liberty of putting 
 one question. How is it possible that, entertaining the opinions which, 
 since I have enjoyed the pleasure of your hospitality, I have heard 
 you so freely express — how is it possible that you can continue a 
 slaveholder ?" 
 
 "As to that," answered Mr. Mason, "you must have observed 
 before now, that the opinions and practices of men do not always run 
 in parallel channels. A man's own opinion and his own choice have 
 often very little to do with the position which he occupies. The 
 people on this and the other plantation came to me by inheritance. 
 You certainly would not have me, to escape from a position personally 
 disagreeable, sell out my interest in the slaves, pocket the money, move 
 off to the North, and leave them to their fate ?" 
 
 " No, certainly," I replied ; " if they are to remain slaves, I hardly 
 think they would gam anything by a change of masters." 
 
 " Their remaining slaves," said Mr. Mason, " is not, at present, a 
 thing within my control. In the first place, there exists still an 
 undischarged mortgage, in which they are included. But that I hope 
 to pay off within the next six months. Then the portions of these two 
 young sisters of mine are a lien upon the estate, for the discharge of 
 which I have yet made only a partial provision. Then, again, here 
 in North Carolina, a master cannot set his slaves free at his own will 
 and pleasure. He must first have the consent of the county court ; 
 and now-a-days, that is not a thing so easy to be obtained. 
 
 " However," he added, " since I have gone so far in making a 
 confidant of you, I will tell you yet another secret. I do not mean to 
 remain a slaveholder except just so long as is necessary to escape from 
 that position with honour to myself, and benefit to all the parties 
 concerned. All my arrangements are made with that view. To give 
 me any freedom of action in this matter, it is necessary first to clear 
 off the encumbrances, the debts due, and the portions of my sisters. 
 Those sisters are to set off in a few days for the North, there to be 
 placed for their education. I mean to invest their money at the 
 North. I hope they will marry and settle at the North. They shall 
 have no slaveholding husbands if I can help it, and that for more 
 reasons than one. I don't want my sisters to be the mere heads of
 
 214 THE white slave; or, 
 
 a seraglio, with some black or brown favourite, perhaps, quite carrying 
 the day over them in real preference. Their poor mother — you are 
 to observe they are only hall-sisters of mine — suffered quite enough 
 in that way. The poor woman actually fretted herself to death with 
 jealousy and vexation, for which, I am sorry to say, my honoured 
 father gave her too much cause. In fact, he had very patriarchal 
 ideas. You may easily perceive, from the variety of complexion, that, 
 among the servants here and at Poplar- Grove, there is a considerable 
 infusion of Anglo-Saxon blood. I don't doubt that a large part of 
 the lighter-coloured among them can claim more or less of blood rela- 
 tionship to myself; and therefore I feel the more called upon to act 
 the part, not of a mean, selfish despot, but of the head of a family, 
 the chief of a tribe, whose clansmen are his poor relations, who have 
 a family claim upon him for the judicious conduct of their joint 
 affairs. 
 
 " My plan is this. As soon as the debts are paid, and I have laid 
 by enough money to purchase a good tract of land in Ohio or Indiana, 
 I mean to emigrate with the whole family. To set them free here, 
 even if there were no legal obstacles in the way, would not, in the 
 present state of feeling towards free coloured people, and the little 
 chance they can have to rise in the world, be much of a favour. It 
 would be too much like setting them free as the coons are, as one of 
 them once said to me, making a sort of free vermin of them, rather 
 than free men. And with the ignorance and incapacity which a life 
 of slavery has engendered, and the prejudices and obstacles they would 
 have to encounter in any of the free states — in some respects more 
 violent and oppressive than those felt here — it would hardly be much 
 of a favour to send them out by themselves, to seek their fortune at 
 the North. To give them a fair chance, to prevent them from bringing 
 a disgrace on the idea of emancipation, I intend to go with them, and 
 to be the leader and founder of the colony. That is the work for 
 which I reserve myself. I live a bachelor, as you see ; nor do I ever 
 mean to marry, so long as I live in a slave state. With all these 
 people to settle and provide for, I have quite family enough, quite 
 encumbrances enough on my hands, without that." 
 
 What an honest glow of enthusiasm, confidence, and self-respect, 
 kindled in Mr. Mason's face as he spoke ! How the nobleness of 
 the man grew upon me as he thus detailed his plans and intentions ! 
 Here, indeed, was the spirit of genuine Christianity. Here was a 
 man indeed. How small a number of such men would suffice to save 
 the southern Sodom from perdition ! — To make it truly a land of joy, 
 of justice, of peace, plenty, and of hope, instead of what it now is — 
 the stumbling-block of freedom, the opprobrium of civilization and 
 Christianity !
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 215 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 In leaving Mr. Mason's hospitable mansion, where I had protracted 
 my stay beyond all reason, I felt like parting with an old friend. As 
 he pressed my hand and said farewell, he bade me remember that 
 much had passed between us in confidence; and that any hint, 
 dropped incautiously, as to his opinions and intentions, might affect 
 him most injuriously, endangering his peaceful residence in the 
 country, and it might be his life. 
 
 Returning to the stage tavern, whence I had made this agreeable 
 side visit, I prepared to pursue my southern journey. I resolved, 
 however, while forwarding my baggage to Charleston by the stage- 
 coach, to proceed myself leisurely on horseback; for I had some 
 curiosity to strike upon, if I could, and to retrace the road which I had 
 followed in my escape from slavery. It being made known that I wished 
 to purchase a horse, I soon found myself beset by a dozen jockeys or 
 more, who did their best to impose upon me, one after the other, 
 animals lame, halt, blind, and broken-winded. But I succeeded, by 
 the aid and assistance of my friend, the Yankee stage-driver — whom 
 I found very knowing on the subject of horse-flesh, and who, to 
 explain the fact that so many broken-down animals were offered, 
 observed to me aside, and with a knowing wink, that these southern 
 folks treated their horses almost as bad as they did their niggers — 
 in mounting myself to my satisfaction ; and with a few shuts and 
 other necessaries stuffed into my saddle-bags, I started afresh on my 
 journey. 
 
 A few days' travelling, without the occurrence of anything remark- 
 able, brought me into the vicinity of Camden; and as I carefully 
 scrutinized the road, I did not fail presently to recognise that very 
 same little hedge-tavern where Thomas and myself had been taken as 
 prisoners, and whence, by the aid of the blue-eyed little girl, we had 
 effected our escape, carrying with us the spoils of Egypt, in the 
 shape of the clothes and money of our captors. With minds excited 
 as mine had been by the incidents of that eventful escape, the whole 
 scene, with all its surroundings, stamps itself wonderfully on the 
 memory. I could recall exactly the general appearance of the road, 
 as we had been dragged along, fastened to the saddles of our captors, 
 and of the little hedge-tavern, as it had first appeared in sight ; and no 
 sooner did I again see it, than I recognised it at once for the very 
 same. Indeed, there was the less difficulty in doing that, since, in 
 the whole of my horseback journey, I had not found a single house
 
 216 THE WHITE slave; or, 
 
 which had any appearance of newness about it; nor were houses of 
 such frequent occurrence as to tend much to confuse one's recollection. 
 Twenty years had made very little change in that part of the country. 
 As the house still had the external appearance of a tavern, or at least 
 of a whisky-shop, I determined to stop awhile to reconnoitre. 
 
 A stout and rather good-looking boy of twelve or fourteen, without 
 hat or shoes, and with no other clothes than a shirt, not lately washed, 
 and the tattered fragments of a pair of pantaloons, so much too large 
 for him as probably to have been his father's, took my horse as I dis- 
 mounted at the door, and promised to provide him with water and 
 corn. Walking into the single room which served for kitchen, bar 
 room, dining and sleeping room for the family, the only other' room 
 in the house being reserved for guests, I observed an old crone of a 
 woman sitting by the window, zealously plying a loom in which she 
 was weaving a piece of coarse homespun. Two small children, who 
 were rolling and tumbling on the floor, spoke to her as " granny." 
 She might doubtless have once been the mistress of the family, but 
 seemed now to have resigned the more immediate charge of matters 
 to a- younger woman, probably a daughter of hers, as the children, 
 while calling the old woman " granny," called the younger one 
 " mammy." This younger woman stood at the table, mixing corn 
 cakes in a great wooden tray. She was very poorly dressed, and 
 without shoes or stockings ; but with an expression of good-nature on 
 her face, and an expressive, soft blue eye, which marked her, however 
 rude and poverty-stricken, as one of those tender-hearted females who 
 can never look upon distress without doing what they can to remove 
 it. Entering into conversation with the women about the weather, 
 crops, distance to Camden, whether they could give me anything for 
 dinner, and so forth, I presently inquired, as if incidentally, whether 
 they had long lived at this place. " O, law, yes," said the old 
 woman at the loom. " Why, my Susy, there, who, you see, has 
 already a family growing up about her — she was born in this house, 
 and three or four more children, too, older than she, and as many 
 more younger ; but they are all gone now, except only her that stays 
 by her old mother." 
 
 " Not dead, I hope?" I asked, in a sympathizing tone. 
 
 " O, no ! not dead," said the old woman, " but as good as dead to 
 me; all gone, all moved off, some to Florida, and some to Alabama, 
 and some to Texas, and that's the last I shall ever hear of them ;" 
 and here followed a deep sigh. 
 
 " But don't you sometimes get a letter?" I inquired. 
 
 " Get a letter!" said the old woman, with a toss of the head, such 
 as left little doubt in my mind that she had been a smart piece in her 
 day, very different from her good-natured daughter — " get a letter J
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 217 
 
 And which of my sons and daughters, do you suppose, knows how to 
 write, or to read either, for that matter? Poor people here in 
 Carolina don't have any chance at learning ; no schools, and nothing 
 to pay the teacher with, if we had any. That's what has made them 
 all more off to seek a living elsewhere. Susy, here, knows how to 
 read ; I reckon you must have heard it somewhere ; but how do you 
 suppose it happened? When she was a young girl, there was a 
 Yankee pedlar stopped once at our house, one of those fellows as goes 
 travelling with a horse and wagon, selling wooden clocks, — and 
 there's one of them now," (here she pointed to the corner where the 
 machine hung,) " only it hasn't gone any this ten years, — and pins 
 and needles, and tin ware, and they do say wooden nutmegs, though 
 I don't know as this one that I am speaking of ever sold any. Awful 
 cheats, though, some of those Yankee pedlars are — awful !" said the 
 old lady, dropping her shuttle, and holding up both hands, and look- 
 ing at me with a very woe-begone expression. " That's one reason 
 our folks are all so poor, and that even those who own slaves have to 
 keep moving off to Alabama, because these cheating Yankee pedlars 
 carry off all the money out of the country; at least, that's what I 
 heard Colonel Thomas, the member of Congress say, the last time he 
 was round this way electioneering. Howsomever, I don't know any 
 harm of this particular Yankee that I was speaking of. He used to 
 come round about once a-year; and he sold his things a good deal 
 cheaper, and I can't say but that they were just as good as you can 
 buy in Camden-town. Well, one time this pedlar came to our house, 
 sick with a mighty smart fever. I thought he would die, sure 
 enough ; and I rather reckon he would, if Susy, there, though she was 
 then only twelve or fourteen years old, had not looked after him just 
 as if he had been her own father. And so you see when he began to 
 get well, as it was a good while before he was able to travel again, he 
 took to teaching the child to read, as he said, out of gratitude. He 
 put her on the track, and gave her a spelling-book out of those he 
 carried round to sell, and a nice new Bible, — get it, Susy, and show 
 it to the stranger, — which he said his mother gave him just before he 
 set out from Connecticut ; and so, you see, whenever any pedlar or 
 Methodist minister, or other person of learning that wasn't too proud, 
 came along, Susy would get a lesson from them, till she learnt to read 
 as glib as could be ; and now she teaches her children too. You 
 wouldn't believe it, but that boy Jim, there," pointing to the boy 
 who had taken my horse, " knows how to read ! All his mother's 
 doings ; and if he can only now and then get hold of a newspaper, he 
 is as proud as a peacock." 
 
 All this long history of her daughter, on the part of the old lady, 
 served to confirm me in the conjecture I had formed that the bare-
 
 218 THE WHITE SLAVE; OR, 
 
 footed matron before me, distinguished by such remarkable literary 
 accomplishments and motherly tenderness, and to the first-rate excel- 
 lency of whose corn cakes I was myself shortly after able to testify, must 
 be the identical little girl to whom Thomas and myself had owed our 
 escape on that night, so memorable to me, on which I had started on 
 my northern travels in pursuit of freedom. 
 
 To make matters sure, while she was setting a table for my dinner 
 in the other room, I inquired of her if she could recollect how, a great 
 many years ago, — it must have been before the time that the pedlar 
 taught her to read, — two men, one black, the other white, had been 
 brought prisoners to her mother's house, and confined for the night in 
 this very room. As I went into the matter somewhat in detail, I 
 could easily perceive, as the circumstances were recalled to her 
 memory, though she said nothing, a gleam of wondering recognition 
 lighting up a face, which, though it could not be called handsome, 
 more especially as the uncombed hair hanging about her head gave 
 her a sort of wild appearance, had yet upon it an unmistakable stamp 
 cf good-heartedness, which did not fail to make a very agreeable im- 
 pression. But when, in the course of the story, I came to speak of 
 the little girl who stole in at night, and, while their keepers slept, cut 
 the bonds of the prisoners, alarm and anxiety spread over her before 
 smiling features ; and though she strove hard to preserve an uncon- 
 scious self-composure, it was easy to perceive that she experienced no 
 little terror, as if she were now in danger of being called to account 
 for that act of childish generosity. However, I very soon quieted her 
 fears on that score. Great, indeed, was her astonishment, when I 
 informed her that I was the selfsame white prisoner whom she had 
 released, and, what was more, that I was both ready and able to make 
 some return to her for the favour she had then done me. 
 
 Upon taking the liberty after this introduction, and the assurance 
 that I wished to befriend her, to inquire a little into her domestic 
 affairs, I learnt, chiefly indeed from this old woman, who insisted 
 upon doing pretty much all the talking, that her husband, though a 
 good sort of man enough, was shiftless and idle, and that the support 
 of the family devolved pretty much on the women. The husband, 
 indeed, wanted to emigrate, but the old woman, with a degree of 
 home feeling not very usual, so far as I have noticed, with that class 
 of the American people, was unwilling to go, and the daughter would 
 not without the mother. It seemed to be the great object of the 
 daughter's ambition to send her eldest boy, Tom, to school. She 
 had already taught him all she knew, and he was presently called in 
 to give a specimen of his accomplishments by reading a chapter from 
 the pedlar's Bible, which the good mother produced from a closet, 
 and which, carefully covered with cloth, was evidently preserved with 
 great care.
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 219 
 
 There was, it seemed, in that neighbourhood, what was called a 
 manual labour boarding school, lately set up by the Methodists, of 
 which religious sect the boy's mother was a zealous member. This 
 school was principally designed for the instruction of those of limited 
 means, who, by labouring a certain number of horns in the day, might 
 acquire, along with their learning, some mechanical trade, and at the 
 same time diminish the cost of their board and instruction. This 
 cost, even without such reduction, did not much exceed the moderate 
 sum of a hundred dollars a year. But though, by great economy, 
 my benefactress had already laid aside, as she told me, about thirty- 
 seven dollars, where the rest of the hundred was to come from — and 
 she wanted the boy to have at least a year's schooling — she did not 
 know; and besides, it would take about the whole of her present 
 savings to fit him out with clothes, books, and other necessaries. 
 
 I bade the good woman make herself easy on that score, and the 
 boy having washed and dressed himself, and caught a scrubby pony 
 belonging to the family, we set out together that same afternoon to 
 visit the school, which was at no great distance. 
 
 The founder and chief teacher of it, lately a travelling minister or 
 the Methodist connexion, but who had now devoted himself entirely 
 to this new work, was, I found, originally from the north. He had 
 been bred a shoemaker, but feeling a call to preach, had quitted 
 his original vocation, and, after many wanderings, had finally reached 
 South Carolina, of which circuit he had become one of the preachers. 
 In point of education and manners, the contrast was very marked 
 indeed between this good man (for such I soon satisfied myself he 
 was) and my late clerical acquaintance, Mr. Telfair ; but in zeal, en- 
 thusiasm, and the desire of benefiting those about them, both physi- 
 cally and spiritually, there were strong points of resemblance between 
 them. On the whole, I was well satisfied that my young protege 
 should be trusted in such good hands. I paid down for him his board 
 and tuition for a year, and in case it should be thought best for him to 
 remain a second year, 1 left with the teacher an order on the merchant 
 in Charleston, on whom I had letters of credit. I also desired to be 
 informed, by letter, through the same source, of the boy's progress 
 and promise, with a view, if he proved deserving, of doing something 
 more for him. Having sent him home with money enough to fit 
 him out, without intrenching on his mother's little store, I turned my 
 horse's head towards Charleston, resolved to take my route as nearly 
 as I could in the general direction of my former travels in that region.
 
 220 THE WHITE SLAVE j Oil, 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 As I began to approach the neighbourhood of Loosahachee, I per- 
 ceived, at a distance on the road, a group of men on horseback, upon 
 whom, as they moved at a very slow pace, I gained rapidly. As I 
 drew nearer, the group presented a very striking appearance. There 
 were twelve or fifteen fierce-looking white men, very variously mounted, 
 with rifles in their hands, and well provided with pistols and bowie 
 knives, their dresses bedaubed with half-dry mud, as though they had 
 been engaged in some aquatic expedition. A negro fellow, who fol- 
 lowed on foot, and by the side of whom, with a sharp eye upon him, 
 rode a white man armed to the teeth, held in leash some four or five 
 savage-looking dogs, which I easily recognised as of the breed usually 
 trained and employed for hunting runaway slaves. But the most 
 remarkable objects, and those upon which the attention of the white 
 men of the company seemed to be fixed with looks gloomy and fero- 
 cious, though not unmingled with triumph, were near the centre of 
 the group, a little in front. Here I perceived the apparently lifeless 
 body of a white man, whose pale features bore still a scowl of brutal 
 rage upon them, that contrasted strangely with their death-like fixed- 
 ness. The clothes, muddy and torn, as if in some recent struggle, 
 were all dabbled with blood, which seemed still to ooze from a fatal 
 wound in the breast. The body had been secured on the back of a 
 horse, which was led by a negro man, whose blank and stolid features, 
 upon which, however, I thought I could trace a certain obscure gleam 
 of repressed satisfaction, presented a curious contrast, as did that of 
 the black man who led the hounds, to the fierce, furious, and indig- 
 nant looks of the white men. 
 
 Side by side with this dead body rode a black man, wounded and 
 bleeding, and evidently a prisoner, for his feet were tied together 
 under the horse's belly, and his hands bound behind him. He was a 
 man of most powerful and athletic frame, verging on old age, with 
 an enormous bushy beard, weak, apparently from his wounds, and 
 almost fainting, so that it seemed with great, difficulty that he kept 
 erect ; yet, in spite of his feebleness and captivity, and the vengeful 
 glances, mixed with occasional curses, which his captors directed at 
 him, still preserving, in a certain haughty and dogged aspect of defi- 
 ance, the look of one who had been long accustomed to liberty. 
 
 There was another captive in the company on foot, with a rope 
 round his neck, fastened to the saddle of one of the white men, of a 
 lighter colour than the mounted prisoner, barefoot and bareheaded,
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 221 
 
 as was the other, and with very scanty clothing. He did not appear 
 to be wounded ; but his back was all cut and bleeding, as if he had 
 just undergone a most severe flagellation, and his woful, supplicating, 
 subdued look, made the sullen, defiant air of his fellow-captive on 
 horseback the more remarkable. 
 
 Riding up by the side of the mounted master of the hounds, who 
 brought up the rear of this strange cavalcade, I inquired what had 
 happened. It was apparent from his manner and language, notwith- 
 standing the rude company in which I found him, that he was a person 
 of cultivation, not unaccustomed to civilized society. Indeed, it soon 
 appeared that he was the owner of a neighbouring plantation, who, 
 with some of his friends and neighbours, and other rougher profes- 
 sional assistants, engaged for the occasion, had been out on a grand 
 slave hunt. The dead man they were bringing back was, he told me, 
 no other than his own overseer. 
 
 This overseer was, he said, a very smart, driving fellow, a Yankee, 
 who had first visited that part of the country as a pedlar, but who had 
 afterwards turned schoolmaster, and then overseer. It was generally 
 observed, that these Yankee overseers would contrive to get the most 
 work out of the people, and being somewhat in debt, he had employed 
 him on that very account. But in the great ambition of Mr. Jona- 
 than Snapdragon — for such was his name — to sustain the reputation 
 of the section of the country from which he came, he had rather 
 overdone the matter. The price of cotton was unusually high, and in 
 hope of making an extraordinary crop, this Yankee overseer had 
 resolved to work a couple more acres to the hand than had ever before 
 been attempted on that plantation. What made the matter worse, the 
 corn, of which the crop in all that section of the country had been 
 light the preceding year, fell short, and it became necessary, in addi- 
 tion to the increased tasks, to put the people on half allowance. 
 However, by means of a pretty liberal use of the whip, in which the 
 Yankee overseer was a great adept, and which he seemed to take a 
 real delight in, things had worried along till just at the pinch of the 
 season, when it all depended upon three or four weeks of most assi- 
 duous labour, whether the weeds or the cotton should gain the 
 ultimate ascendancy. Just at this crisis of the fate of the crop, when 
 their services were most wanted, all the prime male hands had scurvily 
 skulked off a few nights since into the woods, leaving the overseer 
 with the women, chddren, and sick, to contend against the weeds as 
 best he could ; and that, too, said my communicative planter, looking 
 at me with the air of a most ill-treated man, as if sure of my sym- 
 pathy, with cotton at sixteen cents the pound, and promising to be 
 higher yet by the time the crop was ready for the market. 
 
 There had, he told me, been prowling about in that neighbour-
 
 222 THE WHITE SLAVE J OB, 
 
 hood, for a great many years past, perhaps twenty or more, to the 
 infinite annoyance of the whole country, a runaway negro, known 
 commonly among the people as Wild Tom. He was believed to 
 belong to old General Carter, a rich planter, of Charleston, who had 
 long ago otfered a standing reward of a thousand dollars for his cap- 
 ture, dead or alive. The story was, that he had run away from Loosa- 
 hachee, one of General Carter's rice plantations, some distance below, 
 after having first killed the overseer in some quarrel about whipping 
 his wife ; and the burning down of the expensive rice-mills at Loosa- 
 hachee, which had happened no less than five or six times within the 
 last twenty years, had been commonly ascribed to his artful and daring 
 malice and revenge. 
 
 Great efforts had been made at times to take this dangerous outlaw, 
 and many ingenious plans had been formed to entrap him, but all 
 had hitherto failed, not without the desperate wounding of several 
 persons who had met him in personal encounter. He seemed to have 
 various lurking-places, scattered over a considerable range of country, 
 from one to another of which he fled, as occasion required, thus 
 eluding all attempts at his capture. Sometimes, when the pursuit 
 after him had been very hot, he would seem to disappear for months, 
 or even a year or two, but was pretty certain to make his reappearance 
 when least expected and least welcome. Had he merely confined 
 himself to the petty depredations necessary to support himself and his 
 band of confederates, the matter would have been of less consequence ; 
 but he was believed to keep up an underhand communication with 
 almost every plantation in the neighbourhood, and to be a general 
 instructor in mischief and insubordination, an aider and abettor of 
 runaways, and harbourer of fugitives. 
 
 This same Wild Tom had been seen, within a short time past, 
 lurking about in the neighbourhood, and it was suspected that the 
 late stampede had not taken place without his aid and assistance. 
 It was deemed a much easier thing to find and to take him encum- 
 bered by a dozen or twenty raw recruits, than if alone, or only 
 attended, as he generally was, or at least was generally supposed to 
 be — for in all that was commonly reported of him, there was a great 
 deal more of conjecture than of knowledge — by one or two trusty, 
 tried, and experienced companions. With my new acquaintance, the 
 planter — from whom I was deriving all this information, in which, 
 since he had made mention of Wild Tom, I began to feel the deepest 
 interest — the recovery of his people was a matter almost of life and 
 death, pecuniarily speaking, since, unless they were recovered, it would 
 be necessary for him to abandon half or more of his crop, and that, 
 too, with cotton at sixteen cents the pound, and promising to be 
 higher ; for hired free labourers were things unknown in that part of
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 223 
 
 the country, nor could even slave labour be hired at that season of 
 the year, when everybody was straining for dear life against the 
 weeds, and when the ordinary supply of almost every plantation was 
 expected to be diminished by the absence of a certain number of 
 incorrigible fellows, who make it a rule, just at that season, to absent 
 themselves for a summer vacation in the woods, being willing to risk 
 the severest punishment they might encounter when taken, for the 
 sake, at that particular season of the year and the crop, of a few 
 weeks of agreeable woodland retirement. And here, indeed, a strong 
 resemblance might be traced between them and very many of their 
 masters, who, as the hot weather and unhealthy season came on, 
 were accustomed to abandon their plantations, and to figure away for 
 a few weeks, as grand as runaway Cuffee himself, at Philadelphia, 
 New York, or Saratoga, to the astonishment of admiring and curious 
 Yankees, in the assumed character of millionaires and nabobs ; though 
 sure to pay for it by pinching at home all the rest of the year, and 
 living in almost as much terror of dims, writs, and executions, as their 
 unhappy slaves do of the lash. In this extremity, therefore, my new 
 acquaintance had offered a large reward for the recovery of his people ; 
 to which inducement was added the standing reward for Wild Tom, 
 also other rewards which had been offered for other runaways from 
 other plantations in the neighbourhood, more numerous this year than 
 usual, on account of the short supply of corn, and the greater breadth 
 of cotton, which the prevailing high price had caused to be planted. 
 A grand hunt had accordingly been proclaimed, and at short notice 
 a company of near a hundred men had been collected, planters, over- 
 seers, loafers, poor whites, with four or five professional slave-catchers, 
 and several packs of hounds, armed to the teeth, and prepared to 
 make a search of the neighbouring swamps, in which it was customary 
 for the runaways to take refuge, lying hid by day, and comiug out by 
 night to supply themselves, by killing cattle and otherwise, and to 
 communicate with their wives and friends who remained behind. The 
 season, indeed, was very favourable to this operation, an uncommonly 
 long drought having dried up the swamps to a considerable extent, 
 and made them much more accessible than usual. 
 
 The entire company had been accordingly divided into five or six 
 divisions, each to carry on operations by itself, and each provided with 
 its pack of dogs, that into whose company I had fallen — I speak here 
 not so much of the dogs as of the men — being one of them. What 
 had been the success of the other parties my informant could not tell. 
 What I saw before me indicated, in a general way, the mixed fortune 
 which his party had encountered. 
 
 It had been appointed to them as their duty to search a swamp of 
 no great extent, but very inaccessible, on account of the unusual depth
 
 224 THE white slave; or, 
 
 of the mud and water, in many places over a man's head, in the centre 
 of which was a small island of firm land, believed to be a favourite 
 lurking-place of Wild Tom's, who was supposed to know better than 
 anybody else the most convenient approaches to it. 
 
 Within half-a-mile from the swamp the dogs had started the 
 lighter-coloured of the two prisoners, upon whom they had come 
 suddenly as he lay concealed in the long grass, hoping to escape 
 observation. As the party were close by, the dogs were prevented 
 from tearing him, and he was made prisoner without trouble. The 
 mud on his feet and legs, and the wetness of the scanty fragments of 
 clothing that he wore, afforded pretty strong indications that he had 
 lately come from the swamp island, which it was the object of the 
 partv to search. He was charged with this, but affected the most 
 stolid ignorance of the existence of any such island, or swamp either. 
 When questioned whence he came, and whom he belonged to, he 
 acknowledged himself a runaway from a rice plantation below, who 
 had lately wandered into this vicinity, of which he professed an entire 
 ignorance, declaring himself to be dying of hunger, and not to have 
 eaten anything hardly for a week — a story to which his plump and 
 comfortable aspect did not give much credit. He acknowledged 
 having heard of Wild Tom, who, indeed, figured largely in the current 
 legends, white and negro, of all that region ; but denied most posi- 
 tively ever having seen him, or knowing anything of any other 
 runaways. 
 
 These protestations, however, did not satisfy, and to make him 
 confess, he was tied up and whipped till he fainted ; but while begging 
 for mercy, he still insisted on the truth of his story, and that he had 
 nothing further to tell. 
 
 This experiment having failed, he was placed on the stump of a 
 fallen tree, and a rope being put round his neck, and fastened to a 
 branch above, he was threatened with instant hanging if he did not 
 confess. Still he continued dogged as ever ; when one of the com- 
 pany pushed him off the stump, and allowed him to swing till he 
 grew black in the face. He was then placed back upon the stump, 
 the rope loosened, and himself supported by the two or three slaves 
 who accompanied the party. At length beginning to recover himself, 
 whether out of terror of death, or the confusion of his ideas and the 
 destruction of his self-control by the pressure of the blood upon 
 the brain, he began to confess freely enough that he had just come 
 from the swamp island, and that Wild Tom was there ; but he denied 
 all knowledge of any other runaways, or that Wild Tom had anybody 
 with him. 
 
 The prospect of capturing this celebrated outlaw, the glory thus to 
 be gained, and the public service to be rendered — not to mention the
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 225 
 
 thousand dollars reward — produced a great sensation in the company ; 
 though, till it had first been ascertained, by further inquiries from the 
 confessing prisoner, that his formidable chief had neither rifle, pistol, 
 nor fire-arms of any sort, no arms, in fact, but a knife, there did 
 seem to be some little lack of vigour in proceeding with the business; 
 so my planter informant told me, lowering his voice, and casting a 
 knowing glance, with a significant smile, at two or three of the fiercest- 
 looking fellows in the cavalcade before us — one in particular, who 
 bestowed every now and then very savage looks on the mounted pri- 
 soner, and seemed with difficulty to keep his hands off him. 
 
 To make all sure, eight or ten of the company were sent to patrol 
 on horseback round the edges of the swamp, together with all the 
 dogs but one, while five or six of the strongest and most resolute 
 proposed to penetrate the interior, and to storm the island retreat. 
 The prisoner, with the rope still about his neck, the other end made fast 
 to the waist of one of the stoutest of the company, was required to serve 
 as guide; and though he protested that he knew nothing in particular 
 of the approaches to the island, he was threatened with instant death 
 in case he did not conduct them safely and expeditiously across. The 
 fellow, however, whether through ignorance or design, led them into 
 very deep water, in some places fairly up to their necks, through 
 which they were obliged to wade, holding their rifles and powder 
 horns over their heads; and, in spite of every effort to keep him 
 quiet, as the party drew near the island, he would insist on crying 
 out, as if giving directions as to the passage, but, as was strongly sus- 
 pected, with the real design of alarming his confederate. And, indeed, 
 before the party could make good their footing on the island, he had 
 already taken the alarm, and had plunged into the water on the other 
 side. He had gained a considerable distance before he was seen, and 
 as he dodged behind the great trees of the swamp, several rifle shots 
 fired at him failed to take effect. In plunged the others in fresh 
 pursuit, while the fugitive, engrossed by this danger behind, made the 
 best of his way through the mud and water till he gained the firm 
 land on the other side of the swamp, where he encountered a new 
 danger, being seen by one of the scouts patrolling along the edge. 
 As he bounded through the piny woods like a deer, a rifle-shot grazed 
 his side, and though it did not bring him down, vet it materially 
 checked the swiftness of his flight. Four or five horsemen were soon 
 upon his track. Snapdragon, the overseer, leading in the chase, 
 soon came up with the flying negro ; and after vainly calling to him 
 to yield, and firing his pistols with only partial effect, sprang from his 
 horse, and attempted to seize him. Snapdragon was a powerful man, 
 but. he had now found his match. Wild Tom, if indeed it were 
 really he, exhausted and wounded as he was, caught his assailant in 
 
 Q
 
 226 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OK, 
 
 "his arms, and as they rolled upon the ground, the negro's knife was 
 not long in finding its way to the overseer's heart. But already the 
 dogs and the other pursuers were upon him, and before he could dis- 
 engage himself, he was made a prisoner, and securely bound. It was 
 not long before the whole party was assembled, when some of the 
 more violent proposed to revenge the dead overseer by putting the 
 new prisoner to death on the spot. But the pleasure and glory of 
 making a parade and exhibition of their prize, and the necessity, too, 
 in order to secure the promised reward, to identify him as General 
 Carter's runaway, had stayed this summary procedure; and it had 
 been resolved forthwith to hasten to the village, which served as seat 
 of justice for the county, to commit the prisoners to jail. 
 
 We were already in the near vicinity of the county seat, which 
 proved to be a more considerable village than usual, and from which, 
 as if by some premonition of our coming, issued to meet us a most 
 miscellaneous multitude; of all colours, white, brown, and black ; of 
 every age, from infants scarcely able to go alone to old negroes with 
 heads perfectly white, making their way, staff in hand ; and of almost 
 every variety of equipment, from the well-dressed and well-mounted 
 planters to little negro boys, perfectly naked, riding on sticks by way 
 of horses, and shouting and screaming like so many witch urchins. 
 
 Great time it was at the village of Eglmton, to which three or four 
 other parties of the grand hunt had lately returned, not unsuccessful. 
 As we approached the jail, — a little wretched brick building, con- 
 taining a single room of ten or twelve feet square, with one little 
 grated window, whence proceeded a steam and stench perceptible at a 
 considerable distance, — we found it crammed completely full of recap- 
 tured negroes, some of them severely wounded, tumbled pellmell into 
 this Black Hole, which contained also two white women, committed on 
 some charge of theft ; the slaves to be detained until their masters 
 should come forward and pay the promised reward for their capture, 
 together with certain fees and charges which the law allows in such 
 cases. 
 
 By way of refreshment after their fatigues, and in commemoration 
 of their prowess, these successful men-hunters had indulged in pretty 
 copious draughts of peach brandy and whisky; and the dead body of 
 the overseer, conveyed to the tavern and laid out upon the table, soon 
 wrought up those who gazed at it into a state of furious indignation. 
 
 As it was absolutely impossible to thrust any more prisoners into 
 the jail, the two taken by the company to which I had attached myself, 
 after being fettered and handcuffed, had been fastened by heavy 
 chains to the iron bars of the prison window grating. 
 
 It was only by the greatest efforts that I mastered my emotions, 
 as, making my way among the crowd of blacks and whites that
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 227 
 
 gathered around him, I approached the one supposed to be Wild Tom. 
 I bent upon him a scrutinizing eye. He was greatly altered ; yet I 
 did not fail to recognise the features, too strongly impressed upon mv 
 mind ever to be forgotten, of my old friend and compatriot of twenty 
 years before. I had expected it ; yet what an agony shot through 
 my heart to know it ! It was necessary, however, to control myself, 
 and I did. I spoke a few words, when, satisfied by my tone and 
 look that I felt a sympathy for him, he laid aside, for a moment, that 
 air of proud defiance with which, like a lion in the toils, he had 
 glanced round on the crowd, and with a tone of entreaty begged me 
 for a drink of water. By the promise of half a dollar, I induced one 
 of the negroes to bring me a large gourd full ; but just as the wounded 
 prisoner was slowly raising it with his manacled arms to his lips, a 
 well-dressed white man struck it with a stick which he held in his 
 hand, and dashed it to the ground. I could not refrain from some 
 Avords of protest against this piece of wanton cruelty ; but the man 
 with the stick turned upon me with a volley of oaths, inquired who I 
 was, that dared to comfort this infernal negro murderer, and by 
 drawing the eyes of the company upon me as a stranger, began to 
 make my position very uncomfortable. 
 
 Just at this moment we heard a loud shout at the tavern door, at 
 no great distance, followed up by a vigorous fight and a great uproar, 
 as it seemed, between two parties into which the crowd assembled 
 there had become divided. This drew off all those who had collected 
 about the prisoners, except the negro man who had brought the water, 
 and who still stuck by, to keep me in remembrance of the half dollar; 
 and by the promise to double it, I succeeded in obtaining another 
 gourd full, from which my poor captured friend was enabled without 
 interruption to quench his feverish thirst. As he dropped the empty 
 gourd, he turned to me an eye of acknowledgment. Thank Heaven, 
 that in his distress and extremity, I was enabled to do for him even 
 EO much as this ! 
 
 Incapable as I was of affording any succour, I felt an invincible 
 desire to make myself known to him. I felt, indeed, that to his 
 noble and generous soul it would afford a glow of satisfaction, even 
 in the depth of his own distress, to know of the welfare of his old 
 friend and confederate. I stepped close to him, and, placing my hand 
 on his arm, I said, in a whisper, " Thomas, do you know me ? 
 Remember Loosahachee ! Remember Ann, how she was murdered, 
 and how you vowed vengeance over her grave ! Remember Martin, 
 the overseer, and how we buried him and the bloodhound together ! 
 Remember our parting, when I went north and you went south ! I 
 am Archy ; do you know me?" 
 
 How keenly he fixed his eyes upon me as I began ! With what 
 
 a2
 
 528 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OK, 
 
 devouring glances he gazed at me as I went on ! I, too, was greatly 
 altered — far more than he ; but before I had spoken my name, I saw 
 that he knew me. But in an instant, his eye glancing from me, that 
 momentary gleam of joyous surprise which had lighted up his face 
 passed suddenly away, and his features again resumed that sullen look 
 of defiance, which seemed to say to his captors, " Do your worst ; I 
 am ready." 
 
 J 
 
 I felt at that same moment a hand rudely laid on my shoulder, 
 while a voice, which I recognised as that of the same man who had 
 dashed the calabash of water from Thomas's grasp, exclaimed, with a 
 volley of oaths, " What the devil are you doing here in close confab 
 with this murderer ? I tell you, stranger, you don't leave here with- 
 out giving an account of yourself!" 
 
 At the same time a number of men, rushing up to Thomas, began 
 to unfasten the chains from the prison bars, and to conduct him 
 towards the door of the tavern. 
 
 The fight had been between the more drunken and infuriated 
 portion of the company, who, enraged at the sight of the dead over- 
 seer, wished to try and execute Thomas at once, and those who had 
 wished to await the arrival of General Carter, for whom a messenger 
 had been sent, and to delay final proceedings till the prisoner had 
 first been identified as the veritable Wild Tom, and General Carter's 
 property, lest otherwise there might be some difficulty in recovering 
 the promised reward. 
 
 The more violent and drunken party had, however, prevailed; a 
 court of three freeholders had been organized on the spot, and Thomas, 
 again surrounded by a rabble of blacks and whites, was now brought 
 before this august tribunal. I was myself at the same time taken 
 into custody as a suspected person, with an intimation that my case 
 should be attended to as soon as that of the negro was disposed of. 
 
 " Whom do you belong to ?" Such was the first question which 
 the honourable court addressed to the prisoner. 
 
 " I belong," answered Thomas, with much solemnity, " to the 
 God who made us all !" A reply so unusual was received by some 
 with a stare, by others with a laugh, redoubled at the repartee by one 
 of the judges, " To God, ah ! I rather reckon you belong to the 
 devil ! Any how, he'll very soon have you.'' 
 
 To reiterated demands as to whose property he was, Thomas 
 steadily replied that he was a free man ; when the same witty judge 
 raised a new laugh by requesting him to show his free papers. 
 
 The court, after hearing a witness or two, pronounced him guilty 
 of the murder of the overseer, after which he was asked, with a sort 
 of mock solemnity, if he had anything to say why sentence of death 
 should not be passed upon him.
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 229 
 
 " Go on," said the indignant culprit ; '•' hang me, kill me, do 
 your will. I was held a slave for the best years of my life. 
 My wife was flogged to death before my eyes. As a free man, 
 you have hunted me with bloodhounds, and shot at me with rifles, 
 -and placed a price upon my head. Long have I fooled you, and 
 paid you back in your own coin. That white man to-day was not 
 the first who has found me too much for him. One by one, two by 
 two, three by three, I defy and would whip the whole of you, but 
 the whole dozen, mounted and armed, with dogs to boot, were too 
 much for one poor black man, with nothing but his feet, his hands, 
 and his knife. They have not always been too much ; but I am 
 getting old. Better die now, while I have strength and courage to 
 defy your worst, than fall into your hands a broken-down old 
 man." 
 
 These words of defiance wrought up the assembled mob of planters 
 and overseers to a fury perfectly devilish. " Hanging is too good for 
 him," some of them cried out; and presently the awful cry was raised, 
 " Burn him ! burn him !" No sooner was the horrible idea suggested, 
 than volunteers were found to prepare to carry it into execution. It 
 was in vain that I, and indeed two or three of those who had been 
 engaged in the capture of Thomas, and among them the planter by 
 whose side I had ridden, and from whom I had heard the story of it, 
 remonstrated against this horrible and illegal cruelty. The same 
 brutal scoundrel who had dashed the water from Thomas's lips now 
 stood forward as the leader and manager of this new atrocity. It 
 was necessary, he said, with the country agitated by abolition incen- 
 diaries, some of them, he repeated, — and here he cast a malignant 
 glance at me, — in communication with this very outlaw, now that 
 they had him in their power, to make an example of him. This Wild 
 Tom had been the terror of the whole neighbourhood for years. The 
 stories of his exploits, circulating among the negroes, had done infi- 
 nite damage, and might make many imitators. It was necessary, 
 therefore, to counteract this impression by having his career terminate 
 in a way to inspire awe and terror. 
 
 A pile of light wood was soon collected, and the victim of slave- 
 holding vengeance was placed in the midst of it. 
 
 The pile was then lighted, and the smoke and flames began to 
 wreathe above his head. But even yet unsubdued, he looked round 
 en his shouting tormentors with a smile of contemptuous defiance. 
 
 Unable to endure the horrid spectacle, I attempted to rush from 
 among the crowd ; but I found myself watched, and directly I was 
 seized, and, by orders of the self-appointed master of ceremonies of 
 this horrible scene conveyed close to the burning pile, as one on 
 whom the spectacle of such an execution might make a salutary im- 
 pression.
 
 230 THE white slave; ok, 
 
 Thomas recognised me, — at least I thought so, — from amid the 
 flames, and he lifted up his arm, as if to hid me farewell. 
 
 O, the horrible agony of that moment ! Had I myself been in the 
 place of my friend, could I have suffered more? My heartstrings 
 seemed to crack ; the blood rushed in a torrent to my brain. Nature 
 could not endure it. I dropped fainting and senseless to the ground. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 When I recovered my senses, I found myself on a bed, with four 
 or five black women about me, applying various restoratives ; and, as 
 I opened my eyes, they burst out with great shouts of delight. 
 
 I found afterwards that, during my fainting fit, my pockets, as well 
 as my saddle-bags, had been thoroughly searched, in hopes of obtain- 
 ing some proofs to corroborate the suspicions raised against me by 
 the sympathy I had exhibited. 
 
 But the only papers found were some letters of credit and intro- 
 duction addressed from Liverpool to mercantile houses of established 
 character in Charleston and New Orleans, in which I was described 
 as an English traveller, on a tour partly of business and partly of 
 pleasure. 
 
 Upon the production and public reading of these letters, a great 
 difference of opinion had sprung up among the sovereigns assembled 
 at Eglinton, acting in my case as a committee of vigilance with full 
 powers, of the extent of which so terrible an instance had just been 
 exhibited before my eyes. 
 
 The mere fact that I was an Englishman went very far with many 
 of the ruder sort to confirm the supposition that I must be an aboli- 
 tionist and a conspirator. The draught of water which I had per- 
 sisted in procuring for Thomas was regarded by several as a very 
 suspicious circumstance. The words I had privately addressed to 
 him, and the appearance of some understanding between him and 
 myself, weighed very heavily against me. The remonstrances I had 
 made against the cruel death to which he had just been subjected 
 were set down as, at the very best, a great piece of impertinent inter- 
 ference — especially coming from an Englishman. 
 
 The same ruffian who had already twice interfered between Thomas 
 and myself, and who had caused my seizure as a suspected person, 
 now assumed the part of chief prosecutor. He argued, with great 
 zeal, that I must be an emissary of the English abolitionists, and 
 perhaps of the English government, sent out on purpose to stir up 
 a slave revolt, and from what had passed between me and Wild
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 231 
 
 Tom, apparently in correspondence with that dangerous outlaw, and 
 the least that could be done, in his opinion, with any proper regard 
 for the public safety, was to give me a sound flogging, and to ride 
 me on a rail out of the county. 
 
 This proposal was very favourably received; and nothing but the 
 strenuous exertions of the planter whose acquaintance I had made 
 on the road saved me from falling a victim to it. As I had entered 
 Eglinton in his company, he seemed to consider me, in some sort, as 
 under his protection ; and he accordingly took up my cause with no 
 little zeal. My overtaking him on the road — so he argued — was a 
 matter of pure accident; my interference on behalf of the bloody 
 murderer, upon whom such just, proper, and signal vengeance had 
 been taken, was only a piece of misjudged humanity. It was not to 
 be supposed that a stranger, and an Englishman, could enter into all 
 of their feelings. TVhile adopting all proper means promptly to sup- 
 press and punish all interference with the domestic institutions of 
 the south, for which nobody was more zealous than he, they ought 
 to be careful how they overstepped the limits of reason and prudence. 
 If I had been only a northerner, it would be safe enough to maltreat 
 me to any extent, even to burn me alive, as they just had done 
 the " nierger." Those pitiful Yankees might be whipped, kicked, 
 and otherwise punished, to any extent, with reason or without, and 
 there would not be the least danger of any rumpus about it, for fear 
 it might diminish the trade with the south. But to meddle with an 
 Englishman was quite another affair. England did not allow any of 
 her people to be maltreated with impunity. It was apparent from 
 inv letters that I was a person who had money and friends, and those 
 concerned in any irregular violence inflicted upon me might find 
 themselves called upon to answer for it. To be sure, the United 
 States could whip the British again, as they had done in the last war. 
 But still, in the present excited state of the slave population, a war 
 with England was not exactly desirable. Such, as he afterwards in- 
 formed me, was the general tenor of the argument by which my 
 planter friend had saved me from the clutches of the vigilance com- 
 mittee. Had he or thev suspected my true history, how different 
 the result might have been ! 
 
 While this discussion had been going on, I had been conveyed to 
 the tavern, still in a senseless condition, where the negro women, with 
 there usual good nature, had exerted themselves, as I have mentioned 
 already, for my recovery. Mv planter friend soon made his appear- 
 ance. He saw that I was not yet in a condition to resume my 
 journey ; and as the village, and especially the tavern and its neigh- 
 bourhood, still continued a scene of drunken uproar, such as made 
 my further stay there neither conducive to my health nor perhaps
 
 232 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 compatible with ray safety, he insisted upon taking me to his own 
 house. This invitation, under the circumstances, I was glad to accept ; 
 and keeping my room for three or four days, I gradually recovered, 
 and grew strong again. 
 
 My host, who of course was without any clew to the special interest 
 which I had in the death of Thomas, seemed rather surprised at the 
 serious effect which that incident had produced upon me ; nor could 
 he otherwise explain it except by supposing that alarm for my own 
 personal safety had a great share in it. He therefore exerted all his 
 eloquence, as well to reassure me personally as to vindicate the repu- 
 tation of the southern states against any conclusions which I might 
 hastily draw. He assured me, upon his honour, that such scenes as 
 I had witnessed were not by any means common. Once in a while the 
 indignation of the peopb, roused to the highest pitch by some 
 atrocious villany on the part of some negro, did vent itself in the way 
 I had witnessed. But this burning alive was quite an exceptional 
 circumstance. He had never known more than two or three other 
 instances of it, and those provoked by some horrible misdemeanour, 
 such as the murder of a white man, or the rape of a white woman. 
 He hoped I should be candid enough to admit that a few such 
 instances could not be considered as seriously detracting from the 
 claims of the southern states to stand in the highest ranks of civiliza- 
 tion and Christianity. The fact was, the negroes were such a set of 
 unmitigated savages, that occasional examples were necessary to 
 inspire them with a wholesome degree of thread. 
 
 I was not at present in a state of mind to conduct an argument 
 with much advantage. Besides, notwithstanding my host's personal 
 kindness towards me, I very soon discovered what the circumstances 
 under which I had first met him might have given me sufficient 
 assurance of, that upon the subject of the evils or wrongs of slavery, he 
 was perfectly impenetrable. Remembering, therefore, the evangelical 
 injunction of not casting pearls before swine's feet, I contented myself 
 by letting him understand that however it might be in America, 
 which I freely admitted to be a great country, the practices of 
 slave hunts and negro burning were wholly incompatible with my 
 English ideas of civilization or Christianity. This statement of my 
 sentiment was received by my host with a gracious smile, a conde- 
 scending wave of the hand, and the observation — evidently intended 
 to be apologetical for my heresies, and exculpatory of them — that the 
 prejudices of John Bull, upon some points, were unaccountable. 
 
 These mutual explanations occurred very soon after reaching the 
 planter's house. As hopeless, apparently, of convincing me, as I was 
 of making any impression upon him, he allowed the subject to drop ; 
 ar.d during the remainder of my stay with him we conversed upon
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 233 
 
 indifferent matters only. As soon as I felt able to ride, I hastened to 
 resume my journey — not without a friendly warning from my host to 
 be cautious how I gave utterance to my Euglish prejudices. When 
 travelling: in Turkey, — so he remarked, without seeming; to be aware 
 how little creditable the comparison was to his state of South Caro- 
 lina, — it was best to do as they did in Turkey., or, at least, to let the 
 Turks do as they chose, without interference or observation. 
 
 CHAPTER XLYII. 
 
 Shortly after arriving at Charleston, which I reached without any 
 further adventure worthy of note, I waited upon the mercantile gentle- 
 men to whom I had letters of credit. Upon entering the counting 
 room, I found another stranger there, whom, from his bearing and 
 appearance, I recognised at once as the master of some merchant 
 ship. He was speaking with great vehemence, and apparently com- 
 plaining of some injury. 
 
 I gathered from what he said, that his vessel belonged to Boston, 
 in the state of Massachusetts, and that, having encountered a severe 
 storm while on a voyage to the Havana, he had been obliged to put 
 into Charleston to refit. Not only was his cook a coloured man, but 
 of the eight sailors, by whom the brig was manned, no less than five 
 were coloured, all, as the captain said, natives of Massachusetts, born 
 on Cape Cod, and as able seamen as ever trod a deck. 
 
 These coloured men — so the captain was complaining in pretty 
 hard terms — had just been taken out of his ship and carried off to 
 jail; and he wished to know of the Charleston merchants, who, it 
 seemed, were the correspondents of his owners, whether there was no 
 security against this outrage, as inconvenient to him as it was inju- 
 rious to the men. 
 
 " "Why," said the merchant to whom he addressed himself, with a 
 significant glance at his partner, and a mischievous sort of a look at 
 the captain, " there has just arrived here, I understand, a commis- 
 sioner from Massachusetts, appointed by the governor of that state, 
 under a resolve of the legislature, to bring this very question of the 
 imprisonment of coloured seamen of that state to a legal issue. The 
 commissioner is staying at such a hotel," naming the very one at 
 which I had put up ; " that is, unless he has been turned away, for 
 notice has already been issued to all the hotel keepers not to harbour 
 him. You had better apply to him, and quick too, or you may not 
 find him. He is the very man for you, and yours is the very case for
 
 234 THE WHITE SLAVE J OH, 
 
 him. Try and see what he and the United States laws, anil the state 
 of Massachusetts, will do for you." 
 
 The ironical, sneering tone in which this was said was evident 
 enough to me ; but the honest sea captain to whom it was addressed 
 seemed to take it all in good earnest, and hastily started off in pursuit 
 of the commissioner. 
 
 Having arranged my business matters with these merchants, and 
 provided for meeting such drafts as might be made on behalf of my 
 North Carolina protege, I ventured to inquire whether the arrest of 
 which I had just heard the captain complaining was really made under 
 any law. 
 
 "' O, yes, certainly," was the answer. " All negroes and coloured 
 people, who arrive here on ship-board, are taken at once to jail, and 
 kept there till the ship is ready to depart, when, by paying their 
 board, jail fees, and other costs, they are allowed to go in her." 
 
 " And suppose they can't pay," said I. 
 
 " O, the captain, you know, must have his men, and he pays for 
 them." 
 
 " But suppose the captain does not choose to pay ?" 
 
 " Why, in that case, the fees are raised by selling the men at 
 auction." 
 
 " Sell free men at auction," said I, " driven into your ports by 
 stress of weather, and imprisoned merely for not being white !" 
 
 There was something in the tone in which I spoke that brought a 
 slight tinge of colour into the merchant's cheek. He endeavoured to 
 apologize for this law by suggesting the great danger of insurrection, 
 if free coloured men, from the north or elsewhere, should be per- 
 mitted to come in contact with a slave population far exceeding the 
 whites in numbers, as was the case in Charleston and the neigh- 
 bourhood. 
 
 " But what is it," I asked, " about this Massachusetts commissioner, 
 to whom you referred the captain ?" 
 
 " Why," said the merchant, with a contemptuous sort of a smile, 
 " the Boston ship-owners, finding these prison fees and expenses a 
 charge upon their ships, have all at once been seized with a mighty 
 strong sympathy for negroes' rights, — if you want to stir a Boston 
 man up, just touch him in the pocket, — and so they have got this 
 commissioner sent on here to try this question in the courts. They 
 pretend that South Carolina has no right to make a law for the im- 
 prisonment of free persons from Massachusetts, not charged with 
 any crime, but merely from a general suspicion on account of their 
 colour." 
 
 " And when is the case likely to come to trial ?" I asked. 
 
 " Come to trial !" said the. Carolina merchant, rolling up the
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 235 
 
 whites of his eyes ; " and do you suppose we are going to allow the 
 case to be tried?" 
 
 " And why not ?" I asked ; " and how can you help it ?" 
 " Ten to one," he answered, " the cause, if tried, would go 
 against us. The law in question has already been pronounced un- 
 constitutional by one of the United States judges, and he too a 
 South Carolina man. But whether unconstitutional or not, we think 
 it necessary, and the niggers and the Yankee merchants must learn to 
 put up with it. As to helping it, that is a very simple matter. The 
 commissioner from Massachusetts has already had notice to take 
 himself off, and all the hotel keepers, as I mentioned to the captain, 
 not to entertain him at their perd. We shan't tolerate any suth 
 abolitionist spies and conspirators here in Charleston. In fact, if 
 the old gentleman had not had the Yankee shrewdness to bring a 
 daughter of his along with him by way of protector, he might before 
 this time have found himself tumbled out of the city, neck and heels, 
 comfortably dressed in a coat of tar and feathers. There is not a 
 lawyer here who would dare bring a suit for him. Most of our 
 merchants are northern men, — I am one myself," said my infor- 
 mant, — " but we are all Carolinians in feeling ; in fact, if we expect 
 to live here, we have to be so, and I shall be on hand to do my 
 part, and if the old gentleman hesitates about, it, to help him in 
 finding his way out of the city. The matter has been settled at a 
 public meeting. He is not to be allowed to sleep here another 
 night." 
 
 " And what do you imagine the state of Massachusetts and the 
 Boston merchants will say at being so unceremoniously kicked out 
 of the court-house door-way?" 
 
 " O, as to the merchants, they will probably do like a well-bred 
 Carolina negro, who takes off his hat when he gets a kick for his 
 insolence, and grins out, with a low bow, a ' Thank ye, master.' 
 Kicking agrees quite as well with Yankee merchants as with niggers. 
 And both niggers and merchants are quite used to it. As to the 
 state of Massachusetts, so long as that state continues to be controlled 
 as at present, by the mercantile and manufacturing influence, there is 
 no danger of any trouble from her. She will pocket the insult very 
 quietly. The political leaders in Massachusetts, of both parties, are 
 exceedingly anxious to hue themselves out as negro drivers to the 
 south. "What would become of Boston or Massachusetts without the 
 southern trade ? As the poor Yankees live on the crumbs which fall 
 from our table, they are not to be particular about the terms on 
 which they are allowed to pick them up. Of course, if they are 
 allowed to pick up the crumbs, they must expect now and then to eat 
 a little dirt."
 
 2 SO THE WHITE slave; ok, 
 
 My Carolina acquaintance seemed to make a rather low estimate of 
 the spirit of Massachusetts ; yet when I recollected what I had my- 
 self seen and heard in passing through Boston a few weeks before, I 
 could not but admit that this calculation upon mercantile servility and 
 cupidity was a pretty safe one. 
 
 As I reached the hotel, on my return from the merchant's, I found 
 a great crowd collected in the streets. A carriage stood at the door, 
 and presently, a tall, white-haired old gentleman appeared, with a 
 lady leaning on his arm, very ceremoniously attended by half a dozen 
 gentlemen, in white kid gloves, whom I afterwards understood to be 
 a detachment of the vigilance committee, specially appointed to escort 
 the Massachusetts commissioner out of the city. The commissioner 
 and his daughter were placed in the carriage, which drove off amid 
 the shouts, jeers, and execrations of the assembled multitude; and so 
 far as I have heard, this is the last that Massachusetts has ever done 
 towards vindicating the rights of her imprisoned seamen. 
 
 English seamen, as I have been told, sometimes suffer under the 
 same law. If such are the facts, Great Britain will no doubt find the 
 means of bringing these insolent slaveholders to reason ; and perhaps, 
 through her agency, the timid and trembling northern states may 
 sooner or later regain a free entry into the port of Charleston. It 
 would indeed be a curious circumstance if British aid and interference 
 should be found the only means of securing to the northern merchants 
 and seamen, as against the domineering insolence of their southern 
 masters, their rights under the constitution of the United States. 
 Such an interference on behalf of humanity and sailors' rights, might 
 almost pass as an offset to the wrongs formerly inflicted by Great 
 Britain in the impressment of American seamen. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 
 Hitherto, during my journey southward, the excitement of the 
 various adventures through which I had passed, as well as the occu- 
 pation which I had found for my thoughts in revisiting the scenes of 
 my youth, under circumstances so changed, had kept my mind from 
 dwelling upon the hopelessness of the search which I had undertaken. 
 Augusta, in the state of Georgia, was the last point to which, in my 
 researches many years before, I had been able to trace my wife and 
 child. It was now some twenty years since they had entered that 
 town as part of a slave coffle destined for the south-western market. 
 This was the last trace I had of them. To Augusta, therefore, I now 
 directed my course, not, however, without the most depressing
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 237 
 
 feelings and a painful consciousness that when I reached that place I 
 should he without the slightest clew to guide me any further. 
 
 I left Charleston in the stage coach for Augusta, long hefore day- 
 light. As the day began to dawn, I found myself one of four pas- 
 sengers. At first we were pretty silent, each trying to sleep in his 
 corner, or else eying his fellow-passengers, as if wishing to ascertain 
 their character before making any advances towards acquaintance. At 
 breakfast we began to thaw out a little, and by dinner time we were 
 quite sociable. 
 
 It presently appeared that two of the passengers were northern 
 men ; one of them the editor of a New York newspaper, the other a 
 Boston agent, employed in the purchase of cotton for some mercantile 
 houses or manufacturing companies of that city. The third passenger 
 was a person of very striking appearance, with a face of great intel- 
 ligence, a dark eye that seemed to penetrate you at a glance, a 
 captivating smile, manners exceedingly soft and winning, and some- 
 thins; m his whole bearing that indicated a man accustomed to mingle 
 freely in society. 
 
 He was evidently taken by the other two for a wealthy planter, and 
 he neither did nor said anything to contradict the assumption, receiving 
 with an air of gracious condescension the court which they paid to 
 him. 
 
 After a variety of topics, the conversation, as is common in America, 
 settled down upon politics, and especially upon the nomination lately 
 made for president and vice-president by a convention of the demo- 
 cratic or Jackson party assembled at Baltimore. Mr. Van Buren, the 
 nominee of that convention for the presidency, was very sharply cri- 
 ticized by the two northern men, on the ground, principally, that in a 
 convention for .revising the state constitution of New York, he had 
 been in favour of allowing the blacks to vote. The planter, or sup- 
 posed planter, adopted, in the course of the conversation, a non-com- 
 mictal course, which, according to the criticisms made on Mr. Van 
 Buren's character, might almost have rivalled the adroitness of that 
 gentleman himself. The nomination of Mr. Richard M. Johnson for 
 the vice-presidency seemed to give still less satisfaction; indeed, it 
 was mentioned that a portion of the members of the convention by 
 which it was made had been greatly dissatisfied at it, and had refused 
 to give it their support. Some hints that were dropped excited my 
 curiosity as to the grounds of their opposition, and I followed up the 
 matter by a good many questions. The opposition to Mr. Johnson 
 was made, I was told, by the delegation from Virginia. They did 
 not object to the political orthodoxy of Mr. Johnson, who, indeed, 
 was a democrat of the first water, — to say the truth, so the New York 
 editor told me, considerably too much of a democrat to suit the tastes
 
 238 THE white slave; or, 
 
 of the Virginians. He was not respectable enough for them; quite 
 too vulgar in his tastes and habits; and they had insisted upon 
 nominating a certain Mr. Rives in his place. 
 
 Upon my inquiring more specifically in what the vulgarity of Mr. 
 Johnson consisted, it came out that he entertained in his house a 
 number of black and brown wives, and was the father of a family of 
 coloured children. 
 
 Very much to the surprise of my two northern fellow-passengers, 
 who exhausted all then rhetoric in condemnation of Mr. Johnson's 
 coarseness and vulgarity, — a practical amalgamator for vice-president ! 
 - — the supposed planter avowed himself a supporter of the Van Buren- 
 Johnson nomination ; and he undertook to offer some apologies for 
 the latter gentleman. 
 
 " The horror of you northern people," he said, nodding his head 
 to the Boston cotton broker, " and the hue and cry you have lately- 
 raised on the subject of amalgamation and the intermixture of the 
 races, may be all very sincere, but for us in the south, with so many 
 living evidences of our frailty multiplying about us in every direction, 
 to attempt to make a bugbear of amalgamation, or to wink it into 
 non-existence, by any ostrich-like process of sticking our heads into 
 the sand, and refusing to recognise as a fact what everybody knows, 
 and what is testified to by the varying complexion of every consider- 
 able family of slaves in the country, is certainly a very great absurdity. 
 
 " For my part, I like to see a little consistency. We southerners, 
 defend slavery because, as we say, it is a law of nature that when two 
 races are brought together in the same community, the stronger and 
 nobler race should predominate over the weaker. But if, in such a 
 case, it is the law of nature that the men of the weaker race should 
 be made slaves of by those of the stronger, is it not just as much also 
 a law of nature that the women of the weaker race should become 
 concubines to the men of the stronger? Does not it always so 
 operate ? and is not that the means which nature takes gradually to 
 extinguish the inferior race, and to substitute an improved, mixed 
 race in the place of it ? 
 
 " Some of us undertake to defend slavery out of the Bible, and to 
 justify it by the example of the patriarchs. Very well ; if the example 
 of the patriarchs is to justify me in holding slaves, will it net also 
 justify our democratic candidate for the vice-presidency in raising up 
 to himself a family by the help of his maid-servants ? 
 
 " In fact, sir," said he, turning to me, who had taken an early 
 opportunity to avow myself an Englishman, " it is precisely because 
 our democratic candidate for the vice-presidency follows the example 
 of the patriarchs a little too closely, that all this hue and cry is raised 
 against him. It is not his taste for black women, it is not his family
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 239 
 
 of coloured children, — perhaps these innocent gentlemen here from 
 the north know nothing about the matter, but, if so, any white boy 
 in the city of Charleston of sixteen years old and upwards could 
 enlighten them, — it is not these little peccadilloes that reflect any- 
 thing upon Mr. Johnson's character. They are as much parts of our 
 domestic institutions here at the south as the use of the cowhide ; 
 just as natural to us southerners as chewing tobacco; jnst about as 
 common, and just as little thought of. But the pinch is here. Mr. 
 Johnson, being a bachelor, with no white wife or white children to 
 control him, and, withal, one of the best-natured men in the world, 
 must needs so far imitate the example of the patriarchs as actually to 
 recognise a number of coloured daughters as his own children. He 
 has raised and educated them in his own house. He has even made 
 efforts to introduce them into respectable society. The spirit of the 
 Kentucky women — the women, you know, are all natural aristocrats 
 — defeated him in that; but he 'has procured white husbands for 
 them, and their children, under the law of Kentucky, will be legally 
 white, and entitled to all the rights and privileges of white persons. 
 It is this in which the scandal of Mr. Johnson's conduct consists. 
 If, instead of acting the affectionate father by his daughters, he had 
 quietly shipped them all off to New Orleans to be sold at auction, to 
 be made concubines of by the purchasers, instead of marrying them 
 respectably, and securing for their children the full privileges of 
 Kentucky citizenship, we should never have heard that brought 
 against him, either north or south, as a reason why he ought not to 
 be vice-president. I do not imagine that either of our northern 
 friends here would have made the least objection to him on that 
 .score!" 
 
 " But you don't undertake to say," stammered out the Boston 
 cotton broker, "that any respectable man at the south does that? 
 That, I thought, was one of the slanders of the abolitionists." 
 
 " I do undertake to say," was the answer, " that a man may do it 
 without any tarnish to his respectability, and if he should apply the 
 next day after to be admitted a member of any of our most pious 
 Christian churches, that would never be made a ground for refusing 
 him. Church discipline is mighty strict in some matters. I once 
 knew a man excommunicated from a Presbyterian church for sending 
 his children to a dancing school; but I never yet heard of any 
 southern church that ventured to inquire into the paternity of slave 
 children, or the relations of female slaves towards their owners. The 
 violent death of a slave by the hand of the owner may, under certain 
 circumstances, lead to a judicial investigation more or less strict ; but, 
 short of that, a Turkish harem is not more safe from impertinent 
 intrusions and inquiries, whether civd or ecclesiastical, than one of our
 
 240 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 slaveliolding families. If honest Dick Johnson had not acknowledged 
 those children to be his, do you suppose that anybody — unless 
 perhaps by way of joke — would have ventured to charge them upon 
 him ? His offence consists not in having the children, but in owning 
 them." 
 
 " I am afraid," said the New York editor, " you will give our 
 English friend here," nodding at me, "rather a low idea of southern 
 morals. There are some little family secrets that ought not to be 
 spoken of before every body." 
 
 " Pity," said the other, " you had not thought of that before. In 
 that case you might have left Dick Johnson alone. All I insist upon 
 is, that, bating the lack of a little hypocrisy and grimace, and making 
 due allowance for a little extra good nature, he is not so very much 
 worse than his neighbours." 
 
 " But," retorted the New York editor, " as a southern man and a 
 slaveholder, can you undertake to say that such conduct as his — this 
 attempt to put blacks and whites on an equality — is not dangerous to 
 the institutions of the country?" 
 
 "Not so dangerous by half," was the prompt reply, "as the 
 attempting to commingle and confound with the mass of the slaves 
 the children of free fathers, inheriting from the fathers' side a spirit 
 not very consistent with the condition of servitude. What do you 
 think is likely to be the consequence of having among our slaves the 
 descendants of such men, for instance, as Thomas Jefferson ?" 
 
 " Thomas Jefferson ! nonsense !" exclaimed the New Yorker. 
 
 " Nonsense or not, I can only say, that I once saw a very decent, 
 bright mulatto woman, at least three quarters white, sold at auction, 
 who claimed to be a granddaughter of that famous ex-president ; and, 
 as far as resemblance goes, her face and figure sustained her preten- 
 sions. At any rate, the woman brought an extra hundred dollars or so 
 beyond her otherwise market value, as the purchaser facetiously ob- 
 served, on account of the goodness of the breed." 
 
 The two northern passengers seemed a little shocked at this story, 
 the force of which they attempted to evade by insisting that the 
 woman must have been an impostor, and that perhaps this idea was 
 got up for the very purpose of enlivening the sale. 
 
 " Well," said the other with a laugh, " that certainly is very pos- 
 sible. Gouge and McGrab were unquestionably shrewd fellows, and 
 in the way of trade up to almost anything." 
 
 My interest in the conversation was here redoubled. Gouge and 
 McGrab. McGrab was the name of the very slave trader by whom 
 my wife and child had been purchased and transported to Augusta, 
 and it was as his property that my agent formerly enqdoyed in that 
 business had obtained the last trace of them.
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 211 
 
 I hastened to inquire when and where it was that my fellow- 
 passenger had witnessed this sale of Jefferson's alleged grand- 
 daughter. 
 
 " O, at Augusta, in Georgia, some twenty years since," was the 
 answer. 
 
 " And pray," I asked, "who is this McGrab that you speak of? I 
 have an interest in getting some trace of a slave dealer of that name." 
 
 He readily replied that McGrab was a Scotchman by birth, but a 
 South Carolinian by education, engaged some vears ago, alono- with 
 his partner Gouge, in the supply of the southern market with slaves. 
 The head-quarters of their traffic was at Augusta. McGrab scoured 
 the more northern slave states, attending sheriffs' and executors' sales, 
 and driving such private bargains as he could to keep up the supply, 
 which he forwarded from time to time to his partner Gouge, who attended 
 chiefly to the business of selling. at Augusta. But the partnership 
 had been many years dissolved, and McGrab himself a long time dead. 
 Gouge was still living at Augusta, retired from business, and one of 
 the wealthiest men in the place. 
 
 " I ought to know something," he added, aside to me, " of these 
 men and their business, for in my younger days I was three or four 
 years their clerk and bookkeeper, and for awhile their partner. I owe 
 old Gouge a grudge, and if you have any claim against them, and I 
 can any way assist you, you shall be welcome to my services." 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 The stage coach stopped for dinner at a dirty, uncomfortable 
 tavern, the management of which seemed to be altogether in the hands 
 of the slaves, of whom there was a great superabundance, the landlord 
 being a sort of gentleman guest at his own house. The head servant 
 of the establishment, a large, portly, soft-spoken mulatto, but very 
 shabbily and dirtily dressed, seemed, for some reason or other, — 
 perhaps from my politeness to him, — to take quite a fancy to me. 
 After dinner he called me aside, and inquired if I was acquainted with 
 the gentleman who had sat opposite to me at the table. This was 
 the supposed planter, my stage companion, in his younger days, as he 
 had informed us, clerk and book-keeper, and afterwards partner of 
 Gouge and McGrab. " No," I answered, " I did not know him 
 except as my fellow-traveller from Charleston; I should like very 
 well to know his name." 
 
 " As to his name," said my mulatto friend, " it would not oe so 
 easy to tell that. He goes by a good many names. Most every 
 
 K
 
 242 THE WHITE SLAVE ) OR 
 
 time he comes this way he has a new one. Have a care of him, 
 master ; he's a gambler. I thought I'd tell you, lest you might get 
 cheated by him." 
 
 As this information seemed to come from pure good will on the 
 part of my informant, I had no reason to distrust its correctness. I 
 knew very well that gambling was not only practised in these southern 
 slave states, as it is in the overgrown capitals of Europe, as a means of 
 relieving the ennui of idleness, but that here, as there, a regular class 
 of professional gamblers had sprung into existence, who lived by 
 fleecing the unskilful and unwary. It was by no means unusual 
 for members of that fraternity to have all the external marks of gen- 
 tlemen ; nor was there any improbability in the suggestion that my 
 new acquaintance belonged to it. 
 
 Though he had inclined to differ, in the course of the morning, from 
 our two northern companions on some questions of politics and 
 morality, I could not but admire the grace and art with which he con- 
 trived, in the course of the afternoon, to worm himself into their con- 
 fidence. When the stage coach stopped for the night, at another 
 tavern still more dirty, uncomfortable, and every way untidy, — if that 
 could well be, — than the one at which we had dined, he proposed, 
 after supper, a game of cards by way of whiling away the time. The 
 other two were ready enough for it, and the three were soon busy at 
 the game, in which they were joined by one or two planters of the 
 vicinity, who happened to be lounging about the house. For myself, 
 I positively declined to join them, declaring that I never touched a 
 card, and never played at any game for money ; and perceiving from 
 my manner that I was quite inflexible on that point, the alleged 
 gambler remarked, with some significance, that I had taken a very- 
 wise and safe resolution for a stranger travelling through the southern 
 states. 
 
 After watching the game for some time, I retired to bed ; and 
 rising pretty early the next morning, since the journey was to be 
 renewed at five o'clock, I found them still at it : the two northern 
 dupes haggard with want of sleep, and their very lengthened faces, 
 distorted with ill-suppressed anxiety and suffering, seemed to have 
 grown ten years older in that single night. They bore, in fact, but 
 a distant resemblance to the two spruce, sleek gentlemen with whom 
 I had ridden the day before. The other seemed as fresh and self- 
 possessed as at the moment he had sat down ; and as I entered the 
 room, he took up and pocketed, with a graceful nonchalance that 
 was quite admirable, the last stakes, and as it proved, too, the last 
 money of his two companions. 
 
 Having sat down, as I afterwards learned, with only ten dollars 
 in his pocket, as his whole means and stock in trade, he had made
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 24 
 
 a 
 
 a good night of it. In the morning he had not less than two 
 thousand, hesides a fine mulatto boy of fifteen or sixteen, whom one 
 of the planters had made over to him by way of squaring accounts. 
 
 Finding our two companions quite drained, he insisted upon payin* 
 their tavern bills himself, and upon lending each of them fifty dollars, 
 as a fund to go upon until they could obtain further remittances ; 
 and this he did with as unconscious an air of sympathy and com- 
 miseration as if they had lost their money by some accident, instead 
 of his having himself been the agent of their loss, by means not 
 merely of his superior coolness and skill, but probably, also, by some 
 other tricks of his profession. Not the master, who tosses a dollar 
 to his slave by way of Christmas present, could do it with a greater 
 air of generosity. 
 
 It was curious to remark the crestfallen air of the Boston cotton 
 broker and the New York editor, after the loss of their money. The 
 day before, they had held up their heads ; they had had their opinions, 
 and pretty positive ones too ; nor had they been at all slow or modest 
 in asserting them. To-day they seemed quite sunk into nobodies, 
 the stiifemng all taken out of them, moody and sdent, with nothing 
 to say about anything, eyeing the person to whom their money had 
 been transferred, and to whom, the day before, they had paid such 
 court as a rich planter, with a singular mixture of dislike and terror, 
 much like that with which I had often seen an unfortunate slave eye a 
 master whom he feared and hated, but from whom he felt it impos- 
 sible to escape. 
 
 Indeed, I could not but think, that strip those two northern gentle- 
 men of their fine clothes, and set them up in their present crestfallen 
 and disconsolate condition on the auction block of Messrs. Gouge 
 and McGrab, or some other slavedealers, especially with the cool, keen 
 eye of their late depredator upon them, and thejr might very easily 
 have passed muster, as two "white niggers," born and bred in servi- 
 tude, and stupid fellows at that, easily to be kept in order, and from 
 whom very little mischief or trouble need be apprehended. 
 
 Finding these two disconsolate individuals sad, solemn, and as dry 
 as a squeezed lemon, and quite insensible to all his efforts to amuse 
 them, the gambler, whose victims they had become, directed his con- 
 versation to me. I cannot say but that I decidedly enjoyed their 
 predicament. " O, my fine fellows," said I to myself, " you now 
 have a little experience what a nice thing it is, this being stripped 
 and plundered ! You think it mighty hard to part with a few hun- 
 dred dollars, the earnings, by means I don't know how particularly 
 honest, of perhaps only a few weeks — money lost too, not less by 
 your own consenting folly, than by the skill and tricks of a man more 
 knowing and adroit than yourselves. Now learn to sympathize a 
 
 R 2
 
 244 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 little with multitudes of poor fellows in natural gifts and endowments 
 not so very much, if at all, your inferiors — some of them, indeed, 
 vastly your superiors, — regularly stripped and plundered, minute hy 
 minute, hour hy hour, day hy day, week hy week, month by month, 
 year hy year, through a whole lifetime ; aud that, too, hy pure fraud 
 and force, without any consenting folly on their part ; plundered, too, 
 not only of the earnings cf their hands, but, it may he, of the very 
 wives of their affections, and children of their love, sent off to a slave 
 auction, to suit the convenience, or to meet the necessities, of the 
 men that call themselves their owners ; and with just about as much 
 right and title of ownership as this gambler has in you — tbe right of 
 the weak over the strong, and of the crafty over the simple. " 
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 
 As the late clerk, bookkeeper, and partner of Gouge and McGrob, 
 now, as it seemed, professional blackleg and gambler, might be able, 
 from his former connexion with that respectable slave-trading firm, to 
 afford me information essential to the search in which I was engaged, 
 I received his advances very graciously. In fact the manliness of 
 sentiment which he had evinced the day before in the defence of his 
 favourite candidate for the vice-presidency had inclined me in his 
 favour ; and as to his present pursuits, I was disposed to think them 
 quite as honest and respectable as the slave-trading business in which 
 he had formerly been engaged, or as the slave breeding business by 
 which so many southern gentlemen of unquestioned respectability 
 gained at least a part of their livelihood. 
 
 I found him, indeed, a very agreeable companion, free, in a great 
 measure, from those local provincialisms and narrownesses almost uni- 
 versal among even the best educated and most liberal-minded Ameri- 
 cans — keen in his observations, acute in his judgments, (a vein of sly 
 satire running through his conversation,) but good-natured rather 
 than bitter. 
 
 Such was the beginning of a companionship which gradually ripened 
 into something of a confidential intimacy. I did not conceal from 
 Mr. John Colter (for that was the name by which he chose to be 
 known to me) my knowledge of his rather dubious profession ; at the 
 same time, I was willing to accept, at their full value, his graces, 
 talents, agreeable parts, and the frequent indications which he gave, 
 at least in words, of a naturally generous and kindly disposition. 
 Why not make allowance for his position and circumstances ? Why 
 not regard him with as much charity as is asked generally for slave- 
 holders ?
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 245 
 
 As if to confirm me in this toleration, by which he was evidently 
 not a little flattered, and to which he did not seem much accustomed, 
 in the course of a second night's stoppage, in a ramble by moonlight, 
 Mr. Colter having at hand no more pigeons to pluck, let me pretty 
 fully into his history. 
 
 It appeared that he was the son of a wealthy planter, or of one 
 who had once been wealthy, and who, while he lived, had maintained 
 the reputation of being so. He had, of course, been brought up in 
 habits of great profusion and extravagance. His literary instruction 
 had not been neglected, and he had been sent to travel a year or 
 two in Europe, where he spent a great deal of money, and fell into 
 very dissipated habits, and whence he was recalled by the death of his 
 father, whose estate, when it came to be settled, proved insolvent, the 
 plantations and slaves being covered by mortgages, and a large family 
 of children left wholly unprovided -for. 
 
 Thus thrown entirely on his own resources, he had great difficulty 
 in finding means to live. The general resource of decaved families 
 was to emigrate to the new lands of the west; but this was hardly 
 possible, unless one could take a few slaves with him, and he had 
 none, nor the means of procuring any, his character for profusion and 
 extravagance being too well established for any of his father's old 
 friends to be willing to trust him. Indeed, since the estate had turned 
 out insolvent, it was curious to remark, notwithstanding his father's 
 numerous acquaintance, and the ostentatious hospitality with which 
 for so many years he had kept open doors, how very few friends the 
 family had. 
 
 Being a good scholar, he might have found occupation as tutor in 
 some family ; but this was looked upon as a servile position, incom- 
 patible with the dignity of a southerner, and only fit to be filled by 
 fellows from the north. " The Romans, you know," — so he remarked 
 to me, — " intrusted the education of their children to slave peda- 
 gogues ; we generally get ours from New England." As to going into 
 mercantile business, that would require capital ; and that business, too, 
 was mostly engrossed by adventurers from the north, who generally 
 procured their clerks and assistants from the same quarter. 
 
 At length, unable to do any better, he had obtained employment 
 from the rich slave-trading firm of Gouge and McGrab, rising pre- 
 sently to be their first clerk and bookkeeper, and being finally admitted 
 as a partner. 
 
 But this kind of business he had found objectionable on several 
 accounts. In the first place, it was not considered respectable, though 
 on what grounds he was puzzled to tell. He could well understand 
 how I, an Englishman, and even how one of those Yankee fellows, — 
 if it were possible to find one, which might be doubted, with courage
 
 246 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OK, 
 
 enough to say that his soul was his own, — might find something 
 objectionable in this business of trading in human muscles and sinews, 
 buying and selling men, women, and children, at auction or other- 
 wise. For himself, he did not pretend to any great piety or morality ; 
 he left that to the other members of the firm. McGrab was not 
 actually a Methodist, but his wife and children were devoutly so, and 
 as the old man himself frequently attended their meetings, the 
 Methodists expected to get him, too, at last. Gouge was a very 
 devout Baptist, who had been regularly converted and dipped, and had 
 built a church at Augusta, almost entirely at his own expense ; but 
 with all his piety, he had never been able to see any harm in the 
 business, buying and selling fellow church members with as little 
 scruple as the mere unconverted heathen. Indeed, Gouge thought 
 slavery and slave trading a very good thing every way, not only in 
 the concrete, but in the abstract also. Didn't St. Paul say, " Slaves, 
 obey your masters?" And didn't that settle the question that some 
 were to be slaves, and some were to be masters, and that the slaves 
 had nothing to do but to obey? Such was the way that Gouge 
 reasoned, putting the matter with wonderful force and unction ; so 
 much so, that once, when on a visit to New York in search of three 
 or four prime house servants, — who had been purchased in Baltimore, 
 but had broken prison the night after, and whom Gouge had traced 
 to that city, — falling into an argument on the subject, at the hotel 
 where he was stopping, and having a very grave address and clerical 
 aspect, he had been mistaken by a clergyman, who happened to be 
 present, for a D.D., and had been invited to preach on the divine 
 origin of slavery, in one of the most fashionable churches of that 
 city. 
 
 " Still," said Colter, " in spite of the reasoning and the texts of 
 my pious partner, I never have been able to approve either slavery or 
 the slave trade in the abstract. What, indeed, could be more con- 
 temptible, than for a parcel of intelligent and able-bodied white folks 
 to employ their whole time, pains, and ingenuity, in partly forcing, 
 partly teasing, and partly coaxing a set of reluctant, unwilling negroes 
 into half doing, in the most slovenly, slouchy, deceptive, and unprofit- 
 able manner, what those same white people might do fifty times 
 better, and with fifty times less care and trouble for themselves? 
 Viewed thus in the abstract, the whole system, I must say, seems to 
 me a very pitiful affair. But in what respect the slave traders are less 
 respectable than the slave raisers, or the slave buyers, I am unable to 
 see ; and yet it is a fact that Mr. A. B., of Virginia, who only saves 
 himself from emigration and a sheriff's sale by selling every year a 
 half a dozen or so of prime young hands, male and female, for the 
 southern market, pretends to look with a certain contempt on the
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 247 
 
 trader to whom he sells them, while Mr. C. D., of Georgia, who 
 invests all his surplus cash, and all that he can borrow besides, in the 
 purchase of fresh slaves, pretends to look with a similar contempt on the 
 trader of whom he buys them." For some reason or other, — so Mr. 
 Colter humorously remarked, — the old maxim, that the receiver is 
 as bad as the thief, did not seem to hold good of the slave-trading 
 business; for what reason, except that it is so much easier to see the 
 mote in a neighbour's eye, than the beam in one's own, he was quite 
 unable to tell. 
 
 Then, again, there were things about the trade very unpleasant. To 
 be sure, with the worst part of it, he had little to do. The buying 
 up the slaves in the more northern states was principally managed by 
 McGrab. The getting them away from their homes, and the separa- 
 tion of families, was often a troublesome and disagreeable business ; 
 at least, it would have been to him, though McGrab never complained 
 of it. The principal management of the sales at Augusta had been in 
 the hands of Gouge, who imderstood, as well as anybody, showing off 
 the stock to the best advantage. Very few persons could outdo him 
 in passing off a consumptive or scrofulous hand as every way sound, 
 or a woman of forty-five for a woman of thirty. His (Colter's) share 
 of the business had chiefly consisted in having charge of the slave pen 
 at Augusta, where the stock was kept to be fatted and put in order 
 for market. Indulgence and plenty were the order of the day at the 
 pen, the object being to keep the people as cheerful, and to put them 
 into as good plight as possible. Yet some scenes would occur there 
 — such as the separation of mothers and children hitherto kept to- 
 gether — rather distressing to a man of sensibility, like himself; so 
 said Colter, laying his hand upon his heart, with a sort of theatrical, 
 mocking air, which made it difficult to tell whether he was in jest or 
 earnest. " To confess the truth," he added, " I always had a foolish 
 susceptibility about me to the tears of women and children, which a 
 little unsuited me for the business. Not being by any means pious, 
 — I've tried my hand at several things, first and last, but have had too 
 much respect for the memory of my mother, who instilled into my 
 youthful mind a great veneration for religion, to make any pretensions 
 to that,— I was not able, like my partner Gouge, to shelter myself 
 behind St. Paul and the patriarchs ; and my natural, carnal, uncon- 
 verted heart, as Gouge said, would sometimes betray me into very bad 
 bargains. 
 
 " In fact, the first serious quarrel that I had with my partners — 
 and which led to my going out of the concern — grew out of an 
 incident of that sort. McGrab had brought in a superior lot of people 
 from North Carolina, and among them an uncommonly fine young 
 woman, with a nice little boy, just old enough to talk — very light
 
 248 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OB, 
 
 mulattoes; in fact, they might have passed for white. The deep 
 melancholy of her great black eyes, and, in spite of a sadness which 
 no smile ever enlivened, the sweet expression of her face, made an 
 impression on my susceptible heart the very first moment that I saw 
 her. I should have desired to retain her as my own, but this I knew 
 was a piece of extravagance to which my partners would never consent, 
 especially as I was already indebted to the firm for two other girls 
 selected from the stock. She had evidently been raised very deli- 
 cately, the body servant of a lady whose goods had been sold on 
 execution ; and McGrab, relaxing into a grim smile, chuckled over her 
 as about the finest piece he had ever purchased — and such a bargain, 
 too ! He had bought her and her boy for five hundred and fifty 
 dollars, while she alone was worth at least two thousand, and the boy 
 might sell for a hundred more. She understood needlework very well, 
 and would fetch a thousand dollars any day as seamstress or body 
 servant ; but at least twice as much, said McGrab — winking with one 
 eye at Gouge, whose solemn face lighted up into a sort of smile at the 
 anticipation — at least twice as much in the New Orleans market as a 
 fancy article !" 
 
 Struggle as I might, it was impossible for me, at these cruel words, 
 to suppress a deep sigh. The keen eye and quick observation of 
 Colter had not failed to perceive that the mention of the young 
 woman and her child from North Carolina had touched me in some 
 tender point, and he seemed to have dwelt with more detail on the 
 incident, as if with design to probe me. 
 
 " What is the matter V he exclaimed, coming to a stop, and look- 
 ing me full in the face. " You seem to be strangely affected. If you 
 are going to sigh and mourn over every handsome young woman sold 
 as a fancy article in the New Orleans market, you will have a pretty 
 sad time of it." 
 
 It was only by the greatest effort that I controlled my voice to 
 inquire if he remembered the young woman's name. 
 
 " O, yes," he replied; "it was some time ago — twenty years, I 
 dare say; but names and faces I very seldom forget. The girl, I 
 think, was called ' Cassy.' " 
 
 At the sound of that dear name, my heart beat violently ; but sup- 
 porting myself against a tree, under which we stood, " Can you re- 
 collect," I asked, "the name of the child?" 
 
 " Let us see," said my companion, reflecting for a moment. " O, 
 yes, I have it. I think she called the child ' Montgomery.' " 
 
 That was the name we had given to our boy, out of compliment to- 
 Cassy's kind mistress ; and I no longer doubted that it was of my 
 wife and my child that he spoke.
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 249 
 
 CHAPTER LI. 
 
 Mastering my emotion as well as I could, I begged Colter to go 
 on with his story. But this he was in no hurry to do. 
 
 " You seem," he said, eyeing me closely, " to have some more 
 than ordinary interest in this affair. You mentioned, I recollect, this 
 not, being your first visit to America, but that you had formerly tra- 
 velled here, some twenty years ago. Twenty years ago, you must 
 have been a young man, and young men are easily captivated ; and 
 you young Englishmen, when you get among us, notwithstanding all 
 we hear about English virtue and decorum, are no more anchorites 
 than the rest of us. But even the chaste Joseph, or Scipio, or the 
 pope of Rome himself, might readily be pardoned for melting a little 
 before such attractions. There is a soft, winning, captivating way 
 about some of those girls that makes them perfectly irresistible. I 
 don't wonder at the envy, rage, and jealousy of our white women. 
 They can't help being conscious of their own inferiority in these 
 respects. Of course, it makes them cross and fractious — natural 
 enough; but that does not help the matter, nor render them any the 
 more agreeable. So they have to be content with being mistresses of 
 the house and the servants, while some slave girl, black, yellow, or 
 white, as the case may be, is mistress of their husband's affections. 
 
 " There are a good many of these girls whom it is quite enough to 
 spoil the temper of the best-natured woman in the world to have in 
 the house with them. 
 
 "As to this Cassy, in whom you seem to take such a particular 
 interest, she would do credit to anybody's choice. I say this as both 
 connoisseur and amateur in these matters, and indeed professionally, 
 as a dealer in the article — in all which respects I reckon my opinion 
 to be worth something. The boy was a fine boy too. I wonder who 
 his father was ! Fact," said he, looking me full in the face, with a 
 comical sort of an air, " I shouldn't be surprised if there was some 
 resemblance !" 
 
 Perceiving, however, that this attempted jocularity did not suit the 
 temper of my mind, and his keen glance detecting, probably, the tear 
 that stood in my eye, he modified his tone a little. 
 
 " They do, sometimes, get a tight hold of our hearts. It is all 
 very well for us to lord it over the men, as if they were brutes, 
 monkeys, inferior animals ; but the women are very often too much 
 for us. Why, I have known before now, the most fierce, brutal, 
 savage fellow, who feared neither God nor man, made a complete 
 baby of — as manageable as a tame bear who dances to order — by
 
 250 THE WHITE SLAVE ', OR, 
 
 some little black or yellow girl of fifteen or twenty, who has thus con- 
 trived to play the Queen Esther on the plantation, and to stand often 
 between the fury of her lord and master and the backs of her dingy 
 kindred. This is one of its alleviations not much dwelt upon by those 
 who undertake to apologise for slavery; but which, perhaps, does more 
 than everything else put together to infuse a certain modicum of 
 kindly feeling into the relation of master and slave. That is the way 
 that nature takes to bring both master and slave to their natural 
 equality. Cupid, with his bow and arrows, is the sworn enemy of all 
 castes and patrician distinctions. 
 
 " Pray, sir, did you ever read Edwards's History of the West Indies ?" 
 
 " Yes, I have." 
 
 " Then, perhaps, you recollect an ode inserted in it, addressed to 
 the Sable Venus. Edwards, you know, was a Jamaica planter, a 
 grave historian, an advocate of the slave trade, perfectly orthodox on 
 that whole subject, but a man of sense and observation, experience 
 and sensibility, who had both seen and felt too much to undertake to 
 found an argument for slavery, such as we hear now-a-days on the pre- 
 tended antipathy between the races ; and who, in wishing to give a 
 correct view of the state of things in the West Indies, thought it best 
 to assume the disguise of verse and allegory. Happening to meet 
 with the book, lately, at Charleston, the ode quite struck my fancy, 
 and, by way of joke, I wrote off several copies, and sent them to a 
 number of our leading southern statesmen at Washington. I dare say 
 I can repeat it, preserving the ideas at least, if not always the words, 
 and changing, as I did in my copies, the scene from Jamaica, where 
 Edwards lays it, to this meridian, which it suits just about as well." 
 
 So saying, he repeated, with a sort of mock-earnestness suited to 
 their tone, the following stanzas, of which he afterwards gave me a 
 copy: — 
 
 THE SABLE VENUS. 
 
 AN ODE. 
 
 Come to my bosom, genial fire, 
 
 Soft sounds and lively thoughts inspire ; 
 
 Unusual is my theme ; 
 Not such dissolving Ovid sung, 
 Nor melting Sappho's glowing tongue — 
 
 More dainty mine I deem. 
 
 Sweet is the beam of morning bright, 
 Yet sweet the sober shade of night, 
 
 From rich Angola's shores ; 
 While beauty, clad in sable dye, 
 Enchanting fires the wondering eye, 
 
 Farewell, ye Paphian bowers ! 

 
 HEMOIES OF A FUGITIVE. 251 
 
 O, sable queen ! thy wild domain 
 I seek, and court thy gentle reign, 
 
 So soothing, soft, and sweet ; 
 Where melting love, sincere delight, 
 Fond pleasure ready joys invite. 
 
 And unpriced raptures meet ! 
 
 The prating French, the Spaniard proud, 
 The double Scot, Hibernian loud, 
 
 And sullen English own 
 The pleasing softness of thy sway, 
 And here transferred allegiance pay, 
 
 For gracious is thy throne. 
 
 From east to west, o'er either Ind, 
 Thy sceptre sways : thy power, we find, 
 
 Beyond the tropic's felt ; 
 The blazing sun, that gilds the zone, 
 Waits but the triumphs of thy throne, 
 
 Quite round the burning belt. 
 
 "When thou America to view, 
 
 That vast domain, thy conquest knew, 
 
 First left thy native shore, 
 Bright was the morn, and soft the breeze ; 
 With wanton joy the curling seas 
 
 The beauteous burden bore. 
 
 Thy skin excelled the raven's plume, 
 Thy breath the fragrant orange bloom, 
 
 Thy eye the tropic's beam ; 
 Soft was thy lip as silken down, 
 And mild thy look as evening sun, 
 
 That gilds the mountain stream. 
 
 The loveliest limbs thy form compose, 
 Such as thy sister-Venus chose 
 In Florence, where she's seen : 
 
 Both just alike, except the white — 
 No difference at all at night 
 
 The beauteous dames between. 
 
 O, when thy ship had touched the strand, 
 What raptures seized the ravished land ! 
 
 From every side they came ; 
 Each mountain, valley, plain, and grove, 
 Haste eagerly to show their love ; 
 
 Right welcome was the dame. 
 
 Virginia's shouts were heard aloud, 
 Gay Carolina sent a crowd, 
 
 Grave Georgia not a few ; 
 No rabble rout. I heard it said 
 Some great ones joined the calvalcade; 
 
 The muse will not say who.
 
 252 THE WHITE SLAVE \ OR, 
 
 Gay goddess of the sable band. 
 Propitious still this grateful land 
 
 With thy sweet presence bless : 
 Here fix secure thy constant throne ; 
 We all adore, and thee alone, 
 
 The queen of love confess. 
 
 For me, if I no longer pay 
 Allegiance to thy sister's sway, 
 
 I act no fickle part : 
 It were ingratitude to slight 
 Superior kindness. I delight 
 
 To feel a grateful heart. 
 
 Then, playful goddess, cease to change, 
 Nor in new beauties vainly range ; 
 
 For whatsoe'er thy hue, 
 Try every form thou canst put on, 
 I'll follow thee through every one ; 
 
 So stanch I am, so true. 
 
 Do thou in gentle Phibia smile, 
 In artful Beneba beguile, 
 
 In wanton Mimba pout, 
 In sprightly Cuba's eyes look gay, 
 Or grave in sober Quashaba, 
 
 I still should find thee out. 
 
 " There," said he, repeating the last stanza, and giving to it all the 
 benefit of a very graceful elocution, " that's a chorus, equal to any- 
 thing in Tom Moore, in which three-quarters of our young men, and 
 a good many of the old ones, too, for that matter, might join ; and 
 yet half of them, perhaps just fresh from love-making to some sable 
 inamorata, will talk to you about the antipathy of the races, and just 
 as likely as not wind up with a discourse on the horrors of amalga- 
 mation ! What a world of cant, humbug, and hypocrisy we do 
 live in !" 
 
 As I remained silent, he still went on — " Supposing, though, this 
 Cassy to have been a sweetheart of yours, — and I can't conceive why 
 else you show so much interest in her, — still I can hardly set you 
 down as a votary of the sable Venus. She rather belonged to the 
 white race ; but you know, here at the south, we reckon all slaves as 
 ' niggers,' whatever their colour. Just catch a stray Irish or German 
 girl, and sell her, — a thing sometimes done, — and she turns a nigger 
 at once, and makes just as good a slave as if there were African blood 
 in her veins." 
 
 "If," I said, commanding myself as well as I could, "you really 
 suppose I have any such interest as you speak of in the girl and her 
 child, you might as well leave off this fooling, and tell me what
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 253 
 
 became of them. We will, if you please, discuss these matters of 
 autipathies, and amalgamation, and the sable Venus, which you seem 
 so fond of, at some other more convenient opportunity." 
 
 " Well," said he, " so far as I personally am concerned, I stand 
 quite clear. If I had actually foreseen that, twenty years after, I was 
 to be hauled over the coals by yourself in person, — and, having been 
 watching your eye for the last half hour, I judge you to be one I 
 should not care about quarrelling with, — I could not, on the whole, 
 have done better by the girl than I did. 
 
 " Should I say that I made no amorous advances to her, you would 
 scarcely believe me. I did ; but she replied with such a mere agony 
 of tears and entreaty, as quite extinguished all my passion, and con- 
 verted it into pity. 
 
 " I soon found that her most immediate and pressing source of 
 suffering was the apprehension lest she might be separated from her 
 boy ; and indeed there was some occasion for it. A New Orleans 
 trader, with whom we often dealt, had evinced a great disposition to 
 buy her. After a careful examination of her person, taking more 
 liberties than 1 shall care to mention to you, he pronounced her a prime 
 wench, a first-rate article, A, number one, extremely well adapted to 
 the New Orleans market ; and he offered to pay two thousand dollars 
 for her, cash, which Gouge agreed to take, provided he would give an 
 additional hundred dollars for the hoy. But the trader did not want 
 the boy, who would only be a drawback upon the value of the woman 
 when he came to sell her ; at least so he pretended, and he insisted 
 that the boy ought to be thrown into the bargain. A lady of Augusta, 
 in search of a small boy to bring up as body servant to her infant 
 son, offered to give seventy-five dollars for him. The chance seemed 
 to be that the boy would be sold to the Augusta woman, and the 
 mother to the New Orleans trader. Aware of this, in the greatest 
 distress she appealed to me to save her from this separation. It so 
 happened that during Gouge's absence at a sheriff's sale some ten 
 miles in the country, where he thought some bargains might be picked 
 up, a lady and gentleman called at the pen in search of a female 
 attendant for the lady. The gentleman was a Mississippi planter, 
 resident somewhere in the neighbourhood of Yicksburg, returning 
 home with his new wife, whom he had lately married at the north. 
 I pointed out this Cassy to their notice, and she besieged them with 
 pressing entreaties, making the little boy kneel, and put his tiny hands 
 together, and pray first the lady and then the gentleman to buy him 
 and his mother, and not to let the New Orleans trader take his 
 mother away from him. 
 
 " The lady, after due inquiries of Cassy as to her accomplishments 
 and capabilities, declared her to be just the person she wanted. She
 
 254 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 had been bred up at the north, did not like niggers, and coidd not 
 bear to have a black wench about her ; whereas this one, she said, was 
 as nice and as white, almost, as a New England girl, and the boy 
 might soon be taught to clean the knives, wait at table, and make 
 himself otherwise useful. 
 
 " I offered to take, for the two, two thousand and fifty dollars — a 
 price which the husband thought enormous. He could buy three 
 first- rate field hands for that. Somebody that was not quite so young 
 and good-looking would answer bis wife's purpose just as well, and 
 might, perhaps, too, be a safer bargain all round — an intimation clear 
 enough to me, but which the wife did not seem to understand. She 
 still insisted upon buying Cassy ; and being yet in the honeymoon, 
 she carried the day ; and the bill of sale was signed, the money paid, 
 and the mother and child delivered to their new owners just as Gouge 
 rode up to the pen. 
 
 " "When the hard-hearted old rascal found out that I had sold the 
 mother and child together for twenty-five dollars less than he could 
 have got by selling them separately, you can't imagine what a fuss he 
 made. This pious Baptist church member, who had been mistaken in 
 New York, as I have told you, for a Doctor of Divinity, thrown quite 
 off his balance, cursed and swore like a pirate. If I had fairly given 
 them away he would not have been more abusive. I should have 
 thought that for the moment at least he had fallen from grace, only 
 that was no part of his creed. He was no Methodist ; he and McGrab 
 used to have warm disputes sometimes on that head. McGrab 
 thought that even the best man might sometimes fall away; but 
 Gouge insisted very positively upon the perseverance of the saints, of 
 whom he did not doubt himself to be one. 
 
 " I dwelt upon the hardship of separating the mother and her child, 
 and told Gouge he. ought to be satisfied, as we made a handsome 
 profit on the transaction as it was. I had ascertained — so I told 
 him — that the woman was pious, and that, apart from her dread of 
 being separated from her child, she had a great horror of being sold 
 for the New Orleans market, and I insisted that as a matter of religion 
 and conscience, it was better to dispose of her, as I had done, to a 
 private family, and most probably a kind mistress, than to sell her to 
 the New Orleans slave trader. Here I thought I had my pious part- 
 ner at advantage, and I followed it up by quoting the text, ' Thou 
 shalt not oppress the widow and the fatherless.' Though I was not 
 so well read in the Scriptures as Gouge, it came into my mind as 
 quite to the purpose. But highly indignant that such a graceless 
 fellow as I, who belonged to no church, and made no pretensions to 
 have any religion, should presume to dictate to him on that subject, 
 Gouge turned upon me with a perkct fury. The text, he said, did 

 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 255 
 
 not apply. He had once had a long talk on that very subject with 
 Parson Softwords. As slaves could not be married,, there could be — 
 so the parson thought — no widows among them ; and as to the chil- 
 dren, not being born in lawful wedlock, they could not become father- 
 less, — for they had no fathers, — being in the eye of the law, as he 
 had heard the learned Judge Hallett observe from the bench, the 
 children of nobody. As to pious niggers, that was all moonshine ; he 
 did not believe in any such thing. He belonged, in fact, to a pretty 
 numerous sect in these parts, called Anti-mission Baptists, or Hard 
 Shells, who don't think the Lord ever intended the heathen to be 
 converted, or negroes to be anything but slaves, or anybody to be 
 saved excq3t their own precious selves, and that entirely by faith and 
 grace, wholly independent of works. As to the girl's making such a 
 fuss about parting from her child, that, Gouge said, was a piece of 
 great nonsense. Wasn't she young enough to have a dozen more ? 
 
 " The upshot of the matter was, what with Gouge's brutality and 
 purse-proud insolence, and my hot temper, which I had not then 
 learned so well how to command, that we soon got into a violent 
 quarrel, which ended in my giving him a caning on the spot, and of 
 course in the breaking up of the partnership. 
 
 " I was, indeed, quite too soft for that business. As to the men, I 
 should have done well enough with them ; but the women, old and 
 young, were always getting up such scenes, and were always so full of 
 complaints, about being separated from their daughters and their 
 mothers, and their babies, and their husbands, that to a man who had 
 the least of a tender spot in his heart, it was perfectly intolerable. 
 
 " Thus ousted from the slave-trading business, it became necessary 
 for me to find some other occupation; but that was not so easy. The 
 occupations that a southern gentleman can adopt, without degrada- 
 tion, are very few indeed. My manners, address, the good songs I 
 could sing, and good stories I could tell, had made me rather a 
 favourite in society ; and as I never drank, and understood a thing or 
 two about cards and dice, billiards, and faro tables, I was able to 
 replenish my pockets in that way ; and finally, for want of a better, 
 that became my regular profession." 
 
 " And," said I, wishing to pay him off a little for his late tanta- 
 lizings, " is this one of the few occupations which a southern gentle- 
 man can adopt without degradation?" 
 
 " The gentility of gambling can't be denied," he said, " since it is 
 very freely practised by the larger part of southern gentlemen. Once 
 in a while the legislatures are seized with a fit of penitence or virtue, 
 and pass laws to break it up ; but nobody ever thinks of paying any 
 attention to those laws, or attempting to enforce them, except, now 
 and then, some poor plucked pigeon, who undertakes to revenge
 
 256 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR 
 
 himself in that way. But though gambling is just as genteel as slave- 
 holding, somehow or other, by an inconsistency like that in the case 
 of the slave-traders, we who make a profession of it, though we 
 associate constantly with gentlemen, are not, I must confess, reckoned 
 to belong precisely to that class, except, indeed, we get money enough 
 to buy a plantation and retire." 
 
 "It is charged," said I, "upon those of your profession, that, 
 not content with the fair chances of the game, you contrive to take 
 undue advantages." 
 
 " Yes ; and so do half of the gentlemen players, as far as they know 
 how, and have the opportunity. There is always a tendency, in games 
 of chance, to run a little into games of skill. Suppose we do plunder 
 the planters — don't they live by plundering the negroes ? What 
 right have they to complain ? Isn't sauce for the goose sauce for the 
 gander ? I tell you our whole system here is a system of plunder 
 from beginning to end. 'Tis only the slaves, and some of the poor 
 whites who own no slaves, who can be said to earn an honest living. 
 The planters live on the plunder of the slaves, whom they force to 
 labour for them. The slaves steal all they can from the planters, and 
 a good many of the poor whites connive at and help them in it. A 
 parcel of bloodsucking Yankee pedlars and New York agents overrun 
 our country, and carry off their share of the spoils ; and we who have 
 cool heads and dexterous hands enough to overreach the whole set, 
 planters, Yankees, and New Yorkers — we stand, for ought I sec, upon 
 just as sound a moral basis as the rest of them. Everything belongs 
 to the strong, the wise, and the cunning ; that is the foundation stone 
 of our southern system of society. The living upon the plunder of 
 others is one of the organic sins of this community; and the doctrine, 
 I believe, has been advanced by a celebrated northern divine, that for 
 the organic sins of a community, nobody is individually responsible. 
 Now, if this good-natured sort of doctrine, which, for my part, I don't 
 find any fault with, is going to save the souls and the characters of 
 Gouge and McGrab, or of the planters who patronize and support 
 them, shan't we professional gentlemen also have the benefit of it ?" 
 
 CHAPTER LIE 
 
 It was not very difficult to discover under the volubility and vi- 
 vacity, a little forced, of this philosophical blackleg, into whose 
 intimacy I had been so suddenly introduced, a deep-seated and bitter 
 chagrin, and even shame, at living as he did ; however he might
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 257 
 
 urge, by way of apology, that it was only one of the applications of 
 the fundamental principle of every slaveholding community. This, 
 indeed, was an idea upon which he seemed to pride himself, and upon 
 which he dwelt with a good deal of pertinacious ingenuity. To °-ain a 
 living by the plunder of the weak and simple, was, he admitted, in 
 the abstract, not to be defended. Yet, if he did not do it, somebody 
 else would. His abstinence would not save them. The weak and 
 simple were destined to be plundered ; and plundered they would be 
 by somebody. Bred up as he had been to extravagant habits, could 
 he be expected to renounce an employment — liable indeed to some 
 fluctuations and uncertainties, as well as to some moral objections, 
 but, on the whole, one that paid — and to run the risk of starving, 
 just to gratify his conscientious scruples ? lie trusted, he said, that, 
 though a professional gambler, he had a conscience. His quarrel 
 with Gouge and McGrab, and his .abandonment of the slave trading 
 business, at which he might have made a fortune, were, he thought, 
 evidence enough of that. But there was a limit to all things. A 
 man must live, and live by such means, too, as his position and gifts 
 allow him to adopt ; and, all things considered, he did not see that 
 he could be expected to give up his profession any more than the 
 slaveholders their slaves. Nor can I say that I did, either. 
 
 On the whole, besides the necessitv I was under of usine him, and 
 the additional information he might give me, in the search in which 
 I was engaged, there was something in his straightforward, down- 
 right way of looking at things, as well as in his lively conversation 
 and agreeable manners, which rather pleased me. 
 
 I therefore proceeded to make a return of his confidence, at which 
 he seemed to be a good deal flattered. Complimenting his sagacity, I 
 admitted my intimacy with a female slave many years ago, whom, from 
 his description of her, and the circumstances he had mentioned, I be- 
 lieved to be the very one whom McGrab had purchased in North Caro- 
 lina, and whom he had sold to the Mississippi planter ; and I added, that 
 I believed her boy to be my child. "What was the name of the 
 planter, and could he aid me any further in finding them out ? 
 
 " And suppose you find them," he asked, " what do you intend 
 to do ?" 
 
 " Buy them," I answered, " if I can, and set them free." 
 
 " Better think twice," he replied, " before you set out on any 
 such adventure. Time, you know, makes changes. You can't 
 expect to get back the young girl you left in North Carolina. O, 
 the deceitful baggage ! Didn't she tell me, with tears streaming 
 down those great black eyes of hers, and such an air of truth that I 
 couldn't help believing her, that she had a husband, the only man 
 she had ever known anything about, who was the father of her 
 
 S
 
 25S THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 child, and who had been carried off by the slave traders a year or 
 two before, and whom she expected yet to meet, by some good 
 providence, somewhere in the south ! Don't flatter yourself with 
 the idea of any constancy to you. Even had she wished it, it could 
 hardly have been in her power. Like as not you will find her, if at 
 all, grown as plump as a beer barrel, housekeeper, and something 
 else besides, to her master ; or may be, by this time, cook or washer- 
 woman, and the mother, as Gouge said she might be, of a dozen 
 additional children, and perbaps with an agreeable variety of com- 
 plexions ; though, for that matter, slave women of her colour are in 
 general mighty squeamish and particular — quite as much so as the 
 white women — as to any connexion with men of a darker hue than 
 themselves." 
 
 Painful to me as these suggestions were, I could not but admit 
 their high degree of probability. To what might not twenty years 
 of servitude have reduced the wife of my heart ! To what humilia- 
 tions, dishonours, miserable degradations, corrupting connexions, 
 might she not have been subjected, tempting as she was by her in- 
 nocence, beauty, and gentleness, and exposed — without the least 
 shield of law, religion, or public opinion — to the unbridled appetite, 
 I do not say of any lecherous debauchee, but of any polygamous 
 patriarch, amorous youth, or luxurious respectability who might have 
 the fancy or the means to purchase her ! 
 
 It made my heart grow sick and my brain spin to think of it. 
 
 " And then the boy," continued my tormentor. " If you had him 
 as I saw him — a bright little fellow, just able to speak, full of life 
 and joy, and unable to understand what made his mother cry so — 
 you might hope to make something of him. He was a child such as 
 nobody need be ashamed of. But what do you suppose he is by this 
 time, with the benefit of a slave education? If, my dear sir, you 
 intended to act the father by him, or the friend by her, you should 
 not have left them all this time in slavery." 
 
 I hastened to explain, in general terms, that my leaving them as 
 they were was, at the time of my separation from them, a thing en- 
 tirely beyond my control — it was not in my power to do otherwise ; 
 but that, so soon as I became possessed of the means, I had made 
 every effort to discover and to purchase them ; that I had traced 
 them to Augusta, where all clue to them had been lost ; but that the 
 clue which he had so unexpectedly, and accidentally put into my 
 hands had recalled all the past, and, as I was unmarried, childless, 
 and with nothing else in particular to occupy my thoughts, had in- 
 spired me with fresh desire to find them out, and, if possible, to make 
 them free. 
 
 " Quite a romantic fellow, I see," rejoined my companion ; " quite
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 259 
 
 another Dick Johnson. True enough, the idea is not very agreeable 
 of having one's children kicked, cuffed, and lashed through the 
 world at the discretion of brutal overseers, peevish mistresses, or 
 drunken, cross-grained masters, with no possible opening to rise if 
 they would, and with no chance before them but to propagate a race 
 of slaves. I dare say it seems so to you, with your English educa- 
 tion, and especially as you have not any lawful children for vour 
 affections to fix upon. But here we don't mind it. A man is ex- 
 pected to sacrifice his own private paternal feelings, if he has any, 
 for the good of the class to which he belongs. I dare say, in the 
 course of time, the only representatives of many of our most distin 
 guished southern statesmen and wealthiest families will be found 
 among their slave descendants. 
 
 " Take my advice, and give over a ridiculous, Quixotic expedition 
 However, if you will persist in it,' I will help you what little I can. 
 The Mississippi planter, to whom the girl and her child were sold, 
 was named Thomas. I have seen him several times since in my 
 travels. Indeed, some handsome sums of money have before now 
 passed from his pocket to mine. He still lives, or did lately, at no 
 great distance from Vicksburg. I have friends in that town to whom 
 I will give you letters, and by whose assistance you can find him out. 
 Perhaps your girl and her boy are still living in his family. But 
 have a care that you don't catch a Tartar." 
 
 CHAPTER LIII. 
 
 Leaving my new acquaintance behind at Augusta, where, as he 
 said, he had business to attend to, and provided with the letters which 
 he had promised me, I set out for Vicksburg. 
 
 Great was my joy at once more getting on the track of the lost 
 ones ; yet I could not but be harassed with many distressing doubts 
 and uncertainties as to what, even if I found them, might be the 
 results of my search. 
 
 The first part of my journey from Augusta led me through a district 
 worn out and partially abandoned ; a fac-simile — and from the same 
 causes — of what I had seen so much of in Virginia and the Carolinas. 
 Crossing the Oconee, and presently the Oakmulgee, I reached a new 
 country, of which the earliest settlements did not date back more 
 than twenty years ; but which already presented, here and there, 
 specimens of the destructive agricultural system of the south, in 
 gullied fields, especially on the hill-sides, from which the soil had 
 been completely washed away j over which still stood erect the black- 
 
 s2
 
 260 THE white slave; oe, 
 
 ened trunks of the tenants of the original forest, killed by the process 
 of girdling, but which, though dead and blasted, remained yet firmly 
 rooted in the soil, sternly smiling, as it were, over the scene of 
 destruction ; the virgin soil, at first so fertile, having been washed 
 into the neighbouring hollows, and leaving exposed nothing but a 
 barren surface of red and arid clay. Can there be a more striking 
 symbol than one of these abandoned fields — the dead, giant trunks 
 still towering over it, as if by way of memento of what it once was— 
 of the natural effects of the plundering system upon which the whole 
 organization of the slave-holding states is based, and which extends 
 even to the land itself, rifled of its virgin strength by a shiftless 
 system of ignorant haste to be rich — and then abandoned to hopeless 
 sterility ? 
 
 Having crossed the Flint, I entered then upon the primitive forests, 
 the hunting-grounds of the Creeks, but from which the insatiable 
 cupidity of the greedy Georgians, backed by the power of the federal 
 government, was already preparing forcibly to expel them — a thing 
 soon after effected — in order to replace the wild, free tenants of the 
 forests by gangs of miserable slaves, purchased up and transferred 
 from the worn-out fields of Virginia and the Carolinas. 
 
 Upon presently reaching the banks of the Alabama, I emerged 
 from these soon-to-be-violated solitudes, and thence to the banks of 
 the Mississippi, traversed a country which the Indians had been already 
 compelled to resign, and which was rapidly filling up with a most 
 miscellaneous population from the more northern slave states ; scions 
 of the " first families" of Virginia, with such numbers of slaves as by 
 some hocus-pocus they could save from the grasp of their creditors, 
 coming to refound their fortunes in this new country ; gangs of slaves 
 sent out under overseers by the wealthier slaveholders of the old 
 states, to open new plantations, where their labour might be more 
 productive ; Georgia " Crackers," with their pale, tallow-coloured 
 visages, with other wretched specimens of white poverty, ignorance, 
 and degradation coming from North Carolina, squatters on these new 
 lands ; Yankee traders and doctors, and lawyers, quacks, and petti- 
 foggers, with land-speculators, slave-traders, gamblers, horse-thieves, 
 and all kinds of adventurers, including a reasonable mixture of Baptist 
 and Methodist preachers — all, except the preachers, and not all of 
 them, with but one idea in their heads, the growing rich suddenly ; 
 and with but two words in their mouths, namely, "niggers" and 
 cotton. 
 
 It was, indeed, in these new settlements, had one leisure and 
 curiosity for the purpose, that the slave-holding system of the United 
 States might be seen operating unrestrained, and exhibiting its true 
 character and richest development. All the old slave states had been
 
 MEMOIKS OP A FUGITIVE. 261 
 
 originally planted as free communities on the British model, slavery- 
 having been superinduced thereupon as an excrescence or accessory ; 
 and, by tradition and habit, there still remain in those states — though 
 fast dying out under the influence of the slave-breeding business — 
 some good old wholesome English ideas. But the states of Alabama 
 and Mississippi have been thoroughly slave states from the beginning, 
 filled up by a colluvium of immigrants from the older slave states, 
 mostly young men, who, in leaving their homes, would seem to have 
 left behind them, as mere prejudices, every principle of humanity, 
 justice, or moderation, ready, like so many ferocious sharks, to devour 
 everything and everybody, and even each other. Nowhere in any 
 part of the globe calling itself civilized, I doubt very much if any- 
 where, at any time, have ferocious enormities and cold-blooded murders, 
 with pistols, rifles, and bowie-knives, been so much a matter of every- 
 day occurrence. Nowhere, between Lynch-law committees on the 
 one hand, and private murderers on the other, has life been so utterly 
 insecure. As to the security of property, let the New York merchants 
 who have traded to those states, let the English holders of Mississippi 
 bonds, answer. Not that the holders of those bonds deserve any 
 commiseration. Those securities were created — and the purchasers 
 of them knew it, or ought to have known it — to raise funds with 
 which to enable the Mississippi planters to increase their stock of 
 slaves ; and it is but a righteous retribution, that Englishmen who 
 lent their money for so nefarious a purpose, should be cheated out of 
 every penny of it. 
 
 In the older slave states, the slaves living often on plantations 
 on which they were born, and the connexion between them and their 
 owners being frequently hereditary, they cannot but establish certain 
 ties of sympathy with those owners, more or less strong, and customs 
 of indulgence, and especially family relations among themselves, 
 which have a partial operation to alleviate their condition. But in 
 the migration southward, accomplished to a great extent through the 
 agency of slave-traders, all these ties and connexions are broken up ; 
 all the horrors of the African slave-trade are renewed ; all the rudi- 
 ments of ideas previously existing in Maryland and Virginia, and 
 North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee, that the negroes, after all, 
 though they be slaves, are still men, and as such entitled to a certain 
 degree of human sympathy and regard, and even to be looked upon 
 as capable of improvement, of religious instruction, and perhaps, 
 some time or other, of liberty ; these shoots of the sentiment of 
 humanity, which, though tender, and as it were scarcely daring to show 
 themselves, and nipped, of late, by disastrous frosts, yet give promise 
 and hope of a rich future harvest — all these germs of consolation, in 
 the transfer of the wretched slaves to the states of which I now speak,
 
 262 THE white slave; ok, 
 
 are assiduously plucked up as pernicious weeds in the nettle-bed of 
 slavery. Every better sentiment, every voice of sympathy, is carefully 
 extinguished, the idea being sedulously inculcated by courts, and 
 legislatures, and politicians, 'and newspapers, and by at least half or 
 more of those who call themselves ministers of the gospel, that the 
 negroes are in nature what they are treated as being, mere mer- 
 chandise, mere property, mere animals, intended to be used like horses 
 and oxen, in making cotton, and like horses and oxen, to be kept for 
 ever under the yoke, the bridle, the goad, and the whip, never tit for 
 or capable of being anything but slaves. 
 
 The old English idea that liberty is to be favoured — that idea 
 which abolished slavery in Europe, and which once had considerable 
 influence on the courts and legislatures of the more northern slave 
 states — has, in these new hotbeds of cotton and despotism, been 
 totally extinguished. Once a slave a slave for ever, — black father 
 or white father, whatever the complexion, — beyond the possibility even 
 that the slave-owning parent shall be able to emancipate his own 
 children. Such is the diabolical doctrine of despotism, announced by 
 Chief Justice Sharkey — and never was judge more significantly named 
 — from the bench of the Supreme Court of Mississippi. And already 
 this doctrine begins to find many advocates among the inhabitants of 
 the new slave-breeding Guinea, into which Virginia and Maryland 
 have degenerated ; nor, when the pinch comes, will there be wanting 
 northern merchants, eager to please their southern customers ; 
 northern politicians, for the prospect of office ready to worship Satan 
 himself; northern editors, who publish papers for circulation at the 
 south ; northern doctors of divinity, ready to yield up, if not their 
 own mothers — for though he might say it in the heat of the moment, 
 not even the famous Dr. Dewey is quite brave enough to stick to that 
 — yet, at all events, ready to surrender their own brothers into servi- 
 tude, to keep the slaveholders quiet and good-natured : — plenty of 
 such supple tools will not be wanting to preach, throughout the pre- 
 tended free states, subscription to the perpetuity of servitude as the 
 corner-stone of the American Union ! 
 
 Let those who would trace the onward march of American slavery, 
 since the time of Washington and Jefferson, call to mind the difference 
 between the principles avowed by them and those set up at the pre- 
 sent day by the Mississippi Sharkeys and Virginia slave-breeders for 
 the market, who nominate the presidents, dictate the legislation, make 
 tools of the politicians, and aspire, not unsuccessfully, to control the 
 moral and religious sentiment of America !
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 263 
 
 CHAPTER LIV. 
 
 As I entered the town of Vicksburg, an appalling prospect met my 
 eyes : five men banging by the neck, just swung off, as it would 
 seem, from an extempore gallows, and struggling in the agonies of 
 death ; a military company drawn up in arms ; a band of black musi- 
 cians playing Yankee Doodle ; a crowd of bystanders, of all ages and 
 colours, apparently in the greatest state of excitement ; and a frantic 
 woman, with a young child in either hand, addressing herself, with 
 vehement gesticulations, to a man who seemed to have the direction, 
 of the proceedings, and whom I took — though I did not perceive that 
 he wore any official dress or badge — to be the high sheriff of the 
 county. 
 
 On reaching the hotel, I learnt, however, to my great astonishment, 
 that this was no regular execution by process of law, but entirely an 
 amateur performance, got up by a committee of citizens, headed by the 
 cashier of the Planters' Bank, — one of those institutions whose bonds, 
 are not unknown in England, though I believe they bear no particular 
 price at the present moment, — the very person, in fact, whom, from 
 the office he had assumed, I had supposed to be the high sheriff. I 
 learnt all this with astonishment, because the victims had appeared to 
 be white men. Had they been black or coloured, their being living in 
 some paroxysm of popular passion or fear would not in the least have 
 surprised me. 
 
 Inquiring a little further into the history of this singular proceed- 
 ing, I was told that the men who had been hung were gamblers, part 
 of a gang of cheats and desperadoes by whom that town had long 
 been infested ; that the citizens, determined to tolerate such a nuisance 
 no longer, had ordered them to depart, and, when they refused to do 
 so, had proceeded to force their houses and destroy their gambling 
 tools — an operation which the gamblers resisted by force, firing upon 
 their assailants, and having actually shot dead a leading and very 
 estimable citizen, in the act of forcing his way into one of the houses. 
 
 The gamblers, however, had all been taken, except two or three, 
 who had managed to escape. The blood of the company was up. 
 The sight of their slaughtered leader, copious draughts of brandy, the 
 recollection of their own losses at the gaming-table, and the dread of 
 being challenged and shot, or shot without being challenged, by the 
 gamblers, two or three of whom were known as very desperate fellows, 
 — all these motives co-operating, and it being very doubtful whether, 
 if the matter was referred to the legal tribunals, those who had riotously
 
 264 THE white slave; ok, 
 
 broken into the houses of other people, even with the professed object 
 of destroying roulette tables, might not run quite as much risk of 
 condemnation as those who had fired, even with fatal effect, upon 
 their burglarious assailants, — all these things considered, it had finally 
 been determined, as the shortest and most expedient method of 
 settling the business, to take the gamblers to the skirts of the town, 
 and to hang them there on the instant. 
 
 To those, indeed, accustomed to the curt proceedings of the slave 
 code, under which suspicion serves for evidence, and power usurps the 
 place of judicial discrimination, all the delays and formalities of the 
 ordinary administration of penal jurisprudence must seem tedious and 
 absurd ; and hence the constantly increasing tendency in the south to 
 substitute, in the place of that administration, in the case of white 
 men as well as of slaves, the summary process of Lynch law. It is 
 ■sain, indeed, to expect that men constantly hardened and brutalized in 
 the struggle to extort from their slaves the utmost driblet of unwilling 
 labour, and accustomed freely to indulge, as against these unresisting 
 victims, every caprice of brutal fury, should retain any very delicate 
 sense of the proprieties of justice as among themselves. 
 
 Before I had yet learnt more than a general outline of the story, 
 the principal actors in this affair, finding it necessary to sustain their 
 dignity and to recruit their self-reliance by fresh draughts of brandy, 
 reached the hotel at which I was stopping. They were followed by 
 the woman, with the two little children, whom I had noticed as I 
 passed the place of execution, and whom I now found to be the wife 
 of one of the victims. It was in vain that she besought permission 
 to take down and to bury the body of her husband. This was denied, 
 with brutal threats that any person who dared to cut them down till 
 they had hung there twenty-four hours, by way of example, should be 
 made to share their fate. Such, indeed, was the passionate fury of 
 the multitude, that the poor woman, in alarm for her own life, fled to 
 the river bank, and, placing her two children in a skiff, entered her- 
 self, and pushed off, thinking this a safer course than to remain 
 longer at Vicksburg. 
 
 After the tumult had subsided a little, I showed the bar-keeper the 
 direction of the letter of introduction I had brought, and inquired if 
 he knew such a person. 
 
 No sooner had he read the name than his face assumed an expres- 
 sion of horror and alarm. " Do you know that person?" he eagerly 
 inquired. 
 
 I told him I did not. This was my first visit to this part of the 
 country. The letter had been given me by a gentleman whom I had 
 met at Augusta. 
 
 " Pray don't mention the name," he replied ; " say nothing of it
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 2G5 
 
 to anybody. This letter is addressed to one of the persons whom 
 yon saw hung as you came into the town. He kept a roulette table, 
 no doubt, and understood a thing or two ; but was a generous-hearted 
 soul for all that; and every way quite as much a gentleman as half 
 those concerned in hanging him. Should you mention his name, you 
 might yourself be seized as one of the gang, and hung with the rest." 
 
 Congratulating myself on this lucky escape, I then ventured to 
 inquire of the bar-keeper if he knew a planter in that vicinity of the 
 name of Thomas. 
 
 There had been, he told me, a planter of that name, — and from 
 ihe account he gave of him, I was satisfied it was the one of whom I 
 was in search, — who lived formerly a few miles off; but within two 
 or three years past he had moved to a distance of some fifty miles, 
 in Madison county, up the Big Black. 
 
 The friendly bar-keeper aided me the next day in procuring a horse, 
 and I set out for Madison county, again passing, as I left the town, 
 the five murdered gamblers still swinging from the gallows. 
 
 Proceeding up the Big Black, I presently found that the spirit of 
 extempore hanging was by no means confined to Vicksburg, but raged 
 as a sort of epidemic in all that part of the state of Mississippi. 
 
 The counties of Hinds and Madison were excited to a pitch of 
 terror bordering on madness, by the rumour of a slave insurrection. 
 Some overseers, linking among the negro cabins, had obtained some 
 hint of a conspiracy ; and two white steam doctors from Tennessee, 
 through the instigation of two or three of the regular craft, — who re- 
 garded these " steamers" with no little jealousy and indignation, and 
 who insisted that they were nothing but horse-thieves in disguise, — 
 had been arrested, along with two or three negroes, as concerned in 
 the plot. 
 
 A vigilance committee and volunteer courts had been speedily 
 organized, and the black and white prisoners condemned to death. 
 Brought out to be hanged, they had been urged to confess, which they 
 had done very extensively, in the hope, probably, of saving their 
 lives ; and from their confessions, dressed up by the lively imagina- 
 tion of the court and the bystanders, the plot, whether real or imagi- 
 nary, had been made to assume a most alarming shape. 
 
 According to these confessions, it was not a mere negro or servile 
 plot, but had been got up by a gang of white desperadoes, negro 
 thieves, horse thieves, gamblers, and other ingenious gentlemen who 
 lived by their wits, to whom were ascribed ideas as to the rights of the 
 cunningest and the strongest — precisely those to be expected in a 
 slaveholding community. They were to put themselves at the head 
 of the insurgent negroes, were to rob the banks, and thus, like so 
 many Catilines, to make themselves masters of the country.
 
 266 THE "WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 Unable to reach rny destination the first day, I sought hospitality 
 for the night at the house of a planter, one of the most respectable 
 men, as I was afterwards told, in ail that vicinity, but who, instead of 
 putting himself forward, as was expected of him, to take the lead in 
 unravelling the plot and punishing its authors, had chosen to remain 
 quietly at home. , 
 
 He had great doubts, I found, whether there was, in fact, any plot, 
 and whether the whole thing was not a chimera of the imagination. 
 Alarms of negro plots, founded on alleged overheard conversations, 
 and throwing everybody, especially the women and children, into the 
 most horrible panics, were as much epidemics, he told me, all through 
 the south, as the autumn bilious fevers. He was too much accus- 
 tomed to those alarms, which had always, so far as he knew, ended in 
 smoke, or the hanging of a few negroes on suspicion, to pay much 
 attention to them. Yet he admitted that the increasing number, at 
 the south, of desperate and uneasy white men, without property or 
 the means to acquire any, might be likely, as* the present resource 
 failed of helping one's self to a plantation by squatting on government 
 lands, to lead hereafter to frightful commotions. 
 
 We were quietly discussing this subject over a cup of tea, when 
 two or three truculent-looking white men rode up to the house ; and 
 one of them, dismounting, handed a dirty and rumpled piece of paper 
 to my host. 
 
 As he read it, his brows began to lower. It was, in fact, a sum- 
 mons or requisition from the committee of vigilance for his speedy 
 personal appearance before them, bringing with him, also, the stranger 
 — meaning me — who had been traced to his house. 
 
 Upon his inquiring of the bearer what the committee of vigilance 
 wanted of him, the answer was, that his not taking any part in the 
 proceedings had been thought very strange, and that some of the con- 
 fessing prisoners had stated something by which he was implicated. 
 
 To all this he coolly replied, that he was ready to answer for his 
 conduct before any regular court, but he did not recognise the autho- 
 rity of the committee of vigilance. " As to this gentleman, my 
 guest," he continued, " I am a justice of the peace, and if you will 
 bring proof against him of any violation of the laws, I will issue a 
 warrant for his arrest ; but, except on some lawful warrant, I shall not 
 suffer him to be taken from my house." 
 
 The only ground of suspicion against me seemed to be, that I was 
 a stranger, who ought not to be allowed to traverse the country, in 
 its present state of alarm, without giving an account of myself. But 
 as my host did not think this a sufficient ground for the issue of a 
 warrant, the messengers of the vigilance committee shortly departed ; 
 not without furious threats of returning soon with men enough to
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 267 
 
 take us both by force, and pretty plain intimations that after this re- 
 sistance to the authority of the committee, which could be looked upon 
 in no other light than as plain proof of our concern in the plot, we 
 could reasonably expect nothing short of hanging. Six white men, 
 and eighteen negroes, they added, had been hung already, and many 
 more had been arrested. 
 
 No sooner had these fellows gone, than I turned to my host to 
 thank him for his protection ; but almost before replying to me, he 
 ordered two horses to be saddled. " I wish I could protect you," he 
 added ; " but though I mean to stand a siege myself, and shall rely, 
 if compelled to surrender, upon my numerous friends and connexions 
 to shield me, it would not be safe for you to remain. 
 
 " Your horse is hardly fit for a new start ; but I will give you a 
 fresh one, and will send yours back to Vicksburg. You shall have 
 my negro man, Sambo, for a guide. He knows the country well, 
 and, if anybody can, will carry you safe to the banks of the Missis- 
 sippi, for which you had better make bv the shortest cut. Steam- 
 boats are passing continually up and down. Get on board the first 
 that comes along, and forego your travels in these parts for the 
 present." 
 
 No sooner said than done. In fifteen minutes I was again on the 
 road ; and travelling all night, under the skilful guidance of Sambo, 
 following unfrequented paths, swimming creeks and rivers, and fording 
 swamps, by morning we reached a lonely woodyard on the banks of 
 the river, where the steamers were accustomed to stop for fuel. Be- 
 fore long, a boat bound to New Orleans made its appearance, and, 
 upon a signal for that purpose, she checked her course for the moment, 
 and sent a skiff to take me on board. 
 
 A few days after arriving at New Orleans, I read in the newspapers 
 how the house of Mr. Hooper — for that was the name of my generous 
 host — had been attacked; how he had barricaded his doors and 
 windows ; had wrapped his infant chdd in a feather bed, and, not 
 venturing to employ any of his slaves to assist him, had alone de- 
 fended the house, keeping the assailants at bay for some time, and 
 dangerously wounding one of their number ; nor had he surrendered 
 till the breaking of his arm by a musket-ball had made it impossible 
 for him any longer to load and fire. His case — as I afterwards learnt, 
 when he was brought before the vigilance committee — had been a 
 subject of vehement controversy ; but as his connexions were numerous 
 and powerful, the committee did not dare to proceed to extremities 
 against him.
 
 268 THE WHITE SLAVE J OR, 
 
 CHAPTER LV. 
 
 Having written a letter of inquiry to Mr. Thomas, — since the 
 disturbed state of the country had interrupted my personal visit, — 
 while waiting an answer, passing in one of my walks through a 
 principal street of New Orleans, I was attracted to enter a large ware- 
 house where a sale of slaves was going on at auction. 
 
 The auctioneer was engaged at the moment in the sale of plantation 
 hands, and mechanics. There stood on the block a blacksmith, a 
 first-rate hand, — as the auctioneer described him, — who had paid his 
 master, as rent for himself, twenty dollars a month, clear of all 
 expenses, for the last five years ; and upon whom the bid had already 
 risen to fifteen hundred dollars. A report, indeed, circulated in the 
 room, that he had already paid that sum, out of his extra earnings, to 
 purchase his liberty ; which amount his master, a Bostonian settled 
 in New Orleans, had coolly pocketed, and had then sent the man to be 
 sold at auction. The circulation of this story checked the bidding, since 
 this breach of faith, it was thought, might provoke the man to run 
 away. The auctioneer steadily denied the truth of it ; but being 
 called upon to ask the man himself, he refused to do so, observing, 
 with a laugh, that the evidence of a slave would not be received against 
 his master. 
 
 My attention was presently attracted to a group of female slaves, 
 apparently of a superior class, and most of them very light-coloured. 
 One woman, in particular, soon fixed and absorbed all my attention. 
 Those eyes ! That mouth ! Her figure was more plump, and fuller ; 
 the face was older than I remembered it ; but her raven hair, and 
 pearl-like teeth perfectly preserved, still gave her a youthful aspect. 
 Her height was the same, and there was the same grace in every 
 gesture and movement. I watched her with the intensest interest. 
 "Was it possible that I could be mistaken? No; 'twas she, — 'twas 
 Cassy, — ' twas the long-lost wife I sought ; found at last ; but 
 where ? 
 
 Press, reader, to thy heart the wife of thy bosom, and thank God 
 that you were both born free ! After twenty years' separation, I had 
 again found mine, — ripe in womanly beauty, — exposed for sale in a 
 slave auction room ! Yet even there, reduced to that depth of degrada- 
 tion and misery, she was still calm and self-collected ; evidently, by 
 her manner, imposing a certain restraint on the crowd of licentious 
 idlers, callous speculators, and anxious inquirers after human conve- 
 niences, to whose inspection, and now gross, now rude, and now 
 teasing inquisition, she, in common with the rest, was subjected. 
 
 The present, however, was not a moment to give way to feeling.
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 2 GO 
 
 It was necessary to act. Summoning up all my energies, I rapidly 
 considered with myself what course I best might adopt. To draw 
 Cassy's attention to myself in any way would be a hazardous opera- 
 tion ; for I felt certain that as I had recognised her, so she would not 
 fail to recognise me ; and so public and peculiar a place as a slave 
 auction room was hardly a desirable spot for our first interview, which, 
 coming upon her with even greater surprise than upon myself, might 
 have led to a scene very embarrassing, if not hazardous. 
 
 Looking round the room, as these thoughts ran through my mind, 
 whom should I see — as if fortune or Providence had determined to 
 favour me — but my late acquaintance, Mr. John Colter, who was 
 walking about the room examining the various groups of slaves, 
 especially the females, with the air — to use his own expression — of 
 both connoisseur and amateur, and with pretty evident indications of 
 his own opinion as to his special competency to pass judgment as to 
 the value of the article. 
 
 Catching my eye almost at the same instant that mine rested on 
 him, he approached me with an air of much interest, and inquired 
 what I did there, and what had been the success of my Mississippi 
 travels. " I feared," he added, in a low tone, " when I read the 
 account of that hanging affair in the newspapers, that I had got you 
 into a scrape. I am glad to find you know how to take care of your- 
 self. Here in the south-west it is pretty necessary to have one's eye 
 teeth cut, and one's eyes open." 
 
 " You are just the man," I answered, " whom I wanted to see. 
 Your assistance may now be invaluable to me. I have found her ! 
 She's here !" 
 
 " Here ! The deuce she is ! Where ? Offered for sale ? Have you 
 bought her ?" 
 
 I pointed out Cassy, as she stood with the other women, with 
 downcast eyes, and apparently absorbed in thought. Colter prided 
 himself on the strength of his memory • never forgetting, as he said, 
 a face which he had once seen ; but what could his memory be, in 
 this case, compared to mine ? After two or three glances at her, he 
 admitted that likely enough I might be correct ; but, to make all sine, 
 while I walked in another direction, he approached her, called her by 
 name, reminded her of Augusta and the slave prison there, and fully 
 satisfied himself, in a short conversation, that she was in fact the same 
 person about whose sale he had quarrelled with Gouge ; and that 
 person, from circumstances already mentioned, I was satisfied was my 
 Cassy. 
 
 Upon his inquiring of her why she was here, and if she was now to 
 be sold, she answered, that she was brought here for that purpose; 
 but that they had no right to sell her, for she was free. Her former
 
 270 THE WHITE SLAVE; OB, 
 
 owner, a Mr. Curtis, had given her free papers many years ago ; but 
 he was lately dead, and certain persons, claiming to be his heirs, were 
 now attempting to sell her. 
 
 Colter promised to inquire into the case, and to befriend her in the 
 matter ; for which she expressed great gratitude, adding that she had 
 all along felt confident that Heaven would send her aid in some 
 shape. 
 
 He then hastened to report to me ; and while he and I were still 
 discussing the subject, and considering what was best to be done, the 
 auctioneer, having finished the sale of the plantation slaves, began 
 upon the group of females in which Cassy stood. 
 
 The one first placed upon the auction block was a finely-formed 
 black girl, neatly dressed, her good-humoured face well set off by a 
 bright-coloured handkerchief twisted turban-fashion about her head. 
 Though apparently very young, she held in her arms, and caressed 
 with much fondness, a sprightly infant of seven or eight months, quite 
 richly dressed, and of a colour a good deal lighter than the mother's. 
 
 "Jemima," shouted the auctioneer; "first-rate chambermaid; hold 
 up your head, my dear, and let the gentlemen see you ; brought up in 
 one of the first families of Virginia ; a good seamstress, too," — reading 
 from a paper or list containing the names and descriptions of the 
 articles on sale, — " only fifteen years of age, warranted sound and 
 healthy in every particular !" 
 
 " And do you sell the pappoose too, mother and child in one lot ?" 
 asked a thin, squint-eyed, hard-featured fellow. 
 
 " You know the law don't allow us," said the auctioneer, with a 
 wink, " to offer the mother and child separately. Whoever buys the 
 girl has the privilege to take the child if he chooses, at the usual rate 
 — a dollar a pound for sucklings ; that's the regular price everywhere ; 
 that you know, old fellow, as well as I. You've bought 'em before 
 now, I reckon." 
 
 This drew out a laugh at the expense of the questioner, who, how- 
 ever, did not seem to notice it ; and the auctioneer having nodded 
 assent to his inquiry, whether, if not so taken, the child might be had 
 separately, the sale went on. 
 
 " Only three hundred dollars offered," cried the auctioneer ; only 
 three hundred dollars for this first-rate chambermaid and seamstress, 
 raised in one of the first families of Virginia, sold for no fault, only to 
 raise the wind." 
 
 " Pretty common case with those first Virginia families," said a 
 voice from among the crowd ; " they only live by eating their 
 niggers " 
 
 " Warranted," — so the auctioneer went on, without noticing the
 
 MOIXIS OF A FUGITIVE. 271 
 
 interruption, which raised another laugh among some of the company, 
 — " warranted healthy, sound, and honest." 
 
 " But no virgin," responded the voice from the crowd — a sally 
 which provoked mother and still more violent explosion of laughter. 
 
 " "With privilege to take the child at a dollar a pound," continued 
 the auctioneer. " Three hundred and fifty ! Four hundred ! Thank 
 you, sir," with a bow and a bland smile to the bidder. " Four hundred 
 and fifty ? Did I hear it ? Four hundred and fifty ! Five hundred ! 
 Can't pause, gentlemen ; great heap of 'em here to sell to-day. All * 
 done at five hundred? Five hundred i Going! Five hundred 
 dollars for a prime Virginia wench, who begins young, and promises 
 to be a great, breeder ; only five hundred dollars ! Why, upon my 
 honour, gentlemen," pausing, and laying his hammer across his breast, 
 " upon my honour," — this with a very decided emphasis, — " she's 
 worth seven hundred and fifty for anybody's use ; a handsome, young, 
 good-natured, stout, and healthy chambermaid and seamstress, raised 
 in one of the first families of Virginia, and sold for only five hundred 
 dollars! We shall be obliged to stop the sale, gentlemen, if you 
 don't bid better. All done at five hundred dollars ? Going at five 
 hundred dollars ! Gone." And the hammer fell. " Gone for five 
 hundred dollars, and mighty cheap at that, to Mr. Charles Parker." 
 Here a fat, jolly-looking, youngish gentleman stepped forward, and 
 the black girl, looking intently at him, and as if pleased with his 
 appearance, smiled confidingly on her new purchaser. " Mr. Parker 
 of course takes the child," the auctioneer continued, addressing his 
 clerk; " add thirty-five dollars for the child, at a dollar a pound." 
 
 " Xot at all !" — so the purchaser interposed; and as he spoke, how 
 suddenly and sadly the girl's countenance fell! — "I've bought her 
 for a wet-nurse ; I don't want the brat — wouldn't take it as a gift." 
 
 I could see, as he spoke, how the mother's arms closed on the 
 child, as if with a convulsive grasp. I expected a scene, but the same 
 little squint-eyed, hard-featured fellow, whom I had noticed before, 
 stepped up to the purchaser, saying in a whisper, " Take it — take it ! 
 I'll take it off your hands, and give a dollar to boot." 
 
 As the purchaser east a doubting sort of a look at him, some one in 
 the crowd remarked, " O, that's old Stubbings, the nigger baby 
 broker ; he makes a business of buying nigger babies ; he's good !" 
 And so accepting the offer, Mr. Parker took possession of his new 
 purchase, the young mother's smiles returning, with a profusion of 
 thanks and " God bless ye's," when she found she was to take the 
 child with her ; wholly unaware, as she seemed to be, of the under- 
 standing by which the infant was to become the property of Stub- 
 bings, the speculator in that line, who promised Parker, in a few
 
 272 THE WHITE SLAVE ' OR, 
 
 whispered words, to arrange matters so as to take the brat off quietly 
 the next day, without giving the girl a chance to make a fuss. 
 
 " And now, gentlemen," said the auctioneer, well satisfied, appa- 
 rently, that the affair just disposed of had ended so quietly, " I have 
 now to offer you a most rare chance for a housekeeper." Here he 
 read from the list, " Cassy ; understands housekeeping in all its 
 branches ; perfectly trustworthy, and warranted a member of the 
 Methodist church ! I can't exactly say, gentlemen, that she's young, 
 but she's in excellent preservation for all that. Answers to the 
 English description of ' fair — ' You needn't laugh ; she's next door 
 to white — she answers, I say, to the English description of ' fair, fat, 
 and forty.' Step up, Cassy, girl, and show yourself!" 
 
 O my God ! What did I not suffer at that moment ! Yet it was 
 necessary to be quiet. 
 
 Cassy had been separated from the group where I had first seen 
 her, and brought forward by some of the assistants of the auction 
 room, towards the place of sale. But instead of mounting the block 
 as directed, she stood still beside it ; and as all eyes were drawn 
 towards her, she spoke out, in a gentle, but very firm and steady 
 tone — how that voice, as familiar to my ear as if I had heard it every 
 day for the last twenty years, instead of hearing it now for the first 
 time after a twenty years' interval, how it went through my heart ! — 
 " No !" she said, " I am free. By what right do you pretend to sell 
 me?" 
 
 This exclamation, as may well be supposed, produced quite an 
 excitement in the auction room. As I glanced my eye rapidly over 
 the company, it was easy to discover several who seemed to sympa- 
 thize with this claim of freedom, and the auctioneer was loudly called 
 upon for explanations. 
 
 "A very common case, gentlemen," replied the auctioneer, "very 
 common. The woman, no doubt, thought herself free ; no doubt she 
 has lived as free for several years past ; but that was all by the mere 
 indulgence of her late owner. He's dead, and now the heirs have 
 taken possession, and offer her for sale. That's all. Step up, Cassy, 
 step on the block ; you see there is no help for it. Gentlemen, who 
 bids ?" 
 
 " Stop a moment !" said Mr. Colter, who now quitted my side and 
 stepped forward — " not quite so fast, sir, if you please. I appear 
 here as this woman's friend. She is a free woman. Gentlemen will 
 please to take warning : anybody who buys her buys a lawsuit." 
 
 The peremptory manner in which this was spoken seemed to throw 
 cold water upon the sale. Nobody made an offer, and the auctioneer, 
 to shield himself from the charge of attempting to sell a free woman, 
 found it necessary to go into further explanations.
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 273 
 
 This woman, he stated, had formerly belonged to Mr. James Curtis, 
 a very worthy citizen, lately deceased, and well known to many of 
 the company. He had allowed her, for several years past, to live as 
 a free woman, and no doubt the gentleman — it was Colter he alluded 
 to — might have every reason for supposing her to be so; but the fact 
 was, she had no free papers, or, if she had any, they were not in due 
 and proper form ; and Mr. James Curtis having died suddenly without 
 a will, his brother, Mr. Agrippa Curtis, of the well-known Boston 
 firm of Cm-tis, Sawin, Byrne, and Co., had succeeded to all his pro- 
 perty ; and finding his ownership of this woman unquestionable, had 
 directed her to be sold ; " and here comes the owner himself," said 
 the auctioneer, " and his Boston lawyer with him ; no doubt they can 
 satisfy you as to the title." 
 
 As he spoke I observed two individuals entering the room, one a very 
 small man, with a head about as large as that of a respectable tabby cat, 
 and with little wandering, unquiet eyes, and a compressed, pursed-up 
 mouth, that might call to mind the said tabby, caught in the act of 
 stealing cream, but while seeming to anticipate a box on the ear for 
 her villany, still licking her chops all the while, as though the cream 
 was all the sweeter for having been stolen. This I afterwards under- 
 stood was Thomas Littlebody, Esq., of Boston, counsellor at law and 
 legal adviser of Mr. Agrippa Curtis, or Grip Curtis, as he was more 
 commonly called among his familiars, — the principal in this business, 
 a bald-headed man about forty, the impenetrable and immovable 
 stolidity of whose features made it difficult to form any conjecture, 
 from that source, as to his character, beyond the probability of his 
 not being likely to be carried away by any great excess of sensibility. 
 "A very pretty story," said Colter, stepping up to these two 
 worthies as they entered the room and approached the auctioneer, and 
 eyeing them with a look that seemed to make them rather uncom- 
 fortable. " The company see how it is. I am glad to find no 
 Louisianian is concerned in this pitiful, kidnapping business. The 
 woman is as free as you or I. This story about the flaw in the papers 
 is all a humbug ; nothing in the world but one of your scurvy, low- 
 lived, Yankee tricks, to put a few hundred dollars into the pocket of 
 a scoundrel. Yet, to save trouble, I'm willing to buy off this pre- 
 tence of claim for a hundred dollars. Come, Mr. Auctioneer, go 
 ahead with your sale. One hundred dollars — that's my bid." 
 
 " One hundred dollars !" repeated the auctioneer, as if mechani- 
 cally, — " gentlemen, I'm offered one hundred dollars." 
 
 " I offer this," said Colter, looking proudly round on the company, 
 " to buy off these Yankee blood-suckers, and to secure the freedom 
 of a free woman. We shall see," he added, " whether, under these 
 ■circumstances, any southern gentleman will bid against me, or " — 
 
 T
 
 274 THE WHITE SLAVE ; 0E, 
 
 brushing by Mr. Curtis and bis lawyer, and darting at them a malign 
 scowl, such as I hardly thought possible from so handsome a face — 
 " any swindling Yankee either." 
 
 Thomas Littlebody, Esq., the Boston lawyer, started back some 
 three or four paces, as if this must certainly have been meant for 
 him. Mr. Grip Curtis, with that gravity and immobility which seemed 
 to be a part of his nature, stood his ground better; and, opening his 
 great owl-like eyes, observed, with a drawl, "I hope you don't intend 
 to insinuate anything against my moral character !" 
 
 " I shall, though," rejoined Colter, " if you undertake to bid at 
 your own auction. It's quite enough to palm off a free woman upon 
 this respectable company, without turning buy-bidder at the sale !" 
 
 " One hundred dollars is offered, gentlemen, — one hundred 
 dollars !" repeated the auctioneer; — but there was no further bid. 
 
 The little squint-eyed baby broker, who had watched the whole 
 proceeding with keen interest, as if here might be a chance for him 
 to turn an honest penny, once opened his mouth as if going to bid ; 
 but, at a look from Colter, he shut it as suddenly up as if his tongue 
 had been pricked with a bowie knife; and I think Colter showed him 
 the handle of one from under his vest. At all events, the apparently 
 intended bid died away inaudible. 
 
 " As gentlemen don't seem inclined to purchase," said Mr. Grip 
 Curtis, stepping forward to the auctioneer's side, " I withdraw this 
 woman from the sale." 
 
 These words filled me with lively alarm; but Colter's practice, I 
 found, had made him a match for any Yankee of the lot. He coolly 
 produced the advertisement, closing with these words, " To be sold 
 without reserve," and insisted that the sale should go on. In this, 
 the company and the auctioner sustained him; and, as no other bids 
 were made, presently the auctioneer's hammer fell. " Sold," he said, 
 " for one hundred dollars, to Mr. ?" 
 
 " Cash," answered Colter, handing cut one of the very hundred 
 dollar bills which he had won, a few weeks before, from the Boston 
 cotton broker. " Make out a receipted bill of this Boston man's 
 claim to this woman, as sold to Mr. Archer Moore, of London." 
 
 The bill was speedily made out, and in spite of a certain degree of 
 dissatisfaction visible meanwhile even through the solemn stolidity of 
 the foiled Bostonian, Colter motioning to Cassy to come with us, to 
 which she responded with all alacrity, and we three left the sale 
 room together; but not before the laughing and good-natured 
 auctioneer had another woman on the auction block, a lady's-maid of 
 sixteen, raised in a good Maryland family, warranted intact, and 
 title unquestionable, upon whom he solicited a generous bid. 
 
 I shall not undertake to describe the scene between mvself and
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 275 
 
 Cassy, when she came to recognise in me, as she speedily did, her 
 long-lost husband. Her joy at the meeting was no less exalted than 
 mine; but her surprise was greatly diminished by a confident expecta- 
 tion which, it seemed, she had all along entertained, and which had 
 formed with her a settled article of belief, — the hope of sanguine 
 souls easily transforming itself into faith, — that sooner or later she 
 should certainly again find me. And so, like a true wife and lover, 
 she had kept, in all this long absence, the best place in her heart 
 empty, swept, and garnished, and waiting to receive me ; and now she 
 clasped me to it, rather as him whose return from a long wandering 
 she had day by day and night by night patiently expected and waited 
 for, than as one irretrievably lost, and unexpectedly, however wel- 
 comely, found. 
 
 O, tie of love, and natural bond of marriage, union of hearts, which 
 laws and priestly benedictions may sanction if they choose, but cannot 
 make; so neither can time, nor separation, nor prosperity, nor 
 suffering, nor all that unbridled power may inflict, or helplessness 
 submit to, nor aught save death, nor death itself, undo thee ! 
 
 CHAPTER LAI. 
 
 The new mistress — into whose hands, by the humane interference 
 of Mr. Colter, Cassy had passed from the slave pen of those pious 
 and respectable gentlemen, Gouge and M'Grab — was, as I knew 
 already, from Colter's account of the matter, the newly-married New 
 England wife of Mr. Thomas, a Mississippi cotton planter. 
 
 Born on a little New Hampshire farm, the child of poor parents, 
 but, like so many other New England girls, anxious to do something 
 for herself, the new Mrs. Thomas, when she first became acquainted 
 with her future husband, had been employed as one of the teachers at 
 a fashionable boarding-school, at which he had placed, for their edu- 
 cation, two young daughters of bis by a former wife. 
 
 The current idea in New England of a southern cotton planter is 
 very much that which prevails, or used to prevail, in Great Britain of 
 a West Indian. He is imagined to be a tine, bold, dashing young 
 fellow, elegant and accomplished, amiable and charming, with plenty 
 of money, and nothing to do but to amuse himself and his friends — 
 an idea formed from a few specimens to be seen at watering-places, 
 who, for the sake of dashing away for a few weeks at the north, run 
 after by all the young women, and old ones too, with marriageable 
 daughters on their hands, and stared at by all the greenhorns — are
 
 276 THE WHITE SLAVE j OR, 
 
 willing to starve, pinch, and be dunned at home, with now and then 
 a visit from the sheriff, for all the rest of the year. 
 
 The young Mrs. Thomas that was to be, as yet Miss Jemima 
 Devens, delighted at the idea of having captivated a southern planter, 
 and of passing suddenly from poverty to riches, hastened to accept 
 the offer of his heart and fortune, which Mr. Thomas made her after 
 a week's acquaintance, in the course of which they had met three 
 times. Unfortunately she did not stop to consider that, southern 
 planter or not, Mr. Thomas was old enough to be her father, had a 
 vulgar, stupid, sleepy look, could not speak English grammatically, 
 and was an enormous consumer of tobacco and brandy; his affection, 
 even during his courtship, divided pretty equally, to all appearances, 
 between chewing, smoking, mint juleps, and Miss Devens, notwith- 
 standing his frequent protestations that he cared for nothing in the 
 world but her. 
 
 That he was really in love with her, so far as it was possible for 
 such an oyster to be in love, was no doubt true; and for a young 
 lady without connexions or money, dependent on her own efforts, 
 with no charms or accomplishments beyond those possessed by a 
 thousand otber competitors, and beginning, also, to verge to the age 
 when the sinking into old maidhood comes to be considered as a 
 possible, however awful, contingency, — for such a young lady to be 
 fallen in love with, even though it be by an oyster in the similitude of 
 a man, is a thing not to be despised; and the said human oyster 
 having the reputation of being rich, and able to support her in idle- 
 ness and luxury, what proportion of girls of the age and in the posi- 
 tion of Miss Devens, whether in New England or Old, or elsewhere, 
 would refuse to accept him for a husband ? 
 
 Miss Devens did confess to some little misgiving on one point. 
 She had a great horror of negroes — a natural antipathy, as she 
 thought ; though she did remember, that when a very little girl, they 
 used to frighten her into good behaviour by threatening to give her 
 away to an old black woman, the only black person anywhere in the 
 neighbourhood of the village in which she was born, who lived all alone 
 by herself, in a little hut surrounded by woods, where she sold root 
 beer in the summer time to the passers by, dealt in all sorts of herbs, 
 as to which she was reported to be wondrous knowing, and had, besides, 
 at least among the children, the reputation of being a witch. 
 
 The idea of going to live upon a plantation where she would have 
 nobody about her hardly but black people did stagger her resolution 
 a little ; till Mr. Thomas re-assured her by suggesting how comfortable 
 it was to own one's own servants, whom one could make do just as 
 one pleased, and by the information that there were plenty of light- 
 coloured people among the slaves, and that she should have a maid
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 277 
 
 of her own as near white as possible — a promise on the strength of 
 which Cassy had been bought for her, as already mentioned. 
 
 The new Mrs. Thomas had pictured to herself, as her destined 
 future home, an elegant villa, splendidly furnished, surrounded with 
 beautiful and fragrant tropical shrubbery, except the inevitable nui- 
 sance of the negroes, — to which she hoped to accustom herself in 
 time, or for which she was willing to accept the orange blossoms as 
 an antidote, — a perfect southern paradise. Mr. Thomas, it is true, 
 good easy man, had never promised her anything of the sort ; but as 
 young ladies often will, she had taken it all for granted as a matter 
 of course. Judge, then, of her disappointment, when, on reaching 
 Mount Flat, — for that was the name which Mr. Thomas had given to 
 his plantation, determined, as he said, to stick to the truth, and yet 
 not to be outdone by any of the Mount Pleasants, Monticellos, and 
 other high-sounding names of the neighbourhood, — judge of her sur- 
 prise to rind her expected villa in the shape of four log houses, con- 
 nected together by a floored and covered passage, without carpets, 
 paper-hangings, or even plaster, and with roofs so imperfect that in 
 every heavy storm of rain, every room of the four, except only that 
 used as her bed-room, was completely afloat. Some detached log 
 houses, at a little distance on either side, served as additional sleep- 
 ing rooms, and others, a little in the rear, as kitchen and storehouses; 
 and still farther back, but still in sight of the principal mansion, was 
 a lone; string; of miserable little huts, the town, as thev called it, 
 occupied by the plantation slaves. As to shrubbery, there were no 
 enclosures at all about the house, except one, half decayed, of what 
 seemed to have been intended as a garden, but which was now quite 
 grown up with weeds and bushes. The hogs, the mules, a few half- 
 starved cows, and a whole bevy of naked negro children, ranged 
 freely about the house ; and though there seemed once to have been 
 some attempts at shrubbery, that was now all ruined and destroyed. 
 
 The former Mrs. Thomas, belonging, as she always took pains to 
 let the company know, to one of the first families in Virginia, was, 
 in fact, a very notable woman, whose masculine temper and active spirit 
 had counterbalanced, so far as domestic affairs were concerned, the dozy 
 disposition of her husband. By dint of bustling, scolding, and the 
 free use of the cowhide, which she wielded with a grace and dexterity 
 hardly to be attained except by those females who have had the ad- 
 vantage of a thoroughly southern education in the best families, she 
 had contrived to keep things in tolerable order; but shortly after her 
 death, some six years before, the man whom she had employed to 
 keep the garden and the grounds about the house, had been taken off 
 and placed in the cotton field, and everything in the house and around 
 it had since been left to take care of itself; and with the results that
 
 27S THE WHITE SLAVE ; OK, 
 
 might have been expected, there not being in the house a whole piece 
 of furniture of any description, and the entire aspect of things as 
 untidy, uncomfortable, neglected, and dilapidated as can well be 
 imagined. 
 
 To complete the dismay of Mrs. Thomas, and what gave a good 
 deal of a shock to her New England ideas, among the black children 
 whom she found running and romping in front of the house at the 
 moment of her arrival — the whole group having, in fact, assembled 
 to welcome home master and the new mistress — were quite a number 
 of boys and girls eight or ten years old, naked as they were born, or 
 with only some fragment of a tattered and filthy shirt banging about 
 them, begrimed with dirt, and shouting and chattering, as she said to 
 Cassy, like so many imps of the evil one himself. 
 
 But within the house a still more disagreeable reception awaited 
 her. She found the keys and the general direction of affairs under 
 the management of a tall, portly, middle-aged black woman, com- 
 monly called Aunt Emma, of formidable size and strength, who, 
 having been a favourite upper servant, and sort of prime minister, of 
 the late Mrs. Thomas, had succeeded, on her death, to the general 
 control of the household. In the kitchen ruled supreme Aunt Dinah, 
 another big black woman, whose face plainly enough betrayed the irri- 
 tability of her temper, stimulated from time to time by pretty free 
 draughts of whisky. It is not necessai-y to mention the other ser- 
 vants, who were in complete subordination to these two, but all of 
 whom, with Aunts Emma and Dinah at their head, it soon appeared, 
 were parties to a conspiracy to set at nought the authority of the new 
 Mrs. Thomas, and to make her a mere cipher in her own house. 
 
 By some means or other, probably from one of Mr. Thomas's 
 daughters, whom the new-married pair had brought home with them, 
 they soon got hold of the information that the new mistress was 
 nothing but the daughter of a poor man, who worked for his living 
 with his own hands, and herself only a poor schoolma'am ; nor could 
 a contempt more sovereign of such humble, plebeian, pitiful origin be 
 evinced by the daintiest female aristocrat that ever wore white kid 
 slippers, than by the black housekeeper and the black cook. 
 
 " Pretty times these, indeed ! very fine times, certainly !" exclaimed 
 Aunt Emma, with a most ominous shake of the head, and imitating, 
 with great exactness, the tone, manner, and words of her deceased 
 mistress, the first Mrs. Thomas, whose representative and successor 
 she seemed to consider herself to be, and equally bound to look out 
 for the honour of the family, — " fine times these, Aunt Dinah ! that 
 you and I, raised in one of the first families of Virginia, should have 
 one of these good-for-nothing, no account, poor folks, put over our 
 heads, — and a Yankee, too ! O, Aunt Dinah, who would a-thought
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 275 
 
 it, that two quality niggers like you and I, raised in one of the first 
 families in Virginia, and always accustomed to decent society, should 
 have to take up with a Yankee mistress ? What in heavens and earth 
 could possess poor Massa Thomas, that, having once had such a wife as 
 old mistress was, belonging to one of the first families of Virginia, he 
 must needs go and bring home this little Yankee nobody, to disgrace 
 us and him too?" Such was one of a great number of similar out- 
 bursts, which Cassy, and indeed Mrs. Thomas herself, could hardly 
 fail to overhear, since the discontented housekeeper made very little 
 privacy of her griefs. 
 
 So far, indeed, did she carry it, that when the new Mrs. Thomas, 
 after being in the house for three or four weeks, intimated to Aunt 
 Emma her intention to assume in person the position of housekeeper, 
 and called upon her to give up the keys, she snapped her fingers with 
 significant contempt in the face of her new mistress, and absolutely 
 refused. Her old mistress — no poor body, but born of one of the 
 first families of Virginia — had brought her into Massa Thomas's 
 family, and had made her housekeeper, and on her death bed had 
 made her husband promise that he would never sell her, but that she 
 always should be housekeeper ; and housekeeper she meant to be in 
 spite of all the Yankee women and poor white folks in creation. 
 
 Missis might be content to manage those servants she had brought 
 in herself. She had brought in one to be sure, though, according to 
 all accounts, poor dear Massa Thomas had to buy her with his own 
 money, and to pay a pretty round price too. But what right had 
 she to come in and undertake to domineer over old mistress's ser- 
 vants ? And here Aunt Emma burst out into a loud laugh, partly in 
 defiance, and partly in derision, at being called upon to give up the 
 keys by such a poverty-stricken Yankee interloper; — she, — so she 
 wound up, folding her arms, and drawing herself up to her full 
 height, exactly as the late Mrs. Thomas used to do, — she who had 
 been raised in one of the first families in Virginia ! But Aunt Emma 
 soon sunk down from this high pitch, subsiding into a flood of tears 
 at the thought, as she expressed it, of what poor dear dead mistress 
 would say, she, born in one of the first families of Virginia, who 
 hated a Yankee as she did a toad or a snake, always speaking of them 
 as in fact no better than a set of free niggers, — an opinion in which 
 Aunt Emma seemed very cordially to join, — to come back, and find 
 her turned out, and the keys in the hands of a Yankee ! 
 
 There is nothing like a strong will, and by virtue of it the slave 
 may sometimes usurp the place of the master. The new Mrs. Thomas 
 made grievous complaints to her husband, insisting that Aunt Emma 
 should be whipped and sent into the field. But the good-natured, 
 easy old gentleman was so accustomed to be himself managed by her,
 
 280 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 and so tickled at the idea of Aunt Emma's contempt for the Yankees, 
 which he himself more than half shared, that he showed a stron» 
 disposition to take her part ; nor was it till after a six months' 
 struggle, and a long series of curtain lectures, in which particular the 
 wife had the advantage of the housekeeper, that she finally succeeded 
 in getting possession of the keys, and Aunt Emma fairly out of 
 the house. She insisted very strenuously upon having her sent 
 down the river and sold ; or at least that she should be set to work 
 in the field ; and especially that she should have a sound flogging for 
 her insolence; but Mr. Thomas would consent to neither". Mrs. 
 Thomas was welcome to flog Aunt Emma as much as she pleased. 
 The late Mrs. Thomas did sometimes use the cowskin on her, he be- 
 lieved ; but during the six years that she had been housekeeper for 
 him, he never had had occasion to do it, and he shouldn't be°-in 
 now. The most he could be persuaded to do, was to put her out ot 
 Mrs. Thomas's sight by hiring her out somewhere in the neighbour- 
 hood, — poor Mrs. Thomas complaining, in a sort of prophetic spirit, 
 that he wanted to keep her near by, when she, his poor wife, was 
 dead and gone, as she soon should be, to have her for his house- 
 keeper again. 
 
 But, though the black housekeeper was thus at last got rid of, the 
 black cook proved a more formidable enemy. Aunt Dinah's skill 
 in cookery was by no means contemptible, and Mr. Thomas, who 
 was something of an epicure, had become so accustomed to her par- 
 ticular dishes, that nobody else could suit him. All poor Mrs. 
 Thomas's efforts to dislodge Aunt Dinah from the kitchen, proved, 
 in consequence, unavailing. She had nothing to do — so Mr. Tho- 
 mas told her, — but to keep out of the kitchen, and let Aunt Dinah 
 alone. But that Mrs. Thomas could not do. She had a great 
 passion for bustling, managing, meddling, fretting and scolding, and 
 scarcely a day passed without an encounter between her and Aunt 
 Dinah, whom she accused, not altogether without reason, of not 
 having the slightest idea either of order or neatness — accusations 
 which Aunt Dinah was accustomed to retort by a sort of growling ob- 
 servation to herself, that poor folks couldn't be expected to under- 
 stand or duly value the kitchen management of quality cooks. 
 
 So far did this feud go, that Mrs. Thomas declared at last her 
 apprehension of being poisoned, and for some months would eat 
 nothing except what Cassy prepared for her, with her own hands ; 
 though whether it was Aunt Dinah's dirt, or something more fatal, 
 that she dreaded, Cassy could never clearly make out. 
 
 In the midst of all these tribulations, which, as she complained, 
 were wearing her out by inches, and bringing her fast to the grave, 
 aggravating the fever and ague by which she constantly suffered,
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 281 
 
 poor Mrs. Thomas had no confident or consoler except only Cassy. 
 The nearest neighbours were three or four miles off. The ladies of 
 these establishments, where there were any, — for several of the neigh • 
 bouring planters preferred a slave housekeeper to a white wife, were 
 from Virginia and Kentucky, holding Yankees in almost as much 
 contempt as Aunt Dinah did — a prejudice which Mrs. Thomas had 
 too little force of character, or power of making herself either useful 
 or agreeable, to be able to overcome. Her husband was pretty poor 
 company at best. However it might have been in the days of his 
 courtship, his wife had long since ceased to compete in his affections 
 with his more favourite cigar, mint julep, and chew of tobacco ; and 
 to get rid, as he said, of her eternal complaints about nothing, he 
 kept out of her way as much as possible. Her step-daughter, a girl 
 of fourteen, seemed to be in the conspiracy with Aunt Dinah against 
 her, as were the washerwoman, seamstress, and all the rest of the 
 house servants ; and such was the state of nervous uneasiness in 
 which they kept her, breaking out occasionally into exhibitions by no 
 means very lovely, that she expressed one day to Cassy her appre- 
 hensions lest these ugly black creatures would not only be the de- 
 struction of her health and good looks, which suffered a good deal 
 under the effects of the ague, but the ruin of her soul also. She was 
 sure that living on a plantation was no place to fit folks for heaven. 
 
 Cassy was impressed with a strong feeling of gratitude towards 
 her unfortunate mistress. She greatly pitied, as well the infirmities 
 of her temper, soured by sickness and disappointment, and failure in 
 everything, as the miserable loneliness and substantial state of 
 slavery into which she had sold herself; a state all the more dis- 
 agreeable to her naturally busy and bustling temperament, since the 
 post assigned to her seemed to be, though bearing the name of 
 mistress, to do nothing and to be nobody. Exerting herself by every 
 means to calm, comfort, and divert her, — an office for which she was 
 well fitted by her own uniform, sweet, and sunny disposition — Cassy 
 became entirely indispensable to her suffering mistress. This placed 
 her in a rather delicate position as to the other servants, who were 
 inclined to include her in their hostility and antipathy to Mrs. Thomas. 
 But her sweet temper and friendly disposition soon overcame all that. 
 Some little favours and judicious compliments — since she always took 
 a decided pleasure in making others happy — secured for her even the 
 goodwill of the formidable Aunt Dinah herself, into whose dominions 
 she was thus able to venture with an impunity never vouchsafed to 
 the mistress. 
 
 Little as there was, any way, of Mrs. Thomas, either of intellect 
 or heart, this assiduity and good will on the part of Cassy, though 
 even she was not safe from occasional bursts of impatience and ill
 
 2S2 THE WHITE SLAVE j OK, 
 
 temper, were by no means thrown away upon her. Finding that 
 Cassy had never been taught to read — an accomplishment which none 
 of her former kind mistresses had thought necessary, she volunteered 
 to teach her, and her little boy also ; and she persevered in it, not- 
 withstanding the occasional jocular threats of Mr. Thomas to have 
 her prosecuted under the act against teaching slaves to read. Indeed, 
 she seemed to take so much consolation in having at last found 
 something to do, that, besides teaching Cassy various kinds of 
 needlework, in which she was an adept, she also gave her lessons on 
 a piano, which Mr. Thomas had bought at the north, at the time of 
 his marriage, and which came round by water. Nor was it long 
 before Cassy's correct ear for music made her a greater proficient 
 than, her mistress, which, indeed, was not saying much. 
 
 So things passed away during three or four years, till a bilious fever, 
 which carried off Mrs. Thomas, exposed Cassy to new vicissitudes. 
 She was no longer needed at Mount-Flat, and in hopes to get back 
 the large sum he had paid for her, Mr. Thomas sent her off with her 
 child to New Orleans to be sold. 
 
 Among the purchasers who there presented themselves, was a Mr. 
 Curtis, as Cassy afterwards learned, a native of Boston, and well- 
 connected there. Like many others in the same city, he had come 
 to New Orleans while still quite young. Afterwards entering into 
 business himself, and succeeding in it, instead of marrying, he had, 
 as is customary enough with the northern adventurers in that city, 
 fallen into the habits of the place, and formed a connexion with a 
 handsome, young, light-coloured slave, whom he had purchased, and 
 for whom he entertained so strong an affection, as to have felt very 
 seriously her recent death, leaving behind her a little daughter some 
 three or four years younger than our boy Montgomery. 
 
 Being of a domestic disposition, and desirous of filling up this 
 break in his household establishment, Mr. Curtis, when his grief was 
 a little assuaged, had become a visitant, with that view, of the slave 
 warehouses ; and Cassy having at once very decidedly struck his 
 fancy, he made a purchase of her and of her child. I relate all this 
 very coolly ; but imagine, reader, if you can, how I must have felt, 
 when, ignorant of the event, I first heard the story from Cassy's own 
 lips ! 
 
 Duly installed in the superintendence of Mr. Curtis's household, 
 winch at this time was on a small and modest scale, and in the care 
 of his little daughter, it was not long before Mr. Curtis intimated to 
 her, in a very delicate way — for he was thoroughly amiable, find in 
 every respect a gentleman — his disposition to place the relation 
 between them on a more intimate footing. 
 
 He appeared a good deal surprised, contrasting, it is probable,
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 283 
 
 Cassy's behaviour with his former experience, at the coolness with 
 which his advances were received, and her attempts to seem not to 
 understand them ; but as he prided himself — and not without reason 
 — on his personal attractions and winning ways with the women, and 
 was, besides, so much more a man of sentiment than of passion, as to 
 prize the possession of a woman's heart, however humble, far beyond 
 that of her person, this only piqued his vanity, and made him the 
 more resolved to make a conquest of her. 
 
 Nor, indeed, when the master condescends to make love to the 
 slave, the man of the superior class to the woman of the inferior one, 
 a king to a subject, a nobleman to a peasant, or even, if he takes the 
 fancy, to the wife of a citizen, are such conquests in general verv 
 difficult. In the case of the slave-woman, however transient the 
 connexion, it still for the moment elevates her from her own humble 
 level to that of her lover ; and in so doing, does more to raise her in 
 her owoq eyes, and those of her class, than any connexion she can 
 possibly form within that class — a connexion called marriage, perhaps, 
 but only by courtesy, since it is not so any more than the other, 
 being, like that other, in the eye of the law, but a transient coha- 
 bitation, creating no rights of any sort, giving no paternity to the 
 children, and dissoluble not only at the caprice of the man, but at 
 that also of the master and his creditors. 
 
 That very same pride, in fact, which impels the woman of the 
 superior class to shrink with a horror, which seems to her instinctive, 
 from an}' connexion with the men of the inferior class, as a degrada- 
 tion from her own level, a sentiment not regulated by colour, but by 
 condition— since a white woman of refinement and education would 
 just as soon think of marrying a negro as one of your newly-imported 
 Irish clod-hoppers, even though he might be an Apollo in figure, and, 
 when the dirt was washed off, a perfect Adonis in complexion ; — that 
 same pride impels the slave-woman readily to throw herself into the 
 arms of any man of the superior class who condescends to honour her 
 with his notice — that very desire for a standing in the world, which 
 makes the free woman so coy and reserved, making the slave woman 
 yielding and easy ; since — looked at merely with that eye of prudence 
 by which more than by choice, sentiment, or passion, the conduct of 
 women in this behalf is everywhere regulated — a left-handed marriage 
 with any man of the superior rank is every way more advantageous 
 than anything to be hoped from any right-handed marriage — even if 
 that were possible, which it is not — with a person of her own degraded 
 condition. 
 
 There was, indeed, nothing but Cassy's affection for me — exposed 
 now to a test such as female constancy, in civilized countries, is seldom 
 tried by — and a romantic idea which she had taken up that, sooner or
 
 284 THE WHITE SLAVE J OR, 
 
 later, we should certainly again find each other, that could have made 
 her proof against the efforts of Mr. Curtis to win her affections ; 
 efforts, as he laughingly told her, enough to have made him husband 
 of half the white girls in New Orleans or Boston either. 
 
 Besides being a man of sentiment, of a delicacy not to be extin- 
 guished even by a residence in an atmosphere so corrupt as that of 
 New Orleans, Mr. Curtis had also a good deal of romance in his 
 composition. He could not but applaud a constancy and tenderness 
 of which he desired himself to become the object ; but he begged 
 Cassy not to throw away her youth and her charms in an unavailing 
 widowhood — since the separation between her and me was in all 
 respects equivalent to death — nor, out of a mere fancy to persist in 
 refusing a position for herself and her child the best that she could 
 hope ; since he promised, in fact, to reward her compliance by a gift 
 of freedom, in due time, to herself and the boy. 
 
 If she had any repugnance or dislike to him, he would not push 
 the matter ; but ought she, out of a mere fanciful caprice, to refuse 
 this gratification to him, and provision for herself? 
 
 Finding that she was a Methodist, he even promised to call in a 
 minister of that persuasion to consecrate their union, if she had 
 scruples on that score ; and he strongly advised her to ask the counsel 
 of the one at whose chapel she usually attended. 
 
 Though the Methodists hold that a marriage between two slaves, 
 celebrated by one of their ministers, is, in the eye of God, every way 
 complete and binding on the parties — who, according to Methodist 
 ideas, have souls to be saved as well as white people — yet, notwith- 
 standing the famous text, " Whom God joined together, let no man 
 put asunder," they have been obliged, in the slave states of America, 
 to concede the supremacy of man, and to admit that parties separated 
 by the command of a master, or the operation of the slave-trade, may 
 rightly enough marry again, even though they know their former 
 partners to be living. They excuse this by saying, that they do it of 
 necessity ; since the people, having little taste for celibacy, will form 
 new connexions, and they may as well sanction what they cannot 
 help ; the same excuse which they give for allowing their church 
 members to hold slaves — the pious brethren will do it, whether or no 
 — a policy in both cases seeming to look rather to the numbers than 
 to the purity of the church, and perhaps partaking something more of 
 the wisdom of the serpent than of the harmlessness of the dove. But 
 upon this high point of ecclesiastical policy I shall not venture to 
 express a decided opinion. 
 
 The Methodist clergyman whom Cassy consulted on this occasion, 
 strongly urged her to accept of Mr. Curtis's offers, which he assured 
 her she might do — considering all the circumstances of the case —
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 2S5 
 
 with a perfectly safe conscience, especially if lie was called in to con- 
 secrate this new connexion, which would thus hecome a perfect mar- 
 riage in the eye of heaven, however human laws might not so re- 
 gard it. 
 
 But spite of the urgency of Mr. Curtis and the advice of the 
 minister, still, every time that she pressed our hoy to her hosom, the 
 image of her lost husband rose up hefore her, aud something said in 
 her heart, He lives ! He loves you ! Do not give him up ! 
 
 So things went on for a year or more, Mr. Curtis still patiently 
 waiting the effects of time and perseverance, when he was seized by 
 a violent attack of yellow fever, which brought him to death's door, 
 and from which he recovered only after a tedious and protracted con- 
 valescence. It was now Cassy's turn to show her sense of the kind- 
 ness and delicacy with which she had been treated, and of the favour 
 with which her master had regarded her. Night and day she was 
 his constant and most assiduous nurse ; and the physicians, of whom, 
 at different times, three or four had been called in, all agreed that it 
 was nothing but her tender care — all that a sister, a mother, a wife 
 could have bestowed — to which he was indebted for his life. 
 
 Having been religiously educated in his childhood, the near pros- 
 pect of death, and the leisure and solitude of his tedious and painful 
 recovery, served to recall many ideas which the tumult of business, 
 the gaiety of youth, the gross, sensual, worldly atmosphere in which 
 he had so Ions; lived, had well nigh extinguished. It was plain, 
 indeed, that Mr. Curtis rose from his sick bed — whether from the 
 effect of physical or moral causes, or of both combined — in niany 
 respects an altered man; as if, indeed, twenty years or more had 
 suddenly been added to his age : not less amiable or genial, but 
 graver, and with thoughts less bent on himself; though he could 
 never, at any time, have been accused of being a selfish man. 
 
 One of the first things he did, when he was recovered enough to 
 sit up, was to execute a duplicate deed of manumission for Cassy and 
 her child, to go into effect as scon as the law would allow, she 
 meanwhile to superintend his household, receiving a certain monthly 
 allowance. He also, as Cassy understood, executed at the same time 
 a deed of manumission of his little daughter Eliza, who still remained 
 under Cassy's care, growing up a nice companion aud playmate for 
 our little Montgomery. 
 
 "When the children arrived at the proper age, Mr. Curtis had sent 
 them to New England for an education ; first Montgomery and after- 
 wards Eliza, who was sent on to the care of Mr. Curtis's brother 
 Agrippa, and placed by him, at Boston, in a select, fashionable, 
 aristocratic female school. 
 
 Montgomery having spent two or three years at a New Eng^nd
 
 286 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 academy, had been afterwards placed in a counting-house in New 
 York, and had lately, through the patronage of his kind benefactor, 
 been established there in a business for himself connected with the 
 New Orleans trade. 
 
 Cassy's monthly allowance in the way of wages having in the 
 course of years, and with the addition of interest, which Mr. Curtis 
 scrupulously allowed her, accumulated to a considerable sum, he had 
 lately invested it for her in the purchase of a small house and garden 
 in the suburbs of the city, to which — as Mr. Curtis contemplated 
 travelling at the north and in Europe for his health — she had some 
 time before removed. 
 
 Everything thus, she said, had gone well with her, as if she had 
 been a chosen favourite of Providence; except, indeed, the long- 
 deferred fulfilment of her still cherished hope of again finding me. 
 But this long course of singular prosperity had at length been sud- 
 denly and most frightfully overcast. 
 
 News came that Mr. Curtis, while on his way to Boston, in as- 
 cending the Ohio River, had been seriously injured by the bursting of 
 a boiler ; and this was followed, not long after, by information of his 
 death. When this occurred, which was only a few weeks previous, 
 Montgomery was employed in his business at New York, and Eliza 
 was still at school at Boston. She was a beautiful and elegant girl ; 
 her liquid dark eyes, long black hair, and brunette complexion, in 
 strong contrast to the prevailing type of beauty in those regions in 
 which light hair, light eyes, and blond complexions so generally pre- 
 dominate. She had, besides, a grace and elegance of movement 
 very seldom seen in New England, — where everybody is more or less 
 awkward, — and all the freedom and vivacity of a bird, without the 
 least touch either of that blunt, masculine rudeness, or of that 
 embarrassed self-consciousness which spoils the address of so many of 
 the Boston women. These, by the way, are Eliza's criticisms, not 
 mine; and I shall, therefore, not hold myself answerable for their 
 correctness. 
 
 She passed for the only daughter of Mr. Curtis, the rich merchant 
 of New Orleans, by a Spanish Creole wife of his who had died many 
 years ago ; and as the reputation of an heiress was thus added to her 
 personal attractions, you may be sure that she received a great many 
 attentions; nor was she without offers even of marriage from some 
 young sprigs of the Boston aristocracy ; but to these she paid no sort 
 of attention, as she and Montgomery had been promised to each 
 other from early childhood. 
 
 On receiving information of the accident to his brother, Mr. 
 Agrippa Curtis had set off for Pittsburg, where he was ; and in three 
 or four weeks he returned with news of his brother's death.
 
 MEMOIRS OP A FUGITIVE. 287 
 
 While mourning with all the energetic grief natural to her age and 
 origin over this sad news, Eliza found herself strangely neglected by 
 her late fond school companions, not one of whom came near her ; 
 and while she was wondering what the matter could be, she received 
 a note from the teacher, with the information that he could not 
 allow her in his school any longer. It seems that a report had 
 suddenly spread that Eliza had African blood in her veins ; that she 
 was not Mr. Curtis's lawful child, nor his heir, but only the daughter 
 of a slave woman. 
 
 Most fierce was the indignation expressed by the mothers of 
 Eliza's school companions ; especially by the daughter of a drunken 
 tallow-chandler who had married in her youth the keeper of a small 
 grocer}' and grog shop, but whose husband, having gone into the 
 business of distilling, had acquired a great fortune, had bought a 
 house in Beacon- street, and being, like his wife, of a pushing and 
 aspiring disposition, had, by a liberal expenditure of money, placed 
 her at the head of the fashion in Boston. This aristocratic lady 
 thought it a most scandalous shame — and she found many sympa- 
 thisers — that people of good family should be so shockingly imposed 
 upon, as to have such a coloured trollop insinuated into the same 
 school with their well-born daughters. Wasn't there a school down 
 n Belknap-street especially intended for coloured folks, and why 
 hadn't she been sent there ? This sketch of this Mrs. Highflyer — 
 for that was the name of this fashionable Boston lady — I must also 
 credit to Eliza, who, to confess the truth, was a good deal of a rogue 
 and a mimic, with an eye to the ridiculous, and a little tendency to 
 caricature. 
 
 Nobody seemed to sympathise more completely with Mrs. High- 
 flyer than Mr. Agrippa Curtis himself, though he had known perfectly 
 well Eliza's origin from the beginning, and had been himself the 
 person to introduce her into Boston society and the fashionable 
 school she had attended. His relation to his deceased brother, of 
 -hose property he gave himself out as the beir, made it improper for 
 him, he said, to express himself freely as to his singular conduct in 
 the introduction into the fashionable society and the respectable 
 families of Boston cf such a low person ; though, in fact, his brother 
 was a strange, unaccountable man in many respects, and to him quite 
 unfathomable. But he did not hesitate to express himself in ihe 
 most decided terms to poor Eliza, when she called upon him for 
 protection and advice, going so far as actually to order her out of his 
 house, as a vile cheat and impostor. 
 
 The keeper of the fashionable boarding house where she lodged 
 was prompt to imitate these aristocratic examples ; in fact, the 
 boarders themselves were all up in arms, especially the women, — for
 
 2S8 THE WHITE SLAVE; OB, 
 
 the men did not seem to have so much ohjection to her, — threatening 
 to leave if she were not turned out ; and the poor girl might, per- 
 haps, have heen obliged to sleep in the street, had not a little milli- 
 ner, to whom she had formerly shown some kindnesses, taken her 
 home even at the risk of offending all her fashionable customers. 
 
 She wrote at once to Montgomery, at New York, who came on 
 immediately to her assistance. Happening to meet Mr. Agrippa 
 Curtis in State-street, about the time of high change, he expressed to 
 him, in pretty plain terms, his sense of his conduct. That gentleman 
 — he passed for such in Boston, notwithstanding a prevailing rumour 
 that the mercantile firm of Curtis, Sawin, Byrne, and Co., to which 
 he belonged, had laid the foundation of their fortune by an under- 
 hand connexion with the Brazilian slave-trade — retorted, in great 
 dudgeon, that he was not to be lectured by any cursed runaway nigger, 
 
 the son of a ; a polite allusion to Montgomery's descent, a 
 
 circumstance with which Mr. Grip Curtis had become well acquainted, 
 in visits to his brother at New Orleans. Montgomery replied by 
 knocking the scoundrel down on the spot ; and one of the bystanders 
 having the good nature to hand him a stick, — for Mr. Agrippa Curtis, 
 though highly respectable, was not very popular, — as the fellow rose 
 up, my boy proceeded to give him a severe caning, to the great appa- 
 rent satisfaction of at least half of the assembled merchants, some of 
 whom made a ring around them, in order, as they said, to have fair 
 play ; perhaps, too, for the better chance of enjoying Mr. Grip's 
 capers and contortions, which, as Montgomery wrote to his mother, 
 were highly ridiculous. 
 
 Mr. Agrippa Curtis immediately made a complaint at the police 
 court, before which Montgomery was had up and tined twenty dollars. 
 He also commenced a private suit, laying his damages at ten thousand 
 dollars, in hopes to prevent Montgomery's getting bail, in which, 
 however, he did not succeed. 
 
 As Montgomery, so soon as he had got bail in Mr. Grip Curtis's suit, 
 was preparing to take Eliza with him to New York, a letter to her 
 arrived from a Mr. Gilmore, a lawyer in New Orleans, who had all 
 along been the confidential adviser and law agent of Mr. Curtis, in- 
 forming her of Mr. Curtis's death, and that certain business affairs 
 indispensably required her immediate presence at New Orleans, and 
 enclosing a draft to pay her passage and expenses. On reaching 
 New York, a similar letter was found there for Montgomery. Neither 
 of the young people had any reason to imagine that these letters were 
 not written in perfect good faith. They knew Mr. Gilmore as a portly, 
 round-faced, smiling, benevolent-looking, white-haired, oldish gentle- 
 man, of whom Mr. James Curtis thought very highly ; and as they 
 had abundant reasons for supposing that he had made some provision.
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 289 
 
 for them by will, it seemed reasonable enough that their presence at 
 New Orleans might be necessary. But some business arrangements 
 required Montgomery's previous attention, and sending on Eliza by 
 packet, he proposed to follow himself as soon as he could. 
 
 Arriving safely at New Orleans, much about the same time that I 
 did, Eliza had gone directly to Cassy's house, who, in a day or two, 
 had waited on Mr. Gilmore to inform him of her arrival. The de- 
 ceased Mr. Curtis had several times assured Cassy, and particularly 
 just before he left New Orleans the last time, that he had in his will 
 remembered her and Montgomery, and had provided handsomely for 
 Eliza. She made some inquiries of Mr. Gilmore on this subject j 
 but the lawyer answered her evasively, telling her that it would be 
 necessary for Eliza to call at his house at a certain hour the next day. 
 
 She went, but did not return. Cassy passed a sleepless night of 
 anxiety and alarm, and was preparing the next morning to go to Mr. 
 Gilmore's in pursuit of her, when, by the hand of a black boy, she 
 received a little crumpled note from Eliza, written apparently in great 
 haste with a pencil, on a blank leaf torn from some book, stating 
 that she was held as prisoner in Mr. Gilmore's house, as his slave, 
 bought, as he pretended, of Mr. Agrippa Curtis, who had just arrived 
 from Boston, claiming the entire inheritance of his brother's property, 
 and herself as a part of it ! Cassy was horror-struck at this terrible 
 news ; but while she was considering whom to apply to, and what 
 could be done, Mr. Agrippa Curtis, accompanied by his Boston lawyer, 
 by Mr. Gilmore, and two or three black servants, entered her house, 
 claiming to take possession of that and her, as his property ; and it 
 was as a sequel to this seizure that she had been exposed for sale in 
 the auction-room where I had so providentially found her, and but 
 for which, spite of her protestations to claims of freedom, — which she 
 had no means to substantiate, since the very person in whose hands 
 her free papers were, had proved traitor and kidnapper, — she would 
 doubtless have been sold into some new bondage. 
 
 Such was the story of which, at our first interview, Cassy gave me 
 a brief and hasty outline, the particulars of which I afterwards learnt 
 more at length. 
 
 Thank God, I pressed her to my heart once more, my own; my 
 own true wife ! 
 
 But my boy, my son, and her whom Cassy claimed and wept for 
 as her dear, dear daughter, — what should be done for Eliza and 
 Montgomery, the one already betrayed and entrapped, the other in 
 great danger to be so ? 
 
 Again I called Colter into our council, and again I found him 
 prompt to sympathize, and ready to act ; quite delighted, indeed, as 
 he said, to help in counter-working these two Yankee scoundrels, who 
 
 u
 
 290 THE WHITE SLAVE " OR, 
 
 had no doubt conspired together to destroy Mr. Curtis's will, and to 
 divide the estate between them ; seeking to reduce Cassy and Eliza, 
 and probably Montgomery, too, to slavery; not so much for the sake 
 of what they would sell for, — he didn't suppose that even these 
 cursed skinflint Boston kidnappers, mean opinion as he had of Yankees 
 generally, from what he had seen of them at the south, were quite 
 mean enough for that, — but because that would be the most con- 
 venient way to dispose of them ; for if allowed to retain their freedom, 
 they might yet make trouble, especially if some unexpected duplicate 
 of the will should ever happen to turn up. 
 
 As to Montgomery, indeed, it seemed that Mr. Grip Curtis had a 
 special grudge against him. In fact, as we afterwards heard, he had 
 bought, immediately after his arrival at New Orleans, an immense 
 cowhide, in order, when the young man was once in his power, and 
 securely tied up, to take satisfactory revenge upon him for his State- 
 street beating. 
 
 With respect to Eliza, it afterwards turned out, that the very 
 respectable and pious Mr. Gihnore had been so captivated at first 
 sight by her personal charms and Boston accomplishments, as to have 
 come at once to the conclusion to appropriate her and them to his 
 own use, under pretence of ownership, and by the rights which the 
 law gives a master. I say pious Mr. Gilmore, for during a visit to 
 New York some two or three years before, he had been converted 
 to Unitarian Christianity by the preaching of that same eloquent Dr. 
 Dewey, whose patriotic zeal I have already had occasion to refer to; 
 and he had since exerted himself with so much zeal to get up a 
 Unitarian society at New Orleans, as to have acquired the nickname 
 of the Deacon, by which he was generally known among his lighter- 
 minded acquaintances. 
 
 CHAPTER LVII. 
 
 On Mr. Colter's suggestion, and in order to have the assistance of 
 the law, if we could get any from that quarter, I proceeded with him 
 to ask the advice of an eminent counsellor. 
 
 With respect to Cassy, as I had brought up Mr. Grip Curtis's pre- 
 tended claim to her, she seemed safe enough ; especially as, by the 
 law of Louisiana, more humane and reasonable in this particular than 
 that of any other slave state, a master, after allowing his slave to live 
 as free for ten years, even without any formal emancipation, cannot 
 after that renew his claim of ownership ; and it would not be difficult 
 to prove that Cassy had for more than ten years past been recognised as
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 291 
 
 free by the deceased Mr. Curtis. But the case of Eliza, and especially 
 of Montgomery, appeared to be surrounded by many legal difficulties. 
 
 No one in Louisiana, as appeared by an extract which the lawyer 
 read to us from the Code Noir, or Slave Code, can emancipate a slave, 
 except by special act of the legislature, unless that slave has attained 
 the age of thirty years, and has behaved well for at least four years 
 preceding his emancipation. Nor, according to the decision of the 
 courts, are any emancipations, in case of slaves under thirty, to be 
 established by the mere allowance of freedom. By another provision 
 of the same code, children born of a mother then in a state of slavery, 
 follow the condition of their mother, and are consequently slaves, and 
 belong to the master of the mother ; or, as the civil code of Louisiana 
 expresses it, " the children of slaves and the young of animals belong 
 to the proprietor of the mother of them by right of accession." Such 
 unquestionably was the fact as to both Montgomery and Eliza ; indeed 
 it was by purchase as a slave that Montgomery had originally come 
 into the possession of the deceased Mr. Curtis ; and as neither he nor 
 Eliza were yet thirty years of age, nor near it, it did not seem pos- 
 sible that Mr. Curtis could have executed in their behalf any valid act 
 of emancipation. They, therefore, remained a part of his estate ; and 
 in default of any testamentary provision, they passed to Mr. Agrippa 
 Curtis, who, as his only brother, his father and mother being dead, 
 was his sole heir. There was, indeed, a provision by which slaves 
 under thirty years of age might be emancipated, provided the owner, 
 upon explaining his motives for it to the judge of the parish and the 
 police jury, could obtain the assent of the judge, and of three-fourths 
 of the jury, to the sufficiency of those motives ; but as this could 
 only be done in case of slaves born in the state, even if Mr. Curtis 
 had taken advantage of it in Eliza's case, it could not have afforded 
 any benefit to Montgomery. 
 
 The law of Louisiana, following the civil law, from which it is 
 mainly derived, and more humane in this respect than the English 
 common law, which prevails in the rest of the states, in case a father, 
 by acts or words, recognises and acknowledges as such children of his 
 born out of wedlock, gives to them, under the name of "natural 
 children," a claim upon him for sustenance, support, and education in 
 tome means of earning a livelihood. But, on the other hand, the 
 light of a person, having lawful relations, to dispose of his property 
 by gift, either during his life or after his death, is very much restricted. 
 In England, and in all the United States except Louisiana, a man may 
 give or will his property to whom he pleases ; but there, if he have 
 lawful children, he can give or will nothing to his natural children, 
 though acknowledged to be such, beyond a bare subsistence; and 
 though he have no lawful children, yet if he have parents, brothers, 
 
 v2
 
 292 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OB, 
 
 or sisters, he cannot alienate by gift or will above one-fourth of his 
 property at the utmost ; the palpable object of which departure from 
 the civil and Spanish law formerly in force is to prevent the mixed 
 race from acquiring property by inheritance through paternal affection ; 
 while the provision restricting emancipation is evidently intended to 
 keep as many of them as possible in the condition of slavery. 
 
 It might be, the lawyer told us, that Mr. Curtis, in sending the 
 two children to a free state, had, in so doing, made them free ; and 
 perhaps that was one of his objects in sending them. Had they 
 remained at the north, they could not have been reclaimed ; but it 
 was not yet a settled question, whether, by returning back to Louisiana, 
 they did not revert to slavery. The supreme court of that state had, 
 indeed, once decided, as had been done in several other of the slave 
 states, that a slave once carried or sent into a free state became free 
 beyond all power of reclamation ; but that decision was made under 
 the influence of old-fashioned ideas, which were fast passing into 
 oblivion ; and whether the present court would stick to that opinion 
 was more than he could venture to say. 
 
 As possession was nine points of the law, and in all questions 
 relating to slavery, as the lawyer facetiously added, very nearly ten 
 points, Mr. Gilmore, in having Eliza in his hands, had decidedly the 
 advantage ; and the lawyer informed us, in passing, that he had long 
 known Mr. Gilmore as a cunning, deceitful, cheating rogue ; verv 
 smooth and plausible, and full of Yankee cant about duty, justice, and 
 religion, and willingness to do what was right; but who seemed to 
 have very little concern for any duty or justice that did not tend to 
 feather his own nest. 
 
 We ought, he told us, if possible, to prevent Montgomery's falling 
 into the same trap. In case of any attempt to seize him as a slave, 
 even though he should ultimately sustain his right to freedom, he 
 might still get into great difficulty. By the Slave Code, according to 
 an extract that he. read, " free people of colour ought never to insult 
 or strike white people, nor presume to conceive themselves equal to 
 the whites ; but, on the contrary, they ought to yield to them on 
 every occasion, and never speak to or answer them but with respect, 
 under penalty of imprisonment according to the nature of the offence." 
 
 Now, the best we could make of it was, that Montgomery was a 
 free coloured person. In Virginia and Kentucky, in the fourth 
 descent from a negro, all the other ancestors being white, the African 
 taint, in the eye of the law, is extinguished ; and those thus descended 
 past, into the mass of white inhabitants, all the rights of whom they 
 attain, even though one of their great-grandfathers or great-grand- 
 mothers had been a pure negro. But in several other of the states, 
 and Louisiana among them, the African taint never can be got rid of.
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 203 
 
 The most minute and imperceptible drop of African blood, however 
 diluted bv the best white blood of the nation, still suffices to degrade 
 him in whose veins it runs into the class of the free coloured, who 
 " are not to presume to conceive themselves equal to the whites," but 
 who are specially required "to yield to them on every occasion, ami 
 never speak to or answer them but with respect, under penalty of im- 
 prisonment." If, therefore, Montgomery, being seized as a slave, 
 should, in vindication of his liberty, speak disrespectfully to any of 
 the catchpoles, and especially should he venture to repeat the knock- 
 ing-down process, which he had once tried already on the person of 
 Mr. Grip Curtis, even though we should succeed in maintaining Ins 
 right to freedom, he might still find himself exposed to very disagree- 
 able consequences. 
 
 The first thing, therefore, to be done in Montgomery's case was, to 
 prevent his falling into the hands of his claimants. As to Eliza, if 
 we could contrive some way of getting her out of Gilmore's hands, we 
 should then be in a much better position for maintaining her claim to 
 freedom. 
 
 Montgomery, as it fortunately happened, had written to his mother 
 just at leaving New York, mentioning, among other things, the name 
 of the packet in which he was to sail; and this letter, by the like 
 good luck, we found in the post-office on leaving the lawyer's office. 
 
 Colter immediately employed a boat to proceed down the river, 
 earning a note to Montgomery from his mother. The passage of the 
 packet from New York had been unusually short. She was found a 
 few miles below the city, and according to the recommendation in the 
 note, Montgomery immediately left her, and being set on shore by 
 the boat, came up by land ; and late that same evening he arrived at 
 a retired and quiet house in the suburbs, indicated in the letter, at 
 which Colter had procured lodgings for myself and Cassy. 
 
 The precaution we had taken was fortunate indeed. Mr. Grip 
 Curtis, as we afterwards found out, had employed some agent in 
 New Y'ork to watch Montgomery's movements, and being informed 
 of the vessel in which he came, soon after Montgomery had left, he 
 boarded her, with a gang of assistants, on purpose to seize him. 
 
 My son, I have thee too ! Snatched from the grasp, — saved, for 
 the moment at least, from the already purchased cowhide of an in- 
 furiated and vindictive scoundrel claiming to own thee ! Claiming 
 to own my son, my boy, my child ! no longer, as I left him. a 
 prattling infant, but now full-grown in figure, features, every youthful 
 grace and manly beauty, fit to compare with anybody's son ! 
 
 Never for me can the high ecstasy again be equalled of that mo- 
 ment in which I pressed my long lost boy to my bosom ! But lor 
 his youthful heart, how choked with agony the pleasure of this, to
 
 294 THE WHITE SLAVE \ OR. 
 
 me so joyous meeting ! What was it to find even a father whom, 
 though he had heard so often of him from his mother, he had no 
 personal remembrance of, when at the same time he learnt the 
 dreadful situation of Eliza, his playmate, his girl-friend and confidant, 
 his lover now and promised wife ! 
 
 How the blood mantled into his cheeks ! How his dark eyes — 
 his mother's, but without their downcast mildness, — flashed fire at 
 the thought of her danger and distress ! It was with much difficulty 
 that we detained him for a moment ; and that only by assurances 
 that Colter already had spies about the house, so that if Eliza were 
 removed we should be able to trpce her. He knew, he said, Mr. 
 Gilmore's house, and the adjoining premises, thoroughly. He knew 
 also the servants in the family, having been, as a boy, a decided 
 favourite of Mr. Gilmore's black housekeeper. He would contrive 
 some means to enter the house that very night, and, at all personal 
 risks, to effect Eliza's rescue. 
 
 Of the thorough scoundrelism of Mr. Grip Curtis, and his con- 
 federate, Mr. Gilmore, all doubts were now removed. At Mont- 
 gomery's last departure from New Orleans, a year or so before, to 
 establish himself in business at New York, the deceased Mr. Curtis 
 had placed in his hands a sealed packet, with written directions that 
 it should be opened whenever his will was produced and proved in 
 court, or within thirty days after his death, in case no will should be 
 produced. It did not appear that Mr. Curtis entertained any sus- 
 picions of the possible ill-faith of his brother, or of Mr. Gilmore, or 
 that they would conspire together to defeat his intentions, and to 
 misappropriate his property. It was only to guard against accidents 
 that he had taken this precaution. 
 
 On opening this package, which Montgomery now produced, we 
 found it to contain a duplicate of Mr. Curtis's will, executed in due 
 form, by which he bestowed upon Eliza, whom he acknowledged and 
 named in it as his natural daughter, one fourth part of his entire 
 property, which consisted principally in houses in the city of New 
 Orleans, estimated in the will to be worth some two hundred thou- 
 sand dollars. This one fourth was all which, by the laws of Louis- 
 iana, he could give ; the other three quarters going to his brother, 
 who, with Mr. Gilmore, was made his executor. But not content 
 with even this large inheritance, this unworthy brother had con- 
 spired, it seems, with Mr. Gilmore, not only to cheat his brother's 
 orphan daughter out of her portion, but, by way of effectually 
 stopping her mouth, and preventing all reclamations, to reduce her 
 to slavery and concubinage ; Gilmore, besides his part of her portion, 
 to have her person also for his share of the spoils. 
 
 The will — after reciting that Mr. Curtis h?.d vainly several time,
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 295 
 
 attempted to obtain the assent of the parish judge and three fourths 
 of the police jury to the manumission of Eliza, as the law required 
 in case of slaves under thirty years of age, (that respectable body not 
 thinking the circumstance that she was his only daughter and child 
 a sufficient motive to justify it,) — proceeded to state that he had 
 sent her to be educated at Boston, with the hope, intention, and 
 desire thereby to make her free ; which he declared her to be, so far 
 *as it was lawfully in his power to make her so. But in case the law 
 should, notwithstanding his anxiety to divest himself of it, reserve to 
 him and his estate any property in, or right to, the services of Eliza 
 until her attaining to thirty years of age, then, in that case he devised 
 and bequeathed those services to Cassy, — describing her as a free 
 woman, manumitted many years since by himself, and since employed 
 as his housekeeper — in full confidence that, as she had so long 
 acted the part of a mother towards Eliza, she would continue to do 
 the same. 
 
 This was all the mention made of Cassy in the will ; nor was there 
 any mention of Montgomery, beyond a declaratiou of his freedom ; 
 but from a separate paper, contained in the parcel, it appeared that 
 Mr. Curtis had deposited the sum of twenty thousand dollars with a 
 London banker, payable, in case of his death, to Montgomery, for 
 the joint benefit of himself and his mother — a contrivance resorted 
 to, apparently, for defeating the stringent restrictions of the Louis- 
 iana law on the power of devising property by will in the case of 
 persons leaving near relations. 
 
 The parcel also contained an official copy of a formal act of eman- 
 cipation, executed many years ago, in favour of Cassy, before a notary 
 public ; Mr. Gilmore being one of the witnesses. 
 
 The will wound up with a most solemn adjuration to the two 
 executors to watch sedulously over the welfare of the testator's 
 daughter, whose guardians, during the continuance of her minority, 
 they were declared to be. 
 
 What attention they had paid to this adjuration we have seen. 
 They were infamous scoundrels, no doubt. Who questions it? 
 Yet they had their temptations. Twenty-five thousand dollars 
 a-piece ; to Gilmore the possession of a beautiful girl ; to Grip Curtis 
 the gratification of his furious revenge as well upon the mother as on 
 the son. And it was only three persons that they sought to reduce 
 to slavery. Pray how much worse were they than so many other of 
 your northern Gilmores and Curtises, who — without any direct and 
 positive temptation at all, beyond the uncertain hope of office, or of 
 currying favour with southern customers — are ready to do their best 
 towards the making and keeping of three millions of slaves ; even . to 
 the hunting down and delivering up to the pretended claimants —
 
 296 THE WHITE slave; ok, 
 
 without stopping to inquire whether the claim is any better founded 
 than that set up by Gilmore and Curtis to Eliza — any panting fugi- 
 tive man, woman, or child, who may take refuge among them ? Any 
 man ready to do that, any man who does not blush at the very 
 thought of it, what is he but a Gilmore and Grip Curtis in his soul ? 
 
 CHAPTER LVIII. 
 
 Poor Eliza! Poor child indeed! Even at that distance, sepa- 
 rated by the whole length of the city, Montgomery's heart felt the 
 wild beating of hers, knew that it was her hour of need, and would 
 allow us to detain him no longer. Rescue her he must and would. 
 
 Imagine, you who can, the terror and misery of that young girl, 
 going trustingly to the house of her father's friend, and there meeting 
 a man like Mr. Grip Curtis, of whose faithlessness and brutality she 
 had already had some experience in Boston, and being told by him, 
 which statement Mr. Gilmore confirmed, that she was a slave, Mr. 
 Gilmore's slave, sold to him by Mr. Grip Curtis, to whom she had 
 come by inheritance from his brother and her father ! 
 
 " And, my dear," said Mr. Gilmore, chucking her familiarly under 
 the chin, with the leer of an old reprobate, as he was, " that you may 
 fully comprehend the precise legal condition in which you stand, just 
 hear what the law of Louisiana says upon the subject." Here he 
 took down a book from a shelf. " This, my girl," he continued, " is 
 the Code Noir, or Black Code, of this state, and thus it lays down 
 the law : ' The condition of a slave being merely a passive one, his 
 subordination to his master' — it reads his, child, but it means her 
 too — 'is not susceptible of any modiiication or restriction, in such a 
 manner that he owes to his master, and to all his family, a respect 
 without bounds, and an absolute obedience ; and he is, consequently, 
 to execute all the orders which he receives from him, his said master, 
 or from them.' 
 
 " The civil code," so this learned lawyer continued, " lavs it down 
 much in the same way." Here he read from another and a larger 
 book. " ' A slave is one who is in the power of a master to whom 
 he belongs. The master may sell him, dispose of his person, his in- 
 industry, and his labour ; he can do nothing, possess nothing, and 
 acquire nothing but what must belong to his master.' That, my girl, 
 is the law of Louisiana, and under that law you are my slave. I hope 
 you will see the necessity of conforming yourself to your condition 
 and to my wishes. We must all submit," he added, with a snuffle, 
 " to the decrees of Providence, and the law of the land."
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 297 
 
 Many young ladies in Eliza's situation would have screamed; 
 many would have gone into hysterics ; many would have fainted ; 
 some would have gone mad. She did neither. She merely expressed 
 her fixed determination never, by any act or consent of hers, to give 
 the smallest countenance to anybody's pretension to make a slave 
 of her. 
 
 Locked up for the night in an attic of the house, the next morning 
 she persuaded a black girl, who brought her a crust of bread, to take 
 charge of the note to Cassy, of which mention has been made. Mr. 
 Gilmore had directed that nothing should be given to her but bread 
 and water, in hopes to bring down her spirit. Judging others by 
 himself, the luxurious old villain had imagined that this putting her 
 on short allowance would be the surest way of bringing her to terms. 
 As there seemed but little prospect of human deliverance, fallen as 
 she had into the hands of wolves in sheep's clothing, it only re- 
 mained for her to invoke the God of the fatherless to guard and 
 protect her. During her second night's solitary imprisonment, her dead 
 father seemed to stand beside her, and, with the same kind smile so 
 familiar to her memory, to say, with his finger pointing to the dis- 
 tance, " Fear not, daughter ; a deliverer comes •" and, as her eyes 
 followed in the direction of the finger, she seemed to see Montgomery 
 emerging from the darkness, and rushing towards her with out- 
 stretched arms. In her effort to rise to meet him, she awoke, and 
 found it but a dream. And yet, how much it consoled her ! In the 
 failure of realities, how much, indeed, of human happiness has to be 
 found in hopes, wishes, and aspirations embodied into dreams and 
 visions ! 
 
 Hitherto she had seen nothing more of Mr. Gilmore, nor of any- 
 body but the same black girl who once a day brought her bread and 
 water, and who, though shy of any communication with her, as she 
 seemed to be watched from the passage, yet managed to hand her 
 a note from Cassy, conveyed by Colter's assistance, bidding her 
 escape from the house if she could, telling her where to go, and as- 
 suring her that friends were watching for her in the neighbourhood. 
 
 About the very hour, on the third evening of Eliza's imprison- 
 ment, that Montgomery — whom I followed, not willing to be sepa- 
 rated from him or to trust him alone in so hazardous an enterprise 
 — left our lodgings to seek her out, Mr. Gilmore, having fortified his 
 courage with wine, turned the kev of the door, and entered her soli- 
 tary chamber. She had heard his footstep on the stair, and had pre- 
 pared to meet him, retreating into a corner behind a small table, 
 which, with a chair and an old mattress on the floor, formed the entire 
 furniture of her prison. As he came directly towards her, she bade 
 him stand off, at the same time drawing and holding up a small
 
 298 THE WHITE SLAVE J OR, 
 
 stiletto, which Montgomery, in a playful mood, had hung around her 
 neck by a gold chain, just as she was leaving New York, telling her 
 that as she was to make the passage alone to New Orleans, she must 
 have some weapon with which to defend herself; and as it hap- 
 pened, she had worn it when she went by appointment to call on 
 Mr. Gilmore. 
 
 He laughed at the sight of the tiny dagger ; but stopped, drew the 
 only chair towards him, sat down upon it, and began to read her a 
 lecture, one half law, and the other half divinity, on the folly and 
 wickedness of resistance to legal authority, and the necessity of sub- 
 mission to the divine ordinances. Thomas Littlebody, Esq., the dis- 
 tinguished Boston lawyer, or even the Reverend Dr. Dewey himself, 
 could not have done it better. 
 
 He told her that resistance and opposition were as useless as they 
 would be sinful and criminal ; that it was in vain to hope assistance 
 or relief from any quarter; that Cassy, no better off than herself, 
 had been sold into slavery the day before; and that Montgomerv, 
 having arrived that very evening from New York, was by this time in 
 the hands of Mr. Agrippa Curtis, who, having punished him suffi- 
 ciently for his insolence, intended to hire him out to work on a plan- 
 tation up the Red River. Shp never need expect to see him more. 
 
 At these cruel words, the falsehood of which she had no means of 
 knowing, poor Eliza turned deadly pale, alarmed more for her lover 
 than herself, and the stiletto was just dropping from her hand, when 
 Montgomery, pushing open the door, which stood ajar, himself entered 
 the room. 
 
 On reaching the street, before Mr. Gilmore's door, we had found 
 the faithful Colter on the watch. He had obtained from the ser- 
 vants a knowledge of the room in which Eliza was imprisoned. The 
 whole three of us, late as it was, on pretence of earnest business with 
 Mr. Gilmore, gained entrance into the house ; and while Colter and 
 myself waited by the door below to secure an egress, Montgomery, 
 who knew the house, proceeded directly to the room where Eliza was. 
 As he trod lightly, he had approached the door and pushed it open 
 without attracting the attention of Mr. Gilmore, who sat with his 
 back towards it, quite engrossed in watching the effects on poor Eliza 
 of the falsehoods he was telling, and of the law and theology which 
 he was endeavouring to impress upon her. 
 
 As she saw Montgomery, she uttered a slight scream ; and as Mr. 
 Gilmore turned his head to see what might be the matter, he found 
 himself seized by the throat. Montgomery pitched him head foremost 
 into the comer where the mattress lay, and tumbling the chair and 
 table upon him, caught Eliza by the hand, and in the twinkling of 
 ?ji eye had her down the stairs, and out at the door. We followed
 
 FIRST VIEW OF THE LAND OF LIBERTY.
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 299 
 
 in the rear ; the whole thing being done in the briefest, most quiet, 
 and most orderly manner, and without the slightest noise or confusion. 
 In half an hour our whole rescued, happy family were united — ■ 
 Eliza, Montgomery, Cassy, and myself. But we were still in New 
 Orleans ; and neither in that city, nor elsewhere in the United States 
 of America, that country meanly boasting to be free, but sunk beneath 
 the dark flood of despotism, was there any olive-tree rising above the 
 waters, any rest to be found for the soles of our feet. 
 
 CHAPTER LIX. 
 
 The very next morning, by Colter's assistance, kind and zealous to 
 the last, we were on a steamboat bound up the river, in which we 
 reached Pittsburg without accident or adventure. Thence we crossed 
 the mountains to Baltimore, and, hastening to New York, took pas- 
 sage in one of the Liverpool packets, feeling no security, night nor 
 day, till the good, blue, deep water of the ocean at length rolled 
 beneath us ; nor indeed hardly then, so long as the significant stripes 
 of the American flag waved above our heads. 
 
 When we touched the British shore we felt safe. Thank God, there 
 is a land that impartially shelters fugitives alike from European and 
 from American tyranny — Hungarian exiles and American slaves ! 
 
 Before leaving New Orleans, Eliza had executed a power of attorney 
 to Mr. Colter — to whom the copy of Mr. Curtis's will, intrusted to 
 Montgomery, was delivered — to proceed under it at law for the reco- 
 very of her share of her father's inheritance, with an agreement for an 
 equal division between them of whatever might be got. 
 
 Colter encountered all the obstacles which the practised chicanery 
 of Gilmore could place in his way ; but he entered into the contest 
 with great spirit ; indeed, it seemed to have for him all the excite- 
 ment of the games to which he was accustomed. He studied the law 
 himself, the better to push it ; and whether or not his experience in 
 his former profession was any help to him in his new one, he presently 
 made himself known as a very shrewd and managing member of the 
 bar. Pursuing Gilmore up and down, through every quirk and turn- 
 ing, to aid in which we sent occasional supplies of money, he finally 
 established the validity of the will, and, after a contest of five years, 
 remitted to Eliza her half of the proceeds, having well earned the 
 other half for himself. He still continues to enjoy a good practice at 
 the New Orleans bar, and has even been talked of as a candidate for 
 Congress, but is not thought to be southern enough in his opinions. 
 
 Mr. Grip Curtis's action against Montgomery for assault and bat-
 
 300 THE WHITE SLAVE ; OR, 
 
 tery, after lingering along in the Boston courts for three or four years, 
 at last came on for trial. Mr. Agrippa Curtis had retained on his 
 side three or four celebrated Boston lawyers, and the one who closed 
 the case argued, with great energy, that the Union would certainly be 
 dissolved, and society uprooted from its foundations, if the jury did 
 not visit with signal damages such an instance of coloured insolence 
 towards a citizen every way so amiable and highly respectable, and 
 such a stanch supporter of the Union, as Mr. Agrippa Curtis. But all 
 this grave, weighty argument, though aided by a most flowing oration, 
 full, as the newspapers had it, of the most brilliant and beautiful 
 tropes and figures from the junior counsel, resulted, much to their dis- 
 appointment, only in a verdict of twenty-five cents damages, which, 
 with costs to one quarter part of that amount, were duly paid over to 
 Mr. Agrippa Curtis's attorney. The jury, by some fortunate accident, 
 happened to be composed of very low people, mechanics and others ; 
 there was only a single wholesale merchant upon it, and he not en- 
 gaged in the southern trade. 
 
 As to Messrs. Gilmore and Curtis, they had a fate common with 
 those who get their money over the devil's shoulder. Mr. Curtis set- 
 tled in New Orleans, engaged in great speculations ; had at one time 
 the reputation of a millionnaire ; but failed, carried down Mr. Gilmore 
 with him, and a goodly number of his Boston friends, including the 
 old firm of Curtis, Sawin, Byrne, and Co. The establishment of his 
 brother's will, and the consequent necessity of disgorging, gave him 
 the finishing blow. For several years he lived a disgraced and ruined 
 man, very much under the weather-board. Some of Gilmore's trick- 
 eries towards white clients coming to light — for cheating coloured 
 people, whether out of their liberty or their property, hurts no man's 
 reputation at New Orleans — he lost his practice, and sunk pretty 
 much to Mr. Grip Curtis's level. 
 
 But within a year or two past, since the passage of the new fugitive 
 slave act, by which the American Union has recently been saved from 
 total destruction, these two worthy gentlemen, having turned patriots 
 and Union-saviours, have quite recovered themselves. Under the firm 
 of Gilmore and Curtis — and Mr. Colter writes me that it is privately 
 whispered that they have a judge as a secret partner — they have esta- 
 blished themselves at Philadelphia in a general slave catching and 
 kidnapping business. Gilmore has obtained the appointment of a 
 slave catching commissioner for the eastern district of Pennsylvania, 
 and Mr. Grip Curtis that of assistant to a deputy marshal, appointed 
 for slave cases exclusively ; and, of course, all three, commissioner, 
 catchpole, and judge, play beautifully into each other's hands. 
 
 I need only add, that Montgomery follows with profit, at Liverpool, 
 the mercantile pursuits to which he had been educated, and that a
 
 MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE. 301 
 
 family of five beautiful ami promising children, of which he and Eliza 
 are the happy parents, does not afford much countenance to the non- 
 sensical physiological theory that the mixed race is hybrid and sterile, 
 under which certain American statesmen are endeavouring to find 
 shelter against the growing inevitable danger by which their favourite 
 system of slavery is threatened. 
 
 In vain, Americans, do you seek to make nature a party to your 
 detestable conspiracy against the rights of humanity, and your own 
 flesh and blood. In vain do your laws proclaim that the children 
 shall follow the condition of the mother. The children of free fathers 
 are not thus to be cheated of their birthright. Day by day, and hour 
 by hour, as the chain becomes weaker, so the disposition and the 
 power to snap it become stronger. Day by day, and hour by hour, 
 throughout the civilized world, sympathy diminishes for you, the 
 oppressors, and sympathy increases for your oppressed victims, becom- 
 ing, as they do, day by day, not by a figure of speech merely, or by a 
 pedigree derived from Adam, but as a matter of notorious and con- 
 temporary fact, more and more your brethren, flesh of your flesh, and 
 blood of your b'.ood. 
 
 Can you stand the finger of scorn pointed at you by all the civilized 
 world ? 
 
 Can you stand the still, small voice of conscience, day by day, and 
 hour by hour, re-echoing in your own hearts those uncomfortable 
 epithets — slave driver, slave breeder, slave hunter, dough face? 
 
 As to you, greybeards in iniquity, with hearts seared, faith blighted, 
 hope withered, and love dried up, continue, if you will, you and your 
 Aaron, to bow down to the golden calf that first seduced you ! 
 
 It is your sin, your weakness, your want of faith, that have kept 
 your nation wandering this forty years in the wilderness. With ima- 
 ginations too dull and gross to raise you to the height of any mental 
 Mount Pisgah ; incapable to see, even in your mind's eye, the distant 
 prospect of good things to come ; longing secretly in your hearts to 
 return to the flesh-pots of Egypt ; well content to make bricks for the 
 Pharaohs ; yourselves slaves hardly less than those whom you oppress ; 
 cowardly souls, frightened by tales of giants and lions, it were vain to 
 expect that you should ever enter the promised land ; cravens, fit only 
 to die and to rot in the wilderness ! 
 
 But already is coming forward a new generation, to whom justice 
 will be something more than a mere empty sound ; something as im- 
 periously forced upon them by their own sense of right, as by the 
 clamours and demands of those who suffer. In vain do your priests 
 and your politicians labour to extinguish, in the minds of the rising 
 generation, the idea of any law higher than their own wicked bar-
 
 302 THE WHITE SLAVE. 
 
 gains and disgraceful enactments. When to uphold slavery it becomes 
 necessary to preach atheism, we may be certain that the day of its 
 downfall is nigh. This must surely be the darkness which precedes ^ 
 the dawn ; for what greater darkness than this is possible ! 
 
 To you, then, uncontaminated children, I appeal; and in mine 
 speak the cries of millions. That which hath been hidden from the 
 wise and the prudent, the voice of love and mercy shall reveal unto 
 you. 
 
 Love and mercy, did I say ? There hardly needs that ; a decent 
 self-respect, a regard for yourselves only, might suffice. 
 
 The whip flourishes also over your heads. The white slaves in 
 America are far more numerous than the black ones ; not white slaves 
 such as I was, pronounced so by the law, but white slaves such as you 
 are, made such by a base hereditary servility, which, methinks, it is 
 time to shake off. 
 
 The question is raised, and can be blinked no longer : shall Ame- 
 rica be what the fathers and founders of her independence wished and 
 hoped — a free democracy, based upon the foundation of human rights, 
 or shall she degenerate into a miserable republic of Algerines, domi- 
 neered over by a little self-constituted autocracy of slaveholding 
 lynchers and blackguards, utterly disregarded of all law, except their 
 own will and pleasure ? 
 
 Yes, my young friends, it is to this destiny that you are called. 
 Upon you the decision of this question — no longer to be staved off by 
 any political temporizing — is devolved. Those who would be free 
 themselves — so it now plainly appears — cannot safely be parties to any 
 scheme of oppression. The dead and the living cannot be chained 
 together. Those chains which you have helped to rivet on the limbs 
 of others, you now find have imperceptibly been twined about your- 
 selves, and drawn so tightly, too, that even your hearts are no longer 
 to beat freely. « 
 
 Take courage, then, and do as I did. Throw off the chains ! And 
 stop not there ; others are also to be freed. It seems a doubtful 
 thing ; but courage, trust, and perseverance, proof agaist delay and 
 disappointment, faith and hope, will not do it. I am old, and may 
 not live to see it ; but my five grandchildren, born, thank God, in 
 free England, surely will. 
 
 THE END.
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS, 
 
 CHANDOS STREET.
 
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