146 NOTES ON AMERICA. 



repeatedly ordered to hold the torch upright, he persisted in leaning it 

 against the wall, which might have been set on fire in three minutes. 

 At length the driver seized him by the hair, and struck his face violently 

 against a rough projecting log. The poor creature was instantly covered 

 with the blood which gushed from his lacerated cheeks, but he held the 

 light straight enough afterwards. " That's the way to manage them 

 niggers," said the brutal driver, with exultation ; and his mode of 

 management, as far as I observed, is the one very generally adopted by 

 those of his class in the interior of the low country. 



But in those districts where the climate is tolerable, and the gentry 

 reside upon their estates, the situation of the slave is materially im- 

 proved. A South Carolinian gentleman of property and education, and 

 there are many such, is the kind and indulgent protector, not the harsh 

 task-master of his negroes. Proprietors of this class have adopted many 

 excellent regulations for insuring the health and comfort of the black 

 population on their estates. Among these I will mention one, which has 

 been found to be of great service. A planter informed me that he pre- 

 sented his overseer with five dollars for each additional negro, not pur- 

 chased during the year, whom he found upon his estate on Christmas 

 day. It thus became the man's interest, as well as his duty, to provide 

 for the well-being of all to take especial care that the pregnant women 

 were not over-worked, nor their infants neglected. To detail all the 

 admirable methods by which this gentleman had succeeded in alleviating 

 the evils of slavery, would be a long, but not unpleasing task. They 

 were worthy of the humane and high-minded Col. Huger, well known 

 on the continent, and in America, as the gallant and enterprising friend 

 and deliverer of La Fayette. 



The domestic life and habits of the southern gentry very much 

 resemble those of our West Indian proprietors, But the Americans are 

 more actively engaged in politics, field sports, and horse racing. In 

 Virginia, especially, great attention is paid to the breed of horses, and 

 there is scarcely a town or village of two thousand inhabitants which 

 does not possess a well-appointed race course. The hospitality of a 

 planter of the highest and best class to travellers of all nations, who 

 come well introduced, knows no bounds, and his house, horses, negroes, 

 guns, boats, &c. &c. are at your service for as long a period as you may 

 feel disposed to remain his visitor, and you may travel far and wide 

 without meeting with so hearty a friend or so polished a gentleman. 

 You will find him well acquainted with the policy and literature of 

 modern Europe, and though probably a republican from principle, he is 

 too well bred and too liberal to annoy you with those dissertations on the 

 abuses of kingly governments, which so often offend the ears of the 

 admirers of monarchies during their progress through the United States. 

 On one subject, however, the southern planter is peculiarly sensitive. 

 I allude, of course, to the everlasting one of slavery. How fixed and 

 resolute he is in the determination to perpetuate this curse of his country, 

 may be gathered from the nature of the laws which have been passed in 

 several of the slaveholding States, for the government of the black 

 population the last few years. Emancipation under any circumstances, 

 is vigorously interdicted. It is a crime to teach a negro to read or 

 write. Any free black who shall presume to enter the slave states, is 

 liable first to be imprisoned, and then sold to pay the expences of his 

 maintenance in jail. No exception is made in favour of the subjects of 



