80 TREATMENT OF SLAVES IN CHARLESTON. 



The pioceedinos of this trial made some noise at 

 the time. An official account of it was pubHshed, 

 in which the execution of so great a number of per- 

 sons was justified by the precedent of George the 

 Second, who executed fifty-four of the first men in 

 Britain for the rebellion of 1745. 



The existence of slavery in its most hideous form, 

 in a country of absolute freedom in most respects, is 

 one of those extraordinary anomilies for which it is 

 impossible to account. No man was more sensible 

 of this than Jefferson, nor more anxious that so foul 

 a stain on the otherwise free institutions of the 

 United States should be wiped away. His senti- 

 ments on this subject, and on the peculiar situation 

 of his countrymen in maintaining slavery, are thus 

 given in a communication to one of his fnends : — 

 " What an incomprehensible machine is man ! who 

 can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment, and 

 death itself, in vindication of his own liberty, and 

 the next moment be deaf to all those motives whose 

 power supported him through his trial, and inflict on 

 ins fellow -men a bondage, one hour of which is 

 fraught with more misery than ages of that which he 

 rose in rebellion to oppose. But we must await 

 with patience the workings of an overruling Provi- 

 dence, and hope that that is preparing the deliverance 

 of these our suffering brethren. When the measure 

 of their tears shall be full, — When their groans shall 

 have involved Heaven itself in darkness, — doubtless 

 a God of justice will awaken to their distress, and, 

 by diffusing light and liberality among their oppres- 

 sors, or at length, by his exterminating thunder, 

 manifest his attention to the things of this world, 

 and that thev are not left to the guidance of a blind 

 fatality." 



Stuart. 



