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can ransom themselves by paying it to tlieir 

 masters, who are obliged to receive it and set 

 them at liberty, and numbers who have in this 

 manner obtained their freedom, are to be met 

 with throughout the country. Those who are 

 ill-treated by their owners can demand a letter of 

 sale, which is a written permission to them to 

 seek a purchaser. In case of the master's re- 

 fusal, they have the privilege of applying to the 

 judge of the place, who examines their com^ 

 plaints, and if well founded, grants them the 

 permission required. Such instances are, how* 

 ever, very unusual, either because the master, 

 on account of his reputation, avoids reducing his 

 slaves to this extremity, or that the slaves them- 

 selves contract such an attachment to their mas- 

 ters, that the greatest punishment inflicted oa 

 them would be to sell them to others. From 

 hence it often happens that those who, for their 

 good conduct, have their liberties given them, 

 do not wish to avail themseUes of it, in order 

 not to lose the protection of the house they be- 

 long to, where they are certain of always having 

 a subsistence furnished them. Masters exercise 

 the rights of fathers of families over their slaves, 

 in correcting them for their faults ; the kind and 

 degree of punishment is left with them when 

 they have been guilty of any crime that is not 

 capital. Although such a state of servitude 

 ;ippears repugnant to natural right, yet society 



