1836.] SLAVERY. 479 



which it 1ms always been said, that slaves arc better treated than 

 by the Portuguese, English, or other European nations. I have 

 seen at Eio Janeiro a powerful negro afraid to ward off a blow 

 directed, as he thought, at his face. I was present when a kind- 

 hearted man was on the point of separating for ever the men, 

 women, and little children of a large number of families who had 

 long lived together. I will not even allude to the many heart- 

 sickening atrocities which I authentically heard of; nor would I 

 have mentioned the above revolting details, had I not met with 

 several people, so blinded by the constitutional gaiety of the negro, 

 as to speak of slavery as a tolerable evil. Such people have 

 generally visited at the houses of the upper classes, where the 

 domestic slaves are usually well treated ; and they have not, like 

 myself, lived amongst the lower classes. Such inquirers will ask 

 slaves about their condition ; they forget that the slave must indeed 

 be dull, who does not calculate on the chance of his answer 

 reaching his master's ears. 



It is argued that self-interest will prevent excessive cruelty ; as if 

 self-interest protected our domestic animals, which are far less 

 likely than degraded slaves, to stir up the rage of their savage 

 masters. It is an argument long since protested against with noble 

 feeling, and strikingly exemplified, by the ever-illustrious Hum- 

 boldt. It is often attempted to palliate slavery by comparing the 

 state of slaves with our poorer countrymen : if the misery of our 

 poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, 

 great is our sin ; but how this bears on slavery, I cannot see ; as 

 well might the use of the thumb-screw be defended in one land, by 

 showing that men in another land suffered from some dreadful 

 disease. Those who look tenderly at the slave-owner, and with a 

 cold heart at the slave, never seem to put themselves into the 

 position of the latter ; what a cheerless prospect, with not even a 

 hope of change ! picture to yourself the chance, ever hanging over 

 you, of your wife and your little children those objects which 

 nature urges even the slave to call his own being torn from you 

 and sold like beasts to the first bidder ! And these deeds are done 

 and palliated by men, who profess to love their neighbours as 

 themselves, who believe in God, and pray that his Will be done on 

 earth ! It makes one's blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that 

 we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful 

 cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty : but it is a consolation 



