94 SLAVERY IN SOUTHERN STATES. [CHAP. XXV. 



On his return home he published a small book, in 

 which he says, &quot; It will appear, to those who knew 

 my opinions on slavery before I visited America, 

 that, like most others who can judge dispassionately, 

 I have changed my opinion considerably.&quot; He gives 

 a detailed account of his adventures in the regions 

 which I traversed in Alabama, Georgia, and many 

 other States, and concludes by observing, &quot; After 

 witnessing negro slavery in mostly all the slave- 

 holding States, having lived for weeks in cotton 

 plantations, observing closely the actual condition of 

 the negroes, I can assert, without fear of contra 

 diction from any man who has any knowledge of 

 the subject, that I have never witnessed one-fifth 

 of the real suffering that I have seen in manufac 

 turing establishments in Great Britain.&quot; In refer 

 ence to another topic, he affirms &quot; that the members 

 of the same family of negroes are not so much scat 

 tered as are those of working men in Scotland, whose 

 necessities compel them to separate at an age when 

 the American slave is running about gathering health 

 and strength.&quot;* 



I am aware that there is some danger, when one 

 hears the philanthropist declaiming in terms of gross 

 exaggeration on the horrors of slavery and the crimes 

 of the planters, of being tempted by a spirit of con 

 tradiction, or rather by a love of justice, to coun 

 teract misrepresentation, by taking too favourable a 

 view of the condition and prospects of the negroes. 

 But there is another reason, also, which causes the tra- 



* Tradesman s Travels in the United States, &c., in the years 

 1840-42, p. 182. 



