210 KINDNESS TO NEGROES. [CHAP. XV. 



also. They then sold very well. Another, where the dealer 

 was compelled, in like manner, to sell a father and son to 

 gether. I learned with pleasure an anecdote, from undoubted 

 authority, very characteristic of the indulgence of owners of the 

 higher class of society here toward their slaves. One of the 

 judges of the Supreme Court at Richmond, having four or five 

 supernumerary negroes in his establishment, proposed to them to 

 go to his plantation in the country. As they had acquired town 

 habits, they objected, and begged him instead to look out for a 

 good master who would carry them to a city farther south, where 

 they might enjoy a warm climate. The judge accordingly made 

 his arrangements, and, for the sake of securing the desired con 

 ditions, was to receive for each a price below their market value. 

 Just as they were about to leave Richmond for Louisiana, one 

 of the women turned faint-hearted, at which all the rest lost 

 courage ; for their local and personal attachments are very strong, 

 although they seem always ready to migrate cheerfully to any 

 part of the world with their owners. The affair ended in the 

 good-natured judge having to repurchase them, paying the dif 

 ference of price between the sum agreed upon for each, and 

 what they would have fetched at an auction. 



Great sacrifices are often made from a sense of duty, by re 

 taining possession of inherited estates, which it would be most 

 desirable to sell, and which the owners can not part with, because 

 they feel it would be wrong to abandon the slaves to an un 

 known purchaser. We became acquainted with the family of a 

 widow, who had six daughters and no son to take on himself the 

 management of a plantation, always a responsible, and often a 

 very difficult undertaking. It was felt by all the relatives and 

 neighbors to be most desirable that the property, situated in a 

 remote part of the country, near the sea, should be sold, in order 

 that the young ladies and their mother should have the benefit 

 of society in a large town. They wished it themselves, being 

 in very moderate circumstances, but were withheld by conscien 

 tious motives from leaving a large body of dependents, whom 

 they had known from childhood, and who could scarcely hope to 

 be treated with the same indulgence by strangers. 



