262 NEGROES ON A RICE PLANTATION. [CHAP. XIX. 



themselves with the master, and their sense of their own import 

 ance rises with his success in life. But the responsibility of 

 the- owners is felt to be great, and to manage a plantation with 

 profit is no easy task ; so much judgment is required, and such a 

 mixture of firmness, forbearance, and kindness. The evils of 

 the system of slavery are said to be exhibited in their worst light 

 when new settlers come from the free states ; northern men, who 

 are full of activity, and who strive to make a rapid fortune, will 

 ing to risk their own lives in an unhealthy climate, and who can 

 not make allowance for the repugnance to continuous labor of 

 the negro race, or the diminished motive for exertion of the slave. 

 To one who arrives in Georgia direct from Europe, with a vivid 

 impression on his mind of the state of the peasantry there in 

 many populous regions, their ignorance, intemperance, and im 

 providence, the difficulty of obtaining subsistence, and the small 

 chance they have of bettering their lot, the condition of the black 

 laborers on such a property as Hopeton, will afford but small 

 ground for lamentation or despondency. I had many opportu 

 nities, while here, of talking with the slaves alone, or seeing 

 them at work. I may be told that this was a favorable speci 

 men of a well-managed estate ; if so, I may at least affirm that 

 mere chance led me to pay this visit, that is to say, scientific 

 objects wholly unconnected with the &quot; domestic institutions&quot; of 

 the south, or the character of the owner in relation to his slaves ; 

 arid I may say the same in regard to every other locality or pro 

 prietor visited by me in the course of this tour. I can but relate 

 what passed under my own eyes, or what I learnt from good 

 authority, concealing nothing. 



There are 500 negroes on the Hopeton estate, a great many 

 of whom are children, and some old and superannuated. The 

 latter class, who would be supported in a poor-house in England, 

 enjoy here, to the end of their days, the society of their neigh 

 bors arid kinsfolk, and live at large in separate houses assigned 

 to them. The children have no regular work to do till they are 

 ten or twelve years old. We see that some of them, at this 

 season, are set to pick up dead leaves from the paths, others to 

 attend the babies When the mothers are at work, the young 



