280 



SLAVERY. 



and murderers, for it is well known of what 

 bad materials his gang of slaves is composed. 

 This man is of mixed blood, but is nearly re- 

 lated to some of the first families of the pro- 

 vince. It is well that a man should appear, 

 who is willing, for the sake of a trifling differ- 

 ence in the price for which he may obtain his 

 labourers, to take the trouble, and undergo 

 the risk of person and of property in control- 

 ling a set of uneducated men, who cannot con- 

 sequently have any principle of action, and 

 whose habits are of the worst description. Ac- 

 cording to present circumstances, he is of ser- 

 vice to the country, for these fellows are kept 

 quiet ; but what a dreadful state it is, that the 

 institutions of a country should be so framed, 

 that there should possibly exist in its centre, a 

 body of human beings of which many of the 

 individuals are criminals ; men, who certainly 

 never will be punished by the laws of the 

 country, though punishment may or may not 

 be inflicted by the person to whom they are 

 subservient. 



The slaves of the cotton-estates undergo, as 

 may be supposed, the same kind of punishments, 

 and are subject to the same species of treatment 

 as those which have already been spoken of; 

 their management, as in other parts, is con- 

 ducted on the whole in a more lenient or more 

 rigorous manner, according to the dispositions 



ii 



