ISO 



me to inform their trustee how ill they had been 

 used, and see their injuries redressed. They said, 

 that having been ill in the hospital, and ordered to 

 the field while they were still too weak to work, they 

 had been flogged with much severity (though not 

 beyond the limits of the law); and my head driver, 

 who was less scrupulously delicate than myself as 

 to ocular inspection of Juliet's person (which 

 Juliet, to do her justice, was perfectly ready to 

 submit to in proof of her assertions), told me, that 

 the woman had certainly suffered greatly ; the 

 other, whose name was Delia, was but just recover- 

 ing from a miscarriage, and declared openly that 

 the overseer's conduct had been such, that nothing 

 should have prevented her running away long ago 

 if she could but have had the heart to abandon a 

 child which she had on the estate. Both were 

 poor feeble-looking creatures, and seemed very 

 unfit subjects for any severe correction. I promised 

 to write to their trustee ; and, as they were afraid 

 of being punished on their return home for having 

 thrown themselves on my protection, I wrote a 

 note to the overseer, requesting that the women 

 might remain quite unmolested till the trustee's 

 arrival, which was daily expected ; and, with this 

 note and a present of cocoa-fingers and salt fish, 

 Delia and Juliet departed, apparently much com- 

 forted. 



They were succeeded by no less a personage 

 than Venus herself — a poor, little, sickly, timid 



