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expectations. I have now passed three weeks with 

 my negroes, the doors of my house open all day 

 long, and full liberty allowed to every person to 

 come and speak to me without witnesses or re- 

 straint ; yet not one man or woman has come to 

 me with a single complaint. On the contrary, all 

 my enquiries have been answered by an assurance, 

 that during the two years of my absence my 

 regulations were adhered to most implicitly, and 

 that, " except for the pleasure of seeing massa," 

 there was no more difference in treatment than 

 if I had remained upon the estate. Many of 

 them have come to tell me instances of kindness 

 which they have received from one or other of 

 their superintendents ; others, to describe some 

 severe fit of illness, in which they must have died 

 but for the care taken of them in the hospital 

 some, who were weakly and low-spirited on my 

 former visit, to show me how much they are im- 

 proved in health, and tell me " how they keep up 

 heart now, because since massa come upon the 

 property nobody put upon them, and all go well ; " 

 and some, who had formerly complained of one 

 trifle or other, to take back their complaints, and 

 say, that they wanted no change, and were willing 

 to be employed in any way that might be thought 

 most for the good of the estate ; but although I 

 have now at least seen every one of them, and 

 have conversed with numbers, I have not yet been 

 able to find one person who had so much as even 



