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themselves. When the negro works in a gang with the whip over him, he may be overworked and ill-treated; but when he is not regularly watched, he will take very good care that the work he performs shall not injure his constitution.

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It has been asserted, and generally credited, that in the Eastern States negroes are regularly bred like the cattle for the Western market. That the Virginians and the inhabitants of the other Eastern slave States do sell negroes which are taken to the West, there is no doubt; but that the negroes are bred expressly for that purpose, is, as regards the majority of the proprietors, far from the fact: it is the effect of circumstances over which they have had no control. Virginia, when first settled, was one of the richest States, but by continually cropping the land without manuring it, and that for nearly two hundred years, the major portion of many valuable estates has become barren, and the land is no longer under cultivation; in consequence of this, the negroes

(increasing so rapidly as they do in that country) so far from being profitable, have become a serious tax upon their masters, who have to rear and maintain, without having any employment to give them. The small portion of the estates under cultivation will subsist only a certain portion of the negroes; the remainder must, therefore, be disposed of, or they would eat their master out of his home.* That the slaves are not willingly disposed of by many of the proprietors I am certain, particularly when it is known that they are purchased for the West. I know of many instances of this, and was informed of others; and by wills, especially, slaves have been directed to be sold for two-thirds of

Many fine-looking districts were pointed out to me in Virginia, formerly rich in tobacco and Indian corn, which had been completely exhausted by the production of crops for the maintenance of the slaves. In thicklypeopled countries where the great towns are at hand, the fertility of such soils may be recovered and even improved by manuring, but over the tracts of country I now speak of, no such advantages are within the farmer's reach."- Captain Hall.

the price which they would fetch for the Western market, on condition that they were not to leave the State. These facts establish two points, viz. that the slave in the Eastern States is well treated, and that in the Western States slavery still exists with all its horrors. The common threat to, and ultimate punishment of, a refractory and disobedient slave in the East, is to sell him for the Western market. Many slave proprietors, whose estates have been worn out in the East, have preferred migrating to the West with their slaves rather than sell them, and thus is the severity of the Western treatment occasionally and partially mitigated.*

*

'Many, very many, with whom I met would willingly have released their slaves, but the law requires that in such cases they should leave the State; and this would. mostly be not to improve their condition, but to banish them from their home, and make them miserable outeasts. What they cannot for the present remove they are anxious to mitigate, and I have never seen kinder attention paid to any domestics than by such persons to their slaves. In defiance of the infamous laws, making it criminal for the slave to be taught to read, and diffi

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But doing justice, as I always will, to those who have been unjustly calumniated, at the same time I must admit that there is a point connected with slavery in America which renders it more odious than in other countries; I refer to the system of amalgamation which has, from promiscuous intercourse, been carried on to such an extent, that you very often meet with slaves whose skins are whiter than their master's.

At Louisville, Kentucky, I saw a girl, about twelve years old, carrying a child; and, aware that in a slave State the circumstance of white people hiring themselves out to service is almost unknown, I inquired of her if she were a slave. To my astonishment, she replied in the affirmative. She was as fair as snow, and it was impossible to detect any admixture of blood from her appearance, which was that of a pretty English cottager's child.

cult to assemble for an act of worship, they are instructed, and they are assisted to worship God."-Rev. Mr. Reid:

I afterwards spoke to the master, who stated when he had purchased her and the sum which he had paid.

I took down the following advertisement for a runaway slave, which was posted up in every tavern I stopped at in Virginia on my way to the Springs. The expression of, “in a manner white," would imply that there was some shame felt in holding a white man in bondage :

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"Ran away from the subscriber, on Saturday, the 21st instant, a slave named

GEORGE,

between twenty and twenty-four years of age, five feet five or six inches high, slender made, stoops when standing, a little bow legged; generally wears right and left boots and shoes; had on him when he left a fur cap, a checked stock and linen round about; had with him other clothing, a jean coat with black horn buttons, a pair of jean pantaloons, both coat and pantaloons of handsome grey mixed; no doubt other clothing not recollected. He had with him a common silver watch; he wears his pantaloons generally very tight in the legs. Said boy is in a manner white, would be passed by and taken for a white man. His hair is long and straight, like that of a white person; looks very steady when spoken to, speaks slowly, and would not be likely to look

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