Myself." I am certain that you, as well as I, wish freedom and happiness to the human race."

Southerner." Y—y—ye—e—e-e-s! but-but—”

And now come many buts, which are to prove the difficulty and the impossibility of the liberation of the negro race. That there is difficulty I am willing to concede, but not impossibility. This, however, is clear, that there requires a preparation for freedom, and that this has been long neglected. There is here, in Charleston, a noble man who thinks as I do on the matter, and who labours in this the only true direction and preparation for this freedom, namely, the negroes' initiation into Christianity. Formerly their instruction was shamefully neglected, or rather opposed the laws of the State forbidding that slaves should be taught to read and write, and long opposing their instruction, even in Christianity. But better times have come, and seem to be coming. People frequently, in their own houses, teach their slaves to read; and missionaries, generally methodists, go about the plantations preaching the Gospel.

But the onesidedness and the obstinate blindness of the educated class in this city, really astonish and vex me. And women, women, in whose moral sense of right, and in whose inborn feeling for the true and the good, I have so much faith and hope-women grieve me by being so shortsighted on this subject, and by being still more irritable and violent than the men. And yet it is women, who ought to be most deeply wounded by the immorality and the impurity of the institution! Does it not make a family a non-entity? Does it not separate husband and wife, mother and child? It strikes me daily with a sort of amazement when I see the little negro children, and think-" These children do not belong to their parents; their mother, who brought them into the world with suffering, who nourished them at her breast, who watched over them, she whose flesh and blood they

are, has no right over them. They are not hers; they are the property of her possessor, of the person who bought her, and with her all the children she may have, with his money; and who can sell them away whenever he pleases." Wonderful!

The moral feeling, it is said, is becoming more and more opposed to the separation of families and of little children from their mothers by sale; and that it now no longer takes place at the public slave-auctions. But one hears in the Northern, as well as in the Southern States, of circumstances which prove what heart-breaking occurrences take place in consequence of their separation, which the effects of the system render unavoidable, and which the best slaveholders cannot always prevent.

The house-slaves here seem, in general, to be very well treated; and I have been in houses where their rooms, and all that appertains to them (for every servant, male or female, has their own excellent room), are much better than those which are provided for the free servants of our country. The relationship between the servant and the employer seems also, for the most part, to be good and heartfelt; the older servants especially seem to stand in that affectionate relationship to the family which characterises a patriarchal condition, and which it is so beautiful to witness in our good families between servant and employer; at the same time with this great difference, that with us the relationship is the free-will attachment of one rational being to another. Here also may often occur this free-will attachment, but it is then a conquest over slavery, and that slavish relationship, and I fancy that here nobody knows exactly how it is. True it is, in the meantime, that the negro race has a strong instinct of devotion and veneration, and this may be seen by the people's eyes, which have a peculiar, kind, faithful, and affectionate expression, which I like, and which reminds me of that beautiful expression in the eye

of the dog: true is it also, that they have a natural tendency to subordination to the white race, and to obey their higher intelligence; and white mothers and black nurses prove continually the exclusive love of the latter for the child of the white. No better fostermothers, no better nurses, can any one have for their children, than the black woman; and in general no better sick nurses than the blacks, either male or female. They are naturally good-tempered and attached; and if the white "Massa" and "Missis," as the negroes call their owners, are kind on their part, the relationship between them and "Daddy" and "Mammy," as the black servants are called, especially if they are somewhat in years, is really good and tender. But neither are circumstances of quite the opposite kind wanting. The tribunals of Carolina, and the better class of the community of Carolina, have yet fresh in their memory, deeds of cruelty done to houseslaves which rival the worst abominations of the old heathen times. Some of the very blackest of these deeds have been done by women; by women in the higher class of society in Charleston! Just lately, also, has a rich planter been condemned to two years' imprisonment in the house of correction, for his barbarous treatment of a slave. And then it must be borne in mind that the public tribunal does not take cognisance of any other cruelties to slaves, than those which are too horrible and too public to be passed over! When I bring forward these universally-known circumstances in my arguments with the patrons and patronesses of slavery, they reply, "Even in your country, and in all countries, are masters and mistresses sometimes austere to their servants." To which I reply," But then they can leave them!" And to this they have nothing to say, but look displeased.

Ah! the curse of slavery, as the common phrase is, has not merely fallen upon the black, but, perhaps, at this moment, still more upon the white, because it has

nothing to do with beyond at most once a-year, not even to breathe the very best sea-air. Neither did this sort of promenade seem particularly to Mrs. Holbrook's taste; but the people of the New World, in general, are fond of being in company, are fond of a crowd.

After an excellent tea, Mrs. Holbrook drove me home. And that was one day of fashionable life at Charleston; and it was very good. But better still, was another day spent in the country, alone with her at her country-seat, Belmont, some miles out of town.

She came about noon and fetched me in a little carriage. We were alone, we two, the whole day; we wandered in myrtle-groves-we botanised-we read; Mrs. H. made me acquainted with the English poet, Keats; and above all, we talked; and the day passed like a golden dream, or like the most beautiful reality. You know how easily I get wearied with talk, how painful to me is the effort which it requires. But now I talked for a whole day with the same person, and I was n or of fatigue. It was delici