int of money,"
and when I am told that every acre of this property is worth ten per
cent. more than any free English land, however valuable, it seems almost
impossible to expect that this terrible temptation to injustice should
be resisted by any man; but with God all things are possible! and
doubtless He weighs the difficulty more mercifully than I can....

Since this letter was begun, we have had a death on the plantation; a
poor young fellow was taken off, after a few days' illness, yesterday.
The attack was one to which the negroes are very subject, arising from
cold and exposure.... We went to his burial, which was a scene I shall
not soon forget. His coffin was brought out into the open air, and the
negroes from over the whole island assembled around it. One of their
preachers (a slave like the rest) gave out the words of a hymn, which
they all sang in unison; after which he made an exhortation, and bade us
pray, and we all kneeled down on the earth together, while this poor,
ignorant slave prayed aloud and spoke incoherently, but fervently
enough, of Life and Death and Immortality. We then walked to the grave,
the negroes chanting a hymn by the light of pine torches and the
uprising of a glorious moon. An old negro, who possessed the rare and
forbidden accomplishment of letters, read part of the burial service;
and another stood forward and told them the story of the raising of
Lazarus. I have no room for comments, and could make none that could
convey to you what I felt or how I prayed and cried for those I was
praying with....

You know, I did not think my former calling of the stage a very
dignified one; I assure you it appears to me magnificent compared with
my present avocation of living by the unpaid labor of others, and those
others half of them women like myself. There is nothing in the details
of the existence of the slaves which mitigates in my opinion the sin of
slavery; and this is forced upon me every hour of the day--so painfully
to my conscience, that I feel as if my happiness for life would be
affected by my involuntary participation in it. Their condition seems to
me accursed every way, and only more accursed to those who hold them in
it, on whom the wrong they commit reacts frightfully.

Not a few of these slaves know and feel that they are wronged, deplore
their condition, and are perfectly aware of its manifold hardships.
Those who are not conscious of the robbery of their freedom and their