ven the dark aspect of slavery was
softened into a smile. And I must, in justice to the best possible masters,
say, that a great deal of that tranquility and comfort, to call it by no
higher name, which distinguished this society from all others, was owing to
the relation between master and servant being better understood here than
in any other place. Let me not be detested as an advocate for slavery when
I say that I think I have never seen people so happy in servitude as the
domestics of the Albanians. One reason was, (for I do not now speak of the
virtues of their masters,) that each family had a few of them, and that
there were no field negroes. They would remind one of Abraham's servants,
who were all born in the house, which was exactly their case. They were
baptized too, and shared the same religious instruction with the children
of the family; and, for the first years, there was little or no difference
with regard to food or clothing between their children and those of their
masters.

When a negro-woman's child attained the age of three years, the first New
Year's Day after, it was solemnly presented to a son or daughter, or other
young relative of the family, who was of the same sex with the child so
presented. The child to whom the young negro was given immediately
presented it with some piece of money and a pair of shoes; and from that
day the strongest attachment subsisted between the domestic and the
destined owner. I have no where met with instances of friendship more
tender and generous than that which here subsisted between the slaves and
their masters and mistresses. Extraordinary proofs of them have been often
given in the course of hunting or Indian trading, when a young man and his
slave have gone to the trackless woods, together, in the case of fits of
the ague, loss of a canoe, and other casualties happening near hostile
Indians. The slave has been known, at the imminent risque of his life, to
carry his disabled master through trackless woods with labour and fidelity
scarce credible; and the master has been equally tender on similar
occasions of the humble friend who stuck closer than a brother; who was
baptized with the same baptism, nurtured under the same roof, and often
rocked in the same cradle with himself. These gifts of domestics to the
younger members of the family, were not irrevokable: yet they were very
rarely withdrawn. If the kitchen family did not increase in proportion to
that of the