ree. You cannot
constitute slavery without the chattel principle--and with the chattel
principle you cannot save it from these results. Talk not then about kind
and christian masters. They are not masters of the system. The system is
master of them; and the slaves are their vassals.

These storms rise on the bosom of the calmed waters of the system. You are
a slave, a being in whom another owns property. Then you may rise with his
pride, but remember the day is at hand when you must also fall with his
folly. To-day you may be pampered by his meekness; but to-morrow you will
suffer in the storm of his passions.

In the month of September, 1848, there appeared in my study, one morning,
in New York City, an aged coloured man of tall and slender form. I saw
depicted on his countenance anxiety bordering on despair, still I was
confident that he was a man whose mind was accustomed to faith. When I
learned that he was a native of my own state, Maryland, having been born
in the county of Montgomery, I at once became much interested in him. He
had been sent to me by my friend, William Harned, Esq., of the
Anti-Slavery Office, 61, John Street. He put into my hand the following
bill of distress:--

"Alexander, Virginia, _September 5th, 1848._

"The bearer, Paul Edmondson, is the father of two girls, Mary Jane and
Emily Catherine Edmondson. These girls have been purchased by us, and
once sent to the South; and upon the positive assurance that the money
for them would be raised if they were brought back, they were returned.
Nothing, it appears, has as yet been done in this respect by those who
promised, and we are on the very eve of sending them south a second
time; and we are candid in saying, that if they go again, we will not
regard any promises made in relation to them.

"The father wishes to raise money to pay for them, and intends to appeal
to the liberality of the humane and the good to aid him, and has
requested us to state in writing the _conditions upon which we will
sell his daughters_.

"We expect to start our servants to the South in a few days; if the sum
of twelve hundred dollars be raised and paid us in fifteen days, or we
be assured of that sum, then we will retain them for twenty-five days
more, to give an opportunity for raising the other thousand and fifty
dollars, otherwise we shall be compelled to send them along with our
other servants.

(Signed) "BRUIN AND HILL.