have a disposition and
taste to work over a fire all day and prepare food; and that men of
business or study will not all be able to groom their own horses and
wash their vehicles; and that possibly the Coleridges and Southeys, and
their friends the Joseph Cottles, may, from being absorbed in their
ideal pursuits, still be ignorant of the way to get off a collar from a
horse's neck, and must call upon a servant-girl to help them, we shall
need those who will be glad to be servants forever, and who will require
for their own security that their employers shall 'own' them, and thus
be made responsible for their support and protection. This may always be
necessary for the highest welfare of all concerned. But the history of
this relationship in connection with our human nature has been such, to
a great extent, that we associate with it only the idea of pillage,
oppression, cruelty. Already there are cases without number in which no
such idea would ever be suggested to a spectator, and they will increase
in proportion as Christianity prevails. There is more real 'freedom' in
thousands of these cases of nominal slavery than in thousands who are
nominally free. How did it happen that the Hebrew servant, who chose to
stay with his master rather than leave his wife and children, was not
made nominally free, and apprenticed or hired? Why was his ear bored,
and perpetual relations secured between him and his master?"

"For the master's security, I presume," said Mr. North.

"I should say," said I, "for the mutual benefit of both. The master then
became responsible for him; his support was a lien on his estate, the
children must always be responsible for his maintenance. The awl made its
record in the master's door-post, as well as in the servant's ear.

"Now, suppose," said I, "that God chooses to supply this nation with
menial servants to the end of time. Suppose that he has designed that
one race, the African, shall be the source from which he will draw this
supply, and that down through long generations he proposes to make this
black race our servants, seeking at the same time, by means of this,
their elevation, by connecting them with us, and keeping up the
relation; and that for the permanence of the relation, and for the
security of all concerned, there should be 'ownership,' such as he
himself ordained when he prescribed the boring of the ear? For my part,
I cannot see in this 'the sum of all villanies,' 'an enormous wron