hey are most anxious to get
rid of the whole thing, but want the means to do so, and submit most
unwillingly to a necessity from which they cannot extricate themselves.
All this I thought might be true, before I went to the south, and often
has the charitable supposition checked the condemnation which was
indignantly rising to my lips against these murderers of their brethren's
peace. A little reflection, however, even without personal observation,
might have convinced me that this could not be the case. If the majority
of Southerners were satisfied that slavery was contrary to their worldly
fortunes, slavery would be at an end from that very moment; but the fact
is--and I have it not only from observation of my own, but from the
distinct statement of some of the most intelligent southern men that I
have conversed with--the only obstacle to immediate abolition throughout
the south is the immense value of the human property, and, to use the
words of a very distinguished Carolinian, who thus ended a long discussion
we had on the subject, 'I'll tell you why abolition is impossible: because
every healthy negro can fetch a thousand dollars in the Charleston market
at this moment.' And this opinion, you see, tallies perfectly with the
testimony of Mr. K----.

He went on to speak of several of the slaves on this estate, as persons
quite remarkable for their fidelity and intelligence, instancing old
Molly, Ned the engineer, who has the superintendence of the steam-engine
in the rice-mill, and head-man Frank, of whom indeed, he wound up the
eulogium by saying, he had quite the principles of a white man--which I
thought most equivocal praise, but he did not intend it as such. As I was
complaining to Mr. ---- of the terribly neglected condition of the dykes,
which are in some parts so overgrown with gigantic briars that 'tis
really impossible to walk over them, and the trench on one hand, and river
on the other, afford one extremely disagreeable alternatives. Mr. K----
cautioned me to be particularly on my guard not to step on the thorns of
the orange tree. These, indeed, are formidable spikes, and he assured me,
were peculiarly poisonous to the flesh. Some of the most painful and
tedious wounds he had ever seen, he said, were incurred by the negroes
running these large green thorns into their feet.

This led him to speak of the glory and beauty of the orange trees on the
island, before a certain uncommonly severe winter, a few ye