be hired by the contractors and directors of the works from
their masters, to whom they will hand over the price of their slaves'
labour; while it will be the interest of the person hiring them not only
to get as much work as possible out of them, but also to provide them as
economically with food, combining the two praiseworthy endeavours exactly
in such judicious proportions as not to let them neutralize each other.
You will observe that this case of a master hiring out his slaves to
another employer, from whom he receives their rightful wages, is a form of
slavery which, though extremely common, is very seldom adverted to in
those arguments for the system which are chiefly founded upon the master's
presumed regard for his human property. People who have ever let a
favourite house to the temporary occupation of strangers, can form a
tolerable idea of the difference between one's own regard and care of
one's goods and chattels and that of the most conscientious tenant; and
whereas I have not yet observed that ownership is a very effectual
protection to the slaves against ill usage and neglect, I am quite
prepared to admit that it is a vastly better one than the temporary
interest which a lessee can feel in the live stock he hires, out of whom
it is his manifest interest to get as much, and into whom to put as
little, as possible. Yet thousands of slaves throughout the southern
states are thus handed over by the masters who own them to masters who do
not; and it does not require much demonstration to prove that their estate
is not always the more gracious. Now you must not suppose that these same
Irish free labourers and negro slaves will be permitted to work together
at this Brunswick Canal. They say that this would be utterly impossible;
for why?--there would be tumults, and risings, and broken heads, and
bloody bones, and all the natural results of Irish intercommunion with
their fellow creatures, no doubt--perhaps even a little more riot and
violence than merely comports with their usual habits of Milesian good
fellowship; for, say the masters, the Irish hate the negroes more even
than the Americans do, and there would be no bound to their murderous
animosity if they were brought in contact with them on the same portion of
the works of the Brunswick Canal. Doubtless there is some truth in
this--the Irish labourers who might come hither, would be apt enough,
according to a universal moral law, to visit upon others the